365 days around the world of Joanne 2016 style

Usually around of now, I tend to look back at the year and forward to the upcoming year and to me chunks have appeared at times overshadowed by the deaths by many stars we grew up with of stage and screen that started with the death of David Bowie and ended with Carrie Fisher (Princess Leia) who starred in the original Star Wars movie in Nineteen seventy-seven.
I know for a good number of us it has brought forward concerns about mortality-our own and that of others and of sort of legacy we might leave behind.
For me other people have always mattered so my focus has usually been more on leaving things for them better than they otherwise would be whither it's more an active step I take or just a matter of being around for them helping them work through some problem or other.
Cyberspace it has to be said has been a bit of a mixed experience for me, not that in getting on for nine years it hasn't been always appeared so with the pluses of Tumblr such as my BFF who I can now keep in really good touch with while sharing thoughts and ideas with each other, the many littles and middles I can share and reblog things with, it does has its negative sides such as conflicts around defining terms that are used then to define who can a friend and who cannot regardless of their posts and personal qualities.
And that's before groups start putting each others members on block lists that makes the playground of my school days sound almost grown up by comparison.
Eventually I found  a group who  felt comfortable with with rules that are fairly easy to follow so unless anything happens I'll stop with them in the new year.
The successor to Experience Project, Similar Worlds, is up and running with  some really great features but to be honest apart from feeling overrun at times with teens with a lack of any real 'common sense' and okay manners, I haven't used it much over than just a means of jotting down experiences, a bit like a dummy run for journal or proper blog entry.
In some ways I actually enjoyed more my experiences interacting on FA this last year with people be it on my journal or on others feeling more like a family to me enhanced for actually being with a few of them last year for having more depth although I'm very regressed usually on there. Anyway I can chat with Sammy easily from there!
That actually reminds me one thing I really want to do a bit more of is drawing with pencil and paper although with spacial distortion, dyspraxia and badly damaged hands through R.S.I. as I have been improving in the last few years and I'd like to do more art with my hands apart from my photography given it's an arts site.
Spending more time with people is something I enjoyed a lot last years especially as I'm getting better at dealing in real time with social situations, the "unwritten rules" and that  thanks to some guidance, feedback and reinforcement.  I do see more of the same perhaps with a  few different people this upcoming year.
I made a series of changes to my stereo over the year having had some *ahem* technical problems that have worked out extremely well for me, to the point I upgraded the stylus on the cartridge which brings lots more information from records I play which I bought a good number of this last year and some cds all of which were reviewed on here.
Music is both an art form I appreciate and a part of my age regression, taking me back not just in terms of specific era but also a gateway into little space  which is why it is blogged on here (and why the last bastion of a 'Big' blog was parked). Indeed I do have to remember on one site I am sharing space with grown ups, use groan up language and so on!
Following a series of changes in how my time was used I have been able to resume more reading which with my learning/developmental disabilities is more junior fiction than young adult so I got back in touch with some lovely people at a site devoted at a favourite author of mine and started to read more, reading with friends even at one site and talking about what we've read which is something I rather like.
I see myself doing quite a bit more reading not least with a few new books I had over Christmas  to read for pleasure writing about them on this blog which is something I'm getting much better at these days.
Here's to Twenty-seventeen!

Christmas Edition 2016

There is a bit of annual tradition on this blog from its very start of doing a Christmas edition rather like as if we'd been around of each others houses and said "How  was Christmas with you?"
For me I was a bit late getting up as I had a migraine on Christmas Eve that was reluctant to  shift so I got dressed and came down for a light breakfast before messaging my Caregiver, BFF and opening my presents.

That's some of them stacked up so I wonder just what might possibly be inside of them?

The Beano was a staple comic of mine growing up even if today it's only available on download and we always had the Christmas Annual so getting that as a hardback with the stories of Gnasher, Dennis the Menace, Minnie the Minx and co really is a ritual I love.

 The Dandy suffered a bigger fate as it was discontinued outright but they do one off editions and a annual so I like to read new adventures of Korky the Kat and Desperate Dan of Cow Pie fame.

I love reading although with my learning disabilities I can't manage anything other than junior fiction and even then anything getting more above a reading age of 12 is hard going so Mommy bought me this First edition of the new Jacqueline  Wilson novel set in Victorian England.

