NaBloPoMo - The Conclusion

I definitely made the right decision when I chose NaBloPoMo rather than NaNoWriMo.

Could I have written 1500 words a day that could be considered literature?
Would my family have moved out in the search for food?
Would my fingers be reduced to bleeding stumps?
Would my eyes be bloodshot and out on stalks?

In answer to the above, no, yes, yes, yes.
And would I have a novel that I was proud of? A categorical NO.

Instead I joined in with Britmums NaBloPoMo (or Write a blog post every single day through November whilst trying to gain new readers whilst hanging on to the ones you've got). This required on average 321 words per day taking about 40 minutes to write, 1 awesomely edited photo a day *cough* requiring 30 minutes on Picnik, and add to that time to read other blogs and comment.

The writing was easy (thanks to a couple of timely memes to fill in a couple of gaping holes in my otherwise fun packed blogging calendar) but the hard part for me was giving enough time to other people's posts and giving them the comment love that I wanted to give. My comments became more meagre and uninspiring as the month went on but I did comment whenever I could. I know for those of you who are stat-aholics, a comment is a comment and counts for your rankings, but I am not as sensitive to my stats. Don't get me wrong, I look at my page views, I am disappointed if I don't get any comments, I worry if no one visits my blog and I plug my posts all over twitter and facebook. I write for pleasure, but I also write for recognition and for appreciation. I am a blogger but I am also a person *wibble*, which is why I like to give something back in my comments if I can, it is just an extension of my writing after all.

I could have spent more time on the writing, at times it was just pushed out rather than considered, there wasn't much time to actually do anything to write about either, which has led me to the conclusion that I shouldn't try to write a post a day from now on. Keep it natural and when the writing inspiration hits, I am poised and ready at the keyboard (life permitting, those little people may get in the way on occasion).

You will glad to hear that I am not going to be force feeding you through December, there will be enough of that in the form of mince pies and chocolate (I hope), but what I do feed you will be high quality, refined and heartfelt. At least I'll try ;)

Thank you for sticking with me. Normal service will soon be resumed. By normal I refer you to the last sentence of the previous paragraph. Any other interpretation of the word 'normal' is unintentional.

NaBloPoMo, I bid you goodnight.

*dashes off to think about tomorrow's post*
*hah, I don't need to now, do I?*
*but I may want to, it being December and the run up to Christmas, and all*
*oh poppycock (heavy emphasis on last syllable) where did I hide the advent calendars*
*rummages in cupboard* *drags out sorry looking supermarket advent calendars* *calculates time available to hand craft something more blog worthy*

*head desk*

My Blog Is Great. And Versatile!

Thanking you kindly, Bibsey and Here Come The Girls.

Not only is my blog great but it is also versatile.

According to the dictionary, the definition of versatile is to be capable of turning easily from one task to another. In the blink of an eye, I can hop from one crisis to another, I can juggle three children, I can see through walls (if small children are on the other side) and I can rustle up dinner using only a tin of tuna and a cream cracker (that last example may be an exaggeration but if anyone does have a recipe I would be grateful).

The responsibility of such an auspicious award is to reveal a few more tasty tidbits about myself and (much like the reigning Miss World who hands her crown on to her successor) present the award to a further collection of deserved bloggers.

I've decided to follow a theme on this one and reveal seven things about myself related to versatility.

1. I am not only numerate but also creative (left and right brained).
2. I have 7 uses for a muslin cloth:
1. Burp cloth
2. Sun hat (for child or adult!)
3. An emergency nappy
4. A blanket for cooler summer breezes
5. A bib
6. A nap sack for running away with
7. Bandanna
3. I will write about anything (sports nutrition to muslin cloths).
4. I am happy with either milk or dark chocolate.
5. I can find 1001 ways to fill an afternoon if I am trying to avoid doing something else.
6. I am happily entertained by any number of different reality TV shows.
7. I am a very versatile guest: black tie, formal, smart casual, cocktails, dinner or dancing. Just need a few invitations.

So my versatile bloggers, over to you:

The Love Bump
Luce Woman
Mrs Slummy Mummy
Lagos Mum
Middle Aged Cred
At Home With Mrs M
Piglet In A Poke

My Blog Is Great

No. Really. It is.
Motherventing says so. And you wouldn't want to disagree with her. She rashly promised to give up biscuits this month and she is in withdrawal, so tread carefully.

Apparently I get an award that says so too. I will polish it daily and display it in my Trophy Cupboard.
However, there is a small catch. A condition of acceptance of this award is that I must reveal 7 secret things about myself for you all to wonder at.

Secret 1. I know how cranes are erected. Like this.

Secret 2. I was a massive Secret Seven fan in my youth. Hah! 7 secrets, Secret Seven. Brilliant.

Secret 3. I am a lover of retro confectionery. Ferrero Rocher, Matchmakers, Star Bars, Toffifee, and Texan Bars. In another life I would have a sweet shop filled with sweets from my childhood. I would never leave. Primarily because I would be too fat to fit through the door ;)

Secret 4. I cannot get drunk. Or more accurately I can get drunk but it is guaranteed to be a messy affair involving dettol.

Secret 5. I am a highly intelligent person who fools everyone on an hourly basis into thinking I am a flaky stay at home mum.

Secret 6. I am so intelligent and in tune with retail promotional strategy that I will not be starting my Christmas shopping until 5 days before the 25th with the exception of...

Secret 7. ...the Christmas Advent Calendars which are hidden in the cupboard under the stairs (but don't tell anyone).


Now the lovely bit where I get to pass the love on to more deserving bloggers, 15 of them. Crikey. (Actually kind of hard to find 15 bloggers who haven't been awarded already!)

More than a mum
Brink of Bedlam
The Kitchen Mechanic
Cheetahs in my Shoes
Mummy is a Gadget Geek
Mummy Barrow
Cats Yellow Days

Okay, I give up. Seven winners of the Seven Secrets award. That works right?

Tally ho!

And thank you to The Princess and The Pickle who also thought I deserved this award. Does that mean mine can be twice as big as everyone elses?

Lazybloggeritis

I think I may be suffering from a contagious lurgy. Symptoms include brain ache, sloppy writing, lack of inspiration, seeing blog badges before my eyes, and a strong sense of deja vu. I think I may be a lazy blogger.

You see doctor, there are just so many great linkys, blog hops and memes out there that I could sometimes post more than once a day just joining in with everyone elses's great ideas. And in a month where so many of us are partaking in NaBloPoMo this is clearly very helpful and frankly much needed. (Brain ache!)

But (there is always a but isn't there, and this is where I get to the point, I think, hopefully) am I a lazy blogger if I join in with too many blog hops? And, important this bit, how many is too many? Granted, many of them are blog hops where you link in your own original post, as long as it ties in with the theme, so there is the prerequisite that you have written something in the first place. So that isn't lazy is it? Or does using a prompt from someone else class you as lazy too? Oh hell!

I guess there are echoes in this post of the balance between reviews and interesting unique writing from the author. I know that debate has been aired recently and I am firmly in the camp of, if the review is relevant to me I will read it, if not I will click away, hopefully not stumbling upon another blog reviewing the exact same thing in the process.

At this point in the proceedings, I should add that this post comes only 2 days after I started my own blog hop. (Hypocrite!). It's called Snap Slappers and all you have to do is... SORRY!

So what's a blogger to do?

On reflection, having given it considerable consideration, I've thought long and hard and I have reached a decision. I have to be true to my heart. Oh, Dermot this is really difficult.

I am going to continue with the linkys and blog hops that I do.
I will join in if I have a relevant post to link with.
I will ensure that I am giving good blog through original and thought provoking posts (That'll be a first).
I will continue to waste many hours to photo editing ;) to ensure that I have beautiful/hilarious/witty images to accompany my words of wisdom.

As for the stats, well that's another whole conversation.

Blog on my friends. Blog on!

By the way, if you have a meme and you would like to send it my way. Please do! I have some serious gaps in my blogging calendar for the rest of NaBloPoMo! Just don't call me lazy!

The Gallery - 11.11.11

The brief this week from Tara at Sticky Fingers was to take a picture on November the 11th 2011 and post it.

11.11.11 is pretty cool as far as dates go isn't it. It would have made a great shot to take a picture of the date and time on my mobile phone at 11.11 but guess what? I didn't think of that. I saw a freind posted one on facebook and then I tried to reset my clock on my phone to sort of well, fake it. But a) I messed up the date format totally and b) that would be cheating really.

