Stress, SCBWI, Songs and Sheep

Life in my little niche of Cornwall has been very stressful this past week or so, but there is light at the end of the tunnel. On Sunday we depart 20 miles south to Looe to do our annual Family Bible Week. I am heading up the 8-11 year old tent (with 40 kids in it!!). As well as helping to run the morning kids work I am puppeteering all week, which means six songs! I will have shoulders to rival olympic swimmers by the end of the week.

We are staying with dear friends of ours in Liskeard, so we will be having decent sleep (no ravaged tents for me this year) and good company! I also plan to take my little notepad and write virtually every evening (except maybe when we go and see Ice Age 3 with the kids!) Although Bible Week is hard work I do enjoy it and so do all the kids so it will be worth it.

On a different note I finally joined the SCBWI (Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators) yesterday. It was a promised Mother's Day present and I have finally got round to doing it. I am really keen to go to the conference in November but a bit nervous about travelling to Winchester on my own and need to find £170!! However it looks FAB so I am saving all my pennies and seeing what possessions I can sell on ebay! Off now to write up song words for puppeteers such as "I just wanna be a sheep...baa, baa, baa-ba-ba" - Great song but don't ask.

Happy New Year - Pox, Puppets and Promises

Happy New Year everyone! I hope you all had a great Christmas and a fantastic start to the New Year. I am so sorry that I appeared to disappear off the face of Blogger planet for a few weeks, but two weeks before Christmas my children contracted chicken pox (at the same time) which caused stress leading up to the school nativity as my son was Joseph, however we made it (just) as his spots had dried up enough not to be contagious. Of course Christmas had gone on hold too, so the last week before Christmas is a blur for me! We had a great Christmas and are just beginning to manage the finer points of using a Wii controller now!

Never very good at New Year's Resolutions so I have set myself a number of goals that I want to achieve by the end of 2009. This makes it less likely that I will feel a failure if I do not achieve them all by January 31st!! Some of my goals have to remain in my little head, however I will share some of them with you!

1. Lose ** pounds in weight
2. Send my holiday bible club MS off to at least two other publishers
3. Write regularly i.e most days
4. Get organised (ha ha ha - fairyland I think that one)
5. Come to terms with the departure of David Tennant as The Doctor
6. Remember that the computer has an off switch!!
7. Complete the first draft of my YA novel
8. See if life without regular doses of Galaxy is possible

Just a few of my ramblings? Would love to hear if any of you guys have goals or resolutions, although you are all far too organised and sensible to need to do such things I am sure!!!!

The picture above is of my two and my niece with some of the puppets we used to do our puppet nativity shows before Christmas.

Black Boxes, Puppets and Iced Coffee

In between various showers we managed to get some photos taken for the Black Boxes Competition on Caroline Smailes blog. My two kids are puppet crazy so it seemed fitting to start with these!

Clyde!

Connor with Dec

Dec

Family photo!

We have a puppet ministry at our church and Connor has just started performing with the team, so we are constantly surrounded by puppets!

Had a great day today, went pottery painting with the kids and had a lovely time - followed by an iced coffee in a fav local cafe. The iced coffee is a special favourite of mine as it contains cream and ice cream...totally GI friendly!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Keen to try and write up some of the work I did on holiday and formulate it into chapters as it was one long piece of narrative that needs structuring.

Also now got to cook hubby food and evict broody chicken from the nest again to make sure she eats...such a shame we have no cockerel so the eggs she is sitting on will never hatch...we know this but clearly she remains unconvinced, even when we remove them each day. Hopefully better weather awaits tomorrow for a trip out, otherwise I might just have to go and see Mamma Mia again, just for the scenery and the sunshine!!

Next Wave at Looe

Had a fantastic day today. We did an assembly at the school where our church meets, using our puppets and doing a Christian parody of, 'Dancing Queen.' Tonight I went down to Looe to meet with nineteen children and four teachers (including the head) as we had arranged for them, throught the church, to have an overnight stay on board The Next Wave ship in Looe bay. The Next Wave is a YWAM (Youth With A Mission) ship that is based in Liverpool but sails all over the world. They agreed to take some children from the school helping to cement links between the school and the church, but also as a trip of a lifetime for some of these kids, who although they live twenty miles from some of the best beaches in the UK have rarely, if ever, been to the sea. The church paid for them all to have fish and chips and they all came dressed as pirates (even the staff). The ship's crew were all dressed as pirates too and they had bought a Jolly Roger to fly from the mast (hope the Navy do not get too interested!!!). It was fantastic to be involved and enjoy a meal with the kids before playing with them on the beach and then waving them off into the bay on the boat.
Some days go past unremarkably but today is a day that will remain special to me for a long time. The look on the faces of the children and the opportunity we have been able to afford them is a rare privilege. The photo is of The Next Wave as it took our happy band of pirates out to sea tonight. I confess to feeling very emotional waving off these kids on the ship as they were calling, "Bye Michelle", particularly as some of them only know me as the lady who comes in with the puppets!!! A good day!