the importance of a weekend

Until recently, I've never really understood those living for the weekend types - those people that just laze about on a Sunday morning in bed, as those mornings were so precious to me. Since about half-way through my seventeenth year, until just a few months ago (about eight years year, I shudder), I'd worked every Sunday, pretty much. The nearest I got to a 'lazy Sunday' was the shop I worked in being quiet on a rainy morning. 

And recently, I've had some pretty packed weekends - which has been so great, don't get me wrong! It's a weird thing, transitioning from shift work to a regular 9-5, because suddenly all your friends are free when you are! You don't have to uhm and aah over making plans 2 weeks in advance because you don't know your schedule. It's been lovely - I've been loitering around London most weekends, seeing exhibitions and catching up with friends I haven't seen for far too long. I helped treat my parents to a fancy lunch, been to the beach and all manner of activities.

But this weekend, I have had a change of pace... I've got literally no plans, no-where to be and nothing to do. I have the house to myself all weekend, I've slept in late, brought my giant cafetiere up to my bed so I could have coffee all morning, and have just chilled. As I write this it's almost two o'clock, I have all the windows open to let in the warm breeze, and I've painted my nails a bright green and caught up on the last couple of episodes of Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell (please tell me someone else is loving this as much as me?!). That is about the extent of my day. I might go get a burrito for lunch, and I have to put some flowers in some water, but that's about it.

What are you upto this weekend?

doing what you love vs doing what you must

I need to preface this post with a short statement: I wrote this a little while ago, and had it saved in my drafts, unsure of whether or not to post it. I mentioned to you on Friday that I start a new job this week, and it looks like it could be something I'm going to really love - but I wrote this when I was feeling a little disheartened with my job search and my old job. Whilst I love the people there (most of them haha) and the skills it gave me... wasn't challenging me in the way that I wanted from a job. But It was a job, and I know that in this climate, I am extremely lucky to have one! And that is the point of this post, even though my bitterness may come through, that any job that pays you decently enough, you should be grateful for, because a lot of other countries and millions of other people don't have it half as good as us.

-  -  -

This idea for a blog post sprung out of a recent twitter chat I had with some other bloggers: the idea of loving what you do for a living. Whilst I think this is a lovely idea, it does present it's own set of problems...

I wish for a day when I can do solely what I really enjoy most in life (which is essentially baking, knitting, blogging, and going to the gym) and not worry about money, as do a lot of us, I suppose. But there are very few people I imagine, who can say they they really love every aspect of their job. And if you are one of those people, well done, you have it made! 

But for the majority of people, I feel like that isn't the case. When I was at uni, I shared a studio with a relatively nice, middle-aged lady, who decided she didn't care about getting good grades, good feedback, or looking for a job afterwards, because she had done all those things when she was younger. She had a very well off husband, which allowed her to just, sit around and paint all day. There was no need to earn money from it, her children were grown up so she had the time. She had it made, and yeah, I envied that, but it's not a common reality for a lot of people. To me it all felt very... boring. 

If I just sat on my arse all day and did what I loved, I'd have no money, my parents wouldn't let me live with them, I'd have no cash, no way of getting a job, either, probably, without references and current employers. I probably wouldn't love that. Also, you can't enjoy the daytime without a night, can you? If I never worked, I probably wouldn't enjoy the sitting around at home, baking and knitting, because it wouldn't feel special! I relish my weekends and days off, because I can fill them with the things I adore, and they feel like little treats to me.

I don't wish to belittle people who are genuinely doing what they love, because deep down, who doesn't want that? But the do what you love mantra is bandied about in a way that borders on derogatory towards people that aren't doing what they're MOST passionate about; it degrades people that work to get by. If you're lucky enough to be doing what you love, that's cool, but I often find those people that are, are quite militant about other people following their dreams. It's good to have dreams and passions and wants in life, and it's good to work towards them, but you've got to be realistic at the end of the day.

I'll be honest that I'm not sure where I'm going with this, maybe I'm just confirming to myself, that it's okay to not do what I'm most passionate about in life, because doing that job that I must do enables me to do all the things I love. It gives me money and stability through which I can then pursue my dreams, etc. I can work for minimum wage because I need to eat, and hopefully one day I'll be able to do what I really and truly want that will put money in the bank and food in the fridge. Until then, there's the job I've got and the job I do love, in a weird way, because it gives me that freedom. 

If you're interested in this, here is an article I read recently on Jacobin Mag about the do what you love mantra, which talks about this all in much more depth!

workspace sneakpeek

I don't know about you, but something I really enjoy is seeing the space that other people work in. In a concerted effort to try and improve my posture and stop spending as much time blogging in bed (although that is exactly where I am right now, oops) I have been trying to make my desk-space a more inviting place. Usually it is a dumping ground for magazines, bills, letters, make-up, used cotton pads, etc. You name it, it usually ends up there..

So, I thought I would show you around my space a little bit, but I wasn't sure how to do this post, without rambling on a whole lot.. Therefore I've condensed this to a list of my few favourite bits and bobs.. 

• My lovely friend Kiki gifted me these two lovely round green agate slices because she knows how much I love crystals and rocks and anything related. I use them as coasters, and they're pretty perfect.
• On a similar note, aren't my little trio of brass trinket boxes just amazing? I've found quite a few in charity shops over the years, and nearly all of them contain gems of some kind. I split these three on my desk into colour, and they're usually forming a little pyramid..
• It's probably psychological but having greenery around me makes me feel so much better - my favourites are my mini-crassula in a jar and my spider plant given to me as a cutting from an internship.
• Candles: I have a selection dotted about my room, but my favourite is my nearly-dead melted stub of a giant pillar candle that I've been burning for about a year. I don't know where my mum got it, but it's lasted forever. Scentless, it just makes my room feel cosy.
• Jars of, er, stuff... That's pretty vague, I know, but how else do you describe a giant jar full of pinecones and bark, or an old candle jar filled with shells and trinkets from the beach, or my lipsticks in another old candle jar with my favourite lipsticks in?
• A little bit of art, here and there. You can sort of see the quilted koi-pond my mum made for me, or the manual-panoramic-photographs I took in Verona, both of which I really love. I also have a print I got for free at an event, reminding me to be a bit more optimistic, some old photographs my dad took of Salford in the 1970's, and some feathers found, collected, and gifted over the years. I want to add to the collection above my desk, but I'm not sure how to arrange these..

What do you think? I know it's rather white, but I can't think too well if there is a lot going on right in front of my eyes... It's definitely making me work there a lot more, which is good, I think. 

If you have any questions about any of the things I've not touched on, let me know, I'll be happy to answer any questions. If you've done one of these posts, please link it in the comments, I'd really love to see it! I'm horrifically nosy, you see... 

bills bills bills

Alternate post title; jobs, jobs, jobs.. The two go both in hand, though, don't they? My point is, when did applying for jobs become so lengthy?! I'm more than happy to fill out application forms, and I get a weird satisfaction out of my CV looking just so, but some of these forms are getting ridiculous. 

This gets me thinking that I am ~out of touch~ with society, because the last time I applied for jobs this thoroughly was when I was sixteen and got my first part-time job at Waitrose (which I'm still in now, a long and painful seven years later). I distinctly remember going around my local shopping centre and my town, picking up a handful of paper forms and diligently filling out my name and address and the odd GCSE and sticking them in the post. But gone are the days of paper application forms, and everything is digital. Still, I remember the excitement of thinking I was so grown up for looking for a job.. now I feel like a child because I'm still in my Saturday job whilst everyone rushes past me on their own career ladder. 

Anyway, fingers crossed that one or two of them get back to me, eh? Cause I've applied for two different dream jobs that I'm just perfect for (arrogant!) and I'll cry myself to death if I don't get an interview (melodramatic).

Is anyone else stuck in this post-graduation, pre-life limbo? Does it ever end? Will you hold my hand and sit with me through these long, painful evening and weekend shifts?!

miracles happen all the time around here

I mentioned that my deadline was upon me, and now, I am all completely finished! It feels so weird to sit around doing nothing, I've been watching a lot of crappy films and taking on a few extra shifts at work but I've basically just had a load of sudden free-time thrust upon me! I've been helping some of the third years out getting the studios nice for their degree show that is upcoming, but since September I've had this panic propelling me forward to this point, so to stop now, I'm not really sure what to do! I've been gorging myself on crappy films (Minority Report, Cruel Intentions, Bedazzled and Braveheart to name but a few!) but I'm starting to get a bit bored now! I'm going to have to think of something to do that doesn't involve spending money..
Anyway, I thought that I would show you some of my work that I have been doing over the last few months, so you can see what I've been wasting my time on, haha.