Music Survey from Amy

I miss doing these daft survey things so I'm doing one now. It's late so I'm hoping I won't over think it too much (HA!)

List 10 random musical artists you like in no specific order. Warning: Do not read the questions below before listing your favourite artists.

1. easyworld
2. Depeche Mode
3. Queen
4. Eels
5. Damien Rice
6. The Killers
7. Muse
8. Alexandre Desplat
9. Carter Burwell
10. Mark Snow

What’s the first song you ever heard by #6?
"Jenny Was a Friend of Mine" in our hire car on vacation in Orlando, my husband bought the CD whilst we were there (at the giant Virgin Megastore in Downtown Disney) because it wasn't out in the UK yet or something and he'd heard they were good.

What’s your favorite song by #8?
Jeez - hard much? Possibly "Dragon Flight" as it captures the moment so well, it starts out so dramatically and then really captures that soaring sensation.

What are your favourite lyrics by #5?
"I remember it well
The first time that I saw
Your head around the door'
Cause mine stopped working

I remember it well
There was wet in your hair
I was stood in the stairs
And time stopped moving

I want you here tonight
I want you here
'Cause I can't believe what I found"

What song by #3 makes you the happiest?
"Happiest" is an interesting one here because most of my favourite Queen songs are the sad ones. Probably "Funny How Love Is".

When did you first get into #2?
Well, let's just say that when my mum was pregnant with me, my sister used to play Depeche down her headphones and then put the headphones on her stomach; so I didn't really have much chance to NOT get into them. The sound of "Enjoy the Silence" coming through my bedroom wall is one of my earliest memories.

How did you get into #3?
Pretty much copy and paste from the previous answer! Also sis made me a mix tape of Queen songs when I was very small and got my first tape deck. I still have the tape.

What is your favorite song by #4?
"Woman Driving, Man Sleeping" and "Things the Grandchildren Should Know". I know that's two but I don't care.

Have you seen #9 live? How many times?
Nope, you don't really see composers live all that much.

Favourite album by #7?
Tough choice but I think I'd have to settle with "Black Holes and Revelations"

What’s your favourite song by #1?
Another tough choice but I'm going with "You Were Right", specifically the backing vocals between 4.20 and 4.44 - I simply adore that part of the song. I actually prefer the demo version that I have of the song, possibly because the backing vocals are so much more prominent.

How did you become a fan of #10?
Well obviously I was aware of the music since I started watching the show about 15 years ago, but I really became hyper aware of the music alone in the last few years when my interest in scores began to develop.

How long have you known #9?
About 18 months

Top 5 by #5.
Silent Night
Amie
I Remember
Cold Water
Older Chests

Have you ever seen #10 live?
I wish, as I said, composers don't do the "live" thing a whole lot.

Have you ever met #4?
No, but I would dearly love to meet E one day, I loved his autobiography.

What’s your favourite album by #1?
This is Where I Stand

Favourite lyric by #7?
OK Muse are not a band I listen to for the lyrics, I couldn't even think of any off the top of my head, I had to Google. I'm going with "Take a Bow" because I think it's hard to write a song so viciously angry that doesn't just become shouting and noise. Only one other song I can think of achieves it - "Death on Two Legs" by Queen.

What’s #2’s best song?
I'm a huge fan of "In Your Room"

How many times have you seen #2 live?
Three: 2001, 2005 and 2009 - all at Manchester Arena.

Which one of these have you known the longest?
Tie between 2 and 3

Favourite song by #9?
"Bella Reborn": it manages to be ominous then slides into a darker version of "Bella's Lullaby" - which is stunning anyway - then builds to a really frantic climax but somehow stays completely calm. It's brilliant.

Book Update 24/8

Another quick update on how I'm getting along with reading 25 books whilst I'm 25 (that's before Oct 9th 2012 to those of you who don't know my birthday.)

1. The Hunger Games – Suzanne Collins
2. Catching Fire – Suzanne Collins
3. Mockingjay – Suzanne Collins
4. The X-Files/30 Days of Night Graphic Novel – Steve Niles Et Al
5. Geek Wisdom – Stephen Segal
6. The X-Files Collection – Les & Ellen Steiber
7. The X-Files: Ground Zero - Kevin J Anderson
8. Kingdom Keepers 3: Disney in Shadow - Ridley Pearson
9. The X-Files: Goblins - Charles Grant
10. Official Guide to The X-Files Vol. 1 - Brian Lowry [IN PROGRESS]
11. The Little Endless Storybook - Jill Thompson
12. The Hobbit - J.R.R. Tolkien
13. A Game of Thrones - George R. R. Martin
14. The X-Files: I Want to Believe - Max Allan Collins
15. Seraphina - Rachel Hartman
16. Let's Pretend This Never Happened - Jenny Lawson
17. The X-Files: Ruins - Kevin J Anderson
18. Pilgrim of The Sky - Natania Barron
19. Chariots of The Gods - Erich von Daniken [IN PROGRESS]
20. On Stranger Tides - Tim Powers [IN PROGRESS]
21. Save the Lars Homestead - Mark Dermul [IN PROGRESS]

All Things

Posters with variants of Scully's opening speech from the episode "All Things".

