Red Boots

Snippets...

noreply@blogger.com (Red Boots) — Wed, 22 May 2013 13:46:00 +0000

...of life lately. I haven't done one of these lately and I have heaps of photos to share, some from months ago, when there were barely any leaves on the trees. Now I'm sitting here in a summer dress, and we've just been playing in the park all morning and admiring the blossom on the trees.

We used to be quite content pootering around at home most of the time, but now E is older and, since the end of January, walking (nay, running!), our house seems much smaller, and she requires more by way of entertainment to stave away boredom. I make sure to fit in at least one exciting excursion a week and then do lots of little things around home.

A little while ago E and I went to the Museum of Modern Art in Edinburgh for a morning out. It's in such a beautiful setting:

I hadn't checked which exhibition would be on before going - it turns out it was From Death to Death and Other Small Tales, which is all about how 20th and 21st century artists have approached the subject of the body. Which, invariably, was pretty much all about genitalia. I'm no prude by any stretch, and some of the art was very good, however I felt a little uneasy showing my toddler the art. Less uneasy though than the parents of the 10 and 8 year old kids, who walked into a room that housed a massive bronze cast of a penis and balls dangling from the ceiling! You can imagine how that went down...!

We did very much enjoy this installation though, which was essentially nylon filled with spices. As you can tell, I'm no art expert and I'm not going to pretend to be, so I can't tell you what it represents. I can tell you the smell in the room was incredible though - just like being in the Moroccan Souks again:

We've also enjoyed LOTS of walks to see the ducks and swans in our village. The walk there is not much fun, at all, but once you're there it's beautiful. I think these photos are from March:

We've also been on lots of forays around Edinburgh:

Botanic Gardens

Morningside

West End

Trinity

And after all of that walking:

Coffee! This one was at Peter's Yard, one of my Edinburgh favourites.

Speaking of coffee, you probably deserve one now after having made you look at all of my photos! Go! Enjoy!
xx

April Showers (in May)

noreply@blogger.com (Red Boots) — Sun, 19 May 2013 14:45:00 +0000

The nice people at Joules sent E and I some wellies to review - what a very exciting mail day when they arrived, let me tell you! E immediately shouted "shoes!" and tried to put them on by herself. After a helping hand into them she seemed pleased as punch with her boots, and kept looking at them rather than where she was going, which consequently led to a few bumps! And I'll admit that I also kept giving my feet admiring glances (thankfully I remembered to watch where I was going!). I'm a fan of Joules and their clothing (this dress in this post is a particular favourite), and already own a few Joules pieces, so it was great to be able to incorporate some Joules style on to my feet!

I chose the navy floral print wellies from the women's wellies range. I love a good floral print, and I thought the navy would be good at disguising mud!

For E I chose the ditsy pink wellies from the baby girls range. I don't normally dress E in pink clothes, and I almost went for these lovely stripy ones, but in the end the floral ones were too cute to resist! Joules have some gorgeous girls wellies, but sadly E is a bit too little for them yet.

We then went on a walk in our village to test them out on a particularly damp day:

Looking for sheep, sadly none to be seen.

The only problem about walking on a damp day is that the rain is never far away, and consequently we got drizzled on (including my camera, which has since dried out thankfully!):

Pesky rain spots!

Then the rain came on a bit too heavily for my liking so we hurried home before I got a chance to photo my beautiful wellies in a bit more detail, so after a quick wipe down at home here they are:

As pretty as they are, I'm sure you'll be wanting to know the important things - such as how comfortable they are and if they kept our feet dry. Well, the wellies ran true to size, and are really comfortable to walk in, even on rough ground. The soft insoles provide a nice cushion for your feet and they didn't rub our feet. The rubber is soft and flexible making them easy to get on and off, but in typical Joules quality they feel sturdy and well-made, and I have no doubt that they will last for years and years. Most importantly of all, they kept our feet dry, even when we decided to jump in some puddles, which is always the most important criteria of welly boots!

Now, bring on the great Scottish summertime (re: downpours) and we'll be all prepared in style!

xx

ps: If you fancy treating the little one in your life, Joules are currently running a half-term promotion, where if you spend £20 online on Little Joule clothing for girls and boys you get £5 off with voucher code LJ20. :)

---

Joules sent us some boots to review, but I received no financial recompense. All words and opinions are my own and of course I'd tell you if I didn't like them!

Eco Happenings Over At Moral Fibres

noreply@blogger.com (Red Boots) — Mon, 13 May 2013 20:35:00 +0000

It's been a busy old while over on Moral Fibres, my eco blog. If you're not a regular reader over there then here are some posts you might have missed:

Some hardwearing and stylish ethical men's clothing from Cornish company, Seasalt.
A really great crochet DIY on how to make your own reusable cotton wool pads for removing make-up.
What to sow in April and May.
An update on how I've been getting on at reducing my consumption of palm oil
My first ever eco-fashion outfit post!
Introducing Greenterest - a prototype social networking site for gardeners.
How to plant a bee friendly garden, and if you don't have a garden, how you can be more bee friendly.
A slightly more ethical alternative to Google that benefits the environment whilst you surf.
How to stop junk mail in it's pesky tracks.
And an introduction to solar water heating.

