Uh-oh.

I couldn't get on with Twitter, hate Google+ and am avoiding Tumblr. FIickr and Facebook are my social networking limit and I really don't need anything else to keep up with.

I resisted long enough. But I could like this instagram nonsense...

(I'm ochil_lynz if you're about, I could use the pals!)

a Beary nice day out.

I never did come back and share my "Bearwood Bonanza" photos, did I? So called, BTW, because our local Scout campsite is called Barwood. Do you see what they did there?

There's actually very little I can share. Most of my photos have other people's kids in them (safety first!) but I got one of the man himself. This is just before Chook missed his high five.

And the girl. Gotta love her style - her favourite riding rugby shirt, boys trousers and feathers in her hair. None of me, I'm afraid, I managed (yet again) to have not one pic of me. I think I just about got everyone else, though. Despite forgetting my big camera!

What I was really going to share, though, was our mascot "Bear Growls." All the groups were supposed to have their own mascot and guess who got landed making ours. However, our leader had an old shirt she kindly donated to the cause which I fashioned into a bear-sized shirt. I was quite pleased, dressmaking not being my thing!!

Here he is,complete with his own green security wristband and emergency handmade neckerchief after the ordered one didn't arrive.

I even salvaged the Scout embroidery for the sleeve. You can see the shoddy necker sewing here - we couldn't have a solid coloured one, could we? He lives with me now, too, but is always ready for an outing with the sections!

So, more up to date. I tried my hand at some embroidery yesterday. I had time to kill at Chook's riding school since she wanted me to watch her later lesson. It is hardly worth me coming home since we're a good 25 minutes away but it left me with an hour and a half to fill with some handwork. I haven't embroidered since I was about 12 and was fairly happy with my efforts. I can see this becoming a mug rug for the living room since I have NO blue ones! Photos on that transformation soon, too, for all you nosey types (love yoooo) - as soon as the final bits arrive!

And here is the girl herself having her jumping lesson on her favourite pony, Nutmeg. I had to laugh, I was editing photos for composition, focus, expression and all that boring stuff. Chook was editing for reigns, jumping position and where her feet were!

I have tweaked this one a bit and added a TTV filter and think it might end up as a new photo for the wall art in the living room. They haven't been hung yet and could do with a few new pics for a change. I've a stoater of a pet rat one, too (longtime readers will remember my old rat header) so need to have a search for the best 12x12in printing available.

And now to enjoy the sun! Actually,  I've grown a bit tired of it. I know, I know, hush thy mouth, child. But I'm not a sun-worshipper and my wardrobe doesn't run to shorts and I hate smelling of sun cream (15 minutes over lunch on Friday and I was burning!) so a drop in temperature would be lovely. Think we can have that with no rain? Unlikely, eh? Enjoy it while you can, amigos!!

Happy Bonfire Night!

Spouse is at a concert tonight seeing Motorhead again (he really didn't want to go!) so Chookie and I went to the local bonfire and fireworks display ourselves. We're really lucky , it's about 100m from our house so we just walked round 10 minutes before and ooh-ed and aah-ed with everyone else. It was excellent - I think even better than last years. It's only the second year it's been put on by the local Round Table, before we had to travel to a nearby town to see one and because it's RT all the money raised goes to local charities, too. Everyone wins!

Excuse the photography but really, aren't camera phones just the biz? I would never have taken the camera out with me (I gave up years ago trying to photograph fireworks!) but here I have my rosey cheeked girl and me preserved for posterity. And Chilli the pony!

prams, big girls and lost treasures found.

We've been having a clear out of the loft which has necessitated wearing some big girl pants and *gasp* clearing out the Chookie's baby stuff. You know, the stuff you keep incase you have another kid. Which, to be fair, we did plan on when it all went up there! The pushchair went to a charity shop today, the cot is to follow tomorrow but my Mum wanted the pram. Just in case. *g* I'd forgotten what a pretty pram it was. And, of course, Chook wheeled it round to Mum's house. Which was a bit weird considering the last time it saw the light of day she was IN it.

 I've spent a good hour looking through old discs for about the only photo I have of her IN the damn thing and I can't find it. This is the wee Pooh-eared lamb in the pushchair section when she's about 4 months old.

 I have no idea where that other photo is (she's looking very cute with a polar bear Depute-Dawg hat on!) but I did find this!!

