196: 15 Day Challenge – July 14th

15DayChallenge

Joining with Sarah from Life of Love for the 15 Day Challenge.

If You were only allowed to watch one movie for the rest of your life, what it be and why?

If you ask my mum she might say the same. My choice would be The American President. It stars Michael Douglas as the President, Martin Sheen as his Chief of Staff and Annette Benning as Sydney Ellen Wade.

It’s not dramatic and saving the world in an Independence Day but I love it all the same. It’s written by Aaron Sorkin who wrote The West Wing amongst other things. (Have you been watching his new series. My mum is recording it for me.)

The summary from IMDB goes like this:

In the film, President Andrew Shepherd (Douglas) is a widower who pursues a relationship with attractive environmental lobbyist Sydney Ellen Wade (Bening) – who has just moved to Washington, D.C. – while at the same time attempting to win the passage of a crime control bill.

The way Shepherd and Wade meet is really funny as Wade is ranting about how the President doesn’t get what’s going on just as he walks in behind her and she starts grovelling about how sorry she is, but even before this she sticks up for the security guard at the gatehouse when her colleague thinks he’s stupid.

Wade is super nervous about being at The White House (who can blame her!) and she just gets really rambly and says how she’s “savouring the Capra-esque quality”. Her colleague is like “he has no idea so Capra is”. The Security guard then turns round and is like “Yeah, I do, Frank Capra, great American Director — it’s a Wonderful Life, Mr Smith Goes to Washington (pause) Miss Sydney Ellen Wade of Virginia, knock ’em dead” and each time I watch it on my own I shout “haha in your face!” at the colleague who clearly thinks she’s more important or something.

Theres this amazing speech at the end that both me and my Mum love. I’ve posted it at least once if not twice in the past so I will just post a link to that post.

I love this film, I can’t say exactly but I love it. It’s got romance and controversy. It’s got that West Wing feel that is just good clearly I like Aaron Sorkin’s style as I love The West Wing (i have the box set on DVD lol).

If you love a good chick flick I really think you’ll like it.

195: 15 Day Challenge – July 13th

15DayChallenge

Joining with Sarah from Life of Love for the 15 Day Challenge.

List Your Favourites….

Songs
Your Sofa by Becky Higg (but there’s no video! Watch this one instead – So Much More To Come)
It Doesn’t Always Have To Be Beautiful by Slow Club
Rivera Life by Caro Emerald
Hollywood Nights by Bob Seger and The Silver Bullet Band

Quotes
“We’re all I’m the gutter but some of us are looking at the stars.” Oscar Wilde

“For I know the plans I have for you” says the Lord “They are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope” – Jeremiah 29:11 (not quite the version I know by heart though).

“Our help is in the name of the Lord, the maker of heaven and earth.” – Psalm 124:8

“I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength.” – Philippians 4:13

Foods
Pizza
Pasta
Cake – Carrot Cake with Cream Cheese icing or Chocolate are my favourites.
Jaffa Cakes
Mozzarella
Haloumi
Bavarian (or Hungarian) Smoked Cheese

Vacation Spots
Amsterdam
Paris

(I like city holidays. I don’t have the patience to sit and sunbath on the beach for example. If I go to the pool then I’m swimming not sunbathing).

Photos

Me and my mamma. #selfportrait #photoaday

Hanging out in the garden. Pity the sun isn't shining.

I love moments like this. All snuggled up on the sofa watching #thevoiceuk

#oursidekick took this of me two weekends ago and I love it so much (well as much as you can love a picture!) #connectwithpc #mysmile #day3 @papercoterie

194: 15 Day Challenge – July 12th

15DayChallenge

Joining with Sarah from Life of Love for the 15 Day Challenge.

What are You most looking forward to in the next six months?

July
Our first proper holiday with Our Sidekick – SE England here we come!!

August
My Mum’s birthday (special one this year!! Woohoo!)
The London 2012 Olympics – technically start in July but I think most of the events are in August

September
Kewey’s birthday – hopefully there will be a get together but need to see how everyone is doing
The Olympics will be over and hopefully I’ll be able to meet up with Becca and Ellefie without getting crushed by tourists. (Meeting Ellefie is one of my goals for 26 Before I’m 27)
Our Sidekick is starting Upper School – I have to remember to order his school uniform – it seems easier said that done.

October
Our Sidekick will have been with us a year.

November
Can’t think of anything for November……Any ideas? (I’m not American so Thanksgiving doesn’t count!)

December
It’ll be Our Sidekick’s second Christmas with us.

193: 15 Day Challenge – July 11th

15DayChallenge

Joining with Sarah from Life of Love for the 15 Day Challenge.

What’s one thing that you would never change about yourself?

It would probably be my eyes however I am short-sighted and have an astigmatism in one eye – so I wouldn’t change how they look etc but I’d fix the short-sightedness – then again how weird would I look without my glases. I wear them every day, first thing I do before I get out of bed – put my glasses on. Last thing before I go to sleep I take them off. I have fallen asleep in front of the TV with my glasses on – now that was weird waking up and being able to see when normally I’d wake up and everything be blurry!

Me without Glasses

Me with Glasses (well kinda!)

Curled up in the sofa. Killing time waiting for #oursidekick's contact time to finish.

192: 15 Day Challenge – July 10th

15DayChallenge

Joining with Sarah from Life of Love for the 15 Day Challenge.

Most Embarrassing Moment

I can think of many embarrassing moments, I was picked on at Upper School and so there were always occasions where I’d put my foot in it or felt like I needed the floor to swallow me up.

During a performance in Year 9 I went on stage to perform my solo and the music didn’t start, then when it did it was in the wrong place and then cut out. I was taken off the stage as the tech team couldn’t get it working. In the end it worked but I was so embarrassed that I desperately didn’t want to go out on stage again, I dragged some bravery from somewhere and got on with it lol.

Then there was a time when I was a teenager I was a real klutz. It didn’t make sense as I was part of the dance club and could usually put one food in the other. Except I went through a stage of falling over my own feet. I was learning to drive but was still walking most places as I didn’t have a car. I worked at a builder’s merchant when I was seventeen at the same time that I went through this stage. One particular day I tripped over my own feet in the main aisle and then I walked home from work and on the way home I tripped over and grazed up my knees.

Okay last one – and pretty embarrassing lol. In Year 13 we had to do a performance outside in the courtyard of our school. I had to pretend to die (comedy OTT version of dying) on stage and was then dragged off by my ankles for comedic effect. Because I was playing a guy I had to wear funny shorts and a pair of white tights. Unfortunately the costume I was given to wear was totally the wrong size – the tights were too small so kept riding down and the shorts were too big so kept falling down. When I was dragged off by my ankles, the velcro on the shorts had got stuck to the tights and I could feel them creeping down (or up given that my back was on the floor and my feet were in the air!). I could feel my face getting hotter and hotter because I couldn’t reach up and hold onto my shorts because I was supposed to be dead. I got to the edge of the stage and as I fidgeted round realised that I mooned the tech guy who was sat in the doorway that was acting as our wing. Yep super embarrassing!

191: 15 Day Challenge – July 9th

15DayChallenge

Joining with Sarah from Life of Love for the 15 Day Challenge.

Describe the best day of your life.

May 12th 2007, the day that me and Chris got married. But there is the whole story about how we met first.

When I was a teenager part of me was convinced that I’d be alone for my whole life, I’d annoy or upset all my friends and become a grumpy old cat lady (well without the cats).

Then I “found” Chris. So I’d actually found Chris when I was in Year 10 at School. I was 15 and was at a bible camp called CCCF (stands for Caravanners and Campers Christian Fellowship). I’d been going every year pretty much since I was 1ish (I would have been about 4 weeks old for the National Rally in 1986).

So roll forward to May 2001 and my family head off to the camp.

At camp me and my brother would explore the site and help my parents put up the awning on the caravan – we’d help other people near as well, by the time i was 16 I could pretty much do it on my own (well minus lifting the canvas to start as I was either too short or not strong enough).

Most days went something like this – we’d go to the youth meeting in the morning, head “home” to the caravan for lunch (usually via the Campsite shop where my Grandparents and Parents would volunteer), play or hang out in the afternoon then go to the youth meeting in the evening after tea.

While writing this entry I went to try and find my journal but I couldn’t so this is from memory! I remember at the time it was a fluffy journal from the Disney store – it was white with black spots like a dalmatian (101 Dalmatians had been recently released). I remember writing about the first evening meeting Chris and how him and another lad both really liked me and Chris bought me a hot chocolate then because I burnt my tongue on the hot chocolate he bought me a can of 7up from the tuck shop – he wouldn’t let me pay him back lol. We were inseparable that week, he was lovely and kind and he’d walk me back to my parents caravan from the youth tent rather than make me walk alone (although it would be perfectly safe for me to walk back in the dark lol).

We tried the whole boyfriend/girlfriend thing but it didn’t really work. In my 15 year old brain Chris’s house was too far to catch the bus. Yeah don’t ask how this worked exactly. I was 15 and a teenager lol.

We lost touch somewhere along the line but got back in touch enough that I invited Chris to my 18th Birthday party and he came. My friends remembered him as he had a really really bright Hawaiian shirt and a really loud laugh.

Fast forward a bit further – Chris goes off to university up in Hull and I’m here at university in Bedford (do the maths it’s closer to 200 miles apart – Bedford to Chris’s old house was about 30 miles!). We spend a bunch of time chatting via email and MSN and then somehow on the 13th March 2005 we decide (with some help from two friends) that we want to try going out again. Well clearly this was the time because on the 13th September 2005 Chris proposed to me – his whole plan didn’t quite work out but it happened in the end.

On the 12th May 2007 we got married.

190: 15 Day Challenge – July 8th

15DayChallenge

Joining with Sarah from Life of Love for the 15 Day Challenge.

Describe “The Good, The Bad and The Ugly” of yourself

The Good
I’m kind, caring and compassionate I’d like to think I’m a good, reliable friend who can be trusted and counted on.

The Bad
I watch way too much TV and don’t do enough exercise. I can be really emotional – when I’m tired/hungry I get really cranky (with two boys in the house it can be really bad between my tiredness/hunger and Our Sidekick’s teenage hormones (Yeah we have a bit of a “Kevin and Perry Situation” some days)

The Ugly
My teeth lol. Could do with orthodontics but I’m not sure I could deal with the pain/discomfort – let alone the cost.

Today the Olympic Torch gets to Bedford. Should hopefully have some pictures later today if I manager to get out and take some pictures. I’m helping Chris and The Fountain team serve refreshments along the route near one of the local churches.

189: 15 Day Challenge – July 7th

15DayChallenge

Joining with Sarah from Life of Love for the 15 Day Challenge.

Recommend us a book to read. Why do you think it’s important?

I read loads of books. I’m not sure there’s one particular book I would recommend as something important (unless you count the bible! Give it a try!)

So I have a few that I really liked to share with you:

The Last Christian by David Gregory
A.D. 2088. Missionary daughter Abigail Caldwell emerges from the jungle for the first time in her thirty-four years, the sole survivor of a mysterious disease that killed everyone else in her village. After receiving a curious message from her grandfather, Abby goes to America, only to discover a nation that has that has become completely secularized and all religion has died away. A curious message from her grandfather assigns her a surprising mission: re-introduce God to America, no matter how insurmountable the odds.
But a larger threat looms. The world’s leading artificial intelligence industrialist has perfected a technique for downloading the human brain into a silicon form. Brain transplants have begun, and with them comes the promise of eternal existence. Abby and Professor Creighton Daniels, a historian troubled by the mystery of his father’s sudden death, uncover a plot to force the entire planet to convert to this “transhuman” status—and forever lose all possibility of a connection with God. Together, they begin to unravel the conspiracy, attracting the attention of the powerful and devious men behind it. In a race for their lives, Abby and Creighton search for the truth while humanity’s spiritual future hangs in the balance.(From Amazon)

The Host by Stephenie Meyer
Melanie Stryder refuses to fade away. The earth has been invaded by a species that takes over the minds of their human hosts while leaving their bodies intact, and most of humanity has succumbed. Wanderer, the invading ‘soul’ who has been given Melanie’s body, knew about the challenges of living inside a human: the overwhelming emotions, the too-vivid memories. But there was one difficulty Wanderer didn’t expect: the former tenant of her body refusing to relinquish possession of her mind. Melanie fills Wanderer’s thoughts with visions of the man Melanie loves – Jared, a human who still lives in hiding. Unable to separate herself from her body’s desires, Wanderer yearns for a man she’s never met. As outside forces make Wanderer and Melanie unwilling allies, they set off to search for the man they both love.(From Amazon)

Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
Wuthering Heights is a wild, passionate story of the intense and almost demonic love between Catherine Earnshaw and Heathcliff, a foundling adopted by Catherine’s father. After Mr Earnshaw’s death, Heathcliff is bullied and humiliated by Catherine’s brother Hindley and wrongly believing that his love for Catherine is not reciprocated, leaves Wuthering Heights, only to return years later as a wealthy and polished man. He proceeds to exact a terrible revenge for his former miseries.(from Amazon)

Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier
Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again . . . Working as a lady’s companion, the heroine of Rebecca learns her place. Life begins to look very bleak until, on a trip to the South of France, she meets Maxim de Winter, a handsome widower whose sudden proposal of marriage takes her by surprise. She accepts, but whisked from glamorous Monte Carlo to the ominous and brooding Manderley, the new Mrs de Winter finds Max a changed man. And the memory of his dead wife Rebecca is forever kept alive by the forbidding Mrs Danvers . . . Not since Jane Eyre has a heroine faced such difficulty with the Other Woman. An international bestseller that has never gone out of print, Rebecca is the haunting story of a young girl consumed by love and the struggle to find her identity. (from Amazon)

I read quite a lot so if you want to add me as a friend on GoodReads you can find me here.

188: 15 Day Challenge – July 6th

15DayChallenge

Joining with Sarah from Life of Love for the 15 Day Challenge.

What’s something you’ve always wanted to do but haven’t? Why not?

Storm chasing. When I was younger I used to watch lots of documentaries about storms and crazy weather and things like that. My Dad used to watch a lot of them with me too. I almost bought a DVD box set in town the other day – it was a box set of Raging Planet episodes so it was volcanoes, earthquakes, tornadoes, hurricanes etc. And I was glued reading the back of the box. Chris asked had I watched all his Planet Earth DVDs. Clearly you can’t really storm chase in the UK and the idea of immigrating to the US is super scary (Although not impossible if they’ll have me!). Then again I probably don’t have the relevant experience to be a storm chaser – will just have to stick at looking at the pictures on The Face of a Storm for now (You’ll have to go and look at her pictures – they are amazing!) . You can go on holiday tours of sorts which involve storm chasing but social services might not approve of Our Sidekick coming with us.

A more realistic thing that I haven’t done but always wanted to was to run something like a 5k or 10k, I kinda hate running but I think it’s mainly linked to the fact that my asthma holds me back a bit (I know probably no excuse and I just need to get my butt in gear!) bungee or parachute jump, I think parachute might be better as I could do a tandem but I think part of me wouldn’t trust the person I was jumping with to pull the cord – either that or I’d freak out in the plane and then they’d have to push me out or something lol.

187: 15 Day Challenge – July 5th

15DayChallenge

Joining with Sarah from Life of Love for the 15 Day Challenge.

If you could have dinner with any five people, who would they be?

I was working on 5 separate meals rather than one with five people.

My Grandma, she passed away following a stroke in 2008 – I miss her bucket loads. Things happen in life and I want to call her and tell her but she won’t be there at the end of the phone. I’d like to tell about Our Sidekick and his crazy adventures and what he’s been up to and things like that. I think she would have been supportive of it but that’s just my opinion – would she have been supportive?

Kewey – I haven’t seen her since the beginning of May when we all met up to celebrate my birthday. She’s not been well recently and it means coming down to visit or us going us to visit is a little more complicated. (Twitter)

My Mum – It would be a proper sit down meal where we’re not charging off to the next thing. My Mum has had a tough week and could really do with a pampering evening I think.

Ruby is from Australia and so her coming for dinner might be a bit of a challenge but hopefully it will happen one day. Whether it’s when she makes it to the UK or when I make it to Australia. (Twitter/Blog)

Becca – this one is more possible – Becca is one of my blog friends. She lives in Norfolk which is about an hour and a half away so it’s not completely impossible to meet up but always seems to be a bit of a challenge to be in the same place at the same time. (Twitter/Blog)

186: 15 Day Challenge – July 4th

15DayChallenge

Joining with Sarah from Life of Love for the 15 Day Challenge.

What’s Your Favourite Childhood Memory?

I don’t actually know. I think I have so many. There are sad ones, happy ones, funny ones and other ones.

There’s the one I recounted to my Mum a few weeks ago. My 18 year old cousin sat her last A Level exam a few weeks ago. My Mum commented about how it made her feel old – and then asked did it make me feel old. Well yes, yes it did make me feel old that my 18 year old cousin has finished school and goes to University at the end of this year. I remember holding her when she was like a day old or something like that. I remember that we went to the hospital pretty much straight after school and so I was in my bright red lower school sweater and grey skirt – it was winter and trousers weren’t allowed (or at least I don’t think they were I don’t remember!!). This little baby who had been a bump last time I’d seen her was placed in my arms, I sat incredibly still as I thought I might break her. She was my cousin and I was dead excited about all the things I’d get to teach her.

So that was like a happy memory, a sad memory would be when I tried to knock myself out on holiday. Growing up we travelled around the UK. I don’t think I had a passport until I was about 13/14 but I didn’t mind that looking back. We went to Wales, Lincolnshire, Norfolk etc. This particular year we’d gone to Kent and were working our way round the castles and forts along the coastline. At one particular castle me and Rich had been messing about chasing each other round a cannon. I ducked under the cannon to try and catch him except I’d misjudged how fair I’d ducked under it and crashed my head into the cannon as I stood up. Oh my life it hurt. I don’t remember much else apart from a wapping great headache for the rest of the day.

—

Btw, Happy Independence Day to all my American friends – hope you have an amazing day – let me know what you’re up to. I’d love to hear about it.

Source: 17andbaking.com via Danielle on Pinterest

If you commented earlier this week and have found that your comment hasn’t appeared on the post that could be my fault – I was clearing out my spam folder and managed to delete two genuine comments although they should have been safe and not deleted. (I blame a combination of my brain not being in gear and the stupid computer).

185: 15 Day Challenge – July 3rd

15DayChallenge

Joining with Sarah from Life of Love for the 15 Day Challenge.

Tell About An Article of Clothing That You’re Attached To

When our class graduated from university some of the girlies organised leavers hoodies for us. I wore mine pretty much non-stop with my jeans as it was so warm and comfortable. On the front it has the university logo on one side and on the other side it says “Smithey”. In m y class at university there were three Hannah’s so we all had our own nicknames, I was Smithey, Hannah Two was Kewey and Hanna Three was called Greavesey (but I think she stayed as Hanna and me and Kewey adopted nicknames).

The picture below showing off my jumper was taken at Swanwick in 2009. Me and Chris had been married for two years and he was attempting to write his dissertation for his course. This particular afternoon I went to explore the local area with The Murf, Caz and some other friends from church. The other side of the fence there was a railway museum of sorts that I thought that my Dad would really like.

I think that if I can’t wear it any more for any particular reason I might sew up the arm holes, neck holes and waist band and make it into a cushion or something like that so I can still use it. What do you think?

