I can't see clearly now

Apologies for the random nature of the following post. I've been keeping busy, but with nothing in particular. I bought myself some new fabric (see lovely offcuts above) so have been having fun making things from that. It's amazing how a wee injection of new pretty patterns gets you in the mood to make stuff. I even have a new product to list in my shops, but more on that soon. So far I only have one non-photographed prototype. None of this crafting has fitted in with Craftathon 2011 yet though. I'll have to get a move on with that - it's almost February already!

Yesterday was Graham's birthday and I made him the Gregory's Girl card above. It's not as good as last year's, but it looks like Gregory's Girl drawings are going to be an annual tradition now. Graham decided he wanted to spend his birthday doing DIY in the bathroom. This means I have been having to do DIY too. I had forgotten how much I dislike DIY. I remember now. Still, it will be good when the bathroom is finished. Hopefully. We decided to paint our non-tiled wall a mustard colour and took my typewriter to B&Q to get a colour match. The colour looked perfect in the shop, but in our house the sample card is looking a bit too close to jobby brown for my liking. Hopefully it looks OK once it's on the wall. Jobby brown would not be a good paint colour in any room, but in a bathroom... Cripes! I think we're painting tomorrow. Fingers crossed for mustard yellow.

As well as DIYing, we did also go out for a birthday dinner (to Number 16 - yum yum) followed by a trip to the cinema to see Neds. I liked it more than I expected to, but I think the birthday boy was a bit disappointed in it. His expectations were much higher than mine though.

On the way home, we spotted a menshie written by John Lennon (yes, THE John Lennon, I'm sure) in a shop that is being renovated. Can you see it right in the middle there? This is actually the shop my haberdasher's counter came from. Still not cleaned that up. Bad me.

In other non-news, I am trying out contact lenses for the first time in about five years due to not being able to find any glasses I like. It's day three of my trial period and it's not going too well. So far I feel as though I am watching a 3D TV without 3D glasses and am blinking a lot and making strange faces. It turns out I have a weirdly shaped left cornea so actually can't see properly with contact lenses unless I keep my left eye closed. Hmmm. I'm going to persevere for a while though. It would be nice not to have to wear glasses every day. I felt naked (and old - where did all those eye wrinkles and dark circles come from?) without my glasses to begin with, but I am starting to quite like my sans-glasses face now that I'm getting used to it. And while we are on the subject of my new-found vanity, may I direct your attention to my weight-loss plane (right down at the bottom there) which is currently taxiing towards the runway after my first weigh-in since replacing bottles of wine with trips to the swimming pool. Looks like this tactic is working and I feel better already. Hooray!