I'm back after being offline for over a month. It felt more like a lifetime! I never noticed how much I relied on it until it was gone. A common phrase in our household is "ask google" because that is pretty much where we get all our information from these days. Everything went to pot! I had no online banking, the DVD boxsets had to come out due to the lack of tv on demand and the blog and entering competitions completely went out the window. Lots has happened since the start of the internet drought. Most importantly my sweet little angel Mia has turned into a terrible teenager!!! lol I can't believe I am a mum to a 13 year old. One of her big loves in life are Red Pandas. She is crazy about them so I thought what could be a better present than getting up close and personal with some. Something I knew she never would have expected. I chose Paradise Wildlife Park in Broxbourne because as a child I really enjoyed going there and had never taken the kids. Plus I thought the price was pretty good at £99 compared to other Red Panda experiences I had seen online. We arrived when the park opened at 9:30am buying tickets for just myself and my dad because Mia's entrance was included in with the experience. We didn't have to be at the Discovery Centre for an hour to meet the Red Panda Zookeeper so we thought we would take a walk through the World of Dinosaurs attraction which boasts of 30 life size moving Animatronic Dinosaurs and I have to say I was pretty impressed. They are very lifelike and the way they move is amazing. Plus there are loads of dinosaur facts and figures dotted around and a gift shop and restaurant at the end of the trail. When you are drinking your coffee there is even a big sand pit where the kids can excavate bones. The only thing that let it down were that some of the dinosaurs were still being worked on which took away from the atmosphere a little, but I would say given a little time for the work to be completed and it would be the perfect place to take your dinosaur loving child. I'm not very interested in them and I still found it fascinating. After seeing a great many furry faced distractions along the way we made it to the Discovery Centre where we were given somewhere comfy to sit and a hot drink while we waited for the zoo keeper. Mia was also given a goody bag containing amongst other things a 3d red panda picture and a certificate that said she had been to visit and feed the Red Pandas. We weren't left to wait long and we were on the way to where the staff prepare all the food for animals all over the park. While not glamourous in any way shape or form it was very interesting. People were bustling around chopping fruit and veg and pulling meat out of freezers. Mia was given an insight into the Red Pandas diets and what the keepers had to do behind the scenes to look after them. Next we were off to the enclosure holding boxes of their favourite treats and trailing behind us was a big shoot of Bamboo the main staple of their diet. Myself and my dad stood outside the enclosure as we hadn't paid for the experience, but still had an excellent view all the way around so we could see what Mia was getting up to and had no problem taking pictures of her either. Mia was given a quick safety briefing about how to behave when in the enclosure and then she got to step in to what can only be described as her heaven. Seeing her face light up was definitely worth the whole experience. First down to see her was Nam Pang (pictured above) the young male Red Panda who had only been with them a few years. He caught on to the fact Mia was holding onto a box of his favourite treats rather quickly making his way down from the treetop where he was lounging. He feed straight from her hand whilst posing for a few pictures and as soon as the box was empty he was off again a bit higher into the tree. Tilly the older female on the other hand was going to take a lot more persuasion. She was comfortable where she was. After Nam Pang had been back down for some Bamboo and Mia had had a long chat to the keeper about conservation, the pandas themselves and cubs that had been born in previous years Tilly decided it was time she put in an appereance. She scoffed her treats and then went for a lay down in their box in the tree. After saying our goodbyes to the keeper and the Red Pandas we decided to make our way to the Tiger Treetops Café and it is exactly what it sounds like a café that looks over into the Tiger enclosure. It really was a treat to sit so close to them. After we had got our energy back we walked round the park looking at all the animals and we all had a great day. Mia also had an experience she will never forget. I would highly recommend it to anyone that is interested in going.
