Monday 20 October 2014

October Week 3!

Give up one thing and take up another - I decided to give up my mobile phone and take up a life but didn’t get very far haha!

I was inspired by the two clips below, which made me want to simultaneously abandon my phone down the nearest flushable facility and text Mine Truly to suggest a suitably romantic endeavour to enable us to focus our attention solely on each other. Oh, the irony!





What they have done though is made me much more aware of how much time, and how often, I spend checking my phone unnecessarily.

I never had this problem with my wonderful old Samsung F210 which I would have happily continued to replace with the same model ad infinitum if only it was still in production/available. The only function it had was phone calls and texts, so I wasn’t looking at it every 5 minutes in case I’d missed anything!!

Much as I do really like the ability to order my shopping delivery, ‘check-in’ (why?), get the latest weather report, check Trip Advisor (which I’m not addicted to at all, no, definitely not) and have the answers to those niggling drive-me-mad questions at my fingertips the more I think about it the less certain I am that it’s a good thing!

Wear a hat Day - as you can see below I really don't need any excuse to wear a hat (or tea cosy, or balloons) on any given day!

 
 
 


 











Monday 13 October 2014

October Week 2!

After such a successful week last week I've failed spectactularly with the one and only challenge for this last week..

Feed some ducks Day - I went as far as to save some bread with the intention of finding some ducks (where does one find ducks in October - they seemed to be everywhere in the summer but I don't recall seeing any for ages!) but that was about it!

There may also have been a little confusion about this one - I ate some duck.

A totally unrelated adventure this week was the decision to go camping.

In the lounge.

We're fortunate enough to have a large lounge (and a small tent haha!) so we moved a bit of furniture around, put the tent up, ate our dinner at the camping table and chairs, by torchlight, played cards (with my fabulous ultimate deck of cards - watch the 7 minute review video below!) and drank whiskey and then filled the tent with beanbags, cushions and pillows and sat back to watch Supernatural (our indoor version of sititng round the campfire telling ghost stories). And yes, we slept in it overnight :-)




 
 

Monday 6 October 2014

October Week 1!

It's been a great week this week, I think I've managed to pull off each of this week's challenges in a satisfactory maaner - in fact I've done some of them twice!

Duvet Day (about time!) - I can't believe we've made it to October without a duvet day already! I decided to have my duvet day on Sunday, largely owing to the fact that I suspected (correctly) that I'd be suffering a little after attending the wonderful wedding of Pete and Kim and dancing the night away with Mine Truly on Saturday. As I write I'm ensconced on the sofa, under a duvet, and wondering how much longer I'll be able to resist the insistent pull of slumber - at least I'm safe in the knowledge that if I do sucuumb to a mid-day nap there's no danger of me waking up and killing anybody as Mine Truly, bless him, has had to go to work. I'll still wake up wanting to kill somebody of course.
 
Be proud of yourself Day - I thought this one might be tough, in fact I'd more or less decided, with Thursday almost over, that I'd just resort to waffling a little about the enormously funny Miranda and the whole M People thing.  Oh go on then, I'll include a clip - don't say I never give you anything.



However, all unsuspecting of the imminent opportunity, I dutifully stayed up to welcome Mine Truly home from his late shift and as a result ended up in a stand off with a spider of monstrous proportions. I kid you not, it was big enough to tell me that it didn't want it's picture taking and that I'd better make damn sure I was holding tight to the glass and card in the event of a humane disposal attempt.

Unlike Mine Truly I'm not usually phased by spiders - don't get me wrong, I don't like them at all but, don't usually have a problem with sticking a glass over them, sliding a piece of card under and, lifting very carefully (with card firmly held against it to prevent even a single leg wriggling out), removing to an outdoor space before flinging the two apart with such vigour (to ensure that there's no way it can cling to either card or glass) that the impact of it landing probably kills it. Perhaps I should just squish the things and be done with it.

Anyway, I'm not ashamed to say that this beast phased me. Aside from the shock of it's discovery (more about that later), it was particularly large and menacing looking and when I say looking I really mean looking. At me.

It didn't just have a big body and little legs or vice versa, the whole flaming thing was enormous. So, making sure that Mine Truly didn't take his eyes off it I went and got a glass and card to attempt the capture, I would usually just calmy place the glass over it and then get on with the card but I was too wigged out to get that close to this one so ended up getting as close as I dare before kind of half dropping/half throwing the glass at it and then moving out of the way. A few deep breaths (and the realisation that I'd actually broken out in a cold sweat) later and I moved in with the card. More deep breaths later (I've never had to do this in stages before) and I was able to to actually pick the damn thing up but then realised that there was no way I was going to go outside and attempt release in the pitch black, bare legged and in a wide sleeved dressing gown - far too many opportunities for a pissed off arachnid to turn mid-flight and propel itself back at me landing either in my sleeve or on my bare feet and crawling up my leg. I never worry about this usually.

So then I had to go and get fully dressed leaving it sat under the glass on the kitchen counter, as I was carefully placing glass, card and spider on the counter Mine Truly was watching in fear from the safety of the hallway - until the automatic air freshner thing in the hallway hissed and scared the living beejesus out of him, his feet actually left the floor and he kind of crashed into the wall. Fortunately I'd already placed the glass down before I collapsed laughing at him but I swear that by the time I'd finished laughing, been upstairs to get changed and come back down again my 8 legged nemisis had moved the glass closer to the edge. So, breathing heavily and with my skin crawling we set off outside to find a suitable flinging area, which proved to be very difficult in the dark as it needed to be far enough away from the front door but not too far out of the reassuring light (thank you council for turning all the street lights off). I finally got a grip and just did it and am pretty sure I actually heard a thud as it hit the gound, followed closely by the sound of me squealing and making a lightening dash for the safety of indoors!

Mine Truly and I did laugh about it when we got back upstairs but at the time it was all mildly traumatic - and I'm proud of myself for dealing with it!

Flirt outrageously Day - I had an impromptu opportunity to flirt at Charlie's on Friday night when Doug walked in, he's been absent for a while but can always be relied on for some harmless flirtation - especially since I know he loves Mine Truly as much as he loves me ;-)

And I flirted outrageously at the wedding on Saturday night, mainly with Mine Truly but I was also just feeling flirtateous in general - this may have possibly had something to do with the consumption of alcohol but who knows - or cares!

Mine Truly and I even flirted with the idea (see what I did there) of getting a room and staying on at the hotel but good sense, a healthy respect for our finances, the recollection of pets requiring food at home and an unexpected summons to work earlier than expected the next day all conspired against us!

Jump out of something Day - I absolutely jumped out of my skin, and also off the bottom stair in the hallway where I was sat catching up with Mine Truly on his return home, when all of a sudden Mine Truly swore loudly mid-conversation and physically jumped back from the hall into the kitchen. I instinctively followed suit (and screamed a little I confess) wondering what was going on only to find out that his reaction was caused by the aforementioned spider.

You could say that I also jumped out of one duvet (bed) - and into/under another (sofa) this morning. That was the plan anyway, jumping was just a tad beyond my capabilities though so I'll  have to make do with shuffled instead.

(I really wanted to jump out of a cake but I think I'd need to put a lot more thought into that one!)

Wednesday 1 October 2014

October Mission!

October Mission

Put yourself on a personal bootcamp to...

  • Set the alarm a little earlier
  • Throw yourself into things with some serious gusto (note to self - this does not include lamposts, doorframes etc)
  • Do health stuff
  • Wear a headband and lots of lycra
  • Meditate on what you really want in life
  • Expand your mind while contracting your waistline
  • Break a sweat and revel in the endorphins

This October: Go forth and BE BEAUTIFUL!