Now that I'm feeling much better, and even getting some rest in the evenings now (after a fun couple of weeks of a toddler refusing to go to bed!) I'm even hoping to blog here a bit more often too!

xx

If My Blog Were An Outfit

noreply@blogger.com (Red Boots) — Wed, 08 May 2013 12:20:00 +0000

The other day Kirsty asked if your blog was an outfit, what would it be.

If Red Boots was an outfit it would look much like this:

Dress / Bag / Shoes (by Radley, now unavailable) / Sunglasses

A retro inspired quirky printed dress because Red Boots is all about all things pretty, quirky and vintage-esque.

A classic satchel because Red Boots is never about fads or fashions, it's more style that doesn't date.

Some comfy shoes because visiting Red Boots should feel like you're wearing your comfiest of shoes - relaxed, informal and just all round pleasant.

And a pop of colour because Red Boots is all about colour, never about the beige.

Also all of these things are way way way above my budget because I'm a perpetual daydreamer!

Thanks for letting me play along Kirsty, and if you haven't checked out her blog, A Safe Mooring, then you're missing out. Just sayin'.

Apartment Therapy

noreply@blogger.com (Red Boots) — Tue, 07 May 2013 13:45:00 +0000

The doctor today told me this morning that I've got a viral infection. I was at the surgery with E in tow, who was trying to climb out of her buggy, despite being strapped in, and the doctor said to me with a straight face to get some rest and not lift anything. I looked at her waiting for the punch line. Turns out it was no joke. She clearly has never been in a position of care for a toddler. Rest and no lifting do not go hand in hand with toddlers. She then told me to take paracetamol, because of course I've not been taking any paracetamol for the past 8 weeks!

I felt a bit deflated after leaving the surgery that I went home, made a cup of tea and perused Pinterest while E slept. I looked at beautiful homes - which works way better than anything at making me feel better. Doctor schmoctor! Turns out today I'm all about the color:

Images 1 / 2 / 3 / 4

I must say, that green kitchen soothes my soul better than the paracetamol has been doing so!

xx

Lust List: Yellow Owl Workshop

noreply@blogger.com (Red Boots) — Sun, 28 Apr 2013 18:17:00 +0000

Apologies for the lack of posts around these parts lately. I've been ill since March (yes), which escalated into full blown flu two weeks ago. And then E got ill as well. Consequently we've been ever such a happy household lately. Thanks very much, nursery (such breeding grounds for germs)!

While I was ill I was perusing the internet and came across Yellow Owl Workshop. I initially went to their website to look at their lovely stamp sets, but totally got sucked in by their beautiful and colourful necklaces:

Heart / Terrarium / Colour Wheel / You & Me / Canning Jar

Oh the pretty colours! I'd take them all, but if pushed I'd say my absolute absolute favourites are the canning jar and the terrarium.

While I've been ill I've also been researching things to do in Stockholm, for our upcoming holiday. The best thing I've found so far is the very soon to be opened Abba museum, where apparently you can sing and dance on stage alongside life-sized holograms of all four members of Abba! Yes, I kid you not! Life-sized mother-flipping holograms! My mister has unsurprisingly vetoed this idea but there's still time to talk him round...! Wish me luck!

xx

Lately on Moral Fibres

noreply@blogger.com (Red Boots) — Mon, 08 Apr 2013 18:00:00 +0000

I've been busy over at my eco-friendly lifestyle blog, Moral Fibres, with a variety of different articles. Here are some of the highlights:

My experience of using washable nappies for a year.
Why I'm reducing my consumption of palm oil in the foods I eat and products I use
My un-green habits which I'm trying to change or having difficulty changing
Stylish eco-friendly leather bags
It's follow up post: stylish vegan bags
An ethical guide to the high street - with some surprises on the leader board. Before you click through, where would you place New Look on a sliding scale of ethicalness? Be surprised!
A review of supercream - Weleda Skin Food
If we get some nice weather then this gardening with kids article will be useful :)
And finally, a thought provoking thought for dinner time - can eating insects save the world?

Hope you enjoy reading!

As always, thank you for your kind support and words. It means so much.

xx

Goodbye Google Reader!

noreply@blogger.com (Red Boots) — Tue, 02 Apr 2013 12:28:00 +0000

Google Reader will be no-more come July 1st and this video sums up how I feel:

Altogether now: "...my favourite RSS feeder..."!

Never fear though, you can subscribe to Red Boots through Blog Lovin'.

You can also subscribe through my Google Reader replacement of choice - Feedly - although it's not perfect. I don't like how it works on the iPhone, but it's a trade-off I'll take at the moment.

xx

Secret Garden: An Inky Treasure Hunt and Colouring Book Review

noreply@blogger.com (Red Boots) — Thu, 28 Mar 2013 12:43:00 +0000

Laurence King Publishing kindly sent us a copy of Johanna Basford's new book - Secret Garden: An Inky Treasure Hunt and Colouring Book to review on Red Boots Blog:

"Tumble down the rabbit hole and find yourself in an inky black-and-white wonderland".

