Random Number Loveliness

I'm away scrapping with some lovely blog friends this weekend, so, in the absence of something scrappy to share, here is a little something related to my other love:

Blogiversary #2

I nearly missed it - my second Blogiversary!  Last year I was very organised and had an anniversary blog hop; this year I only remembered because I spotted an up-coming Blogiversary over at Beverly's place.  Ooops!!!

To celebrate, here is a Taxedo made from the recurring words on my blog ... lots of counterfeiting, numbers, stories, books, children and a fair bit of scrapping!

Thank YOU

to all of you who have left me interesting comments (2973 comments - not sure how many different commenters), those of you who have become followers (76), my many silent visitors who add their flags at the bottom of the page (8495 visitors from 74 countries) and all of you lovely fellow bloggers that have kept me company, encouraged me and inspired me during the last two years :o)

Flying High

A friend e-mailed this to me just before I left for Las Vegas last month - it's a skit performed by British Airways staff at a BA function:



I couldn't help smiling as the cabin crew of my US Airlines flights delivered their safety mimes to us and wheeled the trolleys up and down the aisles. I don't think I'll ever look at a steward(ess) the same way ever again!

Lost?

Hubby and I often go out for a walk at the weekend.  We tend to tread the same routes around our village, adding variety by going anti-clockwise sometimes ... and whenever we see a sign for a footpath going across the fields we remember we forgot to study the Ordnance Survey map in advance and therefore have no idea where the path will lead! 
We had to laugh last weekend when we were out enjoying the chilly sunshine:

Sometimes too much help is no help at all!

Satnav Strikes Again!

Seems like it's not just me who struggles with a satnav!



P.S. Mine is now back on GMT - hooray for Google - what's the betting I'll now be an hour late for something next summer!

Hoera voor Sinterklaas!

Some of you may know that we used to live in Holland when Sons No.1 & No.2 were small (in fact they were born there). One tradition we loved to join in with was the early December excitement and gift giving around December 5th/6th.

As you can seen, Sint & Piet didn't exactly factor in shoe size when leaving gifts!
Three of those packages will have contained the appropriate yummy chocolate initials!

There's a post all about St Nikolaas traditions on the CKCB today if you want to know more and get some creative inspiration from fellow Master Forger Lisa.

P.S. We also had fun before becoming parents with Sinterklaasavond "surprises" but that's a whole different post!

No Purchase Necessary!

Today is Buy Nothing Day - join me in not spending any money!

11.11.11

Source

Today is special - it's Remembrance Day here in the UK - we hold a two minute silence at 11:00 to remember the men and women who have died in the service of their country.
In the last couple of weeks many people have been wearing poppies sold by the Royal British Legion - they are celebrating their 90th year of helping with the welfare and support of injured troops and their dependants.
Many other Commonwealth countries will be remembering their fallen today.
I'll be at work at 11:00 and hope that we'll be able to ignore the phones and observe the silence there and to reflect on the bravery shown and the sacrifices made by so very many people.

Today I have also been invited by Beverly to take part in another sort of celebration of the date (a palindromic occurrence that hasn't happened for 100 years (the date not the invitation!)).  She asked us to share 11 photos, 11 things to do before the end of the year and 11 things that we've read/seen/experienced during 2011.

11 Photos from 2011 - more or less one a month
Ranging from a Mother's day text to a  rooftop sculpture in Italy,
from 100 years of theatre  to our first home-grown peas!

As for good intentions ... they mostly revolve around Christmas: make more than two Christmas cards, post our Christmas cards in plenty of time, make some frozen Christmas pudding, make an early start on Christmas shopping (please stop feeling smug if you've already done all of yours - I call Christmas shopping in November very early!), clean the oven in advance (I don't want guests to see the state it's normally in) and invite family to spend some festive days with us.  The non-Christmassy ones are as follows ... plant some more peas and onions for next spring, tidy up the rest of the garden, de-clutter the downstairs rooms, finish off the year's bookkeeping and get myself organised for a Blogger's retreat at the end of the month!