She also bought me the last Historical novel she wrote in a series looking very much at life in  Great Britain from a child in hospital in the early nineteen-fifties. I'll write a full review when I've read them .

I had this originally in Paperback but had been longing to find a copy with the original text in so my Brother gave me some money toward buying this used copy lacking its dust jacket as original hard backs are really quite rare and expensive.
I had some chocolate oranges, money and biscuits too from people that care about me.

The Monday before Teh Day

After hugging each of  my dollies on Saturday, I am getting on with things connected with making Christmas happen to my family and friends so in lots of ways I'm winding down on the internet side of things because the real world needs come first.
What that breaks down to with this blog goes is after today there will be no more editions until after Christmas Day, which is a bank holiday over here then a pause until New Year because there are things that need to be done ready for New Years Day too.

To you, your families and close friends, Happy Christmas and I do wish you all the best for the New Year.
Until then, bye.
Hugs.

Thursday ramblings

Tomorrow I'll be in town just to get a few things in ready for Christmas as that will be the focus of my activities so the likes of FA, tumblr and even old school blogging will begin to drop off as in truth they are only possible due to spare time and I have less of it this time of year.
I see this blogs posts  dropping to one a week and I may take a break completely from one Tumblr and cut back on the other which to an extent I have been doing this week as apart from the time it takes, inter community bickering and accusations just takes its toll on me emotionally as paradoxically it does judging from those who do it too.
The time is better spent on putting cards  and presents in groups  to take out with me visiting friends and family lifting spirits and spreading goodwill.
Incidentally, thank yoo Jennifer for de card that arrived Tuesday.

Opal Plumstead

This book originally came out in Hardback in the fall of 2014 and concerns the life of one Opal Plumstead aged 14 who got a scholarship to attend school planning to go on to university when she was older.
Alas her plans are shattered upon her father being sent to prison and so unable to take up the scholarship and having to get a a job at the Fairy Glen sweet factory to keep her family as was often the case in 1913. To start with she struggles with getting on the staff who think she's "stuck up" and snobby unlike them but she takes a shine to Mrs Roberts, the business owner introducing her to the Suffragette movement.
She also meets Morgan, the son and heir to the business who she feels she finally has a soul mate in but with war on the horizon bringing many forced changes it can only change Opal's life forever.
As a piece of historical fiction it helps to bring to life the lives and events of that whole era that lead to WW1 and in  its aftermath the widespread social  changes of Great Britain.

Winter Time

Looking out watching the snowfall during the Winter months was always a thing I loved doing the Winter months as the intensity of the bluey-white snow was just so intoxicating, as you saw it fall mounds that later on you would make into snowmen or have playful  snowball fights with.
Sharing the magic of the season, learning to embrace it's possibilities when suitably attired (snow pants anyone?) the zest for a positive approach for life can be nurtured.

The "Barney" Mysteries

The old adage "You can't but a good book down would seem to apply around these parts of late  as some more new to me books by Enid Blyton arrived recently.

These copies are actually editions from the very early nineteen-seventies where while still in hardback form they have been cheapened by printing the frontspiece and spine direct to the jacket and missing off the rear of what would of been the back of the paper dust jacket the original hardbacks had.

 There are six novels in this series of mystery adventures that feature Rodger and Diana Lynton and their cousin Peter, ophaned, who goes under the name "Subby" in the series and his dog Laddie who are also joined by Barney an motherless circus boy who has been on a quest to find his absent father and who has a money called Miranda.
The "Barney Mysteries" is the title these usually are grouped under although some use "R Mysteries" with the "R" coming from the R in the names of all the titles.
The children visit sleepy villages and seaside towns that it transpires are riddled with intregue and it's that they look into.
One of the strengths of this series is the stories are full of atmosphere and good humour, the strong characterization making for much more depth  than most of her work and more sophisticated language that made it the only series Enid herself recommended just for those of eleven years and upward.

The nom time of the year

Yes it's getting to that time of the year and guess what? I didn't have to get mine this year because Mommy bought it me!

 With the help of the Secret Life of Pets, I can count down the days toward Christmas while noming on small squares of milk chocolate.
Don't ask what Marmalade, the original "fat cat" may make of it!
In other news, our community Christmas Tree is up, ready for it's inaugural switching on and carol singing.