4th January 2014 - Spring Clean-athon

3rd January 2014 - Cool. Cool cool cool.

Actual real life Friday! And another productive day from me!

Paul had to be out early this morning to head over to Manchester for a meeting, so I lazed in bed for as long as I could. That's my small Friday treat to myself.

Today is a special day, as it's the return of 'Community' to the screen! We love it, and so it's an occasion to celebrate! I left the celebrating to Paul, who took his birthday present from Chris to the Manchester office with him!

Terrible blurry pic. I blame still being half asleep!

 It's Troy and Abed in the Morning mug!! Anyone who watches Community will get it. Paul loves it! :)

It was just A and I in the office again today, and we had a busy and productive day once again! I got a lot of my work done and only have a little bit to get on with next week! SCORE!

I had my tunes on once again and had to stop myself singing outloud once again. This is no fun!

A let me go about 10 minutes early, so I headed home and waiting for Paul who was on a commuter train home. So I watched some more 'The Good Wife' and ate chocolate. Because I'm a lazy rebel.

When Paul came home, we had dinner (lamb meatballs), watched both episodes of Community (worth it for Abed's Nic Cage impression alone!) and some more The Good Wife. At least Paul enjoys it too!

We drank peppermint tea and went to bed.

Day 2 without alcohol. :)

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JULY

- Was told my sister-in-law is pregnant...but wasn't allowed to say anything for AGES! Going to be an Auntie in February!

- Paul learnt to iron!

- Wedding Fayre at our wedding venue!

- Left cats at the cattery :(

- Went on holiday to Nice/Villefranche sur Mer!

- Visited Monte Carlo 

- Hot hot hot summer!

- Cleaned out the yard

- Did our seating plan

- Organised our wedding ceremony with the registrar

- Royal baby was born (nowt to do with me, but part of the history, innit?)

- Started on wedding place cards

- Pre-wedding photoshoot

AUGUST

- Bad back
- The twins' third birthday
- Wedding food tasting
- Maia adoption anniversary! 7 years!
- HEN DO!
- Final dress fitting
- Ben & Claire got married!
- Confirmation Paul got his new job! :) :) :)
- Happy 50th, Pam!
- Made seating chart
- Made table names
- Tested wedding beers
- First Fizz Friday!
- Made Order of the Day

SEPTEMBER

- Stalked the wedding weather forecasts
- Finished wedding menu & table decorations
- Wedding jewellery arrived
- Made Bathroom baskets
- Barney broke his scratching post
- Got my nails done!
- Bought wellies (something blue)
- Delivered everything to the wedding venue 2 days before the wedding!
- Last minute wedding drop-outs (and last minute stand-ins! - Thanks, T!)
- Got to wedding hotel and had a few 'surprises'!
- GOT MARRIED!!! :) :) :) :) :)
- Post-wedding curry
- Picked up all the left-over wedding bumpf from the venue
- MINIMOON!
- Back to work as a Mrs.
- Started watching Downton Abbey
- Barney suited up!
- Company car was delivered
- Disappointing pizza
- Paul started his new job!
- Barniversary! 3 years!
- Gift list delivery
- Got our official pictures!


Films watched this quarter:

- Crazy Stupid Love
- Friends With Benefits
- The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring (again)
- The Lord of the Rings: Two Towers (again)
- Mega Shark vs Giant Octopus
- The Notebook
- One for the Money
- Shaun of the Dead
- What's Your Number?

Wow. Not so many this quarter. Stupid wedding getting in the way!

PREVIOUS POSTS

2012
2013

2nd January 2014 - Back to work...for some...

Sooooo many people complaining on my facebook timeline about going back to work today. SOME OF US DIDN'T LEAVE!

Line Manager A was back in after pretty much 2 weeks off, and was in a good mood. Which was surprising!

My small pleasure for today:

I got to change the date stamp to 2014. I got to see it plain before it got covered in ink! THAT'S A MOMENT RIGHT THERE!

Nothing of any interest happened to be honest. I had my tunes on in the office but couldn't sing out loud, which is very painful to me. Did about 250% of my day's units so I'd say I was productive! Wanted to get as much done as I could before the typing machine that is T comes back and gives me even more work to do!

We stopped at the supermarket on the way home to get a few bits and then came home for dinner. We decided to finish off the bolognaise from Tuesday night.

Twas delish.

Then, while Paul did some work, I watched more of The Good Wife. We went to bed at a reasonable hour, for a change, which doesn't make for an interesting story I guess!

