wonderful wednesday #11

Hello, I hope you are having a good week. Thank you for popping by for another round of Wonderful Wednesday-ness.  There are lots of happy little moments to reflect on this week, and yet again, I am frantically typing this during nap time, so I will crack straight on!

Join the Club: After doing the muddy 5k with me recently, my mum's neighbour's daughter, who also happens to be a good friend that I have grown up with over the years, invited me to join a running club with her. It is a beginners' club, doing a couch to 5k programme, and we went along for our first session on Saturday morning, with another one due tonight. It was great to go and be part of a group, and nice to feel like we have gone from friends through our parents, to being friends who socialise together (or exercise together!) of our own accord. It was also good to feel like the starting weeks of the couch to 5k are actually quite comfortable now, and realise that I have progressed from my first forays into running all those years ago.

Watermelon: I bought watermelon fingers for T to try, and as with any food he eats, most of it ends up on the floor. Millie tends to do a good job of hoovering it up after meal times, but if there is ever a new food I always check to make sure it's dog friendly, especially something like watermelon that might have hidden pips in. I googled "dog watermelon" and got rather more than I expected, when the images appeared under the search bar. See here, you won't be disappointed. 

Camera Time: Slowly but surely I am catching back up with the year with my camera project, after falling quite far behind. Once I got over the shame of posting homework that was two months late, I've really enjoyed getting back into playing with pictures, and have been gradually getting a bit more efficient with my editing/uploading process to, which always helps.

30 Second Mess: I am that unfortunate mix of someone who likes tidiness and organisation, but who also finds it easy to make a mess just by walking into a room. Often I would call or msn (remember those days) The Husband when we were both at our different universities, bemoaning the chaos that was my bedroom, and he would always describe it as a 30 second mess. It was always much, much worse than that, but he took the approach of spend 30 seconds and one bit will be tidied up, and then another 30 seconds, and so on. It has always stuck with me, and last night after a busy few days, the house was feeling a bit cluttered and so after T went to sleep we did a dash around the house. He did the hoovering with his headphones on while I sorted the bins and the recycling (I shall resist the urge to make satirical comments about boy and girl jobs), we got the dishes done, the washing sorted, and did a quick tidy round. It was so good to wake up this morning to a cleaner house, and has started today off in a positive way.

Calligraphy: Having splashed out on lots of new stationery with my earnings from my sugar challenge I have been enjoying doodling with my calligraphy pens. I even got a calligraphy book from the library and have been having a play with some of the projects in that, mostly though I'm just relishing the fact that I can spend 10 minutes being creative without having to make a huge mess (see above!) and that I can dip in and out easily without it feeling like a huge endeavour. 

Celebrations: It has been my stepdad's birthday this week, so we have had a few gatherings to celebrate, and we have big family celebrations planned later this week for my auntie's birthday too. It is lovely to spend time with my family, and now we have T, it adds extra joy too. 

So that is all from me this week, but if you would like to read some of the other wonderful posts:

Sally is the originator of the idea, you can search for #wonderfulwednesday and these lovely folks all post too: Jo, Helen, Michelle, Sarah, Kate, Cat, Sam, El , Kerri, Mimmi, Martina, Isabelle. 

first things first

The first of May.

I love it when the first day of a month is a Monday, it just feels like everything is nicely lined up, but when the first day of the month is a Bank Holiday Monday, well hurrah, that's an added bonus, with the promise of an extra day as a family, and a shorter countdown until the weekend.

The first morning waking up after a sleep in fresh bedding, with a day stretching ahead, and no real plans.

The first day today, when I can indulge my sweet tooth, after sixty days without sugar (or crisps, or alcohol). More on that in another post, but I'm intrigued to see whether chocolate will hold the same appeal now, I feel like perhaps I have beaten the craving, but I'll see how the next few days go!

Unfortunately, while my diet has improved drastically, I haven't kept up with the running. Having taken a week off when I got poorly, it stretched on into two, and then three weeks, and now it is over a month since I have had the trainers on. Last night I ventured out on my first run, just a mini one, determined to get fit for the 10k I have planned in a few months time. It wasn't horrendous, and I've been walking 3-4 miles regularly taking T out and about to the park and the library, so I'm hoping that has helped. After my sister-in-law ran the London Marathon this year, I casually suggested to The Husband that we could look at doing one together, maybe in October. I might be mad, I don't think there is anything casual about a marathon, but we have both wanted to do one for a while, and I wonder if signing up might be the prompt we need. The Husband has started looking at running watches today, so I'm wondering if I may have tempted him. Watch this space!

This month also brings with it our first family holiday with our extended family. My cousin and his family, and my aunt and uncle are joining us, my parents and my grandad for a week in a holiday rental property. It seems to have come around quite quickly, and I am very excited, especially as the property has a swimming pool, games room, and cinema room. T might be a little young for table tennis or movie nights, but he loves swimming and I can't wait to be able to take him for a splash each day!

