Achieving my life’s dreams by proxy

I’ve been reading books by a rather fabulous author, Lindsey Kelk for a while now. Anyway, she doesn’t just write stories, she also blogs quite a bit, about beauty, (good) music and her own adventures.

On her blog a while back, she asked her readers to submit their ‘to do’ lists as part of the launch of her latest novel, The Single Girl’s to do list. So I did. She posted it on her blog alongside the others and I was thrilled with that, but I never imagined it’d end up in the actual printed, published book.

But it did!

      

I hope no one was offended by anything in there (especially my lovely family or chap, I said I felt like the black sheep as I wasn’t married/had kids but we don’t actually have any kind of black sheep – and I’m not a single girl, but I do have a to do list – it just sounds good for dramtic effect. It was either that or ‘SHARK ATTACK’ and I don’t think that would cut it, judging by the odd looks given to the woman on the direct line advert when she suggests it).

I saw it today in Waterstone’s in all its papery glory and I was dizzy with happiness. Okay, so it’s one page in someone else’s book so I’m not a published writer in the proper official sense, but if you look at the technicalities, I can kind of say I’ve achieved a small part of a big dream. My name is on there, and even the link to my blog got published and it mentions the very wonderful One a Day Project, too (which you can donate money to for Cancer Research here if you’re feeling generous). I’m rather proud and can’t wait to get properly stuck into the rest of the story, too. You can buy it here if you want to read it.

This has all spurred me on to write even more – not just via this blog but to carry on with the stories as well.

All in all a great day. I also found out my amazing little sister passed a big part of her teacher training course and one of my best  friends got a first in his engineering degree. Hurrahs all round!

Without wanting to sound too much like Heather Small: What have you done lately that makes you feel proud?

#oneaday 119: who am I?

My cousin messaged me via Facebook this weekend, asking if I wanted to help him work on our family tree.

I said yes, and we’re going to meet up soon to go through what we know so far before we pay for any info. I’m intrigued to find out who my family was a few generations back, as it all gets a bit cloudy when you get past the 4th generation.

It’ll be particularly difficult on my dad’s side as both grandparents and my dad are no longer alive, so the first go-to people aren’t there. We have lots of cousins, aunties and uncles though so I’m still excited to find out what’s in store. It’ll be a good excuse to have a few reunions with long-lost familia, if nothing else!

Have you ever done your family tree? Do you have any tips?

#oneaday 92: All the mothers

Today’s post is dedicated to brilliant mums everywhere. My own mum is the most lovely, wonderful, marvellous, inspirational, strong woman I know. A real hero. She is brilliant. If your mum’s brilliant, tell her. Do it now. Send her a text.

Mums are great!

#oneaday 50: Coming of age

This is in lieu of yestersay’s non-existant one a day post, due to the fact that I was otherwise engaged, celebrating the 21st birthday of my youngest sibling. So that now means that all of us are now (apparantly) fully-fledged grown-ups. I’m not sure I agree with that, despite being firmly wedged in the ‘late twenties’ age range.

I don’t think I’ll ever feel like I’m a proper grown up.

Do you?