Rocking your world friday

 It's that time of the week again and for the second time in a row I am actually posting on a Friday! pop over to Virginias Blog to find out more and check out the other Rockette posts.

I kept a daily list this week to help me remember everything.

Saturday:

* Making wedding stuff with my sister and Teresa. My little sis is getting married next year and we are trying to make as much as possible for it. We have already made and sent out the save the dates, we have finished the invitations, discussed the alterations for the bridesmaids dresses so we sat down on Saturday to make the 'guest book'. She is not having a traditional guest book she is having a branch arrangement on each table and then we have made leaves (on the cricut) which the guests will write their messages on and hang from the branches. The leaves will also double as the named place settings for each table. We had a production line going with Teresa putting the cardstock on the cricut mats, me cutting them and Zoe punching the hole in them. Then we sat and threaded jute through each leaf so they can be hung. We also made some extra little leaves to put on the branches already for decoration. We were going to use vases to put the branches in but Zoe found these beautiful little table arrangements at Dunhelm mill that look like little nests so we are going to stick the branches in them. It should look fab!

* A good friend cheering me up on Saturdayy, I have had a really down couple of months for many stupid reasons, but a good chat with her and I felt a lot better.

Sunday:

* I was a naughty girl on Sunday and used some of my art money (the money I have made from selling my artwork) to go and buy an iPod touch. I really wanted an iPad but that was way out of my price range and most of the things I wanted the iPad for I can do on the touch, like facebook and Instagram. I also bought a purple case for it. Paige came over and helped me set it up (or I should say did it for me, I am not very good with the technical stuff) and added all the apps I wanted and my music. This resulted in bursts of happy dancing all day, much to the amusement of my family! What can I say, little things make me happy!

* Watching Prometheus on Sunday night with Stu and Caleb. I didn't know if I would be able to follow this film as it's so long since I saw Alien and it wasn't really my cup of tea, but I enjoyed the prequel and thought they had done it really well.

Monday:

* Watching a huge flock of birds, hundreds of them, swooping and soaring right above my garden while having my morning cup of coffee. I don't think I have seen so many birds before and it was amazing to watch them twisting in and out of each other, creating these huge sweeping patterns in the sky.

Tuesday:

* On Tuesday the Equals Culture Kitchen Project (which I run) went to Medina House School to provide ethnic dance and cooking for the pupils there. Medina House is a school for severely disabled children and I was worried that I might find it upsetting but it was the most uplifting experience. The staff there are amazing and so dedicated and it was so wonderful to see all the children participating in this event. All the children got up to dance with the ladies and the staff twirled the children in wheelchairs around and helped them clap their hands. The dance session overran by 20 minutes as the kids were having so much fun! We had to adapt our cookery as they have no cooking facilities and the children were not allowed to use knives, but we came up with a good menu of ethnic food for them, Kimbop which is a Korean dish similar to sushi, rice and vegetables wrapped in seaweed, and Dadar Gulong which is Indonesian sweet coconut crepes. All of the kids tried the food and some were able to help put the vegetables in the Kimbop and make their own crepes. It was their harvest festival this week so we also took in a big box of exotic fruits for them such as dragon fruit, star fruit, cape gooseberries etc so the children that couldn't help make their own food got to touch and feel all these fruits. It was such an amazing day and projects like this make me really appreciate the job that I do.

Wednesday:

* I woke up Wednesday with a stinking cold and felt really lousy. This is the second cold this month, I really need to up my dose of vitamin C! I managed to package up all my affirmation cards which I am taking to the gallery/shop next week along with my paintings and prints and then I went up to bed at 2pm as I just felt so awful. Stu came home from work and cooked tea for everyone and took Shelby to Tesco to buy some things to put in her shoebox for the shoebox appeal she's doing at school. He is such a sweetheart and I don't know what I would do without him, so am grateful this week for how he looks after me!

Thursday:

* My Dad turned up a day early to put my new cabinet on the wall. I was given a lovely display cabinet for my crystals by the wonderful Menna (the fairy workshop lady!) and my Dad was going to come on Friday morning and put it up but he had some free time yesterday so turned up with his drill. After it was up, I spent a good hour arranging some of my collection of crystals in it until it looked perfect and then sat on the floor just looking at it for ten minutes with a big smile on my face! Thank you Menna, Thank you Dad!

