1) The very best smell in the whole of my world right now - nespresso making me a lungo. {that is coffee speak for the posh coffee machine making me a long cafe creme type of coffee} It's a smell that turns you into a Bisto kid - you simply stand there and go ahhhhhhhhh - and I am grateful for my coffee shop at home ;) Mr Britguy is a bit addicted too, but luckily not to my coffee pod/flavour choice. I find myself needing a strong coffee hit at 4pm. At least.
2) I've just about finished all of the pages for this book
Thats my front cover :)
I'll be posting the pages all here in a row. {brace yourself, hahahaha} and posting my favourites in the gallery at Designer Digitals. All the digital supplies are from Designer Digitals, of course. I pretty much live online there :)
3) My girls have reached an age where they watch these disney/disney style type preteen series on the TV. I swear to goodness I cannot tell the programs apart from each other. All shrieky girly types, gossping and shrieking, and at school, or in their bedrooms, with friends/mini dogs/parties in the background. UGH> I'm limiting the viewing. This kind of stuff makes me believe that Tv does indeed rot your brain!!!!
4) Pesto breads, thats dinner tonight {okay, not just that!} I am craving spicy carbs. No, I am definitely not pregnant, hahahaha, I think I am just cold and in need or snuggly staying home type food!! Its been like that recently...Salad season can you hurry up??
5) Speaking of eating the right stuff....since Nov 2011 I have lost over 33lbs. Almost 35lbs actually. Thats pretty cool. Approx three dress sizes. No, I'm not trying to lose anymore. This year is about getting fitter, not thinner. I have got to say, if I - the original baking gym-phobic - can do this, anybody can do it. Yes, I know, I used to find people like me annoying too ;) but in the end, we are all getting older, slower and less fit. Lets do something about that. Have you seen Wall.e ????
6) I've just sat and cried. Why? ;)
Its okay; it was sweet tears. Over a wedding video of a total stranger. Okay celebrity...Yes, you should watch this, if you havent yet, and make sure you watch til the end, even tho its not that short. Awwwww....How very charming :)
7) All those doing the snow dance for the weather forecast on friday... ;) make it happen. I think my lane IS Narnia, and once its snow covered I'll know for sure.
8) Its sometimes noisy. Our new house is partially open plan. So at least one music player, one tv, one ipad and some toy playing, is all audible from a particular point in our house. And yes, that point is where my desk sits... !
9) However, funnily enough, there is a wall thro the middle of the house that blocks everything. Everything. wifi, phones, noise, voices... so if you are one side, you truly cant hear the rest of the house. I'm not sure what the wall is made of, personally I'm taking bets on kryptonite....
10) Its a good week ahead. Because I said so. Bring it on January, we are more than ready for you :)
1) hello November. I like you already :)
2) Enjoying playing along with FatMumSlim's photoaday challenge on istagram. This is so much fun, and even more so if friends on istagram play along too :) love seeing all the different interpretations of each word. If youre not on instagram - oh come on you should be, it makes photo taking silly, fun, and easy peasy.
3) Not-so-teen son surprised me and popped home for tea yesterday :) So nice to see him and his girlfriend :) He give the best hugs :)
4) This time last year I made a list every day in November of something I was grateful for. I know we dont have the American Thanksgiving, but the grateful/being thankful side of that is, I feel, a lesson we could all take on board more often. Its day six, but I've started my list and backtracked ;) If you want to play along you list a 'grateful for' reason that particular day in just a few words, not paragraphs. No repeating anything for the whole month.
5) Fireworks. meh. I have enjoyed big firework displays in the past, there was one great one set to Bond movie theme tunes, and a fabulous one seen from a boat on the river Rhein.... but otherwise.... Its usually a lot of fiz and fuss and not a lot to go "ooooooo" about. So Guy Fawkes was yesterday, and we have endured fireworks locally since last weekend and no doubt for days to come yet. CAN THEY STOP NOW!!!! My animals dont like them, and I am sick of them waking the girls up too. Really I'm quite a cheerful person, but this is driving me nuts...