This is my Mum and Chook when she's *counts on fingers* about 5 hours old. Her first visitor. Now, when Chook was a month old, the spouse - in his infinite wisdom - decided he wanted the computer to run faster for his gaming and he and a friend installed some new bits into our computer. And accidentally wiped the whole thing. Including all the first months baby photos. *facepalm* Which is why I am now such a dedicated photo saver - in multiple formats! Anyways, most of the important pics had been e-mailed to various people who sympathetically mailed them back to us. All except this one and the very first photo of Chook on her own in her hospital crib goldfish bowl. They had both been home printed but we had no original electronic copies. I had already given Mum this one and scanned it back into my computer. Where it promptly got lost. And I just found it!!! It is terrible quality (remember it's a scan of a sketchily printed 1MP camera shot!) but I have found it, nonetheless. Mum's copy has faded almost to nothing so I'm a very happy girl tonight. Happy days.

P.S. Back up those photos, dearhearts!!

jolly holly-days

And so we are all done for another year. We had a really lovely Christmas day, not too busy but not on our lonesomes, either. My brother and his wife and the spouse's parents both visited on Christmas morning and we had a few hours before we headed to the bottom of our road (literally about 400m!) to my parents for dinner with Beloved Wee Granny and Papa. And some Wii action - result! Santa-Spouse thoroughly spoiled me (again!) this year - my new watch and headphones (proper bins, not stupid uncomfy earbuds!) were what I asked for but he also picked me out a stack of books (myths and legends types and an illustrated "rhyme of the ancient mariner") AND tickets to see My Chemical Romance in February. Squeee!! Not to get all big-on-the-material stuff but every single gift I received this year was amazing.

Chook's  Christmas Eve bauble thingie went well, too. We put something in a big sparkly box every year for her and she gets to open it after her bath but this year wanted to get her a foot spa. That just ain't gonna fit in a bauble the size of a grapefruit! So we had a treasure hunt!                                    

                                    

Clue number 1 inside the box...

 ...Clue number 4-ish in her bedroom...

 ...and the grand prize!

My other mission this holiday season was to get a photo of our girlie four generations. That's the Chook, me, my Mum and Beloved Wee Granny (my Mum's Mum - yes, I know how lucky I am!). I have a stoater that was taken when the Chook was a baby (middle left in the wall art here) but we are terrible at forgetting to take a picture when we're decently dressed. It kinda worked...

It's not really a fabulous shot of any of us. Chook is doing her weird Chandler Bing "there's a camera - cheese!" smile, Granny's got terrible reflections on her specs and my poor Mam is about 10 minutes away from plating up our dinner and is under some pressure! But we're preserved for posterity at 36, 8, 87 and 54 years old. And I do believe we all share a nose!

my day so far.

It hasn't been especially exciting stuff, I have to say! This is the view from Chookie's riding stables. Pretty nice, eh? That's the end stretch of our Ochil hills (remember the angry cat noise in the middle if you please!) and the very typical farming landscape that our wee towns and villages are surrounded by.

This handsome chap is Joe. He is very pretty and he was showing us his bowing trick this morning. Right before Hugh demonstrated why his stable door is locked all the time by undoing the latch himself. Clever horse!!

The farm breeds geese (I'm not sure why and I'm not thinking about it too hard!) and they were noisy beasts this morning!

And this auld girl is Jasmine. She's a teenager (which is really old lady stuff in dog years, innit?) and has baaaad arthritis. She hobbles about, the poor thing, but always loves a cuddle and a scratch. And sunbathing.

And not found on the farm but in my wee room are these 1 and a half inch squares. It's for a quilting bee block - have you been hearing weird noises over Scotland? That would be me trying to accurately piece the bloody things together. Teeny tiny piecing appears to SO not be my thing. The block is looking good, though. Honest.

Back to the swearing...ahem...I mean the sewing, obviously. Have a nice weekend!!

PWL - the sequel, week 2.

My images for this weeks Painting With Light course. We had fun this week, Chook and I.

Must dash, I've fabric to come out of the washing machine - giving my first decent sized quilt a go. Wish us luck! *g*

Painting with Light - the sequel

I did a fabulous online creative photography course this time last year with Cheryl Johnson at Feelgood Photos. Well, she's running a new course, the sequel to last years. My first weeks homework was due last night. These are my efforts.

wall art.

I saw this fabulous piece of photographic wall art at the wonderful Tara Whitney's blog last autumn. I was desperate to give something similar a go and spent several days gathering photos together, editing them and tracking down 12x12 clip frames (not easy I can tell you!). I eventually ended up with this on my living room wall, six months later I'm still absolutely loving it!

So, my wee sister-in-law has always loved it and comments every time she visits. I was thinking to mention to her when we saw them on Sunday that I'd be more than delighted to do something similar for her - it doesn't have to be so large or have so many photies. She bet me to it and asked herself!! The thinking caps are on, she's going to make a list of important things she might like immortalised (apart from her other half and own wee Chookie!) and hopefully soon I'll be in shutterbug mode - I love taking photos (I make no pretensions to being especially brilliant, I just enjoy it and am - I think - halfway decent) and LOVE a project. Hopefully in a wee while there'll be a new piece of wall art to show!

Indecision

I'm still faffing about with exposure (I'll get round to this weeks stuff at some point!) and took this during a quick mid afternoon shoot, really just as a record of the incredibly short bunchies! I can't make up my mind if it's overcooked or not, between the light on her face - even though it was overcast - and her BRIGHT pink top it was a bit of a blighter. Still, it's kinda sweet and I like the catchlights!

A wee tradition.

Now, being a scrapbooker since Chookie was 6 weeks old I have pretty much documented everything she has ever done. When she turned 2 I had a years worth of wee shoes that I could hardly bear to part with so, naturally, I photographed them and made a page layout with all her vital statistics and a list of her favourite things. It's become an annual tradition and since she turned 6 last Thursday it's that time of year again. This first shot is pretty typical of the last few years' images but as her shoe fetish grows it's getting hard to get them all in shot!

I've tried a few different ways to squeeze all those wee shooz in one shot (some more successful than others!) and I think I'm most happy with this one. Any inspirational ideas are gratefully received! *grins*

Batteries charged....

So, I've been having a *gentle* play this afternoon to get myself back into the swing of things........I'm another who's hardly taken a shot since PWL finished. Ooops. So, since I always have fresh flowers in the living room here is this weeks fluorescent orange lillies.

And little Miss has become a bit of a twitcher after discovering Spouse's auld binos in the cupboard. Bless her. (and I admit to cloning out the bogies in this shot!!!! :eyeroll: )

Next stop.........histograms. Eeek!!

snap it - subject 4.

I'm not a huge telly watcher but since we got Sky-plus at Christmas I have a few programmes I like to record. All genre telly. None of yer soap rubbish for me! Do you spot the phantom grinner? I asked her to shield the gap in the cabinet from the sun.....didn't notice the manic cheekiness til after!!

UKS Overlooked. Snap it - subject 1.

So, some of us UKS girls got really fed up waiting for prompt number 4. "Let's do our own," we thought. So we did. Our handbag contents. *grin* Now I've never been a handbag girl (ever the tomboy!) but work and motherhood have necessitated the adoption of one to house all the carp one must cart about. It's reduced in size as Missy G has grown but these are my everyday must haves!

Make it - subject 3

Oops. I've been a bit neglectful here haven't I? To be fair, the Overlooked prompts have been a bit.......erratic lately. It's so easy to lose momentum, innit? Anyhoo, here's the troublesome fridge layout. The photo lifts up to show the perspective shot below. *grins*

Snap it - subject three.

I hemmed and hawed the *longest* time over what to do for this prompt. It was "refrigerators" and I had three options. Mine nice and full right after a shop, mostly empty at the end of the week OR the multitude of things that get stuck to the outside door. Y'know, photies/paintings/lists and all that. Well, I did none of these in the end.....this is Chook's Sylvanian mouse families' fridge. Bless 'em, those Hawthorns get all the best stuff (there's even ice cream in the freezer!) although being so teeny my poor camera had a bit of a strop so it's not the sharpest I've ever taken. It's cute though, aye? And it had a fair bit of empty space for scrapping purposes. *grins*

A Challenging Time.

One of my UKS buddies MollyMoo and I were having a conversation the other day. It was about how cool it would be to have an "Overlooked" book from your Mum or Grandma filled with the little incidentals of their lives. Moo joked she was off to photo her Mum's favourite mug and when I commented that my beloved Wee Granny actually had a favourite mug she dared me to take a picture of it. So here ya go, Moo!! I did her favourite collection, too, and am going to make her own Overlooked album. *grins*

Snap it - subject two.

Collections. Something that collects in my house. The obvious one is my Trollbeads, or my CD's, or my books. Or the Chookie's ponies or Barbies. Spouse's rusty car bits! But anyone who knows me knows I have a thing for trainers and sporty footwear in general. And they've never been recognised.....truly overlooked!! Ta-da!!

Snap it - subject one

So, like the bit under my wee photie says, this is for my things for the "Overlooked" challenge. I'll put a link over on the left as soon as I figure out how! Anyhoo...

Week 1 was to take a photo of your favourite mug. Easy-peasy since I've used the same one at work for 12 years. A gift from my good friend, Sue . Everyone wave to Sue!!!