Tuesday, April 24, 2012

Ipiccy.com

So after comiserating and moaning and whining about the death of Picnik.com, I have discovered Ipiccy.com (I think I mentioned it before). It's fab. VERY similar to picnik and I've had a little play. So here are some recent pics....with fiddly bits done on ipiccy!#

So this is what I wore today. I quite love it. And I "styled" it myself! I'm learning how to dress better - or at least dress how I like to dress and not how I think I should as a larger woman.

Playing with the Warhol filter on ipccy - this is Clare and I - we went to Greenwich for noodles today and saw them rehearsing for the opening of the Cutty Sark tomorrow - this is us in front of the stage with a choir and full orchestra on. I do love our cheesy self portraits - must make a collage of them sometime - or Clare will you?


Toby in the bath the other day. Fiddling with frames and cross filtering on ipiccy.


The boys crowned me Queen of the Playroom the other day.....this is me attempting to blur me into youth - or better skin!

Rob had a couple of weeks off now his project is completed. We went to Ikea and were all lovey dovey in the queue for meatballs! This is a colour filter that picnik didn't have and I quite like it!

My baby boy posing in the jumper his auntie knitted him....I always did love the Orton effect on Picnik, combined with a vignette.....and I can still do this! Yay!

Didn't do much to this one at all - the light did it for me. Toby is desperate to learn chess. Rob is amazingly patient with him. I cannot play at all so am happy to leave the Grandmastering to Rob!
So a brief snapshot of my snapshots recently (since people are still complaining I'm not taking pictures like I was). I think discovering this website will inspire me a bit cos I do like faffing around with filters! And when the weather brightens up, Clare and I will be going on some photowalks.....

Watch this space!

Monday, April 23, 2012

Meh

So...I haven't really been posting much in the last few weeks - no photos, no fatshion posts, minimal facebook updates, not a lot of anything really and I'm trying to work out why....I've kind of lost my creative mojo I think - no particular reason why...Life is kind of ticking along - nothing spectacularly good, or spectacularly bad.

My other half has been uber-stressed over a project at work (it's taken 6 months and sucked him dry) but that's kind of finished now. The kids (apart from an OBSESSION with Alvin and the Chipmunks) are doing OK - we have our good days and bad as usual. Maybe it's the constant background noise of high pitched rodents that's been sapping my inspiration.....

The weather is crap. So I haven't felt like going on a stroll with my DLR camera. Picnik closed which made me think editing my photos was going to be a pain in the arse but as you can see from the shot above I've found a new website called Ipiccy.com - thank you Clare - which is almost the same (except I can't work out how to put text on my image).

I have been going out with my friends quite a lot, so my social life isn't as meh as my online existence! But people have commented so this is kind of a response to "why aren't you posting anything". I have no idea!

The only thing I can think of is that I've become quite addicted to Sidereel.com and have been watching inordinate amounts of American TV online - GCB, Smash, Subugatory, Dance Moms (and Dance Moms Miami - a totally guilty pleasure).....so when I AM online, I'm not producing, just absorbing crap TV!

But I'm still here. And I'm still hopeful that my creative juices will kick in again. So don't fret (not that I imagine anyone still reads this blog). I will be back (NOT said in an Austrian accent)

Tuesday, April 17, 2012

India Knight is brilliant

First off, I know...I haven't taken any pictures. I've kind of lost my photo mojo so I'm resigning from Photo A Day for this year - I'm proud as hell that I managed to do it last year every day, but I can't sustain it. And a few people mentioned (well, my Mother did) that they missed my writing, and nice as my photos were, it's nice to hear from me in prose....

I haven't been inspired until today. And I'm kind of cheating cos I'm sharing someone else's writing....but I just started reading Comfort And Joy by India Knight and I love it. One passage resonated utterly with me:

 "I know for a fact that the following are demonstrably true, unless of course a child is born with disabilities:

a. It doesn't matter if you're breast or bottle fed, or born naturally or by Caesarian

b. everybody learns to walk

c. everybody learns to talk

d. everybody learns to pee and poo in a lavatory e. and wipe their own bottom

 f. everybody learns to read and write

g. nobody gives a crap about when any of this happens. Nobody goes around as an adult saying 'I learned to walk when I was barely one' or 'I was potty trained exceptionally early'. (Some people do say 'I was reading fluently by the age of three', admittedly, which pinnacle of achievement kind of tells you everything you need to know about them.)

 h. it's okay to have sweets or bad additives every now and then

i. giving your son a toy sword isn't going to turn him into a serial killer; giving your daughter a dolly doesn't mean she'll never read Proust

j. it's okay to ignore your children on occasion, if you're busy and they're safe but merely a bit bored

k. in fact, occasional boredom is good for children: it makes them self reliant

l. children usually turn out fine, unless of course their parents become demented with all of the above

m. its impossible to say any of this to people whose children are younger than yours without sounding unattractively like Old Mother Time, so there's no point in even trying

n. which is fine by me because it's boring 

 ...it's such a waste of time, all this lunacy about what they play with, or how they play, or how well they do or don't do at 'homework' when they are five, or how many activities they do after school, or how early they learned to ride their bike without stabilisers, or how they have dried fruit for treats because it had been decreed that chocolate shall never pass their lips...these children...will always be fine. They are lucky, loved, wanted, privileged children. The end. Everything else is bourgeois hysteria. "

Slightly edited (to remove some plot stuff that isn't pertinent to this post) but taken from this wonderful book.

Just got me thinking. I don't know anyone that hysterical about child rearing in real life. (certainly none of my friends) But I have encountered slightly similar parenting practice or competitive parenting and it tends to make me wobble and doubt what I'm doing. So I'm blogging this to remind myself not to.

Thank you India. And thank you for replying to me when I tweeted you! ( sad fan I know)