184: 15 Day Challenge – July 2nd

15DayChallenge

Joining with Sarah from Life of Love for the 15 Day Challenge.

Write a {few} six-word memoir(s)

Crazy, barmy but fab reliable friend
Photo snapping, tweet writing girl geek
Sweetie eating and gum chewing chocoholic
Lovely, caring, fab, foster mum/wife
Crazy, with a hint of crazy (from my brother)
A gifted, talented and wonderful woman (from my friend V)
Kind, thoughtful, mature and warm woman (from my friend K)

Today my not so little brother turns 24!!! Happy Birthday Little Brother!!! Have a great day!!

Original Source

183: 15 Day Challenge – July 1st

15DayChallenge

Joining with Sarah from Life of Love for the 15 Day Challenge.

List 15 Fun Facts About Yourself…

I am married to Chris. We’ve been friends since I was 15, we got engaged in 2005 and married in 2007.
I am Foster Mum to Our Sidekick – one of the scariest but rewarding jobs ever. He’s been with us since October.
I have one brother called Richard.
I am a born and bred Bedfordian – I’ve been here for over 26 years.
I graduated University in 2007 with a BA (Hons) Degree in Performing Arts and Professional Practice from De Montfort University, Bedford (I graduated the year it officially became the University of Bedfordshire.
If I could quit my job and not have to worry about the bills I’d go and study for an MA – in my dreams it would be in Media (Mass Communication) or Anthropology – unfortunately I think I’d need a new BA to start the Anthropology one.
If I could quit my job and start my dream job tomorrow it would either be Professional Blogger or something in Social Media.
I’ve been giving blood since I was 17. I recently gave my 12th donation. That’s 12 “pints” of blood that have helped people across the UK somewhere. I have a Bronze award (10-24 donations).
I’m also on the Anthony Nolan Bone Marrow Register. It means that if my bone marrow matches someone who needs a donation then I might end up giving that person some bone marrow. I figure if I’ve got some to spare then the pain of the surgery is nothing in comparison to giving someone a better chance in life.
I have four piercings – two in each earlobe. If it wasn’t for the trouble I seem to have with earrings I’d consider 3rd holes in both ears (oh and the fact that Chris would probably disown me for a few days or weeks).
I play the bass guitar in the church worship band. I also love to sing.
I’m a bit of a TV-holic. I love shows like Grey’s Anatomy, House, Bones, Body of Proof, CSI (NY and Vegas not so keen on Miami), Doctor Who, Hart of Dixie and The Big Bang Theory. (I’m sure there is more!)
I am really not a morning person. (As you might be aware if you follow me on Twitter).
I love to travel but don’t get to do it enough. I’d love to go outside of Europe (eventually). I have plans for a bunch of cities like New York, Pisa, Boston, Tokyo, Melbourne, Sydney, Washington, and Auckland.
I love films, I’m a softy so I love chick flicks but hate horror and psychological thrillers. As I write this post I have Julie and Julia playing in the background which is one of my favourites (I watched You’ve Got Mail and Julie and Julia last week as a sort of tribute to Nora Ephron after she passed away – she’s one of my favourite directors).

181: Review – May and June

At the end of each month I write a review of the books I’ve read, the films I’ve seen and a quick round up of the month but I realised on Wednesday that I hadn’t done this for May which is completely out of character for me because I take notes of everything to lead up to the post at the end of the month.

May

Books
The Host by Stephenie Meyer
Uglies by Scott Westerfeld (As recommended by HannahDFTBA)
Insurgent by Veronica Roth

Films
Ratatouille
X-Men 3: The Last Stand
Snow White and The Huntsman
What to Expect When You’re Expecting
Dan in Real Life
The Twilight Saga: New Moon
The American President
101 Dalmatians
American Reunion

Month in Bullets

Suzie got back from YWAM South Africa.
My “Lil Sis” took me to her school to see the school production of Beauty and The Beast – oh my word it was so good! She’s so fab, it was such an awesome birthday surprise!! (Beauty and The Beast is my favourite Disney film even now!)
Had lunch with my friend who is due to deliver her first baby any day now – so exciting!!!

June

Books
Mist by Kathryn James
The Magician’s Nephew by C.S. Lewis
Elsewhere by Gabrielle Zevin
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis (Started but not finished)
Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier (Started but not finished)

Films
Fast Girls
Ben Hur
The Five Year Engagement
The Help
You’ve Got Mail
Volcano
College Road Trip
Robin Hood
The Flintstones
How Green Was My Valley

Month in Bullets

Me and Rich went to see Dave Gorman live in Cambridge at the Corn Exchange AND we both met Dave after the show.
Mum and Me went for an adventure to Milton Keynes. We started at Hobbycraft looking at the wool and the crochet hooks and then looking for holiday club ideas (how hard is it to find a holiday club craft around the theme of swimming??!?!)

180: 26 Before I’m 27 – Part 2

I’ve completed another goal. At the weekend me and my brother went to Cambridge to see Dave Gorman live. I tweeted about it on Saturday morning – I was really excited and just had to get through the rest of the day. Our Sidekick was off to a sleepover and Chris had to be despatched to work – that’s not hard right…….

Having seen Googlewhack Adventure and heard the premise behind Are You Dave Gorman? I knew I was in for a good night. Little did I realise how much my sides were going to hurt having laughed so hard for so long (At one point I almost fell off my chair because I couldn’t breathe!). I picked up my brother at about 4ish and we headed over to Cambridge. Every time I go to Cambridge I end up getting lost or going the wrong way so I wanted to make sure we left in enough time in case I had to double back or go round the one way system again.

We arrived in Cambridge at about 5 and went to grab some food. Rich wasn’t that fussed about where we went to so we ended up at BRB The Cow as I’ve been there before (And it was that or a yellow arched fast food chain!). Again extra time added in for service but because it was relatively quite (or people were just drinking during the football and rugby that were being shown on the TV we were finished eating before 6 – eek! Two hours to kill in Cambridge when most of the shops are closing up. Well we pottered around and got a drink – I found out that my brother drinks green tea now and has pretty much given up cola – how did I miss that he’d done that?!?

After wandering round the small number of shops that were still open we sat outside the shopping centre and chatted while drinking our tea (raspberry iced for me and green for Rich) and talking about Rich’s birthday which is in a few weeks. (He’s having a murder mystery party and I have to come as a green alien from a Star Wars related planet – not sure this is a good idea but should be fun all the same!)

We stood in the foyer of the theatre for about an hour chatting and generally trying not to get in trouble for waiting inside the building instead of outside. Also commented on different things that were happening around us including when Dave’s brother arrived and was trying to convince the door staff that he was supposed to be allowed back stage and he would call Dave to come and get him if it really was necessary. A group of people stood in the foyer made a joke about being Dave’s long lost cousins or something like that to try and queue jump.

We were further back then I thought we would be but minus the chap in front who kept moving into my sight line we had pretty good seats (Especially at one point when Dave came out into the audience and was at the row in front of us!). I think if we’d been in the front four or five rows we would have ended up with achey necks because the front rows were so close to the stage. I think they must have been on maximum capacity for seating as the front row was probably less than a metre from the edge of the stage.

The warm up act for Dave was called Jay Foreman. Most of the songs were probably un-repeatable in public places (At least for me anyway lol), This is a funny and clean one called Stealing Food – the video is pretty funny too. This took us up to the interval with Dave to follow after. My brother bought Jay’s CD and having listened to Spamalot on the way we listened to Jay on the way home. (Jay’s Website/Jay’s Twitter)

Now part from this picture I’m not going to tell you any more as it would give away a bunch of spoilers – if you want them desperately enough then email me but I’m not going to post them on here. At the end of the gig, Me and Rich joined the queue to say hi and get our books signed. Also stopped for a picture and had a brief chat about Twitter. I had a goofy moment and Rich laughed at me (which made me feel about two inches tall lol).

Did I show you? Look who I met yesterday. @davegorman

Bring on the next challenge……..

179: Family Date Night – Catch Up

I had this plan that on Monday or Tuesday after Family Date Night I’d blog about it – who knows it might inspire people out there. But it didn’t happen – there’s been a bunch of stuff whizzing round my brain and life and I just haven’t had the capacity to deal with any more than the necessary bits.

Family Date Night 2: 17th June

This week it was my choice. Our Sidekick had had two friends over for a sleepover the night before so he was not in the mood for anything energetic. (Actually given the choice I think he would have stayed on the sofa and napped all evening!)

We let him nap for half an hour then took him down to the park near our house.

We started the Family Date Night by going out to fly the kite – having been in town for contact time we’d noticed it was windier than last week and so we’d give it another try. I kept messing about which including walking in the opposite direction or not throwing the kite when Chris said he was ready or throwing it when he wasn’t ready (I think this was annoying him more than anything lol)

Our Sidekick came out for a little while but wasn’t happy. He popped home quickly to get changed, he grabbed his football while he was there and occupied himself by having a kick about while we played with the kite.

After a little while the wind died down a bit and we decided to wander towards where Our Sidekick was playing football. I managed to tackle him and steal the ball – I tried to dribble towards the goal but when I kicked it, the ball when completely the wrong direction – clearly I need more practice.

Let's go fly a kite!! (yes I have been singing the song from #photoaday )

Chris joined in and we passed the ball between us, Chris kept kicking it passed Our Sidekick so he had to run and get the ball and come back to us.

We then headed back inside and put Charlie and The Chocolate Factory on. Now I’m normally a fan of Johnny Depp – I think he’s a really good actor but him as Willy Wonka just gives me the creeps. Some of the stuff he comes out with is really weird!

Click for Source

I’d curled up on the sofa to watch the film and actually dozed off – I know that it wasn’t that exciting as I’ve seen it before but that’s a bit ridiculous. When I fell asleep Chris was sat at the end of the sofa. When I woke up from my nap he’d got up and sat on the floor so that I had space to nap. He’s so sweet!

Family Date Night 3: 24th June

This Sunday it was Our Sidekick’s turn. I think when we discussed it a few weeks ago we instigated that Xbox etc. was allowed but it would be for a short amount of time of the evening rather than the whole evening. The original plan involved us watching Despicable Me again while eating popcorn and tea. I got a text from Caz asking if Our Sidekick was going to the service at King’s Arms as she was going to bring her son. Well originally we weren’t but when I told Our Sidekick that Caz’s son would be there he was really excited about going to hang out with him. So we ended up going to King’s Arms Church to listen to George Verwer speak about OM (Operation Mobilisation) which was really good.

First we had worship time which was good – the first (or might have been second) song that we sung was The Happy Song by Delirious – this is one of my favourites and love dancing around to it but we were in the second row of seats in the middle of the row so I couldn’t get out to dance in the aisle and I couldn’t jump up and down where I was because the rows were too close together – I just did a funny bop up and down on my toes with a wiggle or something in the middle – I probably looked like I was having a fit but I’m sure God knew what was in my heart and what I was trying to do lol.

I ended up having a look on the OM website at short term mission trips that they run. I had looked at going to Amsterdam for two weeks with YWAM this summer but the trip I was looking at doing is going ahead but it’s only for one day rather than a week like they thought before so it’s too much to get to Amsterdam for one or two days. Also with Our Sidekick being with us it might be better to spend that time with him rather than living Chris to “single parent” it for a fortnight. OM do short term trips all over the world. There was a trip to Japan that looks very interesting but I think it would be a huge culture shock (as cool as it would be!)

Back to Chris’s choice this weekend.

165: The Day The Music (Album) Died?

A few weeks ago me and a group of friends stood outside church and discussed “What was the last album you bought?”. I really had to think – what was the last album I bought. At the time the last album was Ben Howard, Mumford and Sons or Disney (except Disney was bought for me) but they were all digital downloads rather than physical CDs. I think I only listen to CDs in the car now (because I can’t get my iPhone to play music through my stereo without lots of wires and interference).

I wracked my brain some more – what was the last physical CD that I purchased. I think the conclusion that I came to was that it could have been Deleted Scenes From The Cutting Room Floor by Caro Emerald – but then that’s been in my car for ages (I don’t actually remember not having it in my car). Then it could be Don’t Look Down by Cerys Matthews but that’s been in there for over a year now (After I saw her play at Milton Keynes Stables – she was amazing!).

I tend to select the tracks I like – for example on my current Recently Added play list it goes something like……

We Are Young by Fun (feat. Janelle Monáe)

Shake It Out by Glee

This Kiss (feat. Carrie Hope Fletcher)

I’d Do Anything For Love (But I Won’t Do That) by Meatloaf

Find You On My Knees by Kari Jobe

So why am I writing about this – and why now. There’s a guy called Alex Day aka Nerimon. He’s been on YouTube for years but has recently been turning the music chart upside down when he made it to Number 4 in the Christmas chart in 2011 without being tied to a record label and pretty much by fan power I think! He then went on to make it to Number 15 with his next song Lady Godiva in April 2012. He’s now shaking it up some more by releasing three singles all on the same day – which is completely different to what a record label would suggest to do. Then again with some singles hanging around for weeks and weeks it’s possible for some artists (like Lady Gaga and Adele for example) to chart multiple times even though the songs were released weeks (or months apart). Also with talent shows like X Factor and The Voice covering “older” songs the originals and the covers then make it into the chart again (what’s funniest in my opinion is when the original charts higher than the cover or higher than it did the first time round). He’s even managed to have two appearances on the Forbes Magazine website twice this week (Article 1, Article 2).

So I’m posing this question (if it hasn’t already been else where). Is the physical CD album dying? I’ve chatted to people about no longer purchasing CD singles because they were £4-5 for 3 or 4 tracks when I could wait for a 12 track album for £8-10 and now I can just cherry pick the tracks that I’m actually going to listen to rather than skip. It annoys Chris on road trips that I’ll just play one or two songs and then flick onto the next CD (which probably explains why I seem to drive most of the time because it’s preoccupying me!)

How about record labels – if you can launch a career without being tied to a major label will we see smaller independent labels pop up here and there. How easy (or hard) is it to set up your own record company? Then again maybe you record your own songs and covers and stick it out there on YouTube and see what happens. I’ve recorded a couple of covers but I get more feedback singing at the local Open Mic Night. (I do keep meaning to take my camera with me and try and record some up to date covers lol).

164: Family Date Night

When Chris and I did marriage prep and got married – we were always encouraged to make sure we had one evening when it was just us and no-one else.

On Sunday we instigated a new “Family Date Night”. I’d been all snuggled up in bed or on the sofa as I wasn’t well and when Our Sidekick and Chris arrived home from Contact Time and the tension was so thick it nearly killed me. I made Our Sidekick sit on the stairs and tell me what was going on in his head and why he was upset. I stood the other side of the living room door and got Chris to tell me what was going on in his head and why he was upset. I went back the other side and explained what Chris had said and how that affected how Our Sidekick felt. I then got them both to right a list of the things that were frustrating them. Ryan’s list was just one thing and that was solved really quickly.

Chris’s list was a little longer but it was good to talk about it all. One of the things that came out of it was the lack of family time. We tried to go to the Kite Festival last weekend together but it didn’t go to plan and we ended up coming home.

Therefore we instigated a new family date night. Obviously some days out will have to be on a Saturday instead but while Chris’s working hours at The Fountain haven’t settled down Sunday evening is a slot in the week that we can make sure we’re all on the right track before heading into the next week head first.

On Tuesday after It’s A Knockout, we went to the kite stand and bought a kite. While Our Sidekick went to collect his toothbrush from a friend’s house (this had caused part of Our Sidekick’s one frustration on his list). We headed to the small grassy area near our house to get the kite ready. This area tends to be far too windy to be able to use our remote helicopter so we decided a kite was a better choice. Well we got outside and set up the kite and the wind dropped. Chris kept saying we should go back inside because there wasn’t enough wind but I was like “WE WILL TRY IT JUST ONE MORE TIME IN CASE!!! Okay so Chris won that one as it didn’t work. We ended up heading back inside but we managed to build the kite without falling out which was a good thing.

We headed back home and Our Sidekick returned home with his toothbrush in hand. Because of the lack of kite flying we got out some board games and played one called Hare and Tortoise (or something like that!). The last few times I’ve not really kept up with how to play it but I managed to this time and although I came in third I was pretty close behind Our Sidekick who came in second.

Until last night when nerves were a little frayed I was feeling like we were all closer – clearly Family Date Nights are good and are here to stay. Bring on this weekend!!

163: Dear Monday v.14

Took this ages ago with #picplz. They are now closing and this was the only pic I wanted to download and save.

Dear Monday, I’m sure you’d be a lovely day but between the hours of midnight and 8am I don’t want to see you!!! Today I saw you til about 2:30am and then again around 4ish – I really didn’t want to see you!!!! I wanted to be asleep!

Dear Crochet, for years I couldn’t master you. Now I’ve got the hang of granny squares and flowers and now I struggle to put you down. I want to go to Tudor Rose at lunchtime and get some more wool. Firstly it’s chucking it down and secondly I think Chris would tell me off if I bought more wool – maybe I need to crochet what I have first.

Dear Ace of Cakes, I love your show, I love the crazy cakes that you come up with and I want to be friends with Mary Alice but the signal keeps cutting out on our TV when your show is on – why?!??! Clearly our TV has a think about me watching cookery shows or something either that or Chris hacks the TV on purpose in case it gives me ideas. Sometimes I manage to watch through the bad signal but it gets annoying and makes my head hurt sometimes.

Dear Body, I really wish you would just behave yourself – why do you make me feel ill when I have stuff to be getting on with?

Dear Chris thank you for my flowers on Saturday. I’m just sorry I was half asleep and the flowers were wilting by the time I got up on Sunday.

162: Crocheting Away

Anyone notice how this post was just a title for a little while – oops!

Anyway here is the post. Why is it you get inspiration at 23:56 when you should be asleep!!! (but are also addicted to crochet so want to finish the square you’re on!!)

For years I’ve been trying to learn to crochet – most of the time I admit defeat and decide that no matter how much I try clearly I wasn’t created to crochet. Well how wrong can a girl be!!

Me and Our Sidekick popped by my Mum and Dad’s house last weekend (I think it was Bank Holiday Monday) and ended up staying a little longer than intended while I was there Mum was showing me the flowers that she’d been crocheting. Her friend Kathy had been writing instructions and mum was being her guinea pig.

Well I asked mum “how easy is it?” and that was that. While we had Ben-Hur playing in the background (my Dad was watching it and we all got sucked into it!) my Mum taught me how to make the flower well I got hooked! I came home and with a crochet hook she let me I started making lots of flowers.

By about Thursday or Friday I decided that if I could flowers what else could I do. Well I’d heard my friend Becca tweeting about the granny squares that she was making into a blanket (as part of her 30 before 30 list), so I went off to find a pattern for a granny square – it couldn’t be that hard.

I started with the pattern and by Saturday had finished a whole square off (I cast(ed) it off and had to show my Mum on the way to town – I was too excited). She gave me some pointers like to treble instead of double (or something like that – I knew what she meant!) and to chain in different places and I was off! I’ve made 5 squares now and I’m off to make some more tomorrow after work (or maybe while I eat lunch). My first of these five isn’t quite the right dimensions so I might try and make another three dodgy sized ones and use them on the middle of the blanket or I’ll undo it and try again as it should have enough yarn to redo without chains stitches and other bits.

Either way I can crochet and I’m stupidly proud of the fact!! I was even asked by a teenager girl in The Fountain on Saturday what I was doing (and she seemed pretty interested).

