Jeudi Journal - Drama

"Eric smirked, Billy's big sister had just asked him "Is your drama going to have an intermission soon?"  He loved it when it was his friend who was getting into trouble and not him.  Besides which, standing by the huge picture window with its elegant crimson curtains it certainly looked as if they were on a stage.  How appropriate she referred to it as a drama.

They had been playing indoors because Billy had a bit of a cold and his mum did not want him going outside at the moment.  They had been playing a game where they both were trains.  Eric wanted to be 'The Flying Scotsman' but Billy said it was better he play that engine as he was wearing check trousers and they looked similar to a tartan.

Well, things got a bit out of hand and before long the two lads were scrapping.  Fists and legs were flying in all directions and the noise emitting from them both as they grunted and shouted was dreadful.  It was lucky nothing had got broken.  A vase had done a kind of wobble on the coffee table by the door as the skirmish developed but it had righted itself before any water got spilled.  Thank goodness they had not fought against the big window which went from floor to ceiling in the lounge.

Molly, Billy's big sister, was fuming.  Hands on hips and an ever so cross look on her face she stood there and glared at her brother who looked as if he had a broom stuck down his trousers, he stood so perfectly straight up.

"Just wait until Mum gets home" Molly said, "I think it's time you went home Eric."

And with that Eric escaped before she could turn her anger on him.  It hadn't really been Billy's fault, he had started it and Billy was not really to blame."

I decided to make the background a little like a stage and drew in some red curtains in order to link in with Erika's theme at Art Journal Journey, 'Seeing Red',  and I dressed one of the characters as red as I could and added a kind of Burnt Orange to another figure as it is not a million miles away from red.  I hope there is enough for Erika's theme in my page.  Then I wondered what to do for the scenery so the story changed a little and it became a huge picture window in a house.  Thank goodness it was easy to change tactics.

WOYWW 716

WOW and WOW again, I listened to BJ's piece on the harp last week and am so impressed I have been back several times to listen again.  I loved it!  If you haven't been then you must, it is beautiful.  What talent!  Well, we have so many talented people in WOYWW that I should not be surprised but I had no idea we had one who played the harp.  I hope she treats us to more of her beautiful pieces.

Today my desk is showing you a gift I received from a friend of mine.  Yes, it's kind of set up just for the photos and I have been working on my table so I can assure you, it is still there.  So what am I talking about?  Look here:

It's a book

It is fabulous!  Each page has lots of little pictures that sit inside pockets.  Some are tiny books, some are laminated tickets, some are tiny tags - it is absolutely full of goodies.  It must have taken her ages to make it for me.  Thank you so much Jayne!  I am sure she has done a video of it so I will come back and put the link at the end of this post when she publishes it.

It's not just WOYWW today - it is also "Thinking Day" for the Girl Guide Association so I am wearing my 'Thankyou' badge.  Happy Day to anyone in the Guide Movement.

I've not been up to doing much myself.  Despite the cream and the neck pillow it still is a problem, nowhere near as bad as it was originally but still there.  Incidentally, one or two people talked of getting a box pillow themselves, well I would recommend you getting a pillowcase for them rather than using an ordinary one.  It does need to be gusseted to fit the pillow or it defeats the object and squeezes it into an ordinary pillow shape.  (I got mine from Dunelm)

Last year I made a desk calendar with Jo Rice at the club and then I gave it away intending to make another one for myself.  Well, I could not remember where I had put the calendar to decorate and so it got left - until the other week.  Here are a few pages I have made on my table

Here they are in detail - know which months they are?

The fox one is not yet finished as I had to go out to see my friend who is suffering with dementia, such a dreadful disease, I am just thankful she still knows me as she remembers so few these days.  I dread the day she doesn't.  We had a lovely afternoon, it was one of her better days.  She even joined in my chatter about the old days.

So that is it for another week, off to see what others have done in and on their desk areas.  Why not pop over to WOYWW and have a lookie!

Jeudi Journal - Absolutely

"I have absolutely no desire to fit in" is the Snarkie for today's journal page over at Art Journal Journey where the theme is "Seeing Red" as set by the lovely Erika, whose blog is BioArtGal where you can see lots of inspiration that she posts.

For my page I used a stencil by Aall & Create again and Festive Berries Distress Oxide ink.  The figures, as directed by the boundaries of Wendy's and my blog are from Dylusions characters where we are allowed to swap heads and legs around to create new and different figures.  Something Dyan Reaveley, the artist responsible for these characters, teaches in her many workshops around the world.  The figures have been coloured in using Promarkers.

