At this moment #1 | Lifestyle

WATCHING

A few days ago I started watching Shooter, the Netflix series starring Ryan Phillippe. It's about an ex-Marine who was set up for murder. I was expecting it to be a propaganda-fest in the usual 'Murica the greatest nation in the world style, as often happens when American patriotism, guns and TV commingle. I found it really immersive from the first episode, which was nice as the point of watching TV for me is not having to think about the day to day stuff. If I'm thinking about my laundry pile or the washing up the show really doesn't cut it. I think I'm about 6 or 7 episodes into the first series, and I really like it. I didn't see the attraction to Ryan Phillippe back in the day when he was younger - he was far too pretty for me - but he's matured nicely and he has a beard now, so there's that. 😍


READING

I've been reading a book about Lee Harvey Oswald - Oswald: Assassin or Fall Guy? by Joachim Joesten. It's 50+ year old book, written about a year after Oswald was shot dead in police custody. It's very detailed and quite long-winded. It paints the picture that it's very unlikely JFK was shot by Oswald, but as always these things are open to personal interpretation. I've kinda given up on it though, as I got a bit bored towards the end. The language isn't too old fashioned, but he goes into such great detail about everything my eyes did start to glaze over. I usually fill my head with crappy fiction books, but I'm trying to read more non-fiction this year.

MAKING

I'm making attempts not to buy any more clothes or makeup. Does that count? 😉 I'm also making efforts to lift my mood by thinking happy thoughts and counting my blessings.

STARTING

I've decided to start scrapbooking, using the Project Life system. They do packs of journal cards so you can jot down a few details; filler cards in pretty colours with a quote or a nice pattern on; and first and last page headers to set the tone. My depression and anxiety is hammering me at the moment and I need to do something simple to take my mind off it. The little card in the header image is from a couple of taster kits I bought to see if I would like it. (I would have used the cards for blog background photos otherwise). Some years ago I used to scrapbook mine and James's gigs, festivals, holidays and outings. I think it'll be nice to document every day life, even the mundane stuff, as it's fun to look back on. I keep a diary sporadically but it'll be good to print some photos and write a few words about the weeks that pass rather than having memories stuck in my head and photos stuck in my laptop. It's my birthday in 2 weeks so I'm going to spend any birthday money I get on a scrapbook album, page protectors and more cards.

FINISHING

I had been watching Jack Taylor on Netflix but I've given up. I enjoyed Iain Glen in Game of Thrones and although Jack Taylor started off cheesy, I hoped it'd get better, but in my opinion it got worse. When one of the main characters got replaced mid-series (by someone with less charisma IMO) and another character left I gave up. There's no need to watch just OK TV when there's great TV out there.

ENJOYING

My mum and step dad came to stay for a couple of days at the beginning of the week, which was really nice. They took me to my gynae check up on Monday. (All is as well as can be. I'm going back for another scan in a year to monitor the massive accumulation of fluid in my abdomen. As that isn't the cause of pain - my heavy periods are - there's no point operating to release it). On Tuesday it was a beautiful sunny day so we went to Rye and had a picnic. It was a real mood booster.

Blue sky!

TEXTING

I've been texting my friend Mich to talk about visiting her and her hubby in May. We have friends in far flung places across England and our summer is usually packed with good times. 

LOVING

Organising things! I bought an old fashioned Dymo label maker a few weeks ago and I've been labelling wardrobe shelves, chests of drawers and storage boxes. It's difficult as I have clothes in both bedrooms but once I've created order I can label everything. The aim is to know where everything is at a glance, which might avoid unnecessary purchases. I forget what I have half the time! James and I also did a lot around the house this weekend. I took the doors off the built in wardrobe in the spare room as they scraped along the runners every time I moved them and they set my teeth on edge. We decluttered our huge boiler cupboard to put the doors in there, moved storage furniture around in the spare room and started setting up James's drum kit in our bedroom. I was determined that unlike in the old place we weren't going to have his drum kit in the guest bedroom! Our bedroom is huge so there's plenty of room for his kit, our kingsize bed and all our wardrobes. We still have a way to go before everything is as we want it, and we need to make large purchases like outdoor furniture for the balcony, rugs and so on, so we'll do a bit each month.

HATING

The world we live in, where sick individuals do things like drive into people in bridges and stab policemen. It's more than that though - it's all the other things that aren't focused on by our media, like drone strikes in far flung countries killing hundreds of innocents at a time. All violent deaths are sad, and I wish the media encouraged us to mourn for them evenly, not just care about white deaths.

What's new with you? Let me know.

I had an 'I don't want to blog any moooooooore!' moment earlier in the week but I've put it down to crap mental health and PMS. My blog email account is in away mode though as I definitely need a break from the demands of that. Self care can take any format - even burying your head in the sand!

Thanks for reading.
Leah xoxo