Running late!

Hey guys!
I am running so late today! I start work very shortly and havent even started doing what I wanted to.
I thought I would just quickly share a poem I wrote the other day!

'If I open my arms and pretend to be a tree,

Why am I not one?

If I fall and spread my arms like a bird,

Why won't I fly?

How can I use my imagination, 

When I only know how to be human?

Oh, to become a child again, 

where boxes made of cardboard

is a treasure trove of the possible.'

Just a very quick one today! I will hopefully be posting some stuff tonight, but I don't actually know how that will go in the end...I am only human! :)

Oops! slash Outing!

So, I do feel like a bit of an idiot.

I didn't upload the link for my Etsy shop. I was seriously in such a haze that day. So much to do. Anyway! Here is the link!

http://www.etsy.com/shop/missowlb

I'm silly. I know.

Alright! So I have been dying to go to this cute little shop, that I found on facebook, for a long, long time. I decided the other day to head there today as a little present to my self (we all deserve little treats!).
If you live in Adelaide, head to Cross Road Collectables. I loved it just from seeing pictures of it and loved it even more when I visited it. It happened to be absolutely pouring with rain today and the wind made it even more harsh, but my boyfriend and I braved the weather to go (Yay, for nice and dry inside!).

One of the rooms full of old/vintage/secondhand books

More books!

Part of the music room (old records, radios,
sheet music, cassette tapes etc)

Another part of the music area

So, I only took a few photos (I was too busy perusing) but it is just one room after another of old items.
The store is actually 2 neighboring houses joined to create this store that seems to go on and on.
When I told my dad about it, he joked that it would be one day be my house. Thanks, Dad.

All in all, A great place! My boyfriend kept mentioning how much he would love to come back. We bought a book of the Complete Works of William Shakespeare, A few Trixie Belden books (seriously, im in love again!) and an old  smallish sword, which I am quite looking forward to using to decorate, but I don't think my boyfriend had that in mind. Oops!

Anyway, its late now and I still wanted to get 2 more things done before bed. Third oops is the charm!

Goodnight/ good morning!

My Etsy journey

Hello, favorite people!

So, 2 days ago I mentioned that I was going to open my Etsy shop today and I have! I am so excited, because I have finally found my thing.
Over the last couple of years, I have really wanted to sell things. I loved the idea of selling my art or other hand made things. They problem I found was that I wasn't very good! I have mentioned in an earlier post, that I do a bit of everything, and I like to learn new things quickly, which means I don't generally keep things in my head :P
But painting shoes is better for me, because I can stick to it!
I would love for you guys to check out my options, and see how you like them!

Thank you so so much!

The Alphabet Weekends- Elizabeth Noble

Alphabet Weekends- Elizabeth Noble

Blurb:
Natalie and her sisters have known Tom and his family forever. They climbed trees together, scraped knees on the same pavements and shaped bonds that would last a lifetime.

So when Natalie's long-term love walks out on her, Tom's is the much-needed shoulder she cries on. And he dreams up an ingenious way to dry her tears; a series of Alphabet Weekends- activities which, if not fun, will nonetheless distract her- and what bigger distraction to get them started then A for Abseiling? And even as she plunges down cliffs, Tom hopes Natalie might see what's been staring her in the face all these years. His undying love for her.

But as they tumble from A to Z, their families and friends face broken hearts and tragedies of their own. Can the Alphabet Weekends unlock love in all its many and wonderful guises? And not only for Natalie and Tom, but for everyone they care about?

First Thoughts:
I loved this idea! Doing set activities for each letter sounded awesome! I was excited to see what they came up with. I hadn't read anything by Elizabeth Noble before, so I was curious to see how it would turn out.

