Journeys Are My Diary

Life, Adventures, Entertainment and more - A little bit of everything blog!

#BEDM – Favourite Social Media Channel

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So today’s BEDM is:
Are you a Twitter-lover? Or maybe you can’t get enough of Pinterest? Do you need to share every meal on Instagram? Do you waste away the hours watching Youtube? Or Facebook is your comfort zone? Tell us about your favourite social media channel and why.

I use majority of social media platforms, however by far Facebook is my most used.

I check Facebook on my phone and on my computer, several times a day. I have notifications set up for all my close friends, so I don’t miss anything on my newsfeed. I’m also addicted (on and off) to some facebook games, but I play farmville daily. However that’s not to say I love Facebook or anything, its just that it seems to be the easiest/most used etc.

Having this topic today has actually resulted in me doing a bit of a web crawl. I’ve gone back to all the old sites I used to use, along with the new ones I do use. Here are the findings.

MySpace – aka My Spazz

My account wasn’t viewable unless I logged in, so I went to the effort of resetting my password and logging in. I haven’t used MySpace in 5 years and even then I obviously didn’t use it all that much. I still have 30 something friends on it and a few old photo albums. The ones that made me laugh the most were the ones of me, with the typical “myspazz” picture pose that we all seemed to do back then.

It makes me cringe really to look back on these

My friend Amy might possibly kill me for posting this next picture, but it amused me and it was like reminiscing so I’m going to do it any way. This is presumably from 5 years ago too.

One thing I did notice was that majority of MySpace layouts have gone and aren’t viewable any more. There was the offer to go to the “new” MySpace site, but my login doesn’t work for that so presumably you need to make a new account – which I have no intention of doing.

Bebo

Wow, anyone remember Bebo? The days of teenage angst…

This is my Bebo profile page. I’m already amused at this point that one of my usernames so far have been Tinker-Bel and the other Sleeping Beauty. Told you I was a Disney freak ;)

I didn’t really make a note of when I last used this, but it will have been at least 5 years ago too. The most amusing part of Bebo was always the whiteboard and the random quizzes you could set for your friends.

This one made me smile

Next comes… the ones I do still use…

Twitter

While I understand the concept of Twitter and why some people like it, Twitter isn’t really for me. I check it occasionally and of course if I get an email alerting me to being tagged or messaged.

On the whole I tend to just use Twitter sporadically and when I’ve made a new blog post. I don’t really like to publish my blog to Facebook as I don’t really want it to be a place that all my Facebook friends know about. Instead I tend to keep Twitter for blog friends and blog posts (I don’t tend to add blog friends to Facebook either).

Pinterest

I only just got myself a Pinterest account, maybe 2-3 months ago. I was looking for cake ideas for the Alice in Wonderland cake I was making and Pinterest seemed like a good idea to pin ideas and be able to find them easily. However I was one of those idiots who though it was called P-interest, rather than Pin-trest. It was only last week I was corrected on that.

As you can see, the few things I have pinned are Disney, Superhero, Alice in Wonderland etc. My page is called odds and sods because even as I was signing up I had no clue how it was going to work or what I would be pinning. Again I tend to check it once a week at the most and only re-pin or add pins when looking for cake/party ideas.

Instagram

I use instagram, but very very infrequently. I have it as an app on my iPhone but I hardly ever remember to check it. I don’t really even follow anyone on it, except Amy and even then I forget to check in and see what she’s up to.

As you can see I only have 22 photos uploaded, follow 14 people and have 10 following me. In fact I have only just realised, by searching my various forms of social media, that you can access instagram online. I have added it to my bookmark toolbar now though and so hopefully I will remember to check it more often.

Finally that leaves…

Tumblr

About a year ago I used to use tumblr all the time. I would check it several times daily, always working back to the last place I’d seen. However as I’m on the net a whole lot less these days, I don’t tend to bother as much. I check it once a week or so but only scroll down a little way. As you can see the last thing I reblogged was a month ago.

Obviously there are other forms of social media but either I don’t use them, or I use them so little that they’re not really worth a mention. Am I missing out on anything? A site you’d recommend?

Do you still have access to your old social media accounts?
When was the last time you went trawling through them?

#BEDM – First Job

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I’m honestly not 100% sure what my first proper job was. It was either a) a paper round or b) babysitting. I do know that some of the first real work I did was in the newsagents we used to live in, working behind the counter and serving customers – this never really changed either. I went from working for my parent’s business, to working in Mackays as a Stockroom Assistant. I then worked as a waitress in a restaurant called Bella Bella and ever since that I’ve mostly done waitressing or bar work. I even owned my own restaurant at one time called Cristobels. That was a lot of fun but a lot of hard work, it also took its toll on an already strained marriage.