6) okay; before my family feel the need to chime in I feel I should add to that rash sentence there ...
I'm quite a cheerful person usually. As long as its not a) school run b) raining or c) raining on the school run. ;)
7) Tomorrow morning I get to drop off two clients photos, one after the other :) Dropping off orders is a fab part of my photography work, people are so excited :) - and dropping two orders off will just make me super smiley.
8) We broke a 'rule' and had Christmas songs on in my car yesterday. The rule is not before Dec 1st..... but Mollie is learning Carol of the Bells at school and we had that on CD still in the glove box from last year... We have particular favourites we like every year and few new ones we mix in too. I LOVE how my kids know all the Dean Martin songs word for word... Anyhow, because we played it on the way home yesterday, it played again on the way to school today. Made for a very cheery singalongaschool run. :)
9) Just watched Holby City on catch up. OOOOooooo. Good episode. Considering this was once a spin off from Casualty its now leaps and bounds ahead... it has a plot to start with ;) always a plus I find, with TV shows. ;)
10) It was absolutely bloody freezing very wintery today. The forest was super chilly. Pretty stripey sky tho....
ah now... the lovely Sarah, {who I refer to as 'my' lovely Sarah LOL LOL} linked me into this.
She knows I am a sucker for Q&A type posts :) ;)
These are the rules - and then you get me wittering on a bit :) no change there then!!
Whats your favourite colour-
orange.
and green
I am instantly drawn to things that are orange - its a bit of a joke with friends who shop with me - and I love green coloured stuff generally.
Whats your favourite animal-
all of them * Horses in particular. Chickens/ducks/geese second, and then every animal you can think of third. I'm a regular Dr Dolittle ;)
* slugs excluded. the lowlifes have eaten my entire garden.
Favourite non acholic drink? ...
coffee. americano.
tonic water, or Purdeys. I like that lots.
and water. I drink it by the bucket load.
I hate commercial sweet fizzy stuff - fanta type rubbish - blurgh..... and I only drink coke when I have a hangover...
facebook or twitter ?-
well now. I am a swings and roundabouts person here. I have always been championing Twitter... but lately I've 'got' facebook, which funnily enough I find works well with my local friends. Its awesome for business too!!
Do you prefer giving or getting presents...?
I get the biggest kick of getting a 'just right' gift for someone. If they exclaim joyfully/cry {in a good way!}/rave about it - I'm happy :)
That said, the giving getting thign is absolutely one of balance ;)
favourite day of the week ?-
Its, monday. Everybody back to school or work, my day is my own again..if thats bad, dont tell me. ;)
favourite flower ?-
sunflowers, irises, forget me nots, - anything that isnt pink really.
whats your passion? -
I am a passionate person -meaning I am either full on for things or not at all.. but mostly to be labelled under 'my passion' its got to be photography.
Usually natural light, always with fab background/textures. I could take photos all day, every day.
nominating -
off the top of my head, I am truly an appreciative reader of these blogs :)
1) Okay this is getting scary now, I swear it hasnt been -CANT have been! a week since last tuesday. LOL
Altho to be fair, there was a bank holiday Monday and I did lose a whole sunday in there somewhere due to sleeping off a very late saturday night. Yeah, that'll be it. Lets go with partying too hard over getting so old all the days fly by as a reason ;) :)
2) I found a fab new quirky photoshoot location today. Currently I am after new urban grungy locations. So believe me I am wondering about the strangest places lately. Got to be urban, got to be grungy, but best if it isn't actually trespassing when I'm there, and best if the client wont freak out by HOW grungy it is :) This one ticks lots of boxes. I'm a bit excited. Worryingly excited over urban cement walls and curvy cornered buildings... LOL
3) I love how my life is split into type of chat. :) there is the good friends chat about everything generally and any concerns specifically. {Love those chats, always come away feeling like I have a ton of support behind me, to do anything!} There is the 'tog chat. Speaking to other photographers, - nice ones, who talk as if the entire world of photography is equal, talking about funny things only other photographers would laugh at. Its awesome. Photo walks and conversations about light. ah bliss :) There is the online chat, back and forth via text or online messages. That is always good fun, and I enjoy it so much. There is me as mummy chat, which is ah... always interesting, assuming we can get past the 'will you hurry up/put that down/eat something!!' part ;) There is lots of lovely chats in my daily life. I like it. And I think this means I do indeed, as all my school reports used to say, like talking too much!!
