Poetry Madness! WoPoWriMo 2013 (by sarah)

It is the first of February and that means only one thing! That's right another one of my mad writing challenges!

This time it is poetry.

The objective is to write a poem a day for the whole of Feb. It is called WoPoWriMo and I am also looking after the website and stuff this year for it.

As with NaNoWriMo I have roped in my family - so far I have Alaric, Mum, Dad and Jean doing it.

I have had emails from several poets already who do not wish to sign up but are going to be using the exercises to help them get going with writing again which is fantastic!

I myself plan to take part in the challenge also! Which I will be writing about on Turquoise Monster, I will find out were Al is posting his. Many people are posting there's to linkedIn and to the WoPoWriMo site itself under the poems tab.

There will be blog alteration later today to put up web-badges and what not! In the mean time I'd best get on with actually doing some writing!

Mary is 2! (by sarah)

Mary was two on Monday - she spent most of the day in nursery with her friends who made her a lovely card complete with scribble signatures 🙂

When she came home she opened her card from Uncle David and Aunty Michelle and the one Jeany had made her with a little drawn birthday story in it! Then there was one present from Al's mother - a ball pit which both girls had much fun with.

We sang Happy Birthday in four different languages - English (all of us), Lojban (Daddy), Polish (Mummy - or what I cold remember of it), and French (Jeany).

Due to Dad being ill and me having med issues too we have posponed the official celebration ie the party until the 16th of Feb.

WoPoWriMo – World Poetry Writing Month 2013 (by sarah)

This year I find myself once more in charge of the WoPoWriMo website and it is also it's fifth year of existing as an event!

Set up for a group who met at Poetry Cafe in Cheltenham and who turned out to all be Screnzies (Script Frenzies is a script writing challenge run by the National Novel Writing NaNoWriMo people). They felt they couldn't do more than one writing challenge in a month and who therefore could not do National Poetry Writing Month, the website has grown into a place to inspire writers.

I am very pleased to be back in charge of it again as I haven't been for the last two years really - just been popping in here and there. We have participants from several continents and at least two languages other than English plus the constructed languages sneaking in there. I've organised guest bloggers and there will be web-badges to come 🙂

As always I am dragging the whole family into this madness with me!

Birthday Poem and Butterfly Cake and Dragon Mug! (by sarah)

My birthday was great in the end though as always there were last minute cancellation meaning that for the second time since I moved to Gloucestershire I'd organised a gaming birthday and had not a single person turn up. Everyone has organised to come and see me at other times. It is the horror of a January birthday people are tired, partied out and have no money or has work they forgot to do/didn't needed doing over the festive period. I am considering the suggestion to be a Queen and always do something in the summer that people can actually get too! (I have had to cancel two birthday outings due to snow).

But on the plus side my friend composed me a poem on Facebook and I had about 60 messages and a handful of cards 🙂

Happy Birthday to Sarah Snell-Pym,
The Purple Poet who's made of win,
She'll charm you with rhyme,
Of atoms, space and time,
So celebrate with cakepops and gin!

By Joy-Amy

Jean gave me herbal tea that is actually really nice unlike the stuff in the cupboard I've been making my way through! Mary had apparently selected lego men stickers for me 🙂 probably because they are shiny! They are already stuck in my diary. Al got me computer stuff to help with the RSI which is especially good as I am in the middle of a mild flare up. I also got the pens I needed from Ulrike and a few other bits 🙂

Over the weekend Al got me pizza and pfish food ice-cream and we made a butterfly cake out of cake pops 🙂 The butterflies arrived in the post from Al's cousins - I think they were a Christmas present but they arrived on my birthday and were edible butterflies 😀

Also knowing I was sad about my pocket dragon mug my friend Rachel turned up with a purple dragon mug which has been heavily used over the weekend. We watch Harry Potter Movies, Mysterious Cities of Gold and some classic scifi we had out on Lovefilm. I made things to sell on etsy, drew pictures and feel asleep on the setee lots. I decided against games in the end as I'm bored of a lot of the ones we can play with Jean and two people doesn't really cut it for some of the others. Sunday another friend called with fondant fancies and a wardrobe which is still sitting in the living room awaiting my dad to help Al get it up the stairs (maybe!). I also collected another two cloth badges on the Kinnect Adventures and had lots of snugs 🙂

Broken Mugs and Birthdays (by sarah)

So today is my 32nd meaning that I am the same age my mother was when she had me and that 16 was half a life time ago!

