Proud

Last week an envelope dropped onto the doormat addressed to Michael (son #1).  The envelope was embelished with the NHS logo and my first thought was "junk mail".  He is 17 now, at college, has his own bank account and pays his own mobile phone contract.  He is just about the right age to start getting his own crap in envelopes.

How wrong was I?

Finding Your Blogging Feet

I was reading a couple of posts written by new blogger, Becki (at Pelvis, Interrupted) yesterday.  She wrote about how she wasn't feeling true to herself with her writing and then her "epiphany", for want of a better word.  I think she had been trying too hard as a new blogger to please her audience rather than writing within her comfort zone and letting her audience find her.

Blogging is becoming much more of a social concept.  I wrote an article for the winter edition of Flying Start Magazine (page 36) aimed at new Parent Bloggers, although the advice is the same for everyone.  One observation I made was that blogs used to sit in their little corner of the internet, waiting to be discovered or they were read when you happened to mention to a friend that you wrote a blog.  Very often, blogs were considered a dirty little secret.

Christmas Shopping Suggestions - Marie Curie

The charity Marie Curie Cancer Care have contacted me and asked if I could give their online shop a bit of a shout out to the readers here at Typecast.

(click the logo to go direct to the Marie Curie Cancer Care shop)

Review and Giveaway : Hexbug Nano

"What on earth are Hexbugs?" I hear you ask.  Well, when we opened the parcel with our three Hexbug Nanos in, both mine and Jake's reaction was "Eh? What are these?"  About 0.3 seconds after taking the first Hexbug out of the packet Jake was full of "Oh, WOW" and "OH MY GOD, THESE ARE BRILLIANT!!"

Hexbug Nanos are miniscule robot bugs, no bigger than your little finger.  They are powered by a tiny battery-operated motor that makes them vibrate and scuttle around.  You can build complex mazes (we built one with Lego) for them to find their way around or just watch them flip and bounce off random objects on the kitchen table whilst the dog goes a bit loopy trying to chase after it!  The green one is my favourite and I'm keeping it as a pet.

Wiggle it. Just a little bit!

Last Wednesday evening I crashed unceremoniously from the table top I was dancing climbing on*.  I was in tears and the dog thought it was a game so leapt all over me.  Son #1 tried to help me up and shoo the dog away at the same time, then got a bit arsey when I cried big, dolloping tears in his face and yelled at him that I couldn't move because my leg hurt.  Kev came in from the other lounge to see what all the noise and then walked out again thinking I was over-reacting.

I limped to bed, in tears.  No-one cared.  My left foot hurt like hell and my right leg was just as bad.

The Gallery : Another Celebration

Recently I have regained contact with one of my primary school friends, Stephanie.  We were having a bit of a catch up and I directed her to my "Old Photos" album on Facebook, where she featured in a couple of the pictures.

She responded by immediately uploading some pictures of her tenth birthday party.
Don't we look just lovely?