Johanna Basford is an illustrator inspired by the flora and fauna that surrounds her home in rural Scotland, and the inspiration for this book came from Brodick Castle on the Isle of Arran (a place dear to my own Ayrshire heart) where her grandfather was the head gardener.

Johanna says that she "spent her summer and winter holidays in the rambling grounds of the castle gardens, playing in the summer house lined with pinecones, searching for the hidden beehives and watching the robins nest in an abandoned teapot", and this inspiration really shines through in the book.

Rather than describing it as a colouring book, it's more of an interactive activity book, full of puzzles; drawings to be completed by your yourself or your child; and a hunt for lots of tiny little birds, animals, insects and objects:

Johanna's intricately beautiful pen-and-ink illustrations make this book such a visual delight - and with so many stunning hand-drawn illustrations of flowers, insects, small animals and birds to colour in, there are hours upon hours upon hours of colouring-in to be done.

Although E isn't old enough for colouring books like this yet, I wouldn't say it's just for kids - I'm looking forward to tackling it with some watercolour pencils, once I get some, as it's definitely a treat for grown-ups too. In the meantime E and I are having fun finding all the different animals and looking at all the different insects (a budding David Attenborough!)!

Here's a really lovely video about the book which pretty much sums up the whole feel of the book:

You can buy your own copy of the book here - it comes highly recommended from both E and I!

xx

--

Laurence King Publishing kindly sent me a copy of the book to review. I received no other recompense to write this post.

Snow Days

noreply@blogger.com (Red Boots) — Wed, 27 Mar 2013 12:45:00 +0000

Of course, about two minutes after I posted my last post about Spring a big black cloud blotted out the sun, and snow began to fall, and it hasn't really stopped since. Typical!

On Friday we got more snow. That really fine kind that is so hard to photograph. It fell like confetti for most of the afternoon, looking very pretty and serene, but intensely cold. After I was done working for the day I padded in to my kitchen, and whipped up my favourite winter warmer - a chilli non carne (meat free) - and then greeted my two favourite people in the whole world as they returned home with their frosty noses.

On Saturday we deemed it too cold to do anything but stay warm at home, so we spent the morning listening to old Smashing Pumpinks and James Iha and Billy Corgan stuff (back when he was good). Here are a few of our favourites:

Of course!

Controversial perhaps, including Zwan, but I do love this song.

xx

Spring Lust List

noreply@blogger.com (Red Boots) — Thu, 21 Mar 2013 12:08:00 +0000

After snow, snow and more snow, the sun is finally shining today and I have to say (despite falling down my stairs this morning...) I am full of the joys of Spring!

I've been browsing the internet, creating a fantasy Spring shopping list. You can tell I'm dreaming of sunny days at the seaside with a camera in hand (ice-cream in the other perhaps!):

1. Louche Skippy Boat Print Dress - Joy The Store
2. Shoes - Office
3. Chelsea Collection Satchel - Cambridge Satchel Company
4. La Sardina Camera - Lomography.com
5. DVF Sunglasses - ASOS
6. L'Atalante Necklace - Apres Ski

What's on your list?

xx

Scandinavian Chic from Barnebys

noreply@blogger.com (Red Boots) — Tue, 19 Mar 2013 15:35:00 +0000

If you're on Pinterest you'll have had to be living with your head under a rock not to notice the Scandi trend that's been going on for the past couple of years.

I thought it was a bit of a design fad, until the past couple of weeks, when I've spent hour upon hour looking at Swedish apartments on Air BnB for our upcoming trip to Stockholm. One thing that struck me about pretty much all of the apartments was the sense of style - all white walls, and a mix of antique furniture and cheap and modern Ikea pieces. It was like looking at a real-life Pinterest board:

Some Scandinavian style apartments found on Pinterest: 1. / 2. / 3. / 4. / 5.

What I like about the Scandinavian style is that it doesn't seem to try too hard - even with all of that white paint, homes look warm, cosy and inviting. And well chosen older pieces of furniture mixed with Ikea pieces means it isn't too hard or costly to replicate in your own home.

Looking to replicate this style, I found a few gorgeous pieces of antique and vintage furniture from Barnebys that would fit right into a Scandinavian styled home:

Chest

Trunk

Dresser

Sofa

I'm in love with them all, especially that dresser and sofa!

At the moment Barnebys mainly operate in Sweden and Finland but are very shortly going to be launching in the UK, where I'm hoping to find such lovely treasures! I'm on their mailing list waiting to find the date!

xx

--

This is a post in collaboration with Barnebys - an online niche service that shows auctions from all auction houses in the one place.

National Museum of Scotland

noreply@blogger.com (Red Boots) — Mon, 18 Mar 2013 09:49:00 +0000

My lovely mister had a couple of weeks off work, so we made the most of having him around in the week and we made lots of plans, only to be beaten by the weather (Gorgie City Farm, we will visit you one day, promise!).

After a few days of cabin fever we ventured out to the National Museum of Scotland, which turned out to be just the ticket on a cold wet day.

