I'm going to rant now I'm afraid. Why why why when I offer things for sale do people say they want things and then not bother to contact me again. Or they change their mind but don't bother to let you know so a week or so later you're waiting for their payment and email them to remind them and they go "oh I'm sorry, I don't want it anymore" (usually using some stupid excuse). I am sooooooooooo fed up with it keep happening. I'm sure it's not just me it happens to. Why are people so bloody rude and such time wasters??

Seriously, if someone offers something for sale and you've said you want it then keep up your side of the bargain and pay for it. Don't mess them around, it really pisses people off. Especially if they've done what I do which is find packaging for the item so I can see what the weight will be and then I usually leave it in the envelope or box until the payment arrives and then I can just quickly seal it, address it and then post it.

Can you tell I am really angry about this?? It's happened to me a number of times over the past few weeks alone. I have piles of stuff cluttering the place up waiting to be paid for.

I've tried chasing a couple of people up but had no reply so it's going back in the box and they can forget it (worse still, one of the items was free for postage so I was doing them a favour).

You really are rude and annoying when you waste people's time like this.

And while I'm at it - if the person who owes me £10 is reading this, I hope you're proud of yourself for ripping me off and stealing from me (as well as the other person you ripped off at the same time from the same forum).

All I can say is I hope karma bites these people on the arse big time.

Encouraged by another blog I read, I had my colours done today. I’ve wanted to have it done for years and never got round to it but before Christmas I enquired with a local Colour Me Beautiful Consultant about booking a session and well, today I had it.

I have to admit to being a bit nervous - was she going to take one look at me and announce my hair is totally the wrong colour for me and my clothes made me look washed out?? What do you wear to one of these sessions??

Helen was really lovely. She has a room dedicated to her job and it was so relaxing and beautifully decorated - I want a room just like it. My hair (which is getting redder and redder with each hairdressers appointment) is a great colour apparently, but needs to be a warmer red if possible. So that was a relief. I think my top was the wrong colour too but never mind (and I can always wear a scarf with it).

I now know all the colours which suit me - and it was amazing to see just what a difference the right colour made to my face as opposed to the wrong colour. Yes, there are some disappointment - I absolutely love bright pink and it’s a no no for me. But I can still wear bright red which is great. Some of the colours I didn’t like but they made me look really well, so I am going to have to be brave and get some.

Helen also went through my make-up and sorted it into two piles - one that suits me and one that doesn’t. The no pile was bigger than the yes, and typically the items I use every day were in the no pile. But it is such a relief to know what will look good on me, and even a relief to have so much less make-up too. It was taking up 2 shelves in my bathroom cupboard, now it fits into one make-up bag.

I do have a (small!!) shopping list of a few bits I could do with getting which I will treat myself to one day.

If you’re in Lincolnshire and fancy having a session then I highly recommend Helen. She also does style makeovers (which I am going to have when I have finished losing the weight), will go shopping with you and is even a therapist and does reflexology. Her website is: http://www.helenmajor.co.uk/

Since September I’ve lost 2 stone in weight which I’m really pleased about although I do have about another two stone to go. I had my hair cut off and coloured - I’d love to be brave enough to go the same colour as Jane Goldman (Mrs Jonathan Ross), maybe one day I will!! Another boost to my confidence was getting my job. I’m loving going to the gym as well - I surprised myself tonight when I found that I was at the front of the class, by choice and not because everyone else had beaten me to the back. I can’t wait until I’ve lost the rest of my weight as I know it will be another boost to my confidence.

Yum!

One of the blogs I like reading is called Border Stories. The lady who writes it posts some lovely recipes - she's into the same sort of "weird" food as I am so I love reading about her latest things and the info she posts. The raw chocolate fudge thing I make is one of her recipes and I also tried making kimchi: http://mamauktalesfromwales.blogspot.com/2010/01/kimchi.html

Now it's a bit of a faff to make but oh my goodness!! I am supposed to be leaving it to sit for a week before I can eat it. All I can say is it's a good job I made 2 jars of it because I keep going back to it for another mouthful - the last one had a lot of chilli in it so that's made me a bit more wary of eating it too quickly. I can't wait for it to be ready although I'm not sure what to do with it once it is.

And I have another batch of the raw chocolate in the fridge right now - my last lot was a disaster after I tried making it without the recipe in front of me so I am looking forward to this one being set.

The quilt still isn’t finished. I’m not to blame though - I ordered new thread and was sent the wrong stuff but the place I ordered from seems to be ignoring my emails now so I am NOT happy!!!

