31 Day Blog Challenge - Day 4 - What Are You Afraid Of?

Day 4 - What Are You Afraid Of?


My main fears are:



Archways / Tunnels - I am most afraid of big, bricked, arched structures!  My big irrational fear which does sometimes prevent me from going to certain places in case I come across one!  I cannot explain where this fear originates but I know that when I see or go through one, I hyperventilate, cry, scream and generally freak out!  So embarrassing but something I want to ovecome. I am not scared of the arch falling down as I know they are a strong structure, I think it comes down to the more imposing they are, the worse it is, especially when I don't know one is around the corner and they jump out at me!



Spiders - Ugh, even looking at this picture is making me itch and feel sick!  I am a huge arachnophobe although I think I am getting better as I get older!  I think this fear rubbed of on me from my Mum and even small spiders freak me out!



Kitchen Knives - Another random fear which comes from my fear of horror movies!  Just the gore and mess of using knives makes me cringe watching it.  Im fine using ordinary knives, its just when there are sharp, bladed knives like these around I feel nervous!

Scream Mask - Then onto the horror movie mask!  The Scream films were the first proper horror movies I ever saw and this mask scares the hell out of me!  I remember being at a party when this film was on and I was so engrossed in it that I did not notice half the party go to the french windows behind me and scare the hell out of me by banging on them! 

Those are my main fears and the things I am most afraid of aside from the obvious things like death and my children being hurt. 
  Now Im off to look at rainbows, sunshine and chocolate before my nightmares haunt my dreams!

xxx

31 Day Blog Challenge - Day 3 - My Favourite Quote

Day Three - My Favourite Quote

This is a tricky post as I don't really have a favourite quote but one that springs to mind when trying to answer is this:


" The Greatest Thing You'll Ever Learn Is Just To Love, And Be Loved In Return"

This is the tagline from one of my favourite ever movies, Moulin Rouge and I think its mainly for that reason that I love it so much!  Plus, I do think it is a beautiful quote and one that most, if not all, of us can relate to, having loved someone or be loved whether it be by family or lovers or friends.

I mainly love song lyrics more than quotes and I can instantly pick a handful:

" You can check out any time you like, but you can never leave" - Hotel California by The Eagles
" Reading novels is banned by the Marquis De Sade...Life is wearing me thin"  - Legacy by Mansun
" Trust me, on the sunscreen" - Everybody's Free (To Wear Sunscreen) by Baz Luhrman"
" Inside my heart is aching, my make up may be flaking but my smile still stays on" - The Show Must Go On by Queen

I could have carried on but that would defeat the object of the post!

xxx

365 Day Photo Challenge - 175 / 365

175 / 365 - I took this during the hailstorm I endured during the school run!  Although you cannot see the hail stones which were pretty scary driving through, you get a rough idea of the monstrosity that it was from my car window!

365 Day Photo Challenge - 174 / 365

174 / 365 - My lovely son drew this interpretation of his Grandad which we found hilarious because its almost exact!

31 Day Blog Challenge - Day 2 - 20 Facts About Me

Day 2- 20 Facts About Me

1. I am a big fat rebel!
2. I am a geek and am proud of it!
3. I have been to Iceland where I have climbed glaciers, volcanos and earthquake cracks
4. I have been dying my hair red since I was 18, way before it became a fashion statement
5. I sometimes dress in clashing colours just to get a reaction!
6. Although I am proud to be a mum, I hate talking to other Mums about it!
7. I hate coconut and onions
8. I have over 300 cds, and over 50 notebooks!
9. My favourite tv show ever is Doctor Who
10. I have two tattoos, only recently done on my right arm
11. I have 7 gcses, 2 A Levels and one NVQ Level 2
12. I have worked for McDonalds, Claires Accessories and Virgin Megastores before it went into administration!
13. I have a fear of spiders and archways/ tunnels/ viaducts!
14. I go on Facebook more than I should but only when I have nothing else to do!
15. I bite my nails, badly! (Although only on my hands, never ever my toes, ugh!)
16. I love cross stitching and doing scrapbooks, I have made 4 scrapbooks and 5 photo albums!
17. I hate being cold, I am at my happiest when its warm outside!
18. I suffer from S.A.D and hayfever!
19. I hate being wrong even if I think I am right and will go out of my way to prove I am right in any situation!
20. I love doing quizzes, especially music quizzes as I am pretty good at them!

OOh, that was harder than I thought it would be!

31 Day Blog Challenge - Day 1 - Introducing

I have sadly neglected my blog recently due to having no energy to do anything!  But I am hoping to rectify this and first task is to complete the 31 Day Blog Challenge so I can cross this off from my list on my Day Zero Project. 
  I have been looking for a challenge like this which tells my readers more about me rather than just some silly random questions and this exciting challenge was stumbled upon Cupcake Mumma s' blog.
  I know I am starting this in the second week of the month but that does not matter, I am ready to blog every day for 31 days on the subjects given to me!

Day One - Introduction and Recent Photo

My name is Jade, 29, living in Essex

Fiance to Dean

Mummy to Jacob

And at the time of writing, 24 weeks pregnant with another little man!  I work as a Nursery Assistant but maternity leave will kick in soon so stay at home mum will be my new job role!  I started blogging in early 2011 as a way to begin my writing career which has sadly taken a back seat for the moment.  Instead, my blog is showcasing my life in photos and challenges and is a fun way for me to escape when I need to!

  I  have a close knit group of friends who understand me and are very similar to me, a very close family where my parents have been married for 30 years and I have two younger brothers, Scott, 26 and Glenn, 19.

  I have been married, divorced, homeless and jobless but I am proud to say I have the life most people in those situations would be envious of and have turned my life completely around.  I hope to be married to Dean in 2014 and we are happily settled in our home, enjoying life!

xxxx





Bump Watch @ 24 weeks

My ever growing bump!  I feel huge at only six months! Honestly this picture looks like a put a pillow under my dress for effect!  At least I have a summer dress on, its been so miserable weather-wise that I have still been wearing winter clothes!
  Things can only get bigger!
xx

365 Day Photo Challenge - 173 / 365

173 / 365 - Jacob went to a friends birthday party today and here he is making ice cream!

My Love Mondays - My Love for Steps!

Wow, it has been a very long time since my last My Love Mondays, where I open the silly mind of me and share my love for all things weird!
  This weeks theme is courtesy of the band Steps because I saw their reunion gig last week and I am not ashamed to share it with you!

  I was around 15 at the time I first got into them, and it was not the annoying 5.6.7.8 song that did it!  It was in fact their next hit Last Thing On My Mind that got me into Steps and began my obsession with them!
  Three studio albums and a greatest hits later and I was gutted when Steps were no more!  My memories consist of dancing around my bedroom, like any teenage girl, pretending I was in the band and hitting notes so high, my parents used to scream at me for being so loud and out of tune!
  When ever a new album by Steps came out, I was so excited!  I would literally run down to our local Woolworths, dash back home with album in hand and play it from beginning to end with no interruptions whilst reading the inlay book from cover to cover!
  What was it about Steps I loved so much?
They were different.  Every song brought with it a different theme, from Chinese in After the Love Has Gone, to Spanish in Summer of Love which kept them fresh.
  Their catchy pop tunes got stuck in your head all day but that was a good thing!  The dance moves added excitement and meant that us kids could join in and share what the band felt.  It was a visual wonderment and there has never been a more successful pop band when selling concert tickets.
  When I went to see them live at the O2 last week, it brought back so many memories of exactly why I loved them so much and ten years after they split, I was dancing around, all be it a little older and 5 months pregnant!
  The arena was filled with campness, I assumed loads of small kids would be there but it was packed with grown adults, all of which had grown up with Steps just like me, knew all the dance moves and song lyrics and we had one massive party!
  Steps, individually showcased their talents by performing a song each, concluded by the most powerful voice in the band, Claire who belted out a Celine Dion cover of I Surrender and showed us what she was made of.
  I came away from this concert with a big smile on my face and out of all the 60 odd gigs I have been to, this was the one where I had the most fun!
  My love for Steps will remain in my mind whether they stick around or disappear again.  I still have all their albums which I would happily play out loud to anyone!  Steps are cool and show the world how to party!

