Thought I would put these photo’s up from Wednesday, I was having a mad moment and even though throughout the day at work I could see the showers coming down, I thought it would be a good day to pop up to the allotment. After running to the shed (which is thankfully up!) at least a couple of times to save myself from the hailstorms I called the other half to get me. On the plus side things are growing *happy dance* enjoy

P.s my allotment is the one’s with the tipi’s

Till next time

Nessy

Hope you are well, It’s been quite busy over here and I’m settling into a lovely rhythm.

So what have I been up to, well I finished my first ever handspun socks, and my are they lovely. I’m still trying to get the threads thin enough and sadly this yarn was a bit bulky so I had to knit the toe of the second sock with commercial yarn, its a start though. Cue some lovely sock photo’s, BamBam decided that he wanted some attention so decided to photo bomb a couple!!

Golly how I love that cat, since Felix left us a short while ago he has started to become very focused on us and always wanting attention and cuddles, especially cuddles he loves nothing more than hanging onto my shoulder while I potter around cleaning the house ect.

Me and my sister also put ourselves forward to do the three legged race on Bank Holiday Monday, it was an amazing day and we have now been informed that we meet the official record and the Isle of Man is in the record books, very happy about this.

Sadly no photo’s of us racing, though there is a very dodgy slow motion video of us running on youtube, I seriously didn’t know my boobs could look that funny!!!

In other news today me and my sisters and mother went wedding dress shopping for my middle sister, we had already gone last year as a tester and picked out the perfect one, this was just to check out the new plus sized dresses they had in. Was a lovely morning and Jessica tried on a few more but decided on the one we picked last year and she signed the contract today. All very exciting, cannot wait for the wedding!!

From left to right, Jessica (the one getting married), Corrine (the eldest)  and my mother!

Well that’s it for now, I really should learn to do updates daily, might add that into my target for next week!!

Till next time

Nessy

Wow its May already, time has really flown this year and I’m certain the rest of it will fly by even more.

So even though I’m a day late I’m going to put up my targets for May, fingers crossed I hit them all. To keep myself from making never ending lists, I’m going to have up to 5 targets in each of the following groups, crafting, cooking, allotment and money saving/thrifting.

Crafting

• Aim to knit 31 hexi-flats (currently 1 day late but really going to push for one a day this month)
• Start on sister’s wedding quilt, I’m going to be buying some of the fabric this weekend and doing a tester circle (her wedding quilt is going to be the Single Girl quilt)
• Actually start on my project life scrapbook with the aim of at least sorting out weeks with the aim to keep up to date from now on.
• Knit one pair of socks
• Sew up at least 10 stars for ongoing Halloween quilt.

Cooking

• Make lunches for at least 4 days out of the week
• Completely eradicate non handmade bread out of our diet
• Serve at least 1 new recipe

Allotment

• Go up every day when Michael is on a late and try to get up on Michael’s off days
• Start succession planting
• Keep on top of the stupid weeds which have started to grow
• Sort out whether you need more seeds of anything

Money saving/thifting

• Keep to a shopping budget of £25
• Cycle into and out of work at least 3 days a week, not including next week as only working two days
• No un-necessary spending
• Look at all your cosmetic items and see what needs using up ect and sort it all out
• Look into reusable food bags and also glass or suitable storage for soups ect.

Ok I think thats about it, anything else and I will pop them onto the list. I’m hoping to have a really productive month this month, fingers crossed. I have started my first food budget for May and we are currently looking good for our food budget ect. Hopefully will pop that up later this week as will be shopping on Saturday. Thankfully we have alot of stock in so I’m not looking at seeing a problem with the amount I want to spend for a while yet.

Till next time

Nessy x

So from the above I’d like to state a small change to this space, at the moment I am focusing more on saving money and on actually making something of the dream I have, so there will be less crafting, well expensive crafting like scrapbooking, I’ve cancelled everything bar the project life kit and if I don’t start using that soon, its bye bye to that. I’ve changed my fabric kits around so now I receive a lovely cheap solid kit which I have ideas of a lovely rainbow quilt for the bed. I have already paid fully for my sock yarn kit which I will enjoy getting this year, and I have stashes of the stuff left so that is ok.

I’m going to be focusing more on saving money and moving towards my self sufficient dream more. I have my eye on a couple of houses (hence the major uproar in situation) and well I want either of them as they are perfect for what I want in different ways, fingers crossed that a) we can get a mortgage for the amount needed (its quite a lot but I do have my fingers crossed) and b) if we manage to get a, sorted then they are both still around.

So the first thing I am trying to learn is money management, I tend to have the habit that when I’m having a bad day/week ect then I spend money, not on clothing and the such like but on food, which does not help the diet at all. To go hand in hand with money management I’ve set myself quite a strict budget, which I never however hard I try manage to stick to, so yeah it’s going to be a rough couple of months till I get used to the new budget.

First thing I needed to change was how much me and himself pay into the joint account for bills, with having to find the new bill of Oscars hydrotherapy out of our money and with me being real serious about saving as much as we can (seriously I want one of those houses!!), I decided to take the new bill out of our generic monthly food bill, this has cut how much we would normally spend on food down to £25 a week!!! And I am hoping to get below this or bang on every week, no going over unless it seriously is impossible not to do. Sadly we only have one Tesco and couple of Co-op’s and a few Shoprite’s over here, so its going to be quite difficult, but with the new Saturday change of taking Oscar into Ramsey we now have a reason to visit the lovely grocery man, so I’m hoping to get quite abit of local produce until my allotment kicks up.

Now this means that I have to meal plan, I don’t mind meal planning, to be honest I quite like it, I just hate the lack of space we have where we are at the moment, golly I dream of a proper kitchen all to myself. Anyhow due to the amount of money above I’m thinking that I will be putting my weekly menu up here on a Sunday with the costing ect, this way I can start to see where I’m going wrong. Also as always I’m wanting to get more and more self-sufficient so prepared for a lot of home cooking. I’ve already decided unless I have to, all cakes, biscuits ect will be home cooked, yummy.

Ok well that’s it for now, I hope if you are reading this blog still that you understand why I’m moving the priorities of this little space, and don’t worry I will still be posting my crafting adventures just hand in hand with my cost saving/self sufficient ways that I want to do. Also a lot of the crafting items are now going to be “useful” items, I’m wanting to start a couple of blankets ect up, which I’ll pop progress up.

Till next time

I’m home now which is comforting in the way that I can now get back into a routine, the snow over here will cause me quite a few problems with my allotment, even now its still freezing every night so there is no way I can plant anything out sadly, though it doesn’t mean I cannot work on it!

So my goals for April, I am really a full on list person, I could list items to the moon and back, sometimes I do. Anyhow onto my goals, I really cannot fathom whether they are goals or to-do’s but they will do!

• Keep to our grocery budget
• Try out at least 4 new recipes
• Lose weight!
• Start sisters wedding quilt (this includes buying some fabric for it)
• Start on a new quilt for the bed (not EPP a machine sewed one)
• Knit up 30 Hexi-flats
• Sew up at least 4 “starts” for my long overdue Halloween quilt
• Spend more time outdoors
• Start making headway at the new allotment.

And yep that’s it for now, hoping to start making headway on a couple of them tonight, but we shall see.

In other news I am now 100% sick of chocolate.

Till next time

Nessy

Anyway a couple of days ago we went to Cadburys World, I cannot tell you how excited I was and I really enjoyed myself, so much so I didn’t take any photos bar a couple for my Project Life, oh and Michael took loads of the train outside!! I would recommend it to anyone who has kids!

Go go Power Rangers!

During the beginning of the tour alot was done with projection’s and handmade mini villages and houses, I was amazed by them had to watch every last one!

And the train Michael took a load of photo’s off

Onto today, we went back to Abbey Park, as Michael’s sister was around and he eldest hates dogs. We had a lovely day and made a couple of new friends, especially a lovely German Shepherd.

Michael and Oscar!

Joey enjoying the ruins

One of my favourite things to do after we’ve given Joey a good run out is try and find him, not in a bad way, its just when he gets tired he likes to hide in bushes so we cannot get his ball, he seems to have an instant reaction to run after it even if he’s tired. We found it quite funny when we found him under the seats!

Joey and Oscar meeting new friends, you can just see Oscar trying to get over the ruins to say hi to the Dad. Was such a lovely dog, very friendly!

And because I love it, a trying to be professional photo of Joey

In other news I decided I would try doing another SKA sock, hoping to do quite alot on the boat tomorrow.

P.S love my laptop!!!

