Project #004 Start being charitable

Project #003 sadly postponed due to weather (will be looking at completing it this weekend), I started to think about what else I wanted to do this year. Every year, I feel that nagging voice saying 'you really should try and do something charitable'. Every year, I fully intend to, and fail. There is NO GOOD EXCUSE for this. Literally none. Most of last year, for example, I had a substantial wage coming in, and pretty much no outgoings. Plus spare time! And yet I did nothing for anyone else, except myself. My version of doing something for someone else was just buying them an outlandish present. Nice enough stuff, and I certainly enjoyed it, and will continue to do it, but not exactly Mother Theresa-ville, is it?

I've called this project 'start being charitable', as I don't think 'being charitable' is something you can, or in fact should, be able to just pop on your 'to do' list, and tick off after a week. I just want to mark the beginning of this as an ongoing project. Basically, to start opening my eyes and pricking up my ears to actually doing something for someone else.

As I posted on an update, I've signed up for Race for Life. While people keep telling me it's 'only 5k', they haven't seen me running. This for me is a HUGE distance. I am not at all a fit person, so I want to do it properly and actually be able to do something apart from wheezing around in a tracksuit like Vicky Pollard (ooooh, how achingly topical I am....Vicky Pollard references? I need to wake up in 2011.) So, that's a pretty big deal for me. I've already pimped this out, but my sponsoring site is:

http://www.raceforlifesponsorme.org/ameliasimmons1601

Please sponsor me. I chose Race for Life for a reason, and that reason is that not only have I lost so many people to cancer, but I think you'd be very hard pressed to pluck anyone off the street who HADN'T been affected by it. I'll keep you updated with my progress.

The other thing that I've just done was of a different ilk (brilliant word.) If you're worried about not having the time/energy/Bob Geldof hair/feet for doing any running, then you can take a different tack. Tack, ilk, any word that ends in 'k', really. When I was passing by a TK Maxx in Guildford t'other day, a big poster caught my eye. Vivienne Westwood (plus husband, standard), and Sienna Miller, all dressed up in typical 1600s meets 2060 style, wearing these absolutely ace t shirts for Comic Relief. Shakespeare with a red nose, a classic Westwood punk rocker, a Hogarth print (The Laughing Audience), a French Revolution lady holding up a mask with two carefully positioned red noses in a certain place, and best of all, the two great idols of my youth - Blackadder and Queenie from the second series of...well, Blackadder. Both with red noses.

Now, after my absolute joy that Blackadder was finally getting the sartorial recognition it has always deserved had subsided, I started looking at the details. Most t shirts were priced at £9.99, with 'at least £5' going to Comic Relief. Now, anyone who has previous bought something for a charitable cause will know that £5 is a pretty substantial portion being donated. Not only that, but they're 100% Fairtrade certified cotton. Those priced at £14.99 have £7 going to Comic Relief. And designed by Vivienne Westwood!! When will you ever get a chance to buy a piece of Viv for under a tenner?!

The only problem you'll have is choosing honestly. This is why the Hogarth, Blackadder and French Rev sexy lady are all winging their way to me as we speak, and I may go back for Billy Shakespeare, and Queenie. Go on, you absolutely WILL NOT regret buying one.

 http://www.tkmaxx.com/page/tshirts

Hope to see you all around with a big beardy Edmund face emblazoned on your top..... xxx

***Valentine's Day***

Good day my darlings. And a very Happy Valentine's Day to you!

Firstly, a serious note. It makes me sad to see how miserable people get around this time of year, or how people feel if they don't have a boyfriend/girlfriend, their life isn't worth living, and they should just go and hide under the duvet for the entire day, and sob about the fact that no cards have come through the door, no flowers, or they haven't had a text/Facebook message/call from that person they sort of thought they were going out with but....

What's possibly worse than that is the couples who use it as an excuse to put all the details of their relationship out in the open - Facebook, I'm blaming you - instead of just keeping it to themselves. I personally think love becomes a bit tarnished once it's splashed all over Facebook. It makes me wonder why they can't just talk to their actual boyfriend/girlfriend directly...

We're morphing into a society where the concept of discretion no longer exists, where everything has to be laid out in the open, to inspire jealousy or sympathy in others. Now, I am most certainly not above reproach. This is my 6th blog, for goodness sake; I'm hardly a virgin to the world of oversharing. I too have felt the needling longing to post some vicious, biting, self-pitying status on Facebook, just because someone, ANYONE else must feel my pain, because otherwise it's too much to deal with on my own...And equally, you want everyone to know when something has gone really super duper well for you.

