365 - 178 Pink is gone...

Finally blogger has let me upload pictures again, the past two days it didn't want me to. So I'm a bit behind.


Big Monkey has decided she doesn't like pink anymore. At all. So we've started a de-pink-ification process. I started by painting the former pink peg board green and blue. I also changed the colours for her board for keeping hair clips. She has decided to grow her hair again so hopefully the clips and its holder will see a lot more use again.


I'm pleased that she has chosen different colours for her room. I don't mind pink but I prefer other colours a lot more. I always hated to go into shops when she was smaller with all the girls clothes all pink and sparkly with no choice of any other colour. Not even white. Thankfully that has changed now a little bit, there are other colours but still a lot of pink. I often bought some boy's jumpers for her or jeans but generally boys clothes tend to be very drab and ugly here.

365 - 177 Little Monkey is a Big Monkey really

Last week Little Monkey decided that he is a really big boy and he doesn't want nappies in the night anymore. He hasn't had a nappy since he turned 2 but in the night he still wore one. Today was the very first morning the bed was dry when we got up.

365 - 176 Summer Fridge disaster

Today was really hot and sunny. Really hot but still no reason I thought for the fridge to behave like a freezer and freeze half of the food in there. If you didn't know this before, salad should not be frozen. Neither should mayo, cucumbers and a host of other things. Daddy Monkey had to go and buy some more meat for the BBQ because the chicken drumsticks didn't look very appetizing. It might have been frozen but neither as fast nor as cold as in a proper freezer. To say I am not very happy with my fridge right now is an understatement. Especially when I discovered the exploded milk bottle hidden behind the frozen bag of rocket. At least the bottle didn't break the frozen milk only lifted the foil lid, ran down the glass and formed a memorable sculpture and connected itself to the jam jar (frozen of course too). Inside the bottle: a lovely big milk ice cube. Yum!

Here a lovely frozen cabbage, not good for freezing like this.


Other than an impromptu fridge cleaning session we had a relaxing day with the Monkeys running amok with the water hose.

365 - 175 Organizing

Now that I got my room back all newly decorated I want it to look neat and tidy. I took all the magazines apart that I had accumulated over the past 5 years and only kept the pictures and articles that are of interest to me. These I put into two folders and a spiral book. Now Mrs Wookie thinks that I won't look at these anymore than I did at the magazines. But I figure even if I don't I can always throw them out at my next big clear out. Maybe I do need to challenge myself to take out a folder and pick something to do every week?




I tried to keep it really simple, techniques to try out and photography and photoshop tutorials in the folder, nice pictures in the spiral book. At first I tried to come up with a detailed system on where to put the pictures but then I just glued them into three categories, colour, handmade books and everything else. Nice and simple. Then I added a label on the outside and an index for one of the folders. Of course as soon as I thought I had finished it all I found another magazine folder hiding upstairs pretending to be business magazines. Now I have to get those into the folders too, so I'll see immediately whether my system of sorting or lack thereof works.

365 - 174 She's back

We are really happy to have our Big Monkey back.


Today we picked up Big Monkey after her trip. I really missed her, it was rather quiet without her chattering. She had an amazing time though, she went fencing, built a shelter out of twigs and branches, abseiled from really high up, made up a poem and told it to all her school mates in front of the camp fire. She fed ponies and goats and generally enjoyed herself thoroughly. Her teacher promised photos to look at. I can't wait although I shall be very scared seeing her climbing all the way up a wall as high as the first floor. I don't do heights, so the thought alone has me sweating.


The Monkeys spent the afternoon harvesting carrots and watering the plants.

365 - 173 Painting the front door

Decisions, decisions... What colour to choose?

365 - 172 Big, Big Monkey

Big Monkey is away on a residential trip in Wiltshire for two nights.


Her room is all empty except for a lonely dragon and a rabble of stick insects (I don't know whether that's the correct collective noun, stick insects don't feature much in these collections.)It's awfully quiet with only one Monkey scrambling around. He tries his best though...


We miss her, we haven't heard anything of her so she must have a good time. We presume. And hope. She's just so little still, of course she would roll her eyes big time at me saying that. They grow up so fast, don't you agree?

365 - 171 My parents

I hardly have any photos of my parents together so these photos are extra special to me.

365 - 170 Funny...

... how grumpy it makes me feel to drive a different car.


Now what is she complaining about you're asking seeing it's a nice Mercedes. It's not the car, it's a perfectly good and lovely car. It's just not mine. My snack bag isn't there or my music and the parking permit and it just feels plain weird. Mainly because it's low and my car isn't and I feel like I'm dragging my behind on the road. Everything else is so much higher. Weird... Just weird. But at least Daddy Monkey has learned that the best station on the radio is Kiss FM. So I don't feel the lack of my music as harshly any more and Daddy Monkey doesn't have to complain that I have changed everything including the radio. By the time I arrived back home I normally am quite happy driving it but still, I'm glad that tomorrow I'm back in my car. Big Monkey prefers that too. Not my music, strangely she prefers the radio. Wonder why that is?

365 - 169

For today's Father's Day we drove to St Albans to have lunch at the Waffle House. Daddy Monkey chose this as his treat. As always it was really full but it's always worth it. Afterwards we went to pick some strawberries. Why is it that the moment you arrive at your destination after spending a stupid amount of time waiting at a temporary traffic light with lovely sunshine. The very moment you step out of the car it starts pouring, not a little drizzle no a big, strong downpour? Why? Why is that. So like we hadn't spent enough time in the car, we spent some more time in the car to wait out the rain. At least it didn't take long and we could go and pick strawberries. We went to a farm we hadn't been before and it was a whole lot bigger than we expected and of course the plants closest to the entrance had already been picked empty. When it started to rain we nearly turned around again but we soldered on, Little Monkey with the little box for putting the picked strawberries in on his head.

The furthest field, of course, had lovely strawberries and lots of them.


Here is Daddy Monkey with the painting that Big Monkey made for him.

365 - 168 more dies

Right, so yesterday I said, I need more dies for my big Shot? Well, I went off and did a bit of looking and a bit of ordering and you know? They are here, they came this morning. How cool is that?
So these are the flowers I cut when I first got the machine.


Then today I had to cut the 3d flower that I got brand new and Big Monkey loved the little bird, so we had to cut a few of those. I had to make a Father's Day card, obviously.


Then I realized there was one empty space in Big Monkey's album so I had to fill that up and because I got a strawberry die, I had to use photos to go with that.


Thanks for the offer of persuading Daddy Monkey, Kylie, but he had agreed already. He just ordered himself a new, handmade and expensive watch. So he seems to feel better if I get to buy myself a few new dies for my new toy. The company I ordered from is not only fast they also are a lot cheaper than the other shops. What's not to like?

365 -167 My new favourite toy

I thought I "needed" this for a while now. But on Monday Mrs Wookie let me try out her Bigshot and led me astray. Again. Don't you love it if you have some one who tells you to buy what you always wanted? Daddy Monkey too told me to get one when I came home that day. Or maybe he just wanted me to stop going on about it. Anyway I ordered it straight away and it arrived Wednesday just at rushing out time. But yesterday I had a bit of time to try it out. I have four dies, three of which came with the machine but are very useful and a flower die that I thought I get for the flowers I saw Tricia make. Today I had to cut out stars and hearts for Father's Day cards. I think tomorrow I will need more flowers for a sweet little project I saw in a magazine. But most of all I think I need more dies. I just wish it was green...

365 - 166 Collective nouns

I really, really love the way the English have created a collective noun for every thing.

Recently I found a website gallery that sells prints illustrating a few collective nouns. A murder of crows is my favourite. Well, there are many more I love, I mean who couldn't love an implausibility of gnus? A blessing of unicorns? A parliament of owls? Here are loads more to enjoy, including a few that should be. A stack of librarians gets my vote any day. I really enjoy reading those, there is nothing like this in German. This is highly unfair. Maybe I should start my own petition for German collective nouns? Ein Mörder von Krähen.... hmmm sounds like a bad case of animal cruelty, maybe better leave this to the English language.

365 - 165 Short

I finally managed to go to the hairdressers to chop of the hair. I had that planned for a while now but every time I found time to go something more important came up. But today I went and this is how I look now:


Big Monkey wasn't happy but surprisingly little Monkey didn't mind and even smiled when he saw it.

365 - 164

Finally a warm and sunny day again. The Monkeys played outside and had a good time driving around on bikes and tricycles.

Zentangle beads

I'm having problems with my browsers. One doesn't so photos the other doesn't do posting. So this is just a test. But a pretty one. I made zentangle beads out of friendly plastic for a swap. Now they aren't perfect or even that good but I'm still pleased with them. Until now I've only managed to produce rubbish with Friendly plastic.


Last swap the recipient has been very gracious and accepted the swap anyway with some advice. This time I hope my swappee likes what she gets. They are very sparkly and colourful. Fingers crossed she likes them. However, I believe I shouldn't NOT sign up for anymore swaps that include Friendly plastic. To be fair though this was a mystery swap and I didn't know that would come.

365 - 163 Clearing space

I'm still sorting and going through stuff to make my new craft room look neat and tidy.

Yesterday I tried to paint a page in my journal. Of course the paint didn't come through, like it never does so I tried a brush. Didn't work. Added water. Didn't work. I couldn't even mix the paint up. So I chucked them. All of them. Some are nearly empty after I've scratched the paint out under a lot of swearing but now they are gone. And the best thing is the little storage box I got from Daddy Monkey to store those stupid things is the right size for my small bottles of Golden fluids.

Another weight lifted...

365 - 162 Rain...

Today was a really grey, rainy day. Just a typical inside day while it rained and rained and rained. All the time.


The monkeys saved the life of the dolly, who had heart problems and needed lots of wire/string stuck to her chest with sticky tape. Wonder where that came from? Here maybe? We had visited Mrs Wookie when she had her heart monitor on. Dolly certainly didn't have to make do with boring beige. But then red doesn't suit every body you know.


In my frustration I decided to bake muffins. Raspberry and chocolate chip muffins with frozen raspberries because our trip to the pick-your-own farm got canceled. To be fair, I don't think the raspberries were ripe yet but the strawberries should be ready.
I hope next Sunday is better weather, the farm is close to one of our favourite restaurants, the Waffle House in St. Albans. What I really hope for though is that this doesn't mean the end of our summer.

365 - 161 Fire

I like how this worked out after all that water...


Little Monkey and I were able to visit the local fire station with a local parents group. He went from absolutely totally hyper excited to absolutely totally not wanting to go within minutes several times. He told me the whole way there he didn't want to go in the tunnel. It took me a while to figure out he meant the pole. Which in the end he loved and he went down several times.
But the fire engines were of course his favourite, even though I had to sit with him at first but then he went in the back happily and put on the helmet.

He struggled with the weight, apparently it was so heavy his knee hurt. After that the fire fighters decided to drive the engine into the yard and show off the siren. Oh, dear, Little Monkey didn't like the noise. He covered his ears and screamed until they turned it off. As a result he didn't dare go any closer to anybody and have a go on the water hose which the others used to spray the fire tower.


Nah, not sure... but he was very excited when he came home and told Daddy and Big Monkey everything in great detail. Including the fact that one of the fire engines had to leave for an emergency.

For Grandma

because she always asks for photos of the Monkeys. Little Monkey looking very cute:

365 - 160 More water!

Luckily not on bathroom floors. Sadly though outside. Just when they announced on the radio that parts of South England are now officially suffering from drought the heavens opened. When did they open? Oh, just the very minute I had to rush out to pick up Little Monkey from nursery. With an umbrella that half way through collapsed... I was barely covered and therefore ended up with very wet legs.

The rain drops did look very pretty on the flowers outside though. And Little Monkey enjoyed having his own fire engine umbrella and splashing in the enormous puddles that lined our way home.

365 - 159 Water No 3

That's how the hole looked this morning when the sun was still out. Both are gone now. The hole is now properly covered and the sun has a thick cover of clouds.

365 - 158 more from the water saga

After Monday's midnight emergency work on the water pipe we're left with a big hole in front of our garden gate.

Apparently they will be finished by today. But so far I haven't seen any workers who look like they want to close up that hole. I don't mind as much as long as we have water. But I do worry a little that I might reverse into one of the barriers when I turn the car around.
Meanwhile the work on the bathrooms progresses reasonably and the plumber had to turn off the water again. But looks like we soon will have an en-suite bathroom again. It's been nearly a year. Oh and the bathtub? The bathtub is in the bathroom and not in the bedroom anymore. Yay. Instead there are now building materials in front of the fireplace. Pah. Soon... First let's hope that we still will have running water in the evening.

365 - 157

It's been some time... Lots of drama happened. I'll tell you about yesterdays. We're having some work done at our house including bathrooms which requires the plumbers to turn off the water at times. Once they are finished they turn it back on again. Except yesterday they couldn't because some bit broke off the stop cock. So they called the water board who came and blamed the builders which turned into an heated argument which spiked the interest of passing police... *sigh* In the end the water man couldn't fix the problem and had to call some other guys who arrived in the middle of the night and dug up the pavement to start and fix it so that we at least have running water again. Now why the pots and buckets you ask? Well, once they turned on the water it became apparent that there's a problem in the upstairs bathroom which caused the water to run through to the bathroom below it. Hence Daddy Monkey distributed all those things (including one of the good towels?!) to catch the flood. At midnight. And still no water in the morning. It took another hour until we finally got water again.