Saturday, 20 November 2010

Nutshell.

Life in a nutshell.

I've been swimming 2.5 times (I think) since my last blog post, and I swam awesome... don't ask me to remember the specific stats.

Car failed it's MOT so i'm just leaving her to rot, or selling her for spares or repair.

I booked my flight and I leave scotland (possibly forever) on december 14th.

I handed in my notice at work and finish up there the week before the 14th.

I am currently on work holiday. Yayy.

I almost went to London for work for a week, but because of the world trade fair I couldn't get a hotel.

For the past two weeks I've been working until 8pm every night except Saturdays.

Yesterday was my first day off that I didn't have to set an alarm clock for and still get up super early for 15 days, sleeping in until 11 felt amazing.

I've been watching all of the Harry Potter movies, in this order: 5, 6, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6

My wee brother turned 18 and there was a lot of cake.

For his birthday we're going to go see Jackass 3D... Oh yeah!!!

I went to see Due Date with Toni and there was a middle eastern man next to me with stinky breath who kept laughing so hard he was leaping out his seat, and he kept saying things like 'oh my goodness' and 'oh no' at some of the ridiculous or tense parts.

I also went to see the Social Network with Toni.

Toni's here.

It's awesome.

We have hot chocolated a couple of times and been all around awesome.

November 5th happened and I saw loads of fireworks with claire and we played with sparklers.

I attended one funeral, conveniently on my last day off before yesterday.

I also had lunch after the funeral with nicola, stuart and their cute family as well as Kate and David Browning.

My mum left and went to Ireland for several weeks after she retired back at the beginning of October.

I was left to look after my wee brother and that turned into hell. He was very messy and very very lazy when it came to doing anything house wise.

My Mum is back now... which is awesome.

It's Thanksgiving in my Sister's house today, so I'm going over to get my scran on later.

Friday, 8 October 2010

Random baby fact

Most nights when I go to bed I breathe a huge sigh of relief and absolutely love the fact that I am horizontal. Sometimes I get giddy about it and wiggle a bit and exclaim how excited I am to be in bed and not have to get out for around eight hours.

The other night I was doing this and my mum was laughing at me and I told her that it's not just the fact that it's bed, it's the fact that I am horizontal. I LOVE BEING HORIZONTAL.

About 45 seconds later, she replied with 'Well that makes sense, because when were you a baby you would hate to be held while you were going to sleep. I would just put you in your bed and you would go to sleep on your own.'

Horizontal. And wiggling.

Dreams

Last night I had a dream about hiding from unwanted visitors, and we were all lying on the floor of a house hoping they would go away, because they would just come and trash the place or ruin our lives...it was totally tense, because we were scared to move or do anything in the house for hours... and then, in another dream, I was in a house with some creepy guy and other random creepy friends that I couldn't recognise trying to kill a really really really creepy person. We squashed him and froze him into an ice circle and then made a hole in the floorboards and dropped him back into his own flat and smashed him... but then he defrosted and pulled himself together and then hired acrobats to hang from the ceiling on their acrobat ropes so that they would witness if we tried to kill him again. We kept throwing things at him through the hole in his ceiling/our floor but he kept dodging them.

Weird.

So... my interpretation, using my source material below and knowing my own self would indicate that in dream one with the hiding I am not willing to accept certain aspects of a situation because it would ruin everything and change everything and although they people outside that want to come out might be fun and exciting they are totally lame and will ruin my life and i refuse to change because they are unwanted, but they might actually have some kind of news to reveal to me that I don't want to know because everything will be lame.

And my second dream the person we were trying to kill was insignificant, I've no idea who they were, but I do know that they were annoying, and I think that might be an aspect of myself that I want to eliminate, I find myself gross and annoying currently... and that person we were killing was a repulsive, vile, grotesque human being. I don't know what he had done, but he made me sick. I was also mostly watching the attempted killing which makes me think it might mean That I'm just watching as someone else has to deal with my grossness, and if the killing was based on anger emotions it seems to be that I am just watching as someone else who makes me angry is being eliminated, but won't go away.... meaning that I won't do anything myself about it, but i'm happy to let other people do something about it.

Given that there were acrobats, I'm thinking that the reason I'm angry is that there is not a good balance in my life and that is causing me to want to resolve and 'take care of' the angering source.