 * Caleb and his Lego have made me smile this week. We have enough Lego in our house to build our own legoland! Caleb has been collecting Lego since he was four and he is fifteen now. I love the fact that even though he is a teenager he has not outgrown it and still sits for hours putting together the most amazing creations. This is one of his 'small' creations he designed on Thursday evening. It opens up and has computers, guns, lasers, teleporters, blast somethings etc all inside. I just love his creativity!

 * And the biggest and bestest thing to rock my world this week was hearing that Carmen had finally had her baby!! The lovely ladies of the Wednesday Whine group have all been on tenderhooks for the last few days, checking our FB page every five minutes for news and finally last night Carmen's daughter posted the first photos of Bubba. Way to go Carmen, big hugs and lots of love from us all! Considering I have never met any of the ladies from WW in real life, the support, kindness and laughs from everyone is amazing and I think we were all clucking like mother hens waiting for news of Carmen's bubba!!

Friday:

* I found out that the Equals Friendship group have been successful in their funding application so that means that the group can run for another year and I still have a job!! It is such a relief as I have been in panic mode the last few months, knowing that our funding is running out, hating the fact that that would mean the end of our group and my job. I can breathe easy for another year now.

* I am going to PARK OF THE DEAD  tonight and I am so excited. It is the first time they have run this event but the effort they have put into the publicising of it has been amazing It's all over FB, they had an entry in this years carnival to promote it and today we have been getting updates all morning on FB saying things like 'one of the experiments has escaped' and 'one of the park security force has been hurt in an incident'. It's really helping to set the scene for tonight! I know I will be screaming a lot and holding tight to Stu, telling myself 'it's not real' over and over again! We are not allowed to take photos on the tour but maybe Paige will manage to sneak a few with her phone and I can post them on here next week!

Well that's it for this weeks Rocking post, not a bad week all in all!

This bit of the post is for Carmen who wanted me to post the painting I did for her and it's the least I can do today as she has just given birth!!

I sent this to Carmen a few weeks ago as a gift for the Bubba. It is called ' May you always be watched over'. There is a lot of symbolism specific to Carmen in it, which I wont go into. Anyway, she said she loved it so that made me happy!!

Thanks for stopping by and wish me luck for tonight that I don't get eaten by Zombies!!

Sami x

Rocking your world Friday-actually on a Friday!

 It is Rocking Friday again and I am actually posting on a Friday! Hook up with our host Virginia if you want to play along.

* On Sunday it was Oakley's 2nd birthday (the black and tan cocker spaniel in the photo and the golden ones Willow, his older half sister).He is such a little dufus dog but we love him dearly. They had just had a bath in the photo so still look a little damp!They had a big meaty bone each for Oakley's birthday treat.

*Also on Sunday, Caleb and me took the dogs to this little secluded beach we know so they could have a good run and a swim in the sea. I also needed to collect some more sea glass for the mobiles I am making. The beach was deserted and we spent a lovely hour watching the dogs having fun and searching amongst the shingle for glass.

*My wonderful Hubby bought me a beautiful bunch of flowers on Sunday. He knows I love these big cabbage rose flowers so he searched through them all and found the biggest one for me. What a sweetie he is.

* The rain has really been coming down this week, but I did see this beautiful rainbow from my back doorstep. The photo isn't great, the rainbow was really vibrant and huge.

*I also spent some time with my nephew this week as he was down for a few days from Crawley. He will be 17 next month and I have to wonder where the time has gone when I see him and he's so tall and grown up now.

* My new hoody finally arrived this week. I have been waiting 7 weeks for it to turn up. It is a beautiful purple and turquoise patchwork type one from Joe Brown and I just had to have it!

* I ordered the first of the Xmas presents this week from Amazon and they have arrived and been put away from prying eyes! I do need to get more organised as these are all I have bought so far.

* I have been working on secret Yule gifts for my pagan family the last couple of weeks. We always make gifts for each other to celebrate Yule, rather than get caught up in the commercialism that is Xmas!! I do think a handmade gift can be so much more thoughtful most times and I have enjoyed working out how I am going to put my gifts together.

That's about it for this week, it's been a very quiet week with me mostly working and not getting much else done.

I finished a painting I was working on last week. I am pleased with the end result and find I am really enjoying the freedom of this abstract style art.I used acrylics, ink sprays, texture paste, stencils and paint pens.

Finished piece

I have no idea what to call this painting, any ideas???

Thanks for popping by,

Sami x

Rocking your world Friday

Hello Friday Rockers. I have fallen behind again, both with my blogging and with catching up on other peoples blogs and have not joined in with Rockers for a couple of weeks...sorry!

Pop over to Virginia's blog, our wonderful host, to join in with us.

So digging very deep this week for my silver linings, my list of gratefuls and things that have made me happy, but I have managed it.

* My son, Caleb being chosen for vice house captain for his senior prefect role. I am so proud of him, he is the perfect role model. He applied to be a prefect and was then asked to attend an interview and give a presentation as he had been nominated for a senior role. I think he did extremely well to be chosen for one of the positions as there were lots of people who applied and didn't even get a prefect role. Also at 7pm on the day he found out, the head teacher of the school phoned me to tell me how wonderful my son was, how proud the school was of him and how he is going to achieve amazing things this year! I was gob smacked that the head had taken the time to ring all the parents and say such lovely things, obviously in his own time too.

 Caleb with his vice captain badge, he's still waiting for his prefect badge to arrive.

*The Equals Friendship Group that I run held a very successful curry night on the 29th Sept. We did this to raise the rent money for the scout hut we use for our weekly meetings. We offered two different types of chicken curry, one Thai and one Indian, a vegetable curry, Aloo Boona (dry potato curry), onion bhaji, prawn crackers and four different types of rice. People could eat in or just come and get a takeaway and we served nearly 100 people on the night, raising £469 and £39 on a raffle. Everyone commented on how wonderful the food was and asked when the next one would be! It took two full days of food prep, we peeled 20kg of potato's and 10kg of onions between us, so I think we will leave it a few months before our next one!

*Also, our first Equals Friendship group baby was born on Thurs 4th Oct. Both mummy and baby are doing well and we can't wait to meet the new edition to our group!

*The generosity of the women from the friendship group. We have not been able to meet at our hall for the last 6 weeks as a new roof is being put on. We could not afford to hire anywhere else so the women have taken it in turns to hold the meetings at their houses. Not only have they opened up their homes to all us, they have also each prepared lunch for the whole group each week. Hmm, not sure if I want to go back to the hall now for our meetings!

*The wonderful reiki share ladies for an excellent session this week which left me feeling a lot more positive than I have in a while. Everyone has such a lovely energy and I always get so much out of our meetings.

*Watching my husband Stu teaching our daughter his dance moves this week. Shelby does hiphop lessons and has done for the last four years. She is currently working at her level five certificate and had to put some moves together and choose some music for them. Stu is much more 'hip' than me when it comes to music so they started going through all the cd's and then Stu put some music on and started showing Bea his moves. Now, Stu is a really good dancer, that is how I met him. I saw him dancing in a nightclub and his dancing really impressed me so I was stood watching him and when the song finished he came over and asked me to dance. Watching him dancing with our daughter really brought all those memories back and made me think how lucky I am to be sat here watching these two dancing round the front room together 15 years later.

* My friend Paige for giving me a huge pile of clothes this week that she no longer wanted. I hate clothes shopping, it depresses me no end, so now I have some lovely new clothes and I didn't have to put myself through any tears or tantrums! Thanks P.

*The wonderful Wednesday Whine group. You ladies are all fantastic and I wish I knew you in real life so we could all get together and have a few glasses of wine! Thank you x

* Re watching Supernatural right from season one. I love this show and was ill with a really bad cold/flu bug last weekend and I thought what better to cheer me up than a bit of Dean and Sam.

*My kids, who do or say something to make me smile everyday.

* My hubby, who always does everything in his power to make my life easier. I am so blessed to have him in my life.

* Seeing that the little Robin family is back in may garden for the winter. They have been here since we moved in 8 years ago but I was worried that they wouldn't come back this year and we had the hedges cut right down really low this summer.

Well, I managed to list 12 things so that's not so bad is it? I must try harder to do this post every week because there is ALWAYS something that has been a positive, even if I have to look harder some weeks than others!

Just wanted to also share some art work I have managed to get done this week. They are all acrylic, spray inks, stamps, stencils and pen on watercolour paper.

Thanks for looking,

Sami x