A new crafting gadget for me!

A bargain on UK Scrappers appeared on the Marketplace in the shape of this Bind-it-all [BIA]. I couldn't let this baby go LOL!! Having never seen a BIA in the flesh, I was surprised to see how small and dainty this new toy was! I can't wait to play now!

Retired at last!

My father-in-law finished up work yesterday ready for retirement. We waited on him arriving home from his last day of work with a wee retirement celebration. Some of the grandchildren, aunts and uncles were present for the celebration!

Enjoy your retirement Stewart!

Stampin Up! Mini Catalogue Launch

To see my own special offer for a pre-order from the above catalogue and any purchases from the main catalogue earning you 10% off your complete order - please see details here

Well done the Tranent Cluster Cheerleaders!

Alwynne's 2nd from front row:

The Tranent Cluster girls with their certificates:

Alwynne in the air [right side of image]:

I am parent helper for the Tranent primary cluster for the cheerleading group which is held every Friday evening for a few weeks. The amount of work and training the girls get through in 1 hour each attendance is fantastic. Their coach, Kayleigh is lovely and really gets them geared up and in good spirits. Today the girls attended a competition at another primary school and good support visible with parents, grandparents etc. attending the show.

The Tranent primary cluster won the competition today and it was good to see the girls' spirits boosted!! WELL DONE GIRLS!

Driving Lesson #4

Yay!! I am beginning to enjoy these lessons - well actually that's a wee lie! I last week's lesson was actually my 2nd lesson doing proper driving from start to finish and I thoroughy enjoyed that!

This week, I drove right on to the A1, actually getting up to 5th gear! We passed Asda and then down Milton Road. I then drove on to the little streets around Marionsville Road to make a start on my "turn in the road". Loadsa learners there! I did not do too badly - Donna, my instructor only wanted me to do 3 of them! Donna then got me to drive back along the A1, again getting up to 5th gear. I find it just a wee bit scary trying to remember what gear I am in, then to slow down the speed, then dropping from a high gear down to another gear in hand with the slower speed. Still, I didn't do too badly at all again!! I expressed my feat to Donna who said that next week will be spent going on and coming off the A1 so that I can get used to the speed and change the gears without really having to 'think' about it! YAY!!

I remember taking lessons way back 15 years ago and even sat and failed my test never to take another lesson nor get driving again. Back then I was really scared about doing stuff on the road - I think as time has went by, and although I definitely not the most confident person going, I seem to have confidence learning again and not too scared taking the lessons - even though my stomach prior to a lesson will prove otherwise LOL!!

Have a fabby day!

What a bummer!

My external hard disc drive has failed on me! I've had 3 external HDDs in as many years all failed after a short period of time!!! my 1st HDD was a cheapy 80gig memory - it lasted longer than a year. The 2nd was a middle of the road manufactured 150gig HDD - that failed just as the year warranty ran out! Now you would be thinking along the lines that a "Buffalo" 250gig HDD would be the dog's you know whats!! Nope!! not a cheapy one either at over £100 just a little over a year ago. 8 months after purchase, it starts to make a 'clicky' noise but it still worked - very slowly but it still worked and I still had hope! I had planned to start sorting out the files on it as the last time I did a back-up - it double-copied everything from the main computer to the external drive. Only I need to pull a crafty photo file or more from it. Well, I don't hold out much hope at the moment of ever recovering the files. LOTS of photos including photography courses, family, craft stuff I've done in the past and files. It sucks!!

I am relieved I don't do enough to have had a whole 250gigs worth of data/files on it - I couldn't even begin to think about how I would react to that devastation!!

Happy Mother's Day!

Happy Mother's Day to all you mums out there!

Above is the MD card, gift tag and 'wrap' for the lovely address book I bought from Borders Bookstore yesterday.

They didn't seem to have any Everly Brothers CDs that I have seen advertised recently on telly recently [knowing my luck, it'll have been an Asda advert!!] so I ended up getting this address book instead. I have no idea what DVDs she has so think that's a waste of time buying them.

Birthday Card/Money Wallet

It's my nephew's birthday on 25th March and my son and his other cousin have been invited to a sleepover. I couldn't think what kind of card I could do but ended up with this which I was quite pleased about. More details here

Driving Lesson #3

Well, what can I say LOL?

My instructor parked as usual except on the opposite side of my road [which is quite narrow really!] facing up toward the top of the road. That's not unusual I can hear you think!! The roads are getting re-surfaced in and around some of the streets close to my home so the huge machinery for stripping the tar layers off the road and other vehicles needed for this job are fairly using and blocking some parts of the streets off.