I’m back into the gym in a big way again. I’m going 5 times a week and doing 2 classes or a class and a session in the gym, or if I’m too late for a class then just a session in the gym. I prefer classes as I am sure I work a lot harder than I do when I’m on my own. Is it a sign you’re addicted that when you leave you want to turn round and go back to do some more??? If so, then it’s an addiction I’m happy to have.

I’m still eating my high raw wheat free diet. We sell wheat free chocolate cake at work so I decided to try one to see if I reacted to it or not and I did. I don’t know if it’s the sugar in it or something else, but I felt quite ill for hours afterwards and like I had a bowling ball in my stomach. I only ate half of it as well.

It’s going well though, and I feel good on it which probably is what makes my reactions to other things so much worse, because I am so aware of how good I can feel.

I’m currently looking for a new job. We’re closing at the end of next month so I need something else. I’ve applied for a few things and heard nothing back, but hopefully something will come up soon. Fingers crossed!!!

We have an appointment this week about Millie so hopefully something will get moving as everything seemed to have come to a standstill over Christmas. Cross your fingers for that too please! :-)

Ok, the secret project - it wasn’t a secret really, but here it is anyway.

I got the fabric a while ago (if you go back through my blog entries you’ll see it when it arrived) and then spurred on by a discussion on Facebook about Hungry Caterpillar quilts I decided to make a start on mine. I made it up as I went along but then looking online at what other people had done it seems that I made it the same as most people.

I would have liked to have had more colours for the sashing but that was what was available from the co-op so I had to make do but I am pleased with it.

I didn’t know how to quilt it - I felt that just stitching in the ditch or doing squares would be boring but I had never tried freehand quilting and was a bit scared of it. I decided to give it a go anyway and couldn’t believe just how easy it is. Ok, more experienced quilters would laugh at my attempt but I’m happy with it.

What I wasn’t so happy about was running out of quilting thread halfway through. I’m hoping eBay will come to the rescue. If not, well, I’m not sure what I’m going to do. I’ve used transparent thread for the top and primary variegated in the bobbin. The coloured thread comes through in a few places but I can live with that. Once the quilting is done I can bind it and then it’s finished. Already small battles are breaking out as to who gets it. It’s not for any one person, it’s for everyone to share.

Today it has snowed, and I have sewed!! Yes, really. I have actually made something, but it's not finished yet so you'll have to wait until tomorrow for photos.

It snowed very heavily here - I managed to persuade Alfie that he really did want to go to playschool this morning but by the time we had got into the car it was blizzarding down so we went back indoors. When we got back into the house I looked outside and the car was completely white again. I think it was a good choice!!

This afternoon was lovely though, very cold, but bright, so I went for a nice walk around the village and ended up chatting to an old man outside his house for nearly an hour. He was lovely, but very lonely and I felt really sorry for him. He's 91 and his wife died 8 years ago and since then he's just been desperate to die so he can be with her again. He goes to the crematorium every day no matter what the weather to see her and every night says "I love you" to her photo. They were her last words to him and he hopes they can be his last words too.

He did have some village gossip though some of which was slightly disappointing. The old man who lives next door to us is always having visits from an old lady, or he's always at her house or driving her somewhere. We call her Elsie and were convinced she was his girlfriend. Sadly not, she's his sister-in-law. No idea if she's really called Elsie though - I would laugh if she is!!


Then there was a discussion about something on Facebook that led to me being inspired enough to start on my own version. I have almost finished the main part of it and will almost certainly get it done tomorrow, especially as I'm not going in to work.

It's gone 11pm and I actually don't want to go to bed yet - I want to keep on sewing which can only be a good sign, and I am planning to get more projects done this weekend. One of them has been sitting in the cupboard for over 6 years. Ok, it's not going to be quite what was planned originally - it was going to be a strippy quilt (yes, strippy, not stripey) but it's now just going to be a simple square patchwork.

Anyway, that's your sneak preview of tomorrow's post. No photos, but if you just imagine lots of white, you'll be there.

I forgot to mention the other day that I have found a home for my treadle sewing machine. Normally we have the dining table in front of the window in the dining room - it leaves loads of floor space for the children to play and makes the room look huge (it is a big room but it has so much furniture in it it looks smaller than it really is). At Christmas we move the table so it’s lengthways down the room and the tree goes in front of the window. We lose a lot of floor space so I prefer the table by the window.

However, I’ve decided to leave the table where it is and put the sewing machine in front of the window instead as we don’t really have anywhere else for it to live. It’s better in the dining room too as there is more chance of me actually using it (new belt is on order from eBay so I will finally be able to try it very soon!!)

As you can see in the photo it has become a really handy place to have my laptop. The power lead has become loose and it only needs to be looked at to fall out and switch my computer off (we took the battery pack out a while ago because it was causing it to switch off all the time). On the table it stays in, the laptop stays cool and it also means I can do my computer stuff in peace as it’s nice and quiet in here.

So, even if I never use the sewing machine for sewing, it does make a nice desk for me!!

Here’s a photo of the view from here as well. It’s a bit white at the moment, but when the sun is starting to set the sky goes a lovely colour and it’s nice to just sit and look at it.

Sometimes when you read other peoples blogs you get the false impression that their life is wonderful and they don’t have problems, and their children are little angels. Let me tell you, that isn’t always the case!!! My children had got into the habit of not going to sleep until after midnight and then not getting up until midday. At 2.30am the other morning after going up countless times to Jack and Alfie to nicely ask them to get back into bed I ended up screaming at them to GET INTO BED AND GO TO SLEEP NOOOOOOOOOOOWWWWWWWWWWW. Funnily enough it worked, although Jack slept until 1pm. Poor Alfie had to get up early for his first day at playschool (which went really well, hopefully his next session will do too) I suspect they will be asleep and stay asleep fairly quickly tonight as it’s the first day back.

Unlike what seems to be the entire rest of the country we don’t have deep snow. In fact we barely have any. I am hoping we get some very soon, I love it when it snows. But it is really cold at the moment, so much so that even my new sheepskin slippers (I know, I said I wasn’t buying anything this year but I needed them) aren’t keeping my feet as warm as I would like. I think I’m going to have to move one of the portable heaters in here.

And talking of slippers, aren’t these cute. Yes, I know, but Amos does need something to keep his feet warm too. They are so gorgeously soft that I am very jealous mine weren’t as strokable!!

Ok, this may just end up being a bit of a ramble so I apologise in advance.

Christmas was a nice day. We did our usual Christmas thing - the children had stockings on their beds to open before they woke us up. To avoid any nasty incidents involving the Thomas the Tank Engine bubble bath that Jack and Alfie had in their stockings we, I mean, Santa, put their stockings on Ellie’s bed so she could supervise them opening everything. The children had their traditional Terry’s chocolate orange or bag of chocolate coins in their stockings as well as lots of other bits and pieces.

This meant we got to sleep until about half eight before we could stand the visits to our room to see if the other presents could be opened no longer. The children sorted their presents into piles and took it in turns to open one each - those who had lots of cheaper items took longer to open than the ones who had few more expensive things but they understand that everyone had the same amount spent on them (apart from poor Amos who got one present but took nearly half an hour to get it open).

We didn’t go mad on things for them. Because of the family situation we’re the only people who buy things for our children so they’re not inundated with piles and piles of stuff like some children are. I think they were all really pleased with what they got though, Jack especially as he has an obsession with level crossings and traffic lights and he got both in his pile.

After presents we have breakfast - the traditional croissants and what may be a new tradition, bagels. Both were eaten as quickly as possible by the children and off they went to play again.

As they were all busy I took the opportunity to start sorting through my books to cull some of them to be listed on Amazon. It’s one of those things I do in stages - usually taking two or three things off the shelves at a time to add to the “selling” pile. My intention is to get rid of most of my books this year (hopefully reading them first). I’m not a book hoarder (I’m not really an anything hoarder!!) once I’ve read a book if I know I’m not going to refer back to it or read it again then it gets listed on Amazon. There are a couple of books I can’t get rid of such as the Miriam Stoppard pregnancy book I bought when pregnant with Robbie back in 1995. It was my bible throughout many of my pregnancies so I will keep it for sentimental reasons. I’ve got a lot of fiction I want to get read this year and it’s one of my intentions that I will read at least one a month.

Dinner was the traditional turkey roast and was lovely. We also had beef and pork (which I don’t like as I think it smells too piggy). I decided a while ago that I was going to eat whatever I liked on Christmas day and get back to the raw afterwards.

All in all it was a lovely day. I do feel a bit sad that we don’t have a family to come round and join us for Christmas but that’s the situation and we have to put up with it. And it does mean we can sit in our Pjs all day and not have to worry about keeping other people entertained or fed etc.

I worked on Boxing Day and was surprised to see how busy it was.

We didn’t do anything for New Year this year. We usually invite someone round but we decided we couldn’t be bothered this year - I know, we’re really unsociable!!

I’ve gradually got back into eating high raw again. It’s been hard, some days I just haven’t managed to eat raw at all, other days I’ve eaten 100% raw all day until dinner time then I’ve had something awful like pie and chips (which doesn’t help my wheat intolerance!!)

