2015 Reading Challenge

One of the things I've stopped doing as much since work took over is reading, which has sucked, because I've always thought that reading was awesome. I've thought that since before I could even read:

Proof!

Luckily I found this little diamond floating around Tumblr. As reading challenges go, it looks pretty interesting and I've decided not only to take it up, but to post reviews of the books I read on here. I'm going to try and read one book for every item on the list (apart from the trilogy one, for obvious reasons.) So I won't pick a book and use it to check off three different items, even though it might qualify, because I feel like that would be cheating.

Hopefully this gets me back into actually reading books, as opposed to just going on shopping sprees in Waterstones and then abandoning my purchases on already groaning bookshelves.

2015 Update

It's officially January - the month of making promises to yourself that you really, really mean to keep this time...but probably won't. For me, one such resolution was to dust off this blog. I was amazed to discover that, in spite of it being well over a year since I last posted anything, I was still logged in. I was also relieved because frankly, I've forgotten my password.

I've found gainful full time employment since my last post, so that's the big news. In October 2013, I successfully interviewed for a job at a company that provides 'Brand and Colour Management services' as a 'Quality Assessor'. What that essentially means is that a client will send us a bunch of information about how they want their packaging to look and what it needs to say. We then take all that information, check it against what the printers can and can't do, make sure it matches the client's general brand guidelines and conforms to legal requirements, change it if it doesn't, then send the client a file to approve, and if they like it, it gets printed.
It's essentially really convoluted proofreading...if proofreading involved a stage where you had to make sure that not only was everything spelled correctly, but you also had to take into consideration the potential binding methods of the book once printed. And you also had to make an educated guess as to whether or not the font used was in actual fact the font the client wanted, or just the first one that their design team had to hand, and then wonder whether you're going to get the blame for the cock up if it isn't.
It's...well...it's a decent paying job? I'm not happy doing it, but I think I've got that in common with 99% of the workforce. I've also met some absolutely brilliant people doing it, so it will always have that in it's favour, and having money is just brilliant, so I won't complain too much. It'll certainly do.

I'm still living with my mum and sister while I save up to move out, but we've had an addition to the family in Freddy, our french bulldog puppy (and the absolute light of my life):

Only Andrew Garfield has more effective brown doe eyes than this fucker...

He's transformed me into an avid dog lover faster than I could say 'Who's a good boy, then?' and I talk about him waaaaaaay too much. And yet I can't stop myself. 

(His birthday is February 14th - I kid you not, he's literally so adorable that he had to be born on Valentine's Day. And that is the first fact of many that I will be sharing over the coming months...)

I turned 24 last October, which was sobering, because I'm now less than twelve months away from being considered by the X Factor as equivalent to pensioners in terms of age category. 

I also did my very first pub crawl for a work friend's birthday last year. That doesn't sound like much but I cannot tell you the extent to which I have not partied in my life (crippling social anxiety - just what every teenage girl needs to suddenly develop when her peers are discovering alcohol!) so the fact that I a) went, and b) really bloody enjoyed myself, was pretty monumental for me. 

That's just about it, I reckon. I've found all my old drafts from when I actually wrote on this thing, so I'll polish those off and post them at some point. In the mean time, there's more New Year's resolutions to get started on, one of which is learning to drive. Oh, lordy...