Queen Bee

A bit late but....

Happy New Year!!!

Hope 2008 is a fab year for everybody :) I can't wait - I've got so much planned for this year and I'm really excited about it :)

Just for Fun

I have been busy, busy, busy this week (can't believe how quickly the week has flown over!) but I'm now catching up on all my blog reading.

I found this little quiz on Euphoria's blog and thought it seemed like good fun:

1. YOUR ROCK STAR NAME: (first pet & current car)
Priscilla Peugeot

2.YOUR GANGSTA NAME: (fave ice cream flavor, favorite cookie)
Chocolate Chip Fig Roll (that's not particularly gansta-ish but hey ho..)

3. YOUR DETECTIVE NAME: (favorite color, favorite animal)
Green Cat

4. YOUR SOAP OPERA NAME: (middle name, city where you were born)
Louise Manchester

5. YOUR STAR WARS NAME: (the first 3 letters of your last name, first 2 letters of your first)
Hum - Ge

6. SUPERHERO NAME: (”The” + 2nd favorite color, favorite drink)
The Pink Gin and Tonic

7. NASCAR NAME: (the first names of your grandfathers)
Eric John

8. STRIPPER NAME: (the name of your favorite perfume/cologne/scent, favorite candy)
Gucci Rush Turkish Delight (that sounds a bit odd!)

9.WITNESS PROTECTION NAME: (mother’s & father’s middle names )
I wouldn't have one - neither of them have middle names!

10. TV WEATHER ANCHOR NAME: (Your 5th grade teacher’s last name, a major city that starts with the same letter)
Charlesworth Cardiff

11. SPY NAME: (your favorite season/holiday, flower)
Autumn Sweetpea

12. CARTOON NAME: (favorite fruit, article of clothing you’re wearing right now + “ie” or “y”)
Mango Jamies (I know I'm dead lazy!!! I'm getting showered and dressed right after this!)

13. HIPPY NAME: (What you ate for breakfast, your favorite tree)
Toast Oak

14. YOUR ROCKSTAR TOUR NAME: (”The” + Your fave hobby/craft, fave weather element + “Tour”)
The Sewing Rain Tour

Hopefully I'll get a chance to post again later and put on the pics I talked about in my last post...

It's been a while...

....since my last post and a lot has happened since then!

1. I finally finished all my college work and have found out that I passed my course, yay! My cap and gown day is in November so I'm looking forward to that. In the meantime I'm enjoying not having to write assignments and actually having time to do the things that I want to do! Even better, I can read books for pleasure rather than boring, dry textbooks.

2. Mr Bee and myself have been on holiday to Benalmadena in Spain. We had a fabulous time and came back feeling incredibly chilled out and relaxed. I hadn't realised it before but I really, really needed a holiday after all the stress with my course - sorry to keep going on about it! It's the last time I'll mention it, I promise ;) I took lots of photographs and in my next post I will upload these (and the ones of the cross stitch I talked about here).

3. I have started a new part time job. Since Christmas I have been attending Slimming World and have lost 1 stone 3lbs to date. Although I haven't lost a huge amount of weight, it has made a huge difference to my life and the way in which I see myself. In the past I felt less confident and this has definitely changed! I recently applied to become a Slimming World Consultant and will be starting my own class in about 3 weeks. I am really excited (and nervous!) about this and am looking forward to helping other people the way that my consultant helped me. I have been attending training sessions in the last few weeks and have found them fascinating. I understood the plan before but now I understand the science behind it and it's made me even more motivated to lose the weight I need to reach my target weight.

4. I have had the time to work on some crafty projects :) Two of my friends have recently had babies and so I have been working on some special cards for them and also some keepsake pictures. As I haven't yet given these to my friends, I'm not going to post any pictures until I do (not that they will be reading this blog, but you never know...) I have also started making my Christmas decorations. I know, I know it's only October but it's only 9 weeks until the start of December and as this is the first Christmas that me and Mr Bee have spent in our home we're starting from scratch with decs! I'm cross stitching a picture that I saw in Stitch and Craft Magazine and I have started planning my tree decorations. I am hoping to make a start on my Christmas cards next week as I always make all my own (and my mam's too!)

Anyway, I'm going to finishing tapping away on my keyboard now because I have a DVD that me and Mr Bee are going to watch - A Very Long Engagement. I have been waiting to watch this for A Very Long Time so GOODNIGHT!

Another short post :(

Yet another short post from me this morning because I'm up to my eyeballs in college work and really need to get it done this weekend :( I can't wait until I've finished my course and can have my life properly back! At the moment I feel guilty everytime I do something that is not college related...

I have lots of things that I want to write about but they will have to wait until Monday.

Anyway, if anyone's reading, have a good weekend :)

Tired and sore!

Just a short post today as I'm ridiculously tired and aching all over! I was working at Creamfields last night, which is an annual dance festival that takes place near Liverpool on the August bank holiday weekend. I was working on the bar but had to do a 15 (!) hour shift - I was so tired by the end of it I could hardly speak, which as Mr Bee would tell you, NEVER, EVER happens ;) I then had to drive 50 miles back home, finally getting to bed at 4.30 this morning. Not good, especially as my dearest, darling mam rung me up early this morning to "just see what you're up to"!

On a more cheerful note, I have finally finished the cross stitch I posted about here (woohoo! worked out how to add a link!) but I'm too tired to photograph it now so I'll post a piccie tomorrow!

