Saw a band...

I saw a band!

Or two or three... I went to Bungalows and Bears on Thursday night to watch Yak but also saw Femur and another band whose name escaped me but vaguely reminded me of the Primitives and Stone Roses.

I thought I would mention this as sadly seeing live music has become a bit of a rare thing since becoming a parent but at least it's still something I can do every now and then. That's the end of that public service announcement.

Best laid plans...

So I thought it might be a good idea to sign up for the blog everyday in May challenge that I do every year but for some reason this year I haven't been able to blog anything.  Not one thing.

A new hair cut selfie that I considered posting on the 1st.

For some reason every time I sit down to write or draw for the blog all of my ideas make a run for it.  I'm hoping to change that but so far this is it. Hopefully tomorrow I'll get chance to come up with something a little more exciting.

Blog Everyday in May - day 16 for the love of books. #BEDM

Today's suggested post idea was date night but that isn't a thing me and my boyfriend really do.  Sometimes we both sit in the study with our computers and chat when the toddler is in bed or watch a film together but we don't tend to schedule romance.  What I prefer is thoughtful gestures like when he brings a book back from the library which he knows I want to read.

Image from: http://www.stephen-baxter.com/books.html

For this reason I was thrilled to see a copy of The Long Mars on the kitchen table on Thursday.  I must say that I've only just started it but have enjoyed what I have read. I like how the climax of the last book has been dealt with and the new story is being introduced.

Recently I have been reading a mixture of fiction and non-fiction but have found the fiction far more enjoyable.  (Then again most of the non-fiction books and blogs I have been reading have been related to childcare so I guess it's understandable that they would mainly be less fun.)  Before reading this book I read Stardust by Neil Gaiman and Good Omens by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett both of which I thoroughly enjoyed. 

I digress... myself and my partner both enjoy reading.  We don't always enjoy the same books and authors, he won't entertain the idea of reading Harry Potter and I'm not sold on the Foundation series.  While I like to read a reasonably eclectic mix of books, he tends to stick with science fiction.  We do enjoy some of the same authors like Jasper Fforde and Terry Pratchett so it's great to be able to share these books and discuss them together.  Often I think that a well chosen book from the library is better than a bouquet of flowers and lasts slightly longer. Then again I have hay fever and flowers make me sneeze so maybe romance is lost on me!

Basically I love reading as does my partner and I think that as the toddler is very interested in books, he may enjoy reading too. When he's old enough to obviously... I think there is little better than opening the pages of a book and diving into the world contained within.

Blog Everyday in May day 15 photography - #BEDM

 It's pretty obvious that I'm no photographer although I do take at least one or two pictures most days I don't tend to share most of them on my blog as they are nearly all of my son.  (My long suffering family members are the only ones those pictures are inflicted on!)  Occasionally I consider adding pictures of him where you can't see his face but then end up in a moral quandary so I have decided against doing that on all but the rarest occasions.  I might put pictures up of him when he gets older if he gives his consent but as he hasn't quite got the hang of sentences longer than three words, that's still some way off.

The above photos have been taken using my mobile phone as most of my pictures are but I do have a compact digital camera which I hope to use more often in the future. Watch this space!

Blog Everyday in May - day 14. Cake. #BEDM

So I haven't managed to keep up with the blogging everyday thing very well because I've been busy with work, helping my boyfriend survive the election, counting votes after the election, getting my hair done, going out, looking after my son... you get the picture!
After all of that I haven't found much time to engage in either of my writing projects or any of my other hobbies. Then yesterday the toddler decided to have a nice long nap and enabled me to bake!

Hurrah!

Every cake should be served on a dinosaur plate.

I got to make a sponge cake with some butter cream and I went slightly overboard with the jam. It tastes lovely. "Nice" even... that's what the little monster said about the cake mix and the cake. Little joys!

Blog Everyday in May - day 4. Guilty pleasures. #BEDM

I must admit that I'm not a very cool person, in fact I'm a bit geeky. (Although I wouldn't go so far as to say that I'm a nerd as I'm not interested in binary code...) I don't tend to think of myself as having guilty pleasures as life is too short! I readily admit that I enjoy Doctor Who and Star Wars. I prefer my entertainment to be fantastical or action packed so there are only a few things that I watch that buck this trend like Sex in the City or Revenge.

Musically I have reasonably eclectic tastes and mainly enjoy listening to Indie-pop, rock and a bit of motown/soul.  That said I quite enjoy a few chart acts like Meghan Trainor and that Bills song by Lunchmoney Lewis.

I think I have more guilt about the food I eat than the films, tv or music I enjoy.  I think this is true of most people.  It's not that I diet or obsess over it I just know that eating a block of marzipan is wrong yet it doesn't stop me wanting to... or knowing that I ate Marshmallow Fluff from the jar when I was pregnant.  Lets just say I'm not surprised that my son loves sweet food.  Another guilty pleasure of mine that at least has vegetables in it is baked aubergines, which is a guilty pleasure as it has two balls of mozzarella in it. Yum!

I also really like cake, cookies, donuts and scones but I am trying to eat healthier now partly because my metabolism won't let me pig out any more but also because I want to teach my son healthy habits.  It's hard but sometimes when I crave chocolate and have an apple instead I find myself really enjoying the apple. (Sometimes I want an apple but my son takes it right out of my mouth!)  With guilty pleasures I think everything is good in moderation, want that donut then eat it! Just don't eat it if your bored make a cup of tea or change tasks instead.

