Lazy Sunday #38

April 23, 2017 paulaacton1 Comment

It is lunchtime I have been productive, well sort of, I have washing out on the line and I have planted a load of veg seeds, not guaranteed anything will grow but we can but try. Am just about to go take the second lot of washing out of the washer and go put that out but I still feel lazy. Yes, it is that one day of the year that I feel guilty having a lie in, it is marathon day! I have never been one for running long distances in fact I hated stamina days when I did athletics as a teen but after make back surgery I realised that my chances of ever running one were more or less gone, it is on my bucket list so I have not given up on the idea completely but the one thing I love is not only watching the excitement of the elite races but watching all those running for charities, joining in the atmosphere on the course, they may not get records but they will have achieved something truly incredible. So between housework and writing today I shall be watching the unicorns, firemen, nurses and a hundred other fancy dress outfits cross the finish line.

the first blog post I am sharing is one that made me jealous, would love the chance to attend events like this, it just seems that time wise it never quite works out for me https://isleofbooks.com/2017/04/10/an-evening-with-neil-gaiman-in-review/
As mentioned above it has been school holidays here and sometimes you just need a good laugh https://thestoryreadingapeblog.com/2017/04/10/when-saying-oops-is-not-enough/
If you are scared of spiders you might need to skip this one but other wise it is an inspiring post about how you can look death in the face and say not today thank you https://accidentalspacegirl.com/2017/04/17/the-tarantula-who-saved-my-life/
My final two blog for today are both A -Z posts, I am doing so badly and will take a few extra posts to catch up and make the finish date, I haven’t quite given up but we shall see, I picked this first one because it hit a nerve with me as we all have that point where we have to decide at what point we class ourselves as writer, authors or still make excuses for doing the thing we love, https://lindaghill.com/2017/04/20/qualification-atozchallenge/
The final one is just because it’s Doctor Who themed and well why not https://nerdygirlconfession.wordpress.com/2017/04/22/s-is-for-im-so-so-sorry/

A - Z Challenge 2017

H is for – #AtoZChallenge

April 21, 2017April 21, 2017 paulaactonLeave a comment

hoard

[hawrd, hohrd]

Synonyms
Examples
Word Origin

See more synonyms on Thesaurus.com

noun

a supply or accumulation that is hidden or carefully guarded for preservation, future use, etc.:

a vast hoard of silver.

verb (used with object)

to accumulate for preservation, future use, etc., in a hidden or carefully guarded place:

to hoard food during a shortage.

verb (used without object)

to accumulate money, food, or the like, in a hidden or carefully guarded place for preservation, future use, etc.

Starting the timer now…

It is strange when you read a definition yet the most commonly thought of use of the word is not included, once upon a time to hoard things was seen as a positive but these days because of certain types of Tv programmes we thing of hoarding in negative terms, you think of houses piled with newspapers, a labyrinth of junk to squeeze between. I guess the question that I am pondering is where is the line between positive and negative hoarding?

My dad has shed in the garden full of what my mother classes as junk, broken electronics, motor parts, things he intended fixing or things he thought would come in useful, my son thinks it is a treasure trove, he wants to be an engineer at the minute (palaeontologist has been replaced at the top of his career choices for now) so he sees a hoard of treasures he could create fantastical inventions from. On the other hand my mum is a crafter, she has reams of paper, card, jars of glitter, paints and a million other items for creating cards, doing cross stitch, all of which my dad thinks are junk and take up too much space in the house. In my house I have too much stuff for the size of my house, I know this, but the majority of what is packed in boxes were gifts, my collection of elephants packed away so the cats, and, let’s just say, people that blamed the cats, could not damage any more of them, my Pop Funko’s which I love but are patiently waiting for a bigger house with an office where they can live and the biggest hoard, books!

I know there are books I should probably get rid of, I have so many still to read that re-reading others makes no sense yet I still do it, I do not just keep sets by my favourite authors, I pretty much keep all the books I buy, the only I clear out are kids books as they become to babyish for them though again classics such as the Enid Blyton Magic Faraway Tree books remain. My ex frequently threatened a trip to a car boot sale with my books but then to be honest he frequently saw things by their monetary value rather than the pleasure they could give, even checking to see if the oil paintings I possessed were worth anything, the are of course worth only what someone would pay for them the Ebay going rate for the is between £50 – 200 to me they are priceless they are not just paintings they are the story behind their acquisition, books are the same, they are not the paper upon which they are printed, they are the worlds created within the cover.

Am I a book hoarder? Maybe! Am I a collector of stories, a traveller to a thousand lands? Hell yeah!

The timer has gone so tell me what could you be accused of hoarding?

