Completed Challenge 25# - A day in the life of an octopus!

Just out of a long hot bath as it turns out wearing a heavy octopus head all day makes you pretty achy!! But despite the crick in my neck and the flush of embarassment in my cheeks it was totally worth it for the £104.54 that was raised!

The worst part of the day was sitting in briefing in front of all my colleagues who I pray normally take me seriously. This was swiftly followed by having to walk past kid after kid who did a double take or just stood in front of me laughing. I had also managed to time this day with my dog coming in for animal care. This went absolutely fine but was certainly not my proudest moment cleaning dog muck up dressed as an octopus! It did lead some Year 11 students to come running out and emptying all their change out to me saying they felt it was a new low for me.

There were some great moments when a student watched my dog cuddling up to me and said "ooh she must like seafood" and when my year 7's carried on working, and whinging about working, as if nothing else was happening.

Being made to carry on wearing it for a drink in the pub after work was not what I bargained for but did lead to another couple of quid from the punters - all in a day's work.

Thanks to the challengers and costume makers and everyone that donating!!

Completed Challenge 28# - No Social Media!

Success! I made it through the month. No crisis happened. No really horrid photos or posts. But truth be told I did miss it.

It didn't help that Facebook emailed me daily to say I had notifications. They would also tell me I had friend requests and messages. I would mull over what these could be and whether people would think me rude for not responding. I had two major events during the month and I was jealous not to be involved in the fun anecdotal statuses afterwards or prolong the fun flicking through the photos.

I missed the odd invitation to things and a few funny stories. But it's important to remember I didn't miss any major life events and it didn't reduce my contact with my best friends. If anything I tried to contact them more as I couldn't just 'spy' on their lives through Facebook.

One friend sent me a 4 page letter catching me up on everything that was going on with them which was really sweet. I wrote a lengthy letter back and we realised we had shared far more than we ever would have done on Facebook. I was reminded that it simply does not replace the connection we have with people in our real lives.

So thank you to the challengers, it was a good thing for me to do. Thank you to those who donated. Thank you to  everyone that still contacted me. And thank you to everyone who welcomed me back to the social media world today!!

Please remember you can donate to support this or any other challenge at www.justgiving.com/30before30sense