a wee blog on sugar and design...

so i stopped eating sugar about 4 or 5 months ago. i noticed that i constantly craved sweet stuff, was really lethargic and my moods were up down up down up down. decided to see what would happen if i stopped eating sugar (not including natural stuff like honey, fruit, maple syrup etc)and very quickly i had more energy, more level moods, and also unexpectedly weight started falling away too! i've had a few blips but mostly it's fantastic. when i have a blip and eat sugar, even a small amount, i start to feel unwell within an hour or two - kind of groggy and hung over! so i think a life without sugar is here to stay but the benefits to my energy levels and mental health are a definite motivator.

in terms of design, i have designed a collection of clothing for breastfeeding women which i am in the proess of seeing through to the manufacturing stage and then on into wholesale and retail distribution. my first pattern is in the post right now which is very exciting! i'm trying to get in touch with british manufacturers as i'd like to keep as much of the process here as possible. if anyone wants to suggest a business name that would be great - my favourite has caused a couple of murmurs of derision so i'm keeping an open mind!

kate, any questions?!!

new header..

...the previous one was pretty uninspiring....

yeah baby yeah!

last night i had pampered chef training - in fact it was a cluster ralley!! anyway, i won 2 prizes - firstly for having the highest sales for October and secondly for having the highest sales average for October. in itself that is really quite amazing i think you'll agree but just wait til you hear this... October was my first ever month of Pampered Chef. Yeah baby yeah!! my team is about 7 strong so i had some good competition.

jos is on the move and also pulling himself up at every opportunity. the clock change was an hideous experience and meant that we were awke from 4.30am. mum and dad came to visit and they ook us out for a lovely lunch at thyme cafe.



the photos above are robin and his friends - robin and ruby on the elephant and hannah on the giraffe. these are the kids that robin spends most of his days with - to the extent that they are almost too familiar with one another. more scrapping goes on when these guys are together than when when robin is with any other children!

my pattern cutter called me today to say that she has finished the pattern for my first design and she's sending it ot me to look at. this means that as soon as i have decided on a manufacturer i can get a sample made! all a bit scary in an exciting kind of way!

i love knitting but at the moment i feel too tired even to knit a lot of the time. but the other night i did have the energy to watch anchorman which was hilarious. i recommend it!

bees in our attic

somewhere in our attic is a bee's nest. we thought it was a wasp's nest until i got stung today by a bee lurking on the computer mouse. andy thinks it was a been cos it left part of it's body behind which he thinks wasp's don't. if we could find the bee's nest it would be quite a bonus because the critters look like honey bees so there would be womderful honey and wonderful beeswax. however, our attic resembles a junk shop so finding the nest could be difficult! anyway, i got stung, my hand went into paralysis, i screamed and screamed with proper tears until andy returned and got the sting out. i did try doing it myself but my other hand was shaking so much i couldn't use the tweezers properly (have since found out you should scrape a sting out, not pull it due to the barbs on the sting).

if people coul dcomment on my posts that would be great - words of affirmation are very important to me and my sense of well-being!

The Eye of God

This is a picture NASA took with the hubble telescope.
Called "The Eye of God". Apparently it only occurs every 3000 years. Now, I know that it's possible that this may be a clever creation of a computer geek or maybe not. I don't have time to check it out.

But i do like it and if it is real then that's even cooler!

more new music...

...my morning jacket have released a live album that is scarily similar in feel to when i saw them in the summer, so that's really good.
highly recommended.

and aint those boys cuties - that smile of jos'!! its non stop these day 9well, except when he's sleeping or trying to get to sleep)

the sugar crash from hell

congratulations alexander luke clifford for making it safely (and speedily-at-the-last-minute) into the world! i can't remember html so her's the link in a format that is not as helpful as a link. www.fishpie.net

i am typing slowly -
1. i am using my right hand to hold jos so left-handed fumbling is all that i can manage.
2. i feel rough from major sugar crash after fab night out last nighht.

yyeah - great night out for helen's 32nd b'day. 4 of us - b'day girl, chloe and kate and me. it was a giddy experience as we organised a surprise treasure hunt to get helen to the chinese restaurant. chloe and i positioned clues in the afternoon and were amazed that theyall stayed put and intact. even the clue in the middle of the peace gardens fountain! i've not been eating sugar for a few months now (apart from the odd blip here and there). chinese created big blip and i am paying for it today!

i do have fabulous bright pink nails though c/o the beautiful chloe noble. they are so wonderful tat i cannot stop looking at them - in the same way it was hard to take my eyes off the man in the thong, in the bath, on west street where it was very cold last night. how funny that sight was - these baths were electric (i think) and were being driven by semi naked men (2 of them in total). they even did reverse!

i haven't blogged for yonks but here we go - i am blogging. i am still setting up my business and i have also set up as a pampered chef consultant. can't be bothered to keep typing so here are some pictures i like:

return of the be good tanyas...

for some reason i thought the be good tanyas had split up and gone their separate ways, so it was a pleasant day when amazon.co.uk decided to tell me they had a new album out this month (and would i like to preorder it, to which i replied "yes please!") - 3 years on from their last release, and its just as good as "chinatown" - more similar to it than the debut "blue train", but with just as much charm, its well worth the purchase.

the legendary "W" party

perhaps starting on too high a note, i plan to present to the more discerning readers of the blog, a series of highlights from the by-gone years of sheffields burgeoning social life way back when none of us had kids, or (for the most part) were even married.


(click the photo!)

more to come - watch this space!!

new look!

got sick of the old one that was falling apart at the seams, so got a new one, and will try and get round to fiddling with it in the future...
its like an outward sign of a personal blogging resurrection, a rebirth, a renaissance if you will.

i won something else interesting....

i went sea fishing yesterday with a bunch of blokes form inner city life/ church - it was an interesting day with this hulk of a yorkshire man skippering the boat - i caught 4 mackerals and 1 whiting which was quite exciting, and then at church this morning, the guy who organised it had small prizes for the various people by way of letting everyone else there know what people got up to, and i won the prize for most understated fisherman, catching the second most fishes without people really realizing... so that and the most defensive player.... i'm sarting to see a re-occuring pattern here....

i get the impression no one reads this blog anymore....

...which is kinda our fault for not blogging much.
but i've been getting better recently, and making more of a concerted effort to post things.

stop child abuse

light a million candles