Work in Progess

I'm getting on quite well with my dress, though its a long way from finished. I've still got a lot to do to it, but I've got the basic corset and skirt done.

Strange that i can work with such dedication on something that isn't going to earn me a penny, but when it comes to designing my Valentine jewellery, I have complete creative block. Hey ho. I'm sure I'll think of something eventually....

Probably on February 15th.

The wanderer wanders in

It's been a while hasn't it? I start up my blog again with full intentions of writing down every detail of my life, and then i go and apparently do nothing for weeks. Well, I'm not doing nothing, I've discovered Bejewelled Blitz on Facebook. And, if i do say so myself, I'm pretty damned good at it. Shame it contributes nothing to my life in general, or indeed, in specific. I'm just wasting hours of my life, matching up jewels. Dear lord.

Not been up to much spectacular recently. I've had the last two Saturdays off from the jewellery shop, and had many, many plans, but then J developed a really painful back (doctors haven't done anything, just given him very powerful painkillers and time off work) so I have spent the last two weekends laying on his bed, watching TV, eating, drinking and getting high. Which is all very nice but i wanted to go to the seaside. But i SUPPOSE i can't blame him for having a bad back really ... can i? No.... S'pose that would be mean.

And I've got a few creative projects in the pipeline. I've been making my Halloween costume (Alice in Wonderland, but a bit gothy), and I've sorted the corset out, I just need to make the skirt and the apron. Yes, it is going to be a slightly more risque Alice, but not as slutty as some of the pre-made Alice costumes. Speaking of which, every costume shop or anything seems to have the same trend. Men get a choice of many costumes, ranging from cowboys to full on Scooby Doo, perhaps via various uniforms and 'hilarious' things like sumo wrestlers. Women get slutty schoolgirl, slutty cat, slutty nurse, slutty cowgirl... even a slutty nun. Apparently, the only women interested in fancy dress are anorexic strippers. An interesting factoid, I'll log that away.

I've also agreed to do a jewellery exhibition on the two weeks running up to Valentine's Day. It was only AFTER i agreed to do this and started trying to design something Valentinesque that i realised I'm shit at designing and can't think of anything remotely good. I don't really want to go down the heart shape route, but what else is there? I thought lockets, but I'm not good enough to make hinges. I also have decided not to buy any more materials, I've got to use what I've already got, seeing as my previous pieces of jewellery haven't really sold, and now I've just got a load of jewellery sat not going anywhere, but that cost me time and money to make. So I'm not buying more stuff til I sell some! But i can't think what says 'Love' other than a heart. I keep going round and round in circles, more and more convinced I'm crap. Yay for me.

Time to get back to designing, I'm going to wring my brain out to try and eek out a good idea. I may burst a blood vessel.

Random Stuff I've Seen That I'm Now Foisting* Upon You

* To those not in the know, here's the dictionary definition;

Foist - to force onto another; "He foisted his work on me"

Alternative usage - ''She foisted her gibberish on me''

A quick update on the smelly moisturiser situation - J said i ''smelled like one of his aunts''. I had a baby wipe scrub. I still got action. I threw the moisturiser away.

Over to the main part of the post.

Over the years, I have seen many things worthy of a quick photo for comedy reasons. Usually, to my eternal regret, I did not have a camera to hand, and so the moment was lost forever. However, with the miraculous invention that is the camera phone, i can rectify this terrible injustice, and lo, there will be odd pictures. Usually i can go ages without seeing these things, but recently there has been a glut of random things. I will share a few of them, if i may.

Firstly, there was this sign on the floor in from of a cash machine. I haven't seen any other cash machine with them, so they are by no means a standard thing. It makes me wonder just how far people are going to go before they start designating other areas of pavement, f'rinstance a section for walking, and a section for loitering. Whatever happened to just a simple ''Shield you PIN'' sign?? No, you've got to get out of my privicy area! Don't crowd the machine!

Secondly, we have one of my pet hates - misspelling. This note has been hanging around my work for ages, blatantly showing off not only its complete disregard for spelling, but also betraying the author's total obliviousness to the concept of the spell checker. Though I must admit, three separate misspellings in one word. Must be some kind of record. Its one 'c'offee and two 's'ugars in 'necessary', you spastic! Obviously, i couldn't bear it anymore, and got out my teacher's red pen. Call me nit picky if you like, but i don't care. I can't hear you.

Finally, on my short ''odd things'' list, i have a friend who can lick his own elbow. If you are a reader of email forwards, you may know that it is claimed that it is impossible to lick one's own elbow. Seems my chum has proved them wrong.

I'll wait a minute until you've stopped trying to lick your own elbow. You won't be able to. He is special.

Tune in tomorrow for my complete bafflement of a penguin tea maker. It sounds amazing beyond belief. It's not.