160: Fill In The Blank Friday

Lauren from The Little Things We Do prepares the prompts for Fill In The Blanks Friday and it’s had a bit of a makeover and now rather than being 5+ questions on a theme it’s now going to be one prompt and you go write about that prompt.

So this week’s prompt is:

So, I blog because……..

I want to be popular.

Just Kidding!

I started blogging while I was at university – it kind of started on MySpace on the notes page bit then Chris said “Why not move to a proper site?” so I think I moved myself to Blogger and gradually steered my way to WordPress under Chris’s advisement and then ended up here with my own design and URL and everything. Doh! That is more about how I got started blogging rather than why I blog! I swear this is why I suck at exams – I don’t read the question or focus properly!

So I blog because…….I think it started as somewhere for me to vent and get rid of the tension – I was in my third year at university writing a dissertation entitled something like “Should Shakespeare’s plays still be taught in school?” well it seemed like a good idea – it was something I knew about but clearly I was on the wrong track then again I did Performing Arts I think I was on the wrong track most of the time! Anyway back to the point! So I spent a bunch of time with my head in a book, Facebook was just about taking off but it was still kind of unpopulated so you couldn’t really lose whole weekends to Facebook!

I got writing and that was that. I guess films like Julie and Julia and really people like Gala Darling and Dooce inspired me to try and write better and more to become that famous blogger from Bedford (What you mean you’ve never heard of me?!) but it doesn’t happen that way. There are too many bloggers and not enough blogosphere or something like that. Anyway in my little patch of the pond, I’ve met people through my blog/twitter and I’ve been recognised via my blog (which I’ve still not got the hang of – I get all like “What? You mean you read it and you’re not one of my actual friends or family! Okay……..”).

Over to you:

How about you?

Why don’t you answer the prompt “I blog because…..”

150: 26 Before I’m 27 – Part 1

It’s not even the end of May and I’ve already completed two of my goals – this one actually comes further down the list but I’ve completed it and wrote about it so here we go.

24. Sing/Play at an Open Mic Night (not hosted by Church or The Fountain)

When I was at school I was always the kid who was picked last for sports teams, I wasn’t very good at running and I can’t really throw so that counted me out for most sports. Music was my home in a way. I played flute and sung amongst other bits and pieces including playing the Bass Flute at one point. When it came to solos I was often over looked – there were always people that bit better than me. I remember once singing solo in the choir but I was covering because the actual soloist was away that week.

In more recent years I’ve been involved in more productions and been picked for solos but it still surprises me lol. I’ve played a Open Mic nights that have been hosted at church but never played any outside of church (or a safe space in a way). A few weeks back there was a 24 hour Open Mic jam session at The White Horse pub to raise money for charity (I think it was for Help for Heroes), I showed up with my guitar and a few songs and attempted to play. It went okay but I was bricking it. This week me and JD decided to go again – it’s become a bit of a trend now. I’ve recently worked out that I can hide behind my guitar but I get freaked out and usually fluff it whereas if it’s just me singing although it still gets fluffed I get less freaked out.

Given that I showed about 9:30 in the end I didn’t plan really plan on singing – I was just going to see how it went. When I got there the band were playing Superstition by Stevie Wonder (which had actually been playing on Radio 2 about 10 minutes earlier). The band had a quick break and then went into Sir Duke, Matt who organises the whole night made a comment about looking up the words. Well I think my thought was they were already loading on my phone so I could sing along from my seat – I then took my phone up to Matt as it was loaded and he was still looking as he was trying to set up a guitar and bits and pieces at the same time.Well we sang Sir Duke and then it merged into I Wish by Stevie Wonder. I’d sang Sir Duke at the 24 Hour Open Mic Night a few weeks back.

Before and During. Singing #SirDuke and #iwish by #steviewonder at #openmic #PicFrame

Me and JD sat at our table and chatted about different things between songs and chair danced along to other songs. Our friend Al got up and did a set too. At one point JD got up and sang – I am so proud of her! We were discussing it on FB a few weeks ago and someone posted some negative and hurtful comments that knocked her a bit for six. Well she came out and wiped the floor with those comments because she rocked it! SOOO PROUD OF HER!!!

Another band got up to play called SoundPie (this might be wrong – we had three or four different incarnations of the name through the evening!), they played a Stereophonics song followed by You’re All I Have by Snow Patrol – they asked if someone could come sing backing vocals – well I know the song so somehow ended up doing it lol.
Then we were sat chatting again and Biggsy (one of Matt and Al’s friends) asked if I knew *this* song and handed me some lyric sheets – I read it over and it was “I’d Do Anything for Love” by Meat Loaf. Yes I do know that song. Then he said “We’re going to play it later for a bit fun – do you know the women’s part at the end?”.

Well I kind of know it – I haven’t heard the song for a while but I’m sure it’ll come back to me.

Thankfully it did come back to me and it was pretty good – I messed up one line but it was good anyway. I need to be more prepared next time and make sure I have enough battery in my phone to ask JD to record me singing or something. Next week is the Bank Holiday so I’m not sure if I’m going to go but that gives me, JD and Al chance to work over some songs to sing together next time.

147: Education – History

Earlier this week me and Our Sidekick when to a Pre-Admission’s appointment at his new school. I don’t remember going to one when I moved up to Upper School but it’s always possible that it did happen. We happened to meet with one of the history teachers and we walked through the history department to go to the classroom that we were going to have an interview in. On the wall outside the classroom there was a board about all the work that was being done. On one board there were photos from a trip to a medicine history museum – looked very interesting and would have probably kept my interest in history when I was at school.

On Thursday I got in from band and sat down at my MacBook to get on with various bits and I’ve now put a history documentary on iPlayer. I posted on Facebook “You can tell I’m my father’s daughter when I watch a history documentary on iPlayer because it looks interesting…..”

A friend of mine commented and I responded with “It’s funny because at school I did history because I enjoyed it but by the end of GCSE I hated it – it was so boring – but history itself isn’t boring. I’d sit around and read a history book for fun and potter round a museum to learn about where i came from and the history that affected the world we live in.”

It got me thinking – if GCSE History had been taught in a different way would I have found it more interesting – I studied the Cold War and WW2. I did choose AS Level History for Sixth Form but I ended up dropping it as a choice before starting as I actually failed History in the end (I got an F and I’m kind of proud of it in a way because I got a B for Italian and 5 Cs and that was enough to get me into Sixth Form in the end lol).

I’m not sure how History is being taught at schools now but from the feedback I get from Our Sidekick his History teacher is good – and I should know she taught me when I was in Year 8. She taught me History, English and French – she just has a passion for the subjects that she teaches. If I had had her for GCSE who knows I might have got better grades…….

What was your favourite subject at school? Did you enjoy history at school or was it boring? Did you have a particular time period that you liked learning about?

146: So What’s Next……?

So this post is a bit like verbal puke. There are posts out there where people have felt the need to get on their soapbox and speak out about who they are and what their blog is about. I was going to link to them to try and explain what I mean but I can only find one and it seems mean to single that one out.

Normally on a Friday I adopt the prompts from The Little Things We Do and join in with Fill In The Blanks Friday. I normally love this post and I haven’t stopped loving it but I think I’ve got stuck in a rut – I always post the same things on the same days and schedule my posts around that but actually some days it just needs to happen.

At the end of last year I think I decided that posting every day would get me more readers or more commentors or something like that. It might have worked but clearly I don’t have the knack. Over the last two weeks or so I’ve been asking myself if I should give up blogging – I’ve been doing it about 5 or 6 years – maybe it’s time to call it quits and give up.

Then again something occurred to me today. I think I get bogged down in what everyone else is doing – I thought if I commented on lots of blogs then I’d get lots of comments back and then people would spread the word about my blog and it would be amazing. It also occurred to me that I’m so busy trying to fit in a box that my brain (and bones!) hurt. When I comment I’d also add a link to my most recent post rather than just to my general site – is this a good move or a bad move – what do you think?

I don’t wear cute outfits everyday like some bloggers, I’m not on a funky diet that turns my poo a funny colour or makes me lose lots of weight. I’m not a vegetarian or vegan although some days I do wonder if it would be a good idea. I’m a married twenty something who wants to keep writing but feels like she’s whispering in a thunderstorm some days. Maybe I’ve lost my way as a blogger – but do I want to still write – yes, am I disheartened that I’m not sure what I write is being read – yes. I’m sure I can spend hundreds of pounds on blogging tips and texts books but it’s not going to happen. So are you there? Are you listening world? I’m here and I want to get to know you not the 200 spam comments I get on a weekly basis!

Anyway, times up gtg – catch you later.

145: Encouragement

I had a horrible day yesterday – to the point that I was in tears twice. I seem to spend each week charging towards the weekend – the weekend comes and goes and then I dive head first into the next week and wonder where a whole month has gone. I wanted to take part in Moofix Chronicles competition this month but I just haven’t managed it – 3000 words isn’t alot in the grand scheme (having done NaNoWriMo) and so it is more than possible if I can managed to fit the writing in. It can be done right?)

Ruby sent me a link to this on a tweet – how is it that this girl is the other side of the world and she just knows when I need encouragement – she’s so fab!

139: Fill In The Blanks

1. Something that is very near and dear to my heart is, my family they are all so super special to me.

2. Birthdays are a good cause to celebrate .

3. The most fun I ever had was the time that we went to the bottle bank to recycle a bunch of bottles and jars (why is it so much fun smashing glass like that?!?) then going for a drive but the person in the passenger seat was blindfolded and had to guess where we were. I think when it was my turn I was in the back of the car which made it even more disorientating and I still managed to guess which was really strange! It sounds really freaky but it is seriously fun.

4. True friends are the ones who call you just to chat. Or take a 10 mile detour on their way home to see you (Done this two or three times now). The ones who throw you a surprise birthday party (especially when you think life is too busy to both with a birthday party!). The ones who are there for you when you need them.

5. Something that makes me terribly happy is hanging out with Our Sidekick and when I hug my Grandma and she comments about how lovely my hugs are and clearly I’m not too old for a Grandma hug!

6. A good way to spend a sunny day is hanging out in the garden doing stuff whether it’s gardening like last weekend or just chilling and bouncing around on the trampoline.

7. My favorite celebratory food is doughnuts or muffins – I’m not sure which though. (Why is it doughnut in the UK but donut in the US??)

136: Blog Holiday of Sorts

Hey

So having posted about being overwhelmed I accidentally on purpose gave myself a blog holiday – part of it was being too busy to blog, part of it was not being bothered to blog and part of it was writer’s block.

Then again I’ve been brewing up a storm – I have a new idea for something and am trying to think up a name so that I can get a blog/website started to spread the word.

In the last 10 days I’ve had alsorts on including Our Sidekick’s birthday which including setting up an email account and a Facebook Account and all the other bits that come with that.

I had a second phone call/meeting about the idea which was super exciting, that same day I hung out with my Dad at The Fountain and drank hot chocolate while being taught how to play card games that I’m sure my Dad has taught me in the past but it was good to hang out and be taught them again.

I’ve then been off sick this afternoon from work. I hate having to do it but I just couldn’t get my brain through the fog to work – I managed to complete enough of my stuff that I didn’t feel too bad about leaving. I came home and took up residence on the sofa and worked my way through recorded TV. I’ll have to see how I’m doing in the morning as to whether or not I go to work in the morning. Normally I’m there trying to work through it and end up feeling worse and dragging the cold out – this time I’ve come home on the first day of properly feeling it and hopefully if I stay home tomorrow as well it will be enough to shake it rather than dragging it out – oh well let’s see how I feel in the morning.

How are you all doing?

126: Overwhelmed

I think the weather is sending me a bit loopy. It’s been so dark and grey that I think my brain thinks we’re heading towards Christmas quicker than we are or something.

My colleague at work was on holiday for a fortnight and I think if Chris hadn’t been working 50-60 hour weeks at The Fountain I might have felt more in a better place all week. I’ve felt frazzled and like a whole week has flown by and I’ve not achieved anything because I jump from one thing to the next.

With all the craziness that seems to be happening I feel like this…….

Source: iwastesomuchtime.com via Emily on Pinterest

Yup I think I am at the point that a duvet day would be amazing – I might have to kick the boys out on Monday morning to make sure I get a lie in (You hear that boys!!)

*————-*

I’d started this post at the beginning of last week when I genuinely thought my head was going to explode because there was just so much going on in it.

By Saturday I was feeling better and had thought about not posting this. I’ve been reading a bunch of posts on other blogs about being genuine and remembering that live isn’t 100% rainbows and butterflies all the time so I decided I’m going to leave this and post it anyway.

125: Fill In The Blanks

1. My bedtime routine includes cleaning my teeth, reading and checking social networks (Twitter/FB/Instagram) and some times doing two at once – like I’ve stood with my Kindle in my left hand while I brush my teeth with my right hand.

2. I am weary but excited at the moment. The day job and clearing up behind the boys is making me tired but I’m excited about some prospects on the horizon.

3. I can’t stand spicy food because I am a wimp! Lol When it comes to curry I eat Korma which is like the mild-est one on the menu. I won’t even try Thai because it’s so spicy! Things like Enchiladas, Chris has to put less spice in (or none) because otherwise I can’t eat it.

4. My idea of relaxation would be raspberry ice tea, my reading book curled up in a hammock in the garden (or curled up on the sofa with my duvet)

5. If I had an extra £50, I would probably put it into my idea fund. I want to start saving money towards it. (If you want to know what the idea is you’ll need to get in touch not shouting it about right now).

6. The best thing about a bloggy friend is they are seriously fab and seriously cool. When I got excited about my idea last week it was two blog/twitter friends that I told first – the third person was someone I knew in person and then via their blog/twitter (it’s a bit complicated but it does make sense!)

7. A recipe I’ve been dying to try is whoopies or macaroons. These things that come in the most amazing colours.

124: Review – April

April

Books Read
Divergent by Veronica Roth
The Radleys by Matt Haig
Dead Until Dark by Charlaine Harris
The Fault in Our Stars by John Green
Heat Wave by Richard Castle

Films Watched
Avengers Assemble
50/50
Big
Mirror Mirror

Month in Bullets

I celebrated my birthday and my friends organised a surprise party for me – it was so good!
The Fountain Opened!!! So exciting but mega stressful!
My colleague was on holiday for two weeks so I was covering customer service at work pretty much by myself – had some help from some of my colleagues but some said they’d help and then really didn’t. (On the other other hand some of them spent whole days sat at our “island” to help me out – rock on!)
Got some awesome presents including a bunch of books because my Mum couldn’t get them for my kindle. My brother bought me the box set of Seasons 1 to 4 of The Big Bang Theory.
I’ve come up with a small business idea and I’m working on fleshing out the idea. Well hopefully anyway.

123: Random Wonderings and Ideas

At work I have a notepad for all my work notes, occasionally I end up with a page full of scribbles of blog post ideas – mainly because I can’t write at work but know that if I don’t make note of it then by the time I get home I will have completely and utterly forgotten about the random ideas.

Has our definition of celebrity changed? I sometimes get recognised before my blog which is kind of what I want but at the same time I get all embarrassed about it. The most recent time was when I was helping out at opening of The Fountain at the beginning of April and someone who regularly comments on here said hello to me while I served him and his wife (or maybe girlfriend I’m not sure) and all the girls commented on their adorable little baby.

Does social media affect “in person” friendships? I keep trying not to use “in real life” to describe friendships that started or are away from social media because it’s all in real life just sometimes there is a computer or mobile phone that facilities the friendship (if that make sense!). On the other hand, my in person friend Libs used a private Facebook Event to coordinate my surprise birthday party – so Social Media does have its uses!

BGT – Me and Our Sidekick regularly discuss would we audition for BGT or The Voice? I say The Voice every time mainly on the basis that if I was bad or got a slagging from the judges on BGT it’s not only national now – just look how viral the good acts go – what if my audition was shown as a bad one and went viral for being horrifically bad!

Are pop songs getting ruder or is it just me? I did tweet about this last week and got a few responses but I wanted to see if there were more opinions out there. In the office I work in we have BBC Radio 1on most days. When I have the choice I flick it over to Radio 2 (well most of the day apart from a particular lunchtime slot that bores us all!) and listen to that – when song were clean and you could play them to your mum without dying of embarrassment.

The ebook petition – why are paperbacks etc VAT free but eBooks aren’t? I learnt about the petition from Katie’s blog but have noticed since getting my Kindle that the price are sometimes more than their printed counterpart (Especially when the publisher creates a set price for the Kindle version – Do Nook users have this same issue with Barnes and Noble? Or similar store?)

My friend Hazel Fairy sent this video on Facebook today……

oh, great god, be small enough to hear me now
there were times when i was crying
from the dark of daniel’s den
and i have asked you once or twice
if you would part the sea again
but tonight i do not need a fiery pillar in the sky
just wanna know you’re gonna hold me if i start to cry
oh, great god, be small enough to hear me now

oh, great god, be close enough to feel you now
there have been moments when i could not
face goliath on my own
and how could i forget we’ve marched around
our share of jerichos
but i will not be setting out a fleece for you tonight
just wanna know that everything will be alright
oh great god, be close enough to feel you now

all praise and all honor be
to the god of ancient mysteries
whose every sign and wonder turn the pages of our history
but tonight my heart is heavy
and i cannot keep from whispering this prayer
“are you there?”

and i know you could leave writing on the wall
thats just for me
or send wisdom while i’m sleeping,
like in soloman’s sweet dreams
but i don’t need the strength of samson
or a chariot in the end
just want to know that you still know how many hairs
are on my head
oh great god, be small enough to hear me now

122: Tuesday Tunes

Tuesday Tunes

(Source)

N is for…

Nelly Furtado

121: Chores – Good Cop or Bad Cop?

Clearly I’m still getting the hang of this Mum thing. Each morning Our Sidekick has a list of things he has to do before school. Along the lines of:

Shower (if needed)
Get dressed
Comb hair
Have breakfast
Put breakfast bits back in the kitchen
Feed guinea pigs
Change the guinea pigs water

To me this isn’t complicated – it’s pretty clear what needs to be done in the morning. Well this morning I went downstairs to see if my black work trousers were in the clean laundry pile – well they weren’t there but at the same time there was a bunch of clean washing all over the floor and had been merged with the dirty washing that had been abandoned on the floor next to it last night (instead of in the big blue Ikea bag in front of the machine – there is a different reason to why the dirty washing was in the wrong place but now it’s all merged and I’m annoyed!)

Click Image for Source

I grabbed my brown pinstripe trousers (which need the seam sewing up! Someone remind me!) and got dressed – at this point in time getting to work was more important that dealing with the mess. I went into the living room to grab my handbag and there was Our Sidekick’s breakfast bowl and plate (Clearly he had cereal and toast this morning).

I texted Chris with “I take ignoring instructions as disrespectful. Therefore at least one person in our house will be doing his own washing and cleaning until he realises it. Breakfast bowl left out again and clean washing across the floor”. It’s going to be a pain if we get to the weekend and then he needs school uniform and it hasn’t been done but at the same time it becomes his responsibility to do it on Friday when he gets in from school (just like I do when I get in from work). It’ll also be a pain if we all need the machine at the same time but having had a housemate and one washing machine I think we managed to get round it. I spend a chunk of my weekend doing chores when I’d rather be sleeping, improving my baking skills or watching movies and I do chores to make sure that Chris has uniform to wear to work and Our Sidekick has uniform to wear to school.

