Wednesday, June 16, 2010

Theme a day e-Journal - Last entry??

I am in a spot of trouble.
I starting out following the prompts in order and then decided to mix them up. Now I can't figure out if I accidentally numbered an entry twice - I found one such mistake so far- or did i miss a prompt. Ooops
There were times when I did a journal entry in my head or wrote out a response on the paper I had at the time but I am not sure if got to my computer and actually did it.
Like the list of 100 - I was convinced that I had organised a separate swap on just that topic and had saved it as a pdf file but when I wanted to transfer it to my blog I could not find it.

ahhh well I sending the link to my partner.

mmm Here are the Links to my post - maybe I will find the missing one.

Theme A day e-Journal Links:

1) Write an introduction.

2) Make a list of 10 things you need to do this week.

3) Who did you talk to today? List everyone even if it was just a hello to someone.

4) Write about your hobbies. Feel free to include a sample or a photo.

5) Create either a really ugly page (images, draw bad, ugly stickers, etc) or a really pretty page (images you like, cute/pretty drawings, pretty stuff)

6) List 10 things you can see from where you're sitting.

7) Electricity is a recent discovery. Think of 12 things you can do when there is no electricity available.

8) How much money did you spend today and what did you buy? From where?

9) Write a timeline of your day today. For example: 8:00 AM--Woke up and ate Frosted Flakes for breakfast. 8:30 AM--Took a shower and realized I was out of mousse when I started doing my hair.

10) Write down lyrics or a poem you really like.

11) Write about what scares you.

12) Write in a circle. Start at the top, side, bottom, middle and write making a huge never-ending line making a circle! Fill up mostly the whole page writing about a favorite ritual or tradition.

13) Cut out pictures, text, from magazines, newspapers, etc and glue them to the page to make art. Scan them in or make an online collage using picasa or .....

Now this something I definitely remember doing - or did I get mixed up.Please find it in this post.


14) List 100 things you love (could be places, objects, people, etc)

15) Write about something you volunteered for or to do.

16) E-mail your partner a gift eg. scrapbook embellishments, e-book or .......

17) Write down a recipe you have tried and ENJOY! Did you make any adjustment to the recipe and why did you enjoy it?

18) Write about 5 of your short/long term goals?

19) List 10 things that you love (to do someday).

20) Write with multiple colors on the same page. The theme "If I could change one thing about my life it would be..... and why.."

21) Describe your favorite place to write in your journal and why it's your favorite. If you don't normally keep a journal, like myself, Describe your favorite place to just get away from it all. Someplace you like to be by yourself!

22) Write in all capital letters today about your pet peeves.

23) Look around the room. Choose one thing you see and write about it.

24) Tear or cut up a photo, magazine pic, map, etc., and glue the pieces back together randomly. Once again you can either scan this in or use your own computer software to crop and change your photos.

25) List three things you can't live without. (not the basic air, water, food)

26) If you had to evacuate your home because of a natural disaster, what three things would you take with you?

27) List 5 things you have collected at any time in your life.

28) Glue in or Insert picture of an artifact from your day. This could be a business card from a place you visited, a ticket from a movie you saw, a stamp from an envelope, etc.

29) Make a list of things you sense right now for each of your five senses: Touch, taste, sight, smell, sound.

30) Talk about the weather today and what you like or dislike about it. Tell us your favorite season. SEASON (3 posts)

Tuesday, June 15, 2010

Theme A Day eJournal Entry 29

23) Look around the room. Choose one thing you see and write about it.

The colour blue. We rent our home. We move a lot and basically have to take the homes as they come. I was really pleased to discover that my home office would be th eblue room. It has blue walls and blue curtians.

From a young age I decided that blue was my favourite colour. It helped my family out because my cousin Hayley and I celebrated our birthdays together (up until I was 12 and she was 11). We always got the same presents and depending on what it was hers was always pink and mine blue.

For a while navy blue was my favourite shade but now I like all shades of blue.

When I think back as to why blue was my favourite color a number of things popped into my head - I just didn't like pink and blue was considered to its opposite. Right from an early age I sensed the males had power, so by taking on the colour blue I would have power. That might sound a bit weird but I was "Tom boy".
Now I find the colour blue calming, serene, comforting and yes powerful.

Theme A day e-journal Entry 27


I used lemons and left out the decorating bit. Also used a ready made sweet pastry case - just because I didn't have a lot of time. Fills two pastry cases.

