back from greenbelt

lots buzzing round my head - greenbelt and the week or two leading up to it have been very significant. lots of ground covered on this little journey of mine. i've been inspired, challenged, frustrated, set free, affirmed, validated, questioned and tested and it's all going to splurge out here over the next few days i expect!

thinking about church...

was on a website today for a community in austin called mosaic and i was just floating around being hugely inspired by what God is doing in their midst and i read this,

regarding their small groups - "provide a place where the gospel connects with life and where we connect with each other and the world. While slowly learning how “to do life together” groups will talk through and wrestle with what it means to follow Christ together."

so simple but spot on. my personal experience of small groups over the years is really mixed. the biggest thing that has always glared at me is the inability of the samll group to have any longevity to it. the only time the small community had a definite longevity other stuff shut it down.

then a bit further down i read this - "Note, though, that some groups are full: they can’t grow any more and still be “small groups.” Others may be difficult to join if they’re reading a specific book, and won’t be able to make any progress if they’re recapping every week."

how refreshing is that. no one is excluded but some groups are protected because the important stuff that goes on between individuals as they connect together and get close and raw is not there to be abused or broken up. it's to be invested in. and also that in inviting someone to join a small group they respect you enough to say that some groups are open but may be difficult cos they're in the middle of stuff and the people in the group are respected enough to be given space so that they don't have to keep getting disrupted.

obviously, all this is fine when you have enough groups for new people to slot in to the best space but it's God that builds it and God respects us, values us, loves us, loves the raw and vulnerable stuff that goes on amongst his children when they "talk through and wrestle with what it means to follow Christ together". God will show our communities a way too until we start to put God into th 'community tool' or the 'program' or 'the way we do things round here'.

hey mosaic, amen amen amen!!! a million blessings on everything you are doing and everything God is giving you.

one more thing... God it's good to be blogging again!!

dedication and naming service

here is the file of Jos' naming and dedication. I'm putting it up here for a facebook friend but any of you can read it!naming%20dedication%20-%20jos.doc

sorry our blogging is so crap these days. we are a little won over by facebook and i feel my life is so busy with the kids and the businesses that i don't have time to really think about interesting stuff, let alone blog about it!!

Big Fire st the Simple Way

Shane Claiborne started the simple way ten years ago. he has been an inspiration to me and had a profound affect on my working out of the gospel. Shane and another member of the simple way lost all their possessions, the warehouse is destroyed and 8 families in the neighbourhood have been made homeless.

Please pray and you can donate too. just follow the above link.

reflection

for months my beautiful friend shannon hopkins has had the same prayerful writing on her website. she hasn't posted since but even though i have read those words several times (i go check to see if she has written again, although now she tells me not to bother for a while!) they never sink in to my head or my heart. then today i came upon the following:

Step into the Spirit's movement, the Father's activity. Repent of man's
traditions that keep us seperated, break the walls down and begin to LOVE
others more radically. What does that look like in your life and church? I
don't know but if you ask the Father to show you, HE WILL. Then step out
into what he is doing and watch the Kingdom of God grow!

this is from the healing waiters ministry blog and it resonated within me. it was like the Spirit just wanted to whisper it to me, like when your parent sees you need gently guidance so they just give you a gentle direction. no big deal kind of stuff but it changes your course or clarifies a thought. something significant from something simple.

for me it was like a seal on the vision i had for our former community SOFA. the vision had 3 main strands - 1) love the Lord you God with your heart, soul and mind. 2) Love your neighbour as you love yourself. 3)Others will know that you are my disciples by the way you love one another.

that vision was realised but cut short in many ways and i've still been on that journey somehow. then i read those words and it feels like the journey is complete. amazing how God points you to the little steps to get the big stuff done - there is a whole little line of dominoes leading up to me reading those words today and it is all god's timing becasue some of the dominoes i've tried to tip in the past but not managed it and yet today God made clear it was time to play!

it's a great day when...

... someone just simply 'gets' you.

more news like this please!

the other day at my course we were commenting how there is never any good/happy news reported so today i saw this feature on the bbc website. it made me smile!

hey jen - i'd love to put pictures up but i can't get my phone and laptop to bluetooth anymore. sorry!

been a while!

struggling to blog at the moment - partly cos our little church which is still working out what it's about and where it's going has a blog so i'm focusing on that a bit more. but also i recently got sucked into facebook and this has highly addictive qualities! mind you, i'm finding facebook a bit boring now - only good when people are talking to you!!

it's raining lots here at the moment which is great for the garden but rubbish for a bank holiday weekend! we went to renishaw hall on saturday which was lovely and hung out with a group of friends - a weird group actually as we knew everyone there but from different circles of friends and suddenly they all converged! it was also fab cos 4 of the families there, including us, are considering home ed and it was lovely to be able to chat about it as a group, with dads there too.

finally, those who would like to spend time as women worshiping and praying together, as some of us did last week, we're doing it again on 25th june, 7.45pm at our house.

interesting piece...

on the bbc site

god loves his children....

copy that, god loves his children. 10-4
rodeohead
courtesy of ben fuller.

dvd mania!

play.com had a sale on, maybe still on, where most items were only a fiver. andy and i decided to buy a couple of dvds and managed to walk away with 7! however, in our defence, we only bought ones that were on our list of dvds we wanted to own or the other one or two which i was hoping for when i found them at a good price. it's very exciting and means lots of great nights in which will be a refreshing change from all the nights out i seem to be having at the moment!

Had to post this - I hope God finds it as funny as I do!

Praise God, we're back again!

Blink and you might have missed it, but we've had big problems with our blog. It's all quite technical I think and probably quite boring but it's good to be back. I was lookjing at the map which shows who comes here, and considering how many red dots there are, not many of you leave comments!

Things are good - although busy. Story of our lives! Well, story of mine and Andy's has only been busy since I've been in it. Poor him, I think he'd much rather have a quiet life but I seem to come with everything else but quiet!