I don’t want to be bad cop but at the same time the house doesn’t tidy itself and both me and Chris work full time so we all have to do our share. Am I being unreasonable? Answers on a postcard please…..

120: 26 Before I’m 27

1. Finish The Host by Stephenie Meyer.
2. Read Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte.
3. Complete The Sketchbook Project 2013 (by January 2013)
4. Read 30 books in 2012 (Ends December 2012) (10/30 at present)
5. Take a photo everyday (3/365)
6. See 20 new films (ones I’ve not seen before).
7. Cook 1 new recipe a month. (0/12)
8. Go to a comedy night.
9. Complete The Green Sand Ridge Walk.
10. Sign up for a bible plan (to read the bible in a year).
11. Read the bible in a year (3/365)
12. Write a guest blog post for a friend (and be proud of it).
13. Give up caffeinated fizzy drinks for 3 months (or longer!).
14. Plan more date nights (at least 12! That’s one a month).
15. Save up £100 a month (That’s £1200 by my 27th Birthday)
16. Organise a girlie date night with Lil Sis once a month (or more!) (0/12)
17. Organise a “craft night” with my Mum.
18. Complete Lego Star Wars 3: The Clone Wars on XBox (I’m on about 14% now).
19. (Finally!) Meet Ellefie in person (Twitter/Blog).
20. Finish The Hobbit.
21. Read Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier.
22. Learn how to finger knit.
23. Make something by finger knitting
24.
25.
26.

119: Surprise!!!

At the end of last week me and my mum discussed about what I’d like to do for my birthday, well I had work so going out for tea would be good. We didn’t really discuss it but it’s a bit of a family tradition to go to the local Beefeater restaurant.

I was let out of work early (well 4:30 but then I had to stay and answer the phones for a few minutes so I left at 5. I got home and me and Our Sidekick hung out, first we did French Homework that Our Sidekick hadn’t done on Thursday (and should have!) we also did Biology revision about cells and their structures – he gave me a big hug and said thank you for helping him with his homework. I think he struggles with French because he’s not confident to speak it out loud. I think he’s so used to being told off for doing something wrong that rather than take a chance and risk being corrected he’d rather not answer at all – which is a real shame. I don’t mind helping him with his homework. Foreign Languages was one of my favourites at school so I don’t mind helping at all. Following the homework we played Lego Star Wars and waited for Chris to get home from work.

Other than the minor issues with the homework, me and Our Sidekick had a lovely time hanging out and playing computer games – I’m not very good at it and tend to get a bit wound up but we were doing okay and managed to complete a few levels and beat a boss that Our Sidekick hadn’t been able to do by himself.

When Chris got in he said how he needed to go to The Fountain on the way to dinner because he’d forgotten some bits and they needed to be collected before dinner as one of the bits needed to go to my Mum. That’s no problem – we’ll just leave a little earlier as it involves going into town and then coming back towards our house to go to the restaurant.

I got a phone call from my Second Mummy asking if I was dropping Our Sidekick off at church for Rock Solid as she’d hang around and wait for me. Well I wasn’t going to be there but it’s kind of on the way to town so we’d leave in the next few minutes and go to the church but wouldn’t stop for long. I encouraged Chris and Our Sidekick to get ready and we headed off.

We got to church and Chris pulled the car onto the driveways in front of the garages near church. I jumped out and popped into church and there was my Second Mummy, her and our friend sung Happy Birthday to me really loud and gave me a massive hug. I then got a bonus hug from Princess Nat who had been dropped off for the youth group as well.

I went back out to the car and my Second Mummy came to say hi to Chris and Our Sidekick and then headed off. We drove into town and pulled up behind the back door at The Fountain. I jumped out the car and opened the gates then headed inside to collect Chris’s bits. He turned the car round and pulled into the yard behind the building. I popped through the kitchen and headed upstairs – we were on a time limit – in my brain we had about twenty minutes to get Chris’s bits and then head back to the Marina to get to the Beefeater to meet my family.

I went upstairs and opened the door, I took one step into the room and was about to look for the light switch when I noticed something stuck across the window at the far end of the room (you look out over the bus station). I took another step and could see two faces looking back at me – I was like “What? Why are there people here?” I took another step forward to ask what they were doing here and how they got in, when my brother, mum and dad and a bunch of my friends all jumped up and shouted surprise. There was like a moment of realisiation – I looked round the room and saw my friends and family was like “oh look, there’s Grandma, Grandad and Rich” what are they doing here?!

It was so amazing. One of the funniest parts was as I got there. I’d decided that while I was in the office getting Chris’s bits I’d nip to the loo. Well course everyone shouted surprise at me and I replied with “Oh Wow! Thank you! I’m super grateful but I REALLY NEED TO PEE!!!” followed by me trying to get to the door to go upstairs to the toilets. In the mean time, everyone wanted to hug me and wish me happy birthday lol.

I came downstairs and sat with my Lil Sis, she was sat all on her own playing with her phone and I got the feeling she kind of didn’t want to be there. She was okay just happy sat on her own so I pottered around and said hello to all the other people who were there. I took a look at my cake and was just floored. This is the amazing cake that Bex made for me – have you every seen something so cool?! It’s got like marbled icing on it. It’s just awesome!

I went back to sit with Lil Sis again and was given some presents. I’m never sure of etiquette – are you supposed to wait until you get home or open them at the party? Well it was all chilled out and I was chatting away to people so I sat there and opened my presents. Some were funny like the packet of oreos from Lil Sis, some were really me like the headband/scarf and necklace from Libs and some were just seriously cool and imaginative like the pizza cake that Lil Sis made for me. (Every time we hang out we end up having pizza whether it’s at the restaurant before going to the cinema or ordering in and watching a DVD).

I’m glad I opened my present from Libs while I was there – I wore the sparkly headband/scarf in my hair and put the necklace she gave me round my neck – it was so cool – it totally went with what I was wearing as well.

JD had wanted to come but she had her youth group first (She goes to a different church to me) but appeared shortly after the youth group finished. The card that she gave me had Hello Kitty on it and inside it were these stickers. I’ve stuck the one with Hello Kitty on the phone to my MacBook (I’ve started collecting stickers and stickerbombing it after I sticker bombed my phone case – and then wrecked the paint on it)

The issue with having a surprise party is that you don’t go armed with your camera. I had my phone with me and could take some of the pictures but I missed out the best bits – like the surprise reveal lol. My Mum took a bunch of pictures but alot of them were blurry – I’m hoping that my brother has some on his phone.

118: Today’s the Day!!!

Today is my Birthday!!!

(I went a little made on birthday pictures! They were all found on Flickr (And should link there!) – apart from the top on which is here.)

Buttercake Bakery, assorted mini cupcakes

117: FB Flash Back

Christmas 2006

Christmas 2006
Clearly I thought having my photo upside down was really cool!

February 2007
I wanted to prove that I could do it so I did – shortly after this Chris chimney climbed the whole doorway.

April 2007

Birthday Picnic in Russell Park. I turned 21 that year! Two weeks later me and Chris got married!

Swanwick 2008

Swanwick – April 2008 (ish!)

We ran out of chairs in our huddle so I sat on the floor – it then was a joke that it looked funny with a bible in one hand a bottle of Bomberdier in the other so this became my profile picture for a bit.

Camping!!!

Camping – September 2010

Our Connect Group went camping for the weekend. Me and Chris ended up lying on the car bonnet chatting – it was actually really comfortable once I’d fidgeted a bit.

Camping - September 2010

This was the same camping trip – this is my latest picture. Ready for when me and Chris celebrate our 5th wedding anniversary in two weeks ish.

116: 25 Before I’m 26 Pt 2

13. Read 3 of the 6 Jane Austen novels (In Progress)
I started this one of with the aim to finish it, I started Pride and Prejudice and I’m part way through – my phone has it at about 16% but I could have sworn I was further than that oh well! I have Pride and Prejudice on my Kindle (and on the Kindle iPhone app so I can squeeze in reading here, there and everywhere. I have a paperback copy of Sense and Sensibility and Northanger Abbey but haven’t started them yet. I also have a copy of The Mysteries of Udolpho which appears in Northanger Abbey.

14. Watch the 3 Lord of The Ring Films (again) (1/3)
I watched The Return of The King while curled up feeling ill back in about January but that was as far as I got. I guess this is something easier to fit in between now and my birthday.

15. Read the 3 Lord of The Ring Books.
This didn’t happen. In my mind I was going to read The Hobbit and then move onto The Lord of The Rings and do them all in one go but again it didn’t work out. It’s three days to my birthday and I’m not even a third through The Hobbit.

16. Meet @Ellefie in person (If you don’t read it go read her blog – she’s my birthday buddy).
Again this didn’t happen the two times that I was most recently in London and had time to spare, Ellefie was busy, when she was free and could spare the time I wasn’t in London or was already on the train home. We will make it happen this year!

17. Watch all 17 Studio Ghibli feature films (no 18 is being released in July 2011 – 8/17 as of 21st January).
I managed eight of the films but no more than that. Leading up to Christmas – Film Four showed all 16 out of 17 (Arrietty had come out in the Summer and was too recent for televising). I sat down and set the TV to record all 16 films but the signal cut out on a few of the recordings and I think at one point the computer (that runs our TV) had been switched off or unplugged for about 24 hours and so that meant that the two films that fell in that window were also missed.

18. Watch Breakfast At Tiffany’s.
I either got this for my birthday or it happened to be on TV but this was a good one – it’s an iconic movie but part of me didn’t get what made it so iconic (If you can enlighten me that would be good). Then again part of me wanted to go buy a ticket to New York and jet off as soon as possible!

19. Finish His Image My Image by Josh McDowell.
This one was added, as this time last year the pastor at our church told me to read this book. So I did.

20. Finish One Day by David Nicholls (Done – 1st May 2011)
When I heard that the film was coming out, I had to read the book first. I really liked the book overall but I think there are bits I would change – but that’s just my opinion.

21. Go to a concert.
Somehow I heard that Cerys Matthews was on tour last May and so I got tickets. I wasn’t really sure if any of my friends would want to go with me so I booked a single ticket and got myself over to Milton Keynes. I’d never been to The Stables before and seeing as I had misread the ticket as well I ended up arriving in Milton Keynes over an hour early so I grabbed some food (It’s so lonely sitting in a restaurant on your own when everyone else is with family and/or friends). I had an amazing time – I’d ended up sat right at the front right in the middle. When Cerys did Galway Shawl/Strange Glue I was singing along – I’m not sure the people around me appreciated it though. I wrote about the concert the following day – you can read about it here or watch the video of Galway Shawl/Strange Glue here (unfortunately it’s not the version from MK).

22. Cook a Roast Dinner
This was going to happen at the end of last week but it turned out that the joint needed over two hours from frozen and we didn’t have that kind of time to do it! That was a shame as I was actually really excited about doing it. I might be able to fit it in this weekend but then it’s passed the deadline really.

23. Home make at least one Christmas Present (Done)
I made my Mum’s Christmas Present and made my Secret Santa present for Caz. I was so chuffed!

24. Read My Life in France by Julia Childs and Alex Prud’Homme. (Done)
Read, Loved, Seen the film (which is loosely based on it/Julie Powell’s imaginings of Julia Child).

25. Cycle to Sandy and back
Yeah so didn’t happen! Chris suggested this one because he knew it really would be a challenge but having cycled across town to my friends house and nearly dying, Sandy was going to be too far away.

You can find Part 1 here.

115: Tuesday Tunes

Tuesday Tunes

(Source)

L is for…

Lincoln Brewster

No-one noticed that my alphabet was in the wrong order did they? Lincoln Brewster is an American worship leader that my Uncle introduced me to. I hadn’t heard of him but I downloaded the whole album after listening to the 30 second bites of each track like three times over!

114: Dear Monday

Joining up with Megan from Happy Day Blog.

Dear Monday, the sun was shining this morning but by about lunchtime it clouded over and the heavens opened. It’s been raining pretty much for five hours straight now.

To my Manager, you rock! My colleague is on holiday and you’ve spent pretty much all day helping me out. You rock!

Dear Amazon Kindle Customer Service (Especially Rebecca H and Eleanor), YOU ROCK! I sent a chat message earlier and you asked me various questions but were able to diagnose that my Kindle is poorly and needs replacing. Can I have customer service lessons from your instructor?

Dear Rain, I know we need lots more of you due to the “drought” and “hose pipe ban” we’ve got but could it not rain when I don’t have a coat with me?

Dear Hot Chocolate, just what I needed after walking to the car without a coat and trying to park near The Fountain.

113: 25 Before I’m 26 – Update (Pt 1)

1. Read Love Wins by Rob Bell
This has sat on my bookcase pretty much since I got it – I’m going to try and read it this week but first up I want to get The Hobbit finished.

2. Take part in the “Messiah From Scratch” (Christmas 2011)
At the end of November last year I was able to go to the “Messiah From Scratch” at the Royal Albert Hall. It was amazing and so much of a challenge but I really did struggle – I thought I would be able to sing soprano but I now know that if I go back this year I’m singing Alto for sure!

3. Watch Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows Part 2 (July 2011)
Me, Chris, Mum and Rich (maybe my Dad and Rich’s girlfriend too) went to see the film when it came out at the cinema. My Mum sat next to me and about three quarters of the way through she whispered to me “Don’t tell me after all this Harry dies?!?!” Well I couldn’t tell her what happened – I wasn’t going to give it away.

4. Re-Read Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows by J.K. Rowling (July 2011)
Before we went to see the film I was determined to re-read the book – and I did. Was probably better the first time round buy my heart was still in my mouth towards the end.

5. Go on an adventure within the UK on my own. (April 2011)
In April last year (the day after my birthday), my friend Dave moved up to Stockport to live nearer to his Fiance (who is now his wifey! Yay!!). Having dropped him and a car load of his things at his new house I drove home to Bedford – not the most direct route but it was pretty and it was an adventure. I drove along the A6 which goes through Hazel Grove and High Peak amongst some other little villages right through the Peak District (it was pretty much the same route that me, Chris and Our Sidekick drove last weekend following the wedding). I got to Sutton-in-Ashfield and visited Kewey – I then drove the rest of the way home (You can read the more detailed trip here.)

6. Read The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien (In Progress)
I’m in the progress of reading this – I have a paperback copy and a Kindle version in the hope that I can read bits between everything that is happening this week.

7. Make 10 Items to Open an Etsy Store
Well I managed the items and I opened the Etsy Store but that’s kind of where it finished – I’m not sure I will keep it going at the moment but I managed to achieve it.

8. Fix My Bike
Although we’ve been at this house for nearly three years and have been out of our first “flat” for four years my bike was still living in the church garage. Well me and Chris loaded it in the car and got it home – it got fixed and now lives in our garden lol. Okay so at least in the garage it was dry! Might have to move my bike down to the shed or at least get some tarpaulin or something to go over it.

9. Go on a Road Trip
This was also the same trip to Stockport – it was a slightly unplanned road trip but was so worth it. Had so much fun!

10. Watch 100 films
I thought this was going to be hard as it works out at about 2 a week but actually it was relatively easy. I worked my way through my DVD collection and borrowed DVDs from my brother – add in going to the cinema and that soon adds up to 100 films.

11. Read 5 Biographies
I know for sure that I’ve read at least 1 – maybe 2 but either way I’ve not completed this one. I thought it would be easy but actually I really struggled to find ones that I actually wanted to read.

12. Learn and Memorise 10 Scales on the Bass Guitar
I’ve kind of fallen out of love with playing the bass this last year and so I think learning scales wasn’t really something I wanted to be doing. With Our Sidekick coming to live with us practising in our house is a bit of a challenge. When he’s around after school it’s time to do tea some evenings by the time we’ve finished tea it’s time for Our Sidekick to go to bed and practicising an instrument is like the last thing I want to be doing.

111: Fill In The Blanks Friday

1. Today is a great day because, it’s the dress rehearsal for our performance.
2. Tomorrow I will hopefully remember all my lines in the performance and not forget my dance moves during the two big numbers (that I usually forget!) .
3. My favourite time of day is about lunchtime because it’s a break from work and there is food! Also if I remember to take my reading book with me I can escape for a little while.
4. Sometimes you just have to eat chocolate – some days it just has to be done. It can’t be avoided!
5. A song that I just can’t get enough of lately is That’s How You Know from Enchanted – it’s catchy and cheesy I can’t help it!
6. My favorite accessory is my robot necklace that I bought back in February. I love it so much and it reminds me of Ruby!
7. My favorite thing about this week was baking cakes for the first time in ages – okay so the brownies were from a premix packet thingy but they tasted so good and I really really fancied brownies. I also made rainbow cupcakes – I haven’t quite worked out the best way to make them and a batch always seems so small – I might have to up the mixture. I need to get some.

Into the oven now #rainbowcakes #rainbow #cakes

#rainbow cake time at work. Well so far it's been positive.

No red in this one do looks kind of dark

110: Life Thru a Lens {Photo Heavy}

Blogging seems to be a little past me at the moment but I have been snapping away like mad with my phone – mainly via Instagram. So I thought I’d share some and explain a bit more of what happens in the pictures.

We made it! #stockport #wedding #friends

My friends tied the knot this weekend. At the end of April it’ll be a year since I helped Dave (the groom) move up to live closer to his fiancée.

I don’t really do dresses – I go through stages where I think about being more girlie and dressing up more and then through my own laziness most of the time (or I can’t find a dress that fits right) I stick with trousers and get on with the day. I think if I worked in a job where I was meeting with people on a day to day basis (rather than the people I work with I’d probably make more of an effort). While we were filing time between the ceremony and the evening reception do, we grabbed some food and then went for a walk around a local park. I managed to snap this photo while walking along a wall.

On the way back to the motorway we took the pretty way – I snapped away taking a bunch of photos to occupy myself. Thankfully the sun came out and light up the hills amazingly. There are a bunch more pictures of our journey home on my Flickr Photostream.

Look what arrived on Monday – as part of the Kickstarter project that kicked off Chantilly’s project to record her EP I got an envelope of goodies including a CD copy of the EP, a CD copy of her older EP and a postcard – it was very exciting especially given that I got home in a bit of a mood and the minute I saw the post on my doorstep I was so excited!

This is book 7 I think of 2012. Just saw that it was dedicated to #EstherEarl. A fab #nerdfighter who will be missed but never ever forgotten.

A while back my friend Adam told me about The Fault in Our Stars being released by John Green and if it was pre-ordered then it would be signed. Well I pre-ordered. The day the books were due to arrive there were rumbles (or shoutings) around the internet that copies were being delivered but they weren’t signed. The following day my copy arrived and thankfully it was signed. Well I finally read it and it’s sad and happy and memorable. I opened the first few pages and read the dedication – it was to Esther Earl. Esther was a fab girlie who was taken way before her time. She had cancer and she passed away from it last summer. I hadn’t ever met her in person but I’d seen her YouTube videos and somehow that made her more real to me (I mean like not just random YouTuber who I’d never meet in person etc etc – I make sense to me!). Some of the plot is set in Amsterdam and me and Chris went to Amsterdam for our honeymoon – almost five years ago!

I like writing with a fountain pen. I have a posh nice Parker pen at home but I tend to use these disposable ones on the go so that if they get lost or misplaced it’s not too expensive to replace them (we’re talking £2-3 rather than £10-20). I have been using this blue one at work for about three weeks and it died on me yesterday.

