Birthday Weekend!

We spent this weekend with my family. We mostly played games and talked and ate yummy food so I don't have too many pictures to share. But there was birthday cake...


...and cupcakes!


Shiv came over and we played more games. I got lots of lovely presents - two beautiful bags...



...some crafty excitingness...


...some books, a CD, some jewellery and a DVD. It was all very lovely and relaxing - it felt like a mini holiday. Spending my birthday weekend with my parents, sisters and husband (and a little bit with Shiv) was the best part. It was perfect.

Today we are back home and at work. It is hot. Sizzlingly boilingly hot. As in small children sat wilting under trees this afternoon. I realise it isn't hot compared to Asia or Africa but still - we live in England! We are not used to this kind of heat. Think of the small children who were not coping well with it.

T is making fruit smoothies now, the perfect end to a hot day!

Treading On Water

Another busy day as we're going to visit my family tonight, so I tried to make my Treading On Water a quick one. Here it is:


I've loved the Go!venture project this week, thanks to Elise and Kal for letting us play along! Have a good weekend!

Song and Dance

Today's topic in the Go!venture challenge was song and dance. I had an idea when I first read the clue last night. When I left Besom this afternoon I felt ill and so by the time I got home I didn't have the energy to start my more optimistic idea. Instead I sat down and started drawing, and so this is my "Song and Dance" piece:


The final challenge of the week is: Treading on Water.

I also planned to do a bullet point update today but as I'm tired...things are good, more next week!

Pocket

For those who may have missed a few days...Elise at enJOY it. and Kal Barteski at [i] LoveLife are having a design challenge this week. They're each creating something every day on a specific theme. I've been playing along and today's theme is Pocket.

The first thing that came to my mind was this blanket made for me by my grandma when I was a baby. It has my name on the pocket. It's almost twenty two years old!


I decided to take inspiration from the colours, blue and pink are a great combination. Anyway, this card is what I came up with...


I used double sided tape to stick the pocket down so that when I send this card to someone I can put something in it specifically for them - all our pockets are different, and the stuff in them reflects who we are!

Tomorrow's theme is...song and dance.

Not My Type

Hmm. This was a tricky one. I wanted to get away from stuff I would usually do as a gesture to this theme. Today was quite full and although I thought about it a lot nothing really came to me. When I got home I pulled out some paper and did a quick scribble. My problem was not knowing what my type was or wasn't. And I couldn't decide where to go. I remembered some old kiddie paints that belong T had upstairs. I got them out and this is what happened.


I wouldn't let myself look at everyone else's until I'd finished mine...so off I GO!
Tomorrow's challenge: Pocket.

Happy Birthday Roy!

My lovely middling sister is seventeen today! I have given her so many nicknames in the last seventeen years - Bronnie, Bronica, Ronnie... But the one she is using on her own blog was started by T - she has a hamma bead sign on her bedroom door with her name in alternate blue and white letters. Because the background to the sign is dark you can only see the white ones - so you get -R-O-Y

Happy Birthday Roy!

Green and Dizzy

Elise at enJOY it. and Kal Barteski at [i] LoveLife are having a design challenge this week. They're each creating something every day on a specific theme. Although I've been working on a few crafty bits recently I like the idea of shaking things up and doing something a little differently. Monday's theme is "Green and Dizzy" and this is what I came up with...

I got a little messy...


I made a card...


I scanned it to T's computer...


I played about on a program I've never used before...


Tried some effects...


And some more...


Green and Dizzy.



Tomorrow's challenge is..."not my type".

(Slightly Belated) Picture Post

Sunset from our guest room window this week.

Thoughts on Birthdays

In nine days it will be my birthday. My first married birthday.

Yesterday my husband came home with surprises and secrets. Some were shared, some are still secret. This was exciting.

It's also new. I tell him pretty much everything that happens. When it was coming up to his birthday it was so hard not to tell him all about the surprises I had planned. I never have trouble keeping surprises from anyone else but being used to sharing everything it takes some concentration not to just talk.

I've also never had a married birthday before. On my birthday I will wake up with my husband. That's never happened before.

This time last year I wasn't that bothered about my birthday. And I was turning 21. I was more excited about our wedding (just over a month later) and my hen night (which would be when I'd see all my girl-friends). Oh and graduation. It was a summer of momentous occasions really and turning 21 kind of paled next to the marriage/graduation combo.

But then my lovely husband and lovely housemate kept a secret plan from me. They planned a dinner party. The fact that they'd arranged the whole thing without me knowing or expecting anything threw me a little but was so special. That summer I thought I knew exactly when the important events were happening. I figured I was getting enough fuss that year...and the fact that they planned a little extra fuss made me feel very loved.

This summer will be calmer and quieter but no less special. It will be a summer filled with new experiences and memories to come. I'm pretty excited that there are still surprises though...

