Ask The Girl

Ah blog awards, they're like buses aren't they?

As well as receiving the Happy 101 award, Nic at Nic's Notebook also passed on the Versatile Blogger award.

Now apparently I need to tell you a few things about myself.

The thing is, I've done a few of these in my former blogging life and I can't think of anything to tell you that you won't have heard before.

So instead I'm throwing it open to you guys.

Is there anything you want to know about me? Something I've talked about that you want to know more about? Something I've mentioned that has you flummoxed?

No holds barred. Whatever you want to know you can ask. (Whether I answer is another matter entirely)

This week is going to be fairly busy for me workwise - I have to hobnob with important people and give important presentations, something which I'm never good at and spending a lot of time worrying about. Plus I seem to be having difficulties in my personal life - am I the only one who thought that girls left bitchiness on the playground and that things would be different in our mid-20s? - so I am unsure how much I will be around this week.

So, you have plenty of time to fire away, let's say you have until Wednesday 13th October to ask me anything you like.

Either reply in the comments section or send me an e-mail at randomdaydreaming@hotmail.co.uk (Put Q&A in the subject title or I might accidentally delete the e-mail thinking it's a request for help from Nigeria).

GO GO GO!

Happy 101

Some time ago, the rather delightful Nic at Nic’s Notebook gave me the Happy 101 award. Now I know what some of you may be thinking, “She’s already got that one, she blogged about it before”. But you see technically technically I got that award on the old blog and really, seeing as this is a fresh new start I think that all awards are cancelled and can be received anew on this blog instead.

That’s my line, and I’m sticking to it.

The problem I have is that I’ve already passed on these awards to all of you who’ve been crazy kind enough to stick with me into this new blog so I don’t really have anyone to pass it on to but I did think on one little person who is new to the blogging business and might appreciate a little award love.

So I present this to you...Lucy from Tete en l’air.

*applause*

So I'm afraid Lucy you now have the dubious honour of passing this on to other people and also listing 10 things that make you happy. Them’s the rules. Plus you get this pretty little picture to put on your blog. Happy days.

So. What makes me happy?

1. CRISPS. It should be apparent to all who have read this blog for only a short time the depth and breadth of my love for these salty snacks. Even though my intake has dramatically reduced since starting Weightwatchers (I’d forgotten you could actually buy single packs of crisps I’d been buying family sized bags and eating them in one go for so long) I still get a crisp fix most days.

2. CATS. The love for cats should be as apparent as the love for crisps. I’m not a one cat woman, my love goes out to all felines – Fred and Lily, Maggie and Maud, Eddie and any cat who comes within 12 feet of me which I will, without exception, try and touch.

3. LOSING WEIGHT. Sorry but it’s true. I was asked in my meeting this week how I felt now that I’ve lost 3 stone and I said that I felt happier. I was starting to become a miserable little bitch when I was overweight (granted there were relationship problems thrown into the mix as well) and it’s hard to be happy for other people when you’re miserable yourself. I feel like a happier person generally nowadays.

4. THE GYM. My god, what’s happened to me?! I’ve had my soul stolen by an invasion of the gym-snatchers. But I’ve found that I do enjoy working out now – I like feeling like I’ve really exercised and done something and I like that I am making slow but sure improvements in my stamina and strength the more I go. The gym is also a lot more pleasurable now that I’ve lost weight, my fitness has improved dramatically now that I’m not lugging all that extra mass around.

5. SOUP. Now that I’m completely over my irrational soup fear it’s become my best friend and I’m all up for trying out new recipes. What makes me particularly happy is that I can make it and freeze it in batches so I don’t have to think about what I’m having for lunch each day.

6. CROCHET. I’ve finally mastered something other than a granny square! Ok, so it’s a granny stripe (pictures coming next week hopefully) but still it’s something different. I love the process of crocheting, and that it builds up very quickly, making it more immediately satisfying than cross stitch or embroidery can be.

7. AUTUMN. I’m pretty sure the blogosphere is over-represented by people who like Autumn, it’s all anyone’s been talking about lately. Unless it really is just everyone’s favourite season? I will join the hordes and out myself as an Autumn lover – I’m all in favour of seasons that encourage us to layer up and cover our bodies in clothes.

8. THE APPRENTICE. I’m so pleased this is back on the telly box. It makes me so happy to watch it because I can think to myself that however badly my life might be going I can be reassured that I’m not as big of a tit as some of those contestants are. (Anyone see the first episode this week? Dan as Project Manager? He’s done an excellent job at talking himself out of future employment. What an idiot.)

9. BOOKS. You know I can’t get enough of them. You all quietly tolerate my monthly book updates and I am thankful for that (but don’t worry this was a 2010 feature only!).

10. TRAIN JOURNEYS. Makes me sound like a bit of a mentalist but I swear I have valid reasons. I’m not brilliant at sitting still and always, especially lately, seem to be rushing about places and seeing people and doing things. Train journeys are like a gift of time – you are forced to sit down in one place, quietly for an extended period of time, without having to feel like you should be up and doing something more productive. Plus, there’s the whole excitement of reaching your final destination to take into consideration.

What was interesting is that I actually went back and found the post when I got this award originally just to see what my 10 things that made me happy then were. I think I can basically conclude that crisps, books and cats are the only constants in my life!

Fur fix

I am being a surrogate Mum again, this time not for three guinea pigs, but for my favourite ‘Children’.


The Fred and the Lily.

Have you missed them? I have. I miss my regular Fredders and Bilster time and miss being able to have them at the flat and generally laugh at them doing stupid things. I feel like since I split up with the ex I see them less although I know that this can’t really be the case because I’m sure I see more of my Mum now (and if I don’t I seriously need to reassess my position as Best Daughter Ever). It’s bizarre. But I definitely feel there has been an absence of them on this blog since I started it.

I must rectify that immediately.

Mum is off to see my sister until Sunday so I have my little suitcase packed up (yes it does need to be a suitcase to include laptop and clothes and food and wool and embroidery thread and all other components of my transportable world) and I cannot wait to get to Mum’s house to see my favourite furry faces.

I love them an awful lot you know. My voice goes very creepy and high pitched when I talk about them and I usually end any story about them screwing my face up and saying “I just want to squish their little faces!”

(Hey I’m a self-confessed Crazy Cat Lady. You can’t judge.)

I love them so much that when I go to stay with them I talk to them.

And put blankets on them.

And shove my cameras in their face so much that they start to look as if they’re giving me evils in their photos.

And I love them despite the fact that when I try and take a picture of me with them they move forward and take up the whole ruddy photo with their face so you can only see my ear.

I'm a happy bunny.

Anybody out there?

So the other week when I was in Liverpool, being greatly embarrassed at the hotel’s attempts to get my boss and in the honeymoon suite, I decided to take a little look around the Metropolitan Cathedral, which was right outside our training venue.

I had visited the cathedral once before when I was 18 on an English A-level trip (which incidentally had nothing to do with English, I’ve never really understood why we all went away, I think it was jealousy on the part of the English department that the A-level Geographers used to get to go to Switzerland) and I remembered not being a fan at all. I had been completely taken away with the Anglican cathedral, further down the road, and this place was all modern and felt a little alien. What was the pulpit doing in the middle?! I wasn’t a fan at all.

However I think the 27 year old me can appreciate it a little bit more than the 18 year old me.

What looks like an extremely odd building from the outside – all stone and angles and spiky bits and quite frankly scary looking doors – is transformed into a rather breathtaking space inside. Rather than being cold and jarring, it actually feels kind of cosy inside and despite its enormous size, kind of intimate.

Scary looking front door

Most of this I’m convinced is down to the clever use of stained glass throughout. The light in the cathedral is stunning and even though there aren’t big massive windows inside, it doesn’t feel dark and dank and cold, something that more traditional churches suffer from I think. There’s also a more modern take on the use of stained glass, it doesn’t all have to be pictures of lambs to the slaughter or disciples falling on their knees, these are just simple pieces of plain coloured glass.

Apologies for crappy, shaky photos. Although you're allowed to take photos, I just felt a bit wrong doing it, know what I mean?!

At the very top of the cathedral, in the wigwam bit that you can see from the outside, the glass gently turns through the spectrum so that as you walk around the perimeter of the pews, you see a different colour and the light shines through in a different way.

It’s funny really, it wasn’t how I remember it at all. I remembered this strange, spacecraft type building, but actually it’s just like any other church, just round instead of square. There are chapels and places for contemplation all around the outside and it doesn’t feel odd once you’re in there. You feel like you would in any other church.

