2021 - Our Creative Year

One of my New Year's Resolutions is to allow more creativity back into my life. It's easy to become too "busy". I'm certainly guilty of wasting time on social media or on games on my phone.

This year I wanted to put the emphasis on my creative self. Creativity is a type of playfulness (see my other blog www.the-playful-way.com) and I think we all need a bit more of that in our lives.

It also allows you to express yourself, to find your self or your voice.

To help keep me on track and to explore a whole range of different types of creativity, I've come up with 52 different craft activities (this isn't even touching on the creativity I enjoy in the garden, in my writing or in my teaching or tutoring!).

I've divided them into seasons, with the intention that I'll do four or five each month. 

For example, this month I'm hoping to

- macrame a plant pot hanger for the bathroom (1st attempt at macrame)

- make wine (I've been meaning to do this for ages!)

- make at least one cushion cover

- crochet a window valance (like this)

- make some little fabric scrap dolls.

 

What I really like about this is that my daughter has taken a copy of my list. She's ticked the ones she wants to do with me, and has added her own crafts to replace the ones that she doesn't think she can do.  We're going to get crafty together!

I've not been terribly good at maintaining the blog in 2020. I'm hoping that I'll be a lot better in 2021, and blog regularly about my crafting, writing, gardening and family exploits, so you'll be able to see how I get on with some of these crafts.

What are your crafting and creative intentions for 2021?

Why it's okay NOT to do Joe Wicks

No offence meant to Joe Wicks here.  I've done a couple of his workouts and the man is a legend.  The internet is bursting at the seams with activities that you can plug into or do at home at the moment.  There is so much choice out there.  The issue is that so many of us are trying to work from home and educate from home as well as just existing.  All these activities are a good source of inspiration for parents who are used to out-sourcing their children - gym classes, Cubs, swimming lessons, boxing and so on.  However, it does leave you with a vague sense that if you aren't doing Joe Wicks every morning, followed by online art lessons, online Steve Backshall, online Scout activities and online education, as well as downloading all the free resources being offered by the BBC, Twinkl and every other portal on the interweb, then you are somehow failing your children.

I'm here to tell you that this is not so.  

What is important is maintaining sanity and love within your family.  

In a time full of financial and health anxiety, in a time when people are concerned about their jobs and their family and friends, in a time when we are facing an unprecedented global pandemic, that's when we are all confined to our homes and cut off from friends and from the outdoors.  A walk alone in the woods is my choice of activity to re-balance and to restore my sense of self and optimism.  We normally have a healthy mix of society and solitude in our lives.  Time to think and time to talk.  At the moment we have some people forced into solitude, while others are denied it.  It's hard for our children too: used to the routine and society of school, time and space to run and jump, laugh hysterically at the daftest things, feel proud of themselves when they get the right answer or seek solace with friends if they don't.  Now they're stuck at home with only a limited understanding of why. 

I'll be honest.  I'm finding this hard.  I'm supposed to be self-isolated for another ten weeks.  I want to do a good job for the families I'm supporting as a teacher and as a Scout volunteer; I want to get the house and garden looking good; I want to build up my writing again; I want to get fit... all during this period of isolation.  What I'm learning though, is that looking after myself and my family is going to have to take priority here.  In the last few days I've had a deep sense of anxiety, unease and disquiet.  I have been irritable and tearful.  Miss Busy, who is very nine: noisy, messy and emotional, is finding the lock-down overwhelming and needing her mummy.  My husband, when he gets home from a busy and tense day as a hospital doctor, needs a lot of support too - for him, planning for the future helps him deal with the present.  

So I'm remembering that I need to prioritise cuddling with a film over replying to e-mails;  Playing a board game with the children over cleaning the floor;  While my to-do list doesn't get any shorter, reaffirming connections within the family, building our strength in this time of uncertainty, seems the more important task.  When this is over, like the flowers that grow back more vigorously after they've been cut back, we will be ready to bloom vibrantly.  When we look back, we'll think of 2020 as the year that made us.

