Typecast

Goodbye June, it was... well, there are no words to describe it. A leap of faith A fresh start A new career A moment of pride A sense of achievement A new me It's been hard to find words to write on here so I've concentrated my energies on frivolous distractions which has taken me to a new online adventure and I've been focusing on the path for my new business and career. I believe the radio quiz will be making a second series appearance soon too.   June has been the end of one chapter and the beginning of another.  Everything points towards me to dancing to the beat of my own drum, which has always worked for me in the past.  So, in the words of Chad Jackson: Peace, unity, love and having fun Let's groove on 'cause it's time to move on Hear the drummer get wicked!

You may have noticed that I've been spending a bit of time over on YouTube , talking rather than writing. If you're not subscribed to my channel you can easily solve that - just hit this button... It's mainly about my Filofax and Bullet Journalling at the moment but that's what I feel comfortable talking about so it's helped me to gain front-of-camera confidence. I've been chatting to a few other blogger-vloggers and I thought it would be a great idea to set some video challenges to get people up there in front of the camera.  This is open to anyone - even you! All you need is a webcam/camcorder/mobile phone, your YouTube (or other video) account and a bit of creative licence. This will be run by myself and Kate from WitWitWoo.com (here's her YouTube channel ) and we will be setting one challenge/theme a week .  Each challenge will be set on Tuesdays and you are free to dip in and out whenever you like. No pressure at all.  There are no...

You may have heard (after me mentioning it many many times) that I scored a bargain Filofax on Ebay recently.  A whole £11 for a beautiful, brand new, leather Kingston Personal Filofax that is perfect in every way.  I think I have found my lifetime planner.  However, much of that feeling comes from finding a way to incorporate my bullet journal in with the reason(s) I use a Filofax.  Have a little watch of this video to see why I feel like that. You might also like this Google Hangout that I hosted on Thursday evening in which myself, +Elizabeth Locke ,  +Sally Todd  and  +Kat Williamson  talked about our own bullet journals, how they are working for us and a few hints and tips. How are you getting on with your planning system?  Are you happy with what you have, forever changing (a bit like me) to keep things interesting or still looking for planner perfection?  Let me know.

I have a theory about drawing and art. When we are children we just pick up a pencil or crayon and draw. We can, when prompted, explain our picture in full, glorious detail. Then there comes a point in life where we become critical of our own work - whether that be through self-analysis, comparison or negative feedback - and some of us just stop drawing because we believe we aren't as good as our peers. I am one of those people. I have friends who arty types and their talent never ceases to amaze me. They use different mediums and have totally different styles however the finished article is always stunning. Recently, through work ( I am loving my new line of work! ), I was invited to attend a life-drawing class. I was going to sit at the back and observe but I had a spare blank notebook and HB pencil at home so shoved them in my bag just in case.  The class was advertised as an alternative life-drawing class with entertainment, competitions and 'quick dra...

John has chosen some cracking tracks for his Soundtrack To My Life and this is the main reason I love this series; it reminds me of tracks I haven't heard in a long time and introduces me to artists I have never heard of. I'm definitely going to check out more of Lissie because of that Fleetwood Mac sound.  But now, here are all of John's Soundtrack To My Life tunes. ¨¨ °º©©º°¨¨ Pink Floyd - Wish You Were Here My wife (then just my girlfriend) and I travelled by coach from Edinburgh to London, slummed it in Earl's Court Youth Hostel and had our minds blown away by the packed stadium all singing this, our favourite, song. Everyone there knew the words. Truly an amazing experience, one I'd love to share with my kids if only Gilmour, Waters and the rest could resolve their differences and tour again. Status Quo - Rocking All Over the World When I was 12, my dad had the opportunity to take me to see Queen playing live at Wembley Stadium. The ...

Summer is upon us, and what do the summer months entail? Holidays! Whether it’s a quick break with your other half, or you plan to take the family abroad for a week or two, a holiday of any description helps to break up the humdrum of daily life and can be a welcome thing for many of us. If you’re getting away with the kids this year, the hassle of travelling with them and their spontaneous tantrums can be a real nightmare when you have little ones - and when they get older, you have the troublesome teenage years to consider. But before you even start thinking of the actual journey, you need to consider what to pack for them. As they get older, they’ll probably want to have more of a say about what to put into their suitcases, but when they’re young, you have more control over what clothes to take on holiday with you. Boys are fairly easy – a selection of t shirts and shorts will do the trick, but girls can be a little more problematic. Here are some great tips to help you sort...

