Thursday, December 30, 2004

Quizzezzes

Spring chick.

You love the feeling of renewal and energy that the first signs of spring give you. After hiding away all winter, you have endless energy to start new projects and achieve new goals.

To keep that feeling all year round, take a class each season. Wind is your strength, so when you need motivation, do something that includes that: learn to sail, fly a kite, or vacation by the water. Take a class that stimulates your mind and keeps you interested all year round: Try pottery for fall, knitting in the winter, and a photography class in the summer. In the middle of winter, paint your bathroom yellow, and brighten up your den by making brightly coloured throw cushions, or tying your curtains back with satin ribbons.

What's your Season

Sunday, December 26, 2004

*giggles*

Today has been a mostly good day! Yeah I had to go to work, but I had a good laugh with Sarah Campbell reminding her of all the mad things that happened on Friday night when a load of us went out and got sloshed! I spent the day wandering about checking lists and sticking about 50,000 "Half Price" stickers onto books.

The last two weeks were absolutely crazy! I meant to post in here last week about all the lovely people who came in to see me at work, and about my new sofas and gorgeous Welsh Dresser and the kids being back at work and sending out presents to all sorts of people (and the fact that my sister's book was £9.09 but the shipping was £23.50! - Bloody Amazon!) and and and.....

Whew!

I got some beautiful cards from some beautiful people, especially the two I had from Corey and Brianne which were from the same set! I bought stuff from Argos and duplicated an order when they neglected to send me a confirmation email (so I have about £150 due back from them soon). I spent £413 at the Compton Hospice shop so I have gorgeous furniture and donated to a fabulous cause all in one go!

I bought lots and lots of books from work, and Phoenix set up my library bookshelves for me so I now have places to put them too!

I spent a fabulous evening out with some very very good friends enjoying some good drinks, scaring my work colleagues, playing Cliff Richard in the Gifford (hey, they had it as a choice on the jukebox!) and eating rather nice curry.

I spent a crazy evening with my workmates drinking far too much and eating "kebab meat with extra mint sauce and mayonaise please" ala Sarah Campbell.

I opened some beautiful gifts from beautiful people and spent some time with gorgeous kittens and my fabulous man.

Tomorrow I have a weekly discussion to write, parents and in-laws to entertain, Phoenix's cooking to organise (turkey, beef, Yorkshire puds, roast potatoes and parsnips - good job I bought him Delia Smith for Christmas) and some nice wine to drink.

So two days off beckon, then it's work, day off, work and three days off!

Open house here on New Year's Day afternoon btw. Come and sit on the new sofas and snuggle with the kittens. You know you want to.

Saturday, December 11, 2004

I think I have shoppers remorse.

My inheritance cheque still hasn't cleared yet (it's so depressing seeing a 5 figure sum as the account balance and then being told the available balance is fuck all), but my lovely, lovely mother transferred me £1500 to start me off with until it clears (and she gets that back as soon as it does).

The thing is....I've spent that £1500 already.

I know I haven't really, as some of it I took out in cash and is currently distributed between Phoenixs pocket, my purse and the "Wedding Fund" pot (£5.99 from Great Expectations - gorgeous). But since my available account balance is down to about £50 it feels that way.

I've been working out where it all went, and don't actually feel that bad as I wouldn't say any of it has been wasted.

Yeah so I've spent £300 on books at work (yes, that's AFTER discount), but three bags of those were gifts for people, and there are no longer any books at work that I want anymore.
The £100 at HMV was again, 90% gifts and the £320 at Argos this morning was bookcases and ladders and cat stuff and plates and cutlery and a desk.

Writing it down like this has definately made me feel less guilty, I keep reminding myself that I could have blown £300 on make-up or clothes (I will be buying clothes, but nice ones for work rather than sparkly scraps of fabric) or even one pair of Manolo Blahniks.

I have to remember that although most of the money will be wiped out on our debts, we will be £300 a month better off, as we won't have to pay that out to card people.

Plus, I'm still aware that I'd swap all this stuff to see again the look in the eyes of Steve the Big Issue seller when I handed him that £20 yesterday. As long as I can remember that, I'm not such a terrible person as I think I am.

Wednesday, December 08, 2004

Emily and her pink cast!

Emily, a friend, and some Mooses!


Heavenly kittens

They got me up and going today when I woke up in a blue mood. Didn't feel like I couldn't get up and carry on, more that I couldn't be bothered. But they got me up and about and now they are sleeping on me and making cute sounds in their sleep.

Have had four or five people visit me at work this week, A couple of them I was glad to see and want to see more of them despite everything, a couple were fabulous visits from fabulous people, and one I just don't think I'm bothered about too much anymore. Our friendship has just died a death I guess, we were good friends once but then they just stopped putting any effort into the friendship, I was calling and saying do you wanna do this and that and never getting anything back. Just sad when things dribble out like that I guess.

The moot was groovy last night, good food, good people, and thanks to Bizkitts mobile phone we had some good music too!

Mum's emailed me a pixture of millions of sheep and Emily's sent me pics of her mates (and her pink cast), and I spoke to dad at the weekend so I know my family are doing well too. Now I just have to find something useful for my dad for christmas!

Work calls, off to deal with busy things!

Saturday, December 04, 2004

Boots!

I did some browsing through internet shops earlier, looking for sheepskin rugs and nice shoes.

I found the most beautiful pair of DMs I've ever seen! Beautiful boots!

The only small snag is that they have no size eights left, and despite searching on Google for another half hour, the only other sites I could find them on all linked back to the Cloggs site. :( :( :(

I'm going to pop to the local stockist for DMs and try on a pair of 7's to see if they'll do, as Phoenix says that they're large sizes. Cloggs do have the Rose coloured ones in an 8, but my heart has been stolen by those emerald ones....

I shall keep on searching....

Blimey! A Saturday off!

I've been watching Soccer AM and chilling so far today. Coded some new reviews from the Grove, looked at stuff on eBay and opened my Advent Calendar on NeoPets.

Today I'm planning to do some "crisis cleaning". Well, that's what FlyLady calls it. Basically it means doing 15 minutes cleaning in the kitchen, then 15 minutes in the bathroom, then 15 minutes in the living room. Then I shall relax for 15 minutes before starting the cycle again. I figure it will start to make a dent on things before the holidays. One of the problems is that although I'd love to be able to clear off the table in the living room, the stuff on it needs to be kept but has nowhere else to go.

Last night we spent a few minutes daydreaming about where we can put the new sofa and bookshelves. It won't work for my birthday as there won't be quite enough seats, but on a day to day basis it'll be groovy.

Also been doing lots of daydreaming about shopping recently, working out what to get folks as pressies. Plus the fact that we need to get a table and eight chairs, plus a sofa...and will probably only have about two weeks to get them in. The plan at he moment is that we hire a van and then drive to various shops in search of stuff. However I don't have lots of time off to do this in so it may get squished into either the 19th or the 22nd.

But I discovered that the posh chocolate people do late deliveries so we can have posh crackers and posh hot chocolate too!

Right, I'm going to make a list of presents for people (so that I have it all written down and I forget nothing) and then start doing some cleaning.

Hmmm....I wonder what extra goodies I can find here for a young lady with her arm in a cast....