(Belated) Picture Post

A Village With Bunting

We went away this weekend to visit some friends from university. It always seems strange to me when we go away to see uni people because we still live in our university town. Anyway. It was lovely. Close your eyes and picture an english country village. It was just like that.

There was a picturesque church.


There was a bakery...


...with a farm shop.


There was even bunting around the cricket green.


We had a lovely Saturday with them. We wandered around the village, packed a picnic and then went off to the national arboretum. I didn't even know there was a national arboretum. (Or what arboretum meant. It means tree collection. Now we all know.)


It was very pretty.


We walked, chatted, ate our picnic and had ice cream. Then we went back to the pretty village, played a game and drank tea. The boys went to watch the cricket on the green, and we stayed at the house (drank more tea) and talked even more. We were cooked a lovely dinner. We were very well looked after.

Sunshine, food and friends are the perfect combination.

Happy Birthday Ellie!

My lovely youngest sister is fifteen today.

Happy Birthday Ellie!

Looking Forward

Since my last post it feels like there are a lot of opportunities. In the next few weeks I'm going to be pushing on [kicking on?] a lot of doors. You never know which one will open next.

I love June. It is the first really summery month and in our family it's always been a birthday filled month - my youngest sister will be fifteen on Sunday, and my middling sister will be seventeen on the 23rd. And then I will be twenty-two on the 27th! This means shopping for presents, cake and a very fun weekend with my family coming up.

And in June we'll be seeing T's side of the family and visiting some friends. Our strawberry plant is flowering which means I'm hoping for some (maybe three) homegrown strawberries. It's going to be a good month.

What are you looking forward to in the next few weeks?

Report

So I did it. I printed my CV and letter and went to hand them in at the school. I spoke to the Deputy Head who took my CV to pass on to the headteacher, but said that probably the school is too small to give me enough experience to do the GTP there. So I'm not holding out too much hope.

The really wonderful thing is that my prayers were answered. Not the "please let this work out" ones. But the "if this isn't right, please help me to accept it" ones. Because I walked out, after what was pretty much "no" and didn't feel like a hopeless failure at getting a job. I was disappointed. But after T and I got home, he made me tea, I told him what happened, he hugged me, I decided not to get depressed and cry. If the teaching plan is right, then it will happen. (I have a few other routes to pursue.) If it's not, something else that is right will happen.

The important thing isn't that my plan broke. Having a job or a plan doesn't make you a grown-up. I have a job now. I had a job when I was sixteen - it didn't make me a grown up then and it still doesn't now. What was grown-up is that I tried even though it was scary and might not go to plan. And when it didn't go to plan, I decided to try again.

The best thing is that T knows exactly how to make me feel better. He encourages me and supports me. And he knows exactly what to say to take my mind off it...

Overactive Imagination?

Reading a story with one little boy this afternoon he came out with some fantastic claims...

"I used to do ballet when I was a girl."

Two minutes later...

"I used to do boxing when I was big."

I was given loads of kiddie-cuddles this afternoon, it was lovely. I've just been editing my CV and writing a covering letter. Tomorrow I'm going [to stop being chicken* and] go to the school I want to do the GTP with. Tonight I will be praying hard. I'm a little [a lot] scared because it feels like it's better to have a plan than risk putting the plan into action and then having it break. Does that make sense? Any sense at all?

*I'm so so not ready to be a grown-up.

Picture Post

I took this as I walked through the church graveyard after playgroup one day this week. I love that colours work beautifully together in nature when if we tried to put them together the result would be hideous.

Odds and Ends

This week has been made up of lots of small pieces - there's nothing major to tell but here are a few highlights...

• I telephoned someone the other day at Besom but hung up when there was no reply. A moment later she called back and I began to ask her about what she needed. "I'm not sure right now," she said. "I'm actually in labour at the moment!"
  
• Our plants are doing well since my gardening session last weekend - the strawberry runners are planted and a tiny pot plant has burst into pretty white flowers.
• We saw T's parents last Sunday. His mum got back from a trip to China last week and brought us a present. I cooked sweet and sour chicken with egg fried rice for dinner on Monday and we used them. They're so pretty!

Boys and Girls are Different

A couple of weeks ago my husband went shopping on one of his lunch breaks. Can you guess the five items he returned home with?

No? Well neither could I. We spent the last hour of his work day with me playing twenty questions about these mysterious items. And (sounding slightly gameshow-esque), here they are...

1. A tacky (Tescos) tool belt found in a charity shop.
2. Some beef stew with dumpings - in a packet.
3. "Light load towels" - a pack of three tiny towels for hiking. Pretty useful. The catch? "To expand, drop in water." That's right, you have to soak these towels and then allow them to dry before you can use them.
4. Chlorine. Ok, chlorine tablets - for purifying water.
5. Neutralising tablets. To take away that nasty chlorine taste.

[It might sound like we're preparing for World War III (and some DIY) but T was actually on the hunt for birthday presents for his Dad and prizes for a tournament based on the 20Twenty series world cup coming up. So he's not crazy really.]