Creative Challenge Linky 5

Welcome to week #5 of the Creative Challenge Linky!

Thank you so much to everyone who linked up last week, I really very much appreciate it, and have loved reading all of our creative posts. All of the posts were fab, we have some creative mamas out there!

The Creative Challenge isn’t just about arts and crafts – but it is all about being creative. I loved Ellie Bear Babi’s fab DIY Bouquet, and the fantastic Mother’s day gift idea from Let Kids be Kids.

I’d love it if you could join in, you can link up anything remotely creative. Decorating, baking, sewing, even being creative in what you wear. This linky is about challenging ourselves to be a bit more creative – in whatever way best suits you!

Trying out a new playtime idea

Being creative in the kitchen

Trying out a new hobby

I initially had a crochet post planned for the creative challenge this week, but, well it’s proving a real challenge tog et myself motivated to finish it at the moment! Luckily I tried out a new play idea with Monkey, so will be linking that up, – it wasn’t a complete disaster but it wasn’t exactly a huge success either! But hey, that’s a big part of what this linky is all about, successes and failures… and anything in between!

Right, now it’s your turn to link up your posts, and tell me all about your Creative Challenge!

<div align="center"><a href="https://becomingastayathomemum.com/category/playtime-blogs/creative-challenge/" title="Creative Challenge"><img src="http://i30.photobucket.com/albums/c325/cazzabella2304/CCbadgesmall_zps32623a4b.jpg" alt="Creative Challenge" style="border:none;" /></a></div>

Here’s how this works.

Write a new post (or link an old one if it fits the theme) all about your Creative Challenge.
Grab the Creative Challenge badge (by copying the code above) and pop it at the bottom of your post (in the ‘text’ version).
Link your post by clicking on the ‘Add your link’ button and filling in the form.
Remember: Linkys only work when we take the time to read each others posts and leave comments so please let’s support each other and read and comment on as many posts as you are able to.

The linky opens at 6.30am on Wednesday and will close at 11.00pm on Sunday so there is plenty of time to join in.

Mobile Madhouse Review – Nokia 925 Phone Case

Posted by Caroline Elliott

The lovely people at Mobile Madhouse have sent me a gorgeous phone case to review.

My phone comes everywhere with me, it is my camera as much as my phone these days and it lives in my pocket. My last phone seemed to be almost indestructible and survived many many drops and bangs. My newer phone, the Nokia 925, is a much better phone, and camera, but within weeks of getting it, it was scratched and chipped, so a phone case is definitely a good idea!

My poor chipped phone!

I chose a lovely purple case. The Purple, Hard, Hybrid case to be precise! They sell lots of different types of cases, ones that double as wallets, but because my phone lives in my pocket I wanted one that added the least bulk to the phone.

It is a bit bulkier than before but it still fits in my jeans pockets nicely, which is great! It comes with a screen protector but I didn’t use this as hubby bought a nifty gel screen protector for my phone at Christmas which is invisible but has been working brilliantly!

I love the colour though and it is very easy to fit, it just snaps onto the phone and looks great 🙂

I’ve waited a few weeks to write this review as I wanted to give it a good test run, and ooh it has had a good test run! It is looking a bit worse for wear now, with lots of scratches and chips and, after a particularly nasty drop a corner broke off the case! 🙁

The GOOD thing about this, is that it’s the case that broke, not the phone. The phone is not looking any worse off which means that the case did it’s job perfectly, well worth the £3.90 it costs to buy one!

So this phone case, even though it now looks a bit battered and worn, gets a big thumbs up from me and I will definitely buy a replacement for it!

Mobile Madhouse has phone cases for all sorts of phones so it’s worth a look as they are great value 🙂

Monkey’s day out with Daddy & Family

Posted by Caroline Elliott

After a few busy weekends and a difficult week I was in need of a bit of a break this weekend so Daddy very kindly agreed to take charge with Monkey on Saturday. After a conversation with his mum on friday night it was agreed that they would go to a lovely country house – Burghley House near Stamford.

I stayed home but Daddy and Monkey went, along with Granny, Granddad and Uncle Simon, and they had a lovely time!

Monkey climbed on some fab logs and trees that are there for the purpose,

Some have had steps cut into them for kids to climb up, which is perfect for our little climber.

Monkey had so much fun running around everywhere,

and knocking on trees (of course)

Come with me Grandma!

I love this shot of him amongst the Daffodils!