However, the last two days have been 100% raw which is really good. I feel that I need a few days to get rid of all the wheat and stuff from my system and then I can go back to high raw. I do have a bit of a problem with raw chocolate at the moment though. I can’t get enough of it. I feel that it can’t really be good for you, but it’s lovely. I bought some before Christmas and it was supposed to last me for a few months. I ate what I thought was the last bar this morning and was very pleased to find another one hidden away at the back of my drawer!!

I’ve just made some raw fudgey stuff that I found a recipe for on a forum I’m occasionally go on. I had the ingredients and decided to give it a go - oh my goodness!! It is sooo gorgeous but quite oily so I couldn’t manage much at a time. It won’t last long mind you, lol I think I will have to cut it into very small squares and limit myself to one a day.

As you know I am having a big clear out - I think this is just the first wave, and once I have got rid of most of what I’m trying to sell at the moment I will probably do another sweep of my stuff to see what else can go (keep on checking my for sale pages in case I list something you're after!!). I have a bit of a thing about “stuff”. I would love to do without it, just have the barest minimum of things but find it hard to let go of some things. My fabric for instance. Although I’m getting rid of loads, there is still lots more up there which will probably never get used. A lot of it I think “well, I might use that for something” but I probably never will.

I really want to declutter in a big way this year and be very brutal about it. I think part of my hating clutter and hoarding comes from when we took over our first house. The wardrobes in the master bedroom were full of shit. There were clothes hanging up in there that were put away dirty and they must have been there for years. There was a pile of coat hangers in a corner and the carpet under them was a different colour to the rest of it so they must have been there forever. There were tablets that were 20 years old, make up that was probably about the same age. It took me a couple of dozen bin liners to clear it all out.

We had the loft cleared out by a company as well. It took them TWO huge removal lorries to take it all away. It was only a standard size loft, not a huge mansion. There were empty cardboard boxes, broken chairs, and absolutely nothing worth keeping. I’m surprised the ceilings didn’t collapse on us under the weight of it all!!

Mind you, the people living there before were filthy filthy people. No cleaning had been done for years and years, it was disgusting.

Anyway, I digress. That’s one of my goals, to declutter. I’m also going to buy as little as I possibly can this year. I really want to pay off my credit card as quickly as possible so that’s another goal. I’m not going to promise to buy nothing because I don’t know if I can stick to it, but I am certainly going to think twice about everything I want to buy. And definitely no craft stuff, no fabric, no wool. At least not until I have used up everything I have and only if I have a definite project for it.

One of my things is beauty products - I have managed to stop myself buying them the way I used to and didn’t actually need to buy any shower gel in 2009 and what is still left will probably do me for most of 2010 (and bear in mind, I have a shower every morning so you can imagine how much I had stashed away!!!) I do like my premium brand products though so I will still buy them, but only as and when I need them. No stockpiling allowed. I’ve stopped my make-up buying habit as well which was hard at first. In fact, I think I will be doing another cull of what is left from the last clear-out (my 11 year old has the most fab make-up collection in her school I think, lol)

I know everyone wants to lose weight at New Year (or most people anyway) but that’s another one of my goals this year, to lose the final bit of baby weight gained when I was pregnant with Amos. My aim is to lose it by Easter which I believe is doable. I’m also going to get back into going to the gym as I was awful in November and December. I think I went about twice. It’s hard when it’s cold out though isn’t it? I need to just get changed and go and forget how cold it is outside. I was going to go tonight, even wrote it on the calendar and ended up messing about online all evening instead.

I am looking forward to posting my before and after photos here when I have reached my target.

I’ll be getting a new employer this year. We were told at work the other day that we’re closing at the end of next month. Whoever comes in will have to take us on if we want to stay so depending on who it is I’ll either still be working in the same place for a new company, or I’ll be looking for a job elsewhere. I’m not too worried, I know that the right job will come along at the right time.

I have other big stuff planned too. I don’t want to say too much at the moment, but I can feel big changes happening or at least starting to happen in 2010.

I hope your year is a good one. What are you hoping to achieve this year?

Talk to you again soon.

I’m sorry I haven’t blogged for a while. I have lots to write, and will get round to it very soon, I promise.

In the meantime though, I’ve been having a big clear-out and have listed a load of stuff for sale here I suspect this is only going to be the first of several sweep throughs of the house. There’s a lot of fabric listed if you’re after some, nappy patterns, craft stuff, Waldorfy stuff, all sorts. If you would like anything then please email me - I’m on AOL and the first part of my email address is . I’m sure you can work out the rest (clue @aol.com)

I have more news for you when I get round to writing it down. Hope you had a lovely Christmas and that 2010 is a great year for you.