Thursday, November 30

Call me crazy...

... but is Kate Lawler (the Big Brother wench whose surname I can't quite remember) so down on her celebrity luck that she has resorted to posing for Anne Summers as the rather rediculously named Madame Fifi?

Et Voila!


This little puppy arrived yesterday courtesy of ebay.
It needs a damn good tune, but i've got to let it 'settle' in this house for awhile yet. And it probably isn't staying in the bay window like that, but I have to shift desks and such like about, but it's pretty damn cool huh?

Wednesday, November 29

I'm getting something bloody brilliant...

... in hopefully around two hours time.
Pray for no rain for me!
More on that, with pics, later.

I've just come back from an art and design uni expo at the G-Mex.
Landscape architecture grabbed my attention.
I'm thinking Gaudi's parks... national places designed by moi where people can relax and enjoy? Suits me sir!

Monday, November 27

AAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRGH

Not what you want to read after waiting all week for a response from your tutor to a heartfelt, emotional, and important email:

Dear [],
I have been trying to get hold of you for the last couple of weeks.There has been no response to the phone messages so now I am trying email. I do hope everything is ok and that we will see you tomorrow. If there are any problems please let me know and then at least I willt ry to keep you in contact with the lessons.
Best wishes,
[]

*pained expression*
Oh and phone messages? One call to the mobile. And this is the only email. Hello?
HELLO?

Friday, November 24

PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT!

You really ought to watch Russell Brands new tv show on channel four at 23.05 tonight. Guests will be the Little Britain geezas and Amy Winehouse. I forsee much rude fun.. if this morning's interview on Radio One is anything to go by.

Sit back, relapse.

I don't want to sign in with my google account damn you!
Sorry. Blogger is winding me up.

Morning all. Bleak day for a Friday huh.
I can't seem to get going today. I've had a boogie to my new fav song.. handily called something about boogying by Booty Love.. and yet it's not done anything. Usually if i whack the music up.. up the tempo.. have a dance around the room for five minutes its gets me all fired up to get something done.
Not today then!
I should go and paint another bedroom ceiling. Get it out of the way. After all those are the worst. I won this really lovely beach print off Ebay that's going to go well in my hallway to be. It's not going to be buttermilk now.. i'm going green. Buttermilk can stay in the kitchen. I'm actually really excited about the hallway. Silly huh. I think i want to improve the impression when you enter the house. Plus spread it upstairs where it will soon (hahah) be lovely. Eugh. No more decorating talk today!

Another girly topic.. dieting. I'm on one. Sort of. Watching things as they say. So i figured i'd post it on here much like many other bloggers do. A food diary of sorts.
SO yesterday...

Breakfast:
One and a half bowls of crunchy nut. Bad me. I do eat bran flakes sometimes though! Usually when i've run out of the crunchy nuts!

Lunch:
Two slices of wholemeal toast wrapped round a slice of ham and shavings of what i mistakenly thought was in date wensleydale with cranberries. Yeah. That was fun about six hours later I can tell you. Least it went down and not up. Ahem! Sorry. Anyway. Also had a Benecol strawb bio yoghurt thing.

Dinner:
A modest helping of spag bol and a glass of red.

Drinks:
Mostly tea with no sugar throughout the day, a couple of coffees. Pretty normal.

Pills:
Miriad of Metformin throughout the day, mini pill, and no vit tabs yesterday. I forgot. Bad me!

Why am i dieting? Ah.. a good question my fine feathered friends. Well, because I lack certain aspects of control in my life and fancy focussing on my physique. I wish to break a new goal weight, mostly just to see if i can because it's something I've wanted to do for awhile but couldn't be bothered. I'm not fat and am in appropriate BMI thingy for me height and weight (5' 9", 11 stone 2) again as i had crept up a little over the past few months. Probably something to do with being happy with my Man. Don't women in love put on weight?
Well, that's all very well and good but i've battled long and hard to lost four stone over two years and i aint going back up again! But it's all good. All i want to do is get underneath the 11 stone mark. Not loads that, but some sort of plateau has been reached. Obviously I don't just want to dip under and then come back again. No i want to slowly creep down and stay there. Not as much as 10 and a half.. too skinny for me i think. We'll see what happens.
[ed: i bet i lose interest in blogging about it really quickly so fear not bored readers! I will however maintain mental focus damnit! And provide updates if you are bothered]

I'm nervous today.
Nervous for my Man who is going through some personal stuff at the moment that I can't help with very much. Oh impotent me.
Nervous because of some of my own personal stuff too. I sent a massive and frank (frank? who's frank?) email to my English Lit evening course tutor explaining what I was feeling and that i was at a crossroads. That was yesterday morning. I've not heard back yet. Which isn't doing wonders for my positive thinking about the whole thing as i know full well that she is an 'avid emailer' and checks all the time. If she's not careful I shall assume that I'm not going on Monday soon. Ah sweet relief.

