Friday 17 February 2012

Hello Friday Rockers!
I missed last week as I was away so have two weeks of rocking stuff to catch up on!


 * On the 4th Feb my son turned 15! It seems like only yesterday he was a toddler and now he's taller than me! I am so proud of the young man he is turning into.
 My sister made him an 'allotment' cake complete with veg patch and chicken house!

 * Last week was a long week waiting for my cocker spaniel Oakley to become a man! Paige who is the breeder I got him from wanted to use him as a stud dog for her bitch Bella, and we have been waiting ages for her to come into season. It took five sessions before Oakley figured out what he had to do, Paige and I feared it would never happen, she outed him on Facebook, lined up another stud dog and then Bam! on wednesday he realised what it was all about! I didn't realise it would be so stressful waiting for them to get it on! It will be about 4/5 weeks now until we know if Bella has puppies in her tummy!

* My daughter brought home her half term grades last week and she has done so well. She started at the high school in september which was a big change for all of us as up until last year we still had the 3 tier education system over here- primary school from age 4 to 8, then middle school from age 8 to 13, then high school. So she was just 11 when she went up and I was a little worried but she loves it and is doing really well with her work. I am so proud of her.

 * Friday was the start of the 5th Wight Craft Circle retreat. Paige and I organise this twice a year and we have a whole weekend of scrapbooking at Totland Youth Hostel on the IOW. It was lovely to see everyone again and we had such a laugh and a couple of ghostly visitors in the middle of the night! I spent the weekend doing art journal pages as I have seriously lost my mojo for scrapping (see post below for the pages I created).

 * The lovely ladies of the Friendship Group! I know I have mentioned these ladies quite a few times in my posts but they do something that amazes me on a weekly basis! I have started a new project with the group called 'culture kitchen'. The idea is to break down cultural barriers and improve perceptions of diversity using cooking and food by going into local schools and groups and demonstrating how to cook different ethnic foods. I got the local college involved and they offered to provide a day of learning how to cook English food, completely free, which we attended this week. The ladies and myself had a great day making Cullen Skink-(smoked haddok soup), Lancashire hotpot, pancakes and five fruit cheesecake.
 We had to provide our own aprons so we made them ourselves using my tutorial (on this blog) and then the ladies embroidered the Equals logo onto them...don't they look fantastic?

* My wonderful husband. He has been a star this week, looking after the kids and the dogs while I was at the retreat, cooking dinner on monday when I got back as I was just too tired to do anything.

* I had some work issues last week which unfortunately I couldn't get resolved before my weekend away so that left me worrying all weekend. Although the issue is still not sorted out it was nice to find out that I do have some backing in this and that hopefully it will get resolved soon.

* Washitape.co.uk rocked my world by delivering my order in one day so that Paige and I had a lovely new stash of tapes to play with at the retreat!

* My friend Teresa for giving me some scraps of leather so I could make a couple of handbound journals.

* Selling one of my packs of affirmation cards

* Finding this tutorial which enabled me to do this watercolour portrait. I couldn't believe how quick and easy it was and how effective it looks.

Well, thats two weeks of things that rocked my world. Why don't you pop over to Virginia's blog and see what rocked the rest of the rockers worlds?!
TFL
Sami x

11 comments:

Valerie-Jael said...

Sounds like a good week. Love the cake your sister made! Poor dog being outed on facebook! Hugs, Valerie

Virginia said...

Wow that's an awesome post so much good in there to be seen. I giggled at your poor dog trying to fathom things out bless him!

Don't children grow up so quickly mine will be 12 in September - I mean honestly 12 where on earth has the time gone.

Loving that your daughter has settled into the new style school system - that's great news and obviously is backed up with some good grades.

I'm loving the recipes that your ladies learned at the college - how fabulous - what did they think of them?

Also loving those gorgeous aprons - fantastic stuff.

Your weekend away looks like utter bliss I sooooooooo could do with some of that at the moment. Sorry you've lost your scrapping mojo but at least your art journaling mojo is going strong. I tend to be in one camp or the other and find it almost impossible to do both!

Hope you have a beautiful and blessed weekend.

Hugs

Carmen said...

I reckon when I finally manage to come to one of your retreats we should get Virginia there too ;) Ooh what ghostly happenings? Spill!

Love this post - my Devvie will be 15 in April - I still have an inch or two on her - only just though! Scary isn't it!

Am going to check out that washi tape site and that tutorial, thanks for the links. Your watercolour is gorgeous.

I always love reading about your ladies, they always look so happy!

Have a great week Sam x

Joanna said...

Oakley's sure got a twinkle in his eye now! Poor chap, he must have been very stressed trying to do his bit for England :D

I've checked out the portrait tutorial - wow! Thanks for the info I'll be having a go at that.

Happy belated birthday to your son - that's one cool cake! I'm glad your daughter has settled in happily to her school. It makes life so much easier for them (and us) if they're settled and happy.

xx

SusieJ said...

Wow! An amazing two weeks of gratefuls there. Belated Happy Birthday to your son..and what a fab. cake.
Poor Oakley..being outed on FB..:( Max doesn't understand the fuss as his nasty Mummy (me!) made him have the "snip"..I'm still not sure he's forgiven me! But well done Oakley on getting there in the end!
Your retreat sounds lovely..I could so do with joining one.
And your ladies are amazing...thumbs up to the college too for joining in.
Hope your work problems are quickly sorted.
Have a great weekend.
Hugs xx

Lynette (NZ) said...

That watercolour tutorial looks fab - on my list to try now :-)

Paige said...

I think my outting of Oakers on FB did the trick! afterall he had to prove me wrong ;) fingers crossed now for a few weeks while we wait to find out if we are to become grannys together! Pleased your day at the college with the ladies was a success! they look great in their matching aprons!

Jamie said...

So much good news in one post! I love it.

BadPenny said...

An Allotment cake sounds fun ! Maybe I'll go on one of your retreats sometime as they do sound fun ! I love the ladies all in their aprons. Our village hosts a food week at Easter & the whole village suddenly start appearing in red aprons !
My retriever doesn't take any notice of the girls at all !

Sabrina said...

The bit about the dogs is hysterical. Usually you hear about the scamp breaking away getting the neighbor pregnant, but I never thought about when you WANT it to happen. Sounds like he just needed a little romance first. After all, no one want to just be a sex object!

Sarah said...

happy birthday to your young man - I love that allotment cake :)

and that masking fluid portrait is brilliant! I have a light box hidden away somewhere, I'll have to dig it out and give that a go....

hope you have a great week