Can you believe I'd never been there before?

To Etsy that is.

I'd heard many a mention of it for ages

but finally went there yesterday to check out Dottie Angel's notebooks.

This morning I got an email with many things to drool over

but the one that caught my eye was this.

 HidenSeek

I've loved pendants ever since I found this in an op shop last year....

one of my favourite bits of jewellery.

And I've always loved images of old ships in rolling waves,

maybe it's a hangover from childhood days of reading

Voyage of the Dawn Treader.

The pendants were sold out.

So I explored further and found

this......

 xPiebaldx

and this.....

 thependantemporium

and these.

  all thependantemporium

Be still my beating heart.

But which one to choose.

Which one would you choose?

I got a wild idea...

did a bit more exploring

and purchased a set of 10 blank pendants.

So now I can make my own

and I've collected many vintage childrens books with the intention of one day making cards from the images.

I think some of them would be perfect for this project.

I'll let you know how it goes.

More white floors

About two years ago I painted Ella's room blue, furnished with white furniture. I left the skirting boards off though because I always had the intention of polishing the hardwood floors first. Of course two years later they were still the same, with their blotches of paint and huge gaps between the floorboards.

Before - hardwood floors that are a nice colour but they are very uneven and gappy.

After the success of Rosie's white floors I was inspired to do the same in Ella's room. So after a lot of gapfilling (some of the gaps were HUGE and always used to bug me because of all the dirt that would get caught in them), and putting on of skirting boards (I'm getting better at cutting mitres) I put the layer of primer down yesterday.

Halfway through painting the primer.

And I'm loving the result already. The room is on the dark side of the house and the white floor lightens it so much.

Primer is finished - a taste of the final result.

I'm off to paint the first layer of paint. Is it silly that paint can make me so excited?

When do you go?

I picked my daughter up from school early yesterday. She'd vomitted. Okay, that's no biggy. I can handle that. Just give her lots of attention and rest and water and let her watch TV, which is usually banned on school afternoons.

But this morning I got woken at 2:30am to her upset and clutching her stomach. She's in pain, she's crying and the hot water bottle isn't cutting it. A little questioning and I discover it's a sharp pain, below and to the right of her belly button. Uh -oh. From memory, isn't that where it hurts when you have appendicitis?

This is where the dilemma comes in. Does anyone else hate making these decisions? I HATE making a fuss. And I know gastro can give you tummy pains. What if I go to the hospital and it turns out to be wind? Will they think I'm an idiot?

I took her.

I had to carry her from the car park, she seemed all lanky arms and legs, because it hurt too much to walk. The doctor prodded and poked. He seemed to understand my concerns because of the location. Took a urine sample, gave her some pain killer, left her curled up on an emergency bed and waited to see if the pain eased. An hour later she was giggling at our attempts to draw portraits on the magnadoodle from the toy corner.

It turned out to be gastro.

I just have to monitor her and if the BAD pain comes back, go back to the hospital for blood tests.

So I'm home for the day and Ella's laid out on the couch, eating honey toast and watching "Robin Hood".

And I'm glad I went, even if it was a false alarm.

Looking like a fool is nothing when it comes to my daughter's wellbeing.