2014 - A New Year, A New Start!

Well hello and Happy New Year!!!

Yes, yes, I know I didn't say Happy Christmas!  I have neglected you all for far too long.  I must say I truly did get a shock when I looked at my blog two weeks ago and saw that my last entry was back in September.  I even refreshed the blog as I thought it mustn't have loaded up properly!!

My craft room!

I don't have any genuine excuses for not blogging - I could say I have had a really busy time - but who hasn't?!!  I could say my first-born moved away to Lincolnshire and I'm pining but although he did, I'm not!  More about that in a bit!  I could say my second-born was attacked and badly injured and scared for life and I was a wreck, but although he was and I was for a time, I was truly more grateful that he didn't lose his eyesight and coped with it amazingly well!

I could say I was busy all the time crafting and running the home, and just didn't have time.  I kind of was but could have made time.  In all honesty, I just totally neglected you!!!  

So I guess I'll fill you in on a couple of bits I have mentioned above!

Joshua arriving at NTM!

In September we took Joshua up to North Cotes in Lincolnshire and delivered him safely at New Tribes Mission UK HQ.  He is doing a one year Biblical Studies Course at present, although it is looking likely that he won't be back here in the next academic year or two either!!!  But we'll get through the intensity of this year first!  I haven't had any struggles with Joshua being up there as I have a total peace about what he is doing.  There can be nothing better than dedicating a year of your life to intensively studying the Word of God.  Add to that being surrounded by 61 other students of many nationalities and a staff of true believers who love the Lord and the students in their care, how could any Mum have difficulties with where

Time to leave him in his room!

their 20 year old is living?!!  We are so proud of the young man Joshua has become.  The role of Paul and I when we were blessed with Joshua as a newborn was to nurture him and bring him up to become a responsible and decent adult.  I feel we have don't a pretty good job!  He's a fine young man!

We had a bit of a shock with Son No 2 when he let us know that he had spent from midnight until 5am in A&E (yes, he too is independent! - so much so that he wasn't actually going to tell us until we saw him on the Sunday evening! - this happened Friday night!  I must say, if I'd seen the horrendous state of his face with no prior warning, I'm pretty sure I'd have passed out!)  So what happened?  He was at a Drum & Base Evening in Ipswich, on the dance floor, when a bottle flew through the air and smashed on his face.  He needed deep stitches, followed by 13 stitches from eyebrow down the side of his nose and then very very close to his eye.  The A&E Dr told him how lucky he was that he didn't lose his site.  If you add to that the threat he received from friends of the idiot who threw the bottle of what would happen if he gave a statement identifying the perpetrator to the police, what had happened would be equivalent to a paper cut.  (But it wasn't a personal attack!!!) The whole thing has been a thoroughly unpleasant experience.  Every time I look at him I see the scar and I feel upset.  Jacob simply says it gives him character! Hmm!

Children certainly keep you on your toes, no matter what their age!

My swap for Ipswich meeting

Ready for the ladies to arrive!

 Crafting has gone along nicely throughout 2013 and I spend my Saturdays between 3 or 4 different crops.  During 2013 it was three crops but this Saturday just gone I went to a crop on my spare Saturday, which makes it four!!  I run my own crop/card class on the second Saturday of the month and go to the others for my own pleasure! As I am a stay-at-home wife (title change now the boys are so grown up) it is nice to have company on these Saturdays and I do actually do a bit of crafting, between chatting of course!

Paul shearing the grass!

I was asked last week whether I was mainly a card maker or a scrapbooker.  It was a difficult question to answer as I truly love both!  I can say however that I have spent the majority of the latter part of 2013 doing cards, cards and more cards!  I have somewhat neglected my scrapbook album but did do a page from the kit at the Crop on Saturday and thoroughly enjoyed doing it!  I think the reason I don't do as many Scrapbook pages at home is because my desk is usually too messy to fit a piece of 12 x 12 on it!!!  Paul always thinks it is so funny that I end up working in a space about 8 x 8 whilst the rest of the desk is 

cluttered with tools, off cuts, stamps, and ink pads!  Perhaps I should attempt to work more orderly this year.  The fact that I am currently sitting at Paul's desk across the room (I have to get it cleared of my stuff before he gets home or I'll be in big trouble!!!) shows that I have a bit of tidying and organising to do on my own desk.  Oops!!!

This coming Wednesday I have my first midweek, daytime crop.  I was asked by a lovely lady if I could do something midweek and so decided to give it a go.  I don't have many going at the moment but we will see over the next couple of months whether it is something people want or not.  Only time will tell.  One thing about it, I intend to do a page or two to add to my own scrapbook whilst there!

24th Wedding Anniversary.  Lean On Me!!!!

I have added a few pictures below of last year.  We got two new chucks in October and the picture of the chicken on my back is showing one of the rather cheeky new girls getting a good view of her new surroundings.  Barney dog is very interested in what she is doing on my back!  Sadly we lost our lovely dog Pebbles in September so now start 2014 without our lovely Katie cat and Pebbles.  From 3 dogs, a cat and half a dozen chucks, we are now 2 dogs and 4 chucks.  It does make it easier for walking the dogs although we do miss Pebs.  From about 15 years old, it was Joshua's job to cut the grass.  We had a lovely little mower which did the job just fine.  Having gone off in September, Paul decided he would need to pick up the reigns where Josh left off....  and broke the mower on first use.  This  was seriously inconvenient as we simply don't have the money to replace it at the moment.  On a couple of occasions when it got too long, Paul got out the shears and whilst breaking his back and burning those muscles in his arms, commented on how he understands completely why older men were so strong with the much more manual labour they used to do! 

Autumn on our house!

Autumn on the Acer!

Autumn brought with it a beautiful colour show in the garden.  Our Japanese Acer is always a delight as it changes to the beautiful reds and the Virginia Creeper on the house also gives a stunning display.  During the Summer and Autumn, the creeper is the bedroom of what seems like the entire sparrow population of Suffolk!  The birds all sweep up and settle on the branches behind the leaves at dusk each night.  It is a sight to behold and I felt rather sad as the leaves dropped off that their cozy bedrooms had disappeared when they need them most!  I wonder where they go to bed at the moment?

Hello to the new chucks!

I have every intention to keep up a more regular blog this year so I will see you soon.  I shall be sharing a project I did for a beautiful young lady in our family who gets married in the summer on my next entry.  Just a few days to wait before I add some pictures of that!

Bye for now

K xxx