Meet Columnbina

Columnbina is my alter ego in my eBook which is due to come out on 8th March. I am still hoping that uploading to the Kindle store, approvals from Amazon, and whatever else might crop up will go as smoothly as advertised on the Kindle website, but at least it looks like as if I am going to make it from my end with editing and drawing illustrations.

I am looking into stores selling ePub format as well, but it for sure will come out as Kindle book. Well, and Kindle has applications for PC, iPad, iPhone, Android phones and PC... so, no excuses at that end to not buy it.

I am all excited now and throughout this week I will tell you a bit more about Columnbina, how she came about and how things go in regard to her birthday. So, please stay tuned.

For now I have to get cracking!
Have a wonderful and successful week,
Love

Red Noses

I have dealt with the networking issue last week, I have been commenting on beauty this week, it's time now to address the matter of red noses. Apart from the fact that my cold is still not entirely vanished, this is not what I mean: We have 'Red Nose Day' in England. It is a charity event that is taking place all over the country to help children all over the world. Well, and a red clown's nose is the signature item. So I ordered nine of them... and now I have no idea how to put them to good use. I thought I'd put them onto the noses of our managers at work and send them out to collect money, but they smartly have put themselves a very boring yet incredibly important all day meeting into their calendars. I am now thinking of finding a room with glass front for them, making them wear the noses nevertheless, and asking people to give me money for being allowed to watch them meet. This meeting might not be a successful one, though... well, it might not be anyway.

I am finding it difficult to be funny and to make money from it. We had loads of cross dressers in the past, that usually works well, but only in one direction... don't think hubby would get excited, oh my... any other ideas welcome! It's the 18th of March, by the way: So should you have a few pennies, cents, or whatever currency make your purse appear too heavy, please consider donating. As I said, it's for kids all over the world.

And now I have to get back to my drawings. Hanging horribly with my book publishing schedule. Will keep you posted about the red noses!

Ta ta!

It's networking week

I had a lovely incident this weekend which reminded me of a networking workshop I did some years back. It culminated in a series of articles which I now decided to re-publish. Firstly, I am sneaky thus saving me some time to work on the book, and secondly I think this is a really important thing to know about if one really wants to improve the lifestyle. We ladies usually are not really good in networking - real life networking that is, social networking that seems to be a different matter. In real life however, we know a lot of people, but we are not good in calling in the favours, and in social environments we tend to hide in the shadows of our men... So here is the first article in this weeks networking series: Knitting 21st Century Style - About the Importance of Networking.

Have a wonderful and successful week,

always your, Love

Busy weekend ahead

There we have another weekend, and I should be falling into panic mode. I'm too busy for that, though. Luckily busy with nice things, but busy nevertheless. Hence I looked for a another thing to re-publish and found something amusing: Quite the thing we need to compensate for the bad weather predicted.

In regard to the panic I mentioned: Well, 16 weeks to the bodybuilding competition, 4 weeks for the book, dance class and sewing lessons are a lot of fun but take time, and as usual: The day job gets in the way. All those things that need a bit of brain capacity, a very useful thing of which I seem to be running out. I have to be careful not to go to dance lesson in a toile and start dancing in sewing class.

Since this lack of memory capacity doesn't make me very amusing anyway, I will now rather release you into the weekend by wishing you a good and successful one.

Until Monday
Ta ta!

A bit of re-publishing

Good morning everybody,

I hope you forgive me when I am doing a bit of recycling. I haven't been re-publishing stuff from the original IL site in a while and last night I got caught up a bit in scribbling my illustrations for the book. So I thought it's a good opportunity to save a bit of time and still give you something to read.

Although you may have read it before it may be good to be reminded of the fact that lack of iron is a sneaky thing. After I wrote this article I didn't have those problems again as I am still taking my pills. It seems that especially during the menopausal decade with wonky hormone levels I have to rely on them.

So, cutting it short today I am hoping for a lovely clear spring-ish day similar to yesterday, and wishing you a good mid-of-the-week: Weekend not too far anymore!

Ta ta

What's new?

