Weekly photo challenge: peaceful

This weeks Weekly Photo Challenge over at The Daily Post is about something peaceful.  Although I can think of many things, at the moment this represents peacefulness; an empty Costa Coffee.  We have been absolutely smashed at work and the sight of no line at the shop makes me happy.

Christmas Cards

You can tell people are skint when you only get 5 Christmas cards in the post.  I admit I am a bit of a Christmas card hypocrite.  I love getting them, and display them proudly, but in the past years, I haven't been on the ball to get any out.  I will give the international postage rate excuse, but I get Christmas cards from abroad every once and a while.  We tried to get a Christmas family photo, but at 2, the Sprout is tired of posing for pictures.  I hope to get my act together next year.

Standard category daily winner

Oh yeah! That's me.

Won Standard Category for Seascape pictures with a 7.2 average rating on dailyawards.com.  I will have to put more up because I have some good seascapes.

Catching up with us

Ms. Molly calls this Trivial Tuesday, and I know she wouldn't mind if I stole that title, but I think it would make it sound like I would do this every Tuesday.  But I usually work on Tuesdays, so I wouldn't be able to promise anything.

I am loving my Barefoot shoes.  My only critique is that the ankle support part digs into my ankle because they didn't put any padding in it.  I added my own and they are a dream to wear.  I can wear them at work and my back, hips and legs are pain free.  As soon as I can find a cheaper pair, I am going to get a pair of Barefoot trainers.

The Sprout and I went on our first trip to Saltaire since last Summer.  He was very good, until I took him out of the stroller to walk around.  Let me tell you, once those little guys learn to walk and run, that is all they want to do and they don't care that there is a road right next to them.  The Sprout is an expert tantrum thrower ( I wonder where he gets that?)  and ended up on lying on the side-walk because I wouldn't let him go.  The people waiting outside the bakery were amused.  This is how I know that I have graduated to "mom with a toddler" status.  When the Sprout was new, I hated the thought of people thinking I was a bad mom because I let the baby cry, now...let me tell you, I don't care and I actually laugh.  The only thing I care about is making sure his head doesn't smack the ground as he falls dramatically to the floor.  I did finally buy him a kind of halter which is disguised as a backpack.  It is coming in the mail and I can't wait to get it.

I got the bee one because it was the cheapest and still cute.

On our trip, the Sprout was amused by all the birds on the canal and some back hoes dredging the bottom of the canal (he found that particularly hilarious).

Richard and I had food poisoning last week from eating bad brie.  It was horrible to say the least.

I am so happy that it is light at 6 am, but sad that at the end of the month the clocks will move forward.

I have so many books on my Kindle that it is hard to stick to one book.  At the moment I am reading 1984 which I am really enjoying.  I am surprised that I have never read it before, but that is what I get from going to Community College for my last 2 years of High School, I think it was mandatory reading at the High School.

I really love doing photography and I have decided that I should submit some of my photos for competitions just for fun.  Before I submit any, I found a website called dailyawards.com.  There your pictures are objectively rated (you can't get your friends to all log in and vote) and critiqued by the community and there are daily awards for the picture with the highest scores.  The scores rack up somehow eventually, so you aren't at the bottom everyday.  The people who have won the most have more weight when they rate a picture than someone who has just started out (which is good).  Anyway, it has been a real good way to see how others see my work, and it will let me grow as a photographer.  So far people really like my picture of the Sprout holding the shovel  and a couple of pictures I took at Whitby Abbey a couple of years ago.

The one of the Sprout is by far doing the best of the five I have up with a score of  6.9 out of 10.  Which I think is really good for a photo I just randomly took and hasn't been edited at all.  I called it "Little Archaeologist."

Last week, the Sprout decided that he needed to use a binki.  This is so weird because he has never had any interest in using one.  It was decided that he must have needed something to soothe him of his new independence from me.  We stopped breast feeding almost two months ago and he doesn't need me to get from point A to point B any more.  I wish he had discovered his thumb, a stuffed animal or a blanket instead.  But for the moment, as long as it isn't in all the time (which he would love), we can let it slide.

Anyway, that is about it.  I don't post much because I have been way to tired at night to write and during the day, the Sprout would never let me get a chance.  When he is napping, I have things to clean or I just want to sit.  I have decided it is ok to just sit.

The trip and 29/30 weeks

rscornwall

Click the link above to see my photo album


Mom is on the plane back to the States :(

We had a very busy 14 days.

She flew into Manchester Airport on Sept 2nd where I met her to make sure she got to Shipley.  That journey is pretty crazy after a 14+ hr journey.

We spent the next couple of days around my area of Yorkshire visiting Shipley, Saltaire, Bradford and Skipton.

On Sept 6th we made our way by train to Penzance, Cornwall which took about 9 hours.

The black line is the journey

We checked into the Hotel Penzance around 9 pm and had a yummy dinner at the fancy restaurant there.

