Tuesday 31 July 2012

This 'n' That - A Month Misspent

Has it really been 20 days since I last blogged?????

Life does that to you sometimes doesn't it?  Either getting busily in the way or sucking the motivation out of you ... or in my case both!

First there was a visit up north (should that have a capital letter?) where I managed to get photo #2 and item #8 in Rinda's Scavenger Hunt:  the lovely Angel of the North, with No.1 Son to give it some scale.  He's the one on the right!

I'll tell you why we were in the neighbourhood on Sunday when I'll be joining in with Siân's Storytelling.

A Song Of Ice & Fire - 12½ inch stack of books
Disappointingly, my recently-operated-upon elbow flared up which meant that I had to limit my activities again.  It's hard to scrap or blog (or chop vegetables or even clean surfaces) when your write right arm needs elevating and ice-packs!  This did however give me LOTS of time to read books ... and I have just finished wading through the entire series so far of "A Song Of Ice And Fire" by George R.R. Martin - a mind boggling 12½ inches of paperbacks.  At first I was bewildered by the enormous cast of characters in the first book, "A Game Of Thrones", and the switching of viewpoints between them.  Apparently there are 31 different viewpoints and over 1000 different named characters - not that I've checked!  However, I was soon completely hooked and wanting to read more - to the extent that I couldn't wait for Hubby to finish the 4th book of the series, so we shared for while, before I sneakily overtook him while he was out at work!!!
If only reading were an Olympic sport :o)

We finally had some summer sun too which meant I could tackle some garden jobs and tend to the vegetables that we planted this year.  We've even harvested a young lettuce or two.

Runner bean flowers in my garden
{ These are not the lettuces - can you guess what they are? }
Thanks to this 'n' that (and some other stuff) I have been very neglectful of my July Counterfeit Kit and managed just 2 pages with it - neither of which I can share yet.  They did involve a lot of machine stitching though.
I'm hoping to be inspired to use other forms of stitchery soon by hanging out over at Obstinate Pursuit: Clair is about to host a FREE class about stitching on paper - it starts on Saturday (August 4th) and runs each weekend throughout August (sneaky peeks here).

I guess there are enough numbers in this post to qualify me to play along with Julie's Month In Numbers - providing I also include that No.1 Son spent only 10 days at home messing up our house before departing and thankfully leaving the mess marginally more contained.  Oh and that Child No.3 had to endure 3 interviews (phone, group and individual) before being turned down for a weekend job in a local supermarket.  As for No.2 Son ... he did help by mowing the our 3 lawns 4 times this month which is something I suppose.
Ooops!  I haven't actually shared June's Month In Numbers yet ... hopefully I'll do that when I scrap it - possibly with next month's kit from the Counterfeit Kit Challenge Blog!

How has your month been?

14 comments:

Julie Kirk said...

Sorry to hear you've been out of action again. That said .. wow .. that's a *lot* of reading. You must have felt like you lived in that world by then end of it!!

You + your numbers are welcome any time - in any amount / form. I'm looking forward to hearing why you were up North [nearer me than usual!]

As for the shreddings - we had to just skip them ... seems crazy the council won't take shredded paper to recycle, yet if we'd left them in tact they could have. [We don't have a compost bin, would like one, but have very little space. We'd need to be very creative!].

I've pinned your post: http://pinterest.com/notesonpaper/my-month-in-numbers/ Thanks for mananging to link up with me ... even with that arm!

Take care.

Julie :-)

Clair said...

Hello Lovely Lady! So sorry to hear that your elbow is giving you trouble again - still?

But I'm so pleased that you've had the time to read all of those George R.R Martin books - it's one of my favourite fantasy series. Would you like another member for the GB Reading Team?

Thanks for the class mention - I'm pretty certain that your layout will amaze! x

Lisa-Jane said...

That's quite a stack! Hubs is most of the way through this, currently on A Dance with Dragons 1. He has never read so much!

Mary B said...

Hi Jemma the 'Not Lettuce' photo looks like runner beans to me am I correct?
Wow to all that reading

Alison said...

Sorry to hear the arm's been playing up again....lovely pic of The Angel!
Alison xx

alexa said...

That's really hard, having an arm out of action - hopefully there'll be some guilt-free 'resting' time in front of the Olympics? What a lovely stack of books - not come across these, so thank-you for the recommendation.

Lisa said...

Sorry to hear you've been out of action. But what a stack of reading! All sounds too hard for me since I turned into a lazy reader :-)

Really looking forward to seeing more of your machine stitching. Always on the lookout for new ways to get the machine going. Your sneak looks great.

Anyway, missing you over at CKC. Hope to see you back soon ;-)

Maria Ontiveros said...

Welcome back! I love that angel statue. It is stunning.
Rinda

helena said...

As Edinburgh seems to be an angel free zone I had been contemplating a day trip to the Angle of the North - I love it.

Didn't get into the Game of Thrones TV even though I'm a big fantacy fan - thinking of trying the books instead

Sian said...

I'm very sorry to hear about the elbow :( and hope it calms down again soon.

I have the same angel (though mine is a quick drive-by photo!) and I nearly used the big studio here where they film "Game of Thrones" for my place of historical interest

Sian said...

ps - driving? I don't like driving J's Land Rover, but will if asked nicely :)

Missus Wookie said...

As a fellow misbehaving elbow sufferer I do empathise. My PT is continuing and when I asked how long she gave me a stern look and said, "as long as it takes". Which would work better if she wasn't younger than me ;)

George R Martin's books are just too dark for me - read the first four I think and decided that no matter how nice a man George is.... Quantum was delighted to take them home.

Ugh on the three interviews before being turned down - madness.

Paula - Buenos Aires said...

Your picture of the 12 1/2 inches of paperbacks totally got my attention. :D
Hope your arm is feeling better.
Funny how we seem to hang out with almost the same people. See you in cyberspace. :)

Unknown said...

gosh how lucky to have the time to read those books. I am lucky if I get time to finish one at any time of the year except the summer break.

Great numbers