Looking Forward

hi Friends.

2008 a year of hope.

I hope I get well soon so I can launch into this year and start looking forward to all it will bring.

I am so bored being stuck at home sick. Knowing my friend Meg is just a few miles away in Liverpool until the 23rd and I cant get any chance to go see her is so annoying. I had so many plans to show her the joys of our beautiful country but they have gone down the drain.

Meg I am determined that we will meet up before you fly back to the states and I pray that happens sooner rather than later. Someone warn Pizza hut of the oncoming invasion!

I havent made any cards for a month now so I guess I had better get organised and get cracking on my valentines cards for a card swap group I am in. Problem is that inspiration on design is slow coming when you are sick too.

I am beginning the new year with an attempt at something I used to do all the time and found VERY beneficial in my spiritual life.
I intend to memorise the whole of Romans chapter 6 before the end of this month. I only started yesterday and think I have got v1-3 sorted

"What then shall we say, shall we go on sinning so that Grace may increase? by no means! we died to sin , how can we live in it any longer? Or don't you know that all of us who were baptised into Christ Jesus were baptised into his death?"

Yay I typed that from memory and then checked it I only had to change two words.

I have let my discipline of memorising the word of God slip, this was something I used to do a lot of when I was younger as I fully believe that this is a way of allowing God to speak to us, he brings these things back to our consciousness when we need them (John 14:26) and I do believe that by commitiing his word to memory it helps us to grow closer to him and more lilke him. Now that would be a new year resolution worth making!


Well I better go and do something useful so bye for now and God bless you all. May 2008 truly be a year of hope for you and your loved ones.

2008 a year of hope?

hi folks,

right now I feel like I'm not gonna make it into 2008, I have flu and its really getting me down. I have been fighting this since before Christmas but managed to keep it at bay long enough to get through the fetivities at which I was expected to sing. I have my friends Elise to thank for that as she recommended these fab lozenges that worked miracles and gave me back my voice long enough to get through the services at church!

Christmas was lovely despite it all! We were expecting it to be very lonely as our daughter is married and we hardly see her now cos her husband won't give us the time of day. Then our youngest son announced he was spending Christmas day with his ex girlfriend. I was gutted at this cos he chose her above us when he's not even supposed to be going out with her any more. But at the last minute he realised how hurtful that was and changed his mind he spent Christmas day with us after all. Then in the afternoon Bekki turned up and stayed with us for a couple of hours too. It was a lovely day altogether. For the first time ever we actually got the turkey in the oven BEFORE going out to church so Christmas lunch was quite early and was cooked beautifully! The church service was really nice and it was good to greet our church family on that special day too. Everyone was delighted with their gifts and we went to visit my niece later in the evening. In every way the day was perfect!

That was last week. Now Col and I are both struck down big style, with headaches, stuffed up noses, sore throats and barking coughs. All we can do is lounge around on the sofa wrapped in blankets and just about manage to get up to make Greg his meals. It's Bekki's birthday today but we are too sick to go and see her and she is sick with it too.

Not sure if either of us will be awake at midnight but wish you all a wonderful new year filled with hope for the future and a deeper knowledge of, and relationship with our Lord and saviour Jesus Christ.

Christmas blessings

hope you all had a lovely Christmas and remembered to celebrate the true meaning of it.

the run up to Christmas was very hectic for us this year, Col had his cataract removed from his eye just a few weeks before and had his post op assessment on Saturday morning just gone. They tell him his sight in that eye is now better than average, and he will have the right eye done soon too. it will be weird seeing him walking round without glasses.

I was busy preparing music for church carol services etc then in the last few crucial days I got a stinking cold which went straight to my throat and I lost my voice! Thanks to some great advice form a friend online I found some wonderful lozenges which gave me an instant fix and opened my throat up to allow me to sing.

despite that panic the services went really well and were a great blessing and helped focus our minds on God and his amazing gift to us - His own son!!

It was a lovely Christmas day, fellowship at church praising the Lord followed by a day of family time and lovely food- for once we managed to get the turkey in the oven Before church and it cooked beautifully, that has to be the best Christmas dinner we ever had!!

Next move is to get crafting with the goodies I got for christmas but I think I will leave it for a couple of days cos we are enjoying having a nice clear living room without craft stuff all over the place, I better let us enjoy that at least a few more days lol.

Hope your Christmas was full of blessings too and wish you a happy and prosperous 2008 filled with the joy of the Lord.

Back online and dont Kids say the strangest things !!

YAY I got my computer back!!!!

Well now I'm back I want to wish you all a Wonderful peace filled Christmas, and pray you all know the true Joy of this season.

I had a fab conversation with a kid at school the other day and I just gotta share it lol.

I have a habit of using words in conversation which I KNOW they won't understand and when they ask what it means I say "Go look it up"

Apart from winding them up which is always fun, this increases their vocabulary and helps the word stay in their long term memory. Anyway I used the word "Delinquent" with this lad in year 10 (Age 15 for my American friends) he found it means someone who flouts the law or doesn't pay his debts.

2 weeks later he came to me and said "Miss, we are all delinquents!"

I was confused and asked him how he had worked that out, and he proudly said "Because we all owe a debt to God and cannot pay it!"

I was gobsmacked! and so would you be if you knew this lad lol.

My reply after I picked my jaw up off the floor was "Thats why I thank God for Easter! and it sparked off a great conversation on how God had remedied that very problem.

Oh I love my job!!

OUTSTANDING!!

woohoo
The dreaded OFSTED inspection is over, and they judged us to be an "Outstanding school with some exceptional features" and my department (Special needs Department) got a special mention as "Exceptional"

This is always a tense time for anyone involved in education but it gives a weird sense of satisfaction to have achieved such an accolade from the government inspectors.#

we were told today that one of the inspectors had a jaw dropping experience with our students and they were blown away by how great our school is. I have no idea what that "jaw dropping experience" was but I intend to find out lol

checking in

Been having a break from card making for a while cos things have been hectic at work, getting a little stressed now cos we are being inspected at work to morrow and Tuesday(The dreaded OFSTED). Can't wait til thats over and I hope I will get back to making a few more cards afterwards. WATCH this space.

AT LAST!

ok so the blog has been neglected lately but its not my fault I gave in to all u nutters that kept inviting me to facebook!!
But anyway I had to come back here 'cos at last I can tell you all about the honour I got way back in August.

I belong to a world wide craft forum, in this forum are posts from many many talented card makers from all over the world. Its a great community of crafters, Many of whom are designers for craft magazines and such and its obvious when you see the talent on the boards.

I love to share the things I make on there. The members are so encouraging but also honest I know if I ask for constructive criticism on a project they will give me loads of ideas on how to improve it.

Anyway once a month they publish a newsletter and one of the items in it is recommended posts to look at on the forum, out of all the posts that month they choose maybe 6 to recommend and commend and I was so honoured when one of my cards got chosen.

I was sooo excited back then I was dying to tell everyone but I couldn't!

The reason being that the card chosen was one I had made for Miriam (Sunrise) to give to Katrina(Gymnast) on her birthday. Kats Birthday is today so I couldnt show her card til she had seen it.

I made several of thse fairy cards but here is the one that was commended on the cricut forum newsletter, (Wow such an honour)

Its a large card (A4 folded)
the lilac at the bottom is embossed with tiny bubbles and the name is backed and shadowed with a darker blue very like that in the top of the fairies skirt.

Tha fairy image is decoupaged, (Built up into a 3D image) with glitter added.