"Esme and Harriet are two friends, have been for years, since both girls could walk in fact.  Their mothers were old friends from school too and so it was inevitable that the two youngsters would become friendly just like their mothers.  Harriet was blessed with lovely curly hair which she wore mainly in kind of ringlets as was the fashion of the day.  Well, you and I would probably think of them as ringlets but young girls in this day and age liked to mess them about a bit, running their fingers through them, and call them 'beach waves'.

Esme was not at all like Harriet, she had her hair cropped as short as she possibly could have, wore huge spectacles and liked to dress quite masculinely whenever possible.  You would never catch her in a dress, that was for certain.  In fact her sense of dress was, well, let's say, Bizarre!

It was half term at the high school they attended and both girls were going into town to meet up with their friends to discuss what they were all going to wear at the end of year Prom.  It was a rather chilly day and so Harriet was wearing her new coat and had a cute hat on her head.  Esme, on the other hand was wearing her usual coat, a pair of shorts and big boots.

"What on earth are you wearing" asked Harriet, "I'm not going into town with you looking like that."

"What's wrong?" replied Esme.

"What's right" replied Harriet, "you look a bit of an idiot wearing those shorts and great big boots.  I'm not getting on the bus with you looking like that.  Besides which I doubt the others will want to be seen walking around town with you looking like ......"

"Like what?  Come on, spit it out."

"Well like someone ... like an idiot" answered Harriet.  "It's about time, now that we are grown up and about to enter college, or even go to work that you began to dress normally.  It's about time you learned to fit into normal society.  It was ok when you were a little kid but now, come on."

"I have absolutely no desire to fit in" replied Esme, "I am not like a sheep, following the flock, I am an individual and an individual is how I will remain.  Thank you very much!"

"I suppose you will find something totally outlandish to wear at the Prom too" 

"And what if I do" retorted Esme, "at least I am my own woman and not like the rest of you."

"OK, OK, you be what you want to be but wait until you want a job, do you think anyone is going to employ you if you dress so stupidly?"

At that moment the bus pulled up at the stop and Harriet got on, storming along the bus to a seat at the front.  Esme, on the other hand decided to leave it.  If Harriet felt like that about her, then, did the others?  She decided to go for a walk on her own and to heck with them all.  Who wanted to go to a silly Prom anyway.  Certainly not her.

Jeudi Journal

WOYWW 715

 Valentine's Day yesterday, WOYWW Day today - such a busy week.  Hope you all had a nice (romantic) meal yesterday we had one courtesy of Morrison's Meal Deal and very nice it was.  I was impressed by the Prosecco which went down rather nicely with the Coq au Vin and Gooey Melted Chocolate Centre Sponge Pud!

Tonight it is a nice simple quiche and salad but we are here to talk about our desks rather than food, so here goes with my desk:

On Saturday it was club day and we had the lovely Jo Rice as our tutor and she certainly did not disappoint.  We were reintroduced to using Brusho's and our Lavinia images as you can see from my desk above.  The ones on the left are Jo's samples which she kindly loaned me so that I could show the ladies who were absent for one reason or another, what to do.

The ones on the messy paper are mine, one is still to be finished.  I've had a bad neck, it doesn't like being in a downward position for long and a day at a workshop comes at a price.  I will be getting my Brusho's out today and finishing the last one off,  Then I bought a magazine featuring some of Jo's work so I will be doing some more Lavinia samples later on.

Talking of my bad neck, the chiropractor recommended I got a box pillow which I did, and some Tiger Balm - but this other cream arrived which we had seen advertised in the TV times.  Well, no idea which it is, the pillow or the new cream but my neck is definitely much better.  Of course, it could be the chiropractor and all the work she did on it with the hot stones that has done so well.  Perhaps a culmination of all three.  Will see what my normal chiropractor has to say when next I see her.  Lindart - I really feel the box pillow has helped - that's just another name for the side sleeper pillow apparently.)

I will leave you there for now and see you next week when we once more celebrate WOYWW and snoop on others desks.  Toodle Pip!

Jeudi Journal - Chocolate

Mmm.... a lot of hard work went into this journal page.  We had to buy and eat a Terry's Chocolate Orange in order for me to have the wrapper.   Only kidding, it was pure chance that we had bought a Chocolate Orange, and in the 'dark' form as Chas prefers milk.  I am the one preferring dark chocolate - what do you prefer?

Anyway, I did think of using a chocolate wrapper when I suddenly remembered this box in the cupboard and so it got dismantled, so glad it had not been thrown away.  I went around the figure of the girl in black pen, like some Journallers do to try to make her stand out a bit as she was dressed in red also.

