Monday 27 February 2017

2017 is racing by

It is nearly the second payday of the year. Five more weeks at school until Easter. Pancake Day on Tuesday. 11weeks until my niece gets married which means 11 weeks to lose about three stone!!!! I did an eye roll then.

This year is going so fast. I think it's because I am old.

Not really had time to be in Blogland lately. I have been reading and commenting sporadically on all my favourite blogs. I've not really anything to show n tell either.

We just finished a great History week at school. I went on two trips. One was cut short by Doris, she'd caused the river to rise and flood the ruins we were supposed to be looking at! The children had a great week though. Back to normal maths and English this week. Our school decided that we were not going to cram the children's days with SATs lessons and nothing else. I know a child who goes to a different school - graded outstanding with top notch league table results - who does not want to go to school and their parents are disgusted at the level of pressure they are applying already for the tests. No History week for them! No ofsted visits either!!!
Some of the children THRIVE on the challenge the SATs bring ( I would have been one of them ) but not the children I'm employed to work with. I'm boring myself now, year after year on this blog I go on n on about it! Maybe a career change is needed. I'd really love a career in lottery winning!

Gotta go get ready

Lots of love
Rachel *a bit jaded* Radiostar xx

Sunday 19 February 2017

Half Term Wednesday

Already I'm halfway through my week off work. It's always the way. Last week dragged. This week is whizzing by so fast that if I blink I will miss it! Loads of things to do on my virtual list as always.
For those of you who don't already know ( via my other blog ), some good news about the HG's cancer.

I'd lain awake fretting, every single night, since the HG's first follow up scan on January 19th and when a letter hadn't ploppedthrough the letter box I sent Richard, our lovely Macmillan nurse,  a long rambly early morning email ( it wasn't the first ) and he always always replies so nicely and puts my mind at ease and stresses that I'm not a raving lunatic and that he's here for us anytime. Anyway, he went off and found out what was what and emailed me back twice in one day! 
So
Our response to the news was, I guess like when we got it, a tad underwhelming. We both breathed a sigh of relief and then just got on with the mundane. I texted everyone en masse, b cause I didn't want to miss people out. We phoned immediate family mind.  Masses of replies with the same messages of relief, joy, happiness just underlined the fact that we are surrounded with lovely lovely people  To be honest I think this paragraph should be on my other dedicated Kidney Cancer blog so I will just blatantly nick my own writing and copy and paste it in over there!! 
I will never fail to laugh at Mr Cutting's name. 

One thing that shows how cancer is relentless and brutal is how one of the lovely people I couldn't as a chum even though I've never met ( on Twitter ) expressed her joy at our news all the while dealing with the fact her husband has been given the news that his cancer treatment isn't working and that's it.   

Fucking cancer. 

So I am here finally getting a post to post and it's now Sunday already. I'm back at work tomorrow and we are launching straight into History week. The whole school are teeming up with another ( better off ) school and there are mass trips and visits and fun learning opportunities aplenty to keep us busy. I'm really looking forward to it. 
I've been knitting and sewing and generally pleasing myself this week.
So on Monday I casted on for my hairdresser. She's going on maternity leave and knows she is having a boy


For the first time ever, I knit both sleeves at the same time. A little bit of swearing is knit into this 
cardigan because the four balls of cotton did get super tangly a lot. But I persevered and found the perfect buttons to match in my button box. 







She was thrilled with it. I think it could have been a lot neater. So next I got out some sewing and carried on with the tunic top I'm making out of the silky jersey. I've tried it on sans sleeves - I've to do those next - and discovered two things. A. It's toooooo big and B. I missed cutting out the frill off the bottom!!! So naturally I've given up on it! For now. Plus the HG and Mr 19 would insist on coming home from work and want feeding! 



The bias binding caused me to lose my mind. Instead of saying, attach biding to neck crossing over at the V, it said a load of gobbedledy gook as per illustration. The illustrations ARE NOT CLEAR! I even brought the HG in to figure it out, who, being logically minded and able to see abstractly he saw what it was saying immediately, did so easily. This left me bristly towards this tunic. I am using it as a massive duster when it's finished!!! Or a tent. It's that big. But the walking foot on the machine is excellent and does it's job perfectly. 

I've also been fannying around with my new early birthday present that the HG insisted he buy me. I think it was part of our euphoria over the all clear. It's a fancy pants fabric cutting machine especially for quilting etc. Now I love my rotary cutter and practiced doing strips last year. I've paper pieced little hexi s that I cut out from cardboard myself and I now have ( from the sale ) a stash of pre cut shapes for paper piecing for when the mood takes me. I even bought some iron on freezer paper that makes it able to print directly into fabric for perfectly cut out shapes. I've topped that now though with this machine. I've said it once and I'll say it again. I am a spoilt brat! I know I have dear dear 
friends who live frugally and have decluttered thanks to that Maria Condo woman who will be recoiling in horror as I add to the already massive pile of stuff I have, but, each to their own!! I love my stuff! 
Anyway, it's magic! You can put up to 6 layers on at a time, whizz it through and voila! 
I got a set of dies - what they call the cutting bits - to make a Flying Geese pattern. So using up some of my stash left over from when I made the teddies, which is material I've acquired via friends and charity shops and cut price bargains ( we are quite frugal lol ) I have played about making some pieces or should that be geeses, which I think will eventually become a shopping bag or a project bag.
 I need to cut some more pieces today. Last night I was dragged from the machine by a decadent Chinese takeaway me and Mr 19 enjoyed. The HG is in Dublin on our Niece's intended stag do. We watched, on Netflix, the new show with Drew Barrymore. The Santa Clarita Diet or something like that - we found it hilarious and watched a few episodes. 
Any way here are a few shots of my Geese so far. I don't see them as Geese by the way, they are just 
triangles! 






