Thoughts on 2014

Hello everyone.. hoping you had a Christmas which was just what you hoped for.. busy, noisy, peaceful, restful, lazy... we all want and need different things don't we!

As I mentioned I thought I'd put together another photo challenge for next year, weekly themes with daily prompts available from Mondays...

have a look here and see what you think...HERE!!

oh and Happy New Year to you all..Kathi x

Quote Challenge - December - Hosted by Lynne

I am feeling sad as I plan this final quote challenge. I have started and stopped many times with the planning of this as I tried to find an ideal quote for this special Christmas week.

It seems to be the end of a very different friendship we have made over a year. 

Helen and I already knew each other before this challenge, we have met and are in the same UKS team. 

I have met up with Viv and Roland and I am sure we will continue to remain friends! 

Of course I met Joy and Thadd several years ago and this friendship continues though we live so far apart. 

I have spoken to Anne on the phone and I am sure in 2014 we will meet as she lives within driving distance to me!  Peter and I plan to go west for a holiday in 2014 so that embraces Kathi, Karen and Jenni I hope? 

As for meeting Borqna and Kristina I never say never as I am sure I will meet you both one day

So now my Quote.... It is a song from Gloria Estefan called ‘Christmas Through Your Eyes’

Til I had you, I didn’t know I was missing.

I had to grow up and see the world through different shades of time.

Give me one more chance to dream again

One more chance to feel again, through your young heart

If only for one day, let me try.

I want to see Christmas through your eyes.

I want everything to be the way it use to be,

Back to being a child again, thinking the world was kind.

I want to see Christmas, Christmas through your eyes.

I see rain, you see rainbows hiding in the cloud.

Never afraid to let your love show

Won’t you show me how?

I want to learn how to believe again

Find the inner sense of me again, through your young heart.

Help me find a way, help me try..........

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=To0vDizpeRA

This week as we celebrate Jesus’ birth I will keep this easy and simple. I would like you to blog a photo(s) taken on Christmas day with our without any other blogging as I am sure our computers maybe having a holiday too!!

I will sadly leave you with this quote from Delia Smith a devote Catholic who has written a book called A Feast for Advent which is not a cookery book!

“On Jesus’ birth a new light shone out in the darkness then

and now that light is firmly established in Heaven.
Anyone on earth who sets out on a journey in search of God
will be lead by this light – the light shines for everyman who walks in darkness.”  ~  Delia Smith           

May you all have a joyous and peaceful Christmas and a healthy and peaceful 2014. 

God Bless and much love 

Lynne xx

PS: My apologies, I don't know why there is this white surrounding some parts of the text. I didn't manage to remove it. Anne xxx

Nostalgia~ Christmas festivities.

Well we got here! It's December and the last month of our weekly challenges. Some of us have been busy, others have had holidays and some of us had big decisions and changes in the year. But we are pretty much intact and hopefully all looking forward to a few festive days coming up!

I do hope we stay in touch next year, even if just sharing thoughts now and then. I have a feel to do a daily or weekly challenge, I have found doing a daily pic in December not so hard as writing lots. I wonder how everyone else feels...maybe twelve of us could each take on a month of daily prompts?  Or suggestions for a week of days.. colours, trees, clothes.. what do you think?  I would be happy to administer it here and set it up maybe once a week if you like?

So..Christmas nostalgia!

Let's share this week the traditions and routines you have in your family.

Are they carried on from your parents or have you started them since you were married or had children?  Is there anything you do which you really wish you could change!

A few prompts for the week if you don't know where to begin:

•  Decorations & trees
•  Shopping!!
•  Food and cooking
•  Songs and carols.. best and worst!
•  Children's nativities and school events
•  Present stories.. best and worst?!

I will be posting my daily pic during the week and hoping to add some of my stories too..

Have a lovely Christmas and a healthy and peaceful New Year .. Kathi xxx

Let's reflect Challenge - December

Hello everybody,

here we are, reaching the end of our challenge.

It's a bit of a mixed moment for me, like when I was happy reaching the last day of school and leave for holidays but I also knew I was going to miss my friends.

I remember when I lived in Germany, we were taking part to a technology fair in Hanover, every year. It was a lot of work to prepare and the fair was 10 days long, 11 hours work a day for us exhibitors. It was extremely tiring and we couldn't wait to go back home, but on the last day, each year, I remember everybody having tears in their eyes because of the strong bond with our neighbor exhibitors and we all would soon go our own way again.

