February Week 4: A Quotation.

February week 4   A Quotation

Hello everyone, where did the month go to? I cannot believe we are nearly at the end of February now and this will be the last week for Feb. The evenings are definitely getting lighter, not sure about the mornings as I get up after 8am!!

I have really enjoyed the challenges this month.

Jen’s View week showed me changes in my view and like the monthly LO idea.

Anne’s Silver Lining was another thought provoking week for us with the word - Impossible. I have started pages for this too.

Kathi’s is Nostalgia week on Affairs of the heart is still ongoing as I plan and type this.

What I like is how open we are learning to be and we seem to be coming great bloggers and as Kathi said today we are the C21st penpals of BFF (Blogger Friends Forever)!

I hope you enjoy mine this week

“ Look closely. The beautiful may be small”  ~ Immanuel Kant

Immanuel Kant was a German Philosopher and anthropologist at the end of the 18^th century.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immanuel_Kant

If you have 3 mins to spare look at this amusing video about his views on life, not that I agree with most of them!

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

More quotes of his are here. I particularly like the first one on happiness.

http://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/11038.Immanuel_Kant

So this week I am looking forward to seeing photos of things you got close to!! Please journal when you want to and don’t forget to leave me a link below so that I can pop into your blogs.

Have a fun snapping week

Love Lynne xxx

Affairs of the Heart 3: Love Songs.

... thanks to everyone for dropping in and sharing their Valentine's thoughts, old and new, also some lovely chat and I think there was unanimous agreement that we should be now classed as Blog Friends Forever!

I may not get back here before the end of the weekend, but then again I may!  I thought I would just add in a little extra thought..

.. why not tell us one of your favourite Love Songs..and I would just love to hear if there was a story behind it.

....as before link it into the orginal post here!

Affairs of the Heart 2: BFF

Just an additional prompt for anyone feeling like writing a little today. 

I know some of you have struggled with the initial Valentine's theme so why not tell us about your first BFF, Best Friend Forever; you know, the little girl you sat beside in your early years at school.. or the boy who held your hand in the dinner line..or even the kid you always argued with but then you were big pals in 'high school'

... maybe there was one person in particular who broke your tender heart, or who you would love to see again.. or maybe someone you are back in touch with many years later, thanks to Facebook or Freinds Reunited?

There, that should give you food for blogging!  Have a great day in this beautiful weather! K xxx

PS Ooops I have forgotten to add our Linky Friend so to save confusion, let's just link into the first day prompt xx

Nostalgia Challenge : Affairs of the Heart.

So, we are back at my Week 3 challenge and I am using 'nostalgia' as the theme, it doesn't have to be a long lost memory, it may just be from last year...or last week.

 My theme this month is going to be 'Affairs of the Heart.'

Feel free to take the prompt wherever it suits..

• maybe it will be a vintage Valentine's card in a shop or a little gift you have saved in a drawer somewhere.
• or a special little thing you do in your house that might become a traditon for your children in their future...
• it might be just your news this week which fits the theme and you can put it down for posterity..  

To start the week we must all have a little story to share about Valentine's Cards or Valentine's Day..or a romantic gesture which was a great success .. or a huge failure even!

but peek back in during the week when I will give you a few more ideas..and tell some of my stories too.....

   Kathi xxxx

Lets Reflect - February : End of the Impossible week

Gosh, it was one of these weeks. I don't know if you experienced it the way I did, but I think I never forget !!!

It has been SO amazing and thank you to all of you who participated or didn't directly but still commented.

I was delighted with reading all your stories, April's Impossible Cabin, I easily could identify with Lynne when she talked about her horrible accident and she even gave us a second story, I adored Kathi and Col "love story" move, Helen's story was a very sweet day to day one, Suzi's  Impossible meeting was very moving, Kristina's was funny and inspiring, Borqna showed us many sides of her own country (if you didn't watched the YouTube video yet, do it, it's amazing), the moonwalk Karen plans to do in London with her friend is just unbelievable, I had a tear on Joy's one as she was facing such an impossible situation but managed to turn it around with her lovely hubby Thad.
There are still more stories to come, at least Janice's one this week-end.

You have written absolutely beautiful and amazing Impossible stories, you are all incredible ladies and it's like I have known you forever.

So here we are, almost at the end of our 2nd week together. I hope you have enjoyed it as much as I did. I know that for many of you, it doesn't come naturally to share so much so I thank you double for bearing with me and participating. I am sure one day you will be proud and glad you did.
And if you are not, it will be a nice story to tell your great grand-children:
" 25 years ago, I was part of the Lucky Challenge 2013 and once a month, there was this twisted minded French girl who always asked us to ... "

Now may be you want to make a page to add to your Silver Lining book, may be you are still wondering what you would like to do. Well you still have plenty of time to decide.

