Thankyou to Nicola at http://stitch-nicola.blogspot.co.uk This is my first ever blog award!!! :)) There are conditions attached to this award, so here is the text I copied from Thea with my blogs added to the end: Liebster is a German word meaning favourite, dearest or beloved. The Liebster Blog Award is awarded by bloggers to other new bloggers who have fewer than 200 followers, to help spread the word about their blogs and to help them gain wider recognition. The Liebster award comes with four conditions that each recipient must satisfy when accepting. 1. Choose 5 up-and-coming blogs with less than 200 followers to award the Liebster to. 2. Show your thanks to the blogger who gave you the award by linking back to them. 3. Post the award on your blog. List the bloggers you are giving the award to with links to their sites. Leave comments on their blog so they know about the award. 4. Share 5 random facts about yourself that people don't know about you. so now I have to award this to five other people first up is 1.http://joysze.blogspot.co.uk/ your blog is always beautiful to look at and I loved your chinese mandala garden!! 2.http://diaryofamanbroider.blogspot.co.uk/ your stitching is amazing, plus I've never seen anyone stitch so fast in my life. 3.http://mangogirl-naughtscrossstitches.blogspot.co.uk/ Love reading your blog, and your boxers were fabulous. 4.http://kingdomofcrossesqueenofflosses.blogspot.co.uk/ I love to look at your latest projects 5. http://crossstitchdude.blogspot.co.uk/ Your work is fab, it's nice to see more men cross stitching! Five random facts about me... 1. my little fingers are double jointed! 2. I detest anything flavoured with aniseed, liquorice or fennel 3. I tried Cherry Cola the other day and wondered why I didn't like it. It's because it tastes like Dr Pepper 4. my worst nightmare would be getting locked in a room somewhere. with spiders. 5. My dream date night would be chinese and a pint before going to see a concert or a film.

Bleugh :/

Well, I've been off sick since Tuesday, what started as a heavy cold appears to have turned into bronchitis. I have spent the last three nights sat bolt upright in bed, with hardly any sleep. The last two days I've had a temperature regularly running between 100f and 103f, seriously not good! Now I know how a lobster feels when it's cooked!! Thankfully that has come down now, although I am still struggling to eat properly, I might have to stock up on soup today. Rang the docs and she said there were no appointments (why am I not surprised) so she got the triage nurse to ring me back, who almost immediately said I have to come in, so I have an appointment at 11.50 this morning. Spoke to my boss and said I wasn't coming in again, she asked if I had any idea when I'm coming back and I said I've no idea. Being able to sleep and eat would help. In other news, I've had a job offer via email. It's working in finance, no experience necessary, they will train you online and they will pay you to take the course. I have asked for more info, apparently they Re opening an office in Birmingham so I just need to find out where! The money is fantastic, double my current salary! That'd sure help with the wedding planning and sorting out the house.

Mothers day

Today is mothers day. So, to my mum in Florida and my soon-to-be mother in law, happy mothers day!! My mum was never a great one for the day itself, plus now she lives in Florida it falls on a different day. We went out today to get stuff for mr A's mum, she is the hardest person in the world to buy for, it's insane. Shes got a big bouquet of flowers and a card from us both, I feel bad that we didn't get her a gift but yet again we left it til the last minute!! Have to be off to work in a bit, hopefully all will be nice and calm being as its Sunday, and I am off tomorrow! Hopefully I can get up early again and crack on with the housework, I also have to take Grubbs to the vets first thing. Would also like to do some stitching if I can, it's been ages since I picked up my frogs! Probably just as well in a way, have not got any money to buy stash. I didn't realise putting a £100 away a month for the wedding would leave me so skint! And that's without my loan or a big credit card bill to pay off. Although I did put £300 on it to upgrade my computer, that should arrive tomorrow which means I can play LA noire, I'll have to cook something extra nice for Mr A so he will fit everything for me. So I won't be spending for a couple of months until card is cleared again. £100 of it doesn't count, cos it was vets fees that I'm claiming on my pets insurance. Have decided I'm going to start leaving my purse at home, if I haven't got it, I can't spend it!! Just got enough for taxi home tonight, then it's into the overdraft. Really hope the pay is nice at the end of this month, will be better then!