Which is where my problems arise.

I like churches. I like them a lot and it’s hard to explain why. I don’t know if it’s because they’re peaceful and quiet. I don’t know if it’s because they always feel a little bit special, I like to think of all that the people went through to build something like that just to go in and talk to God. And then I come a bit undone. I feel as if I shouldn’t really be there, appreciating it all. What right do I have to sit and marvel at the work someone’s put in to building a house of God when I don’t even know if there is a God? I feel like an interloper, intruding on a place which really should be marked Out of Bounds to the likes of me. I actually feel guilty sometimes, I hope that God doesn’t mind that I was in there when I’m not even sure if he exists and don’t have any sort of relationship with him.

And I always feel terribly guilty if I go and light a candle, which I nearly always do. I don’t know why I do it, is it just because I’m in a church and I remember doing it when I was small? Do I do it as an insurance policy – “Just in case you are there God I just want you to make sure these people are ok up there”. Do I do it just to remind myself that there are people I just need to take a minute to remember?

It’s a funny bunch of conflicted feelings I get from going into church, from initial “Oh this is lovely and peaceful” to then feeling sad and thinking “I wish I could get out of this what the people who really believe in God must get out of it” before moving on feeling guilty, “They know I don’t believe you know, I should stop stealing all the sacredness and leave some for real believers.”

Maybe it’s better that I just stay clear of churches.

Working up a sweat

So I am now a member of a new gym. Whilst my old gym served a purpose, namely that it was cheap and close to where I lived, it really wasn’t a particularly pleasant place. Dark and dingy and cramped with limited equipment and a man who used to shout at you if you talked.


When my gym friend and I heard that there was a new fancier gym which could be ours for the taking for the same price as our rubbish gym we decided to go for it immediately.

It’s rather beautiful. Lots of treadmills (instead of the two you would have to fight for at the old place) and bikes and cross trainers and machines we’d never even seen before. And the weights machines? Oh the weights machines –weights machines for biceps and triceps and forceps (no?), hell there’s even a machine for your bum. Amazing.

And the best thing? You can escape from the horrible grunty groany men who like to parade in front of the mirrors and grimace and gurn while they lift ridiculous weights and surreptitiously check each other out. They have their own section of the gym, tucked away from everyone else. Go and be grunty elsewhere horrid boys. It’s even lit less well than the rest of the gym, you seriously can ignore them, it’s brilliant.

There’s a huge area to do your free weights or do your sit-ups (or if you’re me, do 20 sit-ups and then spend the rest of the time crying and clutching my stomach, why are my abs so ridiculously useless?!).

All that would be great and would be more than enough but it gets better. There are classes. Included in the monthly price. Classes?! Classes?! Could life get any sweeter? I want to try out everything, immediately, especially the Zumba classes. I have been banging on about Zumba for a very long time, ever since I couldn’t sleep and watched infomercials which must have brainwashed me in the early hours of the morning. I just need to find a time to go.

Gym friend and I signed up for just whatever we could find that was available – Pump. (I cannot say this with a straight face. It’s just impossible.)

We had no idea what it was and as the day approached I started to get a little panicky. I’ve never done an exercise class before and was wondering what we’d let ourselves in for. Turns out we couldn’t have picked a better class to start – Pump isn’t an aerobic class but is a kind of free-weight toning class you do lots of repetitive lifting to music and exercise different parts of your arms, shoulders, chest, legs and abs. We worked away and by the end I was feeling pretty knackered but more or less ok.

(Although I should tell you it was a concerted effort to keep my umbrella above my head as my arms were feeling a little disassociated from my body.)

Although it was great, I kind of like to really feel like I’ve done something. I need to feel gross and sweaty and ashamed to be seen in public after I’ve done a workout so I’m on the lookout for something a little more exerting and I’m thinking I might give spinning a go, the problem is finding a time when I can fit the class in, I’m not really one for arranging my life around the gym, it’s going to have to find a way to fit in around me I’m afraid.

But all of this for £20 a month makes me a happy girl.

Patchwork Blanket - Finished.

This little patchwork bad boy is finished. Let’s hear a hurrah!

