Joining up with Megan from Happy Day Blog.

Dear Monday, the sun was shining this morning but by about lunchtime it clouded over and the heavens opened. It’s been raining pretty much for five hours straight now.

To my Manager, you rock! My colleague is on holiday and you’ve spent pretty much all day helping me out. You rock!

Dear Amazon Kindle Customer Service (Especially Rebecca H and Eleanor), YOU ROCK! I sent a chat message earlier and you asked me various questions but were able to diagnose that my Kindle is poorly and needs replacing. Can I have customer service lessons from your instructor?

Dear Rain, I know we need lots more of you due to the “drought” and “hose pipe ban” we’ve got but could it not rain when I don’t have a coat with me?

Dear Hot Chocolate, just what I needed after walking to the car without a coat and trying to park near The Fountain.

My friends tied the knot this weekend. At the end of April it’ll be a year since I helped Dave (the groom) move up to live closer to his fiancée.

I don’t really do dresses – I go through stages where I think about being more girlie and dressing up more and then through my own laziness most of the time (or I can’t find a dress that fits right) I stick with trousers and get on with the day. I think if I worked in a job where I was meeting with people on a day to day basis (rather than the people I work with I’d probably make more of an effort). While we were filing time between the ceremony and the evening reception do, we grabbed some food and then went for a walk around a local park. I managed to snap this photo while walking along a wall.

On the way back to the motorway we took the pretty way – I snapped away taking a bunch of photos to occupy myself. Thankfully the sun came out and light up the hills amazingly. There are a bunch more pictures of our journey home on my Flickr Photostream.

Look what arrived on Monday – as part of the Kickstarter project that kicked off Chantilly’s project to record her EP I got an envelope of goodies including a CD copy of the EP, a CD copy of her older EP and a postcard – it was very exciting especially given that I got home in a bit of a mood and the minute I saw the post on my doorstep I was so excited!

A while back my friend Adam told me about The Fault in Our Stars being released by John Green and if it was pre-ordered then it would be signed. Well I pre-ordered. The day the books were due to arrive there were rumbles (or shoutings) around the internet that copies were being delivered but they weren’t signed. The following day my copy arrived and thankfully it was signed. Well I finally read it and it’s sad and happy and memorable. I opened the first few pages and read the dedication – it was to Esther Earl. Esther was a fab girlie who was taken way before her time. She had cancer and she passed away from it last summer. I hadn’t ever met her in person but I’d seen her YouTube videos and somehow that made her more real to me (I mean like not just random YouTuber who I’d never meet in person etc etc – I make sense to me!). Some of the plot is set in Amsterdam and me and Chris went to Amsterdam for our honeymoon – almost five years ago!

I like writing with a fountain pen. I have a posh nice Parker pen at home but I tend to use these disposable ones on the go so that if they get lost or misplaced it’s not too expensive to replace them (we’re talking £2-3 rather than £10-20). I have been using this blue one at work for about three weeks and it died on me yesterday.

HUGStronger is about helping college girlies find their place – amongst other things. Kaleigh and her team hosted a similar project to Kickstarter via a website called Indiegogo. I was able to donate to this and received a bumper sticker – well I didn’t want to stick it to the bumper of my car but I decided to stick it to the front of my MacBook.

I think this makes it Book 7 of 2012 – I have caught up need to keep reading to stay on track to read 25 books this year (that’s about 1 a fortnight). I’m now reading Divergent by Veronica Roth after my friend Cat suggested it to me. So far it’s good – I think I’m about a quarter through it. (Actually according to GoodReads it’s 13%).

I grabbed this CD from my post pile this morning and stuck it on in the car this morning – I needed some sunshine giving how gloomy and rubbish it was outside. My favourite track is “Just The Way You Are” although “Escape” is replaying in my head as I write this post. (You can find Chantilly’s blog here).

And to finish, it’s my birthday in 8 days – and yes I am probably going to tweet about it every day between now and then lol. I found out earlier today that I am birthday buddies with Ellefie (which I did already know) and ClareBot (which I didn’t know!). I’m a year older than ClareBot and a year younger than Ellefie.

I took this picture earlier but in my crazy crazy ness to try and get other bits done round the house and getting these guys settled (or not so settled when next doors dogs made them jump out of their skins!) I’d managed to take a picture and post it on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter but got no further than that.

We’d put the guinea pigs in their wooden hutch but when Chris got home and checked the weather we realised it was set to drop to about 1C so we got their furry butts back into their plastic cage thingy and brought them in to the kitchen – I’m sure my kitchen will stink of guinea pig by the time I get home from work tomorrow but I’ll forgive them because they are too cute and fluffy!

Prompts from Lauren’s Blog

Prompts this week are created by Jennifer from Jen Loves Scott (+ Baby!)

Here are my answers:

1. My favorite room in my home is the living room because I think it could be the tidiest room in the house at the moment – I epically fail at chores and with Chris being busy with The Fountain, chores seem to fail us lol. I’m trying to catch up and hopefully have a weekend when I’m not doing anything so I can attempt to catch up!

2. My current decor style is cluttered but I wish it were more modern/minimalist/tidy. I’m still working on editing life. I have a taker for some of my books but there are still lots of them to go.

3. I wish I could redecorate the bathroom in my house to make it more I don’t really know – it comes down to that our house was recently redecorated before we moved in – so there isn’t really anything to be done. When it comes to the bathroom I’d probably add some colour because it’s all white and grey/slate/black kinda colour. Maybe add some blue or green. For now it’s just a patterned shower curtain and multicoloured bottles of shampoo, conditioner or shower gel.

4. My dream house absolutely has to have a room for all my junk! Whenever me and Chris discussing “Our Grand Design” house, Chris says the whole house would be minimalist apart from my junk room!

5. One house item I am willing to splurge on is a bed – I can deal with the rest of the house when I’ve had a good nights sleep – I have to have enough sleep or I’m a grumpy moo.

6. A decor trend that I just don’t “get” is I don’t know to be honest. I figure everyone has their own style and it’s your house so go with it.

7. Funky snuggly blankets to curl up in on cold days are a little touch that makes my house feel like home

When I got home I told Chris about the apartment in the film – I thought he’d like the design.

Dear Monday, I gave in, I got up this morning and went to work – I’d been at work about ten minutes and my colleague commented how ill I looked – and I agreed with her – I felt like my brain had been turned to mush. Somehow I got through about three hours of work and then came home. Due to Chris needing the car I had to fit in with when he could get me from work and bring me home but it worked.

Dear Snow, you arrived on Saturday during Tori’s 18th Birthday Party – my Aunt and her best friend were so excited about the snow – You know how in films they have like the young version of a person reacting to the situation then in a blink of an eye it’s switched back to the current time. That’s what it would have been like on Saturday – my aunt and her friend ran out into the snow without coats on – they ran around in circles before heading back in again. Then again I ran outside without a coat or a jumper on and wrote Tori’s name in the snow.

Dear 4pm nap, I’m not entirely sure where you came from, I heard Our Sidekick get in from school but the next thing I knew it was 5pm and Chris was heading out to his meeting. I’m sure I needed it though.

Dear Friend’s, Romans and Countrymen, let me your ears (or mouse clicking finger) please go and vote for us. If you want more information click here then follow the link. Thank you (That’s two clicks and a small bit of reading – it would make a huge difference to The Fountain (Bedford) project if you could take the time to click thank you muchlie).

Dear CJ, (you get two letters a la Today’s Letters) thank you for playing Hannah’s Taxi today – you took me to work (so that you could use the car lol) and then fitted in collecting me from work too. You then went out this evening in the cold and slushie snow to get ingredients for Our Sidekick’s Food Technology homework – technically this was my job but at 7ish when it was dealt with the idea of going out in the cold was just too much for me. Thank you lovely one.

We’d had the meal that my Aunt had cooked with help from her friend. We’d had lovely pudding. We’d done the quiz and my cousin’s team won. We were about to eat birthday cake when something happened.

At about 10:30ish, one of the girls from the party had been heading home and something happened so she’d come back to the building – a lady had slipped over in the alleyway behind the church and couldn’t get up – they’d called an ambulance but it was so snowy that the ambulance hadn’t got through yet.

Well a bunch of us, grabbed coats jumpers and a blanket and went to offer what help we could. When the ambulance did arrive I was shivering and my hands were hurting as I hadn’t stopped for my gloves or coat, I was in a hoodie and went for it (I know bright spark!)

We were waiting for the ambulance and it was getting to the point that this lady was getting really really cold the adrenaline from hurting herself wasn’t keeping her warm. The coats and blanket etc were just soaking up the snow and not really helping. She made the call that she wanted to get into the wheelchair (her friend had been to borrow it from a neighbour in the hope that she could get the lady into the chair without assistance but the lady couldn’t put weight on her leg and her friend couldn’t take enough of her weight to get her into the chair).

I was on the handle bars leaning on the chair to make sure it didn’t over balance. Various people grabbed a hand or an arm and then did what they could to manpurve the lady into the chair, my uncle then helped me push the chair in the snow for the lady to sit herself down in once we’d got her upright.

We all kept chatting to the lady and thankfully the ambulance arrived not much later. The chap in the ambulance got us to pull the wheelchair backwards round the alley way to the ambulance. I had one side, our “honorary” uncle (he’s the youth leader at my old church and everyone called him Uncle even though only 4 of the youth group were actually his nieces/nephews!) was on the other side and Chris was on the same side as me.

The lady kept saying how lovely we were and how lucky she was that’d we’d been at the church and been able to help and things like that.

My hands were red, very sore and cold and the snow had soaked into my socks (I wasn’t really dressed for snow) but I’m glad that our team of good samaritans were there to help otherwise she’d have been sat in the snow for nearly half an hour if not a bit longer given the amount of snow and how unclear the roads were.

Thank you to the ambulance service – it took some time but they got there and the guy was lovely and friendly.

Dear CJ, You got very excited after reading my blog plan a few minutes ago – I’m not entirely sure if you read this though so maybe the plan it is – I am glad though that you show off my blog when you have website meetings.

Dear Our Sidekick, I am still so chuffed about your pizza from the weekend – can you make another one please? I printed off the FB comments about it and I’m going to print out a picture – then again I’m going to get a lot of pictures printed – we need to start your journal/scrapbook thing.

Dear Cousin V, you turned 18 a few weeks ago and it’s your party this weekend – ROCK ON!

Dear CJ (Yes you get two a la Today’s Letters) My appraisal is on Wednesday and I’m a bit nervous about it – will you give me a super big hug so I feel extra spesh?

I managed to snap this one above while Our Sidekick got ready – he’d had to get the scales from our room as Chris had been using them for weighing items to put on eBay and then him and Chris got all the ingredients out of the cupboard and I retreated to the living room to stay out of trouble.

This was the amazing finished article – I posted a picture on Twitter and Facebook and the number of amazing uplifting encouraging comments that came in were awesome. I’m going to print off the Facebook page and stick it into Our Sidekick’s journal/scrapbook so that he can look back and remember how those people encouraged him.

Watching
Lots of TV. It’s not that good lol. I realised that I watch more American TV that British TV (if you didn’t get that already!). I was given Season 1 of Being Erica for Christmas and then bought Season 2 and 3 (in English but they had Dutch subtitles as default so learnt some Dutch at the same time). Want to see Season 4 but I’m not sure if it’ll make it to the UK. I’ve also been watching Covert Affairs. House and Bones (the second two are thanks to my Mum recording them for me because I don’t get Sky). On the other hand I’ve been really loving Call The Midwife, Sherlock and Great Expectations which have been on the BBC recently (Great Expectations was actually on over Christmas but I’ve only just finished it – I decided the Miss Haversham bit at the end was the last thing we needed while eating dinner!).

I also watched 127 Hours this week which probably wouldn’t have been my first choice but actually it’s not as bloody as people made it out to be – okay it’s not pretty but at the same time it’s no more bloody than ER or Grey’s can sometimes be.

Reading
I’m half reading Pride and Prejudice – although I’m doing most of it by audiobook I am reading some of the chapters by book. I realised that I have 3 copies of it but have never read it completely. (One of those is in an anthology like Grigg in Jane Austen Book Club but it’s kind of heavy so I only read that one when I’m at home and can prop it up rather than hold it!). I have like 6 books to read before my Birthday to complete more tasks on my 25 before I’m 26 list. They are: Love Wins by Rob Bell, The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien, two more Austen (Probably including Northanger Abbey so that I can read The Mysteries of Udolpho)

Eating
Probably too much pizza this week but the first meal of pizza was meeting up with my old school friend who I haven’t seen in ages (we sat in the pizza restaurant for 3.5 hours! We sat down at 12:30 and were almost there when the dinner run started lol). We then went out for tea for family night and had pizza but we had a large pizza between three of us which was plenty enough for me lol.

Wearing
Clothes – I bought a brown t-shirt from the charity shop which is a Size 14 which is awesome that it fits without making me look really silly lol.My Size 16 black trousers that I wear for work are getting a bit big now but I’m still not quite small enough to fit back in my Size 14s that I bought a few weeks ago. I really need a Size 15 as I’m not quite one or the other at the moment! Also sticking to layers – can never tell whether it will be cold or hot in our office.

Enjoying
Sleeping – well when it happens as I seem to have hand some insomnia in the last two nights – 2:30am on a work night isn’t fun – I tried reading but even on the lowest brightness on my phone it was still lighting up the room!

Loving
MY BED! I wasn’t very well last week and spent most of the weekend curled up on the sofa or in bed just trying to get rid of the cold.

Thinking About
Friday, our team are going to London for our Christmas Do but because of how busy Christmas gets it was postponed to the New Year. I think I’ve been appointed Tour Guide to make sure we’re heading the right way when we get off the tube at Covent Garden – then again it’s one of my favourite areas of London so we should be fine – I think I just need to wear a really bright hat or take my stripey umbrella so I’m not missed!

We’re off to see The Lion King at The Lyceum which is really exciting – I have already seen it but I love musicals so just going to London to the Theatre makes me excited. I loved the elephant the most last time I went to see it but I can’t find a picture of it – then again all the animals were pretty amazing – the giraffes and the leopard were my next favourites. Bring it on!!

Starter points adopted from: