Cars and Cakes

Since my birthday the rest of 2010 has been a little uneventful, Christmas came and Christmas went. I received lovely presents including: Toy Story 1 2 & 3 on Blu-Ray, cake decorating ideas book, Outnumbered series 3, cake tins, star cupcake molds, 3 tier cooling racks, Radley Umbrella, Money, winter coat, chocolates, pasta set, Harry Potter & Deathly Hallows for xbox360, Stephen Fry’s autobiography and lots more. I spent Christmas morning opening pressies from my hubby and mine to him, which included a special surprise of a Magic Wand (the one that featured on Dragon’s Den) which he loved. We then went to my In-Laws to open more pressies and spend the day with family having a nice xmas dinner. Boxing day was spent visiting my parents and having another xmas dinner and opening more presents. The rest of the holiday was spent relaxing at home and new years was spent at home playing games and getting drunk with K’s friend Andy.

We are now into February and to be honest the last month or so has gone by in a blur. We got our new car at the end of January, again sticking with a Ford Focus (different colour) and it is very lush, even the radio speaks to you, which is very cool especially for hands free. I can now see out of the back window which is amazing, our last car had privacy windows and I hated them. It is very nice to drive and has parking sensors so no more accidentally crashing into walls, plus I’ve got better at parking.

I have decided that I need to brush up on my design skills so I’ve been following some photoshop tutorials in Photoshop Creative magazine, I’ve done 3 tutorials now and I think my first one is the best so far. I have also been baking, I’m getting rather good a cupcakes and I’m making my Nephews 7^th Birthday cake, which is going to be a Red Square Lego Brick. I’ve not worked with Fondant for a long time but I’m quite good with rolling out pastry so I don’t think it should cause too much of a problem.

Egg tastic

Again I've fallen into that trap of not updating, but fear not I will try to do this more often.

So what I have been doing? mainly writing essays for my masters which is slowly doing my head in, trying to study, work and all the house/family stuff is taking it's tole. I wouldn't recommend distance learning, it is pants. Thankfully I've only got 2 more essays to write and that's the first year done, I will have a postgraduate certificate, and to be honest I'll be glad to finish with just that, forget the diploma and the masters just give me the cert, but I'm guessing that my family won't let me. It will be like the rest of my life, doing stuff for other people and not for myself, don't get me wrong I enjoyed doing my degree but the added pressure to do well from my family wasn't enjoyable.

Happy (belated) Easter to all, thankfully I only got 2 Easter eggs this year, which I'm glad about as I've been experiencing a slight blip in the weight watching front. Don't worry I've not put it all back on, but I now weigh the same as I did Christmas week, so in 4 months I've been up and down more times than a yo yo, so stating this week I'm back onto pointing big style, so hopefully in a couple of weeks I'll have hit the 3 stone barrier, and I'll be back on the right track.

As mentioned in my last post I was seeking a dress for the ball, well this Cinderella story isn't happening, yes I am going to the ball, but it won't be in a dress, probably the trusty black skirt and a new top, if I can find one that I like. I have started on my mask though I will post a picture when it is finished.

Weighting Issues

Since I last updated I have started Weight Watches I've only been doing it fully for 2 weeks as I have had to buy some new digital scales but so far I've lost 7lb which I'm quite proud off. I had my doubts thinking that it wouldn't work, as I've tried other diets but I'm getting to like this one. I'm not going to meetings as I refuse to pay £5.50 for someone to tell me I'm fat, so I've got two work colleagues that go to the meetings so they have got me the Eating out guide and the Shopping guide and a calculator and I'm finding it quite easy I can have 29 points a day and to be honest I'm struggling to find thing to eat to fill my points up, as you have to use them all up. What has made a difference is not drinking fizzy drinks and cutting down my portion sizes. So hopefully in maybe a year or 2 I'll be able to fit into my dream wedding dress.

I'm off to London in 2 weeks for a weeks holiday, I'm so looking forward to it and I'll get to try out my new camera to it's full potential.

Post Xmas Blues

Well Christmas is now over and I can't believe that we are over half way into January. My Christmas was really cool, I spent my holiday between both sets of families which was really good. For Christmas I got some really nice presents including a Nintendo Wii, Wii games, some books, craft things, a tiger (don't worry not a real one, a adopted one from the WWF), loads of clothes, a donut maker and chocolates.

Now that Christmas is over the only thing to look forward to is Easter when I'm next on holiday from work. Oh and our new car which will arrive next week. Nothing else really has been happening apart from this weekend when all the weather has been doing is raining, what I'm hoping is that we don't have the amount of rain we had in the summer but I've been very vigilant with the weather watch and keeping informed with the flood watches just in case, as I don't want to have a repeat of the summer's floods. Some places near where I live have had local floods but ours has been ok, plus one of the main reasons we flooded in the summer was a tree got stuck under the bridge near my house.

Anyway I'm going to sign off now and finish watching Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire which is on one of the movie channels on Sky.

Long time coming

Well, I'm not doing really well at keeping this blog up to date am I? It's now November and the last post was in September a whole 2 months have passed. But the annoying thing is they have been really uninteresting months. I've just been doing nothing but being really busy.

I celebrated my 27th birthday which was really nice, my BF and I went to TGI Friday's, the meal was nice but overpriced it's a good job i had vouchers. I had some nice presents for my b'day, a lovely ipod nano video, various craft items and money which is always a winner.

October went by in a blur, again really busy but nothing really to pin point what has happened. But I know it involved playing lots of Sims 2 and learning InDesign CS2, I know the basics but wanted to brush up on the other things that I thought I knew how to do but don't.

Last weekend we had friends over, which was really great. Whats nicer than just relaxing and catching up with friends. This weekend will be slightly more hectic as we are both in London, my BF is down there for an award presentation on his works website and I'm down to shop and eat Krispy Kreme donuts oh and for my BF to purchase the new iphone.

Well in 47 days it will be Christmas, I'm quite looking forward to it this year as my BF's Nephew will be nearly 4 and he understands more about Christmas now and it should be a good day with him opening his pressies and creating havoc around the place, and also the fact that my BF is buying me a Wii and I'm sooooo looking forward to one.

Actioned Packed Weekend

The weekend of the 17th Aug was hectic but great, the weather held out but the traffic didn't. We set off on the Friday morning on our journey to Kent to the annual Bad Taste Bear outing. We had a reasonable journey down but hit traffic on the M25, going at 50mph on a motorway isn't great and I think at one point my BF put the hand brake on because we weren't even moving. But we arrived safely, and with only about half an hour added on to our journey time.

Our first stop off was Bluewater shopping centre, the reason for this is that like any other gal i like shopping and more importantly I like Krispy Kreme donuts. I first discovered KK at Harrods in London and fell in love with the little dough circles, they are the best donuts in the whole world, but the only problem is that up north were I live we haven't had the luxury get so I took this opportunity of going to Bluewater to sample some more of these wondrous delights, well 12 donuts later and I'm stuffed. I just want to make it clear I didn't eat them all, I did have some help.

Now Bluewater isn't a bad shopping centre but I feel that I had worked myself up for it to be twice the size of our Local shopping mall, Meadowhall but I was surprised that I think it might be just a little bigger. There are more expensive shops at BW and the most important one the Lego shop, where i nearly lost my BF, it was like a little child in a sweet shop, bless...

So we checked in our hotel that night and had a well deserved rest from all the shopping and donuts.
The next day was the trip to the event, which was at Groombridge place gardens in Kent, and also in the middle of nowhere, thank god for SatNav.

The event was really good, we got our bears and goodie bag, and then joined the queue for the shop, another 14 or so bears later we joined the queue for the tombola, at £5 per go we limited ourselves to 4 goes but the prizes were rare bears, so later in the day we had another few goes. Things were starting to run out, the shop was fast running out of stock and so was the tombola, it was apparent that one collector had spent £400 on the tombola, now in my book this isn't fair, the organisers really should have done something about this or limited the amount of goes you were able to have. Oh well we were glad with our wins and thankful we went to the shop first. We had a look around the gardens then went back to the hotel.

On the way home the next day we stopped off in Slough to visit friends, so all in all a very good but tiring and expensive weekend.

Holiday's are coming, holiday's are coming etc etc

Christmas is only just round the corner, Yippeee!! I love christmas, it is really the only time of year that I can be a kid again and resaonably get away with it.

From past experience I do tend to leave the t'old xmas pressie shopping till the last minute, but this year both myself and my partner have started early and have just about got all those all inportant presents, big pat on the back for me. But in every family there is the one person that is a knightmare when it comes to buying for, this person in my family is my Grandad, at least when my Nan was alive I could get ideas from her, but sadly now this is not the case and my mum is in the same boat as me, we both do not know what to buy him. Every year I seem to buy him the same things, Gilette razor blades and shaving stuff, now this is all and well for about 2 years running but when it is both xmas and b'day I can imagine that you get a bit bored with the same stuff. So if you have any ideas what to get a 76 year old male suggestions please.

My partner and I always have a limit on how much we are spending on each other and this year set that limit of £100. I have gone over by £31 and I think my partner has gone over quite a bit. But I find this annoying that now this makes me feel that I should be spending more, so that he has more presents. But then it makes me feel that he should have stuck to the orginal plan. Oh well it just means I get more pressies. Yeah!!! But this didn't take into account the dilema of the Xbox 360. My partner is a techie and loves his gadgets, this is an expensive hobby, but don't really mind too much as my hobbies are quite expensive in their own right. But on his xmas list was an Xbox 360. I debated this for some weeks and decided against it as we really couldn't afford it, but after some deliberation I crummbled under pressure, and off we went to our shopping centre and bought aformentioned xbox. This is all and well, but my partner then had to get it out of the box and set it all up, just to make sure it worked. I wanted to wrap it up for xmas, but there isn't really the point now as it is in pride of place next to the tv. So now the money spent on my partner has ballooned over the said amount of £100. But I don't expect him to spend a further £300 on me as we really can't afford that.

Angel's & Demons

Firstly for those who haven't a clue what I'm talking about I'll give a little background to this event. Me and my partner collect Bad Taste Bears, these are little bear figurines with a Bad Taste persona. We are both collector members and each year they have an event where other collectors can get together and socialise. This year as well as the yearly event BTB have decided to hold mini events which the Angel and Demons is the first one.

I didn't get my different coloured shoes but a nice pair of silver sandals and a silver bag so they matched.

The event was in Blackpool so we set off about 11:45 and got there just after 2pm we couldn't check in till 2 anyway so we got there just about right, apart from having a detour round Blackpool looking for the hotel as I had the postcode wrong for TomTom, we stopped and called in at the travel information place, where the lady wasn't really that helpful, she seem to assume that I knew where all the roads were. Oh well we got there in plenty of time, the event didn't start till 5pm. So having had a bit to eat and sorting out our costumes it was time to call a taxi and head off. The weather was really not nice, there was a drizzle of rain and the winds were gale force, I had a few incidents with my costume wings. But safely inside everything was fine.

The event was really good and we got to meet a few collectors along the way, didn't speak to half as many people as we would like, but oh well next time we might have more chance. The event consisted of a quiz, the blood brothers, Pete (the creator) Underhill's questions and answers speech, buffet and Disco oh and the fancy dress contest. Didn't win but never mind I thought my costume was cool.

But overall we both had a great time and can't wait for the next one.

So much for holidays

Well the week i'd given myself for destressing before the new job didn't quite go as planned, you see my partner was rushed into hospital on the Thursday evening with acute pains in his side, unfortunatly for him it was 3 hours later before they gave him any pain relief, by this time it was 3am myself and his parents were very tired. I sent them home to get some rest whilst i stayed with my BF. They eventually got him a bed Friday lunchtime on the spinal injuries ward, where all his notes and doctor he sees are there. They let him out the following Thursday with a nice stash of antibiotics which have been making his memory worse. Thankfully he is ok now.

The new job is going really well and the people are really friendly and nice.

Construction

Hurrah the wardrobes came on Monday evening and will lots of help from Mother and Father -in-law to be they were assembled and sort of ready to use, still had to put in other shelves and customarys and seeing as we had finished assembly at midnight me and him wanted our sleep, him mostly as he was heading off to London the next day (6 hour drive). I had then to ask kindly for lifts to work, seeing as my Mum in law 2 B loves me she drew the short straw and to make matters worse it had snowed, now I love snow as much as the next person but when I have a full washing line out it doesn't come as a nice surprise and now added work to re wash them.

Tuesday night was hard as he was still in London and I'd been to Mum in laws 2B for tea and was back at home for the night, it is weird on how much extra sense you pick up when there is only you in the house, I managed to get to sleep but was being woken up at the littlest of noise, that wouldn't have bothered me if fiance was at the side of me, then I was on a nice long sleep and said fiance decided to wake me up by sending me a text message at 2:04 am just to tell me that he loves me and to say night night, some of you might think that this is a nice gesture and really sweet but not in the middle of the night when you are trying to sleep. But I do love him so I didn't mind that much.

I didn't think that I would miss him that much but I'm so glad he is back, he is very tired but I still get my little kisses and cuddles, which is very nice.