Being beside the seaside #motivationalmonday #themondayclub

The beach.

I love the beach and i hate the beach. This juxtaposition may be a recent thing for me, as in the last ten years really. Having children changes your view of the beach i think. Not the actual beach but just the enormous task that becomes going to the beach. It can almost be a camping trip the amount of stuff you have to take. There should be some kind of lift arrangement to get stuff from your car onto the sand, maybe one of  those delivery supermarket things, you could just order your stuff to be delivered to a pre-deteremined spot. Or maybe a new career for those beach-ride donkeys? There must be a better way.

Then there is the small thing of the sand…the sand…e v e r y w h e r e…..for the next couple of weeks. I swear i have put clothes through the wash and still shaken sand out of them when they come out of the washing machine. When we had a sand pit in our garden my OH used to say that at any given time of the day no matter how much you tried there would always be sand in the house. But how the kids love digging in the sand. I get it, there is something therapeutic about it.

When we go ahead and go for a walk, we can aim to stay away from the water and up here the tides can be a long long way out so you would think that it was doable. But it always turns into a partial swim regardless of the weather. There is something about the sea that draws my kids in..even when you shout ‘we have NO dry clothes with us!’ at the top of your voice. The words seem to drift off with the sand in the wind, carried away from unhearing ears and they plough into the water.!!! 🙂

But you absolutely HAVE to love the joy that it brings to the kids faces, the sound of the sea, that salty air, the connection with the awesome force that is a mass of water…

even if it does result in a very wet and soggy walk home.

🙂

Please dont forget to link up to motivational monday this week! This weeks giveaway is a choice! WOOH! of one of four beautiful Mini Boden summer dresses for girls. You can enter via the rafflecopter below! The winner of the Nike Running shirt is Faye Huntington. Congrats please get in touch to claim your prize! Please dont forget that you can still enter to win a Fab LUSH giftbox by going and showing some love to the beonepercent charity. Just follow this link to last weeks post!

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Be one percent….#motivationalmonday

The be one percent foundation was set up here in the city i live in by a couple of guys who were driven to try and be part of something that aims to change lives and balance out the chasm between the richest and poorest in this world. By donating one percent of their income to the foundation it enables them to work in conjunction with other charities based in some of the poorest nations in the world to change lives by seeing some of the most basic needs are being met. Things we take for granted…so..so…many times…

the basics…

like..

water…

clean

drinking

water

When you go to the tap and get a drink of water…think of the millions..yes millions..who can’t do that. Have to walk for days to get water and then risk giving their child that water which may have ghastly horrible diseases floating around in it.  ( image from water.org)

 

It is staggering…frightening..

Now it may seem like The  be One percent foundation is a bit of a small drop in a large pond. Whats it going to do with these little bits of cash being sent their way every month or so? Well…here’s the thing..in my mind this is how it works…

and bear in mind i spend a lot of my days with pre-schoolers. 😉

My little ones like watching the movie called ‘bee movie’ In this movie it follows one solitary bee taking on the human race for stealing honey. It is a cute, far-fetched cartoon style movie voiced by a couple of well known actors to keep the parents amused…but at the end of the movie (i wont spoil the plot)…the bee and his human friend are flying a plane load of flowers and the engines cut and it looks like certain doom. But out of the horizon come a swarm of bees…millions and millions of bees..they fly up under the plane and cover it from the tip to the tail and out to the wings…and they support it and land the plane safely on the ground.

Now a bee and a large aircraft = no match right?

Well not when there are millions and millions of bees. 😉

Working together those tiny drops in the ocean can become a force for change, directing the sea and bringing the winds of equality and security into vulnerable places.

So will you join? Share? Go like the page…commit your one percent.

and start thinking bee 🙂

 

 

 

So this week..to go along with my water theme the giveaway is going to be of the LUSH nature again. I love LUSH. All you need to do is follow the rafflecopter.  You get extra extra kudos if you sign up with the one percent foundation of course. Please at least go and check it out. The entries for things to do with one percent are the biggest so please do them!

 

 

 

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just before this weeks #mamarazzi

This week i thought i would chat about one of my favourite elements of a DSLR. Its ability to in-camera light meter your shot. This makes me very happy and once you get the hang of what i could mean for you, you could really really change the look of your images.

But first….

 

I am flabbergasted to be in the final 6 for the Brilliance in Blogging awards for photography. I had a couple of tweets from some lovely ladies who i have never met but who i consider friends when the finalists were announced that just about sent me for the kleenex. I am so touched that people took the time to vote for me. Really. This blog is my heart. So thank you. thank you, thank you, thank you from me and rhubarb.

 

NOMINATE ME BiB 2013 PHOTO

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Getting Sporty: Old School stylie. #motivationalmonday #MWActive

Taking part this week in the Mark Warner Get families active campaign, you can read about it by following the link. But basically it is about being active..i know..but surprise there. 😉

This week it is all about getting sporty. Made me think of sports day when we were at school, the sack race, egg and spoon, wheelbarrow races. My favourite, the three legged race!! We are coming into the term when many schools are running there sports days but in school nowadays it has changed beyond all recongition. The schools choose the more inclusive ‘afternoon of non-competitive activity’ which involves the kids in the school being divided up into teams of about eight kids, from all different year groups and they then rotate around a variety of different activities.

There are the running races but they are team relay races so that no one child is put forward to win or lose. Im not really sure what my opinion on it is to be honest. I think its great for kids who are maybe not naturally sporty and can feel like they are part of a team…Also one of the sweetest things for me is that as the groups are made up of all the year groups, you get to see the whole of the school community working together. The savvy year 6’s helping and encouraging the nervous reception kids and making sure they are doing their part for their team…but on the other hand it gives no opportunity for any kids to shine on their own. Which surely if any of them will go into any sort of sport – that will have to happen. I dont’ know.

Although thankfully the parents race is now a thing of the past, in our school at least! No more stocking clad women hurtling down a playing field, elbows and fists at the ready, determined to make little johnny proud. Im not sorry at all that we have come into parenting after that had died a death at the hands of the craziness that is health and safety.

But…old style school sports games are still great for having a giggle, getting outside and burning off some energy. We did our own in the local park with some friends and the wheelbarrow race had them collapsing in fits of laughter at the lunacy of trying to make someone run fast on their hands.

Sometimes old school is just the best.

This weeks giveaway is a fabulous Ladies NIKE dri-fit ladies running shirt. Wonderful for helping you get the best out of your work out! If you fancy it,enter the competition on the rafflecopter below.

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Mum Of One
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Green fingers #motivationalmonday #spring carnival.

We have a small town garden, we live in the middle of a large city and don’t have the 500,000 you need to buy a house with a field size patch of grass behind our house so we have what we have..which is enough i might add…i aint moanin’

The OH and I are not exactly blessed with a love of gardening…neither of us naturally gravitate to tinkering with plants and flowers and there is often a little grave yard of potted plants along our windowsills and dotted around the garden. In fact during the winter we largely ignore the garden and lets face it the winter has gone on a LONG time this year.

This year the garden has been made even more barren by the loss of our adopted pink blossom tree which you can read about here. I still miss it, which is silly really but it has made me really nostaligic whenever i see a lovely cherry blossom in bloom.

Last week we had some sun, it suddenly started to feel like spring, heck i even went outside the house without socks on! *gasp* We spend more time outside when its warmer and so i start to notice our poor neglected garden. Which to be honest wasn’t looking as bad as i thought. It amazing what will just grow regardless. It would seem, rather happily, that despite our best efforts, nature still gets her best frock on even when the dress makers would rather be doing something else instead….bravo nature!

It was nice seeing the sun for a while. Feeling inspired to do more with our garden. Of course its rained and been cold for the past nearly a week so we are a bit on the back foot!! 😉

It was a taking some shade under the tree kind of day for the little sub-woofer.

This week continuing on the gardening theme my giveaway is a book for those of you who are green fingered…its a book by Gardener’s world Toby Buckland called Flowers.

all you have to do is fill in the rafflcopter as per and away you go. The winner of the LEGO dictionary was Sally Poole. PLease get in touch to claim your prize!

and dont forget to go and link up with the spring carnival and check out the mondayclub 


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