Sunday Chillin’

Well the weekend was much as expected, slow and relaxed.  I suspect next weekend will be less so.  With Lottie Sandstorm arriving late on Friday after a day trip to Belgium and Flanders.  Then going to visit her cousin on the Saturday in Fancy dress for a premature Halloween bash and fun and catch-up.  Sunday will become a day of collapsed bodies and exhaustion.

However between now and then I have the DHSS to address on my usual Wednesday appointment, I have an unexpected tax bill to pay and more jobs to track down and apply for.  As of yet I have yet to manage to do some work for NANOWRIMO which is drawing on close to the start with still little work started.  I have still to start on Christmas presents and am having to leave a majority of the bulk buying to my partner.  Writing and thinking of all this is already getting me in a bit of a tizz about the whole thing.

Hubby is currently cooking dinner of Chicken and Pasta for our tea.  Always good when I don’t have to cook.  There is also that chance he will actually eat something.  Not that my cooking is particularly bad we just have very different styles of cooking.  To the point this weekend we talked about putting together our cook book of recipes and achievements of cooking on a budget.

This weekend resulted in an unexpected visit to the cinema to see Looper.  An intriguing and interesting version on the sci-fi notion of time travel.  It consisted of little of the usually Hollywood contrite way of doing moves and left the watcher having to think.  Parts which made me flinch and close my eyes at times.  Yet enthralling, entertaining and very brain active.  This is not a movie you can go to and switch your brain off.  There is too much happening, that co-insides with each other and will definitely need another watch when it comes out on DVD.  In addition to this I managed to get my first glimpse of Skyfall the new Bond movie which is released on the 26th.  OMG I cannot wait to see that either.

Life I feel is suddenly about to get very interesting.  I have the nervous anticipation of not, that tells of fast joyous moments are soon to be upon us and life changing events are coming.  When 3- 6 months tends to be the normal time scales when things like this happen.  Last time I lost my job.  Moved to Switzerland.  Got engaged tot he man I married earlier this year.  All in the space of 7 months for the sake of accuracy. Although we got together within 6 months and engaged by the 7th.  I love this feeling as I know things are going to work out all right.  Faith is all that is needed to make sure that it happens

Dinner is soon to be served.  So I am going to end this blog now and wish you all to enjoy the rest of your Sunday and say have faith, live life and enjoy it, whatever it throws your way, as you never know where it will lead

Friday Finale

It’s that day before the weekend arrives, for many of us there are a few working hours left and then the fun really starts.  For me it is a chance to stop thinking about finding a job and time to spend with the family and friends.  This weekend consists purely of me and hubby and no concrete plans in place. I suspect a chillin’ one will be the tone of the weekend.  There will be lots of reading, writing, playing computer games and potentially some trips out and about somewhere if we can decide on where to go and what to do.

However, before then, I still have some loose ends to tie up from last week; including following up on some job applications and the speculative calls I made on people at RHP UK earlier on this week.  Once this has been done I suspect the course of action will be to remove myself from a PC for a few hours and continue to read The Map, by TS Lerner.  I am sure at some point I will find myself on SSX or my t’other half on mine craft.  I will endeavor to try and do some preparation this weekend for NANOWRIMO which is now looming on the horizon.

In addition to this I must do some research on eateries as per the instruction from my darling friend NeekiO, as to where we should go for my looming birthday in about 3 weeks – shivers at the thought.  Me and birthdays not pleasant thoughts.  Mainly due to being let down by people repeatedly in relation to them in the past.  I need to clarify what days do she wants me to look at the eateries for. As I have a couple of options for either a Friday Night or Saturday afternoon as to what can be done and this will dictate eating locations.  This year my birthday weekend is with my wonderful step-daughter Lottie Sandstorm so the day is guaranteed to be filled with dry humor lots of fun and giggles and winding up her father, my husband, in vast quantities with the same returned double to both of us.

Husband on the other hand is planning other things and I can smell plotting afoot which always makes me nervous.  I still have to acquire presents for him for Christmas but I have plans aplenty for that too, and I short walk to the fridge – aka Tesco- should resolve part of that problem a little later on.

However none of this is helping with the imminent problem of tying up my current loose ends.  So I guess I should stop my waffles and go tidy up so the weekend can really get started

Hope you all have a good weekend and let me know how it goes?  or What your plans are?

 

Friday Frump

Well whilst people are enjoying the weekend soon to be here, I for some reason are feeling decidedly frumpy and flat.  Whether this is because I still have the remnants of the headache from two days ago, which for me is not too uncommon when it has been a migraine.  Or it is  the result of restless night of little sleep again.  The lack of sleep has come from the fact that I am unable to find a job and the hunting seems to be coming to nothing.  I have however made the decision to go to a job fair next Wednesday on my sister’s birthday to see if that yields anything of any interest.  However it is as much an excuse to get out of the house for a few hours, as I feel like I have been trapped up inside these four walls for the last 12 weeks.  Although this is not the case the active memento of not going out and seeing other things is starting to stir me a little crazy.  I have the distinct feeling that my motivation is starting to get up and go and this is bad oh so bad and so today is Frumpy Friday.