My Top 5 Steps Songs:

1:  Chain Reaction
2:  Summer of Love
3:  You'll Be Sorry
4:  Paradise Lost
5:  After the Love Has Gone

Pregnancy Diary - We Are Having A Boy!

Last week, we had our anomaly scan and are pleased to announce we are having a little man!  Our son was pleased to say the least, he came with us to the scan and made it quite clear beforehand that he did not want a sister! 
  We are overjoyed and can begin to decorate what will be a shared boys bedroom, and begin to make preparations for a baby shower, buying everything we need and of course, the birth!
  Now that the scan is out the way and we know our baby is healthy, our next milestone is the visit to antenatal with our midwife in June. 
  In the meantime, I am continuing to bloom, (see previous post!) and we are enjoying feeling our baby wiggle, kick and punch!  He is so lowdown that most of my bump seems pointless!  I did not have this with Jacob until I was at least 7 months pregnant where then he pushed on my bladder, but this little man is already doing this!
  The heartburn is not too bad but I am more prone to it at night, and my back is starting to hurt.  The bump is so big that I feel very uncomfortable already!  I am trying not to moan too much about it but its hard, I know it will only get worse but its all for a good cause!
  I have also recently taken up swimming as the only excersize I get is doing the school run, and even then thats in the car!  I thought I would feel lighter in the pool but because I havent used certan muscles in a while, I felt heavy and everything was pulling, my arms ached and I got tired quicker!  I must be the only pregnant woman to suffer when swimming!  Still, I will keep it going and I know there are many benefits to it.

Bump Watch @ 21 weeks

Oh dear God, I am busting at the seams!  I have most definetely the biggest bump at five months pregnant!  Who knows what I will look like at 8 months! This top may certainly not be worn for much longer! xx

Happy Record Store Day!

I thought I would dedicate this post to all the record shops left open today.  Yes, today is Record Store day and it got me reminiscing about the good old days of going into my local vinyl shop!  I have two separate memories of this in two different eras.

My first memory is of my Dad.  He has been djing for over 30 years so a routine of heading to a record shop every Saturday would fit into our plans.  I must have been about 7 onwards and at the time I did not fully appreciate the wonder a record shop beholds.  My Dad would spend a good couple of hours flicking through every record in one section, making a mini pile of ones that he has selected and then continuing to buy the latest chart entries to keep up to date.  I would spend those two hours being bored senseless!  There was not much for me to do, music did not interest me at that age and I would just run around the shop or sit and read the inlay covers of cassette albums!  However, I am so glad my Dad did take me on these days out as something must have sank in on the way and nowadays I love nothing more than seeing old vinyl! 

I started to appreciate record shops the more my Dad took me and the older I got.  I am a huge Madonna fan and I remember hunting for any vinyl she released and this has now progressed to 7" singles of my favourite indie songs and obscure bands.  I love picture discs especially, and coloured vinyl as they present an alternative to the typical black.  But there is nothing like a good old fashioned record to cling on to and pass onto our kids.

Unfortunately, our local record stores, Sounds Familiar and Vinyl Village have since been turned into a block of flats and a tanning salon so my son has no idea what a proper record store is.  HMV is the closest he will get to knowing a music shop and even then they are on there way out!

My collection of music consists of 300+ cds, 50 tapes and about a handful of vinyl at the moment.  I am not a huge fan of downloading music although I find it handy for buying the odd single.  I prefer to walk into a shop an buy the physical item, to have it in my hand and get excited about taking it home with me to play, and then filing it alongside the rest of my collection!  Its not the same when doing this with iTunes!

My collection of vinyl so far!

We laugh when we explain to our son what a cassette is, I have not even covered what a record is yet!  I sound so ancient!  But the shocking truth is, my impending child may not even know what a CD is by the time he is old enough to realise and thats so sad.   I will always be thankful to my Dad for introducing me to the world of music, vinyl and record shops as it definetely plays a big role in my life right now and if I can cling on to what was, then hopefully I can pass this onto my children and the world can do the same!

If you live local to a record store, pop in, have a browse, have a chat amongst fellow record lovers and embrace the fact that you are lucky enough to do this!

Happy Record Store day and long may they continue to remain alive!