Friday, January 13, 2012

Rocking Your World Friday - week 2

It’s that time of the week again – time to reflect on the good stuff.

I’ve got to say, it’s been a little harder this week to pick past the big piles of not-so-good-stuff to get to those little nuggets of positivity – but that’s really what Rockin’ My World Friday is all about, I guess.  It’s EASY to feel positive and grateful when everything is going swimmingly, but we need a bit of help when everything starts heading downhill…

First of all, rewinding back to this time next week, I’m still smiling from the super warm welcome I got from all the other “Rockettes” to my very first RMWF post.  Thanks ladies :)

The next thing to make me grin was an email on Friday evening from the newly formed Swindon Roller Derby team, asking if I would be able to come and photograph their first ever bout for them (I used to do a lot of ice hockey photography and so I have the kit to get past the challenges of shooting fast moving people indoors under artificial light) – the bout takes place this coming Sunday and I am super excited about it as I’ve never seen live Roller Derby before.  

As a warm up, I dusted off my old camera kit (literally!) and took a round of pics at hockey on Saturday night, just to get myself back into the swing of things, and I really enjoyed it (funny, since I stopped taking photos there every week as it had become such a chore, I guess once in a while is fun, every Saturday week in week out, not so much).

In fact last Saturday was a good hockey day all round, I had fun with my camera, we won (beating the team we all love to hate, the Guildford Flames, 6-4), and then when I got home I caught the last period of my NHL team, the Vancouver Canucks, beating their current nemesis, the Boston Bruins, in Boston’s home rink no less.  Fantastic, I was positively jumping up and down with excitement :D  Nothing beats the adrenaline buzz of seeing both my teams win on the same night!

Over the weekend I was still on my New Year cleaning / decluttering kick, I filled another 4 black bags with stuff to take to the tip, and freecycled and ebayed some stuff too. I’ll have nothing left soon :)  The items I freecycled (toys that Connor has outgrown but were too good to chuck away) were all claimed and collected within an hour of me posting the offers online – brilliant!  I get some space back in my hallway, some little kiddies get a new blackboard easel and toy town, and all sorted with the minimum of fuss or effort, win win all round.


Monday was the horrid day, with a pile more redundancies announced at my work, including two of the ladies who work for me, as their role is now being reduced from two heads to one :(
  The only positive to come from this is that one of them chose, seemingly quite happily, to take voluntary redundancy, so at least there won’t be any of that nasty competing over one job. Not in my team anyway.  But the atmosphere at work will be tough for a while as all the other role reductions shake out.

Anyway – enough of that negativity – this isn’t the place for it!  Also on Monday, I took my middle son back to Uni in Bristol, and he seemed happy and full of plans, so that’s always good.

Also this week I finished making my new art journal for 2012, and I’m chuffed with how it turned out (this is now the third blog post in a row with a photo of this journal on it – you must all be sick of the sight of it by now lol) – and the tutorial I put together while making the journal was used to kick start the 6 month “Art Journey” art journalling workshop over at UKScrappers.  It seems to have been well received, so that’s good, as I was a bit nervous about it, wasn’t quite sure what was expected of me as I haven’t written a tutorial for them before.

Some other little happy bits and bobs that happened this week:
  • I discovered Sherlock on telly. Not seen it before. It's fab!  I have spent the whole week catching up on previous episodes that I had missed.  
  • The Hungry Horse pub chain – the kids idea of heaven - have started accepting Tesco Clubcard tokens at 4 x face value, so that means we can have a giant family meal out for a tenners’ worth of vouchers, which I got for free just for doing my shopping anyway.  Bargain.  I do love my Clubcard.
  • My middle son is still a member of the National Trust (mine ran out a few months ago), and he got sent his 2012 parking sticker this week.  He doesn’t have a car so he gave it to me.  Result – that’ll save me a fiver a pop whenever I go to Avebury :)  
  • I finished another couple of spreads in my sketchbook project book, only 3 left to go now thank god. And despite rushing them, I don't hate them.  Here’s a sneaky of one:
  • I bought a couple of items from ebay this week and had really good experiences with both sellers – one insisted on refunding 80p as he had over estimated postage (despite me telling him it really was ok and he didn’t have to), and the other sent me half as much product again as I had ordered as a free gift.  Thank you ebay peeps :) 
Reading that back, even a bad week looks like a fab week :)

See you again next Friday!

12 comments:

Luna Art said...

Oh hurray, I can post a comment on yours today even though it wouldn't let me on wednesday when I wanted to comment on your fantastic journal tutorial..blogger playing me up big time, I have only been able to comment on one other rocking post!
Love your rocking post, good call on the roller derby photo shoot, I bet that will be fun to watch too.Great idea to put stuff on freecycle, saves you just throwing it especially when its good stuff and of course better to recycle! Sorry about the redundancies I hope your job will be okay. Your sketchbook project is looking great, beautiful artwork. x x x

Virginia said...

Absolutely Sarah - that's the whole point of Rocking Your World - the redundancies side of things sounds awful - but the positive is one person happily taking voluntary redundancy - so even in that there was a positive to be gained, the rest of your round up makes for an awesome read, ice hockey teams winning - your photos are amazing - something to look forward to in the Roller Derby photos, free parking pass for National Trust, your gorgeous journal that you made which I love, ebay peeps - it's got it all! May this week prove just as positive and fruitful on the rocking moments

Biggest Hugs

Virginia

CRAFTY WOMBLE said...

Much sympathy over the redundancies been there twice in my working life. Neither has been all a bad experience really went on to new and brighter things :) The photography sound fun. I'm off to check out your journal post as it looks amazing :D

Sabrina said...

ohh, I saw Sherlock and marked it as a show I might want to see but I hadn't checked it out yet. It looks like one my son may get into as well. Sorry about the work issues, I hope everything shakes out all right.

Best until next week.

BadPenny said...

hat a fabulous Friday post. Ice Hockey Derby sounds so exciting - Hope you have fun& get some great pictures.
Super to see your journal. I'm hosting a monthly ATC challenge on my other blog The Linen Shelf if you are interested. Starts now !

Kat said...

Sounding like a busy week again, Sarah. LOVE, LOVE, LOVE your art journal and have "pinned" the tutorial for it. :) Hopefully will get around to making one for myself or as gifts this year.

As for your camera kit - what do you use for the Hockey pics? With us stepping away from local American Football we may go and see the Capitals again some time and last time I tried to take photos it was more a mess than good pics - shooting fast American Football outdoors is different to fast Ice Hockey indoors!! ;)

Oh - and I sent you a friend request on Geocaching.com - just in case you get confused by my message/email. :)

Carmen said...

Definitely is the best time to post I reckon.

You are such an amazing photographer - those piccies are brilliant! And there must be something in the air with eBay as have had a seller refund me 50p postage this week. I must admit to feeling a bit like eBay has had it's day with the small sellers, they seem to be gunning to just have big companies on there (which I can't complain about as the majority of our business is on there but being a small company - they don't make it easy! But that seller really did make me smile.

Have a great week Sarah.

SusieJ said...

Oh wow!! What a week for you..love the photos! Love your ebay sellers! Love the journal1
Don't like the redundancy :(.
See you next Friday!!
Hugs xx
p.s. my post went up today and the boy has just taken himself back to Uni in Bristol.

Jude Cowell said...

Hi Sarah, this is my 1st visit to your blog and I love it--plus, your Sketchbook sample is charming and looks enticing!

Hope you've gotten the news that the Sketchbook Project really is due April 30, 2012--just checkin'.)

Keep posting, Jude

Sarah said...

That's the special edition book, Jude, mine is the standard 2012 sketchbook, due in, eek, 15 days!

Shelley Malone said...

Oh my... where do I even begin? First, thanks for visiting my blog! I hope that if you come to Winnipeg to see our Jets you'll let me know so we can have a visit.

I love how your goals are set up on your sidebar. That really appeals to my task-oriented side. And your sketchbook!! I can't wait until you post all the pages.

Please keep posting about your decluttering efforts too. I find that very inspirational since I'm trying to do the same, although sometimes I feel like I'm swimming upstream against the other members of the household, who all seem to be rabid collectors. : )

I hope you have a magnificent week... xoxoxox!!

Shelley

Carol Browne said...

Happy Friday to you! I love the roller derby photos! You have medieval ghost towns in your neighborhood? Incredible!