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