Wild and Wonderful

Today's prompt over at HS:MS is "Wild" so I actually ventured out into the garden with my camera and caught this shot. The flowers are on one of the apple trees that my Dad bought for me this time last year and the bee, well he's a wild one that just happened to be passing by. I know the bee shouldn't really be in the middle of the shot but it just seemed to work better with him there so there he stays.
The next couple of days are going to be busy as I am in work until noon, both days, I have a hair appointment tomorrow and Friday is the day I dread when everyone reminds me how old I am getting.

Blogless day.

Yesterday was the first day that I haven't blogged this year - it had to happen sooner or later! We ended up in a bed shop of all places and on the spur of the moment we bought ourselves a huge leather bed and a gorgeous mattress. We now just have to wait until next Wednesday to get it delivered. Our bed has never felt so uncomfortable as it did last night and I am sure by next Tuesday night it is going to be like sleeping on a bed of nails. Other than that not an awful lot was done due to the horrible weather we had, and still have. So for the rest of the day I attempted to organise my photos into some sort of order - not an easy task.

Today's photo is a complete cheat not only was it taken weeks ago I didn't even take it but Hay Ho it will have to suffice. It was a very very long way down though.

My Boys

I took this picture of the boys this afternoon in the park at Buxton. I only noticed the total look of disgust on their faces when I got home and downloaded the pictures. The reason for this look? A couple of adults had found a birds nest and decided to pick it up to show their young children. The boys were horrified and said in very loud voices how you never touch a birds nest and certainly don't move it. So today I am a very proud Mum.

It's Here!!

And it is brilliant - totally brilliant I LOVE IT. It took me a while to sync it with the console but I eventually managed it after reading the instructions - derrr. It has weighed me and told me I am overweight, like I really needed to know that but to compensate I have an excellent centre of gravity. My Wii fit age was then calculated and turned out to be 4 years younger than me so I'm well pleased. For the rest of the afternoon I have been doing yoga, step, jogging, skiing, ski jumping, hula hooping and lots more I haven't even touched the muscle toning section yet. Matt has just come in which meant my turn was over (for now).

If you have a Wii you just got to get the Wii fit!

Still not here!

It's now 8.53am and my Wii fit hasn't arrived yet and I have a nasty feeling it isn't going to arrive until just before the boys get in probably only giving me enough time to install the thing before they descend on it.

So while I wait impatiently I got my baby out of it's bag for the first time in weeks so I could take a shot for today's prompt at HS:MS about time too. I think it is beginning to feel neglected.With not being in work this weekend (or next) we have decided we are going to go out picnicking, geocaching and photo snapping, two (three in this case) birds one stone and all that. Or should I say we are hoping to do that if we can drag the boys away from the Wii for long enough. Not sure where to go but the Buxton area and the Wirral are both strong contenders at the moment. At least it will stop me obsessing about time, years and my most hated day of the year which happens next week sometime.

10:14 Starting to pace now.

14:14 If we had a carpet it would have a huge hole in it by now.

Up and at 'em...

....barely. Yesterday I did a nine hour shift from 7am - 4pm and 5 of those hours were physical work hoicking pallets around and depositing the contents in various places. To be honest that is the side of the job that I love as I am getting paid to do a really vigorous workout which is doing what I intended it to do as I have lost 14lbs since I started the job 6 weeks ago.

The Wii fit still hasn't turned up but that could have something to do with me not reading the email properly the first time as the damn thing isn't released until tomorrow so that is when it is arriving. Luckily after my shift today I am off for 3 days so plenty of time to play. It would be nice if it arrived in the morning so that I could have it all to myself until the boys get home from school.

Got to stay awake tonight after work as my bestest ever programme is on again - HEROES! Totally can't wait.

I may be back later with a HS:MS prompt but at the moment it has not been posted so no can do.

Zzzzzzzzzzzzz

The title says it all. x

Hi Ho Hi Ho

It's off to work I go. There will be no road shot from me today, I have looked through all my achieved pictures and haven't found one suitable shot and I am certainly not going to stand on my road to take pictures. I have already been knocked down by a car and I ran into the side of a moving one once so I am not risking doing either of those things ever again.