A - Z Challenge 2017

D is for discotheque – #AtoZChallenge

April 14, 2017 paulaacton1 Comment

discotheque

or discothèque

[dis-kuh-tek, dis-kuh–tek]

Examples
Word Origin

See more synonyms on Thesaurus.com

noun

a nightclub for dancing to live or recorded music and often featuring sophisticated sound systems, elaborate lighting, and other effects.

And the timer is go…

When I think of discos I have to confess I am transported back in time, these days we have clubs, places that are about being seen and looking good, somewhere in the late eighties disco’s turned into clubs where ravers met to dance the night away that morphed into the clubs we have now, more about drinking and looking good than the actual dancing.

For me disco means dancing, not just John Travolta in a white suit but school disco’s where we all copied the dance moves from the videos that were just starting to appear, copying the moves from Top of the pops dancers or the set routines for songs such as the Time Warp, Wigwam Bam and the Locomotion. The boys would go mad at Adam Ant, girls fled the dance floor as they leapt and whirled slapping their thighs in their best highwayman impression. Of course looking back, although I claim it was not about being seen we all know the fashions, well let’s just say the neon colours did not really flatter anyone neither did Ra-Ra skirts, and the less said about the lyrca well enough said. I recently remarked to a friend that I was so glad that smart phones did not exist when I was younger, as a teen in the 80’s your camera was generally to clunky to carry round, and the fact you only had twelve or twenty four exposures meant that you didn’t take a lot of photos, most of those well orchestrated group shots as you attempted to feature as many people in one picture as possible. I am so glad no evidence exists of the fishtail skirt I made especially to match my bright yellow jacket and the silk shirt that trailed down behind my knees at the back, actually I take that back I would happily have one in that style today, just not a white one with luminous yellow velvet tiger style stripes on it. I have to confess I thought I looked cool but then we all did.

The other miracle of surviving the 80’s is of course that more of us did not do a Michael Jackson and have our hair go up in flames do the the amount of hair stray we used during the attempts to make our hair bigger and more voluminous that anyone else’s, Even before I ever put the first dye on my hair I hate to think of the damage inflicted by the hair-drying, back-combing then the blasting with a can of Insette, a hairspray that was so powerful nothing could move your hair once you had fixed it but that you had to hold your breath while spraying. If someone had wanted to blow up the High School all the would have needed to do was throw a couple of lit matches onto the dance floor at the Youth Club Disco. Ah the Youth club, discos, table tennis and trampolines but that will have to wait for another day the timer has just gone…

7. Sunday

Hi My Name is Paula and I am an April Addict! An Alternative For Lazy Sunday #36

April 2, 2017 paulaacton2 Comments

Now the question is how many of you know I am not referring to the month? For those who don’t know what I am talking about say hello to April…

Yes I have been bit by the pregnant giraffe bug as well. I first saw it mentioned on FB a month ago, a few people were talking about it but then it went quiet and I assumed she had given birth and life moved on but a few days ago she reappeared in my feed, this beautiful majestic animal obviously now heavily pregnant and speculation growing that she is about to drop the baby, literally, any second. Every time her tail raises the comment threads on various live feeds pauses waiting to she if she is going to push or merely empty her bowels again.

The fact is I too am now fascinated waiting for this live birth to take place, though I am convinced I will miss it either sleeping or going to work, not sure ringing in and saying can’t come to work waiting for a giraffe to give birth is an option lol.

There are several aspects to this that I admit to being hooked on first is watching this amazing creature, the long spindly legs which look like they are going to snap as she tries to lower herself to lie down, and I confess I never though of giraffes laying down, obviously in wildlife documentaries it is not something you really see. watching her move round she is doing a good impression of a duck waddling and I can personally recall that stage of pregnancy, also as she lowers her head to pick up the food she had dropped one leg leaves the ground and swings, certainly with the monster I could not just bend forward to pick things up, manoeuvring was required.

I am watching the feed via Youtube (bigger picture, less buffering) but I have to admit that I regularly check in on the pages showing the feed on FB, it is great to see the way that people around the world have come together and formed a community all awaiting the birth, yes of course there are trolls, they get every where but in a time where our world is divided on so many issues it is nice to be reminded that when you take, colour, religion and all the other factors out of the equation that the human species is not a complete loss.

And I guess there is another reason this mamma to be has me hooked and that is that I can now officially announce that later this year our family will have a new member, I am going to be a grandma in the Autumn but more about that later.

So there was no vlog this week due to me forgetting to pick up batteries but there will be one next Sunday alongside the Lazy Sunday post and I will talk more about the baby news there, I am already one post behind for my A – Z challenge for this year due to being ill with a bug yesterday and still feel rough today so I am going to try to get caught up in between housework and having a lie down.

