New books, MAD Blog Awards, and Mode Media chaos #littleloves

Last updated on November 19th, 2023 at 12:34 am

The weekend has arrived and it’s been a very anticipating arrival for me as it’s the weekend of the 2016 MAD Blog Awards. For those that don’t know it, it’s awards for the Mum & Dad Bloggers of the UK. This year, I am so honored to be a finalist for Best Schooldays Blog and Best Lifestyle Blog. Those titles are a great description of this space and the things I am passionate about sharing here on LTM. I am so grateful to be along side so many other fantastic writers for a great evening out. I am mostly looking forward to seeing friends and having an adult night out if I am honest. After six weeks of only one day apart from the kiddos I am ready to doing something only adults can do. Have a drink, fine dining and chatter with close friends I haven’t seen in a while without interruptions. Selfish of me, I know. Wish me luck. I hope you will join on twitter and ig stories and see how the night plays out for some many of our favorite bloggers. I am very excited. 

We are back to school routines, classes are in order and I am once again a taxi mom. Jetlag is long behind us and we are all starting to feel a little normal again. It’s been the longest jetlag struggle I have dealt with in the nine years living here especially the kids. But so worth it to have our summers back home. We are settling back into our own beds, our own rooms, and the kids have fallen in love with their old toys all over again. No need for Santa for us, they feel like they haven’t seen they toys in a decade instead of a few weeks. hahaha 

THIS WEEK I AM LOVING…

I have been finishing Pretty Is that I started before I left for America. I am only half way through it but it’s definitely a page turner if you like a thriller. I also bought this series yesterday at Tesco as they were on sale. Me Before You and After You the sequel by JoJo Moyes. Has anyone read these yet? They were recommended to me by a friend. Would love to know what I am jumping into …boring or page turners?

I guess, it’s slightly cheating each week when I don’t fill this space with music that I am listening to at the moment. I tried that. I am a country music girl all the way and so I will refrain from constantly sharing music that doesn’t even play in this country. 🙂

This is the place, I normally announce stuff in a “have you heard” kind of way. So have you heard the bad news…

Mode Media shut down.

Need I say more? I am devastated. The company that was my main income each month. The one that brought campaigns to me over and over again, are no more. I don’t really know what to do with it at the moment. Not only do they owe me a huge chunk of money still to which I will never see again but my recurring projects have now stopped. So if you know any brands, companies, agents that want to work with a blogger like me shout out please. I am sure like the rest of us, I will have to start at the bottom again. It’s back to scrambling for jobs or I will have to go out and get a different job. I have this bad pit in my stomach over it all. But on the plus side, at least they paid me most of what I was owed last month so I will feel grateful that it could have been a lot worse. 

I never thought very much about watching the Vampire Diaries. I know I am years behind the craze which is normal for me. The other day I had caught up on all the Pretty Little Liars episodes and Nashville is back on and I am all brushed up on what is going down in country town. I stumbled across a trailer for VD and thought I will see what the first episode is like. Ok, I won’t lie I am hooked. I have plenty of seasons to feed my new obsession too. I find it hard to work, read, and do house work when the next episode is just sitting there waiting for me to watch it. Dang you, Netflix. So I do the laundry, read my emails and attempt to give myself a half hour of reading before bed each night so I don’t get sucked in. But I have to admit fully liking a weekend episode binge of it at the moment. Anyone watched it?  I hope the other seasons are just as good as the first. It’s very Twilight, if you like that sort of super natural drama. 

I did bake this week. I was back in the kitchen playing again. This time, I was babysitting my friend’s kids so I can’t share any fun photos we took but it was lovely to get other kids excited about being in the kitchen and baking things. My two were at school so it felt a bit strange not having them there to join in. But we made the most of it and created some banana raisin muffins for a treat they could take home with them and share. 

But don’t worry the few weeks leading up to Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas …I have a whole collection of scrumptious recipes to share with you. I can’t wait so watch this space. 

This week, we have had a mixture of the craziest weather I have seen in the UK all in one week. It doesn’t know whether it’s hot, cold, rainy, windy, thundering, and the lightening is the brightest and biggest I have ever seen. Trust me, we have some good storms back home too. It was like a strobe light going off and on all night the other night. I keep leaving the house in flipflops and a dress to only get caught on the school pickup in a complete down pour of rain. Or I leave with jeans and a sweater on and half way through the day, shorts and a tshirt are pulled on. I think it just needs to make up it’s mind so we know what to wear. But Wednesday I made the most of the hot forecast and pulled out a dress I rarely get a chance to wear. It’s not one for America as the cutout shoulders give you a funny tan line and the long sleeve do get hot. You need bare arms in America for summer. But here every once in a while on a warmer day than usually I get to pull this beauty on. It flows and I just love the pattern on it. 

 

This week’s favorite features on my hashtag instagram community called #lifecloseup created a beautiful vibrant grid. I am so grateful for everyone joining in and sharing their zoomed in captures of life. I love each and everyone of them. I am always trying to share new feeds to follow and connect with. So if you haven’t already come join me. 

Linking up with Coffee Work Sleep Repeat for #littleloves