Apple.

I'm not sure if I talked about my interview on friday night with Apple. I don't think I did.

It went alright, fifteen people sitting in a semi circle for two hours while being talked to and asked questions by 6 members of existing staff. There was role playing, and 'greatest achievement' questions, and videos of some very happy Apple employees, including Johnny from the Los Angeles store... my new ambition in life is to meet Johnny from the video.

Anyway... long story short, I just got a call back and I have a second interview on Friday. Amazing.

I can't believe it's 3:30 already. The day is done. Ahh.

Numbers

Today I turned 25 and 51/52s

It's difficult to say, twenty five and fifty-one fifty-two-eths.

This week numbers,

next week numbers...

As White As White.

Right...

So.

The other day my wedding dress came in the post. I kid you not, it came in a standard size USPS box. Like really thin. So I was spazzing thinking it was going to be a disaster.

I left it in the box, and went to the airport to get my cousin to bring her to my other cousin's house. All in all I had the dress for over 10ish hours before I opened it.

When I did I was none too impressed. Turns out the images that I used to base my purchasing decision had been photoshopped. DAMN IT.

Nothing too over top just lighting and the colour of my dress.

What I thought was going to be a white, crispy, angelic looking, 50 year old vintage amazing find, was actually something that looked its age. The colouring was well off, and non consistent. You could see where the different parts of it had aged quicker. And you could see where it had been in a bag or box with other clothes because there was rust marks from 'another' zip on small areas. It sucked.

So, I was having huge dilemma of whether to spend time trying to get it looking amazing, but run the risk of ruining it and not being able to sell it on, or just selling it on there and then.

I opted for the former.

Washing began on Wednesday. I left it in the bathtub with normal washing powder and some bicarbonate of soda. It was in there for pretty much 12ish hours. The water was a disgusting yellow colour when I took it out. Seriously, it was gross.

I forgot to mention that the dress originally smelled like it was 50 years old too.

So this yellow water was 50 years of musty stench. So gross.

While I was out (for that weird interview) I went looking for some Oxi clean stuff. I was in mini-Sainsbury's in the town and they had vanish oxi action which you could soak clothes in for 1hr if it was colour or 6hrs if it was whites. However it specifically said not to put anything with metal fasteners in it. Hmmmm. Dillema.

The only other product like it was Sainsbury's own 'Oxy action stain remover for whites'. There was no time limit mentioned on this, and nothing about zips. In fact, the product was made in Turkey, and actually just had the bare minimum of instuctions on the back. It seemed totally dodge, but I bought it anyway. Take the risk.

So I came home to the yellow water and my wee brother was black from playing rugby so I had to let him in the shower. I was wondering what to do about the oxi action stuff, whether to use it or just keep on with the washing powder. It was a risk.

The genius that is my wee brother suggested I do fabric test with the ends of the sleeves that I was planning to cut off anyway. How he remembered that I was going to cut the sleeves off I don't know, but the problem was solved.

I put the end of the sleeves in for 2 hours, and then did a secondary material test with the other types of fabric on the dress for 1 hour.

It seemed to be alright, and you could honestly see where the chemical stuff had reacted and had whitened the sleeves. There was a definite line. It was crazy.

I downed tools and went to bed.

Thursday was Oxi action day.

Around 10:30am I put it in the tub with the same level of concentrated oxi action as the night before. One scoop to one bucket.

It was in there for 11 hours. I kept a close eye on it checking every 40-60 minutes. I would always check the sleeves that I had done the night before, because they were two hours ahead, so if they were still in tact and not having an adverse effect then it meant the rest of the dress could keep going for another 2 hours.

As I said before, the brother is a genius.

At around 11pm I took it out the bath tub, made up double strength (2 scoops to one bucket of water) oxi action and threw the dress in the bucket for an hour/90 minutes. Then I rinsed it, and left it in between towels to dry.

This morning I looked at it and it was so white, I couldn't believe it. Seriously... Success!

I'm just after putting it back in the bathtub with washed powder to make sure all the oxi action is officially out of it. Because if you leave any detergent in any fabric it apparently turns it yellow or something. So I thoroughly rinsed, and it's now inside out drying on my mannequin.

Have I ever mentioned how much I LOVE having a mannequin. Seriously. Best free gift ever. Laura my flatmate used to work in top shop and she got us all mannequins when they were chucking them out.

The mannequin will be going on sale though in the next couple of months. It's just something that's too heavy to keep and immigrate with. Ahhh. Married, wedding immigration. Eep.

So the end of story is that the dress is spectacularly white, it does fit in a tiny box. It's very light, and it needs an awesome petticoat. Hmmm. Need to source one.

I seriously can't believe how white it is. Thank you Sainsbury's.

Now to make it my size :)

it's like a size 12-14 just now... and I'm an 8-10... hmmm.

Colony.

Today after a very bizarre job interview I met my friend Marcus, who is from the Colonies.

We had a rather splendid afternoon involving Wagamama, Primark, Schuch, Starbucks, and a lot of happy chat.

I then saw him off on a train to Preston in Glasgow's Central Station.

I can't wait to return to the colonies again.


(I was trying to find the quote or video from arrested development where Tobius/Mrs Featherbottom talks about driving on the wrong side of the road in the colonies — meaning America... without that context, this entire post means nothing.)

Jesus is my Friend.

My most awesome friend Charla showed this to me a long long time ago, and then this morning my second cousin Stephen McCartney posted it on his facebook status or something and it reminded me of it, and I had to blog about it, once again.



