I'm a winner

You're probably wondering what the blurry screen shot above is all about. Well, I've completed the NaNoWriMo challenge. I just had my word count verified. I wrote a novel in a month. It might be complete nonsense but I did it.

Off to celebrate right now.

What I wore 22nd – 28th November 2008

I am amazed that there are winter wardrobe items that I still haven’t worn since removing from storage (i.e. an old suitcase on top of my wardrobe). I’m putting this down to my focus on NaNoWriMo. When your head is full of plotlines and characters it’s hard to be creative with your wardrobe.

Saturday
•Walking clothes
•Mens jeans, black vest, long sleeved green smock top, brown boots

Sunday
•Allotment clothes
•Mens jeans, black vest, long sleeved green smock top, brown boots (desperate for wrm clothes after trying to work on my allotment in the snow!)

Monday
•Black cardigan, reworked blue ‘guild of radical militant librarians’ tshirt, blue cord skirt, black leggings, brown boots, green beaded bracelet.

Tuesday
•Turquoise vest, grey wrap dress, skinny jeans, brown boots.

Wednesday
•Black leggings, brown boots, long charcoal skirt, black vest, turquoise jumper, black linen scarf, black rubber bracelets.

Thursday
•Skinny jeans, grey pillowcase top top, grey shrug, spider necklace, green bead bracelet, brown boots.

Friday
•White shirt, black sleeveless V-neck dress, black tights, black stretch boots, black and green necklace.

Things I Love Thursday

© Buying amazing stuff second hand

© Coming to the end of NaNowriMo

© Big bags of locally grown vegetables

© Looking forward to going to the Christmas without Cruelty Fayre and…

© New vegan boots from Bourgeois Boheme

© Purple blankets

© Soya milk cocoa

© Ticking things off lists

© My dose of Icing turning up first thing in the morning

© Lunch with friends

© Tofu from the Noodle bar

My week off

I had a week off work last week. I’m very bad at using leave. Normally if I have a week off I spend the entire time trying to have a ‘proper rest’. The issue is that I’m not sure what I mean by a proper rest. Do I mean sitting and doing nothing? Curling up on the sofa with a cup of tea and book? Meditating? Having cleared all the jobs on my list?

I never know what time to get up. Should I set a time for each day? Or force myself to go back to sleep? Should I go to bed later then usual?

I always come up with a ridiculous job list. Just like I always pack loads of paperwork to do on long journeys and then don’t bother to look at it. Just have the joy of moving it from A to B and back again.

So last week in change from the norm I was busy all day every day. I got up just after Dear Heart had left for work. Then I had breakfast. On a couple of days I went to my allotment first thing. On other days I stayed at home. Apart form clearing out the pantry none of the things I id were really major projects. Just day-to-day stuff like doing loads of washing, going through bank statements and washing the recycling boxes.

In between I relined my winter coat, hennaed my hair and packaged up all the Christmas gifts I have bought so far. I stopped for tea breaks and lunch breaks now and then, making sure I really enjoyed sitting down with my book and something warming for a quarter of an hour or so.

I didn’t plan my week to be like this it was just the way it turned out. But I didn’t feel exhausted or panicky or that I should have been making better use of my time once. I enjoyed being in the moment and undertaking the tasks I was doing.

My conclusion is that I don’t do very well at taking things easy. I like to be busy. My grandmother used to say that she was not made to be a lady of leisure. I found that I was so keen to get on with things that I didn’t want to go to bed. But I made myself go so that I could get a good start in the morning.

I’ve also often found that I snack all the time when I am on leave. Not so this time. I assume it was a combination of being occupied (and not bored) and stopping for regular breaks.

Strangely though I was less interested in looking at the Internet. I didn’t post here apart from the first day. I used twitter a lot less. I didn’t check any of the blogs that I regularly visit. I did use my computer in the evenings to type my nanowrimo instalments

I’m going to try and apply this process of getting up early and having lots of small tasks to do during the Christmas break. If it proves to be effective I should start January feeling fabulous.