Reminds me of cheesecake - love the texture and slight lemon that offsets the sweetness.

KEY LIME (LEMON) PIE
  • over 1 hour
  • Serves 8

Ingredients

Base:

  • 250g (9oz) digestive biscuits
  • 100g (3½oz) butter, melted

Filling:

  • 405g can Carnation Condensed Milk Light
  • finely grated zest and juice of 5 large limes
  • 300ml carton double cream

To decorate:

  • 30g (1oz) bitter chocolate (70% cocoa solids), melted
  • 6-8 thin lime wedges and slivers of zest

You will also need:

  • 20cm (8”) loose-bottomed cake tin, greased

Method

  1. To make the base, blitz the biscuits in a food processor until they are like fine crumbs and then combine with the melted butter. Press the mixture into the base and 4cm (1½") up the sides of the tin. Chill the base while you make the filling.
  2. Whisk together the filling ingredients until thick and creamy. Spoon over the biscuit base and chill for at least 1 hour.
  3. Remove the pie from the tin and place on a serving plate. Drizzle the melted chocolate over the top and leave to set. Before serving, decorate with the lime wedges and the zest.

Tips

This recipe can also be made with lemons – replace the limes with four lemons.


Theme A day e-journal Entry 26

29) Make a list of things you sense right now for each of your five senses: Touch, taste, sight, smell, sound.

Smell: Sicilian citrus candle

Touch: smooth keyboard keys

Sound: the tapping of my husbands and my keyboard keys
Sight: Candle flame, Yellow School letter and Read School Dates behind the computer screen, my daughters pencil cases and camera case in my periphiral vision

Taste: The after taste of the Apple, mango and Lime fruit juice I had before coming up and doing this journal entry.

Theme A Day e-Journal Entry 25

My daughter filling in her passport.
at the
The 'Earth from the Air' exhibition


Glue in or Insert picture of an artifact from your day. This could be a business card from a place you visited, a ticket from a movie you saw, a stamp from an envelope, etc.

Theme A Day e-Journal Entry 24

Prompt 15: Write about something you volunteered for or to do.

Volunteering is an important part of my life and who I am.

I often have to make sure I don't volunteer too much.

I remember as a child I would volunteer to do projects (e.g.go door to door collecting money for Harvest Ingathering - now called ADRA) for church partly to get out of doing house work - but that didn't fool my mom who made me do my chores.

When I au paired in the USA I joined a volunteer program where I called an old lady once a week just to chat. If I picked up that she was not well or did not answer her phone I could alert the organisation who then get some help in.

Worked as a volunteer Nature guide near Port Sheptstone, South Africa. It was something I could do with my daughter in a pouch.

When I arrived in Northern Ireland I volunteered at the CAB (Citizens Advice bureau) for 6 months or so.

Now most of volunteering is around children - baby sitting, tutoring, teaching in church etc.....

Monday, June 14, 2010

Theme A Day e-Journal Entry 23

List 100 things you love (could be places, objects, people, etc)

I did a quick run through my past blog post because I thought I had done a list like this - its probaly on my external hard drive connected to my husbands computer.
But as I looked at some of the post and photos I knew that that my blog reflects the list that I have below.