So don't feel that you have to be busy all the time.  Don't feel that you need to keep up with all the activities and resources.  Don't worry about fancy-schmancy specially-created internet resources and lessons.

Do your best to keep up with the things that you have to do for your work and your children's education (don't worry too much about this - they are remarkable at learning when nobody is teaching them, and will also soon fill in the gaps when they get back to school).  Mostly though, it's okay to do the simple things, to spend time just being, and just connecting with your children.

Here are a few things you can do as a family: 

1) play with the kids - get the Lego or the doll house out and get down there and play with the children.

2) Do the housework together.  This one may be a harder sell for older kids, but I taught Mr Build-it to iron shirts yesterday (we had to submit a video for his Scout Skills Challenge), you're teaching them valuable life skills, and its definitely more fun when you do it together - and that's a life-lesson in itself.

3) Play silly games like charades and hide-and-seek.  A daft friend posted a video of herself playing noughts-and-crosses with her dog.  (ask and I'll tell you how - very amusing!)

5) Rediscover peaceful crafts that you can just sit and do together - drawing, painting, rock painting, crochet, knitting and sewing.  Or if those don't appeal - how about wood-work or creating miniature models for Warhammer or a model railway.  These things take time and lets face it, we're not going anywhere in a hurry, and you get the satisfaction of creating something.

6) Bake and cook together.  Explore those cook books and come up with some recipes that you can make.  (Forward planning is useful here as given the shopping limitations for most of us at the moment.)

Most of all, try to relax.  Don't try to do too much.  Press the "Reset System" button on your life.

Thoughts on Home working and what we're all doing in the shut-down.

I posted yesterday about Home Learning and how to support the children during this shut-down.

In the meantime, what have I been doing?  As a teacher I am technically a key worker but my underlying kidney disease, vasculitis and immune suppression mean that I am classed as "extremely vulnerable".  I have been home-working since last Wednesday, and as of Monday evening am on the list of people who are not supposed to leave the house for 12 weeks.  

 Each morning I have started with my home-working teaching tasks while the children have been busy with their work.  This involves working with my Year 2 colleagues to compile appropriate work for the children to do from home in each of the subject areas.  As parents email the work in, we note it, respond, post something on the school twitter-feed, post the answers for the parents to be able to mark their work and generally follow up.  We're also taking the opportunity to catch up on paperwork and planning across the school.

After I've done this, I move on to virtual Scouting.  I'm running a Cub Pack and a Beaver Colony so I'm regularly posting activities or badge work that children can be getting on with at home.  I'm looking forward to running a virtual meeting on a video-call platform too so they all get to see one another.  We'll probably have a go at that next week.  

In my County Scout role I'm rearranging adult training modules so that people can pick up on them after the shut-down, but also supporting people to use this opportunity while they are at home to do some e-learning and get their training validated.

Once I've done this I move on to writing.  I'm trying to warm-up my skills a bit by entering writing competitions.  I know that I'm unlikely to win any prizes but the discipline of a deadline and trying out writing in different genres is quite refreshing.  I've entered a Travel Writing one so far, and am now working on an entry for a humorous poetry competition.  Also the fact that I'm stuck indoors, I can stretch my wings a bit here on my blog.

Each day I'm also making sure that I get some exercise.  I've returned to my old favourite Claire Sweeney Slimming World DVD but also had a go at Joe Wicks does PE this morning with the children.  I'm attempting to tame a mature and somewhat wild garden, starting with a patch that Miss Busy has asked to adopt.  Also, the house hasn't been so clean since just after we moved in.  We do have some decorating to do but, while the sun is shining, the garden gets priority.

Plus, of course, spending time with my children.  Making sure that they are getting some of their schoolwork done and not spending all day in front of a screen.  Making sure that they are okay.

What are you all doing during this shut-down?  What does your day look like?

