i love my new howies jumper.

i recently ordered two items from howies. one was a t-shirt that says 'new logo same shit company' and the other was ajumper with a mushroom on it. i got the t-shirt the other week and love it. got the jumper today and really really love it! here are some photos so you get the general idea!




today i am writing a 1 minute presentation for a business launch tomorrow. i am presenting on my role as a pampered chef consultant and amongst other guests is the Lord Mayor of Sheffeild!

very tired at moment and have persistent sore throat and earache.

andy is being amazing at giving me extra rest, particularly when i've been out working.

the link in html!!!

Unique by pip wilson - a man, not a woman as i thought

Unique

i stumbled across this image when i was doing a bit of Rn'R on the web in the middle of my work day today. i've had a slow and unproductive day in some ways but in others a very productive day. i can't quite desribe how that works. I realise how much i am applying myself at the moment - parenting, pampered chef and boobyjuice (or whatever it ends up being called).

yesterday my first ever pattern fell through my letter box. what an achievment to have got one of my designs down on paper as a pattern. there's obviously a lot more to be done before that pattern becomes a garment i ma pleased with but an achievment necer the less.

so back to the image!! here it is - i am unique and accepted and LOVED just as i am right here right now without being any different. to me that is an incredible thing to be reminded of because it isn't something that dwells in me richly (a few words from the bible that i am holding onto - that God's word would dwell in me richly). i can't get the image to load up so you could follow this link to find the image i'm referring too! (http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/516/139/1600/UNIQUE%20PIP%20WILSON%20%3F%3F.jpg)

man i wish i could remmeber how to do that html stuff!

a wee blog on sugar and design...

so i stopped eating sugar about 4 or 5 months ago. i noticed that i constantly craved sweet stuff, was really lethargic and my moods were up down up down up down. decided to see what would happen if i stopped eating sugar (not including natural stuff like honey, fruit, maple syrup etc)and very quickly i had more energy, more level moods, and also unexpectedly weight started falling away too! i've had a few blips but mostly it's fantastic. when i have a blip and eat sugar, even a small amount, i start to feel unwell within an hour or two - kind of groggy and hung over! so i think a life without sugar is here to stay but the benefits to my energy levels and mental health are a definite motivator.

in terms of design, i have designed a collection of clothing for breastfeeding women which i am in the proess of seeing through to the manufacturing stage and then on into wholesale and retail distribution. my first pattern is in the post right now which is very exciting! i'm trying to get in touch with british manufacturers as i'd like to keep as much of the process here as possible. if anyone wants to suggest a business name that would be great - my favourite has caused a couple of murmurs of derision so i'm keeping an open mind!

kate, any questions?!!

new header..

...the previous one was pretty uninspiring....

yeah baby yeah!

last night i had pampered chef training - in fact it was a cluster ralley!! anyway, i won 2 prizes - firstly for having the highest sales for October and secondly for having the highest sales average for October. in itself that is really quite amazing i think you'll agree but just wait til you hear this... October was my first ever month of Pampered Chef. Yeah baby yeah!! my team is about 7 strong so i had some good competition.

jos is on the move and also pulling himself up at every opportunity. the clock change was an hideous experience and meant that we were awke from 4.30am. mum and dad came to visit and they ook us out for a lovely lunch at thyme cafe.



the photos above are robin and his friends - robin and ruby on the elephant and hannah on the giraffe. these are the kids that robin spends most of his days with - to the extent that they are almost too familiar with one another. more scrapping goes on when these guys are together than when when robin is with any other children!

my pattern cutter called me today to say that she has finished the pattern for my first design and she's sending it ot me to look at. this means that as soon as i have decided on a manufacturer i can get a sample made! all a bit scary in an exciting kind of way!

i love knitting but at the moment i feel too tired even to knit a lot of the time. but the other night i did have the energy to watch anchorman which was hilarious. i recommend it!

bees in our attic

somewhere in our attic is a bee's nest. we thought it was a wasp's nest until i got stung today by a bee lurking on the computer mouse. andy thinks it was a been cos it left part of it's body behind which he thinks wasp's don't. if we could find the bee's nest it would be quite a bonus because the critters look like honey bees so there would be womderful honey and wonderful beeswax. however, our attic resembles a junk shop so finding the nest could be difficult! anyway, i got stung, my hand went into paralysis, i screamed and screamed with proper tears until andy returned and got the sting out. i did try doing it myself but my other hand was shaking so much i couldn't use the tweezers properly (have since found out you should scrape a sting out, not pull it due to the barbs on the sting).

if people coul dcomment on my posts that would be great - words of affirmation are very important to me and my sense of well-being!