4) Did you realise I am part of this? the all new Your Kids thro the lens
I'm a contributing guest writer and photographer :) If you have kids, and want to work your camera better to capture them - this is what you need :) yey!
5) The messaging app 'Whatsapp' went down today for a few hours. There was quite few of us lost there, without it, for a while... LOL how dependant ARE we on technology?!
6) Today I spent a little time with Harvey. He's a bit mad, a bit hairy and has pretty terrible breath ;)
Of course he is totally gorgeous too!
I took his photo earlier this year in his very own pet shoot. He's about ten foot high, but the softest dog in the world. love him!
7) I attempted to fix a 'small bit of plastering' that was coming away from the wall behind a "wall fixed" radiator cover. The wall fixed radiator cover is leaning, not wall fixed at all. Well thats a lie, I meant to attempt it. Until further investigation showed its not a 'small bit of plastering' at all, its the entire wall crumbling back to brick dust and horsehair {- which is seriously what my house is made of. Its old} Sooooo, I left it. But hey. it all adds to the shabby chic charm right? - don't lean on anything if you call round ;) hahaha..
8) Teenager. free to good home... happy chatty to extreme shouting in 0 to 60. Comes with no instructions.
9) My tonsils are obviously feeling left out and in need of some attention. That would be why they have been fine all day and are now twice their original size.... :(
10) I made the world worst loaf of bread today. Gluten free - that's not usually indicative of good soft bread to start with, and from a packet mix - yeah, that should have put me off too. But it didn't, because I desperately wanted Miss Mollie to have a fresh soft crusty loaf to eat.... never mind. Lets go back to cake making. I'm fairly sure she'd rather have cake anyway...
until next week.... ;)
The lovely jan has a point in her comment on the previous post - I could have let you know which Victorian fonts I found :)
I found akaarcade, gingerbread victorian, and bujardet,
and I used them on this layout, appropriately enough :)
I try very hard not to look at new fonts. Or I download 46billion in about that many seconds.
However, I needed authentic looking Victorian fonts and 'had to' go see the font sites offerings {fatal}
Victorian fonts downloaded, I 'just happened' to look at the new stuff too.
and decided I'd share a font with you, every now and then.
So that my font obsession can become legitimate blog research ;)
Here's my latest ooooo new font favourite...
Youre welcome ;)
![](<div align="center"><a href="http://linkwithlove.typepad.com/linkwithlove/" title="LINKwithlove" target="_blank"><img src="http://linkwithlove.typepad.com/Lwl-badge_spice.jpg"){kind=icon}
![](<a title="BritMums - Leading the Conversation" href="http://www.britmums.com/"><img id="bm_badge_170x30_std" src="http://www.britmumsblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/170x30std.png" alt="BritMums - Leading the Conversation" width="170" height="30" border="0" /></a>){kind=link}
![](<a href="http://bigpictureclasses.com"><img src="http://bigpictureclasses.com/images/badges/swirl.gif" alt="Big Picture Classes" /></a>){kind=link}
![](<a href="http://www.captureyour365.com/yourkids/"><img class="alignright" src="http://pictureacure.smugmug.com/Other/CaptureYour365/i-bDG7Pm9/0/L/YourKidsSmall125x125-L.jpg" title="" alt=""></a>){kind=link}