September: new month, all change

This morning I waved my nearly-21 daughter off at Manchester airport as she set out for Boston USA, where she will be studying for the next 10 months.

In less than two weeks my just-18 son will go to university in Sheffield, leaving the nest well and truly empty.

I have known this was coming, of course, but it seems to have sneaked up much faster than I expected. After a very busy summer, the house is a bit like a bomb site and while there is always the day job, I expect that after nearly 22 years of family-raising, I will have time on my hands.

I’m not going to waste it or fritter it away though. No doubt there will be times that I will be v. sad that we aren’t all together but I am very proud that both my children are going out into the world to follow their dreams and make the futures they want.

A few random pictures of my daughter’s last weekend at home before her trip.

 

Going to be having a Fen Shui clear out

This is the plan over the next few weeks but I intend to start small. I must tidy up first and get things back into a semblance of order. When everything domestic seems like a mountain that needs to be climbed, I break out my rule of fives. Just pick five things up, wash up five things, iron five things, put five things away. Two is never enough, ten is a job too far. But FIVE – anyone can do that, any time.

Crafting, here I come

Apart from defragging the house and keeping work under control, I am looking forward to having more time to fuel my creativity. I have always enjoyed crafting but have upped the action on that front over the last few months, going to workshops and learning new skills. This coming year, I want to really focus on improving my jewellery making and silversmithing and getting more into textiles with my crochet, some rag rugging and maybe even some sewing.

I also have a Big Project in mine that will extend my paper crafting skills quite a bit too.

Tomorrow, a big step along the way is going to happen. I am having my local friendly joiner here for the day and he is going to construct a Proper jewellery making bench. Not one that wiggles and sags, but a solid beech worktop supported properly and screwed to the garage wall.

I’ll be spending plenty of time on there between now and Sept 25th when my class resumes at Leeds College of Art.

Blogging til I drop

After quite a good start on Crafternoon Treats in the early summer, other things did rather get in the way in August and there wasn’t much action on the blog front. I have been doing a lot of thinking though and looking at what other people do and have decided that I am going to write my blog for me – and for my daughter in her time away. It would be great if I have visitors who enjoy what I burble about and I would love to read your comments – good and bad! Just no spam or adverts – I had to delete 3000 comments that were successfully caught in my spam filter earlier.

I will work on my pics but can’t promise it will be as good as many of the blogs out there. But at least I will have a detailed record of what I have been up to and you never know, I might get better at photography.

Must go now though, got to paint the back of the garage wall…