2014 - Year in review

Happy New Year!

After almost 2 and a half years since my last post this blog is definitely well overdue an update! Although some great things have happened since I last wrote a post - Tom's sister's wedding in 2013 for example - the last 12 months have been pretty challenging to say the least. Those of you who know me will know my family suffered a real blow in January 2014 - my older sister Jane lost her battle against Bowel Cancer. Whilst Jane and I hadn't been particularly close for a number of years, something I really regret, it of course had a huge effect on me and my family. Thankfully I was able to visit her in the hospice to say my final goodbyes which was possibly the most difficult experience of my life so far, but at least I got to say goodbye. Even typing this now, almost 12 months down the line, it's hard not to feel sad and I can feel tears begin to form, but Jane's death has had some positive side-effects - her husband Al raised a phenomenal amount of money for Beating Bowel Cancer by running the Bupa 10k in May last year, and my younger sister Annie and I both ran the Cardiff Race for Life 10k in July in aid of Cancer Research UK. Whilst the money we raised was considerably less than Al's stellar fundraising efforts I know that every small amount of money contributes and makes a difference in groundbreaking research in the fight against cancer.

Aside from anything else, training for and running a 10k was the single hardest thing I've ever done physically, so I feel really proud of myself for sticking with it and for making it over the finish line with Annie. I worked out that I ran over 217 km during my training which is the equivalent of over 10 half marathons (or 5 full marathons), and given I was a self-certified couch potato who had never done any running before, I was understandably really chuffed with this achievement. It proved that I could actually do something I had previously thought myself wholly incapable of doing, so this is an important lesson I am going to keep in mind for 2015!

My medal reminds me what I am capable of.

This year has also been challenging for work-reasons - I don't want to go into great detail but after almost 9 months of stress, anxiety, and generally feeling miserable and worthless I ended up leaving my job in November. I didn't have anything to go to which was scary, but I've survived and I'll continue to survive, and hopefully this will lead to something even better. Financially it's obviously not a great situation to be in but I have some savings and my family have been extremely supportive and most importantly I am building up my confidence and self-belief again.

Although I am currently feeling a little precarious, I have options and I don't feel anywhere near as stressed as I did 2 months ago. I took a temporary job selling books over December which was hard work but I loved every minute of it, I met some great people and I made a good impression on the managers, who have said they'll definitely let me know if any more work comes up, so at least there's that. In the end, there seems very little point being desperately unhappy on a daily basis just for the sake of a job that only looks good on paper. I'd much rather be earning less in a job that actually makes me happy and that I look forward to every day. So for the time being I'll carry on working hard applying for jobs, helping my Mum out with her various businesses, and also doing volunteering for the National Trust which has proved to be pretty cool (sometimes literally!).

Stewarding at the Illuminated Gardens event at Powis Castle
at the end of November - beautiful but freezing! 

Some good things did happen in 2014 though - Tom got a job with Open Reach which has it's own challenges, but he gets to work outside instead of being desk-bound all day, he gets to drive a big white van and work with some pretty cool tools, and he gets paid to climb things! I am so proud of him for working his a** off and beating the competition to get his place, for making it through the long training period in Leeds (which sucked being apart all week), and I hope he enjoys it more and more as time goes on. My big brother Jonjo also bought his first flat and we had a great weekend visiting him and seeing his awesome new pad.

Some college friends also got married in June, and we had our 10 year college reunion in July which was brilliant, although my hangover the next day was a pretty horrendous! My sister Susie also had another little girl in April, Sophia, who is just gorgeous and amazing and they also moved house in the summer so I hope we get to go visit them in France again sometime soon when money permits!

I'm sure I've forgotten some other big things, and I haven't yet finalised my resolutions for the year, but in order to help me remember and cherish the good times of 2015 I've created my own memory jar for the year ahead. The idea is to write down on small scraps of paper good things that have happened throughout the year and pop them in the jar to read again at a later date. It doesn't have to be the big things like weddings and babies, even little things like a catch up with a friend, a walk in the woods, pottering in the garden, or a craft project like this memory jar itself - all these things contribute to making me happy, so they are worthy of going in the jar. Some people don't read the bits of paper until New Year's day the following year, but I like the idea of dipping in and out of the jar throughout the year to remind myself of moments that have made me smile.

Not finished yet - need to decide what
 colour to do the lettering.

Vintage-style pocket watch stamp that I
got this Christmas. It seemed appropriate.

That's it for me for now. I'll try and do a post on how I made the memory jar soon, and will update on my resolutions as well soon. Hope everyone had a fantastic Christmas and New Year, and here's to making the most of 2015!

General update 01.07.12

Hi everyone!
I just updated my cooking challenge page with a few new recipes ticked off the list - I've now completed 31 recipes so far with 41 to go. I've been going a bit Eastern crazy lately as I've done the Thai Green curry and more falafel (but baked this time which made me feel a lot better about the calorie content!) and I'm thinking of doing a chickpea and potato curry in the next week or so. Check out my Cooking Challenge page if you have a moment!

In other news, Tom's birthday has been and gone - we went to Silverstone to see the Free Practice for the MotoGP. Unfortunately we couldn't stay for the actual race on the Sunday as Tom had to work but we still had a brilliant time (despite the typical British weather that somehow left me drenched and sunburnt in equal measures) and we're already thinking about booking the whole weekend away next year.