The last time I was there I was six months pregnant, so it was a bit different being there with a toddler, but it's such a great place for kids. E ran around everywhere at full speed, looking at everything, and generally had a blast.

Other things I love about the museum - there are so many other kids there all making noise that it doesn't matter too much if your kid makes a noise. It's also free. And they have an area for you to eat your own packed lunch, which is a big win!

The natural history section was a big hit. The Scottish history section is also fantastic but having spent so long in the natural history section we didn't get that far. Next time!

xx

Stockholm Calling

noreply@blogger.com (Red Boots) — Sat, 16 Mar 2013 20:05:00 +0000

(image from here)

We are going on our first foreign holiday in three years later this year - we're off to Sweden for a week as a family, which makes me very excited!

We've always wanted to go to Sweden. Sometimes, when we're daydreaming most, we talk about moving there and living in a little red cabin with white windows on a lake - much like this one. As we've talked about this for so many years now we thought we'd go to Sweden and live out some of our dreams for a week.

We could have stayed in a little red cabin on a lake but they were all obviously quite remote, and the idea of driving (let alone driving on the wrong side of the road) gave me the fear, so we're staying in Stockholm with easy access to public transport. We had a bit of a conundrum when it came to accommodation - we've always stayed in hostels when we've travelled before, but we figured they weren't the place for babies. The idea of a hotel wasn't really doing it for us, especially as E has an early bedtime. The idea of having to sit in the dark and quiet every evening sounded not in the least bit fun. We didn't want to be too far out of the centre, so that ruled out camping, and serviced apartments can be quite pricey. So we're booking a lovely looking apartment through Air BnB, which works out quite reasonable, and it has a separate living room and bedroom which means my mister and I can have evenings together, perhaps have a glass of wine or two and play some travel boardgames (we're the last of the great rock and rollers!)!

Now that we've got an apartment sorted, and I'm reasonably ok with the idea of flying with a toddler - I'm used to handling meltdowns on public transport at rush hour - we just need to figure out the things we want to see and do in Stockholm. Sadly we can't take in any nightlife, and we won't be dining out at night - but that leaves us with the whole day to do stuff (we're up at around 6am on a good day so we can fit in a lot!).

This is where you guys come in - have you been to Stockholm? What were your favourite things to see and do there? Anything you would recommend? Anything baby friendly? Any good vintage/second hand shops? Vegetarian friendly restaurants/cafes (preferably serving good beer!)? Good cake shops? Good places to buy food? Also, any places you went to and wish you hadn't? I'm all ears! ;)

xx

Thank You

noreply@blogger.com (Red Boots) — Wed, 27 Feb 2013 18:41:00 +0000

Hello,

I just wanted to write a little note to say thank you for all of your wonderful support, kind words, and comments on my new eco-friendly lifestyle blog, Moral Fibres. Your lovely words have meant so much me, they really have.

Here are some of the most recent posts that I hope you will enjoy:

An Eco-Friendly Gift Guide for Mother's Day (10th March if you're in the UK!)
A guide to feeding wild birds (do you know it's not good to feed birds bread? )
Supporting the Syria Crisis Appeal with URBANARA
A yummy twist on the humble Brussels Sprout

I'm having a spot of bother with Google Reader, so until I sort it out then if you want to follow along in Google Reader open up your Google Reader, press the pink subscribe button and enter this address: http://feeds.feedburner.com/MoralFibres, as below:

Sorry it's so fiddly, I'm hoping to fix it so that it's easier to follow the blog, just as soon as I can get my head around Wordpress and Google Reader!

UPDATE: my lovely graphic/web designer mister helped me out this evening and now it's working - you can just put www.moralfibres.co.uk into that box and you will find my blog!

Thank you all for your lovely comments on my living room makeover! It's been a long time coming! I'm not sure that it takes anyone else over two years to finish one room...!

Our Living Room Makeover

noreply@blogger.com (Red Boots) — Fri, 22 Feb 2013 14:21:00 +0000

It occurred to me that I haven't shown you my living room since we redecorated it, umm, over 2 years ago... In my defence, it has never been quite finished. Even now, 2 and a quarter years later it still isn't quite finished, but it's as close to finished as it will ever be!

So here's the before photos, when we first moved in to our house. I give you the tangerine dream:

As you can see, every single thing in the room was orange. The walls? All different shades of orange. The woodwork? Orange. The curtains? Orange? The lampshade? Orange. And the ceilings and radiators? A fetching shade of nicotine yellow. Also, please note the fetching 1970's bar fire, and the lovely door and glass panel.

This room was the first room we decided to tackle as it was in the biggest need of some TLC, and I'll admit it was all kinds of daunting. We had never decorated before, let alone renovated a whole house, and it was hard to know where to start.

Here is how it looks now:

We left the floor as it was because it was fine (and we didn't want the extra expense of doing the floor), and we left the VELUX® roof window as it was as it was in great condition, but apart from that everything had to change. The very first thing we did, in the first week of moving in was replace the large window. The before photo shows the new window, the old one wooden framed once (also covered in orange varnish) was letting in water, hence the damp underneath it. We then ripped out the gas fire. When I say "we" I mean the registered gas engineer, because hey, it's gas! It's dangerous if you get it wrong! Then I stripped every square centimetre of the orange paper off of the walls. Which took some amount of time owing to the numerous coats of orange paint the paper had seen in it's 20 year lifetime. Then a joiner came and took out the glass panel, plaster-boarded it up, and replaced the old door with nice new one. Then we got an electrician in who took out the wall-lights, added in some extra plug sockets and installed a new light-fitting. Then we got a plasterer in who plastered all of our walls and ceiling. And then we started painting. And painting. And painting some more. Fresh plaster takes in an awful lot of paint. And orange varnish takes a lot of painting over.Then we papered the wall. Big mistake - we hate it. And we put a shelf up above where the fire used to be.

We had lots of little jobs still do but we stopped work on the living room. The reason being I got pregnant and suddenly we had a kitchen, a bathroom and a nursery to decorate in less than 9 months, so all of the little jobs that needed doing in the living room took a back seat.

We are looking to put our house on the market within the next couple of months so we have just got round to finishing off little jobs, like deciding what to do with the gap in the wall where the fire used to be. We have repaired the skirting board (although it isn't painted yet...), laid a hearth (two sample slate tiles - total cost £3.44!), covered up the hole with a blackboard, and put a chimnea there in lieu of a fire. We haven't quite decided if the chimnea works or whether we just look like crazy people with a garden chimnea in their living room, but for now we're going with it. We don't light a fire in it, by the way (carbon monoxide poisoning alert!), though we sometimes light a few candles in it after E has gone to bed.

We were on a super tight budget when doing this room as we still had all of the other rooms in the house to do, including the expensive renovations like a new kitchen and bathroom, so most of the furniture in the room was free - the tan sofa was an old one of my parents; the folding table in the corner is a story not worth asking about; the blue table belonged to the parents of a colleague that I repainted; and an old chest that is out of shot was found in my mister's parent's barn when they moved in to their house. The rug is an off-cut of carpet we laid on the stairs. The only things we purchased were the Ikea shelving unit (recently, to house a burgeoning collection of toys and books) and the brown sofa bed under the window to sleep overnight guests.

Although the wallpaper isn't to our taste (bought in a moment of madness) I really do love our living room. It's a good size compared to the rest of our house (for a comparison of scale, our living room is in the attic - downstairs two bedrooms, a bathroom, and a hall fit into the same amount of space), it's nice and cosy, and it gets a lovely amount of light, thanks to our large window and VELUX roof window.

My favourite area in the living room is my area under the VELUX roof window. I have my brown sofa, where I always sit, and my blue table full of lovely things here. It used to have more lovely things on it but with a curious toddler I have had to move them for now! To be honest, I hadn't appreciated this area too much until I was pregnant, when all I wanted to do was sleep. I would drag myself up the stairs to the living room and then collapse on the brown sofa under the window. The spring and summer of 2011 was particularly wet, so I quite often fell asleep to the "tip tap tap" of the rain hitting the window above me, which was especially comforting. And once E was born, if she was having a particularly rough patch of sleep, my mister and I would take turns on sleeping on the sofa bed to ensure one of us had a good night's sleep. Sleeping under the roof window is particularly amazing - on rainy nights you get that lovely sound of the rain hitting the window, but on clear nights you can lie there and watch the stars and the moon. Take it from me, star gazing under a cosy duvet until you fall asleep has to be one of the most relaxing ways of falling asleep ever.

What is your favourite area of your living room?

Other renovations: our kitchen / our bathroom

xx

* this is a sponsored post from VELUX - you can visit their webshop www.veluxblindsdirect.co.uk. All thoughts, opinions, words, and hard work in renovating the living room are my own!

New Project!

noreply@blogger.com (Red Boots) — Mon, 18 Feb 2013 21:00:00 +0000

Last week I told you I had a new web project that I was looking forward to sharing with you. Well, it's ready!

I've launched a new eco/sustainable living blog called Moral Fibres!

Moral Fibres is all about living a sustainable lifestyle, that's stylish at the same time. You can expect to see posts on seasonal recipes, interior design, gardening, green parenting (from babies through to teens), sustainable travel, health and beauty, fashion, and a whole lot more.

There are already a few posts on the site, so have a little look to see in more detail what to expect! And here's the about page, which also explains a bit more about Moral Fibres.

I love blogging here at Red Boots, where I've been blogging for four years (four!), but lately I've been feeling that my blog doesn't contribute so much to the wider world. Here I am just writing about my daily life, and sometimes when I stop and think about it, it seems so self-indulgent.

My degree is in sustainability, and I've been lucky enough to have almost continually worked in the environmental sector since leaving university. When I first started blogging I wanted to keep it completely separate from work, as I saw blogging as an escape from work, so I consciously decided to not blog about environmental topics.

Lately, however, I've felt that I have wanted to blog more about sustainability, but after four years of not blogging about it, it just didn't seem to fit here on Red Boots. So I made the jump, and with the help of my graphic designer mister, I've set up Moral Fibres on wordpress, for greater control over how my website looks and runs.

It's taken me a little out of my comfort zone - I've started posting recipes (if you know me in real life you'll know this is a big deal!), and I'm planning on doing some outfit posts (when have you ever seen one of those on Red Boots?!), and I'm accepting sponsors. I just figured that if you don't step out of your comfort zone how will you ever grow as a person?

I'm still running Red Boots and you can expect to see the same content as ever here, but I'll also be blogging more regularly on Moral Fibres.

Hope to see you over there!

xx

Oh Hello Blog...

noreply@blogger.com (Red Boots) — Wed, 13 Feb 2013 15:44:00 +0000

...it's been a little while, hasn't it? I came down with a bad case of January-itis. Which is completely a real thing - it's true, Google told me there are 1,930,000 recorded instances of January-itis on the internet. And now there are 1,930,001 recorded instances of it now.

January was such a blah month for me, and I don't know about you, but it seemed to go on forever. And a day. And I just did not feel like blogging when I had such a bad case of the blah's. Yet somehow now, it's February, we are pretty much splat in the middle of the month and I really don't know how we got here. It's like February is on go fast mode.

Despite the blah's lot has been going on here. I found out I have my job for another year (hip hip hoorah!). I just found this out last week so that contributed a lot to my January-itis. E is walking. Full on walking. And consequently I have not sat down. And talking up a storm. I got a "baa baa black sheep have you any wool" (though slightly more garbled than that) the other night in the bath. Her favourite thing though is to walk up to our parrot's cage and yell "hiya" really loudly at her.

Other news is that I'm currently working on a new web project that I'm hoping to share with you within the next week. I just have some little tweaks and kinks to iron out first before sharing. It's completely different to Red Boots, and something I hope you might want to be part of, but I will still be blogging here at Red Boots so don't worry, things aren't going to change here ;)

Here is a little photo gallery from January to February:

Trips to Penicuik.

Trips to South Queensferry.

A much needed haircut. It had been 6 months and I wasn't looking or feeling good for it, so I decided to treat myself. Worth every penny (actually, it wasn't many pennies - I went to Ishi in Marchmont - they are doing 40% off all services until the end of February. Highly recommended).

Wandering around Edinburgh

Bird spotting in my garden - we had Waxwings at the weekend! Waxwings!

More trips to South Queensferry.

Lots of trips to Glasgow. This was on one trip to see Dinosaur Junior (E didn't come with me to the gig, she stayed with my parents!). I snapped this self-portrait after my first train journey with E by myself - I was feeling slightly fraught! There was some drama but we made it unscathed!

xx

Urbanara

noreply@blogger.com (Red Boots) — Thu, 17 Jan 2013 14:32:00 +0000

A little while ago I blogged about Urbanara, an online store selling high-quality, modern and well-priced homewares, who have become one of my favourite online stores.

To showcase their Autumn/Winter they've put together a simply stunning video featuring some of their gorgeous products, that I couldn't resist sharing with you:

URBANARA Autumn/Winter 2012 from URBANARA on Vimeo.

How they took my daydreams and put them into one video, I do not know.

Here are my favourite looks from their Autumn/Winter range:

Hello dream kitchen filled with lots of lovely bits and pieces!

Stuff dreams are made of.

Their fantastic kitchen and dining range and bedroom range can be found on their new-look website, where you can also find their gorgeous living collections (I can heartily recommend their blankets) and their bathroom collections.

And always one for a bargain, you can also get £10 off if you sign up for their e-newsletter (scroll to the bottom of the front page of their website).

xx

A Moral Dilemma

noreply@blogger.com (Red Boots) — Tue, 15 Jan 2013 11:13:00 +0000

I was on the bus home on Friday evening with E in tow. She hadn't slept all day (are you seeing a pattern here?) and whilst we were on the bus she had a massive meltdown (another pattern here). During such meltdowns often the best way to placate her is with food. I gave her all the rice-crackers and oat bars in my bag, and my personal supply of dried mango (my very favourite) and still there was no appeasing her. This led me to the only other thing in the world known to placate her - singing.

This turned in to a bit of moral dilemma for me. Do I a) subject my fellow bus passengers to the sound of E having a particularly angry meltdown, or b) subject my fellow bus passengers to the dulcet tones of me singing?

Please bear in mind that the bus takes over an hour to get home on a good night, two hours on a bad night. It's also a pretty busy bus in the evening, full of rather tired and weary commuters wishing a speedy and quiet passage home. I've been on that bus before when E has had a meltdown and you get 'the looks' from passengers, 'the looks' that say that you must be an awful mother if you can't stop your child screaming blue murder. You also get the mutterers. The mutterers are my favourite. They say to other passengers what your child needs to stop crying (most likely a dummy) at just a loud enough volume so they know that you can hear them, but so that you know they are not directly talking to you.

Oh, and one final completely incidental detail - I am what is known as completely tone deaf. The mister and I quite often play a game where I hum a song and he has to guess what it is. He can quite often guess 50 times and not know what it is. When I tell him the song that I'm humming at least half an hour of hysterical laughing often follows suit from him. My favourite one to hum is Under Pressure by Queen. Quite a distinctive song. But no, not when it passes through my vocal chords.

