Hello hello, is anyone still out there?

Oh my it really has been the longest while since I blogged.  No excuses given, I simply haven't.  That's a bit of a fib I realize.  Whenever I think about having to organize my thoughts, cables for cameras etc I let out a huge sigh and think '*$!* it I'll do it later!'.
Later, invariably, never comes.
I have things to show you, subjectively feel good ta-dahs. Revelations on new crafty endeavours and new skills learned.  The discoveries of free machine embroiderey; being both 'so my thang' and sewn text neater than my actual handwriting.  A handmade Christmas (even though I promised myself I would buy more) and a poorly Christmas.
Last year was the year I fell out of like with blogging but this year, this lovely 2013 where I turn 40, I am determined I am getting back my blogging mojo.  I am planning a revamp, a reclaiming of  my cyber space. I am opening an Etsy shop soon too to sell my brooches so keep an eye out for that. I am focusing on 'keeping it real' which, for me, means remembering I am at my very core a blether, a chatterer, a verbal vomiting type and cannot compete (and don't want to) with any other blog. That I do not have to always have photos or subjects and definitely will  NOT be offering advice on how to use old plastic hand cream containers or tights. I forgot after a certain amount of time blogging why I started. I got bogged down with thoughts of 'what are you trying to say?', 'who are you trying to say it to?' and silly things like that.  Feckadoodle!! What on earth possessed me to have silly ponderings like that? I obviously was having a wobble!
All I want to do is chat, be creative and entertain myself and hopefully you lovely peeps who take the time to read my posts!
Sounds simple enough. Although I have had a thought, earlier on I wrote 'keeping it real'. OMFG! Wait a minute "OMFG"???? I fear I have swallowed an old person trying to be 'down with the kids'.  Oh dear....

Oh and 40!! How and when did enough time pass for that to be happening this year?

Hope you are all fine and dandy my intersweb pals. I have been as negligent of your blogs as I have mine for which I am sorry, I bet I missed loads of lovely posts.

X

Find me as @jammypudding on Instagram or Twitter.

I love lemons....

 ...what can I say?

My laptop adapter went to heaven and being forced on to the family pc for a few days showed up that on a bigger brighter screen, well the background was minging.  Perish the thought that this is the version of my blog any of you may have seen! 

It matters......

Aesthetics do matter.  

What it says about me matters.

I do not want to be minging.

I want to be like lemons; not the screwy face pulling and sour but bright and yellow and sunshiney and good with cake.

Like well hung wallpaper; something interesting to look at behind the photo frames and furniture.

Maybe a bit overpowering and loud?  It wouldn't be the first time I'd be called that...

I may well tire of it soon enough but for now....who's for a squeeze of ma lemon?  

Excuse me now while I ponder the Rock God of all Rock Gods that is the young Robert Plant for whose request,as I have said before here, to squeeze his lemon has me all but on the floor begging for a time machine to do just that.    

I wonder....a post about the could be erotic adventures if I had a time machine.  There would be a list.  Who's curious???

X

Sometimes...

As a teenager in my parents house I loved to re-arrange all the furniture in my bedroom every now and again.  I loved that feeling of taking the familiar and making it fresh and new.  That room was the small part of the world (and the house) that belonged to me.  Where I could escape, think, marinade in teenage melancholy, frustration and angst.  Where I could play with my sewing machine, read, write stories, listen to music and be left to be.

Sometimes you simply feel like a change.  

Sometimes you feel that old arrangement simply doesn't suit you anymore.  

Sometimes you find a new way of doing something so that something feels re-energized.

Sometimes you simply need to tweak your 'space' to make it feel spacious once again.

X

Seeing black and feeling blue!

I'm fed up!

I'm fed up with feeling fed up!

Week three and I'm still poorly and it's starting to eat into me now.  Really starting to get me down, not sleeping well, no energy and so, so tired.  As Hubby Biscuit always says "I'm keeping it till it gets better" and I am looking after myself but impatience, hormones and a general lack of understanding as to why this b*****d cold will not go away are draining me.  

I'm feeling blue, finding it hard to see the positive thus seeing black and feeling affected by the rain and the lack of sun.

One of the reasons, if not the reason I started this blog was the idea of pulling my thoughts out of me and feeling the catharsis that brings.  I wrote a journal for years.  Books and books filled with ink;  my thoughts, feelings, ideas, my history and yet it stopped, stopped when the weight of motherhood caused such repetition I didn't want to listen to myself anymore.  

It was no longer cathartic discussing my life, life simply was what it was.  

After staring reading blogs I started to see blogging could open that door again so I tentatively began. I felt more freedom in my life and found a platform so here I am using that platform, putting it out there that I feel pants and saying (writing) that out loud and pulling it out of me helps just a little. Helps enough to motivate me enough to keep going and do the things I need to do today.  

Helps enough to know putting The Smiths on my ipod will put me over the edge so I won't be doing that then!

Ooh and my Doctor Who DVD may come today!  See, a positive thought! 

X

No longer a clown....that's a matter of opinion!

It's week two of this awful cold I am experiencing and yes my face has sooked itself back up (as much as a 37 year old face can), my nose is no longer as red as a clown's nose or Rudolph's for that matter.  My house is no longer covered in ickle mounds of used tissues and I am no longer sneezing and spitting (that includes food, I know MINGING!!) all over myself.  

I am however facing the truth that I do not sound sexy and husky and all Mariella Frostrup but like I am crying all the time which is embarrassing when phoning school offices and hospitals to cancel orthodontic appointments.  I am blessed, for the first time in nine years, in being able to be ill and in my jim-jams for days on end as my lovely Biscuits have been taking themselves off to school in the morning.  I have been able, for the most part, to stop dead in it's tracks the dreaded 'Mum' law that seems to state we must keep going no matter what or how ill we get.  I was poorly this time last year and 'kept going' and was still not right at Christmas time so this year, thanks to my Biscuits, I have been resting lots, watched lots of films and thankfully (after only one week of wearing a bandage although I'm not going to get into how bad that week was..ooh the pain!!) have been able to knit and crochet again.  

So I am not dwelling on how little I have been getting done or how sick I am being poorly or how I am going ever so slightly mad cooped up in the house but grateful I am getting to have sick days and blessing the invention of Jakemans Soothing Menthol Sweets.   
I have missed some posts I was planning, namely celebrating this...

...the first birthday of my blog.  My lovely wee blog that has enabled me, for the first time in years, to feel more like me.  Not just Mum and Wife and Housekeeper but silly old clown-like me.  I have 'met' a hopeful, 'restores your faith in mankind', large mixing bowl amount of fantastic people and can not get enough of being reminded how similar we all are and I am not alone in my existential thoughts (forever the Philosophy student).  If I am being honest I thought, in my usual way, I'd get bored with it after a bit but no, a year on I'm still really enjoying it.  So thanks peeps for reading!

Here's to another year!

X

I love reading blogs but is writing one a good idea?

I figure, I love reading blogs, catching up each day (hopefully) on my favourites and I started to wonder....should I start one? Is my life interesting enough to discuss with the world? Are my thoughts varied, expansive, coherent enough to embark on such a thing. I used to write a journal years ago before my children came along and the process of putting thoughts to paper turned into repetitive ramblings about motherhood. This blogging malarkey could be a way of sharing my thoughts, getting them out there like I used to. Still this week may not have been the best.........three birthdays which include copious amounts of baking, knitting and general organizing. Have I got time to write?? Well here I am writing!