by Carla Louise | Apr 24, 2014 | carlalouise, Gratitude and goals, Life Magic, Personal Development, Unfurling Your Wings |
It’s been a long journey of wanting, wishing and waiting, but in February this year, just after my 28th birthday, I finally booked an appointment to have my hair dyed blue.
Several hours of bleaching, foils, and inadvertently making both of my hairdressers look like they’d been busy murdering Smurfs, it was done. Eeek!
But because my hair doesn’t hold anything (colour, curls, shape), I found myself having to re-apply the dye twice in the first week. At £9.50 per tube for the (admittedly pretty) Fudge blue colour, this quickly became unworkable. So I did what I always do when I have a problem, and asked the internet for help.
This pretty much summed up everyone’s advice from all over the internet – try Directions. It’s also, as far as I can tell, vegan, which means the lovely Annastasia at Not The Vegan Police will approve!
So I trooped into town, bought a pot each of Atlantic Blue, Midnight Blue and Lagoon Blue, and proceeded to re-dye my hair.
The results:
Atlantic Blue is by far my favourite, and caused more than one colleague to exclaim “Carla! Your hair! It’s SO BLUE today!” which I think can only be a good thing.
Lagoon Blue, while much lighter in colour, has actually lasted almost three weeks and has faded to a bright turquoise, which is absolutely acceptable and will probably be my summer colour of choice.
Midnight Blue I’ve not yet been brave enough to try, as I’m scared it’ll be too dark – but I’ll give it a go soon.
I’m yet to master decent lighting for photos, but here are a few:
I’m over the moon with my new hair – and it was summed up best by two of my friends. Josh told me it was “mermaid hair”, and Naomi’s is still my favourite comment – “it’s the hair you were always meant to have”. That’s definitely what it feels like!
by Carla Louise | Apr 11, 2014 | carlalouise, Gratitude and goals, Life Magic, Organise & Declutter |
Good grief. I work almost exclusively online – here, with The Website Beautician, and as a web content editor at the university. So what I want to know is, how on earth has my daily handbag ended up full of all of this?!
Yeah, not Clover – she was just being “helpful”.
That’s a makeup bag, four eyeliners, two blushers, three lipglosses, a mascara, two mirrors, a pair of tweezers and foundation – and I don’t wear makeup during the day at work.
A CD (wtf?!), a pencil case with 15 (15!) pens and one pencil, chocolate, biz cards in a Loughborough holder, a notebook (green) for a course I’m doing, my beloved Moleskine diary, £20 I’d forgotten I’d got out of the cash machine, my little camera, half a pharmacy (ibuprofen, iron supplement, antihistamine, rescue remedy), my clip in dreads, various hairbands, my purse, two forks, a spoon, a cloth for cleaning my glasses, a plug for a phone charger (but no cable) and a USB stick. And a half written letter to Chloe.
Which would kind of be ok, if a) I didn’t also carry a bag with lunch and two big folders in it everywhere and b) I hadn’t cleared it out literally two days ago. At which point I removed two types of eczema cream, antiseptic cream, more pens, my TV remote control (again, wtf?!), the cable for the charger, two books, a magazine, the beads I bought on Thursday, half a brownie, four packs of tissues and a necklace. And today I left tap shoes and a scarf on my desk at work.
No wonder my back and shoulder hurt!
What the contents of my bag say about me: I reckon I’m prepared for just about anything, but that I REALLY need to pay more attention to the state of clutter in my life. So it’s just as well that the fantastic Anna Kunnecke is teaching the Queen Sweep course for free. It sarted on Monday and prompted this post. And, well – if the rest of the course is as effective as this first week, hopefully I’ll be much more aware and much less cluttered in the not too distant future!