As you can see I gave the page a border of hearts (yes, I was going to use a different figure and have it portrait style - oops!) from one of my Aall & Create stencils and the comment comes, as always, from one of Tim Holtz' Snarky Comments Book.  I had to smile when I stuck the figure down as I had cut carefully between her legs to allow the colour to come through from the page underneath - it turned out to be exactly on a white spot on the wrapper - drat!

and so the story goes ...

"It was Valentine's Day and Naomi was feeling a bit glum.  She had just eaten her way through a full Terry's Chocolate Orange and was halfway through a bar of Cadbury's Dairy Milk chocolate.  Her boyfriend had sent her a basket, not of roses, but of chocolate. He knew how much of a chocoholic she was and he also knew that she was the kind of active girl who did not put an ounce of weight on despite her eating habits.  She was glum because Harry couldn't get time off work to take her out that night.  He was a lovely guy and was working overtime whenever he could to save up to buy her a lovely present, they wanted to get married when they were old enough, and at the moment they were looking at engagement rings.  He was sure that by the time she was eighteen he could afford the one she wanted.

Her mother, on the other hand, was not happy with her eating so much chocolate - and in one day too.  So she had voiced her opinions on Naomi's chocolate binge.  On entering her bedroom her mother had seen the discarded Terry's wrapper and was ready to have harsh words with her daughter.

"Before you start", said Naomi, "I am not going to eat any more chocolate before dinner.  I know how you get angry and think I will turn down my veggies, but I won't.  I promise."

"It's not just that" replied her mother, "one of these days you will find that it isn't as easy to lose the pounds as it is now and you will be overweight - and probably have spots.  The more you keep on eating chocolate the more you will get addicted to it."

"Oh mum, don't get carried away like that, I can give up eating chocolate whenever I want to.  Besides which Harry bought it for me because he knows I love these little treats, and it is Valentine's Day after all."

"You think that now, I can tell you, from past experience, that once you get hooked on something, like chocolate, you find it hard to give it up.  I have always had a sweet tooth and I have to be very careful what I eat.  Why do you think I mentioned getting fat and having spots?"

"Mum, you are worrying unnecessarily, I could give up chocolate but I'm not a quitter"

"That's easy to say, Naomi, but you  just wait, you will see - and by then it will be too late.  Anyway, dinner will be ready in ten minutes so you had better get washed and down the stairs by then.  No more chocolate!"

I must say I love chocolate, it is a weakness of mine and the easiest way to deal with it is not to have it in the house.  Does that sound familiar to any of you?

WOYWW 714

Back again with another WOYWW where I am showing my desk.  Saturday is Club day so I am getting things together as I have a busy week on and might not have time to get my bag all packed up if I leave it to the last minute.

Tuesday saw my chiropractic appointment cancelled owing to a bereavement with the owners but I managed to bag one with a different chiropractor and she certainly worked on the knots in my neck. She also told me to start using Tiger Balm on my neck so I got some (the red one), love the smell of it (cloves) but not sure everyone in the vicinity will.  Another thing was a side sleeper pillow from Bensons Beds so that is something else I must try.  Anything for this pain to lessen. 

Afterwards we tried the new Indian Street Food Chain Chaiwalla, ok - but not as good as Mowgli which is definitely my favourite.  (Must try the Dishoom, if I have got the name correct, recommended by my lovely niece.)  So much so that I did nothing but sleep when I got home.   Originally my old line manager was going to the same chiropractor today, Wednesday, so he and his wife were calling to see us on there way home.  Now we are meeting up and going for a meal so that is Wednesday afternoon taken care of - guess who will be asleep again in the early evening?  I'll catch up on my comments when we get back.

Thursday we are meeting up with a group of friends for another meal out, early evening and then Saturday is the class.  Going from completely stay at home, nothing happening for ages to a week like this is making me feel tired just thinking about it.  Gosh what a boring life I normally have.  Must be old age doing it to me

I did manage to do another picture, with the aid of Jo Rice, since I blogged last week.  It was all about perspective and depth.  Again not happy with the first one so I did a second one but as that is in my journal now - I will have to let you see the first one.  Also had to do a quick sympathy card for the chiropractor which is underneath too.  Apart from that we are up to date so I'll leave it there and go back to sleep.  Just 40 winks you understand.

The card above, did have a "Thinking of You" message on the front and a few nice words on the inside.   I felt it was plain and simple which is how I mainly do a sympathy card. The picture I did is below.  Guess it will get used for a card for someone sometime.  

That's it for this week folks, see you next week God willing,