The 11 things that have happened during 2011 ... well I blogged about quite a lot of stuff:

• I helped start a local crop which is going from strength to strength (we hoped for 8 members and have 20 on the books)
• I found out about the Counterfeit Kit Challenge Blog and became a Master Forger
• I took a Shimelle class called Blogging For Scrapbookers and "met" lots of new blogging buddies
• I was selected as a contestant in the UKScrappers Scrap Factor contest and made lots of "hybrid" pages including these
• Our Silver Wedding Anniversary was celebrated in Barcelona with the family
• I started regular work at the local theatre
• No.1 Son gave us a few extra grey hairs but we could see the funny side!
• I made him a Smash book and what's more he used it!
• A year of blogging was marked by my first giveaway
• We had a few days away in York 
• We started growing some fruit and veg and have actually harvested some crops (including the peas above)!

Pop over to Beverly's at BE Glorious to see what other "elevens" have been shared and perhaps share your own too!

Keeping Calm

I was catching up on my blog reading after a few days away (visiting lovely friends) when I saw Siân's post about keeping calm and ... *insert phrase here*.  She wanted to know what phrases her readers liked to add.  I was Googling to see what was out there and came across a fabulous website, Keepcalm-o-matic, where you can fill in your own words, add your own images and produce your own poster.  So here is mine:

As I said to Siân, there aren't many problems that a cup of tea cannot help with!  Further reading on the Keepcalm-o-matic site led me to discover that the phrase KC&CO may be under threat ... take a look here!

Welcome to the World

One of the things that amazes me about blogging is how many people stumble over here to my little corner of the world wide web ... and even more interesting to me is where they come from.

When I started blogging I thought a few UK(S) friends would come over to say "Hello".  My circle of regular visitors has expanded around the world thanks to joining in with the Counterfeit Kit Challenge Blog and a couple of Shimelle's classes (including Blogging For Scrapbookers).  It's lovely to establish links and friendships across the web through creative blogging.  However, just as I read blogs without making my presence known, hop, hop, hopping from pillar to (blog) post, I know that I have unknown visitors ... and I'm curious ... who, where, why?

Well, the "why" is probably from hop, hop, hopping like me, as my blog is not readily searchable.  The "who" will never be known unless they say "Bonjour", "Goede dag", "Labdien", "Aloha" or even "Saluton"!  But the "where" ... that I have solved to a degree!

Early on (get me, this blog isn't quite 15 months old yet!), I came across a fun free gadget - Flag Counter - which I installed at the bottom of my blog to keep track of all my visitors in a visual way.  Currently the flags in my collection range from the United Kingdom to the United Arab Emirates.

On April 1st I had an extra special flag for the day - a Pirate who last visited on October 12, 1492!

And now I have had another special visitor - my 50th flag - from Estonia.  Tere tulemast!

Are you curious about your unknown blog readers?  What's your favourite blog gadget?

A-Z of me

I've enjoyed reading a few of these A-Z posts around and about recently and thought I'd have a go:

A - Age: Old enough to know better!
B - Bed size: Super King
C - Chore that you hate: Cleaning shoes - delegated (by incompetence) to Hubby
D - Dogs: Happy to play/walk with my Mum's dog - happier still to return it
E - Essential start to your day: A mug of hot tea
F - Favourite colour: Blue
G - Gold or Silver: Gold - silver requires too much maintenance
H - Height: 5' 9" down from 5'10" - the weight of my years is beginning to tell!
I - Instruments you play: Calculator ;o)

I sold my bicycle to buy one of these ...
and it didn't even have an equals button!!!

J - Job title: Chief Cook & Bottlewasher - former IT Specialist - occasional Box Office Assistant
K - Kids: No.1 Son, No.2 Son & Child No.3 - all born at home
L - Live: Cheshire, UK
M - Mother’s name: Inga
N - Nicknames: Jemma (it's not my given name!), Jimjams, JJ
O - Overnight hospital stays: Cruciate ligament repair
P - Pet peeves: Apostrophe abuse
Q - Quote from a movie: "I'll have what she's having." (When Harry Met Sally)
R - Right or left handed: Right
S - Siblings: One brother, two half-sisters, two step-brothers, three step-sisters
T - Tattoos: Rather you than me!
U - Underwear: Comfy - I am not from generation thong!
V - Vegetable you hate: Asparagus
W - What makes you run late: Underestimating how long it will take me to be ready to leave
X - X-Rays you’ve had: Teeth, knee, neck
Y - Yummy food that you make: Chinese ribs, Nasi Goreng, frozen Christmas pud, Anzac cookies
Z - Zoo animal: Orang-utan

