Pressies!

Well, last week was my birthday. Hubby didn't quite know what to get me so I gave him a list.

And he's so lovely that he bought me tons of stuff, including some amazing stitching books from Sublime Stitching. Although I've always done cross stitch, I've never done any other kind of embroidery stitching, so I thought it would be something nice to have a go at, increase my skills, that kind of thing.

...Except that these books contain templates. Hundreds and hundreds of them, ready to be ironed onto things and stitched. They are all re-usable! I may never have any free time ever again with the amount of stitching projects now in my house.

It's great to have stash. I just hope I can get some good use out of it... but I'm pretty determined, so I think so. I'll post whatever I make up here on my blog.

And here's a little picture of what I got from hubby... it's a stitcher's dream!

Central line fun

Sooooo... the little note was dropped onto the second carriage of one of the central line trains last night when it was nice and quiet. I hope someone finds it and reads it!

And talking of the central line... here's something that had me giggling... I'm sure it's not much fun if you're a bit lost and trying to find your way around!

http://stickersonthecentralline.tumblr.com/

Notes from a stranger

A couple of weeks ago, hubby and I caught the Northern line to go and meet friends up on Hampstead Heath. As we got on, I saw a little envelope.



Inside was this:




I have to admit, I have mixed feelings. Happy that people actually do do this, I think its really sweet. Also a bit guilty because I didn't really need the pick me up, I'm pretty perky most of the time anyway. Maybe I should have left it for someone who needed it more than I did. Or perhaps I'll place it back on a train for someone else to find!

What next?

Well, after all the excitement of the wedding and our fantastic honeymoon in Australia, where we visited Perth, Uluru, Melbourne and Sydney, I had to do something to perk myself up when I got home again.

So I walked into the hairdressers and asked them to cut off the hair I'd been growing for well over a year and to dye it red. A change is good, right?!

The downside is that I'm now slightly more limited with my colour choices... not so sure that bright pink lippy works, or half the stuff in my wardrobe... so black it is until I have time to figure it all out! It looks totally cute in a ponytail too. I feel lucky that I can mess around with it so much!

I've not fallen off the face of the planet...

... honestly!
I've been a bit quiet because, well, I was off getting married. So that took up most of the weekends in February with the last minute preparations, and then March was the Wedding day and honeymoon in lovely Australia, which was our giftlist (www.buy-our-honeymoon.com - Highly recommended!!!)

The day was beautiful and went off without a hitch, and I'm so impressed with all our suppliers and all they did for us, and I still have to get round to writing all the thank you cards!

In the meantime, some of my internetty friends have been asking for photos, so here's a few of the day. What a handsome hubby I have!










The following made our day completely wonderful, so thank you to all of them, I couldn't have asked for anything more:
Rookery Hall Hotel & Spa (Venue)
Beverley Foster Photography (Photographer)
Amy Lewis (Hair & Makeup)
Fleurescent (Flowers)
Creme de la Creme (Cake)
Lourene (Jewellery)
Cheshire DJs (Evening party)
SCC Weddings and Events (Dressed the room)

And of course our parents, the bridesmaids, best man and usher and all our family and friends for making it such a fabulous day!

Cooking up a storm

I've been watching the Jamie Oliver 30 minute meals program every night. Rob caught the one where he was making Chicken Satay skewers. I've never really been that keen on Peanut butter, but Rob loves it so I thought I would give it a try.

The recipe is here.

I'll admit, I didn't quite manage it in 30 minutes, but this was the weekend and there was no hurry. We were not bothered about the fruity pudding, but I did manage to make the satay sauce, the chicken skewers and I thought the noodles were absolutely amazing, I think I ate about 3 portions.

Overall, very happy, I'd definitely make this meal again. The flavours were really tasty, it had a lot of zing, but not uncomfortably spicy. Rob gave it an 8/10. Yum Yum!

Tigerrrrrrrrrrrrr

I'm really very behind with my stitching now. The tiger that I was hoping to finish by end of last year is still not even half done, so I hope that I can achieve my target of 4 finishes this year.
When I started it, I thought it would be easy, I started with the dark threads and they stood out off the beige background well. Then I moved to the paler colours and they all seem to just merge into each other so I can't figure out which bits I've done and which I haven't!
I'm hoping that as the evenings get lighter this will make it easier to see the colours more clearly. Also I need to get off the computer and just get on with it! Off I go! Another update soon hopefully, when I've got much further through it :-)