Posts Tagged "Summer"

Flashback Friday: A New Attitude

Posted by cafebebemama on Aug 12, 2011 in Blogger Love, Blogging, Flashback Friday, Motherhood | 6 comments

Last summer I was having a bit of a rough time. Ella was 2, I was struggling and stressing about my blog and where I ranked in the blogosphere and worrying about why I wasn’t good enough. I was hiding more and more inside the 4 walls of our house, shying away from friends and family and allowing my negative self-talk to affect me dramatically. I was having an identity crisis. Who was I?

After having troubles sleeping, not wanting to get out much at all and having my good friend Sabina tell me that I just wasn’t myself anymore, I decided to go to the GP to talk about my troubles. He listened, he offered to prescribe medication and I politely refused. I asked to be referred for counselling. I went to about 4 appointments. It helped to have someone listen to me and tell me that what I really needed was to just GET OUT more, reconnect with my husband, get some exercise every day and GET AWAY from the confines of the internet. And you know what? They were RIGHT! I’ll show you what else I did…cut my hair…

It may seem ridiculous but simply having my frumpy, mumsy hair cut and getting a bit of punch and giggle back in my life made a mahoosive difference. A year later I am back to my good old self. I stopped worrying about where Cafe Bebe ranked in the “blogging league tables” (I took myself out of most of them), stopped watching the stats so intently, stopped comparing myself to others and wondering why I wasn’t good enough. In fact, I was good enough!

I have an amazingly wonderful daughter, a loving and attentive husband, a thoughtful family and life is pretty darn good. And this summer, here we are, pregnant with Bebe number two! Who would have predicted that! So one year on, a new attitude toward life and Karin and Family are infinitely more happy that we were last year at this time. What a difference a year makes! Ella thinks so too!

So now it’s your turn! What has happened in your past that makes you want to relive it and share it with others? Do you have a “what a difference a year makes” moment? Or “what a difference 20 years makes?” Share your memories with us! Write a post on your blog, pop back over to link it up and visit a few other happy Flashback Friday’s while you’re at it.

Flashback Friday: Sunny Hunny in the Summer

Posted by cafebebemama on Jun 24, 2011 in Blogger Love, Flashback Friday, Little Miss Adventures, Motherhood | 6 comments

Every Summer since my arrival in England in June 2005, Hubby and I and various combinations of his family have spent time in Hunstanton, Norfolk. We are about a 45 minute drive from Hunstanton and I have really grown to love spending sunny and not-so-sunny days on the beach there.

The photo on the left is of our dearly departed Sinjin, my hubby Mark and our niece Charlotte (prone) enjoying the rays on one of the sunny days. I’m flashing back to Hunstanton because next weekend we’ll be spending another long weekend with the family on the shores of Norfolk beaches (unfortunately not near Hunstanton this time). Mark’s sister and her family have been overseas for the last 15 years (USA, Geneva, Singapore, Australia) but each summer we’ve had the pleasure of their company for a few weeks at least.

This year we’ll all be gathering minus our niece Charlotte who will be on a grand school adventure in Australia and won’t be able to make it back this time. We’ll be missing Sinjin for the first time but I can’t tell you how excited, to bursting, Ella is to go find some “crabbies” at the seaside next weekend.

Mark and I enjoyed the beaches of Hunstanton as a couple for 3 years before introducing Ella to the sun and sand. In fact, our 2nd Christmas together, as my inlaws were in Singapore celebrating Christmas with my sister-in-law and her family, Mark and I decided to pack Sinjin in the car on Christmas Day and head for Hunstanton. It was a blustery day without sun but we didn’t care. We ran to the water’s edge and shouted “Happy Christmas” at the top of our lungs. And I learned how strong English mustard really is as I ended up making an inedible ham sandwich for Mark loaded with Coleman’s English mustard. **note to self: go easy on the Coleman’s**

Eventually, in 2008 we were able to introduce Ella to the joy of Hunstanton when she was only about 3 weeks old. I had, stupidly, dressed her in a pink sun dress and cardigan but was horrified to discover that the temperature at the seaside was about 10 degrees colder than in the Peterborough area. The wind was swirling and the sand was blowing which made for an excessively irritated and nervous new mummy. Ella was snuggled up in my Baby Bjorn carrier and covered up in a blanket but I was still worried about the sand and wind. We ended up spending several hours sitting in the car and bothering the cafe for hot water in a jug to warm up her bottle. It wasn’t the most fun we had ever had!

What a happy face I have! But still, despite the sometimes frigid temps and crazy winds, Hunstanton remains a wonderful (and thankfully close) location for us to enjoy a bit of the “sea”. I know that Ella will enjoy it for years to come.