Transformation into Grumpy Old Lady - Complete

Before we get round to business, why not sit down, get comfortable, take one of the special biscuits I've put on the coffee table for your enjoyment. They aren't an ornament, I don't use plates of biscuits as decoration. I'm just not that kind of person. Take one. TAKE IT! Oooh, a pink wafer, good choice. Now have this very weak cup of tea with full fat milk in a thin china cup with pointy handles and a tasteless floral pattern.

I tried a new body moisturiser today. As a rule, i don't use body moisturiser. It's an extra thing that i don't need in my cleansing routine, what with my excessive amount of hair that needs drying and my almost poetic amount of idleness. Also, I don't see the point of cleaning yourself to whistle standards, then slathering yourself in gloop that will make you dirty immediately. I do have a big bottle of a nice almondy smelling one, but i tend to reserve that for special occasions times when i kid myself that i can get body-wide silky soft skin in one application of lotion. And when i can be bothered.

But this new moisturiser, I thought I'd give it a try. It is one of those ones that build up into a light tan. It's Dove Summer Glow Body Lotion, but i don't know why you would want to know that, this isn't a recommendation. Actually, You do need to know, so you don't make the mistake of buying it. I was lured into the trap by a severely reduced price tag, which should have started alarm bells ringing, but seeing as i was in 'cheap products' mode at Wilkinsons (great shop) after buying my usual 99p shower gel and 38p cotton buds, i wasn't in the right frame of mind. I had been toying with the idea of trying these tanning moisturisers for a while, because my body is not only so white it looks translucent, but I have been wearing summery strappy tops in the sun and now have a rather unattractive jigsaw tan effect. I don't like the idea of full on fake tan, so tinted moisturiser seemed a good compromise. And this Dove stuff was reduced from about £4 to about £1.50, so in the basket it went. I put it on this morning after my shower, and i don't know what they were thinking, but the smell is enough for me to never use it again. If i have to sit here, smelling like this day after day just to build up a tan, I think I'll stay jigsaw coloured. It's a kind of mix of old lady and warm, nearly rancid food. A sickly sweet smell that gets in your nose and gives you a bit of a headache behind your eyes. Urgh. I've just read a few reviews of it on some website, and someone said that it smelled a bit tutti frutti. Has she never smelled tutti frutti? Maybe tutti frutti that had gone off in the corridors of a residential home for the elderly. A nice, fruity, zesty smell, i could work with, in fact, i choose my shampoos etc only on the smell. Herbal Essences and Garnier Fructis are particular winners. But now I'm sat here, smelling of old lady. J is coming over tonight, and I have no time to shower before we go out. And I'm sure he will comment as he doesn't like perfumes or strong smelling things anyway. He said my treasured DKNY Be Delicious smelled of ''gone off melons''. Gotta give him full marks for being specific, if not for tact. It wouldn't have been so bad if i hadn't been wearing it at the time. Ah well. No action for me tonight then, toting my Eau du Mildred et Decay Chaud.

Classy.

To top it all, I wanted wavy hair tonight, so I've twisted my hair into two knots on the top of my head, a la Mrs Lovett, but i just look like a nutty church member that's gone a bit mad and wears oversized knitted cardigans in garish colours. Just sooooo sexy.

I wonder when i get my free bus pass....

Epic Sunday

Best day ever on Sunday! I've been quite shoddy with my posting, but I'll rectify that here and now!

So anyway, Sunday.

Last Tuesday, when we were being barked at for using mobile phones during the quiz (fascists), one of my friends mentioned about her hayfever, so i suggested going to a little place near where we live to get some hayfever pollen tablets. Its a place that had its own bee hives and so makes honey, hayfever pollen capsules and many other bee related things. I wanted also to see if they would be interested in buying any of my bee jewellery. I also said ''hey, we could then go for a picnic in Chatsworth!'' (massive stately home nearby, with huge grounds with a river and deer), so the plan was set, and we continued to get drunk and shouted at for getting text messages.

Come Sunday, i picked everyone up in my teeny Micra (Frank) and headed off to the Bee place. We thought it would be quite a biggish tourist thing, as it is well promoted and well known. But we nearly drove past the entrance, and then when we went in, we were sure it was just someone's house. Turned out that it was owned by an eccentric middle aged woman, with make-up like Barbara Cartland (big blue eyeshadow and big red lipstick), who ''didn't need the money, it's all donated to charity, this is my passion''. We walked about ten metres down the garden, where she told us that we couldn't go any further because the bees were being ''fussy madams'' and that she had been stung over one hundred times on her face yesterday. To be honest, I thought she was fibbing as I'm sure if this was true, she'd have a big bulbous swelled up head, and this wasn't the case. We then went into the bee shop, which was basically a little shed with shelves and shelves of bees related products.

Such as;

Jars of pollen collected off the bees legs, which according to Babs you can live on with nothing else in your diet, and there's an experiment somewhere with rats where the seventh generation of rats were living on only pollen....

