"The joy of Pinning" or "In praise of big knickers!"

Its nearly Spring!

Ok, maybe not, but It's not freezing every morning any more, and when the sun shines, its actually WARM!.
So, in the hopes of sparking off a proper pre-spring cleaning frenzy, over the past week I have been looking through my bookmarks to try and get them into some kind of order.

I don't know about yours - you may be one of those strange and mysterious beings who tag, file and collate your bookmarks with library precision, able to find any reference with a few precise clicks.
If so, I bow to your magnificence and suggest you skip the next bit rather rapidly. You will be appalled at my haphazard methods.

Me?
Well, I just click 'bookmark this page' in the handy section at the top of my browser, add the link to whatever section seems most relevant at the time, and leave it there until I need it again.
At which time I realise that:

1.  I haven't titled it.
2.  For reasons which are lost in the mists of post menopausal memory, I have not put it in the section that now obviously relates to it.
3. It's not actually about what I thought it was about in the first place.

And I promptly resort to Google.

Yet again.
*Le sigh*

Now, while I've found somethings that have made me smile*, or wonder why I bookmarked them in the first place, mostly its been a slog to open them, rename them

However, since I discovered the joys of Pinterest my bookmarks have become much more manageable.
Post-pinterest, things are rather different.

• I find something interesting as I pick my way through the spider-silk  of the Interweb.

• I realise, as I'm Ooohing and Aaahing, that I want to follow the link to some other tantalising site.

• But I don't want to lose the link to the page that I'm on, so.....I look for something visual that will tell me as soon as I see it, what the original site was about, and I click the 'pin it' button, kindly supplied by those sensible people at Pinterest. ( I bet they collate their bookmarks!)

• It  brings up a pretty list of all the possible images, and choose the one I decided on earlier, click it, add a note about it, put it in the relevant file, and Hey Presto! its done.

Of course, there are pitfalls.

• Time works differently when you are in the Pinterest dimension - before you know it the ten minutes that you think you have spent flicking through a couple of sites has warped into ten hours. And, NO, I'm not joking.
• Some swanky websites don't let you pin their images. Not in an 'You do not have permission to do so' way, but a ' No image or video found on this page" way. And while I recognise that the image belongs to someone ( I always try to make sure I've attributed it to the correct source, and don't pin an image if there is a request on the page not to,), and Pinterest will ALWAYS remove it if someone objects, When I'm on a page that is selling stuff, PLEASE make your image Pin-able! . I mean, when even a computer illiterate like me can screen grab, save , copy and then add a link back to the original page then what difference would it make?

So, after that mini Pinning 101, it's back to the old fashioned version.

And 'click'

Enjoy your weekend!

* This was this story that made me smile - It was in The Guardian on Wednesday 2 Jan 2008 and was called "Fire,fire, put pants on fryer"

:D
Oh yes, I can empathise with that last comment!

Blogging for work

One of the ( many and varied) reasons that I can be rather, well, lets call it 'random', in my personal blogging schedule, is that I am also in charge of writing a blog for the company that I work for.

Its called 'I love this frame', and is supposed to feature one frame per week that catches my eye and makes me go Oooooh!

Now I regularly get the Oooooh! effect at work, and you would think that once a week I'd be able to get my act together, put fingertip to keyboard, and get it down on *virtual* paper, for the delectation of the few random people who might stumble across it in the blogosphere.

And in the main I do and I have.

But It has meant that the time I had hoped would be spent adding to this, my personal blog, is often taken up by organising the data for the work one.
Especially since, although it is written on behalf of the company that I work for, I write it in my own time.

So, having noticed that I haven't written anything for myself for a while, I thought I'd give you all a taste of what goes down on the other blog.
And here it is, this weeks edition of 'I love this frame'....



Frame overload at the Vinyl Factory

Ok, I know this blog is titled 'I Love This Frame' and reading that, you'd expect to see something about a particular frame each week.
A perfectly reasonable assumption I agree.

But this week I just couldn't choose.

"Why is that?" I can see you thinking....
( Oh yes you were, don't pretend you weren't! )

I mean, with all the frames that I have to choose from in the Opticians where I work I manage to make a selection, so how come this week is different?

Well, let me fill you in on the reason for my sad lack of decision-making.

This week I had a few days off and had intended to go to a couple of trade events. ( I know, talk about busman's holiday, but hey, I love my job!)

The first was Pure.
Not an Optical event but a fashion buying one, with lots of interesting seminars highlighting the trends for autumn 2013.

