the joy of giving

At this time of year I always get hugely excited by the prospect of receiving Christmas cards in the post, largely because the internet has taken away a lot of the more personal form of communication and many people simply don't go to the trouble of writing a simple letter or card anymore.  Christmas, it seems for now, is different and we still get quite a number of Christmas cards.  The excitement of receiving a batch each day in the post is a lovely distraction from the usual plethora of junk mail/bills.  And, likewise, I really enjoy writing Christmas cards.  Sometimes, it does seem a bit of a chore, but I try to imagine how it would be if every person feeling this way decided to stop sending them altogether and they slowly stopped landing on the doormat (in our case, a wooden box outside).  So, I keep writing them every year and it gets me well and truly in the Christmas spirit.

However, as I was writing a batch yesterday, it occurred to me that I have developed a rather simple 'class' system when it comes to writing a card for a person.  I don't just buy one huge batch of the same cards and send them to every person on the list.  Rather, I buy cards depending on how well I know the person, their age, their personality etc.  If they are very close family members, then they often receive a card that has been sold as an individual (you know, the ones that say 'Happy Christmas, Mum').  I seem to be incapable of writing or buying cards any other way, and, although it can be fun to select each card based on the person receiving it, it does seem to add an element of stress to the act of giving, and at times, can take away from the 'joy of giving'.

progress report

I really love the whole world of blogging.  I think you could say that I am becoming addicted to reading blogs and browsing various different Flickr pages.  The trouble with this is that it takes me away from writing my own blog and while I have so many things I want to blog about, I never seem to find the time to get anything down on paper (so to speak).  I also have trouble finding time to take any halfway decent photos.  This is much harder to do with small children as I can't just abandon them while I try and pose a particular shot and with the weather being so gloomy, I struggle to find the right light.

So anyway, this is basically a quick post to show how well my blanket is now coming along.  All the squares have been knitted and mum and I are now in the process of sewing them all together.  Note to self : next time round try and join them as I go along- I think it might be less time consuming than trying to join them at the end!

a wet and windy monday

I've got so many things whirling around in my mind at the moment that I don't really know what to write about. Maybe the weather? Blimey, has it been horrible this last week or so and today is no different. I often feel that my mood, and my what I wear, are extremely influenced by the weather outside, so I guess it's no surprise that I'm feeling the strain of today- and it's only 2.40pm. This wasn't helped by me, the boys and Daisy being woken up an hour earlier than usual by my husband heading off to work early- aaaghhh! I could have done with that extra hours sleep! Touch wood, at least the boys felt the same way and have kindly gone down easily for their nap giving me (hopefully) a couple of hours 'me' time, a chance to unwind and relax, mentally.

Moving onto other things, I have been meaning to post a couple of pictures of some of my knitting accomplishments just to show that I can knit and have actually made things. I'd like to dig out all of my old knitted toys and share them on Flickr, but for now they are buried in the ether of my parent's loft and will probably not see the light of day for a very long time. Anyway, to start with here are a couple of scarves I knitted, some time ago now, which I recently dug up from the depths of my wardrobe ready for some possible winter wearing.

I was really inspired to knit the pale blue and green one after buying these mittens from The Gap.

I loved the scarf that accompanied them, but felt a bit put off by the price and decided I could make one for less (in hindsight I think that the Gap one was probably cheaper after taking into account the cost of the wool and the man hours put into knitting my scarf, but I did enjoy the process and it is very warm and snuggly).  I did so love the commercials for this particular winter season.  I've been trying to find an image, but as I cannot remember exactly what year I made these scarves, a picture of my mittens will have to do instead.

To be honest the pink scarf did not turn out as snuggly as the blue one. I definitely had the knitting bug by then, but if I recall, I chose the wool based on the pink colours and also possibly to match some pale pink gloves I already had, so I think it was knitted in regular DK knit and not in the softer, chunkier yarn of my blue scarf.

thank you

I can't tell you how chuffed to bits I am that someone found this and made it a 'favourite'. I am as new to flickr as I am to blogging, so to have someone in the abyss of the world wide web come across a photo of mine has pleased me no end- and after only a few weeks of posting photos. I don't even know the name of this flower growing in my mum's garden (a daisy, perhaps?), I simply liked the colour of it. Thank you, for making my day! xx

almost there....