Thank you for visiting my blog Just Holly Marie x x x
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It's Monday again and the school run is going a lot better thanks to some of the tips I told you about in my last post "The Dreaded School Run". We are still working on it, but it's so much less stressful already and that's a win for me. I promised you some posts about my amazing comping hobby and I thought I would start at the beginning with some of the basics. So here goes...……. What is comping? Comping is entering giveaways and competitions in the hope of winning some amazing goodies. If you are a "comper" it is something you do on a regular basis and can be an amazing hobby that doesn't have to cost you anything other than your time. Where can I find these competitions? Competitions are run in numerous places and some are easier to find than others. It goes without saying that the competitions that are harder to find have less entries therefore you stand a better chance of winning, but I will leave that for another time. Here are some of a few different places competitions are commonly found -
There are also websites that list all the competitions that others have found and where you can contribute with competitions you have found. This would be a great place to start especially if you haven't joined any comping groups and have few or no friends that enjoy the same hobby as you. It's very easy to register and you can even flag them as marked when you have entered or ignored if you are not interested in that particular competition. Here are a few that I have been using for years and trust - Finding comping friends and getting involved in the community You could do this on your own without connecting with anyone in the comping community. My first win came ages before I joined the groups and found some like minded comping buddies, but it won't be as fun and will definitely make it more of an uphill struggle. The easiest way I have found to find these types of groups is on Facebook. There are so many! Just type competitions or giveaways in the Facebook search bar and click search. In these groups you will find many other people that enjoy comping and you can add them as friends to tag in competitions. Plus any competitions they enter and share will appear in your Newsfeed meaning you can enter too. The groups are also a good source of advice and support. I have found that the majority or compers will help where they can so it is always nice if you can return the favour by notifying them if you see any winning posts with their name on or come across a competition that someone has said they are looking for. How long will it be before I win something? One of the greatest misconceptions is that you enter a few competitions here and there and you will have wins rolling in. This is not the case. If you put little effort in prepare to get a little or nothing out of it. I can enter hundreds a week and still get no wins by the time Sunday rolls around. However there are weeks when the wins don't stop coming! It's all down to luck and you have to be in it to win it so what are you waiting for? These are just some of the basics to get you started on your comping journey. If this post has peaked your interest and you want to know more I will be writing a #WinningMondayMotivation post every week so come back and check that out. For some additional inspiration why not pop over to my Win Gallery and take a look at some of my wins. Good Luck and if you have any questions big or small click here for my contact details and send me a message. I can't promise to know the answer but I will do my best to help you out as others have done for me. Thank you for visiting my blog
Just Holly Marie x x x It's Monday again which means one thing for most parents the dreaded school run! It's no secret that I am super unorganised and am running late more often than not. It seems no matter how early I wake up i'm still seen tearing down the street with minutes to go before the bell sounds. As I have mentioned before my son Connor has ADHD and requires a lot of my attention early in the morning. That mixed with me being soooooo unorganised is a recipe for disaster. So at the beginning of this year I made a promise to myself to get more organised. It's my main source of stress and with a little research and a lot of determination I know I will be able to do it. The first thing that I am going to put into place is a check list for Connor to follow. He is currently on medication so that he can concentrate during school. He takes his tablet as soon as he wakes up but it still takes some time to kick in so he is very easily distracted. When I want him to get dressed he is sneakily watching YouTube or when I have asked him if he has brushed his teeth he is playing with the dogs. Which is why I have to watch over him instead of getting myself ready. However my love of lists has rubbed off on Connor and I think it may help him concentrate on what he should be doing. After a little bit of a think I have put this check list together (pictured above). I have used Fortnite to grab his interest because he lives, sleeps and breathes it. Anything even slightly associated with Fortnite is going to be a winner. Plus I have added in reward time. If it's not fun it isn't going to work. This is not the only tactic I am going to be employing this term. While putting the checklist together I looked for more ways I can save time in the morning and here is some of what I found -
I will keep you updated and let you know how it goes but in the mean time if you are pulling your hair out stressing about how you are going to tackle your next school run remember you are not alone. If you were looking down my street early on a weekday morning you would probably still see me running to make it before the bell goes dragging Connor behind me. Try out some of the tips or let me know if you have any of your own. Thanks for visiting my blog Just Holly Marie x x x In a UK poll of 10,000 people this week for the favourite dog of 2019 Staffordshire Bull Terriers came out on top. Were you surprised? I wasn't! It is nice to see the breed shaking their aggressive stereotype and becoming known for the loyal loveable pets that they are. I have two gorgeous Staffies Marley and Minnie and the thought that people judge them for their breed makes me really sad. Personally I have experienced people crossing the road when they have seen me walking with them on their leads and parents that have been fine with their children coming to play at my house knowing that I have dogs, but on finding out they are Staffies have quickly changed their mind. A mixture of bad ownership and massive negative media attention has only fuelled the fire when it comes to how they are perceived but finally it seems they are getting the appreciation they deserve. Here are just a few of many pleasant facts that Staffordshire Bull Terriers should be known for -
Thank you for visiting my blog Just Holly Marie x x x It's another win for January and my fantastic hobby. I won this great set of Jack Dash books by Sophie Plowden from Parents in Touch on twitter. My son was overjoyed when I gave them to him today and I paid the massive price of £0 to see that smile. All it cost me was the time I took to retweet the post, a couple of seconds. I am a massive fan of reading and have a full and varied bookcase to show for it but I also think it is massively important for children to read. Not only does it improve their imagination, and educate them it helps them to focus and this is a challenge that my son Connor deals with on a daily basis. He has ADHD and struggles to focus among other things. Reading is something we have found helps him to focus and interests him enough to be an alternative activity to his video games. I have been trying to cut his tech time down. He owns a PS4, Xbox One and A Nintendo Switch. His ADHD makes it harder for him to focus on things but when it comes to video games he has an amazing attention span. We got to the point where a day out at the zoo was miserable for him and us because all he wanted to do was be at home playing his consoles. That's when we knew we had a problem on our hands. We decided that we would set him an hour a day for tech time while still be able to watch tv a little bit throughout the day. We had some major resistance at first temper tantrums would be an understatement, but after a while improvements in his behaviour were beginning to show. He was more polite and didn't have as short a fuse as usual and he also wanted to go outside and play with his friends instead of being cooped up in his room. This was a few years ago and since then his tech time has been increased to three hours a day, but Connor knows that if he his behaviour goes downhill the time he has can be decreased at any point.
