Queen of Paint and Wallpaper...apparently

Goodness, it's been a long time since I've managed to sit down and post. It's partially down to the Great Laptop Disaster (which I'll go into more detail in a minute) and partly because of this:

 

Yup, that's right - we've been decorating! It's taken a long time - we've been working on it the past two weekends, as well as finishing off bits and bobs when we get home from work - but the majority of it is finally done. All that's left to do now is the skirting and the floor, which can wait for a while. If you look closely at the top picture and see the yellow and purple colour scheme going on, you'll understand why I was in such a hurry to get this room painted - it had the exact same colour scheme, and it was hideous. So I finally put my foot down and forced the Engineer to help me decorate (don't feel too bad for him though, he's buggering off to Le Mans for the 24 hour race this weekend so he's got his reward).

The reason I was so driven to get it done is because we've lived in this house for over a year now and because of our weird living situation, it still doesn't feel remotely like home. I knew I had to start and try to make this house our home, or I'd just start to resent living here even more. So not only have we done the living room, but we also put a rockery in the garden last weekend and I've started tidying up and planning more bits and bits for the garden. Plus, we've got the builder provisionally booked for July, which means we'll FINALLY have a set of stairs, and I. Can. Not. Wait. So really, it's all looking positive :).

So that's the real reason why I missed the IWSG post this month - I've just been so busy with house stuff, I haven't stopped. Also, the laptop appears to have given up the ghost (again), which means it's been much more difficult for me to post. We have got the desktop upstairs (which I'm on right now), but because it's so out of the way, I generally keep forgetting it's there so I don't tend to do any writing on it. I'm praying I'll have the laptop sorted out by the weekend - as I mentioned, the Engineer is away so I'm planning on having the full weekend to write and catch up on blog stuff. It's not that I haven't had the ideas, or the motivation - it's just been a lack of time. Which makes me feel bad, especially when I see writers on Twitter getting so much done - apparently (oh, Rachel, when will you ever learn NOT to go on Twitter??). It'll just be a bit of a shame if I'm holed up in the bedroom instead of sitting in our shiny new living room to write ;)!

So that's it really! I'm going to try and make more of an effort to be around more often, despite the GLD, but I've got a lot of stuff going on at home at the moment, as you can see, so I think it's going to be a balancing act for a while. But we'll get there in the end.

Hope you're all having a great week! Tune in tomorrow when I should hopefully (depending on internet/computer access) have an exciting announcement to make :)!!

Happy Wednesday, everyone!

Patience is a virtue....

You may remember last week I posted about starting my own herb garden - well, I have some good news: IT'S STARTED TO GROW!!

Apologies for being so excitable about this, but when you somehow manage to kill everything you try to grow, this is a massive achievement. Especially considering the seeds only cost 30p...

After a week of excitedly checking my plants several times a day, this is the sight that greeted me on Saturday morning:

That right there is my very own basil :). In the soil next to it, I can see some of my other seeds started to germinate, which is pretty cool (I'm also convinced I can smell garlic already from the garlic chives, but that may just be my overactive imagination).

So, this got me thinking: everything needs time - growing herbs, baking a cake, writing a book. You just need to have a little patience and be willing to work at it. It might sound like a completely cheesy thought, but that's what I'm going to try to remember about my novel. So what if it feels like it's taking forever to write? I just need to knuckle down and be prepared to work at it. And in the end, those like shoots of an idea will eventually turn into a flourishing book (y'know, if I don't forget to water it, that is).

Happy Monday, and happy writing, everyone!

August IWSG: Same old, same old....

Welcome to this August's Insecure Writer's Support Group!

IWSG was set up by Alex J. Cavanaugh (you can view his blog here) and the group now was it's own awesome website here. Make sure you check them both out!

I'm afraid to say I'm going to be rather boring again this month. My project over the last month was the idea of keeping my novel 'open' - i.e. I don't forget about it, and I try to work on it every day, even if it's just thinking about how a new scene will go.

Overall, it's been fairly successful....or at least, if I haven't been able to work on my novel for whatever reason, it's been enough to guilt trip me into writing extra hard the next time I can access my computer.

To be honest, this month I'm just going to try and keep going with this idea. As I have a lot of time to fill until September, my initial idea was to have the first draft completed by the time school starts again. I'm already freaking out that I won't get it done, as I haven't been able to write much over the past few days (Since Monday, I have broken two cars, smashed my mobile up and broken a set of fairy lights...so much for things coming in threes...but naturally sorting these things out has taken time!) - and my friend is coming to stay with us today until the end of the week.

So, I think my main fear I'm going to have to keep under control this month is my anxiety that I won't get my book written at all. I've already been freaking out this week because I haven't been writing as much as I wanted too, but I just need to calm down and tell myself that even if it doesn't happen immediately, it will happen eventually. Just like my herb garden ;).

Oh, and if you're a member of Authonomy, I've posted up the first couple of chapters from my book if you want to check them out :) - the link is here. I'm still open to CP offers btw ;)!

Happy writing!

'Thyme' to get busy...

...oh come on, it wasn't that bad was it? I'm actually quite proud I thought of that all by myself!(...this is what happens when you're left on your own for the day in the summer heat...)

Bad puns aside, please bear with me as it does have a point!

So I went back up t'north last week to visit my parents, and it was great to get away from everything and just relax and enjoy looking after the cows/calves/other farm animals for a while (in case you're wondering, yes, my parents do actually live on a farm - I'm not crazy, honest...)

Anyway, while I was there I couldn't help noticing my dad's vegetable patch. The last time I saw it at Easter, he'd just begun to put the seeds in...now, well, it looks amazing! There's rows of green beans, peas, carrots, lettuce, beetroot, tomatoes....we had the honour of eating some of the beans (in a soup) and the lettuce (actually, most of the lettuce) and everything tasted fantastic!

This got me thinking. I have 5 weeks left of my summer holidays and I am the worst person to just sit around doing nothing (in all seriousness, having nothing to do does have a negative impact on my mental health - it takes me back to when I wasn't in such a good place, and well, I won't bore you now, but it is healthier for me if my mind is kept occupied) - so I thought, hey, why don't I do that! Unfortunately, I know exactly what kind of person I am, and I'm the kind of person who gets all excited about an idea (much like my writing), starts it, then loses interest (exactly like my writing).

So I came up with a compromise. My project for this summer is going to be starting my own herb garden. Smaller, easier to manage and you still get some delicious home grown produce out of it! At this point I'm going to chose to ignore the fact that every plant I've tried to grow up to now has died....not through neglect, just through me not having the green fingers necessary to keep them alive.

Luckily for me, the Other Half tends to go along with my whims (not that he has much choice, bless him), so yesterday we went out and bought a planter and some compost (I'd already bought my seeds for 30p from Wilkos the previous day).

And today, this is what they look like!

On the left I've planted some parsley, in the middle is garlic chives and on the right is basil! Okay, so I know it's not much to look at right now (not that that has stopped me from obsessively checking them every half an hour...) - but I'll keep you updated on it's progress :)

Oh, and here's another little something we picked up yesterday too - pretty cool, huh?

So now that that distraction is out of the way...back to writing it is!

Happy holidays!