Evil cat is coming for you!

This cat has nothing to do with anything by the way. I just like him.

Oh my gosh, you know those days when you find yourself trying to decide whether to bang your head against a brick wall or just burst into tears? Well I've had four days like that so far. FOUR. And folks, I'm so tired. I'm pleased to say though that I have neither inflicted a brick wall upon my head nor shed a tear, but it's been close!

Those of you who follow me on Twitter will already know that I'm doing a dressmaking course. You will also know that it is not going well. Not at all.

The problems start whenever I have to complete an assignment at the end of a section. The assignments are shall we say, not written for beginners. Actually I'd go to far as to say that they're not written for accomplished sewers either, but I won't bore you with the details. Let's just say they're stupid and I want to beat the person who put the course together with a soggy bog brush.

Looking on the bright side, tomorrow we have our 20 week scan...this one's the biggy. It's the one where we'll find out the flavour (yay!) and will see if everything is as it should be (eep!).

Yet another bright side, not at all related to dressmaking courses or anomaly scans, is that I have a tub of Ben & Jerry's ice cream in the freezer. And it's calling my name..

Lazing on a sunny afternoon...or not

Today was gorgeous wasn't it? Sunny and warm, but with a slight nip in the air just to remind you that it was autumn. I decided to make the most of the weather by doing something that would help me move closer to crossing off not just one, but two things from my Winter List.

• Move chickens off garden and create a more 'winter friendly' space for them.
• Prepare garden ready for winter.

I've moved the chickens to the side of the house where it's paved which will hopefully make them more comfortable during the winter months. There are still one or two things to do before I'll consider it a more "winter friendly" space though so I'm not quite done with this task yet.

The other thing I did was to remove the chicken run from the garden as it was in a hell of a state. The grass that you can see in the picture above has long gone. Now it's full of ruts and holes where the chickens have been digging. Also, the ground is so compressed that it no longer drains properly when it rains. This does not make for happy hens.

This is what it looked like first thing this morning..

And this is what it looked like before I came in this evening..

I can't tell you how good it felt to rip down all that netting! All we need to do now is level off the ground and aerate it so that it starts draining again. 

But that will be a job for another weekend because I'm pooped!

Time for a new list..

Every year I make myself a list of things to do before winter arrives, this was my list from last year. It's something of a ritual I suppose. Something that gets me in the right frame of mind for the colder and darker days. 

This year however things are slightly different. A lot of the stuff on lists gone by have been simple house and garden maintenance jobs. There will be no conker collecting to deter spiders this year either. They work a treat, but I was still finding them under the sofa and behind the oven as recently as last month so spiders be damned. Instead, most of the list will be DIY jobs that we've been putting off for ages, but now need to get done before the baby arrives. So here goes my Winter List, 2011 style..

1. Add fence to front of house 
2. Get crafting corner sorted 
3. Fix kitchen wall that I buggered up
4. Get Dan to finish tidying tile grouting in the kitchen 
5. Paint hallway
6. Move chickens off garden and create a more 'winter friendly' space for them. 
7. Prepare garden ready for the winter
8. Make/buy a door curtain for front door
9. Make a curtain for the bedroom 
10. Finish dress making course by Christmas
11. Make a draft excluder for the living room
12. Add winter stuff to car (de-icer, cover for windows, blanket etc)
13. Put summer clothes in attic and bring down the winter gear
14. Buy a maternity winter coat that a) does not cost a small fortune and b) does not resemble a kid's duffel coat
15. Fix crochet blanket
16. Make a snood
17. Make Christmas presents, cards and decorations

See? It's a much smaller list this year and I've already made a start too! My summer clothes were packed away in to the attic and my winter clothes brought down at the start of September so I considered myself to have gotten off to a grand start.

Good job then that we're not experiencing some sort of mini heatwave that calls for flip flops and summer dresses.

Hang on a minute..