Coffee Good, Morning Bad

I am resolute

Last year I made one official, proper, write it down and shout it out goal. It was to move to Brighton. This seemed impossible at the time. We had 101 things left to finish the house, Toby needed a lot of attention and, as ever, not enough money. But we did it, without sacrificing too much of Toby's time with Mummy and Daddy. I picked one word to concentrate on and it was 'reach' - stretching, growing, aiming and  working towards stuff. I didn't even have it as a mantra on a conscious level. I scrapbooked my thoughts but mostly it was just an attempt to adopt an attitude of 'attempting'.

This year, my word is 'create'. I have lots of ideas and new ventures on the go now and I need to create with them - create physical stuff, create copy and create opportunity. And, conversely, I need to create less stress for myself, create routines to tackle house stuff now I'm working and create peace in my 'hood.

My goal is to grow Poppy Copy into a sustainable little business, with new clients and new projects. It is barely a seedling right now but I hope by this time next year it will be in full bloom.

What I Did For My 2007

And so as 2007 draws to a close, the interwebs blogosphere come together in a heavy hymn of favourite albums, gigs and places on Earth.

Me? I have barely listened to a new album all year. I do rate Charlie and Lola's music record though. I don't think I went to a gig and I definitely didn't travel.

This year for me was defined by In The Night Garden, Bob The Builder and Thomas. Tragic but true. Okay not wholly true but this was probably the majority of my (very slender) TV watching. I did enjoy myself some Mitchell and Webb on both radio and TV. I mourn the loss of tv-links.co.uk but have found other sources for retro comedy series.

I didn't scrapbook as much as I wanted. I moved house twice.  I met lots of lovely new people I am  delighted to call friends. I listened to a lot of radio 4. Looking at last year's resolutions, I met a reasonable percentage of them.
I also have just a little over 200 days to tackle my 28 things to do before 28. These are going less well.I have managed a meagre 4.

Christmas foibles

So, Toby was pretty sick over Christmas so it really wasn't as festive as it might have been at all. It has made me more determined to have a festive January.

Requirements:
Gingerbread latte (buy syrup from Starbucks)
Baking and making mincemeat
Carols recorded in a cathedral
Red, green and sparkly things
Snowflakes
Snowmen in one form or another
A party
Penguins
A welcoming house.

With that last one in mind, I'm off to unpack some boxes. I'd like the house to be mostly normal by January 1st.

Is it Christmas?

Turkey eaten  - check
Presents opened - check
Sherry consumed - check
Bad Christmas music on - check
Toddler in throughly unfestive mood due to conjunctivitis and laryngitis - unfortunately, check.

Merry wotsit to you and yours.

Let's talk turkey

I have only one thing to say on turkey preparation. Nigella.
Here is a link to Nigella's seriously FABULOUS juicy moist turkey. Down with dry, boring turkey!
I have made this twice and it is so delicious. I really hope my mum is doing it this way again this year.

oh noes! Christmas illness

My annual Christmas illness has come to town and it won't bloody go :(
moar funny pictures

Dear Santa

Dear Santa,

I've been a really good girl this year. I have only bought 2 pairs of shoes. I have moved house twice and not killed anyone either time. Toby mostly gets more than cookies and milk for supper. I have committed no felonies, in fact nothing that would have me rack up major points in a GTA game, and donated money and possessions to charity.

With all those disclaimers and recommendations in mind, here is my list:

A lie in on Christmas morning.
Some nice warm fuzzy socks and some new M&S knickers
My cricut cartridge and design studio arrive on time.
Toby to have a fun day and get lovely gifts and actually eat some Christmas dinner.
Some craft vouchers so I can pick up some new bits
Some lovely new clients in the New Year.

Thanks awfully,

Relly x

Festive FAIL

Perhaps it was a bit too much to think I'd unpack a 3 bedroom house 10 days before Christmas and complete all the shopping and still have time to decorate, bake, entertain, journal, make gifts and scrapbook. I cannot, CANNOT, believe it is 5 days to Christmas and I'm nowhere near ready let alone enjoying the perks of the season.

But I refuse to be unbowed, I shall stave off the disappointing non-Christmassyness by being Christmassy in January. Bar the decorations, I don't see much reason I can't do everything I would otherwise do. I shall have a housewarming party and bake wintery goodness. I shall give out small gifts of snowman soup and sweets when people go back to work. I shall leave the diet until February. I will venture back into the kitchen and make Proper Food. In short I shall have my usual month long burst of Domestic Goddessliness a month later than planned.

