Tiny Changes.

I'm so, so glad that the weather has decided to kind of start to clear up, all that gloom and drizzle was a major downer. I haven't felt so productive on a Monday in a while, and there's still so much to get done, I'm putting it down to the lovely sunlight that beamed through my bedroom window this morning, thank you, Sun. I figured I'd take a pitstop here and share some of the new additions we've made to the flat over the weekend, some more living and breathing than others.

Maybe today's productivity is an overflow from all the crazy running around we did at the weekend, felt like we didn't have two seconds to ourselves. If we weren't in the car driving somewhere, we were thinking about how to pack something, it doesn't really make for a relaxed life.

Briefly walking around Dorking on Saturday morning (before 11 o'clock!), and stopping in at my current favourite, Feather & Fern, I thought I'd give Dorking's flagship vintage shop, Shrewd, a quick nosey. Shrewd has changed a lot since it first opened up and has relocated to a much brighter, more spacious location. It has a similar feel to the upstairs of Snooper's in Brighton and I like it. Despite my current clothes-fast, I still really liked going through all the lovely one-off pieces they have to offer.


With yet more drizzle after lunch, Moon and I went over to Guildford to pick up Chris and Calvert before going over to Ikea. However, due to a badly-timed look around the shops to kill time, we (Moon) ended up picking up an armchair, something we've (any visitors) have been in need of. We got it from Sabichi, and it was half-price as it was a display model, but still in as-new condition, although Moon did break it in transit when we headed back to drop it off at my Gran's before heading back to Guildford, second time lucky, to get Chris and Calvert. After nearly two hours in Ikea and being one small sofa-bed up, poor old Chris and Calvert ended up being shoved in the boot of the car. It was a good job we did drop off the chair before, but it was still a pretty stupid idea.

After picking up Doll from 'home-home', loaded up with more cat food than I've ever seen in my life (thanks, Mum!), we brought a pretty stressed-out and sad kitty back to Newbury with us. To be fair though, if someone put you in a cage, bunged you in a car and didn't tell you where they were taking you, you'd probably be a bit anxious too. Despite that, Doll seems happy to have our flat as her new home and readily spread herself out on our bed, she's currently curled up at my feet ♥.

About two hours after we got home...


SOLSTA, £89, Ikea
The stressful sofa-bed; home of my cat cushions and sunshine-coloured knitted throw (also Ikea).


This room still feels half-empty to me, I'm trying to make the most of it as an office space and have spent a few hours in here this afternoon but I think it needs a little something extra.


We've swapped chests, I'm quite happy about this as I put work into painting my one.


The current state of the living room with red leather armchair in-tow. Keep an eye out for that box, it's my next adventure into painting.


Yep.
I think that now, minus a microwave, we have all the furniture we need, once we have a weekend that isn't spent running around, we'll be able to enjoy the work that's gone into making this place our own.

Fitting in with the staying productive, I've made a little list of future posts, and I hope to post a bit more than usual this week. I hope you're having a great start to the week and that your weekend wasn't quite so frantic.

Newbury Home.

Hello! I'd like to begin by stating how freaked out I am that in my absence, Blogger appears to have had a complete personality overhaul, we'll see how it goes shall we?

I've spent a lot of this week sat in our new flat watching The Real Housewives of Orange County. What is a girl to do when it's pouring outside and there's no Internet? It took way less time to unpack than I thought it would and we were all done by Sunday evening - in time for The Voice, yes! - and celebrated with a post-unpacking-how-great-we're-moved-in Bucks Fizz toast.

I'll apologise immediately for doing such a 'everything'-heavy post, but it's been a while and I have so much to tell you. My job hunt, despite lack of Internet has been mildly successful and I'm officially signed up with two of the recruitment agencies in Newbury - I'd like to big up Newbury's Reed btw, their staff are fab - and I even have an interview with Crew Clothing on Monday. Don't get me wrong, retail has never been my first choice, but believe it or not this is actually the first shot I've even had at a retail role, as they seem to be just as good at ignoring me as other positions. A photography role I went for in Reading last week sadly wasn't to be, as I'm without a full driving license, but the new home and start have me in a positive mood so I'm not too downtrodden.

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Anyway, I'm sure that what I have to say really isn't thatfantastic, as as I said, I've been vegging out on the sofa all week. So here is our home, and it's becoming more so by the day, I can't wait to have our friends come and stay, we're in dire need of at least one comfortable chair though, which is what Sunday's planned monster carboot voyage is for.
This is from when things were a bit overwhelming. Easily the most boring and annoying thing to unpack was clothes, so repetitive and there's just so much of them.


This is Moon unpacking our bargain-tastic TV table.


This is from the first night, things look a bit different now, but similar. We concentrated on making up our bed and then doing the kitchen/lounge, we needed somewhere to sit once we were bored of unpacking, right?


Snug mug.


Long came to visit us on Sunday, he didn't pick a great day to do it, he's not too far away though so I'm sure we'll see him again soon. I just hope the next visitors we have don't coincide with more bad weather.


We're going to try and grow a few things, fingers crossed.


I promise to take an updated photo once the weather is better, I really love how light the whole flat is. When Long came, he brought us a bottle of Chambord and the cute Rex cushion shown here. ♥


The bluebells and the vase they're in are from my Gran :)


That breadbin is one of the main reasons I'm having a semi-love affair with Wilkinsons right now, and it matches my amazing toaster!


Tea-making station/Kitchen/Dining/Lounge.


Weird thing to move in somewhere and not have a bin, so we had to pick one up. I hated this at first but it is only a bin and Moon was so insistant that we needed something purple for our home.


Garden photo, to be continued...


Bedroom.


That black thing, opens up, I haven't filled my side yet, it did have our bed linen in it until I discovered that even our bed had drawers.


Amazing shelving unit, but thanks to less-amazing previous tenants we can't get a TV signal in the bedroom, I'm sure we'll work something out.


Office/spare room.


Hallway gallery, ho ho ho. ♥


Funny how even though I've moved the same things are still around me, it's pretty good though.


Moon's brother brought these back for him from Hong Kong, so cute!

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It's so amazing to have so much storage, and still have heaps left over. I was genuinely beginning to believe my mum when she was nagging me about how I have too much stuff. I think she'll find that I don't, I can barely fill a two bedroom flat. We have empty cupboards, and shelves and it's great. Although I'm maybe slightly annoying that I'm unable to stay and enjoy our new home's broadband offerings, another reason we're heading back to Surrey (as soon as I finish this) is to pick up little Dolly cat. After planning all week how to approach the issue, I just came out and said it, right after getting down to the business of why the previous tenants had cut off the phone line and how some people just came round and cut down all the trees in the garden - one reason why I've not shown you the garden, but another being because it's currently cold and wet. So yeah, we were looking like pretty favourable so we can keep her, and I'm so pleased.

I hope to keep a finger more firmly on the pulse of things from now on, I hope I've not bored you too much. How has everyone been?

Photo A Day April: Day 19-20

You've caught me on the worst days, I've been so super-busy that both of these are terrible cop-outs because I've been so majorly distracted, still... I figured I'd share these with you because it will feel like a rounder number when I come back, yes that's how I do things.
Day 19 — 'Orange'

Here's the orange section of my keyboard, I picked up these decals from eBay after seeing them on The Dainty Squid. It's funny that I didn't see much orange yesterday, and if I did, the 6am wake up and overall excitement probably tired me out so much I just didn't notice. My laptop was on the floor because I was on the verge of some kind of crisis involving where to pack things from my desk, yep.
Day 20 — 'Something you drew'

When I first saw this I thought it would be a great excuse to draw something as I don't draw as much as I should. Sadly, you've just caught me at the wrong time - I said I would be super-busy - and this is the closest thing that's come to drawing something today. I'm such a list-maker, I think it helps my general disposition if it's just physically there. So this is a list of most of the things we'll probably need for our first shop. Not sure what it says about me that a mop and bucket literally take highest priority.

Moving day tomorrow!

I guess normality will resume when our Internet is hooked up next week. A whole week without Internet, when a job hunt is necessary is going to be hella tough, I guess I'll just have to build some strong bonds with the local recruitment agencies. I've applied for the 'most important' jobs to come up in the last few days, lucky me for having a smart phone, I suppose... Pity about the restricting data charges though...

It only really took me around three days to pack everything, and I did a lot more today than any other day. Most of today felt a lot like it was just this, forever, but I think realistically it probably only took about half an hour.


It's going to be so weird that this time tomorrow Moon and I will be getting ready to spend our first night in our own place. We've lived together for practically four out of the (nearly) six years we've been together and it's still weird to me, exciting and fun, but weird, I think it's a good weird though.

