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Let’s Chat – Chapter 1 (2021)
And just like that…we made it through the first month of 2021.
Based on progress to date, I think a lot of people believe 2021 is going to be a ‘hold my beer 2020’ to 2020. However, I’m confident it’s more of a sassy spectator, more “I could go there and eff things up better than you, but I’m too busy doing hot girl shit”. Thoughts?
I liked doing these round up posts last year – they reminded me of the good stuff that happened each month which can only be a positive thing! So they’re back again for 2021, but I *may* play about with the format just a teeny bit. Lemme know your thoughts after this one.
- How to get away with murder: I watch S1 E1 ages ago but never continued for some reason, then saw loads of people raving about it online so thought I’d try again. So glad I did (although I find all of the drama just a teent bit stressful at times). I’m currently up to S3 so no spoilers please!
- The Serpent: If you watched this I’m sure you’ll agree that the styling choices were as compelling as the story. I’m really into true crime, so after finishing this I consumed every piece of information I could find about the real events online. It’s extremely troubling how little the lives of tourists seemed to matter until Knippenberg made them listen.
- Cheat: Spotted this on a Gogglebox ep ages ago and it recently dropped onto Netflix. A lot more twists than I originally expected.
- Rupaul’s Drag Race S13: thrilled its back (if ever we needed the power of drag, it’s now) but I’m less thrilled with the format change it started with, especially when it turned out to be a pointless ‘twist’. I have a few queens I’m taking early interest in – Gottmik, Olivia Luxe, Denali, Rosè and Tamisha Iman.
- Rupaul’s Drag Race UK S2: is it too much Drag Race in one go, or is it completely fabulous and just the right amount for a winter lockdown? I say the latter. I liked S1 but I really like S2. I can’t name my early faves because I like almost all of them right now.
- Cooking from scratch: I got a Pinch of Nom cook book for my Secret Santa gift and it’s been well used. Most of the recipes are straightforward, very tasty and include a lot of varied ingredients. I somehow feel more accomplished and ‘well’ after a whole month of this, so I need to find a way of making sure I keep this up when I’m back working in the office.
- Celebrating hubby’s birthday: first (hopefully not first of many) lockdown birthday of the year done. I decided to make it into a slightly more boujee affair (because that’s what 36 yo men care about, clearly) by making a balloon arch, getting tapas takeout from one of our fave restaurants and ordering a chocolate fudge rainbow cake from Desserts Delivered who I’d highly recommend.
- Picking up old (ish) hobbies: I’ve been trying to re-establish some of the positive hobbies I picked up during L1 (sadly, I couldn’t include sunbathing) so I’ve been back at the podcasts which you’ve seen, continuing with Spanish lessons and creating more content for Tik Tok and Instagram (though IG is totally doing me dirty on Reels and won’t let me upload or film them properly)
- Exam board drops Zoella for promoting sex toys on her website: Well this was a left of field story! She’s a 30 year old woman who’s entitled to write about things that are important and interesting to her (as I do, albeit with a few million less readers) as she’s done throughout her career. Her audience have *mostly* grown with her so will be a similar age. I doubt she asked to be put on the GCSE syllabus, it’s not exactly #ad territory is it, so isn’t going to effect her life. 16 is old enough to have sex in the UK and I’m willing to bet some of them have read Zoella’s blog post with interest. Let’s not slut shame the girl for wanting to promote pleasure in a pandemic.
- Influencers in Dubai: If you have to go away for work for several days and have some down time to hit the beach for a few hours, nothing wrong with that, but I suspect its more the other way around in a lot of cases ( i.e. work being a tiny portion of the trip). Go to work if you cannot work from home is the official line, people are clearly just playing a bit fast and loose with that aren’t they. But, if you’re in Dubai for whatever reason, just own it and be honest. Don’t try and use social media to pretend you’re still at home. People will see you and call you out.
So, what’s in store for Chapter 2? See you this time next month to find out…
Thanks for reading,
J xx
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WORK | Real ways to deal with working from home
Hands up if you’re working from home right now?
Me too! This is the first time for me; in Lockdown 1 I was on Furlough/redundant and Lockdown 2 working from my regular office, so working from home has been a pretty new thing for me to get used to. I’m still finding out better ways for me to work all the time (including using my existing organisation hacks) but today I’m sharing what’s been working for me since the start of the year. If you’re not doing some/any of these right now, I’d encourage you to try them out to see if they’re able to hell you as well.