Having made that promise to myself, I feel better about having not done much festive. As we are away for Christmas it will all be festive enough come Tuesday even if the advent calendar has been neglected, the gifts not yet wrapped and us still living out of boxes and cleaning the old house (which we are shot of tomorrow Thank God). I do have a couple of gifts left to sort out but I've mostly done the Stuff For Others. I can spend January Pleasing Myself. After all, just because Starbucks puts away the gingerbread syrup doesn't mean I should. I think baking, cooking and scrapbooking wintry goodness might be the way through the dark few months until spring and the promise of sunshine.

Mah blessings, let me show you dem

I am truly grateful for my blessings. So, allow me a saccharine moment here while I list just a couple of things I would daily count as blessings, if ever I remembered to count them.

In fact in true kitteh-speak: Mah blessings, let me show you dem.

My little family My bigger family My cats My away friends My Brighton friends (not pictured, lots of people)

Visit my city and help me build a benign dictatorship on the web ;-)

http://annettbaker.myminicity.com/

Check out my city! I plan to rule on high. Mwahahahahaaaaaa!

A Week.

So, it's 10 days to Christmas. A week, really, before we leave to go my parents. Am I calmly organised? In a word, no. Not all of my presents have arrived yet.I haven't made all the gifts I plan to make. I have a house still to unpack. I won't even have the decorations up until Monday. I need to schedule courier deliveries, bake mince pies and be festive on at least one occasion this week.

Rather than being mindful of the festive season, I feel slightly in denial and not even a bit festive. I actually feel quite poorly. I have 7 days to channel my inner Holiday Martha.

Of course, once I get to my parents place in a week or so I know they'll have decorations up, nibbles out, presents wrapped and time to play with Toby. I'll probably feel much more Christmassy by then but it would be a shame to let the house move and other assorted stresses stop us from enjoying the Christmas season here. So, I'll do my best. But first, a cup of tea and a list.

They might be 'short but hardcore' but so am I!

23

God rest ye merry gentlemen!

I'd like a God-given rest. I come to you live from my new office/studio in my new house and hooray the internet is with me. God bless BT and all who sail in you.
After I'm done blogging, I'll be setting up the furniture in my new des res, complete with a background of carols because it's Christmas innit?

A few days ago, I bought this album Carols from King's , or as itunes would have it 'Carol's From Kings' (containing the howler 'The First Nowell') which irritates me no end because you can't alter the title of a bought track as far as I can tell. Thankfully the carols are sublime even the spelling is ridiculous.

I was trying to think of my favourite carol but I can only make a shortlist, 'Jesus Christ the Apple tree', 'O come, O come Emanuel' and 'God rest ye merry gentleman' might just have it for me but I also have special affection for 'Good King Wenceslas', 'O Little town of Bethleham' and 'Hark the Herald Angels sing'.

Prize for carol I love but have never sung? Carol of the Bells - I first heard it in 'Home Alone' of all things. It's gorgeous.

Christmas as a chorister

As I mentioned here the other day, from the age of about 9 to 16 I was a chorister with the big Anglican church in my hometown.  I wore a cassock, surplus, ruff and ribbon and rose through the ranks to eventually be Head Chorister, complete with shiny badge. I wasn't brilliant (that was my brother, who truly had the voice of an angel and could have had Charlotte Church back on the next bus to Cardiff) but I was hard-working and reasonably talented.  Where as boys' voices peak around 13, girls' don't peak until around 18-21 (and so it was with me, by  18 I had a well-trained, well formed voice and was much more confident about my abilities) and I sometimes found it a struggle to lead but it was all fun.

Christmas was the busiest time of year. We practiced on Wednesday and Friday evenings, and often Saturdays and Sundays too. We would sing 2 services on a Sunday, occasionally 3 and just once a year 4 if you were a treble/soprano like me. That would be Christmas Eve where we sing a morning service, crib service in the afternoon, evensong and then finally midnight mass before being back to church for 9 the next morning. It was always pretty jolly though and the 9 carols and lessons service is always pretty special, with the telling of the Christmas story and accompanying music.

My memories of Christmas are always tied up with the church and while I can't say I have retained much Christian faith, I came to love the services, music and tradition. I hope that Toby will enjoy music as much as me and consider becoming a chorister himself. At any rate, he may just be the closest thing I know to an angel on Earth.

