Currently September

Well hello there and sorry I've been away for so long from the blogosphere.  I am blaming the summer and all the summery things that had to get done this year!!  However, the wonderful Farley continues with her Currently posts so I am back and joining in.  Press the button if you would like to as well

and here goes :)

Poor owl I disturbed him/her last night so am now awake early morning listening to the "payback"!

I am loving that my little black cat has returned after three weeks away (she disappeared whilst we were on holiday and the cats were being looked after by my lovely neighbour as both children away in Europe this summer and therefore not around to help out with cat-sitting duties).  I had put up notices, contacted vets, posted on national sites for missing pets and was thinking the worst that a car had knocked her down somewhere.  During the last fortnight, I have had so many lovely people come forward with information about cats they have seen, found, sniffer dogs to help search so I have known that there were a lot of eyes out there looking for her.  However, yesterday I came downstairs early morning in the dark (it was pouring with rain outside) to see a cat shape sitting at the bottom of the stairs!  This was totally out of the ordinary as my cats do not have access to the main house - their room is accessed by a cat flap and the door to the main house is closed at night.  At first I thought it was my dark, stripey tabby but then there was a cry and I knew it was her!!  She had come in via the cellar vent and had popped the cellar door open somehow to get into the house!  I could not quite believe my eyes but I said a big thank you to God and scooped her up in my arms where she just purred and purred.  She was amazingly not wet, had obviously been eating well and her coat was lovely and glossy so wherever she has been she has had access to food and shelter.  But I am so thankful she is home :)

I am thinking that I cannot quite believe that school children go back to school this week - I do feel for them because quite frankly we have had another rotten 6 weeks of weather here in the UK!!  I am keeping my fingers crossed that we have more sunny days in September because August was a wash out!

I am wanting days with more hours in them - there just hasn't been enough time to get everything done and I keep going to bed with a long list that has not diminished enough for my liking!

Now that summer is on the way out I need to get back to blogging again - I've missed all my blogging chums and I just haven't even had time to see what they've been up to so I will be reconnecting and visiting over the next few weeks.  I'm really looking forward to it :)

My three goals for September will be:

1) to finish and post a new autumn maths pack on TpT

2) to get back into running/jogging and sign up for a 5k race

3) to finish at least one of my knitting projects currently on the go!

Now I'm off to visit others on the CURRENTLY trail - take care and let me know what you've been up to and your goals for September :)

Celebrate

It's time again to celebrate with others - thank you to Lexa Cain and the gang for hosting.  Press the button above to see what others are sharing.

This week after quite a long absence I am celebrating:

1) My garden - I've been spending a lot of "woman" hours finishing off the grass seeding, connecting hosepipes together to be able to water (oh boy have I learnt a lot about spigots!!) and hauling heavy stuff around to get paths operational again.  I'm no where near finished but I it's looking much better than it did three weeks ago.

2) My family - over the past few weeks I have been entertaining various family member visitors for longer than the normal two day flying visits.  This has been lovely and has allowed us to do various things we normally wouldn't have time for.  Building memories for the future as well as sharing memories from the past.  It's one of the reasons I just haven't been blogging like I have been lately.

Now I'm off to join the blog hop and catch up with others - so might see you soon.  Would love to know what you have been doing over the past few weeks so please leave a comment below and have a lovely weekend doing wonderful things :)

Wordless Wednesday Vixen Mitten?

Doodling on Day 4

Did I say how much I am enjoying letting go and doodling away on this art challenge?  Yesterday I was playing with matches & today I'm remembering when I always used to be drawing leaves on my school exercise books.

Today's prompt was mailbox and even though we don't have this type in England I decided I didn't want to draw a postbox and I didn't want to put a small postbox on top of a stick and make it look like a US mailbox either.   So I have very literally drawn a US mailbox but then I found myself thinking about if a letter had been delivered but the letter had never been taken out of the box and the foliage had grown up and around the old mailbox and what would have been in that last letter that someone never received and there would be no reply back either so what would happen then?

Letters never forget

They wait patiently

For someone to read

For someone to smile over

For someone to shed tears over

Letters never forget

They record for posterity

Words someone needed to write

Words someone wanted to whisper

Words someone wanted to shout

Letters never forget

But what if they don't get delivered?

What if no-one reads the words they hold?

Then time stands still on that paper because

Letters never forget

So now it's your turn - when did you last write a proper letter?  Who was it too?  Did you used to write letters?  What made them special?  Did you ever get a letter delivered really late after it had been posted?  I'd love to know what your thoughts are on the art of letter writing so leave me a comment below :)

Pirates Ahoy!

This is my ICAD #3 - inspired by Draw a Map

As you can hopefully see it's meant to be a pirate's treasure map and I have ripped and then burnt around the edges and middle with a match - I used to so love doing this as a child making "old" treasure maps and rolling the paper up into a tube!

