New Year's Resolutions 2023

 I'm back with my New Year's Resolutions list for 2023!

1. Get a tattoo
2. Get a piercing
3. Watch 100 films
4. Complete my book resolutions
5. Learn to knit
6. Sew a garment
7. Learn to crochet
8. Write 20,000 words for NaNoWriMo
9. Write 10,000 works outside NaNoWriMo
10. Do a painting
11. Finish 2 embroideries
12. Go on an outing
13. Get a new job
14. Learn to drive
15. Get a new car
16. Decorate the hallway

Book resolutions:

1. Read 100 books
2. Read 2 auto/biographies
3. Read 2 other non-fiction
4. Complete 23 in 2023 challenge
5. Complete Alphabet challenge
6. Read 30 NetGalley books
7. Complete owed reviews
8. Review every book

I want to be more crafty and creative in 2023, I need to learn new skills and I need to make more things with my own hands! I also need to write more, to stretch my brain, I need to finish something!

As explained in my last post I need a new job, why is it so hard to find something that is compatible with my skill set, physicality and mental capacity? As for the car, we haven't had this one long but knowing our luck! LOL! But also it is still a little smaller than ideal, it's nice to dream anyway.

The hallway seems a bit random but it's actually not. It's been needing doing for a while but the council just redid the bathroom and toilet, they look nice on the surface but the paintwork needs an extra coat and their shower was pathetic so we bought a mixer tap shower and paid a plumber to fit it. They also took forever! We were quoted 10 working days, it was about 3-4 weeks in the end. People not showing up, only one person coming in a week etc. It was awful. Anyway now the bathroom has been done the hallway looks even shabbier, especially where they bashed at it bringing stuff in and out, so now it's desperate for redoing. The paint is cheap enough, the big cost is new flooring and we can't skip that because it's already patch-worked from where puppy Forest ripped some back up.

So that's the list. Obviously there are other non-list mini goals as always but whatever to them.

Stef Out x

Resolutions Recap 2022

 Hello and welcome to my yearly resolutions recap where I remind myself what a failure I am! LOL!

1. Get at least one piercing
2. Get at least one tattoo
3. Add 20,000 words to my WIP novel
4. Write 30,000 words for National Novel Writing Month 2022
5. Break in all my Dr Marten shoes properly
6. Get a new job
7. Learn to drive
8. Get a new car
9. Sew a garment
10. Learn how to crochet
11. Learn how to cross stitch
12. Read 100 books
13. Watch 100 films
14. Go to the cinema 5 times
15. Go to Longleat Safari Park
16. See a show on stage

Yet another successful year as you can see! So we ended up with a new car at the end of July. The old one, a Nissan Micra, broke down fatally while we were en-route to go shopping in June (I totally looked back at Facebook and Twitter for the dates LOL!). It started to slow down, the gears went funny and then we pulled over and it wouldn't restart. A policeman wanting to do speed checks pushed us into the car park of a shut down pub. We waited 4 hours for the RAC in the heat, I got sunburn just sitting in the car. It turned out to be the timing wheel. We looked for a new one but in the meantime I was walking to work in the height of summer, ugh. It could have been worse though, the day after the actual breakdown we'd planned to go to the cinema to see the latest Jurassic World film, a breakdown on the motorway would have been hell!

We eventually found a new car within our meagre budget, a Citroen C1. Where it had been sat around a while we needed to get a new battery straight away but it's OK, it prefers going fast to slow. The gears are a bit clunky and the left indicator has just started playing up but it's got it's MOT in a couple of weeks, a tad overdue, oops!

I ended up with a new job at the end of September. I left the old one on Tuesday 27th, started the new Thursday 29th! Things had deteriorated badly at my old job. I was accused of mishandling a donation, suspended, investigated, thought I was going to lose my job but kept it by the skin of my teeth. A lot of the issue was verbal information and an incorrect date given, I remembered the correct date, they found the details and all was good-ish. This was the beginning of September. My manager then sent through the latest rotas and we weren't scheduled to work together at all up until at least November (that's how far it went at that point). She'd also hired a Sunday Supervisor behind my back when our original plan was share the weekends as we'd been doing and get me an extra day a week. Then she started leaving loads of catty notes about the way I work so it was good timing that I left then.

My new job is slightly better but it's not one I want to stay at. Some days there's loads to do, others there's nothing and you end up tidying. Ugh. When I started they wanted me to stay away from the tills but now I have entire shifts covering the customer service desk. The training was abysmal, I'm only just figuring some parts out. Sometimes they moan when I'm not doing something quick enough but I'm helping customers and covering breaks in between doing whatever I'm doing. The foot pain that started in my last job is also getting worse so I end up limping around which isn't great.

