WoPoWriMo – World Poetry Writing Month 2013 (by sarah)

This year I find myself once more in charge of the WoPoWriMo website and it is also it's fifth year of existing as an event!

Set up for a group who met at Poetry Cafe in Cheltenham and who turned out to all be Screnzies (Script Frenzies is a script writing challenge run by the National Novel Writing NaNoWriMo people). They felt they couldn't do more than one writing challenge in a month and who therefore could not do National Poetry Writing Month, the website has grown into a place to inspire writers.

I am very pleased to be back in charge of it again as I haven't been for the last two years really - just been popping in here and there. We have participants from several continents and at least two languages other than English plus the constructed languages sneaking in there. I've organised guest bloggers and there will be web-badges to come 🙂

As always I am dragging the whole family into this madness with me!

Birthday Poem and Butterfly Cake and Dragon Mug! (by sarah)

My birthday was great in the end though as always there were last minute cancellation meaning that for the second time since I moved to Gloucestershire I'd organised a gaming birthday and had not a single person turn up. Everyone has organised to come and see me at other times. It is the horror of a January birthday people are tired, partied out and have no money or has work they forgot to do/didn't needed doing over the festive period. I am considering the suggestion to be a Queen and always do something in the summer that people can actually get too! (I have had to cancel two birthday outings due to snow).

But on the plus side my friend composed me a poem on Facebook and I had about 60 messages and a handful of cards 🙂

Happy Birthday to Sarah Snell-Pym,
The Purple Poet who's made of win,
She'll charm you with rhyme,
Of atoms, space and time,
So celebrate with cakepops and gin!

By Joy-Amy

Jean gave me herbal tea that is actually really nice unlike the stuff in the cupboard I've been making my way through! Mary had apparently selected lego men stickers for me 🙂 probably because they are shiny! They are already stuck in my diary. Al got me computer stuff to help with the RSI which is especially good as I am in the middle of a mild flare up. I also got the pens I needed from Ulrike and a few other bits 🙂

Over the weekend Al got me pizza and pfish food ice-cream and we made a butterfly cake out of cake pops 🙂 The butterflies arrived in the post from Al's cousins - I think they were a Christmas present but they arrived on my birthday and were edible butterflies 😀

Also knowing I was sad about my pocket dragon mug my friend Rachel turned up with a purple dragon mug which has been heavily used over the weekend. We watch Harry Potter Movies, Mysterious Cities of Gold and some classic scifi we had out on Lovefilm. I made things to sell on etsy, drew pictures and feel asleep on the setee lots. I decided against games in the end as I'm bored of a lot of the ones we can play with Jean and two people doesn't really cut it for some of the others. Sunday another friend called with fondant fancies and a wardrobe which is still sitting in the living room awaiting my dad to help Al get it up the stairs (maybe!). I also collected another two cloth badges on the Kinnect Adventures and had lots of snugs 🙂

Broken Mugs and Birthdays (by sarah)

So today is my 32nd meaning that I am the same age my mother was when she had me and that 16 was half a life time ago!

I've just had two school friends over for a couple of days and as always we talked of school, the bullies, the crushes, the arguments and so forth. Was school really half a life time ago? Was school only half a life time ago?

So much stuff has happened in that sixteen years and yet... and yet I feel pretty much exactly the same bar health issues which started around then anyway.

But in same ways I have changed - on seeing The Hobbit I can tell you how as well. I am Bilbo Baggins, I had a stronge adventurous streak in me when I was younger, I did climbing and archery and hiked through mud and went of to do a geology degree, had a stunt bike and never admitted that things phased me or scared me. I went off to London for Uni on my own even though the prospect was petrifying! On many different levels.

I liked doing stuff all the time, choir, gardening, caving, taking my friends on long rambling walks and designing dresses. But now everything feels more sedate and constrained. And the nearer I got to 30 the more ok that sort of life seemed. But then the last year as I was plunged into the world of festivals I began to hunger for it all but after the chaos of the last few years and the struggle to sort our lives out I found I didn't want things too busy and craved the stability of home. I also began to see just how lucky I was - after all the struggles and trials we have our home and it is a brilliant home and it is ours and even before that I had Al and the girls and my family and friends. Ok so health is missing but I suppose you can't have everything. I am in the middle of a mild flare up at the moment - I call it mild - it has persisted for a while and would be termed a set back by physios but really it is not. I know that if I am careful I can continue to be productive through it and look after my kids though the house may get messier.

It wont last more than a few weeks if I rest and then I will be up and at em in time for festival season starting.

One of the things that has led me to thinking about if I have changed though is that a) people tell me I haven't changed and b) the people who used to moan at me that I acted too grown up now moan that I am too immature and too me they have grown boring.

And too be honest I fear that boredom, that conventualism more than I fear the chaos. But I am scared of new things, and so this year y 32nd is about pushing my personal boundaries to stop me stagnating, to stop everything including the new skills I aquire from just becoming gears within the machine of existence.

During the Olymipics I felt a great sense of what I can achieve pour into me once more and though I know that my health is always going to put a spanner in the works, those leaks and breakages to the flow can be worked around. I thought on all I have achieved already and all that I feel is within my grasp and I sat and drew pictures - I filled a note book with them and have many more that wish to be drawn.

They are called The Inspira Pictures. This one is called Face Your Fears and is apt for my plans 🙂

Also I broke my Pocket Dragon birthday wishes mug which made me really sad but at the same time the search to replace it has shown me there are quiet a few designs out there still. The pocket dragon stuff isn't made anymore which is a real shame and I was really looking forward to using it over the weekend - for which I have gaming and film watching planned. I get quiet grumpy about m mugs and things which again has led me to the Hobbitness - the buttons also all popped off my coat :/ And I have hairy toes if I do not pluck, I am also rather... erm... short and if I thought I could get away with it would love to have second breakfast but alas the waist line is bad enough as it is!

This film was not The Hobbit as such - it was a mix and match across the books and alot more dramatic than the book with depths added that just weren't there. It is however a brilliant prequal to Lord of The Rings and made in that style. The Dwarfs however were alot more 'man' like than expected coughs with two cuties to boot! Though Oaken Shield really didn't need to look like a stocky Aragorn did he?

But Bilbo's sentiment at the end that he has a home, a lovely home and they don't and that is why he is helping them just reinforced my desire to help. Before Christmas I embarked on a mad cap scheme of trying to illustrate a book in like two weeks but with Christmas prep and the fact that not many people sponsored me I didn't make it but I am going to be working on this through the year now and hope to run some other events as well such as Creativi-Tea which I blog about later. I just can not take the thought of thousands of kids being homeless or in temp. accomidation so you will be hearing more and more about this!

So for now I am off to spend my birthday writing and drawing and baking cakes in prep for the weekend but here is the sponsor button just incase :).

The End of the Festive Season (by sarah)

Today we had our last Christmas visitor, Barbara, so I put out the minced pies and cut up Christmas Cake and we apologised as we seem to have lost her tea towel with Mary's print on it that we were going to give her - so we gave her same homemade jam instead.

She gave Mary some lovely Hello Kitty wellies which is brilliant as it was starting to be a squeeze to get her into the ones she has and the previous bigger set she lost one of whilst we were out shopping one day. Jean got an art casse which she was excited about and Al got cheese which is always a hit with him. I got a pot of tulips which shall be going outside the front door.

Jean also tidied the front garden, litter picking the litter that blows in and sweeping up the leaves - mainly as she is whipping through her worst witch books and wants to earn money to buy the missing ones.

There would be photos of today but unfortunately Jean was taking photos yesterday and dropped it and today it has gone completely screwy 🙁 It was on it's way out anyway which is why I had saved up money to get a good one but I spent it on the TV so that we could use the X-Box, I do not regret this but I do now find myself with out a camera - right at the point where I am trying to launch myself back into things seriously - sigh.

On the other hand I do have a rather serious back log of photos to sort out anyway so maybe this will give me time to do that?

After Al's aunt left we started taking down all the decorations to general chagrin of the kids - Mary was walking about saying 'Oh! No!' whilst Jean was whining that the room was starting to look so bare which we felt too. Somehow Christmas went so fast this year.

It has been a fun one though.

Of course tomorrow I have one of my best friends from school visiting in a sort of post-Christmas/pre-birthday type of way which is going to be ace!

And last night I forgot to go to the pub with one of my local friends which I feel really bad about - It wasn't a good day medically for me but still...

Anyway the good thing about the decorations coming down is that I am in the mood for Spring Cleaning to be honest. We started today with putting hooks up to hang various house type things up, such as sun catchers and wall art butterflies and the broom and duster and carrier bag suasage.

Today also marks the constructed language Lojban's 25th Birthday - this is the language that Alaric has been learning for the past few years and that he has been teaching to Mary. So we have begun work on a little language comic type thing - we came up with the idea ages ago but haven't had the time to act upon it!

Apart from that we made bread in the bread maker and made our own sauce for the chickpea hodge podge we had for dinner - January is already a month of highs and lows but net effect seems to be positive at the moment.

New Years Eve At The Snell-Pym’s House (by sarah)

We were gifted an X-Box Connect for Christmas but did not have a TV ours having died a death a few weeks previously and being an old one just for DVD watching anyway it still wouldn't have been any good. We looked at was best for playing this sort of thing on and I took the money I had been saving for a new camera, my birthday money and Jean's vouchers she had gotten for her birthday - Al put in some money too and we went and got ourselves a new TV from the super market whilst doing our food shop.

Of course we then couldn't get all of us and the TV in the car so I had to walk home (40 mins) - it was tough as I didn't have my stick with me but I managed it! I couldn't talk when I got back but it was worth it! a) this means I am improving again and b) the TV is fantastic!

So we set the X-Box up and WOW! We hadn't really been following electronic gaming as we thought we wouldn't be able to afford a system for a good long time yet so it has been just amazing! It had already been suggested to me that I should get a Wii or something for physio therapy purposes and now I see why!

This is jean on one of the games

We can NOT thank Santa enough for this present!

Alaric spent the remainder of the afternoon trying to extract a half edited novel and a completed poetry book off of one of my old laptops for me - unfortunately it didn't work but he says there are still a few things he can try.

We had a take away Pizza as I am giving pizza up until I lose some weight! And watched Bill and Ted on the new TV and again just WOW! It was fantastic - I sat and knitted and the girls snugged with Daddy and we all agreed that To Be Excellent To Each Other is a good thing to aspire too. Jean's comment at the end when Rufus says they will get better was, 'Well they will, Mummy has' 🙂

Mary was very excited to be dressing up in a pretty dress, the little angel outfit we were given for Jean when she was little.

She is a rougie type of angel, playing rough and tumble with her sister and attempting to steal Christmas Cake!

She ended up being a very sleepy angel

We then all played on the X-Box again after which we played one of my favourite board games Elixir which is about wizards 🙂

At midnight we rushed into the garden and banged our pots and rang our bell and fire works went off all around us and the neighbours started singing in their house - very loud and merry in serbian whilst we shouted Happy New Year and hugged and watched fire lanterns whilst humming Old Langsi.

We then popped the tired Mary in bed and played the board game until Jean was too tired and then me and Al blogged about our year and discussed our plans for the next year. Oh and we had a home made veggi sushi supper and White Knight with Peppermint Candy Cains 🙂