A new craft area

As I mentioned before, I've been doing my cardmaking on the dining table - not ideal, and looks messy, so I've been looking to get a small desk to go up on the landing....there's enough room and the landing is plenty light enough.

Well, yesterday I found the perfect thing for sale on our local neighbourhood website:-

It's solid pine, painted white, with the most gorgeous replacement purple glass drawer knobs, just what I would have chosen myself as replacement knobs, it's like it was made for me!  The seller was only asking £30, we went to have a look yesterday evening and brought it home with us.  Incidentally, the chair is one of a pair of spare dining chairs we have in the garage, is comfortable with a padded seat and just right.  The Ikea 8-drawer unit on the right is full of my yarn.  So I now have my own little crafting area on the landing.

As I was up early again this morning, as always (4.30 am), I had my big mug of coffee, glanced through the paper online, then got on with sorting all my craft stuff on the dining table and boxing it all up ready to take upstairs.  Most of it is now put away in the desk drawers, with a couple of boxes on the floor tucked between the desk and the yarn unit, and one on top of the desk.  I'm going to get one of those 3-tier letter trays, to put all the card blanks in, that are currently in the box on the desk top.  I think I might get a couple of little baskets to hang on butcher's hooks over the banister, to put my most-used little bits of equipment in - like scissors, craft knife, smoothing tool etc. 

I'm really shattered today, the continued lack of sleep is really getting to me now.  As for the sleep clinic - I know it's early days, I haven't even started the programme yet as we're still in the sleep diary assessment week, but I'm beginning to get a bit fed up with them already.  They email me with questions and 'tips' several times a day...most of the tips are just plain common sense and nothing I didn't know already.  And I'm starting to get the feeling that, rather than being a personalised programme tailored especially for me, they're just churning out automatic computer-generated suggestions.  But as I say, the actual programme doesn't start until next Monday when I've completed a week's worth of diary entries, so perhaps I should reserve judgement.  Oh, and a few of the questions they've asked I've thought....huh, if they actually read my sleep diary, they'd have known the answer to that!

People today just don't take enough notice, don't you find?  And they don't listen!  Is it just me?  I don't think so though, you often hear of menopausal women saying they're sure they've become invisible, and I agree.

Thanks, cardmaking and sleep (continued lack of)

Thank you for your continued good wishes for husband, he only got out of bed for the loo a couple of times last night, so I'm cautiously optimistic he might be getting a bit better.

Mum is still in hospital, it's almost a fortnight now and no sign of her going home just yet, in fact her consultant says he wants to keep an eye on her for the next few days.  He's pleased with her UTI progress but she has another problem now, fluid retention - she does have this quite a lot, but she's been leaking fluid from the pores in her arms apparently.  He's doubled her diuretics - that won't please Mum, nor will the fact that she has to stay in hospital a while longer.

I'm grateful for the suggestions for how to glue delicate die cuts.  I do have several Pritt sticks of different sizes, but don't think they'll work on the more fiddly delicate cut outs, they'll tear them as I'm trying to apply the glue to them.  But Sheila, Marlene and Hazel, your ideas for using PVA glue with fine paintbrushes, cocktail sticks or even pressing the die cut shape onto a thin layer of glue are brilliant, I'll definitely try those. 

I sat and made half a dozen cards yesterday, just simple birthday and best wishes ones, for when I need a card at short notice.  With the basic card already made, I can quickly personalise it when I need it.  I really enjoy doing the cardmaking, it occupies my mind and satisfies a creative need, when it's too warm to be crocheting.  I do really need to look for a small desk or table to put on the landing for my cardmaking, though....using the dining table isn't ideal and looks messy.  At least upstairs on the landing it would be out of sight.

I'm progressing with my sleep diary, it does seem as if there's a pattern to my nights.  I can generally go off to sleep fairly quickly when I first get in bed (there are exceptions, last night was one of them).  I have good quality sleep for 2 or sometimes 3 hours, then it's all downhill after that - I wake up and either take forever to get back to sleep, or just doze for seemingly a few minutes at a time, continually waking up, or just give up on sleep altogether and go downstairs.

I don't know what's caused my lifetime insomnia (a combination of things, I suspect), but do know why I'm sleeping so badly over recent months....it's not rocket science, it's all the tribulations we've been through recently, and continue to have.  But, other than being hit on the head with either a chemical cosh (which I won't do) or a big hammer, I don't know what the answer is, and will be surprised if the sleep clinic do either.  It'll be interesting to see what they come up with after I've completed a week's worth of sleep diaries.  They bombard me with questions and tips every day....the tips so far have more or less been just common sense, nothing earth shattering or even particularly useful, I have to say.  I mean, we all know not to have a big drink just before bed, and to make sure the bedroom is dark and not too hot or too cold!