Throwing out expectations

One of the reasons my blog has been so neglected is because I had this idea (from the blogosphere) that your blog should somehow be making you money.  Each post has to be carefully crafted, search engine optimised, sponsored and "monetising".  Apparently, the reason we blog should be all about stopping the day job and making money. 
I'm stepping away from that idea.  With that in mind, I've hesitated to blog, because I didn't have quite the right picture.  I wasn't sure that it would be quite such an appealing post.  I wasn't getting thousands of likes so I should save that post until I had a bigger audience.  Its actually stopped me from enjoying my blog as I did at the beginning, when I just used it as an online journal.  Right now, I just want to get back to the daily habit of writing, unburdening, scribbling my thoughts.  There may be a photo or picture to accompany my words, there may not.  I may share my post through social media channels, I may not.  I might get twenty readers, or 100, or none.  I don't care.  I just want to write regularly because it makes me feel good.  I think this might even be turning into a New Year resolution, though I absolutely won't beat myself up if I don't do it.  I have enough things on my to-do list with people relying on me and looming deadlines.  I'll beat myself up about those ones instead.

This is me.

This is me.  

• I turn 40 on Monday.
• I 'm 5-10kg overweight.
• I have sparkly green eyes and a big smile that's never too far away, my e-mail address has been smilymel@... forever.
• I have a seven and a half year old daughter and a nine year old son.
• I have a four month old puppy.
• I have a geriatric 3 year old gerbil.
• I am a teacher working 3 days a week in a caring but very busy school.  I love my job.
• I am a Cub Leader with 28 happy Cubs.
• I get involved with projects at The Scout Association at UK level and am a Training Adviser in the County.
• I have a lovely husband with a very busy job as a Dr in our local hospital.
• I love the outdoors, walking, scrambling, waterfalls, woodlands, castles etc.
• I enjoy learning about history.
• I love crafting and making things and being creative.
• I love writing.  I'm a member of our local Writing Circle and have a burning ambition to finish editing one of the books I'm writing and actually send it off to a publisher.
• I enjoy cooking (and eating).
• I'm not as fit as I should be.
• I've had Vasculitis which is in remission but I'm still on a lovely cocktail of drugs every day to keep it that way.
• I have friends who I love and who make me feel good.  I don't see any of them nearly as often as I would like to.
• I have a loving mum and dad, two lovely sisters and their families, and a set of lovely in-laws.  
• I'm generally optimistic and happy, but sometimes find that I'm unravelling a bit and am swamped by trying to do too much in too little time and end up feeling that I'm not actually achieving anything.  Then I get grouchy and grumpy and give the people I love a hard time.  Then I give myself a really hard time.

This is me.

I've not used this blog all that much over the last couple of years, but have decided to make it a priority this year.  I'll blog often to log my thoughts, log the activities I do, and give a creative outlet.  I'm going to show myself just how much I can get done in a busy year.

The Missing Blogger

This blogger has been decidedly absent.  I have good intentions.  Writing on the blog has been on my "to do" list for a long time.  I like blogging.  I love to write and this blog has been a creative endeavour since 2010, when my almost-eight year old was tiny.  

Life, however, has me spinning many plates, and inevitably one or two get dropped.  

Tonight I set aside the marking, though I may get back to that later as I'm quite enjoying marking beginning attempts at poetry.  I ignored my list and went straight for the blog.

Here's a quick summary of what's going on in my life:

• Home - I'm a bit on edge at the moment about my home.  We've been in Herefordshire now for almost three years, hoping to sell our lovely house in Scotland so we can put down roots here.  I've been getting a bit pot-bound in this rented house that was always supposed to be a temporary situation.  We finally had an offer on the house, and accepted.  In Scotland, once the missives are exchanged, which usually happens very early in the process, the deal is legally binding.  We went ahead and started looking at houses, an found one that we absolutely love, went ahead and made and offer and were accepted!  Now we're just waiting for everything to be finalised.  The missives in Scotland have NOT been exchanged yet, our buyers have their loan agreement, but are waiting for their buyers to get their loan agreement through (this week we've been told) so that they can exchange missives with them, and then with us.  Our buyers are hoping to move in July, so I'm very much hoping that this will be a simple process and then we can start asking about a completion date for our house - we have our loan agreed, and hopefully move in late August.  In the meantime, I'm thinking about starting to re-paint the magnolia walls here.  We carefully didn't put any pictures up to avoid having to repaint when we moved out, but after three years, two children and a dog, the walls need repainting, and in some cases a bit of polyfilla, so the sooner I get started on that (and then keep everybody away from the paintwork!) the sooner it's done.  I'm actually finally getting happier with how the garden is looking.  This year I decided it was time to stop waiting and to just plant stuff, so I bought a lot of cheap tubs and planters and ordered bulbs and perennial plants and just chucked everything in, and now I actually have flowers growing on my large patch of gravel.  I'm planning to make the most of this Summer of countryside living with some wild foraging, and lots of time outdoors for the children, as our new house will be in the city.  Yes, you read right.  From seven years living in a small village (lovely community) to three years living in the middle of nowhere (not even a pub to walk to!) to a house where you can walk or cycle all over the place and a top-up pint of milk is very literally just around the corner.  I can't wait! 
• teaching - I'm very much enjoying my teaching job.  I love teaching. The lady I'm job-sharing with is lovely and I think we work very well together. The class we're with at the moment are quite chatty and VERY untidy, but I think that's partly because I didn't set up expectations on that front very well in the first few weeks of the year.  We seem to be constantly chasing our tails just to keep up with the marking and planning, let alone getting the displays and things sorted out.  Next year I'm delighted to be in Year 4 again - The planning for all the topics and units is there, so I just need to rework it to make it work for me and the new class.  I'm going up to three days per week, and will probably have a different teacher working with me (to be appointed this week).  I'm looking already at what I can do during the Summer to get the classroom looking nicer.  

• Campervan - that's right.  We got ourselves a campervan.  We are beginning to get the hang of just jumping in for a weekend away, and are planning lots of trips around the place with it, and are working out the best way to store things.  It's a VW T6.
• Health - So I've still got microscopic polyangiitis.  Apparently Vasculitis doesn't go away.  I'll be on the immune suppressants and steroids and blood pressure meds for a long time.  Kidney function has stabilised at 50% which is good, and the Drs are quite happy to tell me how well I look, check my bloods and send me on my way again.  Apparently all the weird little oddities my body has come up with are nothing to worry about, so I'm just trying to ignore them and take them in my stride as long as the blood results are okay and nothing drastic happens.

• The family - The husband and kids are still gorgeous.  The kids of course drive me absolutely bonkers, and I occasionally have a crises of confidence that they aren't being very kind to one another, or are becoming selfish.  I am reassured by everybody else telling me how lovely they are, and wonder whether they just save it all for me.  Sadly, I am no longer wearing a wedding ring but it's not as bad as it sounds - Hubby is still putting up with me despite my careless ways, I just no longer have the rings!  A couple of years ago the diamond fell out of my engagement ring while I was doing housework, and I never found it.  Last Summer the sea at Durdle Door in Dorset sucked my wedding ring off (I've lost a bit of weight, and I think it must all have been on my fingers!) and that disappeared into the blue.  I was wearing a stand-in as I really wanted to be wearing a wedding ring still, but took it off the other day while making pizza dough.  One minute it was beside me on the counter, the next it wasn't.  I told everybody to look out for it in their pizza, but nobody found it.  I'm hoping to get a replacement at some point, but it's not really the kind of thing you are supposed to buy for yourself, is it?  We're also sad to have lost our dog Tara three weeks ago.  She was such a wonderful warm and loving pet, and we had her for nine years, so it's a bit strange to get home and not see her wagging tail in the back door, not to get up early and take her out for a walk, and not to have her warmth spread across my lap on the sofa or my feet under the table.

