The Frosty Annual Christmas Message 2014.

It's October, Christmas is now gaining momentum all around us. It's on TV adverts, in the shops, all over the internet. People are talking about it. I'm being invited to work meals and to join in secret Santa. If I say only one thing about it, then this is the one thing I would chose:

I REALLY, REALLY DISLIKE CHRISTMAS, REALLY.

Okay, there you go. I could walk away now, saying that and going home to find my door-knocker is in fact the face of my ex business partner warning me of three ghosts that will visit me at night, forcing me into buying a gigantic turkey and feeding a family of my own poor employees. Let me try to explain.

Christmas. The Birthday of Christ. Although I am not Christian I can agree that if you are, then it's a pretty good reason to celebrate. A day for family, prayer, reflection etcetera.

It's not that though, is it. It's very materialistic. It's too materialistic. It's the presents I dislike most. Don't get me wrong, I've been exposed to the same propaganda as the rest.. I love receiving stuff. It's that after feeling of guilt, that people wasted their money on all these things I really didn't want or dare I say it, I don't like. It's the guilt that I allowed my own self to feel that WANT for these things. But so much at once.. how do you handle that much greedy wanting?

That perfect season they are selling - it doesn't exist for those who sell it.

Okay so the people at the top of the retail sector want you to have the perfect Christmas. Buy all this food! Buy all these gifts! Enjoy the 12 days of Christmas! Yeah.. a marvellous idea. I'm sure the guy on the till who sold you your re-packaged skincare products will have a marvellous ONE DAY OFF. You see, he's going to be working until 9pm on Christmas Eve changing all the Christmas banners to HALF PRICE SALE banners. He will then be attending work at 7am Boxing day to sell all the stuff you paid so much more for just 48 hours ago. You know that £10 gift set? Well guess what, it can be sold at £5 and still make a massive profit for that company. If all the figures are correct, Boxing day is in fact the biggest day for sales in the retail calender..

Yep. The biggest shopping spend day of the year isn't even before the 'big day'.

I'm not a complete miser you know...

I sound like Scrooge. I know. It's not all bad. There are some things about Christmas that will always be a bit of fun. Here is a non-exhaustive list of the things even I think are okay about Christmas:

• The music - It's awesome isn't it. Classical Christmas music is magical. Even some of the more modern stuff is enough to get even the most miserly person to smile. 
• It's right next to Yule - Yule is the pagan festival that gives hope that light will return soon. It takes place on the darkest day (21st Dec) and is a chance to gather together and have some food and enjoy the winter, knowing that spring will return again.
• Crafting - Arts and Crafts are awesome. Christmas lover or hater, I make all my own cards for the season and wish that more people would do the same, be it cards or gifts. How wonderful to receive a gift that has been handmade for Christmas.

That's three whole things that I like about Christmas. And they are all things you can actually enjoy without Christmas. Oh dear.

Good Evening, 

My last post was about not settling into my new house quite as much as I had hoped. Well, it's been a little longer now and since then I have had a week off too, which lead to spending a lot of time in the new abode.

I am feeling a lot more settled in now, I'm still not crafting and the library still sees little to no action - even over a week off. It's strange, now I live with my partner I don't need those filler hobbies I used to do. It's really sorted the things I do into different categories:

• Essentials - The usual stuff. Cleaning, washing, food shopping. This is all new to me (It's still kind of fun, which may wear off.)
• Fun / Hobbies activities - The things this house has lent itself too. Gardening has been the main one, a whole garden just for us to do with what we want! It's taken weeks but only 7 original plants remain and about 40 new ones are now in the ground. A shed has vanished.. herb troughs have appeared.. it's all great fun. We have also been watching a lot of classic Doctor Who and have been playing Pokemon, something I was really struggling with at first but it didn't take long to get sorted (basically, play it in bed like always and it's fantastic).
• Old time fillers - The activities that I used to consider fun and hobbies that have dwindled a lot. Mostly solitary activities. This primarily includes crafting. I love crafting of course, but I do it alone. I always have. Now I have another person using my stuff, I'm using theirs and if one is trying to craft, the other invariably follows. The craft room needs a change already, a spare bed must fit somewhere and maybe it's time to compact it all down. Card making was always my thing but it now falls behind the first two categories. Another activity that has fallen into this category for now is my pagan books...