And they ended the day with some lovely lunch and a cup of tea 🙂

So I got to have some lovely me-time while Monkey ran his daddy, grandparents and uncle simon a bit ragged! They all really enjoyed themselves though!

SuperBusyMum

The Magic of Me Time

Posted by Caroline Elliott

After a bit of a mopey week last week Hubby offered (very kindly) to give me some time to myself at the weekend and take Monkey out for a bit. On Friday night his mum suggested an outing to a local country house and we agreed that Hubby would take Monkey with them and they would have a lot of fun together, but that I would stay home for a bit of a rest and to do a couple of bits and bobs.

Saturday morning came and in the first few seconds when I woke up, for some reason I thought it was Monday and I groaned inwardly before waking up a little more and realising that no, it was Saturday! Yay! With the sun shining and feeling a bit better after a good evening the night before (my little bro and his girlfriend came round for dinner and we had a lot of fun) I thought I may go with them after all.

But as the morning went on both Hubby and I decided that I should stay home and just have a rest.

So I did.

I had a bath. I straightened my hair (I am so lazy and normally can’t be bothered, I usually either leave it to it’s curly self or tie it in a side plait or something) and read my book. I was going to pop to the shops but realised my purse in the bag hubby had taken, so instead pottered a bit. I did a few jobs, cleaned a bathroom, cleaned the kitchen, did LOADS of laundry, but all interspersed with some good periods of sitting, and reading. I’ve been re-reading a FAB Terry Brooks trilogy about a post-apocalyptic world and I love it so I very much enjoyed that.

Hubby and Monkey came back early afternoon for Monkey’s nap. After a bit of a catch up with the hubby and chat about all the things we have going on at the moment I then popped to the shops (as I then had my purse again). It was lovely just to have a little wander round by myself, not having to worry what chaos Monkey was causing, and bought a couple of mother’s day presents, some trousers for Monkey in the Next sale and a birthday present for one of Monkey’s friends.

Sparkly nails

By the time I came home Monkey was just waking up so we sat and had a cuddle, then I left hubs to it and went upstairs, and wait for it, painted my nails! I can’t remember the last time I painted my nails, I may have done them for my brother’s wedding in September, but I’m not 100% sure that I did. It feels like a real luxury to me, but we were off out for dinner with some of hubby’s friends and colleagues that night and thought it would be nice to be a bit girly for a change!

We had a lovely evening out at my favourite restaurant and it felt very nice to just forget about all the niggly worries for a few hours and just be.

The end result, I feel like I have my mojo back a bit. I was very much floundering by the end of last week, losing interest in basically everything outside of a fictional world that I could escape to. I feel a bit fresher after a bit of a rest, and some time to myself to get a few bits done. I feel more willing to face real life and it’s day to day niggles, rather than hiding from them like I did last week.

I’ve written before about the wonders of me-time, but I still struggle with the associated guilt and feel that I should be happy to be with my child all of the time and not want any time to myself. But, I do want time to myself, more than that, sometimes I need it and I need to try very hard to feel less guilty about it!

Do you feel guilty about taking me -time? How often do you manage to get a few minutes to yourself?

Playing in the Mud – 21 months

Posted by Caroline Elliott

We had another busy weekend in the garden last weekend, finishing off the clearance side of Operation Garden Renovation. More to come on that later in the week but what we were left with was a garden full of mud, glorious mud.

Monkey has been in his element out there, just having a whale of a time with the simplest of pleasures, playing in the mud. I’ll keep it short and sweet as the pictures say it all!

Bearing in mind this was on Sunday, the day after the scary no-breathing incident, he clearly suffered no after-effects! Lovely to see him having so much fun after such an ordeal too!

Word of the Week – Testing

Posted by Caroline Elliott

That’s right this week has been

It didn’t get off to the best of starts with the terrifying ordeal that was Saturday Night, and unfortunately the stress and worry and lack of sleep has leached over and affected the rest of the week.

Despite minimal sleep on Saturday after our ambulance trip to the hospital we still had work to do on Sunday. Monkey was out of danger and we had hired some heavy duty (and costly) equipment for the garden renovation and we knew that work had to go on despite our tiredness so that we didn’t waste the money. It was positive and a lot has been achieved – more on that next week, but the exhaustion has permeated our week.

And let’s face it, when you’re tired, everything feels more difficult.

