Update

The removal vans have been loaded. The fantastic interior designer has been at work (credit to follow!) and I have a new home!

Come and see me here.

 

Still catching up

I’m still trying to catch up with my Bloglines posts as well as try and sort out my new blog host. I’m working on moving over to a wordpress blog I host myself. It’s ok, I’m learning a lot but it’ll take more time and energy to get going.

I know I’ve been tagged by Vic so I’ll hopefully get to that soon as well.

 

I’m back!

I’ve returned to a rather cold Essex and I’m back to blog again…or not!

Posts for the next couple of weeks may be short and sweet. I’ve spent a lot of time reading blogs and writing here over the past couple of months and for the moment the house needs me more! I might manage a quick update a day, but I might not!

I’ve finally started to realise I’m much happier when the house is clean and tidy, but it’s going to take a fair bit of work to get there. I spent time on the dining room table last Monday before I went away and it’s been great for us all to be able to eat there together again. I’d much rather do that than trays on knees and the munchkin on her little table and chair near by.

Now that the dining table is clear I’m moving on to the kitchen. The cooker side has been cleaned, tidied and reorganised (and the fat fryer cleaned and put away – it wasn’t helping the diet). Now I’m on the other side. I’m currently working on removing a soap dispenser the old owners of the house put up, not with screws through the holes designed for the purpose but with lots of strips of sticky foam pads! It’s going to be a bit of a challenge to get it all off, but it’ll be worth it in the end. I still need to clean out the cupboards, something sticky has leaked in one (a while ago!) and I haven’t sorted it out yet (I know,it’s disgusting!).

I’m going to try and slowly catch up with blogs, but with 557 posts to read on bloglines it may take some time! (I think I need to cut that down again too!).

 

Just a week late!

I realised as I was editing categories on some of my old posts that it was my 2 year blogiversary last Wednesday!

I can’t believe in some ways that I’ve been blogging for 2 years now, it seems like ages, but I also find myself almost hooked on blogging as well, both writing my own posts and catching up on those I read. I can’t imagine what I’d be doing in my free moments in the day (what few I can get at the moment!) if I wasn’t blogging.

I began using Blogger as it was the main host that I’d seen on any blogs I read, however I found it wasn’t letting me edit my template and blog as I was wanting at that time so I migrated to WordPress about a year ago. I’m now having similar problems and wondering again whether to go back (I was beginning to learn html and I could teach my self more, where as here I have to pay to change the CSS and have it show on here), though this time it’s also a case of going to the Google empire as well!

I’ve ‘met’ some absolutely lovely people. Some who comment here, and some whose blogs I read, some who inspire me, some who make me laugh, some who make me cry (or nearly), some who give me fabulous advice, some who just give me a virtual hug when I need it. I’m so grateful to all of you, especially those who keep coming with the usually mundane/boring things I write (in my opinion).

I’ve just realised that my very first commenter is still coming here (Suburban Mum – you’re fab!), so I can’t be too boring, unless she’s just humouring me!

 

Googled…

I’ve noticed a few people doing this so I thought I’d have a look at what brought people to this blog. Here are just a few of the search terms that have brought people my way:

• how to make money as a mum with 4 toddlers – someone which 4 toddlers – ouch – one is enough at times!
• our wedding photos – there are a few on here tucked away in other posts
• messy eater husband – sometimes, yes, but I didn’t think I’d blogged about that one!
• diet fun – I’ve definitely mentioned that
• shine your sink – yup, and I’m trying to do it again
• christmas ornament exchange – I suspect someone was looking for Julie’s blog here
• make up my owe [sic] sims mum and dad and baby – I’ve definitely mentioned the Sims here and I suppose the other words would come up, but I haven’t helped whoever came here with that!
• motoring accidents in derbyshire in july – I have no idea about this one, we did have an accident in Derbyshire one December so maybe I mentioned that at some point
• higgledy piggledy house – that would aptly describe the state of my house most of the time, but I suspect there were looking for this CBeebies show, which incidentally the munchkin loves!
• cycling sleeping trailers – amazingly this blog comes out on the second page of a Google search for this…there’s not a lot of information here though…
• orange.goo – I guess that would link to early weaning

Nothing rude here, unlike some I’ve seen, I guess I keep my blog a bit too clean!

 

Back on the diet…

I mentioned in a post about a week ago that the risotto would fit in my Slimming World plan, well, in an effort to keep myself on track with the weight loss and give myself a bit of accountability I’ve reinstated my weightloss page (see the tabs at the top). Despite Mr H being away last week I’ve had a good start (it’s always a good week when I start/restart a diet), so I’m hoping to keep that up and post a loss or a stay the same each week. I don’t think I’ll manage to do another 2 1/2 lb loss next week though!

While I’m tweaking my blog I may also have a look for another template again, this one is nice but my wordpress toolbar the the top doesn’t work properly and I’ve noticed that on all blogs I’ve seen with this template. If I get a bit of time later on I’ll sit and have another play with it.

 

I’ve been given an award!!!

For the first time (I think) I’ve been given a bloggy award!
 

Thank you Chris!

I’m going to pass it on to Suburban Mum for being my first bloggy friend and always making me smile either here, on her blog or on Facebook, and to MissBliss for letting me reminisce about Cambridge through her posts and giving me lots of yummy looking recipe ideas.

I’m also wondering about changing the look of my blog, I think I’ll have to stick with one of the wordpress templates (I’m rather clueless about html etc), but are there any colours that you hate/find it hard to read against? I want to add more colour, I like being able to have my own picture at the top as I have here, but I’m just finding it all a bit boring.

 A quick note to add to yesterday’s post, I won’t light the candle in the tree…..it’d go up in smoke in an instant! I’ll light it at the table at some point instead.

 

What kind of blogger are you?

I found this on Roz’s blog while I was browsing the other ornament exchange participant’s blogs (it’s 4:30pm here and I only got the munchkin to sleep an hour ago, she’s teething – again! – and was so tired but fighting it like anything).

Not quite sure what it means by purist though…

Young upstart I guess comes from me not having much know how about blogging, I’ve only just got to know bloglines, despite having this blog for getting on for 2 years.

I’m fairly undiscovered, I think, though I imagine this blog about my life is rather boring, so I’m not surprised really!

 

Ornament exchange

Earlier in the month Julie started organising a Christmas ornament exchange. I was very slow about doing it, but I signed up on Wednesday (the deadline day!) and this morning I picked up an email from her telling me who to send my ornament to.

I’ve never done one of these before, I’ve seen other exchanges and wondered about joining in, but always come up with some excuse or other, but this time I though why not bite the bullet and go for it! I’m now thinking very carefully about what to send my partner.

If you go over to Julie’s blog you can see a list of who’s participating, I’m just off to browse the list and find some new blogs to read

 

Still playing catch up!

I had a productive housework day yesterday but didn’t manage to read a single blog! So I still have half my blogroll to catch up on.

I’m going to take Jeni’s suggestion from yesterday’s comments and have another look at bloglines. I have used it before, but gave up on it when I moved to wordpress (can’t really rememberwhy  I stopped though now). I’m also going to have to have a heavy duty cull of my blogroll as when I sit and try to catch up it’s just taking too long and taking over.

On another note, I’ve just had a call from Mum to say that my sister is in early labour (about 1cm dilated), contracting every 15-20 minutes, and that her doctor says that my nephew should be born within the next 2 days! I’m quite excited, though a little down as well as the baby I lost in the spring would have been due a couple of days ago, we haven’t even started trying again as Mr H says he’s now not ready for a second baby and won’t give me any indication of when he might be (he said in August that we’d be able to try again in October, but he’s back tracked that now).