Discovering Instagram...

I do enjoy being extraordinarily late to a party you know.

For years and years I have resisted the lure of the iPhone. Mainly because I'm the only person on the planet who doesn't find Apple technology intuitive to use at all, and also because there was a little bit of the twat in me who wanted to be a bit different.

I caved.

When it came to upgrading I didn't like any of the Android offerings so I decided to take the plunge. I still don't find the technology intuitive but the good thing is that in this day and age you're never more than 2 foot away from someone who can show you how to use an iPhone.

One of the first things downloaded on to my phone?

Instagram.

I've had a Windows Phone for 2 years and I have been one of their biggest supporters for a really long time. Or I've tried to be. But the total lack of access to Apps was just slowly killing me. And especially killing me was the fact that I couldn't get on Instagram - I was stood with my nose pressed up against the glass watching everyone else have fun with their selfies and their filters whilst I stood out in the cold.

The forward facing camera is also a new revelation in my life. My old phone didn't have one, selfies were either an impossibility or an extreme pain in the backside involving a lot of guess work and a steady hand. I always thought I wasn't really a selfie person but the sheer number of photos of my face in the below collage seems to indicate that I was just looking for the right means...

1: My first Instagram photo. A family portrait of me and the gerbils. Thank goodness for the forward facing camera or this photo would have been too difficult to capture.

2: Telecons that go on for 2 hours should be banned

3: But tea and knock-off jelly beans can make everything feel better

4: Me and my bestie, Rowan. I love that face so much, I can't believe she is 9 already

5: Some people are culture vultures, I just have culture gerbils. Here is Tyrion Lannister catching up on some reading. (Yes he did later start to eat the book)

6: My first food photo on Instagram. A killer bacon sandwich with spare sausage to help chase away a Saturday hangover.

7: I've been crocheting - what's it going to be, and more importantly, who is it for? All will be revealed.

8: I got my paintbrushes out and started making over a pretty boring side table. And nearly killed myself with paint fumes in the meantime. Why is DIY never straightforward for me?

9: I am determined to get myself back into running. I am. It has been a bit faltering this year but I took myself  out after work for a little 3km stumble and it wasn't all bad. Did I run the whole thing? No I didn't. Do I care? No, for the first time ever I genuinely don't. This revelation needed to be recorded.

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Do you like photos and vidoes of gerbils? If so do feel free to give me a follow @Shippers1983

A space for me

There were many odd things that I did immediately post break-up.

One was completely emptying all the cupboards in the kitchen, cleaning them and throwing out things that were past their use by date / bit gross / for no reason whatsoever. Seriously I went to get a lot of things in the couple of months after that I swear I used to have in there and suddenly no longer did.

Second was a take-over of the space that was the spare bedroom. This had been His domain, where his computer was set up. Where, you know, he'd been sat planning his new life, buying furniture for his new flat whilst I sat oblivious in the next room. Maybe it was my subconscious taking control and wanting to clear the room from as many bad memories as possible, or maybe it just wanting to keep myself busy. Who knows. Either way I set to work carving out a space for myself.

My crocheted blankets have found a new home hanging out on the sofa-bed and in the days and weekends immediately following the break-up I found myself actually sitting in here quite a bit. It was where I sat when I was on the phone with family and friends as I recounted the story for the umpteenth time and tried to not cry. It was where I took to sitting in the mornings at the weekend, reading books and drinking tea - the sun streams in through the window first thing and it was actually a really nice habit to get into instead of the usual walking into the lounge and turning the TV on to watch something incredibly not good for my brain.

The desk became a place for me to finally set up my stall to do all my online 'stuff'. Sitting in front of the TV with the laptop burning a hole in my thighs meant that I was never terribly productive. I was too easily distracted from getting stuff done that really needed to be done, like blogging, and also found it too easy to get idly sucked into nonsense on the internet - not really concentrating on the laptop or the TV.

I have seen many an image of people's home offices and have been tainted with the green fingers of envy looking at their perfect shelves and inspirational washi-taped photos, postcards and platitudes taped to the walls. Somehow I'm just never able to pull it off myself though. I just don't possess the ability to create Pinterest-worthy interiors.

And so stuff is randomly stuck on the walls with absolutely no order going on whatsoever. I do mean to try and make these a bit more ordered but it's not going to happen. In fact, it's probably my intense need to make them ordered that is my downfall - as much as I love 'randomness' when I look at pictures I'm just not quite capable of creating it in real life.

