Did some crochet!

Yesterday I started to do some crochet again. I have done it a lot when I was in my twenties! I bought a book about Crochet with all kind of patterns for making cozy blankets. There was also a pattern with a nice flower and because that's very usable on a layout I made a few of these flowers. I took a photo of the 4 flowers that I have made thus far, cut them out and made a daily something with them.

Today was a better day than yesterday, concerning me and my son, but I still feel tired.

The weather also isn't in my favour. It felt cold inside and outside the house and I saw it was just 18 degrees Celsius inside. I put on an extra vest but it still felt uncomfortable for my muscles, so I put on the heater (?). It's ridiculous! I mean it's still Summer for crying out loud!

A rough day with my son!

Today I had a rough day with my son! He's hard to handle now that he's gone back to school. I suppose he just has to accustom to the new teachers and classmates, new kids in the schoolcab, new subjects, like German and he also has to get used to the early hour to get out of bed.

When his homeschool teacher picked him up from school he was in a very bad mood and he kept his cap on for a long period of time, hiding himself and not wanting to speak to either his teacher or me. Well, he spoke a few words but that was more scolding.

When his teacher left he went upstairs and took a shower. After he did that his mood was better but every time I wanted to have a conversation with him about why he's so angry he started to scold again (it's all my fault ofcourse!), so when I tried a few times I realized I wasn't getting threw to him and left him alone. Did some crochet for a new layout!

When I went to the city this morning I bought a book about crochet and with the new cotton I also bought this morning I made a flower. It has been several years that I did crochet so it took me a while before I got used to the instructions in the book.

After that I made my daily something with a photo of Zander when he was sitting on the sofa with his cap on, watching Pokemon.

It's 9 p.m. and I feel exhausted! I feel I go to bed very soon.

Daily something.

Simple daily something today! I feel tired. Spend a couple of hours with my dad in the hospital this morning. He had to do some tests because of his heart condition.

She gets closer and closer ...

... Kuifje that is! This afternoon I found some chicken poop on the threshold between the shed and the kitchen! One day soon I find her sitting on my bench watching telly! LOL

She's walking in and out of the house now. Still a little bit careful and somewhat shy but she's not as afraid as in the beginning. She's a funny chicken!

I do have to paint that blue threshold!

First digital collage

This evening I made a collage with several photos I took today. A while ago I bought this book about being creative with photos that is explaining step by step how to make digital projects. The book contains a cd with College Creator, Panorama Maker, Funhouse and Greeting Card Creator from ArcSoft. It's very easy to work with. So, this is my first digital daily something.

My chicken is now coming in the house. She already did that yesterday, but I wasn't able to take a photo of her then. Maybe she will have some company soon. It's not sure yet, but I can have some chicken from a lady who passed away last friday. Very sad story!

The pizza was made by my son and Horst (one of his teachers). I only had to put it in the oven!

Isn't that just great!

Zander back to school and my Daily Something

This afternoon my son had to go to school for the first time, it was just to meet his mentor and his new classmates. He also got his timetable.

Tomorrow he already has a day off because the city of Groningen was liberated on August 17 1672 (according to the Julian calendar). The Bishop of Munster, who proclaimed that parts of the province of Groningen belonged to his diocese, was defeated and the city of Groningen was rescued. Since the Gregorian calendar was introduced in 1700 the festivities are taken place on the 28th of August. This year the Queen will also visit the festivities.

When he was at school this afternoon I went to the supermarket on my bike, since I don't have a car! Because of the daily something project I start to look different at all the things that I'm doing and find so very normal. So, my daily something is about my shopping bike. To be able to bring as much items from the supermarket to my home, I have a large basket in front and large bags (on both sides) at the back. Sometimes I even have to put an extra plastic bag on one side of the handle-bars. I do think sometimes that for foreigners we Dutch women must look like pack-mules on our bikes. Can you imagine that I also had Zander on the back of my bike when he was little? I'm glad he has his own bike now.

New layout

Today I made a new layout. It's a scraplift from Birgit Koopsen and I'm going to send it in for her scraplift challenge. You can see her layout on the left side of the second photo which is my daily something for today.

Birgit made a 12x12 layout and I changed it into an A4 (8,5x11?). The challenge was to only use cardstock and no patterned paper.

I used the Cricut for the paper hearts, the large red letters and the green frame. I also used felt for the hearts. Just click on the photo to take a closer look!

All the little dots you see are actually holes I made with an eyelet setter and behind the holes are different colors of cardstock. Took me a lot of time!

I also used the eyelet setter to make holes for the zigzags with ribbon.

Supplies: cardstock (Bazzill, Action), ribbon (market, Action), felt (Pipoos = Dutch store), white rub-on letters (Making Memories), thickers {} (American Crafts), clip (Rob&Bob), letterstamps (Provokraft), black DVD pen (Pilot), white souffle pen.

Journaling in Dutch says: despite the fact that she's only laying wind-eggs!

Kuifje (my chicken's name) means something like: forelock.

In top 5 contributors DS!

I have just found out that I'm in the top 5 of contributors to the Daily Something Flickr group. It's nice to be in 5th position. I just had to take a photo of this moment. I'm sure I will loose this position very quickly, because there are a lot of woman in this group who are as dedicated as me, to make a daily something every day.

The only disadvantage of this project is that I'm not making any large layouts anymore! So yesterday I made myself a promise to make a large layout today!

Chicken stories

I made two daily something layouts today about my chicken.

I think they are funny!

The first one from yesterday is about cleaning up the chicken poop from the terrace. I have to do that several times every day! Because she comes up to the house more often (well she practically stays on the terrace the whole day) there's a lot of chicken poop. It's one of the two inconveniences of having chicken. The second one is that they destroy your garden!

The second layout is about how funny it was to see my chicken sitting on the bench of our picnic table this morning, when I opened the curtains. It looked as if she was waiting for her breakfast. I was a bit surprised too, because normally I close the henhouse every evening, but I guess I forgot to do that yesterday.

Yesterday's daily something

Finished my daily something of yesterday.

I had two long and emotional phonecalls yesterday with another mother of a son with autism. She has her son home from school for the moment because there isn't a school available. Well actually there is a school available but because of some stupid regulations he couldn't be placed in this school. The only thing I could do was listen to her and let her throw out all of her frustrations about the situation.

I understand very well what she's going through because I have had the same kind of problems with my son with autism a couple of years ago. The only difference is that I wanted to homeschool my son. This is not allowed in the Netherlands! You feel very powerless as a parent if all kind of people that do not know your son in person, think that they know what is the best!

She, her son and her family were in my thoughts all day. I felt powerless in not being able to help her but than I remembered a visualization technique from The Secret that a friend told me about and I send this information to her in an e-mail.

And you know what .... this morning she phoned me again, telling me that she has had wonderful news this morning. It is almost certain that her son can go to the school of her choice. She told me that when she read my e-mail last night, she started to visualize her son being on this school right away. She calmed down and felt much better after she did that. And this morning she got this great news .... isn't that cool!