Monday 28 February 2011

Back to work

1st day back today. Weird, wonderful and other w-words that are probably not worth repeating. By 3pm I was seriously ready to fall asleep at my desk and it took copious cups of water and a banana to keep me awake. Now, it's 8.03pm and I'm sooooo tired I could sleep for a week. Most of all though, does anyone know what happened in One Tree Hill...?

Saturday 26 February 2011

Kitchen activity

Woke up today feeling so much better. Much more like myself again and apparently I have returned to my "usual cheeky self" as Wavey says so I must be on the mend. I'm being good though and taking it easy, not going too mad. But still doing stuff. I only sat on the sofa for about an hour today. Mind you in that hour I did spend some quality time drooling over Dave Grohl at the NME Awards, and watch a very funny episode of Friends where Ross wore a girl's jumper *snort*

The rest of the time I've been in the kitchen. Loving it! Yesterday I made pizza dough for the first time ever. This was my very first pizza from scratch:



And it tasted so nice! We had leftover dough so made a slightly smaller version for lunch. So tasty! Methinks shop bought pizzas may be a thing of the past now.

I also made some yummy cakes. There was a time, before the oven exploded, that I thought I'd lost my ability to bake cakes. I would make up the mixture, put them in, and they'd often be flat or too crispy, generally a bit pants really. But now I think it was probably that the oven was broken for longer than we realised as this new oven? Gorgeous cakes! Today's little cakes of joy had nutella inside them as icing. YUM YUM YUM. And really, quite healthy - well that's what the advert says. It releases energy slowly apparently so it's perfectly fine to put it in your cakes.

Having said all this Wavey and I have made some stupid pact that we'll give up cakes and biscuits for Lent. Not that either of us are very religious, but we are a bit fat knacker-ish and we do go on holiday in just over 4 months (SQUEAL!!!!) so giving up the bad staff for 6 weeks won't be that hard...will it...what have we agreed to?!

Friday 25 February 2011

Sofa vacant...

...well only for half an hour to go out to the doctors. Where I was diagnosed with a flu like virus. So there you go. I've got my crappy sicknote that I needed for this afternoon, and I got to go out in the fresh air. It was so nice! Along the way I popped into the local supermarket to pick up some mozarella and buy a copy of the NME. And a Euromillions ticket for tonight cos it's a rollover of 36 million...I could spend that. That was my morning - hope you've all had a good one.

In other news, either that MetaTone tonic is some seriously good shit and I lost like 4 years of my life in one night or One Tree Hill went a bit weird. It's more likely that the latter is the real answer, otherwise I'm suddenly 40 and I didn't have some major eeek-ing crisis...but today's ep did kind of feel like I'd lost years. Yesterday they were all oooh we're graduating and we will live our dreams and today it was 4 years later and they were living what they thought were the dreams, but it turned out what they all really wanted was to go home and play basketball on the school court. Totally confused! Maybe my love affair with the Hill gang is ending?

I've decided that as well as taking the cack awful tonic from my ma that I will eat my way back to healthy. So I've been making up some good hearty soups full of all kinds of good hearty stuff. And I made some cereal bars yesterday which are really yummy and again packed full of good stuff like oats and seeds and dried fruit. Today's kitchen venture is going to be trying to make pizza base. I've only had one attempt at bread making so far, time to give it another go. One advantage to having all this sofa time is that you'll do anything to get up off the sofa, including doing all the washing up all week and making some yummy food. It's only been the past couple of days when I've felt like doing that though so I must shirley be on the mend!

Bored with the awful daytime tv, I've started re-watching Angel right back to series 1. Nothing like a bit of the Boreanaz bod to make a gal feel better...

Am absolutely LOVING the Anthony Kiedis book. I think really there's this part of me that wants to be rock'n'roll and so I love reading about all these crazy rock stars who completely ruin themselves in the name of sex and drugs and rock and roll. Truly fascinating. But having experienced sharing a house with a musician for a couple of years of my life who was a total arsehole I know that I don't really want to live that life, I just enjoy living it vicariously. And I've dug out a Chili Peppers cd I had so am loving that all over again. As well as finding some other gems in that cheeky box of copies that my mate Kev always did for me...

It's the weekend now. I'm really hoping that the combo of the tonic and my healthy eating and hopefully more fresh air will really kick this virus up its mean arse. Begone evil virus! I am so bored of you. Like whatever...