Remember, if it's not a right angle it's a......wrong angle!

My favourite and best stuff is reserved for the corner of the desk. I bought this lamp for Ikea. I picked it up and put it down, and picked it up and put it down again. I knew that I didn't really have anywhere to put it but I just bloody loved it and so home it came with me. And I really didn't have anywhere to put it, until I had the chance to make this space my own and out it promptly came.

These two postcards are two of my favourites. I have a slight problem for buying postcards that I'm never going to send to people because I want to keep them for myself. I've never had anything to do with them....until now.

The pigeon postcard makes me smile every, single. day. How could it not? 

The leaf is one that I picked up from the pavement when I was tramping around Leicester with Janet before Christmas. I'm a sucker for leaves in Autumn and it's only fear that people with think I'm a crazy person that I don't constantly stop as I'm walking along and pick them all up. Clearly I am unconcerned about Janet's thoughts about my sanity. 

So this is where I sit when I'm typing up this stuff. Nice to be able to picture where someone is when you're reading the blatherings isn't it?

I'd ask you to show me pictures of your office but I really don't know I'd be able to keep my jealousy in check...

Adventures in DIY: The Geometric Canvas edition

I wish I could think of a snappier title for this blog post but I really can't.

Back in October I read a post at Oh Gosh that afforded me a ruddy brilliant nosy around Emma's new living room. We all love a good nosy around don't we?

I immediately noticed a gigantanormous canvas above her fireplace and thought to myself, "I need one of those."

Lo and behold that clever lady totally made it herself and not only did she make it herself, but she also posted a flippin' DIY tutorial on how to do it.

God I love the blogging world sometimes, I really do.

So I promptly went out and bought a tiny canvas because I was too chicken to do it on a massive one for my first attempt, dug out all the yellow and grey match pots I had bought to make over some coasters when I was performing major revamping on my Ikea Lack Table, and some Frog Tape.

I dutifully taped off my pattern.

Big huge important note.

I actually found this hugely difficult. I don't know if my brain just doesn't work in the same way as most people's but I found it really hard to make triangles.

I know.

I would make so many and everything would be good and then there would be a random confusion of tape and I would be left with a gap that most definitely had more than three sides. I don't know. Maybe it's just me but if anyone else attempts this please will you let me know if you have the same difficulties as me? Because I really don't want to feel alone in this one.

I immediately started slapping colour on with really very little regard for what I was actually doing and with no major thoughts about colour placement. I decided I didn't want two triangles of the same shade next to one another and then pretty much closed my eyes and hoped for the best and somehow it all seemed to work out, even though I only had two shade of yellow and two shades of grey.

I very patiently waited for the paint to dry, painted my second coat and patiently waited for it to dry and then went about peeling off my Frog Tape which apparently doesn't bleed.

Lying fuckers.

It bled all over the place as you might be able to see on one of the grey triangles in the above photo.

But apart from that...

Ohmygod I loved it. I loved it. I loved it so much that I was furious that I'd bought the world's smallest canvas to do it on and wished I had one three times the size.

The absolute best part of this project is the speed of it. For people who are insanely impatient like me, this is so incredibly satisfying it's hard to put into words. I started this in the late afternoon and it was all finished by the time I went to bed. Amazing.

In fact it was so quick that when I next had a few hours I sat down and made another one for my nephew's bedroom.

As long I'm keeping myself busy, right?

I had a similar cock up with the Frog Tape on the second canvas but as long as you have a small brush and some white paint (and a steady hand) you can get any wibbly edges tidied up pretty quickly.

How much would these make awesome presents for people? They would think you were a) a genius and b) had spent hours on it when in fact neither are true.

Brilliant.

So go and show Em some appreciation for her canvas which really is a work of art, plus her pictures are much better, mostly because she hasn't taken them with her phone, or at the dead of night because she was too over-excited to wait for better light to take a photo.

I've a lot to learn when it comes to this blog photo stuff...

The Not Really Resolutions 2015 - The Introduction

It's time. I'm ready for you 2015.

If there's nothing else this blog is good for, it's been absolutely awesome at getting me to set myself some actual goals and then attempt to see them through. Ok, they're not massive huge things, they're usually just stuff that I really needed to do anything but will never get done because I have a tendency to sit in front of the TV watching something with absolutely zero cultural merit.

I can't actually believe that this is the fifth year of doing these - anyone bored yet?!