It's probably good that I'll be able to take a step back from this for a while, I'm struggling to think of post/have anything to post about, but don't desert me, I'm going to try and come back fresh.

I hope that you have a fun weekend and a great week and I hope to see you when I'm able to reconnect with civilisation. ♥

Photo A Day April: Day 17-18

Day 17 — Something you don't like

Generally I enjoy getting up early and being productive, getting up and going outside when it's tipping it down with rain and not even 8am, is something I enjoy much less.
Day 18 — Hair

Today has been a really irritating day and my hair is horrible and now I have to take my horrible hair all the way to my silly boyfriend's house. Hmph.

Tuesday Tabs. #14

This will probably be the last post like this for a while, as I'm slowly coming to the realisation that we're going to be without Internet for at least a bit once we move into our flat. I wouldn't mind so much if I didn't have to still look for a job, but there are ways around that (McDonalds/actually going out and talking to people).

Things are moving kind of slowly, we were expecting to be signed up and have the keys by now but the estate agents are pretty slow. All going well though we should be moving on Saturday, it's quite exciting. Shopping for homewares was exciting until I actually had to do it, I never knew I would struggle so much picking up a toaster - I picked up a lovely one from Marks & Spencer, I like the colour panels and it will go with everything, as I plan on keeping things light and chilled out. I was umming and ahhing over the matching kettle but have settled on a standard stainless steel one from Tesco instead because it was slightly cheaper (IRL anyway thanks to a pricing error).

So things are up in the air but I hope that by this time next week everything might just be falling into place. I had a promising interview this morning and I hope the outcome is positive, it's the first job in a while that I've been for that's actually been paid. I'm not at all about money but I definitely can't afford to do anything for free anymore.

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At The Aquarium Bag, $94.99, Modcloth
Although I'm having some serious nags over my love of most shades of turquoise/teal, this bag is beautiful. It's so annoying that shipping from Modcloth is such a bomb, and that I'm meant to be on a clothes fast... although most of my bags are breaking/broken.


ASOS Cat Over The Knee Socks, £4, ASOS
I don't want these, I just thought they'd be a fun item to share with you because they're so silly. I'm not sure how skinny your legs would even need to be to pull off this arguably unflattering design.


All Over Lobster Print Tee, £28, Urban Outfitters
Obviously, as it's Urban Outfitters it comes with a crazy price, but I thought this was a pretty cool t-shirt, for a mister or me. I do like lobster.


Vagabond Pink Wedge Shoes, £70, Urban Outfitters


Shark plate, £15, Brighton Crock
Brighton Crock is a fun, homewares Etsy from Brighton-based Sarah James. The pieces are very much inspired by the seaside and the city of Brighton. I think my own love of Brighton is what makes me like her work, I'm also reminded a bit of Jim Bob Art, who has some of my most favourite animal crockery on Etsy.

(via Jim Benton)

Butchershop Meat Posters, £19.35, YeeHaw
Love these manly letterpress prints, they'd look so great in a big country house kitchen.


Charming Little Home Mugs, £9.03, Circus Bear Vintage
Mugs and other dinnerware are definitely things I need to stay away for a bit that Moon and I are well stocked up, but you can use mugs for other things than just drinking...


Leaping Rabbits Mobile, £190.68, Artisanie Europe




Bandit Fox, £21.28, Adatinė
These foxes are so funny looking, I love them. I like nearly all of the stock in this shop, particularly this linen whale.

(via Sandwich Sundays)

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Link Love: ♥

Can't Heart-ly Wait Planner from Modcloth — The pages in this look super-useful, but buying more things won't sort out my bank balance, even if there is a page in this organiser that claims to do so. Why does new stationary always have to be so good?

Miss Étoile Summer 2012 Catalogue — Although quite girly (and therefore disallowed from the Moon-Ruth home collab), there are so many pretty items available from Danish home decor company, Miss Étoile. I spotted some of their designs while browsing Bentalls yesterday afternoon, they reminded me of Mrs Potts from Beauty and the Beast, never a bad thing surely?

TippExperience — Neat interactive Youtube video.

Simple Horse Throw Pillows — I have cushions coming up to eyes, but this is a fun tutorial, and with me if it's not cats, it's horses, so I had to share it with you.

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I think it's a bit less than usual this week, but what with being ill and so much homewares shopping, I've had little time for vegging out, which I guess is a shame as it will be a while before we can do this again. ♥