Monkey has really been testing me this week. He is becoming defiant and obstropulous at times. Normally I know I would cope with it better but when I am tired and not feeling myself, I find it harder to deal with. We have been lucky with him so far and other than firm “Nos” and explaining why he can’t do something, we haven’t had to venture into the realm of discipline. But I think we may be approaching something along the lines of the naughty step, because he just doesn’t listen and needs to understand that there are consequences if he disobeys or refuses to listen to mummy or daddy. no fun and we will see how we go, not making rash decisions, but we knew this day would come.

I’m also feeling, pretty selfishly, that I need a break. With all the work on the garden over the last month, all of Monkey’s care has fallen onto me as Hubby has had a lot to do in the garden. I understand and it’s been fine but I feel like I need a break. I know I’m lucky with how much hubby helps out with him normally, and not sure what it says about me as a mother that I am struggling, but I am struggling and I need a bit more help. Thankfully though we have a quiet weekend planned and hubby is very much looking forward to spending a bit more time with Monkey, phew!

We’ve also been a bit tested by other matters this week. The tenants are moving out of the flat I used to live in before I met hubby, and we’ve just found out that they have led it get damp and mouldy which is a real pain. I lived there for years with no damp, but in the two years they have lived there this is the second time. I don’t understand to be honest but I guess it’s a good thing they are moving out.

We were thinking that we would like to sell the flat rather than rent it out again, as I hate it hanging over our heads, but now we are not sure that is going to happen yet. It is leasehold and we’ve found the deeds and realised that there is only 61 years left on the lease, which basically means it’s hard for anyone to get a mortgage on it. To extend the lease is a process that takes 6 months – a year and costs in our case, wait for it, about £15,000. Yup £15,000. Which we don’t exactly have, just lying around. But it needs to be done as the costs will only increase as the remaining lease decreases. So we need to get tenants in there again after all while we get the process started.

We are hoping that we can add the costs onto the existing mortgage of the flat as otherwise we don’t know how we are going to finance it, and hopefully we can then recoup some of the costs when we do sell it, whenever that may be.

We just don’t need the hassle, to be honest. it’s just a pain but then life is like that, it’s not easy and there’s never a good time for something like this to crop up. It is a bit of a testing time and puts a strain on things. I got really cross with hubby yesterday, like fuming mad for no real reason other than over-tiredness, stress and frustration.

I like to think I am a positive person but I am struggling to find the positives this week. Here’s hoping next week is better. What word sums up your week? Hope it’s happier than mine!!

Operation Garden #4 Patio Demolition

Posted by Caroline Elliott

Operation Garden Renovation is now WELL under way. So far we have cut down all of the bushes, torn down the shed and arbor, and had a big fire in the back garden to get rid of all of this wood.

This is where it starts to get a bit tough though, we now need to remove all the patio. Not an easy job, and we’ve decided the best way to get rid of it is to get a big skip. So on Friday, a big skip came, and Monkey helped me put some of the rubbish in, bless him he does like to help!

On Saturday my older brother came round and he and hubby set to the patio demolition. Unfortunately it wasn’t as easy as lifting the slabs and carried them round, as some of the slabs turned out to be much thicker than others and were far too harry for them to carry between them, or even to push in the wheel barrow.

As they themselves admit they aren’t the brawniest specimens of man so instead had to put their brains into action to come up with a solution. They found all that long gone scientific knowledge from school days about levers and pivots to be quite useful after all, and with what brute strength they had they found a way to smash up the slabs into more manageable pieces. Which basically involved, lifting on one end and resting it on a slab, then throwing another slab onto it in order to break it. Once they got the angles it right it was pretty effective!

WP_20140308_14_44_17_Pro

The wheel barrow was still seriously heavy when full though so they adopted a turkey walk to put the weight into their knees rather than backs! Brains over brawn! 🙂

They managed to get 2 1/2 of the patio areas done before my brother had to go home for the day, but thankfully my younger brother was headed over the following day to give us a hand. Though we didn’t exactly tell him what he was in for, when he arrived we made sure he knew how much work our older brother had done and how much more we expected of him ;). His lovely girlfriend came round too and had a play with Monkey while the boys got to work.

Using the technique perfected the previous day they got the rest of the patios destroyed but there was too much to go in the skip, so they had to pile up a load of it ready for another skip we assume (Not sure we could take a trip to the tip with it weighing the car down!).

WP_20140309_14_14_53_Pro

Then with the help of my brother’s lovely girlfriend we cleared a lot more of the foliage and she found one of the former occupants of the shed… shall we say it was a little bit crispy?! Yuk!

