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June 2nd, 2011
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07:20 pm
So, last week JamesofDoom (I don't know how to link to profiles on the app, sorry James!) expressed surprise at the fact that I'm still alive in LJ-land so I thought it was maybe time to give you an update of what's been going on with me. I think the last time I did a proper update was just after we bought our house back at the end of 2008 so this update has been long overdue.
I'm going to start with the good - we've welcomed another new nephew into the family, this time on the OH's side. He is just over a year old now, utterly adorable and only lives 5 mins up the road from us so we get to see him all the time. The OH loves being a proper uncle and is incredibly cute with him, especially as they look so alike :)
We also welcomed two new members into our furry family last summer - two seven-week old kittens who go by the name of Ozzy and Lilly, bringing our brood up to 4. They turned 1 last month and are just gorgeous, and I will admit to having a soft spot for Lilly, especially as she claimed me for herself last August.
Not so good news now - I mentioned that we bought a house in November 2008, in January 2009 the OH and I (we worked at the same company) had to take a paycut as the business wasn't doing so well. It limped on until this time last year when I was told my job was being made redundant. The OH's job was safe, thankfully, or so we thought, as the company ended up going out of business altogether the week after I left. Our luck with getting new jobs has been a bit up-and-down - I've been able to get some temping work but they've been few and far between, and we're both waiting to hear back from recent interviews - everyone keep your fingers crossed!
Unfortunately that's all the news I have for you right now, hopefully next time I update it will be to say we've won the lottery or something (a girl can hope) :D
I've just signed up to photobucket as I want somewhere to store my photos as a backup in case my computer goes bang and I lose them all. However, I don't want anybody to be able to see them - I've set my account to 'block all users', is this all I have to do?
This weekend I barely left the house as I was still exhausted from the previous weekend. We'd been up early last Saturday to dash to the airport for our 10am flight to Amsterdam, and as it was pissing down and we knew it was sunny in Holland we were in quite a good mood. Until it came to getting from the car park to the terminal - we were cutting it fine time wise and didn't want to wait for the shuttle bus to the terminal so we made a dash for it, and ended up soaked to the skin. So the plane journey was a bit miserable as we were sitting in wet clothes, but as promised the sun was shining in Amsterdam. Schipol airport is amazing though, it's not really an airport, more of a biiig shopping centre that just happens to have planes landing beside it. We were met by a friend of Hubby's who we were staying with, then we had a 2-hour train journey out to the village he lives in, where we dumped our bags and went on to the reason we were in Holland in the first place: Iron Maiden were playing at a racetrack just outside his village. It was my second time seeing them and they were amazing!! Couldn't see shit though - god the Dutch are tall! Had a decentish view of the video screen though. We had a bit of a spooky lunar eclipse during Fear of the Dark as well - very well timed eh? We sorta missed all the support acts though as we were too busy queuing to buy the tokens needed to buy food and drink, then queuing for said food and drink, then t-shirts - it was just my luck that all the girlie t-shirts sold out really quickly though :( You know what's nice about metal crowds though - everyone gets pissed but there's never any hassle or fights. Though that might have something to do with all the weed being smoked at that particular gig though ;)
We had sort of intended to go into Amsterdam on the Sunday but we were so tired after the gig we had no mission of leaving the house. It's been a couple of years since we saw Hubby's mate so we just spent the day catching up before getting the train back to the airport. And that's where the fun began. We'd heard from home that there was some flooding the day before, so we weren't really too surprised to discover the flight was delayed by an hour or so. We had a wander about the airport and then went for something to eat, and as we were finishing up I went to check the board and the flight had been cancelled! We raced to the nearest information point where a security guard told us where we needed to go to get sorted - of course he had directed us to completely the wrong place. We eventually found the easyjet desk and joined the back of a rapidly growing queue and eventaully made it to the front. As there's only one flight a day from Amsterdam to Belfast we had no hope of getting a direct flight home, so we were rebooked onto a flight to Luton first thing the following morning, then a flight from Luton to Belfast at 5pm. We were put up in a hotel that night though, we weren't expecting much from it to be honest but it turned out to be 4-star!!! Unfortunately we were just about in it long enough to sleep so we didn't get much of a chance to enjoy it, but I looked it up when I got home and our room was 175 euros a night!! We were up at 6am for our half 8 flight to Luton and god, what a shithole Luton airport is! It's bloody freezing and there's nothing in it - not a problem when you've only an hour to kill before a flight, but we were there for over 8 hours. I've never been so glad to get home in my life.
I've been bad about updating again haven't I? I think it's cos of work - it's particularly shitty at the moment and I'm under loads of pressure and am feeling stressed to the hilt. Which has been causing me to feel very run down of late - I'm constantly tired and feel as if I'm getting the cold but it never materialises. As such I haven't been out and about very much but I have made it to the cinema twice.
Batman I suppose you can't really talk about Batman without mentioning Heath can you?? His performance was absolutely chilling, and the word psychotic doesn't even come close to his version of the Joker. It wasn't as weird watching him as I thought - maybe cos of the makeup, you kinda forgot it was him after a while. I think he'll be at least nominated for the Oscar and it will be well deserved if he gets it. I did wonder beforehand if his death would influence things but his performance is worthy of it. Although the film was long it really didn't feel like it, an hour and a half into it I looked at my watch and was surprised at how much time had passed. Christian Bale was good as Batman, but his Batman voice started to get on my nerves after a while - way too much heavy breathing. I wonder if Bruce Wayne also moonlights as a chat-line operator when he's not beating up bad guys or making yet more millions?? Notable mentions also go to Gary Oldman and Morgan Freeman. Oh, I almost forgot! I spent the majority of the film thinking 'Harvey Dent...that name's familiar...'. It wasn't until he was on fire that I realised he was Two-Face! Hubby new Harvey Dent was in it but hadn't realised he became Two Face in this movie, he thought they were just setting up for the next one.
Mamma Mia Work paid for us to go and see this and took us out for dinner beforehand. We were supposed to go to Pizza Express but ended up in Wetherspoons instead and it was a disaster. The food took 45 minutes to arrive, and some of us were only getting ours 15 minutes before the film. As a result we got to the cinema too late to all get seats together so we had to sit in little groups. The film was fucking hilarious though, and I've had Abba songs stuck in my head ever since, oooh and what a hottie the girl who played Sophie was!! Showed her pic to Hubby, she's just his type (and the complete opposite to me, worryingly :P). Was slightly disturbed by the sight of Mrs Weasley (Julie Walters) shimmying her bosom though - that image took a while to fade.
A while ago jamesofdoom did a meme where he picked a few interests from your profile page and asked you to talk about them. It's way out of date but here's mine:
Reading Bit of a hard one this. What can i say? I don't remember when i fell in love with books but it's been a lifelong love affair. A couple of years ago Waterstones in Belfast burned down and I was devastated - it's where I always went as a child to buy my books and it's our only 'proper' bookshop - everywhere else in Belfast is like WH Smith, selling dvds etc also. I love the quiet atmosphere of a bookshop and can easily read a book in a day – in fact I did just that last Saturday.
Green Day Hmmm, kinda gone off them a bit since I put this in as an interest. I still like their music and enjoy it when it pops up when i have my mp3 on shuffle but I rarely decide to listen to them anymore
Being bi Boobs are great, what more can I say?
The 70s Show I never watched this when it was on tv originally, but a couple of years ago Hubby bought the first series on dvd, and after the second episode (didn’t much care for the pilot though I love it now) I was hooked. Face character is Hyde, someone almost as sarcastic as me
X-Men/Gangster Movies Lumping these together as i like them pretty much for the same reason:they both protray a ‘hidden’ side to the world, although one is obviously fictional (unless there really are mutants out there?!?) I’m just fascinated by anything that points out that there’s so much we don’t know about this world
Harry Potter The bf took me to see the 2nd harry potter film on our second date and from then on was hooked. I bought the books that same week and i know the series inside out. The final three books I bought on day of publication and finished them all in a matter of hours. I don't know what it is about them, I think it's part of the whole hidden-side-to-the-world thing, plus it's just a fantastic story and so well thought out - after 17 years in the making it's need to be! I hate it when people dismiss them as kids books though, especially if they haven't read them, or only seen the first film. Yes, the first two books/films are more child-orientated but they get steadily darker from the third book onwards. And i love that there were still so many questions to be answered after the final book.
Just popping in to say that I'm still alive...I think. Work has been so mental recently that I've been walking round like a zombie for weeks - or so it feels.
Had a nice weekend though.
Had my haircut on Friday then had the yummiest takeaway from the chippy in mum and dads (errr, we had the takeaway there, the chippy itself is not in their house. Imagine that though!)
Then on Saturday Hubby and I headed into town to get him kitted out for a job interview he had yesterday morning. He wanted a new shirt and tie to go with the new suit he got a few months ago, but nowhere had anything even remotely suitable (what's with all the pink?!?), until we happened to be wandering down a back strret in the city centre and spotted a tailoring shop. We were the only customers and the girl who helped us couldn't have been nicer, even though, as Hubby said after we left, neither of us were dressed particularly well - me in jeans and trainers and him in combats and a metal t-shirt - and it was a bit of a posh shop. She even walked to their other branch to get him the shirt he wanted as she didn't have it in his size. And it was all on sale, we got the whole lot for what the shirt originally cost :) Then we went looking for a jacket I've had my eye on for a while, only to find out it had gone into the sale and my size was sold out :( But a trip to Waterstones cheered me up and Hubby bought me a book that I've already finished reading.
He then dropped me at mums where she made the best bacon sarnies for lunch, then later we went to Sainsbury's and M&S, came home and had a yummy korma for dinner, then I fell asleep in front of the telly :)
On Sunday we were meant to go to his folk's for lunch but they rang in the morning to say they were both feeling a bit under the weather so we just had a lazy day at home.
1. My Hubby :) 2. Waking up each morning and finding a little furry creature snuggled into my side (err, the cat I mean, not Hubby) 3. It's Friday!!! 4. Shopping tmw :) 5. Homemade bread 6. I'm gonna be an auntie again in a few months 7. I have fabulous (future) in-laws 8. Haircut! 9. Being treated to a takeaway by the folks and stuffing myself til I almost burst
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