A - Z Challenge 2017

A – Z Challenge 2017 – Theme Reveal

March 20, 2017 paulaacton3 Comments

So in the past I have done places, animals, artists and I was hoping to come up with a really cool theme for this year but it just has not happened. You may have noticed there was no vlog or Lazy Sunday this last week, well the truth is our week was thrown into turmoil with the passing of one of our little furries, Buddy age 6 (a good age for a guinea pig) was dead when we got up on Thursday morning and although I hid the fact from Monster until after school there were lots of tears and as you can imagine we have been busy trying to ease his upset, which to be honest is not helped by ,the remaining piggie, making lots of noise in his distress at now being a lone piggie.

Anyhow back on subject A – Z theme, I have been racking my brain this morning but it was not really complying and I kept wondering off on strange trains of thought. The it came to me, that will be my ‘theme’ stream of conciousness! I am going to open the dictionary at random for each letter and and stick my finger on the word and that will be the starting point for that day. I will give the word and the definition first, then from there I shall allow my mind to wander wherever it so desires for 500 – 1000 words.

Now you all know me, so you can’t hold me responsible for any rabbit holes we may journey into, they may be fun and frivolous, or, dark and dangerous. I have no idea how well this will work but I think it will be fun finding out lol

Book Reviews

Book Review – Telling Tales By Alan Bennett

February 27, 2017 paulaacton2 Comments

I have to say I challenge anyone who has heard his voice not to read this and hear him talking to you…

As usual begin with the Goodreads blurb…

Ten childhood snapshots from the master of the monologue Alan Bennett recalls his childhood in a sequence of talks that are funny, touching and told in his unique style. Hampered, as he sees it, by a family that never manages to be quite like other families he recounts his early years in Leeds a place where one learned early on the quite useful lesson that life is generally something that happens elsewhere: there is hiking every Sunday, trips into town and teas in cafes. Its an ordinary childhood, Bennetts father a butcher, his mother a reader of womens magazines who dreams of coffee mornings and cocktail parties and life down south. He re-lives family crises, early pieties and the lost tradition of musical evenings round the piano, all these tales told with that wry observation and ironic understatement that has earned Alan Bennett a place in the forefront of contemporary writing.

Even though his childhood in Leeds took place decades before my own I can still relate to much of what he was saying, I grew up on the outskirts of Leeds in a mining village and to be honest it always felt like you went back a decade or two from the city centre. But the truth is that even for those who grew up in other areas there will be elements from their own childhood they recognise, after all we all have those certain characters in our childhood that make their mark one way or another. Though it is written about a specific area the language is not dialectically difficult, and as I said in the opening if you have heard Alan Bennett’s voice it is impossible to read this without your head creating the illusion of him narrating it to you. It is also interesting reading the introduction the understand more about his reasons for choosing to use this medium to relate his personal stories. It is a slim book and can be read in one night and makes a refreshing change to some of the ‘celebrity’ memoirs that are three hundred volumes of drivel., it is a testament to Bennett’s genius that he can select out a few memories that give you such an in-depth understanding into his childhood without needing a whole book.

And for the score, well it has to be five out of five stars.

Inspirational Angels · Questioning the World

Give Away & Page Take Over

February 8, 2017 paulaactonLeave a comment

Join me tonight 9pm UK time as I take over the #Leeds2018 #HourglassEvents page click the link and join in advance http://ow.ly/McOi308JscK

Four years ago this incredibly brave little man lost his fight against cancer, he left an army of followers all heart broken by his loss and devastated for his family, I wrote Voices Across The Void to honour his memory and to raise awareness and funds for the charity set up in his name Cords4LifeUK, I said Iwould never give this book away free because of that but today and tomorrow to honour him and this family I am with the hope if you like it you will leave a review, spread the word and help make cord donation something offered to all new mums so they may help save a life or at the very least give those precious extra few months cells from a donated cord gave Charlie with his family. https://www.amazon.co.uk/Voices-Across-Void-Pa…/…/B01GZ5NFPU

Resolutions 2017

Resolutions 2017 – January

February 5, 2017 paulaacton2 Comments

So the first month has flown by and I hold my hands up, it has not been the start to the year I would have wished for but O really want to concentrate on finding the positives so let’s see how I did…

01) Lose weight, yup this old chestnut again, I lost a stone and a half in the second half of last year so just set up a fresh spread sheet and new targets, while I know I have a lot more weight to lose than my target weight I am simply being realistic about losing weight in a healthy way.

Well at the end of the months technically I am down but would have been better if I had not had the blip in the middle, the problem is nights out and stress have both contributed this month to that pound put back on but I want to just focus on the positive and the 2lbs lost. I really want to be losing a pound a week so I did half of what I wanted this month lets hope next is better.

02) Publish the remaining two parts of the Queen of Ages trilogy

I have started on the second part but am well down on where I wanted to be by the end of this month, however I am determined the first draft will be done before the middle of March so time to get stuck in this month and make up for lost time.