Agh!!

That's how I feel ATM. Stressed out, burned out, and pissed off! (excuse the language). So, anyway, in terms of work, it feels like I've been spun round 360 degrees and now my head is on the wrong way. I went off on a weeks break (much needed and not long enough), and I was defined as one thing, go back and EVERYTHING has changed at once. I knew changes were coming and I knew they'd be fast, but this is something else. My job role has changed. Before, I could run a team of staff and work side by side, dipping in and out to do paperwork.

Now, I run the team from behind a door, suddenly I've got loads of responsibility that I wasn't expecting. Rumour has it that theres going to be more money in it for me.
That's not the only thing though. I regularly don't finish until 10pm, its usually 10.30 before I get in the door (sometimes later if I get held up) and its become very hard to switch off.
Consequently I am driving everyone crazy!
I thought about quitting today, but realised (yet again) like it or not I'm good at what I do. Least now I know how all those superheroes must have felt in the marvel comics! I don't want to be a superhero though...I didn't ask to be good at my job, I try to be average and I want more. I get more and then I get stressed out.
mr A says my job role has changed and I need to get used to it, and I have a feeling he's right, I'll be fine once I've adjusted.
There are a few things I want though, if I'm to formally take these responsibilities. Two days off back to back for one!! ATM I only get one at a time, it's not enough time to recover. It might mean I have to do 7 or 8 days solid but I wouldn't mind that.
A guaranteed weekend off every month, without fail. I haven't had one yet this month, and I feel like I've barely seen mr A.

I did my back in on Monday night, and I was off sick wednesday and thursday, didnt get any stitching done, couldn't get comfy.
I have decided to start sorting my brain out though. Rule one, doing lates is fine, just means if I wanna get the most out of my mornings I need to get up earlier. I've done it on and off for the last week or so and it does help. And I'm not as tired as I thought I would be. Decided its 7am on weekdays and 8am on a Sunday if I'm not working.
I need to get back to my stitching. So often I say I haven't got time. I need to make time! Getting up early should sort that out.
Mr A are trying to plan a wedding but we have no idea how much we want to spend or how we want to do it. I'm for a quiet wedding, but mr A wants to make sure we have a nice day. That's fine, but it doesn't have to cost the earth. The wedding is a formality, it's the after party I'm looking forward to!! Plus it's some time away so it makes it hard to plan. Knowing me I'll buy a dress the night before!!!

Ok, I've had my little rant, now I need to go sleep!

Squee!!! :))

Check it out, I'm getting married!!! Whoopee!!
No date yet, still letting everyone know, so now I have loads to do, on top of working full time plus overtime!
Going to take my time over it, I'm only planning on doing it once and it's got to be bang on, if you know what I mean.

Hoping to get married back end of next year, gives us time to save up and start sorting stuff out.

Frog chorus progress pic

Well, I've managed to do a little bit, the picture I'm going to post is a little out of date, I am halfway through frog no 3, there are 11 of them altogether. I'm really enjoying stitchign this, lots of different motifs on the same subject are keeping me interested. If i manage to finish this I might stitch something similar for my next project.

thanks for looking!

No stitching and a new obsession and a new project.

I say no stitching. I haven't got any stitching done today. This morning mr A and I went shopping, and then I finally managed to get on this game called minecraft which I downloaded yesterday. It always seemed a little bit pointless to me, it's a building game, a bit like the sims, but mr a has been nagging me to try it so I did. It ended up we didn't eat tea until 8pm because I was so engrossed!!

I've made a good start on my new project, it's called 'frog chorus' and I've manage one and a half frogs so far. I'm off til next Sunday so hopefully I can get some good stitching in. I will try and put a pic up tomorrow. I am quite liking the magic aida, it makes the chart much easier to follow!