Thursday 24 February 2011

Sofa crushed

Hi! Me again. Yep you guessed it, still here, still squashing the sofa. Still fed-up.com. But today my ma brought me some of this magic tonic stuff called MetaTone. Once I get past the idea that it sounds very much like methadone (which I really don't need!) I decided to sup it and see. Turns out it tastes like cack. But it's supposed to have all these wonderful things in it that boost your immune system right back up there. One of the ingredients is caramel. It don't taste like caramel. And it's red. Anyway, moving on from the bleurgh I stopped being such a big baby and drank it down. Boost me you sucker, boost me!!

In other news, I am missing the KT Tunstall gig (beyond gutted) but at least the tix aren't going to waste as T&G are going in our place. I've heard she's awful live anyway, rubbish, terrible, why would I want to waste my money...oh and I need a sick note for half a lousy day tomorrow. Fun fun fun trying to get an appointment at my doctors...WHINGE MOAN WHINE gawd I'm sick of hearing myself, are there any readers left? Have I driven you all to boredom with my whining? Cease and desist!

One Tree Hill was an utter cheese-fest today. I almost groaned out loud at how truly awful it was. Frankly if it hadn't been for the fabulous moves they were throwing to the Spice Girls all hope might have been lost. And someone in a leather mini skirt claiming to be some "clean teen" or some such nonsense - ooooh-kay then. Sheesh. Where's the shooting? Oh Dan did try to hang himself in the jail cell with his bed sheet but he's kind of a hefty tv star type blokey so pretty much hit the deck as soon as he'd strung himself up. Maybe it was when Karen spit all over his window, it might have tipped him over the edge...who knows what tomorrow will bring.

I finished my book yesterday afternoon. Turns out the narrator was dead all along too! That's some funny kind of afterlife idea. I've moved on now to reading all about Anthony Kiedis's life; nothing like a bit of rock'n'roll and drugs and debauchery to get you back on a track after a poncy up one's own ass book.

The sun is shining. It's so nice outside. I had to do some washing earlier after throwing a cup of hot tea all over myself and my sofa outfit for the day, and it's actually hanging outside in the sunshine and blowing in the breeze.

Anyhoo, that's all for today. Look out for tomorrow's exciting installment from the extremely dented sofa...




Wednesday 23 February 2011

Sofa squashing continued

So hey, guess what, I'm still ill. Talk about sucks! For a brief time yesterday I felt great, I was up and about and happy and being cheeky again (always a good sign) then as the evening wore on I started to get stomach ache again...then my legs started aching...but I was still determined to go back to work. Until I got up this morning, looked in the mirror, and thought no, you missy are still not fully well and therefore must continue to squash the sofa and join the fed-up.com society. And so I've had to let D know that I probably won't make it to the KT Tunstall gig tomorrow night (gutted does not even begin to describe it) because it's not fair she should miss it and at least if I give her this much notice she might find someone else to take. Stupid evil germy virus pants - DISLIKE muchly.

On a brighter note, Lucas didn't shoot Dan in One Tree Hill. He shot a wall. But just after he'd shot the wall his mom, who incidentally only looks about 2 years older than he is, collapsed and she's pregnant and so it was all drama drama. Then some major 'fessing occurred when Brooke said she'd stolen the Calculus exam. But the Principal guy was all like no, you've learned your lesson the hard way so you can still graduate. Then they all got even more glam and glossy and wore blue gowns and caps and graduated. And Halley was in the middle of her valedictorian speech when she went into labour...right at about the same time that Lucas's mom (whose baby had earlier been delivered by emergency c-section) started crashing and now it's all like, ooooh no is she going to die...you can see why I'm hooked...

The book that I was talking about the other day got even more weird. He basically told us that his wife had in fact died and that she wasn't missing. Now it's kind of gob smacking that since that confession he's let an old man give him a blow job in a car, joined another car with 2 guys in it and went on some kind of stealing rampage, took a pee out of the car window, became a beach bum, and is currently stalking someone from earlier in the book. This all happened within about 20 pages. But don't be judgemental! No instead you must agree with the review from the Independent: if you don't like it you may not be alive to the pleasures of reading...I have to say that is totally what I've been thinking all along...

In the short burst of feeling better yesterday I took to finishing off my CV. And mighty proud I am of it too! A wee bit of internet surfing around a few job sites found me doing an application form to be a Brand Manager at TopShop. Well, I am seeking a change in direction. And I do love clothes. So why the heck not? I completed my application today so will just have to sit tight and see what happens. I don't hold out a great deal of hope but it's better than just sitting around and whining about how rubbish work is. Being proactive and seeking out jobs is the best medicine for that.

