Shoshiplatypus

What’s On Your Workdesk this Wednesday?

A virtually bare desk! That’s not to say I haven’t been busy this week. Since I had just tidied up after completing a project, I thought I’d give you the annotated version of a tidy desk for once.

I have been continuing to work on my shutter cards. Having completed the bee ones, I made a Valentine card for my hubby.

I’ve got a punch that I’ve had for many years, which has four interchangeable heads which make different little shapes. I used the heart one to cut out lots of little red hearts from some scrap red cardstock. I hand-cut a larger heart and used it as a mask for the bottom right of the front, inking over it with Barn Door Distress Ink, and rather than throwing it away, I added a bit of gold gilding wax and stuck it in the window. The “With Love” is a small stamp from my sentiments collection, and the rest of the text on the card was done by hand.

It’s a bit hard to see on the photo, but the white card base is inked with Antique Linen Distress Ink.

For the inside, I used the negative space that I cut the larger heart from, as a stencil to ink through with Barn Door Distress Ink behind the “curtains” in the window. More of the small red punched hearts and hand lettering.

For the envelope, I took the negative piece of scrap red cardstock from which I had punched the small hearts, and masked off all but one, and used this as a stencil to add more hearts with Barn Door Distress Ink. The envelope was also inked with Antique Linen Distress Ink.

I cut the envelope and its liner on my Cougar cutting machine from the pattern I designed for this size of card.

Cutting machine

I’ve been doing quite a bit of work relating to my Cougar cutting machine this week. I have had a huge amount of help from a fabulous lady on the US forum for our machines – she is being very patient with me as I try to get my head around a particular aspect of cutting – how to get the machine to cut exactly where you want on the mat, which enables you to use quite small scraps of paper. We’ve struck up quite a correspondence, and she is so friendly and lovely, and she is encouraging me no end to push the boundaries of my knowledge! It is really great to be using the machine again. In the meantime, I am continuing to trace and create svg (scaleable vector graphics) files in Inkscape on the computer – mostly sentiments. I have also created a set of templates for cutting shutter cards, which is going to save a huge amount of time when I want to make these again. I shall soon be able to produce card bases with a variety of different layers and embellishments, and also album pages. The tracing process is quite time-consuming but it is something I can do with my feet up, watching TV. It’s quite addictive and fun to do, and satisfying to be building up a library of useful files.

Kitties

I came into the sitting room the other day to find my usual place on the settee fully occupied. Note Ruby on top of Lily as usual!

I went away to do something else, and came back and found them even more firmly established.

I spent the rest of the time at the other end of the settee, having moved all my stuff. Very inconvenient.

This is how I found them yesterday morning, sleeping again!

They do sleep an awful lot!!

Food

No food news this week. I’ve had a few bad ME days and haven’t done much cooking. My normal plan is to cook more than we need so I can freeze the rest. This way there’s always something in the freezer for days when I don’t feel up to cooking.

Health update

Pants

All my support pants have now arrived, and they are fine. What a relief! They certainly help things feel a lot more comfortable.

Appointment with colorectal surgeon in Exeter

Later this afternoon I am seeing Mr. Daniels in Exeter. I saw my regular colorectal surgeon, Mr. Pullan, at Torbay in December 2018 when he said he wanted to refer me to a colleague in Exeter who specialises in “complex cases” because of my intractable recurrent parastomal hernia, which has now been repaired twice. I had to wait till April of last year before I got to see him, and he ordered a CT scan for me, which involved a further wait of four months, till August, before that happened. After that, total silence. For a long time I gave them the benefit of the doubt and thought it was the result of long waiting lists, but in the New Year I decided enough was enough, and phoned Mr. Daniels’ secretary and told her the situation and that I was still waiting after my scan last summer. She got back to me and said that Mr. Daniels had never had the result of the scan, and she would expedite the matter for me as soon as possible. It seems that I had got lost in the system somewhere – my hubby aptly put it that I wasn’t on the back burner – I had fallen off the back of the cooker haha!! Anyway, she said they would arrange an outpatient appointment for me as soon as possible, and that is happening today. If I get time later today (I’ve got a friend coming round this evening) I will update this post with news of what happened.

He wanted me to have the scan to see exactly what was going on, and until he had the result, he would not be able to come to a decision as to the best way to approach the problem. I think it is almost 100 percent certain that I will require further surgery. I just hope this isn’t going to take another wait of several months!

Trio product trial

A few months ago I was approached by Trio Ostomy Care, some of whose products I use for my stoma management, to see if I would be willing to take part in the trial of a new product they were working on. I said I would be pleased to participate in the trial. Yesterday they phoned me with some more details, and she asked me various questions. It looks pretty certain that I will be one of 50 people to take part, selected from about 350 who responded to the initial approach. Full involvement would require my attendance at a meeting in Birmingham and I initially said that wouldn’t be possible because of my difficulties with travelling but later, my hubby said he could easily get me up and back in a day if I wanted, so I think I will contact them again and say that this may be a possibility after all. We shall see how the situation progresses. I am very interested in taking part, because I really like their products. They are a small British firm specialising in silicone-based products for ostomates. I first came across them because their founder is a great friend of our dentist. When I told our dentist that I was going to have an ileostomy, he said I should get in touch with Trio and try some of their products. They have won a Queen’s Award for Industry with their unique range of products.

Watch this space for further developments.

Dentist

Last Thursday we had to go to the dentist as we both needed things done. I had to have a filling in a lower tooth and as usual for me, it was a hugely stressful event! I’m such a wimp at the dentist… Our dentist is so kind and fun, though, and he always does his best to get me to be more relaxed, and reassures me throughout. His dental nurse is lovely too. Anyway, I was glad when it was all over. The tooth has been a bit sensitive since, but it’s gradually improving.

Have a great creative week, everybody.