Book Musings 1

My challenge this year (yes, another challenge) is to read more again. I will let you all know how I'm getting on with that!


The book for January:

I've struggled with this book, I originally started reading it back in June last year and just could not get into the plot or characters at all. This is just the stuff I usually love, witches, vampires, daemons, magic, all living in the "human world" but it was all rather slow to pick up momentum. As I got towards the end of the book, I met more characters and I actually quite like some of the less prominent ones. 

I finally managed to finish this book and, to my utter surprise, I am looking forward to starting the second book in the series. It is rather unfortunate that all the action seems to happen in the last 120 or so pages, but the plot definitely picks up there and keeps the reader's interest. The characters unfold properly, some new characters show up, but do not really disturb or add confusion to the plot. I loved "the house" and the role it plays for the Bishop family. 

If you can make it through the first two thirds of this book, you are in for a pleasant surprise. The build up was way too lengthy and I wish more time would have been spent with the happenings in the Bishop family home, maybe some more introductions to the aunties and other inhabitants of the house. 

I am now glad I persevered and finished the book.

Day 40 - Relax

The longer this year is going on, the more befuddled I am by my own word prompts... relaxing is not something I was ever any good at in the first place, I vaguely remember putting that on a "resolution list" last year for 2014. There is something very unnerving about relaxing for me, I don't do well letting my guard down. This weekend has proven a prime example of how dangerous it is for me to not be "on guard" at all times. The four legged occupants of this household manage to relax quite well :) 
I really did not get around to taking a photo of anything to do with relaxing, so I scribbled my view on relaxation down:

And to top an already horrible weekend off in style, some little thugs decided it would be fun to smash the windows in our car. I haven't even managed to clean it or do anything other than put some liner over the hole. Honestly, I don't even have the energy to be upset about it anymore. Insurance won't cover it as the excess is more than the repairs would cost and, as it isn't the main or rear windscreen, the glass isn't covered. It is not worth losing the no claims bonus for £19.60 ... 

Lucky7s Print or Digital was an easy one.. since leaving my old home and all my beloved books behind, I have not been able to read real books, my kindle and ipad are a lifesaver as i can read those without major flashbacks and panic attacks. They have given me a hidden world back that I had thought was lost forever. As for newspapers, I was never a great fan of those unwieldy, huge paper sizes but couldn't bring myself to read the "red tops", so I have always read the digital versions of newspapers and mostly of magazines too. The only time you will find me pick up a magazine is if there is a freebie on the front that i want.

Day 39 - Begins with F

Just when I thought my world couldn't fall any more apart than it already has, it does. I have learned that I am way too trusting and way too accommodating. I never see it coming.. in a way I wonder if I failed to grow up somewhere along the line. The latest family antics are not something to be putting online anywhere, though believe me, naming and shaming was on my mind for quite some time. But, some things are best kept private so I will try and take my mind off things happening here and concentrate on something else, anything else, for some minutes. I have used the "failure" sign for a prompt of some sort or other last year, so I had to come up with something new.. and, in a desperate attempt to push things to the back of my mind, I glanced at one of my few remaining "real" books. My eyes landed on "Otherland" by Tad Williams, it is one of my all time favourite books and authors (after Lord of the rings and J.R.R. Tolkien) and this book actually has been signed by Tad Williams, so is very special to me. Here is the Foreword to the book:

Lucky7s prompt asked about my blog's story... there really isn't one. It was one of those "techie things" I wanted to try out back in 2007, then I realised that I really don't have anything interesting to say or blog about. For a while, I put some of my scrapbooking and crafty things on there, then lost interest and took them all down. It wasn't until 2012, the year of 365+1, that my blog saw some regular "action". Thanks to Anne I started to put my daily photos on here. Snippets of my chaotic life made it onto here, snippets of happy times... the good, the bad and the downright ugly all ended up here somehow. It isn't a full journal, although at one point I thought it would be a nice idea, I have changed the title at least 5 times, I have added and removed pages. This blog is pretty much as unstable as I am :) 

Day 38 - Game

I really don't know what on earth possessed me when I came up with 365 random words.. GAME?? Really? That is a christmas eve word, not a 7th of February word! I have figured that I probably tried to incorporate those terribly boring Winter Olympics in our month.. because I know that just because I hate anything sport, doesn't mean everyone else does (though it is a concept I'm still struggling with). To my utter surprise, everyone came up with non olympic related games anyway and it took me all day to find something a bit more interesting than the original screen shot of my "Draw Something" battle with Kim :) (we are setting a new record there!!!). I enlisted the help of the husband, don't ask it's all so complicated with him it hurts my head, and came up with a sort of usable impromptu game.