Now if only I could find the best medicine for this virus and then I'd be really happy. I look like this washed out, crappy hair, pale face, sad eyed person. Fed-up.com :'(

Tuesday 22 February 2011

Still here, squashing the sofa

Day 4 and a half in the weird achey virus house and I'm bored out of my brain. However, I am starting to feel almost normal again so reckon I'll be back at work by tomorrow. I think I have to be for the sake of my own sanity. How do people do this? This not working thing? I just can't get my head round it. I've worked on and off since being 16, that's 20 years of work peeps...that has literally just occurred to me. Wow that's a whole lot of work...do you see my insanity?

I must be going insane as I'm becoming hooked to One Tree Hill. What's with these programmes? Do you think they put something in them so that no matter how hard you try you can't help being hooked right in and then suddenly, ADDICT alert! I have no idea which series I'm watching but at the end of today's episode Lucas may or may not have shot Dan...and then it ended! I'm already thinking that I'm going to have to see if it's on catch up or how will I know what happens if I go back to work tomorrow?! But seriously, how old are they supposed to be? They're just leaving high school cos it's all about the yearbooks and the valedictorian speech. I think you leave high school at 18. Look at these people:



Did any of you look like that at 18? Cos I know I didn't! I was all huge of hair and bad of outfits. There wasn't a whole lot of glossy and glam going on in my 18 year old self. Ahem, anyway, moving swiftly on.

The most exciting thing today is that Wavey tasked me with the task of finding us a new fridge. But it can't just be any old fridge as we have a fridge inside a cupboard. I know I know, I still haven't got my head round that whole integrated kitchen thing but it's what we have so there you go. At least we don't have our bin in a cupboard or I'd be seriously puzzled! So I've been a proper library bod about it, selected several and bookmarked the pages. Now all I need is the measurements, then I can price compare, then we can purchase...

I NEED TO GO BACK TO WORK!! It's funny, all I do when I'm there is complain and yet now that I'm not there I just want to be there, desperately! That's almost as puzzling as bins inside cupboards...

Monday 21 February 2011

3 tonne legs

I don't know exactly how heavy 3 tonnes is, but it sounds really really heavy. And that's how my legs feel today. This is one very weird virus. I feel like I'm dragging my legs around everytime I get up off the sofa, which I have to do to fill up my drink as I have really dry lips and just want to drink and drink and flush this evil-ness out of my system! I've still got aching bones too, but not all of them, just certain areas. And I'm still feeling listless (Wavey's description of me yesterday) and not at all myself. I want it gone! And yesterday! Cos on Thursday evening I'm supposed to be going to see KT Tunstall in Newcastle which I've been looking forward to for sooooooo long. And if I don't get to go I'm going to be very unhappy indeed.

My ma just told me that someone they know who also works where I do had the same thing and it went round their whole office and he was off for a full week. This does not bode well. I think the most frustrating thing is that my brain still wants me to do stuff but I know that I'd no sooner drag my heavy legs to work than have to turn around again straightaway cos I'd be no good there.

Instead I'm dragging myself from sofa to kitchen and feeling pretty fed up. I've watched some crap telly and continuing on with my very odd book: American Purgatorio by John Haskell. Anyone else read this? Because I pick up books in charity shops only, I often end up reading some pretty odd stuff, but this is weird...mind you when Nick Cave is quoted as saying it's a "beautiful, haunting original book" you have to expect a bit of oddity. I'm going to see it through to the end, mainly because I have to know if he finds his wife or not.

Anyhoo, I'll keep you posted on the virus progression. Am hoping it drags its heavy ass out of my system, and quick about it matey!

Sunday 20 February 2011

Not as feeble, still bored

Depending on your point of view, games are the ideal way to save you from boredom. I never quite understood why people spent so much time playing on games and things, mainly because I'm not too good at them, especially any that involve driving around as they make me feel dizzy-dizz-dizz. But since I got my Nintendo DS for my birthday I've been hooked. I don't have loads of games (yet!) but I'm sure I will with time. For my birthday Fizz bought me a voucher to go and buy a game and I bought Art Academy. And it's ace! Today I did 4 lessons, starting with simple pencil drawing and moving on into life drawing of a pear. This was my very first class, the simple apple:



And this is when I moved on to pencil and paints:



It's just so blimmin clever! I don't understand how such things can work, but I don't really need to understand, I just sit back in admiration and delight in them.