I am knitting my last square.  The end is getting nearer.

more of this and more of that

Well, it's been a busy week around here with alot of things happening on many fronts.  Did I say that the conservatory is now finished?  Apart from painting the walls and furnishing how we would like, the basic structure is complete and the boys can now use it as an extra room to play in and I LOVE it!
Last Saturday was Halloween (which I love) and for the first time since the boys were born we decided to participate in all the festivities again:  we hung up some decorations, made some cute biscuits, carved a pumpkin etc.  We found cute little spider outfits for the boys and Daisy donned her ladybird costume and off we strolled down the street.

We didn't trick or treat, that will be next year, but we had a ton of callers to our house including the cutest Darth Vader I have ever seen.  Mum and dad came round for a bite to eat and to see some fireworks, but this was not such a success as it is becoming apparent that one of our boys is having issues with the dark/fireworks and won't stand outside, or even in the conservatory, to watch them.
Sunday was James' birthday so we went off to his dad's for presents and a curry and came back with a gorgeous chocolate cake- yummy!
James had Monday and Tuesday off work, so after securing the boys a preschool place (more on that to come) we set off to the park to enjoy some beautiful, Autumnal weather.

Tuesday was foul weather so we had a day of retail therapy, well I did, at Bluewater and then it was back to normal for the rest of the week with all our usual activities (swimming, Jo Jingles, storyrhymes).
And finally, last night was the night that most places chose to have firework displays in honour of Guy Fawkes night (5th November).  We are lucky in that there is always one round the corner from my parents house so we decided to take our eldest twin and leave the youngest and Daisy with my dad.  A week after our attempt at fireworks and it is now extremely obvious that he is absolutely terrified of them- such a contrast to his brother who was enthralled by them "look at the big fy-a-works, mummy".

a bit of this and a bit of that

This week seems to have passed by in a bit of a blur, like most of this year, really.  What with all our usual activities- swimming, Jo Jingles, playgroup and meeting friends, the days have just whizzed by.  Even at this age the boys still sleep all afternoon so our day to day activities are usually confined to mornings only, still, I feel like I have achieved (for me) a lot this week- including a spot of baking in honour of National Baking Week.

Most importantly, I have resumed knitting!!!! Yes, I dug out all my squares...

...lined them up on my bed to work out how many more I need to knit...

...and actually started another square! Go me!!

It does help that this was a project for my mum and I to work on together and as she has been spurred on to do more knitting, it kind of gave me the kick up the backside that I needed to start up again.

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happy birthday, daisy (for yesterday)

You're still my number one xx

i heart biscuits

Well, I did make my biscuits, even though technically my hubbie did end up baking them with me, and I settled down this afternoon to enjoy them with a nice cup of tea.  One of the reasons I decided to resume blogging is that I love getting a glimpse into the life of people and I marvel at how photographs can capture simple, everyday routines.  One of my favourite blogs to read at the moment is Attic24  and so in honour of this blog and my new ventures into blogging I decided to use my lovely strawberry, blue Cath Kidston mug and a floral Cath Kidston plate (both I'd forgotten I even had) and try my hand at this sort of photography.  I think that clearly I may need to work on my photographic skills somewhat, but I am happy with my pretty, pink biscuits. 

The recipe came from one of the free Asda magazines which featured their Tickled Pink campaign.


Now, yesterday I was feeling very blah, but today I feel much better.  The sun is shining and although my hubbie has gone back to work, I have felt determined to tackle any problems/issues the builders/children can throw at me.  We have had one minor/major crisis on the building front- the roof for our conservatory has been made 1m too short so they are doing a rush order to get it re-made and re-delivered tomorrow- but, that's something I don't have to deal with, so all is still good.


