Happy Birthday

Today it was my daughter's 20th birthday. I bought her a dress for her convention in August.


I'll show you photo's of her in it from the convention, she still has to get the right wig.

Her special birthday treat was to go out with me for lunch (her choice) to a traditional Japanese restaurant Mount Fuji. There we had a chicken teriyaki bento box and matcha tiramisu for dessert...yum, yum, yum. I really have to find some matcha as that was the nicest tiramisu I have ever tasted, even though first impressions were more like OMG it's green!! It was the first time I'd had a bento box too.

After lunch we had a walk around town, first stop the fabric store. She needs some shiny white fabric but she was also looking for some bright red shiney pvc for a friend. The mind boggles!

Then we went to Game as her brother kindly offered to buy her a new game and on the way we stopped by a gorgeous shoe shop to drool. Such lovely shoes, but I'd never get the chance to wear them.

We also popped into Selfridges just to see the giant bull made from jelly beans. Seriously! They were selling a lollypop for £14, but it was about two foot tall.

Just before we came home we decided to treat Craige to a doughnut from Krispy Kreme, we bought him a chocolate dream.
One final treat before coming home was that the car park was free, it usually costs about £5 so that pleased me.

For her cake I bought her a ready made one from Sainsbury's, it was a Top Gear one with the Stig on the top. She loved it :-)

All in all it's been a very pleasant day, for me as well as Cassie. I don't very often get to go out without a littlie tagging along. It was all very weird being able to use steps and escalators rather than lifts all the time.

Six Months

Six months ago today I lost my mum, just a couple of weeks after finding out she had terminal cancer. It’s been a tough six months, I’ve found it really hard coming to terms with losing her. I’d like to say that it’s got better with time but I can’t, all I can say is that it is not as bad all of the time. I have now accepted that she has gone and that my life has to continue.
I am trying not to think about how I am going to feel in six months time on the anniversary of her death. It will be Christmas day and I’ve always loved Christmas, now I fear that I cannot enjoy the festivities because I will just be thinking of last year. I’ve always planned well in advance for holiday, by now even I’d be half way through saving for all the food and decorations. I like to get all the preparations in place by October at the latest. This year I just don’t know how I will do it, how will even summon the interest. How can I celebrate the day my mum died? I have been thinking that maybe if I did something special in her memory on the day, then I could carry on with the rest of Christmas as normal? I’ve not thought of what I could do yet though.

I was looking through some photo’s last night and I found one of me and mum taken when we last went on holiday together, 1999. Leila saw it and recognised her nanny which made me happy. I don’t know how long she will remember her for though. I wanted to scan the photo and put it on here but my printer/scanner is playing up.

I still miss mum terribly, I would give anything to talk with her, take her out, even listen to her ramble on about her favourite soaps (which I never watched). If there is anything after life then I hope that she is now happy, but the only thing I can be sure of is that at least now she has no pain, that's just left for me.

Crowded House

I'm beginning to think that four adults in one house is too many, especially when none of us are particularly easy to get on with. Well, apart from Graham who is generally easy going but lately has become a bit moody too. We all have completely different body clocks which means we are not under each others feet, but it also makes us prone to waking each other up. Sometimes I think it's a mad house. It's about time they all got jobs and then maybe life would be more normal. I would give anything to go back to work right now but I don't know how that would improve things seeing as I'm the only one who ever does anything in this house. I'm sure I would become even more resentful being the only one who ever did the washing,ironing, cooking, cleaning etc and going out to work. Do I think that if I did go out to work they would chip in more and help? Honestly, my answer would have to be no. Even when I was heavily pregnant and barely mobile with symphasis pubis disorder I didn't get any help, so why would they bother if I was working. And before you say I don't nag enough, I did, I'm just tired of it now. I'm tired of everything now, sometimes I eventhink I'm 'worried out', like I don't even have the energy to worry anymore. I just feel numb. Things have to improve soon, don't they?
Oh just ignore me, I haven't had a decent nights sleep in over a week now and my hormones are playing up....normal service will be resumed shortly.

Kittens

Awww we have just had the two most gorgeous little kittens. We hadn't really thought about having more cats, we already have two, but Graham came home from the shops with a phone number and told me to ring if I wanted kittens.

Me and Cassie went to take a look and instantly fell in love, which of course we knew we would. They are both black with white socks and white tummy's. The boy also has a white patch on his face. We've called them Salem and Sabrina.

