I was doing pretty well by blogging every day, but Thursday was when things started to get a bit busy. That evening a group of us had pizza in the office and then went to see another of our workmates performing locally(ish) in The Producers. I’ve never seen it before and it was wonderfully surreal and pretty funny. It was our friend’s first lead role and, as expected, he was fantastic. It was a thoroughly enjoyable night and a good laugh; I always enjoy spending time with my boys and they never fail to put a smile on my face.

I got back home to my friend Hannah, who I’d made plans with under quite a lot of stress and then completely forgotten about. I felt awful about it because she’d driven about two hours to come and spend the weekend with me (in my defence, I did remember it was this weekend, just not that she was arriving Thursday night). Luckily she forgave me, and I made it up to her by taking a half day off work and going to see Breaking Dawn Part 2. I was amused to see that about 90% of the audience was made up of young Asian girls and mothers, and 10% sulky-looking men. There was also a tiny subset group of teenage boys who were presumably a) gay b) there to pick up girls or c) obsessed with Kristen Stewart.

I was quite lost for about the first twenty minutes due to the fact that I haven’t read the book or seen Breaking Dawn Part 1 (I’ve seen the first film, but only because Sin fell asleep on my lap and refused to let me get up to reach the TV remote). Overall, it was a surprisingly good watch, and I’m reliably informed that it was the best of the Twilight films. I think it’s the first Kristen Stewart movie I’ve seen where she spends more time smiling than frowning (just about), and the soundtrack was powerful stuff.

More like August than November

The rest of the weekend was pretty relaxing overall. We did a lot of shopping and I bought some books, DVDs, body scrubs, and a few other things. I was a little bit out of control, but since I got a pretty decent discount in every shop for one reason or another (including a nearly 50% saving in The Body Shop thanks to comboing in-store deals with my 10% off card and an extra £5 off), I didn’t actually end up spending that much money. Which is good because it’s Amazon UK’s Lightning Deals week followed by the release of the Wii U, so I’m going to be pretty broke by the beginning of December!

On Sunday we went out for Sunday lunch, and then I grabbed a quick hour to take autumn photos. I kind of left it too late this year and missed all the beautiful colours of the leaves – but hey, that’s what iPhoto’s Enhance button is for, right?

Kamikaze cat – they scare me when they’re on the edge of the bridge

I wrapped up the weekend by taking Joe clothes shopping, on account of how every single pair of trousers he ever buys get ripped straight across the crotch and he generally only has one or two pairs of wearable trousers at any one time. Sigh. I hate clothes shopping with him because he’s always in a sulky mood and it’s always a rush. This time though, we managed to get him two new pairs of trousers and I forced two t-shirts and two plain hoodies on him as well. After I threatened him with a glow in the dark skeleton onesie, he even got enthusiastic enough to pick out two or three t-shirts on his own. Now he just needs new shoes and a nudge to remember to wear these new things occasionally, and it’s all good.

At the moment I’m sitting here glued to the Lightning Deals whilst browsing eBay for very cheap vintage-style items. I’m putting together a vintage photos site and I’m on the lookout for anything that will photograph well. I accidentally came across a vintage shop in town and I’m considering going in there and asking if I can take some photos of the stuff in exchange for a small website or high-res copies of the images, and I’m also thinking about looking at local salvage yards. We’ll see how much time I get, because I already have a few hundred photos that should be vintage-y enough on their own. It’s definitely more of a long-term project, but one which I hope will be worthwhile. I still have no idea if my photos are good or not, and I have a feeling they would be much better if I knew what I was doing and had a tripod, but I think my confidence has taken a bit of a knock anyway recently because my new macro lens is proving to be more of a learning curve than I thought it would be. C’est la vie.

Generally speaking, things are still up and down, but I feel like spending time with my friends and accomplishing small goals has given me a lot of inner strength recently. I’m reading a book at the moment which states that depressed people are usually fighters, and that’s exactly what I am. I will continue to fight as long as I can. It’s interesting that quite a few coping mechanisms for dealing with depression using cognitive behavioural therapy are things that I’ve been doing anyway, such as small rewards and making the effort to get out and do positive things. One of the most useful tips is to take each day (or, more frequently for me, hour) at a time. One of the things I get most anxious about is the future, which tends to spawn a whole lot of ‘what ifs’ for me, and it’s just not a healthy attitude to take. I’m constantly telling people not to worry about things that haven’t happened yet and may never happen anyway when it comes to SEO, so why I never apply that to my life I don’t know. It helps though, especially breaking stuff up into smaller, more manageable actions to help me get through it. I feel like I can do this.