- Separate your work space
Some homes mean it’s not always possible to work in an entirely different room, but choosing a separate are in your home to work from is essential for me. I’ve chosen to set up a comfy home office on the other side of my lounge – I would rarely choose to sit there otherwise (there’s no view of the TV, another bonus in this instance) and there’s a massive chair that allows me to spread comfortably and avoid my sciatica kicking in. At the end of every day, I put my laptop down and leave it in this area until I start again the next morning. On a Friday evening, I pack everything up and put it away until Monday.
- Listen while you work
You’re probably used to hearing people work and chatter around you when you’re at work in the office, so when you’re working at home the silence can be deafening. I’ve found podcasts the best way to recreate this at home, because it’s like a friends chatting that you can dip in and out. Music and TV are too distracting to me because of the visual element and because inevitably a song will come on that I want to dance around to (which I could, because I’m at home and nobody’ll see me, but your gal’s got work to be getting on with). My faves include Rich T’s Throne Room for my Drag Race chat and Katherine Ryan: Telling Everybody Everything for general real talk.
- Take breaks (yes, that’s plural)
In the office you’d normally get up from your desk to make a drink, nip to the loo, drop something off in another department. Make sure you still get up for the equivalent time every hour or so. When I first started WFH I felt compelled to be glued to my laptop constantly just to prove I was still working and ‘on it’. Well, guess what? I’m usually more productive when I’ve had five minutes to stretch my legs, drink a brew and empty my bladder a couple times a day. Oh, and take a lunch break, and I mean your full whatever’s-in-your-contract lunch.
- Leave the house
Without a commute and in between food shops, it can be easy to forget you haven’t been outside for ages. Make a conscious effort to have a little bit of time outdoors every day (or a few times per week) to nip to the corner shop, mooch into your village or even enjoy a hot drink in your garden if you have one. You just don’t realise how much fresh air and being out if the house helps until you’ve actually done it.
- Don’t forget your hobbies
Home is primarily for YOU and is your haven, so remember to use it to do things you enjoy outside of working hours. This could be doing a new hobby, one you’ve always had or something you started in lockdown 1 but promptly dropped when the pubs re-opened. For me, it’s writing blog posts (thanks for reading, by the way), learning Spanish, cooking from scratch and having at least one hour each day to watch a couples-sanctioned series (which is usually some kind of thriller or murder show).
If you’re WFH and looking for some ways to cope with it better, I hope this helps a little bit. We all have stuff we’re battling against right now, so if there are ways to make things easier I’m all for sharing that around.
Thanks for reading,
J xx
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WORK & REAL LIFE | The Jenny Chat organisation ‘hacks’ 2021
I consider myself a pretty organised person when it comes to work. Although I can easily adapt to changes of flow, tasks and deadlines, I work best when I feel in control of that, which being organised helps me to achieve.
Thanks to years of wanting to be the best organised I can, I’ve developed some strategies that help me, which I thought I’d share. There’s nothing ground-breaking or innovative here; just simple tips to organise, prioritise and convince your brain that you’re doing a good job (which of course, you are). It’s worth the five minute read for that I reckon!
I’ve mentioned this before in a previous post, but I use Trello to create my to do lists for general work, social media and blog content. I have a board for each which I separate into lists and colour code in order of priority (you’ll see in my next point that I’m a fan of colour coding). Because I work remotely some of the time and so do my colleagues (especially at the moment) this is also another way for everybody to have hands on a project or catch up with what you’re doing at a glance without 172627 emails being exchanged.
For a number of years I’ve used this system to track the progress of my workload, and its exactly what it sounds like. No rocket science here! For a handwritten list (I still have one of those as well as my digital one to get the satisfaction of crossing something off) I use highlighters to colour code, for Trello I use the labels function:
Green = done Yellow/Orange = in progress Red = can’t complete/need further assistance to complete
This one is a bit school kid psychology, but is certainly helps keep me focused on my priorities and finish each day feel good so I’m with it!
Take a few minutes before starting your day (or a few at the end of the day before if that’s easier) to write down three key things from your to do list that you must do today in order to feel like you’re in control and winning. Just three. And if it gets to the end of the day and those bad boys are all struck off, then go you! Of course, you probably have more than three things you need to do in any given day, but focusing on these few means that you know no matter what, you achieved something important to your daily work.
It’s simple, but DEFINITELY something a lot of us forget to do is we oerceive we’re swamped with work! Take half an hour at the beginning and end of each week to review your workload/tasks and reclassify their importance. There may be something urgent that needs to be bumped up to the top of the list, however that may mean that something else you thought was more important is now less of a priority and can use a little less of your time in the short term.
