No lottery win

Got zilch on the lottery last night but with one ebay auction coming in today for £15 I am only £10 shy of the MTM kit-Yayyyyy. I may just order it anyway as I still have to decide on fabric and October is coming on us really fast. Luckily I am saving some money on this as I already have a good portion of the Rainbow Gallert petite treasure braid so as I am taking those I have out of the kit it will be reduced a bit.:-)
No other real news except I am again stitching loads as I am tired and my brain is trying to think about stuff i don't want it to so am burying myself in my stitching in a bid to not think. I am on the second corner of MVIII Part 8 and realised it probably would have looked ok with the variegated silks on the last corner if I had carried on. However I am still happy with it this way so will leave it be. I thought I would have to frog it after my first evening on the other corner as I always have the salvage edge at the bottom and start each part top left. When I took my first evenings stitching off I had started in the bottom right without realising. As luck would have it as I 'thought' it was the top left the stitches were in the correct direction AND the pattern matched. PHEW.;-)

Tired but had productive day

I managed to finish shopping for mums birthday today. Dad went out on a mission for the main part of it earlier this week and I took mum into Boots in town this morning and got her to pick something out. She chose two Sanctuary products which she wouldn't buy for herself so that is sorted. I just need to make a card this weekend and we are done and ready for Thursday.
I found crutching it round town a real effort today and feel absolutely shattered so am having a quiet day and just stitching with my feet up in front of the tele.
I have finished the first corner of MVIII part 8 so thats going well, but have been doing alot of matching up of variegated silks. This part is just two colours in a border and the blue matches ok, but the Graphite has very light to very dark patches which with the way my thread was going would have run through funny, but it looks ok now and I can start the next corner.:-)
I am nearly there on having enough money for one big Chatelaine kit and hope to sell some more stuff on Ebay and maybe strike lucky for the third week in a row on the Thunderball lottery so will be able to order the kit asap. I was keen on two other big garden kits too but am having second thoughts for various reasons on these at the moment, but the Medieval Mandala Garden is a MUST.

Productive afternoon

Spent the afternoon listing more stuff on Ebay so am 'slowly' collecting money towards my new Chatelaine purchases.
Tonight I plan on having a nice stitch and watch Big Brother eviction night and it is going to be Orlaith or Kemal who go. I am torn this week as I would like to see Orlaith go but also don't want them down to just one girl left in the house. However on balance Kemal does loads more and is very entertaining and I also think he is most likely to stay out of the two.
One piece of UK news is that it looks like they may have got 2 more of the 4 attempted bombers from July 21st so that is 1 more to find. Problem is they probably weren't working alone and this problem is not going away any time soon. :-(

Medallion Picture

Thought I would show my first attempt at using the Medallion stamp. I used red and black paper and card and gold embossing. I am still mastering embossing so used up more paper than was necessary lol. However here you can see a 6 layer Medallion also known as Mandala and with this design you can have up to 15 layers. I realised doign this today I am lacking in some papercrafting equipment so may have a little online spending later.:-)

Quick late night quiz

How You Life Your Life

You seem to be straight forward, but you keep a lot inside. You're laid back and chill, but sometimes you care too much about what others think. You prefer a variety of friends and tend to change friends quickly. You tend to dream big, but you worry that your dreams aren't attainable.

How Do You Live Your Life?

Yep thats pretty much me. Goodnight all.

Ebay stuff is here

My stamps and glitters came from Ebay today-hows that for a fast service. I am going to have a go in a minute and see what its like.
It is soooo cold here today and I could do with the fire on. It IS July isn't it? I haven't somehow been magicked to another season like Winter when I wasn't looking? There is supposed to be a mini air display with the red arrows on the sea front today but the weather has closed in so I don't think the arrows will fly. They sometimes come over our house when they are turning which is always a treat to see but not sure its going to be our lucky day. This weekend is the Heli days festival which is OK if you like helicopters otherwise its all a bit dull-be an early start into town though before the car park fills up on Saturday morning.
No other real news here and I hope you are all OK.

Ebay buy

Well folks I succumbed to the Bay of E yesterday. I have lately been looking at Medallion stamps and after watching show on them on Createandcraft on Sunday I was sunk. So I got one stamp, a set of glitter, glue and applicator on Ebay to have a go and will let you know how I get on.
This morning I finished my rotation piece Royal Holiday and will move onto MVI soon. Inbetween I am working on my two Chatelaine Mysteries and a small yet undecided piece.
This afternoon I made a phone call to UK Transplant to order some stuff for the fundraiser I am helping to organise and have bagged loads of freebies suitable for old and young alike to help promote organ donation. Although I am not eligible for a Kidney at the moment if there were more avilable Sara could still be with us now and the the couple of people in my unit who are desperate for one wouldn't be suffering now.:-(
Unfotunately we lost another couple of patients in the last week, one was kind of expected but the other was a nice old man who had a sudden heart attack who had made several friends so its quite sad at the moment.
Hope you are all having a good day.

Remember the biscuit post?

Where I was musing the fact that having a broken foot and resting mean't lots of biscuit eating and that in turn I hadn't put on wieght? Well underwent fluid monitoring today and found out that I have put on about a Kilo which is just over 2 pounds in weight. Its not too much but easily explains why my BP has been so low as they have been trying to remove a Kilo in water thats not there. Hopefully now my BP will stabilise and I will start to feel a bit better. One of my major worries is being as I was about 4 years ago when I couldn't cross the lounge without almost fainting and ended up being given a special tablet to raise my BP. As I am still on the tablet it was a real worry in case it wasn't working and its possible thats still the case but as my BP was generally better today and I have put on wieght thats not so likely.
Stitching wise I am getting stuck into Midi I and really enjoying it, but been given a suprise early password for MVIII-arrghhhhhhh which to do lol. All those reading this who are doing a mystery go and check in case you also have a password. Midi I didn't have an early password thank goodness but she may have done it and early release for others. Luckily MVIII part 8 is small and involves just 2 colours so I think it will stitch up fairly quickly.

Re:Feeling better

I feel loads better today and its because I woke up with a cold. I think its being trying to come out which is why I have felt rough. I still feel like my BP is low so dreading tomorrow and dialysis. Blood Pressure needs to be a certain level to remove excess fluid as in theory it drops more as you take fluid off. I am going on fluid monitoring tomorrow which was a complete disaster last time but it needs to be determined if my low BP is lack of fluid or another problem.
Fluid monitoring is an extra machine that attaches to the filter on the dialysis machine and it tells the staff whether you have the right amount of fluid in your body. However the snag is that to tie the results up the patients BP needs to be taken every hour and as mine drops they don't then wish to remove any more fluid even though I feel ok. The strange thing is that if I wasn't on the monitoring my BP wouldn't be checked and then it would just carry on removing the fluid. Its kind of catch 22 but I do understand their viewpoint and the staff understand mine so I think at least that is half the battle won. We are after all working towards a common goal so I am going to try and keep calm and get it sorted.
Hope you are all having a good weekend.

Quick update

I am feeling a little better tonight but my big news is:

I won the lottery.

Ok it is only £15 on the Thunderball-got 3 on one line and one and the Thunderball on another but I am not complaining.

Feeling rough

Only a short blog today as I feel really rough. I went into town this mornign and got a couple of pairs of joggers from the Next sale and have been preparing my tablets for the week this afternoon and stitching a bit.
Tomorrow I am off to the big Next down the road which also does petite clothest to see what they have in the sale. Call me a mean old crone but I fail to see why Next need to open at 6:00am at the start of a sale. When I worked in retail it was bad enough starting at 8:00am but if someone had said we were opening 2 hours earlier than that I think most staff would refuse to come in-unless they were paid vast amounts for it. Come to think of it that should have been counted as unsociable hours so we should have got more for coming in early but in the later years all extra wages ceased when they were finacially in trouble. Ahhh the good old days when we got triple time for a Bank Holiday lol.

A new start

I am just off to watch Big Brother's eviction night but wanted to write that I did start Midi Mystery I yesterday. I don't expect to finish it in the timescale but it is an enjoyable and relaxing stitch so far.
The unit was ok but my BP was still mega low and causing all kinds of headaches for me and the staff alike-not literal headaches as my head is too swimmy for that but I can see this is going to be a saga of some degree. Decided not to let it bother me as I am sure it will sort itself one way or another and I don't need any more stress.
For some reason it has left me feeling terribly washed out and tired so i will probably not come back online tonight and just curl up in bed and chill.
Have a good weekend all.

Roses

These roses were fresh picked from the garden this morning and were so beautiful I had to share:



The smaller orange one in the middle is called Tequila Sunrise, the yellow one is a peace rose and the peach/pink ones I don't know the names of.
This is a close up of Peace's centre:

A little finish

Finished this a short while ago. It is Midi Mystery I tryout:



Not sure if this is ok as usually I think I see the picture and can't work my posts round it but just have the code this time.

What a day

I am so tired again and vowed to Blog everyday but have nothing to put so may change it to just blogging when I have news. Today was not nice as I had to spend over an hour longer at dialysis just to try and get my Blood Pressure up a bit. We have a sort of agreement to let me go if its no lower than 80/50 as I suffer from low BP anyway so that is 'acceptable' for me. However today it just wasn't budging and I got so frustrated just sitting there like a lemon waiting for something to happen. Eventaully the nurse said some peoples BP goes up when they stand-in most people it drops which is why they wouldn't let me go. But in desperation we decided to see if I was one of those people and I WAS which was good as I got to go home but bad as we could have done it ages before lol.
One bit of amusement was that they are trialling new modern dialysis machines and as I was almost the first in/last to go I got to see how it worked although I wasn't on it. I thought I was going to crack up with laughter when I heard this mobile phone tune and then realised it was the machine singing to say it was done. It was a novelty today but not sure how it would be with 15 of them all going off at once esp if they all have different tunes going. Watch this space as soon they will have dialysis machine ringtones to download lol. As long as the Crazy frog isn't one I could live with it. :-)
Off for a rest and a cuppa in a bit. Hope you are all Well.

So tired today

For various reasons I had an extremely bad night last night and I am now really tired today.
I managed to get myself going and got to the fracture clinic a bit early and it is mixed news on that front. I am out of plaster which is what I was hoping for but I didn't bargain on the extra part of it. The bit of my foot I broke tends to take longer to heal-why I don't know but apparently it does, so although a plaster is not necessary I have to wear my walking shoe and use crutches for another 6 weeks and if the pain gets worse I have to return to a plaster cast. :-( I remember the plaster technician telling me ages ago that it is an injury that heals itself but the plaster and shoe are more for pain control so I guess thats why I don't need the plaster at the moment. Oh well on the flipside is the fact that I was going to get some really lovely sandals this year but as its going to be August 30th now when I go back its not worth it. So bearing that in mind I will use the money for stash instead-so every cloud has a silver lining as they say lol.
I have been working out dates and commitments that are looming and will now be on crutches for my next hospital appt and our stitchers GTG. However I am determined I am not going to let it stop me and I will just work around the problems but also take it easy as I really want to be free of this lot before the Sara fun day which is the weekend after I go back to the fracture clinic so that may not be possible either. Although IF I am still on crutches it won't stop me going, just maybe not taking part in some of it-maybe leave the bouncy castle to the kids if there is one lol.

Today is going slowly

Today is going slowly and I am bored. I don't feel like doing a huge amount after dialysis so have surfed online and been planning my stitching. I also tried to do a blog quiz but the results page was full of adverts so after trying twice I gave up.
The weather is horrible today but at least the weekend was beautiful so I got to make the most of it and had the most relaxing one that I have had in quite some time.
I have been having alot of long thinks about the group I left and I am still 100% sure that I made the right decision at the correct time. I have been trying hard to do my usual thing of trying to find the reason why I am to blame but I know in my heart of hearts that to stay I would have gone down and down and I am sure it would have slowly destroyed me and no one gets like that by themselves. I am not sure to this day if I reacted worse to some of the stuff that happened because my friend had died and I was still coping with that or if I would have reacted like that anyway. But whatever the reason I felt deeply hurt and/or betrayed and you can't work with people who make you feel like that. I concede it probably wasn't intended to make me feel as bad as it did and it was a combination of circumstances that led to it, but it made me feel worse than I have felt in a very long time and thats when it has to stop.
The only thing I miss is not having people to talk to who understand the illness and what it does to you.Looking back I haven't felt able to talk to any of them for a long time because of the problems we encountered and the fact that alot of my trust was getting slowly eroded. Only one person who I helped alot did I reach out for when times were tough but more often than not I got no response or turned agony aunt that I just felt worse than ever.
So a new chapter starts though this is still all very much in my head and will be for quite some time but I am finding even the bad days are not as bad as they once were.

Mind made up on stitching

Today I decided to start the tryout for Midi I and then when thats done start the proper piece but have decided that I am not going to go all out to keep up and stitch on it between my rotation if I fancy a break-this is also known as the having your cake and eating it kind of stitching but it works for me lol.
I do want to get my number of WIPS down but I promised myself I would finish 2 things then start something, hence reducing my WIP pile and my stash. At one point this year I had 24 WIPS which is my highest ever and now have 20 so its heading in the right direction.
Right off to get a cuppa and stitch some more on the tryout. Later I am off to the outlet Next and sitting in the garden.
Oh and if everything goes well this week I have just 2 more full days in plaster. Not getting my hopes up toooo much but I am reasonably optimistic that I can get the plaster off and have some form of support for a bit on Tuesday. If you pardon the pun that is at least a step in the right direction lol.

Am I stupid?

Well see for yourself as I just took a test that I saw on Gina's and Scully's blogs:




I must be more stupid than the test says as I read the result wrong and thought it was telling me I was el thicko lol.

The simple things in life

I have just spent the best day that I have had in ages. I went shopping in town with mum this morning and only bought a few magazines. This afternoon I was just settling to my cross stitch when my friend said she was on her way. We had made tentative arrangements to meet and she had left the details on my mobile and I hadn't switched it on. Well we went to a park in town had an ice cream and let the world go by. It was really nice and very relaxing and although I feel somewhat antisocial at the moment I am glad I made the effort to go.
I finished my rotation round tonight which has posed a dilemma for me. Do I carry on and start the next round or start Midi I. I think I will see what grabs me tomorrow on that.
I also won a fiver on the Thunderball lottery so all in all a good day.