Only one cinema trip this year :( Sing 2. We planned on seeing others but finances etc just never work out. I made it to 152 books read though so I'm proud of that. I can't remember the film number and officially there's still a few days of the year left but it is over 100. NaNo was a fail this year, I didn't even reach 5,000 words. I did absolutely no planning and a depressive funk made me wonder if I was even going to attempt at all.

Everything else was obviously finance and time related. And motivation, I've struggled mentally this year, I'm constantly in a low level of I don't care. Hopefully that might improve soon? Please?

Back Sunday with this year's resolutions! (Though I'll write it up now and then schedule it XD)

Stef Out x

Long Time No See... 2019 Resolutions Progress.

Hello. So the resolution for keeping up with this blog and reviews didn't exactly happen. 2019 was a bit of a crap year. It seems a bit of depression snuck in somewhere and life circumstances around April meant it really dug it's claws in. It still hasn't let go yet. I suppose some people might see a doctor about that sort of thing but I don't have time to wait around. Appointments at my doctor's surgery regularly run half an hour late although recently my mum was waiting about an hour so... I end up avoiding it when there's a small list of things I could do with talking to them about.

Another thing that hasn't helped in more recent months (mid October onwards) is that I got a new job. I'm now Assistant Manager for a local charity shop. It's fun but busy It's - currently - four days a week working 9 til 5, well half-5 by the time you've cashed up and gotten out of there. It's been a massive learning curve and it doesn't leave a lot of computer time. I am typing this on my laptop which is an option but it's big and heavy and awkward so I'd like to get a little Chromebook or something soon. Something light and fast! A Macbook would be the dream but considering they cost more than my monthly wage that's all it'll be, a dream. Even if I had the money an iPad Pro would be higher priority, mostly for Procreate, the drawing app, I follow artists online who use it and it looks epic!

Anyway resolutions. These were last years:

1. Lose at least two stone
2. Get at least one piercing
3. Get at least one tattoo
4. Learn to drive
5. Read 100 books
6. Watch 100 films
7. See at least 5 films at the cinema
8. Write at least 30,000 words for NaNoWriMo
9. Buy a tablet
10. Get a second dog
11. Find a new job
12. Draw more and improve my art

As you can see I did not do very well at all last year. If I recall I lost a bit of weight but not as much as I wanted to, one of those things that depression affected, like my concentration which is why I failed my reading goal. I thought I consistently read above 100 a year but checking back I've failed a few times, 2014 I read 97, 2017 was only 84, 2018 was 91 and last year, 2019, was 92. My best year overall since I started the challenge on Goodreads in 2012 was 2013 when I read 207 but that was due to re-reading my Animal Ark books before re-homing them. Concentration also affected NaNoWriMo, also with that one time was a factor, having only recently started my new job.

Speaking of the job as you know I was originally at Sainsbury's. I'd not been happy for a while but then a bunch of stuff went down in April which led to my mum losing her job which then left me feeling awkward and stressed and extra unhappy. I was planning on looking for something new soon anyway but then I was in the charity shop talking to the manager there who I used to work with at Sainsbury's and she said they had an Assistant Manager vacancy and I should apply, so I did and I ended up getting it!

Now... the dog... That was not great. We'd been looking into adopting a Greyhound since March and had filled out forms with Hounds First and Forever Hounds Trust, it was taking so long for anything to happen we later filled out one with Bath Cats and Dogs Home but later all they could offer was a Yorkshire Terrier, not going to work. We had a meet with a Greyhound from Hounds First but he was an older, slower chap so we didn't feel like it would work. Forever Hounds Trust kept on giving us the runaround but eventually we got told about Stacey, a Greyhound x Whippet. We went and saw her mid August and despite reservations we decided we'd take her home (not helped by the distance and horrible country roads to get to the centre) and renamed her Breeze. Things were difficult from the start. We had to buy her a slow feeder and stand between her and Forest to give him a chance to eat his food. She didn't understand toys, she blocked him from getting on either bed and he ended up sleeping in the kitchen which he'd never done before in his life! She was also a chewer, ate a pair of my shoes and put a hole in my towel. Her training was also non-existent, pulling strongly, barking at other dogs, couldn't walk in a straight line, she also had several accidents inside. Of course this was mostly stuff we could have worked with (except maybe the beds) but then she quickly started to get quite nippy with him and caused a couple of small injuries and so we decided after a few weeks that she needed to go back for his safety and hers if Forest decided to retaliate - being so much bigger and all). We have now decided if we're going to get another dog then another puppy is going to be the best plan for us personally. We need to know a dog's background, Breeze was a former stray so was always going to be a mystery.

