Supporting Christmas Dreams: Part 2

There are some certainties of adult life, and one of them is that at Christmas there are things that smell nice. I’m not talking about all the food, the mulled wines, the baked goods, the real forrest smell of a natural Christmas tree, etc etc. No, I’m talking about the fact that every Christmas since I started to pretend I was an adult, one of two things has always happened: Either I have received some scented candles or candleholders for ethereal oils, or I have been guilty of giving them away. But the truth is, no matter how much I want every gift I give to be a personal representation of what our relationship is/what our year has been/a stupid joke only we will get, there is a limit to how far I want to drag my sanity for the sake of a Christmas gift. That is the reason why some years, you get nice smelling candle stuff for Christmas.

This year I have found a small batch scented wax independent businesses that will be supplying me with all my nice smelling wax needs, and for those Christmas presents that drive me to the edge sanity, there is a huge chance they will receive some amazing smelling wax from WaxShack. By found, I mean it is more, Fran who runs the website, is the partner of one of my boyfriend’s friends, and after following her beautiful Facebook feed for a while, I’m this (imagine me squashing my thumb and index finger together) close to put in my first order: Come on pay day!

Dear Universe

Somewhere over the North Sea I felt vaguely closer to the Universe, and I remembered listening to Rachel Dratch’s book “Girl walks into a bar” on Audible, and her talks with the Universe, and how putting plans/dreams/goals into The Universe might have helped them happen. Therefore, I’m shouting out into the void that is the internet that is The Universe, in hope that something happens.

Dear Universe, I want to be happy.

Dear Universe, I want to have a life.

Dear Universe, I want to have a family.

Dear Universe, I want to have a home.

Dear Universe, I want to have a passion and a career that intersect.

Dear Universe, I want to have a future where all these things intersect.

Dear Universe, I’m up for backing down on a couple of these.

Supporting Christmas Dreams: Part 1

On the 24th of May, I published a post where I talked about Christmas. Who talks about Christmas in May? I do. Not because I’m keen on Christmas showing up (apparently now in August there is already Christmas items in some stores already, but I refuse to acknowledge them until the more appropriate November), but because I plan on buying my Christmas gifts from small, independent retailers this year. I’ve been trying to do it on a small scale previous years, but this year I plan on all of them being from small indie makers, creators and sellers. A part of me is dreading what feels like a momentous task to find something for everyone important in my life, but after my introduction to the In Colourful Company I know that there is copious amounts of amazing wares out there, and if I can’t find anything, then I am being too concerned with perfection. People love things without it being the impossible perfection of their wishes. The important thing is that I show how much I care about them. So in this (so far, very delayed) series, I will show off some of my favourite small independent retailers, and hope that you might find something you like from them. This content is in no way sponsored or an ad, just me talking about things I like.

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In case you haven’t seen it on our site yet, our @conservatoryfabric presale is now extended to individual fabrics! Pick and choose from the entire Chapter One range, including Vestige by @bookhou (pictured), English Summer by @annamariahorner and Savernake Road by @monika_forsberg! Pop in to see the fabric IRL because we have a bundle in the shop! #conservatoryfabric #vestigefabric

A post shared by The Village Haberdashery (@thevillagehaberdashery) on Aug 29, 2018 at 1:04am PDT

First out is my local haberdashery Village Haberdashery based in West Hampstead. For the past few years I have bought my mother and my partner’s mother their birthday and Christmas presents here.

90% crap

There is currently 24 started blog posts in my drafts folder. Some almost complete, some just outlines, some titles, and some rambling parenthetical that started as an idea in a parenthesis in a previous draft I wanted to expand on, but as I finished the original draft, that idea, the drive, the thought had evaporated, and new ideas, titles, and thoughts had preoccupied my brain. That seems to be one of the problems with my writing style; I write on buses, I write on trains, I write in lunch breaks, but some days the creative juice has been depleted on my paid job, where I am expected to be creative and solve problems, and I need my job, my career, my salary, and my purpose.

Screen recording of me scrolling though my drafts folder (because I learnt how to screen record this week) to illustrate my list of non-completed posts.

