Sketchbook challenge

So I've decided to join the sketchbook challenge, this month's theme is 'cabinet of curiosities' and next post will be a pic of what I comes up with....

Check out http://sketchbookchallenge.blogspot.co.uk/p/how-challenge-works.html

Chuffed

I was mentioned in @upyoursginaford's blog, seriously chuffed! She basically kicked off a twitter convo about 'push presents' - ie pressies a lady what pushes a baby out her hoo-ha gets, and she's written it up in her blog. Lots of the replies, actually pretty much all of them, were funny, and mine was one of the few she quoted. My work here is done, I shall retire to the Azores. Wherever the fuck they are. Visit the Up Yours Gina Ford blog, click here

Continuity errors

In which I find myself having numerous deadly earnest conversations about continuity errors in kids' tv progs:

Where does Iggle Piggle moor his boat?
Why does grandpa have a shrinking cap and who gave it to him?
Why is Andy the only parkie at Pickles Animal Park?
What the hell is a Tree Fu Tom?

Also this week I am mostly obsessed with Draw Something app. See above, that's about as good as it gets...

Very Pinteresting Mr Bond

This week I am mainly OBSESSED with virtual pin board site Pinterest.com. But a blogger blogs so here I is.

Seriously though, Pinterest. I 'pinned' an infographic on commonly misused words and in less than a day I had 170 'repins' (like a retweet) and 50 'likes' (like, er, a Facebook Like).

How can we harness the power of pedantry as a force for good? HOW?

Still. Pretty good going activity wise. I've been on Twitter for 3 years and I liken my presence there to lying dead on my desk at work with flys buzzing round my head - ie no-one's noticed.

Though I do seem to have picked up a Croatian stalker/boyfriend called Slobodan. Which is nice.

I read a book and I liked it

My new year resolution to blog once a week has done right up the Swanee but here I am, only 6 weeks late. Ahem. Actually my resolution was to do something I'd never done before once a week. And I've not kept to that either.

Things I like

• Borgen. God I bloody love this Danish, subtitled TV drama about a woman PM and coalition politics. Really, it's much better than it sounds. Series 2 isn't on BBC4 until the end of the year, I may have to buy a box set....
• Aerobics. Am still going once a week. It's a miracle.
• Making a Valentine's card today, aaaaah soppy.
• Twitter. I right bloody loves it I do.
• I read a Stephen King novel and I liked it. It's the vice that dare not speak its name.
• Cooking stuff. I made a very nice chicken tikka ta very much.

Mistletoe and winf*

Most excellent Birds on the Blog top women bloggers:

Birds on the Blog top 101 bloggers

My Christmas

• I picked out my own presents.
• I bought too much for my daughter but I don't care.
• I don't like any of the Quality Street that are left, fudges bleurgh. Displeasing.
• I went to bed at 10pm on New Year's Eve and slept through the bongs.
• I cooked a turkey for Christmas dinner for the first time ever in my life.
• I made a pie for the first time ever in my life (turkey and ham).
• I have had raging heartburn for days.
• I cried when Pat carked it on Stenders.

*there used to be an off-licence in town called the Winf Vat. A bit had fallen off the e.

The mindful way through Chinese food...

This week I ar mainly been eating a lot of very nice Chinese and Thai food at the lush Real Chinese Garden restaurant in Cheltenham, with my friends from the crazies club...not my words! We met at a local NHS-funded mindfulness course, all there for different reasons, and all there for the same reason. Hard to explain mindfulness, it's a sort of humanist-style meditation practice, and it's life changing. Hard, but worth it. This kind of sums it up but not:

If I had my life to live over, I'd dare to make more mistakes next time. I'd relax, I would limber up. I would be sillier than I have been this trip. I would take fewer things seriously. I would take more chances. I would climb more mountains and swim more rivers. I would eat more ice cream and less beans. I would perhaps have more actual troubles, but I'd have fewer imaginary ones.

You see, I'm one of those people who lived sensibly and sanely, hour after hour, day after day. Oh, I've had my moments, and if I had to do it over again, I'd have more of them. In fact, I'd try to have nothing else. Just moments, one after another, instead of living so many years ahead of each day. I've been one of those persons who never goes anywhere without a thermometer, a hot water bottle, a raincoat and a parachute. If I had to do it again, I would travel lighter than I have.

If I had my life to live over, I would start barefoot earlier in the spring and stay that way later in the fall. I would go to more dances. I would ride more merry-go-rounds. I would pick more daisies.

attrib Nadine Stair