Walking update, a couple of layouts and a small giveaway

I've really got back into the swing of walking again, even though I had a migraine last week which lasted nearly 5 days. Fortunately I am feeling much better now.

Over the weekend we were quite busy with jobs and visiting my Mum and Dad (lovely to see them after quite a long time and to see that Mum is slowly recovering from her shingles). I did manage to get some scrapbooking done Saturday afternoon.

This was done using my SJCrafts kit - some of the January and some of the February, plus a couple of bits from my stash.

I am slowly making my way through the photos from our Shropshire holiday! We are off to South Wales soon!

Hugh's Mum is starting the journey to recovery. She has been moved onto a ward for the elderly and they seem to have much more of an idea of how to treat her. She was in very good spirits over the weekend and we are hopeful that in about a month she may be able to go home.

Thanks for all your good wishes and prayers for my family - it is really appreciated.

Finally, I have been having a little clear out and found these stamps, which I have never used.

The first person who posts on here that they would like them can have them! I will post to anywhere in the world, so good luck!

Catching up

Well I have had a busy few days! Last week I had to take my half day on Thursday as my manager had Friday off. So, as Penny was home from Uni for the week we went out to lunch at our local pub - yum!

On Saturday, Hugh, Penny and I all went to Canterbury. Hugh and I had a free night's stay in a Premier Inn, so we booked into the one in Canterbury city centre. We spent the afternoon exploring Canterbury Cathedral. Penny and I had been there before, but Hugh hadn't. I think I could go there again and again - it is so beautiful.

The sun shone the whole day, so we had a lovely time both inside and outside the Cathedral.

The good thing about visiting there is that Penny gets in free as she is a student in the City and once you have paid to get in once, if you are a UK tax payer and do Gift Aid, you can then get in again, for free, as many times as you like in the next year. As I had paid and visited with Penny last November I didn't have to pay this time!

I loved looking at all the memorials they have there and reading about the lives of the people commemorated. The huge majority were placed there in Victorian times and they had such a way with words!

This is a view from one end of the Cathedral to the other, with the candle marking the spot where Thomas à Becket's tomb was until it was destroyed by the Puritans!

We had a lovely weekend with Penny and came home on Sunday afternoon, leaving her there to get on with her studies!

Whilst in Canterbuy we did a lot of walking, which all helped with my weekly total! A couple of times last week I again forgot to put on Map My Walk, but I am getting better at it again and I did actually walk every day last week, even if it isn't recorded.

Last week I also managed to spend some time scrapbooking with my friend Wendy. I did another layout using photos from our holiday in Shropshire.

And here is the journalling in close up!

My Mum is making good progress with her shingles - still a way to go, but she is starting to sound more like herself. Hugh's Mum is still quite poorly and we are having troubles with continuity of care and general care with the ward she is on in Derriford Hospital. Hugh is trying to sort this out with his sister today, but in the meantime we are obviously very worried about her.

Ben is making good progress with his shoulder and has started doing more exercise at the gym, which makes him very happy!

Weekly walking - 17th Feb and Inspired by Shimelle's class

So a quick update on the walking.

I actually did a couple more than are listed here because I went out with Ben into Reading to give him some exercise but forgot to put on Map My Walk! However, I know that I did it and I am back into the swing of regular walking again.

As promised, here are a couple of layouts I created recently following Shimelle's class, 'Return to the Collection'. In video three Shimelle suggested creating an embellishment first to use on the layout, which I did. I am using the same collection as her, but used different papers from it to create this layout.

And here is the embellishment in more detail. The frame wasn't in the collection, but from my stash, as were some of the other embellishments on it.

This layout was using the Glitz Wild and Free collection again, but not using suggestions from the above class, but from one of Shimelle's sketches, although for the life of me I can't remember which one!

This collection is not really my style and I have now used the papers I find easy and the ones I am left with I am struggling with. I shall try to use them up, even if I use them as base papers!

Ben is recovering well from his operation and has a friend from school staying with him this week for company which is nice. Hugh's Mum is still poorly and in hospital and we are very worried about her. Added to this, my Mum now has shingles and is very poorly too, so please keep both of them in your prayers. Thank you.

Weekly Walking - 10th February

Not much done this past week, but then again I have had bronchitis and needed to recuperate, so it is not surprising! I am now feeling much better and hope to be able to get back into the swing of things again this week!

This weekend saw us taking a trip to Reading to spend the weekend with Ben. It was nice and relaxing with a walk into the shopping centre, seeing the floods, a bit of shopping, some popcorn and a film on the tv and then a meal out in the evening followed by a game of scrabble. Sunday morning saw him and Hugh playing on the Xbox 360 - quite funny to watch as Hugh is not very good, but tried REALLY hard!