I also found out that if I shout BLUE at the Brain Training game then it will bypass my northern accent and understand what I'm saying instead of just flashing up Try Again Try Again. I increased my brain age from 52 to 37 today, which is in actual fact only one year older than what I am - not too shabby!

On the rubbish virus front I'm on the mend for definite. But still not 100%. And I have weird aches and pains in odd places like my breastbone and my abdomen area, what's that all about?! There's definitely no point trying to understand that, specialists spend years trying to work out stuff like this, not likely that l'il ole me will come up with an answer!

Saturday 19 February 2011

FeebleBoredFeebleBored

A good few months of healthy always leads to some being struck down. Damn I should have been taking those fizzy vitamin C tablets after all. Was at work in my weekly project meeting yesterday when feeling fine suddenly turned to feeling not so fine. By lunchtime I could barely concentrate on our weekly lunch-bitch-sesh as my stomach was feeling not great, I was feeling sick, hot, then cold, dizzy...and off my food. Robbed! Cut lunch short to head back to work thinking it would all be fine if I sat at my desk. Stomach pain, barf-worthy, hot, cold...please sir can I just go home.

So home I went. And promptly laid out on the sofa feeling very miserable and very sorry for myself. Slept for 12 hours last night, woke up feeling a little better. Until I decided that I would get up out of bed and promptly went back to feeling rubbish again. Suffice to say, I'm what my mam would describe as "peaky". I look rubbish, I feel rubbish. And the worse thing is it's the weekend! A time when we normally do heaps of fun and good stuff and productive jobs around the house. And instead I'm stuck on the sofa wrapped in a blanket, bored stiff. Boo hoo and a bit more hoo for good measure. Pants! I hate feeling feeble. But whatever this is has left me feeling so drained I'm good for nothing other than getting up and making the odd cup of tea. And blogging obviously :D

Hope everyone else is having heaps of fun! I shall have to experience your weekends vicariously to make up for mine being a big pile of poo pants!


Monday 14 February 2011

Valentine Schmalentine

It's all blatant commercialism anyway. Kick back with us and enjoy a 7 item breakfast for tea - sausages, bacon, eggs, waffles, onion rings, beans and toast, YUM!

But the cheap plastic glittery heart ring from the weekend cupcakes has deffo been a hit - tongue firmly in cheek, heehee.

Oh and Wavey's growing a beard...cheers Fizz!

Sunday 13 February 2011

A lesson in how to buy stacks of stuff without spending any money

Have Christmas and then 2 birthdays in January and receive lots of gift cards:



Come home with a chinese banquet for 2, 2 books, 2 games, body lotion, a ring and a pair of ear-rings, and 2 cds:



Gotta love that free shopping!

Saturday 12 February 2011

Celebration of woman

Today I went and had something done that I've been meaning to do for ages - I went and got measured for a bra. For quite a while now I've been figuring that I've been wearing the wrong size but it's one of those things you never quite get round to. It was a good thing to do as I've actually increased in size and the difference in how my new bras feel - wow! And they look so much better too!

Anyway, what I figured was, this is my blog (well I own a third of it but seeing as it's mainly me who blogs I kind of feel full ownership...) and so I'm going to be out loud and proud about what kind of woman I am - and that would be curvy. Since being a teenager I've been all kinds of sizes from really really skinny and all arms and legs in my early teenage years to kinda chunky from too many beers and too much pasta at university. But for the past few years I've settled down to what I am now, with some small fluctuations here and there depending on how many pies and cakes I enjoy.

After getting measured in the shop I decided I was going to come home and measure myself in the good old fashioned way, bust-waist-hips ratio. The result of this measuring was that I am a curvy 38-34-42.

Initially I eek-ed a little bit and considered if I need to actually lose some weight. My conclusion was no. Not at all. I'm a healthy gal, I eat heaps of fruit and veg and I exercise at least twice a week, every week these days. Instead, I'm taking those numbers and I'm loving them. I'm loving my larger bust, my little pot belly, and my big arse!

Celebrate with me blog readers. Get the tape measure out, measure yourselves and love your numbers! We're all shapes and sizes and heights and weights but none of it matters - be happy, be proud, be skinny, be curvy, eat cake, eat fruit! Just be!

Happy, content, and curvy I be.