I've just had two school friends over for a couple of days and as always we talked of school, the bullies, the crushes, the arguments and so forth. Was school really half a life time ago? Was school only half a life time ago?

So much stuff has happened in that sixteen years and yet... and yet I feel pretty much exactly the same bar health issues which started around then anyway.

But in same ways I have changed - on seeing The Hobbit I can tell you how as well. I am Bilbo Baggins, I had a stronge adventurous streak in me when I was younger, I did climbing and archery and hiked through mud and went of to do a geology degree, had a stunt bike and never admitted that things phased me or scared me. I went off to London for Uni on my own even though the prospect was petrifying! On many different levels.

I liked doing stuff all the time, choir, gardening, caving, taking my friends on long rambling walks and designing dresses. But now everything feels more sedate and constrained. And the nearer I got to 30 the more ok that sort of life seemed. But then the last year as I was plunged into the world of festivals I began to hunger for it all but after the chaos of the last few years and the struggle to sort our lives out I found I didn't want things too busy and craved the stability of home. I also began to see just how lucky I was - after all the struggles and trials we have our home and it is a brilliant home and it is ours and even before that I had Al and the girls and my family and friends. Ok so health is missing but I suppose you can't have everything. I am in the middle of a mild flare up at the moment - I call it mild - it has persisted for a while and would be termed a set back by physios but really it is not. I know that if I am careful I can continue to be productive through it and look after my kids though the house may get messier.

It wont last more than a few weeks if I rest and then I will be up and at em in time for festival season starting.

One of the things that has led me to thinking about if I have changed though is that a) people tell me I haven't changed and b) the people who used to moan at me that I acted too grown up now moan that I am too immature and too me they have grown boring.

And too be honest I fear that boredom, that conventualism more than I fear the chaos. But I am scared of new things, and so this year y 32nd is about pushing my personal boundaries to stop me stagnating, to stop everything including the new skills I aquire from just becoming gears within the machine of existence.

During the Olymipics I felt a great sense of what I can achieve pour into me once more and though I know that my health is always going to put a spanner in the works, those leaks and breakages to the flow can be worked around. I thought on all I have achieved already and all that I feel is within my grasp and I sat and drew pictures - I filled a note book with them and have many more that wish to be drawn.

They are called The Inspira Pictures. This one is called Face Your Fears and is apt for my plans 🙂

Also I broke my Pocket Dragon birthday wishes mug which made me really sad but at the same time the search to replace it has shown me there are quiet a few designs out there still. The pocket dragon stuff isn't made anymore which is a real shame and I was really looking forward to using it over the weekend - for which I have gaming and film watching planned. I get quiet grumpy about m mugs and things which again has led me to the Hobbitness - the buttons also all popped off my coat :/ And I have hairy toes if I do not pluck, I am also rather... erm... short and if I thought I could get away with it would love to have second breakfast but alas the waist line is bad enough as it is!

This film was not The Hobbit as such - it was a mix and match across the books and alot more dramatic than the book with depths added that just weren't there. It is however a brilliant prequal to Lord of The Rings and made in that style. The Dwarfs however were alot more 'man' like than expected coughs with two cuties to boot! Though Oaken Shield really didn't need to look like a stocky Aragorn did he?

But Bilbo's sentiment at the end that he has a home, a lovely home and they don't and that is why he is helping them just reinforced my desire to help. Before Christmas I embarked on a mad cap scheme of trying to illustrate a book in like two weeks but with Christmas prep and the fact that not many people sponsored me I didn't make it but I am going to be working on this through the year now and hope to run some other events as well such as Creativi-Tea which I blog about later. I just can not take the thought of thousands of kids being homeless or in temp. accomidation so you will be hearing more and more about this!

So for now I am off to spend my birthday writing and drawing and baking cakes in prep for the weekend but here is the sponsor button just incase :).