That's Our V&A Day

Some photos from the Victoria and Albert Museum. The V&A is quite a girly museum, full of dresses, pretty silver and swirly curly iron work. Which is why we made it a girls' day out...

Snapshot of an Evening

I spent today wandering around central London and the V&A museum with Lulu - it was a girly day out to celebrate our birthdays and was absolutely lovely. That said, I am very tired and although my feet held out well in their new flip flops they are a little sore. So tonight I will be editing photos and snuggling up on the sofa with my husband. Blissful.

Just a one photo to share today. We had Lulu and her boyfriend over for dinner and games last night (which was lovely) and when I came down this morning I saw...

Wine, friends and laughs make for good times and sweet summer memories.

Picture Post

I love this vase - it was a wedding present from a school friend. Strangely one of our uni friends also gave us the green marbles as a wedding present. They go well together!

Trust

This week I have been learning about trust. I've always thought I'm pretty good at this - especially at trusting God. This is my journey of learning to trust through the week...

On Sunday I was prompted to apply for a job.

On Monday I called the number and spoke to a lady about it. We arranged a meeting for Friday.

On Tuesday I got a little more excited about the job. I felt God's hand. I heard his voice - I have a plan for you.

On Wednesday the lady called and asked me to bring a CV and references. Suddenly it seemed out of reach, I felt out of my depth and fell back into the mindset of "I'm never going to get a job."

On Thursday I prayed a little. I realised how shaky my trust was. That one minute I'd been fine and known God had a plan - the next I was despairing.

On Friday I was nervous. I called my Mum. She reassured me and gave good advice. I sent a text to my lovely Besom boss who prayed and reassured me. The interview went well.

I still have to pray about this - as do my prospective employers. But even if this job isn't the right one for me and I'm not the right person for this job - I learned a lot about trusting God this week. I need to work on it - when it is easy and when it is hard.

*Incidentally, Annie wrote an amazing post about trusting God - go and check it out!

A Little Book

I saw this tutorial by Elise of enJOY it. yesterday and as I had a (more or less) free morning I gave it a go. Here is my take on her envelope mini book...






I haven't filled this yet or decided what to use it for but I have a summer of possible contenders. I'm loving the variety and creativity you can put into a little book. I love that you can throw a whole bunch of different colours and elements into one project. I love that they're so quick and easy to make. If you can, check out Elise's BIG list of her little books!

The Magic of Summer

Remember being a kid at the beginning of the summer holidays? The days stretch out ahead of you full of promise. There are hints of laughter and sunshine and holidays brushing your face. Six weeks. Long lazy days.

I have some holidays booked, two weeks away, my sister is coming to stay. I am going on a couple of trips to London - one to the V&A museum with Lulu and the other to the Globe theatre with my mum and sisters.

I've been working on a list of goals for my summer. There is always so much potential in the summer, yet every day slips by so quickly. It can be easy to let summer slide through your fingers.

My goals range from the very mundane (clearing cupboards, dry cleaning winter coats) to things I am more excited about (crafty projects, books to read, cooking new recipes). I will try to be a better blogger and document these things. I will try to savour the magic of summer.

What are your goals for this summer? What are you excited about? What memories will you have to savour from summer of 2009?

Picture Post

I took this at the beginning of the week while I was waiting for the kettle to boil. T's parents brought us the heart shaped pasta back from Italy and after the last bits had been languishing a few months I decided it was time to use them up. If you look very hard you'll also be able to spot some Disney princess pasta shapes mixed in there too...

Laid Back Weekend

We made pizza for dinner last night. You put the ingredients for the dough in the breadmaker and 45 minutes later you get...


We usually spread it with tomato puree mixed with BBQ sauce. We added bacon, peppers, mushrooms, mozarella and cheddar.


Yum yum.



Today is a laid back Saturday in our house. T got up to do some work and I slept in until he brought me a cup of tea.


We got up late and had cooked breakfast while we listened to the cricket on the radio. He's a big cricket fan. I'm learning to like it.


We just walked up to the university to get some books T needs for his thesis corrections.

Endings

This week has been a lot of fun, but also a bit sad. On Wednesday I had my last afternoon session, and my last lunch with the five little boys I have been dining with on Mondays and Wednesdays. These kids are so cool, I am going to miss them so much. This week they were right on form - they made me laugh so much. One of them looked out of the window and said, "Do you think it's going to rain?" (He was a bit worried because we had some sports day races planned for the end of the session.) I told him I thought it would stay dry and he responded: "No, it's going to rain. I'm Michael Fish!" This reference is probably lost on any non-UK readers but Michael Fish was a BBC weatherman about twenty two years ago. He is most famous for announcing that there certainly wasn't a storm on the way, just before a massive storm hit the UK. How does a three year old even know who Michael Fish is?!

