Today has been wonderfully lazy. I woke quite early, the newly fixed bed is very comfy, then I made the most of not having to get up, by laying in bed reading, and trying to spot any painting that needed touching up. Thankfully couldn't see any.

When I eventually surfaced we had a trip to Tesco's for bits and bobs. I've picked up a hair dye. I hate dying my hair, but I'm noticing more and more white hairs so something needs to be done. I'm trying to take consolation from the fact they look white rather than grey. I'd prefer my hair to stay dark brown, but that's not going to happen.

While Sunday lunch was cooking did some updating to the Shirokuma site. Just some new photos added, and the news about the download EP that Mark has done for Twisted Nerve Records. I've had some ideas about a new design and layout for the site, I know Mark wants me to do the work, but it's a bit too complicated to do for a freebie, so I'll have to wait until Mark talks to F&H.

After that I decided to start work on my Month of Softies dolly. Earlier I'd asked Mum and Dad how they pictured me as a child. Mum said "red wellies, red cagoule, yellow hard hat. Oh and a toy gun". Dad said "Red wellies".
Of course before making mini-me I went off on a tangent and re-organised the bookshelves, but I've got the main body and red wellies cut out, and I've picked the material for everything else, we've also got space to fill with more books.
I did get the sewing machine out, but then the internet distracted me, so hopefully I'll feel in the mood for sewing after work tomorrow.

Ergh work. My 4 day break has gone by far too quickly. But I'm not too disheartened. Only 4 days to get through before the next 4 day break. Hurrah for Chocolate Bunnies, Chocolate Eggs, Chocolate Jesus's and Chocolate Bank Holidays.

The main thing that I've done recently is to write some songs for the Harry Potter film, but that's just a shameless effort to try and ingratiate myself with kids.
This made me chuckle.

The bedroom is done. It seems bigger and lighter, it's great. If I could find the cable for my camera I'd post some photos. I'm sure it's in one of the "boxes things to be sorted".
I might get around sorting them out tomorrow, then I can post pictures again.

I've been looking at all the cool toys everyone seems to be making at the moment. I haven't made toys for so long, and I fancy a change. A Month of Softies this month is "Self-portrait of the Artist as a Young Child".
I had horrendous dress sense as a child, and I loved my red wellies.
I might get the sewing machine out tomorrow.

I forgot to say, I've been redesigning a lot over the past few days I've got a lovely new stylesheet, but I'm keeping it offline for a few more days while I tweek it. I have made some changes to the menu though, hopefully you won't spot any errors, but apologies if you do.

Little things making me happy tonight, Cabaret on telly, milkshakes and the wierdness of my friends messenger names.

There are reasons why I don't update often, and that's because I'm so tired that I can't think what or how to type, or how even how to form sentences. I'm like that now. But I'm determind to update regularly, so ...I...must...type...though this. Maybe it'll get easier.

Anyway, yesterday and today have been busy. My Mum, Dad and I have been painting the back bedroom. It's not been easy because it was a bit of a state, I think the people here before us did it in a rush, so we've had a lot of holes to fill in.
It doesn't help that the three of us are all perfectionists.

We've finished most of the painting, just another coat of gloss and some touching up to do tomorrow. The curtains pole is up, the broken light switch is replaced, and the phone wires are now finally fastened down. Never again will I trip over them, hoover them up, or listen to the cats "kill" them in the early hours of the morning.

Tonight Dad is making some taller legs for the bed. It's a very low bed, and there's no space for storage in the room, so he's raising the bed up and he's going to make some drawers for underneath. Hurrah for My Dad.

My original plan for this weekend was to have lots of days out and get to know the area better, pretend we were camping, but without the sleeping outside bit. But then painting got suggested and that seemed more important.
Everything will be finished tomorrow though, so I'm trying to decide what to do on Sunday. I could just relax, but we're thinking of going on an Adventure, and it could be a lot of fun... we'll have to see though, it might not work out...

Eeeeeeeeeeeee!

I've just got an email off a mate who I've been trying to find since about 1997.

I'm a happy girly!

In other news I've got Thursday and Friday off work. There'll be no relaxing though, the dire state of the bedroom has finally annoyed me enough to force me to do something about it. Tonight we've been painting squares and looking at lots of not-quite-white samples. We've decided we can't tell the different between any of them, so we're going to go with "Plage" because it's got a silly name.

