Storytelling Sunday ...

Narnia.


Through the cupboard door there is a window, it is open, just slightly, but enough. Enough to see the sky is blue, to hear the wind as the trees are blown and enough to hear my children.
When the soft droplets become faster and the stinging heat warms my body, I can still see glimpses of blue and the wafting smell of fire smoke tinges the air. It is a good drying day despite the cold, and the smoke, swirling this way and that, unpredictable and pervasive.

The water fills my ears and stings my eyes as I don't close them quickly enough. As the fan hums and the water warms the entire room, I can see the steam wafting towards the open window, making it's way out into the world to be swallowed up and to disappear.

Softly and with no noise I begin to cry. This is a safe place to cry, the water washes away the sadness and no one can see, especially the children.

Joy and cruelty are so finely intertwined, the death of one makes way for the birth of another. There is life and celebration we are sharing, full of hope, expectation and health. For another, their child lies withering, battle worn and depleted.

Through the cupboard and towards the window, wafting in silence, the steam wends its way towards the sky, blue with hope, clear and strong.


On the day before Mother's Day, my good friend's nephew died after a very short battle with leukaemia, he was thirteen. I knew he was dying as I took my shower that morning. My friend always refers to my bathroom as entering Narnia, the room behind the wardrobe. Today's story is sad, but our thoughts have been very sad over the past month.

Storytelling Sunday is hosted by Sian.

A Hobby ...

I'm working my way through the prompts from 31 Things, a journaling class run by Ali Edwards at Big Picture Classes. So far, I have completed 21 of the 31 prompts, in no particular order. Of the ten remaining prompts I seem to have saved the ones requiring a degree of introspection. I find personal writing a little forced at times, I am a quiet and practical person and certainly not the sort to air the dirty laundry, so to speak. What I find hard, is to write honestly without sounding sappy and lame and honestly, without being too negative or disgruntled, because, mostly, I would say that I am not at the ends of either spectrum. Miss In the Middle, or perhaps Miss Avoidance? Yes, I am good at ignoring and avoidance.

I've got two entries to share today and one of the great things about a journaling class, is that many stories appear from one prompt.

I know that our children see a hobby as a way of life, they know no different as The Engineer and I have always had extra activities apart from work and home life.
The children's hobbies are usually centred around construction, paper, sticky tape and boxes. Both are into replicating real items, one mechanical and one animal.

Learning through play is not just applicable to the kindergarten years and it is also a great way to make mistakes and realise how to work through problems in a safe environment.
See, scrapbooking is good for you!

Last Week ...

The weather looked like this -

Which was just as well because I wanted to make a good impression on my northern friend -

Then it all turned to this -

And hasn't changed much since.
Which is just as well because a friend from even further north sent these -

Blogging friends always seem to know what's right at the right time.

I have made a page about meeting up with Di ... but, the tissues, hmmm, I am not sure on my approach with those just yet!

Meeting friends made through scrapbooking and blogging is a very cool experience, have you been lucky enough?

FromThe Blog ...

I feel as though everything is working as it should when I make a page with the words from a blog post.

Unfortunately it doesn't happen nearly as often as I would like.

On Writing ...

Thank you for all of the wonderful suggestions regarding the double page templates, I appreciate the practical ideas and will have to sort out a solution well before I take on WITL, which is likely to be in a few months yet.

My current project is Ali Edwards' 31 Things over at Big Picture Classes. The class has been running for a week now, and I do have a few pages made. Actually, The Eight Year Old was away from school last Friday so I had the opportunity to get a reasonable amount of writing done. I am not good at waiting for daily prompts when it comes to a writing project, if the mood strikes, I write while I can, because you never know when the next opportunity will present. I followed the first four prompts and then chose randomly, if a story sprang to mind as soon as I saw the prompt I went with that.

I am not sure how many people who drop by here are taking the class as the other choice I have made with this one is to not actively participate on the message board. A lot of people are posting a lot of writing/stories and I simply cannot devote a great deal of attention to each post, and, I don't want to post my writing in the gallery or message board.

Sometimes, when taking a class, I find I post/scrap/create with the project in mind and also with the thought that it could be suitable for blogging, not so in this case. I am writing spontaneously, with detail and with no thought of publicly publishing. Having said that, it is fun to share little bits here and there.

Ali's templates for the class are made with a good basic structure that appeals to me. I have tweaked the design slightly and I have changed the opening page design and have added an introductory page. I am planning to print the entire project as a photobook. The only colour will come through the photos and images, this is a deliberate choice as I want the focus to be on the words. I have simplified an already simple design and it is working well for me.

Writing is certainly an ebb and flow process, I started with tremendous enthusiasm and made sure to take advantage of my time and opportunity. This week has seen me with little time to write. Funnily enough, when I did have a spare moment I found I was forcing the issue, it would seem I need to have time and a clear conscience in order to write .... one can't put off prior obligations/procrastinate and write effectively!

I am looking forward to seeing how my writing changes. I am wondering what stories will evolve, as the initial prompts spark a myriad of ideas. I am enjoying writing from a single word prompt.

Have a great weekend everyone, I'd love to hear how you are enjoying the class if you are taking it, if not, I'd love to hear what sparks a story in you.

Mini ...

If you ask me, the real stuff of life is made up of glimpses of little things and very bad photos.