Final Thoughts:
It was a lot messier than I originally thought it was going to be like. I liked it. I did, but while the blurb seemed to indicate that it was majority Natalie and Tom's point of view, it actually wasnt. It was in the end only a small bit Natalie and Tom and mainly focused on their relatives and friends, which I also liked. It was very interesting that, although Elizabeth Noble's writing style wasn't my favorite (I prefer Katie Fforde) I could get past it and actually be a part of the characters lives, and that surprisingly one chapter actually nearly made me end up in tears! (read: nearly!) That is unusual for me with a book.
I think, in my opinion, Natalie and Tom should have been minor characters and some of the others should be the major ones, but that is just all petty stuff and I actually really enjoyed the book!
If you are someone who really can't get over the less than perfect writing, then this book probably isnt for you. I did see another Elizabeth Noble book, but I didn't end up getting it, just because I wasn't too fond of her from this one.

I would love to hear someone else's view on it! Have you read it? Let me know what you thought in the comments :)

Etsy Shop Opening Eve Eve

Okay! So while the title gives away my new surprise, i am so happy to announce that my new Etsy shop will be opening in 2 days time! Argh!

For those of you who don't know (I have been deliberately keeping it a secret for a while, so I will be surprised if you did!) I have started hand painting blank canvas shoes! I started making them for birthday presents for my friends and family and people have since then wanted to actually buy them, so I am so grateful for those who have wanted some! Even my Nana has pre-ordered a pair. I think that is pretty cute, also she reads this blog, so hey, Nana!!

Ones I finished last night! My boyfriends Poker shoes! 

My TARDIS Doctor Who Shoes

Thing 1 and Thing 2!

So, I am very excited about finally getting this off the ground! Today has been figuring out all the behind the scenes business-y stuff, so I am getting closer and closer to finally getting this open. My original open date was 3 months ago, and then 18 days ago and now I am finally not going to put it off any longer!

It's nice to feel like I can do something thats decent enough to sell, we will see how we go! :D

Thank you all for your support and I will see you at the grand opening of my store in 2 days! I am thinking a little online party is in order! 

Thanks so much, have a lovely, lovely day! 

Life: Simple and Slow! Lesson #2: Computer

So I've showed the back story of why I want to do this, so now its on to the first tips!
I have been trying to live more environmentally friendly at the same time as this, so I will be telling some simple things that I do, in order to be kinder to the environmentally friendly.

Tip #1
Okay, the first lesson I want to talk to you about is how to better organize online. I have done this and it has made me work that much more efficiently.
I had a lot of email subscriptions that I either no longer are interested in or that I only signed up for something free at the beginning. My first tip is going to be unsubscribe from all useless email subscriptions. Seems like an easy first step, and it is! The next step I did was to go through all 589 unread emails (and a stack load of already read) and delete all the ones that were part of the first step, or no longer relevant. Doing both of these steps made my email smoother and I can now actually find what I am looking for.


Tip #2
If you guys are anything like me, you have folders and folders of downloaded things, pictures, music, videos and documents. In fact, my computer was so full of stuff that I have all of it on two separate laptop hard drives. But that has all changed now! I went through all my folders, and either named it properly, or deleted it. I also dated all of my photo albums to make it easier to search through them. As I am sitting here typing this, my boyfriend is on our main computer doing exactly this. We weirdly have similar thoughts without even talking about it.
I am still in the process of getting stuff off my other laptop, but so far, this one is pretty good.


Tip #3
I love reading blogs. I'm sure most bloggers do. I used to have a bookmarks bar that was so full of bookmarks that it took ages for the browser to load. Since then, I found bloglovin' so that is now my main place for 'storing' all my favorite blogs in an easily accessible way. I found the same thing with websites and general places that you find you like. If I find a website I want to look at again, or to regularly keep up to date with, I write down the home screen address in the notebook that I carry with me everywhere. That way (since I always have it with me), I can find it if I need it. Another thing I have heard people use is just a simple Word document.


Well, I think that is a pretty good start!  Remember these are all strategies that I am putting in place for my own life as I go along, so if there is anything that you can recommend that you do thats easier or better in some way, let me know!

Thanks for reading my ramblings!

Life: Simple and Slow! Lesson #1: The background

Okay! So I don't really have a heading to put this under as it's going to be a whole mess of things, but here we go!