Just playing around before I sew them into squares. 

Finally for the first time in years, I relented and relaxed my ban on having cut flowers in the house. I bought some pretty flowers to cheer up the drab left behind after de Christmassing the house. 

So on Valentine's Day when the courier delivered a box of flowers to me, I was surprised actually and I liked it! 
A huge massive decadent bunch of red and gold roses. 






I even brought out my Valentine bears! 

The flowers are opening out beautifully and I dressed the case with some sparkly lights and am pleased with the effect! 

I've also seen friends this week, read two books, caught up on a lot of cleaning and sorting. I've not done everything I planned but there's always Easter Holidays in six weeks for that! I've been on instagram a lot more and been delighted to see that my bird feeders are being visited now by lots of lovely little birds. Today's job is to clean and refill. 
There's probably loads I've not told you about. I can't remember if I told you about our trip to see Miss 22 the other weekend? I'll check back and if not, I'll show n tell ( which is what blogging basically is really ) about that. But until then, here's a canny shot of Freddie caught JUST at the perfect time. 


That's all for now 

Lots of love from 

Rachel *relaxed* Radiostar xxx 














Thursday 9 February 2017

It's only Thursday

This week is dragging. Probably because it's half term tomorrow and then next week will rush by in a blur. Tomorrow is also Young Voices day. I'm not going this year because of other things going on so school will be very quiet with only 46 children left in KS2!





 I really fancy having a go at knitting this. Those who know me well know it'll take me some time!!






This coin in my hand is 800 years old. Eight hundred. That blows my mind a bit. I wonder who else held it and spent it? 

It's silver and it's hammered. King Henry ii minted in Carlisle. The HG found it on his very first foray into Metal Detecting. He went with my Dad. Other detectorists were very jealous that he'd found it on his first dig! He found it on a dig in Hawick, Scotland. 


In the craft room, there is this on the table. 

This is the back panel of a top I'm making for me. I bought the material from the Shuttle for pennies. I showed you it months and months ago. Well, it's a right bugger to work with! It's silky jersey. So I've my walking foot on the machine and ball point needle. What threw me was I always thought and did cut patterns right sides facing. So that's what I did. Good job I re read the pattern. Right sides together. Now it'd taken me eleventy billion minutes to lay on the paper pieces, so I spent ages over a cup of tea trying to figure out if I could get away with cutting right sides facing. Trying to mentally turn over pieces. That was too taxing for my little brain. So, no, out came the pins and we re folded with much swearing as it slipped and slided all over the shop! My stitching is a bit wonky but the time I sat down to sew my nerves were a bit frazzled and it's lucky it's not been made into fancy dusters! So far I've only seen the back panel together!!! We will see how we get on next week! 

Right, work beckons. But I'm off to reply to comments x Thank you for them all. 
 Soon be half term. 

Lots of love from 

Rachel *hope all is well in your world* Radiostar xxx 







Wednesday 1 February 2017

Right Click

Have a giggle on me from work yesterday
It's an IT lesson
The cheeeeelders are learning to create a PowerPoint show all about their steam train of choice ( real, not Thomas ) - it's our topic - I'll show you a photo of our display what I have painted so far at the end.
Child : How do I get this picture on my slide show?
Me: click 'view image'.
Child: clicks view image.
Me: you can either save the image to the computer library if you think you are going to use it more than once or you can copy and paste.
Child: I only want to use it once
Me: ok, you need to right click on the image itself.
Child: ?????
Me: Look at where your pointy finger is on that button ( we are on lap tops )
Child: yes?
Me: well that's the left click button
Child: ok
Me: so the other button is a right click button
Child: ok
Me: now move the cursor so it's on the image
Child: blank look
Me: ( inwardly sighing and rolling of eyes ) This little white arrow ( pointing at the screen ) that moves around the screen when you are on the touchpad ....
Child : ahhhhh ( moves cursor )
Me: ok, right click now
Child: left clicks
Me: remember it's *this* button here, one is left, that you will use most of the time, but the right one will show you magic menus!!
Child: tentatively clicks the right button
Me: that is the magic hidden drop down menu
- it's always there, but only a right click will reveal it ( yanno, trying to attach a story to it to help poor Child remember it )
~Anyway after a few attempts , Child successfully copies the image - The Flying Scotsman ~

Me: so Child, now take the cursor to select PPt from the bottom tool bar to bring up your PowerPoint. No, not the right click button, that's just for the hidden menus, yes that's right , the left click button to select icons
Child: ok
Me: now, you have to move the cursor onto your slide where you want to paste your picture.
Child: paste?
Me: yes, it's just where you want your picture to go.
Child: moves cursor
We now have a blinking cursor ( that's not me being sweary ) and Child is set to paste their first ever google image.

Me: now right click

Child: stares

Me: now right click

Child:

Me: come on Child, right click

Child: waits, looks at me,












and slowly types       'c   l   i   c   k'

Me:


Lots of love from

Rachel *might go work in a supermarket again* Radiostar xxx