Special Ops

I've had some news, sort of not good news, followed by very good news indeed...

My sister (my inspiration, my mentor, my friend) was taken poorly yesterday and was rushed off to hospital to discover that, without any warning, she had developed appendicitis overnight! The doctors took her off to the operating theatre and in the small hours of the morning (last night) they removed the offending object. This morning, my amazing sister has got up and showered, feels fine and all being well, she will be back at home tomorrow. She is hopeful that she will be allowed to go on her planned rather special holiday to Corfu on Monday!

Now if this had been me taken into hospital yesterday and had an invasive proceedure during the night, I would still be lying in the hospital bed moaning and crying. Would I be up and about, showering and thinking about coming home? I don't think so! Would I be contemplating going on holiday next week? Absolutely not! She is just incredible, she's so fit and healthy, so active and full of life that I guess she has just bounced right back. She has yet again proved to be a complete inspiration to me. I wish a full and speedy recovery and send her all my love.

Dave and I have been working flat out over the bank holiday weekend and since, my fault really. I casually mentioned a while ago that I would like to revamp the website, so that our new ranges of furniture, spongeware etc are easy to find. As a temporary measure, Dave changed some of the catagories on the existing site, but unbeknown to me, he started to write a whole new look site for Pretty Practicals and he presented the bare bones to me late last week. Since then we have been working together to build on the skeleton site and create something that we are both happy with. It seems ages since we did this task, we both really like this process of sitting side by side working on different aspects of the same project.

I don't have a very good sense of spatial awareness, at least not when I am just looking at a page full of programming code (remember The Matrix?) and sometimes I accidentally delete a vital piece of coding thinking that I am changing one part of a page, only to discover that I have just wiped out two whole days worth of work. It's a good job that Dave knows that I am prone to doing this and very carefully makes copies of every stage of his work.

Well, it's still going to be a while yet before I can show you the new look site, but I'll keep you up to date with our progress.

Chat soon, Liz
All images and text copyright Pretty Practicals 2006 - 2008 except where stated.

Small change, big improvement!

I love my home! After a week of hotel food, air-conditioning and constant noise, it is blissful to be once again in the quiet, peaceful and bran enriched environment that is home. I take my hat off to reps who spend each weeknight in a hotel before heading home for the weekend.

2 tablespoons jumbo rolled oats, 1 tablespoon golden linseeds,
3 very large spoons live plain yoghurt, drizzled with black treacle ~ yummy!

After just 6 days I was so desperate for some home style food that I have spent this week detoxing with live yoghurt, linseeds, wholemeal bread and salad, oh and gallons of clear, clean Welsh water. Normally I could never be accused of being an overly healthy eater, my daily diet consists of way too much tea and I am a bit of a biscuit fiend, but this week, I have craved simple food that puts something missing back into my system.

Food rant over...
this week has been great, it's been lovely to get so much feedback from people during and after the show and to get back into a routine at work. I have unpacked everything and tidy it away, answered all the emails and phone messages (I think!). If I haven't returned your call, please forgive me and I will reply as soon as I can.

The response to our postcards on the front of Period Living magazine has been huge. These cards had a space on the back for anyone who would like more details about Pretty Practicals, to enter their address and a postage paid address to return the cards to. We have been delighted with the number of requests for information that we have received in the last fortnight.

I have spent most of today typing hundreds of names and addresses onto postage labels so that we can send out our catalogue on disk to everyone who would like one. Printed copies of our catalogue are also available, they cost £3.00 each (which includes postage) and can be purchased by telephone or on our website from Saturday 19th April onwards.

Dave and I made a few changes to the layout of the Pretty Practicals website yesterday. We have removed a couple of the categories on the left hand menu and added a few too. I felt that the furniture section had become too large and took ages to find things, so we have separated the furniture into 3 sections, French furniture, country furniture and general furniture. My hope is that it will make browsing a little easier for you.

We have added a dining section for cutlery, silverware and other dining room accessories and the laundry items can now be found in the kitchen section. The fabulous country tableware that we now stock has it's own section and whilst there are only three pages as I type, I will be adding more items over the weekend.

As promised in my last blog entry, I have listed the French furniture that we took to the NEC in our clearance section. The armoire and bed have only been used for display for 4 days (the bed wasn't slept in), but because they cannot be supplied in their original packaging, we are offering them at a special price.

Now that life is getting back to normal, Dave and I have started to think about our next project. We think (but haven't made a definite decision yet) that we will finish creating one of Pretty Practicals' sister websites. Much like newcountryquilts.co.uk, our dedicated quilt and bedding site, I would like to have a specialist site for some of the other things that I feel passionate about. I'll keep you posted on any developments!

Chat soon, Liz
All images and text copyright Pretty Practicals 2007 and 2008 except where stated.