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1. Read ten Classics/Non-Fiction
So for the past four years I have set myself the challenge of reading twelve Classics throughout the year. The idea behind this originally was just to try and expand my reading repertoire and it's been great at doing that but lately it's started to feel like a chore. It's become something that I've started to get a bit stressed out about and that's no good to anyone.

I've also realised that I don't read a lot of non-fiction and I wanted to rectify that. I didn't want to add in reading non-fiction on top of Classics as I'm not the speediest of readers so I thought I'd take my foot off the pedal a little bit and set myself the challenge of reading 10 books that are either Classics or non-fiction.

2. Go to two Park Runs a month (on average)
When I was looking at getting my car one of the reasons I was really looking forward to it was the freedom it would give me to do more. There is a Park Run tantalisingly close to me but inaccessible unless you have your own transport so now I've got it there can be no more excuses.

(I put in the "on average" when I realised that I'll be away for the first 3 weekends of January...)

This will also tie in nicely with number 3...

3. Beat my 10k time
Last year was the worst year ever when it came to running for me. It feels like I was injured in one form of the other for the whole year - I spent a ridiculous amount of money on physiotherapists and osteopaths and I was completely incapable of winning the battle between myself and my head when I was out stomping around the streets.

But this year is the year that I sort all this out. No more injuries. Just no. No no no no. Well I mean there probably will be, but hopefully nothing too debilitating.

I am roping in the help of my blogger friends with this one - I'm hoping that the encouragement of excellent runners like Miss Pond and Lucy will help me achieve this goal.

4. Design and make my own amigurumi
Last year was the Year of the Amigurumi and it felt like all I did in 2014 was crochet zebras, elephants and horses. But I'm still very much a slave to the pattern and don't have the confidence to take it off the page and out of my head.

But I know I have all the tools to make my own animal/character - amigurumi is basically just a series of shapes and once you can do one you can do any of the others - but I just need to take the time out to sit and design something myself.

5. Crochet an item of clothing
Amigurumi is sorted. Blankets are sorted. But I don't feel that skill-wise I'm really going anywhere at the moment. I see people who have never crocheted before picking up a hook and a couple of months later are dashing about in jumpers and cardigans that they've made. I need to take the plunge and do something out of my comfort zone.

(And no I promise I won't crochet a scarf and call this one complete :) )

6. Blog 3x a week (on average)
I'm an advocate of saying that blogging should be fun and shouldn't feel like a chore and I really do feel that way, but sometimes even with the fun stuff there needs to be a little planning and preparation that goes in to it. I always feel as if I have lots to blog about but I don't get myself organised and then it's easy to be lazy and then there's no point really doing it....etc etc. It's time to get organised. Three posts a week shouldn't be that hard.

She says...

7. Finish one cross stitch piece that's just for me
I have a couple of things on the go at the moment that I've put to one side in favour of crocheting. The trouble is that in comparison to crocheting, cross stitch just takes such a long time. The results are nowhere near as immediate and that can start to become off-putting.

8. Tetris blanket
No seriously. THIS is the year. I've neglected this for way too long. This year will make it the third year that it has appeared on a Not Really Resolution list. I'm not even going to say "Finish Tetris blanket" I'm just making it a statement and whenever I'm looking for something else to put on my hook I will hear a voice in my head that just says "Tetris Blanket" with a slightly disapproving tone.

9. Go somewhere I've never been before each month
This is a follow on from 2014's Do One Interesting Thing each month. I don't want to fall into a rut of doing the same interesting thing each month though - I need to keep challenging myself and now I have a little car of my own it should make adventuring even more fun.

10. Makeover three pieces of furniture
I've been slowly plugging away at getting the flat looking how I would like it to look. I figured it was time to do it so I can stop living life like a student, plus it's a nice distraction. I figure that as I'll be spending a lot of time in it given that I'm the only person responsible for all the bills now, it might as well look nice whilst I'm at it.

Furniture-wise I probably have everything that I need but it is still all a bit of a mish mash which is adding to the weird studenty vibe. Just giving something a little slap of paint will make all the difference I'm hoping.

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So there we have it.

Come at me 2015.

Life lately

Time marches on regardless of whether you want it to or not and for the most part Tuesdays are now just Tuesdays (for the most part anyway).

I took everyone's advice and tried to keep busy and it's been great, although part of me wonders whether the keeping busy is just a way of keeping your thoughts at bay. This weekend was the first one in a few where there was nothing planned and as soon as Friday morning hit I started to feel a little sad at the thought of an endless weekend stretched out ahead of me with no-one to have fun with.

I have entertained myself over the past few weeks as much as possible though and the time feels ripe for a life lately mega photo round up kind of post.

So life lately has consisted of:

1. Gerbils

These guys need a post all of their own really and they will get one in time. In the meantime however enjoy a small round up of recent photos due to me celebrating one whole year of gerbil ownership. I called it my Gerbilversary,

(Form an orderly queue gentleman)

2. Rabbit

I live very close to someone from work and have become the official go-to person for rabbit-sitting duties when the family all goes on holiday. I don't mind as a) it's only across the road b) the rabbit is actually pretty cute, (and that's coming from someone who is a little bit afraid of rabbits. Yes really.) and c) I get wine for doing it. I like anything that involves me getting wine.

3. Dogs

No explanation for this one really. Just....dogs. My sister has been ensuring that I occasionally get a decent meal in me - I still haven't quite got to grips with cooking for one, not in that I can't do it, I just cannot be arsed to do it. Anyway good meal also equals Rowan and Rosie, always the antidote to any sad feelings

4. Crochet

Obviously. When in doubt, turn to your hook. Above is the output over September/October. I'm particularly proud of the tractor (pleeeeeease tell me you knew it was a tractor) as that is officially the first thing that I've made where I've worked out the pattern myself. I looked around for various patterns but they were all either not what I was after or were too small so I took the picture of one and just set to work. You can't really get the sense of scale here but he was about 30cm tall so fairly big.

The penguin has winged his way to Hull to live, maybe he'll get to see the Gentoo Penguins at The Deep, who knows.

Anyway, you get the picture. I'm also currently working on a wreath inspired by the Attic24 wreaths that Lucy has created. Mine will be a little less CROCHET IN YOUR FACE as the ones that Lucy has produced and it is very very very exciting.

5. Spending

Now that my flat is just that, mine, I've been keen to make it a proper little home for me. That includes acccessorizing it up the wazoo with interiors. After blogging back in May about my desire to have a flat that looks a little less like a student flat and a little more like a grown-up flat I have been trying to put my grey and yellow theme into action and I finally feel a little bit as if it's coming together.

I couldn't resist this cushion from John Lewis Home and although he's more than I would ever normally pay for a cushion I had a £25 gift voucher and a hangover which gave me good enough reason to get my wallet out.

6. Pumpkin

I just wanted an excuse to show you a picture of the pumpkin I carved. This isn't really something that's been helping me over my break up, but it did keep me occupied for about 40 minutes and I was very pleased with it as I didn't go for a fancy stencil *cough cheat cough* and I only had use of a kitchen knife to hack away at him.


But the biggest news of all is.....

*Drumroll*

7. Car!!!!*

That's right. I finally finally finally own a car at the ripe old age of 31. A Ka to be more specific. This is so major I cannot even put into words how brilliant it is. But I hope to try because, although it might sound daft to you, it is a really significant life event for me.

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So. That's me. What have I missed?




*Unfortunately car does not really have a moustache

Adventures in DIY - the Ikea Lack table edition

When we moved into this flat of ours it was unfurnished and whilst that sounds great in theory - a great opportunity to start building up a stock of furniture of your own, rather than being stuck with your landlord's cast-offs - it doesn't quite hit you quite what unfurnished means until you're standing in an empty flat realising that you don't actually own any furniture other than a super awesome comic book table that you made yourself.

Luckily for me Heather came to my rescue - she had an armchair that she no longer needed and then threw in an Ikea Lack table just for funsies.

At the time I didn't think that I really needed a table but clearly I was an idiot and it is our main coffee table. It is where my laptop rests when blogging, where cups of teas are left to go cold, where we sit back and put our feet up - in short, the centre of the room.

After writing this post for BEDM about creating some kind of colour theme and bringing all our furniture together under a beautiful banner of grey and yellow I decided that I really ought to do something about it instead of just talking and pinning about it.

I'd seen a multitude of blog posts and online tutorials about the wonders of Plastikote spray paint. You don't just paint stuff any more it would seem, you spraypainted stuff. That's what all the cool interior kids were doing and it was so easy peasy lemon squeezy that anyone could do it.

I decided I would do things by the book this time around. I am not a patient person and that's why painting and decorating is hard for me. You have to wait for a really long time until everything is done and comes together. I am always a person who likes to skip to the end immediately. But I steeled myself and reminded myself that I was going to do this properly and that meant priming first before anything fun could be done.