Over the past month, The Five Year Old has had a small task, actually, I think it is a big task, to complete for an Inquiry unit at school. The Preps have been researching mini-beasts. The task was to make a poster about a chosen mini-beast with as much work as possible to be done by the child and all written components to be in their own words - not necessarily their handwriting, after all, the teacher would like some chance of actually deciphering the information.

The first issue at hand was the choice of the mini-beast. There will be no lady beetles or butterflies here thank you very much, we are firmly Blue Tongue lizard people - if it is reptilian then we are happy - despite it not really fitting the mini part of the beast category!

Two weeks ago we found some great websites with a lot of information. Together we discussed what the lizards looked like, where they lived and what they ate. The Five Year Old drew all of this information on her part of the poster.

Last weekend The Five Year Old told me the things she could remember about Blue Tongue lizards and that was the information I chose to type up for the written component - she has to present this to her class so she needs to know what she is on about.

I used Steelfish Outline font for headings, printed them out and she coloured them in - it was more than enough work with enthusiasm waning mid afternoon on Saturday. All information is presented at her own level in her own words - placement of paper on cardboard was left up to me, actually, I just took over that part, she wasn't interested.

Then you need to record this event for posterity. If you get three photos you are really lucky, because that last one came with attitude and a 'Mum, I am sick of you taking my photo.'
The project is done, she enjoyed herself and is confident of the material she will be presenting during the week ... not bad for five!

PS The trapped space down the middle of the poster is glaringly bad, I know!
PPS We are also aware that she chose an animal that eats mini-beasts, rather than a mini-beast itself.

Help, Please ...

The official running of A Week in the Life is over for another year, but, I'm planning for my week at a later stage. Being the planner that I am, and if you have done this project before, you know that the week is far more pleasant and manageable if you do plan and are prepared, I've been gathering resources. I am also the sort who likes to make her daily pages as she goes, despite the best advice, I never return to a project once it is done. I am the make it and spit it out type, I am not sure whether it is impatience or a negligible attention span, either way, my pages are made each day.

Feeling organised and loving a simple design I bought these templates.

Really great design. Would look fantastic as a photobook, which is how I will print.
But.
I could have made them. I find this a lot, I buy templates and open them up and realise I could quite easily make them myself. Next time I will sit down and sketch out a look and then make the entire set myself ... maybe!

There is another but. Sure, I can make my way around a digital template, but, I'm not all that savvy. What I do is really very basic.

All of these purchased templates are set up as double page spreads, not individual left and right handed pages. Ackkkk! Am I able to drop double pages into photobooks? Do I have to crop each side and save individually? I am flustered!

After a quick preliminary search I found some information at The Daily Digi, HERE and HERE. If you have a moment and are a digi scrapper could you please confirm if these articles are what I need, or, if you can explain the answer simply, I would much appreciate your help!

I am sure there is a simple answer, I'd just like some back up and encouragement!

Of course, if you are not a digi scrapper, hi, glad you dropped by - sorry, I'm not so inclusive today!

Still ...

Family and friends ask all of the time, 'What's happening with the house?' 'Have you done the decking?' 'How much more to go?' 'How much longer will it take until you're finished?'

Followed with, 'You really should get the decking done.' 'Is that staircase safe?' 'What's going on the front exterior wall?'

Ending with, 'Oh, we're thinking of renovating, I'd like to paint the bedrooms another colour.' 'Did you live in the house the entire time?' 'Oh, it's big job!'

Yep, I'm over it.
Not in a petulant ungrateful and immature way - we made this decision and I fully support our decision. It's just tiring and it truly seems never ending. Now that we don't have builders in regularly it is a lot harder to self motivate and so many small things crop up as good excuses to not start or pick up where you left off. As an example, The Eight Year Old has two birthday parties to go to this weekend, both require a bit of to and fro driving - meh, why start sorting through those cupboards only to get distracted? Yep, that's my attitude!

We need to finish, we will finish, we need a life that involves more than paint and timber and power tools!

Have a great weekend!

An Old One ...

I was wondering what to post about yesterday, there were a few options, but when the time came to sit down and write, I felt I was drawn to photos.

I went back to that old photo selecting technique, you know the one, the second photo from the fourteenth folder? As it turns out, my choice was the third photo from the thirtieth folder.

Surprisingly, it was a food related photo. I don't photograph our food or cooking all that often, I prefer people.
This is a cupcake filled with lemon curd and then, instead of icing, has a meringue topping. The original recipe was from the Masterchef Australia website. Do you have Masterchef in your part of the world? It is a huge phenomenon here, I don't mind it, but prefer to start watching when there are only ten or twelve contestants left, it goes on for too long otherwise. I have to say, despite loving lemon based recipes, this one was fiddly and I haven't made it again.

Anyway, this is not about cooking, but the photo, its selection and the story I have then written. Care to play along? What's the seventh photo in the twenty-first album on your computer?

The Bone ...

Short and sweet today my friends. How was your weekend?

We celebrated a first birthday this weekend, with the actual day being today - Happy Birthday young man!
My sister is adventurous, but not overly confident in the kitchen. As far as I am concerned, she made a fantastic cake for her son.

However, and you knew there was a however didn't you?!
When showing me the cake and The Eight Year Old was peering over my shoulder, he said ....

'Ooh, that's a great bone!'

Now, of course, we can all see it is the number one ... can't we?