Friday's Friendly Fill Ins

It's Friday so it's time for the friendly fill ins which are set by Annie at McGuffy's Reader and Ellen at 15andmeowing.com. The words in purple are the prompts that are provided and then the rest is me.

1. My guiding word for 2018 is write. Allow my creative words out and put my thoughts and feelings down on paper - that's where the best poetry and prose comes from. It doesn't matter if no one else ever reads it, but it's important to get those words out there.

2. A house is not a home without a cat (is that too predictable?). I always had a cat when I was growing up, and even when I left home my cat Tiddles was still at mum and dad's so it was like I still had a cat. When Ken and I got married it took us five years until we were renting a flat where we were allowed to get a pet, and we got our first two babies - Muffin Monster and Princess Cookie Cat. (We miss Muffin so much).

Muffin

Cookie

3. I look forward to seeing what exciting things my beloved and I find to do this year. 

Blog post: Seeing How the Other Half Live at Harrods

4.  I really need to walk more, because it's good for me. I've downloaded Map My Walk onto my phone and it's a great motivator as it keeps track of the route you took and how far it is. Here's our walk from new years day.

What makes a house a home for you? Before you go, make sure you hop over to McGuffy's Reader to see what my fellow bloggers have come up with for their answers.

Until next time, be good, stay safe, and make sure you have some moments of calm this weekend.

Pamela & Ken
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P.S: Today Princess Cookie Cat received a parcel from the USA - it was some lovely homemade cat toys from the tooth fairy (aka Ellen from 15andmeowing.com). Cookie was loving them and got very spaced out - thank you so much Ellen.

Top Ten Thursday - Unfinished Business

This week's top ten has Tamara at Part-time Working Hockey Mom  asking us "to list all the things that need to be said or done before we turn a new page. Missed opportunities, highlights, unfinished business, tell us about your top ten!"

Interesting theme and this has made me really exercise my brain cells, and after much rumination I believe I've come up with ten - I've gone with unfinished business, things that aren't going to get done before the end of the year but hopefully will next year.

1. Blog Views - considering that when I started our blog I had no idea that more than close friends and family would read it, and yet we're about to reach 100,000 views. I think this will be after new year now, but whenever it is it's amazing.

2. Blog posts - this is our 409th published post, so in 2018 I hope to publish our 500th.

3. Baking - I really need to learn to love our Aga so that I feel more confident doing baking. I love making cakes for people, but I keep putting it off due to the Aga in our rented accomodation - it's not very reliable. Need to bake more.

4. Walking - at the beginning of June I had a really bad fall and damaged the ligaments in my left leg which put a huge dampener on any walking plans we had this year. I'm now back to normal (or as normal as I can be) so we need to get out there and do some exploratory rambles.

5. Poetry - this year I did one poetry day at a local writing centre and it really encouraged me to write more, but I still didn't do as much as I'd like. In 2018 I've booked two days at the centre with experienced poets to keep my motivation going.

6. Competitions - one of the things that is really scary for me is letting other people read my poetry so I need to enter more of the poetry competitions that happen around the UK and send some in to writing magazines. Must do!!

7. Sugar - over the last few years I've been ever so slowly reducing the amount of sugar I have in my coffee and I'm down to one level teaspoon. I'm dreading reducing it more but I know I need to so maybe in 2018 I'll finally complete this task.

8. Steps - sort of links to #4 in that my average step count tends to be around 5,000 due to my job being in a very small building and I have to sit for everything I do. The only time I hit my 10,000 is when Ken and I go out at weekends. In 2018 I need to get nearer to 10,000 even on days that I'm at work.

9. Puffins - I know this sounds like a weird unfinished business, but when we moved to Scotland I thought I would tick this bucket list item off fairly easily, but no, we still haven't seen puffins in the wild. In 2018 we're going to make this happen.

10. Love - I have to have one really soppy item, and that's love because it never finishes and especially not for me and my beloved. 

Do you have any unfinished business lurking around from this year? Before you go, make sure you visit Tamara's Blog and see what my fellow bloggers have come up with for their top ten.

Until next time, be good, stay safe, and I hope you're safe and warm wherever you are in the world.

Pamela & Ken
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