1 Day 12 Pics November

11th November 2017

I remembered to take part in 1 day 12 pics November on Instagram.

1 day 12 pics November

1 – I blogged about the Asda and Argos 2017 Christmas adverts

2 – We went Christmas shopping

3 – More Christmas shopping

4 – Making turkey stir-fry for lunch and having a coffee

5 – More coffee!

6 – More shopping, this time my grocery order from Tesco.

7 – I reckon I’ve got a coffee problem! Coffee and a crumpet with jam to keep me going until dinner time.

8 – Catching up with Corrie

9 – Visiting Nanny and Chi-Chi

10 – Making a salad to go with the dinner

11 – Ham and mushroom pasta for dinner

12 – Catching up on Grey’s Anatomy

Photography

1 Day 12 Pics On Instagram – October

10th October 2017

I’ve not taken part in #1day12pics on Instagram for a while. I figured it was time to join in again with October #1day12pics

For those who don’t know, #1day12pics runs on the first Saturday of every month. The idea is to take a photo on the hour, every hour and post them to Instagram.
I like to collect them all up and put them on a blog post when I remember to take part, that is!

Saturday was a quiet day, I didn’t really go anywhere so it was a bit hard finding something to take a photo every hour. I managed it, though 🙂

October #1day12pics

1)

I’m reading this book as part of my Goodreads reading challenge 2017

2)

Pinterest – I was scheduling pins to Tailwind. Since using tailwind, my monthly views on Pinterest went from 59k on September 9th to 161.1k on October 9th.

3)

Coffee time

4)

Ant’s homemade bread

5)

Our beautiful Ella

6)

Ella spent the afternoon helping to raise funds for her Cubs group. They did a jumble sale.

7)

My new craft kits have arrived 🙂

8)

I couldn’t resist starting my new craft kit!

9)

We went to visit Nanny and had a coffee

10)

Ella’s new teddy bear from her sister, Kellyann

11)

I had to catch up on Eastenders. I was about 10 episodes behind!

12)

I love my new craft kits 🙂

Photography

Treated Myself To A Photography Lightbox :)

22nd August 2017

Lightbox

I’ve been looking at getting a lightbox for a while to make taking photos of food easier. I had mentioned to Ant about making one but last week I decided to go ahead and buy one.

I checked lots of reviews on Amazon and found a good one then checked eBay to compare prices. It was cheaper on eBay so ordered it.
The parcel didn’t take long to arrive. I opened it, put it all together and I was very excited. It was bigger than I’d imagined. I’m going to have to use the dining table rather than the kitchen counter but that’s not a problem.

I haven’t had chance to try it out yet as I’ve not done any recipes recently but I’m going to do a new one tomorrow just so I can give it a go 🙂

The only thing I’m not very happy with is the different coloured inserts for the background. The photo on eBay shows them fitting perfectly but when I put them in, there are gaps down the sides.

Lightbox — The red insert needs ironing but even when ironed, it’s not going to fit properly.

If it becomes a problem, I’ll just buy some fabric and make my own so it fits properly.

Family, Photography

Ella’s Been Searching For Gems – My Sunday Photos

9th July 2017

Searching For Gems

Aiden’s had this rock and gem dig set for a few years. He’s never really been bothered with it so Kaycee asked if she could do it instead.
Both Kaycee and Ella have really enjoyed searching for the tiny gems in the rocks.

Ella decided to see if she could find anything in the stones in the garden. They were too hard for the tools that came with the rock and gem dig so she got the hammer from my tool box. Sh then proceeded to make a mess on the patio!

She took this photo because she said the smashed stones look like the universe 🙂

Photography

More Mundesley Photos – Sand, Sea and a lovely church

13th May 2017

Mundesley Photos

I took my Nikon camera with me to Mundesley, Norfolk. It’s been ages since I used it because I’ve not needed it since getting my Samsung phone.

I do like the macro setting on it, though, so figured I’d take it to the beach and see what I could find to photograph.
I have to say, the best photo that was taken at the beach while we were on holiday was taken using a Samsung S5. The super wonderful husband took it using his phone. It’s the one in the header image above.

Unlike me, he’s able to get right down to the ground. Well, I can get down but I’d not be able to get back up again!. I think it’s an excellent photo 🙂

Photography

Birthday, Blood & Biscuit Cake – Project As & When

6th May 2017

Birthday, Blood & Biscuit Cake

Aiden turned 17 last week. He didn’t want a party but he did want a birthday cake, which I forgot to buy because I was ill.
I felt awful for forgetting so the next day when I was better, we went off to Asda and bought him this custard cream biscuit cake. His favourite biscuit is the custard cream so we had to buy it when we saw it!

He loved it when he first saw it but was disappointed it didn’t taste like a custard cream biscuit!

Ella wanted to bring Aiden’s cake in for him. Aiden didn’t want to be photographed for the blog!

My book for the week was The Twins. I really enjoyed it and will be publishing a full review on the blog.

I thought my first appointment to give blood was on Thursday. When we on the way, I was checking the letter to make sure I’d filled the form in correctly and noticed I’d missed the appointment. It was actually on Aiden’s birthday, the day I’d been ill. I wouldn’t have been able to go anyway but I feel awful that I didn’t phone to cancel. I’ve organised another appointment in June.

Chi-Chi came to visit 🙂

I found some Smurf marshmallows at the new Home Bargains store that opened in Lincoln recently.

I went to HomeSense to take photos of all the new garden stock and couldn’t resist treating myself to a new notebook. Ant bought me the matching pens 🙂

Photography

New Book, Ella Selfies & Garden Work – Project As & When

15th April 2017

New Book

I bought another new book from the charity shop again this week! It sounds really good but I think I should have checked the reviews on Goodreads first because they’re not very enthusiastic about it. Oh well, I’ll read it and see 🙂

I found some Ella Selfies and had to share them. I think they’re some of her best ones 🙂

We managed to get some time out in the garden again this week. Well, I say we, Ant did most of the work! It was a hot weekend, weather-wise and I’m afraid it was too hot for me.
I did help move the huge pile of branches to the top of the garden and did some weeding on the rockery area around the pond.

While I was keeping cool inside, Ant was outside making a new bike shed. I’ll be posting more about it tomorrow 🙂

Photography

Garden Visitors – Sunday Photo

9th April 2017

Garden Visitors

Garden visitors – I don’t like chasing off the ducks when they come to visit but it has to be done. They’re lovely to watch but they eat the tadpoles and make a mess so they can’t stay.

Last year we had a pair of ducks come visiting a few times but once we put the rooster ornament out there we didn’t see them again. I was hoping the rooster would do his job again this year but they must be getting braver!

Sometimes they come early in the morning. If I hear them, I can’t back to sleep because I lie there imagining them eating my tadpoles!

(Please ignore the state of the grass. The lawn mower needs servicing and we have to ask the lovely mother in law to lend us hers tomorrow!)

Photography

1 Day 12 Pictures – Project As And When

8th April 2017

1 Day 12 Pictures

1 – The first of my 1 day 12 pictures is a certificate Kaycee received for excellent effort in some of her subjects at school. We’re very proud of how hard she’s working at her new school.

Books!

2 – I received a £50 book gift card. If you read my blog at all, you’ll know how much I love books. Which means you’ll know how excited I am to go and spend £50 on books! I’m taking it on holiday with me so we can go book shopping!

3 – The girls have spent the morning tidying the bomb site that was their bedroom! This is the rubbish they’ve removed!
They still need to vacuum the carpet, but the vacuum cleaner keeps playing up. I think it’s time to buy a new vacuum cleaner, again. I do not have much luck with them at all!

4 – Ant bought me a wax melt warmer before Christmas last year. I hadn’t found a wax melt that I loved until I ordered this one from Tesco. I’m a bit sad that it’s a limited edition. I’ll have to stock up!

Late Mother’s Day Gift

5 – Kaycee made this for me at school but she had planned to paint it and didn’t get it done in time for Mother’s day. She wasn’t going to give it me because it wasn’t finished but Ella brought it down and gave it me without Kaycee knowing! I told her it was perfect as it was.

6 – I spent last weekend finishing this book. I loved it. I’ll be writing a full review soon.

7 – Time for an afternoon snack!

8 – I’ve bought a new diary because my other one was a bit small. I spent half an hour transferring my old one to my new one and I did some more blog post planning.

9 – We went to visit Nanny for an hour.

10 – My syn allowance on Slimming World is 25 but I’ve not been doing very well so I planned my menu for the week and dropped my syns to 15.

Relaxing

11 – Ella came to relax and watch something on Netflix after her busy day cleaning her room and helping her Nanny with the polishing.

12 – Kaycee came home and joined Ella. They watched Once Upon A Time. They’re on season 3 now and I think they’re both a little bit addicted to it!

Photography

Lots and lots of tadpoles – Sunday Photo

2nd April 2017

Lots and Lots of Tadpoles

I thought we had lots of tadpoles last year. This year we have lots and lots and lots more! I love them!

The goldfish you can see there isn’t in the pond anymore. Our next door neighbours sold their house and asked us if we could take 2 goldfish into our pond. We took them but then decided we wanted to keep the pond as a wildlife pond so we sent them down to my brother who has a goldfish pond in his back garden 🙂

I’ve always wanted a wildlife pond full of tadpoles and sitting in the warm spring sunshine, watching them swimming around and sunning themselves on the rocks made me feel very happy and content 🙂

Photography