I'm going to be rich!

Here it is, confirmation of my first day's earnings from my AdSense account:

I'm so pleased!  Riches are coming to me, of that I am absolutely certain.  Within the next week, I could, potentially, have earned... seven pence!  By this time next year, I may well, if my luck holds, have earned £3.65.  Now that will be something to celebrate, and provided that inflation hasn't gone too crazy, I might be able to buy myself a drink with those earnings.

Playmobil is ace

Come on, I mean, how cute is Playmobil these days?  Seriously cute.  I was playing with Matthew yesterday, emptying all of the big stuff out of the Playmobil box, and looking for the teeny things in the bottom that we needed for our little campsite.  We had the camper van, and the chairs and tables, but we needed all the food, and the plates and cutlery.  Nothing has been lost from our Playmobil sets, which is somewhat of a miracle when you consider just how tiny the pieces are!  And so well made, no little sprues* on the plastic, all beautifully finished.  We have the teeniest little mobile phone, that is only just bigger than a Playmobil person's hand.  Never been lost.  Amazing.

These first two photos are of the ice-cream parlour, which Kev's parents bought the boys last Christmas. It's Gorgeous!  Look at those little bowls of ice-cream, and that dinky little scoop!  Now, I usually don't like to use exclamation marks in my writing (proper writers shouldn't need them, you know!), but descriptions of Playmobil do require them.  So apologies for my over-zealous use of them.

And here we have the inside of the camper van.  These little compartments are cunningly concealed underneath the beds!  Ohhh, so cute!  Tiny little cups and plates, tiny little forks and knives.  I can barely stand it, I just want to cry at the cuteness!  Now, I don't know about you, but so called girls toys have nothing on this stuff - so called boys toys are way cooler.  (I hate all that rubbish about boys and girls toys, and so wish that shops wouldn't play to that insecurity that lots of parents have about their children becoming gay if they don't play with gender-appropriate toys!  Matthew would love to have a doll's house, and the two reasons he can't have one are because we can't afford it, and we haven't the space in the house.  If it were within my power and means to get him one, then he would have one, because he would get so much enjoyment from it - when we go into the Early Learning Centre he can always be found playing with the doll's house.  Does this mean he's gay?  Tt, who cares?!)

That's my hand, right there.

So, we plonked it all back in the Playmobil box at the end of the day, and this afternoon we'll have to dig it all out again!  But half the fun of Playmobil is in the hours spent setting it all up, isn't it, just for ten minutes of actual playing?  :)


*sprue 1 |sproō|
nouna channel through which metal or plastic is poured into a mold.• a piece of metal or plastic that has solidified in a sprue, esp.one joining a number of small molded plastic items.

Bad Girl!

My HubPages addiction is becoming a bit of a problem this week.  I really must stay away from it, and only check it once a day at the most!  A watched pot never boils, is what 'they' say, is it not?  If someone's going to leave a comment on one of my hubs, that comment will still be there by the time evening comes, so there's no need for me to be checking several times a day.  Ridiculous woman!

I am maaaaaaaad at myself for wasting my morning on HubPages, without even composing a hub.  Idiot!

That's all I have to say for now.

Here is our tree :)  It's just a Christmas tree, same as anyone else's I suppose.  But I'm always quite proud of my tree, because it's always so sparkly and lovely :)  The picture doesn't quite do it justice, because we have bad lighting for photos in the living room.  But I think we have about 400 fairy lights on our tree, and when the big living room light is off at night, and the tree is just standing on its own in the corner, all twinkly, it looks splendid.  

I'm not sure if our tree is going to last though.  We were supposed to get it straight into water, but we didn't.  Now I'm not sure if it's taking any water in, or whether it's going to suddenly wilt because the cut that the Christmas-tree-selling-man made sealed up before we got the tree into it's little bath.  But hopefully it will be alright.  Mind you, our house can be pretty chilly, so maybe it doesn't really want a drink of anything cold.  Perhaps I should give it a cup of tea every morning.