I got me some primer and set myself up with my newspaper and happily primed away, feeling terribly smug with myself.

Then I realised that I was going to have to wait for it to dry and I wouldn't even be able to begin spray painting for possibly days until there was a break in the weather or time to do it.

So I cracked on with a mini project - painting some brown coasters using some tester pots in varying shades of yellow and grey that I had picked up from Wickes. No priming this time. I needed to see some quick results.

The next day, with my spray paint clutched in my hand I ventured out on to the grassy area outside our flats which provided me with lots of room to wield my can. I had used the Plastikote website to work out how much spray paint I needed and had gone with their Fast Dry Enamel in Buttercup Yellow.

I felt a little conspicuous as a stood out on the grass, shaking my can which seemed to echo ominously and telling myself over and over again that no-one was looking out of their window and wondering what the hell that girl was doing with the spray paint.

It turns out that I am seriously lacking when it comes to calculating how much spray paint I need. One can of spray paint only managed to cover the top of the table and the outside of some of the legs before running out completely.

Brilliant.

But I felt good about how good it was going to look when it was finished.

We took the table back upstairs to the flat and I went to the B&Q website and ordered two more cans. Only to be phoned up two days later and told that they had run out and would only be sending me one can of spray paint. Ok, fine, I can make my peace with that.

Except that when we opened up my one can the nozzle had broken off in transport. We decided we'd try and fix it and The Person dutifully stepped forward to sort it out. It mainly resulted in spray paint going everywhere, mostly all over our hands.

Half the can was wasted and what I had managed to spray had come out in glibs and globs and left splatter marks all over the table top and I still didn't have enough to finish the legs of the table.

I immediately threw a bit of a shit fit which very nearly culminated in tears and was only saved by the fact that I managed to stroke two random cats whilst waiting for the table to dry.

And back up the stairs we trudged with the table and I hit up Amazon this time to order yet another can.

This can arrived and guess what? The nozzle had broken during transportation.

At this point I was ready to turn blue in the face and blow up like Rumpelstiltskin but The Person assured me that this time he knew how to fix it and would do so with minimal loss of spray paint. His hands again ended up covered in paint but the results were slightly less catastrophic and I set out with one mission in mind - just to get this bloody table finished because there was no way on god's earth I was going to come outside again for the fourth time that week and be the Crazy Lady with the Yellow Table on the Grass again.

The finished result is by no means perfect. Spray painting is not as easy as they make out and it is hard to get a good technique going and not end up with big drippy bits of spray paint. The splatters on the top of the table are still kind of visible but probably only really to me.

And if it hadn't have been for having to order replacement spray paint twice the whole makeover would have taken hardly any time at all - the paint is touch dry within 45 minutes so if you got up first thing in the morning to prime and spray paint you could easily have it done in a day.

The cost of this is a bit of a hazy one due to a number of reasons:

• Can 1 - free because somehow the man at The Range forgot to charge me for it, even though I definitely saw him scan it.
• Can 2 - £3.98 because B&Q refunded me the delivery cost seeing as they could only send me one of the two cans that I wanted
• Can 3 - £5.76 p+p

I'm not entirely sure how these DIY mishaps seem only to happen to me, it doesn't really seem fair but obviously the God of DIY doesn't shine his kindly face down on mine.

And my coasters look pretty damn cool either sitting on my new table or placed on the side tables that we have, slowly but surely starting to bring the whole scheme together.

At the moment I'm not entirely sure where I stand on painting vs spray painting. Unfortunately the speed and easiness of spray painting something has been tainted by the fact that I had to make multiple efforts to buy enough to cover my damn table, but it definitely isn't as easy to get a smooth coverage as everyone makes out.

My main lessons from this experience?

1. If you want to do picture frames or other small items go for the 100ml Fast Dry Enamel, otherwise, you're gonna need a bigger spray can
2. Don't buy your spray paint online - no matter how well it was wrapped both of mine from two different suppliers broke in transit
3. If it does turn up broken, just send the damn thing back rather than trying to fix it yourself
4. If you do fix it yourself be warned that spray paint does not come off your hands easily
5. If you are not lucky enough to have a garden and have to do this out in public like I did, build up nerves of steel to cope with the abject paranoia that everyone is looking at you as if you are a total lunatic
6. You have to spray paint outside. Being outside means bugs get spray painted on to your shit. I don't even know what you're supposed to do about that one
7. I might want to consider calling in a professional for all other furniture makeovers I want to undertake.