Amy Laurens's Blog, page 11

#MadeItMonday: Bunny Birthday Cake

Welcome to #MadeItMonday, where I post something I’ve made in the previous week, and where you can join in and post something you made too! The rules are easy: post a pic somewhere of something you’ve made in the last week (ish; let’s say in the last month as the hard-and-fast) and tag it. Sit back and enjoy scrolling through all the beautiful things we’ve collectively created, and celebrate the fact that humans can be awesome!

My adorable niece had a birthday a while back and I had the fun ...

Friday Favs

Okay trialling a new Friday tradition here for a bit, which is Friday Favs. Feel free to reply with anything you’ve particularly been enjoying this week, and let’s end the week on a note of gratitude and joy

Shareable things I have greatly enjoyed/appreciated this week:

Lazy Housewife beans. Truly living up to their name and sprouting magnificently literally one week after planting. Wish Bound, the final book in the Grimm Agency series. Might be the first series I’ve finished all year? ...

Avoiding Rest Like A Boss :P

Somewhat ironic that, after posting last week about the necessity of Saturday rest in my life and the benefits thereof, I spent the weekend really struggling to do so.

This year has been very focused on learning to let go of my high expectations for myself in terms of extreme productivity, on being really challenged by my journal to confront how wildly out my expectations are of what I can achieve in a week, and to be empowered to prioritise mindfully rather than a) letting life and random c...

The Wasporcist

Weirdly, this bizarre little horror-lite story is one of the ones that people tend to mention to me/remember the most. (It’s creepy but not, like, nightmare fuel or anything – I’m a lightweight when it comes to actual horror!)

It’s hard to discuss without spoilers, but suffice to say I guess that wasporcist is kind of a nice portmanteau (ish) between wasp and exorcist; an exterminator plus, you could say.

Anyway, this one came out a couple of years ago, being Inklet #5 (wow, all the way b...

#MadeItMonday: Block Printing

Kiddo the first is of the age when he has joined Pathfinders, our church’s answer to Scouts I guess. As part of this, he went through a couple of weekends ago and pulled out all the honours (patches) he’s interested in doing. Spoiler, there are 38 of them and it took us 2.5 hours to go through the 550-page document

Anyway, one of them that I saw and was interested in too was block printing. I haven’t done this since early high school (Year 7 here), and I do love me some good Random Arty Stu...

TBR and Recently Read

I updated my Books I’ve Read page this week and was shocked to realise I didn’t read anything to completion in July, and baaarrreeelllyy read anything in August/September as well. Oy. I mean, I know I’m in recovery mode and my brain cells have been struggling, and focusing on something for longer than a chapter is challenging, but yeah. Wow. I didn’t realise July had been quite that bad.

Still, not as bad as 2019 when I was really sick and went for 5 months without picking up a single thing ...

Inklet #71: Bs By Bioluminescent Light

This week’s Inklet is one I wrote for a course a couple of years ago, based on an article I read about the decline of the insect population. I’d been expecting to write in response to one of the other articles we’d been given, but as I sat down to write, the insect population one was what grabbed my writer brain’s attention. So we ended up with a slightly strange, quiet little sci fi story set on another planet after humanity left Earth behind.

She waits alone on the dark park bench, mi...

Days Of Rest

Ever since I was a kid, Saturday has been rest day. In primary school (Years Kindy to 6), this was sometimes a bummer: there were a whole range of secular activities our family didn’t engage in on a Saturday, so it felt sometimes like we were missing out on bonding with our friends.

High school was easier from this perspective, and my friends were always very respectful and supportive of what I could or couldn’t do on a Saturday – and with a growing chore-and-homework load, the ability to sa...

Looking Outward vs. Looking Inward

Stumbled across this partial repost in my ‘maybe turn into a poem’ folder last week and it was… timely. I’m so keen, champing at the bit even, to start looking ahead, looking outward, reaching for this new future I have before me, and it’s so very hard to be patient, to walk slowly, sustainably, to let my mind and body heal before leaping onward and upward.

And of course, this invariably leads to days where I’ve pushed myself too hard, and need to be reminded that now isn’t the time for Gran...

#MadeItMonday: Garden Bed

Welcome to #MadeItMonday, where I post something I’ve made in the previous week, and where you can join in and post something you made too! The rules are easy: post a pic somewhere of something you’ve made in the last week (ish; let’s say in the last month as the hard-and-fast) and tag it. Sit back and enjoy scrolling through all the beautiful things we’ve collectively created, and celebrate the fact that humans can be awesome!

This is so not a ‘creative’ thing I made, and honestly my husban...