Needlework show

Today I went to Harrogate needlework show which was fantastic though far far too busy! I have a few new purchases including the material for the skirt I am going to make and a some blackwork for a cushion (of course to make these items I actually need to learn how to use the sewing machine... even getting it out of the box would be a start). But of course before any of these fun things can be attemped the thesis of doom (as it is now affectionatley known) needs to be completed. The tutor tried to change the date of our at the last minute after I had emailed her about it AGES ago but none of us were having any of it so it is going ahead on Wendesday next week. I must remember that in four days I will be thesis free.

My major goals for the rest of the year are:

* Finish decorating the lounge
* Build an extension on the back of the house (of course I will be the project manager...)
* Sort out more wedding stuff (leaving this one slightly open as I am unsure on the timings of what I need to do)
* Learn to use the sewing machine
* Open up my problem behavioural consultancy business

... not much then. Next year will be a bit easier though, it should be known as the year of the holidays Paris, the Lake Distritct, a tour of Europe, China and Rome :D All the fun stuff is happening next year. No doubt bits of the extension shall be fun but it will also be cold and dirty.

Today I learnt...

How to put lining paper on :D I have been wanting to do it for ages but I wasn't well enough before. The decorating is progressing very slowly, only about 1/4 of the room has lining paper, however my dad has painted the celling and that is already looking fantastic. It will be a few weeks before I can get any more done however as I have my birthday, my VIVA and the finace is starting another of his masters classes. We are going to put most of the furniture back and it will just have to stay half done for the forseeable future.

Yesterday night I saw the Priates of Penzance which was amazing, we also went for a long walk around Aldwark village (near where we are getting married next year). So I am getting there with the development stuff. Although until the VIVA has been completed there will not be much development going on!

Decorating

We have started decorating the lounge, it has taken 2 days to strip the walls and we need to spend today painting the black skirting boards white. Then on Tuesday my mum is going to show me how to fit lining paper (it is really not my fault I havn't learnt before this, I have been too poorly after my accident a few years ago but now I am well enough to learn) while my dad paints the celling. Then we will just need to paint and do the top coat of the white work... Other people seem to be able to decoarate a room in a day but I will never understand how they acomplish that!

I am over half way through the Game of Thrones books but I think I will stop after this one as I am not getting anything done on my VIVA. Not really getting any development stuff done other than painting as that is taking up all my spare time. I am not really wanting to do decorating today (not helped by the fact that we need to go for masking tape before we can go any further with things). Still if we work today then we can have tomorrow off and of course tomorrow night is Priates of Penzance!! :D

Oh wait no I did go and see an open air performance of a Midsummer Nights Dream, it was much better than Romeo and Juliette, I had never seen a Shakespear comedy before! That is definate development

Extension

I am very excited at the moment as my parents have decided to give me my inheritance now (in the hope that I don't have to pay any inheritance tax on it) so we are getting an extension put on our house. We are extending the back out by about 2 meters and it is going to be HUGE :D I cannot wait to get the architect around and start desiging!!

VIVA for my masters is in just under 2 weeks so I am having to make a start on preparing that. Other than that I have started taking the wall paper off in the loung (it is going to be a loooong job), somehow the room looks better without the wallpaper than with! I have done 6 save the date cards now for the wedding so I just need to make sure that they make it to the relevant people and get some photos up on here. They are home made to try and save some money. I have been meeting up with friends who I havn't seen for month due to the MSc which has been feeling really great.

I have a massive list of jobs for today but I am slowly going thorugh them and crossing them off. I realy ought to go and put the washing out now!

Oh and I made it to the Richard III exhibit so I have seen his head reconstruction, they didn't have too much information there which was a shame but I did also see the Middleham jewel :D

Life is sort of starting to come together for me!!

Ouch

I have woken up with a stiff back for weeks and today was one of the worst ones. I think it is probably the matress but at some point I will try sleeping in the spare room and see how I go in there. Poor puppy dog jarred her back slipping on the stairs yesterday so we are both lying on the sofa feeling sorry for ourselves.

Found two possible dresses for the wedding yesterday but need to book appointments to compare them to the first one. My chief bridesmaid may be coming up for a visit so I can take her to see them. I also talked to someone at the bank about opening up a business accound and sent off for my insurance.

Things are slowly beginning to come together!

Crafting day

I am off to a friends house for a crafting day today, I am taking my kings and queens of England cross stitch to work on. I can see that this design is going to take months and months to finish but it is such an interesting design (I like anything with bright colours).

The house bunny has been given the all clear today which I am very relieved about :) Tonight is a walking tour about Georgian York and then tomorrow is a shopping trip into York with my mum, two wedding dress shop fittings and my car service. There is a charity shop near the wedding dress shops which appears to sell young peoples things only so I am very interested in going and having a look around. I popped in very quickly the other day with the bf and found three books in a series I have been reading (The Railway Detective).