When I was younger I wanted to be a teacher and then I wanted to be a lawyer. However I never did either. Now I have kids, its hard to say what career I would really like. In fact I find myself believing that a career isn’t really likely and instead it will just be a case of which job I’d like to do for the rest of my life (god that sounds depressing!). Obviously I just recently got a job, after being a housewife and full-time mum for almost 5 years (though I did work self employed for Betterware for a couple of years during that time). but thats in Telesales. I’m not running down anyone who is in that job, but for me its definitely not a job for life.

Right now I’m in the process of finding myself a job that will work well with school and term time. My current job has ideal hours, but something in an actual school would mean I would have holidays at the same time as the kids and work at the same time as the kids had school. I’m crossing my fingers for a current position in the pipeline, but I don’t want to hold my breath too much over it.

Anyway, nothing more to add for the moment! Hopefully find time to make some actual updates of my own soon.

#BEDM – Pets

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Today’s “Blog Every Day in May” challenge is about Pets. Sadly (or not really that sadly) I don’t currently have any.

Many years ago, I had a gorgeous golden Labrador called Sookie. She was just like the Andrex puppy, but obviously grew up to be a full size dog. She was the sweetest, softest dog in the world and she was sadly missed when she eventually passed away.

Other than that, I once had some gerbils called Bubble and Squeak. I remember one of them died and we replaced him with a pure white gerbil who we named Daz, after the wash powder. In my early teenage years I also had a goldfish who I affectionately named Icky (after Ichthus/Icthys, the greek word for fish). I actually won (or rather lost, since he was a losing prize) him at a local fair. I remember running around town to get a bowl and food, for this unexpected pet arrival. He didn’t survive long unfortunately – and took his final voyage down my toilet less than a year later.

I’ve honestly never really had a desire to own pets, I’m not really an animal person. When I was younger, I had horse riding lessons. The lady who lived near us had a horse and we had a random stable and large field, which she kept her horse in on the agreement I had lessons. I enjoyed it (I think!) but I was never the type to say I wanted to own a horse and its certainly not something I continued for long. I also love the look of bunnies, especially the ones with big floppy ears. I’ve always had a thing for cuddly toy bunnies too. However I could never own a real one. I don’t want the hassle of cleaning them out and I don’t really like the whole scurrying feet thing (as with gerbils, hamsters, guinea pigs etc.). I’d also love a dog, but the hassle of dog hairs, long walks and the smell of dog food is enough to put me off.

When my eldest daughter was around the age of three and I was pregnant with my second daughter  we bought her a goldfish. In all honesty I never expected it to live long. We named it Bubbles and in the five or so years it survived, it had 3 different fish tanks. It went from a tiny fish to a really large goldfish and though I hated cleaning the tank and being responsible for it, Bubbles definitely found a place in our family. Sadly he died at the beginning of this year (and even more sadly I can’t use the pun “the tail-end of last year”) and we have no plans to get any more pets.

Yes that is actually our dead fish Bubbles, RIP!

Having nearly always lived in rented accommodation  getting a pet has rarely been possible and like I said, not really something I’d be that bothered about. I love my kids to pieces but most of the time it feels like they’re little animals, so I definitely don’t need to add pets on top of that.

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#BEDM – Bank Holiday

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I have to be honest, that Bank Holiday has never really been here or there for me.

Originally I used to work as a waitress or even at one point own my own restaurant. Bank Holidays and in fact any general holiday (like Christmas, Easter etc.) just meant I had to work more and usually harder. It’s never been a day off, or a time and a half day, or a day that meant anything different.

As the years wore on and I started to work less or even not work at all, then Bank Holiday still meant nothing. My partner at the time and father of my children, still worked in the Hospitality trade and therefore he was at work. Obviously when the kids started at school it meant a day when they were at home rather than at school, but I didn’t usually have a car or even an inclination to do something with them, just by myself.

This is the first bank holiday that has felt a little different. As those who read my blog often will know, I just recently got a job. I work Monday-Friday, with Wednesday off, pretty much the total hours of school time (including travel to work and back). Ever since I started, my Wednesday’s have felt pretty jam packed as my one and only day off without the kids. This bank holiday was therefore my first “bank holiday off work”.

However, sadly that’s where the excitement ends, in a way at least. My partner is at work – all day. He left the house at 7.30am and won’t be back till 10pm. My kids also are out of the house, their dad having come and pick them up last night, had them to sleep over and then taking them to the beach today. I expect them home at any moment – tired, teary and covered in sand.

