In which I go slightly overboard on the brackets…

Work was pretty good today, but busy. Very, very busy. It’s only Tuesday and already I’m exhausted! So instead of doing some washing (which was my plan for tonight) I’ve spent the last 20 minutes ordering books from Amazon as a “treat” to myself (for what I’m not sure). This Internet shopping malarkey is really bad for my bank balance! But on the plus side it means I’m actually getting somewhere with one of my goals… I’m up to 9 books read from the never-ending list (5 of them in January… no wonder the past month seems to have flown by without me even noticing – I’ve apparantly spent most of it with my nose in a book!) plus one German children’s book, whcih I am counting towards the 101 things list even though I technically read it for my dissertation and not because I desperately wanted to read a book by Eric Kästner. I really need to start reading some non-fiction books though… I’ve been saying for ages that I want to. Instead I find myself going through my Amazon recommendations, adding even more books to the list (can you believe the boyfriend actually has the never to tell me he finds it difficult to choose birthday and Christmas presents for me? There’s a ready-made list full of the perfect gifts just sitting, waiting for him to pay attention to it!). I failed on the monthly photo theme again (maybe 50 photos was a little too ambitious?) so it’s good to know I’ve managed to get somewhere with something…

I’ve also started to get back into cross stitch lately. A few weeks ago I picked up a project that I stopped working on months ago and I’ve come surprisingly far since then. It was supposed to be a birthday present for Jan’s mum in 2008! Hopefully I’ll actually manage to get it to her this year. I have until November, which should be do-able as long as I don’t stop again…

Ooh, and I’ve just realised, the package that arrived for me today is probably another cross stitch kit that I ordered… a wedding sampler for one of the couples I know who are taking the plunge (Yes, you read that right. I said one of the couples. There are a few…) I hope it is – I’m really looking forward to getting started on that one.

Advertisement

Let’s try again…

I wonder if wordpress will actually let me post something today instead of deciding to eat my carefully thought out words. Only one way to find out I suppose…
Here’s an update on what’s happening in the world of Bev.

• I’ve been at the new job one month today. I’m loving it so far. Everyone is nice, there’s lots for me to do and I can actually make mistakes without worrying that I may be (metaphorically) hung, drawn and quartered for it. Not that I purposely go out of my way to make mistakes or anything… but you know what i mean…
• The one bad thing about work is all the commuting. An hour’s train journey means having to get up at a ridiculous hour of the morning, meaning by the time it gets to Wednesday I’m exhausted (of course, it doesn’t help that I have a boyfriend who is incapable of coming home at a sensible time, meaning we rarely get to sleep before midnight). And by the time I’ve sat on the train for an hour in the evening there isn’t exactly much time left for me to have a life outside work. All this will (hopefully) change now though. I’ve been paid, so for October I have a ticket for the fast train. My travel time is now reduced to 20 minutes each way, meaning I get an extra half hour in bed. Yippee!
• My brother started university last week. He also turns 19 on Friday. I now feel old! Also, I haven’t managed to get him a present yet. Ooops.
• I needed to take 20 photos after work today to complete my photo challenge for this month. I managed to take 5, leaving me with a grand total of 35. I think it’s fairly safe to say I’ve failed this month. maybe 50 photos was a little over ambitious…
• My grandparents are having a party next friday to celebrate their golden wedding anniversary. After looking at what felt like a million airline’s websites, Jan and I have finally managed to book flights. We’re going via Amsterdam of all places. Why can’t somebody just start providing a direct flight from Southern Germany to Newcastle? It would make my life so much easier!
• Everyone seems to have gone baby mad at the moment! One of my dad’s cousins has just had a baby boy and I know 7 other people who are currently pregnant. 2 of those people are my dad’s cosuins. And another of his cousins is getting married in January.  My family just will not stop growing! It’s almost like we’re trying to take over the world…

OK, I think that’s everything. And even if it isn’t I need to stop now so I can go and sort out some food. Hopefully Jan won’t be too much longer… it’s 10 past nine now and lunch time was soooo long ago…

A quick note…

For those who were interested in seeing the photos from my 101 Things Photo Challenge, I’ve create a photobucket account to upload them to. I won’t be putting all 50 up for every single month, (so you’ll just have to take my word for it that I actually took all 50 😉 ) but you will at least be able to get an idea of what I’ve been doing.
Here is the URL: http://photobucket.com/bevchenn (I had to call myself bevchenn on there because bevchen with just 1 ‘n’ was already taken. Unbelievable!)