What’s in your handbag? I suspect I’m not alone in my delusions of travelling light…
by Carla Louise | Apr 4, 2014 | At Home, carlalouise, Gratitude and goals, Life Magic, Silly Kittens |
Spring is most definitely sprunging (is that a word?!) in my little corner of the world. Here’s my photo roundup of the last couple of weeks…
Dad cutting the overgrown lawn in my little garden
Shafts of sunlight at long last in my living room
Yarn bomb at This One Wall
My glorious, silly kittens posing most obligingly (we’ll ignore the hoover in the background)
Creative Courage and Creative Bloom – courses that are changing the trajectory of my life right now
How have you marked the beginning of Spring?
by Carla Louise | Mar 25, 2014 | carlalouise, Gratitude and goals, Inspiration, Life Magic, Popular, Style |
Serendipity and excitement are the two main themes of my life at the moment.
There are so many lovely things going on, and so many possibilities and emotions and so much potential whizzing around in the air, that I am excited fit to burst, and finding it incredibly hard not to dance through the corridors of the day job with joy, on the very tips of my toes.
New friends have come into my life in the most unexpected of ways in the past few months . One through answering an ad for some cosmetics I was selling, with whom I’m now starting a craft club. Several through being sociable at work. A few of us are starting dance classes, sparked by going to the university’s dance show. Some through my ever-dependable online networks of escape artists and free rangers and lifestyle engineers.
I’ve been working with Amanda Aitken, in her new Girl’s Guide courses, and from just the first week I’ve had some lightbulb moments. I’m excited about these new ideas in a way I’ve not felt about business projects for a long time… possibly ever.
Two weeks and lots of experiments after I had my hair dyed blue, I’ve found the perfect electric blue colour for it (Directions Atlantic Blue, if you’re curious).
And new opportunities pop up at every corner – from tap dancing to faery festivals, there has been a spectacular explosion of things into my life, and I want to take advantage of every single one.
I’ve always been a firm believer that everything happens for a reason… but lately I’ve also become a firm believer in the universe providing what you are open to. Like begets like, and all that – so if you expect goodness, abundance, new friendships, likeminded people and opportunities you could never have dreamed of before… then all those things will happen in the fullness of time. Pure magic in action.
I’ve been working on creating a magical, colourful life for some time. It’s been happening, but oh so slowly. Then in the past few months, it’s accelerated. And because I’ve been so focused on the life I want, feeling it start to really take shape truly feels like coming home.
There’s a way to go before I’m living my dream fully (with added unicorns!)- but now my baby steps feel less faltering, and more twirling and joyful and natural. And so I am off to run down the corridors, to spin in the sunshine and dance in the moonlight.
by Carla Louise | Feb 17, 2014 | carlalouise, Gratitude and goals, Life Magic, Silly Kittens |
We spend so much time these days doing eight things at once. At my day job today I had 19 tabs open across three different browsers, 17 programs on my start bar, 9 of which were running, plus two productivity timers. I also have two notebooks (one personal, one business), my mobile, my tablet and my desk phone.
My desk at home isn’t much better…
… though muchly improved by the kitten. They’re usually up here when I’m working, one on the desk and one on the floor. But even here, where I choose what I do, I have multiple notebooks, folders, tabs in my browser, scraps of paper with interesting snippets on them, my mobile which is constantly pinging, letters and postcards to reply to.
You know what it’s like – you barely finish reading one article before shifting to the next. Sometimes you’ll click on a tab halfway through the day and realise you only got halfway through that tutorial on how to procrastinate less before *BOOM*, the Shiny Thing Problem resurfaced and you flew off to look at the next exciting thing.
This is partly to do with personality (creatives and entrepreneurs often find it nearly impossible to switch off bits of their brain and focus on one thing at a time), but is also because this is WAY too much information for one human being to process at once.
Among this mass of technology I often try to eat breakfast, do yesterday’s paper filing and talk to my colleagues about reasonably important things that need doing. I am forever making to-do lists which seem to grow rather than shrink as I achieve the items on them.
Enough is enough, and I want to try an experiement. I want to try to do one single thing at a time – eat breakfast, have a conversation, read an article, write a post, finish a list of website edits… without hopping from one thing to another. I’d like to extend this to home and social life as well as my various working lives.
To cook without reading, play with the cats without being on the phone, talk to my friends on the phone without folding the washing (and doing the laundry without tripping over the cat?!).