That's me, my MacBook and my @hugstronger bumper sticker! Woohoo!

HUGStronger is about helping college girlies find their place – amongst other things. Kaleigh and her team hosted a similar project to Kickstarter via a website called Indiegogo. I was able to donate to this and received a bumper sticker – well I didn’t want to stick it to the bumper of my car but I decided to stick it to the front of my MacBook.

Finished #books #reading #2012 @realjohngreen

I think this makes it Book 7 of 2012 – I have caught up need to keep reading to stay on track to read 25 books this year (that’s about 1 a fortnight). I’m now reading Divergent by Veronica Roth after my friend Cat suggested it to me. So far it’s good – I think I’m about a quarter through it. (Actually according to GoodReads it’s 13%).

#imlisteningto Chantilly on my way to work. @chantillysongs

I grabbed this CD from my post pile this morning and stuck it on in the car this morning – I needed some sunshine giving how gloomy and rubbish it was outside. My favourite track is “Just The Way You Are” although “Escape” is replaying in my head as I write this post. (You can find Chantilly’s blog here).

And to finish, it’s my birthday in 8 days – and yes I am probably going to tweet about it every day between now and then lol. I found out earlier today that I am birthday buddies with Ellefie (which I did already know) and ClareBot (which I didn’t know!). I’m a year older than ClareBot and a year younger than Ellefie.

108: Tuesday Tunes

I don’t tend to buy albums anymore because I don’t always like all the songs – and there’s always that one that never gets played on the CD (or MP3 as most of my music is going that way)

But what about an EP – more than a single less than an album – well again I don’t tend to buy them – I probably buy it by the song (or weight up is it cheaper to buy the album rather than 11 out of 12 tracks for example!). Sometimes I download songs that I just can’t help but play over and over to the point that I’m singing it in the shower or while I put the kettle on at work.

Anyway! There’s an EP I want to tell you about.

A while back my blog-friend Chantilly, started up a Kickstarter project so that she could record and produce her own EP. Well, I already liked her music so I contributed to her Kickstarter project – the cool thing about it is that depending on the level of contribution to the project you might something back. So for example with Chantilly’s because I was at a certain level I got an advance track and a download (or something like that), on another project I got a bumper sticker (which I’m not quite sure what I’m going to do with it but I have it – I might stick it to my MacBook!) Anyhoo so with Kickstarter you only pay your money if the person reaches their target – well Chantilly did and we waited with baited breathe for the EP to appear….and here it is!!

Today is the official release of her EP which is why I am dedicating today’s Tuesday Tunes to Chantilly. Over on Chantilly’s blog there is an Official Album Release Blog Party Awesomeness thing! She has a fab line up from lots of other bloggers (I’m now kicking myself that I did sign up but at the same time something had to give!). Her fab assistants for the day include Tieka from Selective Potential, Ashley from Bird’s Eye Meeple and Mary-Morgan from The Muffington Post amongst other fab people.

So head over to Chantilly’s blog and take a look at all the fun that is kicking off over there or pop over to Bandcamp (click the link below) and listen to the tracks (it’s like try before you buy!). I recommend Escape and Just The Way You Are.

I think you will like Chantilly if you like KT Tunstall, Sandi Thom, She and Him and The Civil Wars. Either way take a listen on SoundCloud

Minus the Tuesday Tunes logo at the top (which I created on Canva), all the images belong to Chantilly – she’s kindly let me use them to tell you all about her fab EP. Please go take a listen – she’s awesome I promise!

106: Dear Monday

Joining up with Megan from Happy Day Blog.

Dear Weekend, you were far too short! Having spent like 6-7 hours of the weekend in the car going to and from Stockport you vanished right before my eyes. On the other hand we took the pretty way home rather than the motorway. We did the motorway from Chesterfield to Milton Keynes but before joining the motorway we did all the pretty roads – this is the Peak District although it made me miss the Lakes (I’ve been once for a week and I miss it! Now I know why my Grandma and my Aunt love it so much)

Dear D and R, YOU’RE MARRIED NOW!!!! It’s so exciting! Nearly a year ago I helped you (D) move up to Stockport to live closer to R. It was so exciting to see you two makes your promises to each other – and thankfully even thought the church seemed really formal we were allowed to cheer really loud which was funny – especially when the mother of the groom (aka my second mum!) cheered!! It made me laugh really loud and then I felt like the naughty kid misbehaving!

Dear Lil Sis, it was at short notice but it was so good to hang out with you! It was a nice end to the Easter holidays (or at least I think it is!) We watched 27 Dresses. One of my favourites I think. We had pizza and ate Oreos, could it have been any better?

Dear Sleep, it was so hard to escape you this morning. I could have honestly done with some more of you I think. My B&B bed Saturday night was pretty comfortable but Chris switched the lights/fan off in the wrong order and so the extractor fan was on nearly all night – thankfully tiredness over took the inability to sleep due to the noise and I fell asleep – I swear I really struggle sleeping in strange beds.

Dear reading, clearly I missed you to – I read like 25% of a book last night – that’s not good then again it did aid sleep! I’m surprised I didn’t fall asleep with my Kindle in my hand (I did that the other week – Chris took it out of my hand and I woke up he told me I’d fallen asleep – when I told my Dad he laughed and made a comment about how I’m more and more like my Mum each day!)

101: Tuesday Tunes

Tuesday Tunes

(Source)

M is for…

My Chemical Romance

Website

100: Dear Monday

Joining up with Megan from Happy Day Blog.

Dear Bank Holiday Monday, I’m glad you arrived – time to spend with the family. It was a good day.

Dear Cinema, it was uncomfortable sitting in the second row right at the front – I was pretty sure that my eyes were going to melt or something equally destructive. Chris came with us but ended up sitting about half way back as he couldn’t find us. I had texted him but he had popcorn in one hand and a drink in the other and couldn’t check his phone.

Dear The Borrowers, I’ve seen a bunch of adaptations of the same story but I still love it all the same. We watched the version that was on at Christmas with Stephen Fry and Victoria Wood amongst other people. Our Sidekick really liked the character of Spiller. I just loved the story. My favourite version is either the one in 1997 with Tom Felton (I think this was the first version I saw on TV when I was 9 or 10) or Arrietty (Studio Ghibli’s adaptation).

098: Review: March

March

Books Read
Dead Until Dark by Charlaine Harris (Sookie Stackhouse Book 1)
Heat Wave by Richard Castle
Interrupted by Rachel Coker
The Half-Stitched Amish Quilting Club by Wanda E. Brunstetter

Films Watched
The Hunger Games

Month in Bullets

My blog turned 5! The celebrations didn’t go quite to plan but I still had two fab guest posts from Rickie and Mrs GLW – it’s a starting point anyway! Maybe I have a month long blog birthday or something as the other posts appear.
My first birthday present arrived – and I did a little dance. I’ve been watching Hairy Bikers latest series and after every episode I’m like “I want to make that! NOW!” I’d added the cookery book (that accompanies the series) and it arrived on Friday 30th. I finished work early and there it was waiting for me in the porch.
Me, Mum and her BFF are going to see the Hairy Bikers on tour when they are in Cambridge in November – I’m so excited and it’s not even my birthday yet lol.
We’ve been living and breathing The Fountain in our house. We were working towards the opening which happens today. I blogged about the opening at a very late/early hour this morning when I should have been sleeping (it was like Christmas – it was too exciting to sleep!)
I’ve got a new notebook that I am hoping will keep me more organised and will keep my blog posts up to date and things like that. Let’s see how it goes.
Lent is almost over and Easter is coming – I keep meaning to catch up with 40Acts as well.

097: Catch Up Time

So this post is technically being written on the 10th April.

With all the craziness happening to get The Fountain ready for being opened on Easter Saturday – aka 7th April – blogging is one of the last priorities after things like eating, sleeping and working. Hopefully this week I’ll fall back on track.

So what has been happening while setting up.

#oursidekick could tell that I needed a hug and food. Argh! Fed upski!

I arrived at The Fountain on Wednesday and a combination of things meant that I really wasn’t in the mood to be civil or nice to people – which is really bad. I sat upstairs and had a little cry. While I was sat there these appeared on the sofa next to me. Our Sidekick had been and raided the stash of sweets/fruit that we’d created during the week. He was my life saver! The banana gave me an energy boost and the sweeties were just yummy!

The man from the coffee company was also there – I snapped this picture while Chris made practice coffees – this was his first one (well at least while I was there!).

Following the banana incident my Mum and me went shopping – we actually went for various other bits but I loved this teapot display! If I was a tea drinker (on a regular basis) then I’d have lots of different colour tea pots I think! Then again Chris would tell me off for creating even more clutter!

It's not totally finished but me and mum managed to hang this door ourselves today. Just asked for help from Dad when we couldn't get the lock to work properly. #hangingwithmumma #girlpower

I took this picture Wednesday as well – lots of photo opportunities it seems! My Mum had commented about how this door needed to be put back on it’s hinges – somewhere in the conversation we ended up doing it ourselves! I made one phone call to my Grandad (who used to be a carpenter before he retired – then again he still is a carpenter just doesn’t “work”) about what size screw to use and then we got on with it. We’d managed to get it on it’s hinges but ended up taking a chunk out of each hinge bit as the door didn’t quite close properly. Dad gave it the once over but couldn’t quite sort it. He had an idea but we were all tired and I think we were going cross eyed by that point. We left it until Friday when Grandad popped round and checked the door (well our crafts”woman”ship) over to explain what the problem was – he also took out the lock bit and sorted it so it worked the right way up. To make that clear the people who used the building before had hung the door the right way up but the lock was the wrong way so you had to push up the handle to open it rather than down!)

I was busy making the coffee so didn't take a picture but I did it!! I made proper proper coffee!!

I’m sure it’s always possible that I was supposed to be doing something else but I made my first coffee – before I actually try and to it for members of the public I need more practice – for now I think I will stick to the till and clearing tables.

096: Life. Edited. Part Two

Back in January I watched a video called Life. Edited. – it was that inspiring I even wrote a blog post about it (You can read it here). Well I thought an update might be needed. I wasn’t very good at first – I wrote a book list but didn’t get that many people coming forward to adopt any of my books. JD came forward and adopted a bunch of the books – I delivered these to her house on Friday when I dropped her home following our girlie night on Friday.

I started thinking about it – what else can be done?

My friend Sam is hosting a swapping event similar to the Swishing Party to raise funds for his trip to Uganda but on a wider scale so it’s more like a car boot sale but you swap your bits (or at least that’s how I’ve understood it!). So this is somewhere I can start with the rest of the books. I can take a selection of my books to Sam’s Swapping Event and that will clear some more of them from my shelves.

I then got thinking about CDs. Apart from when I’m in the car I listen to music on my MacBook or iPhone. That got me thinking – what do I do with my CD collection? I love music – I think if I was ever to go deaf I’d go slightly bananas too. Music is part of my soul (I think!). Rather than hanging on to CDs that I might never listen to again – I thought about making a second list of my CDs and selling them on eBay or something that but it takes alot of work but at the same time it then puts money in my pocket to go to other things like a holiday or a trip somewhere, or puts money into my bank account to purchase the MP3 versions through my iTunes or Amazon MP3 account.

How about DVDs? For now I’m not going to clear out my whole collection as I still like to snuggle up with a DVD when it’s cold outside or when I feel under the weather and want to watch a movie (but don’t want to have to concentrate really hard on something like at the moment I’m watching Coco Before Chanel). But when it’s easier to get them on the computer or at least on a hard drive then I might start considering being more drastic with my DVD collection.

095: 100 Word Challenge – Week 36

Last week the prompt for the 100WCGU was “‘What was the rabbit late for?’ wondered Alice. Well I didn’t end up joining in last week but have managed to join in this week.

This week’s prompt is to pick a section of 10 words from one of last week’s posts and use that as the prompt for your 100 words this week. I’ve adopted my 10 words from Lynda’s post.

This was her story for last week’s prompt:

Alice lay back in the garden swing, rocking it back and forth in the warm Spring sunshine, feeling drowsy. Suddenly, a small, white rabbit scuttled across the lawn as if being pursued by a wild beast. She pondered this fact, curious to know why there was a white rabbit in her garden. Surely wild rabbits weren’t white?

Her mind rolled back to sitting on her mother’s knee, reading her favourite book ‘Alice in Wonderland’. Her memories flooded back.

‘What was the rabbit late for,’ wondered Alice and asked her mother out loud.

‘I can’t tell you. It was a secret, just between us. We promised to tell no-one.”

From her story I’ve taken the phrase “secret, just between us. We promised to tell no-one” and used it to create my entry for this week. We had the choice of following on or going for a different path – I choice a different path – here we go:

It was a secret, just between us. We promised to tell no-one. But clearly her idea of a secret was different to mine. How could she betray me like that and tell everyone. I sat at the back of the class room so no-one could see me. How long was it to the end of the day – it would be the summer holidays – six long weeks for people to forget what had been said. I’d just keep my head down for now – I’d see my friends who cared over the holidays. Just half an hour to go until the bell.

094: Tuesday Tunes

Tuesday Tunes

(Source)

K is for…

Kimbra

Website

093: Dear Monday

Joining up with Megan from Happy Day Blog.

Dear Monday, how did you arrive so soon? I’ve sick for a week and I’m so fed up of it. I need to be better! Thankfully my manager and my colleague have agreed that I can take two days off next week as holiday – add in the bank holidays for Easter that gives me 5 days off in a row – I think that’s enough to relax and try and recover.

Dear Guinea Pigs, do you actually know how cute you are? I got home from work and sat next to your cage – when you realised that I wasn’t going to eat you (although me and Dad do keep joking about what roasted guinea pig tastes like – it’s a delicacy in Peru!) you came to the bars and poked your nose through to see what was going on. I got your food bag and shook it a bit you started squeaking and bubbling lots like you were talking to me. I gave you a handful of food and then moved your cage so I could get on with some chores round the kitchen. You freaked out a little bit when I moved your cage but I think you appreciated the music while I did the washing up.

Dear Chris, by this time next week The Fountain will have been opened officially. Saturday is the official opening and it’s very exciting although very tiring making sure everything is ready – I’ve ticked two or three things off the list that you gave me at tea time but the other two were past my brain capacity at 11pm at night.

Dear Junk Food, I’m surprised that I haven’t started sprouting massive zits – I’ve eaten way too much of you over the last few weeks between not having food in the cupboard/the energy to do food shopping (at one point I sucked it up and got on with it last week) and spending bunches of time getting The Fountain ready – this might have contributed to the lack of wellbeing going on around here. I am thinking of a detox from you and from other nasties that make me bleurghy. Where to start? Some of the diets floating around like Whole30 (and here), Juice Cleanse and Paleo all seem seriously hard core and bit beyond me. (Juice Cleanse looks good but I think I’d need Lacy to live near me so that she could keep me in check each day!)

Dear Our Sidekick, Thank you for laughing with me while I tried to street dance on the way to meet Chris on Sunday. I’m not very good and should stick to contemporary instead. I really want you to be more confident in your talents – you are so good at so many things but somehow believe that you aren’t any good at them. (This gives me a sad face)

092: April Fools!

I got pranked. Our Sidekick had been discussing with me how he was going to play an epic prank on Chris he just had to think up one that would be “LEGEND*wait for it*DARY”. Oh Grasshopper you have *so* much to learn.

At some point between bedtime Saturday and get up time on Sunday, Chris reset all the clocks in the house (apart from his own phone) so that they were an hour earlier than the actual time. Chris had borrowed my phone to look at something but I’d not questioned him looking at my phone as he often has a quick look to see if my iPhone4 is doing the same thing as his iPhone4S.

I woke up Sunday and looked at my phone it was 9:07!!!!! What!!! I’m supposed to be at church in 8 minutes ready for band practice. We all get ready at high speed (while Chris is secretly laughing his backside off because I’m in full blown stress mode!). We get to church and the sliding doors weren’t open – okay it’s kind of weird as it’s nearly 9:30 on my phone but it’s not completely unheard of. We went in the side door and a few other bits raised question marks but again not completely unheard of. I walked through to the worship area and parked in front of the PC to print off some music.

I looked at the PC clock and thought it just hadn’t been reset following the clocks changing last weekend so I reset the church clock to the time it was on my phone. Chris came over and put his phone next to mine and hit the home buttons on both – my phone said the wrong time and “Saturday 31st March” his had the correct time and “Sunday 1st April”. Then the penny dropped.

He then apologised for stealing an hour of my sleep especially given the fact that I’ve been feeling rough for the last week.

It was very good; the rest of the band and our friend at church had a good laugh at our expense – it kind of hurt that people were laughing at my misfortune but the fact that I’d not clocked that Chris had changed the time and date on my phone made it even funnier.

The lesson learnt as I told Our Sidekick is – don’t take on Chris he has ways to get you back. Since we’ve been married I’ve heard reports of underwear and clothing in a tree at a camp site, pegging someone in their tent (then again this might have been the youth group prank that started the clothing in a tree incident), our friend’s son dared Chris that he wouldn’t gaffer tape him to a chair – well then it had to be done so our friend’s 10 year old was gaffered to a camping chair (before you tell us off for it – his Mum was well aware what was happening and knew that Chris is sensible enough to pull the plug if our friend’s son was at risk of getting heard). I’ve learnt that I don’t have the skills to prank Chris and get away with it – I’ll stick to jumping out at him or Our Sidekick to make them jump – that’s my kind of prank.

Why I want to be a QI Elf?

Growing up I’d regularly watch University Challenge with my Mum and Dad. I never stood much chance of getting the questions right and they were often too hard. The picture and music rounds were my favourite and I could sometimes get the questions right. I have a memory of watching it with my Dad one evening while my Mum was out. It was actually recording to video while we watched it. When my Mum got in about half an hour later we re-watched the episode. The udea was that I’d seem really clever, even though I’d just be recalling the answers.

Why I Would Like To Be A QI Elf?

As I got older I got better at being able to answer questions but I still sucked at exams. Plain and simply. If it was a simple question (for example what year did World War II start in?) then I was fine. If it was more complicated then some reason I’d go to pieces and then 20 mark essay questions would just knock me for six. I swear in my History exam the war started after it had finished because I got in such a knot. I find that I can’t recall the information in the right order or if I can then by the time it reaches the page it only makes sense in my head and not to the person reading it back (how anyone keeps up with me I have no idea!)

But knowledge excites me, I love to learn about new places and opportunities, I love to read books and now websites and blogs. I have been known to intently read the ingredients list on cereal packets and then look up what the ingredients are, just to see what certain things to do my body. Yes I’m a nerd, yes I’m a geek but I don’t mind. The idea of putting all the random pieces of knowledge I have to use by being a QI Elf kind of excites me too. Also the possibility of working with like minded people.

090: Fill In The Blanks Friday

Today was supposed to be a guest post but it’s gone a little bit pear shaped so I’m back on my normal schedule for now.

1. My greatest strength is I’d say that it’s being able to multi-task but I’ve been so foggy and busy recently that I’m sure I’ve dropped the ball along the way.

2. My greatest weakness is doing chores! I’m the worst at it and it was okay when it was just me and Chris because we’d just clear up before using stuff but now we have Our Sidekick with us I have to be so much more disciplined.

