Mothering Monkey Sunday

Today is mothering Sunday, so I went for an elegant lunch at a posh restaurant with my family. The surroundings were all lovely and genteel, that is until I arrived with my parents, brother, grandparents and my nan's cousin from Spain.

My nan and the Spanish cannot hold their wine at all, despite 50 years of practice, so they were really pissed. They can, therefore, be excused for their ridiculous stories and drunken screeches. My grandad, however, was the designated driver, and therefore the reason for his telling the following Karl-Pilkington-Worthy story are unclear. Apart from he is amazing.

"When I used to work at the animal rendering plant, we used to get all sorts in. We had monkeys, an elephant..."

"AN ELEPHANT?"

"Yeah, a small one. Anyway, there was this bloke, Bob Nugget, who was as lazy as anything. He'd always be going over to people saying 'Oh, he's a lazy one, that Barney McBurger, he never does any work,' but he was the one who never did anything."

"Anyway, we found out that he was always sneaking off to the toilets, so over a few weeks we found out which was his favourite toilet to go in."

"So as I say, we used to get monkeys in, so one day we got this big bugger in, so we put it in Bob's toilet. It had clothes on, we'd put trousers on it and it had a cigarette hanging out of its mouth. We waited until the time that Bob would go to the toilet and put it in there."

"Now it was quite dimly lit in the toilets, so Bob went in, shut the door and everything and then went to sit down..."

"...and he sat on somebody's lap..."

"... and he turned around and it was the monkey, sat on the toilet, with his cigarette."

"So he yelled the place down and came out effing and blinding at us, asking who it was. But as I say, we used to get all sorts. There was an alligator once."

And that is how I spent my Mothering Sunday.

(2) Working the 60's

I was in work today so I had to wear black and white.

Sorry about the fuzziness/bad lighting; I was in the office/stockroom while the photographer was in the toilet/locker room.

I quite like wearing white tights instead of black for work. It really lifts the whole look.

Also I've only realised from seeing these photos how much you can see my bra through this blouse. Cami next time.

Have got my Bumpit in again and my hair half-pulled back. Big on top + Half back = Country and Western Singer to me, for some reason. A colleague said I looked very sixties though so that's nice.

I also wore my Laura Ashley knitted blazer for travelling and these photos in the garden.



Darcy decided chasing was more fun than photos



Windy today, so cold even though the celcius is up.

Fringe needs trimming. A bit too Claudia Winkleman for my liking.
I love this brooch; it makes this jacket look really Austrian.

Just realised I have to leave for the gym in like thirty minutes to make it to my aerobics class. I am so tired :(

Fresh February

I'm currently in the process of what I call 'Sorting Out My Life'. I am reliably informed that this is commonly referred to as 'Growing Up' by people in some circles, but I will not subscribe to this nonsense.

In order to do this I am doing some boring money-ish things, but I'm also doing some exciting-ish things such as;

1. Re-decorating my bedroom
2. Getting rid of old stuff
3. Not buying ridiculous disposable fashion
4. Sorting out my bloody wardobe.

In order to do this I've decided to have a bit of a Fresh February and to help me along I am doing a couple of challenges I've found on other blogs.

For starters, I am doing Shoeperwoman's Shoeper Shoe Challenge. It starts on the 14th of February and lasts for one year. The idea is to count up all of your shoes and wear every single pair before the 14th of February 2012. Every. Single. Pair.

Oh my. The point it that if you haven't worn a pair after a year then you throw it away; use it or lose it!






I'm also going to blog along with Kendi as I do the 30 for 30 Challenge. She has done this several times as a way of Remixing her wardrobe and I think it's a brilliant idea! The rules are;

1. Pick 30 items from your wardobe (not incl. accessories ie; gloves, scarves, necklaces, hats).
2. Style them into 30 different outfits over 30 days.
3. Do not shop for 30 days.

  
I'm so excited to give this a try. I recently organised all of my laundry and I had seven loads of washing. SEVEN. That is RIDICULOUS. I think that after 30 days of not wearing certain items I'll be able to make much more rational decisions regarding getting rid of old clothes ("If I've gone without it for 30 days and had forgotten it existed...."). So I'll be starting that on Tuesday the 1st of February and blogging my outfits. I'm hoping I'll be a little more imaginative with my styling as I'll have much fewer pieces to work with.

I've also noticed that Gemma of Big Girls Browse is having a Frugal February and not spending on non-essential items for a month. I think this is a good idea that I will try and stick to as much as possible (avoid the stationary... it's like crack to me), probably excluding my trip to Tuebingen to visit Miss H. I won't be buying clothes anyway for the 30 for 30 Challenge so hopefully it'll be easier, and much kinder on my pathetic bank account. She's now posted a few more detailed 'rules', click the button to see them!




So that's it for now, all that's left to do is do it, really. I'll be posting photos irritatingly often from now on, probably. Oh my.

