Geeking out

This week we visited the Tapestry of Scotland at Stirling Castle. I took a looooot of photos but this is my favourite on my phone. 

It was a great experience- I got to geek out about embroidery stitches (oh and boy did I geek out, I mentioned the photos right) and Scottish history. I've been reading a lot of Scottish history since we started our grand tour of all Historic Scotland buildings so this was right up my street. 

Love this girl

Big Changes

Good instructions on the day I gave up my Guides. Time to look to other Guiding challenges... Lones, Senior Section and Peer Education!

A favourite view

2015, the beginning...

Happy New Year (slightly belatedly).

How was it for you? I enjoyed it immensely. In itself that is odd, as I usually dislike New Year it feels very anti-climactic and there always feels like pressure to have a good time, ugh!

This year I was working until 2pm (a surprisingly fruitful shift in terms of work done, just had higher hopes of what I could achieve in the lull between Christmas and New Year).

We started out by picking the kids up and a trip to Nando's (Minnie declared "I've just been wishing to go to Nando's, its my favourite") but it meant no washing up- yay! I don't know what it is about that simple chicken and sides option that works so well but it does.

The girls were delighted to have it declared a "games night".

Zombie Dice was up first (though we call it Zombie Brains). Family rules mean that in our house you collect one sweet for each Brain you score... you can eat the brains at any time but you then don't count it to your score (and there are no other sweets available to eat during the game!!). My children have amazing self-control. That's why they probably win. Oh, and the fact I always push my luck.

Then it was meant to be a quick (hah!) game of Monopoly! Yeah... 4 hours later and it was getting pretty interesting.

We stopped for the bells. We were dancing and leaping around the living room listening to Jools Holland and co. And then our first selfie of the year.

Afterwards the girls called EVERYONE and screamed "Happy New Year" to them or their voicemail much to their own hilarity.

New Year's Day then held more games fun...

Finishing Monopoly (Lexie won!)

Junior Catan. Not so different from the full version but with the addition of the marketplace to make it easier (so you can choose not to play with a marketplace) and the fun of a pirate theme! Yaaaaar.

Bang! Basically a shootout in the Wild West. This time the Sheriff and his deputy took out the outlaws and then the renegade. All of which meant I lost :-(

Once the kids went to bed Chris and I played a couple more games- both Discworld based. I bought Chris the Witches game for Christmas so we had been desperate to play it! It's clear that I am a far better witch than either my husband or my brother, read into that what you will!

A couple of quick games of Ankh-Morpork rounded out the night. The joy of Ankh Morpork is trying to guess which role each of the other players are playing and accusing them of their underhanded deeds.

I think we've just found our family formula for a good New Year. How was yours?

A night on my own

No kids.

No husband.

No chores to do.

What's a girl to do?

Planning

I love this part of the year; I love the not really Christmas anymore but everyone is still a little chilled out but not yet the New Year. It's usually about now that I get a chance to think about the year that is just about over and about the year that is to come. It may be an arbitrary line in the sand- January 1st- but there is something nice about turning a fresh page, a new calendar, a chance to start afresh.

2014 has had it's high points- We had a wonderful holiday and many brilliant days out (and at home) as a family. I spent more time with old friends and some new friendships have really blossomed. I was made permanent in my current job (it was a secondment). But mostly this year has felt stressful, pressured, hurried and exhausting. 

I've had a particularly bad run of health- I started the year recovering from a virus (described as "like glandular fever" by the doctor, sure felt like it to me) and persistently low iron and vitamin A - leaving me exhausted. A bout of the flu knocked me flat, then an impingement of my shoulder joint (causing damage to my elbow and wrist because I'm an idiot and made it worse) drove me to prescription level co-codamol for a few weeks.

Although I'm on the mend now, I still have restricted movement, dull pain and pretty poor strength on one side. It's made me pretty grumpy, pessimistic and downright miserable. 

Add to that mix stresses of covering another role as well as my own at work, some pressures from my roles in GirlGuiding, the usual strains of having a busy family life with husband, children and dogs all needing (and deserving) my attention.

So 2014... I'm glad we are nearly done. It's time to put you to bed. 2015 I have plans...

I've been thinking about what I would like to do in 2015, thinking about the things that have driven me crazy in 2014 because I didn't do them. The things I loved about 2014 and want to keep doing. So here is the plan:-

Nice Days Out, one of the best bits of 2014 has without a doubt been days out with the girls, with Christopher and friends. I want to continue these. We have made fantastic use of our Historic Scotland membership and no doubt that will continue but already we have a few plans for some other Nice Days Out (name is totally stolen from the lovely Laura)

Yoga, I want to give it a proper go. I want to get the strength and flexibility back in my shoulder but also some time to think and focus sounds pretty darn fabulous. I've found two possible classes, I just need to make one of them work in this busy family life!

Blogging, more of it. 2014 saw a few hiccups in the actual writing and publishing of thoughts. 2015, get it written, hit publish. I'll feel better.

Balance- not the yoga kind- but work-home-guiding. There are some changes looming here but that will have to wait until later! But hopefully the plan for 2015 will mean I don't burn out and I can keep the love of Guiding and I can spend less time at work and more at home. Pretty much everything hangs on my getting this right.

Finishing, every so often I feel that the number of things that I've got on the go gets out of control. I want to get some of my on-going craft projects Done! There is a quilt for my new niece Zoey, a baby quilt for Harris, a massive quilt I'm making for Chris and I, a seemingly endless cross-stitch project, by overflowing badges to sew onto my blanket. Probably if I open the cupboard I'll find other projects I've started but forgotten about.

Running, I want to run a 5k. The flu pretty much put paid to the Race for Life this year- I walked it rather than ran it. I want to run one. It's not the longest distance in the world but I've got to start somewhere.

Reading, I have barely cracked open a book this year. I have missed it. I want to read a lot more.

Less stuff, I have pretty much everything I need. The kids have pretty much everything they need. In fact I have a lot more that I need. I want to limit the about of new stuff we acquire. One in- three out. That's the plan anyway. We recycled, donated and dumped a lot of stuff this year, we can do more but without losing the things we love and use.

Outside, I can be guilty of not going out. I love to be at home. I love a cosy pursuit. But this year I want to get outside. I want to make my garden lovely again, I want to stomp around in the mud and puddles in the woods like we used to with mum. I want to be by lochs, on hills and on beaches a lot more.

So there it is, my list for 2015. It's a bit woolly and vague in places but that's okay. It's not a to-do list, it's a wish list, a list of keeping life in perspective. With a bit of planning 2015 will be fantastic.

What about you?

p.s. so my actual blog got hacked (or the platform or the server or something I didn't bother to learn about). I decided not to sweat it and just move here.