Saturday, 1 March 2008

Flowers and rings

Oh dear am not exactly a happy bunny again today...Yesterday evening i was round at my best friends...She'd picked me up and we went to sainsburys, bought lots of munchies and had a girlie night in at hers watching a dvd :o) ...When i got home M told me that granny had phoned twice to say thank you for the flowers...Am like 'excuse me the flowers'!!!! As it was far too late to phone her last night so i called this morning...The bouquet i had ordered on thurs to be delivered on mothers day WAS delivered yesterday...Now my mum isn't in on a friday so no way would i have had anything delivered to her on a friday...It gets better though...My older sis who lives 3 doors along from mum took her to her weekly hairdressers appointment...Her hubby was over doing stuff in mums garden...Sis decided to take mums car to give it a run and left the garage door open as she wouldn't be long...Bro in law had been round the back doing stuff and hadn't heard the doorbell ring...Now it doesn't take my sis long to take mum to the hairdressers so they can't have tried to leave the flowers with a neighbour...Naaa they left it lying on the garage floor and shoved a card through mums door!!!!...Am so NOT amused at all...I paid £9 for flipping delivery and expect delivery not left lying around...So i went down to the florists here i had ordered it through...Turns out the florist that is used for the teleflorists up by mum doesn't even have a computer!!!!!!...And they were only going to deliver in mums village on fri for mothers day!!!!!...But they hadn't told my florist so they could ask me if that was ok...As they're so busy today the florist is going to get it looked into with the teleflorist people and call me on monday...And he said i should be given compensation (which i didn't ask for)...As it happens i met up briefly with my older sis in town today...She said her or other sis would have gone and bought flowers for me and given them to mum...But i told her the whole point was to surprise mum tomorrow or today at earliest with a delivery of a bouquet...Mum does like the flowers though which is good :o)

I went into town today with M and G to go window shopping of sorts for G's 18th birthday pressie...M as usual was a pain in the rear end as he'd gone and bought what he wanted from argos first...Then he whinged and moaned until i gave up and said food time...Whilst he was in argos though me and G went into ernest jones and he did like some of the rings in there...One in particular...So next we looked in H Samuels window and the only one he liked was same as the one he really liked next door...Ernest Jones are a fiver cheaper for it as well  LOL...I had phoned sis and left a message and she'd texted back to say they were having lunch and about to go elsewhere...So after getting narked off with M whilst me and G were in another jewellers i dragged us off to that shopping centre for food...There was a couple of rings he liked in that other jewellers but unfortunately they don't have pics on website for me to snaffle and show here...They would take about 3 weeks to get one in his size though...After food and briefly chatting to sis and me parting with cash to her M left to go home...Home via stalls i directed him towards so he could buy me a pressie for tomorrow <g> G left me to go off somewhere quickly!!!! and i said i'd see him outside Ortak...Lovely stuff they have in Ortak but not to G's taste...I did quite like the rings with runes on them but he didn't...The celtic knotwork ones you can buy cheap ones ten a penny anywhere and i didn't really want to buy one for him...Luckily he didn't like them...So we went to the other Ernest Jones and he tried on a few in there that were different to the other branch...So i think am donw to a choice of 2 rings...One with no stone and the other with a very small diamond...That is NOT girly <g> Pics below to see what you think is best choice...Am gonna go down tomorrow and order in his size...They say 7 days but if it's a wee bit late that's fine with G...I am going to buy something else for him to get on the day.

        

This is the one he really likes from noises he made...It's not actually as polished and is burnished and nicer looking than this pic...The black lines are actually 2 grooves running round the ring and blackened on the bottom of the groove

 

Again this one is greyer burnished titanium and has teensy diamond in the centre

 

Friday, 29 February 2008

A rant sorry

Before the rant a pic of earrings i made for myself last night...I like these ones and as usual they're sterling silver and swarovski crystal...6mm crystal cubes and silver cubes and 3mm round silver...I did consider crimping a silver crimp to keep the beads static at bottom of the wire but decided i rather like them being loose and moving about.