We’re really looking forward to our long weekend with the family this year as Ella, at 3, will be even more capable and will thoroughly enjoy (we hope) the rock pooling and creatures. Last year, as we walked along the sand, we found a “sleeping” crab that Ella wanted to hold. She clutched that crabby the entire afternoon but we were finally able to convince her to let the crabby go to see it’s Mummy before we left the beach. Let me tell you, it was mighty difficult to remove the stench of dead crab from her hand but we sorted it in the end!

So thank you, Hunstanton (and the rest of the Norfolk East Coast) for providing the Joyce family with some wonderful adventures and a bit of “sea” air to keep us sane. Feel free to link up your Flashback Friday in the Linky below. I love it when you feel the pull to share your memories too.

Flashback Friday- My Cottage

Posted by cafebebemama on Jun 10, 2011 in Blogger Love, Flashback Friday | 9 comments

Yesterday my Dad sent me several photos from our cottage in Northern Wisconsin. He and my stepmom have “moved” up there for the summer. This is what you do when you are lucky enough to a) be retired and b) have a summer cottage. When the “school year” is done (everyone in my family are/were teachers), you pack up your summer clothes and head “Up North” for the summer months. In the US, June, July and August are school-free. 3 months to do NOTHING. This is were a summer cottage comes in very handy.

Seeing these photos made me nostalgic and, truth be told, a bit homesick. It’s been 20 months since we’ve been back to the US. We attended my brother’s wedding in Wisconsin in October of 2009. Ella was only 16 months old at the time. We had a lovely visit but it seems like an eternity ago. We were planning on travelling back this year, ideally November time as it’s a bit cheaper at that time of year and now Ella needs a nearly full fare.

But then a funny thing happened…I got pregnant! Travel to the US in the summer is excessively expensive (more than double what it costs at “non peak times”) and my midwife advised that long-haul travel (the flight to the US is 8 hours) is not advisable for pregnant women (DVT anyone?). I most definitely would not be able to travel at the cheaper time as I would be way too close to the end of my pregnancy. So, flight plans to the US were scuppered. We’re going to have to go another year before we can consider travelling back now.

My family have been great and have been able to travel over here and thankfully Skype allows us to see them and them to see Ella, in particular. Still, nothing quite beats being able to see them in person. My cottage in Northern Wisconsin was a place that we spent a great deal of time when I was a child. I wasn’t a huge fan of the cottage when I was young. There were a LOT of mosquitos (approximately the size of a sparrow), the cottage wasn’t totally modernised then so we only had 3 TV channels (the horror) and there were very few children/friends on the lake at that time. It was more of a retirement village/lake at that time.

But we also got to swim the day away, go for pontoon rides, go water skiing, roast marshmallows & make s’mores around the campfire, eat fresh sunfish caught that day in the lake, eat so much watermellon that your belly hurt, run around in the sun and have lots of family laughs together. I began to gain an appreciation for our cottage when I was in my late 20′s- early 30′s. I started spending more time there on my own, started helping out to make things and leave my stamp (literally) on the cottage and grew to love it more.

Now I’m 4000 miles away from it. Unfortunately, it’s not really MY cottage anymore. It never was MY cottage but when I lived within driving distance I was at least involved in what happened there. My brother will one day inherit the cottage from my Dad. It will become his responsibility and his to enjoy with his family. I hope that it will always stay in our family, as it’s really a gorgeous place, but I won’t be able to have a say in it anymore. When you live 4000 miles away it’s a bit hard to say, “No, you can’t do that!”

So here are some photos from my cottage. It’s totally changed from the cottage I grew up with but it’s a place I dearly love and miss. I hope one day, to be able to take Ella (and Bump) to the cottage to go swimming, make mud pies and tour around the lake on the pontoon like I did when I was a kid.

Today is Flashback Friday on Cafe Bebe. I started this a few months ago for people to share their memories in photos and words. I’ve really enjoyed the opportunity to inspire bloggers to remember happy times and share them with the blogosphere.

I’m not going to run this as a Linky any longer as it seems to have run it’s course. I thoroughly appreciate the effort that many of you have put into digging into your archives to share bits of your life. Of course, you’re welcome to continue posting your own Flashback Fridays but with the summer holidays approaching and blog reading soon to drop off as a result, I figured we could all use a break from the pressure to LINK up or post something if you’re not 100% motivated to do so. In the autumn I’ll come back to you with a new challenge.

In the meantime, keep digging into your past or focus on your present and future for the next few months. Thank you very much to those of you who made such an effort every week to share your life with us. Happy Summer!