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APRIL

- First (of many) trips to Hobbycraft & Ikea for wedding stuff
- Training for new work regime
- Started watching Revolution and Defiance
- Another new bannister
- Breakfast Club
- Mum bought her wedding outfit
- Got my engagement ring back & our wedding rings
- Sue & Rick's wedding
- My 30th Birthday

MAY

- Started #PhotoFitChallenge as part of #FitTeam13
- Enjoyed the sunshine
- Final Sookie Stackhouse book came out
- Trekked home for the dentist
- Katie (best woman) came to visit
- Hair accessory for the wedding bought and delivered
- Started making invitations & RSVP cards
- Cake Toppers arrived
- Bought wedding shoes
- My fish 'B0utros B0utros' died :(
- First (and only) run of a 5km from start to finish

JUNE

- Finalised our flowers at the florist
- Bought Paul's wedding suit
- Lucy sent me a Barney-pot!
- Made our wedding invitations
- Burnt my thumb on the glue gun
- J bought me an ice cream
- Paul's Dad gave us exterior plumbing
- Family reunion on Father's Day
- Sent our wedding invitations
- Bought S's mini-maid dress
- Paul went for a big job interview and got it!
- First wedding dress fitting
- Compiled our gift list
- Second Cousin's Christening
- LEGO GANDALF!


Movies watched this Quarter:

- 10 Things I Hate About You
- The Avengers
- Black Swan
- Cabin in the Woods
- Casino Royale
- Evil Dead
- Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
- Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince
- Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1 & 2
- The Hobbit
- I Know What You Did Last Summer
- Live and Let Die
- Much Ado About Nothing
- One Day
- The Tempest
- Zombieland

(crikey!)

PREVIOUS POSTS

2012
2013

1st Jan 2014 - Because I can!

Happy New Year again!

Well, it's a new year. Why not pop another post in! I've still got this damn blogging bug!

We had a nice lie in this morning, because it's the first day in a new year and we should start as we mean to go on!

Paul decided that a good breakfast was necessary. Well, who am I to argue?!

And as it's the first day of a new year, why not have a little celebrate, as I feel better this morning than I did yesterday, we had some more of the fizz, but in a Bucks Fizz variety!

As last night we sort of recreated our first New Year's Eve together, we recreated our first New Years Day together!

Although slightly different, as I did the cooking all those years ago, but we did sit and eat whilst watching the first season of Heroes!

Yes, that has a Christmas 2007 sticker on it! It's THAT OLD!

Paul had to go to the football so I was left all by myself. So I settled into the sofa and decided to start a new TV series - The Good Wife.

I quite enjoyed it! So I stuck with it, occasionally getting up to see what the cats were up to etc!

Barney was busy being me! So cute!

Maia was being cute and chasing after my hairband. Very sweet.

I might have got through an ep or two...or seven!

Paul came back, quite late, and we had a very late chicken sandwich before going to bed.


So I thought I might do a few little highlight packages of last year. Because I just can't let got!

SO!

Let's give this a shot, shall we?

JANUARY:

- I restarted this blog!
- We started wedding planning and we built our wedding website
- The first Best Man backed out!
- First rave cleanathon
- I went wedding dress shopping a few times!
- It snowed. A lot.
- I had to beg for a payrise and won!
- My friends Chris and Ceri got engaged!

FEBRUARY

- Maia turned 7! SEVEN YEARS OLD!
- Paul's Dad built us a bannister rail and in turn we got a Henry Hoover!
- I ordered my wedding dress and our wedding flowers!
- Saw the string quartet that we had booked for our wedding live for the first time!
- Booked the hotel we would be staying at our wedding weekend!
- Bought our adult bridesmaid dresses!

MARCH

- I had my wedding hair and make up trial
- Paul lost his job :(
- Picked our wedding cheese cake
- Our bridesmaid dresses arrived
- Bought our wedding rings
- We designed our wedding invitations
- I learnt origami
- Sue's french-themed hen weekend
- Painted the shower room
- Developed Costochondritis
- We had an epic Easter dinner and heard sad news about our wedding photographer.

Oh, and from looking through my blog posts, I thought I'd do this list:

Movies Watched in 2013

- The A Team
- Almost Famous
- Big Fish
- Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone
- Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
- Harry Potter and the Prizoner of Azkaban
- The Hunger Games 1
- The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring
- The Lord of the Rings: Two Towers
- The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King
- Skyfall
- Taken
- The Time Traveller's Wife

This list is not exhausting but the ones that I blogged about. That's quite a lot for 3 months.

Stay tuned for Part 2...at some stage...


PREVIOUS POSTS

2012 (1) & 2012 (2)
2013

So...here we are!

