Anna Aden Writes

I've been super busy over the holidays so I've not had the time to update my blog. Lots of things happening, good things. Looking forward to tomorrow and I'm making a cake. Spending the day with family and friends. Merry Christmas everyone! -----------------------------------------------------------  Check out Bigga Day's books on Smashwords.com https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/bigga Apple iBooks https://itunes.apple.com/us/artist/bigga-day/id595585425?mt=11 Barnes and Nobles http://www.barnesandnoble.com/c/bigga-day Kobo http://store.kobobooks.com/en-US/Search?query=Bigga%20Day&fcsearchfield=Author

Despites all my good words, I am slipping back into old bad habits and overloading myself with things to do. Distractions. Everything is important. So I've decided to get tough with myself and focus on my major goal. The one that will be most beneficial to me and a causality of that will be writing this blog daily or near daily. So I'm going to be focusing on my major goal and push myself to focus and I think all the other activities, and I mean a lot are diluting from the process. This means getting rid of non-value adding activities. Oh dear, I sound rather corporate. My week so far. If Pilate nearly killed me, then in Yoga was the firing line. OMG! What is it with these gym classes being so dynamic! When I mean dynamic I mean break-into-a-sweat dynamic. I'd never hadn't had such a difficult class - obviously I was the largest. Okay - let's go fat-shaming- don't you just love that word? I was the fattest by a long stretch. And the unfittest. My body was ou...

On Friday my boss got bored of me talking about my eating plan and how I only used my gym for the spa facilities, so let's just say I forced to put my money where my mouth was and ended up booking five exercise sessions. Yes, hard to believe I've been with my gym for over a year and have NEVER ATTENDED A GYM CLASS. Mainly, because I like the spa and thing food reduction is the way to lose weight also just thinking of exercise exhausts me. I needed to book them via the website but having never done it, my password failed so I rang, in front of my boss, the gym to book it. Proof. They are mainly low impact classes so nothing too strenuous or so I thought. Come Saturday, I'm down the gym for my pilates class with all these fit, slim and trendy people. It's a 9AM class so basically like a work day for me. I thought pilates was gentle. Not. I say this having done it for about three years in a dance school - yeah I was once about twenty pounds or ten kilos lighter - and the ...

Yesterday. Didn't get round to writing this up. So had work, colleague's birthday which meant cake day. It was a planned cake day so okay. After work went the library to do some work. Today - Morning Got the bus, and still reading Pretend You're Mine.  Is it good? Bad? Well, that is hard one. Its entertaining and good to pass the time on my daily commute. It's much better than reading horrible news items. Lucy Score is a good writer, not too sure about her premise but it's entertaining in such a way I'm laughing at the characters. A large of amount of disbelief needs to be suspended however it's good fun. There are parts that are so ridiculous that I had to roll my eyes, but hey I'm still reading. I'm on chapter ten and it's about sixty or something. I reckon about 90k words. It's about a woman who arrives in a small town and shacks up with a man. Literally shacks up. Sharing the same bed shacks up. Ya'll need to read it. Caution ...

Morning Did some work at home before setting off to the office. Read some  Pretend You Are Mine (PYAM) by Lucy Score, then I switched to doing my grammar lesson. This Kindle mobile app is really cool. Nothing much to add to the book however I'm learning probably not to rush out and buy books on Kindle - I bought a lot so my reading list is very long.  As for Score's book, it's okay - the heroine has stopped with the whole he's hot. Stood on the train and saw a dude bring out his to-do list, and allocate times against it. I was impressed and made a note to try it at work. Afternoon To do list isn't going well but there is some progress. Big obstacle to diet was that pudding was coconut and jam sponge cake.  I LOVE COCONUT AND JAM SPONGE CAKE! Managed to overcome temptation to buy a piece. Then red velvet cake - oh boy!  Had boring jacket (baked) potato and tuna. I can't do this jacket potato tomorrow. I just can't. Had some tinned peaches for pudding...

Weekend. Watched a movie Rumour has it... with Jennifer Aniston. She is one of my favourite actresses, so I enjoyed it. The Christmas party was very good. Had lots to eat. There was turkey, ham, lots of home made cakes, stuffing, roast potatoes, jollof rice, rice and peas, festival dumplings and lots of other stuff. It was nice music, wine and Christmas crackers. The best mulled wine I'd tasted in years! There was so much selection I didn't have turkey since I'm going to probably have that at my work do or on Christmas day thought my sister said it was delicious. And Momma AG who is a vegetarian said the rice and peas was awesome. She also love the Christmas pudding with brandy sauce. I opted for red velvet cake - all the cakes and sweets were home made. Yum!  It was our local Catholic Church's Christmas party. Mostly the congregation but also lots of people they invited along. I sold ticket for the raffle,  Must add it was also a fundraising event for the bui...

I was on the bus yesterday and saw someone reading an email in this format so decided to adopt it. I just thought it was simple and clear and easy to write Morning. Did ten minutes writing for new project. Yes, said I wouldn't, but pull of writing is hard to resist. Wrote up my previous day and posted. Grammar mistakes and all. Thought about uploading mini videos clips but no real time. Waited on the bus, and peering over the man next to be reading an email found this style. Thought I'd try it out on my blog. Nice and simple. A bit like taking minutes, however it impressed me so here it is. Ran for the train, some chick wearing some funky looking boots. Gold chains at the back, wish I could have taken a picture. Was bad. Got breakfast from Sainsbury - a bagel and au raison pain, plus a fancy sandwich for lunch. Got to work and started on my work write up. It took about thirty minutes Midmorning Decided to eat sandwich lunch early. Genius Boss enquired if it was late breakfas...

Conflicting goals are very common, I'm finding out. What is most important? What is the one that makes a real difference to your life. This is where I have to get real. I have quite a few. Some are day-dreams - kinda like completing my novel and putting it on Amazon. Others are tedious but will have real life value, however take a lot of effort and effort to push through. So all my goals make a difference. Some give me hope and fuel my future dreams and ambitions. Others are more realistic but humdrum since they are work related. Put it this way, life is more than work. So I guess there lies my conflict. One is about professional development and the other is about creative development. However professional development takes up more time and on a deeper level lacks the satisfaction a creative work would give me. Anyway enough moaning about things. So I've SMARTed my professional development goal, which I've been calling the personal goal. So Specific - I want to complete the...

The team lunch was booked and paid for yesterday. Lil colleague and I went to pay the deposit in the late morning. Nothing interesting happening apart from we might have an inside christmas lunch again. We get a special season menu for a special price. The thing is during this season one gets to eat christmas dinner about a few times, so actual christmas dinner may be boring. Still not sure what I'm doing this year. Started off on my pre-ultimate assignment. I drew a blank and decided about writer's block. Then I thought about writing a story from one of those internet story generators. So I did. Basically it was about ways to combat writer's block. Anyway I just needed 800 words and I'm near 900. Just a bit of cutting and editing would do now. After which I need to rewrite the pasage using some other stuff. I popped into my online critiquing site where someone had posted something about a work colleague taking advange of them. I guess what took me aback is that fro...

Lots happened at work today. Sat in on presentation meetings with Head Honcho which again was a master class in my profession. I'm learning to learning. Normally sometimes as a pro one can get defensive about certain things and comes over slightly agitated so having working for two high cablibre pros is worth more than their weight in gold to me. One learns not only technical skills but also communication skills. I've also taken to reading the industry trade rag. Yeah, I know, taking career seriously. Venue rang back and confirmed we can order either from the al carte menu or christmas menu. What is now in disccusion is the discretionary service charge. Anyway I'm just going to pay the deposit and see what comes up. It's a nice venue, we are getting an airy dining room - away from the crowds - overlooking the beautiful garden. And it seems everyone is happy with it. Well mostly. Fabulously Glamorous gave me a mediation piece which is very truth. I've pondered on ...

Happy Ist of December. 25 days to Christmas and 26 days to the SALES!!! The time management planning is coming along fine, though I managed to overdo it which is a no no. I got engrossed in my assignment and went on until the early hours of the morning which is another no no. Now I'm a bit tired because I have a long day ahead. However it was because this long distance or correspondence course I am on, comes to an end soon. Well I'm not sure if it had already. I thought I had an extra year but it seems I just delay and procrastinated, and now doing all my planning I found out I actually joined it in much earlier than I thought. The effect of implusive buying things at christmas. This was the picture of the fireplace in the pub where I had dinner on Sunday. I just noticed that one tile is missing from the fire place and had been put by the side. How interesting. There are a selection of pubs around but this is the one we gravate to most. Nice staff, good food and pleasant ...

I'm doing my yesterday entry now. Was too tired. Anyway I think I said how AGG (Accounting Guru Genius) showed me how to plan. Well I got into my time management and goal setting big time and found out I was overwhelmed with things! Yes! I'd put on too many things that could not be achevied in the time I wanted. Fair enough saying if you can concieve it, you can acheieve it but one needs to be realistic about these things. I found out after putting in my work hours, travel time, eating, chores, wind down (don't do much of that), I only had a window of a few hours a day. I hadn't even accounted for family time, nor social activities. Then I realised a course I was doing was about to finish. This is something I'd never found the time to do. So obviously I've escalated that to high piority - see my talk now, talking about piortiies, and I hope to finish it soon. So that was my day yesterday doing things on my plan in a realistic way. Oh boy, slightly overwhelm...

There was a massive Disney Christmas tree at St Pancras Station.  I thought I'd start with that picture. Implemented Accounting Guru Genius (AGG)  method this morning. I mentioned yesterdays she showed me her way of planning. Well it's kinda like project management critical path and working back but in AGG's way.  Well the results where what I sort of knew but it's official. I do too much. I've got so much on that I have make very slow progress with anything then end up procrastinating. So I really need to learn and get this planning and time management method under my belt. The only reason is that it's kinda the only thing I actually got. When AGG first did it, I was amazed. It was so impressive. I kinda forgot about it but it's coming up to the end of the year, and I've made great progress with some goals and projects but others are still hanging. Anyway after putting in all my hours I realised I only had a certain amount of free time. Not a...

Rang to sing Momma A G happy birthday! Got to work early and did some of my goal work. Also Accounting Guru Boss showed me an easy way of planning. She is a genius. It's that simple so I'm going to practice her method of planning.  I must say I've learn plenty. Working with her is like one long professional master class with private tuition.  Glamorous colleague also gave me tips on completing a goal related task. All tasks are like elephants tackle the largest on in the morning. Red Jumper colleague took the day off for Black Friday. Apparently he's waking up at early to go on the internet looking for deals after which he'll go to the shopping centre. Told him I was going to wait until boxing day to get a new purse. Then after all the excitement he was like 'What am I going to do on Cyber Monday." Glamorous and I went looking for some where for our team christmas lunch. She wasn't having us eat in a pub. She has high standards. She was okay abo...

I like writing. I guess that is the main reason. I've always wanted to be a writer and having finished my first book, I need to take a break from it. I guess I also write because I want people to read. So that is the main reason for blogging to. I have a number of blogs. One to do with writing on Word Press, this is just something I'm doing by the way. However blogging at times makes me feel my life is boring. Since I mostly talk about transport, what I eat at lunch and coming back home. Mundane. Not exciting at all. Boring. I read other people's blog and think awesome. Amazing. That is so cool. All I really like to do is draw, yes those bold stylishly ugly drawings are mine. You can probably tell. I have a few on instagram. I also like to sing which I rarely do nowadays. I also used to cook and do crafts. I work. Yes, that takes up most of my time, and studying for a professional qualification. I still have one more stage to complete - which was the personal goal I was ta...

It rained. So grey and miserable this morning. And there was traffic. Got the train and yet the normal gripe of idoits not moving down the carriage. Don't get me started. Finally got a seat, read the paper. Got worse when I went to work. Why? I spoke to one of my colleagues in the kitchen before her morning coffee. Thick black coffee - no sugar. Mistake. Big mistake, so I retreated back to my office. Lunch was find but I ate too much. I think this fasting on lower calories days have shrunk my stomach. I had the full meat with roast potatoes and chocolate sponge cake for pudding. The cake was nice. The meal was nice. But I think I over stretched myself. My coffee-drinking colleague who is a foundation of wisdom always advised me to do one thing at a time. As you know I have many projects on the go. So today longer after she'd had her morning coffee, she reminded me about it again. Start and finish. So I've decided work on completing a personal goal and put a hold on other...

I've never kept a diary or journal. Not a complete one. The last complete one was when I was about 15 years old and was only because everyone else was keeping on. You know the whole 'teenage secret dairy' with lots of hearts with hidden crushes and stuff. So this is kinda something new. Anywho. Went to work and it was so so. Deadlines coming up. Then I'm on the 2nd of 2 day of 5.2 diet. I'm sure I eat way more than what is allowed. Anyway I had some pititful fruit salad for breakfast. Got that from Sainsburys. Then some bean salad which I had with jacket potato. Got into the whole 'exercise vs diet' debate. My colleague also gave good advice about shopping online. She's addicted to special offers so says shopping on-line cuts it out. I know that when I used to go to weight watchers, yeah, I did, the leader suggested that helped too. I dislike exercise  and I know this is fad but so is exercising. I start with an expensive gym membership - which by ...

Work up today thinking about design. So I got out one of my old design books and decided to start with lines. I used to love lines. Everything is made up of a line. So I did a line outline of a picture. Then I made it to a cartoon. See below. He is wearing boxers. Activated my facebook account again.  So it's there activated. Will be using it for some writing stuff later on. Not fussed at the moment. I just need to join all these groups and make 'facebook friends'. Oh dear.  Went the supermarket and found the American shelf. I noticed beef gelatine was put in some breakfast cereals. Really? Why? The only animal products I eat with cereal is milk. Dairy. but gelatine? Come on, people. Plus it had a number of food additives I hadn't seen in years! Oats or Oatmeal is the way to go. Finally go to see what a twinkie looked like. I always assumed it was a chocolate bar of some kind. It's cake. Well it was super expensive at £7 nearly £12 but it was ...