Yellow? More like Blue

The word over at HS:MS today is yellow and that is not a colour I can identify with at the moment as I feel less than bright today. I am totally fed up of being a nag trying to get the boys to revise for their exams, so much so I am even considering giving up on it completely and just letting them get on with it themselves. I pre-ordered a Wii Fit thingy a couple of months ago as a surprise for the boys (read that as I wanted one) with the understanding that it would be delivered on the day of release, which was last Friday and guess what it still isn't here so I am getting slightly miffed about that too as I wanted to use it as revision blackmail. Then on top of all that I seem to have injured my hand somehow and it has been really giving me grief for the last couple of hours.

On the upside I visited Mima this afternoon, just a quick one but enjoyable all the same it's just a shame that Sue couldn't make it again.

Yesterday was a good day even though it was busy. I got up to find an unexpected email from my Aunt Carolyn (the one we are visiting in Canada in the summer) from China of all places. Carolyn is currently over there visiting different Universities and checking out their teaching methods, she then returns to Canada to go straight out to Arizona with 20 students to do a 10 day field trip and then as far as I know they are going off to Australia with work for a while before we arrive at their place in the summer. Well anyway I digress, after getting the email which answered a few of our questions we decided to book the other half of our summer jaunt. The flights from Toronto to NY are now booked as is the 4 night stay in a hotel next to Central Park, the New York City Passes and the trip up the Rock, needless to say my Visa did a bit of groaning yesterday!

After the excitement of booking all of that we took ourselves off to Chester for a couple of hours to spend even more money so when I got a phone call from my boss asking if I could go in a couple of hours early I jumped at the chance.

Today I have no idea what we are going to do as the weather is pretty grim, revision is definetly on the list but the rest I will have to make up as I go along.

Too Busy Today Will Catch up Tomorrow

Oops A Daisy.

Not had what you would call a brilliant day. I was in work from 7am - 3pm today, which is the one day a month when I get a stonking headache, nausea, the shakes, stomach cramps, a bad case of dropsy and the need for frequent toilet breaks - lovely stuff. I am amazed that nothing went wrong for me until this afternoon, I thought it would be about 7.30am when I got the first breakage but I shocked myself and lasted until 2.30pm. It started with a full pallet of beer that I couldn't manoeuvre into it's little space so I thought "I know brute force and ignorance will do the trick" so I yanked - hard. This is when 8 cans of beer flew off, one of which exploded on impact with the ground. I quickly mopped this up and took the remaining 7 dented cans into the warehouse to deposit them in the bin. Upon turning round to come back out I knocked 48 glass jars of Anti Pasta onto the floor from about waist height, how only 1 of them smashed I will never know. After 47 of them were safely returned from whence they came I picked up the broken one and threw it in the bin, unfortunately for me it landed on top of the cans of beer which exploded in turn all over me leaving me dripping wet and smelling like a brewery! I now remember why I usually hide away and spend this day in bed every month. The upside to this is that it only ever lasts one day so tomorrow I should be safe to be around again.

So there is no photo from me today as I really don't want to risk the health of my camera so it is staying safely tucked away in it's padded bag.

I had a lovely visit with Mima, who was good company even if she wasn't feeling the best yesterday, but unfortunately Sue couldn't make it :( I even got to taste one of Mima's gorgeous, homemade biscuits and if Rose hadn't taken the box away when she did I could have easily eaten the whole lot. I ended up going round in the car instead of on my push bike but to ease my guilt we all went for a bike ride last night.

The photo today is of a tile floor that I thought looked gorgeous in the dappled sunlight. The kids were not happy with me as it was a public place and I ended up down on my hands and knees taking this shot with shouts of "Dad, Mum's at it again can't you make her stop, she's embarrassing". One day they will realise that embarrassing them is my main purpose in life and the reason that I had kids in the first place.

Early Bird for a change

No work today but I am still up nice and early, raring to go! I am continuing my quest for a clean house this morning 4 rooms down only another 7 to go, including the kitchen. Then this afternoon I am getting on my push bike to go and visit Mima and Sue, I'm really looking forward to hearing Sues tales from New York and to having a good girly catchup afternoon with them both and of course my cold can of coke. Tonight we are back on the revision, no arguments last night (so sorry Suzy you haven't won a prize yet).