Because I was thinking of this my poem for the day is as follows:

Playing Pirates

Mother tipped the dining table over

As my brother and I stood and stared

“A pirate ship – now pack belongings”

We scampered off things to prepare.

We got provisions, biscuits, water,

some string, our swords and teddy too

Then we were off – “Set sail me hearties!”

Our make believe would see us through

All day we sailed and saw such wonders,

Mermaids, sharks and ships galore

And being pirates challenged others

Plundering treasure with a cannon’s roar

Lots of sword fights, squawking parrots

We made our enemies walk the plank

Drawing treasure maps, avoiding sharks

Yo Ho Ho with the “rum” we drank

Then Dad came home and time for dinner

Our ship once again a place to eat

And sitting there around the table

We told him about our Pirate Day treat!

I have various products in my TpT store that are pirate based including a few freebies so if you're interested in pirates be sure to check them out by clicking on the tab at the top of my blog page :)

What was one of your favourite make-believe games when you were a child?  Or what do your children/grandchildren like to pretend these days?  I'd love to know :)

Happy News on TpT, Currently & Day 2 Artistic Adventures!

I've had a very busy week so have not been checking my TpT account like I normally do and so I was delighted as well as rather surprised to see that I have now gained 101 followers!!  Last time I looked I had 97 so obviously this past week quite a few new teachers have found my site and have liked what they have seen. Therefore, I am feeling very happy that what I am doing is pleasing so many people they want to return and be advised when I post new stuff.  Which to be honest I haven't done much of since the A to Z Challenge.

So on that note I am combining today's post with

If you click on the picture below you will head over to the delightful Farley who runs this each month but this time she is trying to raise money this week to help the pet rescue centre that is dealing with the fallout from the recently devastated town of Wimberley in Texas: all those animals who have been found after the floods washed everything away and those pets whose owners have no where to stay at the moment because they have lost their homes.

Now I am going to show you my ICAD for the day - this time inspired by the word CARNIVAL & the use of inks for drawing & doodling :)

I love the Venetian Carnivals with their elegant ladies wearing this type of mask and I couldn't resist using my Italian ink purchased from one of those special shops in York - once upon a time :)

I need to show you another picture so you can see the shape of the bottle which is what I fell in love with!

Turquoise ink from Italy and purple ink from Winsor & Newton combined with an italic pen and a dipping in water of the card after the initial black outline of the mask.  It felt great playing about with it all and didn't take longer than ten minutes so if anyone is worried about having a go because they think it will take forever - it certainly doesn't have to!

Ditty for the Day - just didn't have time to really think about it too much today with lots of other things I had to do - more of those in a post later this week I think :)

Venetian completion

for your contemplation

Water & ink and squiggles galore

Wonder what tomorrow will have in store?

Love to know what you think about any of this - certainly any feedback on how to improve things is always welcome as you know :)

Where Do I Begin?

Have I bitten off more than I can chew?  My waking thought today was - how many things have I signed up for during June and how will I be able to fit them all in?  But then as I began to sort through in my mind I realised that with so many things in life there is overlap and so I will combine my Creative Monday post

with my first Index Card art activity

 and then decide whether a poem is inspired by the ICAD or Scavenger Hunt photo theme

.

I always tell my students to read the instructions - it makes things so much more simpler so you'd think I might do the same but NO - in I go feet first and have looked at the ICAD posted by DaisyYellow

and think today's prompt must be LOVE and suddenly I have inspiration overload and go rushing off and very quickly produce the index card art piece below:

However, later on I go back to read further on Daisy's website that she will post themes and prompts every Friday so I back track to that blog post ad see that today's prompt is the word CHEVRON & the theme is DRAWING & DOODLING - not collage and love then!!!!  Back to the drawing board I go! Although this event has allowed me to see the poem/ditty I should write for today.

Sometimes I feel I am too cautious
Too may hesitations and not enough risks
So why do I find myself plunging then downwards
Without a parachute into the abyss?

Maybe there's a reason for taking things slowly 
Careful deliberation and thinking things through? 
So why don't I listen to this inner wisdom
Instead of keep ending up right in the p**!

Which just goes to show that all clouds have a silver lining :)

OK - Here is my official ICAD #1

When I was a child I loved the simple clear pictures of heraldic shields so a chevron meant this type of symbol to me and as I love dragons obviously one to hold the shield up.  I have DRAWN them and then added a few doodles around the other side of the shield so all in all I feel I have fulfilled the brief.

So now I feel my "work" is done for today and I can spend my time catching up with reading some of the many blog posts you have been doing over the past few days after my hectic but very successful family get together this weekend :)

Let me know what you think. What might you have done for Chevron?  Have you ever jumped the gun and how did things turn out?  Have you ever wished you'd taken that risk but were too unsure at the time?  Got any tips on how to make my poem better?