I wasn’t really prepared for Day in the Life, but I jotted some things down so here you go. Sorry I didn’t take a single photo!

What I Did

1. Won a luxury champagne cruise for 2 on Loch Lomond in the work draw. Unexpected!

2. Invited Claire on aforesaid cruise as our joint birthday outing. Let’s hope for some reasonably warm weather .

3. Got a payslip in the post and NOTHING ELSE. Lame post for 8 days and counting

4. Wondered how exactly they get Amazon super saver parcels to arrive 5 days later than standard mail. Is it a special service via Belgium? Claire suggests yaks are involved. To be fair, I remember when I worked at the sorting office, the second class mail would get ditched under the table the very second even a single first class letter arrived.

5. Discovered it was also Hourly Comic Day and enjoyed following Edward Ross’s day.

6. Was so cold I had to go find a warmer jumper, and actually put socks on.

7. Watched people slowly start bidding on the Plan B magazines I listed on eBay at the weekend. Please take them so I don’t have to bin them.

8. Checked on all my printing products – all still queued for printing, sigh.

9. Wondered if I might be getting addicted to sourdough bread

10. Paid my Etsy and Folksy bills. $20 to Etsy, how did that happen?

11. Got a bit excited when Pusheen the Cat requested to follow me on Twitter

12. Coveted a Japanese enamel kettle

13. Bought the live action Paradise Kiss DVD from YesAsia. I hope the subtitles aren’t too atrocious and the adaptation also isn’t too atrocious.

14. Made pancakes for dinner. Because I can. And it’s almost Pancake Day.

15. Randomly made an Etsy treasury of mountains (see top of post).

16. Had a peek at the Moon, Jupiter and Venus all hanging out together

17. Ditched all my plans and went to bed at 9:30pm because it was cold and I was tired out. Mind you, I read for hours.

What I Ate

An actual proper breakfast of cereal, oats, 9 hours out of date yogurt, half a banana and a cup of tea. A hardboiled egg on sourdough toast, cheese on sourdough bread, some carrot sticks and a cup of coffee for lunch. A bag of Quavers. Some dark chocolate caramels from Thorntons. Some water. A ham and cheese pancake. Peppermint tea.

Check out Nikki’s blog to read about everyone else’s days.

So, how are all you 5 year diary owners getting on? I’m pretty pleased to have finished 7 months of entries and I only missed a couple of days. I was using a prototype from July last year to make sure everything worked as expected. Unfortunately, I didn’t consider that pushing half the pages to the back temporarily would mean half the years are wrong in my diary so I am still in 2011, oops.

Those of you with real actual diaries should have just completed your first month so how are you finding it and what are you recording? Mine seem to be mostly what I got in the post, what I worked on, where I went and what I watched on TV. I kind of wish I’d noted the weather or what I ate every day but then I might not have stuck to it so easily.

This has been a confusing week. I almost didn’t buy something at the supermarket today because the use by date was February 27th and in my brain that was already past. I guess when you’re constantly planning for events in the future it’s hard to remember where you are.

But! I have been working on new things and this week I ordered some new products featuring them. The range is called Look Around because every character is based on a circle! You’ve already met the pancake but there are loads more. I even did a little logo for them so you can have a sneak peek. There’s a food-themed badge set coming soon and the rest will be appearing on various things in the next few months. Yay, new stuff.

PS. Sale ends tomorrow! There’s not a lot left now.

At some point after I became self-employed, I starting thinking of daytime reading as an unacceptable indulgence, probably because I love reading and could happily do it all day every day. However, this does mean I don’t get as much reading done as I would like and my unread magazine pile is growing at an alarming rate*. I was waiting to meet Katy in West the other day and enjoyed my peppermint tea and book above so much that I am now allowing myself a reading outing at least once a week. I can go anywhere I like and have lunch and/or tea and/or cake and read whatever I like from my unread pile.

I realise it’s a bit sad that I have to resolve to spend more time doing fun things, but it is hard when you run your own business(es) in that there’s always something you could be doing. I’m posting them as an irregular series on I Like Zines, if you fancy keeping up with my reading and eating choices. That practically makes it a business expense…

*which is especially pathetic as I only buy 3 magazines regularly.

I had my first order from Russia this week, which inspired me to make a visited countries map for my parcels. As you can see, I am slowly taking over the world!

Having a single order to both Russia and China really helps fill things in but I’m even more proud of my multiple orders to places like Luxembourg and Greece. If I could be bothered pulling all the data out of 5 years of orders, I would love a colour coded one by number of sales. However, I can safely say my top three countries for orders are the UK, Germany and the US. Thanks to all of you who have placed an order, especially those of you in far flung countries and with interesting addresses – it really makes order packing days more fun!

You can also have a browse of my Google map, which has all the towns and cities from the last year – they only let you view a page of placemarks at a time though, so I can’t see everything at once. Boo.

Needless to say, my actual visited countries map would be less impressive – just the UK, Holland, France, Japan and Thailand.

My end of year sale finishes on the 31st so make sure you don’t miss out! Once it’s over, all the Christmas things will be going away until the Autumn and the rest will be going back to their usual prices, so if you want to get super-organised for Christmas 2012 at knockdown prices or pick up some cheap gift wrap or the last few pairs of rainboots, you best get to it. There’s free calendar postcards with all orders too.

Look what’s arrived! Wooden Bread Slice brooches were super-popular last year so I’m glad to have a new batch. These have been redrawn and are cut from a slightly thinner wood but otherwise they’re the same. I also got him a friend – the Sad Cookie brooch! They’re both even cuter than my photographs and you can get them in my shops right now.

Time to pick the winners of my holiday giveaway. As promised, I split them into two lists and then used the random number generator. The winner of the Jammie Dodger pack is HazelEyes and the Happy Orange pack goes to Trekky. Congratulations! I’ll be in touch soon to get your addresses.

Here also is a photo of my first bunch of daffodils of 2012. Daffodils are my favourite flower so I always grab them as soon as I see them pop up in the shops. Seems a bit early this year though, but at least they’re brightening up the dark mornings.

Look, it’s my first new product of 2012 – a happy pancake card all ready for Valentine’s Day. I’ve been working on a new series of characters who are based on circles and I have lots more to show you soon. The Valentine’s Day orders are already starting – if you like to be organised you can check out my Valentines collection and get shopping for sweet gifts.

PS. Last chance to enter my giveaway – I’ll be closing it tomorrow.

It’s Friday the 13th so let’s have some bad news. Paperchase have stopped making the heart clips I use to make Book Heart bookmarks so it looks like the end is nigh! I’m down to my last 50 or so and I don’t expect those to last long as they’re always popular for Valentine’s Day. If you want to get your hands on a few book hearts, then don’t delay!

I’ve already removed the gocco printed book hearts from my stores and I only have a handful of Travel Book Hearts (made from vintage maps) before they run out. Then it will just be Washi Book Hearts left. I also only have a handful of Book Heart Kits – once they’re gone I won’t be making any more.

It’s possible they’ll start making the heart clips again or that I find an alternative but then again I’m not going to be looking too hard. I’m proud to have invented Book Hearts and have sold thousands of them, but maybe it’s time to let them go.