I tend to subscribe to the view that if you’re busy, you’re getting things done. But my pleasantly busy has rapidly become complete overwhelm, where I have time for neither the things that must be done nor the things I want to do.
My friend Morwhenna says that to achieve more, you need to slow right down. I’ve fairly recently become officially properly single, which gives me incredible freedom to do exactly what I want without having to worry about anyone else. This seems like a good time to start the experiment.
I want to pay attention to everything that I do, whether mundane, necessary or exciting. Be in the moment more, be grateful that I am able to do these things, even if I’m not enjoying them much. Be aware of my senses – the movement, noises, smells and sights.
I’ll try it. I’ll let you know how I get on.
What can you do to slow down?
by Carla Louise | Jan 1, 2014 | carlalouise, Gratitude and goals |
If you hang out in the same places online that I do, or follow some of the same people, you’ll know that having a word for the year seems to be quite a powerful thing.
But man, is it hard to choose one! I’m over-eloquent at the best of times, and narrowing down all those gorgeous words out there to just one for a whole year seemed like an impossible task.
So I decided on two, with a long list of goals and intentions to accompany them.
How did I choose? Well, I’d had a few lurking in my subconscious for some time, and I let them percolate until I settled on the ones which felt right.
Word number one is BALANCE.
photo credit: fd via photopin cc
For the last few years, my balance has been all over the place. This blog is not somewhere I want to dwell on the London job, but it became my primary focus. Since November 2012 I’ve started three businesses alongside my new (well, a year old now) day job, and I work on them in almost every spare second.
I’ve found my tribe this year, a group of other aspiring and doing entrepreneurs, and they are the most incredible source of support, encouragement and inspiration you could imagine. I’d be lost without them – and I certainly wouldn’t be writing this post.
But one of my great traits is enthusiasm. And I’m so enthusiastic about both my ventures and those of others that I’ve almost forgotten how to relax.
And so in 2014, I want to balance the work I love with some down time too. Time to sit and do nothing but cuddle my kittens, or chat to friends and family. Time to read, walk, go to the spa, and most of all not feel guilty for doing any of these things. After all, while I’m deeply connected to my businesses’ growth and success, I’m building a life, not a business empire!
My second word is ABUNDANCE. I strongly believe this is a mindset, and the more you have, the more you attract.
I also think it’s often misunderstood. By abundance, I don’t only mean money. I want to have enough money to alleviate worries when things break, go wrong or need money throwing at them. But it’s not my primary motivator. Abundance for me is plentiful love, friends and family, joyful movement when I feel I want or need it, generosity of spirit, and a whole host of other things which have no relation to money at all.
For my businesses, I wish for abundance, growth and balance too – balance between them all, success for all of them, but for none of them to become a chore. The Website Beautician is already fulfilling growth and abundance – now I just need to keep an eye on the balance part!
Do you have a word or theme for 2014?
by Carla Louise | Aug 14, 2013 | Books, carlalouise, Gratitude and goals, Inspiration, Life Magic, Popular, Resources |
I spent some of my lunch hour today listening to this video interview. As I’ve also been reading The Creative Habit and the Happiness Project, it’s all clunking into place rather nicely.
The video sparked me into thinking – what do I want to be able to say about myself a year from now? What do I want my daily life to look like, what do I want my habits and routines to be, what kind of a person do I want to have become in that time?
To become a pro at anything is as much about mindset change and daily routines as anything else, and the gist of the interview is that in order to do this, you need to change your existing and new habits from amateur ones into professional ones. Keep going through adversity and crap. Don’t let life get in the way of your goals.
Twyla Tharp advocates morning rituals to get you going for the day, among other things, and as I find mornings the hardest part of the day, I’ve been pondering what I could do to make them better, more joyful and to set me up better for the day.
Now I find my thoughts going further than just the morning. Without taking on so many commitments that I get overwhelmed and give up, what can I commit to changing? Writing every day? A photograph every day? Getting up by a certain time so I can accomplish these things and better self-care (like actually eating breakfast)?
