Tagged

Wow, this is the first time I've been tagged! thanks to the lovely Lucy at Smallest Smallholding, here goes:

What Was I Doing 10 Years Ago?

Bloody hell, 10 years ago, I have trouble remembering what happened yesterday! OK, so 10 years ago I would have been 17, this is slightly worrying in that it doesn't feel 5 mins since then, how can it be 10 whole years?!
17 was not a great time for me, I seem to remember feeling very lost back then, I was finishing the last year of a BTEC diploma in Art and Design, my future was stretching before me like a vast gaping hole of emptiness, I had know idea what I wanted to do with my life or where I wanted to go. This was also the year my Mum brought home the prospectus for a university in Wales, you see I was pretty sure I didn't want to go to uni. Anyway Mum can home clutching this prospectus, it which she had marked the page for a degree on 'Illustration for Children's Publishing', they might as well have called the degree 'Kat This Is Perfect For YOU'.
So 17 was the year I rushed out a UCAS form at the last possible minuet and scrapped in by the skin of my teeth and thank god I did, the next 3 years were the best of my life, I loved uni and the friends I made there, I also met my lovely Rich so I think the year of uncertainty at 17 was totally worth it as it lead me to making one of the best decision of my life.

My To Do List for Today/Diary of What I Actually Did

What I'd really like to do is weed the veg patch, giving our 30 year old Box hedge a good trim and plant my Rocket seeds in the Belfast sink we dragged into place next to the raspberry canes (there will be pics of this later, hopefully).

I'm writing this on a Tuesday so technically what I did was drag my arse out of bed at 5.30am, run around trying not to tread on the cat, get dressed, cram down some cereal before running out the door at 6.45am, spent a hour in the car driving to Bristol on the M4 and M5 (this should be classed as some sort of extreme sport), spend the whole day designing new wedding cards, before jumping back in the car for another hour at 5.00pm. If I'm not too knackered I might sort out the Rocket seeds tonight, or I might crash in front of the TV instead.

What an exciting life I lead! no wonder I don't go on facebook, what would I say I'd been up to?!

Snacks I Enjoy

I have a terrible sweet tooth, really, seriously bad! I adore chocolate and its a constant battle not to end up the size of a house, it doesn't help that I appear to be a dynamite cake baker (god damn it!). I really love fresh summer fruits, which is why we have so many planted in the garden, I cant wait till we can make strawberry smoothies!

Things I Would Do If I Were A Billionaire

God, where do I start? OK here in no particular order is what I'd do:

1: The boring stuff first, paying off all our debts, student loans, mortgage, both ours and our parents and sisters.

2: Giving the 2 set's of parents a generous amount obviously, this will be to in some way pay back all the support from them over the years, especially while we were both at uni, note to anyone thinking of doing an art degree, there damned expensive!

3: Buying my dream smallholding in south Shropshire, preferably somewhere we can have a water wheel for electricity and a wind turbine, also I really would like to keep pigs (Rich is slightly sceptical about this aspect!)

4: Donate a large amount to UK Cancer Research.

5: Have enough to enable Rich to have some sort of hugely expensive and impractical car (which I would have converted to LPG), just out of interest I'd have a 1950's Landrover running on Biodiesel.

Three of My Bad Habits

You should probably ask Rich as I think I'm perfect! Seriously, I'm pretty hard to live with, I have a rotten temper, I'm very argumentative and I worry unnecessarily about everything. God I'm amazed he stuck around as long as he has!

Five Places I Have Lived

I've only lived in 3 places but give me time, here's the 3:

Shropshire, the place I was born and lived for the first 18 years of my life.

Wales, were I went to uni, I met Rich and we had a little one bed house which we lived in for 2 and half years.

Bath, I've been here for the last 5 and half years, I love living in Bath it really is a beautiful city (mad with tourist in the summer though), when I first moved here we had a great little flat that over looked the city, I was really gutted to leave it but am glad we did as we ended up buying our cottage and I finally got to have a garden. It was totally worth it!

Five Jobs I Have Had

Library Page: I know, just about the geekiest sound job out there right? In my defence I was at collage at the time so it was only a Saturday job, and weekend jobs in Shropshire are a bit spares if you don't want to stack shelves at one of the supermarkets, also it was incredibly well payed for the 5 hours I worked, this job also helped me buy my first car so I cant complain to much.

Making Greeting Cards: This was a sort of freelance business I set up to help me pay for uni, I produced handmade greeting cards and sold them to little independent card shops in Wales and Shropshire, this is how I ended up being a full time Greeting Card Illustrator.

Junior Illustrator: my first job out of uni, I was one of the incredibly lucky ones who was offered a full time job doing what I had trained to do, this job lasted 4 and half years till studio cut backs made me redundant!

Sales Assistant: This was a temporary job after I was made redundant till I could find another Illustrator position, I really enjoyed it actually and the girls I worked with were great but I end up spending most of my wages on clothes!

Illustrator: my current job! I'm lucky enough to work for a really great company.

That's it then, I'd love to tag some others but Lucy has already tagged everyone I would have so just check out her blog or the links in my blog list to see what they say, if anyone fancy's having a bash at this meme then go for it (and let me know how you get on, I love reading these!)

p.s Sorry there's normally loads on pic's on my posts but there is no way in hell I putting any of the very few pictures of me at 17 up, that was a bit of a bad hair year!