Brass buttons, green silks and silver shoes

Warm evenings, pale mornings, bottled blues
And tiny golden pins that she wore up in her hair
Brass buttons, green silks and silver shoes

My mind was young and then it grew
My thoughts known only by a few
A dream much too real to be leaned against too long
And all the time I guess she knew

Her thoughts still dance inside my head
Her comb still lies beside my bed
But the sun comes up without her, it doesn't know she's gone
And it remembers nothing that she said

Brass buttons, green silks and silver shoes
Warm evenings, pale mornings, bottled blues
And tiny golden pins that she wore up in her hair
Brass buttons, green silks and silver shoes
Brass buttons, green silks and silver shoes.

Song Name: Brass Buttons
Artist Name: Gram Parsons


It just seemed appropriate to my post being all about buttons today.
I'm trying to recreate the button box that I used to spend hours playing with when I was wee. Of course I do also intend using 'some' of them eventually.







My arty shot!!!


And my button box so far....

Bring me sunshine...

in your smile
Bring me laughter all the while
In this world where we live
There should be more happiness
So much joy you can give
To each brand new bright tomorrow

Make me happy through the years
Never bring me any tears
Let your arms be as warm as the sun from up above
Bring me fun, bring me sunshine, bring me love.

but at least make it warmer. Purlease....
Gorgeous sunny day today but man it's cold. If you found yourself a sheltered sunny spot then you could just about agree to spring being on its way but in the shade brrrrr forget it. My croci (is that right?) or crocuses (better?) are enjoying the sun and the woofs are more willing to sit outside for a bit longer now before they scurry back inside.

Big one has got a friend over tonight and possible again tomorrow night for a sleepover. I'm already shattered with the thought of the lack of sleep. :)

They're off to a band/singing comp tomorrow so they've had one of their other friends round who plays guitar. They sounded amazing so I'll be very surprised if they don't do well. My excited for tomorrow will be taking wee one to go shopping for some new indoor shoes for school. Yes that's right they have to have seperate shoes for wearing inside the school. Shoes that have never been tainted with the ground of the outdoors. Fresh as the day they came off the factory line! The school is 10 years old and it's a policy that they put in place when the school opened to keep the floors in good condition. Aaah but you may ask do the teachers have separate indoors shoes, the cleaners, the cooks, teacher assistants, visitors? Well no apparantely no they don't. Bizarre. So as wee one seems to have worn her indoors shoes to death, that is the sole of one of them is threadbare (oh don't I feel like a great mum, but to be fair these shoes never come home) we have to buy some new ones.

But on sunday I'm going to collect 20, yes that TWENTY years worth of Country Living magazines. A lovely lady offered them on freecycle and I am the lucky lucky recipient. I can't even begin to imagine what 20 years worth of magazines is going to look like though. Think my car might be slightly lopsided on the way home!

A friend emailed me this today and I thought it would be fun to put here and see if anyone would like to play along. It may look easy but see how long it takes you. ;)

SCATTERGORIES

Rules: USE THE 1ST LETTER OF YOUR NAME TO ANSWER EACH OF THE FOLLOWING QUESTIONS. THEY HAVE TO BE REAL PLACES,NAMES,THINGS. NOTHING MADE UP! TRY TO USE DIFFERENT ANSWERS IF THE PERSON IN FRONT OF YOU HAD THE SAME 1ST INITIAL.
YOU CAN'T USE YOUR NAME FOR THE BOY/GIRL NAME QUESTION.

1. What is your name? Tara
2. A 4 Letter Word: Tack
3. A Boy's Name: Tom
4. A Girl's Name: Tallulah
5. An Occupation: Train driver
6. A Colour: Teal
7. Something you wear: Trousers
8. A Beverage: Tea
9. A Food: Trifle
10. Something found in the bathroom: Toilet
11. A place: Tehran
13. Something you shout: Today! (Usually when I've asked one of the small people to do something and it's still not been done)

If I get time tomorrow I'll share some button pictures with you. My latest splurge on Ebay. Which I am now keeping away from until I can order a certain poster from this lovely blogger

Ok time I went to bed, wish me luck for getting any sleep.

So you think you had a bad day at work?

Rob is a commercial saturation diver for Global Divers in Louisiana. He performs underwater repairs on offshore drilling rigs. Below is an E-mail he sent to his sister. She then sent it to a radio station in Ft.Wayne, Indiana, who was sponsoring a worst job experience contest. Needless to say, she won.


