Medieval Town Mandala Part 1 Finished

I am so pleased with how this one came out. The colours are slightly off as I am stitching it on Silkweavers Parkland Laguna which is a really light green, but you get the general idea:



My first assignment for my OU course is done and dusted and just needs to be emailed. That means I have a week off from major study, so I feel some stitching sessions coming on. :-)

OU stuff

I am coming to the end of Block 1 which also means my first marked assignment is due in a week today. I am not really sure how I am going to fair but I think it will be ok.
I also got confirmation today that I have received a grant towards my studies so thats really great news. Filling out the forms etc was a major headache but more than worthwhile.
There isn't really alot of other news except that I am likely to HD Part 1 of MTM within the next few days. All ready for the next part.:-)

A small finish

I finished this small Bent Creek design called The little black kitty this afternoon:



It is stitched on Silkweavers Parkland linen and I have now entered it into their competition. This is the first year I have been together enough to enter and now have two things in-both of them small. I even kept one in its original bag waiting for the competition to start that was finished almost a year ago, so now its fingers crossed.
Today I have gone down with a cold and even have a temperature of 38 ish. This is typical as I am due to have my flu jab tomorrow. We tried to cancel but when they said all sessions are full and they can't give any idea when the next lot will be we are hanging on and hoping for a miracle cure lol.
I don't think its helping as I am so tired, run down and stressed out lately. The OU course is going well and that is a good source of stress and I am so glad I got in now as I would be a complete wreck without it.
I have just read some of what I wrote and have edited it as this was a really depressing post lol and I just need some space to get my head around things. Not sure making it public is the best move either.

Proof of the pudding

I have my British blinkie so thought I would do this quiz to find out how British I really am:




Jolly good, wot! Anyone for tennis? That'll be ten ponies, guv. You're the epitome of everything that is english. Yey :) Hoist that Union Jack!

How British are you?

this quiz was made by alanna

As I thought really but it was good fun.

My fireside cat

This is my devoted cat Taffy last night fast asleep at my feet in front of the fire:



He had looked even cuter a few minutes earlier but he is not as obliging as Scully bun and moved, but its still a lovely picture.

Shopping!!

I have just been on a major shopping trip which is also the biggest since my foot has started to improve. I went to the centre of Bristol and met one of my best friends who is in the area for the weekend and we shopped, ate chocolate, drank tea and gossiped. It was a realy lovely day and I got a lovely denim jacket in a 20% off sale in Debenhams. It has a furry collar, cuffs and bottom edge and is absolutely gorgous. It was from pineapple and was only £35 before the discount so was a real bargain. I also got a pair of purple sterling silver dragonfly earrings in Debenhams, but it took me ages to decide on the colour as they had so many options. If the pink had had solid wings that probably would have won lol. I think they will be a slight drop as the tail of the Dragonfly had little silver balls to make it and add flexibility.
So I have eaten too much junk, drunk too much tea but had a really great relaxing day and its just what the doctor ordered lol.
What did suprise me was the amount of Christmas stuff in the shops and the House of Fraser has its trees up. I am not a mean-spirited old crone but this does seem a tad too early.
I also got my appointment for the surgeon arrive 2 days ago and the only thing to be thankful for is it will be done and dusted by my birthday, but otherwise the timing is not ideal-oh well beggars can't be choosers. This did send me into a bit of a panic as I can't face it being like last time-which is unlikely and its now become all too real. But its not for awhile yet so will put it out of mind for a bit.
Tomorrow I have to spend the day writing an assignment-its 300 words so not many but is on music and a particular piece. If the last 2 are anything to go by it will be a good 7 hours from start to finish, but I have done some preparation so I am hoping it won't be that long.

A new start a day....

