The Beatles - In My Life

You Should Light a Lavender Candle

You are sensitive yet resilient. You are spiritual and emotional, but you aren't fragile. In your group of friends, you are the intuitive one. You understand and empathize with others. You're the type of person who appreciates beauty. You see can see hope and potential. You genuinely kind and nurturing. You don't like conflict or chaos. You only want peace.

What Scent Candle Should You Light?

Blogthings: Free Quizzes for Everyone

You Are a Swan

You are a graceful and elegant creature. You are both powerful and vulnerable. You have a lot of inner strength that you draw from. You aren't as fragile as you seem. You have a strong nurturing instinct. You are especially in tune with children and animals. You are poetic and expressive. You see beauty everywhere, and you like to share your inner world with others.

What Bird Are You?

Blogthings: Free Quizzes for Everyone

You Are Sentimental

You hold your friends and family close to your heart. You treasure every memory you have. You take care of what you value most - whether it's an object or a person. Of all the types, you are the most likely to pass down a family heirloom. Whether you're a woman or a man, you are probably very in touch with your feminine side.

The Jewelry Test

Blogthings: Discover the Parts of Your Personality that Have Been Hiding

You Have a Wild Imagination

You can think or dream anything. You have very vivid and colorful thoughts. You have smooth and well mannered attitude. People can count on you to charm and delight. You are peaceful and pretty zen like. You live in the moment. You are a very emotional person. It's pretty easy to touch your heart.

The Bubble Bath Test

Blogthings: 100's of Fun, Free Quizzes and 3 Stupid Ones

Your Refrigerator Says You Are an Adventurous Eater

You like to be surrounded by things you love. You aren't exactly greedy, but you can be materialistic at times. You tend to be a fairly thrifty person. You splurge occasionally, but you're mostly a saver. You are a very adventurous person. You love to try new things, and you get bored very easily. You are responsible, together, and mature. You act like an adult, even when you don't feel like it. You are likely married, possibly with kids.

What Do the Contents of Your Refrigerator Say About You?

Blogthings: We'll Tell You The Truth... Someone Has To!

TIME TO CHANGE

This week is Mental Health Week. Except, I think it's finished now. But I am still going to write this entry, in case there is the slightest chance it will make someone who reads this feel slightly less rubbish.
My name is Emmy and I suffer with anxiety and depression. I am lucky enough to have only needed minimal medical intervention but other people are not as lucky as me.

I am writing this because at least 1 in 4 of us will have trouble with our mental health. I bet it's probably more like 3 in 4, to be honest. Because, if we were all honest about it, we have probably nearly all suffered. And it's not an embarrassing or shameful or weak thing, mental illness is an illness, like bronchitis or chronic migraines or haemorrhoids. Okay, maybe it's not like piles, but you get my drift. People don't choose to have a mental illness because they feel like being self-indulgent or an excuse to be lazy, it is because they cannot function in every day life and it is hard.

I was signed off work for six weeks in 2008 with anxiety and depression. I worked as a main support worker for a man with challenging behaviour, which basically meant I was paid minimum wage to what amounts to being assaulted every day at work and one day I couldn't, wouldn't, cope with it anymore. I did a strong thing by going to the doctor about it, not a weak thing. At the time I thought I'd failed, but actually, getting signed off was a great success for my emotional wellbeing and my health in general. And I was signed off work to recover and I ran away home to cry in my room and stare at the walls and sit in my bath robe and think and think and think.


And one day it doesn't hurt as much, and the day after gets better, too. Then you have a Bad Day of Doom and you think you're back at square one, but it is not square one because the sheer experience of a Better Day is the start of positive achievements and the road to recovery.


I am not trying to say that I magically got better by having time off work, far from it. It was hugely challenging, and I know people who suffer a lot worse with anxiety and depression than what I do. But I am trying to say that, if this is you now, there is hope. You can and will get better one day. Maybe not today, but perhaps tomorrow, or the day after that. You can do it.


And I'm not saying thatt once you feel better, you always will. Last night I woke up at 4 a.m. with the familiar feeling of intercostal muscle strain at the bottom of my ribs, where I have become anxious in my sleep and struggled to breathe using my diaphragm properly. I spent an hour controlling my breathing again, trying to fill my lungs up to capacity again and ridding my chest of the pain of adrenaline and panic coursing through me. The difference is now I know how to deal with that. I do breathing exercises and jot down what I think is worrying me on my bedside notepad, and what time of day it is. Then I can go back to sleep, hopefully. I am tired this morning but I am not feeling anxious.


Medals for everyone who read this, haha! I hope it's at least helped one person. If you're worried about you or one of your peoples, visit Time To Change TODAY, DON'T WAIT TILL TOMORROW. http://www.time-to-change.org.uk/


By talking about mental health and educating ourselves, we can undo the stigma related to admitting you or a family member or friend have a mental illness. I haven't edited this entry, I've just written it as it came out of my brainspace. I hope it is vaguely coherent ;) Lots of love to all xxx

Jamie Woon - Lady Luck

Yesterday I Did A Cry.

But today, Chloedog found a hedgehog in the garden and we fed her raisins, water, peanuts and Pedigree Chum Schmackos. Chloe kept looking for the hedgehog every time she went out into the garden, she was sniffing everywhere for her. I took some photos, wrote some non-scary post and it was sunny.

Every now and again, I get overwhelmed by the amount of music there is in the world that I like, and that I can't possibly listen to All The Songs at the same time. This happened today.

I also want to travel to All The Places, but I can't and that is sad.

So instead, I have just spent hours looking at them on Flickr. I have come up with some ideas of stuff round here that I'd like to take photos of, which is good I guess. My photography course starts in 6 weeks but I've already got the DVD through.

Tomorrow I begin my last week of working 21 hours and I will drop back down to 9 hours again. Which gives me lots of time to do All The Things, but not so much money. Swings and roundabouts. Oooh, maybe I will go to the park and take pictures of swings and roundabouts.

This is not a very linear entry.

I have "Heavyweight Champion of the World" by Reverend and the Makers going round in my head. Be like everybody else, be like everybody else, be like everybody else,  just be like everybody else.

Beyonce/Lady Gaga - Telephone

I went to the beach to look at the sea wall and take photos of awesome graffiti but all I found was this. Shoddy!

Daniel Powter - Bad Day

 

Bad Day by Daniel Powter is just one of the many stupid song choices that come over the tannoy of the shopping village I work at. Others include :

The Bangles - Manic Monday

Celine Dion - All by Myself

That guy (what's his name?) - All by Myself (yes, they play 2 versions!)

Westlife - Let Me Go Home

 

Ridiculous, aren't they? How do those songs encourage people to think they're having a fantastic time and think they should buy All The Things?!

 

Other inappropriate songs I think they should choose are:

 

Engelbert Humperdinck - Please Release Me

The Animals - We've Gotta Get Out of this Place

Pink Floyd - Money

Beach Boys - Sloop John B (complete with the lyrics "let me go home/why wonxt you let me go home?/this is the worst trip I've ever been on)

Alphabeat - Fascination

This post is about ear piercing, working in a shop and family love.

I work in a shop opposite another that sells accessories (it's probably the one you're thinking of) and it also does ear piercing. When I get bored at work because it's not very busy or there's a lull, I get to people-watch and it's the most fascinating thing ever.

An adorable little family went into the shop before, a mum, a big brother, middle sister and little brother and the sister wanted to get her ears pierced for the first time. Mum spent a long time picking out the girl's very first earrings with her and when they settled on the right pair, the shop assistant spent a long time chatting to the little girl, putting her at ease and making side glances and winks at Mum to check she thought everything was okay.

The assistant draw the target marks on the girl's ears and the girl started to look a bit scared. The assistant invited Mum to check the blobs were even and the two other brothers checked too, the big brother coming up really close and putting his eyeball right up to both ears one at a time. He nodded firmly, and sister calmed down a bit.

The piercing gun was brought out and the little girl seemed to get scared again. It reminded me of when I got my first ear piercings and the dread of what it will feel like, then feeling the hot flick of the jewellery being stamped into your ear. Little brother handed his sister his teddy: a treasured possession of his in order to make his sister feel better. It was such a cute sight to see. Sister cheered up and the little brother looked so proud of himself, Mum praising him for being such a lovely boy.

And all of a sudden, the ears were pierced! The girl offered her little brother the bear back, but he kissed her cheek and let her keep it a while longer.

So sweet.

Led Zeppelin - Tea For One

So, I just spent the best part of an hour making a birthday cake for my Dad (yes, I decided to bake at midnight, what of it?). I like to think that it's because I'm nice and lovely and a good daughter, not that I have no money to buy him a real present.
Yes, good daughter, that's the ticket.

Anyway, it was one of those rare times when everything goes perfect, you whip the cake batter together and instead of making cake sludge, it goes all light and fluffy and there is no gloop or goo or general nastiness. I lined the tin and spooned the mixture (Victoria sponge with a hint of ground ginger - Dad likes all things spicy) into said lined tin and popped it into the oven on Gas Mark 7. I'd left the cake to cool on the side and all was well, it was a beautiful golden browny beige colour so I set to work making the icing.

I went to take the cake out of the tin and put it on a cooling rack and plop! It fell on the floor.

Now I know what you're thinking 3 second rule, it'll be fiiine , right? No.
It broke into pieces and accumulated an unsavoury amount of dog hair on it.

FML squared. I could've cried if it didn't look so fucking funny, beautiful pieces of cake smashed up on our kitchen tiles.

So sorry Dad, your birthday cake *was* going to be fabulous, ginger flavoured and fluffy and light. It was even going to have sprinkles and candles.

Instead there's a kitchen with every single utensil we own covered in cake batter. At least there's no crumbs on the floor though, but our cocker spaniel has gained approximately 14 stone.

Happy birthday!

Michael Jackson - Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough

Stalk me on Flickr :)

I just bought a new DSLR (Sony Alpha A390) and I've never had one before, so I'm looking for all the tips I can get, please!

Celine Dion - All By Myself

After being so bored at work I was actually contemplating using one of these methods, I decided I should write a blog about Shit That Happens At Work While I'm Staring Out Of The Window.

I work part-time in a little shop on a retail village/shopping centre/whatever they're called now to make it sound more grand than 20 shops, a cafe and a car park built on some old waste ground in 1995. Now, I get to see some funny stuff from the ideal vantage point behind my till, as the shop I work in is right at the front entrance of the complex.

Here are a couple of things that have happened today that made me Do A Laugh. Now, it may or may not be funny, but when you're working on a grey Wednesday afternoon in a shop where most of the items are £99 and no one actually *has* a hundred quid spare to spend on frivolities anymore thanks to This Man *, you gotta take your amusement where you can.


It just took 2 security staff to retrieve a can of Fanta from the vending machine for a woman with the biggest boobies in the world. A stout grey man has also just lost his money and gained no Diet Coke, but there is no one around to help him now. Bless him and his lack of hot boobies and tight skirt.

~

Dear Mr. Stout Shopper

I know you think no one was looking when you walked past the shop and fell over nothing at all, looked around, sighed with relief and continuted your walk, but I want you to know watching you fall over followed by hearing All By Myself come on over the tannoy whilst you walk away all bashful and shamefaced has made my day and a little bit of wee came out.

love from Emmy xxx

~

 

Dear Septegenarian Lady With A Walnut Face and Peroxide Perm,

You look like you've had a fight with Bet Gilroy and Katie Price in a paint factory.

Wash your face, this is the North of England, not Vegas.

Kind regards,
Emmy xxx

~

A man just came into the shop with the most epic moustache ever, it looked like this ^ ^ and it was blonde and grey and white and ginger. I tried so hard to get a photo of him and failed, but that's okay cos I did this completely life-like artist's rendition of his entire face. It's uncanny.