As a parent it is hard to know where to draw the line and as a parent of a child with ADHD it can be even harder. It's a battle to discipline and do the best for them without punishing them for something that is out of their control. There is no right or wrong answer everyone knows what is right for their own child and in my case I got lucky and perseverance won the day that's not to say it always goes right lol! If you are experiencing a similar situation take a look at this article on Psychology Today I found it helped me to understand why when my son could focus on nothing the video games became a way for him to escape. Another Web find that I found really usual was this article on WebMD a guide to disciplining a child with ADHD. Thank you for visiting my blog Just Holly Maire x x x Today I have sat down and made my winning competition wishlist for 2019. This is a list of all my competition aspirations and goals for the year ahead and the beginning of the challenge to tick off everything before 2020 when I will start all over again (best hobby ever!) .
Here's what I have so far...……………
Ambitious or not I am going to give it my best shot and it's definitely not impossible. Some of the things I have seen other compers win are amazing. Why not make your own list and give yourself some inspiration! My first win was six years ago £500 to spend with La Redoute. It was a competition that I entered with Glam magazine online as I was surfing the internet. A month later and I nearly deleted the winning email with the rest of my junk mail. From there my crazy competition addition was born and I had so much fun scouring the catalogue for anything I wanted. There is nothing like the excitement that comes from winning things. After the recent rush of advent competitions things are a bit quiet but I have already won the Nella toys from Friendlings magazine and as soon as I get another win I will share. If you are interested in entering competitions or already comp and are just looking for some tips and tricks look out for my blog posts in the coming weeks. I'm not an expert but I know a thing or two. Thank you for visiting my blog Just Holly Marie x x x So yesterday was the first day on the school run. The uniforms were in the kids rooms ready to be put on and my alarm was set for 7:00am. What could go wrong? Everything! I snoozed my alarm (twice!), discovered that Mia had had an allergic reaction to the cream for her Psoriasis which left her looking like a beetroot and this would all be before battling Connors ADHD in a fight for his attention long enough for his school uniform to be put on. I'm running out of breath just thinking back to it all. In the end Mia stayed at home for a visit to the doctors and Connor was only five minutes late for school which isn't bad for me. It all went much better today :) Really it's no wonder I didn't wake up on time. I have found a new game to play called HQ Words where you can win money live for right answers and I love it. The only downside is that it is based in New York so it's not on till 2:30am in the UK hence me dragging myself out of bed in the morning. There are ten questions where you are given a subject per question and you have to guess the answer Hangman style, three wrong letters on one question and your out. I have got close but haven't won yet. I recommend giving it a go it's so much fun and you can win money. If you are looking at the time that the game goes live and know you will never be awake there are other more time friendly options. HQ Trivia, Q Live and Woosh. On these games there are 12 trivia based questions that come with a multiple choice answer. Although I mainly play on my own everyone in the family can play together on their own phones making it more fun and giving you all a better chance of winning. Let me know how you do. Thanks for taking the time to visit my blog. Just Holly Marie x x x So it's 2019 and I have just turned 30. While grieving for my youth I realised that 30 didn't have to be so bad. Just as it's the beginning of a new year it's also the beginning of a new decade of my life so how can I make it productive and fun? So along with the usual boring New Years resolutions of being more organised (i run late for everything!) and stress less about the little things (i stress about everything!) I am starting my blog Just Holly Marie. Not only is today special because it is the launch of my blog but is also my son Connors 10th Birthday! He is having a great day and feels much older because he has just hit double digits. I on the other hand as well as being proud of the handsome young man he is growing into can't believe he is 10! Where has my little baby gone? If you don't already know I am completely addicted to entering competitions. I have won so much and I have fun doing it. I enter competitions on the school run, while i'm on holiday, in waiting rooms and even if I can't sleep in the middle of the night. You might say it's a problem I would say it's the best hobby in the world :) We are only six days into 2019 and I have already won a bundle of Nella the Princess Knight toys from Friendlings magazine and all it took was an email with the answer to a question. 10 seconds of my time. Head over to my Win Gallery if you wants to see pictures of my wins and other comping bits and pieces. Thanks for taking the time to visit my blog. Just Holly Marie x x x |