Instead I took The Princess into town where there was a Armistice Day parade and I took this photo after the event when everyone had gone back to their day to day business. It was the first time I had really taken notice of the mosiac tile plaques in the pavement just in front of the Memorial. They are really beautifully detailed depicting the Royal British Legion, The Polish Parachute Brigade Lincolnshire and the Royal Air Force to name just a few.

Here she is examining the Royal British Legion which was her favourite due to the sparkly eyes on the lion.

I look forward to seeing all the other entries in The Gallery.

Saturday Is Caption Day!

Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to think of a caption for this photo and then leave a comment demonstrating your superior sense of humour. Simple huh?

Thank you Mammasaurus x

An Evening of Christmas Crafts

Once a month, myself with a group of school mums get together for wine and chat, cunningly disguised as a book group. We have been meeting for about nine months now and have discussed books once or twice just so that the Mr can quiz me and I can honestly say that books were involved. However we vary the theme every month to keep it interesting and having discussed film, fantasy dinner guests, food and meditation amongst other topics, and this months theme was Christmas Crafts.

I love craft:, cutting, painting, glueing, paper and fabric, but I rarely get enough time to even attempt a quarter of the lovely craft projects I find. Browsing through a couple of our hostess's craft books (of which she has an impressive collection) I was inspired to have a crack at crochet to make some cute Amigurumi like these from Amigurumipatterns.blogspot.com.

They are so cute and I know a couple of small children who would love these for Christmas, either in their stocking or hanging on the Christmas tree. Perhaps not your typical Christmas decoration but definitely a humourous touch to add to the tinsel. Hmm, what about crocheted tinsel? 

The highlight of the evening was to make rag pompoms for the Christmas tree. Many of us hadn't attempted pompoms since primary school but with a little guidance we had a ripping time, quite literally, shredding old clothes, pillow cases and scarves to create our own unique decorations. I was very glad that it wasn't my job to hoover up all the threads afterwards.

I think we were all a bit gobsmacked that we all actually managed to produce pompoms! They have proved to be a big hit and have so far made it to a daughters 'show and tell' at school and onto a couple of rear view mirrors. I'm not sure that they will survive to make it onto the Christmas Tree so we may have to reconvene to produce a few more.

As well as pompoms we had a couple more ideas brought along for inspiration, like these gorgeous fabric star decorations, these polystyrene balls that can be decorated by the kids and what tree wouldn't be complete without a biscuit or two? Our hostess had also been handy with the wool and knitted and crocheted some fabulous dolls.

We really had a great evening! I'm going to have to borrow a few of those craft books soon.

Until next time ladies x

The Most Ridiculously Over-Edited Photo Competition

I read a really informative blog post from Mammasaurus (I know, who would have thought she could be informative as well as hilarious) about the FREE photo editing website Picnik. I had discovered it's remarkable capabilities a few months ago and have spent many a happy hour playing with the effects and creating a hopefully memorable image from a snap on my mobile phone. (Feel free to have a wander through the archives and admire my excellent photography and talented writing style. Or not.) You can upgrade on Picnik, with a monthly subscription to enable you to load more photos in one go and access some more advanced features, but so far I have 'made do' with its standard set of image enhancing settings and got some hilarious, and stunning effects out of it.

Yesterday in twitterland, I set a challenge to Mammasaurus, Motherventing and Bluebirdsunshine to see who could use the most effects on one photo and to post the results today. Not being the competitive type *ahem* this is just a bit of fun but you absolutely have to go and see their efforts creations and come back here and tell me that mine are the 'best'! Okay?

So the brief: See how many processes, effects, stickers and text can you use in one photo using only Picnik.

Hahahahaha.

So from this original, straight from the pocket camera shot:

To this:

I used Heatmap Infrared, Gooify, Posterize and Adjustable Threshold. You can literally overlay one process on top of another to build up surreal images.

Then a different set of effects:

For this image I used used Hypnotic, Boost, Vignette, HDRish and then, for good measure, Ortonish.

Finally, one last little play with a few more effects:

For this one I used 1960's, Seasonal Space Textures, and Amalia Scissored and Solar System stickers.