Saturday was the first time I had a girly meet up with my close uni friends since T has been born. Once they got over the shock of me, queen of the all-nighter and steadfast night owl suggesting meeting at 9am (oh motherhood, thou hast changed me), we arranged to have breakfast in Manchester. It was a beautifully sunny day, I made it to the train in plenty of time, had a glorious few hours catching up, and was home before T woke from his nap ready for his next feed. It felt like everything went to plan, and it is still a revelation for me to be able to go out for a few hours and not worry that he might be hungry, particularly as he was never great a taking a bottle. It was a long leisurely breakfast (much to the chagrin of the staff I think, as the place was packed!) and a brilliant catch up. 

Finally, on the train home, I started the first few pages of Elizabeth Gilbert's Big Magic. I haven't read her previous books though I had obviously heard of Eat Pray Love, but had read about this one a few times. It kept appearing in magazines, and I kept thinking it sounded interesting, and then I read a blog which referenced it, that I now can't for the life of me find (if it was you please tell me as I have hunted for it, and would love to link it back). I decided on a whim to buy it, and I'm glad I did. I did rather too many embarrassing snorts of laughter on the train, and the words have been popping up in my head, making me itch to pick it up and carry it on. It reminded me that the joy of being creative, in whatever guise that takes, is enough reason to carry on writing here, to carry on dusting off the calligraphy pens, to carry on trying to catch up with my camera projects. Not through a desire for comments, or approval, or popularity, but just through the joy that it brings me, the small pleasure I find, and so here I am.

Wishing you all a wonderful May, whether it be full of firsts, or enjoyable familiarity. 

word of the week

Well this is probably more a word of the fortnight, or perhaps even longer! Since I last wrote here it feels like lots and lots has happened, and while I'm not quite sure how February is nearly over, at the same time we seem to have crammed lots in to the shortest month!

The day before my birthday we got the brilliant news that The Husband had successfully been offered a new job. It is a promotion and a move to a new organisation, so it is an incredibly big achievement, and I am amazingly proud. It was a fabulous start to a long weekend of celebrations. We went on a bear hunt on my birthday (although I was sad to read the attraction has closed permanently after Storm Doris), it was a fun way to spend some time as a family, and then we had a lovely meal with my parents and Grandad at night.

We have also been to visit the church where we got married for a lovely mass, and then our wedding venue for a coffee. It felt special to be back and have our little boy with us. Valentine's day included a family 5k run as part of the running challenges I have been doing, and a meal at home.

The last week has also marked six months since our little boy was born, and in fact it turned out to be exactly a year since we told people I was pregnant at my 30th birthday party! After 6 months it's about time I actually decided what to call him on here, so I'm going to go with his initial, T, for want of anything more original! He is now sleeping in his cot in his nursery, and it felt like a big step for him to move out of our room, though a full night's sleep is proving elusive still! We also started the first steps to weaning but it has not been as straightforward as I expected, with lots of mess, and quite a lot of coughing and vomiting. A much thinner apple puree seems to have been more successful the last few days, but still only a morsel at a time! He is full of a cold, and teething too (we have a first top tooth making its appearance), so I'm pretty sure that must be playing part, and writing this I realise that it's less than a week since he first tried any food at all, so perhaps we are not doing too badly really! I didn't really get in to the habit of doing milestone posts when I was pregnant, or since he has been born, but I may yet do a six month one (albeit a little late) as I feel it will be nice to look back in the future and read what he was like at this age, particularly as we looked at his first outfits tonight and were shocked (and a little teary) at how much he has grown already.

My lovely Grandad has had quite a few scans and hospital appointments in recent weeks, and is also recovering from the same cough that seems to have laid most of us low repeatedly since Christmas. He is doing well otherwise, and if he wasn't having any tests we wouldn't know that there was any need for him to be seen, but it is always worrying seeing a loved one going through appointments and scans, especially when it's someone like my Grandad who is always so fit and well. Luckily we have had lots of happy trips too, including a brilliant concert at the Bridgewater Hall with him, and a fabulous night seeing Sheridan Smith in Funny Girl.

This week there have also been surprise visits from my best friend, new bedding purchased and duvet dry cleaning after an early morning vomiting explosion from T, and the usual swimming and library trips. I also managed to catch up with A Year with My Camera reading this weekend, and made some actual notes in a new notebook with pretty pens, which was a fun way to spend half an hour. I realise this has mostly turned into a diary post, but I wanted to spend some time reflecting on everything that has happened recently. This week has been quite tough at times, between the teething, the vomiting, the clean-up operations and the appointments for my Grandad, so it has been a lovely way to end the week realising how much the good stuff far outweighs any of the less positive parts. Having said that, I have just also realised that in order to finish my February challenge I need to do 8 miles in the next 2 days, so perhaps the whirlwind isn't over just yet!!