What I wore 15th – 21st November 2008

I’ve been on leave for a week. It’s been really tempting to just spend the whole week wearing old pyjama trousers and ancient bobbly jumpers. The caplet (which I made out an old jumper that I shrunk in the washing machine and then removed the sleeves) had been marvellous. If I feel a bit chilly I can just pop it on over whatever I’m wearing. Picture soon hopefully.

Saturday:
-Mens jeans, long sleeved black t shirt, green Alice Cooper t-shirt
-Changed top for an hour to ‘guild of radical militant librarians’ t shirt that I spent the afternoon refashioning and needed a test run.


Sunday:
-Allotment clothes
-Old jeans, long sleeved grey v neck t shirt, grey v neck rib jumper, green slippers.

Monday:
-Turquoise vest, grey wrap dress, skinny jeans, brown boots.

Tuesday:
-Allotment clothes
-Hair dyeing clothes including scarf worn as turban
-Old jeans, black short sleeved t with grey dragon design, chunky black ribbed jumper with zip neck.

Wednesday:
-Old jeans, black short sleeved t with grey dragon design, chunky black ribbed jumper with zip neck.

Thursday:
-Allotment clothes
-Black leggings, black long sleeved, v necked hooded dress, green wool caplet with purple brooch
-Mens jeans, grey wrap top, turquoise vest, brown boots (for dinner out)

Friday:
-Brown boots, black leggings, black long sleeved, v necked hooded dress, green wool caplet with purple brooch.

It's pantry clearout day

What I wore 8th – 14th November 2008

I’ve been really into brown boots for a couple of years, but I really want some long black boots. I’ve been looking at Bourgeois Boheme and I am definitely buying myself at least one pair from their as a Christmas gift to myself. Happily BoBo are going to be at the Christmas without Cruelty fayre so I am going to ask them bring some pairs along for me to try on. Here's this week's clothing list.

Saturday:
Allotment clothes
Mens jeans, long sleeved black t shirt, green Alice Cooper t-shirt, black DM boots (when I went out to serve mulled wine at the town firework display I added a fleece jacket, a waterproof jacket, a scarf and a hat).
Sunday:
Old jeans, long sleeved grey v neck t shirt, grey v neck rib jumper, green slippers.

Monday:
Turquoise vest, grey wrap dress, skinny jeans, brown boots.

Tuesday:
Green velvet jacket, grey skirt, white v neck t shirt, brown boots.

Wednesday:
Skinny jeans, grey pillow case top, grey shrug, spider necklace, black stretchy boots.

Thursday:
Emerald green cardigan, black and white floral skirt, black top, brown boots,green and black necklace.

Friday:
Brown boots, black leggings (worn as tights), grey knitted dress, Long black fitted jacket with green and bronze spider brooch, green and gold knitted scarf.

Things I Love Thursday

Having new goodies to test for The Beauty Bible

The prospect of a week off

Memories of serving mulled wine with one of my best friends at the town firework display

Twelve Bar Blues

Staying on track with NaMoWriMo

My sister

Amplification

Buying skull patterned fabric to reline my coat

Not having to pay for the fabric because I have a voucher for the fabric shop

Green tea

The way my hair looks - rock and roll!

Buying Christmas cake soap from Lush and then storing it away for the start of December. Hello instant Christmas!

Things I have discovered today

Angela Lambert (author of The Constant Mistress, one of my favourite books) died in 2007.

My former junior school has changed its motto from ‘Think and Thank’ to ‘Enthusiasm and Excellence’.

Elvis Presley did karate and was apparently quite good.

Tshirt refashion - before

My lovely parents bought me this fabulous tshirt back from their travels earlier in the year. It looks fine but it make sme look rather more than a teeny bit busty. Hence I intend to work my 'magic' on it and make it into a a style that will display my assests at their best.

I had intended just to alter the neckline. This would be a simple task involving cutting the existing neck out as close to the binding as possible. Then cutting it a bit lower at the front and then just hemming the lot.

