New look

Wow, what do you think of my new look blog? I have found an awesome site that allows you to place some pre made layouts as a background to your blog. There are also headers for some of them too.

http://alliebrownslayouts.blogspot.com has got a whole heap of FREE layouts & instructions on how to do the customisation.

I am not sure how long it will take people who are on dial up to download but I thought I would just customise this blog, rather than my Stampin' Up one.

Innocent

I have been under a fair bit of emotional stress this week so as a relief I decided to do some scrapbooking. I just love this photo of James. This was the professional photo we had taken in 2004 for my mum's 60th birthday. I really do think that maybe it is time for another round of professional photos because this little man has grown up so much in these last 4 years.

Hair

Blog Prompt: The musical "Hair" premiered on Broadway on October 17, 1967. What was your favorite hair do as a teenager?

I have always had short hair, I tried to grow it long at one stage through my twenties & it just annoyed me so it got cut back to short. I have had a few colours in my hair, when I was a teenager I liked to have blonde streaks put through it, especially in the summer. Sometime in my twenties I found that I really liked having a copper, red colour in my hair & I have stuck with that ever since. I think the reason I stuck with that particular colouring is that I am a fiery person, I'm emotional, so the red hair kind of suits my personality.

Dictionary Day

Blog Prompt: Today is Dictionary Day (Noah Webster's Birthday, Father of the Dictionary). Teach us a new word by giving us a definition and using it in a sentence.

I just opened my dictionary randomly & scanned the page & found this word metonymy. Metonymy is the substitution of name of attribute or adjunct for that of thing meant. eg. Crown for King or Queen.

The lawyer for the Crown was putting forward the case that John Doe murdered Jane Doe.

Blog Prompt

I thought I would try getting back into writing a blog post on one of my blogs more often than I have been. So today I thought I would get back to doing the blog prompts at http://www.digitalscrapbookplace.com/

Now I wonder if today was a good day to be doing that as the blog prompt looks a bit too difficult to answer.

Here it is....Blog prompt: Today is Love Your Body Day. What do you like about your body?

Well I find that very difficult to answer I have always had a love/hate relationship with my body. It truely depends on the day as to what I love about my body.

Right now I am fresh off the treadmill & I feel great, the endorphins are pumping through me still. I love that today I was able to complete the whole of my interval training & my knee didn't give me any gyp. Of course I might hate that tonight because I am bound to have a sore knee.

I love that my body could conceive & carry & give birth to 2 most beautiful & special boys in the world. I loved that I was able to push James out & he was the same size as Brent so that when I was labelled "failure to progress" with Brent it was just Brent being stubborn & nothing to do with being a failure.

I used to love my breasts & thought they were one of my best physical assets however that same giving birth, breastfeeding thing has left them & me feeling rather down.

I love that I am healthy & really other than my knee I don't have any other ailments. I love that I am still able to walk in this world, & that counts for a lot.

Top 100 Books

These are the Whitcoulls top 100 books & I have read a few of them, but there are some I haven't read that have always been on my "to read at some stage" list, for instance the whole Harry Potter series.



The ones in blue are the ones I have read.