Hugs

Nessy x

Well I have to say its been cold lately hasn’t it? My other half went on facebook last friday and found out that home had a huge snowfall, how upset was I, well very, quite intolerable that day. I didn’t mean to be but I love snow and it was typical that I was on holiday when we get it, might of not helped that I got a text from my work colleague saying how much I would of loved the stress that day, grrrrrrrrrrr.

Anyhow scroll onto Saturday and we had such a lovely snowfall! Not allot but just enough, it made me super happy. Even better that we decided to go on the Great Central Way that day, whats better than snow and trains!! It made the day very magically, I felt that I was on the train to Hogwarts lol! We managed to get 4 journeys out of the day and we managed to freeze most of faces and hands of!!

A bit of back story, my other half’s dad likes steam trains when he was young so when he brought up Michael and his sister, they did allot of train spotting when kids which brought on, depending how you look at it a natural love for steam trains, and yes one day we will be that weird couple which has a train set outside in the garden lol. I don’t mind his love for steam trains there is something so romantic about them, I think it helps that we have always had steam trains at home, mind you not as big (I had such a shock my first time over here looking at the trains!) Might also help that I bought my first 00 gauge train this holiday, it’s very cute!

Super nerd mode on, even bought a layout magazine to see how to make a layout for it! Thinking of making one to keep under the bed! Super nerd mode off.

Anyhow onward with the photos, sorry there is allot!

You can see how much snow was on the track due to you not being able to see the sleepers!

A must his and her photo’s!

One of the best things about the day is that the other half’s dad was trainspotting and taking photo’s of the trains that day, so he manged to get a couple of us on the train, which was kinda easy as we spent most of the train journeys with our heads out of the windows lol, took a bit of coordination though.

And because seriously how could I not put this up, makes me laugh every time I see it, official crazy person on board!!!!

And one of Michael’s dad!

And because it looked magical, when we were driving down I kept looking up, felt like Narnia!

The field’s from the trains.

In other news, I’m going to Cadburys world tomorrow, I’ve been such a child getting excited about it, cannot wait to share my tour with you when I get back, if I can stop myself scoffing all the chocolate lol

Till next time, Hugs

Nessy

Joey and Oscar enjoying the walk

The lovely crocus beds, I will defiantly have to see if I can replicate this slightly, on a small scale at the allotment, as the purple with the white was amazing.

Sadly we missed out on the miniature trains, maybe next time

And on the trip back to Michael’s parents house, Joey must of realized that we weren’t happy with him going in all the muddy puddles, so he stayed mostly in the boot, couldn’t help the cute photo.

In other news, I have a slight problem with my SKA March socks, sadly they are defiantly not the right size, I’m frogging them back till I’m back at home with bigger needles, and plotting what to knit instead, sigh.

Till next time

Nessy x

In more happier news I managed to finish my February SKA socks, and its such a  shame I am handing them over to someone else, the yarn was perfect and the colour even though when I started to knit I didn’t really know whether it would work and even now I do look at them and wonder but meh, they are lovely to look at.

When I finished the heel on the first sock I defiantly wasn’t thinking correctly because they were way to big, and I couldn’t be bothered to frog them because seriously they were amazing, I remembered I joked to Michael’s dad that I would knit him a pair of socks and as we were popping over I though why not, so this last two week’s every spare moment I’ve been beavering away at these socks and a couple of day’s ago I finished them and boy are they amazing! So without further ado my first socks I made unintentionally for someone else lol. The pattern is Catnip Socks by Wendy D. Johnson, Ravelry page :http://www.ravelry.com/projects/agreenmess/catnip-socks

I’ve also decided to start on my March SKA socks with the hopes that I can finish these way before the end of the month, that way I can work towards doing some more hexi-flats and I can start my April SKA actually at the beginning of the month lol. Pattern is Leaf on the Wind by Purrlescent, Ravelry page: http://www.ravelry.com/projects/agreenmess/leaf-on-the-wind

Now in other more amazing news, a while ago at the beginning of the year I got ultra upset by my current allotment group, they sent me a letter stating that I hadn’t cultivated enough of my allotment, even though all of it was cultivated in raised beds and I had been up there for almost 4 years, not so surprisingly this was out of the blue and very shocking. I cried alot! I couldn’t believe it, to make it even worse I was there at the beginning of the allotment’s I was the first secretary the allotment group had and I’d even been Vice Chairman, I just couldn’t understand why this could happen without any prior warning which they stated had to be done in the rules. Having to decide on what to do I sat back and let them take the allotment, my other half took everything away even my shed, which now resides in my dad’s backgarden.

The day after receiving the letter, I spoke to a good friend of mine and she said I should put myself forward for a new allotment group which was starting up, which I did, I loved my allotment more than anything and to be as self-sufficient as possible is something that I really aspire to, I love reading homemaker/self-sufficient blogs. Anyhow not expecting anything of it, 3 weeks ago I got a text saying someone dropped out and I could look at my allotment that weekend with everyone else as they had just started up. So I did, and I am not again the proud owner of an allotment, it is around twice as much as I was paying and it is slightly smaller than my last but its amazing, I’ve been up there every weekend, progress is alot slower than I want it to be due to my knee, and as I’m in England for this week and next week so nothing will be done, but its amazing. I managed to dig over one raised bed, which when we get back will have onion’s in.

All the plots together!

And my cute plot, you can just see the rope which separates it from the others

So yep, that’s it at the moment, currently in England at the other half’s parents enjoying a much needed holiday.

Till next time, Nessy

Bear with me there is allot of catch up and allot of photo’s lol.

Well January has been a rough month, and I completely forgot to keep this updated, though this is all new to me so we shall see how we go lol.

So nothing much has happened on the crafty side, I finally finished my January Sock Knitters Anonymous socks, Water for the Elephants, and I love love love them, they are my first colourwork so I think they turned out quite well. Cannot wait till my next go at colourwork. Sorry about the wierd photo’s finished them when I couldn’t walk so really couldn’t take decent pic’s! Rav link - http://www.ravelry.com/projects/agreenmess/water-for-the-elephants

Onto January’s goodies, I went a bit shopping happy this month, and got myself some 1.5 60 degree diamonds to hopefully, fingers crossed, finally finish my EPP quilt that I started around two years ago lol. I really didn’t think it would take this long to make, but in all honesty I haven’t really been going gun ho on it, so I’m not surprised its taking this long. Its a goal to finish it this year, so watch this space.

I also got some swooon worthy fabric, I’ve been eyeing up the Lizzy House fabric since it came out but never really had the money to splurge, then when I did have the money couldn’t find anywhere that had the whole collection for sale. It really was by fluke that I found Backstitch, a UK company selling it and I couldn’t resist not getting it, so say hello to my new FQ set! I’ve got the perfect quilt Idea for this fabric, its going to be soooo swoon worthy when finished. Oh and I couldn’t recommend Backstitch enough, postage was super quick (came allot quicker than I thought) and the fabric was wrapped lovely, put it all back in to keep dust and dog hairs at bay . I will defiantly be buying more fabric from them.

Last not least on the buying, last year I tried to do the whole Project Life thing and never really finished, so this year as a major goal I wanted to start again and really keep up to date with it, as so much is happening this year I thought it would be the easiest thing to do, plus I love the whole idea of it all. So I finally got all my supplies, I’m doing PL Monday to Sunday, so hoping to sit down this weekend/next week (Its superbowl so we shall see lol) and start on week 1-5 and hopefully, maybe wishful thinking, but I’d love to put it up here monthly continually one day in the week, will figure out which day soon . Oh and yes I did buy the whole Seafoam Edition lol, I couldn’t resist it to be honest.

Onto the rest of the month, I managed to have my knee problem flare up (It seem’s to lock into place, so I’m in mega pain and cannot move it. I’ve seen so many doctors about this problem and they all day the same thing, cartilage tear. I managed to get abit further this time and all the way to a surgeon, who refused to do anything as I can still walk, he was quite arrogant when he was saying it too. Sigh. Ahh well just got to wait till it goes again.

Ok, last lot of catch up now, onto my February family photos, this was the one thing I wanted to make sure we did, as I’m dieting (properly now) lost 7.8 pounds so far in the new year (this is with my two weeks of non movement) *High Five!!* anyhow back to why, yeah its really so I can see myself and the “family” change over the year, also I think it looks amazing in my Project Life.

Oh and the most amazing thing to happen this month SNOW!!! yep snow on the Isle of Man lol, very rare (well on lower ground anyway) and as you can see from the photo’s not allot but enough for me and the dogs, I managed to take the dogs to the headlands (5/10 min walk from the house) and throw a snowball so all is well with the world this year! Anyhow I thought I’d put some photo’s of that up too.

Oscar enjoying the snow!

The snow on the mountains

My boy’s enjoying the snow

Joey enjoying the snow

Till next time!

Nessy x