Well, nothing really. The year at least is not new anymore! I cannot comprehend how February arrived without me noticing. I am contemplating a study with different age groups, to figure out if it is an age thing that time feels like flying, or if time actually does fly. Although I should not complain, at least not at the beginning of the year: The weather is definitely getting better, the crocus are out and the forsythia looks all knobbly. I can't wait to watch the yellow shrub from my study window. A bit of a spring breeze will surely help to progress the four main projects I am attending to at the moment.

I am working a lot for the eBook right now. I finally found the sub-title for it, and the publication date on Amazon should be the 7th March if all goes well. It's the Carnival Monday and as Columnbina, my alter ego in the book, is derived from a character of Comedia del'Arte, that sort of makes sense... if it must. So, please cross fingers that all goes well!

Then of course the Bodybuilding. I am starting to find my audience in the gym so it seems. At least dear friend Imola claims to observe guys ogling ... what is fine by me. To be honest, one has to be a bit of a show off to consider such a challenge in the first place, doesn't one? So the one or the other stare does me good and makes me huff and puff a bit more straightaway. So, please keep throwing eyes...

The third project is starting to become a bit of a passionate relationship with needles and pins. The wonderful thing about the sewing course is, that during those two hours I am in a bubble. Everything is falling off me, and total focus on the task gives such a peace of mind. I only can recommend doing something artsy-craftsy... It has something peaceful about it, trying to bring hands and brain into a rhythm... I didn't know how much I missed this until I did it again.

And then there is a fourth thing clawing its way into our lives. It's dance classes with hubby. We wanted something that we do together. We danced a little bit some 30 years ago and then never again. Oh what a fun that is! In this case it's more about bringing brain and feet together which seems to be much more of a challenge than hands and brains.

See, those four are summing up quite nicely what is needed for happiness in life:

• A challenge or at least a goal to find a bit of a drive, 
• then something one can do on ones own, something where one can meet new people without the baggage of existing friendship or family, a place to be 'one self'.
• and something to spent quality time with a partner, and again 'without the company of other friends'. This is about creating experience and environment that is 'ours'.
• most importantly though, there are 'bubble' occasions. Especially the dancing and the sewing take all the attention. No mobile, no texting, no straying thoughts about work or the other tasks.

So there seems to be something is new after all: I found a set of things to do which keep me terribly busy, but have the potential to make incredibly happy. Yay!

Have a wonderful Tuesday
Love

And sleep does help

What a great week I had. I thought it was lack of time keeping me from performing the way I would like to perform. Turns out it was lack of sleep. Although I had less waking hours I got so much more done. I have been writing about this before, but firstly, I seem to forget my own advice and secondly, at times I tend to fall into the comfort trap, meaning, start rotting in front of the telly.

This week I didn't watch any... not because I didn't want to, but because I went to bed instead. One has to go with the preferred rhythm and mine is early bird. So nodding off in the arm chair at night is not a good option when wanting to get stuff done in the mornings. Now I am back to 'very early bird': I get up at 5:30, I was at work at 8 today - Yippee, nobody in the office, got so much work done. Had a good parking spot, too. I had a little performance dip in the afternoon, but for some reason everybody has, even the long sleepers. So that might be more down to lunch sluggishness than anything else. Depending on how deep the dip is, I use the time to tidy house, or Facebook, or to indeed have a nap... oh well...

... and nevertheless managed to go to the gym, was alert and happy at work, finished an illustration, went to dance class, started sorting ISBNs, did my sewing homework, went to the sewing class, did quite some blog admin due to the new blog and still had enough time to Facebook and Twitter. Most important of all: I was not as hungry and was a really rather happy bunny, because everything went so smoothly.

So, I should listen to my own advice a bit more often which in this case is: Food, sport, work - one can tweak them to improve the lifestyle, but none of those have an as big impact as sleep.

It seems that I will keep nagging you with this. Hubby found me some German articles, which I will wrap up for you. What do you say? You have kids, you don't have the luxury? Throw away any other comfort, cancel the social events, the swimming session, the beauty appointment... All very important to have, but not if you are lacking sleep. Get the odd 5 minutes here and there for a nap - even just closing eyes and resting is better than nothing, and just call it a day when it's a day!

On that note: I will edit this tomorrow morning for publishing - off I go to bed now. Until next week.

Night night!






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