The kitchen is starting to really take shape. We are hoping to paint this weekend and the beautiful Smeg fridge freezer is here. There will be photos at some point.

2 things of great beauty...

yesterday we fished a beautiful but dead toad out of our pond. it had the most beautiful eyes and lovely speckled skin. we looked at it a lot and determined that it was possibly killed by a giant crow (looks like a raven but do you get ravens in sheffield gardens?) as it was a large puncture wound that went straight through, rather than several smaller ones that might suggest a cat's jaws.

the second thing of beauty is my chandelier, happily installed in our fab kitchen. dishwasher arrives tuesday!

i have taken photos of both on my phone but i can't get bluetooth to work at present so you'll just have to imagine...

i love my washing line

last year colin erected the most fantastic washing line the whole length of our garden. it attaches to the house and to the shed - metres and metres! and also it's on apulley system so i only have to stand in one spot. it si so tremendouse that i think i will take a photo to put up on the blog.

new found respect for alanis...

how something so hideous:


be turned into something so awesome:


!?!

hello, my name is bea, and i'm a chaotic...

yes. i really am very chaotic. i have a to do list that's very long, and all inside my head. the irritating thing is that as soon as i try to put it on paper it all vanishes somewhere else until i'm in a place where i cannot implement any of them, and suddenly they all leap back.

interestingly, i am quite funny when i am in this chaotic place so now is a good time to hang out with me.

lots of great stuff is happening to me at the moment. more later. currently at mum and dad's (although dad is skiing at the mo) and my beautiful sister is cooking me a lovely tea.

alela diane

something for anyone who like joanna newsome, laura viers, devandra banheart or the be good tanyas - not sure how well known she is - i just happened upon it as it was playing in fopp yesterday and was one of 3 people in the queue buying it.

loving my larder!

oh yes, oh yes, OH YES!!!!

i have put food in my larder - it is lush! the whole kitchen is lush! my sister, charlie, and her boyfriend, jay, have been up this weekend and they've helped me paint the diluted first coat on the walls and also a couple of coats on the ceiling. we also went to weston park museum and stopped for a picnic on the way. it was lovely although robin got sooo tired from the whole experience that he screamed nearly the whole way home whilst straining at the straps of his pushchair - to the extent that when he finally fell asleep he was still in his 'forward-straining- position!!

we ate our first proper meal in the kitchen today - at the table!! it was a take-away from Gulijstan on walkley. never used it before as we were always hardcore loyalists to the jaflong in crookes until they changed their chef. we still stayed with them for a further year in the hope they'd return to their former chef. then we flitted around a coupld of recommended take-aways but didn't like any of them. at last we settled on the jeera, a new and very tacky looking one also in crookes. we were pleased and a lot surprised to discover it was fantastic but alas no more. it is shit and it has fallen under new management and i fear it has also got a new chef. well, we are not hanging around. we tried the gulijstan and it was pretty good - in fact, we really liked it. only snag is that they used tin spinach instead of frozen or fresh BUT the jalfrezi andy had was lush and the peshwari naan was lush too. we will go there again and see how they fare over time.

Easter tomorrow - He is risen!!! Amen!

this is my kind of worship...

i was thinking about my kind of worship. this week i've been re-exploring celtic prayer and worship and having some lovely times with God as a result. then i was on you-tube because there's a scary american family who have been documented by louis theroux. they take the bible in a very weird way and aren't opene to anyone else to challenge them in any way. fundamental to the extreme! their worship was very traditional, out of old hymn books with the music on the page as well as the words (no problems with this by the way, just not my style!) and it got me tinking about worship. the video below is one of the most amazing worship experiences i've had in a long time. it makes me tingle and really engage with a good God who brings energy and colour and creativity and craziness and gets into all the nooks and crannies of our lives. i hope you like it.

beautiful birds

yesterday while sitting eating brekfast with the boys i was watching the birds in the garden and they were beautiful. they seemed so happy and they looked like they were eating aphids - fantastic!!

there were:

3 great tits
2 blue tits
1 robin
1 wren
2 or 3 blackbirds
3 brown things - starlings?

last week or the week before we also saw a mistle(sp?) thrush as well.

new harry potter covers:

starting to get excited...

a quick request...

if there's anyone coming up (or is it down?) from London in the next week who could pick up a dishwasher for us we'd be REALLY grateful - please let us know if you can...

the IT (and we're not talking about computers!)

amy has been blogging her reflections on the IT. her post explains it in a lovely mystical way, as you would expect from a beautiful mystical spirit(!), but as i dwell on it, it is starting to penetrate the dry areas in my bones. it is starting to take me to a new level of hope that is fresh and vibrant and all this on top of glories of God that i have been experiencing through the kitchen situation. and i can almost feel it opening the eys of my heart deeper. bring on the IT!

the kitchen - everything you ever wanted to know, almost!

i'm uploading a file - never done this before but if it works it will fill you in on what's happening our end.
saga%20details.doc

happy (official) birthday jos!

1 today, and still smiling!

sadly no birthday photo on hand, so some of us in orkney instead:

thanks Dr V!

just listened to a bbc lent talk. worth a few minutes of your time. i'm hoping to follow them over the next few weeks...

here's the link!

reflections on lent...

this year we have given up alcohol. we did this because we both felt that God was making the suggestion. We also felt God was suggesting we have an intentional response to the process and realised through a comment on andrew jones' blog that this response was one of charity and social justice.

andrew is writing as a response to an article on lancaster online about the emerging church and lent. one of the guys commenting, a friend of ours called brad (who incidentally gave us some way cool coffee pots a while back that we could with getting wired up for british electrics) said some stuff i liked, and wanted to quote:

"i think this is far more complex than whether this is a 'protest' or 'reform' or 'regain' or 'restore.' i suspect that ALL OF US tend to confuse our abstract doctrinal concepts with concrete biblical facts, and confuse our so-called 'biblical' methodologies practices with actual biblical prescriptives.

one of the tasks of each disciple and each generation of disciples is to act as Bereans to investigate the Scriptures to see what FACTS are so and to keep working on improved CONCEPTUALIZATIONS of how the facts fit together. i would hope we could learn from both past and present approaches, ALL OF WHICH ARE IMPERFECT.

we should ALWAYS be 'protesting' or 'antithesizing' even our own theological patterns, if we are being as Bereans. it doesn't mean we're pro-papists or re-reformers or anti-authoritarianists or non-inerrantists, etc. we may not use the same language of theological concepts that others use, but isn't it part of our responsibility to the continuity of our faith to keep pressing toward a comprehensive, holistic, integrative worldview AND part of our presponsibility to the discontinuity of our times to embody that faith in authentic ways before all peoples?"

the bigger picture of reflecting on why i do what i do in my faith journey is a picture i don't spend much time looking at. thinking in terms of lent etc... i know why i pray, worship, go to church. i know what my current beliefs are, but i continue to 'write my theology in pencil' as i know from experience and the wisdom of others that God's process of revelation is often a long, slow one. my instinct is to hear the firsr thing he shows me and set that up as 'my belief' rather than stepping into the process of revelation.

reflections on wool

when we left orkney debbie jones gave me a bag of raw wool. it smells of sheep and farms and has a greasy feel to it. if you teke some it pulls apart really easily. however, if you start to pull it apart slightly and twist it at the same time it forms a yarn (basic spinning). you can pull this yarn really hard and it won't break. it has incredible strength. you can then dye this yarn, wash it, knit it, crochet it, whatever. the possibilities of what can be created from the first bit of wool are infinite.

i was reflecting on this further in terms of us - psalm 139 says that God knits us together in our mother's womb. so i was thinking into that about how He takes sometghing (a sperm and an egg) which on their own are pretty week and insignificant but He makes infinite creations from it - we reflect His image and yet not one of us is like another through the entirity of time. That is a big reflection of His image!

Also though in our journey of faith and growth and life He is taking us as weak, broken, grubby things and purifying us, cleansing us, transforming us through renewal (we will be transformed daily by the renewing of our minds) and bringing us more and more into a finished garment which is who we will be in glory. but His grace is sufficient for any times we caused Him to miss a stitch or drop a stitch or caused Him to pull to tight or slacken off. all because he chooses to give us freedom to be and do what we choose. I suspect the times we choose His way and his plan, the fabric of the knitting is pretty perfect! as shannon has been known to say, "He is drawing us into His rich tapestry".

just some thoughts...

Inspiration for prayer

i was reading andrew jones'blog today and saw this wonderful post about the prayer of Jael. It really made me realise that so often i read scripture without seeing the story in a modern-setting. in the sense that i don't imagine things like what the person was thinking or saying etc. i find it hard to read between the lines of what was going on.

at church we're studying mark's gospel and we're using a book called "say to this mountain" by ched myers. on sunday i heard a part of the story in chapter 2 one way and then as we started discussing it and other people brought out the'r understanding of it a light came on for me. it is so exciting exploring the bible with our new church - challenging, inspirational, worshipful, illuminating, frustrating at times but worth every minute.

so andrew's post about the prayer of Jael feels like a breath of fresh air - permission to be real with God in the way that the psalms push us to be honest with God. and then, by speaking the truth in love and not living lives of falsehood, being honest with each other. this is probably the harder of the two for me because being honest with others about certain bits of me meanms i am choosing to put myself ina very vulnerable place. but God is knitting together family in our new church - that feels like how He is showing it to me. we are a brand new church - only had 2 meetings and i feel like God is saying, "you may be church, but most of all i am making you a family". i need to reflect more on what that means to be family - there is a lot of the good, the bad and the ugly in family and i wonder what that might mean in terms of church as family.

autism...

something i found on the net yesterday - full article on conceptart.org

it doesn't fit but it's mine!

debbie and i finished my sample - it doesn't fit so today we are going to make another with some modifications. however, it may not fit, but it's mine - i designed it, and i made it (with a little help) and it's my first ever item of clothing so it's ok that it isn't perfect the first time - it wasn't meant to be. i always planned on re-designing anyway as part of the learning curve and getting the product right so what i'm trying to get my head around is that although it's not wearable, it's mine and it's an achievement so...

well done me. give myself a pat on the back!

oh, and i'm about to start cutting fabric for the second version which we'll make today!

like a kid in a sweet store

today debbie took me to a shop called tait and style which is just up the hill from where they live in stromness. it is amazing and i couldn't help myself but buy lots of goodies - loads of cheap samples and yarn and ooh lovely things. being around debbie makes me feel so creative! she is such an inspiration.

also this morning we started making a mock-up of one of my designs. debbie is teaching me how to mark out, pin and cut a pattern on fabric and then we'll move onto sewing. i'll keep you updated.

it is peeing it down today - crazy rain but quite exciting too!

the rest of day 2

we got in the car late morning and headedd off to explore the island. debbie recommended a few places to go and see and there's not many roads so it's not too difficult to get around without getting lost!

the first place we went to was Scara Brae. This is what the official orkney tourism website says, "It is an incredibly well preserved stone village containing an intricate maze of dwellings, with stone beds, lintels and cupboards are all intact, and dates back some 5,000 years. The site was revealed in 1850 by a violent storm and is now one of the most famous Neolithic sites in Northern Europe."

this photo is taken on scara brae beach:



then the boys were too cold and getting hungry. i was cold and hungry too but i become so alive when i am by the sea - it's like my blood starts rushing round my body ten times faster and i feel amazing. i want to run around and jump about and just fall down in the sand and grin. i did a bit of this but jos' face was streaming and he had snot everywhere. robin wanted to get back to the car and was hiding from the wind behind my leg and andy could barely bring himself to take his hands out of his pockets to give me the camera!

we went back to the car, realised our packed lunch was still at the house so we went back and got it then had a picnic in the car! we ate while we drove to a lookout point over a loch and then on to a viking settlement called The Broch of Guerness. Robin really enjoyed running round with Andy and playing hide and seek. Jos and I found a spot to be sheltered from the wind and jos enjoyed just exploring the properties of grass!!




