Celebrate The Small Things - Friday 28 June

Another Friday, another week of Celebrate The Small Things.

The rules are so simple, they don't really count as rules! More guidelines ;)

Before we begin: quick question: I've spaced on sending reminders for this out lately mainly as work's been mad during the week - if you feel strongly either way (no don't spam me with a reminder email! or yes I want a reminder email!) please comment in the comments. I might start them up again if they'll help!

Ceeee-le-brate good times :)

In Summary:

Sign up on the linky 

Post Celebrations of Small Things - growing that plant, having a nice coffee receiving a postcard

PIMMS

Hop around and celebrate with others!

My celebrations for the week:

I was lucky enough to go to Wimbledon! And I saw Roger Federer get knocked out (poor Rog). Though I must say yay to Mr. 116 in the world or whatever ranking he is, Sergiy, who must feel pretty good :) 

Yay to having Pimms at Wimbledon. Here's a picture.

I also had a nice dinner out with friends, and it's getting hot so I was glad my new fan arrived! (I figured a picture of the Pimms is more exciting than the fan!)

How's your week?

Here's the linky - go visit ;) Celebrate!

What's Up Wednesday - 26 June

Time For What's Up Wednesday! 

What I'm Reading: 
Just finished The Sea Sisters by Lucy Clarke. I really enjoyed it. The author's love of travelling seeps into her descriptions; she really made places come alive for me. The amazon blurb reads: 

Katie’s carefully structured world is shattered by the news that her headstrong younger sister, Mia, has been found dead in Bali – and the police claim it was suicide.

With only the entries of Mia’s travel journal as her guide, Katie retraces the last few months of her sister’s life, and – page by page, country by country – begins to uncover the mystery surrounding her death.

It did hold my interest; I'd recommend!

What I'm Writing: 

Still editing editing editing. Smashed my 5 chapter goal by getting 10 done so aiming for 10 this week (ho ho ho now I'll get 2 done as I have much less time this week!). #readysetwrite is helping me motivate as I didn't want to report not making my goal! :)

What Inspires Me Right Now:

Wimbledon is on, and as ever when I watch highly successful athletes, I am inspired by their determination. Andy Murray loses Wimbledon 2012 and it only inspires him to an Olympic Gold Medal and US Open success. It's inspiring to see people get up and try again, work harder and harder. That's what we have to apply to writing, I think!

What Else I've Been Up To:

The tomatoes I'm growing are now going yellow - yay! Otherwise my work's been busy busy busy.

What's UP with you?

Celebrate The Small Things - 21 June

Who doesn't love a good caption?

It is time for another Celebrate the Small Things!

The rules are as easy as 1, 2, 3!

1. Sign up on the linky list
2. Post celebrations in your blog- of small things, like having that great coffee or growing those tomatoes at last or writing 100 words of a new idea.
3. Hop around and celebrate with others.

This week has been one of those weeks where I heard about not particularly good news for several friends. You know break ups and not getting jobs and not being wells all that sort of thing. So it is hard to feel celebratory when my loved ones are going through a hard time. However! The point of it is not to see good things just when it is easy to, I guess. So here we go:

1. I am celebrating that I can be there for my loved ones. In these days of easy communication sending a text or email to let people know they are in my thoughts is easy!
2. It makes me grateful for my own situation - normality is to be cherished.
3. It has been sunny this week, and that makes everything better.
4. Started going for runs again. Slow and alternating walking/running at the moment but being active makes me feel better!

How are all of you?

Ready Set Write / What's Up Wednesday.

I have signed up for Ready Set Write! Go here to check it out but basically it seems a way of keeping motivation going over the summer. Join in the fun group!

Ready Steady Go

 Part of Ready Set Write is to:
Set weekly goals (or whatever time period works) for what we hope to achieve.
Update weekly in What's Up Wednesday! (Info about that here).

So!

What I'm Reading.

I love captions

Just finished reading Sarah Alderson's Shadowed which I enjoyed. It's the latest in her series (the third one). Interestingly, I think the first one was published by Simon & Schuster and she went the self publishing route for the sequels, as far as I understand it. I am glad she's publishing the sequels as I'm interested in keeping up with what happens to the characters!

What I'm Writing.
EDITING. Editing editing editing editing. This week's aim is going to be to get 5 chapters edited. However I have discovered Scrivener and I have to say it feels less daunting to edit a chapter when I can't see the rest of the document stretching out below...

What Inspires Me Right Now
Oooh good question. The summer sun and being out for a walk.

What Else I've Been Up To
Growing tomatoes. They are still green but there's a few of 'em!

That's it from me! What are you up to?

Celebrate the Small Things - 14 June

Here we are with another Celebrate the Small Things, and HOW are we in Mid June people, how?

The rules of Celebrating are so simple they aren't really rules! Just sign up on the linky, post some celebrations, and hop around and share the celebrations of others! The celebrations can be as small as you like and don't have to be writing related.

Mine for this week are:

• A friend from my writing group has a book deal, and has even sold rights to Germany - I am so excited for her.
• It is the weekend.
• I am able to work from home today which is good because no commute and also means I can get lots of stuff done!
• Otherwise been a busy work average sort of week but every 'normal' week which passes is a reason to celebrate in itself. Grateful for all to be averagely well!

Here's the linky list!

Celebrate the Small Things: June 7

Lovin' This Caption Business Dudes

Welcome to Celebrate The Small Things! We are in JUNE people. JUNE. How exciting is that?

Celebrate The Small Things is simple:

1. Sign up on the list
2. Post some small celebrations - you fixed the drawer! You ate five fruit/veg today! You didn't shout at your grouchy neighbour! Or whatever ;)
3. Hop around and celebrate with others. This bit is important too. It's nice to share the warm and fuzzies ;)

Now - I have cut people off the list. Eep! Only sites I thought weren't really joining in and if I have cut you and you want to stay: just add yourself back on and accept my embarrassed sorry face as recompense.

What am I celebrating this week, you may ask? Well:

• It's been sunny. Proper drag out that summer dress sunny. Wonders will never cease.
• The Hen (that's bachelorette) do last weekend was fun. My friend had a good time!
• We have 12 tomatoes growing. Yellow cherry tomatoes.
• The Osprey on this cam's eggs have hatched: See link here. Not that I am obsessed with animal cams or anything.

How about you? What are YOU celebrating?

IWSG: June Edition

It is that time of the month again, when the IWSG meet, thanks to our fine host Alex J. Cavanaugh (He's like Michael J. Fox with the mystery J isn't he? Or perhaps it isn't a mystery to anybody but me. Anyway.). Check out the list of blogs participating here. With many thanks to Alex for running this and setting this up - I don't know about anybody else but it's good to have a monthly opportunity to feel free to let ones insecurities loose.

This month, I had to dig out some old photos for a friend. Among those was a photo from my university days (which are *cough* a few years ago now....). One photo was from a party. I remember at this party feeling out of sorts - you know, when your hair's too frizzy to do what you want and there's a spot on your chin and you try and flirt with a guy and feel just awkward doing it and generally all those insecurities of 'I suck' rise to the fore.

In the photo: I am grinning away with my arms slung around my friends, my hair looking GREAT if I say so myself with not a spot in sight. In fact, I remember now I DID score a date with the guy in question (not that it went anywhere).

How weird, I thought to myself that my memories from the time are so at odds with the photo, as I look back at it. My insecurities at the time were all entirely in my head. I can only see that now, with time and being older and wiser I guess.

I'm not sure what the purpose of this story was. I guess to say: those insecurities might not be founded. Time will likely work it out.

Ever had a similar revelation upon seeing a photo?