The other goals as normal suffered from lack of money. Same old, same old.

Anyway this post is long enough that I will sign off and do 2020's goals in a new post.

Stef Out xx

Bookshop Girl by Chloe Coles

I am so sorry I haven't updated in a while. Work has been rather busy to say the least and all reviewing/blogging motivation went out of the window. Needless to say I now have a bit of a backlog to post... 11 including this one. Whoops! Oh well on to the review!

Ebook provided by NetGalley for review. Thank you.

Paige is awesome! I loved her go-getter attitude and her unwillingness to let things slide. Her friendship with Holly was fab, I loved the way they supported each other and even the one blip they had was minor.

I loved the characters in the life-drawing class, especially Sue, she was a hoot and a great support to the girls! It was obvious fairly quickly that Blaine was not a good guy but it was great seeing him get his comeuppance. My main criticism was that the book seemed very short.

Stef Out x

(Not so) Small Update-y Post

So just a little post between reviews to so a mini update. Work has been busy, I've been doing overtime almost every week, things have been starting to change staff-wise and routine-wise and not necessarily for the better. It sounds like things might get worse before they get better as well. I'd like to do something else but I haven't a clue what. I'm hoping to learn to drive over the summer so maybe that'll open things up a little bit more.

Things with the dog are busy as well, we ended up ordering him a crate this payday because he keeps eating the furniture while we're out, especially in the day, so it's now trying to get him used to that. I bought a new training book online last payday so we'll have to see how that goes, I just need to finish reading it first.

Photo of Forest to break things up :D

Onto the blog itself. As you may have noticed there's been a bit of a name change. With all the recent gun violence in the US 'bulletproof' felt a bit insensitive even if I did originally get it from a My Chemical Romance song. I did ask Twitter but no-one responded but it didn't matter because the new name came to me just as I was trying to go to sleep. Things are looking a bit bland at the moment because I need to make a new banner, I'm hoping to draw a little owl graphic for it when I get a chance. I haven't drawn anything since before Christmas so my drawing hand is a little rusty.

Now as for blog content as you may or may not have noticed that I've kind of abandoned my 'Song of the Week' feature. I must admit I didn't really think it through and I kind of ran out of ideas so I am going to drop it in that format. BUT I will still be doing a music feature, just not for a little while yet. I suddenly remembered the 100 Day Song Challenge, it was originally conceived on Facebook and apparently moved to it's own website here at some stage where it's up to 381 days. What I plan to do is write it out in a notebook and plot out what songs I'm going to do as far in advance as I can and then I will create the posts and then schedule them, probably for a Friday because I work all day Friday and don't go on the computer so nothing else will get in their way.

So that is my plan because I still want music to have some kind of feature on here. I will hopefully create a few wishlist posts here and there as well, not necessarily on a Wednesday though which seems to have become the norm.

Stef Out x

New Years Resolutions 2018

So I thought last year's resolution list of 22 was more manageable but I still only achieved 6 and a bit. The bit was to read 'A Song of Ice and Fire' and I did start it but I'm on book 3 part 1 so I've put on this year's list to finish the series. The one thing I failed that shocked me was that I didn't read my 100 books! That's something I do every year without fail. I guess puppies take up more time than you realise... So here goes:

1. Lose at least two stone.
2. Get at least one piercing.
3. Get at least one tattoo.
4. Refine my clothing style, focus more on quality pieces.
5. Learn to drive.
6. Buy a new car.
7. See at least one stage show.
8. Got to Longleat Safari Park.
9. Get a second dog.
10. Read 100 books.
11. Finish 'A Song of Ice and Fire' series.
12. Watch 100 films.
13. Watch at least 5 films at the cinema.
14. Complete NaNoWriMo.
15. Finish the first draft of a novel.
16. Learn to draw dogs.
17. Improve my equine anatomy.
18. Buy a tablet.
19. Buy an iPod Classic.
20. Find a new career.

The trickiest things are going to be seeing a stage show, that depends on if there's anything decent on. The annoying thing is Wicked is on from pretty much now until March but we don't have the money for tickets at the moment and if we get the money then they'll probably have sold out so we'll see what happens. Shrek is on later in the year so that's a possible, as is the Take That one they did the TV show for.

