Weekend with Faaaamily

This weekend we’ve been away seeing Faaaamily. Actually this is the less Eastenders side of the family, my mum’s side. The last time I saw the Eastenders lot was at the funeral of my ex-step-dad (my brother and sisters dad – keeping up? We’ve only just started!) which was full of toothless gangster types declaring the deceased as a ‘diamond in the rough’ and “‘ee ‘ad an ‘eart of gold” and other inane clichés you use on someone who didn’t quite fit with society’s norms when they’ve met their maker, that great Chelsea manager in the sky. And my mum having had a couple of glasses of wine on only a cocktail sausage and some cheese on a stick, playing the Merry Widow, while aforementioned toothless gangsters stowed away their sawn-offs and paid homage to her, as the wife who he hadn’t been married to for 20 years, or spoken to for about half that time!

Anyway, from death to birth, circle of life an all that. My second nephew was born on Friday, after a long labour, which started out at home and was intended to remain there till the electricity went so my brother and his girlfriend had to high tail it to the hospital where it all slowed down a bit and we all sat on tenterhooks waiting on the end of the phone, except for my mother who insisted on being at the hospital in case she was needed, after all, what do those doctors and midwives know that she doesn’t? She’s had three children, you know, and spent more time in casualty with them than a first year resident. (I’m not sure a first year resident is actually a thing? My medical knowledge is gleaned mainly from Scrubs and ER!). Finally, at 8.30 Max was born, or “8lb of pure Maxness” as the proud father said to me. “You sound tired” I said. “I am” he replied “Fiona’s tired too, though she got more sleep than I did”…

So, birth, death, and then marriage. My dad got married on Thursday. It’s the third marriage on both sides, and they decided to go and do it in Mauritius. Buggers didn’t invite us, but we do get to haul the children hundreds of miles up north to celebrate and see the pictures of their two weeks in paradise . I wish them both well, and look forward to teasing my new wicked step-mother who, child free herself, has suddenly acquired 3 children and 2 grandchildren!

Birth, death, marriage, and yes, there was very nearly divorce too. The source? DH’s sat nav app, which may actually be a plant from a foreign intelligence agency, designed to spread discord in marriages across the country and bugger up David Cameron’s plan for us all to be married with 2.4 children and a trust fund. It took us from the West to Cambridge through, well, not even the scenic route, the route through the most dire towns in mid-England, which can only be described as On The Way To Somewhere Else.

We spent hours and hours on the road to Hell, DH and I barely speaking, except terse instructions to “go straight over at the roundabout” from him, and mutterings about “the bloody sat nav” from me. Betty threw up and Iris cried. Our pledge not to each other as we inevitably do whenever we go away, earlier in the day lasted as far as the first roundabout.

In the end though it was a lovely weekend. All the faaaamily got together on Saturday. There were aunties and uncles, first cousins, second cousins, cousins once removed, twice removed (what does that even mean), and someone known to us as Cousin Catherine, but who bizarrely isn’t the cousin of anyone of us. I think she may be the cousin of my long deceased grandma actually. And one of five ‘Catherines’ at the gathering, hence the need for a moniker.

We had a little detour to the beach before the party started. Betty was so excited in the car on the way (vomiting aside). And we arrived to find the tide in and about 10 square foot of sand. Aunty Jane maintained that the tide was going out, and that the waves splashing against the beach wall were just “rogue waves, that’s what happens when the tide goes out”… Poor Betty, all she wanted to do was make sandcastles and find shells and fossils’. She was compensated with presents from grandma and various great aunts though, as well as being slipped chocolate and biscuits at every opportunity. Iris was pretty grumpy and refused to be held by all the doting aunts meeting her for the first time. She especially refused to go to poor grandma, who had been at hospital all Friday evening awaiting the arrival of baby Max, and then spent all Saturday morning in casualty having tripped up a pavement and broken a finger, but still made the 2 hour journey to the delightful Frinton, desperate to see her other 3 grandchildren. “I’m too old for all of this” she often says. She’s 51. It’s going to be a long 50 more years.

An eventful weekend, lovely but exhausting, full of lovely people who genuinely do have hearts of gold, mixed in with the crazy. I could go on for pages with tales of the family craziness, but a) I’d bore the pants off you and b) a couple of my rellies now want to see my blog, which will probably double my readership, but means I’ll have to watch what I say!

Not a lot of crafting gone on this weekend I’m afraid. I did complete a very quick project on Thursday which just needs a little finessing before I show it off.

If you go down to the woods today…

…you’re in for a big surprise! Actually these two look a bit surprised by the brown bear. It looks like the brown bear, let’s call him Jeff, it looks like Jeff farted, and the other two, Roly and Bob, are trying to inch slowly away. This is one of the pictures that DH took, focused beautifully, don’t you think? Not sure he set the shot up to its best advantage, but you know what they say – never work with children or animals, or tiny crochet teddies.

I’m loving making these anyway. They are to send to an organisation called Lisa’s Stars, a charity which makes and distributes teeny teddies, blankets and clothes for babies born too soon. They really are tiny:

Lisa’s Stars provide clothes and blankets for babies born too prematurely to fit in to anything that you can buy, and also help parents to make memory boxes

They are so quick to make, I’m going to whip up a bunch and send them off. As usual I didn’t read the instructions, and they like pastel colours, Jeff will have to stay with me at the mercy of Betty and Iris.

Jeff, the newest member of the family

The Lisa’s Stars website has some patterns available for download, but I believe they are all knitted patterns. This crochet one was sent to me by a lovely Mumsnetter. If you have some time and some yarn do make something, make a difference.

Books on my wish list

I have a new little (very little!) thing I made to show you but I am waiting for DH to take photos for me. He is a photographer, as well as a library assistant and a stay at home dad (he announced he doesn’t like that term though, says it sounds like someone who sits around on their backside all day – any suggestions for a suitable descriptor are welcome!). He is setting up a business as a photographer, and trying to get his self-designed and self-built website up in between having a job, looking after the kids etc. It’s a slow process, but it’s going to be great when it’s up. I’m telling you this because I want to make sure he gets credit for all the good pictures. The crap ones were taken by me, generally on my iPhone. You’ll see the difference when I post some of his.

So, in the absence of anything to show you I’m going to show you the books I am currently lusting after.

Yarn Bombing by Mandy Moore

Yarn Bombing by Mandy Moore is a book celebrating ‘Yarn Graffiti’, adding knit or crochet improvements to everyday outdoors objects. I really want to start doing this sort of thing, but not sure how to go about it. I’m hoping that when I can justify getting the book it will give tips on how to get started, as well as offering patterns. In the meantime Streetcolour’s Blog has some great examples.

Scandinavian Needlecraft - Clare Youngs

The next book on my wish list is Scandinavian Needlecraft by Clare Youngs. I know nothing about embroidery or any sort of decorative needlecraft. I dabbled in a bit of tapestry and cross stitch as young teenager, but I thought I’d give it a go recently and I really quite liked it. I love the Scandinavian style in this book and am desperate to get my hand on it, mainly just to stroke it and wish the things in it were in my house.

Lotta Jansdotter's Handmade Living: A Fresh Take on Scandinavian Style - Lotta Jansdotter'

More Scandi loveliness in Lotta Jansdotter’s Handmade Living: A Fresh Take on Scandinavian Style, although this seems like more of a ‘Who lives in a house like this?’ book than a ‘How to live in a house like this’ one.

Well, that’s all on my wish list for now. I need to do less typing and lusting after books I don’t have the time to read, and more doing 🙂

I make the mistakes so you don’t have to

Last minute necklace

So, I think the necklace looked ok in the end. There were a couple of problems. There always are with me. You will notice that the necklace is tied with double slip knots. What I actually bought was a coil and hook clasp from Hobbycraft. Well, firstly the hook is really stiff, there is no give in it to open it. I’ve written to the manufacturer to complain as it is pretty useless. Before I realised that though, I tried attaching it to the lace, which basically involves doubling over the lace and shoving it into the coil, squeezing the bottom of the coil, preferably with pliers. Not teeth. If you use teeth you are liable to chip one of them. They really should warn you of that on the packing. I didn’t mention it in my complaint though.

Still the double slip knot is pretty nifty. Tutorial for it here. It’s actually much more simple than I thought. Saves buying a clasp and means the wearer can adjust the length according to preference. I wrapped it in brown paper and embellished with a ribbon. I’d like to make out that I use brown paper because it’s chic, minimalist and eco friendly. We’ve already established that I don’t do chic. In actual fact I am both too tight and disorganised to buy proper wrapping paper. When it’s one of Celia’s friend’s birthdays, or even grandma’s, I get her to draw on the paper. Then I seem chic, minimalist, eco friendly and like a mum who fosters her children’s creativity. Win win I think.

The birthday friend didn’t open it while I was there, but I am seeing her again on Thursday. I shall take whether she wears it or not a measure of whether she likes it. No pressure.

Oh, and that little teaser I gave the other day? That was another little disaster. It was actually blackboard vinyl, in a sticker form. But it isn’t going to work in my planned project, I actually need something slightly different. So if anyone has any innovative ideas as to what I can do with an A3 blackboard sticker I’d receive them gratefully. When I do get around to the proposed project I will tell you what you need and where you can get it. I make the mistakes, kids, so you don’t have to!

 

 

 

Hobbycraft: the Tesco of the craft world. But not as cheap.

Urgh, disastrous morning chez Tante. I am at home with the Tantettes today, DH doesn’t get back till half seven tonight. 11 hours with the little cherubs…. I really needed some craft bits so I thought I would combine a trip to Hobbycraft with a visit to Toys ‘R’ Us. There is your clue as to how my morning has gone.

After a short negotiation with Betty, in which she threatened a tantrum and I compromised, we agreed Toys ‘R’ us first, then Hobbycraft. That was a mistake as once we were out of Toy ‘R’ Us I no longer had any leverage. I managed to dissuade her from buying poxy Moxie Dolls and Dora The Explorer tat, and she settled on some clothes for her doll Rupert. I also wanted to get a doll for Iris as she has taken a bit of a shine to Rupert, much to Betty’s chagrin. Let me tell you, it is practically impossible to find a soft bodied doll which doesn’t walk, talk, cry (why, why would you want to buy your child a doll that cries, just when you are coming out of the endless crying stage of parenting yourself?). At the last minute I managed to find one that didn’t cost £40 (no Baby Annabel for us.)

I then dragged Betty past the hideous fibre glass ride on toy where you can pay 50p to be rocked back and forth on Iggle Piggle’s boat with the man himself for a total of 27 seconds. Into Hobbycraft, hissing at Betty that if she whinges or complains after I’ve spent an hour in Toys ‘R’ A Fecking Rip-Off then I would take her newly purchased toys away, which of course she did, and I didn’t. It wasn’t worth the tantrum.

Hobbycraft is a necessary evil in my life. It’s crafting by numbers. It’s the Tesco of craft supplies, selling just enough of a variety of craft supplies to get you to go there for convenience, but never that one product that you need. In my case it was chalkboard fabric. I asked one of the assistants who didn’t take my making a request of her very well and looked at me like I had asked her to sacrifice her first born child. I was well ready to sacrifice mine at that point. Suffice to say they didn’t have any, so I picked up a couple of wooden embroidery hoops; stood in front of the embroidery floss for a while, overwhelmed and not really sure what I wanted; then realised that it’s a friend’s birthday tomorrow and wondering if I could cobble together a necklace for her with some jewellery making supplies and my non-existent jewellery making skills. Before I knew it I had spent half an hour growling at the kids (well, they were growling at me first), spent £23 and not really got anything I needed.

That’s the other thing about this crafting business, it’s blooming expensive! I know  that shopping at Hobbycraft doesn’t help. It pains me. I really want to be one of these thrifty crafters who knocks something up from supplies they found for 20p in a charity shop, but really, who has the time to shop in charity shops? I do love them but I just don’t have the tenacity for them, especially when I am dragging around my children. I also don’t have the eye to spot something cheap and hideous that I can magically make into something lovely. Nor can I make 1970’s kitchen crap look retro. I just can’t pull off retro chic. Or shabby chic. Or even handmade chic. That’s why I’ve always avoided all these (admittedly wonderful) blogs. They make me feel dazzlingly inadequate. Still, maybe if I read them enough some of their magic will rub off on me.

Only four and a half hours till DH is home…

Let's see if I can make these into a necklace someone might actually want to wear

It’s gone dark in here…

I’ve decided after my initial flurry of blog excitement I’d better actually get on and make some stuff if I want to call this a craft blog. 9 hour work days plus a non-sleeping baby do not leave much time for crafting, let alone blogging about crafting (I think I’m going to have to revisit that word, it’s a bit wanky don’t you think?). Fortunately I’m only working 3 days. Anyway, I thought I’d leave you with a teaser from my next project. But what is it? I hear you trill. Aha says I, that remains to be seen. All will be revealed in the next few days…

P.S. This is my first post using the WP app so not sure how it is going to come out.

People who say they sleep like a baby usually don’t have one

I went back to work today. I could tell you what I do but I’d have to kill you. Actually, you’d probably just die of boredom. Anyway, back to work, part time, after ten months. I’ve been having work nightmares for a few weeks now. Last night it was that I accidentally took the baby into but when I tried to call DH to come and get her I couldn’t remember my home phone number and couldn’t work how to use the phone. It proved to be strangely prophetical, well, apart from taking the baby in. It was fine though, felt like I’d never been away, which was sad and a relief in equal measures.

In anticipation though, Iris picked this time to launch Phase 2 of Operation Teething Nightmare. Yesterday she was hot, crabby and very clingy, and early this morning she was awake between 4 and 5am, it’s like she knew…

Sleep has never been great with darling child number 2. For 3 months she would only sleep on me. I eventually managed to get her to sleep in the baby hammock, though she would only go down after 11pm. Even up until 9 months she was waking 2 or 3 times a night. “You need to put your foot down” people would helpfully say. “Have you tried XYZ?”. I’ve had a non-sleeping baby for 9 months – yes, I’ve tried everything! Yet somehow, without really changing anything, she started sleeping though. She’s still a bugger to get down though. She is still up now at 9pm, but I’m letting her off as it was my first day back to work. Trying to get her down at night is like fricking Mission Impossible, it goes something like this (click here to set the mood – warning audio!):

Step 1 Start feeding baby, at least 40 minutes in anticipation of sleep time
Step 2 Spend 20 minutes being kicked getting teeny tiny baby pinches
Step 3 Baby appears to be asleep, don’t be fooled, it’s only been 20 minutes
Step 4 Baby starts vigorously feeding again
Step 5 Baby appears to be asleep once again
Step 6 Do the arm test: lift arm and see if it drops. If test fails you will have to go back to Step 4
Step 7 Try to remove sleeping baby from breast. If this fails you will have to go back to Step 4
Step 8 Nope, too soon, she’s rooting around again. Go back to Step 4
Step 9 Try to remove sleeping baby again, good baby still sleeping
Step 10 Stand up with sleeping baby
Step 11 Wait for 3 seconds to ensure baby still asleep
Step 12 Lower baby gently into cot, taking care not to let any part of the baby slip causing a startle reflex
Step 13 Hang over cot with hands still on the baby, contorting body into unnatural position
Step 14 Gently remove hands, hovering over baby for immediate replacement if necessary
Step 15 Sleep established, prepare for exit
Step 16 Oh no! Her eyes are open, replace hands, avert eyes, DO NOT LOOK HER IN THE EYES!
Step 17 Eyes shut, stand up and move away from the cot, baby stirs
Step 18 Stand still, do NOT move a muscle, do not attract her attention
Step 19 Tip toe towards the door. Wish thighs didn’t rub together, how can they make so much noise when I walk?
Step 20 Side step a ball, and step over crinkly book, phew, that was close
Step 21 Ow ow ow, fucking Peppa Pig toy, muffle cry of pain
Step 22 Head back towards door, crap, stirring again, duck down behind the chair, stay still
Step 23 Open door gently. Why, why does DH keep his guitar behind the door of the baby’s room?
Step 24 Crawl out on hands and knees, hoping the crack of knee caps doesn’t wake her – why is my body so noisy?
Step 25 Back out into the hall, stand up again
Step 26 Downstairs for wine and Hagan Daaz until she wakes up in an hour and I have to repeat from Step 1

Mission accomplished!

Boob and bust

Hello Boys!

So many breast related puns, only one title! I will probably have to write another post just so I can think of some more. I’m a bit obsessed with making these crochet breasts. They even have names, clockwise from the top: Alabaster Annie, English Rose and Mediterranean Mama! You might be wondering what they are for (I’d be worried if you weren’t). These ones have been donated to the Gloucestershire Breastfeeding Support Network, a charity that run groups across Gloucestershire to help support women who are breastfeeding. The groups are all run by volunteer peer supporters, and are an invaluable source of information, support and cake. Some of the groups try to have the support of trained breastfeeding counsellors (BFC), they sell bras and other accessories at cost price, provide handouts and lend books. These groups are woefully underfunded, they have to pay for the BFC services, the training of peer supporters and for the spaces they use for their groups (usually children’s centres or church halls). Anyway, the supporters at these groups use the breasts to demonstrate latching positions and how to hand express.

I’d like to try and make some money from these that I could donate to the GBSN, but the problem is the only people who would have a use for them are other BFCs or peer supporters, and as with most charities it’s the same people putting their hands in their pockets. So I may have to find people who want to buy them for <ahem> other purposes.

The pattern comes from The Lactation Consultants of Great Britain. On my search for a pattern I also came across Tit-Bits, a website where you can buy beautiful hand-knitted breast prostheses, for women who have lost one or both breasts to cancer. The founder of the site also kindly publishes the pattern here. Boobylicious!

Tit Bits hand-knitted breast protheses

A critical appraisal of my major works to date

So the good thing about the start of this blog is that I can show case things that I have made up till now which makes me look really productive, but in fact have taken me years to complete!

I was taught to crochet by a lovely woman called Kristina who runs the knitting group that I go to. She doesn’t have a blog as she is too busy actually making and selling things to fanny around writing about them, but I can assure you that if she had one you’d love it! Anyway, I started going to her knitting group, in her lovely farm house, Betty in tow, who was about 18 months then, having attempted to knit a scarf for my dad. Well, this scarf was meant to be a long, fashionable type thing, but somehow ended up being twice as wide at the bottom then at the top. Of course I couldn’t deliberately increase a knitted stitch if I tried! So Kristina taught me to crochet and I fell in love. I’m a real believer in just getting stuck in to something. If I try and learn something by first practising individual parts I’ll get board pretty quickly. So the first thing I made was a corsage which I gave to a friend. I’m not sure she was that impressed as I’ve never seen her wear it!

So the second thing was this crib tie:

The second thing I ever crocheted!

This was for my friend’s new baby. I’m rather proud of it. Both projects came from First Crochet by Lesley Stanfield, a great book which offers projects which incorporate each new stitch you learn. Obviously I was too impatient to start at the beginning of the book!

I have a sewing machine that I inherited from my mum. When I say inherited that sounds all lovely and traditional doesn’t it? A well worn machine, the fibres of a generation homemade children’s clothing still embedded in the cogs? Nope, she was bought it a couple of years ago along with a few metres of Liberty fabric to start a new hobby. I’m not sure she ever used it. I am my mother’s daughter. However I acquired the machine and using the power of internet tutorials I figured out how to make it go. And instead of spending valuable time practising my craft by making drawstring bags, I cut my sewing teeth making this tepee for Betty’s 2^nd birthday:

It's a teepee not a wigwam!

And it is definitely a tepee, not a wigwam, I checked! The fabric was upholstery fabric on sale for £5 a metre. The pattern was from Cool Spaces for Kids, a lovely book with ideas for den type things for children. The pattern isn’t perfect; one of the panels comes out upside down, though it is fairly obvious if you pay attention as you are cutting it out. The elastic loops for the canes are too big, and I can’t figure out how to stop the canvass sliding down the canes. However, it was the first thing I made with a sewing machine and as long as you don’t look too closely as the seams I think it is pretty impressive, if you don’t mind me blowing my own peace pipe.

The next thing I hauled my sewing machine out for was a baby sling. Loath to fork out upwards of £50 for one I did my usual “I could make one of those” – and I actually did. Here it is:

It’s a Mei Tai style sling. There are loads of tutorials online and I basically picked the bits I wanted from different ones. Jan Andrea has links to a great selection. The basic frame is two layers of black canvas, with a panel of fabric from a pretty fat quater sewn on top, just for decoration. The shoulder straps are padded for about the first 30cm with some cheap fleece. The layers of canvas and fleece together were a challenge for my machine. There were blood, sweat and tears over this creation. But it was well worth it. I started putting Iris in it from about 4 months. She loves it, it’s comfy for both of us, and I am just getting the hang of a back carry with it.

Final exhibit in my showcase owes its craftsmanship mainly to my husband. We got the idea from this website http://blachindle.wordpress.com/2009/02/02/play-kitchen/, pulling apart an old butcher’s block from Argos and adding some Ikea accessories. We started our version around October 2009 with the aim of giving it to Betty for Christmas. 10 months later it was languishing two thirds finished under a sheet, rather unconvincingly hidden from our two year old. Last summer I announced to DH that I was not having our second baby until the damn thing was finished, which is why at 8 and a half months pregnant I was in the garden sanding and painting our labour of love. Don’t you just want bake little wooden cupcakes in it?

The mini utensils and pans are also from Ikea. This is the neatest it’s ever looked. It is now mostly filled with Peppa Pig toys and finger puppets made from Cebeebies magazine…

Hello!

I’m Dilly Tante and this is my new blog. I should probably start by admitting that until now I thought most blogs were pointless, narcissistic and attention seeking, and the craft ones that I occasionally stumble on to, so clearly crying out for book deals that have become popular recently, with their pristine handmade homes, where everything has a place, and crafts are artfully arranged on beautifully dressed tables. Well, I’ve decided I am actually narcissistic and attention seeking, and my rambles are often pointless, so I may as well follow the crowd. However, on this blog you will be lucky if I am dressed let alone my table. I will avoid photographing my home as much as possible, especially when even my iPhone camera is now so full of mega pixels that it shows up every speck of dirt and dust. In fact there will be no photos of:

Tasteful picnics in my garden (you’d have to get past the plastic tat first)

Mugs of freshly sharpened pencils

Flower arrangements

Themed areas of my house

Pretty lined wicker baskets with ‘treasures’ in them

My children looking wholesome on a hike in nearby hills (there maybe pictures of my children, they are more likely to look like urchins than wholesome, and they don’t hike.)

So, about my reticence towards blogging, I don’t consider myself to be a Luddite, just discerning about my use of social media and putting myself out there (I still can’t bring myself to use Face Book or Twitter). But I have embraced the fact that I am actually an attention whore as much as the next blogger, so if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em. In fact I nearly called the blog Attention Whore as it made my friend laugh when I described myself that way, but decided I’d like my mum to be able to read it and talk about it, and she is a 50 odd year old lesbian, who dresses like a 19 year old art student, but can’t say the word ‘period’ (“Are you on your ‘Women’s Week’?” she will occasionally whisper to me).

So, I plumped for Dilly Tante (dilettante geddit?) as it describes me quite well. I’m interested in lots of things, but do none of them to the high standards I set myself! I suffer from complete life envy, encompassing career envy (why didn’t I train to be a journalist/lawyer/psychotherapist? ),  house envy (what did these people with 5-bedroomed Georgian town houses do to get them?) and hobby envy (yoga, gardening, cake decorating, etc.). My first (well, current) love is crochet, closely followed by generally making things (that I am usually woefully under skilled at!), reading, Mumsnetting, psychology, feminism, breastfeeding, The West Wing, the list goes on. And this blog is going to be a little bit of everything, but mostly to showcase things that I’ve made in the hope that people will tell me how incredibly talented I am, and maybe like to buy things from me.

I am also mother to two daughters, who for reasons of anonymity, shall henceforth be known as Betty (4) and Iris (10 months)  (ha ha! I can finally use the names that DH vetoed for my fantasy children, who are of course impeccably behaved!). Obviously parenting is a big part of my life, and while I am a <chokes out the word> mummy, I don’t want to be one of those, you know, ‘mummy bloggers’, or cyber mums, is that what the buzz word is? I would like to share things that I have learnt and done (well or not), to garner sympathy, and to say things lots of us are thinking but don’t think anyone else is. But I don’t want to be smug about my parenting. I have no distillable ethos, except perhaps Benign Neglect, but not in a competitively relaxed parent way (“Oh, I’m so relaxed that I wouldn’t dream of caring whether or not Juniper goes to school or not.”), more in a “Darling, I’m just trying to do some Very Important Work on the computer. Why don’t you ask Grandma if you can play with glitter at her house?” kind of way. It works for us. My children are both delightful (and wearing), I’m not sure if that is my fabulous parenting skills or just the way they are. Nature or nurture? Either way I get the credit!

So, this will be about things I make and like, with a little bit of parenting, feminism, and other streams of consciousness. I fully expect my only readers to be my mum and my sister. If you are reading this and aren’t related to me, then welcome, I hope you find something you like here.