3. People always compliment me – I don’t know. Sometimes when I dress up for church (Rather than rocking jeans and a hoodie) I get some compliments about being dressed nice. Not sure other than that

4. If you found me procrastinating you’d probably find me reading on my Kindle, blogging about something random, Facebook/Twitter/Pinterest/Words with Friends/Draw Something. (I’m GirltaristHan on both of those I think)

5. The most cozy place in all the world is my bed – it’s even better when I don’t have to get up in the morning.

6. Something new that I tried recently was making my own sandwiches for lunch while at work but I keep the ingredients (like bread, margarine and filling) at work so that it’s already here – it seems to be the better option – It means that I pop out on the first day get a loaf of bread and sandwich filling or sliced meat to put in the sandwich and then that lasts me the rest of the week.

7. This weekend I would like to sleep? Not sure it will happen though – going to be helping Chris out at The Fountain I think. (The new building officially opens on the 7th April so it’s all hands to the pump at the moment)

089: Passions – Mrs GLW

Five years ago I started blogging – I’d been trying to find somewhere to release my crazy rambles when I found WordPress and got started (I think it was also procrastination from my dissertation while at university). This week marks this celebration and I thought I’d get some of my friends to share about their passions. Here is blog post number two…..(I did think over posting this but I realised that I had asked about what makes people passionate and things like Domestic Abuse aren’t discussed enough – in one sentence MAKE IT STOP!)

My passion is to see my daughter live in a world in which her value does not come from her ability to have sex, make babies or look pretty. A world in which my son is not required to lose some of himself in order to fit in the man box, a box where he must have limited emotion and be valued by the money he earns or the amount of sex he has.

I will work my whole life to see violence against women reduced and ultimately ended. In every culture, in every town, village or city the world over, there are women who are being abused and devalued, whether through domestic abuse, widow cleansing, rape as a weapon of war, FGM, prostitution, lower wages for women workers, street harassment, pornography or the many other forms of devaluing and abusing of women. I want to see this ended, as soon as possible.

How can this happen? It can happen as each of us take responsibility for our lives, for how we raise our children, how we respond to every woman we meet. Do we challenge those who make sexist remarks? Do we speak out against the abuse of women in pornography, or do we call it a purity issue and miss the point?

The more egalitarian a society, the less abuse of women there is. What are we doing to bring about an equal society? How are we challenging the stereotypes and boxes of gender that the world, and the Church, places on people?

Everywhere I go, everything I do is with one goal in mind; the end of abuse of women. It is a big goal, some may say an impossible goal, but that does not deter because I follow and serve He who can do more than I could ever ask or imagine, and if I can ask and imagine the end of abuse of women, what else is He going to do?!

—-

Mrs GLW was another one of those serendipitous people that I met via Twitter. You can find Mrs GLW’s blog here or follow her on Twitter.

088: My Blog’s Birthday

Today my blog turns 5 years old. A day under a month to my 26th Birthday – yes I am probably going to mention it a whole bunch more times between now and then just so that you can’t forget or pretend you didn’t know.

It’s had it’s ups and it’s downs. There’s been posts where I’ve been scared by the number of views. There have been posts where I’ve wondered if anyone is actually out there and listening/reading. I’ve shared events in my life like when my Grandma passed away and when my cousin got married. I might have even shared my own wedding (actually it seems I didn’t – but I did post on our First Anniversary).

And most recently how we gained Our Sidekick and Two Guinea Pigs.

I think I’ve questioned why I write and wondered if I’m doing it right or if I’m wasting my time. I’ve gone through different platforms and different themes – thanks to Chris I’ve settled on my latest design (at least for now!). I’ve taken part in different series and themed posts including Travel Thursday, The Friday Read and 100 Word Challenge for Grown Ups.

Through blog writing I’ve made friends and acquaintances. I’ve got to know people like Becca, Lacy, Kaleigh, Danielle and Koree who I would have never met had it not been for a combination between my blog and their blogs (go read they are fab!). Through blogs I’ve shared in big life events like when Becca’s daughter was born, when Amy delivered her third child (a little girl too!) and when Koree went to college. Not only have I connected with people in other countries I’ve got to know people here in the UK too. I’ve got to know Becca – technically this was via Twitter first but I think our blogs were an extension of that. It’s crazy to think that in a world this big I’d get to know Ruby who lives in Australia and her hubby Branden (he moved from the US to Australia to be with her – now that’s love!).

I thought about how to celebrate this event – in the past I hosted a giveaway and had about 5 entrants – so maybe I’m not in the right place to do that again (just yet). I thought about offering a service like a blog design or something like that but it’s not really one of my talents so maybe it’s the wrong idea.

Somewhere along the line I decided that a series of guest posts was something that I could curate. This kicked off with Rickie on Monday talking about living live to the max, I’ve got two more to come (And a few more if I get volunteers – if you want to write let me know – I’d love to have you).

Happy 5th Birthday to my Blog

087: Tuesday Tunes

Tuesday Tunes

(Source)

J is for…

Julia Nunes

Website

086: Passions – Rickie

The first question I asked myself when Hannah kindly invited me to write a guest post is I have so many passions; which do I write about?
Everyone knows my love of writing, music, travel, reading, food in particular coffee & cheesecake (not necessarily together). Everyone also probably knows I have a big thing for customer service along with a need to support the underdog, the independent business or anyone that means well but needs a helping hand.

So what do all these interests that add up to?

The importance of being happy

As Oprah would say it Living Your Best Life (she may have that phrase on ©). My main passion is to be happy every day.

I’m unable to see the point of spending weeks/months/years waiting for something good to happen; how about just doing what you want and appreciating every day that we can do just that in the free world, unlike others who are without our glorious array of opportunities.

Firstly, when I say this to people, I get a lot of excuses as to why they can’t live where they want, go where they want, do what they want. A dictionary definition of excuse is: to explain (a fault or an offense) in the hope of being forgiven or understood. If we’re late, we blame the train (although we could have got an earlier one), if we’re unable to paint our masterpiece, we blame lack of time (although we could watch less TV).

A reason is biological or legal but mostly we make excuses. Other than those two issues, the world is there for the taking and I always have and always will be grabbing it by hands, feet and any other way possible, as long as I can healthily do so. If you live in the western world at least, you have the same opportunities as I do, perhaps more.

I’m often told I’m lucky but it’s not about luck (or money). I do feel lucky because of the people I have met along the way, but living where I want to live, doing what I want to do and travelling where I want to go has little do with luck; it has to do with determination!
Over the years, I have spent more and more of each day doing what I love but it has taken time – and a massive realisation to get right here.

Despite being on my fourth career, I’ve always done what I love so hard work isn’t really hard for me, more often it’s rewarding, being creative and having fun!

One of the most heart breaking situations is when I hear people say they hate their job; something they spend a huge part of their life doing. No-one said it was easy but life is most certainly too short to spend every day doing something you dislike. It may not be the dream job but there are still options to do something you enjoy more.

Oh, and I say career, I don’t consider I really have a career now, I just undertake projects that I love, some I get paid for, others not as much. As long as I have enough to live on, money is secondary; I only need spends for coffee & travelling around the world.

So, I’m living proof that you can have your cake, and eat it. But share it.

—

Rickie is a blog writer around her day job. She’s currently writing her first book (which as soon as it gets published will be on my wish list I’m sure!) She regularly blogs about books, movies, music and events that she’s been to near where she lives in Birmingham. You can find her blog here. You can also follow her on Twitter: @rickiewrites.

084: A Chilled Day

Today was so lazy!! I hadn’t really made any plans other than to work my way through the chores – the problem with Chris being so busy getting The Fountain ready means that I’m working full time and trying to keep up with the chores – which given I’m rubbish keeping up with chores normally I’m even worse now!

Having stayed up to watch Sport Relief last night which by about midnight was getting boring – actually it might have been earlier than that but I’m not sure. I headed off to bed and woke up about 10am this morning.

This morning, I stayed in bed and watched all sorts of bits of TV – part of it was a bit I missed on Sport Relief last night, I also watched John Bishop’s Week of Hell documentary and Helen Skelton’s epic trip to the South Pole. I then decided it was time to get up!

I had some breakfast and pottered about working on chores and watching TV between loads of washing. Following lunch me and Our Sidekick went to hang outside in the garden and enjoy the sunshine. We took out my camera and decided to take pictures of each other while the other one bounced on the trampoline. I showed Our Sidekick the camera and what to do – this was the picture he took of me – without any guidance other than point and press this button. This was what came out the other end (so the original from my camera that is saved on the other computer is miles better but it’s too much effort to transfer it over!)

#oursidekick has got an amazing eye for a picture.

We played on the trampoline and messed about. We took a bunch of photos and then went inside to upload them to the computer – I’ve been adding pictures to the computer that we use for TV etc in the living room. We then headed back outside again. Our Sidekick taught me how to do a somersault but I wasn’t doing it quite right (and I think that and the heat has made my head hurt). He has the most amazing eye for a photograph. I really hope that one day he’ll consider studying it.

083: Fill In The Blanks Friday

Here is this week’s Fill in the Blanks Friday….

1. My favorite colour is green I think – it used to be purple but I kind of grew out of that lol.

2. My home decor color palette includes lots of cream, white or coffee colours – our living room is like a mint green – I don’t think I’d have picked it but our house was recently redecorated when we moved in.

3. Other people always tell me I look good in the color red…however I don’t tend to wear it – I have two red dresses (one that I got at the Swishing Party) but other than that I don’t think I really wear red.

4. The color I detest is lime green – I genuinely really really dislike it!!

5. If you were to look in my closet most of the colors you’d see would be lots of black probably then it’s probably blue or purple.

6. A color that I simply cannot pull off no matter how hard I try is yellow – it makes me look ill and washed out. I end up wearing yellow socks or something like that so that I can wear yellow!

7. The color of my favorite dress is reddy brown with white spots – unfortunately it’s split along the seam so I need to ask Mum to help me repair it.

082: A Ramble

Hello you lot – how are you?

I am well….well better than I was – my brain decided to wake me up at 5:45 this morning with a splitting headache. So that was the second headache in less than 24 hours – just what I didn’t need. I downed some painkillers and a massive gulp of water and then put a t-shirt over my eyes to keep the sunshine out of my face (the curtains in our room are quite thin – normally I don’t notice but today clearly it was too bright).

I couldn’t be ill today – about a months work has been leading up to training that I was doing my colleagues today so I couldn’t be ill. I dozed off for another 2 and a bit hours which seemed to do the trick – I got up and felt a bit woozy but was back on track by the time I had got to work and had a large glass of juice. Just in time to start the training. I was a bit nervous about the training but the colleagues who I was training kept making jokes and taking the mickey out of each other so in the end of it was okay. The sun shining today which means our office is quite toasty but I’m feeling okay so as long as I keep drinking plenty of water and occasionally go for a walk down the corridor where it’s quite cool I think I will survive today – if not I’ll be coming to work in my three quarter lengths tomorrow.

We finished training around 3:30pm. Today was freakishly quiet. It was one of those days that you don’t want to comment out loud that it’s quiet because then it would go completely nuts (ever notice how the staff on ER or Grey’s Anatomy comment how quiet it is only to then have a mass accident where they are diverting to other hospitals are things like that because they don’t have enough space for the casualties.)

I did filing and tidied up. I had a doodle for ideas for a logo for my blog birthday blog posts next week. I’ve got some fab guest posts lined up but you will have to wait until next week for those (I still have spaces so if you want to blog drop me an email) . My blog is five years old next week – that’s 5 years since this post. That also makes it four weeks to my 26th Birthday – that means I have just over four weeks to finish up my 25 before I’m 26 goals. Help! Too many to do and too little time that’s for sure. Maybe I need to work on the ones that I know I can complete for sure.

I’ve decided to ditch I Love Lists Thursday for a few weeks – it was a good idea to start with but I’m not sure I can really come up with interesting lists – so for now it’s retired – it might be back later.

Do you have any goals to achieve by your next birthday?
How do you decide what you want to achieve?
How do you feel when you don’t achieve them or you run out of time?
Any suggestions for my “26 before I’m 27” list?

081: Hello Wednesday, How Are You?

What would be the silver lining to an evening when I had a headache and ended up sleeping for nearly two hours – I guess it would be that I slept. At the same time it meant my brain felt all muddled and so at this time of night I should be going to sleep but actually my brain is too awake to let me go to sleep. I’ve watched an episode of The Hairy Bikers Bakation. I really loved it and now want to go and bake lots (And I want to do it right now rather than sleep!).

I’ve found out that they are going on tour later this year and so have emailed a link to my Mum to see if she wants to go to see them live. I imagine that she might say yes as she does like their TV shows too but I guess it depends what she’s got booked in her diary already for the end of this year.

Anyway I am going to go to bed now and try to sleep hopefully it’ll be right through to tomorrow morning. Got to give my presentation/training tomorrow – it’s not time to be poorly!

080: Tuesday Tunes

Tuesday Tunes

(Source)

I is for…

Imogen Heap

Website

079: Dear Monday

Linking up with the Megan from The Happy Day Blog.

Dear Mum, yesterday was Mother’s Day – HAPPY MOTHER’S DAY! Thank you for being amazing and helping me, Chris and Our Sidekick out over the last 6 ish months – without you Dad and The Stig I think we’d have been in deep doo doo somewhere along the line. You’re amazing! You taught me to knit (probably like 5 times because I never could remember which way to go!) you taught me to crochet (At least twice and I still can’t do it!) and sew (this one I can do but still with questions!)

So that's two of three mother's day presents sorted. And two birthday presents to wrap (which are unfortunately both late!!)

Dear Caz, the breakfast on Saturday was so much fun! Thank you to you and the girlies for organising it – I finished my heart off Saturday evening and gave it to my Mum on Sunday.

I finished my ❤ from the breakfast this morning. We had breakfast then a little talk then a craft session. It was awesome.

Dear Ukulele I finally got you on Friday! Wahoo! Well it was very exciting I learnt various chords (that I’m not sure I can remember now but that’s a negative so sshh!). I learnt Twinkle Twinkle Little Star but because you have to let the strings settle they can go out of tune really easily – well by the time I’d been playing for like an hour I had to retune my Uke 3 times!! Also my book that I bought said tune in one key but all the music I could find and the friends I spoke to on Facebook (who plays ukuleles) all say tune in C – well that was it I was going to tune in C and that way I can play all my current music and not have to transpose my music.

Dear Cinema Trip with Our Sidekick Yesterday afternoon me and Our Sidekick went to see The Muppets – we were going to go and see it a few weeks ago but then it was sold out. Well as our rehearsal at Cardington was cancelled and we had a free time after Contact Time yesterday we went to the cinema to see it – The moment with Human Walter made us both laugh our socks off – we both love How I Met Your Mother and I love Big Bang Theory – well on one side of the piano is Jason Segel (Marshall in HIMYM if you didn’t know that!) and on the other side of this double piano is Jim Parsons (Dr Sheldon Cooper in TBBT). It was just so funny and we laughed but no one else in the cinema did! We then headed home and watched The Diary of A Wimpy Kid – it was a present from Chris to Our Sidekick.

Dear Chris you came home on Saturday from an Ikea trip with Rice cakes, gluten free custard creams and a bunch of tulips. Thank you very muchlie. Unfortunately I didn’t have a vase to put the flowers in but instead I used a cookie jar that went through the dishwasher last week. We can always put it through again on a high setting.

@cgbj got me tulips. Only problem not enough vases. Had to use an empty cookie jar loll

078: Quote Sunday #7

The Sophie Lancaster Foundation FB Page
(Their website)

For last week when I felt like I didn’t fit in and wasn’t sure where I stood…………

077: Book Review: Interrupted by Rachel Coker

4 out of 5

In fifteen-year-old author Rachel Coker’s young adult debut, young Allie Everly’s life is changed forever by the illness and death of her beloved mother and subsequent adoption by an older woman in Maine. Bitter and feeling unloved, Allie rejects her new mother and her new mother’s faith and throws herself into her poetry, until Sam Carroll, her best friend from the past, arrives. With Sam comes a host of confusing emotions, and Allie finds she must overcome her past in order to find forgiveness.

This is a young adult book that is aimed at 15-18 year olds – I’m 25 and loved it!

It was so sad when Allie’s Mum dies especially as it leaves Allie so alone in the world. The book is set around World War 2. It’s referred to more in the second “half” than in the first and even then the war isn’t really happening in a way – it’s kind of over there in the distance rather than here and happening to us. I think the time it becomes a bit more real is when Allie and her friend’s discuss the Normandy landings in 1945 and whether the husband/boyfriends of the girls will return safely.

The story kicks off in Tennessee where Allie lives with her mother. Her mum has what’s referred to as “the sickness” – I don’t think it’s ever actually given a name but the way her memory lapses and she gets confused and agitated made me think of Alzheimers.

Some of the language was a bit modern for the time it was set but ultimately it didn’t matter the story was awesome all the same.

Although Allie is quite mean to Sam for a chunk of the story. You can tell that his love never stops for her and he wants to help her through losing her Mum even if Allie thinks shutting the world out is a better option. I love the way that Beatrice and Irene adopt her like she’s always been part of the family, even when Allie doesn’t want their love and care it’s still there working it’s way into her live.

I found this – it’s the book trailer for Rachel’s book – it’s so exciting! (Almost makes me want there to be a film version of it?!)

You can find the hardback here
.

I received an ARC (Advanced Reader Copy) on my Kindle from Zondervan via NetGalley. All the opinions are mine.

076: #BlogPositivityWeek

On Monday it’s the start of Blog Positivity Week as dreamt up by Ashley from After Nine To Five – you can find more information here.

One week dedicated to reminding us all that the blogging community is an awesome thing to be able to be a part of.

This week is all about celebrating the things we love about the blogging community. Remember and sharing about how great it is to have friends we’ve met through our respective blogs. You don’t have to have thousands of followers to consider themselves a good blogger.

So over to you what’s the best thing about being a blogger and part of this community?

Check out some of these other lovelies – they have all signed up to join in with Blog Positivity Week – how exciting is that! Go say hi and share some love!!

Amanda from Dragonflight Dreams
Amanda from Raising Miss Mommy
Amanda from Royal Daughter Designs
Andi from The Hollie Rogue
Ashley from After Nine To Five
Ashley from Mister G And Me
Alyssa from Ten Feet Off Beale
Beth from Through the Eyes of the Mrs
Cassie from Live Laugh Love
Cate from Sangui(knit)ie
Cuyler from Finding My Way
Dominique from Dominique’s Desk
Evelyn from The Bottomsup Blog
Gillian from Craftzilla Conquers the World
Hannah at Grounded Parenting
Janine from Three Wishes
Jen from Rellas Bellas
Jen from Right Side of the Grass
Jessica from The In-Between
Joanna from Moda Momma
Kayla from Sealed with a Kay
KC from Bits and Pieces
Kristine from The Foley Fam
Leigh-Ellen from Little Waterlily in a Big Pond
Leslie from xo.leslieanne
Libby from In Every Little Moment
Lindsay from Trial By Sapphire
Lindsey from Out of Alabaster
Liz from Blue Eyed Owl
Margot from Newfoundlander at Heart
Marilyn from Pulp Sushi
Nay from Cover to Cover and Everything In Between
Rachael from LOTS
Rebekah from TailorMadeCrafts
Salena Lee from Little Piece of Me
Sam from Wrong Decade
Sarah from The Fontenot Four
Sarah from Walk In Joy
Stephanie from The Knack

075: Book Review: The Half-Stitched Amish Quilting Club by Wanda E. Brunsetter

4 out of 5

Amish widow Emma Yoder’s first quilt class brings the most unlikely people together. There’s Star, a young woman yearning for stability; Pam and Stuart Johnston, a struggling couple at odds in their marriage; Paul Ramirez, a widower hoping to find solace in finishing a quilt; Jan Sweet, a rough and tough biker doing some creative community service; and Ruby Lee Williams, a preacher’s wife looking for relaxation when parish problems mount. But as these beginning quilters learn to transform scraps of material into beauty, their fragmented lives begin to take new shape with the helping hands of each other and the healing hand of God.

