Sixth Form College

The past two evenings after work I have been going round Sixth Form Colleges with my daughter who will be doing her GCSEs this June and then going on to Sixth Form September 2009. She did have one college in mind for monhs as that is where her brother and sister went to, but after having looked around a different one (TM) last night she is keen to go there (TM) instead I think. It was a really nice school, she knows lots of people there already, though it is unlikely many from her school will go to the one we looked at last night. The great thing about it is that it is just up the road from where we live so that would certainly be useful with regards to travelling time and money. She is going to apply for the two and then she can make the final decision when her results come through in August 2009. It is a big step and I am so very proud that she is going to go ahead and do A levels. Her subject interests are English Literature, Media, Psychology and RE or Sociology or something else. She has her mock GCSEs next week, but has been doing very well so far, so I have high hopes for her to do well in her GCSEs in June.

The dogs are behaving well. I had the day off work today and had a bath this morning. Millie had a bath too after me. She is thankfully asleep right now, so I am enjoying the peace and quiet for the moment. Have to hoover and wash the floors but am loathe to move whilst it is quiet!!! LOL

On swap site I have just joined a swap where you swap your five favourite internet sites that you use regularly. I go on the internet every day at home and at work. Working as a medical secretary the sites I usually visit are to clarify spelling or meanings of medical terminology. At home the usual routine is to check out my emails, facebook, and swap bot and digital scrapbooking place.

I just love the internet and am fascinated with the amount of information that is out there. I chat daily to my daughter, who is 200 miles away at University, using MSN, email, facebook, and skype – all internet based communications. I have only this week started a blog on blogspot – it is not all that interesting but you are welcome to take a look - http://a1nnie.blogspot.com/
I love to make scrapbook layouts both paper and digital. The digital scrapbooking site that I visit daily is http://www.digitalscrapbookplace.com/ There are loads of great tutorials and everyone is very friendly. The site is US based but there is a good number from Europe and other areas. The support from the users is fantastic. There are regular chats and challenges. The freebie kits make this a very cheap hobby, though of course you can buy kits if you wish to extend your digital stash. Organisation (filing) is very important though if you want to find something again.

One site that was discovered whilst on digital scrapbooking place is http://www.wordle.net/ We all had great fun making word clouds and using them in our layouts. The great thing is the huge variety of fonts and colours and themes. Try it out, you will quickly become addicted!!
Following on from this I also came across another similar site which included a grungy background to words - http://www.typogenerator.net/ have a look at the gallery for some inspiration - http://www.typogenerator.net/gallery/
An interesting site that someone from work emailed me about tells you practically everything you might want to know about your birthday – really interesting information - http://www.paulsadowski.com/birthday.asp It has the usual info about birthday stones, flowers, colours, numbers but there are lots of international information too. Enjoy.

I have been researching my family tree for 20 years now and in recent years one site has been invaluable for extending the branches of my tree. I like www.genesreunited.co.uk but this may be just UK based, however I believe Ancestry.com is international. Many people use Ancestry but I don’t like the layout of the tree and information and much prefer the layout of genesreunited. I have over 900 names in my tree that are all connected to me in some way and have managed to go back to the late 1700s. The way forward now is to go to the individual Local Records Offices to check out the parish records – some of which go back to mid 1500s. This usually opens a whole load of other websites like the War Graves Commission etc.

Plenty to talk about re my research but another time, I think.