Day 3 – The Guarding Frost (by sarah)

Day three of Advent - The Guarding Frost. This one is actually for a story idea 🙂

It shows Ician in her tower and The Guarding Frost which is the bird. I have also ordered Christmas cards and stickers and things using some of my illustrations and what not. They are £2 each or 10 for £15 next year I will be aiming to get bulk prints done so they will be a lot cheaper but if you want some year you are basically buying the limited print run I've done to see how well it works.

Also if I can fix my laptops audio there will shortly be Sarah's Christmas Collection including PErcival's Christmas Wish and The Little Book of Festive Poetry in CD format.

I am still sick annoyingly and have started to cancel stuff for the rest of the week which is very sad as it included the Frozen weekend I was going to run for Jean and Mary - fortunately I hadn't gotten around to confirming it with most of the parents so most of the kids didn't know.

On the other hand the upcycled graze box advent is still going down with a huge amount of excitement with the girls 🙂

Today's is The Little Book of Spoogy Poetry - yeah I'm not doing all Christmas story just kids stories I've written - a future version may well be just winter/Christmas stuff.

Excitement! (by sarah)

Well it's day two of advent so here is number two of the Ice/Snow paintings I've done. I've been kind of pottering and managing scanning of more paintings and even doing a few new paintings as well. There was lots of craft with Mary which has left everything rather glittery - the lovely little thing curled up with me and let me sleep until 11 this morning, I can just about speak this afternoon so am on the mends. Of course I had to miss what should have been my comedy showcase thingy for the end of the course I was doing but hey ho - onwards and upwards and I have actually achieved things today.

The girls are loving their advent and Jean is even putting up the wrapping paper covered boxes in the window. Tonight they had The Little Book of Festive Poetry 🙂

Also I actually managed to eat some food that wasn't just leaf salad or soft fruit! I did give Jean an ultermatumn that there will be no house decorating until room tidying is done - she thinks we are evi now.

I have Elsa nails 🙂 Jean is after stealing the nail vanish.

Christmas Has Hit The Snell-Pym Household (by sarah)

Here is the first of the water colours I have painted as an Advent thing. I am also doing something slightly different for the girls Advent this year, involving the stories I have written for them which I hope to get some good pictures of, to share.

Alaric has been blasting the Christmas tunes and Jean did her Christmas shopping at the village craft fayre at the weekend. I am still mightily ill and have been emailing people to say I can't make things this week which sucks - next week I could have afforded to be ill - never mind - especially as it means I have had to rest and just watch films as I wasn't capable of really knitting or writing or anything and that was the good bits the bad bits were spent in bed not sleeping.

The girls are both uber excited about Christmas and I feel sad I couldn't sort things to put the decorations up tonight which had been the plan. Jean has been occupying herself by making Christmas decorations and Mary is trying to be good for Christmas and was even convinced to sit still for bed time story - they had Percival's Christmas Wish though Al had to read it as I have no voice.

We are now sorting out mine and Al's Advent treats though we didn't get to do the main shop for them but it contains Toffee Apple Cider and Root Beer.

Christmas is go and no Humbug do I want to hear!

The Chronically Ill and Missing Stuff (by sarah)

As anybody who has spoken to me recently will know I was looking forward to this weekend, I had the night of dangerous writing which to be fair was only a maybe as I needed to see when my practice sessions and stuff where, and the Writing Retreat.

But this week had been a bit rough but I thought I was managing it ok, and I had already had to do damage limitation and not go to my Chuffing It class. Friday I felt a bit odd but in a way that could have been nerves over doing a new show for the first time a school and the first time on my own too!

I really enjoyed the shows and the kids were great but in the car on the way home I got really sick, well not really sick but suddenly very flu-like very chronic pain flare, even my pelvis hurt. I was scrubbed out and didn't make it to Bristol. Then I spent today napping and having warm baths and stuff.

Then this evening I find that due to being out of it yesterday afternoon and evening and really and truly this morning - I'd missed the writing retreat which I was desperately trying to be well enough to go to.... tomorrow - yeah somehow I managed to get my days confused and I only found out after getting an email saying how unfair it was of me not to turn up as there was a waiting list.

This is something that happens to chronically ill people no matter how much you try, regardless of how much you make sure that you pay for things you do not go on etc... people just do not understand and one of the things that was hard to learn on the pain management course 10 odd years ago - is that you can't really expect them too either.

From their point of view you are just being awkward.

It doesn't help that now I have a extra food issues and they had gone to extra effort to cater for that.

Of course if I had known I wasn't going, I would have let them know but I didn't and I am uber hacked off that I missed it - not that I could have gone even if I had been with it enough to realise what the day was!

It's the same mechanism by which the chronically ill lose friends as people think the last minute cancellations are excuses for "I don't like you".

And annoyingly it may be flu but equally due to the arthritis symptoms resurfacing we looked at the breakfast I'd been eating this week. It turns out that some porridge contains a thing called spelt - this turns out to be a kind of wheat - it never occurred to me it would be it oat based stuff and I was only having it as the nurse had increased my calories and it's frosty icing mornings :/

You Can’t Be A Scientist (by sarah)

Me: explains science

Kid: How do you know all this slits eyes

Me: Because I happen to be a trained scientist

Kid: No you're not

Me: Yes I am

Kid: Nooooo, he's the scientist points to Al

Al: Nope I'm an engineer, she's the scientist

Kid: What really?

Me: Yep, I've blasted moon rock with lasers

Kid: puzzled look

This was last week. I am sure I've told you all about the time the toddlers refused to believe I was a geologist and that my friend with his shorts and big beard was the geologist?

I'm sure you've all read the posts I've made about how I get parents thanking me for having Ada and a list of female scientists and engineers but this time I don't think the issue was one of gender exactly - I am a mum, I had occupied the space of "mum person" "stay at home parent" and in our society that means, person who doesn't do anything but house work, or maybe a side job in a shop or nursery.

He had no problem with there being female scientist puppets or the idea of girls in the group doing science but Mums? Mums don't do/know this kind of stuff, mums well they're kind of dumb and reserved and frightened things.

And I have gotten this so much.

I noticed that crutches aside people just assume I don't want to/can't do stuff anymore because I've had a baby or two and it is INFURIATING, more so as though Alaric suffers from this too it is a watered down version - probably as he is out at "proper work". Stay at home dad's I know tend to have issues with people thinking they are lazy and heaven forbid they try and expand their minds by reading or anything whilst at home - surely they should be fixing everything - what you mean they cook and clean? They need to go out and get a job.

And on and on and on.

But I am kind of feeling a bit stressed about bits of science that are not my bit of science because though at primary school age etc... I know all the stuff I feel like I am now The Proof and the only proof that slightly dumpy mummies can do science too.