I'll get to the point soon honestly! Last week, my instructor said that she was thinking about taking me down to Musselburgh as she knew the streets down there better compared to Tranent. She hadn't yet decided on whether she would do the driving there or would it be myself.

When Donna parked up this morning and then proceeded to get out of the driving seat, I knew I would be doing the driving!! Holy macaroni!!! I had jokingly said to her that I just 'knew' she would be doing that to me and we both laughed!! Anyways I explained that I had some kind of mind block about stopping/slowing down the car and changing gear and wasn't sure I had mastered it!! So I was glad Donna went through it again and actually got me to stop at the roadside on a couple of occasions for me to practice slowing down. It was the breaking/slowing myself down before I changed gear con fuddled me!

Gets through to Musselburgh okay - another 'hairy' place to drive in or through - so many pedestrian crossings and parked cars to encounter etc. Not too bad. Gets to the junction to either go to Joppa or up to Milton Road and stalled the car right at the lights LOL!! We get so far along that road and then Donna announces that we were going along the bypass to save time for going home. Yep! - I did just that - I drove along the bypass to Tranent LOL!!

Next week I am apparently going to start to do reversing and 3 point turns but firstly I've to be driving on the bypass to save some time in doing these steps!

Farewell to Miss Martin

Miss Martin, a teacher who will be working her final day today [Friday] at my kids' primary school. She is getting married soon and also moving to Dumfries to start a new teaching post - a couple of life changes and probably equally stressful!

Lisa - we wish you all the best in your new job and of course your wedding when the time comes.

2nd Driving Lesson

I couldn't tell you if it is exactly the same as this but it looks just like the one i am learning to drive in!

I enjoyed yesterday's lesson strangely enough! With it being my 2nd lesson, it was a challenge driving up Church St in Tranent meeting the mini roundabout, through main street of Tranent [which can be "hairy" at times traffic-wise!], through past Carlaverock, then Ormiston [a wee village], Pencaitland, through New Winton [another couple of wee villages] and back to Tranent. A few country roads I'd driven along - it was like a magical mystery tour LOL!! My driving instructor Donna, bless her, doesn't know Tranent all that well and was relying on me to know where we were going. It's funny when you are a passenger, you don't really need to *think* about your route cos your driver's taking care of that. It certainly had me on my toes trying think where roads lead to!

Donna was chuffed I managed to get up to 3rd gear without having to rely on her prompting me which she says was good in itself that I didn't need to ask! Admittedly I stalled the car about 3 times - apparently its difficult to stall a diesel - but ho hum I didn't panic which was the main thing I suppose. I am okay on the moving off and actual driving but dinnae ask me to stop heh heh heh - that just confuddles me from time to time LOL!! It seems I managed very well considering I had a lot to be aware about!

I even overcame some roadworks. Boy oh boy - why do other drivers overtake learners at lights? How on earth did they start to learn to drive? - on a racing circuit? - I'll bet not!

Anyways, I'll keep posting here how I am getting on with my driving lessons! Thanks for reading this!

Anyone Twitter?

LOL!! Google and register with Twitter and keep your friends and family up to date with what you are doing [of course you need to get them registered too!]. Have fun!

Off to school camp!

I can't believe that time has come round again for another of my kids! My son who will be going to high school after the summer hols this year, is off to P7 camp today with his classmates. It's really hard to believe that this will be happening soon. Over the weekend we thought Stewart wouldn't be able to go to camp - he complained on Saturday afternoon to his dad that his throat was very sore and apparently hardly got out of his bed. He sounded rough when I got home from work on Saturday evening. Sunday was no better so it was a trip to the NHS 23 drop-in. It's scary that since NHS 24 has been in operation, we have never needed to use the service [thankfully]. But because he was due to go to school camp today, we felt it necessary for him to get the anti-biotics asap into his system. This is his 2nd bout in about 3 weeks!

One of the other Tranent schools have recently attended the same camp in Hexham and apparently it was very very muddy courtesy of the recent heavy rainfall. Here's hoping it's not too bad [as if!].

Ruben's Nappy Cake

This is a commission I did for my chum Kerryanne. It's a gift to be given to her friend Christian who has recently had her 3rd baby boy! Congratulations to Christian and her family and "welcome" to baby Ruben!

A little chuckle

I received a jokey type email this morning. There are more paragraphs but this particular paragraph tickled me - my usual best laughing at someone else's misfortune!

