Moments when social media freaks you out.

Sometimes I really freak out about social media. This morning was one of those moments. I went on to my Flickr account and in my 'recent activity' notifications I saw that some guy, a complete stranger, had marked one of my photos as a 'favourite'. Now that's not exactly odd, but I decided that I would click on this stranger's name and have a wee look at his photos.

My photo, that the strange guy liked.

So, that's what I did. I landed on his photostream and scrolled down a bit and that's when I freaked out. Because he has this photo:



Yes, there's a particularly large and happy leprechaun in this photo, but what freaked me out was that not only do I know this green giant, but he is standing next to Stevie! Not that odd perhaps that someone else in Berlin 'favourited' my photo also of Berlin, but how weird is it that they should have taken a photo of my boyfriend and his friends out of nearly 3.5 million?

I sent this photo to Stevie at work, and he sent a text saying, "That's a nice photo you took of ----', and I said, "You think? Who was looking after the kids??". Freaky! Freaky!

The art of procrastination (in a morning nutshell)

I woke up knowing that I have some forms to fill out. Once I get Orla's packed lunch made and her breakfast out, and roll into bed with Hamish for his morning cuddle while she eats, then it'll be time to get her dressed and off out the door, and get Hamish fed and dressed. Only once that's done, and usually once Hamish is off to Kita (but not today) then my day starts. And I remember that I have to get these forms filled out.

I am walking from the kitchen to the living room when I glance at the table and see what I was working on last night. It wouldn't hurt to just paint a little more in while I am still in the mood and feeling enthused. It's the sort of thing that you can paint in small amounts anyway, so maybe just a little bit. You know what? I should really take some photos of this. I should send something to Sarah because all she's had is that teeny sketch, and it might have been hard to visualise. Ah, my battery needs charging. I should sort that out now while I remember. Which reminds me that I need to charge my phone as well. Where have I left it. Must be in my bag.

I'll just charge my camera battery for a short time while I make coffee so that I can take a quick photo to upload. Oh, is that some Schoko leibniz in the cupboard. Gaarrgh...yes it is, but they've been sitting since last summer, and gone all soft.I might as well clear out this cupboard first. Ok, so, coffee. Then I'll just get this photo done and uploaded, and then I can do those forms.

Should I just do those flags? I should. probably. Because it's going to annoy me not knowing if that red is going to work or not. I should just do it. Ok, so upload and get it into the secret album on Facebook. I'll just check my notifications and emails first. Let's see if there's anything happening on my Fionagray.paints facebook page. Ugh. Nothing. No wonder I haven't posted on the blog for ages. Might as well just do a quick one with this picture while I know where it is. Just a quick one. It will take no time at all. Oh, my stats are up! I wonder why? Oh there are links from Pinterest, I wonder if it's anyone I know, I'll just take a look and see and quickly check if there's anything new that catches my eye.

20 minutes later. I should get on to those forms, but I should just check my email first. Orla needs 'national dress and food' for International Day on the 30th. I bet that Tam O'Shanter hat is in a drawer in her room. Maybe later I should take Hamish down to Idee and see if I can buy some tartan fabric to make her a kilt. Snack time. Which means peeling a cucumber and chopping it into lumps for Hamish. I'll have some of that nice cheese that Lynne recommended. I should send her a quick text and thank her for Sunday. Which reminds me, I need to wrap Ofek's birthday present and see if I have a card somewhere. Really should go to Idee after I fill out these forms, because I am pretty sure I'll need a card.

Interlude to make a track for Hamish and his trains. Back to the table to finish the ribbon on the present. Those flag poles are going to annoy me. I must at least get rid of all the white space on this picture. Then I'll be able to put it out of my head until this evening. I consider whether I should outline everything in pen once this is finished or just leave it. I would do it now except for the fact that I know I am going to rework the hill sections so that they look more blended. I might need a finer nib pen because didn't all of mine run out before Christmas when i was trying to draw on some surface that just sucked the ink out of them? i must get to Idee later. Or maybe a grey pen would work better than black. I check how fine the ones I bought in that chemists are. That would be great actually. Right. Flag poles and then forms.

My blood sugar feels a bit low. How can it be lunch time already? I'll get Hamish ready and we can nip round to Nah und Gut for something for the lunch. God, my blood sugar is really low. I might peg out before we get there. I eat a bar of chocolate and then decide just to make ham sandwiches. We can go out in a bit. I haven't even put on any make-up yet. I'll do that now. And then sort those clouds. And put on a DVD for Hamish. And maybe get those forms done. I should blog about this. It'll only take a minute and he's watching  Thomas the Tank Engine anyway. I could do those forms when he has a nap. If he has a nap. Or I could do a bit of painting. While there's a bit of light.

Close your eyes, big sister!

Grateful for 'depth of field' - it hides most of the bad bits!

A little close-up of areas to be re-painted

I have more or less finished another painting. More or less because I can't finish off the flowers. The original flowers died and I haven't replaced them yet. I assumed I would paint them before they died, but what with kids not sleeping in the evening and what not, I ended up painting them when they were busy composting themselves downstairs.

Nor did I even have them in this jug, so really the whole thing is a fabrication. I intend re-painting the flowers though, the jug I can live with. This was meant to be a complementary painting for the bowl and cup painting I did, but with time not on my side of late, and painting by light bulb and not natural light they've both turned out slightly different colour-wise. Ah well.

Everything that doesn't turn out as well as I like I tend to give to either my mum or my sister, so this may well be where they are headed. Close your eyes big sister, this might be your birthday present! I am trying to get enough paintings done to open a little Etsy shop. It'll be a mix of baby name pictures and well just regular paintings. I want to really do things that I want to do, as opposed to following a brief.

