Catch up

I haven't stopped doing stuff, my creativity is being channeled into the school summer holidays - so far I have given my children more camping trips than I ever had caravan holidays when I was a nipper.

When I return I should have ideas and pics about shrink plastic, upcycling, craft fairs and all manner of things.  Ooh, and my *art room*.

Long time no blog....

Despite my best efforts to blog at least once a week I've managed to let more than that time slip away from me.

Last week though I was making sure my son was comfy as he came down with a nasty virus that totally wiped him out.  Despite the fact that slept a lot I wasn't able to get much done creativity wise but I did catch up on a lot of house-work!

By Friday he wasn't properly right again but he was a lot better and so I went camping (!) as the trip had been bought and paid for some time ago and I had the feeling that despite the weather forecast saying otherwise we might be in for a spot of good weather.  I was right, and although he was still tired he enjoyed the trip immensely, as did my daughter and as did I.

Here's our tent on the second night:

The coloured lights you can see are all from the 99p Store (anyone who knows me IRL will be able to tell you how much I love the 99p Store) and the big bright light in the middle is a water carrier (from the 99p Store, where else?) filled with water and with a halogen head lamp (£3 from Ebay) stuck into the handle so that he light shines through the water.  It's an awesome light.  Anyway, I was right, the weather was fab all weekend and I'm glad we went.

My garden - hmm......the plants in the garden are kind of okay but not that great.  This is our second summer in this house and tbh the garden is quite dark, it has trees on all sides and it's a Victorian terraced house so it's not very wide.  All of my veggies are growing in pots down the side of the house as that's the place that gets the most sun (ha ha) and even the plants there are "reaching" for the light.  Chard? Hmmm, had a small crop and now it seems to be bolting.  Carrots - getting there.  Spring onions are very slow.....  Peas and beans are doing okish so far and I seem to have flowers on my potatoes so I might have an earlies crop very soon.  At least with the summer we're having so far I haven't had to water anything but the tomatoes.  The toms aren't doing so well though...

Dance-wise things are winding down as they always do in the summer.  Tonight's class was cancelled for myriad student non-attendance reasons and there are just two classes left before the holidays (my children would never forgive me it I didn't stop the classes in the holidays).  Sunday classes have three sessions left and on Friday I teach the last session before the summer break with my learning disability group.  The summer break is a hard one but I'm good at putting money aside so that we don't starve through August!  What has been nice though is that sales have been going well and it's always a pleasure to get emails from customers telling me how much they love their purchases.

So what else is going on?  Well, I am planning a few more adventures in the world of altered art, I need to find some new and inspiring music as I'm totally hacked off with my old music destination since they changed their search format and I'm hoping (foolishly) that the festivals I attend with the children this year will be drier than they are wetter....

As always there is lots to do, lots to think about and plan for and lots of things to try.

It's all gone a bit arty.....

The arty theme has continued in the house this week.  I've slowed down a bit but I think that's why I like to make the most of my free Saturday - it only comes every other week and I have to do what I can.  I am in the midst of decorating a cigar box so there'll be pics of that when it's done.

Last night my daughter got in from school and wanted to do some painting.  She and her brother had just got started when I realised she had some homework to do so she came and sat with me in another room to do it.  When she went back to the dining room table she cried out, "Oh no!!"  Oooohhhh.......her brother (three-and-a-half) had been quietly painting.....it's the quiet bit that's the scary part isn't it?

Here's what he had done....

What was coloured paint was now black. He'd tried to mix himself some colours by adding lots of black paint.  Ah well, at least he hadn't painted the walls and luckily I had more paints stashed away in the cupboard so it wasn't the massive disaster it might have been.

Embroidered Necklace #2

It's still not completely finished.  I made some ribbons by melting the edges of some silky fabric I had (I'm trying very very hard not to buy anything new and just use what I've got) and I need to get the ribbons attached and then add a backing to the piece.  Although sticking it would be slightly easier I think I'm going to go for the sewing option.  I'm pretty pleased with this:

Once it's all finished I intend to make some more, using different colour-ways (and as I say, it'll all be with bits and bobs that I have already).  I love the way that one thing leads to another!

And speaking of which, I made some organza flowers at the weekend.  I'm not entirely sure what I shall use them for but I feel another necklace coming on.  And I shall  be making some pink ones this week too hopefully.  My daughter's school is having a craft fayre in March (I'm trying to encourage my daughter to make some bracelets to sell from the beads I gave her for Christmas) and I figured that my usual stuff might not sell, so I shall be making more bracelets and things myself as well as these pretty flowers as they will go well on clips.

Once I come up with something for these flowers I'll let you know.

Note to self, never plan........

So, this week was the week where I was (for the first time in three years) going to have a little free time.  My youngest was due to start his nursery place on Tuesday and I had a schedule worked out as to how I was going to spend that precious two and a half hours each day...draft some blog posts, do a little on-line networking via various fora, tweak this, photograph that......

Nope. Never plan.  Not for the first week of a change of routine anyway.

On Monday night my seven year old daughter came out of school looking decidedly pale, and crying that she didn't feel well.  We got home, she walked upstairs and then said, "I'm going to be sick."  And she was.  From the top of the stairs.

Once that was cleaned up and the two of them bathed and sorted for bed I got on with writing a blog post and chatting about it on Facebook.  Then my PC monitor died.  Properly couldn't be coaxed back into working died.

So the next day I took the PC to a PC mender to check the problem that I couldn't fix and juggled the difficulty of taking the littlest one to nursery and picking him up whilst having my daughter at home ill (I cannot thank my friend and neighbour M enough!).

Thankfully everyone is now well, the little one is enjoying nursery (although he cries every afternoon mid-session as he is wondering where I am) and today the PC was returned home along with a new monitor (which was the problem and I'm grateful that it wasn't a more difficult and expensive problem).

Frighteningly, as a stay at home works from home single parent I realised just how dependent I am on the interaction with the world I have via my PC.  I don't have a *smart phone* or a back-up lap-top or a tablet PC.  I probably need to get out more ;-)

Last Minute Hioliday

Got a few suggestions for this now, thanks to those that helped! xx

Streamlining #2

So as part of my streamlining process I have finally decided to do away with my www.blackwillowtribal.co.uk website.

It's been a part of my life for some time now but as more and more of my sales and enquiries are coming via the Etsy shop I think I am wasting my money in keeping it going.  So I am starting to shift everything over and then when that's done I shall shut the website down.

SO.  If you have www.blackwillowtribal.co.uk bookmarked then you should hot-foot over to www.blackwillowbellydance.co.uk instead and go bookmark that one instead.  And hopefully you all go take a look at the Etsy shop anyway?  And if not why not? 

It makes so much more sense to have everything in one place.  And I shall have to think about transferring this Blog over to the one that's integrated into that website - again, it makes more sense to have everything in one place although I'm loving how easy this blog is to mess around with and configure.  I'm really not that technical (I'm sure I must have mentioned this before?) and the other blog bamboozles me a bit but hey, just need to make my life a little easier.

I still have a pre-schooler with me until January next year and as I generally only have evenings to get things made, practice dance and prepare for classes as well as all the promotional stuff that goes with being a teacher and designer - well, I just need a couple of places to go each evening when I'm doing webwork rather than 5 or 6. Luckily the little man was out with his dad this morning and I've had a good couple of hours on here whilst he's been relaxing so I've been able to back lots of things up, do a bit of SEO work, tweak things here and there in readiness for all the switch-overs.

I'll keep you posted with everything that's happening so that you can pop over and subscribe to stuff as it's happening, and hopefully you'll all come and see me over on the other blog and the other wbsite and then I'll make sure that I go and subscribe to everyone I like to keep up with in blog-space so I don't miss out on anything.

Couldn't Get a Photo......

...because I had to stop the water from leaking through the ceiling below.  Today my pre-schooler son decided to run the taps in the upstairs bathroom sink.  I was down-stairs getting my daughter's packed lunch ready when she said, "Mum, is he having a bath?"

No, I thought....

NO!!!!

Cue legging it upstairs to find the taps turned on full and a floor half-covered in water.  Many many towels later it was all mopped up and now the plug has been removed from the sink but the sad reality is that when the taps are turned on fully enough, no plug is needed to flood the sink and the floor.....

The upside is that I was quite awake because not one small child crawled into bed with me at an ungodly hour.... : )

Spice Must Flow

Ahhhh, small children and what they find amusing......

After the recent butter experiments (yes, although I only blogged about it once there were more days when butter and kitchen implements were my sons favourite toys...) I could only wonder what was to come next.

My spice rack is what came next.....

There was no vehicle involved, he managed to climb up onto the kitchen side via the integral wine rack at the end of the kitchen.  I was unaware of this as I was downstairs putting some washing in and hanging further washing out.  When I got upstairs I saw him standing on the kitchen work surface, kitchen cabinets open, him with a big smile...."I cooking mummy."

This is what he had achieved...

It may not look like much, but the pot contained sea salt, and from what I can see he had added:
cinnamon
ginger
rosemary
celery seeds

dried chilis
cumin
coriander
thyme
and had added a bit of bubble mixture for juiciness.......

I hope he puts these experiments to good use when he's older!

Becoming a volunteer

Today was the day I went for an interview for a voluntary role with the Citizens Advice Bureau.  They have a new project that trains and support Healthy Lifestyle Coaches, to assist people with myriad issues that are affecting their lives.  The idea is that the coach assists the individual to identify, create an action plan for and reach particular goals.  These might be to do with resolving issues about relationships, weight, substance use and abuse, work/life balance issues......

In my previous life, before motherhood, I worked with people in many roles; as a residential social worker with children in care, then with adults with disabilities in a care home, then as a volunteer project manager where the volunteers had disabilities, and in the job I had before maternity leave, a volunteer project manager where the volunteers were all under 25 and the recipients of their volunteering actions were children with disabilities.

I kind of feel that the post I went for today SHOULD be a paid role.  I understand why it isn't.  My feeling that way isn't going to change society, the way funding happens (it's all down to fashions folks, not just about there not being enough in the pot to go round.  If your particular project is not "of the now" you'll have to fight harder and longer and probably eventually give up the ghost - I used to fund-raise as a part of my roles.)

The upshot is that the times I would need to be available over-run school times, so I would need to employ a childminder.  And the organisation that is offering the post is unable to offer full expenses for this.  I don't blame the organisation.  It's always been a tough call trying to get parents of pre-school children involved with volunteering because of that very issue.  If an organisation can't offer full expenses, or even two thirds of that because don't forget you need a childminder for not only the period where you won't be with the child, but for a period either side of that to cover your travel time, then you can pretty much forget someone like me being able to take up a post.

The Children's Centre where I hold my classes and attend toddler groups has offered me the opportunity to do something for them as a volunteer.  So I've taken it up.  I already attend one group a week, with my son, helping out at a Speech and Language group.  And through them I shall have another opportunity soon where they will take my son at their creche for the twelve mornings training required, and where I can take my son with me to the sessions I will be volunteering at.

A completely different role than the one I was interviewed for today.  But because it's child friendly I shall take it up.  It's still a valuable role and one that I think will be good for me.