The Eye of God

This is a picture NASA took with the hubble telescope.
Called "The Eye of God". Apparently it only occurs every 3000 years. Now, I know that it's possible that this may be a clever creation of a computer geek or maybe not. I don't have time to check it out.

But i do like it and if it is real then that's even cooler!

more new music...

...my morning jacket have released a live album that is scarily similar in feel to when i saw them in the summer, so that's really good.
highly recommended.

and aint those boys cuties - that smile of jos'!! its non stop these day 9well, except when he's sleeping or trying to get to sleep)

the sugar crash from hell

congratulations alexander luke clifford for making it safely (and speedily-at-the-last-minute) into the world! i can't remember html so her's the link in a format that is not as helpful as a link. www.fishpie.net

i am typing slowly -
1. i am using my right hand to hold jos so left-handed fumbling is all that i can manage.
2. i feel rough from major sugar crash after fab night out last nighht.

yyeah - great night out for helen's 32nd b'day. 4 of us - b'day girl, chloe and kate and me. it was a giddy experience as we organised a surprise treasure hunt to get helen to the chinese restaurant. chloe and i positioned clues in the afternoon and were amazed that theyall stayed put and intact. even the clue in the middle of the peace gardens fountain! i've not been eating sugar for a few months now (apart from the odd blip here and there). chinese created big blip and i am paying for it today!

i do have fabulous bright pink nails though c/o the beautiful chloe noble. they are so wonderful tat i cannot stop looking at them - in the same way it was hard to take my eyes off the man in the thong, in the bath, on west street where it was very cold last night. how funny that sight was - these baths were electric (i think) and were being driven by semi naked men (2 of them in total). they even did reverse!

i haven't blogged for yonks but here we go - i am blogging. i am still setting up my business and i have also set up as a pampered chef consultant. can't be bothered to keep typing so here are some pictures i like:

return of the be good tanyas...

for some reason i thought the be good tanyas had split up and gone their separate ways, so it was a pleasant day when amazon.co.uk decided to tell me they had a new album out this month (and would i like to preorder it, to which i replied "yes please!") - 3 years on from their last release, and its just as good as "chinatown" - more similar to it than the debut "blue train", but with just as much charm, its well worth the purchase.

the legendary "W" party

perhaps starting on too high a note, i plan to present to the more discerning readers of the blog, a series of highlights from the by-gone years of sheffields burgeoning social life way back when none of us had kids, or (for the most part) were even married.


(click the photo!)

more to come - watch this space!!

new look!

got sick of the old one that was falling apart at the seams, so got a new one, and will try and get round to fiddling with it in the future...
its like an outward sign of a personal blogging resurrection, a rebirth, a renaissance if you will.

i won something else interesting....

i went sea fishing yesterday with a bunch of blokes form inner city life/ church - it was an interesting day with this hulk of a yorkshire man skippering the boat - i caught 4 mackerals and 1 whiting which was quite exciting, and then at church this morning, the guy who organised it had small prizes for the various people by way of letting everyone else there know what people got up to, and i won the prize for most understated fisherman, catching the second most fishes without people really realizing... so that and the most defensive player.... i'm sarting to see a re-occuring pattern here....

i get the impression no one reads this blog anymore....