My children, however, are a different matter.  Last week, due to illness, no one went anywhere and consequently, the four of us were couped up in one, small room. Our house is very small, hence the need for the conservatory.  So, this morning I decided to take them on a walk around the block.  It's not a hugely long walk, but I think in hindsight, it was a bit too long.  Just to digress a bit and set the scene, back in March I tried to walk them down the road- a very short walk- and it was a total nightmare.  Twins (on reins) who aren't used to walking much (for this very reason) equals a recipe for disaster.  They moaned, wanted to be carried, dragged their feet and basically refused to walk.  It was awful!! But this was March and I have since done that particular walk a few more times with more success so I decided that they could handle this slightly longer route.  And they did handle the first part really well.  They enjoyed looking in other people's gardens and being out in the fresh air.... until about three quarters of the way along when it fell apart.  First one wanted to be carried, then the other one, then they both did.  I coaxed them along as best I could until we were almost home, and then one sat on the floor refusing to move.  Now, they are not really heavy, but I am  quite short and it is very awkward to carry one whilst walking another, so I refused to carry them. So they decided to crawl along the pavement- oh man!  I was getting sympathetic looks from passers by at this point, but I was determined to finish the walk on a high and not get hysterical.  Thankfully, we spotted one of the builders outside our house and somehow, this spurred them into almost running back.  Jeez-Louise-  I'm not sure we'll be doing that again in a hurry!  Such is my life with twins.  Even simple things like going for a walk can be fraught and tiresome, but at the end of the day, the struggle is worth it and I have to keep remembering that.  Oh, yeah, and it made those biccies taste even nicer when I got to sit down at nap-time with my CK mug and my CK plate. 

a blah-di-dah kind of week

It has been fairly safe to say that this week has been blah! Really blah, in so many ways.  So blah that all I've managed to do is lay down and read blogs, not write my own, as I had planned.  Until now- not quite what I had envisaged writing about, but probably an accurate reflection of how I'm currently feeling.
After what had been quite a warm (I think) and pleasant weekend, we woke up Monday morning to rather a lot of rain.  Not the best of weather for an outing to the woods with my friend and her two children.  My little ones are not yet able to articulate themselves fully, but they sort of realized that a trip to the woods was not going to happen, but, after a few phone calls, off to their "auntie's" (my friend) we went and all was good again.  However, by the time we got home, the ache I had in my wrists that morning, which I'd dismissed along with other 'symptoms'  had begun to resemble something more serious and I was beginning to feel quite unwell.  This was confirmed by a very unpleasant night suffered by both me and my husband- oh dear, we were ill!  Cue four days of muddling through our daily routine with the little ones (not easy juggling the demands of two year olds when you feel so blah!) sleeping when they slept and oh yeah, juggling the needs of the people building our conservatory.  Yep, work started on that this week and while this cannot be described as blah, I dislike things happening which are beyond my control and I intensely dislike anything which may interfere with my boys daily routine (like being ill and conservatory building).  Luckily, my hubbie was on hand, albeit as ill as me, to help on this front.


We have only just begun to feel normal again and we did manage to venture out yesterday where I took a quick snap of our magnolia tree in the midst of changing colour, but the weather has remained blah, as has my mood, blah!

One little nugget of brightness (silly I know) but, I've finally worked out how to get a title onto each blog post- yay!  Oh, and I'm about to make a batch of biscuits to trial a recipe I found.  Hopefully, I can post a photo of my attempt.  

medical miracle

I often catch myself staring at my boys in awe and wonder because I still can't always comprehend that I, of all people, managed to produce two children in one go.  Even after all this time I still have trouble coming to terms with this and I think I'm still in shock with the fact that there are two, identical little faces staring back at me and I wonder for the millionth time- how did that happen? And the answer is what's known as a 'medical miracle'- one egg splitting into two, for no apparent reason. 

I'm really glad my egg chose to split.

my reality

Well, so much for me starting a blog and rediscovering my love of knitting. What actually happened was I discovered I was pregnant (planned, so not a shock), found out it was with identical twins (huge shock) and subsequently, my life as I knew it, kind of disappeared. Three years (and two beautiful 2 year old boys) later, my life is beginning to re-emerge and having followed the blog of an old school friend for a while the desire to write my own blog has been rekindled.

I had originally thought that I would like to blog about my knitting, especially as at the time of my very first posting, 3 years ago, I had just resumed knitting a blanket that I had started a few years before that. I was also enjoying following some very simple patterns and making some funky little knits that I had found in a library book and I felt that my hobby was about to take off- so NOT the case!! So, I think that for now, whilst I juggle the demands of my twin boys and my 3 year old dog, I may just ramble on a bit about my day to day stuff and see what happens regarding the knitting.