Work has been busy! For the last few weeks it feels like I've spent far too much time at my desk. A fellow freelancer and I were working on several projects together and as he was off on holiday on the 12th we had a lot of work to get done in a short space of time. But we did it, and with a little time to spare.

It does feel good to be really busy, but I was already busy doing other things outside of work and something had to give. So I was unable to make a number of things I'd planned to make for a Cake & Craft stall I was helping with this week.



We had our first Christmas Cake & Craft stall a few weeks ago, which went really well, and I'd hoped to create some extra handmade Christmas cards, and knitted tree penguins before our second sale this week, but as work was busy I had to make do with what I could squeeze into the evenings. Which wasn't a great deal.



Nonetheless we still had lots to sell, and had another successful day. Over the two sales we raised £1,850 for the radiotherapy department at our local hospital. These have been our most successful sales to date, and I think this is partly to do with having invested in a nifty little machine so we could take card payments. People seem to spend more when they don't have to hand over cold hard cash, which is all the better when fundraising.

I did find time in the week to pop into the village, I needed to go to the Post Office to send off several ebay parcels, which was a nice little boost to my Christmas fund, and I stopped in at my local Sue Ryder shop whilst there.

I'm not meant to be buying anymore books but got more than a little bit tempted!



I justified my purchases by telling myself that a) I'd have enough time to read One Day in December before the month was up (time will tell), b) Domenica De Rosa also writes under the name of Elly Griffiths and I've read a few of her books recently, so I needed to read this too, c) Summer at Skylark Farm was one in a series I'm reading (albeit in completely the wrong order), d) the cover of Old Baggage was too beautiful not to buy, and e) I've seen Normal People all over my Instagram feed with rave reviews, so clearly this is a book I need to read. I really am beyond help when it comes to my book addiction.



I'm now looking forward to the pace of life slowing a little, and hope to have a relaxing weekend, before the Christmas chaos sets in. With lives getting busy at this time of year I was unable to book a table to go out to dinner with friends this month to celebrate a birthday. So, we've opted to wait until the new year, it'll be something to look forward too. I always find January to be a long and uneventful month.

With a little luck we'll get our Christmas tree on Saturday, and I can spend several hours getting the decorations to look just right. I might even watch The Holiday whilst I do so.

I hope you've had a good week, and have a lovely weekend.

It seems strange to be taking about winter when it already feels like a dim and distant memory. When I think of winter I think of Christmas and freezing cold temperatures, both of which feel like they happened months ago.

Anyway, here's how I got on with my winter to-do list.

Sort the bedroom after redecorating
Aim: Declutter

I'm ready to go on record and say that moving everything out of this room was an excellent idea! I've been taking my time putting everything back - furniture, clothes, ornaments, you name it. It means that everything that has been put back into the room is there because it either needs to be or because I want it. Everything else has either been donated to charity, been given a home in another room, or has been boxed up awaiting a carboot sale / ebay sale.

I still want to paint my shoe shelf white to match the interior of my wardrobe, stain the mirror frame, and to finally paint my chest of drawers after spilling nail polish remover down the front about six years ago. I've decided that these are jobs for warmer weather as I'll be doing them in the shed (yes, I could've taken advantage of the unseasonably warm spell we had in February but by the time the thought had occurred to me the temperature had dropped and it had started raining again).

So, whilst I haven't finished the bedroom transformation completely I am pleased with progress, it's been worth taking my time over.


When, and only when, the bedroom is finished, complete little DIY tasks in the downstairs toilet
Aim: Focus on one thing at a time

I might not be actively doing anything to tick off these tasks (because the bedroom isn't finished), but I am making mental plans. I've chosen a frame for a print I want to hang, and picked out a towel rail and toilet roll holder, and lined up a handyman (aka my Dad) to fit them. I've also come up with a plan for window dressing. Living in the country means curtains aren't a necessity but I think it'll finish the room nicely, but it's a hand sewing project that might take a little while.


Get listing on ebay, at least 3 items a week
Aim: Declutter

Not a single thing was listed. I've put it on my spring to-do list and decided to spend a morning next week listing as much as possible.


Start and finish the embroidery kit I purchased months ago
Aim: Focus on one thing at a time

I didn't even look at it. I was focusing on knitting for the craft sale we've got coming up this month. Perhaps once that is out of the way I can take a break from knitting and turn my attention to embroidery instead?


