Wheels.

I have decided to take photos of a view I have on my way to work on the last day of each month through the year. I imagine that I will now never go to work on the last day of the month so it might have to be a day or so out. I wanted to do it to see the changes in the landscape, sky etc. It is still fairly dark when I go through, but at least this morning the sun was rising; beautifully.

So the link to wheels, erm…one imagines that there are wheels inside the windmills helping to turn the blades? erm….no I am not an engineer

 

It almost made up for going back to work.

Collection.

Copic Collection or at least a selection of the collection :)

Kitchen Utensil.

Perfect prompt for today as I didn’t really get dressed or do anything apart from scrap, bake and cook

Scrapped loads, baked cookies for the boys (and snaffled one myself which I shouldn’t have) and made myself virtuous delicious Mulligatawny Soup from The Hairy Bikers.

It really was lovely, I was going to pose the shot with a swirl of yoghurt and a sprinkle of coriander but i’m really sorry, I just ladled it in the bowl and ate it

So the utensil….was my Mum’s and she gave it to me to go to Uni.

How many chilli’s has it stirred? Not known, but it’s still going strong

Fluff.

At work my role is as Personnel Manager and often my work is referred to as pink and fluffy as the store I work for is very operational. A perfect example of this is in January when we hold our Staff Viewpoint which gives every employee the chance to have their say and let the company know what they think. Part of this is to create some theatre (propaganda ) around all the great things we have got up to over the year and that have been introduced by the company………so many people will wander past when I am doing such tasks and rib me for being pink and fluffy.

I hate these sorts of tasks, the part of my role that I love is coaching so I would much rather be doing that but hey work can’t be all fun now can it?

Anyway these are the photos of the room all dressed up.

 

Amazing.

Last year I did not set any goals, I didn’t challenge myself to anything. I set one new year resolution to grow my hair, I have succeeded, but really that is lazy, I just didn’t have to do anything for that.

I did resolve to lose a bit more weight, I had lost 2 stone the previous year and I was so happy to get to a large 14/small 16 that my heart wasn’t in it.

Well I had a very long day every work day (5 a week), I was part of the leadership team that opened a new store, so it was 10 hour shifts plus, plus an hour and a half commute so really there was little time for anything other than being exhausted. Dad was then diagnosed and died in the first half of the year and I just comfort ate which is my default state. Bang on went the 2 stone and then some.

Well, I moved stores at work and cut an hour off the commute, I have also spent a couple of months trying to get myself into the zone for losing it again and knowing that it was going to be a long haul. So I have set myself some simple, measurable and realistic goals. I have two years until I am forty so if I lose 2lbs a month then I will do it. Yes I would love to lose more quickly but if I don’t then 2 lbs is a more achievable target. I have also set myself a running goal, I didn’t last year and hardly went. Glad to see that the muscle memory hasn’t abandoned me though and I can still actually run

I want to be able to run along our old railway track from Braunton to Bideford which is about 26 km. I am aiming to do 4km at the end of January and increase by 3km each month until I am there and I will also enter The Great South Run at the end of October which is a lovely 10 mile run through Portsmouth where I lived for many years.

So thank you for the lovely comments yesterday and I am going to believe that you really want to hear about the progress

So on that long note (can you tell I am on holiday?), here is my amazing….

I did it, even better than I hoped

So far I have lost 5lbs too so that is great, but as I say I am not going to worry about that too much, just keep the running going and eat the right amount of calories each day.

Another part of the trail I love.

I love this challenge, it is so helping to keep me on track with my other challenges. Thanks Suzie

Free Choice.

My running trail when i'm on a day off and it's daylight. It's pitch black and spooky after dark.

It is part of the same trail that I run on after work as I work right next to it about 8 km further down the trail (and there is more lighting there).

My goal this year is to run about 26 km of it :) So far,4km!! So a little bit of work :) the idea is that on the last sunday of each month I will be about 3 km further on.

That has given my an idea for photos though, at various spots along the trail as I get there.  

Motionless.

Wherever, whenever, this dog is motionless.

Motion.

A local landmark hotel is being demolished to build a new Wetherspoons along our seafront. I have mixed emotions about this as the hotel had been there for 140 years. A local woman inherited money and invested in building a hotel right at the beginning of the Victorian seaside holiday rush for us here in Ilfracombe. She was a bit of a character by all accounts. The war office requisitioned it during the war and after refurbishing it after that it was successful until the eighties and has steadily declined since then. The owners used to drink in the bar and it was a lovely bar in my to younger days; renowned for the bar olympics…….you had to get from the door to the back of the bar and back again without touching the floor
It is sad to see it boarded up though and as Ilfracombe has a lot of problems with it’s pubs it will be nice if it is somewhere sensible to go for a quiet drink as it is nearly impossible now.

Hot.

I really struggled with this prompt today, I couldn't seem to get past the cold :)

It was a long and arduous journey as well, but it records a snippet of a story so that's good.

I was in the pantry and noticed a tin of hot dogs and that made me think of the line, "I like hot-dogs, I LOVE hot-frogs........" which is from one of my favourite nonsense poems. It is in one of my all-time favourite books, I Like This Poem which was published when I was five and I have treasured ever since. Each poem had a quote from a child describing why they liked it and my friend was one of them :)

 

Glow.

The glow from my shop when I left this evening @ midnight after spending some time with my night team :)

Fire.

Comforting and homely, just how Saturday night should be. Well of course Once Upon A Time it was about the parties and clubs, but I have handed the baton on :)

Sign.

Of rain! Or sun.

Bad for you.

Thing One and Thing Two. Watching tv; which we all know is bad for you :)

Pleasurable.

A mantelpiece of cards from my dear friends and family is altogether pleasurable.

Naughty.

Really tenuous tonight as I wasn’t able to get the prompt in time. I did take some snaps as it was a lovely day here.

I was 15 minutes late for work, naughty. I still took time to snap the lovely colours of the sunrise, naughty.

 

Then, as I came up with an idea for a two photo layout this week, I popped out of work to snap the sunset, even naughtier

Bring on the longer days, well I know they are getting longer, but a bit quicker please.

Snack.

Generous.

My Mum lending me her laptop for a few hours to get some online jobs done.

Guilty Pleasure.

Shameful, just shameful.

Fridge.

No time to edit the hideous-ness of the fridge, so here it is in all it's dis-gloriousness!!

Translucent.

Stretching things a bit.
I had to have root canal and an extraction today. A reminder of this by snapping the translucent qualities of a near empty pack of painkillers.
Sheesh.

Clothing.

My work uniform jacket. It has the best little pockets to keep pens, notes, phones, keys etc.

It is like my work clothing security blanket.

Sent from my iPhone

Metal.

First of all, my laptop has broken. Correction, my laptop has been broken by my youngest son.

All is not happy at Hart Towers.

So if you have been by the last couple of days to see a title and a comment and no photo, my humblest apologies, the control freak in me didn’t want to have a post incorrectly dated so I posted and thought I can add the photos when there was time.

I also have had a major project at work to complete, the deadline was yesterday and it took every bit of time and energy to finish it! Including 4 hours work that was lost with the demise of the laptop that had to be replicated Monday morning.

Anyway, I have added the photos and also sussed out how to blog my photos direct from the iphone so I shall be able to carry on now until I can replace the laptop.

My lovely Mum has lent me hers today to upload and print my photos and complete project life for the first week. I’m so glad I did it and that I am doing this!

Anyway, metal.

Gunmetal grey describes the colours of the cove today.

Looks a bit grim.

Water

Quick one from me this evening.

My empty bottle of water :) Boring but I have had a major work project deadline which has eaten up my time and soul this last few days. So a boon that I took one at all.

Actually I am pleased that I have replaced some of my diet cokes with water. A most unhealthy habit of mine.

Cosy.

Ali, Minty and I cosying up in bed.

This was back in the hours of loveliness this morning, before Ali BROKE MY LAPTOP. I won't describe the hours after, it was all very distressing.

Drink.

You could be driven to it couldn’t you?

Or, you could pretend that you are driven to it and use that as an excuse.

Either way tonight’s drink is a glass of white wine. I have had a very long day; that’s not a good excuse. I have some more work to do even though it is Saturday night; that’s another excuse.

I just really, really, really like a glass of white wine. Now we have the truth of it

Frost.

I had to cast round for this one, I can tell ‘e.

The light isn’t too great tonight but if you look carefully you can see my very own frosting.

You would think after a tub of hair dye last month that this sort of thing couldn’t happen.

That ain’t the only one either……must get some more dye tomorrow, perhaps a vat of it is in order.

Now that chocolate horlicks in that dear red spotty mug is all that is between me and the land of nod

Thanks so much for the comments by the way, so sweet of you.

I am sorry I haven’t been round the last two days to everybody but we’ll all go daft trying to keep up every day. I will catch up on Sunday and then try for every other day. Night x

Excitement.

A bit trickier for me today to find the excitement…..my dentist berating me maybe. No, it wasn’t a good excitement lol.

Instead I went for a photo of the moonlight that Lauren and I ran in tonight after work, it was a bit spooky and definitely exciting, she loved it and wants to go again.

The Thai Green Curry I made after being about twice as hot as it needs to be was pretty exciting as well, but i’m guessing none of you want to see my tongue, right

Pretty.

An easy one for me today.

Hello there my pretties.

Those that already know me will not be surprised by the choice of colour scheme. If i’m going to look at it every day or so, it needs to be pretty though right?

My WRMK album which I already love and plan to buy another for unrelated scrapping this year. The project life box and the start of my title page which I will tinker with tonight (and those prima pretties were a very welcome gift from my lovely friend Sue in our 12 days of Christmas Swap.

Where did today go?

Ugly.

Well I didn’t do so well at snapping the ugly today as I didn’t get the prompt until later. The snap is I suppose the beauty of the sky after the ugly of the storm. So tenuous, so early on .

Still wild here, I can hear it outside the house. So awful that someone died from it today.

New.

Well, the 10 minute hail storm was new, i’ve seen a lot of hail this season, but not for so long. The stuff was piled high

What I went for though was my new project life box which will live on the dining room table along with the album and a poly-pocket for bits and pieces to be stored in.

There are stamps, ink, pre-cut journaling tags/bases, 6x6 paper pad by MME (Vanity Fair), the corner rounder and some alphas.

I will change the 6x6 pads every month to give a bit of definition and to stop me being bored

At the top is the first piece completed, Mum took me at my word (so pleased) and wrote a few words about how she is feeling.

I think I will do some as I go along and then sit down weekly to get the previous week finished. That’s the plan anyway.