I read recently that each ending is also a new beginning and that's the way I want to see our little group.

For this last month, we have once again something special because December is such a special month. December is a month of celebrations, be you religious or not, a month to spoil children a bit (or a lot), a month in which we might reflect and think about other people in the world who aren't as lucky as we are to have a roof on their head and food on their table, a month in which people try to forget their differences, a month in which we try and go that little extra mile to make our loves ones know how much we love them, spend a bit more money than we should, eat of bit more than we should.

December is all about sharing.  For some of us, December might be a bit more difficult, because of the loss of loved ones, but the biggest wish of these loved ones surely would be to be remembered but at the same time see us happy, so we should honor them by enjoying this beautiful time.

Our word for this week starts with a G, but it is in fact a group of words :
                             
Go for it

May be you can take some pictures if you already started decorating your house, or bought a couple of presents, may be you just want to blog about what Christmas means to you, may be Christmas is specially a big deal for you this year, may be you will be celebrating Christmas on a different day in your country, whatever your situation, tell us your plans and share your excitement.

I wish you all to have the most fabulous time for Christmas and all you wish for 2014. I hope we find a way to still keep in touch next year.

Take care everybody, xxx

December View Challenge.

Last one!

Well done to those of you that have managed to take your photos each month, I hope you are glad with the record you have made. I will share my neighbourhood view today as I haven't been out to take my main view yet.

I am going to make the Instagrams into a mini book and I have already picked my neighbourhood view for next year as I have enjoyed this project. 

I wish you all seasons greetings, I hope you all have happy and peaceful celebrations.

November Quote Week.

It is 11pm on Sunday night and I was just going to bed leaving Peter watching Sun Match of the Day “yawn” and................I think Lucky Snapping Challenge I haven’t finished my blog for Kathi and it is a new challenge on Monday when I realise................Oops it is mine and I haven’t done it or sent it to anyone either!!! Anyway here I am writing it instead of finishing my nostalgia blog and then I will send it to both Anne and Jenni in the hope you are reading it now (Monday am). I have 2 quotes for you about LEARNING “ Anyone who keeps learning stays young” Henry Ford “You cannot open a book without learning something” Confucious This week tell us each day one thing you have learnt during the day, hopefully with a photo. Make your blog brief as we are all getting busy with the run up to Christmas. Love to you all Lynne xx

Nostalgia..the autumn season.

Hi everyone.. as I hang my head in shame for not blogging in the last 5 weeks. Whatever came of me? Well I stayed busy at work and home, that darned new kitchen extension turned into a refurb on the old kitchen space which is almost done! It would be done if it were not being used as a workshop for the bathroom refurb which is long long overdue.. imagine a bathroom 17 years old, used lots by up to 8 people a day.. and which had a leak we did not realise.. mmm, grim.. no before pictures for sure!

But December should see me with a computer and Picasa back in place and blog central restored!

Oh and I am also away on a weeks holiday with Colin.. we plumped for Tenerife as the priority was for good weather.. and that we have.. home on Wednesday and as I write on Sunday evening I hope the G& T's are not marring my fluency.. haha.. they may even aid it!

So.. Autumn Nostalgia..what does it hold for you? Let me give you a few suggestions..

• The change in the hour.. love it or hate it ..and why?
• Do you have memories of walking ankle deep through sycamore leaves as you search for Christmas twigs?
• How did you celebrate Guy Fawkes Night?
• Or Hallowe'en, is that the Autumn highlight for you ?

Tell us about how the run from School starting in September to that Christmas rush was marked in your childhood home, or how it is now for your children..


For me the days between starting school again in September til November 5th were filled with plans for Guy Fawkes Night.  We bought fireworks from the travelling grocery shop which came to our fishing cove twice a week. We stored them in tin boxes and when allowed by our Mums we compared who had what and how we might persuade our Mums to get us a bigger and better firework!

Us children all collected papers and wood for a huge bonfire at my cousins house and his Mum would host the bonfire night and we would all bring food.. my resounding memory is of Auntie Val, the host, carrying out sausages on sticks on a tray but being chased by a Jumping Jack someone let off.. by mistake? Not so sure that was the case!

Looking forward to catching up with you all later in the week.. I so owe you all some comments and at the very least my November views!

Here's the linky: