Wanna buy some deathsticks?

Running / fitness
Run Larne Half Marathon
Run Iceland Marathon
Run Great North Run
Run 5k in under 30 mins
Run 10k in under 60 mins
1 new walk a month
1 zumba a month (at least)
Plank challenge here
Progress photo of body - one a month


Health / Happiness
Hit target weight & maintain

January - dry!
February - caffeine free
March - vegetarian
April - gluten free
May - sugar free
20 things that make me happy every month
Wear make up every day for a month! (even when in the house)


Entertainment
1 classic book a month
1 classic film a month
1 new album a month
Read 50 new books
Review all books
Go to 3 new shows
Host potluck / board game night!

Finances
Clear UB card
Half Halfiax card
For one month buy nothing new
Budget month - £1 a day.
Budget month - £10 a week
Raise money for charity
Put £1 aside for every new recipe completed

Creativity
Complete nanawrimo
Submit two short stories
Finish one colouring book
Complete latch hook rug
Blog 365 recipe challenge
Complete 365 recipe challenge
1 aesthetic per new book
Learn how to take selfies
Take a picture for each letter of the alphabet (put scrabble letter in picture)

Home
Send dvds to musicmagpie - donate what they won't take
Send books to webuybooks - donate what they won't take
Sell - iphone, ps3, xbox 360, wii
Buy new hob


Adventure
Roadtrip to marble arch caves
Visit 5 tourist attractions
Watch sunrise on the beach
Go horse riding
12 Geocashing

How is my driving?

Sometimes, we want a little a feedback on how we are playing our characters, perhaps the character's voice has been slipping or we've done a canon update and want to know how it is going! This is your opportunity to ask for feedback and to help other players out. It is completely voluntary!

Now we know that people are worried that this will cause negative emotions and hurt, so we've put some rules in place:

* The mods will monitor the HMD.
* Anon commenting is off
* Give critique, and do not leave nasty comments. For example:

Bad: I hate how you write.

Good I really enjoy writing with you and I think you have your characters down perfectly. Sometimes I find your posts a little hard to read because there are no breaks and would find it easier to read if the tag was broken up into paragraphs. Thanks for taking the time to read this!

* Remember the critique can be positive and you can people what they are doing well with the their characters!

My journey through the book One Year to a Happier, Healthier You

Week One: Drink Water
Week Two: Get more zzzzzzzs

I have grown up with my parents listening to the Archers on Radio 4 at 7pm every day. The program is about a farming community and lasts about ten minutes. I’ve never got the fascination with the setting or how they could get addicted to such a short program.

Well now I have my own ten minute program:



House of Anubis. It’s a Nickelodeon teens program and its cheesy as hell. For these very reasons I should hate it but damn it’s addictive. It’s an Egyptian horror mystery set in a boarding school. And I swear. At the end of every episode there is a cliffhanger. e.g. They are on the point of solving part of the mystery and the episode ends. Then you are duty bound to watch the next episode to see how it resolves itself. It is a vicous cycle and before you know it you are addicted!

An example of the pure cheese. They need to get the Headmaster out of his office so they can recover something from within it. So they send him on a wild goose chase. Literally. They release a goose into the school corridors and the Headmaster ends up chasing after it to catch it. Honestly I laughed.

In the first series Nina the main character is charged with finding the pieces of a cup before the evil adults find them first. Hint there are a lot of wonderfully evil adults in the series! Most of the mystery takes places in their boarding house ‘Anubis’. They are given riddles as they uncover each object to get to the next. It’s a race against time and the adults and its thoroughly enjoyable.

I have seen series 2 and it’s wonderful and dark. The gang are haunted by an Egyptian ghost who wants them to recover an artifact for her. She’s a little bit crazy and pushes them through the clues with death threats and punishments. Again the whole thing is corny but utterly addictable.

Have a trailer of series 1 so you can see what I mean!

16 moons, 16 years
16 of your deepest fears
16 times you dreamed my tears
Falling, falling through the year

After I bought the book I heard it was being hailed as the next Twilight. It was with a groan that I started reading it two days a go. I was prepared to want to hurl it against the nearest wall or to rip the pages out in frustration. Instead I found myself hooked.

The story is set in the deep south of America that is still obsessed with the Civil War. Our main heroes Ethan and Lena, like any good YA novel, have feelings for each other. Ethan is mortal and Lena has the powers of a Caster (think Witch but without all the pointy hats and cauldrons). Lena is cursed, and on her 16th birthday fate will either make her a force for good or evil.

What's great about the story is the rich history around the curse that enfolds like a good mystery. The story is told from Ethan's point of view and the story draws you in as you share his hopes and fears as he struggles to help free Lena from the curse.

The whole story is dark and twisty. If you like that and you enjoy a supernatural read pick it up. I promise it's no Twilight and there are no sparkly vampires.

Fault In Our Stars by John Green was in the sale. It wasn't why I picked it up though! Two awesome friends mentioned it in passing on Plurk. The book needs to come with a warning, it will tear your heart out. It won't do it because you are reading a story about a girl with terminal cancer. You will because of the descriptions on the world and her thoughts on how she and others see their places in the world. It's funny too, the book challenges you to laugh and look passed all the pain and look at the good things in life and how people try to protect each other from pain.

There is love, teenage angst, a washed up writer, a guy who smokes cigarettes without smoking them and hope.

It felt like losing your co-rememberer meant losing the memory itself, as if the things we’d done were less real and important then they had been hours before.

Christmas day was awesome! I spent it with mum and dad. We vegetated in front of the television in our pjs from 5.15 in the afternoon. There were no regrets for doing this!

Today, we are preparing for family coming to visit at the end of the week. I am putting up the end of the year meme now in case I don't have much time to do it while the family is here.

I really hope everyone had a great Christmas!

( 2012 in summary )

4.

"Don't stay in bed, unless you can make money in bed."

- George Burns

2.

“I'm selfish, impatient and a little insecure. I make mistakes, I am out of control and at times hard to handle. But if you can't handle me at my worst, then you sure as hell don't deserve me at my best.”

― Marilyn Monroe