I've not had much time for scrapping recently - not felt well enough too! I am hoping that soon I will get back into the groove as I am missing it! I do have a few pages to share with you that I did a little while ago, so hope to be back soon to share those!

Weekly Walking - 3rd February

Again I am a day late posting this, but I have an excuse - truly! I have come down with bronchitis which means that I haven't managed to get out every day either. I ended up at the GP centre at out local hospital on Wednesday night as I couldn't get an appointment at our GP's until the end of this week - I ask you! Anyway, he diagnosed bronchitis and said to take time off work - which I didn't. My manager was on compassionate leave as her aunt had died in Italy and everyone else was on holiday, so I had to go in - big mistake! I went in on Thursday and Friday, but by Sunday I was feeling lots worse and I have now been off work two days. Not sure when I will be back, but at the moment it still feels as if I am coughing my lungs up.

Anyway, enough of me moaning! How did I do with the walking whilst ill? Well, I still managed to get out for 5 days out of the 7, which I don't think is bad. I also feel that as it was an 'intention' not a 'resolution' to walk every day, that by missing because I have been ill I have not 'broken' anything so I don't feel guilty!

Hopefully I will start to feel a bit better soon and I will be back to my daily walk! Hoping that you are all keeping well and enjoying this sunshine that we have at the moment - yay, no rain!

Weekly Walking - 27th January

So here we are, Monday again, and an update on my walking.

This weekend was fairly busy. Saturday was spent doing jobs around the house and garden. Hugh took my car and got it cleaned - looked lovely for all of 12 hours before the heavens opened again and we drove it to Canterbury! Sunday saw us taking Penny back to Canterbury as the trains were all up the creek with engineering works. We gave her a hand to clean and tidy the flat up a bit and I went to Asda with her to help her do a food shop - so much easier when you have a car to transport it all back home. She really appreciated our help as she has a stinking cold at the moment. Ben is currently in Munich with Microsoft completing his 2 year graduate training course with them. I do hope he remembered to take a coat as it is much colder over there than it is here!

So that was our weekend - it went far too quickly. Can't believe that next weekend will be the beginning of February. Have you anything to look forward to this week? Unfortunately I haven't! Nothing except some relaxing evenings in front of the television or reading a book,which actually doesn't sound all that bad!

Weekly Walking - 20th January

Well, not exactly the 20th as I am one day late with this post, but close enough!

I am finding that knowing that I am going to post this on my blog is really keeping me on track. I have been out at lunchtime, in the evening, in the rain, in sunshine and in fog! Just for that short space of time though doesn't seem to bother me and the added bonus is that in the three weeks that I have been doing this I have lost 3lbs! I wasn't really doing it for the weight loss, more for my wellbeing and happiness, but I'm not going to moan about losing weight!

So I am well into the next week of walking already - I am determined to keep this going - even though I have various stressful things going on in my life right now. Walking is helping.

A quick update

So here we are, Monday again, and an update on how my walking is going.

I have managed to get out every day and walked just about a mile a day, some days a little less, some a little more. I am quite happy with the distance travelled and time taken, my biggest achievement is just to get out and do the walk!

On Saturday I collected my new car, which was great fun and I am thrilled with it! I am now the proud owner of a Ford Kuga 4x4, so if it snows I should be ok! I picked it up in Dartford so drove it home from there (about 20 miles) and then in the afternoon drove it over to Hemel to show it to Mum and Dad, who approved. It is lovely to drive and I couldn't wait to get in it this morning to drive it to work.

A bit of family stress at the moment, which I don't want to talk about, but we will get through it together and hopefully come out stronger. Life is not always easy and I think we must appreciate the easy times a little more, in order to cope with the complicated stuff that is thrown at us now and again. That does mean that I may not be on here as much over the next few weeks, or be able to read and comment on your blogs as much, but do be reassured that I will be back and commenting soon.

Walking so far

I've been using Map My Walk to record my walking. It is quite good as you get a weekly update of the 'workouts' you have done.

I actually started using it for 2014 on the 2nd of January as I hadn't decided until then to go for a walk every day this year. So here is proof of what I achieved on my first week!

The week it records is from Sunday to Saturday, so that explains why this is a short week! I intend to post my weekly update to keep myself motivated! I shall try and do this on a Monday in future.

This weekend I am off to collect my new car. I am so excited! I will take lots of photos to share with you next week. Tonight I am scrapbooking with my two good friends Wendy and Sue. It is our first crop of 2014 and I am really looking forward to completing a 12x12 page having spent December doing my JYC/Your December Story/December Daily which was 6x8. Hope you are having a good week too.