Life is full of a busy successions of nothings

Day out

Today we managed our first day out for weeks! We went to Hemsley castle (though I need to go back and do the audio guide without the bf as he doesn't much like standing around listening to history) and then on to Robin Hoods Bay. We had only just finished our chips when the rain started so I ended up sat on a sea defence with my cardigan over my head and a towel on me legs as it chucked it down (we were not expecting rain so left the umberella in the car  and of course there is no nipping back to the car with the sort of hill you get at Robin Hoods Bay). The puppy then decided that she needed to get under my cardigan out of the rain so bodily climbed onto me... people were even laughing at her. It kept showering so we ened up coming home. It is the first time I have felt really relaxed in months though!! I didn't realise how uptight I was. Helmsley castle has been on my wish list for about 6 years so I feel really pleased that I have made it there!

Tomorrow is my yearly meeting with my financial accountant, then getting some bits and bobs to finish off my save the date cards for the wedding and starting this business plan! It is sad to think that this time next week I will be starting on my VIVA planning (boooo!!!!!).

Still I will blog again when I have managed some development (which as this week is officially to be known as appointment week) may be a while!!

Life brought it

So after telling life to bring it on, it actually took me at my words!! I left to hand in my thesis and came back to find the house bunny had had a stroke. I really thought we were going to loose him but the vet wanted to give him a shot to recover... and a few days later you could never tell anything was wrong with him!! He is possibly more active than before the stroke (he is a little old man at 9yrs old so he can be excused not being too hoppy all the time). I shall refrain from taunting life in future.

I am now masters free (for another week or so before I need to start preparing for the VIVA!) So far I have managed to get the bottom of the house cleaned and tidied but the upstairs still looks like it has been hit by a bomb. I am plodding on with 'Game of Thrones' which I had been meaning to read for ages but had to stop as they are addictive and it was taking up all my time.

I have managed to buy 6 books in the last week and have added 'to kill a mockingbird' to my list (which I will attempt to source from the library) as it turns out upon investiagation that I really should read it. I rang a builder today to get him to come and look at beautifying the front of my house (as it is the ugly duckling of the road) and have hand crafted some save the date cards for the wedding. I will post pictures when they are finshed. I have done my picture on the front of them but at the moment I don't know how I am going to write on the back of them. I also contacted my brothers friend who is an IT boffin about setting me up a website for my new business... eeek! Still need to write myself up a business plan though (which the bf keeps telling me off about).

Still I have a whole other week in which to start my development. Though it may be impacted by the fact that I have about 101 appointments to go to... However I am determined to achieve something. I will not let this summer slip through my fingers like the last ones. Hopefully we are going for a scramble around North Yorkshire tomorrow and are aiming to finish up at Robin Hoods Bay, although the weather seems to be conspiring against us :(

Feeling lost

I feel oddly lost without the masters, there is a big gap in my life and nothing to fill it at the moment... maybe I need to take up some more hobbies!! lol I can't believe it but the others on the masters are not finished!! it is due in in under 48 hours, I just can't work that close to the deadline, I felt uncomfortable enough about only having four days to spare! One girl still had 8000 words on Saturday... I bet she will be pulling an all nighter.

All ready for tomorrows visit to hand in my thesis (apart from the obvious of course... who needs petrol in order to get there?!!! So there will be an emergency visit to the garage in the village tomorrow morning). After the big hand in I am going to rush home and need to get my fiance to the hospital in the afternoon as he is having a broken tooth removed. Then Wednesday is my reward for finishing my masters... a trip to see the new Percy Jackson movie. And then after that I really should start doing some more house work!

I made a spinach lasagne today using spinach from the garden and four different types of cheese (why use one when you can experiment?) whilst listening to Sense and Sensibitly on Radio 4... I felt very culture and housewifyish. I have promised myself that I will cook more now I have the time. I have also started reading one of my Mary Balogh regency romance books which I had been putting off during the masters (there was no reading of fun stuff due to the increased risk of me actually not getting handed in on time).

So am I then going to take it easy after being stuck in education for the past four years (PGCE and MSc)... certainly not!! I have a business to set up, a puppy dog to retrain, (she appears to have forgotten stuff over the last few months), house renovations to orchastrate and a wedding to plan all by this time next year when I vanish off to Europe backpacking and then for my honeymoon in China. I also need to learn to waltz before the big day and loose at least 3 stone (though the wheels are in motion for that as I am booked in for my first gym session on Wednesday)... bring it on life... bring it on!!!

And it is done...

Finally I have managed to get my thesis handed in, I havn't slept much the past few nights but at least it is all electronically submitted... of course the torture is not really over yet. I still have to get it printed and bound on Tuesday and after that prepare for the VIVA but at least I have a couple of weeks of breathing space before the presentation.

So now I can concentrate on devleopment again!! I have lost my job (as they decided to make it full time and wouldn't wait the two weeks I needed to finish off my VIVA) which sucks financially but we can get by over summer and hopefulyl I can pick up some more teaching come september.

I have given the rabbit hutches and shed a real going over today so they are all sparkly and clean and then we took the puppy for a ramble around the village. Now I am just looking through my crafty stashes and wondering what I should start work on next. Below are photos of my stash, I have more than I thought I did and I have plans to go to one of the big stitching events for my birthday so I will end up with even more stuff (though at least I will have time to work through it all). I know it looks like a big stash but lots of them are small projects and several of them were free with magazines (so I really need to decide if I am actually going to find a use for them!!). Right well I need to go and do some serious splodging and chilling out after 6 weeks of masters hell. Thank goodness it is finished... I may share the results at some point when I stop being frustrated by it lol.