The birds were Angry before. Now they're Ashamed.

It was the boy's sixth birthday on Sunday. I know, right? SIX. I tried to negotiate with him to be five again (because I really enjoyed his five year old self) but we put it to a family vote and majority ruled he should be six. Maia voted for him to be a baby again. Other than cake and presents, it was pretty much business as usual.

Pictured: business as usual.

Oh, cake you say?..... Welcome back 'terrible baking' tag.

Inspiration from here. I dunno, a bit 'meh'.

Amazing, flawless, stunning, etc.

Cue bemused expressions. Yes, Jamie, I seriously did do that.

She might have danced, but she couldn't bear to look.

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Postcards from the edge

I had a great time in Belfast, eating out, shopping, chatting and catching up with sleep. However, on my return I found that our internet problems are back. Apologies, this is the most boring post in the world, but I am now at a point of desperation. If I can't get this sorted, it will kill my business. And quite possibly my soul. Please, can anyone with technical nous help me?

Here's the situation:

• When we first had the wireless installed, I had heaps of problems. Internet worked in the morning, but changed to an intermittent connection in the afternoon. Four technician visits, a replacement of the router, tinkering with settings of Norton, all sorts of ipconfig stuff in cmd, it started working. I thought it was fixed.
  
• There was a power outage on the evening I left. Up until this point, the internet had worked more or less all day long for a couple of weeks. Now, we're back to the old problem of a working internet in the morning and intermittent connection from the afternoon. All of the things mentioned above I have done again but no fixes this time.
• By intermittent connection I mean that about two thirds of the time I either refresh sites I've been on or try to access new sites I get Server Not Found or Connection Timed Out errors. If pages do load (after hitting refresh refresh refresh refresh), the format is often all wrong with missing images or embedded content (like google ads, Youtube etc) showing the same Server Not Found error within the page. Clicking through almost never works.
  
• When I'm in cmd after service has become intermittent, pinging google.com works occassionally, but most of the time it gives a server not found error.
• From the time the connection gets poor, this is the case for all of our devices. Safari on the Ipad is slightly better than the PC at actually making a connection with sites, but it's still getting server not found errors and it is slow. This leads me to believe that it can't be PC or Norton related, but Virgin / router related.
• Logging onto the router shows no obvious problems, although the error log can have quite a few 'time not established' critical errors about T3 time outs and DHCP WARNINGs.

The most frustrating (and baffling) thing about this is that it works for the first couple hours of the day. My normal work day with the kids at school and nursery is to sew while they're out and do all my computer stuff like blogging / updating sites / answering emails etc in the evening. Having to do computer things in the morning means that I'm not actually getting a chance to sew uninterrupted any more and it's only a little bit melodramatic to say this is ruining everything I've been working hard at over the last couple of years.

Can anyone shed light on this?

UPDATE: Now, 120% more boring! My diagnostics:

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This boy is FIERCE

Has everyone been reading all of the great tutorials in The Train to Crazy's Handmade Dress Up Series? I'm excited to be guest posting there today with my tutorial for a Viking Hat. Go and visit, I insist. But first, look how much fun Jamie is. He will never turn down the opportunity to pretend to fight.

Love. This. Boy.




Click the button to visit the whole series.

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The Lone Ranger

I'm off on a solo trip tomorrow to visit my friend Ruth in Belfast. And look where I booked us to stay for the first night...


Jealous? You haven't even seen the rooms yet. Do you think Ruth will like this sort of thing?

Genuine picture of a room. Not jesting you.

I'm not sure. I'm definitely trying this though.


I think she will enjoy that. If this sort of thing is wrong I don't want to be right.

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The 'What is the World Coming To' Cover

Although I will sadly shake my head at the injustice of a world where some people have IPad2s when I merely have a regular ol' IPad, I will make them covers if they ask nicely.

I'll even put in zippered pockets, a secret layer of neoprene, and a microfleece lining.

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Go forth and snatch

The stack of cut fabric from last week's sneaky peak ended up as.............................



Tunics! These are for Monkey and Bo's shop for their autumn / winter range. And rather lovely they are, if I do say so myself.



They are limited edition, with only one tunic each per size. So if you want one of these incredibly sought after status symbols tunics you better snatch it right up before someone else gets it and starts tormenting you on Twitter with pictures of their cool(er) child and all of a sudden you find yourself writing blog posts about being bullied and your friends rally and then it's war. No one wants that.



That being said, this one is my favourite and probably worth going to war over. Now go forth and snatch here.

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The Installation Artist

Maia has redecorated her bed. It is terrifying.

Modern Art / League of Gentleman / Eighth Wonder of the World/ Texas Chainsaw Massacre fusion.

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