Welcome to Living with Lauren V!

As I sit here eating my extremely delicious barley soup that Marge (nickname for my mum) made last night to warm us all up during the coldest winter in 100 years, I decided it's time to start writing a blog. Thing is, I have so much going on in my life all the time that I feel I should now start sharing!

Living with Lauren is just gonna be an insight into my life... things Im doing, things I like, things I dislike and generally whats going on in the life of Lauren V. So for those of you who dont know, I am a radio presenter and interior designer, and I have also just finished writing a book called 'My Enemy, My Friend' - which will hopefully be published by the beginning of March.

I opened my own interior design business 2 years ago after working professionally for another company for 2 years and travelling all over the world with them. You can check out my interior design website at www.jaylaenterprises.com (JayLa is the name of my company - Jay for Julie - my late nanna, and La for Lauren - duh!) Before studying interior design, I was at performing arts school. I liked to think I was a bit of a thespian... I studied and performed some great plays from Arthur Miller to Diane Samuels and Shakespeare. I did a couple of movies and tv bits which led me to presenting. It all just kind of fell into place and I have now been a radio presenter for 2 years on Westside Radio. So you can follow my struggle of trying to break into the mainstream.. I will keep you updated on my progress at all times! Right now I have been in and out of meetings with 2 different commercial stations for a few months, so we will see who decides first that they desperately need me and cant live without me!! You can listen to all my demos at www.laurenv.co.uk

In the meantime I am designing houses and loving it - but hating AudoCad. Cad is the computer programme where you can create floor plans and drawings of houses. For me it takes all the fun out of being an interior designer but in this day and age we all gotta keep up to speed with the latest technology! boo hoo...

The book I just wrote is about my life growing up with Arthritis and how I overcame it to live a normal life... I got offered a publishing deal (after a lot of work!) but they didnt want to give me the control I wanted... after all, I've put my heart and soul into this book so I want it to end up the way I have always envisaged it. So I am opening my own publishing house at the moment and I am going to publish it myself. This of course needs funds - so I have applied for a grant from the Princes Trust. I am waiting to hear back from them at the moment but as soon as I get the grant Im ready to go. I have a lovely editor who is working with me called Jane and a wonderful lady called Suzi is helping me with the layout and the book cover. Once the book has been published, 50p of each copy will go to my charity - which is also being put together as we speak (I told you I have a lot going on!) I want the money to go to where I personally feel it is needed so I had to open my own charity to do this as none of the other Arthritis charities have the same ideas as me. Again, I'll keep you updated!


I promise the blogs to follow will be a lot more interesting! This one was just to give you an insight into my life so that when I start talking about things in blogs to come, you dont wonder what the hell I am talking about!

In my opinion, the key to life is love and positive thinking - so I will leave you with this thought:
'Only as high as I reach can I grow, only as far as I seek can I go, only as deep as I look can I see, only as much as I dream can I be' - you can be whatever you want - as long as you believe in it!

Love life, keep smiling :)
Lauren V xoxox