Apparently my singing puts the mister on edge, like nails on a blackboard. And it's not just the mister that doesn't like my singing - I got kicked out of the school choir, aged nine, rather unceremoniously, for bringing down the rest of the choir. Who knows how I even got in that choir in the first place. And one Christmas, at Brownies, aged eight, they asked me to sing Silent Night. They stopped me not even half way through and did not ask me to sing again.

But, lo and behold, E is the only person in the whole world that appreciates and likes my best singing voice. She will even fall asleep to it on occasion. So I am fully making the most of this appreciation now, until she tells me to stop singing at an older age. As such I quite often give concerts at home to my very best audience of one. I've yet to get a standing ovation from her, as she can't quite stand up by herself yet, but I know that day will come! And I will be the happiest mother there ever was!

So, anyway, here I was on the bus, thinking what should I do? What is the lesser of the two evils? And so, after a few minutes of pondering, it came to be that I held my baby and sang my heart out in public for the first time since 1990, in front of a joyous bus full of West Lothian residents tired after a whole week of work.

I am loved on that bus. Truly loved.

I think they especially loved my rendition of Baa Baa Black Sheep. Row Row Your Boat also went down well - I think the pinnacle for them was when I sang it for the 43rd time. I had really nailed it by then you see.

xx

Let Me Justify Eating Ice-Cream Before Midday For You

noreply@blogger.com (Red Boots) — Mon, 14 Jan 2013 18:00:00 +0000

Me, this morning feeling slightly more human after some breakfast ice-cream.

E woke up at 5:36am on the dot yesterday, like she does most days.

Try as I might, I cannot for the life of me find her alarm clock that wakes her as this ungodly hour to remove the batteries from it. She's hidden it well, the little monkey.

Yesterday morning we really weren't feeling the early wake up call, and we could not wake up all day. This is why it came to be that I ate ice-cream (Vienetta to be precise - because I'm classy and was wanting to channel 1986) at 10am in the morning. Some might say 10am is too early for ice-cream, and perhaps if you rose at the less ungodly hour of 8am perhaps, or 9:30am on a Sunday, as we did in our childless days, then yes, you would be right - 10am is far too early for ice-cream. But when you've been awake for 4.5 hours with a baby that is looking like she might refuse all her naps all day then you might agree that not only is 10am not too early for ice-cream but it is positively the best idea ever. And it was, because I was right, there was no napping to be had in the Red Boots household at all.

E's toy dog felt how we all felt by 12pm:

By 3pm there was still no napping to be had. Then we got to 4:30pm and a massive meltdown was had by E because she was tired. We couldn't put her down for a nap at 4:30pm because then we wouldn't get her back to bed for the evening until midnight, so we managed to keep her awake til 6pm (let us please never talk about the horror of 4:30pm to 6pm yesterday evening ever again).

She finally fell asleep for the night, we breathed a huge sigh of relief, high-fived each other and poured a very much needed glass of wine or two, and collapsed in bed before 9:30pm. Until this morning, when she woke at 4:36am on the dot. And would not go back to sleep. On a day when we both have to work. So again, there shall be no napping all day. And this is why I ended up eating ice-cream at 9am.

I have a feeling she's going to wake up earlier and earlier until I'm eating ice-cream at 3am and weighing 40 stone.

xx

A Working Mama

noreply@blogger.com (Red Boots) — Tue, 08 Jan 2013 15:56:00 +0000

I took photos for this post way back at the tail end of September, and I've been meaning to write this post ever since, but somehow it kept getting pushed back and pushed back lower and lower down into my list of priorities. I guess that's what happens when you're a) a mum to a baby and b) a working mum, so sorry that the photos are a little off-season!

I went back to work at the end of August, when E was 8 months old. I would have taken longer off but my work needed me back. In any case, I only work two days a week, which is great because for those two days my focus is not baby related (good for the old brain and social skills, and means I get the luxury of hot cups of tea, periods of uninterrupted thinking time, and the luxury of concentrating on one task only) and E goes to nursery, which is proving to be brilliant for her social skills. She loves being around other babies, she loves the carers, and her development has come on leaps and bounds since being at nursery. I went for two days as essentially we are marginally financially better off with me working two days a week rather than full-time, thanks to the current Government's rather complicated tax policies, and the extremely astronomical costs of childcare (we don't have family nearby to help out with childcare). I can't even bring myself to tell you what percentage of my wage goes on childcare for two days a week, but I will say that our monthly childcare bill is way way more than our monthly mortgage. I had no idea how expensive childcare is - how does anyone afford more than one child is all I can ask?

Anyway, I digress, a lot of days I'm out and about at meetings around Edinburgh, which is fantastic as I'm not a person who likes to sit in an office all day. I took these photos on one workday to show a typical day at work for me:

Waiting on the bus

Still waiting for the bus (our local bus company have a lot to learn about punctuality!)

En route to a morning meeting at a business park

Meeting over - head to my office

Heading out to another meeting in the afternoon

The views coming back from my meeting

Catch a bus to nursery (lovely tartan seats)

Not pictured: my 'beautiful' office, paperwork paperwork paperwork, emails emails emails, lots of cups of tea.

I also get the luxury of working from home one day a week which is pretty amazing - I won't photograph that though as essentially it's me in front of my laptop all day working.

The one downside of work is that every day, at 2pm, I get this overwhelming longing to see my daughter and to give her the biggest cuddle. I could set my watch by this longing. On days when I work from home it always seems like the longest time that my mister and E walk through the door of an evening. On days when I work in the office it feels like it takes me hours to count down from 2pm until it's time to leave, and then crossing Edinburgh to get to E's nursery feels like it takes 5 hours. It's always worth it for the mammoth hug I get from her, but gosh, those hours from 2pm feel like weeks, months, years even.

I'm so grateful to be able to work two days a week. My contract is, as always, up at the end of March so I'm crossing every finger and toe in the hope it will be extended. Cross your fingers for me too, please!

The Little Things In Life

noreply@blogger.com (Red Boots) — Fri, 04 Jan 2013 18:00:00 +0000

A few days before Christmas I was feeling a little stressed, but so many things collided to make my day ever such a happy one:

Buses that take half the usual amount of time to get you to your destination

Resulting in time for a cheeky cup of tea in a nice cafe:

An exellent meeting

Amazing cake

Smiley happy people:

A person writing all of the words to "She's A Rainbow" by the Rolling Stones in coloured chalk all along the Meadows:

A trip to my favourite shop

Christmas songs on the radio.

And then home to my loves.

It really is the little things in life.

Instagram!

noreply@blogger.com (Red Boots) — Wed, 02 Jan 2013 14:10:00 +0000

I know I'm late to the party (very late!) but I've finally joined Instagram!

The truth is I've been a member of Instagram for the longest time, but I never really got the social aspect of it, so my account was always private and I just Instagrammed photos for the blog or for twitter, or just for me. But now, I'm ready to embrace the social aspect of it and have a public account!

Come find me - my username is redbootsblog.

What is your instagram profile name? And any good instagram accounts to follow? I'm all ears and eyes!

xx

Happy New Year!

noreply@blogger.com (Red Boots) — Tue, 01 Jan 2013 21:45:00 +0000

Happy New Year guys! We made it to 2013 - those Mayans were wrong!

I wish I could say our New Year's was really glamorous and hip, but, in actual fact our New Year's was really low key to the point of it never really happened. So much so that I'm still convinced that it's 2012. We were in bed by 9:30pm (thanks to E's general ignorance/refusal to adhere to the principle of New Year's Day lie-in's), so we heard no bells or saw any fireworks. We didn't even have a celebratory glass of something fizzy. And boy, today were we thankful for our grown-up decision to go to bed early! We were those smug hangover-free and refreshed people that you see out walking purposefully on New Year's Day!

We did celebrate during the day of the 31st, if that counts? E's nursery was open so we dropped her off in the morning and the mister and I had a date together in Edinburgh. We don't get to enjoy little dates together very often, so when we do it's always very special. We had a bracing walk, enjoyed tea and cake in a little cafe for breakfast (the rebels that we are!), perused some of our favourite shops, and had lunch in our new favourite bar - Red Squirrel on Lothian Road. They have such a great selection of craft beers that we pushed the boat out seeing as it was New Year's Eve and all, that we even had a cheeky beer (told you we were rebels!). We had a really great day, and completely lived in the moment so I'm afraid I didn't take any photos. E also had a great day at nursery playing with her friends - so much so that she cried when we went to pick her up!

It's funny - had someone told me a few years ago that this would be how I would celebrate New Year's and be so so so happy with it I would have laughed at how uneventful it sounded. But now, as parents of a small child, our expectations have completed changed and you really appreciate an early night, and a little date here and there.

Did you have a good New Year's? Was it more happening that mine?!

By the way, I'm curious, did you make any resolutions? If so, what were they? I wasn't going to make any resolutions but today I don't know how but I inadvertently ended up making a few, and here I am, lumbered with them now. Here they are:

Be more organised - at work I am super organised. If I said I was the most organised girl in the whole world then this would be no word of a lie. What can I say, I'm a Virgo. I sometimes scare my colleagues with how organised I am. Yet at home, for some unbeknown reason, this organisation goes completely out of the window the moment I'm home. You should see my computer, my cupboards, my drawers, my photos, my bookshelves.... I'd like to take some time to organise and clear up everything.

Declutter - This relates to being more organised. I'm not too bad at de-cluttering - I enjoy it even, I just have to be a bit more ruthless. I feel heavy when I have a load of junk lying around that we don't need, and frankly, with the size of our house, clutter is definitely not our friend.

Sort out my finances - Again, I'm not too bad with finances, I just need to curb my spending a bit, and cut back where I can, and save where I can. My job is uncertain beyond the end of March so getting my ducks in a row for then will help no end.

Be a better blogger - my blogging was a bit erratic last year as I was adjusting to life with a baby and then adjusting to life with a baby and a job, so I hope that by being more organised and taking time where I can will lead to more and better blog posts! Stay tuned for that ;)

Hope 2013 is good to you all - I have my fingers crossed that it's going to be a good year!

xx