....Makes for many WIPS. :-)

I started a tiny one yesterday which was Bent Creeks black Kitty. Can't remember its proper name but it is tiny and sort of wild and Halloween looking. But today I started Medieval Town Mandala. Yipppeeeeeee!!!!
Today has gone slow but has been really great. I stitched a bit on Royal Holiday this morning and then did an hours study before lunch. After lunch I hit the books again and did another couple of hours, surfed a bit then started MTM.
However MTM didn't start off that well as the first colours and symbols are so similar that after 9 stitches I had to start over. But I am now on track and loving it.
Tomorrow it is the usual dialysis and probably stitching on the Cat tomorrow afternoon and surfing a bit.

MVIII Part 10 finished

Great timing for this months part as I have a whole half a month to work on other stuff and start Medieval Town Mandala.:-)

Enjoy:

Haloscan

Haloscan has now been added to my blog so I can control who comments on it a bit better.
I was absolutely stuck with where to put the new bits in my template so went for automatic wizard. Well despite it saying it was publishing the new template for me it kept disappearing so I simply copied and pasted in the end which seems to have worked lol.
The hours I put in to this blog and most of it is simple if you know what you are doing is quite immense. However I enjoy it and am learning all the time.

Financial boost

My finances got a much needed boost with a £50 premium bond win. So now its decision time on what I am going to get. Obviously one of the Chatelaine Mandala gardens sprang to mind and of the new ones out it would be the Japanese one. I would like to see another WIP first to be sure before I commit to that one as its always niggled me whether I like it 'enough'. I have bought some of the threads for MIX and mum and dad are making up the rest between my birthday and Christmas so for the moment the cheque will go in the bank and I will make up my mind at a later date.
Today was mainly spent studying, tidying my room and some more paperwork. I am still soting out getting a grant for studying, as the initial form was sent back because they need more details. So after filling in forms and phone calls I have got as far as I can today and hope people follow through on their commitments of sending me infomation.
Tonight I am going to stitch MVIII as I have just have one more corner to do for this part. I am anticipating a HD over the weekend if not sooner.
Once that is done I will probably stitch something small for this months HD and then may even start Medieval Town Mandala.

Re:Not much going on

This is the longest time I have ever not blogged, but there is really not alot going on.
I was at the doctors on Monday evening for a bad virus which at times has felt a bit like flu. I was getting such severe pains in my head that I wanted to double check that I had no infection as I was on the pain killers every 4 hours. This is very unlike me and although it was like a neuralgia pain it was the severest I have had for ages, so felt worthy of being checked. Anyway there was no infection and I was told it should ease this week and today thankfully its much better. When it was hurting to that degree stitching and studying became hard to concentrate on. Whilst I was at the doctors I got my flu jab booked. They seem to be having real problems in our surgery again as I usually get the jab at the end of September and its now going to be the end of this month. Originally they said we couldn't book until Oct 4th and then it got put back to Oct 11th.
I overheard a conversation the other day that I really hope is not true. Apparently the new machines for the unit are not likely to come until next year which I can live with. But what was disturbing was that someone has forgot to order ones that do the kind of dialysis that helps people who have been on it a long time. Great!!!! It wasn't the sole reason for getting them I know, but this is the only time now we can have machines that do this as the NHS won't buy any more for many years. Its not just me that needs this function as there are many others who need this feature and I am sure more in the future.
Stitching wise I should be finished with MVIII Part 10 by the end of the weekend at the latest and I am really pleased to have caught up with it all year so far. I also got a nice stash parcel the other day with several small charts and lots of threads. The threads were for up coming Chatelaine designs-suprise suprise. But I also decided to treat myself to the WDW for Lizzie Kate's Snippit Meow so that will likely be a small up coming WIP soon too.

Busy day and MSN 7

Today has been so busy. I decided to go into town for a break and knew that I would need to try and finish the first part of an assignment today so I could move onto study week 2 tomorrow. Well after about 6/7 hours the assignment is done-don't know how well but its done as there is a limit of what you can put in 300 words. Thats actually what I found hardest condensing it all down-leaves no room for waffle lol.
Added to that I haven't been feeling great for a few days. I seem to have a virus which I have had on and off for awhile but for the last 4/5 days I have had swollen glands and neuralgia. I don't feel ill as such, just tired and sore is the best way to describe my head.
One piece of good news is I finally got MSN 7. It hasn't let me sign in previously without getting a message that I am stuck behind a firewall lol. Even the MSN site said they didn't know a fix when I Googled the error message. But I tried again and found another forum with a possible solution and it worked so now I can be as animated as everyone else.

