Monday Freeday #5

Woop, it's finally my Friday! Having only had one day off in the past 21 days, I am a bit tired and over it all today. Couldn't summon up much of an effort to do the job that I am paid to do (don't tell them tho), let alone ferret out free things which is why I am very grateful to the lovely lady who sent me a voucher for a free 7 day trial at the local gym.

If you are in Australia and spent all your money having too much fun overseas the last few years and now have to tighten your belt but also have to loosen it due to sweet temptation at work, you can get yourself a free gym voucher here.

50kg

Did you know that this is how much one year of life weighs? I'm able to come to this scientifically rigorous conclusion as I recently took delivery of all of my worldly goods from London after they had a leisurely 70 day cruise over the high seas. I lived there for five years and the total weight of my delivery was 250kg, so after some complex calculations (250/5) I arrived at the final figure.

Of course this doesn't take into consideration the bag full of precious holiday luggage that got stolen in Marsucks, the old cameras, globes, fake blood, and other miscellany that were too oddly shaped or liquidy to find a place in the tea chests so found a new home in the East End, my much loved and much missed bike Diana Ross, and all the housey stuff that I flogged on Gumtree, but I suppose that many things in your life come and go so I deemed any further calculations unnecessary.

My goodness though, when I opened those boxes today for the first time since I packed them up in a mad rush all those months ago, the memories of that life weighed so much more. Pulling out my furry jacket and holding it to my face, I could smell the city and I cried. It reminded of my friends, Old St, St John raisin bread, lock ins, night buses, walking to Colombia Rd, the green after work, cycling along the canal, white winters, boozy dinners and everything that I left behind. Funny, it would just look like a jacket to anyone else.

You're probably thinking "Yeah yeah, boo hoo, what the hell as this got to do with your shop dreamer?". Fair point, enough reminiscing. The real reason for unpacking the boxes was to get my hands on all my feathers and sinamay and other fun millinery things, so I can finish what I bloody well started in London and get my headpieces done. There is an interesting looking market that happens a few times a year in the big smoke called the Perth Upmarket (hhmmm that name rings a Brick Lane bell) and I thought that I would try and get a stall and, you know, start making and selling things. Just like I promised I would!

Monday Freeday #4

Yesterday produced a veritable cornucopia of free things including...

• A video chat with one of my best friends and her very gorgeous little man over Skype. If you don't have this amazingly awesome free video calling service on your computer already, you can download it for free here. When you use for the first time it feels like you are a character in a futuristic sci fi movie from the 1960's
• A slice of strawberry cheesecake (which wasn't that tasty) and a chai (which was) from work
• Window shopping at the army surplus store whilst dreaming of a new series of bags to make

• A trashy novel about models and two groovy 1970's Staffordshire Potteries mugs from the Red Cross. I don't know why I like trashy novels about models (or Danielle Steel for that matter) but I just do
• Getting my bike seat adjusted by the young man at the cycle shop
  
• A tour around the local aquatic centre. Even though spa pools are kind of yucky, like simmering in a big pot of people stew, I need to do something to help the old joints get through the next week of pacing up and down the tardis of a restaurant I work in
  

So thank you Skype, work, army surplus, the Red Cross, young man and sport centre for making it a good No Mon(ey)day (hhmmm, Monday Freeday still seems to work best).

Garlic? Bread?

You know life has taken a strange turn when some old boy is yelling in your face about not getting garlic bread a microsecond after ordering it, while you have no idea what's happening on the floor because you're desperately trying to keep up with the drinks dockets spewing out of the machine.

It made me think of this (4:18 specifically), which made me a lot happier than shouty man did.

Monday Freeday #3

I wasn't stressed about Freeday at all today because I had a plan to visit one of the coolest, free-est places ever - the library! I mean how incredible is it that virtually every city/ town/ hamlet/ village in the world has a space specifically set aside to house mountains of lovely books and newspapers and magazines and musical scores and CDs and DVDs that everyone can enjoy FOR FREE!!! And even when the city/ town/ hamlet/ village doesn't have one, the mobile library comes a-calling every few weeks. How great is it that we have so much knowledge and information ready and waiting for us and we don't even need to pay an admission fee.

I am also astounded by how much trust this great institution has in us. What other business in the world lets you take stock away to use without any payment in the belief that you will return it in three weeks time? None that I can think of. I just want to send a big shout out to the clever clogs who came up with the concept, thank you from the bottom of my geeky heart.

Is it possible for knees to bend the wrong way?

Because that's what feels like mine are about to do. One thing they don't tell you in office school when you join is that it swaddles you from the harsh realities of the physical work-a-day world in weakness wool. Baby soft hands from tap-tapping lightly on a MacBook, wheely chairs so you need not ever stand up, a vertically mechanised box that you hop into to prevent you from having to walk those very taxing ten steps to the next floor. The worst it gets is when you have to pick up the phone (yourself!) and remember the number for the delivery Vietnamese across the road when you are working late.

With those halcyon days a distant memory I'm trying to take the advice of that infamous Aussie Agony Uncle Chopper Reid, but being on your feet up to 12 hours a day, making over 300 drinks, ensuring that 130 people leave full and happy, cleaning up after them and then preparing to do it all again the next day is taking some getting used to. On a rare day off it's all I can do to crawl to the couch where I lie prone with my knees raised in the hope that they will start doing their proper job and bend the right way, rather than doing the feeling like they're going to do the bending the wrong way thing. Then I go back to work, look out the window and see something like this...


So it's not really that bad is it?

Monday Freeday #2

I was stressing out a little bit this morning, thinking about the second ever Monday Freeday and how I really wanted to be able to blog about all these amazing free things that were given to me by the universe - a car, jewellery, a trip to Tokyo, a teleporter - you know, that sort of stuff.

If you have ever read The Secret, you will know that all you have to do is visualise what you want, and it will come to you via the law of attraction. I'm a big believer in thoughts having a massive influence on what happens in your life, but thinking about the teleporter et al on the day that I want them, just so I have something amazing to blog about is probably stretching the law to its outermost limits... there's attraction and then there is downright demanding too much too late in the game!

And anyway, as Freeday # 2 progressed, I realised that sometimes it's not the trinkets or the time and space bending equipment you need in your life, but rather a nice chai and a read of the paper in the sunshine before work, or a lovely bike ride along the coast after work to make you grateful for the universe and its simple, free pleasures.

The countdown is on

On the side of my page now that is! You gotta love the Internet, there is literally a site for everything you can ever dream of and some things you don't want to dream about at all. I decided it would be good for me to get a scary countdown clock to keep me mindful of my 'having the shop in two years time' goal (well less than that now eekkkk!).

After a quick search on Google and playing round with some hideous versions with lots of ads on them, mycountdown.org popped up. A few quick steps and a cut and paste later, behold my new countdown clock to the right - no really hard computer science degree required.

Must be careful not to go mad and start posting all sorts of crap all over my blog, I want elegance and refinement, not 'I Dream of Widgets'. A wise man once said to me "Just because you can, doesn't mean you should". He wasn't referring to countdown clocks or its ilk when he said this, but I think it's a good saying that can apply to many areas of life, tacky/ cheesy add on toys for your blog included.

Monday Freeday #1

Since moving to small town, I've been making lots of big life changes in my life and one of the biggest ones is getting my head around finances. Some people, my high school economics teacher Mrs Parton for one, probably won't be able to comprehend that a 31 year old woman (wish I could still call myself girl and get away with it!) is only just getting her head around something so fundamental to living life in our buy, buy, buy age and to be frank at my age, but it's the lamentable truth. I have been pretty out of control with the evil credit card... ah cards plural if I'm being really honest.

Obviously it is really important to understand everything there is to know about credit, debt, interest rates, how much money the card companies steal from you every month, and so on if you are to one day in less than two years have your own business. At the moment I am learning some pretty harsh lessons, including shock horror, you actually have to pay back all the money that you spent on tick plus a whole lot extra! Of course I knew this while I was having a great old spendy time in London, but it's so easy to ignore when you never physically hand wedges of money over to pay for things, you just have a nice thin colourful bit of plastic that you give to the ever so friendly sale assistant and they give you lots of presents in return.

So apart from having every cent I earn being instantly deposited into various envelopes with payback target date spreadsheets stuck to the front, I also thought I would start a new positive anti-credit card activity called Monday Freeday. I was going to call it FreeMon but that sounds like some kind of weird cult and those are generally costly, either through all the tithing you have to do or at the expense of your life.

The concept of Monday Freeday is probably blindingly obvious from the name, but just to set it in (blog)stone here's the idea:

1. No spending any money at all on a Monday - this includes using cash and/ or nice thin colourful plastic

2. No, not even Paypal

3. Instead, Monday is a chance to see what's out there that's gratis. I'm not expecting lunch or anything but surely a girl (woman) can get at least a few gifts from the universe on the house?

4. This means being a little bit organised on a Sunday if the cupboard is looking bare. I don't want Monday to become Starvationday.

5. Thought it would be interesting to record the free things I do manage to find each week, to prove to myself that it is possible to live without rampant consumption every single day of the week.

Without further ado, the first ever Monday Freeday gave me the following -

Free pizza from work (Thank you chef)
Free air for my bike tyres (Cheers boys)
Free eye test (Thanks girl with the good glasses)

It's a great feeling to not spend money, I am looking forward to doing more of it next Monday!