Halloween is one of my favourite times of year and the endless themed novelty songs definitely has something to do with that. So, here are 30 tracks perfect for your little ghouls and ghosties! (I've gone for lively and upbeat tracks for this playlist, the kind of thing a sugar hyped kid can get into even if they've never heard it before...)

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Cold and flu season has hit me hard this week. It was full council on Tuesday and afterwards I went and picked Marianna up from school and then just went to bed. I basically stayed there for the next two days feeling like death warmed over. :/

Friday evening we went around my aunts to look through the photos from my nan and gramp's house. I took my scanner with me and did about 175 in the end. Yesterday I spent the day cropping, editing and uploading them to a new imgur account. (Details HERE.) I put up all my dad's photos I've scanned too which brought the total up to almost 1500!

On the blog I've written about Mattel's new Creatable World dolls and my five favourite fruits.

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Song of the Week -

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On the blog I posted a couple more Welsh song graphic sheets - Penblwydd Hapus (Happy Birthday) and Lliwiau'r Enfys (Colours of the Rainbow) - along with a guide to the L.O.L. Surprise O.M.G. fashion dolls and a review of Moli, the cow who moo she was different. I also blogged about five names Marianna was almost lumbered with as part of my 'Friday Five' series, and an account of a couple who were arrested while on honeymoon in Pontnewydd!

In real life it's been a bit of a tough week, to be honest. My anxiety is so bad at the moment it's making me physically ill and I don't really know what to do about it. I've gotta go see the doctor and ask if they'll up my dosage. I've already been through all the counselling, and other than that's it's just get signed off work for a few weeks so you can sit at home and panic about all the stuff building up for you to deal with while you do so. :/

There was an overnight awayday(s) for Bron Afon board this Thurs/Friday and I had a presentation to do, so I figured a lot of the stress was related to that - spending lots of time with people and then talking in front of them. It actually went okay though. I think I might have burned bridges with a couple of people who didn't like my generalisations of Torfaen (I was asked to talk about the challenges the community faces in BA's high stock density areas so obviously it wasn't about all the good stuff happening!), but overall not too bad. Still, it's over now and I don't feel any better for it.

I dunno, I'm just constantly tense to the point of having to consciously unclench my jaw and stop picking at the skin of my fingers (dermatillomania). Like, I've been a bit teary, but nothing too bad, it's just the anxiety.

On the plus side, though, I had to do a couple of ice breaker sessions where one of the questions was about what you find most nerve wracking: doing new things, going new places, meeting new people. I was like, obviously C because of my crippling social anxiety, and everyone told me they would never have guessed I had a problem with it. Fake it 'til you make it, I guess...

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Song of the Week -


New track from the GLC -

In every crowd, on every database, there's always someone from this place 
You could be in a queue or on the face of the sun, but I guarantee there's always at least one ...

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The IKEA stuff is almost all together now. Almost... Once the chest of drawers is up and in place the house should look less like a bombsite too, which will definitely be a win.

It's been a really quiet week, to be honest. I haven't felt well and the weather has been pretty miserable, so we've been doing lots of crafts and writing practice indoors. Marianna had her school harvest festival on Friday, and on Thursday they all wore yellow to raise money for world mental health day. There were various events going on for it, but my own mental health just was not feeling up to it.

We have done a lot of Welsh this week. I put together two lyric posters for Roedd Gan Ewyrth Ifan Fferm (Uncle Ifan Had a Farm) and Babi Siarc. I downloaded the Duolingo app too and have been powering through the lower levels in Welsh. It's been a long time but it's surprising how much has been coming back to me. I'll do a proper review of it once I've been using it for a few weeks.

On the blog I wrote about Twilight Teens dolls, a bunch of my favourite Time Travel Tales in honour of Curious Events Day, and my top five fears. I got into the top 40 on the Rise parenting bloggers' chart for the first time this week, but who knows how long I'll stay there!

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Song of the Week -

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FIVE THINGS I'M AFRAID OF 

From the reasonable to the ridiculous...

#5. Chalk

And anything that feels like it! Just the thought of it leaving the powder behind on my fingers makes my skin crawl. Even when I'm using pastels for body blushing dolls I have to wear gloves because I couldn't touch it otherwise.


#4. Being Buried Alive

Picking it as a topic to give a paper on at university, looking at its prevalence pre-1900, did nothing to lessen that fear!


#3. The Ring Girl

Sadako, Samara, Eun-Suh... It doesn't really matter which version, just creepy long black haired dead people crawling out of wells. *shiver*



#2. Suffocating / Drowning

Closely related to #4, but still different enough to merit its own entry. I especially hate 'playful' tricks like getting doused at the pool or whatever. Not cool, people.


#1. Spiders

There will be no pictures!




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This week has been pretty quiet. It was a teacher training day on Monday so Marianna needed entertaining, then on Tuesday we had a whole family dentist appointment which dragged on. Thankfully my teeth were fine and I've been given another reprieve of nine months - I always panic that I'm going to need something doing and I won't be able to afford it.

I also finished off a collab post with Petplan Equine for their dream horse campaign. Marianna's unicorn 'Liver' has been raising smiles - and eyebrows - all over town. :)

Presumably I did other stuff this week but nothing is standing out in my memory! I've done a lot of reading via my Kindle Unlimited subscription, especially on silent film. I love all the weird trivia, from Valentino's corset to the fact Rin Tin Tin was getting 12,000 fan letters every week. I dunno, I guess the whole concept of silent film is just weird to us now!

We usually have council advice surgery on the first Saturday of the month, but the hall was booked out so it made sense to cancel. I spent the day at my grandparents' old house instead, sorting through what was left there now that my uncle has moved out. Mostly receipts and bills from the 1990s and junk, to be honest, but I did snag some super kitsch ornaments and a light up picture for Marianna's room.

Today will be a full day of putting IKEA furniture together and then sorting stuff into and onto it. The idea is that once it's all up there will be no excuse for random piles of clutter all over the place. ...We'll see how it goes.

On the blog I wrote about Malaville Dolls, the truth about Oxbridge, our collage adventures, and a guide to this year's so-called hottest toys. I was a bit gutted to go down two places on the Tots100 chart (#125 to #127) but I did go up to #28 on the Rise chart.

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Song of the Week -

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FIVE FILMS OF THE 2010s

My favourite five films from the 2010s... I had the opposite problem this week; since Marianna took over my life I hardly ever see new releases anymore. So these are my fave films out of the fairly limited range I've seen!


#5. Florence Foster Jenkins (2016)

Meryl Streep is brilliant as always in this biographical film of 'the world's worst opera singer'.


#4. The Great Gatsby (2013)

I've never read the book, though I have read a biography of Zelda Fitzgerald which convinced me that F. Scott was a berk of the highest order. The film is good fun though, and Toby Maguire did a great job of pining over Leonardo DiCaprio.


#3. Wreck-It Ralph (2012)

Disney doing its thing.


#2. The Lego Batman Movie (2017)

This is everything a Batman film should be. As for live action Batman films, Batman v Superman (2014) is not just the worst film I've seen of the 2010s. It's the worst film I've ever seen, period.


#1. Hotel Transylvania (2012)

The entire series of films is good - that scene where the werewolves drop all their cubs off at kids' club in the third movie always cracks me up - but the first one is the best. It's sweet without being sickly, and funny without being stupid. Plus it has all the classic horror ghouls. What's not to love? :)





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