we drove back to stromness through a few villages and stopped in a little local shop. we also tried to go to a couple of the craft trail places but each was closed. we went to a potters and a wool shed and i was particularly excited about the wool shed (of course!) but not to worry, debbie is hoping to show me a bit of spinning while i'm here. she's been telling me all about how wool is like to work with when it is raw and i'm really looking forward to getting into spinning yarn.

as an aside, ezra who is project manahging our kitchen, called today to say that our neighbour has flipped about the work we are having done. there were a couple of issues with him before we left on holiday but i worked really hard to resolve everything before leaving. anyway, he has now gone and told the council we are doing work without permission so we now have to put in an application for the work we are doing rather than getting a building inspector just to check it after which is how the builder normally works. all this means we are delayed by about a week on the kitchen work. not so much of a problem on one level beacsue we have amazing friends who will let us eat with them but it means the house is chaotic - something i find hard at the best of times. ultimately means i don't want to be in my own home - the lounge is currently stashed to the brim with kitchen stuff. boy am i having a clearout when i put everything back into the kitchen. and praise God, chloe has said she is inviting herself round for a cup of coffee (black, no sugar, and probably cold by the time it reaches her lips!) to help me get stuff sorted.

anyone want to come for a cleaning party once the kitchen is in a better state - the rest of the house is covered in a thin layer of plaster dudt, even though we cleaned all the floors and surfafces on thursday night right before leaving!!

day 2

sitting at the breakfast table. the sun is shining today and we are going off to explore the island (or at least parts of it) today. hannah (9) is feeling poorly with a sore throat so she is staying off school - perhaps to hang out with robin but she's been told that he's going out and so isn't around for playing!!



abigail (11) was wearing a fantastic top yesterday and it turns out she made it - she and her friend eva plan to set up their own design label called 'cherry'. she also brought down a skirt made with kilt off-cuts and a diagonal zip. i think i might need to enlist her creative skills for my clothes!



tamara, known as TJ, who is 4 (5 in march) is sitting next to me at the table. she loves how fast i type but i told her that her daddy must type faster than me - he blogs so much more and is a prolific reader and writer so i'm pretty certain he has a slight advantage on speed. robin tried to do sleep over with tamara and hannah last night but he said it was too different so came back into our room.

day 1

so we had a good night's slepp although as usual the boys woke early - jos actually. robin seems to like sleeping here. this afternoon he slept for about 2 hours on me. unheard of! went to andrew and debbie'd church this morning. it was a lovely, simple get together. they do soup and bread afterwards and everyone was really freindly. met and chatted to a wonderfully eccentric guy called chris - he came back to andrew and debbie's after and is great fun!

this afternoon we just crashed out at the house - need to take photos to show you. andrew cooked a lovely roast beef dinner and he also did crepes fr breakfast. when you come to the jones' you know you are going to eat well! i love how they weave food into family life in a really special way. it means that wherever they're travelling (soemthing they do a lot) they have the same rhythm to family life. so friday is always pizza night, tuesday is sausages, sunday morning is crepes and so on.

tomorrow we are going to head off around the island and explore. robin really enjoyed the beach at thurso (where we spent the morning waiting for the ferry check-in). i think we'll try and find some of the orkney beaches which are meant to be beautiful and then a stone village which is very old and preserved. i'll tell you more about it in my update tomorrow.

gutted to miss our first time together ass a new church. chloe texted me to let me know that they were knitting as part of church - how cool. can't wait to find out more. i've been doing my knitting up here - finishing off andy's jumper. on the second sleeve now and then i only have to sew it all together. hooray!

we've arrived!

very tired but feel we have achieved something great! orkney so far is lush - andrew cooked great burgers for tea and they have done their place up beutifully. true jones style!! we'll try and stay in touch over the week - see you soon!

flower fairies

i have always loved the flower fairies. do they have them overseas? when i look at them i think they must be english but perhaps not. here is the flower fairy for the letter 'R' which is my initial (for Rebecca). chloe reminded me of them while i was browsing her blog. quite a funny post about how she accidentally let slip some nonsense to her 2yr old about fairies coming out to dance at night and now she realises she needs to tell ruby the truth! it really is a funny post but also so beautifully written that you can see why Chloe is persuing writing children's books.

anyway, i found the image below of flower fairy 'R'. interesting that it is 'R' for ragged robin and obviously robin is called robin. maybe i should get him one for his wall. i hope you like it.

today was a great day!

robin, jos and i spent the majority of today in Chesterfield, an historic market town 10 miles from Sheffield. we went becasue i really wanted to get hold of some fabric to take to orkney (i'm hoping debbie and whitney might be able to help me get some samples made). i haven't been able to get what i needed in sheffield and Chesterfield has a great market and there were two fabric stalls and each one supplied me with a different fabric so i have two and i really like them both. they are similar in weight and composition to the final fabric but as i will be using organic or sustainable fabrics for me clothes when i get them made 'proper' i won't be able to get the same great patterns that these have!

robin went on a carousel for the first time ever - the typw with cars and things, rather than horses. he looked petrified all the way round to the point that i nearly wet myself with laughter, but he said he enjoyed himself afterwards!

i'm a little stressed at the mo but feeling ok too - i have to pack up my kitchen as i have a bloke coming to collect some cupboards on weds morning and someone else coming to collect the laminate floor on wednesday evening. then on thurs dan and i are ripping out whatever is left. then on friday we are going to orkney. we are driving through the night becasue we think that's the best bet with the boys and it also means that, although knackered, we get a good amount of time with our friends up there.

the other thing i did today was have a nap in the car, lying uncomfortable across the front seats as the boys had fallen asleep in the back. i figure i need to sleep every opportunity possible if i am losing a night on friday!

windows data execution prevention aka DEP aka pain in the ass...

having been rediculously frustrated by windows service pack 2 blocking me from using windows explorer, because it would seem using windows to browse around folders (including changing settings, or running hard drive performance checks for eg) is a dangerous thing to do and therefore brings up an error message closing the window.
so you go throught the help files and it tells you you can allow access to certain files by... going into the settings window - the same window that DEP blocks.
trawling the internet has finally bought about the following:
Where Can I Find DEP On My PC?
so if anyone else has the same problems....