*Hurrah*

He hasn’t taken me too long to get sorted actually, started on 31st August and finished on 27th September so just under a month. But let’s remember that;

a) I had a week long holiday which meant I could spend a lot of time on it

b) I had a boring work trip to Liverpool which involved me spending whole evenings in a hotel room with nothing else to do but crochet.

c) I had an ill-fated day waiting in for a parcel that never turned up so spent a whole day on it

d) It’s only bloody small



The final size comes out at about half a single bed, maybe a little more (actually it's a lot more, that's my double bed it's on). It’s more than big enough to go over your lap, I would know I had lots of fun being warm beneath it when I was doing my edging and if I curl up into a little ball it covers me completely (yes I did a test. No there aren’t photos) and my friend is easily half the size of me so I reckon it will do the job just fine.

Only downside is that I really don’t want to give it to her. Like really don’t. I want to keep it.

I guess I will just have to make one for myself when Christmas is over and I can make things just for me again.

The edging did end up being pretty monstrous – I weighed up for a long time about whether to do more squares or not. At the end of the day it came down to cost. I didn’t want to do more squares but then have to buy more wool to do the edging, especially as I couldn’t even be sure the same colours would be available from the cheapazoid basket at my local wool shop. So I decided to go round a few times instead, finishing off with some red wool which I thought would complement the red wool I used on the underside to join the squares together.

Then I spent a long time taking photos and complaining that it’s TOO DARK to take photos now and I couldn’t get any that properly showed off the colours.

I am pleased with him. He’s a happy little number. And special because I designed him all by little self.

So there we have it. I can officially tick one person off my Christmas present list. Get in. And it’s only cost me £10. If you don’t factor in labour, because if you did you would have to charge people trillions of pounds. I think this is what you call a labour of love you know.

So.

What next?

Why I hate changing rooms

Ok. So losing this weight (38lbs so far thank you very much) has been great. I feel a little happier in myself and the gym is a slightly more pleasurable experience now that I don’t nearly die on the treadmill. But there’s one huge downside.

Clothes.

I’m not a girly girl. There are few things I hate more in life than shopping. The idea of a long day of aimless wandering in shops brings me out in a cold sweat. I don’t do aimless. I do planned. If I know what I want I’m sorted, “I need a pair of jeans” I can tell myself and off I will go and find a pair of jeans. Shopping trips last a couple of hours, three max, and then I have the rest of my day to enjoy.

Now I find myself in a strange situation of having lost a lot of weight but having no idea what suits me or if I can get away with wearing something now that I’m a little thinner. All too often you see someone squeezed in a bit of lycra, splurging on all sides, proudly proclaiming “I’ve lost 3 stone!” Brilliant for you but that doesn’t mean jeggings are your friend love.

Far worse than any of this however is my one true horror. The changing room. Why are they such devilishly awful places? Why do they have terrible lighting and horrendous mirrors? And why are they so freakin’ small?!

One incident more than any other demonstrates my terrible experiences with changing rooms...

Earlier in the year I was heading for a night out. My weight having ever so slowly crept up and up and up and up I realised that I really didn’t have a lot to wear and certainly nothing that I felt comfortable in. I went into Next to have a look and saw something floral and floaty. I figured it would do, and locating my size I ran into the changing room.

I squeezed into the cubicle, and got my top off, the whole time remaining completely paranoid that people could see in (why do the curtains never fully go all the way across?!) and in total fear that someone would walk in on me (that did actually happen to me once in Primark. While I was trying on bras. Seriously.)

I got the top off its hanger and tried to pull it on. It wasn’t really going anywhere. “My god please don’t tell me I’m this fat” I prayed to whichever god was listening. Then I realised that I was being an idiot and there was a zip on the side. Down came the zip and I tried again but was sweating with the exertion and nearly in tears because it really was a struggle to get on.

I zipped it up and looked at myself. Not too bad, it didn’t look horrendous, but what the hell was with this extra piece of fabric down on my left hand side, what could that be for, where was it supposed to go?

And then I realised...

It was a leg hole.

I had just shoved my whole body through one leg hole of a playsuit.

I was torn between being immensely relieved that the reason I had difficulties getting it on wasn’t because I was ridiculously fat and being immensely horrified that someone would even make a playsuit in my size. There is no way that someone of my size back then (and I would argue, my size now) should be wearing a playsuit.

As I left the changing rooms the member of staff asked me “Was that any good for you?” and I felt I could shake my head and say emphatically, “No. No that was not good for me.”

My changing room fear continues unabated.