The weather for the first 2 days was pretty iffy, sunny and misty, but we managed to wander around Penzance, going in and out of really cool galleries and shoppes.  My favourite gallery by far was the Penlee Gallery where they were showing the works of artists from the early days of the Newlyn Art Colony.

We made it to St. Ives on the last day of our stay, which turned out to be a warm and sunny day, but still not quite warm enough for a swim.  We visited more galleries and the Barbra Hepworth Museum and Sculpture Museum.  We ate Cornish ice cream, but were told to stay away from the pasties unless we wanted to be ravaged by seagulls.  We ate pasties in Penzance.

We came back to Shipley on Sept 10th in an un-airconditioned train on a very warm and sunny day.

The Saltaire festival began on the 12th and we wandered down to have a look, had Sunday lunch with Richard's parents on the 13th and visited Kirkstall Abbey on the 14th.

It was a really nice visit and I had a lot of fun, but last week when 29 weeks hit, I was instantly tired and sore and have yet to recover.  My tummy is so big and heavy, I finally had to get maternity clothes and I think I am going to live in the dress in the picture below for the next 10 weeks.

Gardening and my worms

Gardening

I have been doing some gardening. I planted some butternut squash, tomatoes, lettuce and carrots on our porch. Everything is really starting to grow and it is pretty fun.

However, I am most proud of my compost. When we moved in, I decided we had to have a compost. I ordered a compost container, but it never came, so I decided to turn one of my pots into a make shift compost bin...and it has worked brilliantly. I keep it uncovered. I started it with some cardboard, scraps and a small amount of potting soil that came from some fresh herbs I bought at the store. After a couple of weeks I had 3 permanent resident worms that came out of nowhere (I wish I could mark them to keep track that they are the same ones). I was so excited and made it my duty to keep those worms happy. I love having a worm bin, but I wasn't about to go buy worms...and these are real worms, big, thick earthworms...I always think they look good to eat, but I don't think I will be trying that.

I turn the compost every couple of days and when it gets dry I water it. Every couple of weeks I add some cardboard to it to keep things going, and I only add non-cooked food to ensure we don't get any pests (although I don't think it is possible to have any pests because of the 20 cats in the back yard).

As I turn my compost, I happily count my worms, and there is never less than three...sometimes more, but never less than three. Today, to my surprise, I counted 15!!! I have never had that many before! And they are all big and healthy worms...I have had spurts of smaller thinner worms, but they didn't stick around, these are other earthworms!! I was so excited that I upgraded the bin to the biggest pot I had and I will have to add more scraps. It has been rainy the past couple of days and I kind of think that is why so many worms found my compost, but by-golly, I am gonna see how long I can keep them around!

Picts of the new house

This marks my 39th post, I have now surpassed Jessika In Nevada...Hooray!!

Anyway, here are pictures of the house. Please excuse the mess, we are sorting through those last crap boxes and I think they will all be put in the cellar (yes, we have a creepy cellar) until we move again.

I took these while it was snowing outside.

The kitchen, and yes, we have a back garden now!!

Our huge bathroom

Large, one bedroom

The view out the back...it is really pretty, but you can't see it here because of the snow.

The front from the upstairs bedroom.

The American Christmas and New Year's Trip

Sandpiper New Years

Click to see pictures

We were very fortunate to be able to get to see ALL of our families this Christmas, in the UK and in the US.

Richard's sister was nice enough to shuttle us down to Beaconsfield so we could spend Christmas Eve and Christmas at the Osborne's house where we opened presents and had a big feast which was followed by a Murder Mystery Game.

Boxing Day we headed to Heathrow to begin our non-stop journey to SeaTac. The flight was uneventful, although Richard was annoyed at the guys getting drunk at the back of the plane.

The trip was only 9 1/2 hours long and we were surprised to see all the snow on the ground that was left from the blizzard at the beginning of the week. Danny and Molly picked us up from the airport and we began the next 10 days of Christmas.

The festivities played out as:

Dec 26th: Mom's House.

Dec 27th: Dad and the Girls at Mom's

Dec 28th: Grandma and Grandpa's House and the Allen Family Christmas

Dec 29-30th: Dad's house with the Girls

Dec 31st-Jan 4th: Sandpiper Resort.

Jan 4th and 5th: Time with D. (who was so nice to drive up from Eugene to see us).

Jan 6th: Back to the UK. We were delayed in SeaTac because of a Blizzard in Paris, but we were only delayed for 3 hours, which gave us less of a lay over in Paris...so that was ok.

As you can see we were really busy, but we had a really good time and I miss everyone.


Please see our pictures up at the top of the post...just click on it.

Christmas Cards

I just wanted everyone to know that we will be getting cards out late this year because we can't afford postage for 40 people (yes 40 people will be receiving Christmas cards), so most of you will be getting your cards with your presents at Christmas, but in the mean time, here are our Christmas pictures:

As we were doing these pictures I was wondering...why do we take pictures of ourselves in front of the Christmas tree? Almost everyone does it, and when you start to ponder it, it is incredibly strange. We don't only take the picture but then we share it with everyone...very strange indeed.