• Scouting - Having done a LOT of Scouting in the past, things are pretty quiet since we moved to Herefordshire.  We've both got lots of skills and experience, but nobody here seems very interested in what we have to offer.  This is probably a good thing since I was poorly last year, as I was able to give myself a bit of a break.  Now we're both working with the Group where Bear and Bug are Beaver Scouts, and hoping to help it grow and develop.
• Crafting and Writing - This will be a very short paragraph.  It's just not been happening.  Too tired.  Too busy.  Bug got a mini-sewing machine for her birthday in February, and I confess I only just got it out with her this weekend (and can't make it sew properly so need to take it to Hobbycraft for instructions) so that she can sew her own apron - I'll try to post about that in the next couple of weeks when we complete it!

So there we go.  A whistle stop update of where I am and what I'm doing and a promise that I'll try to blog again at least once a week.

What have you all been up to?  Anything exciting?  Do comment below.

Absentee Blogger

Hello.  I've been a bit of an absentee blogger just lately haven't I?

It all got a bit exciting with two teaching job interviews on two consecutive days, and not having been in front of a class since 2008 - eek!!!  As you can imagine I buckled down and did some homework, catching up on the curriculum changes and reminding myself what I actually used to do.  I didn't get the first job, which was a Full time, year-long post teaching Year 1/2 at my own children's school.  It would have meant teaching C's class.  I didn't get the job, but I was confident that I'd done my best.  The feedback was positive too, which helped a lot!  Basically my exemplar lesson (maths problem solving) let me down, and I agreed with everything the Head said afterwards.  Being a little out of the loop, I had made the mistake of pitching Year 1 at C's level.  Turns out he's pretty bright, so there were some children in there who just couldn't access what I was doing.  Also I could have brought things back together with a better plenary.  The next day I had the second interview, this time for a term-long part-time contract teaching Key Stage 2.  My lesson this time was teaching figurative language writing to Year 5/6.  I got the job!!!!

So the last few weeks were filled with baking for school and pre-school bake sales and PTA stalls, visiting the school I'll be working at, school productions and then the preparations for C's 6th birthday which was on Saturday.

Now we're on holiday.  I'm having a major clear-out of my belongings to get the place tidy and clear my mind of detritus ready for September.  Have you heard of "The Magic Art of Tidying" by Marie Kondo, or the Konmari tidying method?  The book has sold millions and having read it, I can see why, and I'm giving it a try.  We've also been for a bike ride, been swimming, been to the library, been to the skate-board park, and done some cooking and some science experiments.  As well as the very exciting school planning I'm doing ready for September (is it really sad that I'm so very thrilled to be going back to work?), and tidying, I've also had 14 articles commissioned in the last couple of weeks, mostly on various aspects of learning to drive and on various aspects of American Summer Camp.

I'm going to be returning a bit more regularly to update the blog, but possibly with shorter, picture based posts about some of the things we are up to and making - as long as I remember to take the camera out with me each time!  Post about robots should be following in the next couple of days.

Five Blogs I Love

As well as writing my own blog, I love to read other people's blogs.  I'm not half so regular about it as I'd like, but I try to get in there fairly regularly, and also to leave the occasional comment.

Here are my current top five blogs (please don't be offended if I follow you and you're not in this list... you might appear in a "top five" list another time.

Please do go and check out these blogs as I think they are lovely:

The Good Life.  Jo gets me inspired to get out in my garden and keep plugging away at it even when I don't feel like it.  I always feel better afterwards.


The Barefoot Crofter - for wonderful reflective and inspiring photographs and posts


The Artful Parent - for brilliant art, craft and creativity ideas for children


A Childhood List - For a wide range of activities and ideas to do with children


Mama Scout - Beautiful photographs, inspiring thoughts and great activities

Liebster Award

Wowee!  I've been nominated for the Liebster Award, by lovely fellow blogger Vic at Entertaining Monsters!  Thank you Vic!

The Liebster Award is nominated by somebody else who has received the Award.  They nominate five other blogs to receive the Award, each of which must have fewer than 200 followers.  Here are the Liebster rules:

1. Thank your Liebster Blog Award presenter on your blog

2. Link back to the blogger who presented the award to you

3. Copy and paste the blog award on your blog

4. Present the Liebster Blog Award to 5 blogs of 200 followers or less who you feel deserve to be noticed 

Most of the blogs that I follow have more than 200 followers, but I am nominating the following Blogs:

• Lynz at Domestic Light and Magic - she's an amazing crafter and so bubbly!
• Sharon at Bella Terra - awesome photos
• A Happy Wanderer - great ideas!
• My sister Jo at Seaside Belle (she's not blogged for a while, but that's because she's a mum of three, including a three-month-old!)

