Everyone everywhere says last year flew by. Contrarian by nature, it 2022 felt like it took about a year. January 2023, however, felt like it took about a week. I'm looking forward to the next few weeks being a more eventful, more different, and (hopefully) passing a little more slowly.
January is my birthday month, and so one of the best months. I had a great birthday, by the way. I took the day off work, made myself an almond orange drizzle cake (dangerously good, thanks Anna Jones), and played a new board game. It's nice to take a day to oneself.
Music and Film Recs
- Never Going Under, Circa Waves (Album, Indie Rock, 2023). I think I'm going through my indie rock phase, and that's cool.
- 30, Adele (Album, Pop, 2021). There's so much to love in this Album, Adele's just a great artist.
- Take Off Your Colours, You Me At Six (Album, Pop Punk, 2008). This album holds up to what sixteen year-old me loved.
- The Menu (Film, 2022). This film popped up in a few (non-movie) podcasts I listen to as something you should watch, and that it's best watched with no prior knowledge. I'm very glad I watched it.
Photography. In December I rediscovered my enjoyment of photography. That's carried into this month. I cracked out my mirrorless camera, and bought an instant camera. I went for the Fujifilm SQ1. I try not to get too lost in deep research over new-ish hobbies, in case I drop it four weeks later.
The Instax Square film is a good size, unlike some of the other Instax ones, and didn't hit the £1.80/shot price tag of a Polaroid. It comes in at at about £0.60 / shot (that's 33% of the cost of Polaroid).
I wanted to make an effort to capture the smaller every day moments of people, places, and things that make up daily life. Because one day I will look different and live somewhere else. I wish I had more photos of the everyday life of being a student, or even living in London.
I like that you get one photo. Despite being only £0.60/shot, that's extortion to the cost of the iPhone camera. Did you blink, or move, or get the framing wrong? Is it really worth the extra shot, and the waste of throwing one away? Is the photo bad, or are you just not happy with it?
I'm experimenting with putting these in journals and displaying them in a grid photo frame (this one, to be precise). I want the photos to be a living thing, part of life. But I want them to be preserved, not crumpled and faded. At very least I'd like them at the wedding (2024).
Sewing. I've also been busy learning to sew trousers, and how to use an overlocker. I've had some wildly varying results on the trousers. I made a toile (too narrow) which I adjusted (just right), then made a pair of simple cotton twill trousers, finding the whole thing rather too big: the waist 2" too wide and the seat 1/2" too low. oh well, they're still definitely trousers. I'm currently working through my first proper wool project (a grey-tan), paired with a lovely dusty salmon mosterra leaf print pocketing.
Other Projects. The creative ghost of new year ran through me this month, and I managed two make two little projects:
- Oddbox Noifier - a scheduled web scraper that notifies me of my Veg Box's contents via e-mail.
- Sunrise, Sunset? - a daily game where you have to guess if a picture is sunrise or sunset.
Something I found helpful when building these things was telling myself that I can only work on them for ten (non-consecutive) days. Time-bounding work is important, but I hate how much that could look like deadlines working.
Whatever, I shipped some fun little side projects that made my life more joyful. Ain't that the whole point?
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