Tad out of focus LOL but you get the jist

Close up

And now the rant...Our council is broke...Regardless of how much they put up council tax they've been going broke for years...The council is heavily in debt and needs to make savings...This year they're not allowed to put up council tax as Holyrood has prevented all the Scottish councils from doing so...Even so our crappy council would have to treble it to get close to not being in debt...Also our council are almost as bad if not worse than Westminster at paying 5 and 6 figure sums of money to consultants and think tanks to come up with crappy ideas that never bluddy well get implemented...Even the good ones don't get implemented...Not only are they closing the ice rink (only one in north east scotland) closing one of the swimming pools but they are cutting opening hours at other sports facilities...They are making MASSIVE cut backs in care for the elderly and disabled...Next week when G reaches 18 he is supposed to move from childrens services to adult services...But there is NO POINT as he will get SOD ALL service...The ONLY people who are going to get any care services at all are those in the HIGHEST bracket...Those who are classed medium or low will get sweet FA...And those who are in the highest bracket are getting there's cut...The council have decided to save costs that they want more care to be done in the home by the family...Fandabbydosy NOT as who the hell is then gonna pick up the costs of the care for the carers when they fall ill due to being overloaded with caring...Respite is being cut drastically!!!!!!...So those who are already elderly and having to care for another elderly or disabled family member are going to end up needing cared for themselves...Those who have disabled children regardless of degree of disability are going to be forced into trying to obtain direct payments and then have severe restrictions put on what they can set up via the direct payments as a care package...With no thought as to what the child actually needs as care, respite or outreach worker doing with them...The council are removing funding from anything and everything with no regard as to where these groups or projects will obtain replacement funding from...With no regard as to how many people they put out of employment...Our local workshops for the blind and disabled yesterday had the funding they get from the council taken away completely...Which means it will have to close...That place of work has existed for donkeys years...Not just the last 20 but since before world war 2 i think...My uncle who is blind worked there since he left school until he retired a few years ago...When i had a damaged back for a year after i gave birth to Kerry my GP asked me what kind of bed i had...I told him my uncle had made it and that he was head of the bedding dept at the workshops for the blind...My GP said brilliant as they were excellent beds with brilliant mattresses suitable for anyone with a dodgy back...BTW my back got fixed by a chiropracter privately 14 months after i had Kerry and touch wood has been fine ever since...Best £1 i ever spent :o) He cost a quid as he got fed up being given chickens, eggs, veg and other farm products by the farmers he mainly sorted out in the evenings after his work LOL...Anyways i digress...50+ people will be out of a job as it is almost certain the factory will have to close...Where some of them will be able to get another job is beyond me...Schools are being closed or merged...Yet Holyrood wants all P1-3 pupils to be in classes of no more than 16 pupils by 2010...They want more sports provision but our council is either closing or severely cutting hours of nearly every sports facility in the city...They want to try and remove children resident in the city from going to Camphill school...Camphill is a Rudolph Steiner school on the outskirts to the west...It has recently been found to be one of the best schools for disabled children in the world FFS...It is private though and the fees are very expensive...It's the most expensive private school in Scotland...I have a friend who's severely autistic son boards there weekly and that costs either a 4 or 5 figure sum...Another very close friend her severely autistic son goes there but as a day pupil...As a day pupil it doesn't cost much more than what it costs from him to be at a state SEN school...Oh our delightful council is also looking at cutting school transport...Now what those cuts will be i don't know...Am kind of glad both the boys are leaving school this year...If they weren't and their transport was removed i'd be up a creek without a paddle...As they are at different schools in different areas of the city...G starting at 8.30am and M at 9am...But G school would be around 8 miles from G and G is where rush hour is on...So if i had to take G to school i would be sat in traffic for around an hour getting him there and an hour trying to get M to his school after i dropped off G...Our SNP/Lib Dem council are just a tad unpopular at the mo to say the least...I could go on and type all night about the cuts they have made...The majority of these cuts are going to affect children (so more will be on the streets), elderly and the disabled...We can't all afford to join private gyms that have swimming pools and besides most of them don't take under 16's...The cuts they are making go against everything that both Holyrood and Westminster want as facilities for the public...As several citizens and both local papers have commented 'Will the last person to leave Aberdeen turn the bluddy lights off'...Rant over sorry for that

Wednesday, 27 February 2008

Velvet ribbon and the Daily Mail LOL

Grrr some internal error lost the entry i was trying to post ARGH...Ok how bluddy difficult do you think it would be to find velvet ribbon???? Not too hard you'd say wouldn't you...I live in a city so surely it would be easy...WRONG...We have John Lewis, one fabric/haberdashery shop, a small shop packed with loads of wool etc and one craft shop...The craft shop is the only one i haven't tried yet...Yesterday i got some in the fabric shop...But they sell very little trimmings...I got a gorgeous purple, bright red and navy blue...They had a green but am not a green person and it wasn't quite emerald enough for me...The white was too thin :o( ...Today i tried the wee shop in our pathetic indoor market...Now i got tons of satin ribbon and pearl trimming but velvet was a no no...They only sell white and black and thin which is no use...I need like an inch wide or in metric it's 23mm...As for John Lewis well they can get stuffed...In John Lewis you can only buy ribbon trimming by the reel...I don't want a 5 metre reel i want a couple of metres...If the craft shop hasn't got any am going o be forced into buying some from online...And i don't really want to as i want to see it before i buy...See if it's nice velvet and not hard horrid velvet...So i live in a city with crap shops that are flaming useless LOL.

K sent me this article from the Daily Mail earlier...Think i need to read this book...This lad sounds so so so so like what G used to be like...Wonder if there is any way of writing to the parents...It's the dad who wrote the book...I should write a book about the last 16 years....But am shit at writing...I'd need to have someone to organise chapters and paragraphs and stuff...I can't write properly for toffee...Besides it's not going to be that interesting and some stuff would probs hurt other people...But i have thought about trying to do one for a long time now i just can't cos am rubbish...Hmmm one day maybe when am very old and very white and very very wrinkled

Our son's hidden world: Living with a child with autism | the Daily Mail

Necklace for K what do you think???

Ok sod it i know she will read this before friday but decided so what...K asked me if i could make her a necklace and earring set for this coming weekend...It's some SYP meeting thingy and they have to be poshed up...And she wants to be a walking advert ROFL...So below is what i have made...The necklace took around an hour to make...Well it actually took longer as i was doing it on my lap here whilst online and had K in im's on MSN...Plus i had a break to phone younger sis...And my shoulder ached like hell whilst doing it which am paying for today as it's swollen up again <sigh>...Am fed up to the back teeth of this flaming shoulder...It is all sterling silver with the sapphire swarovski crystals...The sterling silver chain is very pretty, rather expensive and very very fine...And it has been falling out of the loop that attaches the beads to it...But hey i've bought in shops where the chain is so fine it does that and i went over all the loop bits again to try and make sure they weren't open...I also used same chain to add on a lengthening chain with a crystal on the end...The silver beads are 3mm in size and the crystals 4mm...She doesn't want a bracelet but i will make one up as well once i get approval for the design...The necklace is approx 18 inches long....I don't know about the rest of you ladies but i find that 16 inch is rather short or about chokes you...And 16 inch is the norm although 18 inch is creeping in more and more as a norm...What annoys me is the background was WHITE paper...And i had it lit from several angles and still showing as grey grrrr...Also i did take a pic of the set on mirror...Stupid stupid idea LOL...Because of reflections from the roof etc...Mind you using the mirror to display them when on a stall will look pretty...Especially with the silver netting underneath on top of a coloured cloth...I did play around with same length of crystals with just a length of chain hanging as well but i think the shorter bit of chain with less crystals hanging from end looks much better...IF this one does get approval then it will be called 'Kerry' <g> And of course it doesn't have to be the sapphire blue crystals you can have it in other colours

Necklace and earrings together

Close up of necklace

Close up of earrings

Monday, 25 February 2008

Odds and ends really

Do you think that mentioning the words chocolate fountain at least twice a day for the last few days is enough to drop hint i would like one for mothers day??? Mothers day is pretty early this year and not that far past my birthday...When it's early like this i always feel guilty about getting 2 pressies close together...To be honest am not that fussed but a choccy fountain would be nice LOL...Or this gadget thing i want that the boys looked blankly at me when i mentioned it ROFL...Big sis took little sis to Elgin on saturday to the nice jewellers there to look for a pressie for little sis...She's seen two lots of stuff she quite likes...So when she decides which one she'd like for definite big sis is going to phone them up and they will set it aside...Or that may have already happened erm can't remember...Then big sis will take mum up so they can buy it and even though it is being bought a few days before their sale starts the owner is still going to give them sale price :o) They also say a couple of watches they liked for G...So i have been given codes for a website so he can look at them both and choose which one he prefers...But i just know that he will sit here and go yeah they're alright and say he's not bothered which...So i'll tell them the one i like best out of the two LOL...I've managed to persuade him that a nice gents ring would be cool...Again i want him to chose but he doesn't want to chose ARGH...So i've compromised and said we will go into town and look in a few jewellers and he can point out a few that he likes...Then i will go back in on my own and pick one of them...So that it is a sort of surprise...I'll also get something from M for him to go with the ring and he won't know what that is.

Now we all know am so not girlie and absolutely loathe and detest shopping...But i do like shopping for craft stuff and i've been and bought probs more than i should have on saturday and today...I was only supposed to be buying beads not anything else LOLOL...I have ribbon, new wire cutters, proper crimper cos mine went awol, chains to cut up and a thingy for bending wire round...The poor woman in argos looked at me strangely when i said i only wanted the silver chains to cut up <g>  The thingy for bending wire is the umpteenth one i've bought as i keep losing the pegs...In fact when i am able to move my shelving unit thingy from alcove so i can put the bureau in there am sure i will find loads of pegs...Also there has to be loads of pegs in the walk in wardrobe somewhere...This is why i won't buy an expensive one of them things because i keep losing the pegs...But what i want to make for K to send to her for the weekend involves a wire shape and it is easier to do wrapping round pegs...I also ran before am walking again and bought some silver netting...It's actually pretty soft and i thought would look good for taking photos on and for displays...Our John Lewis has a pretty dire haberdashery section now...For ribbon you MUST buy the whole reel which is so annoying and to be honest rather unfair i think...So am going down the market tomorrow to the wee packed to the gunnels haberdashery store in there...Some of the stuff the woman who owns it has must have been there for years...It's so small you knock things over merely by turning around but she has things that you just can't seem to find anywhere else...AND she sells by the metre :o) I forgot to buy a file though when i was in poundland...And it was black bin bags and a file i went in for DOH!!!...Not a nail file but a proper big file...This is so i can file off the prongy bits on the headbands...I did go into the only other fabric shop we have and bought some ribbon there as they sell however much you want...They're also a lot cheaper than John Lewis but don't have much ribbon...And am thinking hmmm i should have bought some of the expensive diamante trimming but at £12.50 a metre eeks...But now am home i can see it is the top quality diamante trim and not cheaper more plasticy trim...Then again for kids headbands does it need to be the expensive type????? Hmmm not sure yet...Better go and find homes for all this stuff...And drat i forgot to buy more sewing needles...Oh well more to add to the list for tomorrow...Have to go into town anyways as G's concession bus pass needs renewing and they didn't send a reminder grrrr...It runs out on the 9th and can take between 10-15 days to get the new one through...Because we want his photo replaced as the one on his current one he looks dead young

Toodle pip tc xx

Saturday, 23 February 2008

Do you know enough to be considered British LOL

I nicked this from the General Politics board...See how you get on...BTW you can do it more than once and it doesn't tell you what the right answer is for any you get wrong

http://www.cambridge.org/elt/esol/Citizenshiptest.swf

I found another one that does give you the right answers if you get any wrong LOL...With this one you can go on to practise test 2 and so on LOL

Life in the UK Test - Free Online Practice Questions - Test 1 - www.hiren.info

 

Thursday, 21 February 2008

Ugh

I feel CRAP to put it bluntly...I didn't make it to the exhibition again to spy on the sunday because i had a splitting headache...Which was followed on by sickness and diahorrea...Well the sickness started on mon literally as i was about to leave the door to go to my physio...So i had to phone and cancel and can't be seen for another 2 weeks :o( ...One of my friends her daughter is on placement just now and she came down with something like this last thurs...As MRSA and Cdiff are going around where she is on placement inititally they thought she may have caught the CDiff...Tests showed she hadn't but she is still unwell a week later...Tues and yesterday i wasn't sick but on the loo a lot...Today i have been violently sick since i got the boys up for school at 6.45am...Am only on here to stay awake as am fed up sleeping...And i started this entry over an hour ago then left to do something and forgot so i've lost the flow and what i was saying...But just in case anyone was wondering where i was then it's cos i've got some yuk bug...Pic of Fairys earring below...Pic is crap and a bit big...the earrings are about 2 inches long with dark siam and AB crystal...Need to work out necklace and bracelet that matches and call that the Jane range <g> I really need to work the lighting better for photos as i will need better ones for a website.

Toodle pip tc xx