5. Let them know they have been chosen by leaving a comment at their blog.

I am also supposed to answer the eleven questions asked by the person who nominated me.  So here are Vic's questions and my answers:

1.How long have you been blogging for?  About 2 years I think.  

2.Where is your favourite place in the whole wide world?  Ooh, this is a tough one.  I might say, anywhere camping out under the stars with my husband and children I guess.  Or I did love Florence.

3.What is your favourite bar of chocolate?  Yorkie bar, the biscuit and raisin ones, and they are definitely also for girls.

4.Have you ever broken a bone?  Yes, embarrassingly I broke my nose when drunk once (not fighting, I nose-dived a dance floor)

5.When was the last time you went on a child free night out with your partner (if you have one)?  Before Bug was born, so over 18 months ago.

6.What was your first job?  My first grown-up job was teaching, but as a teenager I started out with babysitting, and then added on waitressing.

7.How many toilets do you have in your house?! (I only have 1 and am very jealous when people have more!)  Bizarre question!  2.

8.What is your favourite season?  I think Autumn.  I have a birthday at the beginning of September, and I always associate my birthday, the smells of early autumn (rich, earthy smells) and the fresh polish and paint, pencil sharpenings and new-shoes smell of back-to-school, which I love.

9.What is your favourite children’s book?  The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien

10.Do you get a real or fake Christmas tree?  At the moment it's a fake one, but once the children are a bit bigger I'll go back to volunteering at a local nature reserve - in December you shop down unwanted conifers from a bog, and you get to choose one to take home!

11.How many siblings do you have?  I'm the middle of two sisters.

And now here are the questions that the bloggers who I have nominated have to answer - I want you to write down the first thing that comes into your head for each one:

1. what's the last thing that you made?
2. what makes you smile?
3. what makes you cry?
4. where do you do most of your reading?
5. when's the last time you sang?
6. if you were a bird what type would you be?
7. what's your favourite word?
8. what's your favourite mode of transport?
9. what are you most proud of making?
10. what would you most love to experience?
11. If you could see any wild animal at home in its natural habitat, what animal would you want to see.

Blogging in 2012

Happy New Year everybody!

One of my goals for 2012 is to improve my writing and get on and get a few more bits published now that Sis is getting that little bit bigger.  To help with disciplining myself, I've decided to plan the blog.  So far it's been a little on the haphazard side, but now I'm setting up a calendar to ensure that I have something to write every day, know what pictures I need, and have a little more focus.  Watch this space!

Things to make and do...

A post (here) on a blog that I follow "Sew Liberated" led me to Google "Nikki McClure" and I found several books by her and also her website (here).  I love the idea of "Things to make and do" towards developing a more homely, less materialistic world to live in.  I wonder if that's the direction that this blog will take in the end... 

At the moment I appreciate that its a little haphazard, and lets face it, with another imminent arrival I don't think that's going to change any time soon.  Random thoughts / whatever I've managed to remember to take a photo of / an occasional recipe or craft item.

Today has been an odd sort of day.  Baby is now 37 weeks gestation and thus termed "fully cooked" and is allowed to be born at any time (but preferably not until the new car seat arrives or I've got some more of the stuff on my list done!)  This morning I woke up having a rock solid stomach for about 20 minutes (that's a pretty long and pretty uncomfortable Braxton Hicks contraction!).  

