Day 180 - Its all down to me

You girls really are great! Thank you so much for your encouraging words yesterday, i am still not entirely sure "why" i carry on, but i do like the idea of maybe doing "something" with the photos... i guess my Project 365 app has made me lazy because i get a neatly arranged calendar page and a nice pdf document delivered to my many inboxes and virtual bookshelves..

anyway, today was a relative easy word for me... bearing in mind that our freak weather delivered a perfect photo opportunity! i got drenched in the seconds it took me take the photo... and vlad wanted to make a reappearance, however, that went awfully wrong. He had just gotten himself nicely positioned, when he was literally swept away by the current the rain created! I had a right dash down the road to rescue the poor little guy and he looked rather sorry for himself. Luckily he floats very well and apart from hurt pride should make a full recovery.

And with this im off as my home country are playing Italy tonight! It would be nice to see Germany go through as weve played excellent football.

day 174 - 179 another week gone by

I must admit that im starting to struggle with the challenge.. i still read the prompt and i still take my photo, but these last few days i have been wondering "WHY" and "what is the point?"

Maybe it is the fact that i cant be bothered to put in the time to blog about the photos, then dont get your encouraging input, so the whole process loses meaning..

Vlad has threatened to make a reappearance and he is in a huf with me because i never let him tell his story properly... i know the mascot challenge wasnt a big hit with some 365ers, but at the time i found it almost a relief to let "someone else" take over for a little bit...

Anyway, here are the photos i have taken although without too much enthusiasm, i dont even feel like writing much about them

Weathered



Still Life



Nature



Sizzling



Pleasure

Day 173 - the same with a difference

Day 172 - same difference

Hello everyone... it's Vlad with just a quick update! I followed all your good advice and, with the help from the other humans in the house, i "think" we have managed to get my human through the worst of this... there will be some tough times ahead, but i will probably not be around to let you all know, so i will tell what is going on while i am still the star of the blog! Today was actually an okish day, luckily my human still seems to be able to handle her spirits as she had no headache, but was rather tired, i soon remedied that by giving her a nice big mug of coffee. The getting her outside was a nogo but i recruited the favourite human and the DeeEss two (what strange names these people have)and they both came back with some of the shopping goodies mentioned by Kim!



While the favourite human and DeeEss 2 went out though, i helped my human to make a start on some cards! That got quite scary at one point as she was not concentrating and almost rollered me flat in a device referred to as a Big Shot.. i dont know why, cos it didnt shoot! And she certainly wasnt supervising me closely when i was helping out with a very sharp, pointy little knife thingy.



When my other humans returned home, they had a couple of goodies for her... one caused some upheaval, but i enjoyed the bite of a subway sandwich (ive never had one before) but the other two presents were a hit! I am told that on one day, my human showed off her rather "grungy" trainers.. and the favourite human went and splashed out on some very very funky British Knight ones! i tried them on for size, but i could use them as a mansion! The other funky present were yet more headphones (i am sure that my human has some kind of obsession with those things, but in her defence the pet called dog has a habit of chewing them if they are in reach).. these ones are bright purple and to go with the iphone 4s. The favourite human really is rather good at picking presents, i wish i could stay long enough to see what he would buy for me!



I promise i will be back tomorrow and tell you all about the nightmare weekend i had, all in order to try and cheer the human up.. and yes, i will also tell you all about that shark encounter! I even have photographic evidence of the cruel treatment i received! in the meantime... play that annoying "nahnahhhh nahnahhh" soundtrack from jaws in your head!

Day 171 - Same but def different

Girls.. vlad here.. i think i need your help! I am currently drowning myself in a bottle to stop my human from drowning herself in it!! now, this girl cannot handle her drink.. shes had 3 so far and at least she has stopped burrying me in tissues, but i think i may prefer that! although, this coconutty stuff IS quite nice *hicks* oooppss was that me?? I just KNOW that this will end in more tears, especially in the morning when my human will be all cranky and have a massive headache... should i just let her get on with for tonight? or down the bottle myself? or maybe i should recruit some help from my lazy brother Dimir (who is hiding around this place somewhere) I wish i could bring you all up to date with what a truly horrendous time i have had with this lot! i have read up on some of the unfortunate events my fellow masots have experienced.. all i have to say is... i have met the inside of an oven! the inside of a tumble dryer! and i have been subjected to a SHARK... yup you read that right.. a SHARK! anyway

Days 168 - 170 Same but different

Ok, so i made a bargain with my human... she has been far too sad these last few days and i think its high time she did something a bit more worth while than just sitting there feeling bad! I know why she is so sad, but i am not allowed to say, so you are all just going to have to trust me that she could do with some nice friends around her who will make her feel a little bit better about herself.

