Posted in Singlemum

What is a Bullet Journal?

When I first was told about this concept I took one look at it and thought WHAT THE ACTUAL HELL. However that was when the link just took me to pages and pages of codes and words that I didn’t quite understand!

That was until I found Pinterest. Wow! The idea of all those pretty colours and clear (almmost) organisation got me hooked.

I’ve had a paper diary for as long as I can remember. If I don’t write things down I will forget. I have a day to page one now for work, which is super shiny and fabulous and from paperchase (of course).I’ve always got a notepad on the go too. I love stationary! I am very very visual and when I’ve tried to be organised in the past or got a holiday countdown and want to track my fitness. I get addicted to draw graphs and plans. My notebooks end up being just a big mess of scribbles and I lose the pages I wish to keep for ‘blog ideas’ or ‘quotes I like’ or ‘ideas for my book.’ The ideas for my book is a biggy, I often get hit with triggers regarding the abuse I have been a victim too and its like a light goes in my head and I am like ‘oh yeh.’

So for me the bullet journal idea is fab!

I could use it for work but to be honest for what I do I need a proper diary so that is staying, plus it was expensive and a Christmas present. Some people use it for work and personal but I’m sticking to just personal.

I even FaceTimed my equally enthused bullet journal sister and we spent an hour sorting our first pages out together. It was comforting and fun.

I decided I needed to go straight in and start, over thinking it would put me off another week (as it did my sister) and so be it if I go wrong. It adds character right! Like how I got all confused and put that November had 31 days so now December is all wrong, but hey ho.

I bought a notebook that has dots and page numbers already noted. It has an index page too. The dots are great for drawing lines.

It is lacking colour at the moment but I want some colouring pencils to help with that.

The beauty is it doesn’t matter if there’s no order because it’s meant to be random. It’s meant to be unique. I’m excited to use it more and really get in control of my life.

I’m sure I’ll add to it and change it as well which is fine. I plan to be super organised now and waste less time. I WASTE FAR TOO MUCH!

It’s going to help with my book writing, my studying and my half marathon training. I also plan to get more bloody sleep and eat much much better.

2018 Goals – TO BE THE BEST VERSION OF ME

Watch this space. Anyone got any bullet journal blogs?

Would love to read xx

Posted in Uncategorized

DFS made me happy…

It is crazy the difference 24 hours can make. The day started off badly, a normal pre school run row with the boyfriend over his selfishness and his ability to wind up my 7 year old daughter. I swear I often feel like there are 2 children already under this roof. He fails to see how his moaning and huffing and puffing is acceptable in the mornings just because he will struggle to get back to sleep. It’s not like it’s 6am and he is working afternoons or something. He’s just being lazy and selfish! I do remind him of the times I’ve had no sleep, or the times I would take him to work and be awake a lot earlier than usual and even the most recent time of venturing out to Milton Keynes in the middle of the night!

Anyway luckily I had midwife and health visitor this morning so it gave him some time to reflect after he admitted he has been a bit lazy these past 2 weeks. I really really like my health visitor, my midwife is ok but I’m happy that it will be my health visitor who keeps in touch after the pregnancy. The conversation flowed a lot better and she had a genuine interest in my life. I felt positive coming out of that appointment. She made me feel good. I’m pretty amazing you know what with my studies and my business I am trying to build, well she praised me anyway haha.

I then met my sister and step sister after, it felt good to rant about men. Luckily my sister is feeling much better today, her and my brother in law had a good talk and as expected I knew it was deeper than him just needing a quick tug on his man region every now and again. She still says they are a long way off building anything back up but she is feeling better within herself which is the main thing. She should no way be feeling like she isn’t good enough here.

We then managed to tick one important thing off our list of ‘things to do’, we ordered a new sofa. Obviously we had initial arguments in DFS but luckily Dominic did back down and said he wants to make me happy. GOOD!! Because a corner sofa would just look stupid in our living room… STUPID!! I didn’t plan on us getting a recliner so we did compromise on that and these new power recliners are fabulous and so answers Dominic’s argument that they just end up breaking. They last a lot longer. It is nerve racking making such a big purchase with such a big commitment. Total cost is around £2,000 and we will pay it off over 4 years but I’ve looked for a second hand one and when I was so specific on what we needed (a 3 and a 1) it is so hard to find just that. Everyone sells corner sofas or 3 seaters on their own. Plus, we have the guarantees, we’ve sat on it (I’m totally in love) and it’s something we have both chose together. A decent sofa is important in making my flat as homely as possible since it hasn’t been for so long. Funny how such an adult purchase has made me feel so happy..