I really liked this story – at first it was a little hard to get into but around half way through it picked up and I couldn’t put it down. The point of view of the story flicks between the seven main characters (I think it comes from an eighth person at one point but I’m not entirely sure). I found this was good because it mean that you go two or more peoples view of one conversation – at one point it’s a husband and wife’s (Pam and Stuart) opinion on an argument that they have.

Emma is such a lovely character and reminds me so much of my Grandma – this probably helps me relate to Star as well as Star loses her Grandma before the story starts and I lost my Grandma back in 2008 and also I was a bit of a rock chick when I was at school and university (Although I’ve mellowed out lots now!) Emma has the idea of the quilt class and when the people come together she begins to question if that’s what she’s supposed to be doing. When that fear comes to her she looks for the plan God has for her and the bigger picture – she gets over her fear to serve God. This can be one of the hardest things when we hand over our lives to God and give him the reins! (Don’t we just know it at the moment!) I wanted to be part of Emma’s quilting class – I can imagine learning to make quilts by being taught by the Amish people must be seriously amazing.

I loved the way in which all the ends were tied up at the end of the story – I’d tell you all about them but that would ruin the story! (Spoilers sweetie!)

You can find the paperback edition on Amazon UK here or the Kindle version here.

I received an ARC (Advanced Reader Copy) on my Kindle from Barbour Publishing via NetGalley. All the opinions are mine.

074: Randoms

One plus point of having a cold is that I spent a bunch of time thinking over stuff because I have very little energy to actually do anything physical (or at least too much physical stuff), usually at silly o’clock of the morning when I’ve woken up coughing or just scared myself awake again.

One of these thoughts that pinged up was – is there a time when you should admit defeat and throw in the towel when it comes to writing a blog? To me it doesn’t seem to be that easy to figure out what the problem is. I’ve read blogs in the past where people have noticed that less people comment when they have to fill in a captcha – it does put me off but at the same time I get the logic of having a captcha and reducing the spam you get on your blog (I get around 100 spam comments in the space of a few days). Is that when you’ve seen no/little growth over a particular period of time? I know it shouldn’t be about the readership but it is nice to know that someone is bothered when I haven’t written for a little while or something like that.

Yesterday evening was time for a checkup with our social worker, well I got in from work and they were almost finished so hoping it was good. It’s our social worker’s birthday between now and when we should see him next so we’ve got him a birthday card. We also had to finish up Our Sidekick’s homework about christian funerals – I’m surprised that his teachers don’t specify how much work is needed (a side of A4 for example) and Our Sidekick doesn’t bring home school books for the lessons – even when he has homework – is this just his school or is it a done thing now?

I’m taking Our Sidekick to the dentist last today – he goes to a different one to me and Chris so it’ll be interesting to be nosey at another practice lol. Had to write a Parent/Guardian letter to the school asking them to let him out during the school day – thankfully they are understanding that sometimes it can’t be helped.

073: Tuesday Tunes

Tuesday Tunes

(Source)

H is for…

Hugh Laurie

Website

Webi

072: Dear Monday

Linking up with the newly engaged Megan from The Happy Day Blog.

Dear Inspiration, I’m beginning to think that I need some way of recording my blog post ideas while I’m in the shower because you send me the best ideas but then I forget them by the time I’ve got out the shower and made it to my computer or a notepad. Clearly I need to work that bit out.

Dear Common Cold and Tiredness, clearly one of you led to the other and so I’ve spent this weekend being icky and full of cold. Our Sidekick got up Friday morning saying he had a sore throat and that he felt really tired – we just put it down to the week being really crazy and packed him off to school anyway. I think Chris’s thinking was along the lines of unless you are actually dying you’re not staying home and therefore you are going to school, see you later.

Dear Chris Since Tuesday you’ve spent nearly the whole of the week at The Fountain doing painting and cleaning and stuff like that. I think your first job this morning was cleaning toilets after we went to buy toilet brushes yesterday either that or co-ordinating the electrician. Each time I come to the building it’s changed and developed.

Dear Sidekick, You were set Science homework last week and I really couldn’t help you – we got so stuck but thankfully with friends like Sally-Jayne coming to our rescue we were able to finish of your homework ready for the deadline on Wednesday. Now tomorrow we have to finishing Geography and R.E. ready for next Monday.

Dear Chris (You get to letters a la Today’s Letters) Don’t forget to take a time out – you’re running head first at the Opening Day and if you’re not careful you’ll keel over in a heap – I’ll probably find you snuggled up next to The Fountain door or something. On another note tomorrow you and me have been together either as girlfriend/boyfriend or man/wife for seven years – can you believe that?

069: Fill in The Blanks Friday

Prompts from Lauren’s Blog

Prompts this week are created by Jennifer from Jen Loves Scott (+ Baby!)

Here are my answers:

1. My favorite room in my home is the living room because I think it could be the tidiest room in the house at the moment – I epically fail at chores and with Chris being busy with The Fountain, chores seem to fail us lol. I’m trying to catch up and hopefully have a weekend when I’m not doing anything so I can attempt to catch up!

2. My current decor style is cluttered but I wish it were more modern/minimalist/tidy. I’m still working on editing life. I have a taker for some of my books but there are still lots of them to go.

3. I wish I could redecorate the bathroom in my house to make it more I don’t really know – it comes down to that our house was recently redecorated before we moved in – so there isn’t really anything to be done. When it comes to the bathroom I’d probably add some colour because it’s all white and grey/slate/black kinda colour. Maybe add some blue or green. For now it’s just a patterned shower curtain and multicoloured bottles of shampoo, conditioner or shower gel.

4. My dream house absolutely has to have a room for all my junk! Whenever me and Chris discussing “Our Grand Design” house, Chris says the whole house would be minimalist apart from my junk room!

5. One house item I am willing to splurge on is a bed – I can deal with the rest of the house when I’ve had a good nights sleep – I have to have enough sleep or I’m a grumpy moo.

6. A decor trend that I just don’t “get” is I don’t know to be honest. I figure everyone has their own style and it’s your house so go with it.

7. Funky snuggly blankets to curl up in on cold days are a little touch that makes my house feel like home

068: I Love Lists Thursday

It’s one of those days I think. I had my first awkward annoying call at about 9:13am – I’m hoping it’s not a sign of things to come.

This morning Chris gave me a hug. But I was still partially asleep so when I felt someone leaning over me I jumped awake again – that’s like 3 days in a row he’s done it – you would think that I’d get the hang of it and not jump a mile each morning!

Chris gave me a lift to work today so that he could take the car to collect all the kit for The Fountain @ Costa – it’s like the 4th to last before they move to the new building – it will be so exciting! I’m literally living and breathing it hence all the blogging about it! I helped paint on Monday and as you can tell by my shoes – I am a mucky pup when it comes to painting. I had white spots up my arms, bits in my hair (which was newly dyed!), absolutely killed my old jeans (which is fine because they aren’t really that good for anything more than painting clothes) and my pink T-shirt that I bought in Turkey (I don’t wear it anymore and figured it would work for now).

The Swishing Party is this weekend and it suddenly occurred to me last night how I hadn’t done a bunch of stuff that I had meant to do – not good! So at some point before Saturday I’m going shopping for two clothing rails – hopefully makes the clothes a bit more presentable.

So my day didn’t get any better. It kept getting worse – thankfully I had a trip planned with Mum after work so I could look forward to that even though it was going to take all day to get there!

Anyway the list for this week is inspired by Becca. Her post was actually written about a week ago but I caught it a few days ago when clearing our my RSS reader and catching up.

What films do I think everyone should see at least once……

I thought I had more ideas than this – what do you suggest? What have I missed?

067: Dear Lydia – A Response

I think that describes the friendships I have made over the last few years – some via Twitter some through the blogs I read on a regular basis. I can’t remember how exactly I started reading Lydia’s blog but somewhere along the line I started commenting lots – I wrote this as a comment on her post but it was getting so long I posted it as a comment on her post and then also decided to share it as a blog post here.

You can read Lydia’s original post here.

I do recommend that you read it – it’ll give my post more context and it also means a lot to Lydia.

Thank you

Good Morning Lydia.

I’ve just seen this having started reading your Coraline post.

I AM A NERD. I AM A GEEK you can use whichever you prefer but I am one – I had a reading age higher than most of my class – I wasn’t the brightest when it came to maths but I was probably in the top 10% of the class or something like that. You only have to look at what me and my friends went onto do after school and I wasn’t the brightest – my friend went on to study Biochemistry or something like that and now I’m brainy by association. I am a social media nut, I love sci-fi like Star Wars and Star Trek. I’d rather stay in and read a book then go out for a run or something energetic.

I was the kid who spent every lunch break in the library or the music room – partially to avoid the bullies but also to keep my head down and get on with stuff. At one point I was a student librarian so that I could be in the library as much as I liked! In Sixth Form I’d volunteer to use my free lessons to cover the library desk.

I was the kid with unbranded trainers at school – My parents couldn’t afford branded clothes when me and my brother were young – I think my first pair of branded trainers were for like my 14th birthday and I bought them at a factory outlet store with my birthday money – I wore them until the sole was smooth and the back where my heel was had worn through to the outer leather layer! That’s how long I wore them – Not because I couldn’t afford a new pair just because they were mine and they kinda were an important pair lol.

My Mum used to make me summer dresses and homemade clothes and somewhere around my teens I stopped wearing them (I think also my Mum got busy doing work stuff. I am so excited for when she has grandkids – I think they are going to be having knitted jumpers every Christmas lol).

I really struggled to fit in at school, I was a bit of a teacher’s pet and was always trying to help – I think one of my love languages is Acts of Service so I almost helped out here, there and everywhere because it made me feel needed. I ran the 800m at sports day even though I suck at running and knew I would come last because hardly any of my class volunteered.

When I was about 14 I started watching Buffy and loved Willow because she was the geek and somehow that worked for her. But how would I get my geek-ness to work for me? Well I’m not sure somehow it was survival of the fittest until the end of school – I got into uni by the skin of my pants and met like-minded people who genuinely wanted to be my friend and liked me for me with all my geeky slightly crazy ways.

And that geekiness has now helped me in my job. I had issues when I first started my job to the point that my manager pulled me and I got an epic telling off, in all seriousness I think I should have been fired at that point, my manager didn’t owe me anything yet he saw something in me that he knew just needed to be nurtured. Well it was my IT skills and the fact that I knew my way round a computer that saved my butt I think I was put on like probation and here I am four years later still in the same job. It’s a running joke in the office that I am a geek and that I can recite the most random facts.

The way I see it is that yes Nerds are people too but with being nerdy being a trend it makes me on-trend for the first time ever I think!

I think I am a geek but I’m also a friend, a sister, a wife, a daughter, a granddaughter, a fairy godmother. I am a person.

066: Tuesday Tunes

Tuesday Tunes

(Source)

G is for…

Gotye ft. Kimbra

Gotye Website//Kimbra Website

065: Dear Monday

Dear Chris, so Friday was a day of epic ups and downs. Thankfully it ended on a good note with The Fountain getting keys to your new building (yay!) but you got stressed out by all the opinions you were given. I hope me standing in the middle of the building yesterday saying “Oh wow!” and having a little dance party all by myself made you feel a bit better.

Dear Gluten/Wheat, you’ve been out of my life almost completely since Friday Lunchtime. However yesterday there was a blip. I was hungry and so had wholemeal bread at Subway instead of Italian (in the hope that it had less Gluten) but unfortunately it gave me a tummy ache – somewhere between an “Ouch I’ve ate too much” and “Ouch something is wrong I’m a plonker!!” So I made sure today that I brought my own lunch with me to work. Today I had two bananas (one as like a midmorning snack when I start craving a sausage sandwich lol), a yoghurt, a jam sandwich (on wheat free bread – I need to find an alternative as wheat free bread is stupidly priced) and a bag of salt and vinegar crisps. This has also meant that I’ve been looking for Gluten Free versions of my favourite foods. I really fancied flapjack on Saturday but I couldn’t find any Free From ones in the shop I was in (then again it was a small village shop which makes sense).

Dear Second Mum, thanks for your advice about going gluten free. It’s scaring the pants off me some days but actually minus yesterday lunchtime I do feel better for it. Friday evening I felt more awake and more with it whereas normally I’d be groggy and grumpy by like 8pm.

Dear New Vacuum Cleaner, well that was interesting – I didn’t realise that vacuum cleaners now come in self-assembly kits. I didn’t have to mess with the electrics as that was all in the base bit but I did have to assemble the vacuum.

Dear Our Sidekick, yesterday you came home and told me that you were giving up chocolate for Lent. I warn you Chris will try to wind you up but you can do it! Don’t give up!!

064: 1 Year Ago Today……

This gorgeous girlie married her fab hubby.

I’m here in the UK but Branden and his friends (I think!) set up a stream on the internet so that his family in the US who couldn’t make the wedding and me in the UK could all see the wedding. Ruby looked amazing even when the stream went a bit wobbly. I felt so special to be included anyway.

Today they celebrate their first wedding anniversary!!!

Congratulations beautiful ones 🙂

Have a great day.

063: Fill In The Blanks Friday

Fill In The Blanks Friday Saturday

You can find the prompts at Lauren’s Blog: The Little Things We Do.

The highlight of my week was a close drawer between Tuesday when The Fountain signed their lease for a building and yesterday when I got the call from Chris to tell me that they had the keys – making it all official!! Woohoo!! finding out that we closed on our new (old) house this week! .
If I had to classify my interior design aesthetic it would be oh good question erm well it always used to be kinda vintage cottage ness but I think Chris is rubbing off on me as we’re trying to work towards a minimalist layout where possible,
My first vehicle was a dark blue Ford Fiesta
An item I need to have in my day in order to function is diet cola properly. Then again I’m working on cutting down (if not out completely).
My favorite way to waste time is reading blogs and Pinterest – it can swallow whole weekends lol.
Right now I could really go for a really big slice of warm gooey chocolate cake with vanilla ice cream.
This weekend I will be going to a puppet workshop with my Mum and then looking after Our Sidekick while Chris takes the young people on a night hike.

062: Let’s Do Something Friday

This post had started as a bullet point on my Review post from yesterday but as I sat on my bed and wrote what I could (And killed my battery!) the bullet point was becoming a post on it’s own so I moved it over. Today I would normally take part in Fill In The Blanks Friday hosted by Lauren at The Little Things We Do. My answers to Lauren’s prompts will follow tomorrow – I think this needs to be said.

My last bullet is this and I really really want you to pay attention please just for a little longer. I know you’ve had a hard day and life might not exactly be going to plan but trust me it could be a whole bunch worse.

Christian artists Matt and Beth Redman along with LZ7 (aka Lindz) have released a song this week, it’s called Twenty Seven Million and the aim is to get it to Number 1 – not so we can knock a reality start off of the top spot or something like that but to raise awareness of a problem that needs to be dealt with, now and not later. Before you go “Oh it’s by a Christian artist therefore it’s all about God.” – it’s not. If you don’t believe me read the lyrics here before you watch the YouTube video here. And if you want to download it you can find it on iTunes, Amazon MP3 and other legal download sites). Let’s get it to Number 1, let’s raise awareness. It’s about 99p, that’s less than a cup of tea/coffee from your favourite coffee shop.

Have you heard of Human Trafficking? Yes? No? Maybe? Well Wilberforce might have stood up and been part of a group to abolish slavery but what if I told you there is still slavery here and now. It’s happening across our towns and cities. There are an estimated twenty seven million people who are victims of human trafficking.

To give you an idea of how many people that is:

Wembley Stadium has a capacity of 90,000.
27 million is the equivalent of Wembley filled 300 times.

According to the United States Census Bureau the estimated population last year of New York State was 19,465,197 – so that’s about 19.4 million give or take a few.Then I started looking for another state with a population of 6 million – well I started with Hawaii – it was too little so I headed for a page on Wikipedia and found that Missouri is about the 6 million mark – Missouri is like two states up North West ish from Texas (and home to Becca, Koree and Amy)

27 million is the state of New York (19.4m) plus Missouri (6m ish)

So that’s a lot of people and something needs to be done about it – well first we can raise awareness – who’s with me?

The girls who are trafficked are sisters, daughters, cousins and friends.

The guys who are trafficked are brothers, sons, cousins and friends.

This needs to STOP!

Twenty Seven Million – like me…….

061: Review: February

February

Books Read
Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer (Blogged about here.)
Nerd Do Well by Simon Pegg (really close to the end!)

Places Visited
Milton Keynes – for my friend’s birthday

Films Seen
Howl’s Moving Castle (Studio Ghibli)
Fantastic Four
Whisper of The Heart (Studio Ghibli)

The Month in Bullets

Helped my Mum with a workshop of sorts at her sewing group (Embroiderer’s Guild) my Dad and Mum’s friend Kathy were also there – it was good fun helping out lots of people. You can read more about it here
Mum helped me design a rough poster for the Swishing Party and we plotted about getting cakes made for the cake sale.
Chris helped us go from our doodled idea to the fab poster that we now have. He’s also done printing for it and things like that.
I started making friendship bracelets again – hopefully I can work out how to make it stop twisting.
My Kindle arrived (yes I know I’ve mentioned it lots!) I’m trying to catch up on my reading target – so far I’m on Book Three of the Year – I’m supposed to be about to start book 5! eek! Then again my Kindle makes it easier to read when possible like when I’m eating my sandwiches at work and things like that.
And will that although there is more to write I am going to read as it’s midnight and time I went to bed! Guten Nacht (source for the image below – LyricsandQuotes)

060: 100 Word Challenge (Feb29th.net)

You can find the prompt here.

100 Word Challenge: Week 32

“You’re going to laugh, I forgot my keys too” He said through the letterbox. “Come round to the window and I’ll help you.”

I walked from the front door to the living room window.

“I tried climbing out the window but I’m too big” I said “I got as far as sitting on the window sill but I wasn’t sure how far it was too the ground and I couldn’t get out.”

“Don’t be silly – it’s easy.” he said. Before I could protest he was explaining how to get out. “So sit there and then take a leap of faith.”

—

So this is a true story – okay some bits were adapted to fit in the prompt but this did happen last week. I’d left my keys at work and ended up locked in our house. There was a bit of a technical hitch as Chris didn’t have his keys so I ended up climbing out the window anyway lol. It was funny (and Chris didn’t tell me to take a leap of faith lol)

059: Tuesday Tunes

Tuesday Tunes

(Source)

F is for…

Florence and The Machine

Website

058: Twitter “Dream” Class

Twitter makes me want to have drinks with people I’ve never met, and Facebook makes me want to throw drinks at people I already know.

— Funny Tweets. (@TheComedyHumor) February 24, 2012

Well this isn’t entirely true but it made sense – occasionally I go through my Facebook friends and clear off those I don’t really talk to any more (or thoe who didn’t speak to me at school so were they really going to speak to me now….?). To point this out I think I went through a stage when the idea of having the most friends I could was “cooler” than having a meaningful friends with a few. (Not what you know, it’s who you know at this point).

