Sunshine and happy days

The lovely Elle at Eat Run Sail has nominated me for the Sunshine Award:

This award is circulated to those bloggers to let them know that their posts brighten your day.

The Rules:
1.  Include award logo in a post or on your blog
2.  Link to the person who nominated you
3.  Answer 10 questions about yourself.
4.  Nominate 10 bloggers to receive the award. Link your nominees to the post and comment on their blogs letting them know they’ve been nominated. 

So, here we go:

Best childhood memory?
Carrying my massive teddy bear (named Henry) to my parent's bedroom to show them that I was as tall as Henry. I must have been about three years old. I'm pretty sure that it was very early in the morning and I'm not convinced my parents were too chuffed about being woken up!

Nicest time of year?
I change my mind on this all the time, but right now I wish it was late spring/early summer. I feel like I missed summer this year. Am already starting to make plans for next summer.

Favorite flower?
I don't know much about flowers although it's lovely to receive a bunch every now and again. I totally loved my wedding bouquet - I spent ages gazing at it over the days following the big event.

Scary food you would never ever even taste?
Insects! I also tried to eat a snail once but couldn't pysch myself up enough (I am a wimp!). One day I'll try snails properly.

Zodiac sign? 
I'm not really interested in astrology.

What spice would describe you?
Erm... I'm not sure how to answer that one! I guess I'd go with cinammon because it smells lovely and is fabulous in baking, which I love to do.

Snooze button or jump out of bed?
Snooze! I am still loving my sleep app, which aims to wake me in my lightest sleep, but that doesn't mean I bounce out of bed with enthusiasm!

Morning drink?
Slice of lemon in hot water followed by a cup of tea.

Song that means something special to you?
I love music that I have heard live. One example would be the classic Chesney Hawks singing the one song he's famous for. We did fireworks for a wedding that he sang at and it all went swimmingly.


Secret crush?
I don't have one! How boring is that? I quite like Brad Pitt, but that's not exactly secret.


Well, I think with that series of questions I have firmly convinced you that I'm very dull! Oh well, onwards and upwards :)

Your turn: 
What is your favourite book? 
Where on the whole Earth are you happiest?

I was featured!

Can't believe that I forgot to blog about this - I was interviewed by Kristen at the Adult Ballerina Project.

You can find the interview here :)

Thank you Kristen, I am very proud to be part of your amazing website!

Questionnaire-y type post

Whilst I was off on my jaunts (which I will be blogging about over the next few days), two of my blogging friends (Elle at eat run sail and Mrs DiscoBows at Disco & Bows) nominated me for a Liebster Award. It's not my normal type of post, but here goes...

Liebster is a German word that means sweetest, kindest, nicest, dearest, beloved, lovely, kind, pleasant, valued, cute, endearing and welcome.

Rules for receiving this award:
1. Each person must post 11 things about themselves.
2. Then answer the questions the tagger sent for them, plus create 11 questions for the people they’ve tagged to answer.
3. Choose 11 people and link them in your post.
4. Notify the people you have tagged.
5. No tag backs.

Things about me:
1) I love the sea.
2) I love flying.
3) I'm very good at starting projects and not very good at finishing them. Hopefully, as I age I'm starting to buck this trend.
4) Gardening is a particular example of the above - I love gardening and always start with lots of good intentions and end up not giving the plants enough care and attention.
5) I'm much too worried about what other people think of me and I hate thinking that someone might be laughing at me.
6) If I could do everything I want to, I would need to be a superhero! My ideal weekly activities would be: 2-3 ballet lessons, karate lesson, homegroup, swimming, 1-2 runs, Spanish and/or French lessons, meeting with friends and one quiet night in.
7) I roller skated a LOT as a child (think artistic skating, like ice dancing). I was never great at it but got to the point of landing the odd double jump, which is pretty cool. I am, consequently, quite at home on eight wheels.
8) I have big feet (due to being tall). The other day, a shop assistant in a Spanish department store almost laughed when I asked for a shoe in my size (and it wasn't because of my awful Spanish pronunciation!).
9) I do both ends of the spectrum - tomboy-one-of-the-lads rigging (e.g. for fireworks) and lady-what-lunches (dressing up and enjoying dining out).
10) The fact that I've worked on about 30 fireworks shows does not dull my excitement when I see a show. Sometimes I even jump up and down when watching.
11) Pandas :)

Choosing colours

I got carried away again.

