P.E was out straight away – choosing to spend the final 2 year of my life as the most unsporting person I know in the company of a PE teacher I hated (ahem,  Miss Dickie) oh no no no no that wasn’t going to happen. Music there was no chance I can’t hold a tune to save my life and the coordination to play a musical instrument….forget it, so that left Art or Drama, I went with Drama. I love Drama (being somewhat of a drama queen) and enjoyed being on stage, performing in several shows extra curricular to my school activities, where as in Art I really only ever drew when I felt like I WANTED to draw, when I really felt like I was really interested in the subject and I got to choose when that happened, so I let it slide – sometimes I wished I hadn’t.

Sometimes I wished I’d kept it up and had the skills to capture the images I take with my camera and turn them into something special with pen and paper – sometimes I wished I’d tried harder….

So last year I did.

Leaving work on my lunch one cold wintery day I spotted a leaf on the ground and did what every sane person would do I picked it up and carried it around with me until I returned to the office and snapped a photo of it with camera phone – I don’t know why I just felt like it, it’s not the most spectacular image in the world but I kept it all the same I then threw the leaf away.

That photo sat on my phone for ages……

A few months later I spotted a drawing book on sale in The Works and bought it, I still had a set of nice drawing pencils at home and I had half an idea that I would draw something , I just didn’t know what – then I started looking through the photos on my phone and inspiration struck, I knew there was  reason I’d picked that leaf up on that day, I just didn’t know what until I had my pencils in hand….

It’s not the most spectacular drawing in the world, it’s not even a true likeness of the image on the left, but it’s my drawing,  it’s the first I’d properly attempted since opting out of art class for drama when I was 14 and I was kinda happy with it.

That was over 12 months ago now. My pencils have sat in the box since un-thought of until today when I came across the photo of the leaf again and I thought it about time I gave them another airing. I’ve sat and pondered for a while about what I could draw and after a while I realised I was wasting my time….

…30 year old me is still suffering from the affliction 14 year old me suffered and maybe it will be another 15 years before I pick up my pencils again. I can’t think what I want to draw, what I’d be able to draw so I don’t and as what I draw isn’t as good as what I’d like it to be anyway I think I’m better off staying hid behind my camera lens instead after all I could never recreate this image with my hand!

For years the Christmas season starts for me in a flurry of decorating, the tree, the windows, the fire place….  but do I share a tender moment with my devoted son while we choose whether to have the angel or the star atop of the tree this year?

NO BECAUSE HE’D DO IT ALL WRONG!!

I have to decorate in certain way, in a certain order, lights, then ribbon (NOT TINSEL) the fir cones, then the baubles. If anything, in my mind, is out of place it drives me insane, It has in previous years taken me a a whole day just to put up a tree, but even better THEN and only then can the star or angel be put on top  – and this has to be chosen last of all and sometimes not until the day AFTER putting the tree and the rest of the decorations up because once chosen it has to stay there – no swapping and changing AT ALL so this is an important choice!

The colours have to be evenly spread and JUST SO and the fireplace swag has to match the tree and be decorated in the same order at the same  no compromise – as an example of how bad this is when we unpacked and erected the tree this year I couldn’t decorate it!! We’d managed to leave the swag in the loft and I just couldn’t put anything on the tree until this was down too!!  Luckily for me James is very understanding of the crazy and went back up to hunt for it as I could feel myself become quite silly about it!!

Last year was the first year I introduced colour to my tree in the form of bronze and red to go with the well established gold and ivory theme I’ve had going for years in an attempt for make myself loosen up a bit – I’m insane!

All this causes much mirth and derision particularly from my not so understanding sister and much exasperation and frustration from myself.

BUT IF You think that’s bad I used to be worse, much worse, for instance (and  I’ve worked hard at getting over this one because it was ridiculous as I would hunt for days to get this right), the gifts used to have to colour coordinated – the adult presents would be gold or ivory paper with red ribbon and the children’s red with gold or ivory ribbon and wrapped just so….

Notable insane moments:

• The year I unwrapped ALL the presents and started again because they didn’t look right (unwrapping one or two to start again isn’t a rare occurrence in my house BUT all of them is a stretch by even by standards)
• Taking down the tree and starting from scratch TWICE!
• Letting TBK and James hang baubles only to go ahead and move them when I thought they wouldn’t notice because they were in the “wrong” place.
• Point blank refusing to let James bring any of his decorations with him when he moved in with us as they wouldn’t match mine, and then buying him decorations that matched my colour scheme and still refusing to let him hang them on the tree because they’re just not right!
• Finally succumbing to my OCD and buying TBK a tree & decorations for in his room as I didn’t want him to miss out on decorating his own tree and he can have as much tinsel as he likes!