Lastly, thanks to the wonderfully magic of Jimmy, both mine and Porl's computers are working again now. Jimmy couldn't really find anything wrong with them, and they worked fine at his house, so we've decided that, like me, they too were just feeling a little disallusioned and wanted a change of scenery. However, I'm still using the laptop, I've become strangely attached to it, plus there's a draft where my PC lives and it's warm here.

At about this time 6 months ago I was frantically running around a lovely old house in Ormskirk, cleaning up, checking cupboards, trying to fit the last few items onto the van, including stupidly, the doors to the cat boxes. Porl was termporarily richer, and we still hadn't had confirmation that we were okay to move into the new house.

So this is my 6 month review of life in Stalybridge.

The Good

• The view from our front room - I fear my neighbours think I'm incredibly nosey, but I love standing at the window looking at the view. Even when it's pitch black.
  
• The fact that the radiator is under the window so I can keep warm and look at the view.
  
• Laminate floors, so easy to clean, so much fun to watch the cats skid across.
  
• Seeing more of Mum and Dad.
  
• The general friendliness of Tamesiders. From the bloke at the corner shop, to all the people we've met in the pubs.
  
• Specific people we've met who've done so much to help us settle in, Dorne, Beckie, Bod, Cheryl, Herbie, Jimmy, Joan. Thankyou all.
  
• Rekindled friendships with Gareth, and Adam.
  
• No Students. I'd forgotten how annoying they were until I went back to Ormskirk.
  
• Snow. There's been snow on the hillside for 3 weeks now, and more is forecast for the weekend. Snow in Ormskirk never stayed for more than a couple of days.
  

The Bad

• I miss our Ormskirk friends.
  
• I really miss my old job.
  
• Cream carpets upstairs. Stupid idea.
  
• Gonzo thinks it's a good idea to pick fights with the huge dog (alsatian/wolf cross breed) next door. Stupid cat.
  
• No Little Italy. I haven't found a decent pizza place yet, the Thai place is amazing, but Friday nights aren't the same without Little Italy Pizzas.
  

& The Confusing

• The light switches, I still can't remember where they are.
  
• I keep calling Stalybridge Ormskirk.
  
• Things haven't worked out with the Manchester bunch, I suspect Porl and I have taken the blame for a lot of things which haven't happened, and it's a shame it's all turned sour.
  
• Tameside/Manchester. I'm getting bored of Magical Mystery Tours, I just want to get from A to B without going via the rest of the alphabet.
  

So in general Stalybridge is good. Some things have gone wrong, but the majority of things have turned out far better than expected, I was never expecting uprooting to be easy.

In the next six months there's one major problem which needs resolving, I can't mention it, but it will be obvious to those who know me. Then there's things like the start of the Craft Club, and getting my own website sorted out at last. Also the weather is warming up, which means camping season is coming.

The future is looking promising, fingers crossed the next 6 months go as well as the last 6.

... and then there were two.

Porl's computer has died now too.

Last night a light bulb blew. When a light bulbs blows in this house it knocks all the power off to that floor. So Porl's computer got knocked off. He went to bed and didn't think about it. This morning it won't turn on. Jimmy thinks it's the graphics card.

So now we have to learn to share the laptop. Thank god we still have the internet.

Wish us luck.

My computer has died. Not competely died, but it's not a happy bunny.

It started randomly turning itself off on Wednesday. It wouldn't stay on for longer than 15 minutes. But it didn't shut down completely, it was still whirring, and beeping at me. I've turned off and it's staying off.

Last time it went wrong I managed to fix it, but this time I'm scared. So it's sat it the corner until I either get brave, or get visits from people clevererer than me.

However today I spent about 45 minutes on the phone to Jimmy while he helped me get the laptop working. We got there eventually, and I cannot describe enough the aceness of Jimmy. He has saved my sanity. Unfortunatly I havent got access to all my files, and I'm loads of programs missing, but I've got the internet.

 

The broken computer has given me the push I needed to make a few changes which I have been considering for a while though. The main one for here is that I've take the RSS feed down. This won't make a difference to my sporadic posts, but it will make a difference to my attitude to blogging, and in my illogical brain taking the pressure off all makes sense.

Through 6th form and university I always had a notebook with me. I used to leave it lying around for people to write in, and I'd stick random things in it. I'd like my blog to be like that notebook. At the moment I feel like I'm it as a message board. In my mind taking the rss feed down make the site back into a notebook again. I never said my mind was logical.

I'm going to do a redesign too. Spring cleaning. I'm working on the craft site at the moment, as well as trying to update the shirokuma site, and it's spurred me on to have an overhaul. Unfortunatly I can't get photoshop at the moment so I'm struggling. I will let you know how it goes though.