A jar of giant hornet honey with a giant, two inch long hornet in it, where the ingredients were listed as ''Giant Hornet Honey; Giant Hornet''

Hayfever pills which you have to take about five of every morning from March to get the full effect

An antibacterial spray that she has sold to Virgin Airlines to spray around the cabins to stop passengers getting TB

plus soaps, candles, bee related tat, honey of many kinds and various ointments. To say we weren't there very long, it was a very rich visit as she was quite clearly a little bit bonkers. Many quoteable lines were taken from that visit, like ''The middle of the ambulance was shitted up!'' and ''You can't take everything, or else they will die!''. A class visit.

Then we poddled off, fully educated about the importance of bees, and went to Chatsworth for our picnic. I rather overbought on food, and only ate about a third of it, but I always say that its better that way than have not enough! It was very pleasant, we had a tartan cloth to sit on, and at one point, a woman walked past with a spaniel puppy that was teeny tiny! Soooo cute! I stole a cuddle and suggested swapping it for a bread roll, which was about the same size, but the woman said that that wouldn't be a very good deal, especially if you weren't hungry. Fair play.

We then went for a paddle in the river, and started feeding some ducks, and before long, they were clambering over my feet and taking the bread straight out of my hand. Good job i did over buy on the bread, otherwise we wouldn't have had the fun of feeding the v cute ducks!

Nom nom nom....

After much fun and larks, we headed back home, and later went to the pub for the Sunday quiz. Strangely, cuz we don't normally go on a Sunday, he didn't have his usual rant about mobile phones. We still didn't win. But much merriment was had. After that we went to the newly built playground in the park next to the pub, and had lots of fun drunkenly trying out the new toys, such as the birthing see-saw...

the sex swing.....

and the basket swing.

And they had a zip line, which is so much better when there isn't a massive queue to wait for one poxy go! When I'm grown up, I'm going to get a massively long one, and it will be amazing!! I can't possibly have children. I'm planning on having a garden full of swings and what-have-you all for me!

So yeah, it was a tremendous day. I wish every day was that much fun!

Office Party

Well, here I am again, alone in the office. In the interest of not going out of my mind, I might liven the place up and have a bit of an office shin dig. I've got a veritable feast of Chewits, a pack of Fruit Salad sweets, a punnet of cherries, two kinder Hippos, a mandarin Muller Light and a tin of mackerel in tomato sauce. And some of the cherries are particularly shiny.



I've got my mp3 player for some rousing music, with such classics as Boney M and the theme tune from The Family Ness (btw way, while i was tracking down that link, I went on a nostalgic trip round the theme tunes of the 80's. Raggy Dolls Rules. Good times), and i could switch the lights on and off very fast to create a strobe light effect.



So, I think I''l just get a glass of Spar summer fruits squash and a paper plate, and get mingling.



Oooh, one of my work friends has just brought me a bottle of wine to say thank you for giving her some lifts to work. This could really make the party pop if it weren't for the fact I have to drive home. Booo. Though I've nearly eaten all these cherries now, they could be fermenting in my stomach as we speak, creating a kind of.... er, what alcohol does cherries make? It's not vodka and cherry coke... *looks it up on google* ....some kind of cherry brandy, apparently, though there are cherry wines, whisky and various cherry liqueurs. Mmmm, lovely. I wonder if there's anything in the handbook about constructing a rudimentary distillery under my desk, to create a cherry, chewit and kinder hippo beverage and the prohibition thereof. Though if i was in the mood for building anything questionable under my desk, it would be a bed so i could sleep the dullness away, and be up at night, ready for action. Well, not action, really, but able to function. I've got a painting stood in my room that I've been working on for ages now, mainly because I'm too tired to start doing it after work. I made the mistake of laying down yesterday for a second, and immediately fell asleep. Then when i woke up i felt all out of sorts because I'd had a random sleepie.



I'm making triangles out of the Chewit wrappers now. Its fun, and more dainty than using crisp packets.

Ok, I'm so bored i can't be bothered to eat. That's extreme. I might have to actually do some work. After the conga, of course.

Sneaky Posting Continues....

It's Monday again, look. Booo. Am alone in the office for a while, so the temptation to save my work until someone is here to observe me doing it is too much, and I've succumbed to Internettage. Am soooo sleepy, was up til three in the morning last night watching the first series of Project Runway on You Tube. Have still got the final to watch. It's so daft. You can really tell where it's been edited, so it's all choppy with very polished voice overs from Heidi Klum when she is supposed to be just talking off-camera. I watched Project Catwalk with Kelly Osbourne a while ago, and her completely wooden presenting style was a treat for both the eyes and ears.

So yeah, watching the final tonight, and hopefully won't get sucked into watching the second series, otherwise I'm going to get nothing done at all ever again. There's about 6 series', so I would be there for quite a while. Yes, i know i could ration it and watch a few a night, but when have i ever been good at restraint? I can't even stop myself eating cheese every time i go in the fridge.

Haven't really got much else to witter on about really, I've got out of the 'is this a blog-worthy event' mindset. Either that or I'll have to do more interesting things with my life!