Happenings in the Hood!

Hello! Welcome to the second week of the year. Even though I’ve not been 100% health-wise, I have been getting on with life pretty much as usual. That is, apart from swimming. I decided that the widespread rash all over my body would not be a good look in a swimming costume and might very well clear the pool in seconds! 

Speaking of the rash, it all got too much for me on Thursday last week. The itching was unbearable and parts of my skin were raw red from scratching. So I went to the GP to see if they could do anything. I was diagnosed with a bad allergic reaction to…wait for it…the flu virus! 

I didn’t even know you could be allergic to a germ. 

Turns out I am. 

The GP put me on some stronger anti-histamines and gave me some steroid cream. I’d love to report that everything is back to normal, but it isn’t really. The rash has definitely gone down but I’m still itchy, although it’s not as intense as it was. The GP said to give it a week and if it hasn’t improved to go back. We’ll see. I hate going to the doctors!

Reading Books

I’ve done well this week, with two more books finished and a couple still going. I finished You Are Not a Before Picture by Alex Light #ad and Feel-Good Productivity by Ali Abdul #ad. If I’m honest, both were a bit disappointing, but I think the reason for this was me, not any inferiority on their behalf. I LOVE Ali Abdul and watch his channel on YouTube all the time, but I don’t think the book offered me anything I didn’t already know. It is, as I would expect from him, very well researched. Everything he says he backs up and explains in an easy to understand way. I really wanted to love his book, but I think I have already read many of the references and studies he gave, so nothing felt new or exciting to me. However, I do think it was well written, well researched and well read by Ali himself. I bought ‘You are not a Before Picture’ because I liked the concept of it. I think maybe a decade ago, this book would have been perfect for me. Alex Light is all about dissing diets and the idea that only skinny is beautiful. Years ago, it may have been revolutionary for me, but I’ve kind of worked my way through a lot of fat-is-ugly issues and come out the other side. So at the risk of sounding incredibly arrogant, this book also felt like I’d heard it all before. That said, I will be recommending it to my daughters because the message is good and healthy and one I would have likely enjoyed in my twenties.

Drums…in our Dining Room

So…a couple of weeks ago, Abigail came to me and asked if she could set up drums where her science corner used to be. Now, Abigail is teaching herself the guitar, the trumpet and now the drums. It didn’t fill me with much glee, however, I didn’t want to be seen as the parent who says no to her dreams so I passed the buck. I passed the buck ‘knowing’ full well that Gary had talked to me about recovering our back door (which is where Abs science corner was – making the door to the garden unusable). He thought it would be lovely to be able to have the back door open onto the garden in the summer so Harvey could come and go as he pleased. That sounded to me like he would say no to drums…yes? 

As it turned out, using the ‘ask your father’ tactic did not work so well for me on this occasion! I did not take into consideration that Gary plays the drums and the drums are in fact his.

He jumped at the idea. Literally, you’d think Abs was offering a million pounds. 

Completely backfired on me!

So I now have a set of drums taking up (not a small) part of my dining room and adding absolutely nothing to the warm, cosy decor I have been aiming for all these years.

Oh, and add salt to the would, Becca is also wanting to learn to drum.

Three people making banging noises.

I’m moving out!!!

Thomas

I may have noted before that Thomas has been working and living up in York with the army full-time for the past six months. He is now back down south. On Saturday he popped in after a job interview for weekly waffles. This next six months is going to be pivotal in terms of what he will end up doing. He has many fingers in many pies…watch this space.

It was great to catch up with him:

I’d like you all to notice how squashed he and the girls are, into the corner of our dining room. It’s the drums, people! Our dining room is no place for a full sized set of drums! I’m thinking of selling them on the black market…

Best Christmas Present Ever

Do you remember, last Christmas, Lillie dressed up as a Christingle in her role as youth leader. Of course, we took many photos and videos and sent them to JJ, her boyfriend, which completely made his Christmas! This Christmas, he decided to blow up one of the photos and get it printed as a huge canvas:

Lillie was not impressed. And was even less so, as each member of her family trickled in the the living room where she and her alter ego sat, and burst out laughing! Her distinct lack of pleasure just heightened ours! It’s going to have pride of place in our dining room! If anything can outdo the drums, it’s a picture of Lillie dressed up in a huge blow up orange suit!

Needless to say…she’s delighted!

More Stickers with my Silhouette Machine

I am loving my Christmas present from Gary and have been busy (still trying) to get the hang of it. I’m not doing too badly. I just try lots of things until I get it right. Having got it right, the main problem is remembering what I did to get there in the first place! One day, it will become second nature to me…one day.

This week I made some froggy stickers, which my girls went a bomb on:

In addition to making stickers, I also completed my latest painting. I chose to do sloths because I wanted to add some words that Charlotte says when she isn’t feeling well (‘My Fatigue is Fatiguing!). I thought this might make a nice greeting card for those who are chronically ill:

Anyway, I filmed the whole process, from painting it to formatting it to printing it out as a card. It’s all there in the video below. Please do like and subscribe to my YouTube channel, I really want to get to 100 followers…

That’s it for this week. I hope you are all well and coping with the cold? Let me know what you’ve been up to in the comments. Oh, and if you have any good books to recommend I’d be eternally grateful! 

Have a great week ahead 🧡