...which is kinda our fault for not blogging much.
but i've been getting better recently, and making more of a concerted effort to post things.

stop child abuse

light a million candles

recent musical discoveries

the zutons, who killed the zutons - discovered these on the way to the games tournement (below) - definite similarities with led zepplin and stephen stills... a bit psychadelic in places, but pretty cool all the same
johnny cash, my mothers hymn book - got this from the CLC bookshop of all places - all traditional gospel songs as sung by johnny cash
jackie oates, jackie oates - on the way back from 'nam at the weekend, we stumbled across a folk music show on bbc radio shropshire or something and this song really stuck in my head, the staffordshire maid. had to contact the radio presenter to find out how to get hold of it.

beer festival update...

more of an ammendment really.
we are heading to the beer festival on the friday night with the crazy man hodgson.
be warned - he is staying at ours over night, so theres no limit to how much he might drink!
anyway, come and be amazed, friday night.

32nd steel city beer festival....

is the end of this month!
spread the word!!!
its on from the evening of the 28th till 30th september as the usual st phillips social club (near shalesmoor/ attercliffe tram stop down from the university roundabout).
i'll prob try head down on the saturday night - it tends to be a bit quieter - some of the beers will already have been finished but there's never a shortage of ones to try.
having said that, the friday might be viable as an option - post up thoughts on this and book it in on your calenders.

someone had a good weekend....

went down to newbury for the UK open gaming tournement for the wargame thingy i play here and there.
played 5 really enjoyable games and didnt get trounced in any of them which is always a good thing.

got to meet up several people from manchester i see every now and then at these things which was really nice, especially the other dads who ask how the kids are doing and generally dads to the other people at these things - kinda sweet really.

got to meet this guy called ali who i've know on forums for a while but never actually met in person - it was quite odd how much he reminded me of my brother owen in the way he stood, and his general manner, just a bit quieter and more laid back perhaps.... stayed up late on the saturday night drinking with him - we even got into a "you're my besht mate you are!" conversation and chatted about the young and married experience (he was 19 when he got married to a girl from houston - he's now 21...)

on the saturday i won the runners up prize for best painted army, getting a paint set as a prize.

and if that wasn't cool enough, i then won the "most defensive player" award (i'm sure that says something about my personality!) which was a little trophy and a whole new army of miniatures - i basically got to go to the trade stand and pick what i wanted up to the value of about £60!!!

still can't believe it now - i figured i had a chance of winning something in the painting competition, but to win something based on gameplay was just unbelievable.

so yeh - had a brilliant weekend - more fun that i could possibly hope for really.

(sorry if all the above is a bit boring and geeky!!)

jos has started eating food

(3rd post of the day)
having spent the past 2 months or so desperately trying to get at some food, he's finally got his first taste of it today and apparently loves it!
yay jos!!

the harlequin

i've walked past this dingy semi-closed pub every day i've been working at creative stream, being literally right next to the offices. then a few weeks ago they started doing it up, and today was its grand opening.
thinking we could go in for a drink to see what its like, we (or at least i) was amazed at the range of beers - some 10 cask/ real ales available from a whole bunch of breweries... this can only be a good thing, or bad, depending on which way you look at it!!
i had a beowolf heroes (which was free being the openning day)
i am excited tho - its good to see a pub (re-)openning that sells lots of interesting beers, and not just the usual carling, fosters, john smiths, strongbow and VK ice in the fridge.
starting to sound like a camra member now.... (which i am. err...)

praise god, drink beer, sing hymns!!!

second attempt at this post....
had an excellent time at greenbelt - p[robably the best one we've had yet - after past ones we've had to lower our expectancies of what we can do with kids, and with that in mind we probably did more than we expected.
had a great time watching nizlopi - weren't sure how it would work out with just the two of them but with the bassist beatboxing as well, it was awesome - gave robin an opportunity to dance too.
my morning jacket i'd heard before briefly but was blown away by them live - not sure why, they were just amazing to see.
and probably the highlight of the festival for me at least was the "beer and hymns" that included the sermon that makes the above title - simply take an organic beer tent, a couple hundred merry folks and a bunch of hymns and it made for one very enjoyable evening of singing and drinking. so popular was it that it got put on the following night and then the night after that.