So I did it! I blogged a year of my life. A pretty big year really! I got a whole new name and everything!

I don't really know what to do with myself now! Even Paul has got into my blogging habit, and prepares food ready for me to take a picture of! I think he was a bit sad when he realised that I don't have to do it any more!

My challenge was a post a day. OK, I didn't post daily but there is a post for every day, so technically I win, right?

So maybe I should keep going, but no pressure on myself to get from 1st Jan to 31st December this time. If I miss a few days due to LITERALLY NOTHING HAPPENING I won't feel bad. Although I know me and I will.

I just don't want to bore you with those post like: "Got up. Went to the gym. Went to work. Work was dull. Came home. Had dinner. Watched TV. Went to bed. Here's a cat." They made up a substantial amount of last year and they bore me and I lived it!

I think I have some mind making up to do. I could post weekly maybe? Do some blogging challenges (not that I know any)?

All suggestions are welcome. I just can't imagine not doing this any more! I hate it when my favourite bloggers disappear for ages on end (LOOKING AT YOU, ROBYN & CHRIS!) and I know I don't have that many avid readers but I do get feedback, so I don't like the idea of disappointing.

I'll think on it. Writing is just so addictive! And at least my cats are cute, right?

31/12/2013 - New Year's Eve

I didn't have the best night's sleep, much to my dislike! I was having strange dreams, as I do. This time I was dreaming about buying other houses up our street and them all being bigger than ours. One even had a jacuzzi in both bedrooms! I don't know why I'm dreaming these things. Probably because I want a bigger house!

I did manage to doze a little, which was good, but it meant I really didn't want to get up when the alarm went off. So I didn't. I waited until 7:30am to get up! That's VERY late for me!

Back into work again, and once again alone. The business park was even quieter today than yesterday!

The postman came before 9:30am which is unheard of, and I had got most of my work done that I needed to do by midday, but had to stay in the office, which is a bit mean. I put my iPod on and sang loudly (I admit it today) because the office next door weren't in!

I left at about 2pm, and it was probably the safest time to leave before it got dark for the same reasons as yesterday.

When I got home, I did a bit of tidying up but decided to vegetate a little and be lazy because it's the last day of the year and why change the habit of the rest of the year!

Barney came for a play. I'd love to say it was a cuddle, but he was being feisty and very cute!

My stomach still isn't right but I was determined that I would enjoy New Years Eve if I could. So instead of starting on the wine/beer/fizz as most people do on this most celebrated of days, I had a different drink to tide me over.

Mmmm. Health salts. Aka soap water. I am not a fan. But I drank them because they should help. I think they did. I felt ok for a while afterwards!

Paul alternated between cooking and SimCity-ing while I was being lazy and doing some simming myself! Plus keeping up with people's rather poetic statuses on Facebook. I have been known to do the whole 'sum up the year in a status' thing before but couldn't be bothered this year. Mostly because I've found writing this blog very cathartic so have already waxed lyrical.

I don't know. Maybe I'll do a sum up post tomorrow. We'll see.

Anyway, dinner took AGES! I was really looking forward to eating something tasty and delicious! Which is a sign I'm getting better, right?

Soon enough (at like, 9:15pm!) dinner was served!

Spaghetti Bolognaise with parmesan and a glass of white wine...which I had been nursing for a few hours, but didn't want to drink as I had barely eaten anything all day and didn't think that would be a good idea.

A little history for you - the first New Years that Paul and I were together, all 6 years ago, he came over to my old house and made me Spaghetti Bolognaise! We drank a LOT of wine that night, and didn't end up eating it until about midnight! So eating it at 9pm was actually early in the grand scheme of things!

I enjoyed it very much but couldn't finish it. Joys of not eating a lot for nearly a week - appetite is suppressed!

We watched some comedy stuff on TV and a bit of Gary Barlow's New Year's show, then switched over to Jools Holland! It's a little bit of a tradition! It's a shame it's not live, but it has some very talented musicians on it and so it's all good!

That's how we saw in midnight! We did have some fizz, but it wasn't going down too well and so I'd finished my glass by midnight! So we chinked peppermint tea cups instead! ROCK AND ROLL! We're so old now!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

I watched tv for a little bit longer (it had the chap from The Kinks on it...and I love The Kinks!) but was losing my battle with sleep so I left Paul downstairs and came to bed. I had a play with Barney and fell asleep well before 1am!

Oh, and for the record as I have been asked at least 3 times in the past 48 hours or so: Definitely. Not. Pregnant.

:)

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Hope you all have had a fantastic 2013 and here's to an awesome 2014!

Cheers from my husband and I! :)

Cxx