It's pretty hard to take a picture of investigate when you are all on your lonesome and now is the only chance I am going to get to do this today so it has to be one I prepared earlier. Matt and Kyle were investigating this pile of wood for a geocache and they were successful too.

Three today!!

Seeing as this is the third time we have had the word window on HS:MS since I have been doing it and I am going to post all three of my windows in the order I did them. Not stopping long as I am in the middle of spring cleaning and I have to get it done before I am on revision duty - again. I learnt all about enzymes last night as Matt had been given some revision homework from school. If I am honest I am finding it fun, don't think the boys are though.

The same old puddle

I thought I wasn't going to be able to put a picture up today as all the puddles that were around first thing this morning have dried up in the glorious sunshine. Then I remembered the picture I used last time we had this word.

I have been busy planning tonight's revision for the boys. Kyle is on reproduction, cells, algebra and angles. Matt is on cells, rain forests and a little bit of French wonder how many arguments we are going to have tonight?

Nothing Much Happening.

That just about describes today. We did go for an interestingish dog walk this morning in some steep woods with a stream at the bottom. I say walk it was more of a slip and a slide and it had us laughing more than once. At the end of the woods is a geocaching site which we have searched 3 times now and we have still haven't found it, maybe next time.

Yesterday afternoon I morphed into Evil Mum and declared it revision time. Kyle just got on with it and was finished after an hour. Matthew dragged it on and on it took him over an hour to write 6 lines of notes on rainforest's, which mostly didn't make sense and then he sulked later on when I told him he had to do more. I have more fun planned for him tonight. The Wii has been unplugged and hidden as has his laptop and the keyboard off his desk top, they don't have TV's in their rooms so that won't be a problem. He gets everything back when he has done his revision to my satisfaction. Muuuhahaha

I might think of a title later but then again I might not

I've decided I don't do Saturday's anymore, well I don't do HS:MS on a Saturday anymore. There are only so many pictures of me and my motley crew that I can inflict on the world and I think I reached the maximum amount weeks ago. So from now on I am hanging up my camera on a Saturday. Apart from that it is the only night of the week with anything worth watching on TV. I might post a picture tomorrow but then again I might not as I am not really keen on Show Off Sunday's either as it is not something that comes naturally to me. I'm off now to watch dancing dogs and dodgy keyboard players.

Recycle and Reuse

That's what we do with most things in the this house. I was spoilt for choice for today's picture I tried the little compost caddy in the kitchen, the box of used loo roll middles, drinks cartons, plastic bottles and cans that is ready for one of the boys to sort out, the 2 red boxes the council gave us for plastics, the 2 green boxes they gave us for cans and glass, the 2 bags they gave us for paper, the brown bin that is for green waste, the 3 compost heaps in the garden or the recycled bread bags that we reuse as dog pooh bags but they all looked a bit uninspiring and disgusting. Instead I took this picture of one of my many bags for life that I possess as like I have mentioned before I don't do carrier bags.

I have the day to myself today as I am not in work until 4pm and then I have the whole weekend to enjoy, bad weather and all. I think it could be a good opportunity for some extra revision and bedroom tidying - won't I be Little Miss Popular.

Disclaimer

I had a great day yesterday, work went well and then I had a lovely time visiting Mima, where I think I may have talked her to death. Then after tea we went for Kyle's parent teacher interviews which were interesting to say the least. We now have 3-4 weeks of hard revision every night for both of the boys which seems to be involving me as they haven't got a clue how to go about it. I'm finding it very difficult at the moment to find the time to take any pictures for the HS:MS prompts as, like Sue says, life is getting in the way but I am going to try and join in when I can - just not today.

Nothing from me today.

Kicking myself

I'm not in work today so I have actually managed to put a photo up for the HS:MS prompt even if I didn't take it today. Yesterday was my first shift as a proper worker and not just a pretend one (trainee). It went well and my war wound didn't hold me back too much. Whilst defurring my legs at the weekend I sort of took a huge slice of skin off my ankle bone - nice. While in work yesterday I kicked the said ankle with my other foot (accidentally of course I don't normally go round kicking myself) and by the time I got home my sock had gotten itself stuck in the wound - even nicer. It took me over 10 minutes to remove my sock from my foot and then another 10 minutes to remove all the black fur from my ankle with some tweezers - lovely.
Today I am going to kick back (very carefully and away from my ankle) and relax as tomorrow is another busy one. I'm in work at 7am until 1pm, then I am visiting the lovely Mima at 2pm(ish) and then tomorrow night I am off to Kyle's parent teacher interviews so I may not be around until Thursday.

Oh No it's the dreaded .....

can't be arseditus. x

Another photoless post.

This time it is down to pure laziness as I did take some pictures in the snow, I just can't be bothered to load them at the moment. Pete took the boys sledging early this morning while I had a nice long hot bath in peace and quiet - total bliss. When they got back Pete and I took the dogs and the camera out down near the river before the snow melted completely. As soon as we got back from there we got back in the car and went to Cheshire Oaks to have some lunch and to go and watch 'Spiderwick Chronicles' which turned out to be not a bad film. It even had Andrew McCarthy in it who I had a HUGE crush on when I saw him in 'Mannequin' and 'St Elmo's Fire' as a teenager. Such a shame he was only in it for a few minutes as boy has he aged well. As an added bonus we managed to get Kyle a pair of new 'Vans' shoes while we were there and believe me getting Kyle anywhere near a shoe shop is not easy. When we got back home we took out the beef brisket that had been cooking for 8 hours, in the slow cooker, in a full bottle of Chilean red wine and had it for tea with gravy made from the winey, meaty juices - Mmmmmm totally delicious. Now I am going to settle down in front of a coal fire and watch a DVD with a cup of tea and an apple. I would prefer wine and chocolate but I HAVE to loose weight before the summer.

Nothing from me today.

Busy at home, busy shopping, busy walking the dogs, busy at work, busy watching Dr Who, then busy watching Atonement.

I don't do this often...

.. but I am going to rant! I am so very, very annoyed at the moment. I just opened a letter that came today, I know it's late but it got hidden by a pile of ironing. It was from my solicitors about the accident I had last July. Apparently, I have to inform them of any days I am not available in the next 6 months as it looks like I will have to go to court about the hire car that I was given at the time. From what I understand the other drivers insurance company are refusing to pay my insurance company the car hire fees so I have to go to court to explain why I couldn't afford to pay these myself at the time of the accident. What you need to understand is that I pay EXTRA each year so that I am GUARANTEED a like for like hire car in the case of an accident as long as the accident is not my fault and this accident was certainly not my fault. I was stationery waiting to enter a roundabout where as the other driver entered the roundabout at about 65 MPH, hit it, span round and hit me and then he was prosecuted for drink driving. I just can't believe that his insurance company think that I should have paid out over £4000 (no idea where they got this figure from) in car hire fees out of my own money!! Like I have that type of money sat in the bank waiting to be paid out because of some other w****s stupidity. The upside to this (if there is one) is that I will not be asked to pay any of the money at any point, this is just to help my insurance company claim the money back. Rant now over, and breathe.

Need for Speed

A bit of a cheat today I am afraid as this was taken last October when we went on the old fashioned rides at the Black Country Museum near Birmingham.

Pete came in last night and found the bike lock key straight away (much too my annoyance) so today I am planning to go for a bike ride with the boys, if the rain stays off for long enough. As I am not in work this morning I have even managed a picture for HS:MS. The light here is pretty naff this morning so I have had a little play with it in photoshop.

Good Blogger - Bad Photo Taker

Once again I don't have a photo for HS:MS as I just can't be arsed. Just got back from a lovely dog walk in the drizzle with make shift dog leads, Pete took the proper ones to work, 2 moaning kids and a smelly hat on (don't ask). We did try for a bike ride earlier but it seems that someone has lost the key for the lock that ties Pete and My bikes together so that was a no go. So with no car and no bike it looks like we are stuck in the house for the rest of the day.

Woooo Hooo

Had a busy day today that's why there is no HS:MS photo from me. Work this morning and then cleaning carpets with a rug Doctor this afternoon - how exciting is that? What was exciting is the phone call that Pete made to me telling me that he has got a pay rise and it's a pretty good one too, I think we both ended up dancing around a little bit with big stupid grins on our faces. Oh and my £100 cash back, for my new camera, from Canon arrived in the post.