Shamelessly stolen from the squeezypaws.com archives ...

I'm missing my cats who are on their jolly hols while we move but, I have to confess, perhaps not this aspect of cat ownership:

Facebook - your new creepy neighbour

Facebook. Wasn't convinced when my brother joined. Was persuaded to join. Joined. Discovered loads of old friends. Discovered loads of friends wanted to pelt me with snowballs, X me, give me my own solar system to nurture, compare taste in cheese. Discovered that Facebook is happily telling everyone what I buy and when. Switch off the Beacon alerts to my profile. Discover Facebook still knows but just isn't telling, like a creepy next door neighbour looking over the garden fence.

Here is my friend Jeremy who has a much more erudite and clever summary of it all than me, well worth reading if you are a Facebook user.

In Soviet Russia, Facebook partners climb over the walled garden to get YOU. Oh wait, and now here too.

Playing tag

Nic tagged me, so here is 8 random facts about me.
But first, the rules:

1: Each player starts with eight random facts/habits about themselves.
2: People who are tagged need to write a post on their own blog (about their eight things) and post these rules.
3: At the end of your blog, Chose people to get tagged and list their names.  Or don’t.  Who’s going to check?

Well, quite.

1) I used to be a chorister - complete with the daftie outfit and everything. I get all nostalgic at Christmas remembering the services I used to sing at over the Christmas period.

2) I'm a Nintendo fangirl. I have owned every console since the SNES and even borrowed my neighbour's NES for a while and discovered the joy of Super Mario Bros 3, when I was 9. I didn't have a Virtual Boy though. Although I'm not sure anyone did in the UK. However, I've never bought a console at release and rarely buy a game on release day.

3) Since having Toby I have become a tea addict and find it hard to function without a morning cuppa. I like English breakfast blend in the morning and Assam or Ceylon in the afternoon. However, at home I tend to stick to a fairtrade blend teabag because it tends to be just me drinking it.

4) I have an underactive thyroid. I take thyroxine to correct it and have done for the last year.

5) As has been documented here before, I am a big lover of the soft drink root beer. To most people here it tastes like TCP but to me it is just scrummy.

6) I am not a film watcher. I have to be really interested to bother to watch something - can't truly remember the last time I went to the cinema, probably Nov 2005? - but if I like it I will watch it on DVD repeatedly. I am a bit obsessive compulsive in my viewing. I don't watch a lot of stuff but I will devour things if I like them. I'd happily watch QI for hours and hours. The all-weekender things that lazy TV schedulers do? They're made for me.

7) I'm currently reading 'The Interpretation of Murder' for a book club I've set up. Review to follow.

8) I hardly listen to music anymore. I listen to a lot of audiobooks, podcasts and radio 4/7. My last audiobook purchase was Bill Bryson's short book on Shakespeare. I listen to stuff on the bus or just before I go to bed on my ipod.

Okay, so who to tag?

Paul
Nikki
Jessica
Karen
Steph

You're all 'it'.

I predict

I'm sure that in less than 10 years scientists will proclaim they have found a gene known for posterity as the 'wrapping gene'. It will state people like me aren't clumsy, or lazy or entirely inept when it comes to fumbling with the roll of paper, the scissors and getting the tape onto the parcel and the parcel to look square and neat. We just don't have the genetic capacity to do it.

My husband has that gene ++. He can wrap like no-one's business. So we have a division of labour. I do all the shopping, selecting, lugging home. He wraps. I hope Toby inherits at least that aspect of his father. Because who can I get to wrap his Daddy's present otherwise? I mean, apart from the gift wrap service in my local friendly department store?

I could whine on today but instead ...

I choose YOU Positivity. Well, I choose some of my favourite xkcd cartoons instead:

The last one is available as an awesome poster from the xkcd store

My latest lolcat

moar funny pictures

If you like it, please click through and vote for it :)

Deck the halls

Last year was the first time we went out and bought 'proper' decorations. We had great fun putting together our 7ft tree. This year we are waiting until we move this Thursday but I'll be really excited to get the decorations out again. Toby enjoys looking at the lights in the shops and I hope this year he'll be awake for Burning the Clocks too. He doesn't really understand Christmas yet but he knows a bit of magic and sparkle when he sees it. I went out today but it was too wet to appreciate anything other than the dry when I got back in. I hope December isn't a complete wash out this year. At leats come next weekend it'll be Christmassy inside even if not quite the same outside.