I love
1. God
2. my husband
3. My daughter
3. My family (extended included)
4. My friends (even the ones I have not met in person)
5. Nature
6. Walking
7. Reading
8. Knitting
9. Photography
10. Art
11. Learning
12. Teaching
13. Waterfalls, rivers, sea, beachfronts
14. dancing
15. Listening to music
16. relaxing on my couch
17. Getting massages
18. Foot spa
19. Reflexology
20. Exploring towns.
21. Being a tourist.
22. Organising outings
23. Helping others
24. Soaking in the bath
25. My hair
26. Doing jigsaw puzzles with a partner or partners
27. History
28. Listening to people's stories
29. Meeting new people
30. Going to coffee shops
31. Free events like the Children's festival and Street theatre
32. Going to the Theatre
33. Dressing up fancy
34. Pampering with the girls
35. Coffee
36. Poetry
37. The Library
38. Mazes
39. Free Walking Tours
40. Museums
41. Central heating
42. Reasons to celebrate
43. Getting presents
44. Giving presents
45. Doing creative things
46. Adventure
47. Internet
48. Postal service
49. swap-bot
50. Food
51. desserts
52. Game drives - especially at night
53. sunsets
54. Sunrises
55. The fact that all my five senses still function
56. Paris
57. South Africa
58. Ireland
59. Washington DC
60. Sleeping in late on Sunday
61. getting breakfast in bed
62. Dinner parties
63. Grease
64. Fiddler on the roof (walked down the aisle to music from it)
65. Musicals
66. Liturgical dancing
67. Dramatic Prose
68. Road trips
69. Hugs
70. Kissing
71. Autumn
72. Positivity
73. Personality quizzes
74. Planning
75. Researching for ideas and information
76. Getting meaning e-mails and letters
77. special dates with my daughter
78. Hearing my husband's praises
79. Hearing him praise me
80. feeling like I am doing something meaningful
81. Freecycle
82. Laughing
83. Good company
84. Talking
85. Being on holiday
86. Festivals
87. Birthdays
88. Success in the kitchen (does not come naturally)
89. Inspiring quotes
90. Cheap prices for oversea telephone calls and Skype
91. nature Reserves
92. Environmentally friendly behaviour
93. Peace
94. Life
95. Love
96. Hope
97. Ticking things off my to do list
98. variety (Idiom- variety is the spice of life)

This picture was drawn by Erika Aoyama

99. Having fun
100. me

Theme A day eJournal Entry 28

Prompt: Write about 5 of your short/long term goals?

Short Term:

1. Lose 10% of weight in the next two months/8 weeks.
2. Choose a course to study to stimulate myself - either part-time study or correspondence. Either creative writing, health or education.
3.Improve my writing skills (do writing exercises everyday)
4. Organise the running of home (so that when I go to work it is easier to maintain)
5. Improve my photography skills

Long Term:

1.Find a way to bring an extra income into our home either by find a job or starting my own business.
2. Reaching my ideal weight of 65kg/143 pounds/10 stone. [current weight is 18st]

Theme A Day eJournal Entry 22

I actually did this earlier but just forgot to post it because it was such a hectic weekend. FRIDAY 21 May 2010.

I had a guest (Rachel Hyman) from the USA - she is a well known singer in Seventh -Day Adventist circles and a friend from Larne Church who was also doing the the Kid's in Discipleship course.

On the Friday I got up early to make sure we were all ready to leave by 7:50am for breakfast at the church Hall. We needed to buy extra bread on our way over.
I bought a packed lunch from Tesco for Jeandre to make life easier. Rachel sorted herself out with food because she has lots allergies etc.

Get home after 7pm - do homework for the course and then just hang out - chat.
We ended up only finishing off at about 8:15pm and because my husband had to lock up we were the last ones to leave.
My daughter went to Larne for the night.
We promised ourselves we would not stay up late but when you get three talkative women together that is mission impossible!!
Got to bed at about 11:30pm.

What was great about this day is that I didn't have to cook.

After breakfast my husband took my daughter to school and then somehow he ended being the one who fetched.


Theme A day e-journal 21


E-mail your partner a gift eg. scrapbook embellishments, e-book or .......

I e-mailed my partner an e-book.

Nine Dragons (2009)

From the streets of L.A. to the shimmering skyline of Hong Kong, Harry Bosch must find his missing daughter.

Harry Bosch is assigned a homicide call in South L.A. that takes him to Fortune Liquors, where the Chinese owner has been shot to death behind the counter in a robbery. Joined by members of the department's Asian Crime Unit, Bosch relentlessly investigates the killing and soon identifies a suspect, a Los Angeles member of a Hong Kong triad.

But before Harry can close in, he gets the word that his young daughter Maddie, who lives in Hong Kong with her mother, is missing.

Bosch drops everything to journey across the Pacific to find his daughter. Could her disappearance and the case be connected? With the stakes of the investigation so high and so personal, Bosch is up against the clock in a new city, where nothing is at it seems.

Nine Dragons, the most personal and thrilling Harry Bosch story yet...

Official Site:http://www.michaelconnelly.com/Book_Collection/NineDragons/ninedragons.html

Theme a Day Journal Entry 20

If you had to evacuate your home because of a natural disaster, what three things would you take with you?

My "hand" bag - its a a small backpack and it has a few essentials in it including my wallet, passport, hand cream, headache tablets, callus protectors, lipstick, water bottle, cellphone and a pen. I HOPE that counts as one thing LOL.