Job hunting theoretically has now been completed for the day which is nice, but I am going to sit and do some reading on the Kindle in a while.  Yes it is that elusive Kindle from my blog ‘Technology and Me’.  However my darling partner has downloaded a kindle app. onto my PC so I can now just sit and read it from the PC, which I am finding a little less stressful and a little more enjoyable.  Talking of technology I need to do some research onto mobile phones as after a surprise call from my network supplier this morning, it would appear that they may be prepared to allow me to exchange out my old HTC phone which I hate to something else.  So I am currently reviewing the options between the Samsung SII or Samsung SIII, along with comparisons on the Nokia Lumia 800 or do I wait for the Nokia 900 coming out later this month.  I have asked the gentleman I spoke to, to call me back this afternoon so I can make notes, do some maths and then make a decision on Monday morning.  Unfortunately my pull is to the Nokia, I love Nokia phones mainly for the robust status and the fact that they keep going.  However a big downside I have found as of late is battery life and this I must have on my phones.  I hate the need to be constantly charging handsets because the batteries do not have the power to sustain the applications.  Here is a hint phone suppliers, great upgrade the phones but make sure the battery can sustain the application power.  So many decision to make. In reading the reviews there is so much I like about all 4 phones I think this will be a gut reaction.  After all they are offering my 3 months free to upgrade now and a potential cost cut on my line rental, with the phone for free – who can argue with that.  I guess I just need to check the terms of the new contract arrangement.

However maybe this Friday Frump can be removed by the arrival of new tech next week now being on the horizon.  Not that I am a techie, a gamer girl or a geek at all.  Talking of which I think it is time to go see where I ended up on  last nights challenges and how much my ghosts achieved in SSX on the PS3 before my partner drags me onto Minecraft for the X-Box and if not him then probably my Step-Daughter later on this evening.  Oh it is a hard life

Maybe Frump Friday is not so bad after all

Have a good weekend everyone

x

The Parasol Protectorate

If you are currently reading Gail Carrigers Alexi Tarbattoi series or the Parasol Protectorate remit and don’t want to know spoilers DO NOT READ ON – THERE WILL BE SPOILERS

Like many things in my life I am active in what I do, whether that is work, listening, writing or reading.  I invest my time energy and emotions fully to any activity.  For many people this is un-comprehensible for others over bearing and intimidating for people like me a way of life.  It is what my partner calls passion and zest and his reason for loving me.  As a result of this my husband says he can always tell how enthralling a book is by my re-actions to it.  So when this morning I was sat reading Timeless this morning and tears started to flow and no no no was murmured my husband looked somewhat distraught.  To compile that with additional twists that actions Alexia was about to embark on my adversely affect her daughters legal guardianship at home and her added insistence of “No Mama” as to her actions “Dama, Dama” it was well aware that her Daughter may know about her unforeseen actions than Alexia.  However like any good author she draws you in and then leaves you with hope.

The thing I have most enjoyed about this series is like everything I have said before it is well written, the characters are well drawn out, the elements of steam punk did not culturally clash with the environment or are made believable by the credible writing allowing the reading to fore go the reality and plunge into the Parasols world.  Although reading this you know somehow this is the end of the series there is enough there left open to know that the story does not end there.  Part of you craves to know the outcome of the relationship between Akeldama and Ivy; Ivy and Nadasa, Biffy and Lyall, Biffy and Maccon, Biffy and Channing and more surprisingly the outcome of Prudence or Puggle or sweet chops to whichever her flight of fancy fills her with at the given moment in time.  But each you know is a story for another time.  It is also nice to find an author who is happy to leave the story where it is without having to extract every strand and leave it open for the mind to fill in as time goes on.

A read and a half full of real human emotion and sentiment in something that is described as a very supernatural environment but maybe when it comes down to it we are all supernatural in our very own way we just have to find it

Technology and me

Yesterday I finished heartless, and then had my husband produce his kindle showing that he had set up Timeless on it, so we did not have to wait until the library received a copy so we can start reading it straight away; which is great except technology and I are not always the best of friends.

I also have an aversion to Kindles as I am an old-fashioned kind of girl and I like the feel of paper between my hands and the weight of a book resting there, even if it does give me pins and needles at times and so being handed the kindle I was a little daunted by it all.  I am not saying I don’t see the benefits of the kindle I do – as it was I who bought it for my husband to be at the time to make it easier for him to carry about several books at once without having to use a knapsack to transfer them all in.  In addition to this a friend today commented on how much it has been a life saver for her, since having arthritis in both wrists it means she can sit and read again properly without worrying about sudden bouts of arthritic pain.

To be fair last night I did devour the first 5 chapters of Gail Carrigers Timeless and like all the others thoroughly enjoying it, with some already interesting mixes and hints dropped in to suggest that all is not as it first appeared from the first four books at all, already with some interesting twists appearing.  Nonetheless during the course of the reading I managed to skip two chapters by hitting the wrong button, and therefore losing my place, I also managed to skip pages causing chaos and havoc and some stress like frustrations tantrums.  As I said me and technology are not the best of the friends at times and another reason why I think I prefer ‘book’ books to technology.

Nonetheless I am continuing to pursue the reading and am enjoying the fact that I can see how far through the book I am but disgruntled because that will mean I will also know how close to the end I am too.

So here is to technology surviving the day and an un-emped Kindle being handed back to my partner either later this evening or early tomorrow

Have a good weekend