Mobile Madness

I've got myself a new craze ... mobile phone photography! I think that those little cameras attached to our mobys are sadly underused, and my mission is to change that forthwith!

When I changed my phone at the end of last year, I made sure that the one I got had the best camera possible - in my case 3 MP. I know it's not as fabulous as my Canon, with its 8 MP, but for photography on the move it does the job.

So here is a pic I took on Friday, of Ethan giving me a big kissie. I love the randomness of hoping that if you hold the camera at arms length that you'll get the shot you want in frame. Luckily I seem to be fairly on the mark with most of the ones I took ... but it's just a shame I forgot to change the mode and was shooting without flash. This meant that this pic was underexposed, but a little play around in Photoshop, changing it to black and white, left it with a nice grainy effect which I'm happy with.

Credits for this layout are: Papers, felt flowers, felt border, bow, tag, staple, notepaper - Flowers Happiness Kit by Luiza Garay at DSS; crochet flower (behind heart) - Coloured Crochet Flowers by Luiza Garay at DSS; paper tears - All Torn Up by Vickie Hernandez at DSS; fonts - Thinking Of You and Milk & Cereal.

So now that I've resolved to use the camera on my mobile more, I can hopefully capture more mundane, everyday shots that I can scrap. I love how you can take a photo of nothing especially exciting or wondrous, but can make it mean so much just by preserving it in a scrapbook to show the little things that make your life what it is. That's why I love my Scraps of Life challenge so much at DSS, because hopefully I'm inspiring and encouraging others to scrap things that they wouldn't necessarily think of to do.

Other news this weekend - we've been busy! Sean went to his art class yesterday, so after we picked him and Heather (his best friend) up, we dropped them back at her house as he had been invited to hang out, and then the three of us (Col, Ethan and me) took ourselves off to Makro in Coventry to get some washing powder. Can you believe it, I haven't bought any washing powder since about November last year? That's cos at Makro you can buy the really huge 10 litre boxes of powder, and it lasts for ages. I don't use much washing powder anyway, I just use a spoonful of powder plus a spoonful of soda crystals. You wouldn't believe just how much even a small amount of powder can clog up your drains - I was gobsmacked when we had to try and unblock the drains recently by just how many lumps of compacted washing powder were gunging up the drain.

Anyway, I'm digressing. Makro had an 11.5 litre box of powder yesterday - supposedly enough for 120 washes. Now bearing in mind the box I bought in November was supposed to do 90 washes, and I do probably 5 loads a week at least (and often up to 10 loads), this means that I got approximately 50% more out of the box, so this new box should last me until 2008! We also picked up some more fabric softener (the 10 litres that I bought in November is still going strong, I reckon I have about 2 litres of it still to go - because again I reckon it clogs up the drain, so I only use half a capful instead of a full cap); dishwasher tablets, kitchen roll and lots of other stuff that we probably didn't really need but bought anyway.

After Makro we went to Maplin in Erdington, for some stuff that Col needed. Then, as he'd been talking about going to have a look at the Virgin Active gym at Star City, I suggested that we went to have a look, as we were only five minutes away ...

We were impressed, I have to say. They have two swimming pools - one for adults and one for kids/less confident swimmers), four studios, lots of exercise equipment, a ladies only gym and saunas and steam rooms. The even bigger plus is that they cater for the kids too, which we thought was a major bonus, as our previous gym excursions faltered because the gym we were a member of was not child friendly, and with Colin working sometimes strange hours it was very difficult for either of us to go. Even better, this place has a programme of classes for kids too, some very active stuff, but they do have a couple of Playstation oriented classes so the kids can chill out too.

We took a deep breath when they told us the prices ... we both need the peak time membership (off peak is 9.00 am - 3.30 pm weekdays, and all day at weekends) as there is no way I could go during the day, and although Colin could get up early and go (I take the kids to school in the mornings) it means that he wouldn't be able to come with us in the evenings. So ... we signed up for the peak membership option. Ahem. £45 each per month! And then £15 each for the kids ... so we're going to be paying £120 per month for the four of us. Yes, it's expensive. But I'm looking at this as an investment into our health. I don't get any exercise at all. I sit on my backside at work all day and then I come home and sit on it some more, in the living room watching TV and playing with my computer. This is not good. Colin doesn't get any exercise either, and Sean certainly needs to be more active. However, unlike all the other gyms, this place doesn't hold you to a contract, you just need to give them notice by the 17th of the month if you want to cancel your next month's payment, so just two weeks notice.

Our plan is that we will book the boys into the evening time classes a couple of times a week so that I can go and do some of the classes that I want to do - they've got a great range, including hip hop, hula-aerobics (sounds like fun!) and your normal bogstandard gym class stuff like body conditioning etc.

So this morning found us enjoying the pool, taking it in turns to go and have a swim in the adult pool so that one of us was always with Ethan. It was fun! I only managed 10 lengths (5 each breaststroke and front crawl), but that was well enough considering I haven't swum in years - before I got married and moved to Birmingham back in 1990, I used to swim 20 lengths five times a week at the pool that we had at the hospital where I worked. Believe me, I could really feel the pull on my muscles after today's effort.

Tomorrow, as it is a bank holiday, we are planning on getting to the gym before 10.00 am - the kids and I will have a swim, and Colin has an introductory session booked with a personal trainer. Then we're planning on heading on back in the evening, when Colin will swim with the boys and I want to have a go at the hip hop class. Let's hope we manage to keep up with this! It's a lot of money to pay out each month so hopefully that will movitate us to keep going, and of course the benefits to our health can only be good.

Speaking of swimming, I need to go and put the rest of our towels in the dryer so that they are nice and dry for tomorrow ...