phone email

100 Days Challenge – 6 weeks update

Haha… 100 days of no spending… with the few weeks I’ve just had my resolve has been sorely tested. My bank balance is still looking a bit sad, but certainly better than it would have been if I’d been spending with complete abandon. Good.

Wedding week was a write off – I knew that when I started the challenge. Loads of expected and unexpected expenses, so just tried to be sensible. Charges still cropping up and my credit card bill is horrific.  And I may have indulged in a magazine or three for the flight home. Oops.

Otherwise I’ve been very good – had one slip up for a grey maxi dress which I can wear to work, and have totally failed to keep my three-dinners-out-a-month rule – it seems more like three a week at the moment! But you only live once.

I’ve been exercising on skates and on the bike, both of which are free – and really looking forward to burlesque class tonight, I missed a week for wedding, skipped a week due to tiredness and there was a week with no class so it’s been AGES since I danced!

Camping weekend yielded much loveliness, most of it free/swapped – which is brilliant. By the end of this year Poppy will be sporting a badge-free exterior, a spoiler, red engine bits and maybe a twin exit exhaust. Excellent.

I have sold some makeup on ebay and will be adding more makeup, clothes and other things as I clear out, and the DF shop is slowly building sales too. Mainly in stationery, oddly!

I have also taken part in two craft swaps and the things I received were amazing – will definitely be doing more of these, it’s so lovely to receive presents and is challenging me creatively too 🙂 (my polka dot swap is yet to be sent to its recipient – that’s this weekend’s job!)

Not much on my wishlist – have been too busy to notice much besides the things I want for Poppy!

So overall for these first six weeks I’d give myself a 6 out of 10 for achievement and an 8 out of 10 for effort. Definite room for improvement – and I’m planning a nice gentle August!

silly sites and happy things

Today I discovered Clients From Hell. www.clientsfromhell.net. It was both hilarious and comforting… lots of creative people have to deal with difficult people on a daily basis! I can’t even pick a favourite, they all made me giggle… go look, especially if you’re a design freelancer or a creative in a non-creative business. I guarantee it will make you feel better.

After the majority of the day was over, there was a team meeting which I couldn’t make partly due to being not that useful (I’ve not been here long and marketing is separate from the team, so I wouldn’t have much to contribute to the discussion) and partly because someone needed to stay here and answer the phones. I did a lot of work during this chunk of alone time in the office, much of it design (because it’s SO NICE to have peace and quiet and uninterrupted time to really get to grips with an ad – it’s almost impossible to produce decent quality design work in a non-creative environment when you’re asked to buy cake or book flights just at the crucial point when you’re having a breakthrough with whatever it is you’re designing).

However, I needed a break and so I had a quick nose through DamnYouAutoCorrect. I had forgotten how much this cracked me up – and although there were only three of us left on the entire floor, I still had to hold back the snorty giggles… and dear god, I don’t think there’s anyone or anything in the world that has that hysterical effect on me quite so quickly! Secret weapon for next time I have a bad day, definitely!

In other news, I’m waiting for the estate agents to get back to me on my flat – they wanted fees of £204 including VAT to produce a new agreement and re-reference me so I can continue living in the same flat I currently reside in, once Julia moves out. I don’t mind paying a fee for this service, but that is a completely ridiculous amount of money for sending a few letters and altering and printing a mailmerge document (the tenancy agreement). So hopefully they’ll come back to me with a revised, more sensible fee.

Have been drafting Things that make me happy Thursdays, and despite having been in a really odd mood for several days now, there’s actually quite a lot that does make me happy. I must try taking some photos to go with those posts soon, actually…

After work I had dinner with a very old friend who now lives in Germany, and it was gorgeous to catch up! We chatted till daft o’clock, completely put the world to rights (at high speed – there’s always so much to catch up on) and promised not to leave it so long next time. 😀