(posted by andy, not bea)

HELLO THE MALLONS!!

thought seeing as our friends Keith and Dawn Mallon, who are off on a ship as missionaries, might be looking at our blog soon, i would give them a special welcome.

as for the rest of you. life is fine. we are fine. sorry our blog is quite dull atb the moment. we are busy planning jos' dedication and naming ceremony in march. also we are heading up to orkney to stay with our wonderful friends the jones' and also we'll be seeing our other friends brian and whitney who live there too. both sets of friends are international - debbie jones is american and her husband andrew is kiwi. brian and whitney are both texan (a nationality in itself!).

the other thing we're getting ready for is our new kitchen! ooh - it's so exciting! on thursday my friend dan and i are ripping out the kitchen so that the builder, plumber and electrician can all come in while we are away. then ezra, our kitchen fitter friend, will fit the kitchen when we return. this means chaos for a couple of weeks and i need to organise for friends to have us round for tea a lot!

so that's us at the moment. how are you?

dynamite surfing....

this is amazing!

a big bee in bea's bonnet!

there's another blog i post on - it's called thethingaboutit and i put up the post about the petition. someone commented about it being a good move in light of a peaceful response to the oil situation. i commented back that it didn't seem so much about oil as about congestion itself. i re-read the comment and realised that it sounded like i wasn't acknowledging the car-tax as a response to climate change. so... i posted the following comment. it's pretty long and i thought to myself, "flip, i should just post that on my blog".

so here is my comment, for you as a post, because i value that you came to my blog to read what was going on in my little head!

"i've just re-read my comment and realised it sounds like i don't see the value of reducing cars in terms of climate change. i think responding to climate change is a very real and immediate need.

the impact of households making many small changes consistently would have afar greater effect on the carbon emissions of the country.

simple things like only boiling enough water in the kettle for the drinks you are making. using energy saving lightbulbs. unplugging phone chargers. not leaving computers , tv's, hifi's on standby, turning thermostat down by 1 degree (or even more and wearing a jumper). composting, recycling, shopping at charity shops, buying organic, using public transport or your feet which are free, not flying unnecessarily - how many poeple jetting off have explored every nook of this beautiful island we live on.

i don't do all the above, but bless my pharisee points score, i do a lot of them. and often i feel like i'm not making much difference and is there really any point, but if a domino effect takes place and the single drop turns into a puddle, which turns into a... ocean, then we would see big change.

we have enough oil to last 40 years more at our current rate of consumption and cars are not necessarily the greatest evil - but they are a very obvious one. if the plan passes through parilament then i suspect that there will be a certain laziness and complacency will kick in.

How about, the government used themoney set aside for this potential development and instead invested it in educating poeple and bringing about a nation of households who have made the little changes - surely those households would then make the bigger changes too, such as reducing car usage."

a proper petition for once!

If you drive a car, please read -
>>
>>Sarah Kennedy was talking about this proposed car tax scheme on Radio 2.
>>Apparently there is only one month left to register your objection to the
>>'Pay As You Go' road tax.
>>
>>The petition is on the 10 Downing St website but they didn't tell anybody
>>about it. Therefore at the time of Sarah's comments only 250,000 people
>>had signed it and 750,000 signatures are required for the government to
>>at least take any notice.
>>
>>Once you've given your details (you don't have to give your full address,
>>just house number and postcode will do), they will send you an email with
>>a link in it. Once you click on that link, you'll have signed the
>>petition.
>>
>>The government's proposal to introduce road pricing will mean you having
>>to purchase a tracking device for your car and paying a monthly bill to
>>use it. The tracking device will cost about £200 and in a recent study by
>>the BBC, the lowest monthly bill was £28 for a rural florist and £194 for
>>a delivery driver. A non working mother who used the car to take the kids
>>to school paid £86 in one month.
>>
>>On top of this massive increase in tax, you will be tracked. Somebody will

>>know where you are at all times. They will also know how fast you have
>>been going, so even if you accidentally creep over a speed limit in time
>>you can probably expect a Notice of Intended Prosecution with your monthly

>>bill.
>>
>>If you are concerned about this Orwellian plan and want to stop the
>>constant bashing of the car driver, please sign the petition on No 10's
>>new website (link below) and pass this on to as many people as possible.
>>Sign up if you value your freedom and democratic rights -
>>
>> http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/traveltax

my Jesus. my saviour.

kids say the coolest things!

this morning i was telling robin that we are going on hliday at the end of february. i asked him if he remembered our holiday last year - this was the conversation:

bea: robin, we're going on holiday soon.

robin: oh, yes...

bea: do you remember where we went on holiday in the summer?

robin: oh, yes...

bea: where did we go?

robin: to see a star on the spaceship.

how cool is that!! i would love to live in his world sometimes and know how he thinks and what he thinks about. if i could transfer into his world i would first reset his body clock as the 5am wake ups are really starting to wear us down. they've been happening for nearly 3 weeks now i think.

generally good here - pond was frozen over this morning which i think is the first time this winter and the council have been gritting the roads. living in sheffield with all it's hills means the council come out to grip if there is even a slight hint that the temperature might hit freezing, but exciting none the less.

last night we saw 'casino royale' at the cinema. oh, it was sooo good. i know it's been out ages but it felt rally special going to the cinema ona saturday night and as i couldn't eat half the snacks available i managed to wolf down a regular pack of salt and vinegar pringles before the film even started!!

terminator 3

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QuwJKZoxbDc&NR

tee hee hee!

eating bogies is nothing...

today i had to do something that was the most disgusting thing i have ever had to do. i cannot share the details on this blog because i do not think you are prepared for what happened. but trust me that it was beyond the imaginable!

moving on - i had agood business day. started really badly but then got better and was productive and i feel so much better about tyhe next step for my business. hooray! could still do with some lessons in admin organisation!

...

i am feeling so discouraged about my business that when i sit down to do stuff for it or make calls i feel like i am going to burst into tears - only today i rang a manufacturer for the third time to try and speak to this guy and that felt hard enough. then when his colleague said he had tried to phone me a few times i nearly burst into tears right there on the phone. i managed to hold it together and explain that i'm a busy mum of two small children and that if i don't answer he could leave a message but the whole experience really dragged me down.

i get so frutrated that i'm not naturally organised, i find planning really hard work and even when i have a plan i find it really hard to implement and i just feel like a tiny little plankton in a massive ocean when it comes to setting up this flipping business. everything seems to be moving so slowly and i am getting more and more demotivated and dragged down by it. i mean, how hard can it be to get a manufacturer to give me a quote for making a sample garment from my pattern and then being able to get some mums to test drive it? aaaarrrggh!!!!!

at least i am keeping going. not giving up. it's good to believe in something like i believe in my business idea. i just wish i had the skills i need to be the entrpreneur i need to be and not feel waves of tears welling up at the smallest thing.

there are two proverbs i am trying to hold onto - one about trusting in the Lord and not in my own understanding and also another about commiting your ways to the Lord and he makes your paths straight. i don't know the exact verses but i think i got the gist right.

this is sooooo gross!

last night i made a lush tea and while andy was whizzing up some pineapple and yogurt for pudding i cleared the boy's left-overs onto one plate. i then thought it was the perfect opportunity to pick my nose - both boys waiting for pudding with happy stomachs! so i picked out 3 bogies and put them on the plate of waste food.

so andy sits back down at the table and serves pudding and i'm feeding jos until i look up and andy is finishing off the food from the boy's plate, including the bogies disguised amongst the cous cous! i started laughing and decided it was only kind before he finished all the food to tell him about my nose picking excavations - the worse bit is that he looked at the last mouthful and weighed it up in his head and decided that it was worth eating the last moputhful cos tea was so nice and he'd probably already eaten the bogies anyway!!

this brings a whole new meaning to us 'becoming one flesh'!!!!

eurovision 2007

morrissey is going to sing it baby. check out this sneak preview

there's bad news, good news and then really good news!

today i got the invoice through for the car from the garage. it went in because the radiator was badly leaking and the engine kept overheating in a serious way. so i looked at the invoice and first thought was "flip, £416!". then i glanced over the work that had been done (i had also requested a service) and saw that all our front and back break pads and diskx were totally worn or corroded and had to be replaced. then i thought, "few, so glad thye radiator went, otherwise i'd still be driving an unsafe car".

so i rang andy and said, there's bad news, and there's good news and relayed the above.

then i got a call from hallam uni (i forgot to tell them i didn't plan to return to work so i've been liaiasing with a lovely guy called ben to sort it out) and ben told me that hallam were happy to honour the 9 days leave carried over (you're only meant to carry over 3) and that further leave entitlement left me with 26 days total. then he said the uni would prefer it if i handed in my resignation now and they'll pay me in lieu. my thought was "wow! God's timing and provision is amazing!" the money from hallam will more than cover the money for the garage and once again we've seen God's faithfulness to us with our finances.

and for any texans reading, i didn't even have to ask Him to sell some cattle, he must have done it anyway!!

you are very welcome!

i noticed some new dots on the map - i just wanted to say that whoever you are, you are very welcome on our blog - it would be great if you'd introduce yourselves on our comments. having said that, maybe none of you will come back after you su've seent he bland nature of our posts!!!

just a normal family doing normal stuff, thinking normal things... actually i'm not sure normal is a word many poeple would use to describe us, particularly me!!

not forgetting....

little jossy boo is now sleeping in his very own (well borrowed from helen) travel cot in our room, all by himself.
not to say he's been a naughty boy or anything, but the 3-5am playing and crying sessions were getting a bit much, and, well, we needed to try something - jos certainly is NOT the co-sleeper that Robin was - he must just need a bit more space.
anyway, its all gone very well, and the fears of hours of crying turned out only to be 10 mins on the first night, 2.5 the next, so well done jos, the boy done good!!

i have a new 'c' key!

hello everyone. i am so excited because i finally have a new 'c' kry! the last one came to a sudden end after robin dropped a bok on it, although we have been gently coersing it into working for us. dell did send us a new keyboard but it seemed a faff to change over and then we only remembered when robin was in his bed and the tool box i stored in his room!

tonight i am hosting a 'mystery host' Pampered Chef show where i will be giving away all the free stuff and all the half-price stuff that the host usually gets for herself. i'm making some little salmon thins and also some little choclate mini muffins too. should be fun!

life is plodding into 2007 fairly smoothly so far!

sorry such a boring post but i felt i needed to post something!

he he he....

"Hans Wagner shows off his gigantic rabbit, Herman, at his home in Berlin in february. Herman is almost 3ft tall and eats a bale of hay a week." Sunday Times Magazine

happy new year!!

in engalnd we ahve 6 minutes to go until we enter te splenidid year of 2007. we are listeninINXS and i am a littlw tiddly. we are watichign a lock that is acccurateb to 1 secnd with every 290 years. i am pissed which is unsusual and causing many speling mistakes.

earlkier tis year jen sentmea text to wish me a happy 2007 from the beginning od next year. we have al dicisded tat it feels better to be moving into 2008 but alas wea are oving into 2008. i feel i9 sould apoliogise to andrew jone for y drunkeness. i don't know why. carla sufggests we should move towards morw fun in 2008 but i don't thinki have more fun whe i'm drunk - instead i just spell more badly!!
rach aims for more pointy bits and andy is [utrting 'a blast from the past' on the stearoe. rbital?!! orbital when i conscentrate. carla is taking a thigh as a pillow and rach is trying not to fart.

barnaby has just had the same text from 2 very un-related people. it reads like this - always remenber - lofe is short - forgive quickly, quiss quickly, love truly, love truly and benevre forget new year's eve (please note my keypad is having trouble with the c key.)

rah says we are all saddos with our mobiles.

maybe this is the most realistic expression of a new year's blog ever.

andy ad carla are reflecctung on the orbital live track.

