Monday 10 July 2006

Virtual Friends

Monday 10 July 2006
Well I don't know about the rest of you out there in internet-land but I had a terrific weekend.

I belong to a small online community of UK stitchers which is a subset of the large online stitching community. I met these people online and I met them purely because I cross stitch and when I took up the hobby I was looking for some help and advice. What I got was much, much more than that and more than I ever expected.

We talk pretty much every day on the internet and we laugh with each other, support each other and generally keep each other sane (or as DH would have it, insane). Not only that I've learnt more about cross stitch than I would have ever imagined existed, I've been baptised into the world of hand-dyed fabric, flosses, beading, speciality stitches, etc and I'm well on my way to having more projects than I can complete in a lifetime.

This virtual friendship became a reality a couple of years ago when I went to a GTG in Swindon. I'll admit I was a little apprehensive and DH kept nagging that he should go just in case they turned out to be a bunch of loonies. Well, I left DH at home and they did turn out to be a bunch of loonies but the good thing was, I fit right in!

So this weekend I escaped normal life to head to Kitty's for the latest of these GTG's which involved spending the day with 15 other stitchers, an evening at the pub, overnight at a B&B and shopping at Wye Needlecraft in Bakewell on the Sunday.

It was the first time I've been away on my own since Lia was born and apart from a few twinges I coped just fine without her (and she without me I should add). It's impossible to put down in words the fun we had just looking at what other people had stitched or are stitching and going through each other's stash collections. Only other stitchers will truly understand how much fun that can be (and why my wish list has more than doubled in 48 hours LOL).

But what really makes it special is that there's 35 active members in our online community with an age range of around 40 years. That age range coupled with a range of life experiences and lifestyles means that if we passed each other on the street we wouldn't look twice at each other. But because we've connected virtually and all have a friendship that we're prepared to extend in reality I've got a group of friends that have become one of the first places I turn if I need to talk.

I'm not getting mushy, a lot of them will be reading this, but I know that a large part of what is fun in my life stems from that community and I'm pretty sure every one of them can say the same thing. So roll on 19th August which is the next GTG date and may there be plenty more to come.

Tuesday 4 July 2006

Catch Up Post

Tuesday 4 July 2006
MMR

Lia had her MMR last Thursday. There was never any issue in our house about this, both DH and I agreed she should have it which made life simple. Apart from screaming blue murder when the needle went in she was absolutely fine, she settled down very quickly and had a nice afternoon nap when I got her home.

I know there's loads of debate on this subject but in my opinion children should be vaccinated against these diseases. Sure, if you're worried about the triple jab then get single jabs if that makes you feel better. What is totally irresponsible is not getting the jabs at all. I read the other day that there's a borough of London where the take up of the MMR is 18%!!!! That's atrocious. When there is an outbreak of measles (which I believe there will be as there have been small outbreaks recently) those 82% of parents will probably live to regret their choices.

101 Things

Personal
1. Get married - yep
3. Lose 50lbs - another 2 gone
5. Write a letter to a friend once a month - several letters written this month (mainly to show off the headed notepaper we got as a wedding gift LOL)
11. Have my hair dyed professionally - yep, for the wedding
19. Get a birthday book and not forget anyone's birthday for a year - still going strong
20. Tell someone I love them at least once a day - still going strong
21. Throw a party - we had two in Greece!
48. Organise and quantify my stitching stash - I've made a start
69. Go for a half an hour walk at least three times a week - this has fallen by the wayside a bit but I'm starting again this week
87. Throw at least one item of junk out a week (or donate it to charity) - still going strong
92. Recycle more - still going strong
93. Clean up the back garden - we've made a great start, now we just need to do a bit of painting

So I'm doing okay really, again, better than I thought I had but I need to start paying attention to the things I want to do monthly or weekly.

Lia

She's doing fine. Nine teeth now and almost walking. She does keep us guessing though, I've been convinced she'll be walking alone 'any minute' for the last three months but she's still not quite there. Still, it won't be long I'm sure.

Thankfully she seems to have inherited a Greek tolerance for the heat as it doesn't seem to bother her at all and thankfully she's been sleeping just fine during the current heatwave. She did have a bad patch where she would cry unless someone stroked her back till she fell asleep but I put that down to her having a stinky cold and a tooth coming. That lasted about two and a half weeks and was hell (we're so spoilt with her being so good normally) but now she's back to just being put in her cot and getting herself to sleep.

A Weekend for Me

I'm off on my own this weekend to a stitching GTG in Derbyshire. Kitty is opening up her house to a bunch of us (how brave she is) and DH and Lia were originally going to come with me but I've persuaded him that all three of us will have a better time if he stays home with her and I go on my own.

So, a day of stitching and gossiping and admiring stash and completed pieces followed by a night in a double bed all by myself followed by a morning visit to a stitching shop. What more can a girl ask for!!!

 

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