100 Years of Company

I have worked on a voluntary, casual and, more recently, part-time basis at my local theatre for ten years and at the beginning of the month, the theatre celebrated its centenary: 100 years of plays, concerts, magicians, ballets, operas, comedians, films, boxing matches, circuses and entertainment of all kinds.  As part of the celebrations Illuminos created a stunning light show which was projected onto the outside of the building telling the story of the theatre's history.  You can see the lion that attacked one of its trainers, the fire that ravaged the building, the ghosts that haunt backstage, the bus that was pulled through the streets by the circus strong man, and many famous faces that appeared there over the years including Charlie Chaplin and Stan Laurel. The live show was brilliant so I'm really glad that Illuminos have recorded it so that I can share.



Best watched in Full Screen mode (and for some reason it goes black for a couple of seconds, 3 minutes in)

Blogiversary Part Two

There wasn't meant to be a part two - but there were two things to note about yesterday's Blogiversary post:

1) Poor Missus Wookie's number couldn't be found because her post didn't appear.  I know that MW had holiday plans and had scheduled something for me, but I also know that Blogger was throwing a few spanners around my friends' blogs yesterday!

ETA 3/8/11 - Missus Wookie's post is there now - Hooray!

Not to worry - there was actually a big little clue to the missing number in my number.  Did you look closely at it?  The missing number is also missing from it!  And MW's number is NOT missing!  So take another look (click onto it for a closer view), and if you have managed to narrow it down to two missing numbers ... you'll be able to eliminate one of them!

2) Mary posted the most wonderful little jpg to the comments yesterday - and I thought it deserved a proper airing!

I think I'm having so much fun that I'll plump for "Remind me next year" !!!

Blogiversary

Welcome to my Blogiversary post - 1 year of clogging up the internet with my creations, thoughts, photos and the odd video!   114 posts (counting this one) over 12 months with an average of just over 9.5 comments per post (thank you).  41 followers when last I looked, and 101 Google Reader subscribers - some of whom are the same people. According to Blogger I've had over 7,000 page views and my Flag Counter gadget at the bottom of the page says that my visitors come from 43 different countries!!! (including a chatty crafty arty "pig" on holiday!)

Source

Do you get the impression I like numbers?  Well you'd be right.  I do.  Sudoku puzzles are fun.  Numerical crosswords are even better!  I love that numbers and sequences and patterns are everywhere.  Did you know that there is a spiral hidden in a pineapple?  Or that pine cones, artichokes and sunflowers are also Nature's representations of the number sequence named after Fibonacci? One of my childhood heroes was the brilliant, witty, talented Tom Lehrer who sang clever songs about science and pigeons and mathematics too:

WARNING: Don't listen to it more than once or you'll be hearing it in your head all day long!!!

Source

To help me celebrate my Blogiversary,  I nabbed an idea from Sandie, and roped in a few blog buddies to do a blog hop.  As I like numbers I have asked each of the hoppers (hoppees?) to share a number with you.

And because I like winning give-aways I thought I'd reciprocate and supply (a small) one of my own, so once you get back here, put the numbers in order, have a think, and drop me an e-mail to say which one is missing to Jimjams at dreamj dot co dot uk.
I'll draw a winner from the correct answers next Monday, August 8th.

Please start by visiting Sandie and she'll point you in the direction of the next person on the hop.
If you get lost, here is a complete list of places to visit:

Sandie @ Itchifingers
Furrypig @ Chatty Crafty Arty Pig
Siân @ From High In The Sky
Hilary @ Pictures and Paper Bits
Alexa @ Trimming The Sails
Helen @ Craft Imperfect
Missus Wookie @ Missus Wookie's Wanderings ***
Mel @ I Speak Melsh
Mary @ Mary's Musings
Mel @ Created By ATDML

*** ETA 1/8/11 - please bear with my helpers if one or two posts aren't isn't quite there (yet) as it's holiday time and Blogger doesn't always play fair ...  I'll be back with clues tomorrow if any are still missing!
ETA 3/8/11 - YAY Missus Wookie managed to get her post online -  use the clue if you're still confused!