1. Lord of the rings / JRR Tolkien

2. My sister's keeper / Jodi Picoult

3. Pride and prejudice / Jane Austen

4. Cross stitch / Diana Gabaldon

5. Harry Potter & the dealthy hallows / JK Rowling

6. The bronze horseman / Paullina Simons

7. The Da Vinci code / Dan Brown

8. The power of one / Bryce Courtenay

9. The pillars of the earth / Ken Follet

10. The other Boleyn girl / Phillipa Gregory

11. The lovely bones: a novel / Alice Sebold

12. To kill a mocking bird / Harper Lee

13. The kite runner / Khaled Hosseini

14. The time traveler's wife / Audrey Niffenegger

15. Holy Bible - not all of it word for word

16. The hobbit / J R R Tolkien

17. Magician / Raymond Feist

18. The clan of the cave bear / Jean M Auel

19. Nineteen minutes / Jodi Piccoult

20. Gone with the wind / Margaret Mitchell

21. Angels and Demons / Dan Brown

22. Harry Potter and the half-blood prince / J K Rowling

23. The Poisonwood bible / Barbara Kingsolver

24. Into the wilderness / Sara Donati

25. A thousand splendid suns / Khaled Hosseini

26. Life of Pi / Yann Martel

27. Memoirs of a geisha / Arthur Golden

28. Jessica / Bryce Courtenay

29. Birdsong / Sebastian Faulks

30. Harry Potter and the philosopher's stone / J K Rowling

31. Harry Potter and the order of the phoenix / J K Rowling

32. A fine balance / Rohinton Mistry

33. The lion, the witch and the wardrobe / C S Lewis

34. Jane Eyre / Charlotte Bronte

35. Rachel's holiday / Marian Keyes

36. The memory keeper's daughter / Kim Edwards

37. Shantaram: a novel / Gregory Roberts

38. Pact: a love story / Jodi Picoult

39. Tea Rose / Jennifer Donnelly

40. Change of heart / Jodi Picoult

41. Angela's ashes / Frank McCourt

42. Mister Pip / Lloyd Jones

43. The girl in Times Square / Paullina Simons

44. Twilight / Stephanie Meyer

45. This charming man / Marian Keyes

46. Wuthering heights / Emily Bronte
47. River God / Wilbur Smith

48. The Persimmon Tree / Bryce Courtenay

49. World without end / Ken Follet

50. Dune / Frank Herbert

51. Wild Swans: three daughters of China / Jung Chang

52. April Fools Day / Bryce Courtenay

53. Atonement / Ian McEwan

54. The bone garden / Tess Gerritsen

55. The alchemist / Paulo Coelho

56. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire / J K Rowling

57. Harry Potter and the prisoner of Askaban / J K Rowling

58. Sushi for beginners / Marian Keyes

59. The curious incident of the don in the night-time / Mark Haddon

60. Catcher in the rye / J D Salinger

61. I know this much is true / Wally Lamb

62. Eragon / Christopher Paolini

63. Tomorrow with the war began / John Marsden

64. Northern lights / Philip Pullman

65. Captain Corelli's mandolin / Louis De Bernieres

66. Kane and Abel / Jeffrey Archer

67. Tully / Paullina Simons

68. Catch -22 / Joseph Heller

69. No. 1 ladies detective agency / Alexander McCall Smith

70. Watermelon / Marian Keyes

71. We need to talk about Kevin / Lionel Shriver

72. Anybody out there / Marian Keyes

73. Chocolat / Joanne Harris

74. Winter Rose / Jennifer Donnelly

75. Denniston Rose / Jenny Pattrick

76. Killing Floor / Lee Child

77. A really short history of nearly everything / Bill Bryson

78. Anne of Green Gables / L M Montgomery

79. Nothing to lose / Lee Child

80. The secret / Rhonda Byrne

81. The book thief/ Markus Zusak

82. Galaxy / Douglas Adams

83. The stand / Stephen King

84. Edmonds Cookery Book / Edmonds - not every recipe has been read but it is well used in my kitchen

85. The potato factory / Bryce Courtenay

86. Lucy Sullivan is getting married / Marian Keyes

87. The vinter's luck / Elizabeth Knox

88. The red tent / Anita Diamant

89. Bridget Jone's diary: a novel / Helen Fielding

90. The Penguin history of New Zealand / Michael King (It's on my bookshelf!)

91. London / Edward Rutherford

92. The god of small things / Arundhati Roy

93. The shipping news / Annie E Proulx

94. Four fires / Bryce Courtenay

95. Mao's last dancer / Li Gunxin

96. Last chance saloon / Marian Keyes

97. Plain truth / Jodi Picoult

98. Perfume: the story of a murderer / Patrick Suskind

99. The Thorn birds / Colleen McCullough

100. The notebook / Nicholas Spark
Thanks to Penny for this list



I have read a quarter of those books, that's not bad. Now I just want to read the other three quarters should I start with Harry Potter?