Lucky7s prompts are getting tricky this week as well. Power of advertising.. well, we all know about that, especially where the offspring is concerned. On the whole, I find adverts annoying, especially on TV.. at least I can mainly ignore billboards.. junk mail, don't even get me started on that! I am usually not tempted by overly advertised products and brands, but I realised yesterday when nipping to the shop, that I am notorious for forgetting my "green shopping bags" and I am a real sucker for the many pretty reusable bags you can buy at the shops now. This shop didn't have all the funky printed ones, but I didn't have the time or inclination to drive over to my preferred shop to take a photo of their pretty bags on display, so snapped a photo of the bags on sale where I was.

Silver Lining: The Youth club is amazing... they cleaned up the kitchen for me when I went into mini meltdown mode because of a certain person. When I walked into the disaster zone, it was spotless! They even gleamed up the cooker and put all the dishes away. Everyone gave me a big hug and put me back on an even keel. DD made me a bigger, better tiara to wear  ~~ • •~~ • •~~  And the sun made an appearance too, so I had a chance to tank up on some happy rays. 

Day 37 - Weather

What can I say? I mean really? We live in the West Midlands of the United Kingdom.. that pretty much means perpetual RAIN, rain in varying degrees, from downpours, drizzles, spitting to this horrible dampness that seems to fall from the sky... it isn't exactly rain, but it isn't sea mist or mist either, it does fall on you, it creeps into your jackets, hats, gloves, scarves.. it makes you feel damp, miserable and cold from the inside out. If there is ONE thing I absolutely loathe about this chosen home country of mine, it's the WEATHER!! Even my Mum in Germany gets better weather than we do! With that said, here is my weather picture:

Did I mention that it was cold too?

Lucky7s word was most definitely a challenge... TV programs.. this is a much argued about area of life between the husband and myself. He wants to sit in front of the TV to watch films/programs/series with me, but really, I do not have the attention span to follow anything and very little things on the box capture my interest. All those horrible advert breaks as well and it makes me want to run to my little crafty corner within minutes. Saying that, I do sometimes grab the odd episode of some series.. I know, most of them have some eye candy in them but hey, a girl can at least dream if she is suffering through an otherwise unbearable activity. This is the best I could come with for a photo... it was initially just the TV turned off, but I then had a play with it, so it is heavily edited.

And in other news, I got my first motoring fine in the post today. Worst thing is, it happened last week, when my head was all over the place and I couldn't even remember why I was going where I was at the time... they were obviously right, as I was in the buslane but still, it took me all afternoon to figure out why I was there in the first place! My mind does this to me... when things happen, it just blocks it ALL out and I lose entire days or weeks. I paid up and got a 50% reduction, lesson learned but it did throw me for a curve again for the better part of the afternoon. It is that destructive self talk ... I guess it is easier to bash myself and tell myself how stupid I am, how stupid it was to take the shortcut and think I'd get away with it, how it serves me right for being so stupid.. you get the picture.. yes, I'm feeling pretty stupid. And just to prove to you all how stupid I am:

And my silver lining for today... it is a rather HUGE, shiny, more like golden one! DD only managed to get an A* in her English exams!! Now she needs to do the same in Maths and she will be set for Uni. Well done baby girl, I am one proud mummy today.

Day 36 - I heard

I actually heard lots of things today, but was always too slow to grab photos of them so I ended up with a screen shot of my currently playing album. Then I bought a new toy for Coops and he just could not figure out where the squeakers are, it was driving him nuts that I would pick it up, squeak and throw it.. he was chewing it, throwing it, shaking it.. but he could.not.find.the.squeak :D 
                                               

                                                 


For the Lucky7s challenge I cheated and went into the archives, I took the photo of dd with the "silent man" (perfect husband material if you ask me) back in October last year when we met up with Kim in Birmingham! 

