A blogging return on a peculiarly disagreeable book

I have caught my housemate in possession of a book. A disagreeable book. One might say, a ridiculous book.

The book is called "Get Married: What Women Can Do To Make It Happen".

I am incensed!

Now, I haven't read this book, but, aside from the title, the cover did nothing to draw me in any further. On opening the book I felt no greater desire to read it when faced with foliage page detail and floaty italic fonts. No, I think it is fair to say that this is not my idea of a good read.

Do you think there will be 10 easy to follow steps? Do 1. followed by 2. followed by 3. etc and by number 10. you will find yourself happily married (do the 2.4 children follow in the sequel?). What makes the author think that the steps that led up to her marriage will be the same as for everyone else? And what if you follow her simple self help steps only to find yourself married 10 years down the line wondering who on earth you are and how you managed to find yourself here? Is not being yourself surely a better way at approaching life than persuing marriage by any means?

The reviews on Amazon do nothing to allay my fears:
"She passed on truth to me that positioned my heart in such a way to truly receive the Lord's fullest blessings."
"In this book, Candice Watters gives us pratical tips and stories from her own life about how to finally reach the altar."

More worryingly though was another similar looking book that I followed a link to on Amazon (and is more popular...) "Getting Serious About Getting Married". About which reviewers said:
"But this book has reminded me of both my Godly responsibilty to be a wife and also the fact that being single is not part of Gods plan for the majority and so no matter how busy and successful we are, nothing else is going to slot into the perfect place made for a husband accept [sic] a husband! "
"This book is sent by God for "such a time as this"."

Oh please. Spare us.

Church Christmas Card

It's that time of year again - the Church Christmas Card time of year. With Sarah being on staff now she was designated buyer of needed resources. After much work having been done on the foyer of the church we were this year restricted to a much smaller board space (we reassured Dave that we were not going to be stapling to the walls this year...)

It seems that each year we get a little bit more ambitious with our lettering, going from 'Have a heavenly Christmas' the first year to 'We have seen His star in the East and we have come to worship him' last year, to the epic lettering of 5 of our most favourite lines from carols and Christmas songs this year - 'Unto us a child is born, unto us a Son is given Joyful all ye nations rise, join the triumph of the skies And their hearts believed again for the peace of men Can this tiny light set a world on fire Come, bow down and worship; come let's worship the king'. After borrowing a Big Shot die cutter, cutting out the lettering took most of yesterday evening, but that was only a small part of the job - setting out the words so that they would fit nicely onto the border was a much greater challenge! We had estimated accurately, however, and the words that we had chosen fit comfortably on the available space.

We then carefully fixed garden meshing to the backing by attaching garden wire with staples to the board and then twisting it on to fix it. We made a manger for the middle of the board and attached it in the same way then finally rounded the whole thing off with some wired gold ribbon wound around the whole board. There were moments when I never believed that we would get it finished but Sarah and I are, once again, thoroughly proud of the result!

My mug

Went to All Fired Up to collect my creation this morning, then christened it with a brew at the Chap Centre!

Pot painting, friends and jollity

Yesterday I went with some good friends to All Fired Up in Lancaster. It is a coffee shop where you can paint ceramics as you socialise! We had so much fun, I painted a mug with a picture of a princess on one side and 'Miss Swarbrick's mug' written on the other side. I can't wait for it to be fired so that I can collect it and start to use it for a good ol' brew! Mmm mm. We were in the shop for 3 1/2 hours, beavering away. Debbie painted a very professional looking heart shaped vase with a flower on either side (genius, in my opinion) and Ellie painted a teapot/teacup combination very cleverly with the picture spanning the pot and lid (what talented ladies they are!)

Afterwards we went back to the Peatpeople's place for yummy fish and chips and television viewing - Peter Kay's X-Factor/any other live voting type show spoof. Loved it! Particularly Nelson Mandella-ella-ella-ella-ella under my umberella... Genius!

The Dinster (Dinester? Deanster? Dino.) is becoming more sociable, though I remained happily sandwiched in the middle of the sofa with a coffee table in front of me - safe from woofy dogs, sharp teeth and slavvery mouths :) Sarah fed him treats and stroked him - she's a braver woman than I!

Having a ball

Last week church held a ball. Why? Why not?!

It was a good excuse to wear pretty dresses!

Perhaps the busiest week in my life so far...

It has indeed been a hectic one this week. Yesterday was Open Day/Evening at school, starting at 1.30 in the afternoon (still in classes) and going on until 8 in the evening with an hour for tea. After half a week on residential last week and then 2 days of unproductive activity to fill up the rest of the week with a classful of exhausted small people I had only 3 and a half days in which to complete a piece of quality writing each and put it up on display. Yesterday morning was a highly stressed environment, a class of children in the ICT suite as journalists and editors putting together a newspaper about their trip to Kingswood. I ran with the role play scenario in a 'YOU ARE 5 MINUTES AWAY FROM YOUR DEADLINE!' kind of way, closely followed by 'THE NEWSPAPER IS GOING TO PRINT, IF YOUR ARTICLES AREN'T IN YET YOU'VE MISSED IT!' We did get it all done and magically displayed on the wall with duplicates backed and up too (all thanks to Mrs H - well done indeed!). Open Evening isn't something that I take to easily and with my own fast approaching presentation to parents it was quite stressful.

This morning was school harvest in church and all classes presented a 'something'. We did a Fischy Music song 'Wonderful World' with actions and instruments including a couple of djembes that we have for our drumming club. Finding time to rehearse this week hasn't been easy as I'm sure you can imagine, but it went well in the end. Choir sang a number as well which was very well received. The numbers for choir have swelled this year to over 30 now - I'm so proud! I love leading choir so much and we have even managed to recruit a few boys now as well. I'm still on a recruitment drive for boys though - there are none from my class in it yet - I'm determined to draw them in through those lunchtime doors!

In the meantime I think I'm in for a well deserved weekend.

Residentials, sleep deprivation and wedding happiness

Woo hoo, blogger has let me in today!

Well last week was a crazy one indeed. The first 3 days of the week were spent down in North Wales at the Kingswood Activity Centre in Denbigh with my class. I did have some trepidations, specifically about times that younger children wake up and the noise that they make when they wake each other up (I like my sleep!) but was pleasantly surprised to wake on the first morning at 7 and on the second morning after 7! Wonderful indeed. We had such a brilliant time, though the weather was wet, the staff were absolutely brilliant and the kids were well behaved. Marvellous. However, the remaining two days in school were somewhat of a blur... really was so exhausted by the Friday that it was almost all I could do by the lunchtime to lift my sandwich to my mouth and chew! An afternoon PE lesson woke me up a little but I was so very glad come 3.15!

Following on from that I have been down to Birmingham this weekend for another lovely wedding. It was a fabulous day for it, possibly the best Saturday that we've had all summer - definitely well chosen, Roz!! The bride was stunningly gorgeous as ever and the whole day was a wonderful event. It was great to catch up with friends again and to look forward to seeing them all again in 5 weeks at the next wedding! No-one introduced me to the best man though, shame on them!!