Quick update

Dialysis was fine today and the machines are back to normal so thats one less thing to worry about.
I decided to get some studying done this afternoon as I felt reasonably ok so lay down with my text book to read and promptly fell asleep. I didn't even realise I was that tired, but have alot of missed sleep to catch up on.
I also finished my Jane Green book, so will be off to bed soon and pick anoter out of my collection to start.

What a few days

Well its been an eventful few days and I am not sure where to start. As you know I started my OU course and I am about half way through the first week and I am really enjoying it. I got my first assignment back on Monday which although counts for nothing as its only a practice I was keen to do it. Firstly I wanted to make sure that I set it all out correctly and as it is submitted via email I fet it necessary to check all that worked. So I rattled it off last Thursday as I joined late and my tutor wanted it asap if it was to be done. Well as I say it was returned on Monday and the comments were positive and I would have passed if it was graded, so thats given me a big boost.
The weekend wasn't easy as it was the annual conference to do with the group I left and as I helped set it up I still want it to do well. I chose not to attend this year but I understand all went well and the group is pushing forward. Also the last week hasn't been easy as its the anniversary of Sara going into hospital and of the last time I visited which was all over the conference last year. Lots of bad memories have been coming in but also some good ones are coming back so that is good.
But today was beyond anything I could have hoped for. I went to clinic and felt in need of not mentioning it as I wanted to go and then post the news. I sincerely expected it to not be great but I couldn't have been more wrong. My consultant has referred me to the transplant surgeon because they think there is a high probability they can do something. Its also looking very possible that what they do may not be far off the usual kind of transplant and other surgeons maybe willing to have a go. I was under the impression only one was prepared to look at me so this is a bonus but raises some questions as to why they didn't look into all this earlier.
However my mum and me made it very clear to my consultant that had I not changed to him nothing would be happening in this direction and how grateful we are to him for pursuing it and getting this far. I must admit mum was quite choked but I was just gobsmacked as I fully expected to hear bad news or none at all today.
So a weird few days with quite a mixture of emotions going on but for now all is right with the world. Of course we have to face dialysis tomorrow and if its like yesterday I shall not be happy:11 out of 15 machines broke down because of a new filter that was poorly fitted over the weekend caused problems. My machine was ok but this was a double edged sword as to get everyone else working properly 3 people had to come off and go home. Of course being on the first shift with an ok machine I had done longest so although I was home early I only had 2 hours 40 mins dialysis as opposed to 4 hours. I also came off with .9 litres extra on so have been very careful with my fluid intake since. As I understand it the machines are ok as long as the maximum number of 12 are going at any one time. Thats ok on the afternoon as they only have 12 patients. Today I don't know what happened but as everyone ended up doing less yesterday that can't happen tomorrow, so if there are more problems we may have to be farmed out to other units. Watch this space for an update tomorrow.

October 1st

This is a significant date as it signalled the start of my course and the start of Medieval town Mandala (MTM), plus the next part of all the other mysteries I am in. So today I did a couple of hours study and then stitched on MVIII part 10. This part is going fast actually so I may get to start MTM this month as well.
I didn't make the tutorial today as I still feel very weak and wobbly in the legs, but actually feel fairly well in myself but my body is physically letting me down today, so I did manage 2 1/2 hours of study and I really enjoyed it.
Tonight I have updated all my blog stuff that is to do with months and seasons as I can't have a summer blinkie anymore as its no good pretending that its still summer out there. So my autumn blinkie is there, along with my October calender and october blinkie in its rack.
Tomorrow my brother is coming over for the afternoon with his girl friend but other than that it will be a stitching day with maybe a bit of study and surfing the net thrown in.