Anyway it was pretty sad to see them leave as I probably won't see most of them again. And today we have the last morning session of the term - with the older children. Hopefully the weather will hold off again and we can have some sports day races. It's a week of endings...

...but I'm sure God has a beginning planned for me too.

Picture Post

Sunday evening, one of those beautiful warm light summer evenings.

New Toy

So I spent a good couple of hours reading and playing last night. And here are a couple of my (slightly better) attempts with the new toy...


Love love love the detail this thing picks up. This was cropped big time and it still shows the veins and hairs on the flower.


T decided he wanted to use his waffle maker to make dinner. We haven't used it a huge amount since his birthday and it was our first time trying the savoury waffles. So I tried some foodie pictures...


We had them with ham, cheese and mushrooms. Then we added copious amounts of sugar to the last bit of mixture and made dessert!


Yum yum.

I took my camera for a walk this afternoon, up to our old university.

Camera Love

Look what came in the post today.


I've been wanting one of these for sometime and a month or two ago T said I should get one. Isn't he lovely? I decided to wait until almost the summer holidays, after the month of birthdays to get it as then I'd have lots of time and exciting things to have fun taking photos of. It has lots of buttons and lots of settings. I am settling down for some playing, I have a lot to get to grips with!

Ants

At playgroup today I was cleaning a table top after a bout of very enthusiastic cupcake icing. Two little girls came over and when I explained what I was doing and why I had to do it before I came outside they wanted to help. So I sprayed the cleaner on the table and gave them some kitchen roll to help.

Little Girl 1: I'm helping. I'm being very helpful aren't I?

Me: You are, yes. You both are.

Little Girl 2: I'm cleaning really hard. Otherwise the ants will come in.

LG1 (losing interest big time): Do you like my top? It's very pretty isn't it?

Me: Yes it is. And yes, LG2, we don't want any ants do we?

LG2: No. They will eat the table.

Me: The table? I'm not sure ants eat tables.

LG2: They do. And it'll make them FAT.

Me: Well we don't want fat ants do we?

LG1: I like your hair bobble.

Picture Post

Iced drinks have been the first stop after getting home this week.

This Week I Made...

I spread my craft supplies over our dining table for a lot of this week. T put up with the clutter without any complaints and I had a lot of fun making these cards.

This was my first creation this week - I wanted to use the stamps I was given for my birthday. These letters are from T and I love how ornate they are.


This next card was because I got out all the cards and envelopes from my drawer and sorted them by sizes and styles. Here they are taking up the whole table...


Anyway I found these coloured cards with squares punched out of them and decided to give this pinky one a go.


In the process of sorting the drawer out I found a pad of graph paper and wanted to see if that could be used to make something pretty.


And from this morning - I wanted to use some of the paper I'd attacked with food colouring earlier in the week. I think this effect is my favourite - I pressed the paper into the colouring and then flicked water on it to separate the ink out into these fractal splodge patterns. I love brown and blue as a colour combination and thought I'd see how this paper worked with a brown card. I also used gold ribbon and the gold pens I got for my birthday.

I just made a mess and I am HAPPY

Today we shut Besom up early as we were a little lacking in volunteers and ran out of work to do. So I decided to do some experimenting. When I was younger I had a kit of inks that would float on water. You filled a tray with water, added some droplets of ink and then lay paper on top. When you took it off the inks had soaked into the paper and made pretty patterns. Using food colouring I had a go at replicating this. I had to use just colouring straight on the tray because it sinks in water. Here are some of my results!




It was a bit messy but I'm happier about today's mess. Thank you for the lovely comments yesterday, they cheered me up! And it turned out that not much of the work got spoiled after all.

I just made a mess and I'm CROSS

Right now I feel like clumsy Cinderella. I just spent three hours running around after two year olds, then washed up after their snack and tidied up all their toys. I did some food shopping and came home. The plan was to get a cold drink and work on some craft.

I got the drink. It was cold. I put it on the table and proceeded to knock it all over my craft stuff. I scrambled for the half finished project which was already soaking up the liquid. I said some rude words, stamped my foot and spent half an hour clearing up after myself.

It's too early to tell how ruined the project is and how much I'm going to have to re-do. I am very CROSS. At least my prince is coming home soon. Please tell me how your days are going and that you're not as CROSS as me right now...