Book Update 18/03

1. The Hunger Games – Suzanne Collins
2. Catching Fire – Suzanne Collins
3. Mockingjay – Suzanne Collins
4. The X-Files/30 Days of Night Graphic Novel – Steve Niles Et Al
5. Geek Wisdom – Stephen Segal
6. The X-Files Collection – Les & Ellen Steiber
7. The X-Files: Ground Zero - Kevin J Anderson
8. Kingdom Keepers 3: Disney in Shadow - Ridley Pearson
9. Goblins - Charles Grant
10. Official Guide to The X-Files Vol. 1 - Brian Lowry [IN PROGRESS]
11. The Little Endless Storybook - Jill Thompson
12. The Hobbit - J.R.R. Tolkien

Cross Stitch

I'm slightly obsessed with cross stitch lately. I completed this piece on Christmas Eve and gave it to my mum, I plan to stitch it again later in the year and keep it for myself. Here's the pattern: http://www.etsy.com/listing/86579281/christmas-tardis-doctor-whotardis

This one I completed a few weeks ago and put inside a blank coaster. I used DMC Colour Variations thread to get the fiery effect. Here's the original pattern: http://www.etsy.com/listing/76728723/may-the-odds-hunger-games-mockingjay

I scrapbooked!

I actually made a scrapbook page for the first time in I don't know how long. Here it is:

Storage Idea

I wanted to share one of my storage ideas with you all. Most women have a tons of this sort of stuff lying around their bathrooms:

Necessary it may be, but pretty it sure as hell is not. Who wants loads of brightly coloured garish cardboard boxes sitting around saying "look at me, I'm a tampon box!" to your guests? I went down to TK Maxx and found this gorgeous clasp lid box:

The tiles in my bathroom are black so I picked a design that tied in with the rest of my decor. Now my girly products are stored neatly out of sight in a beautiful box that coordinates with my room. If a female visitor needs to borrow anything she can find it all easily, but for everyone else, there are no garish boxes staring at them.

Photoshop Again

I've been playing about with some new ideas and techniques in Photoshop this week and this is one of my favourite pictures that has resulted. It's an old picture of my sister taken almost two years ago.

Here you can see a before and after, the original photo was pretty dull and lifeless, my brother in law was in the process of setting up the camera for a group shot and was just using my sister to gauge distance.

I used a tutorial from The Daybook to get this effect. The blog is full of amazing photography - go check it out.

Book Update 28/02

1. The Hunger Games – Suzanne Collins

2. Catching Fire – Suzanne Collins
3. Mockingjay – Suzanne Collins
4. The X-Files/30 Days of Night Graphic Novel – Steve Niles Et Al
5. Geek Wisdom – Stephen Segal
6. The X-Files Collection – Les & Ellen Steiber 
7. The X-Files: Ground Zero - Kevin J Anderson
8. Kingdom Keepers 3: Disney in Shadow - Ridley Pearson
9. Goblins - Charles Grant
10. Official Guide to The X-Files Vol. 1 - Brian Lowry [IN PROGRESS]

11. The Little Endless Storybook - Jill Thompson

12. The Hobbit - J.R.R. Tolkien [IN PROGRESS]

Almost halfway there! 

Book Update

1. The Hunger Games – Suzanne Collins
2. Catching Fire – Suzanne Collins
3. Mockingjay – Suzanne Collins
4. The X-Files/30 Days of Night Graphic Novel – Steve Niles Et Al
5. Geek Wisdom – Stephen Segal
6. The X-Files Collection – Les & Ellen Steiber 
7. The X-Files: Ground Zero - Kevin J Anderson
8. Kingdom Keepers 3: Disney in Shadow - Ridley Pearson [IN PROGRESS]
9. Goblins - Charles Grant
10. Official Guide to The X-Files Vol. 1 - Brian Lowry [IN PROGRESS]

Amazing Store

I took these pictures at an amazing vintage book and general junk store in Uphill Lincoln. I could have spent a week in there and still not seen everything.

New X-Files Poster Design

I'm working on X-Files poster designs to set up an Etsy shop. My stuff has been selling reasonably well at Red Bubble but I'd rather do the poster stuff through Etsy.

Here's what I worked on tonight, I love graphical text stuff:

Thoughts?

Bye bye Christmas

Today I started putting Christmas back into its box. I've felt slightly odd about Christmas this time around, as though somehow it wasn't real. I think it's probably because I spent it with different people, and in a different place than I spent it the last several years. Still, I felt oddly sad putting everything away today. The main tree is still up in the living room in an attempt to ease the transition from decorated to bare for Finlay - and because I won't take down all my decorations before January the sixth. That comes down tomorrow instead.

There's still a lot of jobs to do. The toy chest needs to be moved back to its usual position (it gets moved at Christmas so we can fit the tree in), the floors need an attack with the vacuum too, but I'm not bothering with that until I've got both trees out of the house. I need to bring down the porcelain that went upstairs for the holidays because Fin might have been able to reach it with the toy chest in a different place, that will clear up my drawers in the bedroom for the Harry Potter display I want to create there. That's partly because the office is now so full of collectable that I'm running out of space. Damn you Doctor Who and your large number of cute, cheap merchandise options.