NaNo is always tricky (this time I burned out and only wrote about 9,000 words) but I have a different plan in mind for 2018. Google docs or something similar on a tablet with a keyboard case. Hopefully that combination will fix the problems I have with speed and portability/ease. I can type faster than hand-writing but my laptop is a bit big and clunky to be bothered with and slower to start up whereas tablets are pretty much instant.

The other troublesome one is likely to be finding a new career. The thing is I'm starting to hate my job more and more. Retail is killing my soul and I don't know how much longer I can stick it. I'm 27 for Christ's sake this is not where I saw my life being, the thing is I've never had any clear idea of what I want to do. The only possible thing I did think of recently was dog grooming but I don't know if the market is too saturated where I live, are there too many? Are there any jobs? I need to research what's available locally in general - next town over is also possible once I learn to drive - and then see if there's anything that will suit me aka not retail, cleaning, office or reception (I struggle with telephones and 'perky face') that doesn't require masses of expensive training.

I'm shocked that I haven't already learned to draw dogs anyway but this year an idea for a project came to me themed around dogs, and then my brain literally just spoke and said why not do a series and include cats and horses too so that'll keep me busy for a few years hypothetically. Equine anatomy always needs improving in my art, I want dynamic, realistic poses!

I know an iPod Classic is an odd thing to want especially as Apple don't even make them any more but the storage size has always appealed to me. I debated just putting a super large SD card in my phone since my Nano died but the music app on my HTC phone is crap and some songs that I know are on the SD card just won't show up in my library which is weird. I even downloaded a music player thing from the app store and even that's not showing them. I don't get it.

I've already lost some weight but recent health crap at the doctors means that losing some more would be a good idea, also I want more freedom of clothing. I don't want to cross-examine a top or dress and debate whether or not it's going to fit me. I also want to buy more things that suit my rainbow goth style. As for piercings and tattoos they're a constant that keep getting pushed each year. Although saying that I did get a tattoo last year, even if it was only because a friend of mine is an apprentice and was doing them for free, I still love it anyway. It's a mandala style moon on my right shin.

Oh something I didn't put on my resolutions list but want to do is figure out a direction for this here blog. I'm thinking maybe more of a book/film review type thing with occasional writing bits thrown in. I originally started it with the intentions of it being a fashion blog but most of the time I'm in a t-shirt and skinny jeans or jogging bottoms because of walking the dog. I did try and take an outfit photo with my new camera a while back but I couldn't get everything in focus so I'm not sure how people who do it solo manage...

Anyway I've written enough for one day so I will leave it there for now.

Stef Out x

A Small Update Part 1

Long time no write. Things have happened. The biggest thing is that our cat Tigger died 30th January. He was about 10 or 11 years old (potentially older as he started life as a stray. The cause was probably heart failure since my Aunt told us he had a murmur. Mum got up and was getting ready when she noticed he hadn't moved and he was gone. We called my Aunt later and she collected his body and did whatever. These are a couple of the last photos I took of him. RIP furry buddy.

Work is alright. It's work. I just got my hours increased from 16 to 20. It means I'm now working all weekend every weekend (the new shift is Saturday evening and I was already doing Sundays) but the extra money each payday is worth it. My older, female supervisor is still a bitch but you can't have it all be good. One thing that's improved is that the young guy supervisor is now doing the schedules, hence why I was able to finally get the extra hours. I'd basically been asking since not long after starting over a year ago - 16 was never really enough.

Another good change is the actual checkout manager/main supervisor. Just before Christmas I think a woman came in claiming to be permanent and it turned out she wasn't which was a good thing since she was bringing in changes that made no sense (like we had to sweep under the tills when finishing - with what brush? And claiming we'd be off the till 5 minutes before finishing so we can clean - 10 minutes late is more normal). The main thing that pissed me off was her attitude during an absence hearing I had (oh yeah where I work you can be penalised for being off ill - verbal, written, potentially final warnings), she could (and in my opinion should) have let it go but she didn't and gave me a written warning so I was in a position to potentially lose my bit of the workplace bonus if we get it - which is unfair in my opinion, and said my attendance needed to be worked on. Oh all this is about 4 absences in a year, 2 of which were basically connected and all months apart, Jan, Feb, July, Jan. So I appealed it and it was rolled back to verbal which stays on file til mid August. So I really can't be ill again. But of course it's not like you can control being ill. Heck the July one wasn't even illness, I did something to my back and could barely move, walk, anything, even when I went back to work it was a struggle for a while and there was lingering pain for ages. Mum even had to help me dress for a doctors appointment, which I was lucky I could afford the resultant prescription since it was mid month and I rarely have money left at that stage.

So after claiming to be permanent she left in February I think and a bloke took over. He's alright. Doesn't say much but that's better than interfering too much. Originally he claimed he was going to be permanent but apparently he's changed his mind and is leaving soon. Going to a store nearer where he lives I think.

I was going to do more but I think I'll leave it here and do a Part 2 in a moment to be published tomorrow - don't want to bombard you. I actually kinda forgot about this blog for a little while but then I had the urge to do a redesign the other day with a better quality background (and some hidden CSS from Google that makes it stay still). I then adjusted the widths a bit which meant I needed a new header image and then today I managed to work out finally editing the about me bit. The old one was just a bit rubbish.

Stef Out x

National Novel Writing Month 2016

So I'm sure a lot of people reading this (if anyone reads this that is XD) have heard of National Novel Writing Month or NaNoWriMo as it's commonly abbreviated which is the aim to write a 50,000 word novel during the month of November. I've tried a few times, the site has me registered as a member for almost 7 years, but as for attempts I only have obvious evidence for 2013, 2015 and this year since they're the only ones that have been typed up.

In the past I've only owned a desktop computer so I've had to attempt to hand write my novel and then type it up to get an accurate word count. Needless to say that hasn't been an overwhelming success. In fact in 2013 I only achieved 8,365 and 2015 was even worse at 1,020. I don't think it helps that I usually 'pants' it aka flying by the seat of your pants aka writing whatever comes.

This year a few things changed. I had an unexpected tax refund. Well I say unexpected but I knew I'd paid too much tax a couple of years back and it was something I kept meaning to sort out but never got around to it and in the end the sent it before I got a chance. So I decided to spend some of it on something I'd wanted for ages to help with my writing - a laptop!
               
I got an Acer Aspire ES 15 since it was on offer at Argos (bigger hard drive than the one I'd originally picked). It can be sluggish if you have a lot of browser windows open for some reason. It doesn't bother me too much though. The first photo is it wearing it's lovely sticker from Amazon. The owl case in the second picture is also from Amazon - it has handles. :)

So back to NaNoWriMo the laptop made things much much faster and less hand crampy. I ended up having to miss a fair few days thanks to work, I just checked and it looks like I missed 7 days completely although there was also one day I only wrote 100 or so words so I'm not sure how much that counts LOL. Regarding work I have some awkward shifts like 2pm-7pm which when you get up doesn't give masses of time for writing nor when you get home. I also did about 4 or 5 Saturdays overtime over November all 2pm-6pm so again not masses of time. Really for me - a retail worker - October would be the better month for NaNoWriMo, although saying that I did do a lot of overtime in October this year including working every single day of the half-term week. Great fun.

So what was/is my novel about and how many words did I write in the end? The working title is 'Healing Hayden' but I don't know how well it fits because even though Hayden goes through the most trauma he's not the only character. The other main is his identical twin brother Jasper. Both have their secrets but while Jasper is generally happy with himself and just needs to figure out timing, Hayden is very unhappy with himself, not helped by bullying at school and later a serious assault. He does figure things out eventually but I'm not at that point yet. Currently he's in hospital following the assault. And as of last night my word count is 29,534 words. My aim was to get to the 30,000 mark but I was a little blocked and it was getting late so I called it a night.

Overall although I didn't make the 50,000 words I'm incredibly proud of myself because 29,534 is the most I've ever written for one story and I think it's a story with potential. My main worry regarding eventual publication would be the assault scene - it's pretty graphic... Eh, I'll cross that bridge if I come to it.

Stef Out xx

Pre-Update Update.

I will do a proper update maybe Monday with New Year's Resolutions etc but for now I thought I'd do a quick bullet pointed list of recent stuff:

• Bought some skinny jeans from Simply Be - the Lucy's - they fit perfect.
• Bought a basic black satchel from Zatchels - full review to come when I can be arsed to take photos.
• Changed job at the tail-end of November - I've now been at Sainsbury's for 5 weeks. It's a much better atmosphere, the full story will come in a separate post.
• My aunt blackmailed us into taking on another cat. His name is Tigger and he's a 9 year old tabby.
• I finally got my provisional license last year, now for driving lessons... Eventually.
• I failed my 2015 Goodreads book goal. I only did 125 of 150. I did beat my resolutions goal of at least 100 though. This year because of some longer books in my goals both are 100.
• I currently have a horrendous cold and I almost lost my voice.

Thoughts on 'Lady'

So my job is a retail assistant which means I get called a lady quite a lot e.g. mothers to their kids "give your toy to the lady" and for some reason it makes me feel uncomfortable.

I am a cis woman - for those who don't know cis or cisgender is when a person identifies with the sex they were born, I was born female and I identify as female. Someone who doesn't may be Trans*, Genderqueer, Agender or any other variation. At least I 99% identify as cis, some days I feel a bit more masculine or fluid but on the whole I am woman hear me roar (but not really because roaring in public sounds terrifying).

I think part of the problem is that I feel too young to be a lady, the usual term is old lady. It's also to fancy. It also to me sounds a little sexist and condescending i.e. "hey, little lady" usually said by some vaguely pervy looking geezer in old movies.

One way to get round this is for people to use my name but I HATE that because the ones who do use it are always way too familiar and "do I know you?" about it.

I have the same akwardness around pet names. Babe - never, Love - depends who it is and how it's said, Hun - maybe from young females it sounds more matey then, Pet - quite sweet especially from older people.

So in summary I don't much like being called a lady but I don't have much clue as to any alternatives.

P.S. Book reviews may be becoming more regular as I seem to have a format that works. I probably won't review every book I read as it will rather overwhelm this blog.

Christmas and Life Lately

This is going to be a long post so bear with me...

So things lately have been pretty busy. At the beginning of December I got a Christmas job at my local 99p Store, I'm still there so hopefully it's becoming permanent so I can drop the school cleaning. The hours are better, therefore equaling more money. The main downside is my boss. I just don't like him. He's been having a tough time lately in his personal life but that's no excuse for being a patronising git. Today for example I was expected to do about 7 jobs at once: put out 3 boxes of umbrellas, rearrange the batteries (didn't finish), put out filter tips (didn't even start), put up a stand for EE sim cards, move the anti-freeze, restock the deicer on the tills and serve customers in between. Phew. At least it wasn't as manic as it has been. December 22nd, 23rd and 24th I work 8am to 5pm (5:30pm for the close on the 24th) and it was so busy, especially Christmas Eve! I was absolutely knackered every day, starting to fall asleep on the sofa at 9pm. Insane. I have never done days that long in my life. The only thing that may come close is college on a late finish day when I've missed the bus but even then, over an hour each side is the bus journey which is just relaxing and reading, maybe having a light doze.

Mum's not been doing great. She's being made redundant in February when the Co-op where she works is closing down. They've been bought by Aldi but for anyone thinking she can just get a job there, wrong. They aren't planning on opening until November. Apparently if they re-open within 6 months then they have to take on the previous staff. The manager hasn't told the staff but a lot of customers are saying that they're taking over the Costcutter at the top of the hill, but then again the customers knew the shop was closing months before they told the staff. Yeah, slightly crap.

We've been having a bit of a nightmare with the Christmas decorations this year. It's always a nightmare thanks to Artex ceilings but this year more than usual. We've tried double-sided carpet tape, blu-tack (in white), the normal double sided sticky pads (must have been a bad patch), pins and wire holding tacks.

These things.

Nothing has worked and they keep falling down. There wasn't time this year but we're going to try and find some white duct tape for next year. I was going to take pictures of everything but none stayed up long enough so here's some photos from Christmas 2012:

The living room ceiling. Pretty much the same this year.

The TV in the living room, has changed for this year.

The cupboard by my desk - just visible cat treats - has changed slightly this year.

The hallway, pretty much the same this year. Excuse my reflection in my ratty old nightie.

The door phone with my owl picture. Pretty similar I think.

The cat picture, also pretty similar I think.

Our Merry Christmas sign, again pretty similar.

The reason I'm saying things are similar is because those cards stuck round things aren't necessarily in the same place each year.

Our Christmas tree this year :)

My presents this year, not shown are a bar of chocolate and some money from my aunt. The money we used for Polar Bear King, Transformers: Age of Extinction and Divergent. Polar Bear King we started watching, realised it was cheesy crap - the transformation sequence was a guy in a very bad costume - and returned it the next day. The bottom three and the book: The Shining, Two Bits and Pepper (horse film) and Gnomeo and Juliet were all from a charity shop. Harry Potter I already have but I think my copy is knackered since it didn't play properly on two different DVD players and was starting to go funny on the third when it finished. The owl hook is a set of three, two that colour, two with the foot colour as the main one. That, the two eyeliners and two of the nail varnishes were from Avon. The third one was a Glamour magazine freebie that mum decided to wrap up after accidentally duplicating the magazine.

My snowman cake that mum bought at the Co-op :D it was supposed to be for both of us but mum found the icing a bit sickly whereas I love icing! 

Scottie dog tin of shortbread from Sainsbury's! It says Scottie but I say it looks more like a Westie to me. The tin says the shortbread are Scottie shaped too but we haven't opened them yet.

Recent Outfits

Not an outfit but these were my nails before the Halloween ones. A white base from Maybelline (pictured) with a purple metallic crackle from Avon.

I wore this when we went to look at a new car. Can't remember off the top of my head where my dress is from originally but I bought it from Oxfam. It's a nice stretchy size 18. I can wear it without the jumper but mostly I prefer not to. The jumper is a men's one originally from M&S but bought from PDSA. My mum had to shorten the sleeves as they were rather long. Necklace is a cheap owl one from Amazon.

I wore this Wednesday to visit the new Portishead Sainsbury's. It's very smart and new, I got flowers for being the first female customer (not technically but I don't think the woman had the chance to give them to anyone else). There was also glasses of fizzy orange juice - potentially alcoholic - and they were giving out free bags designed by a kid at the primary school I work at which was quite nice. We did do some shopping, their hot chocolate is delicious. Bigger packets than Tesco, cheaper and Fairtrade so I think we'll switch to buying there :D Other than that it'll probably be mostly top-up shopping if we go to their petrol station. If we're in Clevedon we go to Morrisons garage so it'll all depend on where we are or where we need to be when we need petrol.

One thing that annoyed me was that I applied for a job there numerous times, even went to an interview organised by the job centre and yet I saw people there that I don't understand how they got the job. One woman's only previous work experience is as a cleaner yet she was working the tills. A man who also had his interview arranged by the job centre who - from what I've seen before - has anger issues and I'm not sure if he's worked before and possibly has issues with learning. It certainly frustrates me but I think the biggest issue is Sainsbury's online application. Last 2 jobs, most recent education, references, and then a scenario questionnaire. It isn't complete enough to get a full picture of you and your history.

Top is from PDSA (can't remember where originally), skirt is the same and trainers were from Shoe Zone.

I wore this Saturday when we went to pick up the new car :) It's a silver 2004 Ford Mondeo. It is perfect! Mum loves it, she doesn't love parking it yet XD it's rather large. Dress is from Pink Clove, shirt is from New Look via PDSA, leggings are Lidl - they're comfy but starting to wear a little thin around the seams. Trainers are Converse.

I wore this when we went to visit a family friend in Clevedon. She's been mum's best friend since they were at secondary school and she's my Godmother. We don't get to see her much because she works Mon-Sat and mum's usually working Sunday's but this Sunday mum's week off work had just started so we popped up for a chat and show her the new car. Shirt is same as yesterday, trousers are Evans via PDSA.

I wore this Tuesday (yesterday) to go shopping in Clevedon. We did a stock-up of stuff for the freezer. We're trying to have a bit more organisation and variety in what meals we have. Sorry about the quality of the photo, it was rather dark thanks to the rain outside. Top is from Evans, jeans are from an old catalogue and boots (barely visible) are from TUK.

I was back at work yesterday and I'm already kinda exhausted. Although that may be more to do with the fact that I've got a cold. Ugh. I did think it was allergies at first but I had a sore throat and a cough which don't usually go with my allergy attacks. They're usually 24-48 hours of sneezing and runny nose which comes and goes super fast.

Blogtober Day 29 - Year In Review So Far.

So far this year has been like any other with a noticeable exception. I'll do a timeline sort of thing.

January: I had been volunteering at Oxfam with mum since November and it was fine. She had been ordered by the job centre to find voluntary work, I happened to be there and got suckered into joining too. We did Saturday afternoons. The normal job centre hassles.
February: Still at Oxfam. Did a course which I hated. The tutor said some rather out of line things regarding my weight, how close I am to mum and making assumptions about my mental health.
March: Mum got her job at Co-op so we both left Oxfam. I had to do organised work experience with the job centre so I started volunteering as Sue Ryder.
April: The car failed it's MOT so we had to scrap it.
May: Nothing of note that I can remember. Interviews, job centre hassle. The usual.
June: Did a course on Business Admin. It involved an interview at the end but despite the assumption of a lot of people on the course not having previous experience lack of experience was given as one of their reasons for not hiring me. I didn't mind too much as it was zero hours contract as and when you're needed and thanks to travel I was pretty much limited to two locations.
July: Left Sue Ryder. Someone mum knows sold us a car.
August: I had my 24th birthday. The job centre started talking about threats of full-time work experience at a city farm in Bristol.which I really enjoyerd.
September: I had a taster shift at Waitrose for something called Feeding Britain's Future which I really enjoyed, seeing behind the scenes etc. My job centre adviser thought it was a proper job interview though *rollseyes*. He did get me an interview with Churchill Cleaning Services which has lead to my job at the primary school down the road. The people I work with are nice and the job itself is fine, it's just 10 hours is not enough.
October: Nothing major so far this month. I am in the process of arranging an interview for later this week and I'm currently on half term so no work. There are a couple of other things in the works which I don't want to discuss in too much detail yet.

There we have it, my year so far. Started the same as any other, voluntary work, worry that things will never change, but now I have a job and things are starting to look up a bit - finally! :D

Giveaway Promontion + Small Update

The main purpose of this post is to promote Messy Carla's giveaway to win Asos vouchers http://messycarla.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/giveaway-win-asos-vouchers-uk-only.html#comment-form by linking it here I get extra entries and I really want to win :)

I could do with some cheering up. Mum did lose her job so she's signing on now. She's gonna ring someone and maybe write a letter to appeal it as she feels she was unfairly dismissed. She needn't have lost her job since another guy told a customer to fuck off and he kept his job. It doesn't tally.

Perhaps understandably I didn't get my job there but I am going to reapply in a few weeks to a couple of months. I kind of really want the job now just to piss them off. Get rid of mum, get me instead, you ain't getting rid of this family.

Other than that things have been quiet around here. I've been applying for stuff (well one thing if I'm really honest). It's just being bothered. It's been so dismal lately I've been feeling a bit down. The weather looks like it might be improving though, it's sunny today but still cold and apparently it's gonna get warmer next week so that'll be good.

Stef out xx

Bit of a Mess

So everything is a bit of a mess at the moment. As you may probably not know I've been unemployed for almost three and a half years with intermittent voluntary work between, I've been volunteering at the local PDSA charity shop for nearly two years now and before that I was at the Oxfam hub where they upload stuff onto here http://www.oxfam.org.uk/shop for four months.

Anyway recently I decided to finally bite the bullet and apply to McDonalds. A place I have previously been dead set against working (I'm not the biggest fan of fast food, I prefer simple stuff) but my mum works there and seems to enjoy and a friend we have is a manager there and I feel like I'm missing out on interesting stuff so I applied. Wednesday the 20th I had an interview. From what Hattie (our friend) said interviews our usually with the main manager Andy or a shift manager and usually take about an hour and involve some test work on front counter or window 2. Instead I was in with a very unprepared shift manager for about 5 minutes. He said my requirement of working days was unrealistic and I needed to be available 5am to close or there was no point continuing, he made me feel uncomfortable and like I was a nuisance and an inconvenience and that I'll need to come in sometime for a second interview with Andy.

So I wasn't feeling hopeful in the first place but then Friday happened. It's the start of the Easter holidays so it's busy and there are a lot of kids in. A group of teenage boys were being messy, rude and noisy so mum had them kicked out. Obviously they were pissed so they were making comments on their way and mum gave into her inner teenager and gave them the finger. They sniggered but one obviously went home and told his mummy who reported mum and of course she'd been caught on camera and now she's been suspended (paid thankfully) and has to go to a meeting Monday at 11am. The problem is mum is saying she'd rather get sacked than apologise, plus this is likely to impact negatively on my job application and mum works in the same general industry as me (retail) and if we both apply for the same job she's more likely to get it thanks to more experience and a general bubblier personality.

I just think it's incredibly unfair that she'd do something like this and not think about the consequences to her job or me. She just doesn't appear to give a shit that I want no need a job. Preferably this one so I can tell the job centre to fuck off. Or if I hate it I just need to stick it out until Sainsbury's opens - although that's not likely to be until next year.

So yeah feeling a bit crap at the moment.

EDIT: Feeling a bit more hopeful as mum told me that two other members of staff were suspended fairly recently, one for suspected theft, the other for something relating to a customer and they both got off. It's still not certain though as they aren't that fond of mum due to arguments over hours, balloons (mum is globophobic) and name badges... We'll see. I'll try and remember to update when I know more.