My life is hectic. I'm 20 years old with no kids, I still live at home and I'm not married. But my life is still hectic. I know several people out there would be saying, 'Maybe she should be in my shoes for a day!' and to that I say, I know you all live hectic lives too!
I currently work 3+ days a week at the supermarket, I babysit 2 mornings a week, I volunteer 1 day a week (might soon be bumped up to 2), I take Spanish lessons once a week, and try and get one day a week for art and once my Etsy shop is opened that will be another day.
It's hard to keep my head together some times, especially when trying to add personal hygiene, sleep, time by myself, exercise, social life, cleaning, washing, and eating (healthy at that!). This is the reason I can see so many people failing at keeping organized and just living unhealthy lives.

I want to first show you what my Thursday and Friday were like for me 2 weeks ago.

Thursday
8:00: Woke up. No time for a shower as I have to be at baby sitting at 8:30
8:10: Put my work uniform on, had a glass of milk, ate a chocolate biscuit and left the house.
8:35: Arrived 5 minutes late to baby sitting.
11:35: Rushed out of their house, drove (without speeding!) to my shift at the supermarket which started at 12:
11:50: Rushed in the door, grabbed a chocolate bar off the shelf, paid for it, and ate it while running up the stairs to the locker room. (My lunch)
2:30: My tea break. Having mentally written a note of what I needed grocery wise, i ran around the store and got everything in the 15 minutes I had.
2:45: Back to work.
5:00: Finished work. Grabbed something (that I had forgotten earlier) for dinner and rushed home. Put a very small chicken pie in the microwave and snacked on some biscuits until it cooked. Quickly changed, ate dinner quickly, and then off to Spanish lessons.
6:10: Arrived at Spanish 5 minutes early! Realized I forgot to put my washing on, and clean the microwave which I promised to do. Sat in my car for 5 minutes, writing a list of everything I would do when I got home and started writing some blog posts.
6:15: Spanish!
7:45: Left Spanish and got a text from a friend asking to meet at a close shopping center for late night shopping.
8:20: Arrived at the shops, met this friend, walked around for a bit, remembered I was supposed to make myself new pajama pants with cute material I had at home, instead, bought some new ones for $20 and didnt think twice. Remembered that I was actually missing my boyfriends brothers family dinner, but still had to get the lemons I forgot after work.
8:50: Hurriedly walked to the shops to buy lemons before they shut at 9. Saw my friend working there, so we had a very brief chat.
9:00: Drove to my boyfriend's house.
9:30: Arrived there starving and tired.
10:00: Ate a huge bowl of spaghetti and had a can of lemonade.
1:00: Eventually fell asleep.

Friday
8:15: Alarm woke me up, so tired, fell back asleep until my boyfriend shook me awake saying I had 10 minutes until we were leaving.
9:25: Got out of bed, once again, no time for a shower. Hopped in the car (when I was going to walk), dropped Tom at a bus stop and drove to where I volunteer.
9:55: I realized I forgot to brush my hair and was wearing odd-colored shoes.
10:00: Returned the library books that were overdue and rushed to volunteering.
12:15: Finished volunteering, so ran to the shops, bought a hot dog, ate it while driving in the car and went back to my house.
12:45: Arrived home. Worked on new stuff for Etsy, while watching something on TV that I had to watch then.
1:45: Left for work.
9:15: Arrived home from work.
9:30: Found some left over food from the kitchen
10:00: Went to bed!

So that is every Thursday and Friday for me and Saturday gets busy as well, but I have the morning.

So, my plan is to slow down and to make things easier for me. Now, one of those things was to turn my laptop off and keep it out of my room after 12:30am and I am already breaking that, by quickly typing this, but it is going away in just a minute! :P
Over the next several weeks, I will post about my intent to slow down and to live more mindfully, and will show you guys my little projects that I do along the way.

I'm sorry this post was a lot of typing! I promise a lot of pictures will be posted soon enough.
It's only more month till Spring, so my blog will get a little spring clean at the same time. Yay!

Well, I hope you guys are having a great time wherever you are and whatever you plan on doing!