At the moment I am trying to come up with a name for the shop - that seems to be the hardest part. There is already a Fiona Gray who does lots of creative things, so I can't really use my own name, and anyway, I think I might like a different name for the shop. Once I have a short list I might have my Facebook friends have a vote. Better get thinking!

What I did before the internet

Copyright obviously belongs to me, Fiona Gray. I don't want to come round to your house for a cup of tea and see this on your coasters.

My laptop is showing lots of signs that it's not going to last much longer. On top of that I can't stay on the internet for more than 10 minutes before it loses the internet connection and the connection is fine it's just that the laptop seems to have become all despondent about surfing the web.

The other night I walked into the living room after putting the kids to bed to find Stevie had it in two pieces (possibly more) on the rug. I nearly keeled over. Stevie's not really the kind of guy you'd trust with diagnosing PC problems. Cast your mind back a month or so to my dad's reaction at Stevie going at his brand new boiler with a butter knife, that's the kind of technical guru he is, so I was alarmed to say the least.

So I had an evening without the internet, and in actual fact it did me the world of good. Instead I used the time to paint a little picture, just something easy and relaxing and that evening I went to bed feeling a lot less stressed than I normally do. I've decided I am going to try and incorporate a bit of painting into every week. No themes in mind, just whatever takes my fancy. I need to get practising anyway if I want to get my drawing back up to scratch and actually start painting and illustrating properly.

I'm busy doing nothing.

I think I saw this on FB somewhere and liked it (no, not 'liked' it, just liked it in a normal way)but I forgot to save the source details, so apologies for not linking back to the life coach who created this.

I am an expert when it comes to frittering away time. I just need to sit down with access to the internet and all of a sudden two hours mysteriously pass. Which surprises me really, because I don't look at that many websites, not really, well, maybe just a few, enough I suppose that if you asked me where you could get a really pretty digital radio from online, or which website would give you the best price for a chrome Magimix food processor, I would have no hesitation in telling you. Incidentally, I have neither of these things, which is probably why I have these things stashed in my head taking up space where some German verbs should be conjugating.

Stevie has gone back to Derby for work, and I, secretly, having a little holiday. Just from German class. I think it has done me the world of good. I've had two lovely mornings of frittering away time. Yesterday I used the time well I think and took the long trek along to the doctors to get my repeat prescription. I altered the amounts so that I don't need to go back for insulin as often and the receptionist didn't bat an eyelid. I'd expected to have to have a discussion about this, so perhaps there are benefits to the German medical system after all.

Anyway, I also stopped along the way on the way back and did some food shopping, went to the post office and took some photos of some of the 60's and 70's style U-Bahn stations along the way.

Then I came home and did a little light blog reading and pottering around the house. Lovely! Today was much the same but with some tidying up thrown in. I've really enjoyed having a break from class. Stevie's back tonight so I'll be back at school tomorrow. Bah humbug!

But it's been nice while it's lasted.

1. organise, 2. prioritise, 3. & get off that bloody internet!

Of course I do the nice things first, and leave the actual important things till last

I feel so way behind on everything at the moment. It's driving me crazy. All I want is to have a few extra hours every day to just get things done. I read lots of blogs (particularly the creative ones) where people seem to be able to do a million things a day, every day and I'm not sure why this kind of beautiful life evades me. How do people have time to blog, knit a dress, go thrifting, take some time out to photograph a friends new baby, spend some time in their studio painting gorgeous pictures, and take photographs of their enviable homes, etc, etc, and yet I am struggling to find the time each day to phone the tax office and stay in a queue for 20 minutes?

Perhaps it's because I spend too much time reading these blogs? I do hope that's not the answer.

So I have a long list of things that all need doing now, some of them nice things like design work and making a photobook for both my mother-in-law and mum (see above), and some of them ok things like completing Orla's school application, and some tedious but necessary things, like reapplying for Orla's Kita voucher as she gets it free now, and possibly going to the Burgeramt to wait for 2 hours to get a form stamped for the tax office.

Of course on top of these things I have my general day to day stuff to do, tidying up, cleaning, cooking, helping people pee in toilets and potties, stopping people breaking legs from jumping off the table and from scaring the living daylights out of their sister by locking her in our wardrobe. Oh and German. My German needs quite a bit of attention and when I do have the time to study, I generally have no desire to do that.

Anyway, I just can't fathom how to fit more into my days. There must be blogs I could be reading about this... (and that is a little bit of irony right there).

new year, new blog!

I started a 365 photo blog today. I've seen a few of these around and quite like the idea of looking back over a year in pictures. I see a lot of different and interesting things here in Berlin but don't always have an awful lot to say about them. So I'll share them here. I've also sort of decided not to mention it to Stevie as he possibly thinks one of my new year resolutions should be 'spend less time on the internet'. Take a look every so often if you want to. Here we go...

http://somewhere365.blogspot.com/

(Oh and I'm also combining it with my 'somewhere...somehow' list of things to do in the forthcoming year, staring with the 'sorting out of my horrible hair')

Are we nearly there yet?

I explained to Orla that we were going to live in a new place called Berlin. The only thing up until now that I told her about Berlin is that when we get there she'll be able to start ballet. Anyway, I thought it was about time to tell her that we're going. So I told her that we'd be living in a nice new house, but that we'd be taking all her toys and all our things with us and it would be great. I also had to break the bad news that we wouldn't be able to take our trampoline, or the little pink plastic house or the swings. "Ok," she said "Can you leave your 'puter too?".

Really? Am I on the internet that much?