Today was tiring. Well I'm trying to complete my application for membership and it's turning out to be a little bit more frustrating then taking the actual exams. The reason being is that the format has to be original. So far I've listed down one job, I've three more to do. Then I went for a massage but that had little effect on my irritable self so I'm still tense and irritable. Decided to do my own covers. My first attempt has been pretty bad but I hope to get better.  The reason they are thumbnails is because I uploaded them on my NaNoWriMo page. Long story is that my prehistoric copy of photoshop sits on an very old machine. However its super expensive to get a copy and to be fair apart from fancy filters and brushes and shapes I have all  need on my prehistoric copy. I think with the newer versions the learning curve is lower and it's easier to use. Where as the old school PS - one had to  know how to use the pen tool, some filters etc. As you can se...

Work was okay. Left the hairdressers and had  night out with a meet-up group in Putney. It was different where you had to mingle and talk to everyone. Like speed friend-making. Lots of interesting people and the great thing about it was if conversation seemed tedious or hard you knew in a few minutes you'd be lead to another table. I'd definitely go again. Also learned about ice hockey so might start watching that too. -----------------------------------------------------------  Check out Bigga Day's books on Smashwords.com https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/bigga Apple iBooks https://itunes.apple.com/us/artist/bigga-day/id595585425?mt=11 Barnes and Nobles http://www.barnesandnoble.com/c/bigga-day Kobo http://store.kobobooks.com/en-US/Search?query=Bigga%20Day&fcsearchfield=Author

Today was hard. A family member had someone close to them pass away. Tough. Tragic. The person was also young and it was very unexpected. Tough and hard on those left behind. He’s now in peace, having done his best for all concerned.  Work was normal. Did the first day of the . Which is the first of two. Started off with a bowl of apple and satsumas. For lunch had jacket potato with tuna (added some mayo and hot sauce.) Passed some fancy cars so took pictures. Got a headache from sugar withdrawals. Bad one. Very bad headache. But I must keep going. After which when to visit my bereave family member. Gave in to eating grapes. Having Edamame beans (posh and fancy name for boiled soya beans) for supper. I'M STARVING!!! Planned to meet a fellow writer on Saturday. That should be fun.   Not sure I achieved the 500 calories of 5:2 diet but it’s a start. I probably did double that - but no cake or pudding. Totally resisted that to...

Went to work and gorged on cake. A baby hippo day, I need to make sure I don’t become Mama Hippo. Actually I’m considering doing the 5:2 diet. You know when you kinda only eat 500 calories two days then the rest will be Baby Hippo days. So two Starving Donkey days and five Hippo days. I’m fine with it. It may be a challenge. I’ve got a book out called 5:2 Lifestyle. Will it work? Don’t know. Anyway will try.  Left work on time to attend a lecture by respected medieval super-scholar Professor  Elizabeth Robertson on Chaucer and Wordsworth’s Vivid Daisies. It sounded interesting when I got the email and I like a bit of poetry sometimes so I went along.  It was the Birkbeck William Matthews Public Lecture. They do a series of talk. Even Ali Smith the booker prize winner did one. I think that is every year - I mean getting a booker prize winner to have a chat. Then I went for the drinks reception. Nice see pictures below. Also got a few other posh soun...

I went for a breakfast talk today in the city. It had to get to Tower Bridge so took a picture of the Tower. That is of the Shard in the distance. Nice sandwiches and pastries on display. Very yummy. I took a picture of the place. I've been too busy to do this. Too busy to go the gym. Too busy to live a life. But I think the problem and solution lies with me. I think before one does a task, one needs to ask what is expected of one? I don't ask that question, dive in, do over and beyond when adequate will do. I think it is about matching expectations. I need to examine that closely because it's easy to blame other things - like time, work, commitments but am I doing too much? I need to think what are the expectations in this task? I say this because sometimes I feel some tasks are good but futile. Perhaps do not add value. Well that is where I am at the moment. I'm also doing NaNoWriMo tweets for the fun of it. Got to go now and think about my go...

Outside Milton Keyes Station I went to Milton Keyes today for a conference which was great and well worth attending. It's to do with my profession. The great thing about meeting other professionals in your field is that you find out you aren't alone in some experiences. Also there was advice, and good words to take home. So it was very positive and uplifting. We had two fellows of the professional body give an presentation and answer questions. As well the active associates for organising it. It was well worth attending. In fact lots of people like myself travelled from all over to attend this event. Virgin Carriage This is a picture inside the Virgin Train. It was okay I guess. Still a bit cramped. What I noticed is that first class was a lot smaller than the old intercity seats. I sat behind some TV production staff who were name dropping and saying how they had to attend certain shows and laugh on cue. To be fair I've been to two filmi...