~

I've just realised that these things were the most interesting things about my day and that's quite sad. FML.

Train - Drops of Jupiter

I have experienced a few self-realisations today. Nothing too profound, but enough to make me think about my interest in learning new things, my relationship with The Mister and how different people experience the same thing in different ways.

Sitting in our front room this evening, watching Wonders of the Universe, Mum, Dad, The Brother and I were listening to Prof. Brian Cox talk about entropy and what that means. It reminded me that I used to know some of this stuff once upon a time, and rekindled the dying embers of interest I once had about thermodynamics and how they relate to the entire universe. Mum and Dad were interested for a few minutes but started to zone out as it's not their particular subject of interest. Fair enough, people like different things.

But it made me think about how, if I was watching the programme with The Mister, we would be sparking off conversations with each other, moving the topic on with a shoot off about some other branch of science because we're both interested in it. It made me remember that we're together not just because we've spent our entire adult lives together and that's just the way things are, but because we share a love of just... thinking shit up. Because we're passionate about similar things. I won't say the same things because I was always (well, thought I was) more interested in biology and biochemistry (of course a different self-realisation made me acutely aware that I'd wasted my degree on science when I was always more a lover of arts) whereas The Mister is more interested in physics and engineering, how and why things work, the order and structure of what makes things exist.

When I was writing my Happy Anniversary card on Saturday, I was trying to think of a list of reasons why I love The Mister and why we work. I didn't think deeply enough to even consider stuff like this. We work because we are interested in SIMILAR things, not the same things. Like, we'll have discussions (that yeah, sometimes get heated. Not in a malicious way, in a passionate way) for hours that will be borne out of watching a documentary (we both love docus! Nerdylicious huh) and one of us will make a comment and the other will say "well actually, I see it *this* way". And usually it will broaden both our minds. We teach each other to have a different perspective on the components of the world, be it in a psychological, scientific, artistic, political or sociological way. I think it's things like this that mean we'll still be debating when we're 83. We won't fizzle out because we'll always be hungry to know something new and want to know how the other one sees it.

I shied away from persuing the arts because it was drummed into me that there were more jobs in science and since I have the intelligence to do either, I should choose science. I always think that the arts make me happier but I didn't go for it because they are a lot of essays, and I didn't always feel... articulate enough to properly describe what something means, the feeling and emotion in it. Which I think sometimes is where my Doom comes into play. I am a very emotional and sensitive person but feel like I can't articulate the masses of emotion and worries and doubts and joy and happiness and angst and sadness that goes on in the space between my ears. I tell myself I let myself down because I chose a degree that was science-based when I should've picked a language or music, but really, I just love learning All The Things! If I could, I would spend all my time learning everything there is. In the woooorld. Which ultimately means I don't have my niche, my one obsession, my true intellectual love. I am far too interested in too many subjects and could choose any of them to persue and would probably do quite well in any field but too choose just one subject? Out of everything in the universe that I could possibly want to investigate? Not a chance. Hence the B.A. (Hons) Open degree I have enrolled onto. I can choose pretty well any subject I feel like learning and get a degree at the end. Win.

Which is why I just don't "get" when some people just want to stick to one field of knowledge. But I suppose I will probably end up being a "jack of all trades, master of none". I don't know if I'm okay with that.

Jessie J ft. BOB - Price Tag

Helloey!

This is the obligatory introduction post, I guess. Which are inevitably boring and self-indulgent. Mine is no different.

My name is Emmy and I like taking photos of All The Things (and All The People and All The Places in the Woooorld), Lady Grey tea (with milk and sugar, I'm a heathen), playing with my doggies (a choccy Lab called Chloe and a black American Cocker Spaniel called Diesel), baking cakes and cooking tagines, the beach, the sunshine, tulips, sunflowers and orchids.

I like any music from Stone Roses to Tchaikovsky to Abba to Eliza Doolittle.

My photos are HERE and HERE and my Twitter is HERE.

I'll post something better next time. Promise.