When I worked shifts I never seemed to have too many problems getting up in the morning (or afternoon). Okay I always struggled with sleep-ins, but anyone would struggle to get up at 6 in the morning after having 2-3 hours of restless sleep in a strange bed. But generally most days I was quite happy to get up.
Recently though I've been struggling.
Today I crawled out of bed at 7:35. I have to leave the house at 7:45. Needless to say I don't do breakfast.

All day today I kept thinking it was Thursday. Then I'd remember it was Tuesday and the weekend and a lie in seemed so very far away that I could have cried.

Eventually the end of the day seemed in sight.
4:15 usually heralds the last trip to the drinks machine for the day, but today it was broken, so I sat there, sealing envelopes, feeling thirsty, fed up, and longing for home.

Then the boss came out and told us that as work is being done on the server tomorrow, our phones and computers will be out of action for at least the morning.

So we could all have a lie in, and not bother getting to work until 2pm!
He then told us 3 more times because no one believed him

I'm really hoping that the work gets hugely delayed and we get the whole day off.
I mean it's hardly worth going in for 3 hours is it?

Hope everyone else has a great day too!

Sorry about the lack of updates, but a lot has been happening, writing about it all seems a little daunting, so I've been putting it off, but I'd best get on with it.

A few weeks ago I spotted something in the paper about a meeting being held by some people who wanted to set up a local Craft Group. It seemed like a good way to meet some people and learn some new skills (like knitting and spinning) so I decided to go. I was a bit worried it might be a bit too "Mother's Union" but I figured if I didn't go then I'd never find out.

So one windy night off I toddled, there were only a couple of people there because the paper had got the date wrong, the main meeting was the following week, but we had a chat about what I did, what the group wanted to acheive, how it would go about things and it all sounds really good, they're going to have teachers come in about once a month and the rest of the weeks they'll use what they call their "gifted amateurs". I'd taken some of my jewellery with me so they had a look and were very impressed, giving me a huge confidence boost. I came away cheery and excited about the new project.

A couple of days later I got a phone call off the club secretary. She'd heard about the jewellery I make, so wuld I be interested in being one of their "gifted amateurs" and doing some teaching. Of course I said yes, so since then I've been racking my brains trying to work out what I can teach, and how to go about it.

Last week I was browsing random craft message boards and I came across someone asking for jewellery makers who would be interested in having a stall at a craft fair in Preston. The fair was in January, too late for me to be involved in, btu I wanted the organiser to know I'd be interested in any future events. I had an email back straight away saying that a jewellery stall had just dropped out, so was I certain I couldn't take part. I let her know I definately didn't have enough stock, but she then wrote back and said she'd looked at my website, and if I'd like to bring up any of my things to show on her own stall she'd give me some space. Typically I then had a week off work sick with migraines so I couldn't do anything. But it's another contact for another time.

So all this, plus some other comments I've had recently have also given me the kick start I needed to get a website sorted for selling my things. I'm picturing a day in the future where I can stay at home with a gaggle of kids, making jewellery and selling it at craft fairs and online. Keep your fingers crossed for me.

I'm working on the website at the moment, ideas for names would be greatly appreciated, I'm tempted with just calling it Celeste, but I'm not sure. Also expect some changes around here too as I overhaul everything and pilfer content.

I have discovered that resting your bead tray on your lap while making jewellery is a very bad idea if you have a cold.

3 times tonight my sneezes have sent the bead tray and contents flying to the floor.

It's amazing how far beads will travel on laminate flooring.

This week has been poo. Nevermind Shit Wednesday, it's been Shit Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. Friday is improving.

Back at work Tuesday. Drinks machine wasn't working, so borrowed some money for some cans. Dinnertime went to get money out of the bank, none there. Panic! This month was supposed to be great for money, I doubled my income for various reasons, so how could I be skint 10 days after payday, and more worryingly, before the bills and mortgage had been taken from my account.

So I phoned the bank, and worked out I hadn't been paid. Straight in to see the boss.

So Tuesday and Wednesday were spent worrying while work tried to figure out what had happened and sort out paying me again. While I fended off the bank and tried to get them to be lenient (which they weren't). Thursday morning it turned out it was their banks error. So they are going to be presented with a nice list of all the charges I've had for being overdrawn, bouncing cheques, direct debits etc.

Wednesday I also forgot my work passes, so had to spend the last money I had on parking the car, and get a door pass off security, and put up with the usual 20 questions that go with them "You do know it's £30 to replace them" etc etc. Then on the way home I tried to find a shortcut, got hugely lost, ended up heading towards Oldham before I found my way home.