It’s certainly made me consider what I do every day in a new light. I shall continue to ponder and blog my specific changes when they’re a little clearer in my mind. Right now they’re a confused blur of DO ALL THE THINGS BUT BETTER…
What do you want to be able to say about yourself in a year’s time?
Further reading:
The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin
The Creative Habit by Twyla Tharp
Turning Pro by Steven Pressfield
Image credit – Ducking Fabulous / Letters from my Twenties
by Carla Louise | Aug 8, 2013 | Alter Ego, carlalouise, Gratitude and goals, Inspiration, Projects & Challenges |
This was my 300th post on Ducking Fabulous, which made me happy and astounded in equal measure. Thank you for being along for the ride – here’s to the next 300 posts!
Onto today’s actual subject… Natalie Sisson is running a 30 day blog challenge over on the Suitcase Entrepreneur. Today’s question – If you woke up tomorrow and were free to do anything you wanted with your life, what would you do and who would you be?
What would I do, who would I be? What do I really want to do?
Once, I’d have said have a horse, and to dance. That was more or less the sum total of what I dreamed of.
Now? Now my dreams are more wide ranging. I’m achieving or on the road to achieving many of them, I’m happy with where I am and I have absolute belief that the others will happen somehow, someday.
But right now, if I could genuinely do anything I wanted? I’d…
… buy somewhere beautiful to live, in the countryside, with a kitchen big enough for a squidgy sofa, lots and lots of windows and light, space for crafting and photography and a huge garage/workshop for my fleet of beloved vehicles
…open it as a retreat to friends and family and likeminded souls who need to get their breath back from life, or who want to kickstart their own creativity
…have a camper van for weekends and a caravan in the garden as an extra spare room/studio
… surround myself with the animal companions I adore – horses, dogs and the occasional unicorn
… regularly travel somewhere warm – I love the seasons in the UK, and wouldn’t change my homeland for anything. But during the depths of winter, I often feel like I’ll never be warm again. The luxury of being able to feel sunshine whenever you fancy it is incomparable.
…ride out over the countryside daily
…write, photograph, dance, create at my own pace, in my own time, in my own space
…there would be a river at the bottom of the garden where my narrowboat lives
…and work wise, I’d help people along the journey to self-employment. The fiddly practical bits and the dreamy planning bits; the awkward conversations with friends & family and the incredible feeling of belonging when you find your tribe.
What would you do? What do you dream of?
by Carla Louise | Jun 20, 2013 | carlalouise, Gratitude and goals, Jewellery, Life Magic, Memories |
Currently gracing my neck most days:
The ring:
My 21st birthday present from Julia. She and I had wanted Tiffany rings for as long as we could remember. And now we have matching ones – identical, except that mine has a blue sapphire and hers has a pink sapphire. I wear it almost constantly – either on a finger or on a chain. Six and a half years on, it would feel very odd to be without it. It’s a symbol of the friendship that will be twenty five years old this year, and which I couldn’t imagine being without.
The typewriter:
A very pretty little charm which I fell for at a craft fair I did, back in April. I usually have a very strict rule of not spending until I’ve sold, but when I saw that they had a typewriter, vintage camera and an ice skate charm, I had to be very sneaky and buy them all. And given that my collection of real typewriters has accidentally doubled (from two to four, lol) in the last few months thanks to the generosity of a fab friend and a colleague, it seems appropriate.
by Carla Louise | Jun 11, 2013 | carlalouise, Gratitude and goals, Jewellery |
While moving and doing all the associated clearing out, I realised that lots of pieces of my jewellery have stories of their own. Some short and sweet, some more involved… I’d like to have a record of them and I thought they’d be quite nice to occasionally feature on the blog 🙂
This heart brooch is a familiar sight on lapels, collars and sometimes bags. It came to me as part of the very first Curiosity Box swap I did, back in October 2011. Nicola from Yallop Skin Care was my anonymous swap partner – it was a lovely project to be part of, and this was my favourite thing from my box!