But that’s not to say I haven’t had a nice Monday. I have. My brother stopped over last night (because we all went to see Iron Man 3) and so today we have spent the day together. On May 31st its my birthday party and we’re writing our own murder mystery for it. Today has been our major planning and brainstorming day and so while my head hurts from thinking, its actually been a fun day.

Having got up (slowly) at around 9am this morning, we had coffee and caught up on the internet. We then postponed planning a little longer by making bacon butties and yet another coffee. Finally at around 11am we settled down to write some plans down, pausing a few more times to make more coffee. We finally took a break around 4pm, when we headed out to Frankie and Benny’s for some late lunch/early dinner. I took my notebook and pen and so we continued to plan between courses at the restaurant.

We have just got home and now neither of us feel like doing anything. He’s catching up on some League of Legends tournament that’s going on today, while I catch up on the net and write this blog. I’m literally just getting this post done, before going to put the kettle on, make another coffee and then kick his ass into planning more. No doubt the kids will come back soon and interfere with all that, but at least its the current plan.

Its been a beautiful day today and although there are lots of other ways I would have preferred to spend it, I can’t say I’m grumbling about how I did spend it. Back to work and kids to school as of tomorrow, but luckily its not too long until our next Bank Holiday Monday.

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#BEDM – Fit and Healthy

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I am neither fit or healthy. So instead of being a hypocrite, I’ll write about something else.

I have been up and down in weight, all my life. Generally, if I just eat comfortably, I sit at around the twelve stone mark. This is definitely overweight for my height and build. I can lose weight when I try, but its takes something fairly major to motivate me. Sadly over time I seem to gather more weight, resulting in one of these drastic “I need to lose weight” moments, that cause me to lose a few stone. My birthday is at the end of May and I ordered myself a size 14 dress with the hope it would motivate me to lose a few pounds. When it arrived, it fit (although I did comment it would look better if I lost a little weigth) and so far there has been no motivation to lose weight.

Tonight I had chips and kebab meat after going to the cinema. This afternoon I stumbled across a quaint little chocolate shop. I loved both. I love food – not just bad food, but all food. I’m not fit, I’m not healthy. Though I’m not massively unfit or unhealthy either.

Tomorrow I will write about Iron Man 3 (the movie I saw before having said donner meat and chips) and the little gem of a find, being the chocolate shop. Those are far more interesting than my lost hopes of every getting my figure back after two children ;)

May the 4th be with you

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May 4th has always meant something very different to me, than it does to the majority of the population. I’ve never been a massive fan of Star Wars (though I’m not against it either) but before May 4th became known as “May The Fourth Be With You”, May 4th was actually my dad’s birthday.

I say was, because sadly my dad isn’t around any more. He passed away in March of 2004, just before I fell pregnant with my first daughter.

My mum and dad met in Gibraltar. He was working for MI6, taking photographs of boats that entered in and out of the waters, while my mum worked as a primary school teacher out there. They dated only three months before my dad asked my mum to marry him. The date he proposed was May 28th 1976, the day that three years later would become my birthday. They married out in Gibraltar (picture above) but all of their family traveled to attend.

Dad and I in a photobooth.
The rest of the strip got lost – they were in my purse when it got stolen last December

Eventually though they moved back to the UK. I was born in May 1979, my brother in June 1982 and my sister in February 1985. We lived in Bristol (where I was born), Sheffield and then Wakefield (where my brother was born), then North Somercotes, Maltby Le Marsh, Louth and Saxilby (my sister was born in Louth while we lived in North Somercotes). For the majority of the time my dad was a dad, he worked and ran a newsagents. There were various ones, but the most memorable was the one we owned in North Somercotes – The Stores, Keeling Street.

By some miracle I’ve found this picture online. Its taken at the time we must have lived there. 1986.

I have some amazing memories of living here, especially ones with my dad. Mum still worked as a Primary School teacher but it wasn’t that local. Dad was almost a stay-at-home father, even though he was obviously working in the newsagents – all day, every day. I remember calling in during cross-country runs to get a drink, or heading out to do cash and carry in the big white mini bus we owned at the time. Special trips to KFC that we didn’t tell my mum about. Racing him to the door of the shop every time and crying once when he fell and I felt guilty.

Life changed a lot for us though during our ten years in North Somercotes. Eventually we moved out to Maltby Le Marsh, then to Louth. My dad re-trained to be a teacher, going back to University and starting from scratch. Though we used to fight on and off all the time, I was definitely closer to my dad than my mum. Again I have amazing memories of late night sneak takeaways that my brother and I would order, getting something for my dad but not being allowed to mention it to my mum. Carrots with Sunday Lunch that used to have to be raw, daring each other to drink the water the carrots had sat in.

