Back to reality

Well, the Cybercrop is over. I've scrapped my little heart out. My team the Lions won... and now its back to reality. What an anti-climax!! To top it all the weather is horrible outside and even with the heating on I'm frozen. So, if you don't mind, I think I shall indulge myself in a little nostalgia with a look at all the layouts I managed to complete this weekend..... just to cheer me up a bit!

I love comments.... but

As you can see I have this little blinkie on the side of my page. It doesn't do anything special really, its just there to draw your attention to the fact that I looooooove comments. I'm a comment addict, in fact if there was a 'Comments Anonymous' I would have to sign up and follow the 12 step programme. BUT, and here is the big BUT, I have noticed when hopping and reading other blogs that it can be quite difficult to leave a comment on some of them. Mostly because of the millions of security questions that you have to answer. Granted, nobody likes spam... after all why would I want to buy viagra, slimming pills or an e-book that promises to give me the secret to becoming an instant millionaire? However, having to fill in what my date of birth is, my favourite colour and my first pets name is a bit ridiculous. This got me thinking about my own blog. Now when I comment on my blog I don't have to do any security questions, because it already recognises me as the owner of this blog. I'm wondering tho', does it make you fill in security questions to leave me a comment? If it does.... can anybody tell me how to disable this facility or make it easier for people to leave me comments? Please let me know! I'd love to hear your opinion... it would make this comment addicts day!

Fun! Fun! Fun!

Here's a bit of fun for today... my seven favourite YouTube Videos! Some are them are funny, amazing, awe-inspiring and then there's the lame ones. Either way, they bring a smile to my face and I wanted to share them with you... 'cause we all need something to laugh about! Laughter is good for the soul, uses up calories and makes us feel better. So have a look at these and laugh!

My favourite puppet. He's non-pc and maybe slightly racist but he's very funny!!

These girls are amazing! I wish I was this fit and flexible. 





This man has some amazing moves. How many of these dances did you do at school? Don't own up to too many of them... some of them go waaaaay back and will really show your age!





From the history of dance to the complete History of Music!





William Tell is probably turning in his grave! Its a moment of pure genius!

Husbands shouldn't feel left out either. This one seems to know his place!! 

And finally, for pure 'feel good factor'! I don't normally listen to the Black-Eyed Peas but ever since seeing this video for the first time I just can't help smiling every time I hear this song!




(**edited to add** .... Hmmm ok, so this video is no longer available on YouTube! Sorry!!)


Hope you all had fun with my favourite YouTube videos today. Come back again tomorrow for something completely different!

Photo gallery cannot open this picture...

A picture is worth a thousand words... or so the old addage goes. So I wonder when I get a message that says "Photo gallery cannot open this picture or video. The file appears damaged or corrupted" how many words, impressions, descriptions of my little one I have lost? I wonder what this picture would have said to me. I cannot tell. I have lost the words, but the memory is still there. I remember taking lots of photo's of her first few hours, her first days. All in hospital. A photo of her under the photo-therapy lamps - looking like a little sun worshipper complete with sun-goggles. A photo of her in a Number 2 bodysuit to match the one of her older sister in the Number 1 bodysuit at the same age. I have that one, but not the other. 

So imagine my delight when I find, hidden in the vast megabytes that is my mother's picture folder.... these! These few pictures of her that are now so precious, so treasured. A few thousand words returned to me out of the many thousands lost to the crimes of technological corruption.

Thanks Mum, for being such a shutterbug.  A thousand words could not express the gratitude I feel for just one of these pictures!

At the going down of the sun...

"They shall grow not old, as we who are left grow old. Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn. At the going down of the sun, and in the morning, we will remember them."

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,Loved, and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

— Lt.-Col. John McCrae (1872 - 1918)

We will remember them

Lazing on a sunny afternoon... in the summertime!

(Photo's taken in May 2009)

Prompt #4: Blogging the Mundane...

I'm loving Shimelle's class! Today's prompt is all about blogging mundane things. Things that we think are 'boring' that might actually be interesting to other people. So, life is not always a rollercoaster of highs and lows, sometimes its just nice and flat and uninteresting... so what? Perhaps nice, flat and uninteresting is good - because a rollercoaster life can make you sick! Shimelle was talking about blogging about things like

• going to the library
• doing the shopping
• the school run
• filling up at the petrol station ....

....oooh now there's one that would do me! I nipped there this morning to get some milk after I had dropped herself off at nursery. I filled up with petrol too at the same time... and then came home to find Shimelle's prompt sat in my inbox. It did get me thinking! I remember when I was a kid I used to sit in the car with my parents while the petrol was being filled up! Yup, my Mum and Dad sat in the car too! See I grew up in South Africa where illiteracy is high and lots of people don't have jobs. There is no dole, no benefits or handouts - so if you don't work, you don't eat. Consequently, there are a lot of things that people are 'employed' to do, that here in the UK we do for ourselves... and one of them is filling up at the petrol station. You drive onto the forecourt, open your window and hand a guy the keys. You tell him what type of fuel your car takes and then wait for him to fill up. I remember as a child thinking how it all sounded like a foreign language as my Mom would hand him the keys saying "fill up, 98, oil and tyres" Suddenly there would be three guys rushing around. One would be filling up, one would be checking the oil and another would be checking the tyres. A fourth man would approach the window and ask if she would like the windscreen cleaned. The petrol attendant would then tell my Mom how much it cost and she would give him the cash (before the days of credit cards!) he would take it to the kiosk and bring her the receipt and the change. She would then have to tip him and they would divide it between them. That is how they lived... on tips. I only found out years later that the garage didn't pay them a salary, they did all that in the hope of a tip... and quite a few people didn't give them even that much! The only time my parents would actually set foot anywhere near the kiosk was when us kids nagged them into getting us some crisps or a drink. Quite unlike living here in the UK... where we now have to get out the car (shock, horror!) and do it ourselves. So I filled up the car; watching the numbers whizz by until it clicks. Then I do this "thing", I rock the car - to get the air out of the petrol tank - and then continue to fill it up until it clicks again. Does anyone else do this? I'm not sure where I picked it up from? I think I must be the only person who does this. LOL. I collect my wallet from the car and then head into the shop. Of course it is a *shop* now - not just a little kiosk- petrol stations have now become mini-supermarkets. Our local one has a Marks & Spencers shop, so I often get stuff for tea from there too. I wander around the shop; even though I know I really only need milk -  and pick up a quiche, milk, bread, a snack selection, ham, cheese and sushi. Mmmmmm, yup Sushi. Its a M&S and their sushi is gorgeous. I'm addicted to it! I can happily walk right past the chocolates and crisps as long as I can get my hands on some sushi! I take my stuff to the till and pay.... £60 later I walk out of the shop with a full tank of petrol, the milk I originally wanted and nearly £20's worth of stuff that I had never intended to buy! And sushi. Yum!

I think that the old South African system was probably better, the temptation to buy additional stuff was easier to resist when it was someone else who was handling the money and doing all the work!

(Photo source)