The Eden Valley Hospice record breaking attempt at Pom Pom making

The local Hospice in Carlisle is called The Eden Valley Hospice, and they have decided to try and break the world record attempt for Pom Pom making!

It's no mean feat, believe me.  I seem to recollect being told the target was something around 8,000 Pom Poms - although that is still to be confirmed.

Anyway, you have to start somewhere, and to help out a tiny (and I mean, tiny) bit, and to help promote the idea in the hope that people might make Pom Poms in the comfort of their own homes and donate them to the cause, I put a little 'get together' on.  Biscuits, brews and pom poms was the game of the day  :)

It was in Hobbycraft, Carlisle, on a busy Saturday afternoon.  We grabbed shoppers and browsers, and talked them into making Pom Poms with us.

At the end of the day we had 86 marvellous, cheerfully coloured, balls of wound and cut yarn.

Thank you SO much for coming, if you did, and thank you for allowing us to disturb your shopping, if you did.  Suzanne took the Pom Pom's away with her to The Eden Valley Hospice.

A start at least.  Can YOU help?  If so, make some Pom Poms and drop them into Hobbycraft  (the Carlisle store only) or email me on soozintheshed@gmail.com and I can tell you where you can post them to.

I will be doing another of these events to boost the collection.  It is totally free to attend, all we want you to do is make a Pom Pom or two for us.  All yarn is provided, although donations of left over yarn is greatly accepted.

Keep an eye on my Facebook page for event notices.

H2only Challenge

At the moment I am taking part in the RNLI H2only challenge.  Which is exactly that...... H2o only!

Yup, only water for 10 days. No tea, no fizzy pop, no juice, no wine, just water.

Aghhhh, piece of cake....... I thought  :/

So I expected it to be difficult mentally, like talking myself out of a glass of wine on an evening, or when out for a meal, or breaking the habit of having two brews when I get up on a morning.  What I didn't prepare for was the pysical beating it would take on my body.

Day 1:
I felt grumpy.  In fact my first words were expletives as I walked down the stairs and Hubster offered me a glass of water.  I was ready, right then, to fail.  But I had hot water and grumped a little more.
In fact, I grumped all day.  I grumped at the poor nurse doing my well-women check up, I grumped at my daughter (who, incidentally, grumped back at me as we are doing it together), I grumped at Hubster then I went into work and grumped at my colleagues too, I even grumped on Facebook to anyone who would listen.

Day 2:
I was dying.  I had to get up to go and do a radio interview, I felt super grumpy, but plastered a smile and performed well (I think), but once home my head was splitting with the most excruciating pain.  I couldn't move my head a millimetre without it hurting.  I had loads to do - patterns to write, blogs to write, parcels of beads to pack, a blanket to finish and a birthday cake to make.  I couldn't do anything, so I went to bed to try and sleep it off.
I got up at 3.00pm, hurriedly iced the cake that I had luckily baked in the morning, had a quick wash and went to work to do the back-shift.  I got through that shift on two pro plus tablets (caffeine), two paracetamol and 2 ibuprofen.
It took the edge off it enough for me to work, but I was foggy, forgetful and having total blanks to performing tasks that I do all the time.

Day 3:
Didn't sleep well at all, not content with giving me a sleepless night, my brain decided to give me hallucinatory dreams in the rare times that I was asleep.  Thanks for that brain, most useful.  So I woke disoriented, foggier than yesterday and very tired.  But no headache!  Whoop!
The headache made it's appearance about 2.00pm, so at least I got the morning off.
Not feeling quite so bad today all-in-all.  I'm trying not to take any painkillers today as there doesn't seem a lot of point in giving up a drug (caffeine) to fill the space with other drugs, but they are not locked away just yet.

Only 7 days to go......

If you fancy sponsoring me, just the price of a cup of tea would be lovely, you can find my Just Giving page here.....https://www.justgiving.com/soozintheshed

The H2only Challenge

My daughter, Shona, and myself are setting ourselves up to take the H2only challenge to raise money for the RNLI.

For ten days  (2-12 June 2015) we will endeavour to only drink water - so, no juice (I can do that), fizzy pop (I can do that), wine (em.... I think I can do that) and tea (I am really not sure about this one!!)

The wine, although I love it, will be a small sacrifice - one I have made a few times before, and one I am not hugely worried about. I know I can do that for a good cause.

The tea though, the tea is another matter completely.

How do you like your tea Sooz?   Every hour, on the hour.  Black, two bags.  Ok.... sometimes green, but mainly black.  Oh no, I have the sweats already thinking about it.  No tea??  What am I doing??

So, if you are close to me, live with me, work with me, converse with me online, then be prepared for some very grumpy behaviour as I go through my tea withdrawals.  (I wonder if sucking on a dry tea bag counts as cheating?)

In the meantime, if you would like to sponsor me - just the price of a cup of coffee would be most appreciated and it all adds up, then you can find my JustGiving page here....

https://www.justgiving.com/Soozintheshed

The last challenge I did was "Live Below The Line" where I raised, with the help of good friends, a total of £144.00.

If you would like to read my blog posts and recipes from that challenge then you can find them HERE.

I will blog my journey, although it's pretty difficult to find decent recipes using water alone, but I will let you know how easy/difficult it is going  ;)

Now, I am just off for a nice strong brew - got to get them in before I don't get a choice  ;)