Little Loves – A month of musicals, bold lips, and David Bowie

One new thing that I am keen to do this year, blog-wise, is join in with Coffee Work Sleep Repeat’s Little Loves – a chance to remember and recommend the things that you’ve watched, read, made, wore, and heard, and particularly loved recently.

I figure it could be the perfect vehicle for the incredible amounts of pop culture that I consume and would love to talk about more on my blog but can’t always see where it would fit in a standalone blog post.

I am going to try and join in with Little Loves once a month, and, well, knowing my history with any sort of scheduled content, we’ll just see how that goes…

Watched

January was the month of the musical, for me. It started with a trip to the cinema to watch La La Land. Overall, I have mixed opinions. But there were some aspects that I LOVED (that opening one-shot scene on the freeway? Amazing), and I left with a cemented opinion that director Damien Chazelle has an incredible knack for affecting audiences using music in his story-telling. If you haven’t seen another brilliant film of his, Whiplash, watch that to see what I mean.

Sam was away for a week in January, meaning I got through a fair bit of TV that he wouldn’t normally want to watch with me.

I’d describe The Get Down as a hip hop fairytale meets Glee. I imagine it’s one of those things where if you actually know a lot about hip hop, you could pick endless plot holes, whilst everyone else can stay blissfully entertained in their ignorance. Justice Smith, who played the young Ezekiel, definitely seems like one to watch in the future. The Get Down was fun, entertaining, and an easy watch – I can’t believe it took me so long to get round to watching it!

And then I stumbled across Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, without even realising that this was yet another show incorporating musical elements into it’s storyline. I was on board from the very first song, realising that this was going to be a show that turns stereotypes on their heads in amusing ways.

Watching this many musicals in January was very much an unwitting plan, it just unfolded that way. But perhaps there was some deeper reasoning to it – at a time when there is so much worry, particularly in the political world, a little bit of musical escapism has never seemed so appealing.

Made

Now, it’s not often that I actually make things, so I may have to get a little creative with this category at times. But, at least I can start off strong, because this month I made a family happiness jar.

A happiness jar is when you write down a moment / event / anything that made you happy, and pop the notes in a jar. The idea being that you start at the beginning of the new year, and open it up and read all your memories of happy moments at the end of the year.

Whenever I’ve heard the idea of a happiness jar described, my first thought is “I like the sound of that, but Sam would definitely scoff at the thought”. But it doesn’t matter now, as these days I have a school-aged child who can read and write and is definitely up for getting involved with something like a happiness jar. So, at the beginning of January, I just decided to go for it and start one. The current tally is: Arlo and I have put in several notes each, Rory and Sam have contributed a grand total of zero.

If we stick with it throughout the year, I think it will be a great exercise for our family in celebrating positivity, and I can’t wait to read what made everyone happy in 2017.

(Currently, our happiness jar is doing a turn as a vase, but will soon be reinstated to it’s official function).

Read

I read a blog post over at Sparkles and Stretchmarks a while ago that has stuck in my thoughts. One of the reasons I love Hayley’s blog is because she often writes posts that make me feel like she is inside my own head.

To be a good parent blogger I have to spend time photographing our days out, photographing and sharing our memories, living life behind the lens much of the time….I have to spend time on the computer, writing about my life as their mother when at the same time they are often sitting in the next room crying for me

You can find the full post here, and I guess it sums up the feelings I have during the moments when I lose control of the balance between parenting and work – something I’m starting to circle back to at the moment, as Otto decides sleeping is not for him anymore.

Wore

Lately, I’ve been experimenting with bold lip colours, after realising that I always gravitate towards natural ‘barely there’ shades. In the photo below I am wearing Clinique’s Chubby stick intense in Mightiest Marachino. 

Heard

A year on from his death, I really enjoyed listening to Adam Buxton’s podcast series on David Bowie. As someone who made a habit of hanging out in band forums in the early days of the internet,  I was particularly struck by the remarkably everyday story of a superfan who formed a lifelong relationship with his idol using that very same medium, as retold in the Bowiewallow epsiodes. 

And lastly…

Towards the end of last year, we were asked to make a video with Mumsnet and O2 all about smart home technology. This is somewhat of a proud achievement for me, as one of my goals for last year was to get the ball rolling with collaborating with brands on video content. I really love making creative videos, whether for brands or just to keep for my own memories, and I’m hoping to expand on this even more in 2017.