The ceiling is now almost done and I had it straight from the mouth of a builder that I have done a good job and that I am good to go with the skim and then finish. I was so proud of myself to have fixed something quite major!

 My silver lining most definitely has to be the fact that i was told "good job" by someone who knows what they are talking about! And I went into a council office to ask a question, all by myself! I did burst into tears but I did it, I managed to push my boundary quite a lot further than i thought possible. I was exhausted and all sorts of disjointed afterwards, but it is the small steps that will make the long journey.

Day 35 - Striped

I seem to be doing better today! I managed to get my stripy photos pretty early on, well, as snoozing Becks is a pretty easy striped target and one of Ozzy's dinners was clinging to me for dear life (literally) so I got a creepy cute striped dinner photo as well.

I even managed to take a photo of my messy "craft heaven" for the Lucky7s challenge, even though not much crafting is going on at the moment. 

Craft Heaven

I made another bunny, this one is going to go all the way to Portugal! 

And for my silver lining today I will have to go with being thankful to my dad for teaching me how to do DIY. The ceiling in the boys' bedroom is no longer a gaping hole, just one more layer of plaster, a skim and finish and then I can get on to painting the ceiling. 

Before

                                 

After

Day 34 - Square

I totally forgot that all the way back in January i joined this project called "Do What You Love For Life"... it was mainly because it turned out to be something entirely different to what I thought it was, read that as, I didn't even read the title properly. Anyway, I am a bit out of place with that group, but some of the prompts and things that come up can be adapted to me, so I am giving the bits that I find useful a go. 

February's project is a "Happy List", which I actually printed out and started filling in, as it goes along with my "silver lining" thing anyway. I really could not think of anything at all yesterday, so I ended up being thankful for nothing major going wrong :). My word for the month is "Inner Peace" and my three major steps to achieving this are: 

1. Letting go of things I cannot control
2. Starting to document/journal more often
3. Remembering something positive    

As for our dailysnappers prompt of "Square"... initially the only thing i could find in a hurry was a bit of chocolate, but later on I remembered that I had put my favourite Zentangle squares onto a square canvass (which was supposed to go on a wall somewhere but still lives on the stairs after 4 months). The good thing about the canvass is that I can sort of squeeze it in with the Lucky7s prompt too... although I am not saying that the Zentangles are anything special or even a firm favourite but it'll have to do.

Day 33 - Two

Not surprisingly, I'm late blogging.. I guess, at least I half heartedly looked for "Two" photos and luckily I thought Saturday was Sunday, so had my Lucky7s photo a day early. Life has taken another rollercoaster flip yesterday and I am not sure how I feel about it all anymore. I am just one hot mess at the moment, I don't know what I want or don't want, what I need or don't need.. I laugh because it's supposed to be better for me than crying. I am angry, confused and out of sorts, nothing new THERE then :) 

After such a good day on Saturday, yesterday has taken the wind out of my sails again and now I need to find a new gust from somewhere. Anyway, enough boring you all to tears (or laughter, it's better for you!!!) here are the photos

Two o'clock... well almost anyway

Two apples left in the bowl

Two cars at war... I put the red one up for sale online, no it isn't mine :D

Feet first straight into a puddle, just as well my Docs are keeping my feet dry

                                   

Day 32 - Throw Away

I think i may just about make it to blog on the 1st ... it is 23.58!!! Again, not an ideal time to be blogging but things are completely up in the air tonight... I am so torn at the moment. Just when my day was seemingly going really well, the next twist in this saga occurs, never a dull moment. I could write a book, but people would mistake "my life story" for good fiction. You really couldn't make it up if you tried!

I had quite a few silver linings today though, the boys (yes ALL of them even my honorary kids) helped me clear out the shed and then the middle child and I carted it all off to the tip and had a lovely KFC for lunch. We had plenty of giggles and just a lovely chill time until the husband drama act 5 enfolded. It was totally coincidental that we cleared the shed on the day that has "Throw Away" as a prompt. We packed as many black bin bags into the back of the car as we could.. and yes, I felt like that mad professor from the very old Zafira ads :) 

As for Lucky7s photos, I actually took this yesterday, so in a way it's a cheat.. but it really is a "frequent view" for those of us living in the west midlands, going up and down the M6