HAPPYNEW YEAR..

Tolstoy said...

"I sit on a man's back, choking him and making him carry me, and yet assure myself and others that I am very sorry for him and wish him to ease his lot by all possible means - except by getting off his back."

reflect on this at your peril. it is humbling.

also, just wanted to mention how exciting it is to see poeple reading our blog from places that we would never have expected. i wonder if i know you or maybe you just happened upon us and won't come back again, or alternatively, happened upon us and come back regularly!

here is a picture of the blue Christmas tree outside Sheffield train station. it is the most Christmassy photo i took i think!

some pictures

me and jos

robin's snowman for andy to have in the office!

robin dressed up as a mexican (all his own doing!)

andy and me

it had to be done.

jos' first haircut. a sad event because he has wonderful hair but it was actually interlinking with his eyelashes. i only layered the top so we are now heading for mullet territory but andrew jones wears a mullet and he's one of the coolest chaps around.

hilarious!

i always thought clothes were put on manequins to make them look desirable - as if they would look really great on you. check out this dress at topshop to see how sometimes it can go really wrong!!

2 things... and a ps.

1. the following quote from the Design Council Report 1998 @more for less' has challenged me and my thoughts and actions:

"80-90% of the total lifecycle costs of any product (environmental and economic) are determined by the product design before production even begins. "

2. i am a human being and i have needs - one of these needs is words of affirmation, particularly in the form of blog comments. when you comment i get a zingy sparkle all through me. it makes me feel loved and special and thought of. when you don't comment i just think that no one reads my stuff anymore.

ps. at present i do not recommend the ammazing change website for anything other than information. it's got great info about slavery and your response to it, but the community side of it is not happening - i can't even post on the forum for goodness sake.

treesforlife

"*** SHIPMENT CONFIRMATION - PLEASE PRINT AND RETAIN FOR YOUR RECORDS ***

Hello andy marshall,

Thank you for placing an order with Books For Trees! For each book ordered we donate 5p to Trees for Life. This enables Trees for Life to replant the Caledonian forest in Scotland with native trees. For more information, please check out www.treesforlife.org.uk or email us.

Your Amazon UK order, number 736-7603764-1686545, has been processed and shipped via standard mail on 12/6/2006."

a slavery update

if you go to this link then you can find out all about William Wilberforce who was a key player in the abolition of slavery 200 years ago. Quite an amazing person, I think you'll agree!

sleepless nights...

spent the past two nights finding it hard to get to sleep having had loads and loads of ideas going thru my head about a new miniature based wargame that i've come up with.
the usual advice is write everything down, get it out of you, but i seem to find i just get more and more ideas as i write.
add in a jos who likes to wake up for an hours adventuring at 3am and its not going well!

knackeroodled like a poodle

so tired that i am going to bed - at 9.10 pm or thereabouts. jos teething and also snuffly and coughing so not getting much sleep. earlier i posted a link to a picture but it didn't work. instead, check out the whole site called postsecret and enjoy in a weird kind of way! thank you to jen for reminding me of that site - i'm not sure why i filed it away for so long!

The Amazing Change

I've just signed up to a website called The Amazing Change. It is part and parcel of all that is to do with the bicentennial of the abolition of slavery and the new film coming out next year called Amazing Grace. You can go to the website here. I'm going to be blogging about slavery as i remember - it's something that is hard to ignore when you start finding out the facts.

The following is some info taken from the website:

What Is Slavery?

Common characteristics distinguish slavery from other human rights violations. A slave is:

Forced to work -- through mental or physical threat; owned or controlled by an 'employer', usually through mental or physical abuse or threatened abuse; dehumanised, treated as a commodity or bought and sold as 'property'; physically constrained or has restrictions placed on his/her freedom of movement.

--Source: AntiSlavery.org

What Types of Slavery Exist Today?

Slavery exists. Whether we call it trafficking, bonded labor, forced labor, or sex slavery, it exists: globally, nationally, and locally.

Bonded labour affects at least 20 million* people around the world. People become bonded labourers by taking or being tricked into taking a loan for as little as the cost of medicine for a sick child. To repay the debt, many are forced to work long hours, seven days a week, up to 365 days a year. They receive basic food and shelter as 'payment' for their work, but may never pay off the loan, which can be passed down for generations.

Early and forced marriage affects women and girls who are married without choice and are forced into lives of servitude often accompanied by physical violence.

Forced labour affects people who are illegally recruited by individuals, governments or political parties and forced to work -- usually under threat of violence or other penalties.

Slavery by descent is where people are either born into a slave class or are from a 'group' that society views as suited to being used as slave labour.

Trafficking involves the transport and/or trade of people -- women, children and men -- from one area to another for the purpose of forcing them into slavery conditions. Human Trafficking is now ranked as the second largest criminal industry globally?second only to drug smuggling, and tying with illegal weapons transactions. The U.S. Department of State estimates that between 15 and 20 THOUSAND individuals are trafficked into the United States to become slaves EACH YEAR! This does not include those U.S. citizens trafficked from city to city within our borders.

--Source: AntiSlavery.org and the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center.

this is brill - mum sent it me!

Life Cycle


I think the life cycle is all backwards.


You should start out dead and get it out of the way.


Then, you wake up in an old age home feeling better every day.


You get kicked out for being too healthy;

Go collect your pension, and then when you start work,

you get a gold watch on your first day.


You work 40 years until you're young enough to enjoy your retirement.


You drink alcohol, you party, you're generally promiscuous

and you get ready for High School.


You go to primary school, you become a kid, you play,

you have no responsibilities, you become a baby, and then...


