..waiting patiently...

... or not as the case may be.  My mobile phone contract was up for renewal so I phoned my provider a couple of weeks ago to see what was on offer.  I thought I'd go for an iPhone as I'm fed up with The Boy showing me all his fancy (and often useless) iPhone apps.  Turns out I could get either the iPhone 3GS or the iPhone 4 handset for free but with an increase in line rental.  In the end I went for the iPhone 3 as it cost £10 more a month rather than the 4 at £20 more a month!  Admittedly the rental includes a silly amount of inclusive texts and minutes but I never use my current measly allowance so do I really need 5000 texts a month?  Unlikely!

The phone was supposed to arrive on Monday last week (20th December) but it was held in a warehouse due to the weather.  This morning I received a text message from my provider saying that it would be delivered today - between 08:00 and 18:00.  Nice of them to give me a narrow time slot so that I don't have to sit home all day waiting. I have things to do, parcels to post, food to buy.  So, while I'd normally be content enough to sit home and make jewellery to pass the time, I'm getting a tad twitchy.

I've even been into the iTunes store and 'bought' some free apps. I'm ready and raring to go.  Just as soon as my phone arrives.  Can anyone suggest any useful (and preferably free) apps for download when it finally arrives?  Is there anything useful for jewellery making out there?  Or is that too much to hope for?

I would love to say that I've been busy over the last couple of weeks making lots of jewellery in between the festive celebrations but I haven't.  I really have no idea what I've been doing.  I did make a bracelet, earrings and a bag charm for my niece's Christmas but no photos as I didn't have time before I posted them.  I did cut things a bit fine timewise.

I also managed to make my first set of wine glass charms:

One of my friends bought me a lovely spotty wine glass and charm for my birthday a couple of weeks ago so I thought I'd have a go at making some myself.  My daughter (Missbaah) and son-in-law (hereafter known as The SIL) came over to my house for Christmas dinner and I know what The Boy can be like when he's had a couple of glasses of wine and mislays his glass.  Any glass sitting unattended is fair game.  So I thought wine glass charms might solve the problem of misappropriated wine.

I can't say they went down too well with the menfolk.  The Boy was miffed that Missbaah was allocated the fairy while he got the dragonfly.  I was later informed that this was because the fairy is apparently quite a well endowed young lady.  The SIL thought they were all a bit girly.  I had to point out that I made his totally non-gender by giving him a swirl and neutral coloured beads.  :o)  They also complained that the charms were annoying as they tend to slip up & down the stem of the glass and make noises.  You just can't please some folk!  I've now been tasked with making non-annoying wine glass charms so I'll have to get my creative head on.  I'm thinking of macrame possibilities at the moment.  Any non-annoying creations will be posted here once they've been vetted by The Boy and The SIL and may even be offered for sale. :o)

And finally, thank you to Missbaah for cooking Christmas dinner in my kitchen.  She got some stick from the menfolk for taking longer than anticipated but I think she did a sterling job.

It's been an intense week

So last weekend the blizzard hit and we all thought that was bad enough.  But it didn't stop snowing did it?  It just kept on going like there was no tomorrow.

On Monday we had this much snow:

A few inches, it made my little garden lights look like cute little Mr Whippy ice cream cones with their pointy snow hats.  Then on Tuesday we woke up to more snow.  It had an interesting effect on next door's fence.  Turned it into a chilly work of art:

The garden furniture was under a few more inches of snow and my garden lights have disappeared altogether:

Did it stop there? No.  I won't bore you with the photos in between but by Thursday we were dealing with this:

This would have been all well and good, except I have been selling some of my cherished books on eBay and, typically, over the weekend quite a lot of them were sold.  Being a very conscientious seller I felt compelled to do my utmost to get them all down to the Post Office as soon as the buyers paid for them.  Under normal circumstances the Post Office is a pleasant walk of 200 or 300 metres down a set of steps, through a car park and along part of the pedestrian precinct.  This is the view of the steps on my return from the Post Office:

The weight of the snow had made some of the bushes fall over the steps so I almost had to get down on hands and knees to pass under them.  Why oh why did the council plant shrubs with evil thorns on them at either side of the steps?  They are just not funny when you're trying to get up and down, concetrating on not landing on your behind and they're tearing at you, trying to draw blood or poke your eye out.  Dear council, please rethink your shrubbery strategy in future.  My skiing clothes have been well used this week.

On the plus side, I did get more exercise than usual trying to walk through thigh deep snow to get anywhere. The Boy and I also walked the mile to Tesco when we failed to dig the car out.  I will never forgive Tesco for closing their branch in the centre of town and moving it a mile away.  I will be switching to Morrisons for my shopping when their new store opens in the centre of town.  Spending a couple of hours a day clearing snow was also a fairly good workout.

I also managed to be more productive than I've been for a while.  Look at all the new things I've managed to make:

For sale on Misi.co.uk:

For sale on Misi.co.uk:

 

For sale on Misi.co.uk:

 

For sale on Etsy.com:

 

Made for my mum to match a necklace:

 

Made as a gift: 

It hasn't snowed in a couple of days but it's turned very cold so I'll be staying at home unless I have to trek to the Post Office with more sales.