Still here... sometimes anyway. I've been working a lot of overtime these past few weeks, it's usually 1 extra shift a week, but my shifts are either 11 or 24 hours long. My pay check will be happy, but I'm spending my life in a permanent daze. I keep having to ask people what day it is because I honestly can't remember anymore. Thankfully I've got 1 more 24 hour shift, then I get a whole 2.5 days off! Then I'll start the countdown to my fortnight off.

So not much time off, and not much news to share... I'm sure there is loads, but I can't remember any of it.

We did go to the wedding of our friends Gareth and Nareda, had lots of fun, caught up with lots of friends, got compliments about my ruby slippers (they've been the hit of the summer), then on the way home Porl and I planned our own wedding. We even picked a month!

Never fear people, we woke up in the morning and realized it was completely and utterly impractical. We're going to continue living in sin for now. Who needs a marriage certificate? We've got a joint mortgage!

Earlier in the night we'd been discussing with another friend Jay how we'd be coming back to Gareths 50th anniversary party and still asking each other "so are you guys thinking of getting married?" That seems like a good plan to me.

On the crafting front I've been relatively busy, making some fun swap stuff for Banga off Craftster, I can't show it though or it'll spoil the surprise, but I will show what she sent me (she's far more organized than I am.)
It was a Foreign Exchange swap, so I've been doing lots of things about the UK, and Banga has sent me a guide to Rhode Island.



First I have this fantastic Rhode Island Recipe book. Rhode Island is known as the Ocean state, so there's plenty of fish and shellfish things for Porl to try, plus lots which I want to try like Spinach Pie and Wandis. Banga also made me the cute lobster keyring, and some sea inspired bracelets. The bottle is Coffee Syrup which apparently Rhode Islanders crave, and no-one outside of Rhode Island has heard of... sounds like a certain Relish I can't live without. Banga also sent me loads of newpapers and magazines which I've been reading, as well as some handy magnetics for food places. I wonder if they deliver to Stalybridge?

I've also had a great Freecycle donation. Two bin bags full of material. It's actually for the craft club, but there's So Much good stuff. The craft club is closed for the summer, and they're short of space there, so while the material is living at mine I'll make some things from it, then make some more for things for the club to sell, then pass on whatever's left.
I did take pictures of the neatly organised piles of colour co-ordinated fabric, but I seem to have deleted them during one of my stupid moments.

Lastly, my "it's a small world moment". I've been reading Vintage Pleasure for a couple of months, enviously eyeing up all her charity shop finds, wishing that I had the space or style to make them look at home in my house, but mostly wishing I could find anything nice in the charity shops round here.
Then this week I realised she lives about a mile away from me.
I'm obviously just looking in the wrong shops... with my eyes closed... or maybe I just don't have her talent.
She's been very kind though and pointed me in the direction of some places I haven't heard of before, so I'll be visiting some of them next week with my hard earned wages.

Must.Not.Buy.Craft.Supplies.Or.Boxes...
but I really would like to find an old dark wood TV table/video cabinet.

Unsurprisingly my birthday was a quiet one. I had a lazy lie-in and some breakfast, then the postman brought me some fantastic presents from the CrAftermath girls. We have a birthday swap on there, but I haven't been on much recently so wasn't expecting anything.

This lot is from Samsara:

Then these from PhizzyChick:

And last but certainly not least, these plant markers from teraspawn who is the swap organiser. Thanks to her I had parcels to open on my birthday :)

These were probably the highlight of my day, and certainly cheered me up first thing in the morning. Thankyou Girls!

At dinnertime Porl and I went to Quarry Bank Mill, which is an old cotton mill near here. I've wanted to go for ages, but talking Porl into these things isn't easy, so I took advantage of the fact it was my day to do what I wanted. My dinner wasn't too great, I hate chilled quiche, but it was interesting seeing all the machines, a shame that a lot of them weren't running. The demonstration of cotton spinning made it look SOOOO easy, but I know it's not.

We came home from there, Porl made me some nice veg and haloumi kebabs, then we had the fun task of trying to get in touch with people and tell them the news.
I share my birthday with 2 of Porl's other school friends, and we'd been asked to let them know about Chris' death. We got in touch with one friend and he decided to spend last night in the pub with us, the other friend is celebrating his 30th this year and we think he's gone away for the week. Either way we've not been able to get in touch with him.

Tomorrow is the funeral, so we'll be up very early to fight the rush hour traffic and get back to Ormskirk.
I've done a birth, a marriage and a death in 8 days.