If anyone's reading, enjoy the bank holiday weekend!

The news today

It's been a strange day today. The main headline on all the news bulletins was the shooting of an 11 year old boy in Liverpool. I'm in total shock as to how someone could do that to someone so young. 11 years old. That poor boy had only just started his life and some idiot on a bike ended it for no reason. His mam and dad were on the news tonight and it was awful to see how devastated they were. It's scary to realise that this appears to be a random shooting and worryingly the two people who have been arrested are only teenagers themselves. It makes me sick to the stomach to see the way things are going in this country at the moment.

R.I.P. Rhys. God bless you.

Great day :)

I've had a fab day today :) I took the train into Manchester to go to the Art Gallery (look here for their website) and do some shopping. I think it's quite disgusting that I've lived in / near Manchester for so long and have never been there before - I didn't know what I was missing! The gallery is now My New Favourite Place :p

The main reason I wanted to go was to see the Kylie exhibition which has been on there since June. I've been saying for weeks that I wanted to go and it's finishing in a couple of weeks so I finally made up my mind decided that today would be the day I got off my bum and went to town!

The gallery itself also has a lot of permanent collections and I was lucky enough to arrive just as one of the guided tours was about to start so I joined that, which was fascinating. The guide knew all sorts of facts about the stories behind the paintings and it wasn't the sort of things that I would have known from just reading the plaques that are dotted round the building. After the tour finished I had a bit of a wander round the gallery so I could look at the things I liked in more detail, such as this painting by John Everett Millais:

This picture doesn't really do it justice as in real life the colours are so vibrant and the picture is incredibly detailed. Our guide told us that the two young girls to the left of the picture are Millais's wife Effie's younger sisters, Alice and Sophie and the other two girls were from the local village. The picture is meant to represent the cycle of life as although the girls in the picture are at the beginning of their lives, the day and the season are drawing to a close and the leaves have died and fallen from the trees.

Another part of the gallery that I really liked was the collection bequethed by Mary Greg, who was a "complusive collector" during the late 1800s and early 1900s. This is kept in the gallery of craft and design. Mary was unusual in that she collected every day domestic objects that most people didn't bother collecting. As a result these are now incredibly rare! One of the main displays in the gallery of craft and design has a huge dolls house that she donated to the gallery which is incredible in its detail. Unfortunately I don't have picture to show but I thought it was fantastic :) It reminded me a lot of a dolls house that was made for me by my grandad when I was little. 

In total, the gallery has over 25,000 different works but not all of them are on display at once! The collections are grouped into a number of galleries over 3 floors and there were three galleries in particular that I really liked:

• the CIS Manchester gallery, which is a celebration of the creativity of Manchester;
• the button gallery, which is a collection of over 100,000 buttons including some of the most wierd and wonderful buttons you can imagine; and
• the gallery of craft and design, which is split into 3 sections : making, memory and collecting.

The CIS gallery focuses on local talent with works from artists such as LS Lowry and Adolphe Valette alongside more contemporary artists. I found it fascinating to see paintings of Manchester "in the old days" and compare it with how the city is now. The exhibition also focuses on Ancoats, an area of Manchester close to the city centre which was at the heart of the pressed glass industry during the industrial revolution. I have recently found out that some of my relatives lived in Ancoats at this time so this gave me more of an idea what life must had been like for them. There was also parts of this collection that focused on what makes Manchester what it is today, e.g. pride, attitude etc so the Smiths and The Happy Mondays were also represented!

My absolute favourite display was the Kylie exhibition. I was a huuuuuge fan of Kylie when I was little and although I am not the massive fan that I was, it was still fantastic to see all her costumes and awards brought together. The exhibition looks at how Kylie has used the outfits she wears to create an image that is recognised all over the world. There are over 300 of her personal artefacts including the overalls she wore as Charlene on Neighbours and the infamous gold hotpants from her Spinning Around video. Apparently these were bought from a charity shop for 50 cents, which I thought was hilarious ;) There's also a recreated version of Kylie's dressing room from her Homecoming Tour, which is almost as messy as my own room (but with much more expensive clothes!!) I know everyone says Kylie is little but looking at her outfits really made me realise how little she must be as her clothes are tiny!

After I had been to the gallery, I went shopping to Afflecks Palace which is one of my favourite places to go in Manchester This is their website This place is full of independent shops and all manner of weird and wonderful things. I also went to Abakhan, which is huge fabric shop on Oldham Street. Here I got loads of fabric which I will photograph tomorrow to post a picture on here. Most of the fabric I got came in bundles which were just 50p each. Bargain! :) Because they were in bundles there was also other fabric included that I didn't like as much but even if I don't use that fabric, the fabric I liked still only cost me 50p (which is a relief to Mr Bee as we are meant to be saving for our holidays!)

Anyway, I'm going to go to bed now because I'm pretty tired and I want to be up early tomorrow for Derby Day - Go on you Reds! ;)

Nothing much to report...

.... because I'm still learning how to use this but thought I'd try and upload some photographs! These are from last week when myself and Mr Bee went for a walk on the canal near our house:

   

We met some friends along the way...

 

...before stopping for a drink in one of the pubs :)

Just starting out...

Well, I've finally managed to get started with this blogging thingymajig. I'm hoping to be able to post on here maybe once or twice a week, just about whatever takes my fancy really! I'll probably stick to crafty things until I get the hang of it all though!!