In case you made something or plan to, this week-end ( like me)  you can use the link below to show us. If you're not ready, no pressure, there will be another link again next month.

It was a real honor spending this week with you. We will meet here again on March 11th for another word in our Silver Lining story.

Until then, take care everybody, Anne xxx

Let's reflect - February

All the best to Jen who wasn't feeling well this past week. xxx 

January has gone by at an amazing speed, we had some great challenges and I am so glad we could welcome some new members.
In case you just arrived and would like to participate from the start to my Let's Reflect Challenge, HERE is the January post that will give you a bit of explanations on the " why what when " and you also will get the 1st word.

So here we go, time to reflect again, but before I talk about the second word, I want to show you something. I almost missed it last time because it was posted after the January let's reflect week finished  but look at the gorgeous book April made for Silver Lining.

Today, our word starts with an I and I have chosen the word :

IMPOSSIBLE

When you Google this word, the most common definitions you will find are:

unable to be done or performed, incapable of being true . . . 

It makes Impossible sound like a very negative word, so why would I use it in our Silver Lining Challenge ?

Simply because I am not talking about "that" Impossible. In fact I am talking about the Impossible but . . .

In France we have this saying : Impossible n'est pas français ( Impossible isn't part of French language ).

Muhammad Ali said :
“ . . .  Impossible is not a fact. It's an opinion. Impossible is not a declaration. It's a dare. Impossible is potential. Impossible is temporary. Impossible is nothing . . . ”

So this week, that's what I propose we concentrate on : Nothing is impossible and even if it looks very bad, it IS possible to recover from it.

Positive things have happened in our lives or in the lives of our family and friends, things that were against all odds but still happened. I am not looking for miracles here ( although if you witnessed one, please talk about it ), just things that worked out although they looked lost in advance.

It can be you got the job against 200 candidates although you were sure you wouldn't. It can be you married the man of your dreams, although you thought somebody else was prettier and more intelligent than you. It can be you were in an extremely difficult situation but you made it out. May be you are a survivor . . .
It can be about anything.

I don't want to give you too many ideas as you certainly will find many by yourself, so I am just going to tell you a funny true story, because I believe it's from that day that I realized Impossible had no meaning.


When I was 19 or so, I was doing temp work during summer in order to finance my University studies.  That year, I met a great guy who became the older brother I never had. Many years later he left to go and live abroad but we always kept in touch.

Years ago I received an email in which he explained he had met such a lovely girl and they had gone on their first date. He had arranged a long romantic walk on the beach, followed by a candle dinner. As they were walking on that beautiful beach, a seagull passed by and had a dropping on him.

If you never experienced it, seagulls are big birds and they eat a lot of fish so their dropping are an absolute nightmare . . .  Surely not an ideal situation when you are on your first date, but he said after he cleaned up, they still had a nice evening and the girl had accepted seeing him again.

Now it would be reasonable to say that it would impossible to have the same thing happening again to the same guy, being with the same girl, only a couple of days later. 

Well . . . on their second date, they went to another beach and exactly the same thing happened.

The beauty of this story is that many negative things can be turned into something nice. This lady eventually became his wife and when you ask her, why she decided to marry him, she will tell you that she never ever laughed so much in her life than during these 2 dates with him and the fact he was still behaving so nicely though the world seemed against him made her think he was a fantastic guy. Isn't it sweet ?

Now, it's up to you. May be your story isn't funny, but more moving or scary or strange, may be it won't be one story but a series of small things that marked your life . . .

As always, you can add or not pictures to your story and you can share as much or as little as you would like, whatever makes you feel comfortable and happy. 


I am still pretty much busy unfortunately, but I won't miss your posts for the world, promised.

I wonder what you will come up with !

Anne xxx

 

The View Challenge: Round-up.

Hello again.

Well I felt a bit better and much more normal today, thank you for your kind get well soon wishes and thank you to Anne and Kathi for getting round to do extra comments for me. I have been round to all your blogs last night so I feel better about that :)

I have learned my lesson and will get all the prompts done earlier next month so in case anything happens they at least will be ready. Apologies again.

Sue has come up trumps with another fab sketch. So if you are recording your views for a book at the end of it then you can use this sketch if you like :)

 

Isn't it great. Thanks Sue.

So I have a few photos if you have time.

I wanted to show you how my yearly projects are shaping up.

For my 12x12 scrapbook I have decided that I will take photos from the South West Coast Path from Ilfracombe to Braunton (where I live to where I work).

I know most of the path but not all of it and some of it I haven't been on since I was a child so looking forward to getting back to it. I didn't want to just take the same shot as I could see how same-y they would be of the cliffs and sea. They are my favourite views though so I still wanted to record them, this way there will be a variety and the point of it was to get out and enjoy it. I know if it was the same shot I would cheat and go down in the car lol. (I know not clever; but I do know myself :) )

So yesterday after being stuck in bed or at work all week with the lurgy, Mum and I decided to get some fresh air and get my view shot. (The challenge is working, I would never have gone out otherwise).