Thursday, again forgot door pass. 40 questions today though. However I found my parking pass, in the pocket of the passenger door where it must have hidden itself as I randomly threw it in my haste to get out of the car park on Tuesday. Mid afternoon my wages finally went in, and I got to unpack a HUGE stationary order, (the silliest things make me happy). I got home and within about 10 minutes was sparko on the sofa, all the worry about money had meant I'd not slept properly for 3 nights.

Friday and things have begun to improve. Except for the ongoing problem with our supplier at work, I got angry (a very rare occurance for me) one of the bosses got quite concerned and said I seemed angrier then than when I found out I'd not been paid. But we all got taken to the Lime Bar at lunch time. The boss paid. After one round he asked us if we wanted to go back to work. He was met with silence, so he went and got another round in. A lazy afternoon followed, the normally laid back quiet admin team (me and Nigel) got quite animated and chatty. Home time came, and an epic rush hour journey home followed... stupid friday traffic. Tonight I took Porl into Ashton, and came home to veg, clean and sleep. I spent most of hte night just blitzing the kitchen, the room will have to wait. About 9 o clock I was by the front door trying to find shoes so I could put the bin out when I heard "Hello, it's about your car, Hello, there's someone in your car... I'm not a burglar". I didn't know if it was for me or next door, so I opened the door and there's a lad there. I think it was the one I gave some coal too at Christmas for his snowman. Apparently there'd been someone in my car, (which stupidly I'd left open) but they'd run off down the road. It seems Stalybridge robbers aren't up to much (thankfully). Nothing had been taken. My stereo isn't removable, they missed the CD player, adn they'd left all the CD's too. I think they might have just been sheltering from the rain.
So lucky escape. I'll check the car is locked in future.

Then more improvements when I found a nice clean fragrant £5 in the tumble dryer.

This weekend will be mainly spent sorting out the mess of money, cleaning and sleeping.

This is what we woke up to this morning.
(Click for bigger images.)

I umm'd and ahh'd, but as the sky was blue I decided we'd risk the drive over the hill, just make sure we headed back before dark, and it started freezing. So I phoned Mum to say when we'd be over, took some pictures, made the bed and came downstairs, looked out of the front window, and phoned mum back to say actually we'd better stay put.

They were taken at about 11:30, then the second 5 minutes later. It's been snowing on and off all day. Sometimes light, sometimes very heavy, then occasionally we've had glorious sunshine. Everywhere is white over, except the roads which have been gritted, and the cars which had collected enough snow for the kids to have some great snow ball fights.

Luckily we'd got food in for a Christmas Meal just in case, there was no time for us to defrost the duck though, so Porl had a chicken breast instead. So it turned out okay, yet another year I've missed being with my parents on Christmas Day, but it is nice to spend our first Christmas in our little house. I'm torn now though. I really want to go and see people in Ormskirk tomorrow, but I really want lots of snow now, while I'm off work, so we can go and play in it. I've had quite a lot of White Christmas's, but this is Porl's first since he was about 9, so it'd be nice to make the most of it.

While I had the camera out I realized I've never taken any pictures of the house. So here is a our tree, fireplace, and the lovely red wall I painted a few weeks ago.

Finally, before I go and sit on the sofa reading my new books, and digesting my food, here's a picture of the necklace I spent last night making.

Merry Snowy Christmas from Stalybridge.

I'd like to wish everyone who reads this a Merry Christmas/Seasons Greetings/Enjoyable Couple of Days Bank Holiday.

I'm looking forward to spending some time with my family tomorrow, seeing lots of friends over the following few days, and being general happy about not being at work, and there being lots of good people, and good food around.

Big Christmas hugs to all the Manchester lot for a great night on Wednesday. I think I'm still recovering, but it was a much needed blow out. It seemed like ages since I'd seen everyone.
More Christmas hugs to the Ormskirk lot, I'll see you all Boxing Day (assuming the weather gets no worse, we've had rain, hail, wind, and thunder, but no snow yet.)
Lastly very big Christmas hugs to Robin who's enjoying the sunshine in Oz.

Hope everyone has a good one

The infrequent blogging is due to my new job. Working 9-5 again has been a bit of a shock to the system. Add to that the 3 hours of travel each day, and the fact that I have a tendency to hibernate when the clocks go back. It all means that when I come home from work all I seem to want to do is stare at the idiot box watching mind numbing programmes.

But my brain is finally coming round to the fact that the 9-5 job, or more accurately, the money I get from the 9-5 job will be a good thing for a little while.

Unfortunatly, all this work is distracting me from my crafty pursuits, so a plan has formed. My work location is in a fantastic location for views, but a bit rubbish for interesting things to do at dinnertime, except for wander around and around the outlet mall. So today, I brought my beads in. I'm sat at my desk making beaded snowflakes, and I think I'll spend most dinnertimes doing this from now on. (Maybe not snowflakes all year though.) This way I can still earn nice 9-5 type wages, but when I get home I can feel like I've accomplished something for myself during the day. Then if I am knackered and useless for everything but gazing at the idiot box, then I won't feel quite so guilty about wasting my life away.

I'm not sure whether the blog posts will become anymore frequent though, we'll see.

Still here, I promise. But sitting infront of a computer all day at work means the last thing I want to do is sit infront of a computer when I get home.

I've just found this idea for wallets made with paint samples. I've got loads of these at home. I knew there must be something I could make with them.

Since moving to this house I've not had much luck with computers.
First it took me 3 weeks to get the internet, then Porl's keyboard died, so I went keyboardless, then finally last week the switch on the pooter died. It wouldn't turn on at all, so I bought a new case.

Unfortunatly my techie wizard lives in Ormskirk, and I don't anymore. So I had 3 options.

• Wait a fortnight for techie wizard to come up and build it for me.
• Pay the computer shop to build it for me.
• Figure out how to build it myself (and possibly blow the computer/house/me up in the process.)

Being the impatient person that I am, I went with the doing it myself.

And it works!
Nothing blew up, no electric shocks, a few cuts on my hands, but that seems to be compulsary. My pooter is purring away happily beside me now, and it's much quieter as the fan got a thorough clean too.

I might have a new hobby, or career change ahead of me.

Internet access at work may be a dangerous thing.

Hello

Back again

Things have been a bit busy recently. However, we're in our lovely new house, there's still boxes everywhere, and will be until we get storage organised with the help of my wonderful Dad. We moved on Friday the 10th, we managed to get the living room looking almost straight by the Sunday, so it was starting to feel like a home. On the Monday we went into town to find a pub, we found the Q Inn, and there was an acoustic night going on, we've met some lovely people here, and the Q has beome our local, even though it's the furthest pub away from us. We managed to get Jimmy a bed sorted by Friday, and that's when it really started to feel like home for me.

unfortunately even though the net was working for Porl, the firewall continued to block my computers' existence. A couple of days ago Porl again tried to get it working (upstairs tweak something, come downstairs, check it, still no luck... repeat) after 2 hours of this I lost patience with the clattering up and down stairs so I had a look. Five minutes later tick box found, problem solved. So I'm back online, and I even waded though all the masses of emails (about 700 of them, must remember to unsubscribe from things before I next move house.) I'm quite surprised and touched by how many emails and other comments I've had from people who missed me, or at little noticed my absence.

Other happenings in no particular order include

• ITC gig - 'twas very good.
• Matt visiting - 'twas alcohol fuelled, involved another trip to the Q, late night ramblings, and rants at Presidential candidate debates.
• More trips to the Q and some fantastic acoustic nights, plus more friends made here.
• House warming party, with everyone visiting, lovely to see everyone. Some people loved our hills, others weren't so enamoured. I wish so many people weren't allergic to the cats.
• I handed in my notice. I'll miss my job a lot, and the clients even more, but the commute just couldn't be done.
• I got a new job (the cats have been giving me lessons on landing on my feet.)

The new job seems good, today was my first day, I think I'm going to like it. It seems sufficiently complicated to keep me interested, but a relaxed enough atmosphere to keep me from premature greying. Plus I do like being able to tell Sales Reps, sorry, Account Managers how to do their jobs. Working with Lucy is going to be fun. I made her go to the gym. I refused to be used as an excuse for not going. Now I've just got to try to find a way to help her quit smoking.
The only down side of the job is the travelling. I left work at 7:45 this morning, 20 minutes walk to the station, got the right train into Manchester, then stood on the Metro platform for 20+ minutes waiting for a tram. So I was about 20 minutes late on my first day in work. Not good. The bosses do know that the Metro is tempremental, but apparently they're going to clamp down on poor time keeping anyway. I'll try getting the same train tomorrow, but if it still goes wrong then I'll have to start getting an earlier train to compensate. Grrrr. Tonight I got in at 6:30, and I'm exhausted.

I'm sure I've missed loads of things out, but I'm tired and longing for a lie down. I promise to update again before the month is out.