life is so insane at this very moment in time.
I don't enjoy decorating as much as I imagine myself enjoying it. Know what I mean? When you sit there and think about yourself doing something, visualising how it's going to go, and what you'll be feeling etc. and you get into the actual situation and you find yourself really not feeling what you thought or it not going as you visualised!
I like painting walls. I hate painting ceilings. I don't like painting the edges of walls to ceilings or to doorframes, particularly on a corner! They really like doing that here in England-- putting a doorframe flush into a corner of the room, which means you don't have the frame exposed on one edge, instead you have to try and paint a straight line out of nothing! I've tried the masking tape method, but the walls are textured, so the tape doesn't stick down and the brush bristles go underneath the tape at points and mess up the straight line.
The bathroom is getting there-- just needs another coat on the window and the doorframs, and the bit of wood behind the blinds needs a coat or two and the skirting boards need a second coat. Then I get to enjoy the best pleasure of all-- painting the tiles behind the toilet and sink! Yippee. The reason I'm painting them is because the original tiles in the bathroom were a peachy-pink colour with flowers on, and when I moved here and insisted on having a shower put in, we had to have the bathroom re-tiled. Mr. nice plumber-man said that if I took the old tiles off, it would cost less for the job because it would mean less labour for him. Fair enough I said, I could do it-- no worries. So I took off most of the tiles, but on the wall where the toilet and sink are, I was having to chip most of the tile away with a hammer because they weren't coming off nicely at all-- they were rather attached to the brick of the outside of the house (whereas all other areas were internal walls and the tiles came loose easily). So I stopped when I got to the toilet, because I didn't have room to manoeuvre a hammer without knocking a hole in a pipe or the bowl of the toilet!
So when Mr. nice plumber-man came back he said either we could pay him to do those tiles and it would take an extra day, or he could get on with re-tiling the rest of the room and installing the shower and we could paint them later.
So we went with "yes, shower now please!!"
henceforth, here am i with the lovely privilege.
fabulous.
oh, did I mention that I get to start out this glorious rainy day with a trip to the dentist for some possible root canal work?
yippee.
only 6 more sleeps til I'm in America for a fortnight, and I can't wait!! I'll actually get to meet this gorgeous lil baby who is my new niece!!!
Is that not the sweetest chubbiest face you ever saw??
On thursday of last week I went to a local craft store in Alsager called Craft Addicts for a session of basic scrapbooking skills. They have scheduled classes you can take, but they also offer one-on-one sessions as well, and that's what I opted for, because the only session on the August schedule was on a Sunday. So I booked it, and turned up on Thursday with every last bit of scrapbooking things I own. Which turns out to be two massive bags plus my portfolio plus my actual scrapbook.
It's all Marcie's fault. Okay, well not all her fault-- partly mine for seeing all the cool things in the shops on massive sales last November. I talked to Marcie on the phone for a long time and asked her about scrapbooking (because she's been doing it since she was about 11). And she's an old pro at it. So I got some basics while in America and brought them here, and had a little experimental go at a couple of pages a few months back that didn't go horribly wrong, so I thought I would go a bit further.
In this lesson I got to use UTEE (an enamel powder that you melt and makes it look like a ceramic tile or something), tags, slide cases, shrinkable plastic, and shadowed and outlined torn pages. All on the same page!!
The tutor I had was excellent-- it was just the two of us in their really awesome classroom-- a converted garage with a massive table and a huge bookcase full of crafty bits and pieces. The windows of the garage face the park and the lake. Beautiful place to be creative!!
I worked with her from 2 til about 4:30, and since they were closing at 5 (which was the time for the end of my lesson) I opted to use the last bit for some shopping-- because when you do a class there, on the day of the class, all your shopping is 10% off!
I can't wait to get back to America-- I'm really into this now. eeeks!
mozilla stinks.
my husband insists it's the best web browser out there-- but I strongly disagree. It's not that I have any real fondness for microsoft in general or any of its bug-filled products, but mozilla really stinks.
I just typed in a big beautiful blog entry and clicked on save, and mozilla sent me back to the movable type login page and when I logged back in it looked like the evil mozilla hadn't saved my nice lil blog after all.
lousy mozilla.
ugh. good job my lil blog is still there.
(don't even get me started on the whole "tabs" issue.)
Yesterday I began the non-massive (or so I thought) task of painting the upstairs bathroom.
It was kind of funny actually-- as I was painting, I had plenty of time to think, (a dangerous thing!) and one of the things that occurred to me was that I had painted the room nearly five years ago. It was the first act of "decorating" I had ever undertaken and certainly the first one in this house.