But.. first things first.. some of you asked what my name is, i am vlad! i am a voodoo doll, but not of the scary sort! i bring good magic to my human and she has my brothers and sisters too (though our magic somehow seems to be broken at the minute). Broken magic or not... i managed to have some adventures and i will try and tell you all about them

My first adventure was rather embarrassing for me, as it wasnt really an adventure! I found this BIG mountain of fluffy, fuzzy stuff lying around on the table and thought that was going to be my new bed! As i snuggled down to get a feel for it, i noticed that it was all rather damp. At this point i thought that my new bed had just come out of the wash.... until my human proceeded to dump yet another one of these wet, soggy fluffy things right onto my head (well, i had the sense to just scoot over a little and it missed me)... it wasnt until later that my human's favourite other human asked if she would make a mountain range out of those TISSUES and ever stop crying again. We were all in mortal fear that she would flood us with all those tears and snuffles

Here is me in my mountain of tissues



Well, i was going to get you all up to date with what has happened to me so far, but i dont think my human is in the right frame of mind... i sneaked on here, but im sure shell be back in a minute or two, flooding us some more.. seriously, all this crying is NOT good for her complexion... someone should tell her!

In case i wont get another chance i thought i have something fun for you all to think about: I sneaked into someone else's house!! yup just like a squatter.. i went through the front door and stayed there! can you all guess whose house i am in? oh.. the new tennants have now arrived, but they were rather nice about me being there and i think we might become friends!



I see you are all too busy giving my human hugs to guess where i was... but it was kind of tricky anyway! I was in the toads new house! At first the green guy kind of scared me, but when i saw his bright orange belly, i had to laugh and he didnt seem bothered by me at all! His missus (Esmeralda) didnt so much as say hello to me, how rude!
>br?

Day 167 - Same but different

Today's prompt sure sounds intriguing and i wonder what our newly chosen companion will be getting up to over the next week... it was quite hard to choose my new friend... there were quite a few candidates for the job:

youve already met some of them, blue nose squirrel, penguin, frog... but they all seemed a bit too big to carry around everywhere.. so keeping in mind that i dont know what adventures lie in store for my new sidekick, i decided on a companion who will easily fit into my pocket, happily cling to my bag and is generally small enough to come along for some mischief

Day 166 - face

Ok, so i was really tempted to just leave today's post and do it in the morning.. but ive been doing so well, it would be a shame to spoil my good efforts now.. so a quick effort to get the photo up here.

I give in Susie.. you win... i have wriggled out of selfportraits, all those "in your face" prompts these last few days.. and today is the day i cave.. i give you all....

MY FACE

So, following on from first borqna's and then anne's blog, i just had to find out which fairy i am... its quite funny because i think my fairy actually suits me:

Cherry Icewand She protects the vulnerable and brings justice to the wronged. She lives in fruit orchards and vineyards. She can only be seen when the seeker holds a four-leafed clover. She wears red, cerise and purple berry colours and has icy blue butterfly wings.

I often wear reds/cerise/puprles (in fact, my hair is berry purple) and icy blues are my favourite colour tones... how did they know that???

Day 165 - Earth tones

An interesting word today! It sure had me puzzling for most of the afternoon as i dont really do earth tones, neutrals yes, bright and bold, yes.. but earth?? not so much. I was inclined to take the prompt literally (again, but my defense is living with 2 autistics, literally is our normal) and take a photo of some earth and on my way i encountered this little guy

Day 164 - Antique

Suzie.. im running out of old, tattered things now :D

I was originally quite stumped by today's word and was going to take a photo of the bracelet my mother in law bought me for my wedding day, that will one day be an antique. It was on my way to retrieve it that i noticed the old iron victorian fire places we have in two of our bedrooms. They are not in use (but could be if we wanted to) anymore and sadly the previous owner painted over them, but at least they did not remove them and board up the walls as so many other people would have done. We will probably to the same in the boy's bedrooms at some stage, but rather than removing them we will put false walls in front of them.