I moved away to Wales, the first time I got married. During that time my dad got sick and I felt so far away. I’ll never forget the horror of realising he could have a heart attack and I would be much too far away to get there. Eventually it took its strain on my marriage (along with other things) and I ended up moving back to home. When my dad died, my family lived in Saxilby (the village I live in now) and thankfully I’d moved back in, then out again, but was only in Lincoln at the time.

However this wasn’t supposed to be some miserable and depressing post. I haven’t felt sad today, but instead just mindful and perhaps thankful.

My dad was an amazing man. He was loud, but god was he was funny. He was in fact just jolly. Everyone loved him – it was hard not to. I adored him, as little girls often do with their daddies. However at the same times there were days when I would just wish him away. He was tactless and stubborn, as men often are. But no hug in the world has ever compared to one of his. When the thunder crackled and the lightning flashed, dad being there always made everything okay. When my car window got smashed and I was working as a pitiful waitress, dad offering to pay for it to be mended meant the world to me. Even in my late teens and early twenties, I would still sit on his lap and snuggle up with him. Nothing will ever replace those memories.

The thing that probably makes me the saddest, aside from just missing him, is that my dad would have made an awesome grandad. My girls, who are so much like me, would have loved him to pieces. When dad retrained as a teacher, he found his niché in life. However had he ever got the opportunity to be a grandad, I know he would have been simply unbeatable at it.

When I was pregnant with Megan and scratched my then partner’s car, I wished my dad had been there to help me fix things. When my children were born, I wished my dad was there to see them, to love them and to be loved by them. On so many occasions I have thought about him and wished he was there. Even though I thought I would be okay writing this post, to celebrate and not commiserate his life, I find myself missing him and in tears.

To my dad, one of the most wonderful men I have ever met…
I love you. I miss you. Happy Birthday. You are always in my thoughts.
Your loving daughter, Belinda.

#BEDM – Five Favourite Blogs

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Today’s blog every day in May topic is – Five Fave Blogs. I’ll admit this is something I’ve actually had to put some thought into, as other than my Blogger friends, I don’t read an awful lot of blogs – therefore its very hard to have favourites.

One of my favourites is (obviously) Cocktails in Teacups. Amy is one of my best friends and has been for many years. She started blogging way before I did and her blog is also one of the reasons I considered doing it myself. I enjoy reading what she has to write (even the beauty stuff, which on other people’s blogs I skip over) but it also feels nice to keep up to date with my friend who lives hundreds of miles away and I don’t get to see anywhere near as much as I’d like.

Another two blogger favs are definitely The Sparkly Panda and Just Pirouette and Carry On. These two ladies (Rhiannon and Kate) were some of the first I followed and the first to follow back. They often comment on my blog and I try (though I’m rubbish at keeping up) to blog on theirs. They’re the two ladies I feel closest to outside of real life friends.

Finally it wouldn’t be right if I didn’t mention Tabby at The Closet Intellectual, because without her I probably wouldn’t have as many followers as I do. Her blog is full of interesting stuff, especially the random craft projects and words of inspiration.

So I’ve covered 4 out of my 5 and they’re all people on my blogger list. The fifth would have to be my brother’s new blog – It’s Not a Bug. He hasn’t posted on it for a while (and now he has a job he might hardly get round to it) but I enjoy his topics along with his style of writing. If you’re a gamer (either computer or board game) you should take a nosey. One day he might be famous.

Aside from my Blogger feed (Google Reader list) there are a couple of other blogs I go out of my way to read. With Bloglovin’ sending a daily email, I try to make an effort to also read these blogs:

 So those are my 5 Outside of Blogger Blogs!

Primark – just a little TOO cheap?

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I’m not usually one to write blog posts that outright bash something or someone. However I do like to consider myself honest when it comes to reviewing something. Most of the time I go by the logic that if you can’t say something nice, you probably shouldn’t say anything at all – unless you’re asked of course.

Today I went shopping to Primark. My original purpose was to buy two cheap light summer jackets, for the girls to wear to school, now that the weather is improving. Unfortunately I didn’t find anything suitable, but while I was there I did grab a couple of pairs of cheap shoes. A few of weeks ago, Megan realised she didn’t have any shoes to wear with a red and white dress, other than her school shoes and thus ended up changing her whole outfit. So when I saw some white shoes for only £4, I snapped up a bargain – buying a pair each for the girls, so as to not upset one or other of them.