Free Practice on the Friday at Silverstone

Because of our trip to Silverstone I thought Tom's birthday card should have a MotoGP theme to it, and after wracking my brains for days I finally came up with a design I really liked involving a hidden message - the design had checkered flags on the outside, and images of one of Tom's favourite MotoGP riders, Casey Stoner on the inside, and a hidden message in the folded part...

Checkered flags (which took ages...)

MotoGP winner 2012 Casey Stoner

Before he won the Championship last year Casey Stoner's rider number was 27 so I thought this would work well seeing as Tom turned 27 this year.

And now that Stoner is the reigning champion he is now riding under the number 1, so I thought I could play on this to write a cheesy message on the inside of the hidden part of the card.

It's small but the blue number on the bike is 1

I found the hidden message card tutorial on Youtube here (it takes a second or so for the video to start) and even though the original design on the video was quite feminine, the basics can be applied to any kind of card like the one I made.

In addition to the recipes on my Cooking Challenge list I also baked some toffee brownies as a late birthday treat for Tom. Absolutely, unbelievably, sinfully delicious, but so, so bad for you it doesn't bear thinking about (seriously, a whole stick of butter and 3 and a half bars of chocolate went into it!).

In other news, I'm going to be working at another Flower Show in London next week (Hampton Court) which also coincides with a family party to celebrate my cousin Jenny's end of treatment for breast cancer and her 40th birthday, so I'm really pleased I've managed to coordinate things so that I can work on the stand and do the family thing as well.

What else? Oh yes, we had Australian Christmas last weekend which was great fun - it's essentially a big get together for friends who we might not see on a regular basis and we have a bbq and just pretend like it's Christmas in Australia (but without the presents). There's been so much going on in the last month that it's been quite hard to stick to my budget so I'm hoping the next couple of weeks I can get by without spending much and slowly get more out of my overdraft. There's more birthdays coming up in July (including mine) so I'll still have to be careful about money for the time being.

And finally I got to see a specialist about the on and off dizziness I've been having, and he doesn't actually think I have labyrinthitis, which is good news in one sense as it means I won't be left with lasting damage to my inner ear. Unfortunately though he believes I'm been getting vestibular migraines which are what is affecting my balance, and which means I might need to be on medication for the rest of my life (boooo), and also means I have to completely cut out caffeine. Now I can cope without the stimulant side of caffeine as I don't drink much real caffeine these days anyway, but I just really like the taste of coffee and tea, so not sure how I'm going to cope without that. The bit that really upsets me though is.... *pause for dramatic effect*..... no more chocolate either!!

CURSES!!

He's definitely missing his Cadbury's Caramel

So that's my life in a nutshell for now. I'll try and update more as the weeks go by on everything (Cooking Challenge, decaffeinating myself, and getting out of my overdraft).

Ta ta for now,

Lettie xx

More homemade birthday cards

Here's some more homemade birthday cards and gifts I've recently made for friends.

This one I made for my best friend Amy's birthday. For the paper flower I followed a tutorial I found on youtube (with background music from Emilie Simon which made it even better!), and I then stuck a piece from a broken bracelet in the middle with sticky pads.

I also made some photo-candle-jars or whatever you want to call them using some old photos of us and our friends from over the years which I printed on normal paper in black and white and glued onto a clean jar on top of some old book pages I'd already glued on.  I then tied some cream ribbon around the neck of the jar added the tea lights and voila!  
 

 

That's a photo of the cardamom biscuits we made together in case you were wondering...

It was also my friend Becky's birthday a few weeks ago but because I was away working at the Chelsea Flower Show with work I didn't have time to work on a nice card before her birthday, which I felt pretty bad about. So since we were going to her Dad's birthday this weekend I decided to make them both a card. 

They're both very musical so the cards had to have a music theme. With Becky's I decided to make a heart shape out of a treble clef and a bass clef (I've seen it on a tattoo before and it looks cool) which I made a stencil for and then cut out of book pages (I love using old books for craft projects, in case you hadn't noticed!) and stuck onto some nice red card and added some more book paper to the edges. It was pretty tricky tracing the treble clef and cutting it out so I'm even more proud of how it turned out (even if the whole thing could have done with being a tad more central).

I then cut out a happy birthday message from the remaining red card for the inside, which again I stuck on top of old book pages to make it stand out more against the black card. Ideally I would have liked to have used old music scripts but I just don't have any lying around and didn't have time to go hunting for some.

For Becky's Dad I decided to make a piano themed card from some ideas I'd seen on the internet and this is how it turned out.

 

It might seem pretty simple but it was actually quite tricky making sure everything was the exactly the right size and getting the white keys to lay out right without either overlapping each other at the bottom or leaving really big black gaps at the top. I probably should have made the curve a bit less pronounced, or made the keys themselves narrower, but it didn't turn out too badly in the end. I was going to add in black music notes to the red section at the top but it would have been very fiddly and I didn't really have all that much time before the party in the evening (which was a musical extravaganza itself!). Both Becky and her Dad liked their cards which is the main thing anyway! :)

Right that's enough blogging for one day I think. If you have any comments or questions about any of these cards or the photo jars, just leave me a comment below!

Thanks for reading!

xx