I like big words and I cannot lie part 2

🎶I Like big words and I can not lie

You logophiles can’t deny

When you open a thesaurus

With mill’ more terms

And All that quick-wit in your face

You Get sprung🎶

It’s that time again, I’ve had a bunch of words that I’ve gone: “What does it mean!?”

Saturday 23:32

I’m a few pints past tipsy, and a KFC past pub number 10 on our 10 stop Sam Smith pub crawl. I’m near Goodge Street station and I watch more or less drunk people order food to line their stomach before, during or after going on the lash. Suddenly a thought strikes me: “I’m in a foreign country where they do not speak my language.”

“You silly cow! You’ve lived in this city for 3 years, and you’re be been in the country for 7! How is this foreign to you any more?” the voice at the back of my head shouted as I desperately closed my eyes to shut out the English language noise surrounding me.

Life is a series of terrible dance moves

Shopping trolley.

Big fish, little fish, cardboard box.

Lawnmower.

These are some of the terrible dance moves I have observed, tried to learn, and failed miserably at perfecting. Partially because I am as coordinated as a newborn giraffe (not that I ever will be that graceful when I grow up), and partially because I am easily distracted, which makes my brain go:

“Littles fish, big… Oh! Shiny new dance move over there! Let’s try to do that! Shopping trolley, pick right, pick left, and strut! What? That has less arm movements! OK! Lawnmowering along, lawnmowering along… What now? Everyone has a new dance move? What is it? What is it? What is it!”

It’s coming home

Honesty first: This damn thing has taken a month to write. It might be obvious why when you read it. I’m sorry.

Alternate title: The World Cup summary from a non-football fan.

…

The country (and the rest of the world) has been hit with World Cup fever, and I hear it at home, on the commute, in the street, at work, and I pleasantly listen, and try to offer my two cents whenever appropriate (which isn’t often or worth much due to my inability to care enough for football to work on understanding what is going on). The first week of the World Cup at work I listened in on a conversation between the old men I work with, and it went something like the following:

I just can’t watch women’s football: it’s like watching second division.

And that national player woman pundit at the World Cup: she knows everything but I just don’t believe her. It’s her voice.

You know the boxing movie? What’s it called? Million dollar baby: I couldn’t watch it. Women shouldn’t do that. Well, there is enough of them beating their husbands to a pulp.

But it’s mostly men following the World Cup, right? It’s not like women watch it.

In Colourful Company

It was Friday afternoon, I had just finished work and on the overground I was scrolling, scrolling, scrolling through Instagram, when a post from In Colourful Company caught my eye and and I went: “Ohhh, that sounds cool!”

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Lookie lookie what we have here! 😍🌈 Our glorious @zabbyallen has designed us this magical little booklet for our colour walk tomorrow in London, with the help of @elephantbum on the front cover. 😍 Everyone will be getting one of these and they’re jam packed with fun things to do in London, as well as our map for the day. Whose excited?! 🙌 #incolourfulcompany #acolorstory #london #zabbyallen #communityovercompetition #design #typeography #widn

A post shared by In Colourful Company (@incolourfulcompany) on Jul 6, 2018 at 7:27am PDT

And then my trip down the rabbit-hole started. Onto the website to figure out where, what, who, why of this intriguing post. Where on the website do I find this? Get involved? Sure. Colourwalk? Yes! Come on internet, tell me everything I want to know! Oh, I need to head to Facebook? Okay, open link. No, not on the Facebook browser site, I want the app. I can’t be assed to log in again. Okay, open app, search, find group, apply to take part, and now I wait. An hour and a half later my phone *ting’ed* and I was a member of this (not so) secret society of colour. 

I like big words and I cannot lie part 1

🎶I Like big words and I can not lie

You logophiles can’t deny

When you open a thesaurus

With mill’ more terms

And All that quick-wit in your face

You Get sprung🎶

I am not qualified for this, and this sounds a lot cooler in my head than it would should I try to perform it.

Being the bilingual, English-as-a-second-language person I am, there are many words I don’t know, and many more that I know the word, I get the gist of it, but I don’t actually know what it means.

So here is a list of things of words I’ve looked up this past two week, and the medium that made me finally look it up.