Do a 30 day yoga challenge
Aim: Take better care of myself

I started and got to day 3 before I got frustrated. The yoga instructor spent a lot of time talking and I wanted a little more action. Instead I've been dipping in and out of a few of my favourite YouTube sequences when the mood strikes. The photo is Tink helping me with Viparita Karani (legs up the wall). I'd like to make it a daily occurrence but maybe I need to work up to it, finding ways to fit it into daily life, around schedules, until it becomes habit.


Mend my green skirt so I can add it to my spring capsule
Aim: Reduce the mend pile

Done! It's lovely to have it back in working order again.


Design a new logo and website for work in time for the new financial year
Aim: Stop faffing

The logo is designed and was revealed to my clients and work related social media followers this week. A new website is in the planning stages.


Now spring has my full attention. What are your plans for the season?

I hadn't planned on being frugal this month but thanks to a post Christmas credit card bill that needs my attention, and a seasonal slump in invoicing, I need to be super careful with my pennies for a while.

I really enjoy being self employed but it means I can't rely on a set monthly wage. I don't want to dip into my savings, and whilst I can always lean on my husband if I'm strapped for cash, I find that my independent streak doesn't allow me to ask for handouts, not even from him. That said, if he offers to take me out to dinner I won't be saying 'no'.

It doesn't hurt to tighten my belt once in a while, and practice being a little frugal.

My monthly bills are covered, it's just the disposable cash that's limited this month. I've pushed my allergy follow up appointment and my next haircut to March, and I plan to spend the rest of the month doing things that cost nothing.

Reading will be my saviour. I've well and truly found my reading groove this year, so a lot of my free time will be spent with my nose in a book.

My to-do list is a mix of things that will cost me money, and things that won't. I have plenty of the latter to keep my occupied. I'll be setting about my mending pile, completing all those little repairs and alterations that I've been meaning to do for ages. And there are some small DIY projects that could fill some time.

Weather depending I might have a car boot sale, if I can't spend money I might as well try and earn a little extra.

Of course there is always the de-cluttering that seems to be never ending, and invariably there is always some housework that can be done. It might not be an exciting way to spend time, but it does feel great to have a really good deep clean.

I could do some needle felting, or crochet. I can wander the in the woods, or drive to the coast and take a walk along the beach. I'm sure I can stretch my budget to a bag of hot salty chips.

One thing I've already done to help my pennies go further this month is to write a meal plan using up everything in my freezer and pantry.

How do you spend time without spending money? What do you do to make your money go a little further?

Dear Blogger, it's been one month and one day since my last post. Work has been all consuming recently and so March managed to slip by without me really noticing. Even on the first sunny day of the year I was at my desk, trying to tick off tasks on my to-do list faster than I was adding them.

It would be nice to have a few days that are entirely my own sometime soon. A few weekends ago I ran my first clothes swap of the year. It was great fun but it's a lot of work and my house is still peppered with bags of clothes waiting to be sorted for the next one in June. Other than that I've been working the weekends, with the exception of last weekend when my hand was too sore to do anything.

I was attacked by a cat. Not one of mine, but a large black tom that has been hanging around and fighting with Socks and Tink. Friday night they'd both been chased in through the cat flap. The tom doesn't come in, or even try to, but he sits outside growling and it really upsets my cats (and me) so, without thinking, I stuck my hand out of the cat flap to shoo him away. Only he didn't go anywhere, he grabbed onto my hand, digging in with claws and teeth, and sat perfectly still, growling, leaving me with my hand stuck out the cat flap with a cat attached to the end of it. It makes me chuckle to think of it now, what a ridiculous position to put yourself in, but at the time it was a bit of a shock.

Tink, who had been sitting in the kitchen doorway came running over, fur puffed up, growling and yowling and making all sorts of noises that I had no idea she was capable of making and at a volume I found rather shocking. With this, the tom let go and as soon as he did, Tink stopped. How's that for a cat bodyguard? Yup, Tink's got my back.

After A&E on a Friday night and not getting home until 4:30am, Saturday was a write off and Sunday my hand was still too sore and swollen to hold my mouse, so work was out of the question. It was very frustrating not being able to work when I had so much to do, so I busied myself with some left handed housework, with varying degrees of success. The upside was that Andy took to cooking for most of last week. My hand is on the mend, I still can't grip very well but it is getting better.

I've been finding a little time here and there to add to my new obsession, my patchwork quilt. Although this past week I haven't found the time to pick it up once. Today I wanted to quilt and do very little else, but my hand isn't quite up to sewing just yet. I've managed one full hexagon flower and that's it. I'm doing a Sunday patchwork quilt update on Instagram, so you can follow my progress, y'know, if you like... The cats seem to love it, every time I lay it flat one, or both of them stretch out on it.

Isn't the year flying by? February went by in a flash too. I didn't really notice that my Frugal February 'essential spending only' rule had actually begun before it was all over. It went pretty well, my meal planning helped to cut down my grocery bills and I stayed away from town (charity shops) and ignored my desire to go internet shopping (eBay). The awful weather helped too by making me want to stay tucked up at home. Nothing says 'stay at home' like the driving rain!

My Wearing It All Again wardrobe challenge sort of, well, stopped. I have to admit on my busiest days I didn't even get dressed. But, I've been slowly sorting out loads of things for a blog sale (when I get the time to photograph it all), and have promised myself that I will wear my favourite outfits more often... And to get dressed everyday, it's so easy not to when you have nowhere you need to be.

At the beginning of March I visited a local wedding venue, Easton Grange - not that I'm getting married - I was asked along to go along to an open day and to write a post. Which I will do soon, it was a gorgeous place! Andy went pale when I showed him the brochure and he received more than a few not-so-subtle hints about getting hitched, and more specifically, getting hitched there. It was really, really beautiful. And thanks to Sophie for putting them in touch with me x

So, that was March. April is shaping up to be a good one, how's yours going?
Love

This month I decided to share my new favourite place for Sophie's Show and Tell. My new office. I started to decorate in June and only moved in and started working in it a few weeks ago. There were many stops and starts, with interruptions and loss of enthusiasm. The prep work took such a long time and that's the bit I really don't enjoy so to start with it felt like a long, boring slog.



But once the paint was on the walls and the stain on the floor I got to do the bit I love - filling it with loveliness!

I'd been pinning inspiration for ages and I've still got some things left to do but the main thing is I'm in and I love it. Even Mr WOJ said 'it's nice in here, isn't it' - believe me that's glowing praise!

I received the rug I'd hinted about for my birthday (is sending a direct link to someone considered a hint?), it seems to be a blogger favourite as I've seen it on many blogs and Instagram feeds, but I love it and think it work perfectly in here.


I used the shelves I already had and my desk used to be our kitchen table, but I jazzed up the legs a bit. The Eames style chair used to live in my bedroom - it was the home of mounds of clothes, which now live on the floor, but I had always intended to use it at my desk. My cats seem to like it, every time I get up and leave the room I return to find one of them curled up on it.


The curtains and curtain pole were kindly sent to me by Dunelm - a place I have been known to shop once or twice... ahem! I wanted a neutral base to build upon so these voile panels were perfect!


This chest of drawers was here when we moved in, it's nothing special and I'd like to replace it with a sideboard at some point but it's the perfect place for my printer and offers some much needed storage. I have to put this basket of bits and pieces on top other wise this happens...


The chair is one I've had since I was a baby, it's an old school chair that my Dad painted pale pink for me. My brother had one in blue. When I was at college I decided to strip off the paint and varnish it, which is a shame really as by now it would be wonderfully battered and aged.


The mirror belonged to Mr Woj's Grandma, it's easily the oldest thing in the room and I love that I can have it in here. Eventually I'll hang it above the ficus plant and think of her when I look into it.


I also want to create a picture gallery on the wall behind my computer. I have collected a few bits and pieces to go up but need a few more - almost anything from here would do just fine.

The shelves and surfaces are looking a little sparse but I like the idea of finding bits and pieces to make it cosy and personal. I have the essentials covered though - pen pots, a place for business cards and a good diary to keep track of everything (with which the iPhone also helps).


I don't really want to put anything on my top shelf though because... how cute it this?


I'd like another chair in here and a non office looking filing cabinet to keep all the papers and officey stuff out of sight but that will happen in time. I'm also planning to make a clock and a waste paper bin, I just need to find a few spare minutes...

Linking up with Sophie's (final *sob*) Show and Tell Photographic Challenge.

So far the great wardrobe sort out hasn't gone very well. I take everything out, and then put it back again, I've done this three times now. Progress is slow.

I had a good look through the mend pile and discarded most of it, I figured if I haven't felt the need to mend it since moving nearly two years ago, it wasn't ever going to happen.

The shoe realisation helped create some space but I still need more room, especially as I also have suitcase full of summer clothes under my bed. I suppose I can thank the British summer for saving me the task of finding a home for all that. Yet. (I live in hope).

I'm also finding that I wear fewer and fewer of my clothes these days. Working from home often finds me pulling on jeans and a top, knowing that I'm not going to be going out or seeing anyone (man, that sounds creepy). It's not that I don't care what I look like but more that I don't want to waste a great outfit on a nondescript day. Am I the only one...?

Anyway, I'm wondering if it's cheating to just buy a second wardrobe and keep all my dresses in my new office instead? Divide and conquer. Mr Joy has promised me wardrobe doors, and when they're fitted I'm going to need to be able to close them.

When we moved into our home nearly two years ago, every single room needed to be redecorated - the enormity of the task we had ahead was a touch overwhelming! Since then we've decorated most rooms and are now putting some finishing touches into place, but we still have a lot to do.

I thought that choosing curtains for our lounge and dining room was going to be a nightmare. Having discovered that Mr Joy didn't like curtains (or carpets, or kitchen bins for that matter), I was mentally ready for a battle of the soft furnishing kind.

I wanted to go to Dunelm, I shop there A LOT, but it took me months - MONTHS!! - to persuade Mr Joy to come with me to choose curtains. In the end it was the Christmas sale with an extra 20% off that finally got him there.

Not only did we select curtains that we both liked within a reasonable amount of time, we also got curtain poles. Again Mr Joy was 'not a fan' but when he saw that they were over half the price of some he purchased earlier in the year, he suddenly started to like the place.

So-much-so that a few days later we returned, at his suggestion *faints*, to buy curtains for our bedroom (we came home with matching bedding too). So, after 18 months of no window dressing what-so-ever we had curtains for seven windows within the space of a few sleeps!

I mentioned in a previous post that I wanted to turn my spare room into an office. Luckily, I've been given free reign so I can avoid the usual 'do you like this one, more than you like that one' type conversations and just get on with it!

This is the only room upstairs that we haven't touched, we've simply filled it with stuff and closed the door. I'm currently sorting through it and new finding homes for everything, it may take a while but I do have a plan(ish).



I have the enviable task of covering the blue paint - who paints a room THAT colour? I'm going for neutral walls and a black floor. But it's what comes after that I love - arranging the furniture and accessorising the room. I'll be re-using the shelves and will use a table, that used to be in the kitchen and a chair from my bedroom that is rarely used. If you're a long time reader of my blog you may remember it? And in stark contrast to every other room we've done, I already have a curtain pole and voile curtain panels for the windows.



I'm so excited to have finally made a start and can't wait to get it finished (and go shopping for all the little knick knacky bits) and all my notebooks will finally have a proper home. No more working on the dining room table, no more eating supper on our laps!

Any idea where I can get a big cork pinboard? (And I mean really big - huge).

I hope I don't sound smug and make you want to hurl things at me when I say this, but I'm pretty happy with what I am doing right now. Freelance graphic design had always been something I'd thought about and had tucked away neatly in the 'maybe one day' pile at the back of my mind. But being faced with redundancy at the beginning of 2013, with local design jobs as rare as hen's teeth, I decided to go for it.

The one thing that held me back in the past - and this is going to sound utterly, utterly ridiculous - was not really knowing how I would deal with all of the admin and accounting stuff. As it turns out there is an abundance of information available. All it took was a Google search, which tells me that I didn't want to make it happen badly enough. Most people say "I should've done it years ago" when you talk to them about being self employed, but for me I think the time was right. I wasn't ready before. It all fell into place, the stars aligned, the ducks waddled into a row and away I went.

I'm currently gathering content for my website and pinning office interiors on Pinterest - planning my move from the dining room table upstairs to our spare room.

