Sunday 30 November 2014

My Yule has now officially started!

Just handed over my first 2 Yule gifts so I'm starting to feel the excitement building now!

For some reason...

...the stairs did make a difference!  I was able to buy Mitzi her Yule gifts and get my shoes and clothes without any problems at all when I came downstairs yesterday!

Much bizarreness!

Saturday 29 November 2014

Assuming the stairs have made a difference...

I've spent all afternoon trying to buy dog toys, a dress to wear over my leggings and another pair of shoes.

It hasn't wanted to work while I was upstairs, so hopefully it'll work now that the laptop is back in it's usual home!

If not, I'll have to try again tomorrow!  I *will* buy them, even if it's the last thing I do!

Friday 28 November 2014

That's Yule sorted!

I have now officially finished shopping for Yule, just waiting for the gifts to be delivered (today hopefully) then I can wrap them up when the gift boxes arrive tomorrow and then I can just relax and enjoy myself!

Hope you all have a safe, happy, blessed Yule with your family and friends!

Thursday 27 November 2014

Yule gift buying

Other than wrapping up 3 gifts, writing the cards and decorating the house, I'm all ready for Yule this year 'cos I've just bought everything I need, 3 weeks early!

This is late for me though, I usually start spending in September so that I can take my time to find the ideal gift for each person then spend December wrapping the gifts and writing the cards so that I can sit here and enjoy the relaxation while everyone else is rushing around like a headless chicken!  lol

I've now ordered...

110 bath bombs for under £20!  Should keep me going for a few days!  lol

I've got a pack of 50 mini ones that I'll put 2 of in each bath, 48 normal sized ones and 12 standard sized ones that I'll put 1 of in each bath...  so that's 85 baths before I use them all up!


Really good value IMNSHO!  That's under 20p per bath and will keep me going for months!

Does anyone know please?

I  bought some bath bombs from Amazon and I love them so much I want more!

I could have sworn I'd seen a pampering pack somewhere that I was going to buy from but I can't for the life of me find them any more!

So, other than Amazon, where else can I get bath bombs from please?

Wednesday 26 November 2014

OK, so...

I've bought the vitamin C, Ginko Biloba with Ginseng and the teddy with an added soft toy and I've just said no to Author House's "marketing" as well, so I've spent £35 and saved myself over £1000.

If you've got a book that you want to get published and you can afford to self-publish, do NOT go with Author House.

Why?

Well, I've spent so much (I'm talking tens of thousands of pounds... yep, seriously) with them that I really can't afford and all I've got to show for it is £3 and 25 paper back books!  I've paid for everything they've suggested and I've yet to even approach 0.5% of profit and they want me to keep on paying them for doing nothing!

Not any more.

By all means, go the self publishing route if you want to, but be prepared to spend money you can't afford on things that don't happen... don't be scammed like I have been!

I'm easy to get gifts for!

If you want to get me a gift for whatever reason but don't know what to get me, then keep reading!

Amazon.co.uk vouchers are always good
Littlewoods vouchers are also appreciated
A donation to the Dogs Trust in my name is wonderful - just give me a card to say you've done it
If you'd prefer to wrap the gift up to give me, then chocolate is yummy!
If you want to get me a gift that keeps on giving, sponsor one of the Dogs Trust dogs for me - it's only £1 a week!

If you want to take me out for a meal, then take me to the Harvester... yummy food in a wonderful restaurant!

Today, I've gotta remember to...

Look for vitamin C at Simply Supplements
Buy a teddy for Baby George
Check my balance at the bank
Catch up on my email
Find the rest of the bath bombs that I got from Amazon... I bought 50 and I've used 6, so where are the other 44?

Tuesday 25 November 2014

This is post number...

... 400!  Yay!

Teddy bears suitable for newborns

Does anyone know where I can buy a soft teddy bear for a newborn please?

Every baby should have a teddy, I just can't find one like I had as a baby any more!

I'm looking for a soft, squidgy teddy that holds its shape and is machine washable.  I want it to be easily carryable but big enough to hug for years to come so I'm thinking around 30ish cm?

Vitamin B12 is...

...amazing!  It noticeably starts working within a couple of minutes of taking it, it wakes me up, gives me more energy, lifts my mood and it's the fastest acting of all the supplements I take!

It's like I don't need to take any Pro Plus or Anti Depressant when I take the B12!

It's an incredible vitamin for me!

Monday 24 November 2014

Feeling so proud of myself right now!

Today was my first day back to my normal routine after NaNo and I surprised even myself with how quickly I managed to do everything!

I had to check in with all my online communities so that they knew I was ready to start doing assignments again... done in 15 minutes

Then I had to send out today's assignment to the Pets part of AotG - done in 5 minutes

Then I had to find 5 females to invite to 3 communities... done in 6 hours

Then I had to make 14 graphic gifts - done in 2 hours

Which brings you up to date... I can now relax for the rest of the week and just read my emails and surf the net and stuff until next Monday!  Yay!

Today is the start of getting back into my normal routine!

For the last 3 weeks, my routine has been to open up Word and yWriter and write 4k words a day, then log off and go to bed.

I'm off LOA now though, so my routine will be to send a check in email to each of my communities then spend the rest of the day (and possibly tomorrow too) finding 5 females to join each of the 3 communities I do invites for...

Wish me luck!

Steve's also said that he's going to give me his Windows mobile when he's phoned 3 to cancel the contract!

Sunday 23 November 2014

Crystals again

OK, so I'm going to get a clear quartz cluster for £135 and a rainbow quartz cluster for £40 so for £175 I'll be getting 2 gorgeous clusters for less than a quarter of the price I was going to pay for one and I'll be able to move them around whenever I want to too!

I decided two things while I was in the bath

The first is that I'll put the water heater switch thing in the corner of the bathroom on an hour before every bath from now on.  Steve doesn't think it makes a difference, but today's bath was hot from the moment I filled the bath, to the moment I emptied it!  The only difference was that I put the water heater on an hour before I filled the bath!

The second is that I'm going to leave off getting the £720 crystal cluster and just find a good quality, good value for money cluster and only spend £100 on it or, if I find my ideal crystal cluster for £150 then I'll get that instead... a saving of £600 and I'll be able to move it if I want to without a crane!  lol

I was wrong

I was wrong about the online shop selling the crystal cluster I had my eye on... it was a totally different shop!  I thought it was at Crystal Age but it's actually at Shamans Crystal!  Oops!

You watch me forget again though!

Saturday 22 November 2014

Wowsers!

18 hours since buying the pendulum and it's in my hands!

They accept PayPal too, so as long as the pendulum hasn't broken, I've just found a new favourite crystal shop!

Impressive speed!

I bought a crystal pendulum yesterday and exactly 2 hours after paying for it, it was dispatched!

Definitely a 5 star rating from me so far!

Friday 21 November 2014

Someone beat me to buying...

I had my eye on buying a huge crystal bed after the New Year... £750 and weighed 15kg but someone's beaten me to it  :-(

So I've now got to explore the site for a different gift to myself!

I've just bought a clear quartz pendulum so that I can start dowsing for the house wights to see if there is something they want to tell me or how I can get their approval of the house and things like that... wish me luck!

Thursday 20 November 2014

Just stuff and things


I had me hair cut again yesterday into a bob cut... except that it now looks triangular to me!  lol

M's been good to me so far this week - didn't have a go at me on Monday with the shopping and she was good to me yesterday too!

I went on LOA (Leave Of Absence) for NaNo again, and I've been getting out of the main characters head and back into my own for the last few days and I'm hoping to double the challenge next year... just got to come up with 50 chapter ideas instead of 25!  lol  Those are harder than the actual writing!

Steve's supposed to get the bandages on his legs changed today, but the ceiling collapsed at the end of last week or at the weekend or something so he doesn't know if it's safe to go or not.  He hasn't had a phone call to cancel it or anything so hopefully it's still OK for him to go!

Also, there's a noisy big dog at the end of the road that barks it's head off all day every day.  Mitzi replied this morning!  So sweet, but at 7am I'm not sure our neighbours appreciated it!

Last thing!  Is it safe to plug an extension lead into an extension lead?  We've already got a reeled extension lead that I plug my wheelchair into when the batteries need charging but I've bought a heater to go into the airlock by the back door but forgot about an extension lead!  Oops!

Wednesday 19 November 2014

Almost £75 richer than I thought every month!

I've just got off the phone to Cerebra which is a charity for brain injured children and instead of donating £50 twice a year, as of 2nd January I'll be donating £5 a month instead.

I've just totted up what I pay every month and it's only £286 a month instead of the £350 I had in my head!

That gives me a spare £64 a month more than I was thinking!

That's assuming I've remembered to write down any new ones that I've set up between WDCS and Cerebra of course!  lol  I'm about 87% sure that I've written it all down though!

Tuesday 18 November 2014

Just spotted a car that Steve might like

Just spotted a Volswagen Passat for £1700 that's only 12 miles from us... more than I was looking to pay, but Steve said cars are under £500 for a reason!  I'd previously been searching for cars selling for up to £1000

Hmmm.

Dunno what to do now!  Do I fork out the £1700 for a joint Yule and birthday gift, or do I let Steve do his own research and spend his own money?

Can you realisticly buy...

I've been having a look on the Autotrader website for a car for Steve and I'm surprised at a lot of the prices!

I was thinking that it'd be £1,000 minimum for a car in poor condition, but there's one, which to me sounds perfect, and I know diddly squat about cars, for only £350!

I don't want to buy a stolen car, or write-off or anything, so would a £350 car be good value for money or would it need more doing to it and cost a small fortune to repair and stuff?

I just don't want to be ripped off!

That's a relief!

All my Direct Debits have come out of my bank account and I'm £720 in credit.

I'll be paid again on Monday which will take me up to £950.

Spend £450 of that on Yule gifts will take me down to £500 and I'll be paid again on 8th December and I'll be starting 2015 comfortably in credit!

It's only taken me 6 months but I'll be starting the New Year in comfort and be able to get the things I want, when I want them!

I'm thinking of saving up to get Steve a used car for our anniversary next year... you watch me forget now!  lol

Monday 17 November 2014

That's 50%!

Littlewoods are great!  It's only 22 hours since I put the order in with them, but it's just been delivered!

Just waiting for the BHS order now!

I hope my new clothes come before...

I'm having my hair cut on Wednesday.

I've also got some clothes due between 7am and 8pm that I totally forgot about on Wednesday too!

Hopefully the clothes will turn up before we go!

Sunday 16 November 2014

C's Christmas gift isn't happening any more :-(

Just got back from having lunch with C and I was going to get him a Kindle Fire for Christmas, but he's already bought himself an iPad that's being delivered tomorrow, so I'm all out of ideas again!

Ho hum!

Saturday 15 November 2014

That's impressive speed for Argos and Quidco!

I ordered a heater and 5 step indoor step ladder at about 4.30pm yesterday.

There was a delivery available for today or next week for the same price, so I chose the delivery for today.

18 hours later and they arrived!

That's impressive by anyone's standards!

I emailed Quidco at 1.01pm today and I had a reply literally a minute later (1.02pm) to say my query was being looked into and that I'll hear something about my query from them within the next 24 hours!  It wasn't a standard reply either... totally individual to me and my question!

I'm starting to approve of both Argos and Quidco!

Friday 14 November 2014

So weird!

It's so weird not to open up the novel to work on this morning! 

I keep thinking that I need to open it up to write today's words, then I remember I finished it off yesterday!

Maybe I should open up Speckles' Diary to keep working on for the Dogs Trust?

Thursday 13 November 2014

I've done it! I've done it! I've done it!

As of now, I've finished NaNoWriMo 2014 and written 50,015 in 13 days!

That means that I'm definitely going to aim for 100,000 words next year and I'll still be finished before 30th with a few days to get back to my normal head space instead of the main characters!

Now I just need to plan out 50 chapters instead of 25!  lol

Having curly chips in celebration now and I'll have a long, hot, relaxing, bubble bath tomorrow as the official celebration!

It's going to be so weird to get out of the habit of opening up Word and yWriter every morning and get back into the habit of opening up 3 browsers and my email programme every morning instead!  I've got 2 weeks to get back into the habit though!

Final 1.5k words of NaNo 2014 to go!

48,334 words written.

1,666 words still to write then I'm finished!

Again!

Yay!  lol

I'm going to double the NaNo challenge next year and aim to write 100k words in 30 days.

If I write the same amount of words a day that I've done this year, I'll be writing my final word on 26th November which will give me 4 days to get out of the head of the main character and back into my own.

Just got to come up with 50 new chapter ideas now!  lol

Any ideas would be fantastic from the readers of my blog!  Please?  :-)

Wednesday 12 November 2014

Back on track to finish tomorrow!

Another 4k words written today, which takes me up to 46k words in the last 12 days and I'll write the final 4k tomorrow and I'll be celebrating finishing the challenge in less than 2 weeks this year!

Yay me!

House prices in this road

We live in a mid-terrace house that we paid almost £40k for 15 years ago.

There's a house at one end of the street that has been boarded up for at least 10 of those years.

Steve's carer said that it doesn't even have a ceiling and the windows are boarded up but they are asking for almost 5 times that much for it!  £185k!

Our house is at least livable but, from looking online recently, we'd only be able to get about £65k if we sold right now!

The world has gone nuts, seemingly!

Tuesday 11 November 2014

Only written 2k today :-(

I was hoping to write 6k words today but it wasn't to be... I only managed 2k in the time it usually takes me to write 4k!

Still, another 4k tomorrow and Thursday and I'll be done... it's the getting started that causes the problem!

42k down, 8k to go!

Monday 10 November 2014

40k written now!

If I finish my 4k nice and early, I'll write 6k words tomorrow and then write the other 4k on Wednesday.  If I don't finish early then I'll write 4k words tomorrow, 4k on Wednesday and the final 2k written on Thursday.

Whichever way it goes, I'll have the challenge completed by Thursday afternoon which gives me 3.5 days to get out of Tom's head and back into my own... the end is within touching distance now!

I'm so close now... I can and will do it again this year!  Yay!

Sunday 9 November 2014

36k written now!

I've just written my daily 4k words so my total word count so far is 36k which means I've only got to write another 14k and I'll be done!

I'm writing 4k a day, so I will, in theory, finish the challenge on Wednesday!  Yay!

Going to do a few surveys then head to bed...

Nite nite!

Saturday 8 November 2014

32k words written and I'm off to bed!

I've just written word 32,000 in my NaNo novel and I'm off to bed now.

Nite orl!

21k to go and I'm finished for this year's challenge!

Just written my 29,000th word for NaNo so I'm well on track to finishing it next week so far!

Friday 7 November 2014

Only 6 days to go now!

I've written a grand total of 28,004 words since 1st November and if I keep writing 4k words a day, I'll be finished next week and still have 2 weeks of November left to get out of Tom's head and back into my own again!  lol

Just over half way now! Yay!

As of now, I'm half way to finishing my NaNo novel and it's only the first week!  lol

In the last 7 days, I've written 25,004 words so I'm still on track for finishing it on 13th November... maybe sooner!  I'm only up to chapter 13, but the end is already in sight now that I've half finished it!

OK, so Blogger seemingly...

... had some issues which are now fixed!

Yay!

Let's see if Blogger is letting me post...

... more than once a day now!

I'm seemingly only allowed to...

... write one blog post a day now!

I've tried to write a second one for the last few days and the site just hangs or stops responding or whatever!

As of last night, I've written 24k words and I will officially have written half the book this morning, yay!  :-D

Thursday 6 November 2014

Couldn't get in here yesterday for some reason :-(

As of last night, I've written exactly 20k words!

That means that tomorrow I'll have written over half of the challenge 'cos today's total will be 24k and the challenge is to write 50k!

I can do this!  I really can!

Tuesday 4 November 2014

Over a quarter of the way to finishing the challenge already!

As of now, I've written 16,084 words in 4 days.

Impressive.

Next target is 25k words which is half way through the challenge.

I'll have done it in 2.5 days, then just another 25k to write before the 30th.

Easy peasy lemon squeezy!

If my maths is right I'll write the last 2k words on 13th November and I'll still have most of November to get back into the swing of things, back into my usual routine!

If I complete the NaNo challenge on the 30th, I'll definitely unofficially challenge myself to write 100k words in 2015.  That's 4k words a day for 25 days which is what I'm writing now and it's going well so far!  It just means that instead of writing 25 chapters at 2k words per chapter, I'll write either 50 chapters at 2k words each or 25 chapters at 4k words each... right now I'm thinking of doing the 50 chapters, but I've got to finish this novel first, before I start thinking about next year!  lol



Monday 3 November 2014

Just finished today's 4k words and...

... the first 500 words that I write tomorrow will mean that I'm quarter of the way to finishing this novel!

Only 9 days to go until I write the final word... the end is already in sight and I only started it 3 days ago!  lol

Well *I'm* impressed with myself, even if *you* aren't!

I've written 10,500 in 2 days and 4 hours for NaNo so far - 1,500 words to go and I'll have written 4k words every day for the last 3 days!

If I keep writing for the next 10 days at 4k words a day I'll have easily done it and I'll still have 2 weeks of November left too!

I can do this!  I really can do this!

Sunday 2 November 2014

Another 4k words written today

It's only the second day of NaNo 2014 but I've written just over 8,000 words in those 2 days and tomorrow I'll be a quarter of the way to finishing the challenge and it's only day 3!  How awesome is that!

Last year I challenged myself to write 2k words a day and I've doubled that this year and the going is great so far!

If I can write 4k words every day for the next 10 days then I'll be finished in less than 2 weeks and I'll feel more confident about writing 60k words next year then, if that goes OK, I'll challenge myself to write double the challenge words in the same amount of time (100k words in 30 days).

It's just the first and last chapters that I struggle with but planning it out really has helped and it's why I didn't win the first year I did it!

WTG me so far this year!

Saturday 1 November 2014

I'll prolly regret saying this, but...

... for NaNo 2015 I'm going to really push myself and try and write 60,000 words for NaNo instead of the official 50k.

Why?

Well, writing 2k a day means that I write the final word of the manuscript on 25th November.  That leaves me 5 days to get back into my normal routine.  I was bored out of my tree after a couple of days of doing nothing last year!  lol

So, I'm going to challenge myself to write 2k words every day from 1st to 30th November to see how it goes... as long as I write 50k I will have won NaNo, I just want to challenge myself that bit more, y'know?

You watch me forget next year!  lol

NaNo 2014 has officially started for me

I've written just over 4,000 words for my 2014 NaNo novel and considering I was planning on writing 2,000 words a day that's really good!  It means that if I write an average of 3k words a day, I'll be finished in just over 2 weeks instead of the 25 days I've been working towards for the last couple of years and better than the 30 days allowed.

I've written the hardest chapter (the first one) so it's plain sailing from here on in!  It's all planned out and my muse is being kind to me so far, so I've just got to get into Tom's head for the next 2 week's and away we go!