Yesterday was a particularly irritating day, for one reason or another, and I feel a bit mentally as well as physically shattered today.  It would be nice to have a day out away from everything.  A holiday would be even better!

Quick question for cardmakers

I've been having a little play with my die cutter and am pleased but also puzzled with the results.  The embossing plate that came with it is fab, I think I'll be using that a lot.  However, I'm a bit flummoxed with the die cut outs - not how to do it, I know that, and like the finished cuts.  Here are some I've just done (love the butterfly one):-

I suppose I'd thought that the machine cuts the design into the actual paper or card, leaving it in there, rather than cutting the design out and leaving just the holey outline of the design in the paper, if you see what I mean.

My question is, now that I see the designs are cut out, how do you fix them to paper or the card?  I obviously can't use my glue dots or strips or double sided sticky pads, as the designs are too delicate.

Sorry if it's a really blonde question, as you know this is all very new to me!  Thanks in advance, I know all you experienced clever crafters will know the answer.

More antibiotics

Husband went back to the GP yesterday, he had to take in yet another wee sample (his 4th) and she's changed his antibiotics for the 3rd time.  Hopefully, these will do the trick.  He's getting really fed up with it now, it's so debilitating, he can't do anything much as he constantly has this urgent need to go for a pee, every half hour or so, and it's so painful for him as well.  During the night he's been having to get up for the loo about 5 or 6 times, which wakes me up as well as him.  He does go back to sleep pretty much straight away though, whereas it takes me a while.  So we're both knackered now.  On rare occasions we do sleep in separate rooms, when one or the other of us is unwell and doesn't want to disturb the other.  I don't really want to make a habit of it though, but I might go in the other room for a night or two this week.  It's having an impact on our daily lives as well, as we can't go out for a dog walk on the beach, or for a drive anywhere, because husband needs to be near a loo.

Jessica, thank you for the suggestion to drink pomegranate juice rather than cranberry, we bought some yesterday....husband says he's willing to try anything.

The workmen laid the loft insulation quickly and quietly....although they did inadvertently pull the aerial wire out of its socket!  Fortunately, husband had the TV on at the time so was able to tell them immediately what they'd done, when the TV went off.  Apparently, the kitchen ceiling isn't in any danger of collapsing, it's only the plaster skim that's cracking.

My sleep diary that I fill in every morning calculates the amount of sleep I'm getting each night, taking into account the times I wake up and how long for....it's an average of 4 hours or so, which is longer than I thought actually.  It also asks me how I feel each morning, I have to check however many boxes apply out of their list....the first two are 'energised' and 'refreshed' - I'd laugh out loud at those if I had the energy!  They don't have a box for 'knackered', which is my default setting.  I tick 'tired' every day, sometimes 'moody', sometimes 'frustrated', sometimes 'groggy'.  Today I've ticked all of those.  I think my list should be 'knackered', 'in pain', 'aching like I've been in a boxing ring', 'no motivation to do anything' and 'feeling like I'm 100 years old'.

At least the sun's shining today, and my lovely Betty is curled up beside me.

Sleep (lack of) and husband's UTI (still!)

Thank you for comments....to answer some of them:-

Cherie, yes we bought 4 cartons of cranberry juice at the weekend, he's been drinking several glasses a day since then.  No improvement so far.

Viv - yes you're right, Mum's world has indeed shrunk so I guess it's not surprising that she doesn't have a lot to talk about and tends to repeat herself.  She'd hear my answers too a lot better if she wore her hearing aids!

Joy, I fill in the sleep diary in the morning, I don't have to do it every time I wake up (thank goodness!).  They don't need me to be precise about exact time I woke up etc, they just ask whether each wakefulness period was early in the night, middle or end of the night, roughly how long I was awake, what woke me up (I don't always know actually), whether I got out of bed, etc etc.  

I feel like death warmed up today, I was really restless during the night.  And husband woke me up to tell me it was raining, not long after I'd gone to sleep, I could have kicked him.  He didn't deliberately wake me, he just woke up himself and announced it was raining, thinking I was awake too - which woke me up.  Do I need to know what the weather's doing when I'm in bed?  I think not, but he obviously thought so!

He didn't want to go back to the GP yesterday as he said he felt better.  However, come evening he felt quite bad again, started needing to go for a wee every half hour or so again and it was really painful again each time, he had to go several times through the night as well.  He's just got up and I've told him he's ringing the doc at 8 am regardless of how he feels.  This has gone on long enough now.