Blog Everyday in May - day 3 Silly Sunday! #BEDM

So the topic today is supposed to be self care Sunday but I have actually spent today eating buns, bacon butties, chocolate and ramen so I'm not sure if that counts as self care.... It was fun! Although the ramen eating was occasionally interrupted by my toddler trying to feed me some of his breaded sweet potato and butternut squash cake. (I didn't resist very hard.)

I did do a few star jumps after the chocolate mainly because it entertains the little one.  Anything for a laugh, eh?  Thankfully there is no photographic evidence of that but here are a few other whimsical and silly pictures.

The animals have the draining board.

It's not freezing here honest!

Much prettier than mugs and glasses...

I hope that you have had a good Sunday too and managed to at least contemplate relaxing.

Blog Everyday in May: day 2 - adventure. #BEDM

When I was a child I loved the idea of adventure and excitement possibly due to living in the suburb of a town sandwiched between two cities. Nothing interesting seemed to happen there so I liked to dream about dinosaurs, time travel and swashbuckling heroes.  I went through phases of idolising King Arthur, Marty McFly, Indiana Jones, Robin Hood and Peter Pan... I'm not sure why but I never imagined being a princess or bride or anything.

Later I started reading and hoped foolishly to get to Narnia one day... then I enjoyed the escapades of the Famous Five and Secret Seven before moving on to Harry Potter, The Dark is Rising and the Earth Sea Quartet.

Now I'm older I realise that maybe being in a fantasy novel might not be the best idea I've ever had, especially not Game of Thrones or Gormenghast! These days with the help of a little film called UP I realise that there isn't just one type of adventure.

I would love to have a grand adventure exploring the world and experiencing different sights and cultures.  This is not a dream I plan to give up on but it may not be possible to travel the world for a few more years... I may have to stick to the corner of the northern hemisphere with occasional excursions to the south of Spain and parts of the British Isles.

 The other adventure I have is the big adventure of buying a house with my partner Paul and living in it with our cats while trying to raise our son.

I guess it's easy to think of travelling as being the epic scary adventure and general day to day life as being humdrum but life isn't that simple... you get challenging situations everywhere in Sheffield or Shanghai!  For now my planned adventures miniature steam trains, farms, polling stations, public transport and Ryanair.

What are you adventure plans?

Blog everyday in May 2015: day 1 introduce yourself. #BEDM

 It's that time of year again... hay fever season... I mean the blog everyday in May challenge time! I thought it might me fun to have ago at blogging everyday to procrastinate away from novel writing get into better blog writing habits.  The blog a day challenge is nice because there are suggested topics to follow everyday but I may have to deviate away from some of them to other things I might actually be able to write about... more sci-fi than beauty I think!

Anyway, the topic suggestion today is introduce yourself, so here goes. 
I'm in my late twenties, I work part time for a Sheffield based company and I live with my boyfriend, 19 month old son and two cats.

Frankenstein enjoys being photographed.

I have a lot of interests like playing guitar/ukulele, baking, dancing, sewing, reading and hula hooping which I try to pursue in my bounteous free time. Ha ha ha! I also like to watch my local roller derby teams play and took my son with me to their October bout.

Go team!

We've also been to art galleries, rock climbing groups and day time gigs together as well as the swimming baths, cafes, restaurants and cinema...

On maternity leave I decided to treat myself and dye my hair blue, I also tried green and purple but have settled on blue for the time being as it makes me feel like a comic book character. Once upon a time I would've liked to have looked like a 1950s pin up but now I would rather look like a superhero as I feel like one some days.

So that's a bit about me.  I could babble on about independent films and music, trying to learn Spanish from an app or coding from a website or the many parenting lessons I've learnt since 2013 but I won't. The night is here and my bed beckons with promises of sleep and dreams. Good night!

Life's a lesson. Blog Everyday in May.

This blog topic reminded me about something Jeffery Lewis said in his song Life "life's just a story don't you doubt bad times give us something to talk about".

 Life is one of those funny things, it's be portrayed as a stage or a rat race but a lesson might not be a bad analogy. We do spend many of our formative years unknowingly drinking in knowledge about how to survive and how to be the people that our experiences have made us.

Sometimes it's easy to forget that we've learnt so much to get to the stage where we can enjoy a blog or make a snack. Back when I was at university I had a few microwave related accidents where I burnt things as I had no idea how long they should cook. Well I say burnt... I Exploded an egg in the microwave and nuked a baked potato! Since then I've come on leaps and bounds. It's rare I burn anything these days...

Meringue fail!

Other lessons I've learnt are things like the fact that nothing that is worth doing is easy but with support from friends and family you can do anything even write 50,000 words of fiction in a month!

Yes, I am going to use this as much as I can! Muwahahaha!

Another thing I've learnt is that you can only be as happy as you allow yourself to be. Being optimistic won't reduce your work load but it can make you feel better about it and help make everyone around you more cheerful too.

If you tell someone you just work in customer service or admin or what ever role you do then you're telling them that you don't think your job is any good... That's a tip I was told at an assertiveness course I got sent on.  That and saying people's first name when you see them rather than just "hi"...So, those are a few things I've found out through the years that and don't put a drink next to your elbow!  Or cut your own hair... especially not when drunk!What lessons have you learnt?