I'm tempted to join their religion, or start to play the electric guitar/electric keyboard during church hymns and see how people react. Maybe I'm on to something and everyone will love it, and then it will spread like wildflowerfire and general conference will become the best electric rock concert ever.

The best thing I said today...

While sitting in Subway with the most awesome Mary The Skills McIlroy we were talking of my impending wedding (whenever it will be) and I mentioned something I'd thought about doing but then added, if I did that people would be so shocked or surprised that they would have a cornea.

What I meant to say was hernia, or conniption... but no, I said Cornea.. promptly followed by 'no, that's not right is it? Oh my word I can see really well out of one eye, I think I've just had a cornea.'

Today has been brought to us by the realisation that Vikki the good ideas Miller is not as intelligible as people may have originally thought.

I love...

.... Audrey Hepburn.

I wish she was alive so she could be on the celebrity guest list.

What I wonder is why she speaks with such a perfect english accent... it thus prooves that Americans tainted the English language... I wonder how on earth it developed though. Seriously.. how did it become what it did in such a short period of time.

It must have been to do with the other influences Scandanavian, german, spanish etc and their pronunciation of certain words with their accent and then it did become a melting pot...

The language is that.

It's crazy.

I always wonder how I will adjust and adapt.

Back to the Present

I think when you can't remember what you last blogged about it means that you aren't blogging enough.

Well if you're me anyway and used to have 5 blogs a day.

Twitter takes over. I don't like it. I end up posting all my crazy links and random thoughts on Twitter or facebook and the blog gets neglected. This place is more of a stable home for my thoughts though. I've been about for 5 years and it works... twitter will die out eventually just like coca cola and mcdonalds.

Nothing lasts forever.

So today I was unbelievably happy and I've no idea why. Everything's still the same. I have no money (even less than yesterday), I still have no job, but for some reason I was so happy.

I was listening to Journey's greatest hits, and dancing slightly while completing some work for Mark.

It was wonderful.

The day slowly turned into misery though. I really struggle living at home with my family when they have certain expectations for my day and then I feel like I'm doing things for other people rather than for me.

Maybe that's weird, I don't know.

Last week I bought my wedding dress... exciting.

I was going to have it made by Dolly Couture, and while browsing for dress ideas I found a real 1950s vintage number that is so utterly beautiful it almost made me cry. Seriously I'm that lame. It was so pretty though. I need to have the sleeves trimmed and lined and stuff and I wanted a collar on it, but maybe it would ruin it putting a collar on.... I love collars though... Alternatively I might have an awesome jacket... don't know... I suppose we'll see when it comes and I speak to my seamstress AKA Mother.

I think buying that dress was the best decision I've made to date... no wait... second best decision... number one would be to marry Jon the awesome McDonald. Number 2 would be choice of dress.

I have worries that people might not like it, my Mother wasn't a huge fan... I thought she would have liked it given that it's the same age as her... they have that in common you know... but she just told me what it wasn't and I said 'Do you really think I'd wear blah blah blah' and she was like 'Well I suppose not.'

And that was how that story ended.

I've no idea what she thinks about me up and leaving the country. Or getting married... but given that 4 months ago she was telling and expecting me to just get married on a whim?

So, I just played the longest game of scrabble ever... it lasted 4 days and at the end of it all I won. I kind of feel bad winning because I know i've made someone loose, and I would much rather take the hit of losing than have someone else suffer it.

This week I've not done much...

Monday I spoke to Mary the Skills Mills on the phone for three hours.
Tuesday I went to see Harry Potter and I was so scared.
Wednesday I eh... I've no idea. No Wednesday I went to see Harry Potter.
Tuesday I spoke to Mary.
Monday I must have done nothing.
Thursday I went to cammie's house with Donna and we ate and talked and drank teas and it was wonderful. Donna has the same thing as me where we don't know when to leave... so we stayed ages, and I kind of felt bad that we had maybe outstayed our welcome. Then Donna and I got scran and we went to her house to eat it and I stayed there until midnight and came home. Crazy.
Friday I stayed in and worked and listened to Journey and played scrabble.

I got invited to a job interview next Friday for the Apple store... so I'm excited about that... I think I would enjoy that job for a couple of weeks then I would hate it just like I hate all jobs, but at least it's some kind of sign of possible income.

Things are looking up... slightly.

I got my phone bill in this week and it was 16.6 times higher than it usually is and it's usually only £15.

So expensive. So the money that I could have spent on paying for Jon and I to put our forms in for immigration I'm having to spend on my phone bill.

I changed my contract today, so that's the last big bill. I should have changes it months ago.

Beyond all of that I have exactly 14 days left of being 25.

And I think, I want lottery tickets for my birthday. If I win I'll split the winnings 50% with the buyer of the ticket... it's only fair.

Anyway.

Zero and I are in a pack now.. we run in a pack together because we spend so much time with each other during the day.

I also decided today that cats are awesome because they have furry faces. Almost like masks that aren't masks. And their fur knows how to grow to different lengths to make them look pretty.

Oh Cats are wonderful.

here's hoping my future husband can be made unallergic.

Brick.

So ages ago... I can't remember if I blogged about them or not, but I found the most amazing ring via my old tutor Jonathan Baldwin.

http://gizmodo.com/5101650/lego-silver-rings-will-brick-your-marriage

I remember I told a few people at the time that I thought would appreciate it.

What's wonderful is that my newly 'intended' was one of the few people that I thought would appreciate, and therefore he knew I would appreciate one for real... on my finger.

He couldn't get the exact ones on that site, so went to the most amazing effort of having one made... and I still get all the fun of the fair. Kid you not.