Then this evening I also had a conditional offer for the masters I applied for. The disappointment after yesterdays grades totally do not matter now, this was my aim anyway and I only need a pass. Oh and I need to pay off the £880 I owe. I need to pay the half I have really, otherwise I can see that disappearing !! It will be fine.

Pregnancy going ok, apart from this bloody restless leg syndrome thingy a bob. It’s just unbearable!! Maybe paracetamol will help tonight!

Posted in Uncategorized

How do people not work?

It’s a genuine question. I only work part time and I am already  feeling deflated and fed up by this since I finished university less than a month ago. If I wasn’t pregnant things would have been different now, I planned to use my qualification and forward my career pretty much as soon as I had graduated. I had the idea of applying to becoming a probation officer with intakes beginning in October and applications accepted from April, but life has a funny way of taking you off track. That doesn’t mean of course that it wasn’t meant to work out this way and I am a strong believer that everything does happen for a reason. My plans now are to study a masters in September, I have the opportunity to do this since I have the time and the funding is now available through student fiance so now is as good a time as any. Quite perfect timing if I say so myself. I knew I wanted another baby and I was really broody at times when the man was in prison (that’s for another day) so at least I can do the baby thing and then do the career thing. Perfect.

Now don’t get me wrong I do love people, the industry I work in I meet so many great people. All like-minded, all creative, interesting, funny, mostly smart and genuinely just fun to be around but I do get very bored doing it too. It doesn’t stimulate my brain the way I need it too and I guess that’s why its worked so well alongside studies. What do I do? Well without going into too much detail, since June 2013 I have worked in the promotions industry. I had a successful time within the leisure industry as a membership sales consultant starting from 2010. I won a trip to Las Vegas plus many other incentives and bonus’s, not to mention met my best friend and many other good friends within this company. Made a big mistake when I was headhunted into a recruitment company, basic was higher, earning potential was greater, mon – fri, just like I thought I wanted. BUT culture shock or what? Spent my weekends dredding monday. Spent the days just dredding each hour. Hated every single minute. The company left me feeling depressed. Thought it was me? I left on mutual terms, kinda, and looking back they belittled me made me feel worthless and unhappy and a complete failure. My boss, was like a jumped up devil spawned female, granted she was turning over thousands each year, but I was smarter than that. Smarter than just looking at her figures but more at how she got there. She got lucky! All there was too it, and I was meant to look up to her? No chance. She couldn’t sell ice to the eskimos, or whatever that saying is. I would try and learn from her, her crap ‘sales’ calls that ended her getting flustered and just angry if something didn’t go her way. No one liked her. The office had a HORRIBLE presence constantly and I dare not breathe out of line in case we woke the beast. Felt like I was at school. I wasn’t depressed, I just was not happy in that environment. I was not me. Always crying. I had never hated Sundays more than I did during the time at this place. It’s mad how a company can completely change you as a person, change your outlook on life and completely eat into you so much that you don’t even know who you are anymore. Anyway that ended, and it wasn’t long until I joined a new company. Much more me it was full of young people. The culture was similar to what I was used to and I enjoyed going to work. Everything was going in the right direction. Then randomly one friday BAM, I was made redundant. It still to this day, makes no sense at all but then it isn’t something that I am that bothered about. I was just angry with them, they should never have hired me in the first place if they had an inkling the business wasn’t growing the way they wanted it too OR if that wasn’t the case then at least be honest with me. Again I found myself career less with no real idea what I wanted to do. Recruitment wasn’t for me though, I knew for sure I did not want to go back into that. My CV went live again and you only have to look around and see exactly how many recruitment jobs there are to know that it’s hardly a sought after position. Certainly shows a high level of turnover and that isn’t something I want. How can a person be so disposable?! It was then I decided I would go back to Uni, I still wasn’t sure what I wanted to do but it would come to me. It took a year but the decision was made and now I’m here. I’ll talk of how I came to my decision another day it’s far too long for now and I don’t want to go on too much tonight. Tiring stuff this blogging.

Anyway focus, I’ll be giving up work soon. I do still have an independent project to write and I also have a learning skills course to complete for a volunteer role I have been accepted on to, so at least this does give me something to do other than a couple of days promoting random shit each week.

4D scan tomorrow and I am so excited. I cannot wait to see how my baby looks. I’ll make sure I post a picture, hopefully she doesn’t hide and play games. EEEEK exciting!