Okay seriously, if I had to escape quickly my handbag does have essentials in them.
1. Cellphone has contacts for my doctor, family and friends - Alternatively I would have to make sure I had an address book with all that information in it.
2. Important documents eg. passport, driver license, insurance, birthcertifcates etc....
3. Prescription Medicines and a water bottle.

I have never thought much about this before. Growing up in South Africa the main natural disaster I experienced was a drought. I remember using bath water to water our garden and to clean the toilet.
Its always been something that happens elsewhere but i don't live in SA anymore and even SA with climate change anything can happen.
This was soemthing important to think about.

i am in the process of renewing my visa to stay in the UK and its amazing how vulnerable you are when you don;t have anything on you that can identify who you are. they have my passport, drivers license, birth certificate etc.

How to prepare for a natural disaster?

http://www.breastcancer.org/tips/emergencies.jsp

Theme a Day Entry 19

21) Describe your favorite place to write in your journal and why it's your favorite. If you don't normally keep a journal, like myself, Describe your favorite place to just get away from it all. Someplace you like to be by yourself!

There a few spots I enjoy.

The first is the couch by the window in our lounge. I enjoy relaxing on it, looking out the window, sipping coffee and writing or reading or think or just be.
Why? Its comfortable, close by and makes me feel like i am in a dream......

I also enjoy walking in Huntly Wood - being the forest area and near the river. I love being near water to think, write , feed my soul. It can be a beach, dam, river etc.
I find the sound of the water and nature very soothing and comforting. Looking at water is also very meditative for me - it makes me feel energized and hopeful.

Theme A Day e-Journal Entry 18

11) Write about what scares you.

I am and have always been scared of being misunderstood, being judged harshly.

There are a few things that scare me but I try not to let them inhibit me. I scared of looking down from high up - I just get this overwhelming feeling that i must throw myself over - it scares me that one day I would do it- just because....

I scared of big spiders but I will get a broom and sweep it out.
Snakes scare me. i had a friend that had pet snakes and I had it on my arm, it really feels weird, like it could just wrap itself round your arm and stop the blood from flowing.

I really get scared and freeze up when a child - especially my own child gets hurt or really sick. i have done First Aid training but it just all flies out of my head.

ooh I could go on and on but I really don't want to.

Friday, June 11, 2010

Theme a dy e-Journal Entry 17



Prompt: List three things you can't live without. (not the basic air, water, food)

1. Love
2. Hope
3. Faith

Wants the point of living without these things. Life then becomes meaningless. A drudgery.

How we define each of these and what they mean to us may be different. I see them essential to my life.




Love quotes
Love Quotes | Forward this Graphic

Theme a Day e-Journal entry 16

Monday, June 07, 2010

Theme A Day Journal Entry 15

The theme "If I could change one thing about my life it would be..... and why..

At first I was blank then the first thing that popped in head was living healthy all time - not just in fits and starts like I do now. then I wondered if that counted because that is something I do have the power to change - well at least I should have but I have been failing at it for the last 9 years. Some of it has been out of my control like getting injured and sick at crucial points.

The next thing that popped into my head was money. I wish I had enough to do all things I want like bring my mom over to visit me, travel, help other etc....

If I had to choose between the two I would would definitely choose my health. Why? I could then think more clearly and work more effectively. I wold be able to enjoy life more. I would have more energy. I wold be able to help others better. I would be a good role model to my daughter.

By health I include mental, physical, spiritual and social systems in my life.

Tuesday, June 01, 2010

Theme a day e-Journal Entry 14

19) List 10 things that you would love to do someday.

mmmm This is a difficult one for me because I have done almost everything I wanted to do like visit Paris, do an Open Swim, a 3 day hike etc....

1. Write a book. (working on it but keep getting distracted by life - hehehehehe)

2. Visit Victoria Falls in Zimbabwe.

3. Bring my mother over to Europe for a 6 month visit.

4. Go on a Spa Holiday.

5. Doing something that will leave a positive legacy.

6. Go on a Pony Trek

7. Do a volunteer trip somewhere in the world example - help build a house or teach etc......

8. Sleep in a Tree house resort or camp.

9. Get a hot stone massage

10. Do a walking tour of Belfast.


I thought this list was interesting:

10 Things Everyone Should Have Done Before 31