Time for Tea on Tuesday, the day after Boxing day!

This isn't crochet related so it's on the Cazzytime blog.

On the subject of Quirky Crafts, we are hoping to resume challenges soon, but we need a couple more people on the team to make it work so please contact me if you are interested.

This was Sooty when he heard he was to get a pre Christmas bath. Legs turned to jelly lol and hiding in the corner furthest from me as the door was shut so he couldn't dash down the stairs!

 NOOOOOO, I don't want to go in the shower...

 this is horrible....

 ..getting dry is nice, I love rubbing all round the bed and furniture afterwards, and even like the hair dryer...

 ... all fluffy and dry, time to play with Pooh bear!

Sooty and I took a holly wreath up to the grave, but the new stone isn't there yet so only Shaun's dad's name is there, RIP my darling, and thank you for the beautiful card and present you must have arranged before you died, I wasn't expecting it and it had me in bits on Christmas day xx

I have another funeral to go to, my lovely aunt passed away after battling dementia for many years following the death of my cousin, RIP Auntie Margaret. It will bring it all back again.

Frogging with my niddy noddy (I love saying that).

Meeting friends on our walks....

 ...this one is a little shy....

 ...his friend isn't shy!

 Sunset, it wasn't actually dark but shooting at the sun did this, and blinded me for a while!

This crazy friend wanted his photo taken but never keeps still so it is blurred!

Boxing day - decided to get the clippers out...

...well they said it was mild....

...the reaction to the clippers was the same as the shower, but there is no escape...

....if I sitz on it she can't clip it.....

....whee, feels better now, and she has stopped! (As for mild, it was really cold out and has been frosty and icy since).

You were wondering where the tea was, well here it is, tea and turkey salad. Well it is T for Tuesday at Elizabeth and Bleubeard's place!

The best way to trim the underneath of the paws and to clip the nails - only possible with much bribery!

Sooty's daily carrot!

The good news is that Luna will be with us at the weekend, the hard work starts then! If you don't know who Luna is read the last post!

T on Tuesday and the new unit is here!

You can't see it but I had fruit tea with a healthy lunch of melon and cottage cheese with nuts and cinnamon. I'm showing you this because it is time for T on Tuesday at Elizabeth and Bleubeard's gaff!

Last Friday was a sad day but a relief too, my husband's ashes (and 4 dogs ashes) were interred into his father's grave with a small family ceremony. It brought back sadness but relief his wishes had been carried out. There is a new gravestone to sort out as a final thing to do.

Today I had a phone call from one of Shaun's friends who ( very generously together with his 90 year old mother who didn't know Shaun) wants to donate some money to Dorothy House via my Just Giving page, and the badminton club that Shaun belonged to also want to donate. The page link is in the sidebar at the top, and another page for the RUH forever Friends cancer care appeal.

New squishyness.

Gorgeous hand dyed gradient squishyness!

Two little "helpers".

Surrounded by  Really Useful Boxes, ready to go in the new unit.

The big box of hanging files is not for the unit but now holds my crochet patterns.

YAY! The unit arrived at last!

WIP, I put some of the castors on and my son did the rest.

The shelf pegs were really tricky to get in the middle section which is under the overhanging desk, you really need a 4 year old to do it! This went quite well until he declared his head was too big and went on strike!

Nearly finished, just a few more shelves to go in.

Here is the finished unit, I haven't finished filling the boxes yet! The Salcombe Petite unit is from Storage4Crafts, and comes in different finishes. I went for maple and plain doors. I think this is going to be really really useful! It takes less room than the old big desk when closed, and is going to be able to hold so much stuff! It is on castors so can be moved about, the two side sections roll open when needed and it has a soft notice board that takes velcro and has elastic to put things in to keep to hand.

I will be able to sew and papercraft on it, and I am sure I will get the papercrafting bug back once I sort more of my stash into it.

T on Tuesday, I'm back!

 Well I've not joined in for many months at Elizabeth's and Bleubeard's place for tea on Tuesday, but here I am with my hot chocolate in the foreground surveying heaps of boxes.

I had to clear out my craft room when my husband was supposed to be coming home, and I had a hospital bed and equipment installed in here ready, which meant a lot of boxes of stash were relocated upstairs and to any available space. After (my husband died in the hospice) the equipment was collected I decided that I didn't want the table that was in here with all it's messy boxes underneath.

(I should mention here that my husband passed away in August, in case you didn't read the last post linked below which is on my crochet blog, as several people assumed he was still alive, sorry my fault.)

Instead I would buy a Really Useful Storage unit called The Petite Salcombe from Storage4Crafts. This is a folding unit that holds lots of different size Really Useful Boxes, and the plan is to sort my stash back into the boxes and they will be stored out of sight when it's folded and easily accessible when working.

I'm currently rethinking which stash will go in the boxes, a lot of what was under and around the old desk was yarn and that won't necessarily work with this system because it would totally fill and and maybe some of the boxes aren't big enough for yarn stash.

What I might do now is to clear out some drawers of stash that are currently under the bench down the side of the room. Then I might have room for the yarn boxes, and even buy a few more under bed storage boxes for yarn if I need to. Not sure what I will do with the drawers yet - unless the yarn can go in the larger ones!

I'm also thinking I can maybe clear some of my shelves and store things that didn't fit on them.

This 35l box will not fit the unit, not sure where I will put it. I bought two that hold hanging files, the first one is 19l but I wasn't sure one would be big enough, and I decided to use this one instead for all of my (mostly printed) crochet patterns in the same place and labelled into types of pattern so I can find them easier, except for those (now probably vintage) ones I have in a folder, and the crochet magazines. I have sorted all the loose patterns into here now. There is room for more when I print them too! Some of the magazines I buy digitally and only print the patterns I really want to make one day......not sure which one day!

I just heard two pieces of news, one is that the unit is arriving tomorrow (will need assembling but I am quite good at that) and my visitors are arriving during the day tomorrow (panic) so I need to clear a space in here for the boxes with the unit to fit, and to have space to assemble it (will have help now lol). I think once I can fit the boxes in I can really get stuck in to tidying and maybe I can start paper crafting again! I also need to get some stuff done before the visitors arrive, move all things an 11 month old will get into, clean the floor, make beds etc.

Also Sooty has a check up tomorrow, he had a bladder stone removed last week. He seems much happier now, we just need to get back to normal walks - and the furniture is piled up with objects to try and stop him jumping on it, he wasn't allowed to jump up. Nobody can sit down right now without moving something like the laundry basket.

Here's Sooty just after the operation, wearing his pink lampshade and Alfie's jumper because he was shaved quite a lot. He really liked the home cooked chicken and rice, I had to keep it going for a week to get the antibiotics into him, and he looked a bit disappointed when it stopped but it did make his beard very smelly!

Hooked

I did it, I got back to crochet after an absence of 16 plus years! I used to crochet all the time, I made clothes, novelty and decorative items, but when I started working full time it took so long to finish anything that I gave up. Now look what I did yesterday:

I am pleased that I can still do it, and though my hands ached it was remarkably calming and relaxing.