For once, I’ve found the time to sit down and write up a blog post – a rare event! Time seems to be in very short supply these days. I’m lucky if I can even find half an hour in the evening for a spot of crafty activity.

However, there’s lots to tell, so I’d better get on with it.

I’m now approaching the end of my second week back at work – so far, so good! I’m now working part time and get to do the school run around work too. I’m loving being able to get home at 3.30pm and be able to spend time with my kids doing nothing in particular before having to think about organising dinner.


I can see now that I made a big mistake returning to work full time after I had Iona. I just couldn’t find that work/home balance and as a result my self confidence nose-dived, and I was getting very depressed and having problems at work. I’m trying to do one or two other things at work to boost my self confidence now too to try and make sure I don’t dig myself back into the same hole I was in before.

However, I now only have half an hour for lunch at work, so my internet time is very limited. At the moment, I don’t see myself getting back to regular blogging in the foreseeable future.

On the crafty side of things, I finally finished my entries for the Inside Crochet competition, took my photos (cue the crazy photo session in Vicky Park) and wrote the patterns. I got everything emailed off last Saturday and am now sitting here with arms, legs and just about everything else crossed. I sent two entries, one of which I’m especially pleased with and am rather proud of. For a while I felt really confident that it should do well in the competition. Now that I’ve sent it, I’m wracked by uncertainty! Everyone keep their fingers crossed for Billy Buttons!

Here are a couple of sneak peeks of the things I made.


I’ve also suspected over the last week that I’m going to have to take a temporary retirement from stitching. I just can’t see me having enough time to sit down and do any constructive stitching for a long time and I find crochet much easier to pick up and put down and get more done in short time periods. With my stitching I feel like by the time I’d got something out and got organised, I’d have to stop and put it away again. I’d like to do the ’12 stitches’ kind of thing that I did before, but there doesn’t even seem to be enough time for that at the moment.

I have a lot of crochet ideas rattling around in my head and an on-going obsession with crochet waistcoats, although I’ve yet to actually make one! This is my current favourite, although whether I’ll actually get around to making it is anyone’s guess! And I’ve had a frustrating couple of days trying unsuccessfully to track down some bamboo yarn I bought, pre-Niamh I think, to be used for a waistcoat! It has to be around somewhere!


Hopefully it won’t be too long before I get round to another post as I have Very Important Monkey News to share!