The Daily Shutter

*tap tap tap*…

Sorry folks that was quite an absence. My apologies. We have been thwarted by illness, not that vomiting one *frantically touches wood* and also had a car crash 6 days before christmas so i have been a bit redundant in the blog department and just dragging myself through the days and rolling into bed to inevitably not sleep very well….

So back in the New Year I have some other posts planned but today I wanted to punt off my new year with a little photography project. This is my daily shutter…its about everyday photography..similar to the 365 project but doesnt just have to be one image…or any. Im not a fan of the heavy pressure projects. So my link for my images will be over to the side and im hoping to grid all the images. I have yet to get that to work!!

So NY and today..first up its the first two days..you couldnt get a further contrast.

 

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Half way through advent…

nearly..already..yes i know its scary…..

its that cheery reminder every morning with the excitement of a micro sized christmassy shaped chocolate from an advent calendar that starts off as something fun and then turns into a loud ticking clock and generally brings panic with the thought of ‘one less day..’

Our kids have always had one of those advent calendars that you have to put things in. Ours was a bus and we, every year, put chocolate coins in each little box and for a couple of years we also put little quiz questions or elements of the nativity story…just to add to the spirit of the year.

This year in a moment of tiredness and a quick trip to home and bargain..the kids convinced me that the chocolate calendar each thing was the way to go. So five were purchased and now i generally do my best to stop the dog or the toddler from getting hold of one of them and taking them apart. ah the joy of the season 😉

There are loads of online advent calendars you can have a go at, and guess what you might win something other than a small chocolate spade! Check out the Butlins one on their facebook page and you can win anything from a mp3 player to a weekend break! Thats go to be worth a go. Butlins advent 

But really there is no way of getting away from it now…its time to kick back, let Mr Buble take the reins and jump right on in.

 

 

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we are the dancers..

well Im not..but maybe like to think i am but i have girls so there is much dancing in our house..the boys get involved too!

Both my older girls dance at the same balletschool. One of them recently had a bit of an issue with going to a lesson which resulted in a nearly half hour stand off between said daughter and me about whether or not she would go into the class. Has to be said this was..outside, in the cold and there were 4 other kids slowly getting cheesed off. I tried every thing possible to convince her to go back in but she wouldn’t have it and in the end, to cut along and gory story short, I told her that we weren’t going to freeze waiting for her to decide what she wanted to do and that she had to come home with me, as she had missed most of the lesson anyway and then she would be going to apologise to her teacher at the next lesson.

At the next lesson, after my daughter had gone happily in. The ballet teacher grabbed my OH and told him that our daughter was very talented at ballet and had exactly the right kind of personality for it!!

er…excuse me? so the right personality for ballet is to be obstinate and stubborn? hmmmmm….really?

She obviously felt so strongly about it that she repeated it to me next time i dropped the girls off and also added ‘its important not to squash these strong characters!’

to which i responded… ‘yes i totally agree with you..but parenting those strong characters is no picnic!’

She gave me a wry smile…im thinking she may have, herself, fit into that category. 😉

 

themondayclub

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what happens when you have one too many ‘helpers’

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feeling crafty…

This weekend I suddenly met with the horrible realisation that it was ‘the christmas craft competition’ weekend. Fruitless attempts to close my eyes and wish it all away didn’t work and we were set with the task of ‘helping’ and ‘assisting’ our three school aged kids into making a christmas craft. They have set themes for each year group and it tends to be the same every year so i am coming up for my 6th year. Generally this experience reduces me to a quivering wreck and i need a large glass of wine to recover. 😉

Having been a blogger for quite a while and realised that other people blog too! yeah i know ‘duh’ 😉 I have read some very successful blogs and they are often very ‘craft’ orientated. The craft world is HUGE…and that is wonderful and fab and groovy but it is not for me. In life there are places for us all and in terms of craft I am most assuredly at the consumer end of the spectrum and not at the manufacturer end if you know what i mean…

and yes yes..i know some folk can look at a cute card or notepad or something in a shop and shake their heads, suck their breath over their teeth and go ‘ i could have made that for 2p’  Well i positively REJOICE for those people because if it wasnt for them I wouldnt be able to trot into a shop and pick up something pretty for a fiver in 30 seconds. If not for them i would have to give away hours of my life to sweeping up glitter (which is, of course, as we all know, impossible as glitter is apparently brush repellent!).

But when it comes to school projects you have to roll up your sleeves and get involved and when the craft is supposed to be being designed by a 4 year old. Guess what? That means that, generally,  the parent get to do it. Craft homework for mummy and daddy…..hmmmmm….

My theory on that..can be summed up here…dearest teacher, thanks so much for you hard work and commitment to instilling the great mystery of education and knowledge in the heart of my child. I appreciate all your efforts. Can i please bring to your attention that I personally have already attended school as a pupil. I did so for a number of years and whilst i will admit that it was somewhat long ago and the effects of two university degrees and 5 children may have had a profound effect on recall of knowledge that I once thought i had, I believe that there is little I can learn from having to make a christmas wreath every year. This activity, which im sure is meant to be one which unites child and parent as they smile at each other over a prittstick..in truth becomes a frantic throw it all together and try to make it look like a four year old did it 11pm activity the night before its due in. I quite like the thin shred of sanity i cling to and doing craft homework threatens its very existance! kind regards..parent J’ 

Of course, having said all that, we will all carry on doing the craft projects that the teachers set us from our kids primary schools…ooops sorry i meant to say ‘set THE kids..’

yes..yes thats right 😉

 

 

themondayclub

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