Days three to eight: Christmas 2008

Well specific daily creative events have been difficult to carry out during the craziness of Christmas, visiting relatives, and a sickly toddler (and husband.) But we've still managed to squeeze the odd thing in!

I didn't manage to photograph the play-dough butterflies we made, but here's my gorgeous girl making a snake of cotton reels:

And here she is still engrossed in it whilst having a family piccy taken!

On boxing day I managed to produce a felt bag from a kit my mum got me from Hobbycraft:

I prefer the cotton reel snake of course! But the bag's handy for my sewing bits.

I have probably also managed to create a good couple of pounds of fat owing to the amount of chocolate I have eaten. Yum yum.

Merry Christmas one and all, hope you are all having a creative time.

Day Two: Sleepless night

The very fact that creativity took place in the snipsnaphappy household at all today was nothing short of miraculous. My two-year-old was awake on the hour every hour all night last night with a terrible cough and sore throat and a temperature (my girl is usually the champion of sleepers, so this was a huge shock to the system). At 5.30am, after nearly an hour of constant screaming without being able to calm her down, I took her downstairs where we made a bed on the sofa by the light of the Christmas tree and I sat by her until she finally calmed down and fell asleep around 6am. Hubby took over the vigil an hour later at 7am whilst I whizzed off on my planned expedition to the supermarket to get Christmas veggies.


So by 7.30am on a Monday morning I had already been up for three hours, dealt with snot, tears and screaming, sung two Paul Simon songs and one eddie Reader ballad, drunk one extra strength lemsip, driven through crazy traffic and joined the throng of frantic last-minute shoppers already up and awake and fighting over the brussels sprouts.

Motherhood, eh?

At 8.30am the doctor's surgery opened for the drop-in session and I took my little patient along We joined everybody else in the whole of Kent in the waiting room and settled in for the duration. We waited two hours, then saw the doctor for all of thirty seconds. The verdict from the doc is... she has a sore throat. Yup. Could have told you that at 4am matey. But at least she has a lovely strawberry pink bottle of medicine, and has been a lot livelier since taking the first dose. Phew.

With hubby working at home he was able to keep an eye on the munchkin for an hour whilst I cleaned up and finished off my flower trivet. I also cleaned up Lil's first mosaic ready for the glitter treatment. Then Lil felt well enough to make a bit of a mess with glue so she started on her second ever mosaic (she's going to be such a pro!!) and as I special treat for being such a good girl at the doctor's and for being generally lovely, she got to use mummy's newly purchased millefiori.

Day One: The Plan

I lead a hectic life, rather like most women my age and in a similar situation to my own.

I work four days a week in London as a PA for a homeless charity. The hours I don't spend in the office and commuting I spend being the best mummy I can be to my gorgeous two-year-old girl. I am wife to the world's most patient man (though don't tell him I said that) and I try very hard to prevent the house from becoming too dusty and the laundary from sprialling out of control.

I have a good life, I am lucky to have a wonderful family and a cosy home. But it isn't all plain sailing. As I write this we are in the midst of a recession here in the UK. Money is tight, we are paying off debts and the mortgage from the purchase and renovation of our house last year. I have suffered from ulcerative colitis (UC) since I was 19, it has got more severe over the years and I have been hospitalised twice in the last four years. The last year has been particularly difficult; my father was diagnosed with Parkinson's Disease at the end of November 2007, I was hospitalised with a severe attack of UC in January 2008, then in March my husband of five years was diagnosed with UC as well. Work and parenthood is tiring at the best of times but throw some auto-immune disease in there too and you've got the formula for two extremely knackered parents.

Aside from playing and laughing with my little girl, and long hot baths, I find that being creative is my best form of escapism and relaxation. I am happiest when I am occupied with something I am creating*. So I reasoned that if I could do one creative thing every day then surely life could only be a little bit happier every day. If I promise myself to do something creative every day, then I am making a commitment to allowing myself to relax a little every day. Nothing wrong with a bit of self-improvement either.

So this blog will be about my creative world for the next year, whatever it may bring. For one year, from today, I start now**. And in case you were wondering: today I created a blog. Welcome to snipsnaphappy's world.


* Well lets face it I'm happiest when I am creating with a cup of tea and eating some form of chocolate based food.

** I much prefer a random day in December than on dull 1st January.