Contented

Look me in the eye

I've just finished reading this book from the library.  Here's what it says on the back cover:-

"From the age of three or four years old, John Elder Robison realised that he was different from other people.

Unable to make eye contact or connect with other children, by the time John was a teenager his odd habits and eccentric pranks had earned him the label "social deviant".  It didn't help that his mother conversed with light fixtures and his father spent most evenings nursing a bottle of sherry.

Look Me in the Eye is John's remarkable story of growing up with Asperger's syndrome at a time when the diagnosis simply didn't exist.  From a dysfuncional childhood, to his years touring with rocks bands as a sound engineer, to then settling down with his wife and child, this book is a rare fusion on inspiration, dark comedy and insight into the workings of the human mind."

I found this a really positive read.  Many of the things he described from his early childhood I could recognise in Joe.  Also, as an adult he has been able to explain the reasons why he behaved in a certain way, such as not being able to make eye contact, and it really has given me a better insight into why Joe might have those same behaviours.   Also, despite the fact that he dropped out of school without any qualifications, he went on to build up his own successful business and got married and had kids.  Reading about that has given me even more optimism that Joe will be ok.

Even if you are not affected by Asperger's I would recommend this book as it was extremely well written and I think it could really help raise awareness about the condition. 

Have a great weekend!

R x

September

All over blogland I have seen people writing about how they are feeling the change in season and, I must admit, I am kind of feeling it too.  The boys both went back to school on Friday, Will to his new secondary school and Joe back to the primary to start year 2.  Will has been so laid back about starting secondary that I've been pretty chilled out about it too, but I do feel a little anxious about Joe still.  He was fine on Friday - his TA was waiting outside for us so that I wouldn't have to go in with him and they're going to continue to do that next week, to try and get him used to going in on his own, but I'm not sure how he'll be with that.  We'll see.  

September marks the start of peak birthday season in our family - all four of our birthdays fall within an 8 week window, starting with Peter's 40th this coming week (and my own 40th a month later - eek! how did that happen?  I could have sworn I only just turned 30!).  Unfortunately, the boys aren't so keen on the idea of lots of handmade gifts so some shopping has to be done, and as soon as all the birthdays are out of the way we are straight into Christmas!  Ack, I hate Christmas shopping!  (and I can't believe I'm even talking about the C word now either!  Sorry, I'll stop now)

I haven't been up to anything very much this last week or so.  I have a couple of rather big and tedious jobs on the to-do list (Peter's tax return and a pile of 15 curtain panels to be hemmed for the school's Santa's Grotto) which are kind of putting me off starting anything else until they are out of the way.  You'd think I would just get on with them wouldn't you?  But no, I've been reading instead, two very absorbing books that had been sitting in the to-read pile for ages.

 

Both very good books.  I'll warn you though, When Will There be Good News? is not a happy book.  It sort of works out ok in the end, but it really does seem like just one bad thing happening after another - I think that's what kept me reading it, I just wanted to know if anything good was ever going to happen?

Hopefully next time I'll have something crafty to show you.

Have a great week!

R x

Bits and bobs

I hope you all had a lovely Easter weekend!  We did, just mooching around at home as usual, but still nice.  Now, what have we been up to?  Peter has had the last couple of days off as well, and today we all went to see Monster vs Aliens - in 3D!   If you haven't seen it - then go see it!  It was a good fun family movie but it has to be said, the 3D effects were pretty spectacular!  We explained to Joe what it would be like before we went but, unfortunately, he decided -after about 5 seconds! - that he didn't like the things jumping out at him and refused to wear the glasses!  He still enjoyed it though, although it looked pretty blurry without the specs. 

So what else have I been up to?  Let's see - my Saffron Craig fabric arrived, just a couple of fat quarters but they are very lovely!

 

No idea what I'm going to do with them yet, of course!  Although I did notice that they seemed to go quite well with the other piece of hand printed fabric I bought a little while back, what do you think?

 

I've also just finished reading this book:

 

Now, you know I don't "do" book reviews, but I did enjoy this one and would definitely recommend it.  It's a  little bit different - I'm really crap at explaining things so I'll just give you a bit of the blurb off the back:

"How can I describe this place?  It's an in-between place.  It's like a grand hallway that leads you nowhere, it's like a banquet dinner of leftovers, a sports team made up of the people never picked, a mother without her child, it's a body without it's heart.  It's almost there but not quite.  It's filled to the brim with personal items yet it's empty because the people who own them aren't here to love them."

I think I enjoyed this one better than PS, I Love You, just my personal opinion, of course!

Finally, I signed up for Silkiesue's Freestyle Swap and have been partnered with Lisa at Periwinkle.  I'd not discovered her blog before so I've been enjoying looking through her archives and learning a bit about her. She's made some gorgeous knitted bunnies!  Now I have to get my thinking cap on and decide what I'm going to send!

Ooh, no that wasn't the final thing, there's more!  Emma at Bagladee is celebrating her blog's first birthday and is giving away one of her gorgeous handbags so do pop over and say hello!

That's all for now.  Enjoy the rest of the week!

R x

I like Tuesdays

Today is shaping up to be a pretty good day, so far.  First we had Joe's class assembly, which was very sweet.  Joe fidgeted throughout, but at least he was smiling and he held up his letter (the "o" in "courage" - the theme of the assembly) when he was supposed to.  After that, it was a quick hop across the road from school to my friend's house, where we have a regular Tuesday morning get together with various other mums.  It was one lady's birthday so chocolate cake too, yum!

When I got home there were two packages waiting for me - always exciting, even if I did have to pay for them!

 

 

A lovely, Country Living book on storage style, which I can't wait to sit down with and start browsing through with a nice cup of tea.

Then there was also a parcel of yarn from Colinette:

 

Isn't that the most gorgeous colour!  It's called Adonis Blue and I'm going to use it to make a scarf.  "That's not very interesting" you might think, but I'm going to try something a little more taxing than just knit and purl this time - I want to try the "my so called scarf" pattern, which I think you can find here, but I've also spotted it on Ravelry, which I joined last week.

Finally, I had six comments regarding the bag of scraps, so all the names went into a bowl:

 

I stirred them around,

 

and drew out.....

 

Shelley!   If you can email me your address I'll get it posted off to you asap.  Sorry to those who missed out, but it's my blog birthday next month so keep your eyes open for another giveaway soon.

Now I'm off to make that cup of tea and sit down with my new book!

R x

5/28 - On my bookshelf

 

In my profile I've listed reading as one of my interests, but realise that I've not actually talked about books very much.  I love reading, but declined to join a book group when I was invited not long ago.  I think I would find it hard to read a book because someone else had chosen it.  If a book doesn't grab me, I stop reading it.  (My mum says she doesn't like to "be defeated" by a book, but I think books are for enjoyment and if you aren't enjoying it, why bother?) Also, I find it quite hard to talk about a particular book - I can say if I liked it, if it was funny, sad, deep, intriguing etc, but I always hated the part of English lessons at school where you had to disect a piece of writing (poem, book, play, whatever) to try and find out what the author "meant" by it.  Books mean different things to different people - a bit like art I suppose, it's very subjective.  Anyway, I'm going to stop waffling now and just show you some of my books. These are the books I currently have in our front room.  Whenever I visit people's houses, I'm always very nosy and love seeing what books they have, if there are any I have read or anything I think I might like to read.  This is just a small selection of the books in our house - there are more in the dining room and even more upstairs - not to mention all the kids' books. 

 

With novels, I often pass them on - I have a couple of friends who frequently give me books so they tend to go back and forth for a while.  The books that I really love though, are kept, so that I can read them again and again.  Several of the books above will have to be re-read before they go back to their original owners.