I decided a change of position might help ease it off.  It didn't.  I got an excruciating pain on the left hand side of my bump, low down near my hip which caught me so off guard that I shouted out loud (at 6.10am).  Big C found himself conscious very swiftly and tried to help me but lying still or trying to move was just agony.  Eventually he managed to get me rolled over and the pain subsided.  Who knows what it was, but he remembers that I suffered similarly the afternoon before I went into labour last time, and hopes it might be a sign of imminent arrival.  Sadly my shouts had woken Little C, but he was full of beans and ready to start the day at full pelt so I was able to put any remaining discomfort to one side and focus on my whirlwind of a son.

My original plan for the morning had been a trip to our local RSPB reserve to see what a "hide" is, look through binoculars, see what wildlife we could see, and have a hot chocolate and cake in the cafe, but having started the morning with such an unexpected pain and with rain forecast for the day I thought we'd give it a miss.  By about 9am though Little C had brought me his welly boots with an accompanying "walk, walk".  

We needed to get some milk, so I thought we'd drive to the next village, get the milk and stop for a short walk at an amazing gorge on the way back.  All went well, the gorge is still amazing and he loved stomping around in the mud, though I was a little cautious as there were steep drops to the raging torrent below.  Then we got back to the car - and it didn't start.  

It's been having a few problems starting over the last month or so, something to do with the battery I think, and I had been meaning to get it booked in for a check-up, particularly since I want to sell it soon.  Because I had come out only for some milk and a short walk I had only brought my phone and a couple of pounds - no filofax (with AA card and lots of phone numbers), no pushchair, nothing very useful at all for a 37 week pregnant lady broken down with a toddler.  My phone has only a few numbers in - I phoned Big C at work to get the AA number - no answer, he was busy sticking big needles into patients as it turns out, and probably best not disturbed.  I phoned my friend H, she came to the rescue with her girls and a spare car seat too.  I couldn't find the jump leads in my garage, so we decided to leave the car where it was until Big C got home, and we went back to H's for tea and cake (and then lunch).  When I got home Big C had left a worried message on my phone and the home number... he was a little concerned that he might have been out of contact when I went into labour.  I reassured him that I was well, and that it was just the car that was poorly.

Thankfully the remainder of the day went better.  A good long nap for both Little C and me, and then a long snuggle watching Winnie the Pooh, then Big C came home early, found the jump leads, got the car started, brought it home and all is well again.

I still feel a little frazzled, but since I've just ordered the fabric for all the projects in Little C's new bedroom, and am just about to tick off another job that's been on my "to do" list for ages, I'm hoping that by the time my head touches the pillow tonight I'll be in a calmer state of mind.  Also, since this morning's performance, apart from a good few reassuring wriggles from baby, everything has been calm in my uterus all day, so hopefully a good night's sleep on the way.


Random photos from my albums this time - just ones that I liked, because I've hardly taken any the last few days.

Improving the blog

I was looking at this new blog and wondering how to improve it.  I have come up with the following, which should improve the quality of the blog, and then once I've developed that a bit better, I can look at how to increase the traffic visiting the blog.

What do I want out of this blog?

be a kind of writing exercise book - we all know that any skill improves with constant practice.  I've thought about doing writing exercises, but with a toddler and a house and a garden and a pregnancy and so many other things to think about, without some sort of deadline it's easy to let that slip by.  Having a commitment to write regularly on a blog should help keep me writing regularly.

• showcase my writing so that any potential publishers or clients who see the link to it on the bottom of my e-mail, or who happen upon it, get a realistic idea of the standard of my writing.
• share inspirations and creative ideas with other like-minded individuals.  Once the blog starts to get more traffic, and I work out how to get "searched" then I'll also hopefully appear on search engines when people are searching for information or ideas.

How to improve the blog:

• Keep it brief.  Work to a word limit - I'm thinking 350 words to keep things succinct and stop myself waffling.
• Stick to a time limit.  I don't want to spend all my time preparing and writing posts either, so I'll stick to a time limit of 30 minutes per day to read, prepare, find images, write and edit posts.
• Include four images with each post.
• Read through at least once before "preview" and again at least once before "publish".
• Try not to write too much about us, though family and friends might be interested I guess - but I should try to be more informative instead.

Any more ideas on how I can improve things please do add a comment!