If you follow me on Twitter or Instagram you may have seen me recently sharing pictures of washi tape.  For those not in the know, washi tape is pretty sticky paper, rolled like sellotape and can be used for many a craft project (check out Pinterest for ideas) and for decorating pages of my bullet journal or Filofax . It's pretty, it's inexpensive and it's unnecessary a must-have. Anyway, I'm going to waffle on for a minute but it's relevant to the story. I was looking to replenish my stash and found a cheap and cheerful seller on Amazon, clicked to order and awaited the washi goodness.  When it arrived I was pretty chuffed with my order so I 'pinned' a picture of the tape from the order page to one of my Pinterest boards (a) so I wouldn't forget where I'd ordered from and (b) to share the washi love. I wanted to thank the seller for fast delivery and good service but I couldn't find the company on Twitter. A couple of weeks later I...

Steve is the father of previous Soundtrack To My Life participant, Louise (you can read her STML here ) although we do share a mutual interest of writing and music in general. I love the mellowness of Steve's choices so let's enjoy the mix of words and music that weave his Soundtrack To My Life choices. ¨¨ °º©©º°¨¨ The Kinks - Lola   Back when I was at the tender age of 16/17 I used to go to a youth club a couple of evenings a week, happy days, carefree. The guys and girls were a good crowd, and we socialised all over the place outside of the youth club too, each other's houses, the park, and one or two of the local pubs (Yeah, I know, weren't we the rebels eh?) The most life changing event that happened at this youth club was that I met Debbie, my future wife to be, that was 43 years ago, we are still together now, and still in love to this day. Every time I hear this song, it just takes me straight back to those days we lived back then. Simon...

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I was in-between meetings today so I took the opportunity to have a wander round Blackburn Museum. I'm slightly ashamed to say that I've lived in this town for nine years now and have only stepped foot in the museum once before. Respectfully, there is no flash photography allowed in many areas of the museum and in some sections there is very low lighting to preserve the displays even further so the following pictures aren't of the highest quality. You need to visit if you're ever in the area. There are loads of different collections - not all related to industry and local history. I totally fell in love with the Japanese collection and the icons/scripture section. Find out more on the Blackburn Museum website.   Open Wednesday to Saturday, 12 noon - 4.45pm and entry is free.

I think I managed to get a few people hooked on the Bullet Journalling idea after my recent post about it . I also promised to share a proper glimpse inside my Bullet Journal after I had been using it for a while. Rather than take loads of photographs that would probably have to be redacted because of personal/private information I thought I'd 'vlog' (video blog) my new system on my rather blurred webcam and here are the results. (I've called this Part 1 because, as you can see/hear in the video, I'm going to be changing the way in which I use my Bullet Journal slightly over the next week or so in conjunction with my Filofax system. But that's what's so great about this - it's so organic and easy to make it work for you.) (If you cant see the video, click here to go straight to YouTube) As an aside, I've seen loads of people use the acronym "BJ" when chatting on Twitter/Facebook/Google+ which makes me snigger like a fou...

It's a real pleasure to share this week's  Soundtrack To My Life  because it comes from one of my oldest friends, Steph. We were at primary school together way way back in the 1970's (I know we don't look that old).  Our little gang was a force to be reckoned with when it came to skipping and elastics. We lost tough for a while but social media and blogging brought us back together again with a bit of an emotional reunion at a bloggers conference a couple of years ago.  And even though we are like ships in the night, we will eventually get to see each other again soon. ¨¨ °º©©º°¨¨  Abba - Dancing Queen - Abba A classic and just has to feature as first on my list. I don't think any party is complete without it, and I will never be able to stand still and not dance when this comes on. It was played at my wedding and I was 'slightly' disappointed that my Dad chose this time to want to dance with me whilst really I was dying to get in a gang with ...