The details of our home

I often record the conversations and the stories of our experience of living in our first house. I realised though that I never think to record the little details. The day to day stuff. What our home looks like.

Yesterday I took my camera and wandered around our little house. In many ways it screams student but I also think it has a lot of girly touches too.

These are the details that caught my eye....

My belongings littering the bed after coming back from a lecture. Backpack, phone, text book and computer.

Miss Maggie Rabbit who I made by hand, who still needs to be blogged about, and sits on my desk.

Housemates curled up on the sofa tapping away at work.

Bright spring daffodils on the table.

The obligatory cleaning rota tacked to the pin board in the kitchen.

Pretty cake tins by the window.

The sausage full of old plastic bags which never seem to get used again.

The cupboard full of pretty girly mugs. You can tell we are tea drinkers can't you!

The fridge magnets of love and happiness. Its always good to receive affirmation when you go to grab the milk in the morning!

and slippers just stepped out of in the middle of the lounge.

One day I will love to look back at these details that made our first little house a home.

What details make up your home?

On going on very long walks.

The boy was up in Durham this weekend and I was determined we would go on a walk.
We both love strolling along together, wellies on, coats flapping.
A few friends had mentioned the old priory north of the city and suggested that I visit it.
A cursory look at the map confirmed where it was and also that it was some distance.

The boy is a geographer. I am not. I think he grasped how far a nine mile walk was.
I didn't.
Thankfully he suggested we took a packed lunch. The resulting four hour walk though was just perfect. We knew that we might not make it all the way to the priory. Or at least he knew that. I was cheerfully optimistic!

We walked through woods, across the fields, past the category A prison which was a tad daunting and finally down the hill towards the priory.

The priory was beautiful but the company, now that was perfect! Hand in hand we chattered and joked and talked and walked in silence. We schemed and planned and dreamed and laughed together.
There is something about a long walk that lends itself to good conversation.

I am so thankful that he humoured my desire for this little adventure. I am also blessed that he knows me so well. As I pointed my camera up to capture the details of the priory he looked at me and said,
"photos and old things, they make a happy Abi don't they!"
They do, especially with him.

Project Life weeks 8 & 9

Here we go again and I'm finally feeling like i've found my groove with this project this year.

Things I am loving this week: 
Light, clean and airy pages. I have realised I like a lot of white, pops of colour from my photos and a few good fonts.
White boarders on photos and splashes of pretty floral and striped patterned paper.
Writing directly on photos. Nothing new here but I don't think it will ever get old.
Those week cards. I am glad I spent an hour making them in January.

Techniques I have tried: 
Trying to shake up how I document the week. Particularly on this week eight spread. I had lots of photos from one event so made a feature of it and placed them all in one area and added three journalling spots to tell the story.
I'm trying to become less concerned with telling the story of the week and more focused on telling the story of the photos I have.

Photos I have documented: 
A fun mix these two weeks. Week eight is focused on a walk I blogged about and a series of birthday events, week nine is the story of my brothers marathon and day to day goings on in Durham.

Thoughts on the project: 
I'm glad I am choosing to let it go a bit more this year. Week nine didn't have many photos. I let it go and created just the one page. I am far happier with this than trying to spin the photos out across two.

Still in love with the two page templates. I can't decide which I like more to be honest. It gives me far more options each week and has stopped this project so far becoming monotonous.

Back in the groove of making and posting layouts and it feels good!

One photo & twenty words

My brother ran a half marathon down south. I followed on twitter up North. He raised £500. What a hero.

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My challenge for you today. Find one photo and choose up to twenty words to tell its story. Jot it down and link back here. The link will stay open for a week so you have plenty of time to join in! 

Find your photo, find the words

The month has flown and again I am throwing down a challenge. 

On Sunday 9th I challenge you to find a photo and choose up to twenty words to tell its story. 

It can be trivial or deep or funny or a quote. Twenty words are suddenly not a lot and each one takes on that bit more meaning! 

Like always there will be a linky so you can share your photo and it will be open for a week. Get the thinking caps on! See you there. 

on our walk

The last few weeks have been busy around here. This time of term is clouded with deadlines and essay writing and library sessions. 

We have been having some glorious (if cold) weather here recently and it has been good to just stop work sometimes, don the wellies and head out of Durham. 

Last weekend we took a new walk, along the river and across the fields. 

The views were stunning. I have to remind myself to take my big camera more often rather than just rely on my phone. I love working with these photos far more than any quick instagram ones! 

It is so good to share a house with these lovely ladies. Sometimes a walk is just perfect to shake off those library blues. This walk came with a story too. We had planned to head to an old priory nearby. We ended up turning back before we made it. It's a good job too. It turned out the priory was on the other side of the river!

What things did you/do you do to break up work?

On starting a meme

Memes have been flying around the blog world this past year and in light of "time for tea" I thought it would be fun to share my thoughts and tips about starting a meme after a year of running one.

Disclaimer: I am not an expert, these are tips that work for me, feel free to adapt to your purpose!

1. Don't think too hard about it. 
Memes often come about by accident or mine seem to do at least! Time for tea started out of as a few blog posts I wrote, inviting blog readers to sit and have a chat with me. It was sporadic at first but then as it gathered momentum more people asked to join in and just like that we had a monthly meme.

The same was true for one photo & twenty words. I threw this out as a one off at the end of last year. I set it as a challenge and it was quickly taken up. There were requests to make it regular. In my experience, creating a meme is quite an organic and natural process.

I guess my rule of thumb would be to keep doing what you are doing. Find a type of post that people latch onto, or friends ask to join in with. A meme is always popular when that type of post has a following to start with or you are really enthusiastic about it already. (obviously this doesn't always have to be the case but it is how it has worked for me)


2. Make it clear. 
When so many people schedule blog posts or at least have an idea of how their month of blogging will pan out, it makes sense to set a date for your meme or if it is weekly, a day of the week.
I also like to try (if I remember) to post a reminder a few days before. I know that with the other memes I follow and join in with, the reminder is always welcome!

Within a reminder post or on a separate page or just at the bottom of a blog post I like to make it clear what the meme is. Most of the time it will be obvious but I have a little blurb I put with both my memes. Just to make sure we all know what we are doing!

3. Link it up. 
One of the joys of joining in memes is that you are doing so along with lots of other people. I find memes are a great way of visiting new blogs, finding new readers and making new friends. If you are considering starting a meme look at a few options for linking up. Are people just going to link in the comments or are you going to put a "linky" gadget at the bottom of the post?

I also keep my links open for a good week just to give everyone a chance to join in. I am notoriously late with joining in on other memes I follow so I always appreciate it when I am given plenty of time to do so.

I was very daunted when I first put a linky gadget into my memes but it is far easier than you think. It is normally just a case of copy and paste into the HTML section of your post.

4. Commitment. 
To start and run a meme is a commitment. It is great fun but its your party. That means preparing and clearing up so to speak! I found that time for tea was something I intended to do each month anyway so adding a link wasn't too much more. One photo and twenty words is quick and simple to write. I really enjoy writing both of these memes. Both require setting up though and that is what can take the time.

I found it really helpful at the start of this year to set out what I was planning on doing on the blog and then asking for opinions. That is a good gauge of how popular a meme may be and if it is worth creating it into a meme in the first place. The answer in my experience is nearly always yes. The effort of running it (which isn't much really) is totally made up by the fun of writing and reading so many wonderful posts across the world.

5. Say Thanks. 
Courtesy can go a long way with memes. If someone has linked up I will make a point of visiting, reading and leaving a comment. Simple manners but I appreciate it if others have done that for me. At the end of the day people have taken time out to join in with you. Thanks goes a long way!

So, what are your experiences of memes? Do you join in with some? Do you run one? Have you thought of running one?

Alexa and Sian who I know run some lovely memes, are there any other tips you would suggest/ lessons learnt?