I've been doing a ton of Art research for the latest project.. but after a delivery kerfuffle with an inter city driver and my black ink cartridge for the printer that was long overdue.. it's now telling me (in what i imagine is a cheeky ner ner tone) that it's out of tri-colour.
YOU BASTARD THING!
I ordered some yesterday and am living in hope that I might get it today. It's so not happening though. But here's an online place for cheap printer ink people. Really easy to use, but can't say whether whole service is good yet as i've not got the product. I live in hope.

Tuesday, November 21

Emergancy broadcast

Where has NML's blog gone? Or rather how come it doesn't load?

NML.... are you out there dear?

I was just about to take the plunge and try to change my blog for this Uber Options thing that blogger keeps banging on about when the link to 'upgrade' on the dashboard disappeared! It's been there for ages and the evening I decide to do something about it it vanishes.
Strange!
Maybe NML's blog crashed the whole system.
Or maybe she is from the dark side and was secretly infiltrating blog world to cause it's mass destruction.

Monday, November 20

Dreams and Memories..

I have an agoraphobic cat. Is that a world's first?
Perhaps I should get a cat whisperer in.
Admitedly there is a rather ferocious staffy living next door, but there are quite a few 'safe' areas for her to conduct her catty business. I have to forcably boot her out the back and shut the door fast, at which point she either sits outside the backdoor or on the window ledge looking in meowing continuously and loudly until i'm driven bonkers or worried that a neighbour will call the RSPCA round. Then the little minx gets her way.

I've not yet managed to get the catflap sorted see. Due to the condition of my backdoor (panelled or something) just whacking a flap in will make it 'unsafe' and now I apparently have to have an entire new back door fitted. 225 quid. Essentially for a cat flap. Which actually doesn't include the cat flap!
So the cat hasn't had free reign of natures bounty for awhile. I believe she is institutionalised. I should sew her a little kitty in-mates outfit. Grey with black arrows. What are those black arrows about anyway? Cons need a 'this way up' sign? Is that because they look like arses and talk shit?
I'd never make a good correctional facilitator ha.


After I took this photo, she began to sit up on her back legs and scratch/paw/tap the window. So now she's wrapping her little bendy cat body around my legs and rubbing her scent glands all over me to 'thank' me for letting her in again. She was outside for about ten minutes!


In other news..
I can't stop the bad dreams again.
It's because i'm stressed. So i'm considering making an executive desicion to quit the evening English Literature class. I hate it with a passion, and it winds me up all week knowing that it's coming ever nearer on a Monday night. It's a shame because I'm more than able to do the work, but i'm hating the class and the commuting when i'm knackered SO MUCH i couldn't tell you. I almost want to break down in tears when I have to get ready to go it's that bad.
I wonder whether I could do it from home, and just pop in occasionally. I studied the last one on my own and got a B, so I'm sure i 'can', it's just whether the tutor will let me. It would really be in her best interest to mark me as in class and let me do my own thing as if i leave they might have to stop the entire course due to too few people attending. I don't know. How do i explain to the woman that I can't stand the class and the six o'clock start on a Monday? It sounds so pathetic, I know. But it's like the straw that broke the camels back. Perhaps I should just be sick a lot and fob it off for awhile. I'm due to go to an expo with all different Uni's at the G-MEX in a couple of weeks or something and I'll chat to a careers advisor then. I know it looks better on a uni application to have a completed A level rather than just the AS... but I really think i'm doing myself no good. Plus my full time art course might suffer for it. The all round stress i mean.
SIGH!

I dreamt last night that one or two of my teeth fell out and i was desperately pushing them back up and into the gums to see if something could be done while i waited for a dentist appointment. Not good.
I've also dreamt things like... I gave birth to a baby boy, but he never cried and so i never fed him (?!). He died and i was destraught. Then as i cradled his limp body in the pews at the funeral i saw his eyelids flutter the tiniest amount and i knew that i had moments to save him by running with him to a chemist and buying ready mix milk and one of those presterilised bottles. The guilt and disturbing level of that dream was unparrallel.
In another dream I was running with my kids from the police because I owed some government 250 quid (council tax dream?). We were living on my ex's massive expensive boat.. like a cruise liner. Then the kids and i jumped over board off the back and their dad jumped too to pretend to help when he quickly swam around the ship and back on board. He then sailed it away fast, leaving me and the kids trying to stay afloat and being stranded in the water. Ha make of that what you will!
More recently I dreamt that my boyfriend had to sell his house unexpectedly, and was forced to move further away without wanting to really. It was so sad and we knew we'd never see each other again. The main part of that dream was me trying to convince him to move in with me instead and for us to stay together. Begging him over the phone. I woke up from that dream and reached for my mobile to call him, it was that real.