Currently I am enjoying the arty photographing of three different sizes of shot (I don't even know how to talk about photography, so I hope you get the gist of what I'm saying - sorry).  So we have the big picture, of the whole of the Christmas tree above.  Then, below, we have a close up of part of it.  And then below that, we have an extreme close up (possibly using the macro setting, if necessary).  I don't know what you call this, but I'm enjoying it.  You might have noticed that I did it with the teabags the other day?  Only my camera on my phone wasn't really able to get a good close up of the tealeaves because of the mesh being in the way.

That sparkle has come out rather nicely, don't you think? :)  Sparkle can be tricky to photograph, especially in too much light.  But too little light can be a problem too.  What do I know though?  Absolutely nothing.  I just point and click.

I do have a nice camera, which I use a lot.  But mostly I use it when we're going somewhere, on holiday, or for a walk somewhere.  For my blog I use my phone's camera, which is sufficient to meet my blogging needs usually.  It is a humble 3.2 megapixel affair, which I have very little control over.  It really is just a case of pointing and clicking.  But it's a goody :)  This is the most bestest phone I have had yet, and I think I will keep it for quite a long time, until it dies.  I have no real need for an iPhone, but I will probably choose something like that when my current phone dies.  My current phone is a simple Nokia, that is only a phone, a texting implement, and a camera.  It does nothing else fancy, but it is sturdy and small and comfortable to use, and doesn't have any faults.  

This is my phone.  Lovely :)

Anyway, that'll do for today, I should think.  Actually supposed to be writing a book today!  But as usual, got distracted by the sparkly and shiny internet!  

Tidy work area :)

Welcome to my writing space :)  This is where I like to write, and where I am able to concentrate best ... when it looks like this!  Until yesterday it did not look like this.  I should have taken a before picture, but I forgot.  But rest assured that it was a completely horrendous mess of random bits of paper and receipts and carrier bags and leaflets and dead batteries and crisp packets and dried up pens and teaspoons and tiny broken toys and many books piled high.  Bit by bit I am dejunking my house, and it is lovely.  Greater peace of mind accompanies each newly tidied area, and now I am thinking that whoever said that we should forget about housework when we have children was completely mistaken!  Tidy house equals nice and happy mummy!  Tidy house equals a stronger inclination to play with the kiddoes!  Tidy house seems to equal more hours in a day!

As you can see, I still have clutter on the shelves, but it's all necessary.  I have quite a few treasures that I can't possibly throw away, because they make me happy, and precious people have given them to me.  I have a small collection of perfectly round stones (a collection of two!) that James collects for me - wasn't that a clever way of ensuring that we don't bring half of the beach with us when we've been combing it?  'Only perfectly round stones please, nothing else will do boys.'  ;)  I also have a signed photo from Christopher Paolini which must be on display at all times, for inspiration.

Christopher Paolini (born November 17, 1983 in Southern California) is an American novelist. He is best known as the author of theInheritance Cycle, which consists of the books Eragon, Eldest, Brisingr, and a currently untitled fourth book. He lives in Paradise Valley, Montana, where he wrote his first book.

But a tidy work area is essential to me for writing.  Since tidying this tiny desk my book has miraculously come together in my head - coincidence?  I think not!  Onward....

Christmas shopping - bought mesell these!

Yes, I went Christmas shopping on Tuesday, to one of my favourite garden centres.  It's a trip I make around this time every year.  It has a divinely beautiful gift shop, which pretty much sells the same things every year - this is good, because I always know that if I can't afford those few extra pressies one year, I can put them to the top of the list for the year after.  At this particular garden centre I buy those presents for other people that I would actually like to keep for myself (I can't tell you what those are, because it would spoil the surprises for my loved ones!)

This season the garden centre is stocking a new brand of teabag!  Wow!  Astounding news.  I've been intrigued by this new material that is used for the bag, which I have also seen in my cup at Starbucks - it's apparently some kind of biodegradable material, but I don't know what it's called.  They shimmer, and reflect light in undulating and billowy way, and they feel almost satiny.  They are actually not called teabags, they are called 'tea temples' - how lovely is that??

Just look how pretty these Earl Grey tea temples are:

Shame that the tea tastes like crap!