Today our new kitchen calendar arrived, it's already up on the wall with all the birthdays and other dates written in. I will get organised this year if it fucking kills me. The office is starting to clear, I'll be happier when the bedding we borrowed from my in laws goes back to them as it's taking up my floor space. I need to figure out what to do with the three magazine files full of scrapbooking magazines that no longer fit on my bookshelves, they're getting in the way.

I've set a goal to lose 2lbs in the next two weeks. I wish I could think it will be easy but I doubt it will be. Hopefully Zumba will help, if it doesn't kill me first.

Wordless Wednesday

Book Update

Quick update on how I'm getting along with reading 25 books whilst I'm 25 (that's before Oct 9th 2012 to those of you who don't know my birthday.)


1. The Hunger Games – Suzanne Collins
2. Catching Fire – Suzanne Collins
3. Mockingjay – Suzanne Collins
4. The X-Files/30 Days of Night Graphic Novel – Steve Niles Et Al
5. Geek Wisdom – Stephen Segal
6. The X-Files Collection – Les & Ellen Steiber 
7. The X-Files: Ground Zero - Kevin J Anderson
8. Kingdom Keepers 3: Disney in Shadow - Ridley Pearson [IN PROGRESS]


I also have an account at GoodReads now - follow me.

Such a busy week ahead. Tomorrow my son has an appointment with a health visitor to check out some behavioural issues which I'm hoping are nothing. Tuesday is our weekly music class and then parent's evening at nursery. Wednesday I should be going to the cinema with a few other mum's in my village to see Breaking dawn, first Twilight movie I've ever bothered going to the cinema for, will probably have to re-watch Eclipse to remember what happened!

Thursday is the only "normal" day this week as on Friday we're dropping Fin off at my mum's and heading down to the coast for a weekend just me and the hubby. Fin's been somewhat trying lately and I think we both need a couple days to recharge and reinvest in "us". Plus my mum very rarely gets to spend serious quality time with Fin and is really excited about getting him for three whole nights, have a feeling she'll be very glad to see us Sunday night though, he's exhausting!

On top of all this there's a chance Fin has croup. The joys of parenthood.

Finally, a picture to finish off the post. Yesterday we did a walk around our village to raise money for Children in Need. Afterwards we enjoyed a cake at the village hall:

Play Time

This week, I’ve been trying to be more involved in Fin’s play. Honestly it’s something I find really hard because I just get bored so easily by this stuff. I tried to come up with a few storylines that could keep my attention for more than a minute and together we launched the world’s first all-dog space mission. Fin loves playing with toy dogs this week since he got a toy version of Tintin’s dog in his first ever Happy Meal on Saturday.

I’m trying to get him using his crayons more frequently too and have been practising drawing with him myself.

An update

It’s been a while since I updated here, no excuses. It will come as no surprise that I didn’t complete the 24 books in 12 months project I set myself. No matter, I intend to plough on with my new project of 25 books in 12 months now I have celebrated my 25th birthday. Here’s a tally so far:

1. The Hunger Games – Suzanne Collins
2. Catching Fire – Suzanne Collins
3. Mockingjay – Suzanne Collins
4. The X-Files/30 Days of Night Graphic Novel – Steve Niles Et Al
5. Geek Wisdom – Stephen Segal [IN PROGRSS]
6. The X-Files Collection – Les & Ellen Steiber [IN PROGRESS]

I’ve also been doing lots of cross stitch lately. My current projects are the Hogwarts Express and another I can’t mention here in case I accidentally show it’s recipient before it is completed. Here’s what the Express will look like once I’ve finished it anyway:

Before that I finished this piece which is gorgeous but very hard:

I’ve been working on them whilst getting thoroughly into some new TV shows. Earlier this year Scott and I got caught up with the new Doctor Who and Castle. Right now I’m ploughing through Torchwood and have almost finished season one, I’ve also started Game of Thrones and am thoroughly enjoying it. Next week I’m going to start American Horror Story and see what that’s like as the pilot has just aired here.

24 Books in 12 Months - UPDATE

 

1. Kingdom Keepers 1: Disney After Dark - Ridley Pearson
2. Kingdom Keepers 2: Disney At Dawn - Ridley Pearson
3. How to Love Safely in a Science Fictional Universe - Charles Yu
4. The X-Files: Whirlwind - Charles Grant
5. The X-Files Graphic Novel - Frank Spotnitz Et Al
6. From The Earth to The Moon - Jules Verne
7. Angus, Thongs and Full-Frontal Snogging - Louise Rennison
8. American Gods - Neil Gaiman
9. Harry Potter & The Deathly Hallows - JK Rowling
10. Nerd Do Well - Simon Pegg
11. The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner – Stephanie Meyer
12. I Choose This – David Ford [IN PROGRESS]

Wordless Wednesday: Stoke