 

And here we have some of my favourite non-fiction books - books about beauty (I've always loved make up, lotions and potions etc, but funnily I don't actually wear make up very often!) , books about interiors, books about being green, books about de-cluttering (my intentions are good, but in reality...) and, of course, books about sewing.

What's on your bookshelf?

R x

Some things making me happy this weekend...

1. It's half term - yay!  No early mornings for a week!

2. New books,

 

both lovely, I want to make nearly everything!

3. More new fabric:

 

This is from the Ava Rose collection by Tanya Whelan - I ordered a fabric "wheel" which consisted of 20 10x10 inch squares and which positively screamed "quilt" at me as soon as I opened it and was then hastily sewn together in a fit of excitement!  Possibly not the most sensible thing to do - I didn't measure or recut any of it so some of the squares don't line up and there's even a bit of selvedge in there too (but it's very pretty selvedge!) but I just LOVE it.  So, although I really shouldn't be buying any more fabric for the foreseeable future, am now on the lookout for something suitable for a border and backing.

Oh yes, and I just finished my first sock!  I don't have a photo yet as it's evening now, but will post one soon.  But I'm pleased to say that it worked perfectly this time and feels extremely cozy.  Will be casting on no 2 tomorrow!

R x

39

Yesterday was my birthday.  Birthdays are fairly low key affairs in our house, but it included a lovely lunch out with my Mum and Dad,

 

beautiful flowers, sent from my big bro and his family,

 

a new book I can't wait to start reading,

 

sweeties from the kids,

 

chocolate cake (of course!),

 

and in the evening Peter and I watched this movie (it made me cry!).

I've also just found out that I won the giveaway over at You Go Girl!  How cool is that?  But now the countdown begins to the big 4-0 (yikes!)

R x

Work in progress

So, the story so far with William's quilt - I have sewn together all the squares and we're all pretty pleased with how it's looking.  It's nowhere near perfect - despite all my best efforts, a few of the seams don't quite match up, but it's not really noticable.  However, it's obviously not big enough!  You know I was just making this up as I went along!  So I will have to go back to the fabric shop and get some more.  I did think about just adding a wide border all the way round, but when I measured it out, I worked out that it would need to be about 50cm wide, so instead I shall just get some more fat quarters and keep adding squares until it is the right size.  Joseph now wants to know when he will get his quilt!  I think he might have to wait a while...

A lovely surprise today!  Despite receiving an email from Amazon, THIS MORNING, saying that my order wouldn't be despatched until the end of May, these two books arrived.  I had a very pleasant time browsing through them both - I want to make nearly everything!   However, I must prioritise, as I have also received my first commission!  My lovely friend Jenny has asked me to make a bag for her - and she is going to pay me for it!!  Is this the start of my amazing business venture?  Not sure, actually.  Although this was the whole idea, to try and earn a little cash, at the moment I don't think I want to take it too seriously just yet.  Setting up "properly" all sounds a little scary and grown up! And I'm still only a beginner really.  So, for now, I think I am going to keep it as a hobby that I may (or may not!) earn a little pocket money from.  I will try and sell a few bags at the school summer fair though, just to see what kind of response there is.

On Wednesday afternoon I went to see Joe's teacher "to discuss his behaviour"!!!  I know Joe has found it hard at times to settle but I was kind of dreading what his teacher was going to tell me!  It was fine actually - he was more concerned that Joe's lack of progress with writing is holding him back, and starting to impact on other areas.  Joe is doing fine with reading and numbers but just really struggles with writing.  He has never really been interested in drawing, so this was something that was concerning me anyway - I was glad that his teacher felt the same way.  Anyway, we came up with some strategies between us, and are going to focus more on pen control rather than actual letter formation.  But this morning Joe decided that he wanted to do some writing and he actually wrote a whole sentence!!  "there was a green dragon".   And then he traced over some patterns that I had laminated for him.  He can do so well when he wants to.  He said "mum, this is my best writing EVER!".  And it really was.