Oxford Comma; Monday Night Inspiration.

It isn’t exactly Sunday night as I planned it to be for a sort of Sunday ‘This Week’s Inspiration’ post for last week, so instead it’s Monday Night Inspiration for the last week. The past week has been interesting – busy for me, but in a good way. I handed in another article for The Hearing Times and hopefully that will be for the January issue. The last two articles I wrote are now in The Hearing Times on page 9.

My sister and I did really well last week – we made our own business cards using doilies and bits and bobs from random places to make them stand out. I guess it’s unusual, but we wrote the business details on the back of the cards rather than typing them from a computer – it gave it more of a handmade feel. They came out really well, much better than I was expecting. It’s the first time I’ve felt like this for a while – a satisfaction that comes of making things and finishing them. It feels more like we’re making something of this passion for handmade things. At the moment, it is just jewellery, but in the future we might think about branching out and experimenting with different things. There are photos of our sample collection up on the blog – here. Millicent May designs is named after our Grandma (my Dad’s Mum) and our Great Granny Lily May. It was a personal choice, and since we never officially met our Grandma, it feels all the more special for being named after her.

This weekend, Dan and I went up to Oxford because he was attending an Adventure Games Forum conference over Saturday and Sunday in Didcot, which is a 15 min train journey from Oxford. We stayed in this lovely little B&B in Didcot called Lemon Tree House. It was about a 20-30min walk away from Didcot Parkway station where I got the train into Oxford for Saturday and Sunday whilst Dan attended the conference. My sister joined us for Saturday for the day from London, so the two of us spent an afternoon in Pizza Express and Starbucks catching up and relaxing before Dan joined us in the evening for dinner. I was all set to explore Oxford by foot, but it was freezing – much colder than London and although I got a few photos, I think I’ll go back again in warmer weather! The covered market looked like fun (but was closed for most of Sunday by the time I had finished lunch), and the dreaming spires of Oxford are beautiful. The main shopping centre was really busy, but it’s nearly Christmas so I expected that. Next time I think I’ll try going on a weekday when hopefully it’s not as busy.

This week I’m determined to finish those last chapters. I want to put this first draft to bed before Christmas. That way I can relax without the nagging voice of my novel demanding to be heard (it will do that anyway, but at least I will have written ‘The End’). I’ve done most of my Christmas shopping – just a few more things I need to sort out, then I think I’ll be happy. I always feel kind of anxious about whether people will like what I’ve got for them – but I’m sure they will. As always, the man and I are late with our Christmas cards, but most of them are written and waiting to be posted. Friday will involve last minute Xmas shopping. In the evening. A bit worried about that!

I’ve started that photobook I was talking about. I inadvertently managed to upload lots of photos and then managed to delete them from the book. This was at 1am in the morning. So, because I was that determined, I did the whole painstaking process again, because I’m strange like that. I had to go through all the photos from this year and pick out the ones that reminded me of what this year has been about. Not easy when there are hundreds to go through! I’m only at May so far though…and haven’t even decided what I’m going to write in the book, or what blog posts I’ll include. It might turn into more of a longer term project than I was expecting.

Some photos from this week: