Different Approach

I have been in deep thinkers mode lately; just too many questions in my head. A letter came in this morning from the Lowlands and it ended up unopened on top of the one that has been lying on my desk for at least two weeks now. Both from the same sender. I wonder what is keeping me from opening and reading them. I don’t know the answer but if I had to guess it’s probably because I might be afraid of having to read about someone’s disappointment. Knowing that I can’t be there for her, coz I have my own worries.

Mine are that I don’t understand what I’m dealing with over here and it’s utterly frustrating because I’m in a catch-22 so it seems. So I’ve decided to adopt a different approach to things which basically means I will have to work extremely hard over the next couple of months to get where I need to be after the summer. No more time for faffing but trying to stay focused. It’s not just a personal situation, it’s also the fact that whatever is going on in this country, it ain’t positive at all and not just scare stories…

I don’t watch the news and I try to avoid the free papers. Reading about a recession and how it affects the economy is not very uplifting. It’s ‘just’ another thing that adds up to the list. I’ve exchanged emails with an English friend and told him that I was thinking about moving back and how it would feel like a failure to me. Admitting to someone that those thoughts have crossed my mind was a hard thing to do. But he reminded me of something he wrote last year when we first started to exchange emails.

He said it’s good to always know that I could return to the Lowlands and that I shouldn’t view it as failure. If anything I should see it as England failed me… He is right, giving up is not my style but having to deal with e.g.: negative figures, a credit crunch, people who take their savings out of the bank and a rising number of unemployment etc. plus struggles that I have in reaching my number one goal which is basically related to everything I just mentioned is not that simple and can be really disheartening most of the time.

But I’ve made a decision and I’m gonna stick with it… Next week I’ll be visiting the summer fair and will network my way into more business. I’m gonna prepare a strategy, keep a stack of business cards ready, wear a gorgeous dress and my nicest smile and talk the talk. Because by the end of the summer I want to have at least six showcases online. I have one showcase in already and will start working on it tomorrow. It’s a total redesign for an online shop that sells leather products to high street department stores like Debenhams, House of Fraser etc.

It’s an exciting project because I’ve never used e-commerce software before. It comes with my hosting package as well: so first thing tomorrow will be installing it on my server. That way I can test the redesigned templates and get familiar with the front- and back-end of the software. Sunday I’ll be meeting up with a garden landscaper to chat about a web design. And today I’ve finished a second Flash website for a client in Scotland. Over the weekend I’ll have to finish a gallery to add to the first website that I did earlier this year.

So forgive me if I seem to have vanished, it’s temporary because I really need to stay focused…

Perfume Tag

I guess it was bound to happen one day… I’m tagged by my friend Wen, a fellow blogger and expat living in beautiful Malta. I must admit I’ve tried to stay away from the tagging thing that seemed to be a hype in the blogosphere at some point. I’ve managed so far but when I read her request on her blog I simply couldn’t refuse *hehe*. I’m just very aware of the fact that this is a book tag and the one book I’m still reading at the moment is the one that I’ve mentioned in my previous posts already. So I’m gonna bend the rules slightly or else it’ll become a bit of a drag to read.

The rules are:

1. Pick up the nearest book.

2. Open to page 123

3. Find the fifth sentence.

4. Post the next three sentences.

5. Tag five people, and acknowledge who tagged you.

I also won’t tag five people… Why? Because most of my readers are in hiding mode and probably too shy to take part in this, leave a comment or they simply don’t have a blog of their own. So I’m not gonna bother them unless they want to [then feel free to let me know!]. I have a slight dilemma though because rule number one tells me to pick up the nearest book. My desk is right next to my bookcase so I guess that leaves me with plenty of books to choose from. I will behave and skip my seventeen technical Bibles: PHP, Actionscripting, Flash and all the -vintage by now- Mac OS troubleshooting ones that I used back when I was a sysop.

My choice is one of the most hilarious books that I’ve ever read years ago. I will read it again once I’ve finished my other book because I’m in need of a good laugh. I wonder what’s on page 123 because some might be offended but I’ll warn you, I’m really not gonna take responsibility for the sentences that I’m about to copy below. So stop reading while you can… here goes:

‘For miles around the mountain, there lived not one human being, nor even a respectable mammal -at best a few bats and a few beetles and adders. No one had scaled the peak for decades. Grenouille reached the mountain one August night in the year 1756.’

This an excerpt taken from the book: ‘Perfume‘ -the story of a murderer, by Patrick Süskind. And lucky me it wasn’t that bad at all *hehe*

The cover from my copy of this book, old and worn…

Well, that was today’s tag… The other bit of my life is less exciting at the moment, just much of the same ol’ same ol’. I’m dying to hear from a bunch of cool people about a role very close to where I live which involves education and a CMS called Drupal. They’ve checked my online web folio twice now so please keep your fingers crossed for me, I so want this role! I’m designing an invitation for my friend IvS. in Scotland who is going to throw a party in August: my flight is already booked. I’m really looking forward to seeing her, hubby and kids again because it feels like ages, although it was last year when they came to London for the Chelsea Flower show, it’s gonna be great. 120 people are invited to the party and they will receive the invitation so it might be a good idea to leave my mark somewhere…

I’m asked to redesign a B&B website for people up north in Scotland. I’ve designed their business cards a few years ago and another website recently in February this year. I’m also still busy working on the ‘hush-hush-project’ which is another website design for a real and a virtual shop. And in between I’m working on my own new project which involves fifties design and an online shop which for now is another ‘hush-hush-project’ until the launch of the website. It’s quite a lot of work so don’t expect anything soon, I’m still in the research phase: looking for proper software because I need to be able to adjust the look and feel of the shop, reading about online payment methods because I need to know how much they charge etc. and designing content in the meantime.

Lucky me MvdM. didn’t ask me yet about his business blog project, I will have to design the templates for the blog and start writing posts for him on a weekly basis once the blog is up and running. I won’t have time to do this at the moment. Talking about time, I really need to do something about time management, but that’s another post… If you have any suggestions?