Then I began to think of all the weird and wonderful things that have happened over the last five years. It was really kind of heartbreaking. I will miss England when we move back, the people and the places and the accents and even some of the food!
I don't know if it was this heavy dialogue in my head making my arm so heavy or if it was the fact that most of this particular painting job is ceiling and high up work, but it took me ages to get the job done. I had to keep stopping because my arm was so sore.
I managed to finish the first coat later in the day, after visiting with Andy & Jen and their newest baby Cory James-- who is gorgeous!! And who I've held twice in the two days!! He's only a week and a bit old, but he makes some of the most hilarious faces I've ever seen a baby make!
I had a really nice long cuddle while chatting with Andy & Jen, but after an hour, my arm went all numb and I was worried it might give out or something, so I had to surrender poor Cory back to his cot.
It was a really nice visit-- they're such great folks. Like Jen said, we really got to know them a lot better since this whole Powerpoint thing, and we'll miss them.
I feel extremely guilty about taking my husband off to America (we're hoping to move by Christmas). Therefore I have been taking every opportunity to get him over to spend time with his family that I can.
His dad's birthday was this past friday-- so we made arrangements with his mum & dad and sister & her hubby to get together on the Saturday.
The idea was that we were going to go on a steam train from Matlock to wherever. That sounded really cool to me!
When they phoned back the next day however, someone else had had an idea-- seen an advertisement in a local paper about a wood festival. One of Dad's hobbies is turning wood-- he started a few years ago, and now that he's retired, he's really getting into it. So we were off to this wood festival at some country park/resevoir.
What the advert didn't say was that it was going to be along the banks of the resevoir, which can only be gotten to by walking down the biggest hill in all of northern england. (well it felt like that climbing back up it anyway!!)
Anyhoo, at the bottom of this big hill, down two flights of wooden stairs and down another hill (and with each step I'm worrying more and more about the walk BACK)... is a nice muddy track (I hate mud!!) that goes along from one exhibitor's tent to the next.
I went along to the first few tents, and it's not my thing at all, and this dog was barking its fool head off and the woman who was looking after it wasn't smart enough to take it and put it in a car or something (obviously it was one of those dogs that's afraid of other dogs and is afraid of people and therefore just barks and barks). Anyone with half a brain could see the poor dog was distressed out of his poor little head.
So we have mud to trek through and a constant barrage of barking no matter where we go (she seemed to be following us!!) and I'm not all that fascinated by wood, and I'm worried about being able to walk up that big hill again, especially if I have to do it with Andy's mum walking beside me asking me if I'm all right every other minute, and Ruth on the other side asking me during the minutes Mum's not! They worry about me I think-- but at that point in time I was convinced it was a conspiracy-- that they were trying to murder me by heart attack and starvation.
Anyhow, I got the keys from Andy and made my way huffing and puffing up the first hill, got to the bottom of the stairs and was ready to be in the car! I went up the stairs (there were people behind me so I was trying to go as fast as I could without dying) and got to the next level bit and my legs didn't half burn. If you can't tell by now, I'm so horribly out of shape it's not funny.
So I began the last biggest hill and to the side was a nice ranger man with a nice 4x4 jeep and I was just about to offer him £10 for a lift up when he started talking on his walkie talkie about parking to another ranger, and then I realised he wouldn't be able to leave his sentry position-- plus he'd think I was foolish. So I kept on plugging and plodding.
Got to the car and wanted to cry. I was really thirsty by then and hungry too-- but had no food or drink in the car. :(
That was the purgatory part...
later on, after the others had come back from seeing most everything, we had a picnic lunch there by the car (Andy & I were in the car still) and after that we went back to his parents' house for some conversation and crafts (Andy's mum is big into card making now!) and some tea later and then games... well game!
It was great fun-- I'm sure Andy will blog more about this one, so I'll save it for him.... we played Family Fortunes... which everyone from the States will know as Family Feud (that old gameshow that used to have Richard Dawson as it's host-- you know..... "Survey says......" and then either a huge buzzer NNNNNGGH! or ding ding ding ding ding ding.... it was hilarious.
Us girls whupped the boys, something like 1183 to something in the 700s!!
go girls.
As we said our goodbyes next to the car, I hugged Mum and whispered in her ear "next time we go out, can we go someplace where the word 'country' doesn't appear anywhere in the title?" We both had a laugh-- she knows I'm a city girl, but that doesn't stop her from trying.
Ah well-- my horizons can always do with a bit of expanding...
On my very last day working at Crewe Library (hallelujah!!!!) one of my colleagues not-so-gently broke the news to me that one of the regulars had died, that his wife (who has been very sweet to me and made me several beaded bracelets and really asked after me around the time of my surgery) had come into the library and pretty much announced to said colleague that her husband had died of a massive heart attack.
I was floored.
These people were very nice-- one of my first memories of working at Crewe was this man coming into the library and wanting song lyrics for all these old folk songs and country songs and I found them on Google for him and then pasted them into word for him-- he goes around singing at local nursing homes and hospitals and does parties and anniversaries etc. with his guitar.
Anyway, I waited a couple of days until I had a good long block of free time to phone the wife up to chat to her. The only problem was that I only had the phone number for his assisted living place (long story--they didn't live together), so I dialed that, figuring that a staff member or family member might answer and put me in touch with her.
A man answered the phone and I said I was trying to get ahold of her, and he says "oh, she's just gone out into town, she'll be back a bit later... who is it please?" So then I say "It's Kristen..."
and then I hear "OH! Hiya Kristen!! It's me,
I was pretty taken aback to say the least.
It took me about half a second to realise I needed to say something quick, but not blurt out something stupid like "well hey that's great-- you're not dead!"
So I jovially carried on a polite simple conversation, which involved him trying to use me to make an appointment with the college tutor for the computers (she thinks he's dead too!) and me having to explain (twice) that I don't work at Crewe any more and no, I don't have her mobile phone number, that he'll just have to ring the library and ask to make an appointment.
When we finally said goodbye, I hung up the phone and thought how lucky I am. I was considering just sending a card (which would have gone to her address) of my deepest sympathy etc. and possibly would have sent flowers as well! Can you imagine the embarrassment of that?? My deepest sympathy for your husband who isn't dead after all! ummmm... eeek!
My next task after hanging up was to immediately ring up Crewe library and ask for my esteemed colleague who told me the sad news. When I informed him otherwise, he was stumped-- "why would she come in and announce he's died?" "Perhaps you mis-heard her or something?" I said. "How do you mis-hear something like that?" he says-- and I bit my tongue then to keep any comments back.
I'm glad he's not dead, he's a nice guy and his wife is very sweet. But it does worry me how something like that can happen, because now the next time I hear someone has died, I'll be worried about whether or not they're really dead, and I might go psycho and be like the principal from the movie Ferris Bueller's Day Off and say "well, just roll her old bones on in here and we'll just see how dead she is..."
eeks.
Abbott and Costello were a fabulous comedy duo in America and I haven't thought about them or heard any of their stuff for years and years, but with having that conversation with Steve & Angus about Cricket, I went on a search to find their famous sketch "Who's on First?"
I found the full script and on that same page is an audio link where you can listen to it!!!
So what I did was listen to it as I read down through the script-- and laughed again as though that were the first time I had ever heard it...
fabulous. Check it out!
I also found a website from the families of Abbott and Costello where you can find other sound bytes and scripts of other routines & sketches and also send postcards and things like that!! Go to www.abbottandcostello.net.
yesterday at work, Angus and Steve and I were talking about some interesting things--
I was telling them about some interesting queries I had in the morning-- people wanting information about jukeboxes and a Mr. Carr phone call (I love those!) in which I learned more about Voltaire and how someone mistakenly said he was a troubadour and used iambic pentameter when obviously he would have been writing in French-- duh. Way over my head but I really enjoy talking to this very bright man who should write books and books about romanticism and troubadours and french poets.
Then Steve gave the cricket report-- the England team were playing in a test match against the West Indies... and since Angus was working on the desk, he couldn't watch what was happening, so Steve would disappear every so often to go upstairs and listen to the score on the radio and come back down and report.
It was then that I finally surrendered and asked for an explanation of the rules of cricket.
Steve and Angus exchanged cringy looks and didn't know where to begin. When they did begin, it sounded a bit like this:
The Rules of Cricket
You have two sides, one out in the field and one in.
Each man that's in the side that's in goes out, and when he's out he comes in and the next man goes in until he's out.
When they are all out, the side that's out comes in and the side thats been in goes out and tries to get those coming in, out.
Sometimes you get men still in and not out.
When a man goes out to go in, the men who are out try to get him out, and when he is out he goes in and the next man in goes out and goes in.
There are two men called umpires who stay out all the time and they decide when the men who are in are out.
When both sides have been in and all the men have out, and both sides have been out twice after all the men have been in, including those who are not out, that is the end of the game!
I nearly wet myself laughing.
Apparently they sell tea-towels here in the UK with this written on... so then that reminded me of the classic American comedy sketch Abbott & Costello did called "Who's on First?"-- Which I will talk about in my next blog, as I have found it online!!
If you seriously want more information about Cricket-- one of the websites I found that had the above humorous quote on it, but also had some serious Cricket rules summaries, click here.