Hi Cheryl,

Just another note from your bottom-dwelling brother. Last week I had a bad day at the office. I know you've been feeling down lately at work, so I thought I would share my dilemma with you to make you realize it's not so bad after all. Before I can tell you what happened to me, I first must bore you with a few technicalities of my job.

As you know, my office lies at the bottom of the sea. I wear a suit to the office. It's a wetsuit. This time of year the water is quite cool.

So what we do to keep warm is this: We have a diesel-powered industrial water heater. This $20,000 piece of equipment sucks the water out of the sea, heats it to a delightful temperature, then pumps it down to the diver through a garden hose which is taped to the air hose. Now this sounds like a darn good plan, and I've used it several times with no complaints.

What I do, when I get to the bottom and start working, is take the hose and stuff it down the back of my wetsuit. This floods my whole suit with warm water. It's like working in a Jacuzzi.
Everything was going well until all of a sudden, my bum started to itch.
So, of course, I scratched it. This only made things worse. Within a few seconds my bum started to burn! I pulled the hose out from my back, but the damage was done. In agony
I realized what had happened. The hot water machine had sucked up a jellyfish and pumped it into my suit.

Now, since I don't have any hair on my back, the jellyfish couldn't stick to it. However, the crack of my bum was not as fortunate. When I scratched what I thought was an itch, I was actually grinding the
jellyfish into the crack of my bum. I informed the dive supervisor of my dilemma over the communicator. His instructions were unclear due to the fact that he, along with five other divers, were all laughing
hysterically. Needless to say I aborted the dive.

I was instructed to make three agonizing in-water decompression stops totalling thirty-five minutes before I could reach the surface to begin my chamber dry decompression. When I arrived at the surface, I was wearing nothing but my brass helmet. As I climbed out of the water, the medic, with tears of laughter running down his face, handed me a tube of cream and told me to rub it on my bum as soon as I got in the
chamber. The cream put the fire out, but I couldn't poo for two days because my bum was swollen shut.

So, next time you're having a bad day at work, think about how much worse it would be if you had a jellyfish shoved up your arse. Now
repeat to yourself, I love my job, I love my job, I love my job." Now whenever you have a bad day, ask yourself, is this a jellyfish Bad day?

May you NEVER have a jellyfish bad day

I appear to be following myself.

Is anyone else a follower of themselves or is it just a special talent I seem to have picked up? Very odd. Anyway...
I forgot to share with you the lovely poster wee one had made for us returning from Denmark. It was stuck to the front door and was a lovely sight as we got out of the taxi.

Went shopping today and thought I'd do my bit and get the smalls some of these crazy crisp flavours that have been doing the rounds just lately.
Wee one and I both think these
taste disgusting.
And these ones... just taste of egg. So if builders only eat eggs then I guess that would be right but most builders I know have the full monty and not just a few eggs. Big one refused to try either of them, she's probably the wiser of us all. :)

While I was out and about I called into Matalan to check out this Anthea Turner range that people have been raving about and I ended up buying 2 of the large glass jars and 2 of the smaller ones. Well I say smaller but even the small jars are huge. I meant to take a pic but at the moment they are drying after having a good wash. I'm planning on using them to keep my baking stores in. Now if I could just find a nice dresser. Oh one picture I do have is the added bonus of these that I have safely taken out of the jars and are now safely in with my craft supplies.

And seeings as how I seem to be showing off all the things I keep spending money on, my I proudly present to you my £3 cake stand from the charity shop.


Again with the flowers and prettiness!
I can only assume that I'm becoming attuned to flowers and pretty things thanks to all the lovely blogs I follow.

Still no word from the job that I applied for, the closing date was 20th Feb. Thought I'd leave it till Friday and if I've still not heard anything I'd phone their Human Resources and show a bit of initiative. Or at least put myself out of my waiting misery for the weekend.

Oh and I have actually crafted. Yes let the bells ring, bring on the trumpets, let the people dance in the street. I have crochetted a square AND knitted something. Rejoice, rejoice my mojo has come back to me.

Numpty blogger

that's me. Can you believe we went to a 10th Wedding anniversary party on saturday. It was a themed party him indoors went as a Mod and I went as a punk but did either of us think to take photos of ourselves? Well no but a few friends were roaming around with cameras so fingers crossed someone will have managed a not too blurry drunken shot here and there. :D



Yesterday was St David's Day and being Welsh that should be a big deal for me but due to the fact that we had people round to our house after the party finished it meant I didn't actually get to my bed until the birds had started their morning song. So yesterday was spent lying on the sofa dozing. Thankfully my small people were happy to potter around and lie down with me.

Today marks 7 years since me and the smalls packed up all our belongings and moved up to Scotland (him indoors moved up 6 months beforehand) Wee one was only 1 and big one 7 when we moved up. Now even though I call them my small people they are growing up so fast and into beautiful young ladies. Big one made me laugh on Saturday as she was doing my make up for the party (punk style - she researched it online - and I had to explain what a punk was to wee one....kids aren't they great for making you feel old) and wee one was spraying my hair, which I had backcombed to within an inch of it's life and styled into a mohawk, a multitude of whacky colours. Big one said "I really have no way of rebelling do I Mum." Uuumm well as this mum has tattoo's, several piercings, does not do high street fashion and listens to big one's requests for hair styles/colours/piercings (only ears so far) I had to reply "Probably the only way you can rebel if you feel the need to sweetie is to wear a-line skirts and be very conservative." Then off she went to her room to rummage through her accessories to go with my outfit. Later this week we're going to design our own converse and get them ordered. :D

I love the days like that, those are the days that you know you're doing an ok job. ;)

Warning! Highs and lows

Yes I've put a warning for this chocolate cake as after a slice of it my eldest seems to go hyper. I made this for her 8th birthday and haven't made a habit of making since but thought I'd treat her for her 14th, possibly in the hope that it would keep her in our company for as long as it would take to eat it. Once you see the ingredients you'll understand why. It is incredibly gorgeous though.

Look at that gooeyness.

I baked it in a square tin but then realised that the tin was too big, plus I didn't have a plate big enough to hold the cake so I had to cut it in half and double it up. Big one didn't mind though, double gooeyness! :)


You can see how moist it is in the middle.


More gooeyness? Oh yes it's not over yet.
Here comes the topping...


Voila. One Bruce Bogtrotter's Chocolate Cake. You know Bruce Bogtotter, he's the wee lad who had to eat the whole cake because the horrible headmistress in Matilda made him. ;)


Right as promised a picture of the beautiful bookmark I received from Dinosaurtoes in her giveaway.
Beautifully wrapped
I feel so special with my posh bookmark.
Thank you so much dinosaurtoes. I would highly recommend everyone to go visit her etsy and blog as she makes the most gorgeous things.

I'm not one for sitting watching tv during the day usually but while I was typing this up I stuck the tv on to catch a bit of This Morning. Did I chose the day to do that! I was so sad to hear about David Cameron's son, Ivan who died yesterday. My heart goes out to his family. Of course on This Morning they were doing a segment about child bereavement and Denise the Agony Aunt has just had me in tears, as she was in tears herself. Losing a child is never ever the right order of things. So to all of us who have had to say goodbye far too soon. Look for the beauty in the smallest things and there you will see they are sending you a smile. (((hugs)))

I'm baaaaack!

Thanks to everyone who wished me a nice time. It was lovely but boy believe people when they tell you Denmark is expensive!



Despite several of the Danish people (who were lovely) telling us that Danes are kinda closed and private, all the one's we met didn't seem to be. Maybe that's just the effect we have on people. :D


We walked for miles and did the sites.



And tasted the food.
This is a typical brunch. I forgot to place the plate of fresh fruit and pancakes in the shot. Ooops


This is called Danish hash.
Basically it is bits of beef and pork and fried potatoes, served with a fried egg on top and bread on the side.
I don't think I cleared my plate once while we were away. BIG portions. I also had a local kind of stew thing which was gorgeous but didn't take a photo as the restaurant was kind of dark and I wasn't up to frightening all the other diners with the flash on my camera. LOL


All the florists were a riot of colour and I'd have loved to bring so many plants home with me, including a wee lemon tree with huge lemons. All planted up in a normal size plant pot! But I doubt I'd get many lemons up here in Scotland.


And my dear husband kindly made me stand in front of this shop while he took my photo. Can you see why?


Actually I took a photo of him outside a shop earlier in the day but he says that is not for general consumption. Let's just say the name of the shop was the word used for a needle entering your skin only with out the c before the k. ;)

Back tomorrow with pics of my lovely bookmark that I won in Dinosaurtoes giveaway, the gooeyist chocolate cake ever that I made for big one for her birthday and finally the results of the 'what I did with the teapcups' saga.