Weird.

Hmmmmm.



Acrobat
To see or do acrobats in your dream, suggest that you need to better balance aspects of your life. It could also mean that fears will prevent you from achieving your goals.
Visitor
To have a visitor in your dream, signifies that some important news or information will soon be revealed to you. It may also suggest that love is just around the corner. Alternatively, a visitor indicates that you are experiencing a new phase in your life. If the visitor is unwelcome, then it indicates your refusal to change.

To dream that you are a visitor, suggests that you need to look at the overall picture on some issue. You need to gain a wider perspective on things.

Hiding
To dream that you are hiding, suggests that you are keeping some secret or withholding some information. You may not be facing up to a situation or dealing with some issue. However, you may be getting ready to reveal something and confess before somebody finds out. In particular, to dream that you are hiding from some authority figure (police, parent, teacher...), implies feelings of guilt.

To dream that someone is hiding, indicates that you are looking for a sense of security and protection.

Murder
To dream that you have committed a murder, indicates that you are putting an end to an old habit and a former way of thinking. This could also refer to an end to an addiction. Alternatively, the dream indicates that you have some repressed aggression or rage at yourself or at someone. Note also that dreams of murder occur frequently during periods of depression.
To dream that you witness a murder, indicates deep-seated anger towards somebody. Consider how the victim represents aspects of yourself that you want to destroy or eliminate.

Killing
To dream that you kill someone, indicates that you are on the verge of losing your temper and self-control. Consider the person you have killed and ask yourself if you feel any rage towards him or her in your waking life. Your dream may be expressing some hidden anger. Alternatively, you may be trying to kill an aspect of yourself that is represented by the person killed. Identify the characteristics of this person and ask yourself which of these qualities you are trying to put an end to.

Wednesday, 29 September 2010

Cold September Rain.

It's so rainy outside. It's so rainy and it's my day off so I don't have to go outside, there are no requirements binding me to leaving the house today, and that makes me pleased... it's horrid out there.

Apparently it's been a month if not more since my last teen angst rant and update.

It also appears that I had a birthing day during my silence.

I was off work from the 1st September until the 12th. Awesome!

I had a birthingday on the 5th and I didn't do much else other than see friends, hang around the house, go on random walks with the mother and brother and see the ol' flatmates from Dundee. It was awesome though.

I didn't make any resolutions this year, nor do I remember what my last and first songs were, it was quite the odd birthday. I did however, have TWO CAKES!!!

What was that? Two cakes? Yes TWO CAKES!

One was made by Patsy the awesome, who I am in Nursery at church with, and the other was a traditional mother cake.

Both were awesome. I'm in the process of finding my battery charger for my other camera so I can show pictures of the Patsy cake. Yes.

It was honestly one of the best weeks ever because the cakes appeared to be never ending.

The day before birthing day The Mother Brother and I went to the Queen Elizabeth Forest Park... love it. And we ended up climbing a massive steep hill. We thought we were just following the blue path, but the blue path had a great ascension. It was fun though.

I love forest.

There was another walk that we went on towards the end of my time off work, and the path led us through a loch that had dried a little and turned to a marsh, and the sun went down fairly rapidly and we were squelching about in the marsh in the dark, with my 5 year old niece who kept randomly falling over as well. She took it well though, and eventually we had to abandon the non-existence path and make for the road and walk back to the car on the road. It was crazy. It was one of those ones that is kind of scary, but totally fun. If you stood too long in the one place you started sinking as well. Needless to say we were all soaked by the time we got back to the car.

My crafting has hit an all time low, I've not made anything in a while. Although I did make some awesome heart and initial cushions for a flatwarming of a couple of friends from work. I totally forgot to take pictures though, but they were awesome I can assure you.

That flat warming because quite the event because when I left around 2ish I discovered my car had been broken into. LAME. The funny part about it was I got in the car, sat down, looked at the papers and books thrown everywhere and thought 'Oh I'm so silly, I threw my own stuff everywhere and I don't remember.' Then I continued to blame myself when I saw the passenger door unlocked, and the back seats pulled down and my spare tyre in the main portion of my car rather than in it's cave of the boot. I went to grab my seatbelt and then noticed my door. TOTALLY HEINOUS!!! Smash a window car thieves. The yanked out the entire top half of the door about 4 inches, and didn't even scratch the paint. Mental.

The cost of the damage sustained to my car was £670. My insurance company won't pay for it. So I'm currently in a state of limbo, because I was planning to sell my car when I leave I have two choices, pay for the repair and try and get it back to sellable standard, or have the insurance company pay me for the value of the car.

I got Big John and Wee John's garage (you might remember this from the welding fiasco last year and also the wee john pishing himself on the train a couple of years before that) to batter the door back in last Thursday. I wish I had taken pictures... That morning I had to drive a friend to the airport, and I was wearing a raincoat in the car to stop me getting wet. The rain was torrential and there was flooding everywhere, and I had to drive through a massive puddle and at one point my wheels were no longer touching tarmac I was actually doing a chitty chitty bang bang. Further up that same road I watched a car's engine give up and start emitting white smoke because it had been sitting in a big puddle too long, and then someone crashed into the back of him because of all the smoke. It was a complete chaotic morning, and I was soaked because of the door hanging open.

It was actually a major depressant in my life for a while because it was all I could think about. Now that it's back in place I can actually think properly and decide what to do about the door. LAME.

At first I thought the thieving gypos and stolen nothing, but then I realised they had stolen my coppers, a watch belonging to an old friend that tried to fix my brakes years ago and then left his watch behind so I've had it in the boot for 5 years, my scissors that I keep i the car for cutting the cable ties that hold my hub caps on, my wee brother's torch glasses that Jon and I brought to Stirling in January AND.... AND MY OAKLEY'S.

We should have a minute's silence for my Oakleys. Long may they reign. I loved those sunglasses.

So the moral of the story is, keep nothing in your car ever, and leave the doors unlocked. Fact.

I also spent some of my holiday trying to sell things. I sold my old goth boots, a Troll, and I cleaned my microwave from uni to sell, but no one wants it. If anyone wants an awesome microwave point them in my direction.

I've been back at work for a couple of weeks now, and it's been busy, but busy means the time passes faster.

And now, for some pictures. :)



Birthday cake made by Mother. :) This was always the cake she would make for my childhood birthdays. HAPPY!



CANDLES!!! YEAH!



Blowing Face.



More Blowing... The more blowing that happens the older you are. I think this means I'm getting pretty on in years. Jon's still older though.


Blowing out candles is also quite unattractive. MELTED FACE!



Those relighting candles. I got them to go out eventually.



Zero joining in the festivities.



Brother eating chocolate buttons.



Candles?



Birthday scrabble. YES!



The beginning of the marsh walk as the sun began to set. All of the marsh walk photos were taken by Kris, he's been borrowing my camera for his college projects.





Ghost Me.





Blurry Pamer Pie.





Such a nice shot... well done brother of mine.



The Mother and I emerging from the black.





I was showing him how to use the long shutter speed to get awesome light shots.







And he proceeded to use the long shots in the car as well on the drive home.



I think we were near a green traffic light. It looks like slimer just got sucked into the ghost busters' ghost catcher thing.



I love this one, it looks like music.



MELTED FACE. Ahhhhh!



I am the light face, all light comes from me.



Our soaking results. Mother.



Brother.



Me.



Niece. She is also missing in this picture. She was so wet she was stripped and wrapped in blankets when we got back to the car.



The Saturday my car was broken into was also Roadshow Saturday, and Glasgow ward did the Princess Bride, and although I might be slightly bias, I think it was the funniest and most awesome, and the only one that didn't have some kind of weird church reference. I'm never a fan of roadshows that have random missionaries or bishops or something appear in them. LAME. It's like a total cop out. this is Kris/Wesley climbing the impossible cliffs.



Prince Humperdink and the Six Fingered man.



The wedding ceremony of Princess Buttercup and Prince Humperdink. That is my cousin's husband as the minister, and he was very good at the speech impediment R thing.



The Spaniard and the six fingered man about to battle.



The happy ending.



THE CAR. From the inside. I honestly never noticed until i went to get my seatbelt.



Massive gap.





Sunday's game of scrabble. Wicked awesome. The Mother played, and the Brother won. The brother won birthday scrabble too. What's up with that?


And once I find my battery charger I will blog pictures of the other awesome birthday cake. :)

Wednesday, 25 August 2010

Tribal envy

So today is officially my day off. Yayy.

And I wanted to go swimming and I was thinking of getting up early to do that so I could avoid the general public at all costs, but no joy. I woke at 11 and was totally sad.

Last week when I went there were too many people. I like to not see any member of the general public on my day off. Call me crazy, but I get an overdose of them every single day that I'm at work, so I'm happy to isolate myself. :)

I've been watching a TV show called 'Can Fat Teens Hunt?' and it's been amazing, it's about 10 fat teenagers from the UK that are sent to an ancient tribe in Borneo and they have to eat rice, frogs, and other such random things that you would find in the jungle.

and they have to make their own find, find their own food, catch their own food, and cleanse their own water.

It was unreal watching some of it. So so lazy.

It was actually crazy. But I was also slightly envious of the tribe. They have their house, they aren't cold, they have each other, their entire day is based upon preparing food and finding food. That's all they have to worry about. No bills, no taxes, no car insurance, no adverts about car insurance, no actual possessions.

It was actually amazing. I am so envious. I wish there was no stress, or pressure of having to live in the west. We are all required to achieve a certain level of success if we want to have a 'good' 'happy' life, but it's all prescribed nonsense. I have no idea when or who set those rules. But it sickens me.

There could be nothing more rewarding than raring and growing your own food and being entirely self sufficient. And not being completely overloaded with images of 'happy' people on TV making you feel depressed because their lives are complete because they use X-brand washing powder. It actually makes me sick.

And even if we do have enough money to buy our food the food is completely processed and flavour enhanced and completely toxic to our bodies.

The world is a mess, and sometimes I think this is it. We're all waiting for some further huge disaster, and life changing event, but this, how the world is right now, is so far from how things should be, that it is terrifying.

I don't look forward to farming, because i'm 100% lazy to it, but I do think that if there was no financial debt to satanic companies, and no constant bombardment of products and adverts and colours, our brains would be able to just relax.

This got really heavy really quickly.

All these thoughts are based off this image



those are all the world possessions of Ghandi.

It's completely cathartic to think about.

So yeah, It's my day off, and I want to be fit and healthy but I want to not see any of the public. It makes for a difficult situation.

Here's an awesome picture of the day to be happy about:



I also watched toddler in tiaras the other night and it was sublime. I loved it, but I felt like I had to hate it at the same time. It was all about little kids in beauty pageants, just like Little Miss Sunshine. Amazing.

Neurons

I've not lifted a book or magazine in a long time. My life seems to revolve around doing crafts for weddingness because if i'm not then I think I'm holding things up. There's an odd psychology in that.

Anyway. During my sister's wedding week thing, she gave me her copy of 'The short second life of Bree Tanner' to read. Yes, I know. It was an easy read though, and it entertaining although it was purely random and completely lacking in proper story. It was like Breaking Dawn all over again, but shorter and a little more focused (because it had to tie into eclipse).

That got me interesting in actually reading again and I picked up 'Buyology' by Martin Lindstrom. I had been in Barnes and Noble in 2008 a few weeks before meeting Jon himself, and seen this book sitting on a 'new arrivals' table and I wondered why i'd never heard of it while doing masters, the whole 'new arrival' thing was lost on me.

Anyway. I started reading it. That was around the time I was going NaNoWriMo and meeting the ol' true love. So needless to say the book was shunned and nothing past 10 pages was read. I tried again on other occasions to start reading it. I even brought it back and forth to the US with me while visiting Jon, but still nothing past 10 pages was achieved.

After reading Bree Tanner, I picked it up and i'm not half way through, which I think is definitely a feat. And boy is it interesting, it's all about subliminal advertising, and what imagery is actually successful in advertising. It kind of goes into ever facet of advertising. It's good.

That in turn, led me to pick up the last issue of Adbusters I'd had posted out to me. My subscription has expired and there's no point renewing it for 3 years when my address will 100% be changing before they can send me 2 issues.

So I will bide my time and hopefully not miss and issue. I think i've been subscribing since 2006/7. I find it an enjoyable, mind-freeing read.