So with all this in mind imagine how I’m coping this year with two very mischievous cats who are spending their first Christmas with us!!

I took the decision early on not to put out my nativity scene and I’m glad I didn’t because they keep knocking things over and pulling things down. They keep climbing my tree and flattening the branches and knocking off baubles  and chewing my ribbon, and yesterday they discovered if they pull hard enough they can pull my fireplace swag clean off the surround thus clearing any obstacles for them to sit on there – somewhere THEY NEVER CHOOSE TO SIT AT ANY OTHER TIME OF THE YEAR.

This year it’s going to be kill or cure for my OCD as I’m either going to have to deal with it – or go not so quietly insane battling with those damn cats – I’m hoping for the first option but as I left for work nearly in tears this morning as I again found my beautiful fire place destroyed I think odds are I’m currently leaning towards the latter!

…So this December has been decreed Good Deed December, my own advent of good deeds.

Between now and Christmas day I plan on trying to complete a good deed each day and hopefully update here and my twitter feed (@essitam) using the tag #gooddeedfortheday, (when I get around to it, I suck at keeping blogs up to date maybe this is the impetus I need).

I’m sure some deeds will be more worthy than others but it’s important to remember the little things also count……

1st December Carried a ladies bags up a flight of stairs.

2nd December Dispatched James to an elderly neighbours to get her shopping list and went to the super market after work just for her (I needed nothing myself)

3rd December took the lovely lady in the post office a Lemsip, she was suffering when she dealt with my parcels and I thought she could do with it.

4th December held a door open for a lady with a pushchair, no other opportunities really presented themselves today, although James and TBK were more successful clearing and salting both our neighbours paths while I was at work – although does working on a Saturday count as a good deed

(bonus good deed for today, bought my boys an advent calendar, as they hadn’t got one…does that count?)

5th December double whammy today. Sorted out my wardrobe and donated all my old things the charity and while shopping we spotted someone getting into their car whose little boy dropped their gloves so TBK and I left the store to reunite gloves and owner.

6th December Went hunting for Epsom salts for fellow twitter user Jayne Howarth and found some, only to have the benefit of the good deed undone on the way home when browsing twitter I discovered she’d already found some should have checked twitter before I embarked on my search….

….but that’s ok because today I also said I’d help my friend promote the charity she works for, Liberty UK. She asked for the extra push from her friends as all donations made through the BIG GIVE website everyday after 10am between today and December 10th will be doubled (up to £20,000)! Check it out and donate if you can.

7th December Volunteered to walk across town to deliver a parcel so my colleagues didn’t have to go out in this cold weather.

8th December Think my sister might be taking advantage of me, I keep getting requests off her – Can you do XXXX for me….it could be your good deed for today! – But as I spent a lot of the day cooped up in the office and then rushing about I obliged her and as today’s good deed I have arranged printing, delivery and framing of my sister’s mother in law’s Christmas present – and if she gets her way tomorrow’s good deed will be another one for her too – maybe my good deed should  just be tolerance of her abuse of my good deed pledge!

•23:30 and a Bonus #gooddeedfortheday just spent 30 mins on the phone helping a friend fill in another application form. When I say help I mean dictating, she’d make a brilliant PA, we seem to have spent a lot of time recently with her taking down what I’m saying over the phone.

9th December fun one today,. It’s TBK’s birthday so I decided to spread a little happiness to everyone else too, myself, my sister and my friend went to the local town, took a tub of sweets to the shopping centre and offered them to anyone we encountered, fellow customers, shop staff or passers by. It raised a few suspicious looks, a couple of frowns but mostly smiles and laughs, with one guy politely declining our offer only to reappear a few minutes later with a laugh to take some of Haribos finest.

10th December Took the time to ask someone I barely know what was wrong when they looked a little down, spent the next hour offering advise and support as it turned out  they needed someone to lean on a whole lot more than you could tell -  sometimes peoples brave fronts crumble when someone cares enough to ask what’s wrong.

11th December Last night was TBK’s birthday “sleep over” we had six 10 & 11 year olds  in our house hence I use the term sleep very loosely, they were up all night so we haven’t actually left the house today, but I still did a good deed – or at least the last guest to leave thinks so.
One of TBK’s friends parents has had to work all day today and he should have gone to his Nan’s when leaving here but he really didn’t want to,  So despite being kept awake until late, woken early and eaten out of house and home, we volunteered to look after him here so he didn’t have to go.

12th December as she was unable to do it herself I spent a good proportion of today scanning in 400+ old family photos for a friend who wants to send a disk to her brother in America for Christmas.

13th December got home from work and noticed a large amount of broken glass in the street so went and fetched the broom dustpan and brush and swept it all up putting it into the bin – slicing my thumb open in the process – DOH!

14th December This good deed each day thing is harder than it sounds when you spend all day sat behind a desk at work, working through lunch and then rush home on public transport to complete Mom duties – Opportunities to help people out or to just do something nice don’t tend to just present themselves when you’re engrossed in WordPress or excel!

Anyway today’s good deed was part good deed, part self indulgence – I offered and subsequently bought a Big Issue seller a cup of tea – he wasn’t actually selling the Big Issue at the time but I recognised him from when I do buy the Big Issue from him – the self indulgent part was I also bought myself a Toffee Nut Latte from Starbucks to treat myself (and flirt with the man behind the counter) at the same time!

15th December Today’s good deed was used to help someone else fulfil a good deed.

I helped a man plot a surprise for a friend. He wanted to send her a card with a cinema ticket in for a film that she really wanted to see and she thought she’d missed on the big screen but  Light House are re running, but he didn’t want her to know it was from him, So I wrote out the card and envelope in an attempt to help him evade recognition and offered to deliver it on my way home.

16th December it appears when opportunity doesn’t present itself I always have the fall back option to complete one of the many things my sister has asked be to do as my good deed, today I went into town to fetch her secret santa gift… Not a gift for her, but a gift for her to give.

Bonus good deed, just been called upon to play nurse to my brother taking him sympathy and soup to his bed as he and his girlfriend both have the lurgy. I’m a good big sister to my siblings I am.

17th December I didn’t get out of work until late so no chance to do anything really…unless you count the working through every lunch break this week, and occasionally staying late to help cover for the various staff who are off work.

18 December messaged my grandparents to check they were ok and didn’t need to go out in the snow, dropped a note to the neighbour with our phone numbers on so she can get in touch with us if she needs anything so she doesn’t have to go out either, lots if weather based good deeds today.

19th December coordinated the clearing of our neighbours paths of snow and ice … The cold weather makes doing good deeds easy.

20th December went to work on the first day of my Christmas holiday and ended up criss crossing town with a pile of letters to find an open Post Office as the one I usually use was flooded  to ensure people Christmas cards were sent out on time – I’d already posted all mine but well i was asked nicely… evening spent the night selling merch at a bands ep launch despite it snowing heavily and not knowing if we’d get home (we did eventually after our train was cancelled and B’ham

……

……

19 January…It’s now mid January and as you can see the last post update I made was  20th December – so did I fail in my Good Deed for the Day mission, NOT AT ALL.

I completed the full 24 days I just absolutely suck at keep blogs up to date and as Christmas came closer I had less time to sit in front of the computer and blog, and even though I have WordPress for Android installed on my phone I just never got around to updating here. I did keep tweeting though through out the whole advent so if you were following me there you would have seen the last of my “Deeds”.

I thought I’d finish this post of with a “Thank You”, Thank you for the encouragement I received from people who read this, friends and strangers on Facebook and Twitter, Thank you to the people who smiled when I did something nice for them, But Thank You mostly for the couple of people who’ve been intouch to say as a result of this post they’d carried out good deeds of their own.

I may suck at keeping blog posts up to date but I can do nice things for others and you can too!!

I post photos to moblog (albeit a lot less frequently than I did before) and soon there will be my own website (but the story of that deserves a whole post of it’s own) but at the moment I mainly use flickr.

I like flickr because it’s a fantastic learning platform – it forces me to improve my photography as when I compare it to some of the work on show mine pales in comparrison and I love it because of the groups.

Groups are a great, you can share your photos, start discussions and in some cases arrange to meet other people to walk talk and take photos. Groups can be based on anything – a theme, a style, a geographic location.

Recently I’ve taken part in a few flickr projects that I want to blog about but without first talking about Flickr they make no sense at all.

My Flickr:

I love being a Mom, I love being a Mom more than anything else in the world…and this dude makes it easy!

I love night photography but don’t get out as often as a I would like to shoot in the evening – come to think of it I don’t  do ANY photography as often as I’d like!

p.s That’s the building I work in.

I like mood lighting, particularly fairy lights and I have 2 sets permanently in my living room. This isn’t a picture of either one!

I think you can never have too much love and romance, and I probably (definitely) put more onus on it than I should.

Happy Valentines day.

Maybe it’s because I’m English, but, I do like a cup of tea.

I work for a media company which specialises in visual media, i.e film and photography.

I know next to nothing about film* , but I love photography.

*I’m learning!