Thursday 10 February 2011

Spring fever

I know it's not really Spring, cos it's February and we've got AGES to go before it gets warm and Spring-like but today I woke up with such a good feeling. Much needed I hasten to add as my work week has been pretty rotten, but how can you fail to smile when this lovely bunch of flowers joins you for breakfast:



Plus I threw on this ensemble today and just loved it straightaway! The giant pockets are ace and I've pretty much spent most of the day walking round with my hands in them!



And my lovely necklace attracted a lot of attention from a male colleague...at least we think he was looking at my necklace...



To top off this agreeable day, Wavey and I have just been out for impromptu date night and eaten a huge lasagne! Then we came home and cracked open some vino and have just munched our way through a GU key lime pie (YUM!). Oh and he's suddenly decided that serenading me is the way forward so every sentence has been turned into a song - sing it with me baby!

Wednesday 9 February 2011

Rebel with fuzz

The hair is reaching the tricky length that I struggle with each time I grow it out from short. I know it's not at all but I can't help thinking of it as slightly mumsy, and that is one look that I don't want to rock. I was at the hairdressers on Saturday and had an idea of something that I wanted but wasn't sure if my hairdresser would do it or not. Turns out she indulges my little ideas and was more than happy to do what I asked. So here it is all shiny and sleek and straight:



And here's the little surprise that lies underneath:



Hee! I love it! And it feels so lovely and fuzzy that I can't stop touching it! Since I wear my hair up for most of this difficult growing out period, my fuzzy undercut will be visible for lots to see - yay!

Tuesday 8 February 2011

Be gone wooden horses!

My laptop has been poorly. Worryingly poorly. First of all it went from being able to run for a couple of hours on battery to like 20 minutes. Then it went into CRITICAL BATTERY instead of just low battery. Then some strange message kept popping up about found new hardware - say wha'? All in all, I had myself going to the megaworld of PC Curry World or whatever it's called to go and buy me a new one.

But fear not friends! As Super G stepped in, took it away for a couple of days (boy I missed it!) and it was returned to me today. And it's ace! It's so speedy! And it promises me 1 hour of battery life - wowsers! Apparently it had 4 trojan horses. I have no idea what this means, or how those pesky wooden horses managed to sneak through, and why wasn't Brad Pitt in one of them like in the film Troy? Who can know? Puzzle away, just like me. But don't puzzle for too long, just join me in my happy happy joy that my laptop is returned to its beloved owner, who will treat it with much love and happy typing days.

*happy jig of laptop joy*

Saturday 5 February 2011

Getting involved

It's not going to come as a huge surprise to the majority of you when I tell you that for quite some time my work has been rather rubbish. It's been at least 5 years since I've felt satisfied with my role or challenged by my daily tasks, and it's pants. Truly it is. But unfortunately I'm stuck as there are really and truly no jobs around this region at the moment. The job pages have shrunk to about 4 adverts and all my trusty websites bring no joy either. But as I said, none of this is new. What is new is my determination to get past this and actually feel like I'm doing some good in there. Which coincides with my new year resolution of the year of the do. In this case, the do involves charity and good causes.

I've long been a lover of the charities. I get the majority of my wardrobe from charity shops and for the past 2 years I have only purchased books second hand but I wanted to go a bit bigger - so I've involved my team at work. Start small I reckon then take over libraryland! The first thing we're going to do is take part in Fairtrade Fortnight and for this we're going to be celebrating something called The Big Brew. This is a way of raising money for all the good peeps out there who grow and farm all the products we consume daily - in this case all the ingredients for a good brew of all varieties: tea, coffee, sugar and honey. There's packs of cookies in there too but I'm not so sure that they grow on trees...although imagine how awesome a cookie tree would be?! During Fairtrade Fortnight we will be using all this stock instead of the usual teabags etc, and everytime someone has a cuppa we're going to drop some pennies in the box. And believe me when I say that a team of about 18 people consume a whole lot of brews! And I think T is going to use the honey to put together some delicious cakes and biscuits which of course will have to be paid for. I think it's going to be really exciting!

I wasn't sure how 'on board' people would be when I sent out the initial email. I injected the usual comedy line of how I wouldn't hold it against anyone if they didn't support my cause...but there was really a lot of interest and some really nice emails back. It feels good to know that peeps support the same causes and that because of us, even if we only raise a few pennies, we'll be helping the farmers who work really really hard in difficult circumstances.

I've got plans for some more stuff later in the year involving many more people hopefully but as I said, start off small and see how this goes before venturing out there. I'll try and get some photos once we're up and running and post them on the blog. The year of the do was definitely a good decision!