I'm taking a break

Hello Splodgies!

Time for a small announcement:

 I've been blogging on here pretty much every day for nearly a year now. I've not posted for a couple of days, and as yet, either nobody has noticed or nobody has asked me about it. The reason is that recently I feel like most of my writing on here has been a bit... well, rubbish. So I feel like writing isn't really working for me anymore, or at least writing like this and attempting to do it every day. 

There are lots of things that I'd like to write about on the blog, but I'm not certain that I'm allowed to write about my work for various data protection, child protection reasons etc, so on the whole I've not written about my work at all, other than saying that I enjoy it. My job is coming to an end very soon and I don't feel very creatively charged towards this kind of writing right now (I almost wrote write now there!) and I'd rather have a less frequent blog with good material on it than a daily blog that's occasionally decent, but is usually a crappy "I'm tired and I worked really hard today" post which is what I feel like I've been doing the past few months. It stresses me out to think that I'm not writing good material anymore, and the stress makes me want to blog even less- even though I've put this challenge on myself, I feel some sort of obligation to be posting for the people who read it - you - every time I publish something. That if I continue posting crap that has no meaning and nothing interesting in it, people will stop reading all together. And that's not what I want. I want to be writing good material, that people relate to or find interesting or funny. And I feel like I've not done that in a long time. 

I'm not giving up on the blog, I'm just allowing myself to write less frequently and better material. I've lots of ideas of what I want to write about, but often when it comes to having time to write the blog, the days when I have good ideas, I'm too tired to write about and the days I have done nothing I have nothing to write about. You see my dilemma? 

I think I've done pretty well to last this long, but for now I'm going to leave the metaphorical notebook that is this blog at my metaphorical desk. The book is still open, and the lid to my pen is off, it's just a case of when I'm picking up the pen, I want to write something that I like. Not something that I feel isn't worth sharing. I'm sure you all understand and I just wanted to thank you all for your continued readership! 295 posts and nearly 9000 views later I've arrived at this crossroads and I've decided it's time to take a new direction. The non-daily one. 

In the mean time if you're interested in writing a guest spot on the blog, get in touch an we can chat about it :) Almost anything is allowed on the blog (usual rules about hate speech etc. apply, but that's pretty obvious- don't wanna be spreading hate on my blog!) so if you have an inkling of something you'd like to do, or if you've ever wanted to blog but didn't feel like you had enough stuff to keep it going, you can guest blog on here. 

That's all for now, folks. Thanks for reading. 

Today, this is me:

See you tomorrow!

-Rosa

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Time passes

Hello Splodgies! 

Time is strange, don't you think? Recently I have been working three days a week and been on annual leave two days a week. It seems like the days I am working are jam packed with stuff and by the end of the days I'm exhausted- and if I'm not working, and I don't have anything planned, I get very little done- at least, nothing worth reporting. 

I also figure that small and/or fast creatures must perceive time differently. 

Which is the main reason my posts have been so... sporadic in interesting content lately... Sorry and all that... It's coming up to a year that I've been doing the blog soon, so I guess there will be some celebrating happening when the time comes! 

Today I made a pass the parcel for the first time- it occurred to me that I've played pass the parcel so many times, but I'd never actually made one. But I was making one for a legitimate reason, not just at random... 

Today, this is me:

See you tomorrow!

-Rosa

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Whack!

Hello Splodgies!! 

I have thoroughly bumped my head today. I've been feeling a bit funny since. Don't be alarmed! I've not knocked myself out or been sick or anything I just feel a bit spacey! 

So I shan't be writing much today. Sorry about that- it seems to be becoming a bit of a habit, eh?? I'm sure I'll be back to normal tomorrow! 

Today this is me: 

That spacey look is because I'm feeling spacey from bashing my head!

See you tomorrow!

-Rosa

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Duck Tales (a-wooo woooo)

Good Evening chumaroos!

I've had a bit of a strange day today. Firstly, my body was ready to wake up before my brain- so I found myself walking around making breakfast like a zombie. 

Secondly a series of strange phone calls happened in very quick succession all from different people. 

Then a man was knocking on my door asking if I wanted to buy any fresh fish today. I told him I was a vegetarian and didn't eat fish- I was very glad that I didn't have to have the "A fish is not a plant" conversation with him. What was odd was that he didn't seem to have any fresh fish to sell. So I was utterly perplexed. 