I have issues!
Many many issues.

It's not easy being me, and living with the desicions I have made reguarding my life and that of my family. I can't just shake off the guilt and termoil like a dog out of water. It sticks whether it's founded guilt or not.
There are so many things i'd do differently with my life had i known, starting from 17 years old. Or even 16. It's one of those things... i can't say in black and white terms that i'd change anything because it's made me what I am today (a stressed mess!) and given me my family as it is now. But i like to think of it as alternate universes. Where one thing is done different which alters the entire progressive event.
Two main things I wonder.
a) what if in some world i'd stayed in Holland at 16 with my Dad and Stepmum rather than move back to England and to a failed relationship with my mother and then basically onto the streets and living from a friends house while i was housed by the council.
b) what if i'd never have met the Ex of eleven years and continued with college/uni/career/better healthy relationships.
I wonder whether any of those 'me's' were happier and more successful at 30 than I am now?

This whole post has reminded me of one of my earliest memories.
I must have been about four living with Mum and Dad in his self built bungalow in Shepperton next to the river Thames. There were big grey tiled steps that led up to the front door there (due to building above previous flood levels regulations etc) and I remember i'd been really angry with my Mum for something or other, and declared I was going to run away. I remember it was cold outside, wintery. And Mum had said 'go on then' which upset me because all any kid wants when they say they are going to run away is for their parent to say 'don't go, i love you' and give them a hug.
She pushed me outside the front door and shut it behind me. I was in my nighty with some little bag of toys or something. I remember being really scared and crying my eyes out to be let back in peering through the bottom of the panes of glass in the door. I had to stand on tiptoes to see in, so i must have been shorter than half a door's height. I don't remember how long she left me out there. It probably wasn't long. But it felt it. I don't remember being let back in. I just remember being ashamed and frightened to be outside in the cold in my nighty standing on the steps of the house.

I must have seemed a bit like my cat then.
Ironically Mum never changed that habit of throwing me out regardless of my safety. When she chucked me out at 16 she didn't try and find me for three weeks. It was only because my Dad threatened to come over from Holland when he found out, that she did.

Saturday, November 18

VHS RIP

So sad!

VHS is officially dead.
Strange that really, but apparently studios are no longer producing the format. Well they'd better start bringing down the prices of DVDs then I say. As much as i love them, they don't half take the piss.

I'm sneakily blogging whilst the plumber is at work. I don't like people seeing the blogger dashboard who i don't know, just incase they know what it is and check the name quickly. A little over cautious perhaps, but there.
Hey.
I feel the need for a code spring clean.
Maybe today is the day for that blog upgrade.

Wednesday, November 15

Always Tomorrow.

Strange combination but oh so good...

Panic At The Disco album,
And...
Top Gun.

"Lead me onnnnnnnn...."

I have charcoal bogies. Must be a harzard in the 'art field' that you don't hear about. I also had 'war paint' on today. Black stripes under the eyes. Luckily someone was on hand to wipe them away, although they probably would have served me well on the school run quite frankly. Damn traffic.

" Let me take you to a place I know you'll wanna go.. it's a good life"
Yes the song's changed somewhat!
I'm feeling up tempo. Sue me.
Despite living in a tip too.
Usually mess makes me moody. And you know you are on some sort of biohazard countdown when you start using desert spoons to stir your tea.
Ah well.
Always tomorrow.

Monday, November 13

Piles.

I was in a frenzy of activity yesterday.
I don't know what came over me! (Well i do, my hormones have balanced again what with the flow of womanhood returning and all)
A sudden lul in my moody thoughts and a plastered, almost finished looking, upstairs inspired me to actual manual labour.
I know.
Crazy.

Well, in my obviously altered mental state i ripped up the stairs and upper hallway carpet. It was a terracotta 70s throwback shagpile with an unrecognisable 'design' CUT into it at random intervals that stank vaguely of piss, so it wasn't an entirely rash dicision.
But of course i don't have money for new carpet. And unfortunately a couple of the treads were replaced with hardwood so i couldn't sand and 'make pretty'.
But there.
So i'm painting them.
It would be fine except i've noticed two more treads have a rather long split running across them, and they move when you step on them.
More work for the carpenter then!
So.. buttermilk on the walls (remember high victorian ceilings)...white picture rail with white walls above and white ceiling... white woodwork and white stairs with a buttermilk painted runner going up the middle... cover the stairs with varnish for a glossy and hardwearing sheen... a collection of ornamental mirrors and pictures in groupings possibly some hung from chain from the picture rail... later on (when i've saved up A LOT).. i want black and white tiles in my downstairs hallway to compliment the period feel but to keep it in the now too.