Wake up with a cat in my face.
Get up.
Feed cats.
Make essential first cup of tea of the day.
Shower etc...
Make toast.
Remove cats from worktop.
Start working day by writing a to-do list.
Remove cats from keyboard.
Mid morning break - drink more tea and water seedlings in greenhouse, watched closely by boy cat, Socks, who falls asleep in a sun spot.
Remove other cat from keyboard.
Resume work. 
Finish every thing on to-do list.
Lunch - eat tuna and cucumber sandwich, watched at all times by both cats.
Resume work.
Remove cat from desk.
Get scratched lip while removing cat from desk.
Get distracted by Pinterest.
Give girl cat, Tink, the biggest of cuddles hoping that she'll slope off and sleep.
She doesn't.
Remove cat from desk.
Remove cat from desk.
Give up removing cat from desk.
Allow cat to sit on my arms.
Achieve nothing, but have warm arms.
Try to write this post by peering aeound girl cat.
Decide to learb to touc h type.
Try to distract cat with a pouch of Whiskers Bit and Chew.
Get exactly one minute of peace.
Give up trying to work.

Go to bed, get up and start all over again.

Yep, I LOVE working from home.

At the beginning of the year I anticipated change and a third of the way through the year, my life already feels entirely different, which is largely due to all the work nonsense. What followed was me setting up as a freelance designer. It started out being hectic, but it's pace has slowed a little now.

Before I would play out a scene which you are probably all familiar with - rushing around to get to work, rushing to meet deadlines throughout the day and then rushing home to find supper hasn't cooked itself (or managed to drag it's sorry arse out of the freezer). Evenings where spent crashed out, thinking about all the housework and exercise that wasn't getting done.

Looking back I was exhausted all the time. Running on auto pilot. And now that I have more time, what do I do? I berate myself for not living in a spotless house, with meals planned a week in advance, laundry done, blah, blah. Blah. How can these things not be done when I have All. This. Time? Why do we do this to ourselves? Put ourselves under so much pressure?

I have freelance work to do, I'm covering maternity leave for Bethanie and looking after her blog, I have this blog, I'm on the committee of a local charity, do any design work they need, run their social media and help out at fundraising events (including organising a clothes swap every six weeks), I have recently started working with a local company, setting up and running a social media campaign for a Guinness World Record attempt, for the largest gathering of fairies (in aid of the afore mentioned charity). I am slowly building my own website and am learning to crochet and trying to get through a mountain of unread books. In addition to all the house stuff.

So when I say I have 'all this time', I realise that that was just an expectation I had of not being 'in work'.

I love the freedom of being able to work at anytime of the day (or night) or go food shopping mid morning, when it's not so busy and have the flexibility to come and go as I please but the problem with having no set routine is that I can become unfocused and jump from one thing to another, on the flip side I easily become engrossed in something and before I know it hours have gone by, leaving no time for anything else.

A few months in and niggles surfaced. I was jittery and couldn't shake the feeling that I wasn't achieving anything. But this morning I realised that I'm in control, it's all entirely down to me. First of all I needed to give myself a break, let it go, shrug it off (an actual massive, who gives a damn, tension releasing shoulder shrug) and simply set out a bit more of a routine. I realise that so far the worst consequence of my 'failings' has been running out of bread on occasion - Mr Joy had to buy his lunch. And we've run out of milk a few times which means drinking herbal tea. And the house is a mess sometimes. Not exactly disastrous is it?

So, despite the randomness of my first few months as self employed, I've decided I'm doing okay.

During the first of week of January, everyone in the department I worked in received the news that we were all facing redundancy. This was not surprise for any of us.

A week passed before we were each told of the final decision.

The MD wanted to move me to another department. I couldn't do it. I knew it was a role I wouldn't be happy in, a role I wouldn't be able to put my heart and soul into. I knew from past experience (I'd been at the company for almost 10 years) that I would encounter obstacles and any grievance I had would not be addressed, so I decided to decline the position.

This in itself felt awful, there where guys in my department that would have given anything to stay, and there I was turning down a role and choosing to leave. True to form, they were really supportive and totally understood my position.

But then there was a twist, someone was interested in buying the department. This led to confusion, uncertainty and some very awkward situations that continued for two weeks. By the end of the third week I'd had enough and suggested my own solution, which was accepted. And so, finally, at the beginning of week four the matter was resolved.

It's been an exhausting few weeks, I've cried buckets, felt sick most days and haven't slept or eaten properly. But now it's all over I feel happy, relaxed and excited and my plan is to start working as a freelance Graphic Designer. It's something I've often thought about but the time never felt right. Until now.

Wish me luck!