So here it goes. The pagan thing.

Over the past year or so I have been taking a journey learning about witchcraft mostly but amongst other paths (Buddhism, Paganism, Green Magic for example). My favourite place was Glastonbury, wandering around the shops there and buying up pretty witchy items.

Not this time. My last visit, on Friday, was a real disappointment. I realised that I never truly considered myself a witch and all it took was the first shop to be the book shop for me to work it out. Leafing through books with 'Spells to improve your love life' and 'What the fairies can do for you' left me feeling... angry. You also cannot escape the process of casting circles and calling down The Goddess. This idea makes me feel uneasy and frankly, silly. It's not for me and my mind screams at me for even considering it.

Now I do believe in things, and some of those things are in the witch books. It does feel however that witches claim a lot of things for themselves. I am interested in magic, crystals, herbs and the Fae amongst other things and have unconsciously been collecting more specific books on these subjects in my more recent visits to book shops. I read a witches book and they are all present. I'm not making an argument as such, I'm just making an observation. Witch books contain the lot and incorporate it, although it is not necessary to be a witch to utilise them or educate yourself on them.

So am I Pagan? Well, possibly not. I need to work that one out too. I know this, I believe in Faeries, I know that crystals can do wonderful things and most of all I know that my mind is more powerful than I could ever know. The crystal gives you an item to focus upon, a mood, a colour ... but it's my belief and energy that makes the effects happen. I think holistic therapies are wonderful and work on the same principles.. I'm not detracting from it by making it more about the person experiencing it rather than magic. In fact, that makes it even more amazing. Sure, magic could heal you up real good.. but that you can do it yourself is the real magic. Consider the Bluebell, it's beautiful and awesome and yet completely explainable by science. It's no less beautiful for knowing it's ins and outs, why it's here, how it grows... 

I'm rambling. It's a monologue from my own mind flowing onto the keyboard. It wants out! I hope the message comes across, Frosty is not a witch. I'm still working things out (open minded as always) and felt the need to throw a few things out there. 

And so, as I read on the back of the book that made me more angry than any other, sandwiched between all the other 'How magic can do stuff for you, for free' books.. 

Witches are born, it cannot be learnt.

Well it's a shame I didn't pick that one up first!

Tata for now! 

Not settling in as well as I thought...

So it's been over three week in the new home now and I must admit that although it's really good overall I am having some trouble getting into doing the things I used to now that I have more space to do it in. My main gripe I suppose is playing my beloved Pokemon. Having always played it, since the very beginning I have been on my bed, laying down, sitting up, whatever. Now I find myself with a whole house, plugs in odd places, sofas not beds... it's actually really off-putting and has stopped me doing it so much.

The same goes for reading and crafting. Having always been used to laying down reading, I constantly fidget trying to get comfy in a chair. Is it possible that my body is now solely used to lying down doing these things? Achy arms were never an issue when I could roll over to my front and continue! I now find myself fidgeting, getting annoyed and giving up. Only to find that all I want to do is the thing I've just given up on. It's really impacting on my zone-out time.

The crafting issue is a strange one. Having always been crowded into a bedroom my desk was an area of salvation, an area surrounded by drawers and boxes but the desktop itself could be kept clear and it gave me my own little area that I loved. I loved tidying it afterwards too.

I guess there is a definition for what I'm feeling.. my cosy room of incense and music is no more (gutted in fact at my last visit) and I now have a whole house to roam in and find a spot to do something. I keep wanting to plaster posters and artefacts all over the walls to make it feel more like home. I will get to the point where I wouldn't want it any other way I suppose, it'll just take time.

As I write this, I'm laying on the sofa, my elbow getting more and more irritated at rubbing on the bare leather. Grr.

Okay so maybe it would all be better if I could have the one thing I miss the most. My music. It's all here, on my laptop and fully portable. But there are no speakers in most rooms (I have tinnitus and really regret using earphones when I do) and I feel lost without it. The car is now a sanctuary of sound. The quietness I'm experiencing a lot at the moment is setting my ears ringing more than they have for many years.

Okay there you have it. Effectively a long moan. But hopefully you can see that it's more than that, it's a part of moving on, getting used to the new and saying tata to the old. The bedroom was too small for my entire life and love it as I did, I didn't want to go home some days to that same old damp room with its creaky floorboards and whining light. I still need a nest I guess and will always find myself retiring to the bedroom at times.

Until next time, Be fantastic.

New home.

Hello!

I've been quiet recently as I have been moving into my new home with my partner. It's my first time moving out from home and my the first time that me and Rob have lived together. So how's it going? 

Overall it has been great. It's been one of the most stressful things I have ever done. The last minute worries over it potentially falling through and the thought of all that debt stacking up really started to get to me. The moving in day and the ones following however took all those worries away, the fun began and a few little niggles aside it's been very enjoyable since.

Aside from the usual lounge/diner, kitchen, bathroom and bedroom we have two really fantastic rooms. The first is the arts and crafts room, there are two desks (one each of course) and a multitude of drawers and boxes containing a wonderful selection of card making stuff and art materials. The eventual plan will be to have it set up as a studio and display area for projects recently completed. 

The second room of amazement is *drum roll please* the library! Now I will be honest, the bulk of the room is actually films and television DVDs and Blur-Rays. Myself and RH are both avid collectors of favourite films and shows. This is essentially the fiction room, it contains all of our combined fiction books and alongside the DVDs you can wander in and get lost for hours. We have a cosy chair in this room and a cushioned bench ready for slumping into after a hard day at work.

Around the downstairs of the house we have a few book cases to display our gardening and esoteric books. It's wonderful having a real place to display our most valued books of all, it's an ongoing collection that we add to only when we find those really special books that really add something to the knowledge contained within them collectively. 

That's it for today, I didn't really want to go into anything too philosophical on my return to blogging as I've been so busy with the house I haven't been able to have a good think on things recently. I'm also getting used to being with another person all the time which certainly reduces your personal thinking time! (The library and craft room should help me there of course.)

Thanks for reading!

Just a quickie ;)

Aloha to all. As you may have noticed I have two blogs on the go. It doesn't really make much sense and I shall now own up.. I really didn't have a clue what I was doing when I started and have now got two. Well oops.

So, to much fanfare and excitable applause I announce: I shall be using both. Just to make life that little bit more confusing. There is a bit of a plan. Blog #1 - frostyreception shall be the main super awesome blog of your wildest, wettest dreams. Blog #2 - thedirtybadger17.blogspot.co.uk shall be re-allocated as my more personal blog. For after all, I AM the Dirty Badger.

Dirty Badger shall be where you can find posts more related to my personal interests such as Doctor Who both new and old, Pokemon and other sci-fi/ fantasy goodness.

Frosty Reception shall continue on it's current vain, a blog about my views on current events and thoughts, personal experiences out and about, gardening, my spiritual path etc etc. I hope you find it interesting.

Well that's all for now. Although one little thought. If I was famous, would my fans be Frosties?

And on that bombshell, Good Day to you!

** EDIT 19/3/2014 - I have moved all previous thedirtybadger17 blogs to frostyreception. **

Gettin' Personal or - Don't open your mouth!

The main topic today is *drum-roll* growing a backbone and telling the truth! Be who you want to be!*

*This statement is lovely unless you are bereft of morals. In which case, behave and close your account with Murdering Monthly or the Muggers Times. 

Let me set a little background, I have been working for the same company for ten years now. Ten years in which I have moved department many times. I have found myself in a department that I enjoy working in and feel comfortable. (We'll get onto the subject of comfortable another time).

However I have some stress / anxiety issues that I have been dealing with for a very long time. What with the recent purchase of my first home with my partner, stress levels have at times gone through the roof. One such event happened about two months ago, I found myself really doubting everything. My life path. My job. My big mistake (perhaps) happened so fast that I barely even noticed it. It came out of the blue. After years of using the tried and tested method of stating, when asked how I am that I am fine, I suddenly CHANGED THE ENTIRE WORLD. Here is a brief transcript of the moment:

Managery type person: Are you alright, you don't seem your usual self recently?

Myself: No. No I am not okay. In fact I didn't even want to come in to work today. Or this week. In fact I wish I had been clamped to my bed by a masked stranger.

Okay, the clamps I made up. But still, that one statement was astonishing to me. I had admitted that I was not okay. This is not something one says in a large business. You just don't. 

What followed was strange. My own line manger found out this information within hours and asked me the time old question. Reverting to my usual stance, I replied that I was fine. Okay. Spiffing. Tip-top. I then received the disappointed look of the lied-to. Into the office we go.

Splurge.

The entire contents of my brain are flung out of my physical body and splatted around the small office space until there is nothing left. Every tiny weenie little grievance comes shooting out at speed. My disdain at the practises of others.

I did feel better after this. What an odd feeling. I had a few weeks of tentative 'are you okay?'s.

Then the inevitable happened. I was offered a transfer to a different department that I really didn't want to work on - the idea being I could try something else. Even though I was really getting on my feet and learning to calm the hell down. In my infinite wisdom I followed the usual track of saying everything I should. Making it seem I was pleased. Blah. It was only later that evening that I crumbled into a million pieces only to be rearranged as a gibbering wreck that could not eat or concentrate on even the most basic of tasks. 

At this point I finally decide enough is enough and that is time to put a thought I have been having for a while into motion. 

The point of this blog (Yes, we've only just reached it. I shall try to be brief!)

Okay so this is what I wanted to blog about today. 

As I have grown older and  little bit wiser I have finally realised something that in essence is very simple. I am to some degree in control of my life. A friend of mine was blogging something similar this week which prompted me to share this little tale and express my own personal views on the matter of, well, life.

The notion of being in control seems so simple and yet people of all ages, even some who are much older than I, seem to be completely enslaved by the system. My own personal realisation came from anxiety and stress. I got to a point where not being in control just seemed ridiculous, how could I allow something in my control wreck my life? My choice was simple. Stupidly so but incredibly hard to follow a lot of the time:

If you don't agree with it or it will make you unhappy and you have a choice, don't do it.

If you don't have a choice right now then don't worry about it. Try to change it as soon as you can.

And the best piece of advice (thank you to the Dalai Lama for this one): 

Ask this one question; "Will it bring me happiness?". (There is a lot more to this than the statement suggests. I really recommend reading some Buddhist teachings if you are unfamiliar - a basic intro book would do, just to get an idea and learn something new.)

Whoa. I know. It's all very new age. But then so am I. So I sort of get it. I'm still in the system and to some extent I must follow it's rules. Money must be made being the rule. MONEY MUST BE MADE. Say it like that and it encompasses the whole lot. The reason we are treated the way we are, paid what we are, given holiday as we are.

Back to my tale then...

I was offered the position in the department I didn't want to work in. I do like my department and considering I plan on making a new path in the future and am also going through a mortgage / house buying period, I do want to stay settled there. Life right now is all about the home. The partner. The discovery of new loves and activities. Pursuing dreams. Arts and Crafts. Gardening.

I went into that office and after stalling for a few moments managed to tell the truth and reveal myself to my manager. I get very anxious, it ruins entire days even weeks of my life. It's not worth it. The offer to go and co-manage a struggling department is not on my list of priorities or wants. 

I opened up about past anxiety issues. How I have discovered ways to improve my life to benefit me. 

And the response was surprisingly positive. I was understood. I certainly don't for a moment think that this would happen everywhere, I know that to be true. But it was a massive moment for me and it seemed a good subject for a blog. Maybe someone, somewhere will do the same. Pluck up the courage to speak out.

And finally...

Okay that seemed like a huge anti-climax. The whole thing could have been: I learnt not to do what I don't want to do. Just don't do it! The End. I suppose I wanted to elaborate a bit and leave a dirty great blog on the internet which will haunt me forever when applying for jobs.

And for that reason I shamefully shall write:

I have written this as a little taster of  personal experience. I enjoy my job as it is and am commenting on my own personal journey and in no way am expressing opinions about the business itself (please re-read if you think so). I have not intentionally given away information on where I work, not even described the job role I am currently in. If you are a future employer then you will probably know I'm opinionated anyway and away with the faeries most days. 

Hope this made some sense, I'm still new to the blogging idea and as yet do not make notes before typing. This flows from my brain, through my finger tips and into your eyes.

On that image, good day to you.

Ta.

It's Day Day! *Wallet groans*

After settling down to go through by bank statement about two hours ago I have now watched almost every video posted by a single user on Youtube. The general tidying plan has failed to engage also. So, I have decided it is time to give up on being productive in the real, physical world and to blog for the first time in months instead.

Today is Day Day, the day once a fortnight that myself, my partner and best friend get in the car and drive off in search of fun activities or, as has now become somewhat the norm, places to spend a ludicrous amount of money on things that I probably don't need.

Today's place of choice was the most enormous shop of all time. Trago is so huge that after many visits we still managed to find a whole new section today... it really is overwhelming on the first visit. Yet I still manage to spend vast quantities of money on every single visit. They have everything you could ever want to stroke, lick or absorb into your soul. 

As my current hobby is being arty and crafty (it was only a matter of time, I would always covet pencil cases and fancy pens) this has been my main form of spending in recent months. I now own everything that you could possibly need to make any form of greeting card ever imagined and yet... I still feel the need to buy more.

I have only realised recently how hopelessly addicted I can get to any substance, hobby or activity. Worst of all, most of my purchases are from the same company. I am a hopeless collector. See my DVD collection, Pokemon card collection, Beanie Babies... Am I destined to always find a section of the high street so amazingly appealing that I throw all my money at it? Am I covering up a glaring emptiness in my life?

Or is it this? My current obsession with paper products is fuelled by the seasonal transition of products available, two new ranges every few months plus many more for Christmas. If I want to be able to continue to use a certain brand, I need to buy the new paper, matching ink stamps, decoupage sheets... (Okay, perhaps need is a strong word.) 

The same applies to all businesses, it is their way of getting you hooked. Clothes? You need the new range of colours of course, yes, Orange is so last season darling, you need Indigo Ski pants and denim socks! Phones? iPhone 5? Are you serious! You need this new sparkly iPhone infinity that can tell you if you have run out of milk!

In conclusion: I am currently ashamed at my spending yet I still have a list as long as my own intestines (Huh!?) of items that I feel a medical need for. Bearing in mind this has all come about from just seeing the accumulating stuff in my life and not from working out my bank balance (that can wait...) I think I may be able to make some progress here. I always consider myself to be one of those organic, recycling, re-using people... yet here I am falling for a wasteful consumerist conveyor belt of products find its way into my possession.

I am moving house soon and I promise myself I shall not let this continue... 

But in the mean time, I must research the cost of the die-cutting machine of dreams. Without it my projects will suck, I mean who uses scissors these days? Really? We have robots making cars and I still hand cut paper! JUSTIFIED! 

(I haven't moved yet so this purchase doesn't count. One more fix...)