You spend your last 9 months floating peacefully in luxury,

in spa-like conditions; central heating, room service on tap,

larger quarters every day, and then, you finish off as an orgasm.

a few more photos

aint they cuties....

he done gone and got a tooth!!

our little jossy woo has got his first tooth through - at last! for moths it's been threatening, slowly working its way down through his gums and the last few days i've noticed the bulge and now it's here. so tiny you have to feel it to relly join in with the excitement! robin is particularly excited - i think his fingers were in jos' mouth more today than in the 8 months he's been with us!! not to worry though, robin will soon learn that jos' mouth is no plac eto leave his fingers idling!!

just done a pampered chef show in barnsley. it went really well and Praise God i got a future booking. it's not til may but it's there and they have not been very forthcoming i tell you! also, my sales this month have gone over £1000 so i get a £20 bonus in my pay packet - yehah!

i really should be sleeping

this morning i had jos sleeep for 45 minutes from 8.15 til 9 so that he would be ready to go to sleep at the same time as robin when robin usually does his 2ish hour sleep. but robin isn't going to sleep so i can't sleep. i am very frustrated because i'm so tired having done a pampered chef show last night and then feeding jos 7 times in a 6 hour period last night. irritates me that i was self-disciplined and thought through my day and planned for it and set limits (all of which don't come naturally to my ENFP personality type) and then i get no good consequences from it - apart from robin demonstrating his excellent patience skills because although awake he is, for the most part, being quiet in his room. i expect he will fall asleep at a time just before jos wakes up and when i start calculating the time left before bedtime and so possible worrying that he won't sleep later.

i was also hoping to make it to the museum this afternoon but not sure that's going to happen if he is so knackered/falls asleep just before jos wakes!

robin loves diggers. we continue to raise him in a household that tries to blur the gender lines in terms of identity. totally want our boys to know that they are boys, one day to be men but don't want them to think that they are therefore denied pink, dresses/skirts, dollies, nail polish, fairy outfits etc. i am often quite shocked when people say, 'aren't you worried they'll end up gay?'. no, i'm not worried - not that for a minute i think people are gay simply because they had parents who gave them the freedom to explore the world through a child's eyes instead of cultural rules that have not been thought through. but anyway, it wouldn't be a problem if either of them was gay. far more important that they grow up knowing that they are loved, that they are loving to others, that they develop good boundaries with themselves and others so that they take responsibility for their choices and whatever consequences go along with those and that they serve others in a 'love your neighbour as you love yourself' way.

robin does love diggers though! we went to the park the other day where there is a digger doing a great job of building a toilet block! we parked a bit away and walked along the river to the park and we saw the heron. i say 'the' heron because for some reason whenever i see him it always feels like he is the only one. i've never seen two together and he always looks the same. and he has a wonderful aura of authority - like he really knows that he owns the place! here's a picture (taken on my mobile at full zoom so it's not the best quality!!)

a few of the goings on of creative stream...

cliff plays the hideously vast collection of westlife songs (the majority of which are covers)
andy (me) creates totem poles in his lunch break:

cliff farts.
ant sings along to westlife.
andy woods asks cliff to download/ buy more westlife, then regrets it.
andy m puts his head phones on and listens to harry potter audiobook.

all in a days work.

some things i am thinking about

1. how to blog more - i like it but finding the time is hard.
2. myers briggs personality testing and how to strengthenm the bits of me that don't fit my natural personality type.
3. work-life balance
4. jonny cash's amazing worship album
5. prophecy
6. what i want for Christmas
7. ebaying again now that i can use my phone to take pictures and bloetooth them to my laptop.
8. the fact that i haven't worn my dungarees for ages.

bregazzi's - robin discovers the bohemian life...

....and jos looks a little quizzical.

thats the next 2 weeks sorted for entertainment...

just started watching it last night - its the virus one in case you can't remember - very exciting (altho a bit annoying i remember a little bit from when we saw the occasional episode when it was originally on...)

the latest addition...

having spent too long with a house filled with clothes, nappies and duvet covers hanging from every available hanging place, we have finally invested in a tumble dryer - its like my new favourite toy!!

stil enjoying the be good tanyas
they're playing in the UK in the next few weeks - i'd really (as in there's no other band i'd want to see live at the mo) love to see them, but getting out of town to see em is a bit tricky - york or manc anyone??

also enjoying blogging again. - hope you are too!

i've been to the spa and i look ten years younger (according to chloe's mum)

this morning chloe and i went to the spa together. it was lush and i am sure my face looks different as a result. i must keep drinking lots of water though because of all those pesky toxins trying to escape my body (which is a temple i'll have you know!). I t nearly all started with disaster as i went into town early to buy a swim suit having been reliably informed that M&S stock them all year round, only to discover that M&S do not stock them all year round anymore. so i rushed to john lewis - i need'nt have as they weren't yet open - where i felt like julia roberts in pretty woman when the shop lady is lovely to her. i explained to the lady that i was going to the spa and that i had to get a cossie and that i had a very short amount of time to do it. she was awesome and got me to the costumes and helped me look through all the sizes. i went into the changing room with two but i needed niples that stuck out to the sides for the bra bit to look right so i scrapped those but then the john lewis lady kept bringing new ones to try on. i put on a (shock horror) brown suit and it looked fantastic. i love it, even though it is brown. so i bought it and had a lovely time i the spa with chloe. i am a new woman!

barnaby is coming to stay tonight - hooray. we love him and he is Jos' life parent so it's about time he put in an appearance. only joking! he is very busy and important but we get him for an evening of chicken thariwala and wine and he's staying the night.

here is a random picture from the google search for 'grape snorkel'. it was andy's choice of wordswhen i asked him for the frist two peculiar words to enter his head.

For the body of Christ

you are our God - a communal statement

From before the world began
and after the end of eternity, YOU ARE GOD
From the sea bursting out of its womb
to the wind ceasing from its chase, YOU ARE GOD
In the vastness of the universe
and the forgotten corners of our hearts, YOU ARE GOD
YOU ARE OUR GOD AND WE BLESS YOU.

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...)