The month of March

I have never been one for keeping a diary...preferring to keep my thoughts to myself, but I started this blog to give people an insight into what I do and how I think. I am quite a quiet shy person and I don't usually have a lot to say for myself but it makes a boring blog if I don't try to keep it up to date. So needless to say, I am shocked that it's been over a month since my last posting. I have decided as I haven't had a creative epiphany that I will make this blog all about a little of everything that has happened to me in the business and as mum to 3 adult teens.
In Business
Weddings are down quite considerably for me this year. I remember being much busier this time last year. Thankfully though, I have been kept busy with an order from the girls in the Grangemouth Gala Day and the girls in the Bo'ness Fair Day. I made 8 tiaras for the Grangemouth Gala Day and 16 tiaras for the Bo'ness Fair Day. Because of the amount of tiaras ordered I was able to sell them to them with a considerable discount. My thinking for doing this, is word of mouth advertising. That is 24 mums and daughters telling their friends and family where they got their tiaras from. Friends could include friends with older sisters and family could include aunties and older cousins all near the age for marrying!
Anyway the Grangemouth Gala Day girls chose the Natalie tiara made using diamanté, light rose and light amethyst Swarovski crystals in silver plate.
The girls from Bo'ness chose Alina tiara in silver plate and all clear crystals.
The other thing that has happened in my world of business is that my bank account was hacked! Thankfully though my bank were on the ball and contacted me to confirm what transactions were genuine and which were not. Unfortunately though the first transaction that wasn't genuine did manage to go through. It was for over £300! The second though was stopped. My online bank account was suspended and my bank card cancelled. That was me officially unable to purchase any new materials until my new card was issued. I had just that day told a customer that her order would be ready for uplift at the start of the week but I had run out of crystals to complete the order. The customer telephoned me at the end of the week worrying that I was sitting with this completed order. I apologised and told her what had happened. She was very understanding and sympathetic about it. I have been reluctant to pay any bills during this time in case any cheques that I had written would bounce. I don't have an arranged overdraft >insert crying smilies here<
In Family
My twins(boy + girl) attended interviews for college and have conditional acceptances for their chosen course next year. My son is hoping to do a course on developing computer software and my daughter wants to continue her course in Media Communication. She came home this evening and told me that she has also applied to help her lecturer do some filming at Big in Falkirk This will be a good qualification on her CV. He only intends to chose people who have had good college attendance, and she feels that she will be in with a good chance, as she was only of one morning when she attended the hospital with a broken hand! I have an older son who is also at college doing a sports science degree. He will graduate this summer but is hoping to go on to university. Yesterday he was taking part in an International Tae Kwon Do competition. He won Gold for sparring and Silver for patterns. Unfortunately he did come home with a black eye!

A personal story about my firstborn

I just thought I would tell you about my oldest son Chris who is almost 20. Like most teenagers he can be a right pain, but occasionally they do something to surprise you. He is doing a HND in Sports Science at college and for the last month he has varied his exercise programme but the one thing he had being doing more of, was running. This morning just before I was about to leave for my wedding exhibition he asked me if "the old man" aka Dad, would run him through to a town called Denny. Asking him why, he announced that he was going to do a charity 10K run in aid of Strathcarron Hospice.
Strathcarron Hospice has Princess Anne as its patron and it is visited by her on a yearly basis.
Dad gave him the directions so that he could drive himself through as it was too early for him to get up on a Sunday morning . Also he didn't have a very good night's sleep (hubby is not keeping well). Chris had to register by 10.30am. I had asked if he had been collecting sponsorship money but he told me that his entrance fee of £10 was the sponsorship.
Well just before 1pm he called me to tell me that he had run the 10k in approximately 42 minutes! I was well chuffed for him. He also said that there had been professional runners there who had done it in 30 minutes but I didn't care as I thought 42 minutes was excellent. The poor wee soul has two blisters, one on each foot as a reward for his thoughtfulness. I thought he would have a nice quiet day after that but no, off he went to his black belt training in Tae Kwon Do. Had the training finished on time he was then going off to his new martial art class called Krav Maga. But thankfully it ran late, so he came home had some dinner and then being the very active person he is....went out again to the pictures. I asked him what are your going to see...."a film" he replies. >roll eyes here< a typical teenagers reply eh