There was a short article, which I have discovered is part of a long long article that said:

Failure to learn new things kills neurons. People who vegetate before the TV are killing their neurons. People who never do anything new or meet anyone new are killing their neurons. People who never read or learn a new game or build a model airplane or cook up a new recipe or learn a new language are killing their neurons. Mind you, many middle-aged professionals are killing their neurons. They’re doing what they are good at, what they already know, what they learned to do years ago. They’re pursuing careers, raising children, cooking dinner, returning phone calls, reading the newspaper. They are busy and accomplished, but they are not learning anything new. If you are not learning anything new, you are killing your neurons. To keep your neurons, learn something new every day. Begin now. Doing so requires no particular genius.

This actually terrified me.

I am killing my brain by just being stagnant and not progressing myself nor my brain.

I also found it interesting because I have very little desire to do the design work that I am 'supposed' to. The design work that is expected by a branded society, the website, the business card, etc. That's all someone else's idea of design and branding, and I find it so hard to be motivated to design within the confines of someone else's long-ago made decision.

The passage above gives me a bit more insight into why, my brain must be absolutely gagging for me to not rest on any laurels and push it to new levels. But I'm far too lazy for that these days. But I think that's why I've latched onto the extreme over load of crafting and wedding planning because it's something new and something i've never done before.

It's not that I think i'm the best designer ever and i've reached the pinnacle of design, far from it, but my brain has tired of doing it, and wants to try out new things.

Perhaps i'm shoe horning excuses into my own lack of interest. But it seems to make sense.

Everything that I need to do before moving to the US just seems bitterly dull, like selling things, and packing things. And it's because i've done it before. There's no learning in it. There's just remembering how to do it, and redoing it over and over again.

Even when it comes to crafting once i've learned how to do one specific thing I move on and do something else even although an abundance of the original thing is required, i'd rather make something new.

Maybe I have a short attention span, and in fact, this is a bad quality. I've found that with hobbies throughout my whole life, I tend to give up on things quickly because I know the basics and I have no desire to perfect it.

So there must be a balance, between continuing to do what you know until it's perfect, and desiring to learn new things. Hopefully i'll find that soon otherwise nothing will ever get done. :)

111

I have a playlist that makes and updates itself. It is based on the top 111 songs that I listen to. The least listened to song has been played over 40 times, so the playlist is pretty competitive to get on to if you are a new song.

I've been listening to said playlist recently and a couple of songs cropped up that gave me the warm fuzzies.



Going Nowhere by Cut Copy



Japan by CocoRosie (just the first 30 seconds of this)


This is their cute little faces actually singing it... Gosh I love them. I saw them once in concert, but the night was terrible because some random and her friends ruined it by talking really loudly the whole way through. It was so stupid.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HprRr_LxBFA

(embedding was disabled on this video)


So. Both of these songs were on the phone I had to buy while I was in Utah in 2007 because my own phone couldn't handle the sim card being switched over. It still can't, it gives me a lot of fuss, but I had to buy this to make my social life easier. :)

Seriously, those seven weeks are still, possibly the best ever. The pure freedom, the independence of living in Otto's attic and getting the trax to whole foods or the temple. It was actually sublime.

The cocorosie song was my ring tone (just the first 30 seconds), so everytime I hear it I think of one of the newly made friends at the time calling me.

And the Cut Copy track was my alarm clock. So I associate it, always, with waking up and having an adventure to go on. It never became a burden to be woken up.

Gosh it was actually so amazing.

It's not because of any particular thing or person, it was the whole experience, properly being on my own, somewhere so utterly far away, and having to sink or swim.

I hacked into the neighbour's wifi and was at least able to navigate my way around the city, and find swimming pools, and go to institute, and just have an all around whale of a time. Then Antoinette was there, and it was awesomer, and oh my it was just insane with awesomeness.

And we snuck up on Marcus and appeared on his doorstep, and had crazy hallowe'en shenanigans, and I drove on the wrong side of the road for ages, and it was always so warm, and autumny.

Huge sigh. It was actually amazing.

Slight overkill with the reminiscing. Every other trip after that wasn't the same because i'd done it before. There's just something completely exhilarating about doing something completely for the first time and not knowing if you can do it.

Wednesday, 18 August 2010

swimming swife in the fast lane.

Just like living life in the fast lane but not.

I went swimming today. Hoooooray.

The schools went back on monday and so it is now safe to leave the house on my day off and go swimming.

Here are the stats we've all been waiting for.

200m FC
200m BS
200m FC legs
100m Butterfly
100m BS legs
100m FC arms only
100m BS arms only

200m FC flippers and fins
200m FC
400m FC flippers and fins
200m FC

100m Swim down.

And all in an hour.


I ache though. I tell you. There's been complete and utter deterioration of the muscle strength over the summer holiday. Lame.

So it hurts, and I was kind of slowish, but I did it within the hour still, or just a little over. I'm pretty tired now though.

Other things of note.

Some guy asked me for shampoo in the shower and he took HUNDREDS... gypo.

I was swimming in the fast lane because it pushes me... fact, and there was a beastin' woman that was so fast it terrified me, she only swam in sets of 50m though, so I think that has to count for something.

And when I left the pool there was proper torrential that I got soaked in, and it was miserable.

And I ate eggs chopped up in a cup, with soldiers, while watching murder she wrote. Then I watched an episode of buffy. I was planning on going to the fabric shop and seeing Salt (I <3 Angelina), but that was a fail because time is my enemy and I technically had my niece to kind of look after for a short time frame. Lame.

Thursday, 12 August 2010

Another Post?

Yeah... I'm just like the buses... wait for ages then three come at once.... 'I'll take jokes from the 90s for $10'.

So.

I just got my tetanus injection which cost me a grand total of £3, rather than the £25 they wanted to charge me in London.

I just hope that the £22 saving is worth the paperwork hassle, because now I have to show an incomplete immunisation record that was given to me by the London medical people with a piece of paper that looks completely forged that says I got my injection today.

Here's hoping it all works out for me. £22 is a lot of money. :)

Okay, so at the bottom of my immunisation record it says I'm patient number 62!

Really? Yeah really.

How can I be so low. I imagine there's hundreds more patients there now, given that it's hard to get an appointment.

I also imagine that the people who are 1 - 61 will be of different ages, and some, therefore, may have passed on, making me even more of a doctor celebrity.

Okay, so the reason for this post is that on the way to the doctors, which is literally a 3 minute drive, I turned into a side street and there were loads of police, my first thought was some kind of crime scene, but then the road I usually park in was closed with no crime scene around. I parked in a car park of a supermarket just up the hill a little and then started legging it (in the pouring rain no less) back down the hill to the surgery.

Then the sound of bagpipes. Seriously.

There was a 200 piece pipe band coming from this wee resource centre and piping down the side street and off onto the main street. It was crazy. Pretty impressive, but yet completely not surprising. Things like that happen all the time in my head. Kilts, hats, pipes. It was awesome.

Then when I left the surgery they were close to getting back to their starting point and I was sitting in a queue of traffic waiting on the side street, so then our road got cleared to make space, so I never got to see them again properly.

It was pretty amazing though, I wish I had had my camera with video recording on it.... or an iPhone. Lame.

One day, when I do have an iPhone I bet nothing exciting will ever happen to me.

:)

I have a new want...

... and its name is Aquabeat.

I was in a sports shop yesterday and happened upon the speedo aquabeat.

It's an MP3 player for the water. SERIOUSLY!





I think i will need to be better at going swimming, and in the US and working again before I can have the awesome, but at least I have a goal. :)

Bows

Photo and update time. Oh yeah.

This is stretching far back.

Sometimes you have the blogging fever, sometimes you don't. I haven't had it all year, but i've been trying to combat that, with nothing but major fails.

Anyway.

Using some photographic awesomeness I will attempt to do a quick fill in.

I'm still working... wooooooo.

Zero is still alive, although I have been tempted to 'dispose' of her because she had a couple of weeks of being really clingy and affectionate and it drove me crazy. She even fish juiced all over me while I slept one early morning. It was so gross. All over me, my phone, and anything else lying around my pillow. That was a bad morning. I felt robbed of sleep.

Jon and I are still not together on a permanent basis, but we're working on that (and I am slowly going mad).

It was Zero's birthday and instead of making her cake I bought myself a tiny domino's pizza. Best pizza ever, especially with the garlic and herb crust dipping sauce. I'm so in love with that. It had the best ever topping on it as well, chicken, sweetcorn and pineapple. Nom nom nom.

