I’ll start with a quote from the late Steve Jobs, who was obviously a very wise man (and who obviously inspired many – I saw this quote early this morning, and have seen it in loads of places since): 

Your time is limited so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma, which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary. 

RIP Mr Jobs. 

Now, did I mention that I’m going on holiday?  Actually, it’s probably been more in passing than anything else, but here I am announcing it – I’m going away for a week to Skye, leaving on Saturday – yay!  The flatmate will, as usual, be destroying the flat guarding the fabric stash.  There’s a group of 13 of us heading up to stay in 3 cottages on the west coast of the island, armed with cameras, laptops and a bunch of other crap useful photography stuff.  As it’s self catering we get to take our own food, and for the first time in a long time going on one of these things, I’m actually able to drive myself, and therefore take anything I need.  Oh dear. 

At the moment I’m utilising a fair number of large re-usable shopping bags courtesy of Mr Sainsbury and his pal Mr Tesco, all the better to cart things around, and hopefully to fit into the car boot (did I mention that I have a little car?  It’s a Citroen C3, its boot is designed for… um… yeah, can’t quite work out what it’s designed for, but it doesn’t hold much!)  I think new and pretty large re-usable shopping bags are in my future.

In one of my many moments of lying in bed not being asleep last night I was trying to work out how I was going to fit everything in, what with the food bag, the kitchen utensil bag (history having shown that holiday cottages usually have an extremely odd selection of kitchen utensils, like a pineapple corer, or corn cob holders, while more useful items like, say, a tin opener or a pair of scissors, are sadly lacking), the camera accessories bag, Jack and his armchair, the craft bag, the laptop bag, the boots bag, the clothes bag, the toiletries, towels and jumpers bag, the cold box, the sewing machine and a bag of bottles that’s already in the car after the Tesco trip on Monday.  Did I also mention that I’m picking up Cole (he of neck ruff fame) from the airport to drive him up?!  So the plan right now, is to pop Baby Brother behind my seat (where he fits quite comfortably for travel) and try and arrange the rest of my stuff in the boot, possibly in 2 layers, so that his stuff can go in the back seat/footwell behind his seat – please wish me luck with that, assessing volumes is not one of my fortes, but I’m a dab hand at arranging a car ;o) 

At the moment this is my (perhaps rather ambitious) craft project pile: 

A commissioned bear, recently named Hoagy by his new adoptive owner’s gran.  I have thus far cut him all out, trimmed his seams and pinned him, I just have to tack him and sew him, and stuff him… 

My Piece Bee With You block stuff and Sew Bee Joyful block stuff 

Some redwork embroidery stuff:

My Table Runner/Wall Hanging Swap stuff (not pictured as I haven’t got the constituent parts from Mandors yet!)

I also have quite the pile of craft mags to read in my spare time, oh, and my Kindle in my laptop bag…

Theoretically it’s a photography week, but depending on the weather/energy levels, I’m not envisaging being out virtually 24/7, camera in hand.  It’s my holiday, and I’m actually going to relax a little and play as well.  Apparently there’s wifi there, so hopefully Jack will be able to blog from up there, and I’ll be able to keep up with one or 2 things online too.