BUT, I still can't get my head round all the 'oh, puppy, I wuv you so so so so much' messages. Firstly, Cringefest 2011. Secondly, if you're that close, why don't you actually just, you know, TALK TO EACH OTHER. IN REAL LIFE. You remember that, don't you? That thing where you move your mouth, and someone else utilises their ears. Yes. I'm terribly glad for you that you've found someone madly special, but please, a little Facebook etiquette. This ranting is usually better left to A A Gill; it's not really my style, so I do apologise.

I happen to have a lovely chap myself, but as a seasoned Facebookphobic, I wouldn't dream of embarrassing him with splashy declarations of my love and lust (I'll just do that in this blog. I kid, I kid). But I for one will be telling him how marvellous I think he is via a less public forum.

Now, moaning all done and dusted, here's the real crux of the post. I love Valentine's Day. I literally, absolutely, and totally love it. Always have done, always will do, unless an acrimonious divorce gets in the way. I remember when I was about 10, getting up mega early on Valentine's Day morning, and decorating our whole sitting room with purple crepe paper hearts I'd made myself, chiffon-y sheets, hearts dangling from the ceiling, flowers etc, to surprise my parents with. It's pretty much my Christmas.

Perhaps it's the time of year it comes at - just when that first tingle of Spring sunshine is starting to make an appearance, but still cool enough to retreat to your bed for hours and not feel guilty. I love this time of year, as I've mentioned before. I start skipping around like a lamb. Val's Day is the cherry on top of the cake. It's about LOVE, which to me means every kind of love. It's about family and friends, not just romantic love. It's a day to think about someone else, be a bit nicer, and as Annie Lennox and Al Green once sang 'think of your fellow man, give him a helping hand, put a little love in your heart...'

So, think not of the red roses, the love hearts, or the Godiva chocolates you feel you're missing out on. You are loved, you are not lonely, and it's nearly Spring. I'm sorry for the rant, it's really not my territory, and I've probably massively offended half of you. But I don't think anyone should ever be made to feel bad by the behaviour of others, and no one should EVER have to feel rotten about being single, because there's nothing wrong with it whasoever. Anyway, go out and spread some serious love. Send an old fashioned letter to a lover, go and see your grandma, give your dad a hug, take a friend out for cocktails.

Share the love!

Project #003/update

Oh, curse you, British weather. I didn't manage to get out in the garden this weekend, so I've been working on prep for another couple of projects (as well as shoving a lot of things on Ebay and sorting out horrible old internet banking).

So, for what will be Project#012, the Royal Wedding Party, I have been creating hand-crafted invitations for my guests.

And, for what will be Project#19 (if I've calculated correctly), I will be entering my very first race for charity, ever. So, unlike every other year, where I just look at the flyers for it, and think 'ooh, I really should get round to doing that', I've decided to go for it properly. Which starts with actually signing up. Which I have just completed....

http://www.raceforlifesponsorme.org/ameliasimmons1601

Sorry it's been an unsatisfying week for actually completing projects, but I've got a few to do in the next week (week off), so will keep posting :) xxx

***Interlude***

Things that make you go OOH.

On Wednesday this week, I got the call I'd been waiting for. As of Monday 21st February, I will be the newest Account Executive at a rather wonderful Ad Agency in Tunbridge Wells. I am madly overexcited.

Unfortunately, this has triggered a chain of events in my head. Because I will now be earning enough to finally move out, I'll be looking at getting my own little place in good old T Dubz, if I manage to pass my probation period, that is....this won't be for a few months, but what am I already doing? Looking up places to view, and choosing furniture. Shutup brain.

If the weather continues to be quite so disgusting, I'll be forced to postpone this weeks gardening project, but I have a couple of other ideas up my sleeve, and also 10 days before starting the new job, and therefore a lot of time to play around with craftiness :)

Project #003: I like the flowers, I like the daffodils

....I like the mountains, I like the rolling hills - as anyone who has ever done a drama warm up will chorus merrily back at you!

I'm feeling absolutely full of delight at the prospect of Spring. Yes. The sky is blue, the sun is out, and I'm frantically counting off the days on my sunrise/sunset calender, till we get to a point where it's actually light at 6.p.m. Today, I even dug out my much loved floral Bayliss & Knight sailor dress! (Last seen circa August 2010.) Yes, and yes again. I have a spring in my step (badoom tsssch).

We've started to fill our house with flowers, and whenever I take a bath the room is filled with that heavy, enveloping scent of beautiful white jasmine. The kitchen is permeated with the faint but insistent smell of hyacinths, and I've started to dance around the house, filled with new hope, new ideas, and an uncontainable joy that I only ever get when the Winter finally starts to loosen its icy grip.

I had been struggling to think of a third challenge. My mind will grope around aimlessly, trying desperately to think of something, anything good, and then, the second I sink into bed, exhausted after a day at work, PING. There it is. That's what happened last night, just as I'd disappeared into my nightly ritual of lying in bed with BBC7's Comedy Zone floating out of my pink DAB radio, sinking into a stupor. But there it was - plant flowers! Nooooo, my tired brain argued - sssh, go to sleep! I've had enough of you and your "brilliant ideas". But the little energetic voice was insistent, and wearily but excitedly, I reached for the well thumbed notepad by my bed, and managed to jot down 'flowers'.

Come the morning, I'd just about managed to decipher this mysterious message from Tired Brain to Happy/Excited/Annoying brain. I have four things in my armoury. Peony tubers, a packet of seeds for growing peas, a sachet for growing violas indoors, and one for mustard and cress. Maybe not enough to create a Capability Brown style garden (Culpability Brown, maybe, when it all goes hugely wrong), but it'll do for now. Peonies are my obsession. I can't help finding beauty in something so blowsy, so stagey, attention-grabbing, and so elusive that they only appear for the briefest window each year. If I was going to garden, I thought, then it had to start with peonies.

My promise to myself was to try something new. And, really, the last time I planted anything was when I was in year 5 at school, and we were given our own tubs in the playground. I shared mine with my best friend at the time - a girl who, to this day, has absolutely faultless aesthetic taste - and we put little figures in that we'd collected (I'd imagine from Kinder eggs...) I don't remember doing much actual planting, but I certainly do remember the following dialogue from a fellow classmate:

Know-it-all Year 5: Have you ever touched a worm?

Me: YUCK! No!
KIAY5: Yes you have. If you've been touching the soil in the tubs, you've touched a worm.

(Sound of my jaw dropping to the floor, then me running off to wash hands)

So, after than inauspicious start, I am ready to try again, weather permitting, this weekend. I'll post results by next week, including a worm-report.

Thanks for reading. Wear your sunglasses tomorrow. Whatever the weather xxx

Project #002: Results

  I have to admit, the second project didn't take me nearly as long as icing all those cakes. But it was just as important to me, because as I mentioned before, it was for my little cousin-once-removed. I'd sort of mentioned I'd make her one, and the old me would have really genuinely meant it at the point in time, and for a couple of days I would have REALLY HONESTLY thought 'gosh, I must get round to doing that jacket at some point; and as the days went on, I'd think about it less and less, and then I'd feel all guilty when I DID think about it, and eventually it would fade to a very distant memory indeed.

Which is why earlier this week, I assembled my materials, and vowed to myself I'd sit down and get it done, wrap it up in silly amounts of hot pink tissue paper and pack it off. So, on Saturday afternoon, I sat down to a romcom on tv, spread the jacket in front of me, as well as a ton of rhinetones, an iron, and an old handkerchief (I just get so emotionally moved by these things. Just kidding, it's to iron them on)

As I sat there, ironing on each rhinestone individually, I thought about how excited I'd be to tear into a pile of pink tissue paper, to discover something I'd really wanted but didn't think I'd get. I'd have loved it! If I can make someone else happy because I took a couple of hours out of my week to do something for them, then I'll be over the moon.

I really enjoyed this project, even though it wasn't the most challenging. If everyone reading this blog decides to do just one tiny thing for someone else, just think how brilliant that would be. It's a cliche but it really is true - the glowy feeling you'll get from just doing something purely for someone else is repayment enough.

xxx

p.s. On a cheeky sidenote - if anyone wants anything embellished, to whatever design, I'll be most happy to do it for you (for a small fee...unfortunately my financial circumstances prevent me from being THAT generous to everyone...)