Unfortunately for me, for a variety of reasons, I didn't get to go.
*sad face*

The second was The Eye Show.
This was a brand new Optical trade show, and it was getting everyone quite excited.
In the UK we already have a large Optical trade show, Optrafair, that happens every 2 years in Birmingham, but apart from one brief event quite a few years ago, there has never been anything in London.
But, *insert second sad face* it got cancelled at the last minute.

Which left me with nothing to do.
By 'nothing to do' I'm ignoring the housework / unfinished craft projects / reports for work / CET* / sickly teenager, that are waving madly at me from all corners of my house and saying "MeMeMeMe" trying to attract my attention.
( I mean that quite literally, in the case of the teenager ).

But, oh joy! Before I had to decide which was more important - pompoms or lemsip** - I discovered that some brilliant people had set up a pop up event to showcase some of the brands that had been going to exhibit at the Eye Show.

So I bundled up against the snow, grabbed my trusty train pass and made my way over to Soho to have a shufti.
I didn't even get distracted by Choccywoccydoodah or Irregular Choice on the way!

And the reward for my diligence and single mindedness, was an array of frames that were beautiful to behold!

There were featherlight, innovative frames and bespoke, personalised ones.

 There were catwalk featured, couture frames and high street on-trend versions.

There were Swiss frames who's finish and quality made you want to handle and stroke them because they felt so wonderful!

There were amazingly ornate, jewel encrusted Parisienne works of art, and examples of classic English craftsmanship.

There were re-worked versions of frames worn in classic films, and by Hollywood legends.

 There were funky, fun, flower inspired children's frames.

There were award winning frames, and personalised lenses.

There were rimless frames, chunky frames, feather light and flexible frames.
Acetate frames, Titanium frames and Wood frames.
Retro frames and almost invisible frames.
Frames in every colour, finish, shape and size.
Oh, the bliss!
*Swoon*
( Don't look at me like that ... I LOVE frames! )

It was like being given a Wonka Gold ticket!

There were even showgirls!

And an afterparty!
( yes I have photo's, no I'm NOT going to add them )
:D

So no, this week I don't have a single frame to show you.
I was in love with them all!

( And if i was excited this week, I hate to think how I'll be in a few weeks time when we go on our visit Mido in Milan! )

Next week normal service will be resumed as I calm down over the weekend with copious amounts of coffee and some ironing!

See you then.
*wanders off, dreaming of frames*




* CET = The ongoing training that all Dispensing Opticians / Optometrists have to complete every year to retain our registration and show our fitness to practice.


** Before you think me a heartless mother, the teenager in question, though apparently dying at eight am, had miraculously transformed into a slightly hoarse, sofa occupying, iPad using, definitely alive body by half past ten.

Views from a car window, or 'all legs and hair'

Is it strange to be concerned about someone that you don't know, and will probably never come into contact with?

Why?
Well, let me explain.

I don't know about you, but I normally take the same route to and from work every day.
Since I work full time, that means that five days a week, at approximately the same time each day, I'm doing the same thing, in the same place as all the other people who are also living their lives as prompted by their personal timetables.

So I often see the same things over and over again. Points during my journey where I glance over and check out the view.

Like the brow of a small hill, just outside of Seal, where the traffic flow can slow and jam as the road narrows at the bottom just before a blind corner and an informal crossroads.

When it does, and I'm stuck waiting for the cars to chug slowly on, I glance to my right, and see how the field is looking.

This was what I saw in November 2005

And this was in December that same year.....

Its much the same today.

( ok, I fess up, I took this photo AFTER I wrote the blog, but hey ho, such is life )

The fence posts have been replaced, but are still rough hewn, irregular lines of grey, wobbling up and down as I drive past.
The shrubs have been cut down and regrown.
Sometimes there are sheep nibbling their way down to the valley.
Or a tractor.
Once there was a helicopter, black sleek and slightly sinister, just sitting, silent and solitary, on the grass.
Perhaps, next time I'm stuck in a total jam, I'll take another photo to compare....

I see people too.
Generally though, I'm not aware of seeing the SAME people.
Except for one.

For at least the past year, almost every Saturday, I have driven past the same person, walking the 3ish miles along the A25.


View Larger Map

The first thing I think I noticed was her hair.
Being of the short, tousled (aka scruffy) titian variety myself, her long blond mane caught my eye as I drove past.
But it might just as likely been the oversized jacket she was wearing.
Which brought to mind the very comfy, completely ugly, massive denim jacket that I used to own during one of my pregnancies, that I have to shamefacedly own up to wearing rather a lot AFTER said pregnancy when i was going through one of my 'why-do-I-care-what-I-look-like-when-I-have-baby-sick-on-my-shoulder' phases.

The juxtaposition of an impression of tall, slender, manicured, blondness and ginormous tatty lumberjack jacket made an impact.

When I saw her walking in almost the same place the following saturday, I did a more active recce.
Same hair, same jacket, same impression of height and slenderness....um, rather extreme slenderness in fact, but that might just have been the black tights and big jacket.
I mean, thats almost certain to make your joints look a little, well, knobbly....
Isn't it?
My dad used to describe one of my tall, slim, school-friends as being "all legs and teeth, like a colt just learning to walk" when I was having a teenage low esteem session, and wishing for the inches that she had, rather than the curves that were prominently mine!
That was almost the impression I got.
All legs and hair! and Jacket, it's impossible to ignore the jacket.

Its a longish walk, but when I think back to the distance I used to cover getting to school in london - through a park, down a couple of long roads, past the railway station and the town hall, then down the length of the high street, it wasn't really any different from that.
A bit of a solitary walk though. The pavement is bounded by woods on either side, with very few other walkers, but lots of traffic whizzing past.

So I have been looking out for her as I drive to work on Saturdays.

Partly to do that thing we all do, of imagining the lives of people we notice, making up story-boards in our heads...
Is she a stable hand, or training for some endurance event?

But I have to admit, that as the months have gone on, and those slender-to-start-with legs seem to have reduced in thickness even further, while the jacket has grown ever bigger, I check to make sure that I don't see a pile of cloth in a heap by the edge of the woods.


I was later than usual driving to work today.
For once I had an admin day, and  didn't need to set up the practice before the patients started arriving. So although I was at work before 9.00am, it was about 15 minutes later than normal.
I was at the bottleneck in Seal when I drove past her.
Instead of the width of at least a carriageway and a half, plus constant cars and vans blocking my view, there was about 15ft.
She was wearing the jacket, the black tights and had her hair sleek and straightened, falling to her waist.
And she stumbled as she walked.
:(

One of my daughters ( the one who had inhabited my version of the jacket with me ) used to figure skate, and at the rink there were a number of extremely slender but completely fit and healthy girls.
One of them was also tall, blond, and so slim that when she spun on the ice, her waist in side profile appeared about 6 inches wide. Some people used to worry that she was unnaturally slim.
She wasn't, she just came from a family of tall slender people, and ate well. She had to eat well so that she had the energy to skate at the competitive level that she did! But she worried that she would always be, in her view, straight and skinny.
As she grew up, her curves appeared, and she's now a tall, slender, shapely woman. So is her mum.
Sadly for my daughters, their genetics mean they have inherited my lack of height and tendency to dodgy knees, but we'll skip over that.

I wish that my story board for the blonde jacket girl had an uplifting ending.
...and the crowd cheered as she lifted the trophy.
or,
....the owner told her that she was being given a raise in recognition of the hard work she had put in at the stables.

But that stumble gave me pause.
And I wondered if she would be walking that road next week.

Pinterest, work and me

Have you heard of Pinterest?

Lots of people that I know, do know about it.
(yes, i do have real flesh and blood friends!)
But lots of people that I meet, don't.

That makes it sound as if I accost random people and, after a short introduction , hit them with questions about their interweb usage!

Perhaps I'd better explain the context.....

By profession I'm a Dispensing Optician, and so obviously come into contact with lots of different people every day.
One of the things that the practice that I work for specialises in, is something called Colorimetry , which can reduce the effects of visual stress. These are the kinds of effects that can make it difficult for people with Dyslexia to read, or which can be linked to Migraine.

The short of it -and I could go on at length about this because it's really interesting- is that for some people, the use of a specialist tint can really reduce the symptoms dramatically, and so they have those tints made up as spectacles, either with or without a power to correct their vision.

That seems straight forward, I can hear you saying as you nod sagely...
...and you would be right!
The problem comes when you add to the mix:

• The majority of users are children ( adults do use them, but have often worked out coping strategies as they have grown up ) 
• The impact appearing 'different' can have on said children
• The  sad lack on understanding from teachers, who often think the spectacles are a fashion accessory.

In order to combat those points, we have started to take photography of those people who collect a pair of Colorimetry glasses (with their permission , obviously!) and putting it on the work Pinterest page.

There are also photo's of the spectacles themselves... like this gorgeous purple lensed set.

Plus a link to a video explaining all about how it works, that was made by the lovely people at RiceOpMedia for us.

The aim is to have an accessible, visually attractive page where people can comment if they want to and show it to their friends, family or uninformed teachers.
So when i take the photo, I send a copy to the patient, or their parents, and give them a link to where it will be posted.
Which brings me on to Pinterest.

As I'm explaining that the photo will be shown on Pinterest, linked to our Facebook page, and our Twitterfeed  (all curated by me at the moment - how do I find the time?) and I normally ask them if they have heard of Pinterest?
Mostly the answer has been no!
Which has surprised me.
I know Pinterest is fairly new, but everywhere I go on my travels through the Interweb, I find little 'pin it' signs by the images, or added to the list on 'follow-me's'.
Plus its rather addictive...I just went to set up a link and I've been pootling through the pins for half an hour....erm, actually, it was nearer an hour : /

Which is the reason for my question.

Feel free to comment - not only about Pinterest - I'd be very interested to know how many of you know that the colorimetry lenses are available, and how they can help.

Now I'm off to put the kettle on, so I can have a relaxing mug of coffee while I pootle through the Pins!
:D


Oooh! I've just updated to add that I'm rather excited that my own Pinterest 'Home' board has reached 332 followers!
*does a happy dance*
:D

Organisation- the first tiny step towards world domination!

I'm feeling rather satisfied with myself today.

I've taken my first small step in the direction I pointed myself towards in my New Years Hopes.

Not the old style resolution one of reducing my waistline, which as expected, is already in difficulties.

Mix together 1 teenager with a penchant for baking, an excess of time and a handful of goodies, and you have a recipe for waistline expansion that's quick and easy. In this case it's consisted of a banana loaf that was just the right mix of lightness and fudgy banana ( they were going brown and squidgy and we couldn't waste them, could we?!?), a golden syrup loaf (just because the banana loaf had been so good), plus a variety of buns, muffins and puff pastry savoury tarts.
The resolution hasn't had a hope of staying on track with the magnet of baked goodness pulling me towards it.
I'm not giving up on that score though. I just won't buy any more flour!
:D

But back to the NYH that is the subject of this post.

I'm a bit of a hoarder. Not TV series level, but when added to my middling organisational skills, you have the reason why I found 7 pairs of secateurs when I reorganised the shed this summer. AND KEPT THEM ALL!
Well.... I was obviously going to lose them again, so it was pointless getting rid of them. On a positive note though, now, when I can't find a set, I look again and DON'T just buy some more!

I also have wonderfully inspired ideas about repurposing/refreshing things that other people might look at and just see a load of tat and the reason I can spend hours poking about on Pinterest.

Add those together and you get the reason for both my NYS's for 2013.
Get rid of the stuff that's been hanging around AND find the stuff that I want more easily.
Simple!

(Damn you car insurance advert! I can't say that word without adding an 's' and n Eastern European accent!)

So today, I took my first step on the road to ORGANISATION!
Oooooh, I hear you say. Wow and golly!
Well, maybe not, but I'm pleased with myself, and am giving myself a virtual pat on the back.

A few years ago I bought a pin board for the aforementioned baking daughter, then a second ( with boxes and hooks and stuff ) that she liked better, and which made it up onto the wall of her room. The plain pin board languished, sad and lonely, in a cupboard. A year or so later it was joined by a slightly worse for wear ( loose joints and a missing spine ) combination white /cork board that I'd thought 'might come in useful'.
Today they were very nearly joined by a third.
I saw this really neat cork board in Wilkinsons - just what I'd been looking for to go above my desk - and was just picking it up to put in my basket when the ever practical daughter reminded me that I already had one. In fact that I had two, and that it would be silly not to use one of the ones I already had rather than buy a new one. Even if it was only £2.00.
I couldn't argue with that could I?

So off we trekked home, having somehow also acquired a number of baking and educational essentials on the way.....

The short of it though is that she was right.
When I looked at the cork board it just needed a small repair to the corner, a hanger attached to the back and a little metal bar of hooks embellished with mushrooms added ( the hooks had been lying around looking for a suitable home since I bought it, um, possibly 6 years ago ....) and TahDah!
It's up on the wall, with my work rotas, Shifty the screen cleaning cat, and the printout for a felt bunny that was about to get lost.

*takes a bow*

*does a happy dance*

Go me!