Next my mum called and asked me to check to see if the chickens had laid any eggs. I was just minding my own business going down the steps into the garden when there was a very loud quacking and flapping sound and a duck flew out of the vegetable patch where it waddled around on the path looking very territorial

I think it had been trying to make a nest in the strawberry beds. You can see near the top of the picture two of the chickens looking very suspicious and similarly perplexed by the duck. Anyway as she was wandering around quacking indignantly (presumably I had knocked her concentrations on making a nest) and I was a bit worried because the duck had most definitely been alarmed by my seemingly sudden appearance. Because the chickens knew what the slam of the back door meant, but the duck had not known to expect somebody in a bright orange hoody to come up behind and scare her. I felt pretty bad about it- but it was strange that the duck was there at all, because she wasn't in the pond having a bath or eating the frogspawn or anything. Anyway, she flew onto the roof of the garage that also makes up the wall of the garden where she sat and carried on quacking. The chickens and I looked up and tried to work out what on earth her problem was. 

I tried to apologise to her, but in the end, she flew away making so much noise!! 

....it turned out that the chickens had laid an egg.

Also, RIP Roxy, who died this weekend. A much loved chicken, with a talent for running very fast and squeezing through gaps in the hedge. 

Today, this is me feeling like I'm wearing too many layers: 

See you tomorrow!

-Rosa

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Hipster Weekend

Hello Splodgies!!

Sorry I missed my post yesterday- I was busy doing this:

It was perhaps the most hipster I've ever felt. We all had a great time! That's my dad playing the drums there in Lancaster Jazz Quintet. It was super cool. 

Today, me and Sarah went on an adventure as it was such a beautiful day. We had wanted to go and play our ukes on the promenade, but even though it was a sunny day, it was a bit windy so it was still very cold! 

....Most of the pictures on this blog today are taken by Sarah- thanks for letting me use them! 

At the end of the day we drove up to Hest Bank and played our ukes looking out over the bay... from the car :P Because it was still cold, but we did try to play outside!! We got freezy hands! 

Today, this is me and Sarah on our adventure:

See you tomorrow!

-Rosa

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Bus Eclipses My Attention.

Hello Splodgies! 

Today I had got everything ready so that I could just wake up, get dressed and leave the house. I was coming back to Lancaster today, but had to go to a meeting at work before I went. I hopped on the bus and everything was fine. 

UNTIL THE BUS BROKE DOWN AND I THOUGHT I HAD TO SKIP BREAKFAST WITH BECCA AND THEN THOUGHT I WAS GOING TO BE LATE FOR MY MEETING. I was very stressed!! But I saw the eclipse from the bus! 

After my meeting I went back to the bus station to get a bus to Penrith so I could get the train back to Lancaster- I had worked out that although I would spend more, I would still get back to Lancaster 2 hours faster than I would've had I got the 555 from Keswick. Isn't my life thrilling.

Anyway! Tomorrow: Jazz (swanky coffee house edition)

Today, this is me waiting in Penrith train station. 

The little man is my conscience. There's another one on my other shoulder too.

See you tomorrow!

-Rosa

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Silver Linings

Evening Splodgies! 

You need to have read yesterday's post for today's post to make sense.

So you'll know that yesterday I was super bummed out about missing out on that job I had applied for. But the silver lining came today in the form of an email I'd received. Remember I had asked for feedback? Well I got some- and it was good! They told me that 79 people had applied- and I was ...sort of short-listed, just not for interview. I was in the top 25, and they were impressed with my experience "for such a relatively recent graduate". So I was pleased. There was a little more about why I wasn't chosen (other candidates had more experience and at greater breadth), but all in all I went away feeling much much better about the whole thing- and sent them a reply telling them so! 

Also it was a super sunny day so obviously we were very productive in the office today leading to such funtimes as this: 

I tried to tweet this picture to the radio DJ we were listening to at the time, but my phone decided that it was temporarily tired of telling me anything about twitter (it wasn't even on silent or anything, it just stopped notifying me!) so by the time I went back and looked at my notifications many hours later it was too out of context to share this picture. We don't usually have a radio in the office, but I had thought I was going to be alone in the office so I brought it in. I must admit we did do a little bit of a dance in our chairs. With our sunglasses on. And felt supremely cool. Right, Becca???

As it was a sunny day, instead of going strait home, I went for a walk through the park, attempted to FactTime a friend, failed, and ended up using the outdoor gym equipment for funsies. Being the obnoxious type of person that I am, I had been carrying my radio around in my hand rather than in my backpack like a normal person. I had been playing it in / around the bus station whilst Becca was waiting for her bus. In my head I was kind of providing alternative music for the people- as I was listening to BBC Radio 6 Music- which is my new favourite station. Unfortunately it was whilst the 2 hourly new bulletin was playing so I looked quite odd until the music came back on. Either way, after Becca left on the bus, I went to the park and idiotically balanced my radio on the top of the exercise bike. Of course. It fell off. The radio was ok, but the handle wasn't. It's not utterly destroyed or anything, but I couldn't find the bit that holds it in fast. It all still works ok- I'm just going to stop balancing it on top of things. Still living on the wild side, just not quite so wild :P 

Today, this is me post- ukulele lesson

See you tomorrow!

-Rosa

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