A day in the life…

Hello. Welcome to a day in my life. Wait, don’t go – it’ll be interesting, honest! After my ‘personal branding’ lesson last month, I realised that I really did want to share more about myself with my lovely readers and I think it’s only fair that I give you an insight into my daily life as a full-time blogger – then you can imagine me sat all alone with my cup of tea and might think about sending me a tweet or leaving me a comment to liven up my day, haha! Seriously, I’d love to know more about you too so please get in touch, I love to chat 😉 So here goes:

6am Wake up to the world’s quietest alarm clock that sounds like a harp so that I don’t get jolted out of my sleep. I like to float into consciousness, sit up and take time to let the blood circulate around my body before making any kind of move to get out of bed. This is why the alarm is on early – I like to have time and not feel rushed in the morning. I pull on my slippers (I’ve written about them here!) and head into the kitchen where I feed and fuss my cats Cookie and Muffin and make a cup of tea and breakfast, which I take back to bed.

7am Hubby leaves for work and I sometimes go with him to work in the library but often I listen to BBC Radio 2 and start work almost straight away on whatever article or blog post that has popped into my head during the night. I also respond to all my comments or social media messages that have arrived overnight from my USA audience and have a read of all the lovely blogs that I follow, such as inspirational blog LucyLovesYa, vintage fashion articles at My Blue Rinse and photography site Lacey In Places. I try to post my first blog post of the day before 9am because I think it’s nice to have something to read when you get to work 😉 then I open up my emails for the first time and crack on with replying to them.

10.30am I take a tea break to listen to the Popmaster quiz on Radio 2, while having a second breakfast because I’m already hungry by this point in the day. I usually score around 15-21 points on Popmaster – although once I scored 30 and beeped my horn in triumph! (I was driving the car at the time – I don’t have a horn in my house). I research and draft articles for some of the other publications that I write for, then at 12.30 I force myself to leave the computer for a lunch break, cook something proper for lunch and have a rest, otherwise I know I will get tired and be useless for the rest of the day. I will usually read during my lunch hour – either whatever novel I’m reading (at the moment it’s Julie and Julia by blogger Julie Powell) or a magazine, such as my Mensa or Mollie Makes subscription (thanks hubby).

1.45pm I turn on cbeebies every day without fail and watch a 15 minute episode of Something Special. I have been learning Makaton sign language for the past 2 years so this gives me time to practice and I often learn a new sign during the show. Who’d have thought there would be a sign for ‘zipwire’? Well, I know it now! After the show finishes I make a cup of tea and clean the kitchen while singing along to the jingle of the next children’s TV show which I inevitably learn just by accidentally leaving the TV on in the background. At the moment it’s Let’s Play but I particularly enjoyed Mr Bloom’s Nursery – now that is a theme tune!

2pm – 6pm I head out to my workshop (my little vintage caravan) and work all afternoon on a creative project and take photos for the blog, such as a craft DIY, outfit post or interiors shoot. Some days the afternoon will be a trip out to visit an event, place or person and all of this will feed back into my writing somewhere along the line. I check and finish off my emails for the day and clear away my work. I reward myself for a good day’s work with a session on Pinterest before hubby gets home.

10pm A highlight of the bedtime is Cookie joining me as I brush my teeth – she comes running whenever she hears the toothbrush turn on – so I hold out her own cat toothbrush for her to brush her teeth against and she loves it! We chat until we fall asleep – usually my conversation starts trailing off first as I struggle to stay awake to finish a sentence. If I have trouble getting to sleep I follow my friend & fellow blogger Laurie Rose’s advice of clearing my mind and counting to ten, and if a thought interrupts my counting I start again at number one and so on until my mind is so clear that I fall asleep. In fact I don’t ever remember getting as far as ten!

So I hope you’ve learnt a little more about me through this blog post – if only the fact that I’m a workaholic, pin addict who lets her cat brush it’s own teeth.