Goals/Hopes/Dreams 2011

1. Be healthier. Exercise more, eat better, take my diabetes seriously.

2. Get a job that I enjoy and that enables me to save up some money.

3. Travel. I want to swim in a clear blue ocean before 2012.

4. To only buy what is necessary or lasting. My bursting wardrobe of clothes I never wear is testament to my ridiculous habit of spending on disposable fashion. If I buy anything this year, it will be functional, beautiful and completely me. No compromises. I know my own style, I know what suits me, so why do I find myself still buying into trends?

5. Enjoy myself. I've spent so much of the past two years worrying about the future that I didn't give myself the opportunity to enjoy the present. This year I plan to have fun. I want to laugh, I want to dance, I want to read and I want to walk the dog. It's strange to think that the very first time the concept of "If it's making you miserable, stop doing it" entered my head was only six months ago. This year, I want to smile.

What Has Darcy Done?

Darcy is 1 year old in less than two weeks, which means I've had her for about 10 months. Before I got her I had no motivation, no interest and no enthusiasm for life.

Pigpen didn't want a dog. MR convinced him, saying "We'll just get a medium-sized dog..."

For most people, including Pigpen, "medium-sized" does not mean thirty kilos.

However, we were determined. We drove a five-hour round trip with Miss H in tow to visit the litter at seven weeks and this is what we found.

A crate of nine puppies; three blonde and five black. They all got let out of the crate and Miss H and I sat on the floor while they crawled all over us and licked and nipped us. It was more adorable than a Care Bear hug.

We quickly established that all the blonde ones were the most bitey, the boys were most attention seeking and the three little girls we had to choose from all had incredibly distinct personalities. One was incredibly shy, lurking under a bush away from the rest of the group. Miss H actually asked the breeders if she was the runt and he replied "No, you always get a thinker".

The other two were much less mellow; one spent the entire hour leaping on us and nipping our trousers whereas the last one was somewhere inbetween. She had spent a long time licking our faces and smiling at us, but she had also had a nice wander round, exploring the garden. She also had a little white flash on her chest.

She was gorgeous. We quickly decided she was ours.

We had to wait two weeks until we could pick her up, one week of which would be spent on holiday in Croatia. We collected the newly named Darcy at 9 weeks home and put her in her new crate to take home. She was as adorable and friendly as we had remembered.

Half an hour later, this was not the case.

She had already been sick twice, salivated endlessly all over her body and done the most horrifyingly liquid, yellow poo all over her new purple blanket. The gorgeous, cuddly bundle of fluff we had collected from the farm was now dripping, stinking and barking endlessly.

We got her home and settled into her new home, our conservatory (until she was toilet trained at least). She seemed happy, excited and generally delighted by all the attention we were giving her.

I quickly got into the rhythm of having a puppy. Early mornings and straight outside, getting her innoculated, playing with her and lots of cuddles. She grew quickly and, luckily, we didn't have any problems toilet training her or with her crying at night. She also became quite the cheeky character, always throwing herself into play-bows and wanting her tummy rubbed.

Over the past year we've grown together. Darcy is now nearly fully grown at twenty kilogrammes and loves having puppy fights and chases with other dogs. She has had several hair cuts, one perfect and two embarrassing and she has inspired a friend of mine to get their own 'Doodle. As for me, I have been through tumultuous medication changes, various abrupt changes in life direction and intensive therapy sessions; none so helpful as my daily walks with my faithful, furry companion.

Her favourite snacks are carrot sticks and her best friend is Louie. She makes me laugh every day. Her yawns sound like a really noisy zip and she monitors all of our behaviour constantly by following us around. I mean, there have been the occasional traumas but it's mostly been a joy being a dog owner for the first time.

A year since Darcy was born and I am a completely different person. I wake up every morning excited to see my puppy's stupid face and looking forward to our walk across the hills together. Therapy helped. My Family helped. Pills helped. But without Darcy none of it would have been possible.

AH-WHOOOOOOOOO

Darcy and I were up bright and early this morning, and headed out to Warrington town centre to meet up with the lovely staff and regular customers of Lush Warrington to take our dogs for a nice stroll in support of Greyhound Awareness Week.

The money we raised will be going to Northern Greyhound Rescue, who work to rehome greyhounds who have been either retired or retired from the track and need loving individuals to look after them.

It was a gorgeous day for walking and at the end of it there was tea, cakes and goody bags for puppies and people alike. The dogs were all very sweet and well behaved, no grumpy growlers or bawdy barkers.

Here's a few of the hounds;

Jorge Garcia

Thanks to my blog earlier today, I have now been researching Jorge Garcia for about four hours.

I love Jorge.

I love looking at him, I love reading what he thinks, I love saying his name.

HOR-HE GAR-THIA.

But yeah, I found out he has a blog! Click here to see it.

He also has an old one, from when he was working on Lost, which you can find here.

He is the album cover of my favourite band's new album, and he sang with them. Heroic.

I'm also really sad because I found out his little tiny dog died. Horrible.

I also found another photo of him proving he can do all the things big fat guys shouldn't do;

What would Jorge do? Some pretty awesome shit, I'd guess!

I so have a boner for Orange right now...

... as the internet is finally working on my Blackberry again :)

Goodbye, Orange customer-helpline staff. I enjoyed our daily conversations about how useless the service was. Bravo.