So now I’ve “seen the light” and cleared out those I don’t talk to or don’t talk to me or those whose statues are just too rude or insulting to put up with.

I RT’d this opening tweet and got a reply from @Maft.

@TheComedyHumor @girltaristhan So so true! Also, Facebook is the people I went to school with. Twitter is the people I WISH I’d gone with.

— Uncle MaFt (@MaFt) February 25, 2012

So this got me thinking who would be in my dream Twitter class.

I think @beccaspeaks, @rubyam and me would either be a group of A Grade students, teachers pets or we’d be always in trouble like St. Trinian’s (I’d have been a geek or emo in the new version!) Then again it’s my dream class so I make us the cool kids lol.

I then got thinking what about the rest of the class, although all the people I am friends with on Twitter we clearly have something in common to make us like minds but we all have different talents as well.

Each class as a joker just like @drmasquerade, or a bookworm like @smallxcharming. Then you get the arty kids like @ClareJennifer or musicians like @vickybeeching and tech geeks like @cgbj or @adamswbrown.

Over To You

Do you find that you have a divide – some friends here and some there?
Were you in a particular group at school? I was in the Emo group and didn’t particularly fit in anywhere else.
Who did I miss? Would you like to be in my Twitter “Dream” Class?

057: 40 Acts

40 Acts

I spent a whole bunch of time on Twitter and Facebook – some days probably more time then I should but there you go! I’ve seen #40acts being talked about but hadn’t really thought about getting involved – so technically I’m 4 days behind but hopefully I can catch up even if I don’t complete all 40 acts. Here are the first few and what I’ve done.

1) Create a Giving Jar

Let’s start with something simple and familiar: let’s find something to give up. Find a jar (or open up a note on your phone) and every time you forgo that coffee, that cinema trip, bus fare or whatever it is that will help sharpen your focus, put in the money saved. By the time Easter comes around, you’ll be able to give it all away to a charity or cause that has caught your attention.

I thought I had a jar in the kitchen that I could use but it seems to have vanished so for now I’m keeping a running total on my phone as suggested by 40Acts – I’ll try and get something tomorrow while I’m in town during Our Sidekick’s contact time. I’ve decided that my “collection” is going to go to The Fountain. Given that I very nearly bought chocolate in the canteen on Friday I think that makes it £1 to start with (canteen chocolate is expensive but sometimes it’s needed lol)

2) Cross a Social Divide

Reach out in friendship to somebody from a different background. It could be a neighbour whom you see but hardly speak to, a colleague, or somebody you meet at the shops. A smile goes a very long way; but you could also move on from the weather and sport to talk about their family, for example.

I think I kind of did this today. We had a ministry time after the service today at church, recently we’ve been having more people lying down in the spirit (is that the correct terminology?), the guest speaker was praying with one lady and I was stood behind her ready to catch her. She didn’t need catching in the end so I darted off to grab Our Sidekick and then go back to catching other ladies. When she’d finishing being prayed for I went to find her and gave her a massive hug. I also told her that her hair looked nice. She’s one of these ladies who always comes to church looking super fab and I don’t say it that she looks nice so I made the effort today and I think it made a difference (or at least I hope it did.)

3) Share Your Skill

Write down a list of things you enjoy doing. Then write how those things can have a positive impact on your church and community. Are you a people person? Set aside a few hours a week to be a ‘listening ear’ to friends. Play the guitar? Teach a young member of your church and they’ll lead thousands in worship during their life. Enjoy baking? Everyone loves free cake, go and bless them! Graphic designer? Brand a local community project, and create some flyers to increase publicity.

If you’d asked me last week then I could tell you about how I sat at my Mum’s Embroiderer’s Guild meeting with her, my Dad and her friend Kathy and we answered all sorts of IT questions about emails and sending photos. I tried to help a friend on Friday organising his email signature but it didn’t work. It then occurred to me. On Thursday I got a call from Caz – could I help one of the ladies at church by taking some pictures for a conference that’s being organised. Well erm yes I think so. So Thursday evening I got to church for band practice and there was the lady from church and we took some pictures. So there we do it! Ah ha! I shared my skill! (That means I’ve caught up but it’s now day 5 and so I could still be behind! It’s 2337 and I want to finish this post before I go to bed – then again it means that I have another blog post to write but that’s another story.

4) Grab a Cuppa

Seize the moment and this weekend, “invite some people who never get invited out (for a coffee or to your house for dinner), the misfits from the wrong side of (your) tracks.” Luke 14:13 MSG. Get to know your neighbours and ‘grab a cuppa!’

So this one was a bit hard. I guess getting cups of tea for my hubby doesn’t count. Does serving refreshments at church count? Well this one I think I am going to have to come back to. I’ll put a pin in it and get back to you.

5) Buy Fairtrade

Today will mark the beginning of Fairtrade Fortnight where organisations and charities aim to raise the profile of Fairtrade. Why not ensure that you buy one more Fairtrade item in your next shopping basket? Or perhaps you could hold a Fairtrade Big Brew to promote Fairtrade Companies.

Again this is a get back to you one because it’ll be in my next shopping basket. We have Fairtrade tea bags and Fairtrade bananas in our house anyway. We went food shopping on Friday and bought Fairtrade bananas so I guess that kind of counts because it is in Lent. BUT I’m not going to give up there because I can make a difference – I have the tendency to get peckish around 11ish so I think I might need to get some Geobars or something similar. Maybe even get some more Fairtrade bananas (BTW banana loaf is an awesome idea to make with the bananas when they are a bit squishy)

You can read more about 40Acts at their website. You can also follow Sam’s Adventures through 40Acts here.

056: Birthdays

Source: google.com via Jane on Pinterest

Two of my friends are celebrating their birthday’s this week. I thought this was kinda appropriate as one of those friends is turning 18! How exciting. It’s then about 2 months to my birthday.

055: Swishing and Other Green Ideas

As you may or may not know by now I’m part of the team trying to set up a Youth and Community Venue called The Fountain here in Bedford. Well Chris (my husband) did his bit and cycled from Land’s End to John O’Groats (me and my Father in Law blogged our way round as Chris’s support team back in September – you can read our posts here). Our friend Jen W is running the Milton Keynes Marathon in April (she had entered the London Marathon but she didn’t get picked in the ballot).

So I started thinking about what I could do. Well I am hosting/setting up a Swishing Party and Cake sale in March at Russell Park Baptist Church.

Then I got thinking – what if you don’t live in Bedford or do but can’t get to the Swishing Party – what other green things can you do or that you can do to help out other people.

There’s all the usual bits like recycling food cans and paper through the local council services or taking the glass to the glass bank (recycling places around town), or taking your clothes to a swishing party or charity shop but what about going further – you can take electrical items to the tidy tip (that’s what it’s called here in Bedford anyway) and they will deal with them from there or some you can sell on second hand like eBay or CEX but what about recycling.

When I upgraded my phone a while back I was told about a recycling scheme that the particular mobile phone store did, at the time I was holding onto my handset as a second handset but I’ve heard recently that O2 have their own scheme too. It turns out, all sorts of bits from your phone can be resused either as a whole phone or broken down into its components and used for other things.

People in 3rd world countries often receive donated phones. This means you can not only provide someone else with a phone, but reduce the need for further mobile production. Any time manufacturing is cut down, carbon emissions are cut down a bit also.
Apparently, mobile phones contain various valuable plastics, as well as metals like copper and even gold and palladium. Recycling conserves these materials.
Also, your old mobile contains harmful substances like mercury and arsenic in its battery, and if you throw it away instead of recycling it, these materials can harm the environment.

I think I knew about all the bits that go into a mobile phone to make it into a phone but I hadn’t realised that all the bits could be taken out of the handset again and put to good use. I also didn’t know about there being mercury and arsenic in the phone battery (although I did know a lot of mobile phones have Lithium in them – which already makes me want to sing this song by Nirvana).

So what about giving it a try – as the saying goes one man’s junk is another’s treasure. Start with one thing and go for it. See what happens.

If you want to come to the Swishing party you can find more information here or here.

054: I Love Lists Thursday

Last week my new toy arrived. I’m on my second book so far and so this week we have two lists – first the books I have read on my sparkly new Kindle followed by my wishlist. Lots of pictures this week.

Read/In Progress

Got but haven’t started

(My version has a really boring cover! This cover is better!)

Wish List of Sorts

053: Wednesday

I was reading. Then I remembered that I hadn’t blogged and my brain got all on a knot. So I’m lying in bed writing this on my phone. I’m listening to Ed Sheeran singing Lego House but before that it was The Civil Wars covering Billie Jean by Michael Jackson. Next song is Emeli Sande singing Next To Me (which I posted yesterday.)

Anyway so originally in the plan I was going to write this post earlier. Work has been hard work recently – not because it hard and I don’t understand just politics and stuff have been stressing me out so I’ve not really felt like doing anything but crash out and try and get my brain to chill when I just feel like I’m treading water.

So I think the whole treading water thing has been fixed now hopefully but only time will tell. I’ve been doing some stuff outside or work time so that I’m ready to present at team meetings an training that we’ve got coming up soon.

Yesterday me and Our Sidekick watched The Brits and played guess the winner – as the nominations come up you shout who you think will win and then you get points. I think I won but then again Our Sidekick had to go to bed half way through so I did have an unfair advantage lol. I spent most of the time tweeting a commentary along with the show – I so need a job where I get paid for doing that lol.

So I went to work today and by the end of the day I just wanted to feel loved and cared for. We all ate dinner together round the dining room table. I then cut Chris’s hair (he’s brave!) and then when Our Sidekick had gone to bed me and Chris played Monopoly while The Mentalist and NCIS (and like 5 minutes of CSI when I realised I’d already seen the episode) played in the background. I did start watching the first episode of Homeland but the lady with very few clothes on was enough to put me off (was it really necessary???!?)

Anyway although Chris ended up mortgaging on and off for a chunk of the game he did beat me.

Right it’s bed time now. I had a whole chunk to write about Lent but I won’t get to it tonight. For now go read Vicky and James’s posts about Lent. They are both interesting.

Have you given up something or started something new for Lent? I’ve given up chocolate, over the last 8-10 years I’ve given up chocolate or meat each year. I keep meaning to do something else or set a harder challenge – but is that what it’s really about?

(Blogged from my Phone hence a lack of formatting).

052: Tuesday Tunes

Tuesday Tunes

(Source)

E is for…

Emeli Sande

Clearly Radio 1 is affecting my choices but some of these songs are really good and I like them.

When the money’s spent and all my friends have vanished
And I can’t seem to find no help or love for free.
I know there’s no need for me to panic,
Cause I’ll find him, I’ll find him next to me.

When the skies are grey and all the doors are closing
And the rising pressure makes it hard to breathe
Well, all I need is a hand to stop the tears from falling
I will find him, will find him next to me.

051: Dear Monday

Dear Monday, clearly I need to figure out how to make my weekends longer or more productive so I don’t feel like Monday rushed round too quickly – I guess getting up earlier than 10am on a Saturday might help that too.

Dear Our Sidekick, I had a great time at the cinema even if it wasn’t our first choice that we got to see. Fancy The Muppets next weekend if there are spare tickets?

Dear Blog, back in January it seemed like such a good idea to blog each day for the whole year but it’s only February 20th and I’m already kind of losing steam. Maybe it’s just a dip and I’ll get all excited again soon.

Dear Chris, Thank you for designing the flyer for the Swishing Party – it’s very exciting. Although there’s a hiccup as my PDF hadn’t attached to the email but you’ve still designed something and then added the text a bit later after telling me you didn’t have the file.

Dear Work, please don’t beat my butt this week – I really want to get back on track with stuff both at work and at home and while you’re making me feel exhausted all the time I can’t do that.

050: Quote Sunday #6

IamProject – Etsy

049: Twice in One Day

This afternoon me and Our Sidekick went to see The Muppets but it was sold out when we got to the cinema (between us walking through the front door past the screen with all the film times and the front of the queue). Instead we went to see Journey 2: The Mysterious Island – probably wouldn’t have been my first choice but it came down to that or Chronicle. Yeah I know Journey 2 was probably my safer choice lol.

This evening I then went to see The Vow with Catz – was so good to catch up – we had pizza then headed around to the cinema.

The film was good, I’d heard various reviews that said it was a weepie and be prepared and although it was sad it wasn’t a weepie like The Notebook, Nights in Rodanthe, Dear John or The Last Song. (I definitely cried at the first two lol).

When I got home I told Chris about the apartment in the film – I thought he’d like the design.

048: Fill In The Blanks Friday

Fill In The Blanks

You can find the prompts at The Little Things We Do.

1. The love of my life is God and Chris.

2. Falling in love is a strange feeling. But it’s a gradual process – I’d like to believe in love at first sight but I think it’s either lust or admiration, preferably the second. You have admiration for a person and then as you get to know them more that develop to love.

3. Marriage is special. Take the time for your marriage and don’t take it for granted. Me and Chris were in bed last night and just chatted about anything – I felt tired when I went to bed but after chatting to him I was awake again and I didn’t want to sleep because I wanted to stay in that moment talking to him, seeing how his day went and what was going on in his life – we have this tendency to pass like ships in the night (not so much since Our Sidekick came to live with us but it used to be that sometimes I’d see him at bedtime and then one of us would be awake and gone before the other one was up the following morning)

4. The longest relationship I’ve ever had was the current one! We’ve been married almost 5 years but we’ve been together since the 10^th March 2005 – so that’s like 7 years. But we’ve been friends for about 10 years.

5. The key to a good relationship is communication and trust. Talk about things – don’t bottle them up or try to hide them.

6. I feel loved when well I think my main love language is words of encouragement or gifts (or at least I think that is them lol) – so when someone tells me I’ve done a good job or something that I did made them feel good then I feel loved.

7. My favourite quote about love is this one – I’m sure it’s more about friendship but I think it counts.

047: I Love Lists Thursday

Well this weeks list is the current play list on my iTunes library – I finally updated it to have a playlist for February. Some have links to YouTube others don’t have links at the moment.

Chantilly – Just The Way You Are (I think this was a special one but you can catch her albums on Bandcamp)
Ben Howard – Wolves. This is being played on the radio lots at the moment but I really like it.
Kimbra – Settle Down. Kinda quirky like Imogen Heap or Regina Spektor. Found this by accident via Roxy @Grrfeisty
Rufus Wainwright – Complainte De La Butte. I did sing this in my head while climbing to the Sacre Ceour – btw there doesn’t seem to be a proper video for it so this one is just an image with the audio.
Josh Garrels – I read about him on Today’s Letters and I’ve finally downloaded his album! You can find it here at Bandcamp.
Hugh Laurie – Crazy Arms, You Don’t Know My Mind and Hallelujah I Love Her So – this is my dancing at the bus stop album. I stick this on when I’m waiting for the bus – it keeps me warm and keeps me occupied.
The Civil Wars – need to add them to the iTunes list – seriously loving their music right now. Try Barton Hollow or Poison + Wine

Look who’s being featured over of The House of Hearts today – me! Woot!! Click on the image to take a look at the post.

046: Kindle, Chicken and Friends

Look what arrived yesterday. So exciting!! Our Sidekick was super grown up and signed for it, for me while I was at work – he took it upstairs and put it somewhere (I’m not entirely sure where) but when we got home yesterday evening, he got very excited ran upstairs and got it then did like a march down the stairs and presented my Kindle to me really officially lol.

My Valentines Day was so good. I started the day collecting Chris from church and then he dropped me off at work as took Our Sidekick to an appointment.

I learnt from Bryony that in Estonia Valentines Day is about celebrating friendship love as much as its about romantic love lol. Therefore this became like my useless (or useful in some cases) fact of the day.

Work was okay but I had to have a chat with my Manager yesterday afternoon about various bits and pieces that have been happening – means that today was kinda busy at work (at one point I nearly went to tell him that the new plan sucks and that I can’t do it!).

I had to try and write this post at high speed as Chris needed to take my MacBook to my Mum’s ready for a presentation/workshop that we’re doing tomorrow, instead I adopted Chris’s iPad and somewhere along the evening I got it finished up.

I read various blog posts about Valentine’s Day taking a very different angle to that, that I expected but it was still good to read other opinions. I learnt an awesome fact yesterday that in Estonia on Valentine’s Day, friendship love is celebrated just as much as lovey dovey love.

Well I thought about how I could put it into practice and by the end of the day my brain was a bit frazzled so I never seemed to actually come up with an idea.

We went to collect Our Sidekick from our friend’s house and she asked if we’d like to stay for dinner – it was so lovely of her especially as she already had guests for tea. So in the end for Valentine’s dinner we spent it with three friends, our sidekick and their two sons. There were eight of us round our friend’s dining room table and we tucked into a roast dinner.

Following dinner we headed home so that our friend could hang out with her son before he went to his Dad’s for the rest of the school break. We got home and Our Sidekick asked if we could have a proper family DVD night where we all stopped what we were doing and spent time together. Well we did, we all stopped what we were doing, stuck on Finding Nemo, Chris even made some popcorn (I grabbed a bag of Doritos to share as well).

Finding Nemo

I think it was the best Valentine’s day ever!

045: Tuesday Tunes

Tuesday Tunes

(Source)

D is for…

Damien Rice

« Older posts

Newer posts »

If You were only allowed to watch one movie for the rest of your life, what it be and why?

List Your Favourites….

What are You most looking forward to in the next six months?

What’s one thing that you would never change about yourself?

Most Embarrassing Moment

Describe the best day of your life.

Describe “The Good, The Bad and The Ugly” of yourself

Recommend us a book to read. Why do you think it’s important?

What’s something you’ve always wanted to do but haven’t? Why not?

If you could have dinner with any five people, who would they be?

What’s Your Favourite Childhood Memory?

Tell About An Article of Clothing That You’re Attached To

Write a {few} six-word memoir(s)

Today my not so little brother turns 24!!! Happy Birthday Little Brother!!! Have a great day!!

List 15 Fun Facts About Yourself…

May

June

I want to be popular.

April

N is for…

Nelly Furtado

Today is my Birthday!!!

L is for…

Lincoln Brewster

M is for…

My Chemical Romance

March

K is for…

Kimbra

Happy 5th Birthday to my Blog

J is for…

Julia Nunes

The importance of being happy

I is for…

Imogen Heap

So over to you what’s the best thing about being a blogger and part of this community?

4 out of 5

H is for…

Hugh Laurie

Here are my answers:

What films do I think everyone should see at least once……

G is for…

Gotye ft. Kimbra

This gorgeous girlie married her fab hubby.

Today they celebrate their first wedding anniversary!!!

Congratulations beautiful ones 🙂

Have a great day.

Fill In The Blanks Friday Saturday

Wembley Stadium has a capacity of 90,000. 27 million is the equivalent of Wembley filled 300 times.

27 million is the state of New York (19.4m) plus Missouri (6m ish)

The girls who are trafficked are sisters, daughters, cousins and friends.

The guys who are trafficked are brothers, sons, cousins and friends.

This needs to STOP!

Twenty Seven Million – like me…….

February

100 Word Challenge: Week 32

F is for…

Florence and The Machine

Over To You

1) Create a Giving Jar

2) Cross a Social Divide

3) Share Your Skill

Wembley Stadium has a capacity of 90,000.
27 million is the equivalent of Wembley filled 300 times.