"Still think you are having a Bad Day???? Betty came home to find Jerry in the kitchen shaking frantically, almost in a dancing frenzy, with some kind of wire running from his waist towards the electric kettle. Intending to jolt him away from the deadly current, she whacked him with a handy plank of wood, breaking his arm in two places. Up to that moment, he had been happily listening to his Walkman."

I've survived

Yay! I've survived my 1st driving lesson - or should that be my instructor has survived??!! LOL. I didn't do an awful lot of driving. Enough to get me back into the swing of things!! :o) Already got my next lesson booked so it can't have been too bad an experience for me!

So much going on!

Just a quickish update! I've not had much time to craft of late though I do have a commission to do another baby boy nappy cake to be created and finished by this Saturday! I returned back to work last weekend after being off work on sick leave due to my backache. So indeed there was a lot to catch up on in that department - and I ended up working an additional 3 hours to make some sense out of the chaos that was on my desk!

Monday was spent shopping for odds and sods in Costco - fairly boring.

Tuesday I had to compromise on a coffee date with Suz - only due to having to wait in on the delivery men for the new washing machine. Coffee/breakfast at mine instead of Starbucks .......

I became an official Stampin' Up Demo!

Wednesday I received my training for 'paired reading' at school. I felt quite emotional as it will help kids get more 1:1 attention and help them with their reading skills. It's absolutely nothing to do with special needs - just kids who need a bit more understanding and time to read. That starts on Monday!

Today I've got the parent council meeting tonight so have had to prepare for that, check PC related emails etc.

I've also got to go up to Edinburgh's Fort to complete the shopping list for my son's P7 school camp where he will be off to next week. Thank goodness we've already got the suitcase from Marianne's P7 school camp! Got to get wellies, lots of underwear and joggers - warm clothing really!

Tomorrow I've got my 1st driving lesson [again!]. Last time I sat driving a car was 15½ years ago! Things and life are at the point where I should be driving. Stewart being on night shift and kids school holidays won't make for a happy time - trying to keep kids quiet?!! I'll have a lot more independence and I know I'll wonder how I ever did without it!!

Got to finish off the nappy cake and card. Then help out at the cheer leading which my youngest attends every Friday - they are preparing for a competition!

Then it'll be the weekend again - spent working! LOL

Domestic gadgets!

Our 5 yr old washing machine virtually died between Christmas and New Year - we ended up getting a replacement/equivalent machine just after the 1st week in January this year. The brand new washing machine which has a larger drum - 8kg meant that I could clear the backlog of washing no probs!! BUT! I thought I was losing the plot as I always put a finished cycle on to the full spin mode and the programme on the machine just wouldn't play ball!!! It's one of those machines where there are a few lights and buttons etc - just gimme a machine with a simple programme, high spin, adjustable temperature control and no fancy buttons etc!! Is that too much to ask? Anyways, 5 weeks later - BANG!!! I hadn't clicked it would be the blooming w/machine did I? Then the acrid smell of melting plastic! That'll be that then eh? I promptly switch off at the wall - don't fancy becoming a statistic and house burning down due to the faulty w/machine. Needless to say this event tripped the fuse box!! Machine still full of water, I had to empty the clothing items out cos if just left, it would have stank and boy oh boy by the time the engineers came to uplift the machine, it was stinking!!! So now we have a brand new replacement washing machine again!! I had to laugh really as 2 days prior to the machine exploding, I had a rep from this company asking me various questions about the product. I said I was happy but now I would definitely NOT recommend a CANDY [who are part of the Hoover group] washing machine! The 1st Candy w/machine that died between Crimbo and NY had to have the drum replaced in its first 8 months of owning it! Various other things to mention but the insurance had taken care of any worries in that department. I have to say, whilst having a CANDY fridge freezer and dishwasher for over 5 years, no complaints from those gadgets [erm touches wood ....].

Another thing, a majority of domestic fires which start through the night are the result of people putting their dishwashers/washing machines/tumble driers on before going to bed - this can also happen when you load them, switch them on and go out socialising or shopping! Goodness knows I was guilty of that until I had a routine visit from the fire brigade replacing the smoke detectors - it was them who highlighted this to me! So, please please please think twice about putting on those domestic appliances before you go to bed or pop out to do some shopping/socialising!!

The same also applies to those who leave their computers on for long periods of time! The fans which cool down the elements and processors can also stop working - the insides of your PC can overheat and set itself alight!!

So please SWITCH OFF if you aren't using the above electrical gadgets!!