The games we play

I still haven’t decided what to do with the photos I’m taking for my 101 things challenge. Various people have suggested Flickr, which is ok but annoys me for 2 reasons. 1) They now force you to get a Yahoo account to log in to Flickr. Any what if I didn’t actually want a Yahoo account?! and 2) The free account only allows you to put up 200 photos. Which is fine, but I am clearly going to need to put up more than 200 photos for this challenge. Obviously I won’t be putting up all 50 every time, but I have 33 themes to get through! At the moment Flickr seems to be the best (read as only!) idea I have, but maybe I’ll come up with something.

In the meantime, since a few people have shown interest, I thought I would post one or two of the photos from this months challenge right here on Confuzzledom. Most of them aren’t particularly good, but you did ask… and now you have to suffer 😉

Clock Patience. I lost this game.

Game of rugby anyone?

Shoot, shoot, shoot!

Poor elephant has noone to play with...

Help, a UFO! Oh no, it's just a frisbee

OK, that’s all folks. I have more but I don’t want to use up all my photo space in one blog post…

Photography challenge

The list for my photography challenge has been completed! Thanks to all who gave me suggestions.
I’ll just briefly recap what I’m talking about for those who didn’t see the other post then give you the list.

So, I’ve decided to take part in Project Zero, also known as 101 Things in 1001 days.
For one of my 101 things I set myself the following challenge:
Assign a theme to each month of the 1001 days. During that month, take 50 photos relating to that theme. I didn’t manage to come up with 33 themes all by myself, so I asked the blogosphere for help… and received some great suggestions. Thanks guys!
So that I wouldn’t be tempted to put all the easy themes at the beginning, once the list was completed I typed it into the list randomizer at random.org. The order that it rearranged the themes into is the order I will be doing them in. The only other rules I’ve set for this challenge are that all photos must be taken during the month in question, all photos must be taken by me and all photos must be taken with the theme in mind (no taking photos of a blue flower just because it’s pretty then remembering that it’s currently “blue month” and using the photo for the challenge). I decided on 50 photos per month so that I don’t have to worry about only taking good photos… with 50 to choose from surely some of them will end up being usable!

And now, without further ado, here is the list:
August 2009: The Games That We Play
September 2009: Karlsruhe through my eyes
October 2009: Planes, Trains and Automobiles
November 2009: Looking Up
December 2009: Wooden
January 2010: On the Ground: An Ant’s eye View
February 2010: Spots andStripes
March 2010: Doors
April 2010: Circles and Spheres
May 2010: Flags
June 2010: Shoes and Socks
July 2010: Food, Glorious Food
August 2010: Some Like It HOT
September 2010: Pink
October 2010: Signs
November 2010: The Natural World
December 2010: Shadows
January 2011: Entertainment
February 2011: Water
March 2011: Man’s Best friend
April 2011: Flowers
May 2011: Blue
June 2011: From the Heart
July 2011: Here Comes the Sun
August 2011: Books, Books, Books
September 2011: Numbers
October 2011: All In a Row
November 2011: Let the Music Play
December 2011: Drink Me
January 2012: Multicoloured
February 2012: Soft and Cuddly
March 2012: Snail Mail
April 2012: Let There Be Light

The 1001 days ends on 10th May 2012, but instead of trying to take 50 photos in 10 days I’ve decided to start taking the photos for August now. The 1001 days officially start on my 26th bithday… full list of 101 things coming soon!