Hello friends

I hope you are well, I am pleased to say I am feeling much better this week.  This weekend has just zipped by and I can’t believe that I have to go back to work again tomorrow already!  Still never mind…

T has started to remove the tiles from the wall in the kitchen, so this means we have now definitely started with the kitchen refurbishment, but don’t hold you breath as I anticipate it is going to take months to complete.  We are going to have to purchase new cupboards, sink, cooker (and probably fridge and freezer), worktops and tiles.  That pretty much is going to break our bank so we are going to have to do as much of the work as we can ourselves.  It’s going to be difficult and will take us much longer than it would to have someone come and do it for us professionally, but needs must.  Although T has made a start, we are planning to purchase the stuff in the January sales and then I hope we don’t actually start the work until the weather warms up a bit as I anticipate we could be without cooker and sink for a some time as we try and figure out how to do it.  I have two weeks worth of leave from work that I have to take before the end of May.  So April/May time would be good for me however T is probably not going to be that patient and, to be fair, he has waited 20 years to get the kitchen sorted out.

As the fuel bills are going up by a ridiculous amount, I decided that we needed to put up thick curtains on all the windows that didn’t have any, in an attempt to keep the heat in the house and this weekend I have dyed, sewn and put up two lots so that has given me a sense of achievement.

A couple of really good things happened today:  first we bought a really nice dining table, it’s kind of ‘shabby chic’, it’s old and has thick turned and painted legs, a solid pine top and a little drawer.  It’s in keeping with our house which is old (built in 1860) and has a rustic feel.  Buying a table probably doesn’t sound like a big deal, but we have never really had much money and previously any furniture we had was either bought cheap or handed on from someone else.  But this year we have purchased a lovely wooden dresser for the kitchen and now a table.  I am beginning to feel like a grown up at last, and for someone in their late 50’s that’s not bad.

The second, and best, thing was that when I went to visit Mum and Dad this afternoon my Dad presented me with a file containing 77 hand written pages about his life.  My Dad is over 90 and he is always telling me stories about his life.  Some time ago I asked him to try and write it all down for me.  I never thought he would actually do it, but today he gave it to me. I haven’t had a chance to read it yet and to be honest his handwriting is a bit difficult to read, but eventually I will type it all up and it will be distributed to my two brothers and their children.  Hopefully after that it will be passed on to their children too.  I am so lucky to have parents who may be a little frail physically these days but are both still mentally alert. I am pretty sure that my Mum has also written her story, but that’s not come my way yet.

The page above is a quick mixed-media page that I completed today in my altered book journal, it has layers of paint, papers, stencilling, some Zetiology stamps and a quote by one of my all time favourite people Albert Einstein.

Have a great week and I’ll see you soon.

Big love

AJ 🙂

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