lots of other good talks too including several on crazy shenanigans by shane claibourne, one titled "god bless adam and steve" by john bell and a couple of seminars on how to do podcasting...
just gotta get some photos up now...

freaky....

jompin chop?

johnny rotten?

and in other bizarre-ness, robins favourite phrase of the moment (aside from "daddy beer!!" or course) is "bob bor-derr" which translates as "bob the builder", his dvd of choice, and most commonly requested item. and then ben fuller and i spend all day yesterday pulling up carpets from our house ready to get painted, and when robin went up to his bath leaving ben and i he waved to us saying "bye bye bor-derrs"
how cute!!

this is unbelievable!!!

a 5m long lego aircraft carrier
more pics here

the world cup is over...

....and there are a lot of emergency services sirens going off this evening.

places i've visited - not that many really.

create your own visited countries map
or vertaling Duits Nederlands

it has started

well - this is my first day in my new job working at creative stream - trying to figure out how to use a mac... hmm. my computer's not arrived yet.
bea's gone to filey, n yorks with helen dT for a few days holiday.
things going alrightin general - robin sleeping pretty well, jos sleeping pretty good too.
hmmm. yep

exodus

a start date has been set - as of monday the 5th june, i will be working at the home office just 2 days a week, spending the first 3 days of each week working with ant, cliff and andy woods at creative stream doing a mixture of web design, graphic design, maybe even some website/ database programming if i get a chance to learn it, alongside SAGE book-keeping and other project/ contract management/ admin.
the plan is to be able to leave my job at the homeoffice for good as soon as possible (ie when it looks like work at creative will be sustainable and regular enough to do so, hopefully within 6 months), but in the mean time i'll be working as a self employer web/ graphic designer.
in so many ways this is a dream come true - working in an environment that is project based, creative, visual, challenging, office based, uses computers, small company, has a future... everything i want from a job!
very exciting times.

jos is 5 weeks old today. he's doing really well and got weighed by the health visitor and is 12lb 11.5oz.

things are hard work - robin is extremely over-tired due to a number of cumulative factors and as a result is not sleeping well or going to sleep easily which just makes things worse.

had an awesome time on saturday night when our texan friends brian and whitney and their 2 boys came for the evening. hadn't seen them for 3 years but it felt like only 3 weeks. we ended the evening with a great time of prayer and they are now in orkney getting ready to explore scotland and find a place to settle there.

bizzaro!!!

two really wierd things to look at/ watch:
http://www.pistolwimp.com/media/44210/
http://www.citynoise.org/article/3629

something really upsetting happened yesterday so i am feeling particularly crappy today. have been awake since 3am being upset and woried. no doubt this 'thing' will get resolved soon but i feel like it has put me back a bit.

jos is great but very unsettled in the evenings - when he gats windy. quite normal for a little one but i really want to do some knitting!

two mini miracles happened on sunday - had an ansafone message offering practical help with shopping etc and also a friend popped by out of the blue with a meal and some sweeties!

juliet is back from her travels (she is a really good friend who lives half way up the road) so i have a nice cup-of-tea-getaway!

new photos should be up very shortly...

thought i'd post a little!

not doing so great so if you are the prasying type, youre prayers would be great. very emotional - sometimes feel i am only just holding things together. i've read andy's posts about some of what happened and in my head they feel much more traumatic and dramatic. my midwife is very supportive and she also found the birth experience very traumatic. my health visitor has told me about some specialist midwives who do something called 'birth after-thoughts' for women like me who have experienced trauma surrounding their birth experience. jos is doing great and in some ways the 4 days in the childrenb's hospital seem so far away. they never found what was 'wrong' with him and i tend to think my homeopath is on he right track when sdhe says it could well have been his way of balancing his body after all the puncture wounds (canula, blood samples etc) from our initial time in hospital immediately after he was born.

through all of it i found peace in God and he really was my rock but now i feel a bit lost and all at sea. i'm also struggling with where our faith is at because up until we started using conventional medicine with robin for the eczema, we had loads of faith for healing. now that seems to have diminished and we hardly pray for God to heal the eczema - it's as though we've resigned to the fact that medicine is what we have to settle for.

it would be lovely to hear from people - we have both felt quite alone and isolated in all the has happened and the aftermath of it. i know that some people like to have space etc but let's not forget that andy and i are the couple who tried to get home early from honeymoon becauuse we missed our friends!

Something of an update then? (for those who don't know)

Joss got admitted to hospital very early on Sunday morning due to a high temperature and some irregular breathing - they got him on antibiotics and paracetemol (to get his temp down), and then did a lumbar puncture to find out if there's any particular infection going on in there.
This then meant bea has been living in hospital since then (not a good Mothers day!) waiting for them to decide if they need to keep him in on antibiotics for another 7-10 days.
The tests came back today as all clear so they'll keep him in for 24 more hours without antibiotics and keep monitoring him, and assuming there's nothing wrong in the meantime, they should be out by this ime tomo.
At last!
Having said that, a doctor also noticed he had a slight heart murmour today - apparently they're not uncommon, and often heal naturally, but it's still not a nice thing to hear.
Robin's eczema's been a bit up and down recently too - as long as he's been smothered in steroids he's fine, take them away, and things go downhill again, so that?s been really disheartening too.
On top of that, bea's sore throat is also still there.
So there we are - it's all a bit crazy right now - any of you out there inclined to pray, we'd really value it right now!

day 5: more photos.

(click to enlarge)

Josiah Indi Marshall

born 20th March, weighing 9lb 10oz.
labour went brilliantly well, and he was born quite suddenly at 14.57 at home in a birthing pool in our kitchen.









anyway, whilst we had to go in to hospital when the umbilical cord snapped (not sure how much blood josiah had lost), everyones home now (at last) and everythings going well - robin seems pretty excited by it all too.

nothing yet...

...we're now on borrowed time.

not long to go....

...less than a week till the due date, #2 is iminent.

the many hats of robin

(click to enlarge)

happy christmas!!

New cast for Harry Potter

Been meaning to put this one up for a while.
I'd been thinking about who I'd cast for new characters in the new Harry Potter movies (ie books 5 & 6). Then a few of us were talking about it and it seems we have very different ideas.
So who would you cast for the following characters:
(Nymphodora) Tonks
Kingsley Shacklebolt
Delores Umbridge
Rufus Scrimgeor
Bellatrix LaStrange
Horace Slughorn
Mundungus Fletcher
Young Voldemort
Fenrir Greyback
Bill Weasley

Comment up!

more potter thoughts...

so, has anyone out there been thinking who the R A B is at the end on book 6? maybe not, but it seems there are a lot out there who have. the main one out there is regulus black, sirius' brother who was supposedly killed by one of voldemorts death eaters a while ago.
i thought it was a bit tenuous, until someone pointed out in the norwegen translation of the book, sirius is called sirius svaart (svaart being norweigen for black, and then at the end of book 6, the locket has R A S on it, not R A B.
plus there was the heavy, hard to open locket in the cabinet at grimauld place that was cleared out in book 5...
go here for some more hard to follow forum ramblings...

what's my theology?

ironically (is it?) when i first saw that i was the below, i thought "ewww - postmodern? what a cliche!".
maybe it would've been more ironic (or ironical as the americans might say) if i thought, "eww - labels - don't pigeon-hole me!"

You scored as Emergent/Postmodern. You are Emergent/Postmodern in your theology. You feel alienated from older forms of church, you don't think they connect to modern culture very well. No one knows the whole truth about God, and we have much to learn from each other, and so learning takes place in dialogue. Evangelism should take place in relationships rather than through crusades and altar-calls. People are interested in spirituality and want to ask questions, so the church should help them to do this. Emergent/Postmodern 68% Evangelical Holiness/Wesleyan 50% Neo orthodox 50% Reformed Evangelical 43% Modern Liberal 36% Classical Liberal 36% Roman Catholic 32% Fundamentalist 29% Charismatic/Pentecostal 29% What's your theological worldview? created with QuizFarm.com

baby no 2

and here's a photo of the bump at 20 weeks.