A Family of Owls

Hey everyone! I've been thrown a bit by the new Blogger update - it looks fancy and actually like something that belongs in this decade (or even the 2010s... shock horror) but it's weird. I'm really hoping that my formatting isn't messed with but sorry if it is. (Edited note: the picture uploading was always pretty bad but now it's worse?!? I didn't realise that this was possible but just go with it.)

I've been doing some crafts recently - something to do with all of this free time (around lessons) I'm having all of a sudden - and thought that I'd use my blog to share some of it, as and when I complete it. Especially if I write it up as CAS, along with this blog. 

The most recent thing that I've done is a little cross stitch (as can be seen below) of some owls in a tree. I did it because we had to do something that was new and that was a challenge for Rangers and I had been putting it off for ages because I didn't think that I'd be any good at it. I have a lot of mini cross stitch packs as well as some larger ones, so decided that I probably should do it.

I think this depicts my sisters - me on the left side, my two sisters on the right, and our 'adopted' sister hanging upside-down

Began a little apprehensive (I think that doing that first stitch will always be terrifying, no matter how many times I do it) and hated trying to find the middle. Once I'd done this, I loved it! There is something really satisfying about stitching in little crosses to form a pattern and being able to cross off the bits that you've done. 

Anyway, I'd recommend.

The worst part was that I kept stabbing myself with the (really really sharp) needle and doing the edging seemed to take forever but I'm really glad that I forced myself to do it (cheers to Girlguiding for making me complete challenges even though I'm not even going outside).

And another thing that I've done because of Girlguiding: I complied my family tree, making use of various different people from my family who had already researched it. I think that the hardest part of collecting data was trying to decipher my grandad's writing (some of the last names I have may not be the actual last names).

Then I wrote all the names on post-it notes that could then be stuck on a massive bit of paper so that I could actually draw out my family tree - this was very exciting as I had the roll of paper on the floor held in place with books, my laptop with the online family tree on it, a stack of coloured post-it notes (different colours for the four different grandparent sides of my family and my immediate family), scissors, a pencil, a rubber...and possibly some other things. 

I sat on the floor (I think I ended up doing some yoga to try and get the right angle) and stuck the post-its on. Had to stop the cat from sitting/walking on it, but I managed to prevent any disasters and I now have a scroll that contains my genetic history. Well. Names and dates if they exist.

So that was highly exciting - it's really interesting seeing where names came from and also that I have an ancestor who was a 'sir'. Another highly exciting thing is the pheasant in our village that is wandering around and is sometimes attacking people (especially men) which was very distracting while I was doing my history virtual lesson. 

AND (finally, I know) I just wanted to share some artwork that my friend did for me (of our family cat) because it's amazing and I want everyone to see how talented she is. Everyone who follows my blog as least (hey, hey, subscribe and share with other people!). Think about a craft activity to do this week - maybe write a haiku (this is an idea because I had to write a piece in French about them and also check out this post for ideas).