Day 163 - aged

Ok, i can see a patter emerging here for this month :D and i am STILL refusing to put a photo of me up here.. so instead im going to go with the first "thing" that pops into my mind when i think of "aged"...

Holly... the dh's cat! i have a very tetchy relationship with this cat to say the least... she is very very old (the vet thinks shes nearly 20 if not 20+) and she has the usual "old lady's" problems, like missing the litter tray, not even bothering to FIND the litter tray, being picky about food, constantly making the most annoying noise whenever someone goes near her.. none of these make her any more appealing to me. add to that that she looks rather ragged, and i try my best to just coexist with her and have as little as possible to do with her. I know she has been dh's companion for well over 10yrs now, so we kind of tolerate each other providing we dont get too involved with each other...

Day 162 - Neglected

I have impressed myself these last few days... i got my photo AND blogpost done all before midnight! that will no doubt change again as from tomorrow when the kids are back at school.

I am currently neglecting my housework! My dh often complains about "being neglected"... and obviously at various times throughout the day this can also be heard from one of the three dkids.

I suppose the most neglected area of our house at the moment is the garden.. the weather just isnt nice enough to go out there and bother with it too much. I made a halfhearted attempt when we had our summer (remember those few really nice days??) and took a lot of the accumulated rubbish to the tip.. but we have had some strong winds over night lately and the poor fence has just given up now. New fence panels are in order i think...

Day 161 - frayed

Ohh this is not funny anymore :D ... when i was asked what today's word is and answered with "frayed", the (not so) dh suggested "i can take a photo of you"... i pointed out that yesterday's "vintage" was already another self portrait, so i gave up on help from my lot and went off to find something frayed.
As Anne has already shown off what happens to much loved cuddly toys that are owned by dogs, i passed up on showing you all cooper's victims. He only seems to love them once theyre unstuffed.. but then they go everywhere he goes.. the only stuffy that has survived cooper's enthusiasm is Mr Ted (im sure ive mentioned him before).. we took Mr Ted with us when we picked cooper up from his foster home.


Anyway, my real frayed comes in the form of my new chinese bracelet ... it supposedly says "LOVE" but i have a sneaking suspicion that it doesnt :D it is rather pretty though, so i thought id snap a photo of the frayed knot before tying it round my wrist.

Day 160 - Vintage

My initial thought to today's word was "not another self portrait!!!" and once i had gotten over my shock, i realised that we dont really have many other vintage things in the house. Just about the only truly vintage item i have is my engagement ring, it is 100+ years old and has been in dh's family ever since. As his older brother never got married, the ring came to me on our engagement. I do not wear it often as it is far too big for me and the jeweler did not want to size it as the risk of it breaking is too high. Besides, it has real diamonds in it, so i am always very nervous whenever i do wear it behind my wedding band.

Day 159 - Roadside

First of all i would like to say a big "Thank You" to all of you who come over to my blog every day and leave such nice comments for me. I dont leave very many comments, but i do shoot over to all your blogs and i look at all the photos! Its an area i need to work on, i need to remind myself how nice it feels to find so many positive comments on my own blog and then return the favour. A lot of the time its simply that im tired and just the thought of typing out a few quick words seems like a terribly hard task.. as my psychologist said, im so exhausted and tired that "can you make me a cup of tea" can tip me over the edge. I will try harder i promise.


Today was a really fun day for me... i have not seen dd smile SO much in what feels like forever! For her 13th birthday on the 2nd of june, i bought her a pamper day at a local salon (she was booked in for her first ever facial, a manicure and a cut/blow dry) and at first she looked a bit sceptical and i dont think she actually valued the present. Until today, when she got to experience the pamper sessions.. she smiled and beamed and her eyes had that special twinkle all afternoon. It was so nice to feel like the mum/daughter team we used to be!



Roadside

Today's word was fairly easy for me.. though i had to wait until after finishing dd's pamper sessions and until i was on my way to wales to pick up the dh from my inlaw's house.. i am quite used to these roundtrips nowadays and just had a quick stop off to snap a photo for today's challenge. It was quite funny as some driver must have thought i was traffic control as he slammed on his breaks and slowed right down, just to look all puzzled and confused when he saw that i obviously wasnt a police errr person?? Anyway, here are my photos from the welsh roadside.

Day 158 - Reaching Up

Today's challenge for me was to get the photo and blog post out! Typically, today was also the day where nobody was going to make capturing a simple photo easy! Dd is staying with a friend and all the other household members did their level best not to reach up to anything, despite my stalking them for the better part of today.. so, if needs must then i have to take action myself! luckily cooper was quite happy to be the star of today's photo, so i simply "reached up" and snapped!

More catching up to do Days 153 - 157

Day 157 - Sparkle

This word was another of those multiple choice, change my mind about 100 times kind of words, i finally settled for one sparkly object i thought i knew i had somewhere, but had a sneaking suspicion that i might have dreamt it all! turns out, i was right and dh did buy me one of these after all :) i have no idea how or when or even why he bought me this as i am not a crystal kind of girl, but this one is rather pretty and i must put it out somewhere where it can sparkle and glitter in the sun more.



Day 156 - Colourful

I was surprised by how many colourful things i found around me today, but these sweeties dh bought for me at the jubilee celebration in West Park were the most colourful things i came across all day! (and they tasted yummy too)



Day 155 - Gates

Our new gate to keep the Cooperoo inside the right garden! he managed to just hop over the smaller gate we had there, so something a bit more cooper proof was needed.



Day 154 - In the distance

I actually took quite a few photos for this word, and didnt like any of them. In the end i cheated and used one i took yesterday instead...



Day 153 - Isolated

This one is turning out to be quite difficult... i have no idea what to take a photo of... i suppose this tiny little strawberry on my plants could be classed as isolated? i sure hope its not going to be my only strawberry :D

Days 150 - 152 and a summary

Despite all my good intentions. here i am catching up on blog posts again! Taking the photo doesnt seem to pose a problem at all, then it comes to putting it here and i lose all enthusiasm.. still, i am determined to see this through this year!
May - an overview

I stil love my project 365 app for my iphone, though in past years it has never made it this far!

Day 152 - bargain

I dont really like shopping, so i dont usually come across any bargains as such! Dh is the one who will patiently hunt around different shops to find a bargain, i subscribed to the "get in, grab what you need and get out" philosophy, so another area in our house where dh and i seem to work in role reversal. However, i did enjoy picking out some flowers for our hanging basket the other day and commented how we should have gotten two. So, imagine my face when i went outside to pick up the kids from school and found a second basket of flowers had miraculously appeared outside our front door. It was quite a mystery to begin with as we hadnt bought it! It wasnt until later that i considered the possibility that it was one of our neighbours, and sure enough, he had seen me tend to the front flowers a few days before and thought i would enjoy these flowers.

Day 151 - groceries

One chore i absolutely detest and try to get out of wherever and whenever possible is grocery shopping. I can usually be spotted in the car park awaiting dh's return with a jam packed trolley, doing a crossword, playing on my iphone or reading an ebook. I have NOT got the patience for shopping, you take the stuff off the shelves to put it into your trolley, then you take it OUT of the trolley to put it through the tills, you put it back IN the trolley, to get it back OUT of the trolley to put it in the car, to take it out yet again to put it away at home! i HATE it, whenever im in charge of shopping its done online, with a delivery slot! And what is it with the stuff never fitting back into the trolleys at the check out? i mean, it was all IN there to begin with, why cant it fit back in there once youve paid for it? to make you feel even worse about how much you spend on stuff you didnt really go to the shop for? Dh on the other hand delights in spending his days in the shops.. he will go up and down EVERY single isle, get all giddy when he spots a "bargain" (even if that 3 for 2 turns out more expensive or we will never get through 2 let alone 3 before the expiry date) and he has the patience of a saint when it comes to queuing, me, i had straight for the selfserve area and scan my little basket of items and get OUT of there. anyway, for this photo i cheated a little as its been a while since ive been out to the shops, but i took a photo on 20/02/2012 of dh in action at the shop!

Day 150 - Messy

Hahaha an easy word for anybody with THREE teenagers in the house! it drive me absolutely insane, winds me up like nothing else, takes every shred of self discipline i have to just close.those.doors and ignore the messes... so, now is payback time.. welcome to my kids' rooms: