You Wanted More

Jane's been moaning that we haven't been blogging again! Believe me, I know how frustrating it is to keep checking a blog only to find it hasn't been updated since the last time you looked. However, some of us don't have as much time infront of the pc as we would like; life just kinda gets in the way! Sorry Jane.... :-( (Plus, you have the added advantage of those gorgeous boys to blog about! I am short on material in the week...)

Anyhoo, yesterday we had another meet up of ladies from the CBC forum . It was a much smaller affair than earlier in the year, but just as much (if not more) fun than last time and I, for one, didn't feel as overwhelmed as I did before.

What I liked about this meet, as opposed to the last couple I've been to, was that we all sat around a big table and actually made some cards. Well, some of the girls did. Some of us just sat and watched the creative juices flowing! It was great to all join in, doing the very thing that brought us all together in the first place and I think it helped to break down some of the little groups that tend to form at these things.

Once again, it was lovely to meet some new faces as well as catch up with those that are more familiar. I was again amazed at the lengths some people will go to to come to these events. I am lucky in that it's only a half hour drive for me, but others spent hours in their cars, on trains or even flew to be there. Guest of honour Annmarie finally made it after several disasters involving knickers and train delays and it was fab to finally meet her for real!

We all had a real laugh, especially at Em, demanding poor Barry in Burger King give her more paper bags (after the disappointment of not finding any in the ladies loos.... - the lengths we crafters will go to for our art!) and Lucy's fantastic new range of greetings for the charity cards ('Let In Snow, anyone?) and I only have to say "Code 54, MOD DOWN!!!" and several people will be in hysterics.

Thank you to all involved for a fabby day out and shame on you to those who dropped out - you missed a brilliant time! Here's to the next one.....

Mad About You

Nothing interesting to say - just wanted to share some of the latest piccies of my babies...

Sorry about the poor quality of this one, but it's my favourite. One of those 'quick, grab the nearest camera (mobile phone)!' moments....

Ocean Blue

Eeeeuuurgh!! I've just spent the best part of four days on that there ship. I can honestly say it was one of the least pleasurable experiences of my life. Way back in the year, D decided he would really like us to go on a mini-cruise, to celebrate our anniversary in September. At the time I didn't give it much thought and was impressed by the very reasonable price, so told him to go ahead and book it. Big mistake. It was only recently that I began to realise that this little jaunt would mean around 35 hours stuck on a ship to Spain, about 4 hours actually in Spain and then another 28 or so hours to get back to good old Blighty. Add to this that I am a renowned motion sickness-sufferer and I started to panic. "You'll be fine!" everyone told me. "You can hardly feel it move - take some tablets and you'll be okay." Yeah. Right....

So, I spent the whole of Tuesday inside my teeny cabin, trying to stop my stomach from rolling with the ship. It was like trying to sleep on a roller coaster. I wouldn't mind, but the sea wasn't even remotely rough! Never have I been more happy to see dry land than when we reached Santurtzi in Spain early on Wednesday morning. It didn't matter that it was one of those slightly crap port-y towns where not a lot is open and you have to eat weird food for breakfast as there's not much choice. I would have eaten a scabby Spanish donkey after refusing all sustenance on Tuesday for fear of its reappearance.

I was gutted we had to get back on that floating hell-hole after just a few short hours. However, I decided I would peruse the on-board shop while the ship was still docked and discovered the miracle of 'acu-bands'! Now, I have tried these before, when I worked on the trains and, quite frankly, they were crap. However, desperate times and all that, and these seemed quite swanky, so I thought I'd at least give them a go. I sat out on deck as we left and there I stayed for the next 8 hours or so. I felt fab! No ickiness whatsoever while I was out there. I even managed to see some whales blowing and dolphins frolicking, which is what I was really looking forward to. I also managed to snap this bootiful sunset, which, believe me, was no mean feat on a rocking boat with a force 10 gale blowing around you.

I have to say, that Thursday was much the same as Wednesday, just chilling out on the deck, sitting in the glorious sunshine (and the force 10 gale!) and watching the scenery go by. Well, when I say scenery, I mean the sea-nery really. I even quite enjoyed myself, but was very disappointed not to be able to take part in the bingo, game of Family Fortunes or to watch the P&O Players do their Abba tribute.... Hmmm, maybe not!

I was rather glad to get home last night after our somewhat epic journey. I don't think it's one we'll be repeating again soon. Or ever.

Anyone

1. Which famous person would you most like to learn that you are descended from?

Hmmmm, this is tough. It depends on why they’re famous. It would have to be someone who gained notoriety for their good deeds, rather than because they married a footballer or bared their boobs on Big Brother… Florence Nightingale – brave and caring.

2. Which famous person would you hate to learn that you are descended from?

Apart from the obvious peeps, such as Hitler, Stalin et al? I guess John McCrirrick…

3. If you could be ancestor to any living famous person, who would it be and why?

Someone really clever like Stephen Hawking, so I could say I taught him everything he knows…

4. If you could go back in time and meet any known ancestor(s) of yours, who would it be?

I would love to meet my Italian ancestors. My Grandad’s (Mom’s Dad) grandparents came over from Italy many years ago (apparently they brought with them the baked potato machine doo-dah’s you see on the street and were the Italian ‘king and queen’ of Birmingham at one time). We descend from a family by the name of Fezza (I think) from Assisi, so I would love to know more about them.

5. Tag 5 others....

Okay, er, Jane, Carolyn, Lucy, and two random readers, if I have any!

4 Ever 2 Gether

D and I celebrated our first wedding anniversary yesterday. Wow, where did that year go? We've had a really uppy-downy kind of year too, but we seem to have made it through. D's sister died just days after we returned from our honeymoon; I found a job after 3 months unemployment and then have been promoted twice since; we have an ongoing problem we're dealing with; I've come off my anti-depressants; we've increased our bunny-family and decided that maybe it's time we started trying for a real baby too. Through all of this, our love for, patience with and understanding of each other has remained strong - grown even. Marriage - I highly recommend it!

Don't Stop Believin'

Had some sad news today :-( My best friend Andrea is pregnant - after about 2 years of trying, tests and "there's nothing actually wrong with you"s. That's obviously not the sad news! We found out a couple of months ago and she's due in January. She sent me a text today to say she's been for her 20 week scan and she's expecting a little girl. ( I knew it!!) However, it appears that the scan showed she (the baby) has a serious heart defect and will require surgery when she's born and that there is a higher chance she could have Down's Syndrome.

I am just so sad at the injustice! What has she or her hubby done to deserve the heartache they've had over the last couple of years? This baby is so wanted and they have so much love to give. Of course, that will never change, no matter what happens and I truly believe that children with special needs are born to those who are strong enough to cope, but still! To now have to face the prospect of their daughter having major heart surgery before they can even take her home...

On a lighter note, tomorrow we're off to the wedding that 'the wedding order' was for, so I have to look at those bloody hearts again! Just hope the rain holds off. She should have known better than to get married on a Bank Holiday weekend.

Here is another picture of Ozzy and D that I caught without them knowing. He's going home tomorrow and we are sooooo gonna miss him!

Another One Bites The Dust

I know, I know!! I'm reeeeeeeally sorry (Kathy B)! I just haven't had the time to blog this week. However, I have now finished 'the wedding order'! Ta-daaaaaaa! Hoo-bloody-ray.... I've just delivered it to the bride and groom and they seemed thrilled (and gave me a nice big wodge of money), so that's eased the pain somewhat. ('Wodge' - there's another word I like!)

So, all is quiet really. Ozzy has settled in well and I'm really going to miss him when he goes home in a week. I never knew dogs could sleep so much! Or perhaps we're just wearing him out with walking? I have really enjoyed taking him out each evening; it's so nice to go for a walk for a purpose, rather than just to have a walk. The buns seem to have accepted his presence as inevitable and no longer run and hide when he goes into the kitchen. I've tried to upload a picture of Ozzy, but my browser keeps crashing when I do it, so perhaps I'll not try again...

We went to the farm with work on Friday. I was dreading it - especially when I saw the weather forecast, but we had a great day! Well, until we came back and one of the children started having an asthma attack. I had to phone an ambulance - never done that before. Why is it that you have all the answers to the potential questions you think they will ask, but then when you do, your mind goes blank and you're actually not very helpful at all?... She was okay in the end - phew!

I'm going, before the PC completely crashes. It would be Sod's Law, especially as I have just ordered a new external hard drive on which to back everything up....

I Know There's Something Going On

Meet Ozzy. Ozzy is staying with us for the next two weeks while my brother and his family are on holiday. Something tells me Ozzy has decided he's not to sure about this! I mean, I know Cavalier King Charles spaniels have those sad-looking eyes anyway, but he reeeeeally doesn't look too chuffed, does he? I actually feel quite honoured that they trust us enough to look after him. The first time they went abroad after they had him, they left him at home, with a friend to house/dog sit. Upon their return, they discovered that this so-called friend had spent just two out of 14 nights at the house - goodness knows what the poor puppy was feeling. He was absolutely terrified when they got home and had regressed back to proper untrained-puppy behaviour. They haven't been abroad since.... Until now. We've all got some adjusting to do; the poor rabbits were startled when I took him through the kitchen to get to the back garden, so I've had to fence them into their area and try to block him from their view, but they are very jumpy whenever I go into the room. Ozzy is going to be 'based' in the living room, so this means the buns won't be able to use it until they get used to him - if at all. We've also got their hamster, JefforDennis (they argue over the name - there were two but one died recently and they never really decided which was which!). So, in total , that makes 2 hamsters, 2 rabbits and a dog.... Think I might start charging the local kids to come to my 'petting zoo'.



In other news.... I am feeling loads better than I was. A couple of days off work and a good talk to the people that matter have sorted me out and I can feel the dark cloud clearing again. Thank you for your good wishes. As a treat to cheer myself up, I went to a local craft shop yesterday and bought some scrummy double-sided cardstock. It's hugely expensive for what it is, but I've been admiring it for ages as I love the colours, so I thought, 'what the heck!'. If you can't treat yourself when you're down, when can you?

Afternoon High

Gah! I'm having such a pants time at the moment and no idea why. Depression is a horrible beast and one which lulls you into thinking you're okay - then jumps out from behind the proverbial bush and shouts "BOO!" while beating you about the head with a big wet fish....

Still, enough of that. Yesterday afternoon I made.... two cards!!! Wooooohooooooo!!!!!!!!!!!! I just had to have a break from the monotony that is 'The Wedding Order' (having nightmares about those sodding hearts - no wonder I'm depressed!). Card template challenge number 6 is posted on the forum and as I had a couple of cards to do, I just had to have a go.




This one was made using paper from one of the many DCWV pads Carolyn sells in her shop as well as the pink grosgrain ribbon and primas.








The one on the right also uses papers and ribbons from the shop, as well as the gorgeous Kissy Fit sequin flowers. I just love black, white and hot pink!!
I'm not totally happy with either of them, but am happy that I actually managed to sit down and do something less boring instead (hmm, there's a TV theme in there somewhere!!). These challenges are great for providing inspiration. I also managed to do my pages in a circle journal I'm in, but can't show you cos it'll ruin the surprise!

Right, I'm off to feed the two very cheeky bunsters that seem to have appeared in the living room! I can't get away with being late giving them dinner, cos they know!! Laters.....

Back on the Chain Gang

Eurgh! I have just spent the most boring day working on a wedding stationery order for my friend Karen who gets married at the end of the month. Shoot me down in flames, but I have gradually come to hate doing this kind of work. I absolutely love crafting - making cards is my main thing, although I am in love with the idea of scrapping (but just haven't got around to actually doing it). I guess wedding stationery is a fairly natural progression for many card makers and at first it seemed like a good idea. I loved coming up with new designs, I loved that brides thought my work was fantastic and I loved seeing the finished product all packaged neatly, ready to send out. However, it is the most monotonous, repetitive thing I have ever done (and I have worked on a supermarket checkout!). I'm so glad I decided not to make this my full-time job (once a distinct possibility when staring redundancy in the face). However, I really, really miss crafting for crafting's sake! I just want to be able to sit in my craft room, amongst my stash and play to my heart's content.

To give you an idea of my day today, take a look at the following picture...

What you see here is a pile of 100 die-cut hearts. What I see is a good couple of hours of torture (is there such a medical condition as 'sizzix hand'?) Unfortunately for me, this innocent-looking little heart features pretty heavily in several of my wedding designs. They look lovely, but are a bugger to make! If I never see another heart again, it'll be too soon! Today I have also printed the covers for 100 Orders of Service - each piece of card fed manually through my crappy printer and I have also cut 100 pieces of card on which to mount the damn hearts.... Thank goodness I have had 4 hours of America's Next Top Model to help me through the pain barrier!

And tomorrow's fun-packed day? Yep, more hearts - only smaller....

Fame

Okay, so I haven't got round to scrapping it yet, but I couldn't resist sending my pic to www.crocsfans.com . Check it out!! Having a bit of a pants time at the moment, so this has cheered me up. (Doesn't take much, I know...)

Holiday

'Tis okay, fellow bloggers, I have not fallen from the face of the earth and you can all rest easy in your beds tonight! I have, in fact, spent the last week in glorious Devon - here, to be precise. A whole seven days in a field, surrounded by a load of total strangers all sharing a common interest in sleeping under canvas and performing ablutions in a portakabin.... No TV, no t'internet, no bunnies (!) and no privacy! And I have to admit, after all the moaning and complaining that I wasn't looking forward to it, I loved every minute of it - well, except for last night, when D, and one bloke from each of our neighbouring tents decided to hold a snoring contest... D found me in the wee hours dozing in the car with the gear stick wedged somewhere it shouldn't have been.

I won't bore you with the details of what we've been up to, suffice to say that we had a fantastic time and a real 'family' holiday - a few trips out and lots of time spent on the beach. It was lovely swimming in the sea on such hot days. We couldn't have asked for better weather. The pic at the top is Dawlish beach in the morning as the tide was on its way out.

This is one of the boys in the sea, playing with the rubber ring D bought. "Best £2.99 I've ever spent" he kept repeating to me. Well, at least they had fun. The sea looks deceptively calm in this pic - most of the time there were some waves and we all took a tumble in the surf at some point!

We hardly saw J as he spent all his time on the campsite playing with all the other (hundreds) of kids. Actually, it was lovely to see him with other children, as he's an only child and we only ever really see him interact with adults. I found out that he's actually quite bossy and was definitely the ring-leader, which quite surprised me. We always knew where he was even if he was out of site as he seems to have inherited his mother's er, how can I put this, oh, okay, big gob!

So, today we returned, secretly pleased that the weather seems to have taken a turn for the worse but very sad that our little holiday has come to an end. I hate coming back from Devon as D gets really down. We both would really like to live down there someday and each time we go on holiday it strengthens our resolve, but we know we are stuck here for the time being. Hey-ho, back to 'real life' I guess... Still, I get to see my babies again tomorrow, when I go to retrieve them from Louise who has very kindly been looking after them for me. I dread to think of the havoc they have wreaked! Apparently they escaped their cage in her living room one night and jumped all over her poor, unsuspecting son who was asleep on the sofa....

I have managed to catch up on all the blogs, I think, but boy, you lot can natter! I will get round to posting comments when I can, but I am bogged down the next couple of weeks with a CJ, a memory book and a wedding order to complete - eeeek!!! I'll need another holiday afterwards!

To finish, here is an arty-farty shot I took of my beloved 'Athens' Crocs, which have not been off my feet all holiday and were great to wear in the shower (after all, you never know who was in there before you(!)). In the past week I have seen that the media has finally jumped on the Crocs bandwagon - I read about them in The Sun, Heat and Now magazines. Just remember kids, it was Lythan wot saw 'em first, then me, then the rest of the world !!

The Heat Is On

Phew! Bloody hell it's hot! I am so crap in the heat - unless I'm lying in some shade, next to a gorgeous azure swimming pool that I can just dip in whenever I feel the need.... I so need to take the buns out for a run, but it's even too warm in the evening as our garden gets the sun all day. I have put out a bottle of frozen water for them to lie against, but they're just eying it suspiciously and don't really know what to do with it...

I've just come back from the doctor's. Not been for quite a while and keep forgetting that I haven't yet changed my name since getting married and that I still live with my parents *oops!* For about two years now, I've had a clicky jaw. I first noticed it when I was eating anything particularly chewy and occasionally it would lock and I'd have to punch myself to get it back to normal (how weird did that look?!). Anyhoo, it's been getting worse and worse and over the last couple of months it's become unbearable - clicking all of the time, whether I'm talking, eating or just breathing. It locks regularly and this is very embarrassing if I'm eating in front of others and my mouth only opens slightly, thwarting the chances of that big forkful from entering! And the noise the clicking makes is just horrendous! I thought it was just loud as it was next to my ear, but apparently everyone else can hear it too.

So, I've done a bit of research and I reckon it could be temporomandibular joint disorder. Yeah, try saying that if you have it! I wondered if there was anything the doctor could do, or whether I would need to see a dentist - I don't have one, as they are too expensive, but that's a whole other story! I tell her what's wrong, she puts her hands either side of my jaw and I demonstrate... Her eyes nearly pop out and she made a sort of "eeeuuurrch!" noise. She said it's the worst case she's seen (and heard!) and that I should be referred to the maxillofacial people at the Queen Elizabeth hospital in Birmingham, if I would like? Er, yes please! "They may want to operate," she says. "I can't live with this anymore," I reply.

So, there will be a referral letter winging it's way to my parents' house sometime soon, I hope. Glad I went now... I think!

Yes

Been tagged by Jane, so here you go! (Do you realise the problems I have trying to find titles for these posts? Will soon be resorting to songs from all decades and films, so please don't be disappointed in me Lythan!)

Gone on a blind date -Yes
Skipped school -No
Seen someone die -No
Snuck out of your parent's house -No
Been in love- Yes
Been dumped - Yes
Been laid off/fired (Made Redundant!!) -Yes
Quit your job Yes
Been in a fist fight?- Not a proper one!
Had feelings for someone who didn't have them back -Yes
Been arrested -No
Been to Canada -Yes
Been to Mexico -No
Been on the opposite side of the world -Almost
Been to Paris - Yes
Cried yourself to sleep -Yes
Played cops and robbers -Yes
Recently coloured with crayons -Most days
Sang karaoke -Yes
Paid for a meal with only coins - Yes
Done something you told yourself you wouldn't -Yes
Made prank phone calls -Yes
Caught a snowflake on your tongue -Yes
Danced like nobody was watching - No
Been kissed under the mistletoe -Yes
Watched the sun rise with someone you care about -Yes
Blown bubbles -Last week
Crashed a party -Yes
Gone roller-skating-Yes
Ice-skating -Yes
Crashed a car -Yes
Swam in the ocean -Yes
Felt like dying -Yes :(
Made a bonfire on the beach - No
Drank so much you threw up -Once - I don't do vomit - and it wasn't the amount, it was the drink!
Laughed until some kind of beverage came out of your nose -Yes
Knitted ? -Yes
Skinny dipped ? -No

Wow, that's a lot of 'yes's'! Does that make me quite adventurous, or did I have a silly youth?

Four In The Morning

Four things about ...Kel

A ) Four jobs I have had in my life:

1. Money collector for a charity magazine
2. Checkout girl at Sainsbury's
3. Trolley Dolly for well-known, much hated train company
4. Recruitment Consultant (well, for 5 weeks, before I realised it 'wasn't for me')

B ) Four movies you would watch over and over:

1. Stand By Me
2. Pretty Woman
3 Dirty Dancing
4 Grease

C ) Four places you have lived:

1. Rosslyn Road
2. Turchill Drive
3. Oaklands Croft
4. Kingston Court (Okay, so I have always lived in the same town - I'm not adventurous, okay?!)

D ) Four TV shows you love to watch:

1. CSI (Vegas)
2. Prison Break
3. Lost
4. Any of those 'Rebus' 'Trial and Retribution', 'Wire in the Blood' type shows

E ) Places I have been on holiday:

1. Hawaii
2. Vancouver
3. Portugal
4. Cyprus

F ) Four websites you visit daily:

1. Carolyn's
2. Rabbits United
3. My blog (yep, the one you're reading) so that I can use my links to read others'
4. QVC

G ) Four of my favourite foods:

1. Italian - mmmm, pasta!!
2. Mom's roast dinner
3. Fish and chips
4. Sea bass, preferably from my fave restaurant - O Alambique in Silves, Portugal

H ) Four places I would rather be right now:

1. The Cheesecake Factory in Waikiki for dinner, followed by a walk along Waikiki Beach...
2. ...failing that, O Alambique in Portugal to eat my sea bass (see above!)
3. Wherever my husband is, seeing as he's not here :(
4. In Gerry and Dolph's swimming pool here - the second bestest ever holiday after my honeymoon!

Okay, now it's your turn! I'd love to know more about you, especially if you are an anonymous reader... please answer the questions in your own blog and leave a comment to let me know x

Who's That Girl?

... With the bloke's hair cut? Oh. My. God. What the heck have I done? So, here's how it happened...

I have a mobile hairdresser come to my house. She's been cutting my family's hair for years and years and is lovely and does a cracking trim. However, I should, by now, have learnt my lesson when it comes to a restyle and go to a salon, but the trouble is that she is so very reasonably priced and convenient. Every so often, she gets it just right and I'm dead chuffed with the result, but, on more than one occasion, I have sworn that it's the last time and I will have to start asking for recommendations for a new stylist.

Now, I'm not at all precious about my hair. I grow it long, I cut it all off, I dye it all sorts of colours. At the end of the day, it's just hair and it will grow back - quickly, in my case. We're off on a camping holiday soon, so I thought it would be a great idea to get a lovely, easy-to-manage gamine crop, so I don't have to faff with straightners and all sorts of products, or spend the week looking like a chav in a baseball cap. I've had it cropped before - it was very nice, thank you. My hair wasn't exactly long earlier today, so I wasn't expecting a huuuuuge difference...

Eeeeeeek!!!! I swear there was a small furry mammal on the patio after she had finished! I thought we had gained a strange-looking dark bunny. Who knew so much hair could be cut from an already short hair-do? She hands me the mirror - "it's great!" I say. "It'll be fine once I've washed it and put some wax on it," I think to myself. It wasn't. I ran upstairs to dye it and hide the remnants of the increasing number of white hairs that seem to be appearing lately. I dried it (it took about 30 seconds!) and I styled it. It looked THE SAME!!! I reckon I could have done as good a job with a set of clippers and a number 3 guard on the blade.

I sent D a warning text. He hates it when I do this to my hair and I'm sure he'd much prefer it long, but it's not his hair, is it? He phoned, I cried and became somewhat hysterical. I never cry over my hair. He told me he will work as much overtime as is humanly possible so that we can afford for me to go to a salon next time. I tried re-styling it and putting on lots of makeup to look more girly. Finally, it didn't look too bad.

So, I am being very brave... Here I am now (remember, I am a 29 year old woman, not a 15 year old boy):

See that? That's what they call a 'brave face'. Now all I have to do is sit and wait for it to grow...

The Flame

Ooooh, heaven!! I spent today at a fire fighter training centre!! How jealous are you? ;-p I was nominated to go on a fire warden course for work and was dreading it. I have done a couple of this sort of course in my previous guise as a Virgin bird, and they can be really boring, but this one was actually rather interesting and informative. Of course, it helped that the trainer was quite cute and that there were quite a few fit young trainee fire fighters decoratively adorning the place.... What is it about women and firemen? It's not as if the uniform is even nice any more, but if a bunch of them drive past in their big red truck, us girls almost pass out! Mind you, I quite like other 'uniformed' jobs, especially the police in those all-black get-ups they wear when they want to look really hard - mmmmmm!

Oh yeah, I got to put out three fires and everything! Check me....

Where Were You When The Storm Broke?

... In our new tent-and-tunnel combo Mom!! Bought it from good old Sainso's for half the original price and I think it's a hit. Obviously, it's meant for children, but the buns are my kids, n'est ce pas? What is it with those pop-up tents though? Once they're out of the cover there's no way on earth they're going back in again! The instructions state, "The tent should twist easily into a circle". Please note the use of the word 'should'...

I'm having a 'fat' day today. Now, I'm not usually hung up about my weight; I'm a chuffer and I know it. I eat a lot of the wrong foods and I know the only way I can help myself is to eat healthy and exercise. Problem is I don't like healthy and I don't have time for exercise... Today, however, I met up with my very lean friend K to hand over some wedding invites I've made for her and we went to Starbucks for a drink. I defy anyone to resist their blueberry (or was it blackberry?) whirl cheesecake! I consider myself quite the cheesecake connoisseur and this one is to die for. So, I then felt really guilty for eating it, especially as I'd spent an hour walking around town and my poor thighs were starting to chafe as I was wearing a skirt - god, how embarrassing to admit that! Still, I guess the hour's walking meant that the cheesecake calories didn't count, right?

I've been thinking about Kathy's song challenge and not coming up with too much. I know there are loads of songs that make me go 'aaah!', so I think I'll just have to add them to posts as and when I think of them. For starters, I'll have to have:

Bon Jovi - Thank You For Loving Me (of course!) and also 'I'll Be There For You'
Bryan Adams - 'Heaven' and 'I'll Always Be Right There' (MTV Unplugged versions)
Extreme - 'More Than Words'
Randy Crawford - Almaz
Snow Patrol - Chasing Cars

More to follow - can't think at the moment as D has Scuzz music channel on and I can't concentrate over the row!

Heat of the Night

Urgh! It's too damn HOT!!! I know, I know, we moan when it's cold and we moan when it's hot, but this really is hot. It's just so muggy and icky and I get all yucky and sticky at work and we've had to keep the children inside as it was just too hot to play out today. I am sat here wearing a very dodgy outfit but I just don't care cos no-one can see me and I feel relatively cool! The fan blasting out behind me may have something to do with that though... I do worry about the bunsters in this weather though - imagine being covered in all that fur in this heat?! I gave them a bottle of frozen water to lie against this morning, but I'm guessing they haven't a clue what it's for and have ignored it all day...

The trouble with this kind of weather is that I just don't feel like doing anything. Going to work is bad enough, but once I get home I just want to flop on the sofa and I feel like Kevin the Teenager from Harry Enfield. I have, however, made a card for the current template challenge on Carolyn's forum and as demonstrated by Kathy B . I'm quite liking this one actually :-)

Damn Blogger for making the pictures look crap!! Oh well, you get the idea... Right, I think I will go and watch Big Brother in bed (can't believe I'm still watching it *rolls eyes*) I'm glad D is on nights this week and I get the bed to myself. It's bad enough trying to sleep next to the snoring, grunting, farting monster that is my lovely hubby, but combine it with the heat and I don't stand a chance...

19

Yummmmm!! Went out with the work girlies last night for a scrummy meal at Jimmy Spice's in Solihull. I like it as it's an all-you-can-eat buffet type of affair, which is fab if you're an indecisive bod like me. It does seem a tad weird to have pizza, curry, pasta and spring rolls all on the one plate, but you only live once, eh? Only disappointment was that there was no choccie cake for pudding, so I had to have apple pie with my ice cream and flumps...

Now I know I am getting older when I go out with the work gang as we seem to split into two distinct groups of 'oldies' and 'youngsters'. (Obviously I am an 'oldie' by age, but a 'youngster' at heart... yeah, right! Actually, I was the oldest there last night - eeek!) A couple of the girls are still in there teens and watching them getting louder and lairy as the alcohol consumption increases is more embarrassing than funny. Was I like that at their age? Well, no, actually, but that's a story for another day... I guess I did behave like that when I started going out drinking, but that was when I was 15 and I grew out of it pretty early on. I'd be horrified if I thought my daughter was sneaking into pubs and clubs and getting hammered on 8 pints of strong cider a night! (I couldn't even drink one pint now without getting tipsy....)

How times have changed! We used to spend our Friday and Saturday evenings sitting on the benches outside the offy in the Aston Triangle at Aston Uni (see blog from 1st June) until we were brave enough to try getting past the bouncers at the Pot of Beer. Other haunts included The Hummingbird nightclub in Dale End (now the Carling Academy) and The Institute nightclub in Digbeth. I can't believe I was only 15!! When I look at girls that age now, it scares me how young they are, yet how mature they think they are, and I guess I must have been the same. I think I was fairly responsible though, as although I liked a drink, I could hold it well and never got so rat-arsed that I didn't know what I was doing. I never did drugs or went off with strange men and always made sure I got a male friend to walk me and my best mate to the bus stop for the last bus home. Funniest part of the night was walking in the front door, trying to pretend I wasn't that drunk and chewing on gum to disguise the smell of ciggies on my breath! Oh, I thought I had my parents fooled....

So, back to last night; a good night was had by all and we 'oldies' departed at about 11 pm after finishing our J2Os and walking back to the car in our sensible shoes. After a cuppa at my boss's house, I came home to spend a very hot, restless night in bed before getting up at stupid o'clock to take D to work. Thank goodness he's on nights this week - I might be able to get some kip!