Whenever you’re given a new work task/deadline, it’s sensible to ask how this should fit in with your other tasks i.e. ‘can I just check, now I have this task alongside XYZ, in which order would say I prioritise these jobs?’. Nobody can say you’re not prepared if you’ve asked and then planned your activity based on the answer.
Simple, yet effective. If any of these concepts are new to you, give them a go and let me know if they’ve helped you. We don’t always have to reinvent the wheel to stay on top of life, we just have to put a little oil onto the one we have to make it work well.
Thanks for reading,
J xx
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WORK | Things I like about working from home
- Having an extra hour in bed each morning.
- Not comfy at my desk? No problem, sit on the couch. Thats not working? Cool, sit on the floor with a blanket.
- Having last night’s leftovers for lunch while watching an episode of Sex and the City.
- Wearing cosy, fluffy clothing without it looking weird or unprofessional.
- Having my ring light on hand for video calls. Gotta get that fine lighting.
- Shoes out, slippers in.
Is there anything here you can relate to?
Thanks for reading,
J xx
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Let’s Chat- December / Christmas 2020
The very last update of the year, and what a year it’s been!
Honestly, my year has been fine. Good even. I had the first few months of 2020 not having a good time at all, so when the pandemic hit it forced some of the changes I was struggling to make for myself (I wrote a previous post about this which you can read here). Imagine feeling so down on yourself that a global pandemic actually SAVED the year!
BUT no more about that now. More about the lighter, fluffier stuff you probably clicked over here for…
This months clothing has mainly been loungewear and Christmas clothing, no great surprise. I also discovered a new small business (thanks Instagram) that sell really good quality quirky PJs called Their Nibs which you’ll see below
- Moesha: (sings) Mo to the, E to the….another month, another throwback to my teenage years courtesy of Netflix! I don’t think I watched the final season first time round so I was very frustrated and disappointed with how it ended.
- Christmas films: of course! I watch the same core films every single year, but this year I added in Fred Claus, Christmas With the Kranks and Deck the Halls.
I usually do a post about my Christmas (I’ve done one almost every single year since launching this little online space) but I thought this year I’d combine it with my monthly catch up, mainly because that’s what I’ve been doing this month so it makes sense.
As it was for virtually everybody in the UK, our festive period wasn’t quite like it usually is, however being in Tier 3 meant we could still enjoy some indoors family time which I’m very grateful for. This year we ventured over the bridge to my mum’s house for Christmas lunch, the first time any of us have celebrated thers as they only moved in last year.
Lunch was spread over a few hours, with some present opening in between courses:
- Starter: Mackerel patê served with rocket and ciabatta
- Main: Carved turkey and gammon, pigs in blankets, home made stuffing, honeyed carrots, parsnips, sprputs, garlic roast potatos and lashings of gravy
- Dessert: Papa Robbo’s infamous croissant white chocolate bread and butter pudding
After lunch we headed to my sister in laws to do a door drop of presents for the other side of the family. We stood in the back garden next to the fire pit whilst we watched the little ones open their gifts through the french doors. Definitely VERY weird, but at least we got to see them somehow!
Boxing Day, instead of going to my mum’s or hosting family as we usually do, (as everybody else in the UK did) we stayed at home. We still made an effort and cooked a 3 course meal for ourselves, but ate it in our loungewear. It’s all about balance ya know:
- Starter: Caremalised onion and goats cheese tart
- Main: Turkey roulade with truffle cauliflower cheese, carrot sweede, pigs in blankets and roasties
- Dessert: Sticky toffee pudding with pouring cream
The last thing we did for the year (‘cos we’re definitely not doing anything tonight!) was do a socially distanced treasure hunt around Beverley courtesy of Escape Rooms Beverley (it’s £5 per couple). It was a great way to get some fresh air, a nice walk and use my brain a bit for the first time in a couple of weeks!
And now it’s New Years Eve, 2020 is done and 2021 is raring to go. Let’s try our best to work with what we’ve got for now and hope it’ll lead us to the joy, freedom and peace many of us are craving.
So that’s it. Well, just for now. Thank you for taking the time to read my blog posts, followed and engaged with me on Instagram and may even watched a few of my cheesy Tik Tok videos! It’s much appreciated and I hope to see you more in the new year.
Thanks for reading,
J xx
About Me
I’m Jenny, nice to meet you. I’m a thirty-something who likes fashion, holidays and wondering about life. A lot.