Obviously Picnik can be used in a little less extreme way to adjust exposure on your snaps, improve the colour balance and if you subscribe you can edit our those annoying little blemishes too as well as gaining many more effects to use. It is seriously easy to use so go and have a play. If you want to join in with this little bit of fun, link up your entries into the Most Ridiculously Over-Edited Photo Competition in the comments section below.

Who knows, this could start a regular linky!

UPDATE: A new linky there shall be. Have a look here.

10 Questions

The origin of the Question Mark. Wikipedia.com

The origin of the Question Mark is from the latin 'quaestio' meaning to ask as illustrated above. Don't ever day that this blog isn't educational!

I like questions and I like question marks and I have been set the challenge by Motherventing to answer 10 questions. Not 9 or 11 but a nice round 10. Apparently I am supposed to be honest to reveal to my followers a little bit more about me so they can get to know me better. Thing is I am very shallow and there isn't a whole lot of interesting stuff to know.

Fortunately the questions are nice and shallow too. So without the aid of any swimming aids I can jump straight in.


Describe yourself in seven words.
Bad-tempered writer of the next best seller (hyphenated words count as one don't they?)

What keeps you awake at night?
The Wee One but fortunately not that often any more. I am blessed with the ability to sleep through all manner of stress.

If you could be anyone for a day, who would it be, and why?
I would like to be Orla Kiely on a day when she is designing and playing around with patterns and colours and handbags. Heavenly.

What are you wearing now?
My wedding ring, a bad haircut, clothes that Gok would frown at and an expression that says, what the hell!

What scares you?
Spiders, rats, cockroaches, and anything else that might make itself at home where I am and it should not be.

What is the best and worst thing about blogging?
I like that, as a blogger, I can write what I want, when I want and occasionally get my ego massaged by some lovely comments. The worst thing about blogging is how remote it is. I can't wait to meet some fellow bloggers IRL!

What was the last website you looked at?
Apart from Motherventing's blog obviously, I was ordering my shopping from Ocado. Sorry, very dull but hey, the family's got to eat.

If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?
Shave a few pounds off here and there and add a few to the bank balance would be a good start.

Slankets: yes or no?
I think I might be a closet slanket lover but I cannot quite bring myself to buy one. It sits along side a foot cosy on the shopping list. Both practical, warm and snuggly but not something you really want the Mr to see you in.

Tell us something about the people who tagged you?
Motherventing is my writing and blogging inspiration. I aspire to her greatness of the use of the english language and her ability to make people not just laugh, but laugh until they either cry or pee.

Now I need to hop over to the Super Amazing Mum's blog where all this started and leave a comment along with everyone else who has answered the 10 questions.

And tag someone, a deserving cause who is also taking part in NaBloPoMo (or National Blog Posting Month) where you write a blog post a day. By being tagged for this meme I didn't have to seek inspiration for today but tomorrow is another story!

So Cat at Yellow Days... over to you x

NaBloPoMo vs NaNoWriMo

NaBloPoMo vs NaNoWriMo. What the what?

Allow me to translate.

National Novel Writing Month, or NaNoWriMo for short, is a marathon to write a 50,000 word novel in November. Sounds oh so simple but oh so demanding on time! Seeing as I have a couple of ideas for novels floating around in my head, and I LOVE writing, I thought this would be the perfect opportunity to get one of these ideas, or more likely a mishmash of some of them, down in black and white, thereby facilitating my meteroric rise to fame as an accomplished contemporary writer. Aaand back in the room!

I have only just heard of NaBloPoMo thanks to BritMums and this post. National Blog Posting Month is a challenge to write a post every day through November. Now that sounds a little more acheivable especially considering normal family life, need for sleep and a few other commitments in November. But actually it is sometimes really hard to find your blogging inspiration, she says writing a post about writing a post a day!

I am in desperate need to get writing, proper words that tell a tale and get my imagination spinning off in various directions but hopefully getting somewhere in the process. So my challenge is this. Do I try to write 50,000 words in the form of a novel or do I try to write a blog post a day or do I write a novel on my blog in 30 posts hopefully hitting about 50,000 words in total? Or do I wish everyone luck who is attempting one or other of these writing challenges and sit back and read the fruits of their labour?

No pressure or anything (on October 31st)!

Did you consider one of these challenges? Did you decide it wasn't for you or are you going for it? Obviously I understand that you may be a bit tied up writing if you are!