Please note the date and time of my shop – 3/5/13 at 14.38

Now I don’t expect massive lifespan on anything I buy from Primark. I’m aware it has a limited longevity but for kids stuff that’s mostly okay, as they damage things or grow out of them fast. However today’s purchase surprised me enough to be making a blog post about it…

At 14.38, I was in Lincoln making my purchase. I then walked back to my car, drove home, picked the kids up from school and then took them back to our house. At around 4pm I showed them their shoes, which they excitedly wanted to try on, so I sent them upstairs to get changed. At around 5pm we left the house to go and meet my partner for dinner. By this point they had been wearing the shoes briefly, around the house and about 10 steps outside to the car. When we parked in Lincoln, we had approximately a five minute walk to “Ask Italian”, the place we were going for dinner. The kids behaved well, sat drawing on the tables (which is allowed I might add!) and there was definitely no crawling around on the floor.

We finished our meal at 19.15, according to the Ask receipt. We then walked the same five minutes back to the car – there was no rain, barely any wind, in fact its been a lovely day. The kids then got back in the car, we drove home and although there was some messing around and chit chat to be done outside the house, we headed indoors to get ready for bed.

Lily’s shoes as we got ready for bed

I was amazed and honestly a little disgusted, to find that Lily’s shoes were already on their way out. Megan, who had actually climbed on Chris’ motorbike when we got home, had admittedly got dirty shoes, but Lily who had done nothing out of the ordinary and only worn her shoes for a total of about three or four hours, had already wrecked them.

How cheap is too cheap? How little should we expect from a pair of shoes that only cost us £4? Is it false economy to buy something for a fifth of the price of a decent pair of shoes? I fully appreciate that their are shops like Primark, especially in a my life as a single mum of two small children. However for the sake of paying maybe £2-£4 more pounds, perhaps I should just stick to Tesco or Asda clothing, where at least the kids get more than four hours of life from their shoes….

#BEDM – A day in the life of…

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Now today isn’t necessarily your average day, but since today is BEDM’s “a day in the life of” topic, here is my day…

I woke up around 7am, though clearly I was far too tired/bleary-eyed to even contemplate the first thoughts of my BEDM challenge.

I got up, got dressed, got the kids ready for school and then drove them there for 8.50am
After dropping the kids off, I went to work. I grabbed a sneaky McDonalds breakfast first though

An hour into work and I break out the max strength flu tablets… though feeling better today

A few hours into work and I’ve added a cup of tea to my dull day

After work I head into Lincoln for an hour, wanting to grab a few bits of shopping

First things first is a call into Ladbrokes to see my partner Chris and ask if he’s free for lunch
After that, a quick stop off at Subway for a Steak and Cheese sub

Next comes Primark, in search of light summer coats for the girls – but no luck
A couple of pairs of shoes purchased and a mattress protector though.

After squeezing my rather large new car out of a very tight car parking space, accidentally crashing the whole electronics on my car, and worrying it might not start due to the immobiliser false start, I finally get out of Lincoln and head back home. I pick up the kids from school and come home to get changed. We then head back out to Lincoln to meet Chris for dinner.

We went to ASK Italian for dinner. Did you know they let you draw on the tables?

The food was great but the service was amazing. We all had a great time.

A little too much fun with the drawing perhaps…
Because we’re being careful with money, this treat was on Tesco – hard saved up vouchers

Because we met Chris from work, he was on his bike and we were in the car.
We waited for him in the Toys R Us car park, so we could all drive home together.

When we got home the girls decided they wanted to ride on Chris’ bike
(please note the engine was never turned on!)

Lily decided she just wanted to look the part…

Finally the kids were in bed, the coffee was made and it was time to sit down and write my blog!
(Coffee is a new sample I have to try, courtesy of BzzAgent!)
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#BEDM – Spring is Here

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It’s funny really how everyone is suddenly talking about Spring. Technically Spring started back in March, though you wouldn’t have known it with the weather we had. Yesterday was the 1st May and it was almost as if the weather decided it was about time it started acting more Springlike. The sun is out, the wind is milder and despite feeling ill these last few days, I’ve definitely noticed the improvement.

As I’ve mentioned before (and even yesterday) May is my favourite month. Some of that no doubt is because my birthday is in it, my youngest daughter’s middle name is also May, but I’m sure it’s also something more than that. The may blossom on the trees, the snowdrops on the grass verges, everything looks that bit greener and that bit more alive.

I do love Spring, but I think in many ways its because it feels like the sign that Summer is coming. Granted in Britain our idea of summer isn’t really anything to get excited about, but a slight break in the grey wet days is definitely something to smile about in my book.

What do you like about Spring?

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