It all started with a feeling that I had been neglecting my crochet. It's such a relaxing,take-your-mind-off-everything activity that it would be good for me to continue.

I realised that fab as my granny squares were, I didn't have enough wool to make a whole blanket so progress ground to a halt.

Luckily, I got re-inspired by Lucy at Attic 24 and hunted out a yarn shop. One field trip and of 15mins um-ing and ah-ing later, I'd spent more than I'd meant to on a very pretty collection of yarns...

The plan started with summery/hot colours, so I grabbed a yellow, orange and red...

Then I experimented with other colours to add to the mix. The hot pink was a definite...

Then I tried out various other colours, rejecting those that made the combination too dark , too dreary or too red...

They look worse altogether! As individual colours, they almost worked but just dragged the summery colours down a bit.

Following Lucy's advice, I kept playing with the colours until the mix felt right. This did involve me feeling slightly idiotic and self conscious as I basically kept grabbing balls of wool and fiddling with them on the table, occassionally putting one back or swapping it for a different one. It seemed to work though, as I ended up with a lovely combination of colours. Here's my final selection:

Summer ambitions

I've read some fantastic Summer Bucket Lists recently, including this amazingly long one from meals and moves. That is going to be one fantastic summer!

My list is somewhat less "wow", but I've tried my best to add in some ambition along the way!

1) To get surfing again. I don't mind if it's in the UK or during my summer holiday, but I've got to get back on the board and work on my skills! On the girlie surfing weekend last year, I just about stood up a couple of times and I desperately need to practise more to master this tricky skill. Note to self: do some upper-body workouts before surfing to limit muscle soreness afterwards!

2) Do 3 ballet classes in one week. I'm all set with a timetable of drop-in classes with teachers that have been recommended to me, so there's no reason not to up my number of lessons :)

3) Spend some quality time working on my Spanish. I'm not great with languages and often freeze up when abroad; hopefully a bit of revision and practise will up my confidence and make sure the words that I do know are close at hand in my brain :) Maybe...

4) See some live music. Erm... This one is totally unplanned so I've no idea how and when it might happen. I'll be in the vicinity of live bands in a few weeks when rigging a firework display, but that's hardly the same as being in the crowd.

Pic from last year's Marvelous Festival, expertly taken on my phone!

 5) Make sushi. I've just been gifted a great iPad video-book-guide-thing and have to try it out!

6) Make more pies. I had a bit of a flurry of pie making after Christmas (after receiving two great pie recipe books) and then haven't touched them again!

What are you going to do this summer?

How to live well?

After allowing myself to get stressed over several things recently, a friend pointed me in the direction of Zen Habits.

The guy running it seems to have a clear, sensible philosophy:

"Zen Habits is about finding simplicity in the daily chaos of our lives. It’s about clearing the clutter so we can focus on what’s important, create something amazing, find happiness."

Taken from the Zen Habits blog

I'm feeling inspired!

I'm going to take one item from his "how to live well" list to focus on for a short while (maybe a week, maybe three) in an attempt to become a little more relaxed and generally happier!

First focus: You need very little to be happy. Finding the small joys in life - clean laundry, a pretty notebook, a text from a friend, etc. I will be looking for these things and appreciating them :)

A brightly coloured tale

Over the last 6 months, I've quietly re-discovered crochet. It's been something easy to pick up on quiet evenings (on the few occasions that they happen!) and I find it very relaxing.

Then, last week I got ill. Nothing more serious than a bout of flu, but bad enough to be stuck at home for days on end with little energy and a woolly brain. As I recovered, I started to pick up the crochet again.

I ordered a special package from ebay...

And coupled it with a great crochet pattern from Lucy at Attic 24: summer granny square pattern...

Image from Attic24

And I got going...

They don't look quite as polished and neat as Lucy's, but I'm pleased. I'm going to make a blanket :)

I want to be a runner

and I've no idea why.

I don't really like running that much; I definitely don't enjoy being on a run, except for that moment when you realise you can get to the end and the joy of actually finishing.

On top of that, I'm not one of those people who likes to "work through the pain". I've been getting sore knees recently and it's not exactly fun.

However, I seem to have decided that I am going to keep running and to try to get better at it. Why? Maybe it's because I keep reading these blogs by people who seem to really enjoy running (see Christy, Britt and Elle for examples!). Maybe it's part of me trying to develop a bit of grit and determination. Or maybe I'm just a glutton for punishment. Whatever it is, I'm not giving up yet...