Boxes Boxes Everywhere!

My lack of blogging over the past week or so if for no other reason than I have done absolutely nothing that is blog worthy.

The weekend saw boxes, tape, newspaper and various other packing materials fill the house and, in a military style operation, me and The Other Half spent 48 hours wrapping, stuffing, shoving, and squeezing what seemed like everything we own in to these boxes…..

There doesn't seem to be many of them but they took long enough to pack, i'm lucky that I managed to ship most of my crafting "stash" up to my parents over Christmas .

I managed to sort these…

…which are full of clothes, shoes, bags, etc that either no longer fit me or I just can’t justify paying to ship over to France. They will be dispersed between family, friends and charity shops.

One of the reasons that we are making the move is to live a simpler and not so “thing” orientated life. We have sorted out about 5 outfits each to wear between now and the move and the rest of our things will (hopefully) be packed away and ready to send over by the end of this weekend.

My house looks very bear and empty now, not very homely at all, but I’m hoping that by being organised (for the first time in my life) now, it will save some of the stress and hassle when we actually get to “moving day”!

Fingers crossed I will get over to a wonderful antique centre on Saturday, the house we are going to in France is very large and totally unfurnished so I need to get a lot of LARGE furniture to make it look full!

Oh I did manage to get a sofa (will make sense if you read my last post), where from I hear you ask…… yup, Ebay come through for me again. I got this 9’ hardly used beauty for all of £92.00 – don’t you just love a bargain!

Sorry for the mundane post, I haven’t even picked up a needle or been near a bead this week – I will try to do something more exciting next week!

Love

Sarah

x x x

Beg Borrow and Steal

The weekend saw me and "The Other Half" head up to my Parents House in Cumbria.

We are doing the move to France on a tiny budget and all of our furniture has to stay in our current house, apart from two beds, a large wooden (and very uncomfortable) futon, an IKEA chair and a few bits and pieces.

My parents have lots of outbuildings full of old bits and bobs of furniture, toys, books, etc so in a bid to reduce the amount of things we have to buy we decided a barn raid was in order. We found lots of “treasures” from my childhood and suffice to say I got very distracted – lots!

I also took the opportunity to sort out all of my horse’s “things”. I find it very hard to part with things, both me and my dad are hoarders, much to my mums dismay, well you really never know when something might come in useful! I found rugs that he has had since I got him over 8 years ago that have massive holes in them, head collars that I suspect have been chewed (bloody mice!) and lots of other stuff that I said good bye too.

My parents have a lovely old pine chest in the living room that holds their TV. It really is a lovely piece of furniture. About 4pm on Saturday afternoon my dad announced that he had another one somewhere in a barn. Off he went and re-appeared some considerable time later proudly carrying this…


Now not to sound ungrateful, but I didn’t know whether he was joking, did he really expect me to put this in my living room?

Oh me of little faith.

After an hour of scraping, scrubbing, frantic sanding and washing, this is what we had.

Granted its only the front of the drawer but you get the general impression, don’t you? Obviously it needs waxing and a bit more work but I think its a bit special.

I think we might have discovered a little gem underneath the two layers of sticky back plastic and three layers of paint!

We also managed to fill the one barn that my mum and emptied with three tables, two stools, 4 dining chairs, three rugs, a TV cabinet, my first rocking chair (its so so small and cute), various curtain poles, a selection of lanterns and outdoor candles and a few other bits and bobs.

Now all I have to do is find a sofa?

Hmmm - Ebay calls me thinks!

x x x

Growing Outwards

When I started university in 2006 I was a size 6 and weighed just over 7 stone – tiny and unhealthy I know. I went from leading an extremely active lifestyle, riding my horse everyday, helping out on a farm, looking after an assortment of animals to living the “student” lifestyle and doing, well, not a lot!

Now, 3 ½ years later, I am over 10 ½ stone and hovering somewhere between a 12 and a 14. So in a bid to knock a few inches from my waist (and numerous other places) over the last few weeks I have cut the following from my diet:

Cheese
Bread
Pasta
Rice
Sugar (in tea especially)
Sweets/Cakes/Chocolate

So basically all of the good stuff!

I have been eating huge amounts of:

Apples
Broccoli
Cabbage
Grapes,
Spinach,
Carrots
Cauliflower
Cucumber
Garlic
Lettuce
Onions (anyone who knows me will realise how impressive this one is!)
Spinach
Turnip
Chicken

I feel like a totally different person.

I know that once I get to France and start being active again I will be able to eat what ever I want again, but I feel so good now that I’ve cut out so much crap I might try and stick to it!

Hope you had a nice weekend

x x x

New Beginnings

Ok, so, here we go.

This is the start of a new adventure for me. Those of you who have been following me over at Molly & Izzie will know by now that in 7 weeks me, my other half, 2 horses, 2 gerbils and a van full of our favourite things will be taking a one way, non-refundable ferry ticket to France, to our new home!!!

So I though that there was no time like the present to freshen everything up in my life, that includes blogging. Now as much as I love Molly & Izzie, I have been guilty of serious neglect over the past few months – life (the boring part of it) has sort of got in the way and I feel that both me and the blog have lost our way. I originally began blogging to share my creations and attempts at new crafting skills and techniques, not to have an outlet to rant about life.

I got to thinking about my poor blog behaviour and from that came Cupcakes and Clover, a lovely, quiet, peaceful place where I can natter about my creations, share pictures and laugh about my disastrous attempts to master new skills.

With the move to France I hope to have more time to create wonderful, and not quite so wonderful things, bake cupcakes (my favourites), grow pretty flowers and yummy vegetables – I may even get a chicken or two! So watch this space.

All my love
Sarah
x x x