They are such good little kittens, we haven't had any accidents yet, they always go to the litter tray. They are very inquisitive though and we've had to rescue them from inside the fire twice. Good job we don't use the fire anymore. At the moment they are so tiny they fit into the palm of your hand.

The older cats Suzie and Scribbles are indifferent to them. They have been avoiding coming in, but then they don't spend much time in the house anyway. The kittens were kept in the bathroom overnight for safety and the big cats where there to great me as usual when I got up this morning.

And now for a photo:-)

Technology

I was thinking today of the first time that I was introduced to the internet and was surprised to remember that it was more than 10 years ago. It was when I started my library job at the university, I even had to go for a lesson on how to use the e-mail client. I took to it all pretty quick though. It wasn't long before I had a separate Hotmail account for personal e-mails.

Someone had told me that the first thing to do when new to the internet is to look up information about something that interests you, a favourite author or musician for example. I looked up Terry Pratchett and soon I was a member of a forum of Australian Terry Pratchett fans. In actual fact I am still a member of the forum although I haven't been active for quite a while. I do still log in sometimes and some of the original members are still active. Over the next few years I actually met up with some of the members, 2 from the UK, 2 from Alaska and 1 from Australia.

It wasn't long before I had to have a computer at home. Mostly I wanted to chat to my Australian buddies in real time, which meant, late at night. My first computer cost me £1000, had 3GB of hard drive (yes 3GB!!) and 256mb RAM. It ran on Windows 98. My internet was dial-up and sometimes took 20 attempts to connect. It would kick me off at least once an hour. Mum would complain that she could never reach me on the phone as the line was always busy.

I think I'd had the computer about a year before the kids became interested. Soon there was a rota for internet usage to avoid arguments. Then my daughter came into some money and went and bought herself a lap top. We still have it, it's now called the crap top and Lucy plays with it.

Now we have four working computers (although only 3 are set up) 2 laptops, including the crap top and two broken computers. We have wireless broadband which is mostly reliable.

What do I do now on the internet? Well, I keep a blog (obviously), I have my own website and an e-book that I wrote a couple of years ago, I visit two forums regularly on which I have met many friends, some have even become RL friends. I visit Twitter and Facebook daily and also like Ebay. I love reading blogs and have a folder of my favourites which I visit regularly. I do my banking online and a fair bit of shopping too. I do some writing for an site when the mood takes me, mostly non-fiction but I have dabbled in fiction too. And I like to play online bingo occasionally.

Lost in Fantasy

Last Friday I went to town with Craig so he could buy me my Mother's Day present (yes, I know it was a bit late but it's not his fault the release was delayed). It's been ages since I have had the opportunity to play a computer game but an all time favourite of mine has been Sims, and now I have the shiny new Sims 3 and it's brilliant. :-) So I've been busy inventing my family and playing out their lives. I've yet to build my dream home so I'll have a go at that soon. It does tend to take over a bit though, and it's a never ending game.... well, it is when you turn off the aging, I leave it off mostly because I don't like to see my Sims grow old and die. If only you could turn back aging in real life.

Other news...Lucy is getting on better in school, her teacher this morning said she has actually started interacting with her peers, it's taken nearly a whole school year but she's getting there and I couldn't be happier. On the down side she's having terrible trouble with constipation. Not something I want to blog about in detail but I hate to see her suffering.

Leila is fine after our little scare. I can't believe how much she is growing up, suddenly she's stopped being a baby, she's a walking talking little person. She's a real character too, so loving and funny, a real joy to have around.

Oh, and Big Brother 10 has started, I watched them going in and thought what a bunch of weirdo's, but I'm already hooked and normally it takes at least a couple of weeks!!!

One Lovely Blog Award

I've been given this award by my Twitter friends Tracy. She is me 8 years ago :-) You can read her blog here: One With One Without

Thank you so much for thinking of me when awarding this Tracy :-)

Here are the rules:

Accept the award, post it on your blog together with the name of the person who has granted the award, and his or her blog link.

Pass the award to 10 other blogs that you’ve newly discovered.

Remember to contact the bloggers to let them know they have been chosen for this award.

So here are my top ten blogs that Ive discovered over the past few weeks: (in no particular order)

A Catholic Calling

Ann's Ramblings

Dealing With The Day

Krayfish55

Brummie Blogs

Red Mummy Rambles On

The Alien Amongst You

Josianna

Working Class Hero

Waffling and More (I put this one last because it has protected updates, but this is one very brave lady and definately deserved a mention)