Oops - I nearly forgot - you need a number from me to get you started .... how about:

Just Thought I'd Share

This is SO beautiful: artistry, music and a sweet message!



And have you seen? The Counterfeit Kit to copy for July has been announced - with some fabulous examples from the Master Forgers - and this month there is another great sponsor supplying a prize for joining in the fun!
I've been inspired to get cracking with mine - better late than never eh?!

Why do I do it?

Forgive me readers, for I have lapsed.  It's been 10 days since I last blogged and I have struggled to think of something momentous, or interesting or humorous enough to justify my 100th post.  I should really have made my "Ten on the Tenth" entry my centenary post - 10² is 100 after all!

But having noticed that this post was an important (for me) milestone in my blogging history, it has actually become a hurdle to overcome rather than a celebration of my ability to have posted 99 other random thoughts, stories, photos, paper projects and scrapbook pages.

However, today when I was looking through my photos to see what could go on the "to scrap" pile - I spotted the perfect one to go in this post - to celebrate my hobby - this is (one of the reasons) why I do it:

Or perhaps that should be: three of the reasons why I do it :D

Declutter Report #1

1/6/11 Very dusty, slightly blunt & rickety, but
trusted kitchen foil/paper towel holder

Oops - I meant to post this on June 8th to give you my first week's de-cluttering progress as promised here.  But as you know life gets in the way of blogging sometimes :P

Now with the start of any project you have a choice - begin with baby steps that build up to a grand finale - or - start with a big blitz & risk peaking too soon.  I chose a baby step for Day 1 (as it was also a family celebration day and I had other things to do).  I was saving our tried and trusted kitchen foil/paper towel dispenser just in case I couldn't get on with the new ones hidden inside cupboards in our new kitchen.  I can, so it can go ... 18 months after it was "saved".

Normally I just shut the door and ignore the state of my kids' bedrooms, but as No.2 Son was about to return from Uni I decided to tackle his room before he could stop me!  Envelopes (empty), Christmas cards, bank flyers, Easter egg boxes, pop bottles all went out without a second thought!

2/6/11 Worst culprits = permanently bent flexible ruler, cracked & dusty plastic glasses,
crumbling headphones and sweets that expired in 2008!

Unfortunately I couldn't de-clutter without doing a major clean so that took care of my afternoon - shame that his room has reverted to its former state of midden after a week of occupation!

The next day, I made a very small dent in some craft magazines, saving just a few articles for future reference.

3/6/11 Another baby step - discarding some magazines from 2002!

"Rescued" from the attic. It may take
some time to go through them all!

Day 4 was another baby step - chucking the pile of charity collection bags into the recycling - I know I should be filling them up with donations, but there will be more through the letter box in no time!

4/6/11

Guilt began to set in after day 4 so I decided to tackle another decent project - the space above one of the cupboards in the dining room - a dumping ground for all sorts of things:

5/6/11  Before      &       After              

I consolidated various tins of sewing notions, packaged up some fabrics and threw out broken glass ornaments, a "How to Tell the Time" poster, scraps of fabric, some old biscuit tins and most of the rucksack clips and elastic straps that I keep saving every time a bag wears out - "just in case" I ever need a rucksack clip or an elastic strap.  I haven't ever needed one ... so I certainly don't need a dozen of them!

5/6/11 Out, out, out!!

That was another good hour's work - so I had a day off, but having read Stacey's post about her medicine cabinet clear-out I went to tackle ours.  I smugly thought there wouldn't be too much to chuck as I do remember clearing the cupboard out a year (or possibly two) ago ... whoops!

7/6/11 - Medicine Cabinet clutter

It would seem nobody bothers to remove empty packets of pills as there were a stack of those.  There wasn't a date on the mosquito repellant, but as it is named from No.1 Son's days in the Boy Scouts I think it may well be a bit past it!  I also didn't realise plasters had a use-by date (although the Jurassic Park themed ones were so old that they no longer had airtight packets - the glue having perished around a decade ago).  No.3 Child looked at me with a withering expression and muttered something about silver and disinfectants and parents today!  The worst offenders?  These two from the beginning of 2003 - so maybe it has been a while since I cleared out that cupboard!

So there it is - my first week of de-cluttering - nothing remarkable, but a few baby steps in the right direction.  Off to buy new plasters now!!!

White Rabbits White Rabbits White Rabbits

Nijntje & Pals (aka Miffy in the UK)

That's what I always used to try and say first thing on the first day of the month - before "Good morning" or "Toast please" or whatever it was that first used to leave my lips on a normal day.  I didn't normally manage to get my brain into gear to actually do it though.  It is meant to bring luck I believe - perhaps something to do with white rabbits being witches?

I did usually manage to join in with the "Pinch and a punch on the first of the month" though - and added the "And no returns!" very quickly or I was likely to get both back in spades from my brothers!

Anyway - Happy June to you all, may it be lucky!

I already consider myself pretty lucky - I have reasonable health, a safe and secure home, a family to care for (me), and I have plenty of great life experiences to look back on (and hopefully forward to too).  Not all girls/women are so lucky and it was lovely to read that Shimelle was doing her bit (with scrappers' help) to raise money for Plan UK's Because I Am A Girl campaign.  Unfortunately I was too late to promote this yesterday, but my blog-buddy Mel has put a Shimelle charity class up for grabs on her blog - you have until 5pm today to try for that and arrange a donation in some other way.

Mel has also been inspiring me with her de-cluttering in May.  That's another side-effect of being fortunate ... we have TOO MUCH STUFF.  It also makes it harder to keep tidy and organised.  So here is my declaration (please help me keep to it): I'm going to copy Mel and try and do a month of de-cluttering; with weekly updates so that I can be held to account!

Four Things To Look Forward To

It's nearly June.  Where has the year gone?  I still haven't finished scrapping the photos from March!!  In fact I've got so far behind with my Project 12 pages that I'd better make March, April & May's photos a priority or it will stall completely!  Good job I've got a crop on Saturday to look forward to - our third at our new venue - and each month someone has volunteered to make cake - can't say fairer than that!

OK - that was the first thing to look forward to (for me at least) - here are a few more things that you might like to anticipate too:

Sunday sees the next edition of Storytelling Sunday from Siân; I've played along each month so far - will you be there with a tale this month too?

The next day should be the big reveal of June's Kit to Copy from the Counterfeit Kit Challenge Blog ... as a "Master Forger" with them, I'm working on my example kit already - it will be good to join in again having missed last month's kit.

June 17th will be the start of a Cyber Crop from A Trip Down Memory Lane.  It's free, with lots of classes and challenges and the timetable has just been published here.

Plenty of scrapping opportunities then, and if I get my act together, perhaps a ready made story to scrap as well.  I'm looking forward to it all ... are you?

Beautiful Barcelona

I've been neglecting my blog recently ... too few scrapbook pages that I can share straight away and I'm not that keen on teasing with peeks, so I didn't know what to post. Then I remembered that I have a gazillion photos from our 3½ days in Barcelona after Easter and I haven't shared any of them. So here are a few pictures along with a couple of queries I could do with answers to:

Fruit stall in La Boqueria - good enough to eat!

What on earth are these????

Having read all sorts of awful stories whilst researching the city, Hubby & I were completely paranoid about being the victims of pick-pocketing or mugging.  Fortunately we came home unscathed and now the kids feel that we wound them up unnecessarily with all our warnings ... Were we safe because we took precautions or because it isn't any worse than any other city?  I'm quite very glad we didn't get proved right, but not sure they'll ever listen to our advice again ... oh, wait, they never do listen, so no change there then!

Now that's what I call a buoy!

One of the highlights of our trip was a visit to Park Güell - our brilliant bike tour guide, Buddha described it as being designed by Gaudi whilst he was high on something - it was certainly weirder and more wonderful than any other park we'd visited.  While we were there we spotted a Google bike so now we're wondering if, one day, we'll be able to see Hubby and No.1 Son in a Google tour of the park!

No.3 Child took her new camera (a purple Canon Powershot  SX210) and was also photographing like mad, but as she has yet to read the manual, a lot of her photos have been taken with "interesting" settings ... most frequently using Tungsten white balance!  This has given a blue glow to the photos which is a big shame, especially as I was hoping to use some of her pictures for scrapping with - it's nice to get another person's perspective.

Feeling blue :D

Does anyone have any quick and easy ideas for correcting the colour balance on such photos?  I have PSE5, can just about use Picassa, have a Photobucket account and usually use HP Image Zone for cropping and printing my photos.