So yeah, best Zero birthday ever. She's now five and should be going to school, but I'm just going to home school her because she is still having toilet issues and that's just mortifying :)



On an update on my last blog about the trainers, I went for...... drum roll.......



The white ones. They are amazing. THEY HAVE A STRAP. My mum asked me what the purpose of the strap was and I promptly told her it's there to be awesome. Which it does a very good job of being.

Awesome is its speciality.

It was Amelia's birthday as well (who is my cousin's small child) and she was one one one. ONE. So young. Kate and I had birthday breakfast on her behalf, and then went small child swimming, which was fun. I hadn't been swimming in ages. I mostly bobbed and splashed, and walked around in my flippers for the fun, and realised how fun flippers are when you're not training with them. I did swim a few lengths as well but I can't remember the stats.

I really do need to swim for real again.

The past two months have been crazy because my back has totally starting hurting, and getting worse, and now it's onto this weird nerve pain. It's not good. The doctor won't do anything either. It's so lame. And I shouldn't even start on the NHS. I think the NHS is fabulous, it's just horrific that the people who pay for it are the last to actually get any of the benefits from it, all the money is spent on caring for those who have self-inflicted their ills through alcohol abuse, drug abuse, smoking, etc. That drives me crazy.

Anyway. Happier things.

Work has been crazy the past few weeks, just loads and loads of people and really really long shifts.

I've actually almost been a year at apple. It will be a year come September 19th. I find that crazy. Seriously crazy. It is officially the longest I've ever had a job. Every other job has ended within 10 months.

So biggest news of the past month would be my sister's wedding. It happened last Friday, and I was the official photographer. It's something I would never EVER rush to do again. In fact, if I ever have to take a photograph again it will be too soon. I shot around 1000 images, and barely half were good enough to even consider being edited. It's kind of crazy. My finger was aching by the end of the night, and it was weird to try and be a guest as well as be a photographer, especially when most of the guests knew me as Lola's sister and had very little respect for the photographer part of me that day.

To help things swimmingly the day was miserable. The sky was grey, not even over cast and sunny behind it, grey, completely grey. It was also raining for a lot of it, but we did get a few photos outside.

To try to get the best of the sister and her weddingness I hired a lens, which was entirely the idea of Chris Daines, my photographic hero, he also picked the lens, and tried to give me as much tutorial on using my camera as possible. I've had my camera for four years. I should really know how to use it, but really I just push buttons, and turn wheels and hope it looks good.





There was so much pressure, and so many people around, it was so hard to try to think and to be creative on the spot with so many eyes watching. HARD.com. Wedding photographers are a breed unto themselves. I think I would make an excellent second shooter though, I have the 'sneaking up on people' ability.

I can't actually show any photos of the Bride herself because she's not even seen them and I think that would be totally unfair to her, but there are some of me and my beasting awesome tan courtesy of St Tropez. With a tan I actually felt warmer. It was weird.













I'm also Ceilidh dancing with my Donna best friend's husband. I danced that once and also a Gay Gordons. And the rest of the time I was photographing or talking to the skillso millso quickly.

At the end of the night I threw on my converse and hoody and helped tidy, and I looked like this:




I even made that frog face the whole time.... kidding.

:)

I wish I could show you more pictures... sadly nooooo. Me will have to do.

How amazing is that beasting lens though. I think it's amazing, and one day I will buy one for real and it will be mine and I will call it beastin' lens.

:)

So yeah... update state fate late mate.

There's tonnes of my family still around until tomorrow, and then they all officially will have left by next week, but it's kind of cool having people around. I likes it.

And today I went to the craft shop. That's always a riot. Ohhhh the riot. :)

I've been getting my crafting on and it's awesome. I keep finding new ideas online of things I love and that I NEED to have as part of my wedding. I fear that eventually it will be the biggest random miss match. But that's fine by me. I'm super excited. Fingers crossed for a 2010 wedding :):):)

Oh, and the dress I was wearing in those pictures was an option for a bridesmaid dress, but no one wanted it, so I thought, Well I want a new dress.... so I bought it. Pleased. It has bows, and I love it. It also had amazing shoulder pads, but I cut them out. Cut it out.