03) Exercise more

I have not made it to the pool this month at all, just bad timing with other things I have had on but next month I fully intend to start getting back into the Monday morning swim at the very least. As you can see I did not hit my 10k step target very often, it is annoying that I cannot get it to show the full month rather than the 28 days but as I can’t change it just have to work with the stats we have. as they were all set at zero on first of last month the increase looks fab but the important thing will be to keep that figure going up, the one thing that is obvious is I need to do more than just housework on Sundays.

04) Blog at least four times a week

If you are reading my blog you know I failed this terribly but I promise you it is going to get better, family issues and commitments as I discussed earlier in the month have had to take priority but am now getting better organised and balancing everything better.

05) Get out more

If you get my newsletter or follow me on social media you will know I did get out twice this month, once with friends and the second time with the monster (it counts for now okay) both times to the Chinese Buffet, which actually accounts for that pound put back on lol. No actual nights out planned for this month but do have a lunch planned with my lovely friend Debbie and hoping to arrange a coffee meeting with another friend. I am also working on a special outing the month after which I will tell you more about nearer the time.

06) Write every day

I did not manage to write daily but what I did do was write when I had chance and also sort out several old folders with different bits of short stories, as you can see this actually is providing the basis for two very different short story collections potentially, well actually you can’t see both just the one but not going to say which one will come first lol, at the minute one looks like it may be family/relationship based and the other horror, just out of curiosity please answer in the comments do you prefer themed short story collection or ones that are a complete mix of genres?

07) Work on my self belief

This month I have taken on a new mantra ‘It is what it is!’ By this I am looking at accepting my failings without judgement upon myself, I will not rip myself to pieces because I did not achieve all my goals, I will not waste energy fighting the tide on things I cannot change and I will embrace situations and make the most of them. It does not mean I shall not strive to push myself but it does mean that I shall have faith that if I fail there is a reason and it is not always myself at fault.

08) Time management

Well obviously I as have not been hitting my targets it would seem I have been failing miserably however it is not quite true, because I have been making more time for family and to spend quality time with my son. I do need to focus more and be more productive during the daytime hours I have spare for writing and that will be my focus for the next month.

09) Update my wardrobe

Well obviously two pounds is not enough to justify a new wardrobe but I have been thinking about what I want my look to be, I recently added some purple to the pink in my hair and I am tempted to move more towards purple than pink, I am rather liking the idea of a ‘steam-punk’, Victorian ‘Gothic’ I like the idea of the corseted structured look with maybe the long bustled /layered skirts however with a butt the size of mine that may not be the most flattering look to go for.

10) Publish the newsletter each month

The February newsletter went out on time and I am pleased to say I had plotted out half of it during the month, with the exception of a book to my friend Heidi and the January prize sending out I am now caught up on the mailing situation so that is a huge bonus. I am hoping to have more exciting things to discuss in the newsletters as time goes by because it is hard to make it so they are more than a rehash of FB and Instagram posts and not just pushing the same book over and over again.

11) Work out what I want in my personal life

This month my personal life has not taken a step forwards, backwards or in any other direction. My son has been my priority and my one night out was not exactly the sort of night that was going to give the opportunity to meet someone. At the minute I have so much on making time to met new people is going to be hard, I don’t really want to go down the on line route and just talking to people on line because you can’t judge if the chemistry is there via text or even on the phone, it is a physical reaction, I did meet someone last summer but due to other issues it did not work out but the chemistry was off the chart and the memory of how alive that spark made me feel means I am not about to settle for anything less.

12) Keep my website up to date

I am technically behind by one post as I write this, mainly because I struggle to think of interesting things at the minute to put on up there, I also am due to add another today as I am finally finishing this in the Sunday despite the fact it has been on the go since Wednesday but it has been a rather chaotic week personally so I am going to forgive myself as after all ‘It is what it is!’

Resolutions 2017

January 3, 2017 paulaacton8 Comments

As you will be aware if you have joined me here the last few New Years I like to make resolutions, mainly in the blind hope I might stick to at least one or two of them and this year is no different, well no that’s not true because actually it is. The resolutions I am making this year are split into two categories, writing and personal, and I am going to do half a dozen of each, then update you on my progress monthly/

01) Lose weight, yup this old chestnut again, I lost a stone and a half in the second half of last year so just set up a fresh spread sheet and new targets, while I know I have a lot more weight to lose than my target weight I am simply being realistic about losing weight in a healthy way.

I don’t want to diet as such, I enjoy food too much but it is more about eating habits and portion control, after all a little of what you want does you good lol. so this is the chart I will be using at the minute the whole year is shown as a red line, which you will hopefully see begin to incline week after week.

02) Publish the remaining two parts of the Queen of Ages trilogy

I already have both out lined and know the overall story arc, it is strange because as excited as I am to begin work on them I am also a little reluctant to finish the story as I have lived with these characters in my head for so long while I plucked up the courage to share them.