Everyone was shattered at the end of the weekend but there is still more to be done! This is how it looked at the end of the weekend and it feels like there is a long way to go yet!

We can’t wait to finish the clearance now and have some more relaxing weekends for a while!

Next week we are bringing in the big guns and hiring some machinery to remove tree stumps and all the plant roots!

Mammasaurus and How Does Your Garden Grow?

Creative Challenge Linky #4

Posted by Caroline Elliott

Welcome to week #4 of the Creative Challenge Linky!

The Creative Challenge isn’t just about arts and crafts – but it is all about being creative. I loved the Time Travelling from Adventures in Home Schooling, sharing their trip to ancient Sumer. Princess Liya‘s creative way of learning to tell the time was also brilliant!

Trying out a new playtime idea

Being creative in the kitchen

Trying out a new hobby

Our creative challenge this week was quite fun (apart from Monkey being distracted by trees and branches) and I’m proud of myself for stepping out of my comfort zone to do it!

Right, now it’s your turn to link up your posts, and tell me all about your Creative Challenge!

<div align="center"><a href="https://becomingastayathomemum.com/category/playtime-blogs/creative-challenge/" title="Creative Challenge"><img src="http://i30.photobucket.com/albums/c325/cazzabella2304/CCbadgesmall_zps32623a4b.jpg" alt="Creative Challenge" style="border:none;" /></a></div>

Here’s how this works.

Write a new post (or link an old one if it fits the theme) all about your Creative Challenge.
Grab the Creative Challenge badge (by copying the code above) and pop it at the bottom of your post (in the ‘text’ version).
Link your post by clicking on the ‘Add your link’ button and filling in the form.
Remember: Linkys only work when we take the time to read each others posts and leave comments so please let’s support each other and read and comment on as many posts as you are able to.

The linky opens at 6.30am on Wednesday and will close at 11.00pm on Sunday so there is plenty of time to join in.

Creative Play – Nature Hunt & Painting – 21 months

Posted by Caroline Elliott

I saw this idea on A Whole Nine Months and thought that as her little boy is younger than Monkey, and obviously enjoyed it, that we should give it a go…. But, have to be honest, I kept putting it off! I just wasn’t sure how it would go, whether he’d be interested in the nature hunt side, and how much mess we’d make with the painting… But that’s the point of the Creative Challenge, pushing myself to step outside of my comfort zone, and be more creative, with playtime in this case!

So one day we headed out on a little nature hunt and to start with it was mainly me doing the hunting part, while Monkey spent a good few minutes hugging a tree??

Though he did get quite interested in a feather.

But then he got a bit obsessed with a stick, ok, branch and tried for ages to bring it with him.

He was honestly doing this for AGES, I have loads of photos and a couple of videos of it. He’s such a determined little Monkey but eventually I persuaded him it was a bit too big to carry and we did a bit more nature hunting.

Then it was home and time to get the paints out! We also noticed that one of the daffodils in the front garden had been trampled at some point so we picked that up to explore with too.

And, basically, he had a whale of a time, exploring the leaves and twigs in the paint..

and generally just getting really messy 🙂

So all in all, lots and lots of fun and definitely worth a try – and with the two elements this took up quite a large chunk of the day – which is always excellent in my view! 🙂

Have you been on a nature hunt?

Book or Kindle?

Posted by Caroline Elliott

I love reading, always have done. I always had a high reading age at school and by the time I hit secondary school I was well and truly into adult fiction. Bizarrely it was mainly horror – James Herbert to be precise. I think I’ve read everything he has ever written and most of them when I was a teenager. If I re-read them now some of them seem so grisly it’s a wonder I wasn’t terrified of them , but I loved them.

I read very quickly too. Pre-Monkey I could read a novel in a day (there’s no way I have enough time for that now) but even now it still often only takes me a few days to get through a book if I am really enjoying it. I love all sorts of books, as long as it is well written and keeps to the point, I get really frustrated at reading pages of extraneous details that actually seem completely irrelevant to the storyline. I love fantasy, chick lit, historical fiction, science fiction, crime, thriller, drama, horror, romance (though I have to be in the right mood otherwise I just find it a bit cringy). It depends what I want. Sometimes it’s nice just to read a bit of lighthearted fun, whereas other times I want to be gripped or challenged, or sometimes I want to learn a bit of history at the same time. I love a good saga that extends over numerous books. Maybe because I read so quickly, I always want to know what happens next!