The workmen appear to have finished next door (she says, fingers crossed).  They're coming to us this morning, to lay loft insulation (we haven't had any since moving in, despite us asking the landlord several times to have it laid....husband put a few old duvets on the part of the ceiling above our bedroom) and to have a look at a crack in our kitchen ceiling.  It's only narrow but seems to have lengthened a bit.  It'll be good to have it checked out, as I don't really want the kitchen ceiling falling on me when I'm cooking, but am not keen on the work required to repair it if necessary.  

I wish I could wave a magic wand and make them better!

Thank you for comments, and I see I have a couple of new readers - welcome, I hope my moans don't put you off!

Well, I didn't get much (any) sleep during my supposed nap time.  For a start, I'd forgotten to put my phone on silent (I always take it upstairs with me in case my sis needs to get in touch about Mum) and it pinged with texts and emails a few times.  And I made the mistake of allowing Betty to come up with me....she's so fidgety, she's worse than husband and he's bad enough.  She must have changed position at least a dozen times.  It was lovely having her on the bed with me though, she's not allowed upstairs during the night, never mind in the bedroom, we'd never get ANY sleep.  At one point she stretched out her entire body down the length of my side, pressing herself right up against me and rested her head on my ankle.  Pity she wasn't the other way up, as it meant her bum was a few inches away from my face - luckily she didn't fart!  (she is a farter, she's definitely not ladylike).  I got some rest for an hour though, at least.

I suddenly had a bright idea yesterday (shame it's taken me so long to think of it though) and asked sis to let me know when she was at the hospital, so I could video call her and Mum, which we did.  Mum couldn't see me very well as her eyesight is so poor (she's nearly blind in one eye and has only limited sight in the other), but at least we could talk.  I have to say I was quite shocked by the sight of Mum, she's gone downhill so much in the few weeks since I last saw her, she looked terrible actually.  She's clearly confused still as well, several times she asked me the same question ("What's your weather like?"), told me she hasn't seen a doctor (she has of course, every day) and then 2 minutes later told me what the doctor had said that morning, when actually it was the previous morning as the doctors don't come round on Sundays.  (Clearly, people in hospital aren't sick on Sundays).  Mum said she's fed up and wants to go home....I hope she doesn't insist on discharging herself, as she's obviously not ready physically or mentally for going home yet.  Sis later said that Mum was very happy to be able to chat to me, it lifted her spirits, so we'll do it again.  

Husband wasn't very well yesterday either, his UTI seemed to get worse yesterday, he was in a lot of pain and needing a wee even more often and he didn't look well, he looked grey and tired.  He did seem to sleep quite well last night though, I'll see how he is when he gets up and if he's no better, I'll get him to ring the GP again.  He's halfway through his latest course of antibiotics.  This is the 12th day of meds, I'd have thought he'd be showing signs of improvement by now.

I filled out my first sleep diary this morning, I had to say what time I went to bed, how long it took to get to sleep, every time I woke up, what woke me up, how long I was awake, whether I got out of bed, what time I got up this morning, what the quality of my sleep was like, how I felt when I got up (knackered, as usual).  Quite detailed, but it was interesting seeing it in black and white.  Seems I got a total of 4 1/2 hours sleep last night, quite a lot for me!

Several steps forward!

Husband's weeing frequency is slowing down now, finally - it still hurts him to pee though, although he's not shouting in pain anymore, so it looks like the new tablets are beginning to work.  

Mum's consultant says he's satisfied with her UTI progress, but reckons the physio will want to keep her in hospital for another week, to improve her mobility further.  Mum made it to the loo down the corridor by herself yesterday, using a zimmer frame, but was so weak by the time she got there that she had to pull the cord for assistance.  Still, it's a big improvement on two fronts - she walked a short way by herself, and asked for help when she needed it, something she's not been keen on doing up till now.  Sis and a friend started on the changing of Mum's rooms around yesterday, a couple of male friends are going today to help move furniture up and down stairs, so it'll all be ready for Mum when she goes home.

We took the money pit car to be shot part exchanged this morning, picking up another car, a much nicer one all round.  We're very happy with it and hope it will give us several trouble-free years - it should do, it's low mileage for the age and has been exceptionally well maintained.  It's old and therefore didn't cost a lot, but so long as it doesn't keep breaking down like the last one did, we don't mind.  It looks nice anyway.

I've had a letter today from the sleep clinic, welcoming me into their programme and asking me to get in touch asap, so they've obviously had my GP's referral through.  I have to keep a sleep diary every day for a week first.....well, more of a 'lack of sleep' one!

Off upstairs for a nap now - something I never normally do, but am just so completely exhausted I really need some sleep before I fall down.