However, I really don't want to cut into the design and it is just a bit to high for me to manage that. So I am going for something maybe a little be more demanding which involves cutting the sleeves off, cutting straight across just above the design and re-attaching the sleeves. There's a post on Craftster explaining how to do this. Expect an after photo! I will add links as well if it works OK.

What I wore 1st – 7th November 2008

Saturday:
•Exercise clothes
•Clothes for applying henna to hair: ancient faded black ribbed trousers, long sleeved black v neck t-shirt with bleach stains, Black batik sarong worn as turban.
•Black leggings, long black hooded dress, brown boots.
Sunday:
•Allotment clothes
•Old jeans and red/maroon jumper
Monday:
•White vest, green wrap dress, black leggings, brown boots.
Tuesday
•Emerald green cardigan, vintage black cotton mini dress/tunic, Mens jeans, brown boots, green and black necklace.
Wednesday
•Skinny jeans, grey pillow case top, grey shrug, spider necklace, brown boots.
Thursday
•Green velvet jacket, grey skirt, white v neck t shirt, brown boots, green and black necklace.
Friday
•Long black skirt, long sleeved grey v neck t shirt, brown boots, denim jacket, green and gold knitted scarf.

Having a whole new set of clothes to work with seems very strange. I’m trying to recall combinations that I’ve used the past that worked.

Things I love Thursday

Staying on target for NaNoWriMo

Playing around with a bass guitar.

Suddenly getting loads of Christmas gift inspiration and thinking I’ll get all the shopping done in no time

Doing my seed order and anticipating lots of lovely produce next summer

Vegetable samosas

Knowing that I can be well organised

Second hand books shops

Planning spa days

A cat asleep at the foot of the bed

Guilt trip

I’m trying not to beat myself up today. I have absolutely no reason for doing so. Just that I failed to pack myself any lunch.

A few weeks back I volunteered to sell mulled wine at the town fireworks on Saturday night. The day is actually manure day at my allotment and I’ll be spending all day barrowing loads of muck around the site. It’s very good fun but quite tiring. The sort of day that you want to go home and collapse after, not serve refreshments. However, apparently (according to Dear Heart) there was no one to do it except me.

Last night it turned out that I was supposed to be coordinating the mulled wine (as in deciding recipes, quantity, purchasing etc) as well as serving. It’s not that I’m not capable of doing it. It’s just that with Nanowrimo time it a little tight as present.

So last night I was trying to calculate costings for mulled wine while making chilli so that I could devote the rest of my evening to nanowrimo. I just didn’t get around to making any lunch and couldn’t summon up any enthusiasm for doing so when I remembered just before bed.

So I bought lunch today. It’s not the end of the world.

Getting to grips with random thoughts and plots

I wondered if doing NanoWriMo would have any impact on my desire to blog. Well the urge is there. The issue is focusing on anything for long enough to blog about. My head is awash with random thoughts about where my novel will go next.

I’m doing fine so far adding plenty of characters and incidents that might act as a vital pivot in the plot later on. The only snag being that I don’t have any plot right now. I’d intended to write something fairly realistic but find ideas about aliens, ley lines and Elvis reincarnated running around my head. I suppose this is the point of writing the story down. I won’t know how it turns out until I’ve written it. If I knew how it was going to turn out would I bother writing it? My enjoyment of Jasper Fforde’s work is clearly having an influence. Fiction is not real so anything can happen. Come to think of it, I was quite impressed by the ideas of Witkiewicz when I was at university. Maybe the absurd is the way forward…

I did make some attempts to clear the decks for the month so that I could really focus. Hence:

•I’ve planning most of my Christmas shopping. The wonderful stuff I ordered from Etsy arrived. I really wanted to rave about it here but some of my family read this and I don’t want to give anything away! I just need to visit a bookshop now.
•My study is tidy with all the excess of my fabric stash packed away.
•I’ve made a list of things I can easily make for lunch using items from the freezer or pantry. This is not going to be a great month for trying new recipes.

Dear Heart has signed up as well so I foresee a month of us sitting either side of the dining room table, laptops open typing frantically!