Just Vlog It Relaunch

Posted by cafebebemama on Jul 2, 2010 in Just Vlog It | 5 comments

Just Vlog It is baaaaacccckkkkkkk!  I would like to apologise for the absence of Just Vlog It this last month.  I’ve been busy paddling like mad and trying to breathe but as I am so darn “innovative”, I can’t let Just Vlog It die.  I am going to give it a go in a different way this month, however.  Bear with me…

The blogging world has knocked me for six a bit in the last month.  I’m as competitive as the next blogger and it’s hard for me to consciously pull myself back.  What I would like for “Just Vlog It”, though, is for it to become a CELEBRATION of vlogging and creativity.  It’s been brilliant to have a “competition” and a “queen/king” at the end after public voting but I would like to make a change.  And as it’s my challenge…I’m allowed!

Here’s how it will work from now on:

• I will give you SEVERAL prompts for the challenge.
• You will have 2 weekends in which to record, upload and publish your vlog post.
• Come back to Cafe Bebe on the date below and add your post link to the MckLinky widget for a Just Vlog It Carnival
• I’ll have several polls following the Carnival to gauge opinion and will award “special” mentions for all vlog entries.
• There will NOT be a winner and, as of right now, there will NOT be prizes.  I know this may disappoint some as we all like a bit of a reward but, as I said above, I want to CELEBRATE everyone’s vlogs and their creativity.

Your prompts for July:

Proper attire for a paddle

SUMMER!: Show us how you are enjoying your summer.  How do you battle the heat?  What are your favourite summer foods?  Do you have a great recipe you’d like to share with us?  What’s a great craft to do with your kids to celebrate the end of school & summer holidays?  How can you turn your back garden into a summer wonderland?

Blogging FUN

BLOGGING:  Why do you blog? What are the best things about blogging? What are your top tips to conquer the blogging world?  Can you teach us something new to do on our blogs?  Share your most popular post!  If you’re an anonymous blogger, disguise yourself and talk to us about why!  What would you recommend to new bloggers?  Celebrate the world of parent blogging in a vlog post (maybe Cybermummy is a good place to start??).

There are TWO prompts for the July Just Vlog It:  Summer and Blogging!  Do what you will!  You have from today (2 July) until Tuesday 13 July.  On Tuesday 13 July I will put up my own vlog post and MckLinky widget for you to add your own vlog post link.  We’ll celebrate vlogging together until Friday 16 July where I’ll give “special mention” awards to all those who participate.

I hope that this new format is agreeable to everyone and perhaps encourages a few new entries despite the lack of a prize incentive.  Please remember that you do not have to have a state-of-the-art vlog.  You can record it on ANYTHING and it does not need to be edited to within an inch of it’s life.  If you’re capable of editing and want to “bling” it up…go for it!  All I ask is that you do your level best to keep the vlog posts under 5 minutes so that viewers don’t want to bash their heads in while watching your 15 minute Oscar-nominated documentary.  Simples.

Good luck and remember…KISS!  (Keep It Simple Sister/Stupid)  See you back here on 13 July for the Just Vlog It Carnival celebrating Summer and Blogging!  Ready…steady….just vlog it!

Monday Music Memories

Posted by cafebebemama on Jan 18, 2010 in Blogger Love, Little Miss Adventures, Motherhood | 2 comments

Little Miss LOVES Cbeebies

I’m starting off the week with a challenge to my blogging followers.  For this MONDAY, share a MUSIC MEMORY!  Music is a powerful thing.  It can take you back to a time of happiness, joy, love, sadness.  It can represent a time in your life and even remind you of a smell or a touch or the sight of something in particular.  I have so many memories that are triggered by music but a lot of them are now centered around Cbeebies and Little Miss.  Mothers in the UK will understand this.

We are big fans of Cbeebies and really got hooked this past summer thanks to the “Summer Sun” song.  Cbeebies (the children’s channel of the BBC) has a song for each season.  Don’t get me started on the rubbish that is the Winter Song but Summer, now that was a song!  Every time it would come on, Little Miss would shout, “Mummy!” and would run to stand up and dance along.  She and I would do the dance moves and sing along and have a right old giggle.  I wish I would have had my Flip recorder then but failing that, we’ll rely on the actual “Summer Sun” song courtesy of Cbeebies and You Tube.  Enjoy, watch repeatedly and see if you can do the moves as well.  It’s quite fun…and oh, how we miss Summer!

Now, here is your challenge!  Share with everyone one of your favourite Music Memories.  If you can find a video for it, brilliant.  If you can find an audio recording of it, fantastic.  If you just want to share the memory…even better.  I’m adding MckLinky to allow you to do a post on your own blog and link it up here.  I hope there will be a few of you who would like to take up my challenge…Music is a powerful thing.  Share your memories with me…I can’t wait to hear them.