We wanted to go down to Croyde as there is a flat bit.

And then of course we thought we would be clever and go up Middlesborough Hill. Well it was worth it but goodness it was a climb.

And my layout.

I also wanted to show you my completed January photo and layout as the layout had a dummy photo on it last time. This is how it turned out.

So I am pleased with how that is working out. I think I may write about each trip and add it into the album as separate pages or they will just fit into the project life album.

My minibook is shaping up differently to how I set out with it. I really like my neighbourhood shot of our 'everyday' dog walk.

So I am going to do it as an instagram and add the instagram logo to it. I downloaded this from Cathy Zielske's blog.

I am going to use the lines from the poem in this scrapbook.

January

 and February

I have not got round to taking my kitchen window photo yet but I have been thinking about what to do with them.

So thanks for joining in for those that have and for anyone that hasn't had chance you can do it anytime through the month and share it next month. Or come back and add it, whichever you prefer.

Ok, see you next month :)

The View Challenge: Additional Prompt #1

Hello again, I am so sorry I haven't been able to look at all your lovely posts yet but I am under attack from a lurgy, it hasn't beat me yet and I have dragged into work, but aside from that I have been in bed, which is where I am now. So I am hoping I will feel better by the weekend and will catch up then. 

In the meantime please show us you view from your kitchen window, or indeed any window in your house you fancy :)

Again, I am very sorry, hope to be back with you in a day or two. My family want to take me to casualty as I haven't even opened my laptop since monday so they think it must be very serious lol.

The View Challenge: February

Hello lovelies.

I am so glad we have Lucky Snapping to keep up with each other.

Firstly, I would like to say a massive thank you to Anne, Kathi, Lynne and Janice for their brilliant posts this month. We know Anne and Kathi have agreed to host each month and I am sure I can speak for the three of us that we hope that Lynne and Janice will contribute again as their quote and colour challenges will work over and over again as well. However, if any of you Lucky Snappers, new and old want to join in and help then please do let me know :)

So, my challenge, The View. I think I have changed my mind about this 100 times this month!

A couple of my friends are also calling it the kitchen window view and have taken the additional prompt on, which I love so I will be repeating that this month.

The one thing I do want it to be for me is that it is of the same view, so I get 12 months worth. However it would equally and more obviously work as a seasonal photo. So if you don't have time to join in every month, you could do one in January/February, then April/May, then July/August, then October/November. That would give you a real representation of the seasons as well.

Anyway, onto the challenge. It is to take a photo this month of your favourite view and then you will have 12 photos to represent each month. To hang it all together I am using the wonderful poem by Sara Coleridge.

The Months

January brings the snow,

makes our feet and fingers glow.

February brings the rain,

thaws the frozen lake again.

March brings breezes loud and shrill,

stirs the dancing daffodil.

April brings the primrose sweet,

scatters daisies at our feet.

May brings flocks of pretty lambs,

skipping by their fleecy dams.

June brings tulips, lilies, roses,

fills the children's hand with posies.

Hot July brings cooling showers,

apricots and gillyflowers.

August brings the sheaves of corn,

then the harvest home is borne.

Warm September brings the fruit,

sportsmen then begin to shoot.

Fresh October brings the pheasants,

then to gather nuts is pleasant.

Dull November brings the blast,

then the leaves are whirling fast.

Chill December brings the sleet,

blazing fire, and christmas treat.

Sara Coleridge

I mentioned that we may have snow during January to fit this months poem line of;

January brings the snow,

Makes our feet and fingers glow.

Well we did have snow in the majority of the country (I am so sorry on behalf of Mother Nature if you wanted it and you didn't get it) and notably for me according to my birthday wish this year, it arrived during the night of the 18th which was indeed my birthday. It made it a little special which it doesn't always feel like in the middle of January. I was always envious of my best friend Lisa, whose birthday is in August and we would spend it at the beach or in the sunshine. Not to mention the fact that as we fast approach 40 she is 8 months younger than I and we used to joke about how it was such a pain for her to have to wait to be 16, 17, 18 and how it wouldn't work for her until we were 40, that is so long ago now ;)

I will hopefully (if I remember to buy the photo paper) show you how the January layout ended up tomorrow.

So onto February.

February brings the rain,

thaws the frozen lake again.
My layout is all ready to go.

So some frost or some rain would suit, no doubt we will have the rain, and having seen the Countryfile weather forecast it is going to be cold enough for more wintry weather this week.

I'll be back tomorrow with more details of the layouts for those of you that are following along with that project.
I will add linky's on each post this week and then round them up at the end of the month.