A great find!

Travelling was amazing as I did book swaps in hostels and read some amazing books that I may never have read otherwise, and what better to spend the hours and hours on a bus, plane or train than buried in a good book (pausing to look at the scenery from time to time too of course!). A few of the books even made it home, some I packaged up and sent home along with other gifts or souvenirs, others stayed with me for the final few months. “Safely Home” is an amazing book, all about Christianity in China, and one I will keep forever.

After watching a TV adaptation of Ken Follet’s World Without End recently I decided to re-read the book. I love Ken Follett’s books, they are very entertaining, but sadly the TV imitation was a poor, poor relation to the book, barely even the same story at times, such a shame! Anyway, I bought World Without End quite a long time ago, not realising it was the second book of a series. The prequel I did not buy until much later, by which time I had a kindle.

Now I know traditionalists love the feel of a book and I get it, there’s something wonderful about a book, but…. a kindle (or any other e-reader I’m sure) is just so much easier.

A Tome!

So I read the first book, Pillars of the Earth on my kindle. Then I dug out my copy of World Without End and well, as you can see, it’s a hell of a book. Huge. Heavy. Cumbersome. I started reading it in bed one night, and with any book of this size I always find the first pages and the last are the hardest to read as you are off balance, a few pages in one hand, a tome in the other. After nearly dropping it a couple of times, hubby just looked at me and said ‘Why don’t you just buy it on the kindle?’ so I did. I picked up my kindle, did a quick search, bought if for a few quid and there it was, downloaded and ready to read.

There are many reasons I love having my kindle. They include:

Portability, I can take it anywhere. usually just upstairs on downstairs but if i do go anywhere it pops in my bag and doesn’t weigh me down all day like a book. Also, if I don’t have my kindle with me at that moment, I have a kindle app for my phone (which is free) so wherever I am, I can pick up my phone, it will synchronise to the page I was on in the kindle and I can carry on. I have my phone with me all the time and when monkey was diddy if he crashed out on me and I couldn’t move, I just had to get my phone out of my pocket and I could have a good read while he slept.

I can personalise the font sizes. I have glasses that I should wear for reading and PC use. Do I remember to take them with me, or even use them when they are nearby? No. With the kindle though, especially I find if I am tired, I can just up the font size a bit so I am not straining my eyes. Which means less migraines! (I’m aware actually wearing my glasses would have the same result!)

Storage space. I love books, and because I read quite quickly, I love keeping them to read over and over. I do give books away when I know the story so well that it wouldn’t be much fun to re-read, or books I wasn’t that keen on first time round. But for the most part, I love hanging on to them. The problem is where to store them? We have some books out downstairs, some on shelves upstairs, some in a cupboard, and loads under the bed in the spare room. But we really don’t have room for any more. I have over 100 books on my kindle now too and I don’t know what I would have done with all of them!

There are downsides. You can’t lend someone a book as easily and in our family books get shared around a lot when we’ve loved them. Hubby and use the same amazon account for our kindles so we can both enjoy the same books (though not really at the same time) without having to buy them twice.

Browsing on amazon can be fun but it isn’t the same as browsing and reading blurbs in a library, book shop or charity shop.

Images aren’t the same on a kindle. If there’s a map or diagram at the beginning or end (or even a reference section of names or a glossary) you can’t flick backwards and forwards as easily on a kindle as you can with a book.

As much as I love my kindle, and find it immensely useful, we encourage Monkey to read from actual books and will continue to do so. In my opinion kindles and e-readers are fantastic and make some aspects of reading much easier… but they aren’t perfect and can’t entirely replace books.

What do you think? Book or Kindle?

#AllAboutYou Link & Pin Party Mama and More

Posted in Life

Tagged books, reading, The Theme Game

Mar·17

Becoming a Stay at Home Mum

Can I really do this?

Creative Challenge Linky 5

Right, now it’s your turn to link up your posts, and tell me all about your Creative Challenge!

Here’s how this works.

Mobile Madhouse Review – Nokia 925 Phone Case

Monkey’s day out with Daddy & Family

The Magic of Me Time

Playing in the Mud – 21 months

Word of the Week – Testing

Operation Garden #4 Patio Demolition

Creative Challenge Linky #4

Right, now it’s your turn to link up your posts, and tell me all about your Creative Challenge!

Here’s how this works.

Creative Play – Nature Hunt & Painting – 21 months

Book or Kindle?