Toby's favourite activity right now

IMG_2391.JPG, originally uploaded by RellyAB.

He is all about the towers. Build 'em up and knock 'em down. You would never know 5 plastic bricks could create so many *screams* of delight. So I'm delighted Hannah captured this fab pic of Toby 'in the moment'.

Vintage ladybird notebooks to buy from my etsy shop

vintage ladybird notebooks, originally uploaded by RellyAB.

My etsy store, Stupid Gorgeous has my Vintage Ladybird book notebooks available to buy now. There is a link on the left too to jump right there. New notebooks and handmade-by-me products added soon :)

The Ghost of Christmas Past

One of the things I like about Christmas is the traditions even if it isn't wholly traditional. The stuff you do every year because you always have. I'm sure I'll go into this in more details nearer the day but let's give an example. Mum always gets tins of chocolates from her clients so we open those each day to all pull faces at the exotic truffles and say we prefer Roses. Also, my mum goes (for her at least) a bit nuts on buying snack food like Pringles and nuts to have with their Christmas telly watching in the evenings, consequently every year my dad hoovers up and practically swallows peanuts by the handful and we all chorus 'Dad! There won't be any left for us!' and Mum tuts that he'll put on weight. Tradition, see?

It does mean I can ring the changes of any Christmas that deviates from this norm. Last year, for instance, was Toby's first Christmas so to avoid spending all day driving between families, we had both families at ours and I made dinner. There is a video of Toby being suprised by a camera flash off of the wrapping paper on Youtube which makes people laugh a lot. I just watched it again and thought - holy crap, where has my funny wiggly armed baby gone!??

The year before that we stayed at my auntie's fab house and had a great time there - there were loads of hysterically funny moments. We traditionally, play a very poor game of charades every year which has us all in stitches (I knew Paul was a keeper when he came to my place for Christmas the year we met and joined in the charades. His mime of 'stone' is one that will forever live in my memory), we tried out a chorus of penny whistles that came for crackers supposedly so 12 people can play carols together, I had my little baby bump and I was sick for the only time of my entire pregnancy right before Christmas dinner so I missed out on the best meal of the year. Toby will never be allowed to forget that fact, I can assure you. Actually, it was that night, in bed with a baby names book that we decided on Toby's name.

I haven't really had a *bad* Christmas although it's definitely true that a)my inlaws don't really celebrate Christmas in as big as way as my family b) even Christmas doesn't patch up a recently broken heart or depression c) hearing your mum hiss to your dad that if he doesn't stop drinking and start helping she'll divorce him as soon as the solicitors are back at work does take away a wee bit of the magic or d) you can't ever be a kid at Christmas again.

At Christmas time, I like the parties and being around family and friends but now that we have Toby we take the party with us. He's always centre of attention, loves the limelight and playing with everyone so I have real hopes that Christmas might be the most fun yet.

Counting each day

Who can remember the Advent crown from Blue Peter when they were kids? Made out of wire coat hangers, tinsel and long wick candles and lit each week in December, it was cheap, tacky and a bit dangerous in the wrong hands - all the things a Blue Peter make should be.

I have only one year not had an advent

calender - I think I must have been having a 'grown up' moment, foolish girl - and 2 years ago I ditched the chocolate for a beautiful calendar illustrated by Matthew Rice but this year I'm back to the traditional, marvelous Cadbury's chocolate advent calender.

I can recall pilfering chocolate from my calendar as a kid (when I was young enough to think my mum wouldn't notice or that I wouldn't notice when December 19th rolled round and I'd already scoffed the day's treat) but I show more restraint these years, sometimes even forgetting for a day!

I can remember having a plain advent calendar with no chocolate when 5 or 6 but I think as soon as I discovered the version with confectionery I was a true convert. The first Christmas I can properly remember was when I was 6 too - so maybe the counting really makes a big difference to the build up.

And anyway, I'm all for anything that gives me an excuse to have a bit of chocolate with breakfast.

Perfect Christmas?

I think, if anything, I love Christmas as an adult more than a kid. I like the preparing, I like the picking out gifts, I like the baking. Now I'm at a sort of cross-roads as I am the grown-up trying to make Christmas magical and fun for my little boy. So what would my 'perfect' Christmas be? Lots of my family, maybe at my auntie's house hanging out, a yummy full dinner with all the trimmings (bar the traditional one sprout my family tries to hide on my plate somewhere each year), swapping presents, carols playing in the background, Toby opening presents, me getting a new cool video game and spending the evening with my brother and husband breaking it in (please can we have the wii back by then, Nintendo?)

This year I hope to take Toby to the crib service I went to as a child at my local church back home because at least one of the reasons we celebrate Christmas is the Christmas story and I'd like Toby to grow up understanding some of the symbolism in so much of our literature, art and poetry. That and the crib service is very cute. Toddlers kneeling to kiss the baby Jesus and singing 'Away in a manger'.

I'm softening my stance on Santa these days. Before I had Toby I figured I wouldn't go for the whole 'Santa' thing as I'm not big on a) lying to children b) I hate and detest it when Christmas is used as a threat against bad behaviour c) why do we encourage kids to sit an old strange man's knee again? BUT I can see that Santa is another part of the mythology of Christmas just like the nativity - they make cards and write letters to Santa at nursery, he's always included in kids' tv programmes, it is all pretty inescapable. I've got a year or so to suss out what might be a good line to take but I can see I'll be spoiling it for everyone if I tell Toby he doesn't exist! Santa might be visiting us for a couple of years yet.

The anchronyism that is 'Sending the Annual Christmas Card'

I'm rubbish with cards. I usually mange to make and send simple birthday cards (and often I make them because I have the materials to hand and it's easier than going to shop, as opposed to any creative genius). Christmas cards, however, are my nemesis. I always think that they should be glorious elaborate expressions of my creative prowess. And then fail to make any. And then buy a multipack from Hallmark.

This year I have made SIMPLE cards. They are done. They are minimalist but cool. But, of course, this is only half the battle. You see, it's the address problem. It is amazing how many of my friends I know intimate details about but barely know how to spell their surname and have no idea of their house number, street name or postcode. If I see them before Christmas day this is fine - providing I remember to drag around my equivalent of a post sack and also remember to dig their card out before we pass on our merry way.

I should be efficient about this like my mother, like everyone's mother who can still remember the days when post was the only way to send information that wasn't transmitted by phone, before everyone stopped bothering to stay in touch because they could rely on facebook to keep them updated as to when their best friend from primary school's older brother got remarried, and where he and he new bride had moved to so that you could know you could send them a card if you wished but you don't because you know you could contact them on facebook even though you won't. (Still with me?)

But the cards are done. I have stamps. I will rise to the challenge. As soon as I email all my friends to ask them where they live.

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow.

Christmas always looks magical on TV and on Christmas cards with crisp white sheets of snow. Only three times in my life can I recall snow thick enough to make a snowman or throw more than one paltry snowball and one of those I was in Yorkshire for a half-term holiday so that doesn't count.

For Christmas we usually get rain. I suppose climate change might bring us a white Christmas but I think I'd rather have the rain than the other consequences of that whole issue. However, if I could have one wish for Christmas it would be that it started snowing at around midnight on Christmas Eve, when people were safely at their destinations, and to be greeted by it coming out of Midnight Mass before walking home wrapped up in hats and scarves and gloves. It would stick and be lovely, fluffy and white for 24 hours before starting to melt just in time for people to travel back home. And before all this, I'd find some suitable snow clothes that didn't make me look like the Pilbury Doughboy in drag.

December :)

December :), originally uploaded by RellyAB.

So I can finally acknowledge that we are in my favourite month of the year. I try very hard to show festive restraint in November but come December 1st, I'm all over Christmas.
I've started a Christmas scrapbook album for this year, I have my button tree keeping my desk pretty (until we move and I can break out the 'decks' properly) and I have Yankee Candles' 'Home for the Holidays' scenting the room.
Maybe tomorrow I'll make cookies!

All Things Arse

cards, gift bags and tree decorations, originally uploaded by RellyAB.

So I did the "All Things Christmas" show. It was lame. The weather was crap but, frankly, the other stalls were crappier. Discount handbags? Knock-off Disney paintings? No thanks.

I sold a few things and I was grateful for all the lovely comments people made before sucking air through their teeth at the price. But I'm not going to go any cheaper because I was paying myself only minimum wage after materials anyway.

Anyway, I'll stick a link up to my etsy shop once I've filled it up so everyone can have a go at sucking air trough their teeth.

Now I have to do some Actual Work (tm) and pack the house for our very impending move ...