My vision in my head.
Whaddya think?

My buttocks ache this morning.
But i've lost four pounds in weight over the last week and a little bit.

Saturday, November 11

Saturdays... Not all shits and giggles.

Blogger is getting more insistant that i go over to the dark side and change to the new version. Obviously we will all be herded across whether we like it or not at some point. So might do it sooner rather than later. It does mean however that this template will most likely have to go. I don't have the time to modify it to handle the new optionality.
Ah well.

There's a plasterer upstairs beavering away. A squat irishman who is as eccentric as he is squat. But he's doing a good job. It's the last leg of the building work, and it's more than overdue. Monday is electrician. Friday plumber. And then later at some point the joiner is returning to fit a door or fifteen. Then that's that.
Apart from spending a fortune decorating that is! But that's the fun part. I'm so looking forward to owning a bedroom again!

My eye twitch has spread to include the lower right eye now. Luckily at the moment i seem to be spasming in alternate eyes at any one time. I'm probably a liability. I mean a spasm attack whilst driving? At the moment i just feel like i'm winking at everyone.
Apparently, the twitches are not visable to others as yet. This is helping my thoughts on the whole thing somewhat!

I'm tired still.
And currently have a really sore throat. As if there is something there. Please no tonsilitus for me!

God another whingy post too.
I'm so crap.
I should count my blessings and all that.
Lovely family, lovely boyfriend, lovely mother occasionally, health and what not.
Looks like i'll get that distinction from art too, and i've a plan for my next project that includes a triptic.
I dunno.

I'm off to try and read about some depressing Dubliners.

Tuesday, November 7

Missed me?

I've gone round from really quite cheerful to miserable in the space of about an hour.
And apart from that, i've not been blogging again have I?
I'm a bad bad girl.
Spanky.

I would have done no doubt, but well ya know how it is when there's 'life' stuff that gets in the way. Damn life and living! Can't it see i'm a blogowhore and it's detrimental to my online health?

So yes, unfortunately i've been busier than one of those bee things. I saw one the other day by the way. A wasp i mean. Crazy thing flew in the window and the buzzed quite happily back out again. It wasn't even wearing thermols. Then later that same day I saw what appeared to be a Red Admiral, but I couldn't be sure. A large black and a little red butterfly staggering drunkenly through the sky like they do.
Bizarro huh.
Here's a thought...
If butterflies and daddy-long-legs fly in a similar pattern, which if you think about it they do, then it's funny how many people inherently release themselves to an urge of murder death kill upon seeing the latter. Oh yes. I forget that's because they are evil and the devil's insect.

Where was I?
Well my previous art project is pretty much completed. We are of course already in full swing on another two, a T shirt design thing and The Human Condition, but alas i've not been into college much lately due to the previously posted bout of tonsilitus in the family. My ceramics creation has been... created and is drying, so that's all very exciting. And in other college-esque news I finished that So Much Water So Close To Home analysis which the tutor nearly orgasmed over. I rock da literary bitches. Word.
Speaking of my new art project The Human Condition, might I take a moment to mention that we have been encouraged to use various states of the body, including boxed, tied up and arching. Aparently the more mature student will delve deeper into this project. I can't wait to give it a bit of deep delving with the boyf.

It was his birthday the other day.
I took him to see P!nk at the MEN arena, which might seem like an odd thing for a bit of a music guru to see and I was a little apprehensive myself on that front, but she was 'rawk'. My first large gig as well. And oh my god ladies and gentlemen, Pink is unbelievably fit. I mean really. She has muscles rippling away in her back that Arnold Schwartzy could only dream about with a stiffy. Even though I have been through my 'I like ladies too' era and passed relatively unscathed out the other side, she's one head turning sexual beast.
Afterwards we enjoyed the feel of my fishnets together and I gave him his other three presents that I'd been dying to give him all week that seemed to go down well. I was a little nervous as I made the gifts myself (drawings) and they were unconventional to say the least, but i think my nerves were unfounded.
It's been a busy and fantastic past week.

I even found out an hour ago that even though my brain spasmed and told me insistantly that my car tax ran out last month, so insistantly in fact that i put it through an MOT (which it fucking well passed thank the lord), it doesn't end till March next year.
I be a tit.

So why am I now miserable?
Well, for one thing I think i'm due a period.
But the main reason is that I have been looking in my very limited living space for my English Literature book which I wanted to read and which has gone MIA.
How?
I've been going round in circles.
Stupid damn thing.
I assume it will turn up, but James Joyce's Dubliners needs to turn up fast as I've got a lot of catching up to do for next monday evening and no time to do it in.

GARGH!
*eye twitches*