...countdown from a wedding...

Ok, its, lets check, 23.42 (11:42 for those of you who work in USA time) and for the first time in 2 months I'm feeling a bit chatty.

I've been a bit *absent* for the last four months or so. I'm having some issues. We all have them, no embarrassment there! I'm back now and feel like I need to share with the world. Of course, The world probably stopped listening, but no matter - someone might be still be around.

I went home (not really home, back to my Mom's in Tucson - amazing, WARM place) to get my sanity back and feel a bit more normal. It WORKED! Never underestimate the power of the Mommy. She will make you feel sane and good about yourself in the short trip home from the airport.

The visit home was invigorating and inspiring. Mommy fed me, shopped for me and sent me to work out with gym instructor Kyle (who used to be in the Marines. Ouch). In two short weeks I'm feeling like myself again!

I'm working on polishing off a beautiful bottle of wine in celebration of my friend Lily's marriage that is happening... right now! Congrats Lily and Carlos and best wishes!

I haven't mentioned my house yet - it's wonderful. When I left for the States it was a hell-hole that no self respecting professional would step foot in. I walked in last Sunday and it was..... amazing. The colours are working perfectly and it's clean! No trace of the um-teen builders that have trolled through the place in the last four months.

Big huge PHENOMENAL thanks to my father-in-law Alan and my brother-in-law Johnny (and mate Kenny) who came down to help Giles out. Its proof that families stick together!

I just cannot believe how fab the place looks. It is just how I wanted it to look. Strong, clean colours and natural wood. I spent this afternoon planting pots to accent the house. I'll have to post pictures.

So, for those of you who are still reading, look for the piccies!

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I'm starving... like ready to start gnawing at my arm starving. Its Wednesday the traditional "fast-food" day with my never-punctual-and-only-occasionally-reliable friend Simon. He's currently sitting in front of a pc doing god-knows-what to god-knows-what. I would guess bodging some software so it works (which is what he is known around the world for) but I could be completely mistaken.
Its unlikely though.

I be your all wondering where the h-e-double-hockey-sticks (thought I'd through in an Americanism for once) I've been for the last month-and-a-half-and-a-bit.

Its a secret and I won't tell you!

Not really. I've just been busy. And stressed. And busy and stressed. The combination of Christmas and difficult builders sent me over the edge and something had to give. Tell you about it later when I have recovered enough to think about it.

Sorry. I love you all, (whoever you are) but once the PC went on the fritz and the builders stopped showing up i couldn't deal and decided to hide. But I'm back now so everyone rejoice! Its a new year with lots of new things to say and do.

And I now only have 20 minutes left for lunch and like I said before - I'm starving...

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Arrrghhh.. I did it. Its ALL gone. I've eaten an ENTIRE Terry's chocolate orange. And I feel.... incredibly happy and satisfied (though that might be a result of all those "feel good" chemicals in the chocolate).

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What a productive morning! I’ve spent the last two or so hours reclaiming the forest that we call a back garden. I’ve trimmed, raked, weeded and swept. And you know what? For the two plus hours I’ve spent gardening – NOTHING looks different. The damn thing is still, dead, lifeless and full of leaves, but fewer leaves, much fewer leaves. Plus, I’ve tided the front garden (see above) but I think in my fevered motivation I may have pulled up some legitimate plants. Oh well, if they look like weeds I don’t want them in my garden - no less at the front of my house - anyway.

Once I managed to clear away all of the weeds and other overgrown-ness I did find some nice ivy and other ground cover. Ground cover is Gods gift to the non-gardener. You plant it, leave it and it GROWS. No need to spend hours caring for it. It just gets on with the business of growing. Yes, it is known for growing quickly and EVERYWHERE, but I’m ok with that. Let it cover the house. The less bare ground the less places for weeds to grow!

I would guess you’re wondering what I’ve been up to for the past two weeks. Just stuff really. Work has been a bit of an ass (nothing surprising there) and I spent two days down in London taking my Web Design exam. The exam itself was a breeze once I managed to convince the examiners to give it to me. It seems that they sent me out the wrong invitation so when I showed up for the WEB DESIGN exam they wanted to give me the JAVA exam. I was not a happy bunny. In true Scheidegger fashion they implied it was my fault and I would have to come back at the end of the week. Um, no. After some debate it was decided I since I was there, I could take the exam. And then they made me spend an entire day doing ANOTHER practice exam(it's a cool little website considering they made me do a static webiste in Frontpage - don't ask). Stupid people.

Besides that I’ve just been existing, not really interested in doing much of anything. I personally blame the weather and lack of sunlight. I’ve never been one for cold, dark and dreary. I like warm and bright with fluffy clouds and a slight breeze. Of course, that is about as frequent as a Martian eclipse so instead, I lock myself inside from the beginning of October to about the end of March, turn up the heat and take a number of warm baths. In other words, I become a real fun person to be around.

I am trying to make the most of horrid weather season by getting important chores done. What I have accomplished so far from this weekends list:

Tidy garden - check

Clean kitchen – check

Update website – ongoing

Return emails – check

Not two bad so far, but the rest of the list is still huge. I don’t *think* I’ll be getting them all done today. Lets go through them one-by-one.

Have fake nails removed

I’m sick of paying £15 every two weeks to have my nails done. Plus they keep breaking (ouch). Bye-bye fake nails.

Pay outstanding bills

I’ve started doing the one thing I hate – putting off paying bills until the last minute.

Clean bathroom

The bathroom isn’t the nicest place in the house at the moment. I’m loath to give it a good going-over because the builders are in and all builders are by nature dirty. Will probably put this one off.

Leave house and go into the Moor Top for shopping

I do need to leave the house at least once this weekend. Plus I have no milk meaning I can’t make tea. I could survive because I do have potatoes and eggs and I could whip up a quick Spanish omelette to keep me from starvation.

Tidy bedroom, office and lounge

See "clean bathroom"

Take wedding dress to be cleaned and boxed

I’ve been putting this off for, oh four months or so? It’s just, it’s expensive; I’m struggling with the concept of paying £120 to have the dress and veil cleaned and boxed. After they go into the box, they’ll go into a closet and I’ll never see them. For what I paid, I want to look at them regularly, even if I'll never fit into the dress again.

Have trousers altered

Explain this to me please. I have two pairs of trousers, one pair is too long, and one pair is too short. Both are the same size.

Take old clothes down to re-sale shop to be re-sold

I have lots of old clothes that I rarely wear. I have very little money, which I like to use frequently. Answer: trade clothes for money.

Do SOMETHING about Jo’s birthday present.

(Jo, if you’re reading this, skip to the next "job")
This is a disaster. I ordered her present about, oh, three weeks ago and got a letter yesterday saying it was out of stock and the company would send it as soon as the new stock arrived. NOOOOOOO! Her birthday is THIS THURSDAY and we’re going to Dublin THIS THURSDAY. So unless the stock arrives on Monday and it’s shipped that day, I don’t have a birthday present for Jo. ARRRRGGHH! I am a horrible friend.

Loose 7 pounds I put on in last four months (AKA go to gym)

I’ve been very, very, very bad. I’m only going to the gym once a week. I’m holding steady at about 140 lbs (10 stone) but I’m not really that happy about it. Christmas is coming and this means (for some sadistic reason) I need to dress up in little tinyclothes. Why, Why, WHY! It is SO unfair. All the nice Christmas food is starting to appear on the shelves and I need to loose weigh to fit into some tiny dress.

I’m going to go into the Moor Top and buy a Terry’s Chocolate orange and eat the entire thing. That what I think about wearing little dresses during the coldest months of the year! (Of course, you do know I’ll still go to the gym, be thin and svelte for Christmas and then be a fatty for January and February.)

That’s my plain of attack for the next few days. If I get most of them done, I’ll be ecstatic and then I can go to Dublin and engage in general girly debauchery with a clean conscious. So first stop, Moor Top and the Terry’s Chocolate orange (I can’t go to the gym to day anyway, Giles has the car!).

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Its four minutes past one according to Imagine FM. It’s sunny and clear, but 7 C (45 F). Sales Sharks are playing today, though without five of their top players and Malcolm Glazer has lost backing of his bank, JP Morgan, in his bid to buy Manchester United. Beyond that I stopped listening. Now, U2 is singing Beautiful Day in the background, ironic, because it IS the first Beautiful day we’ve had in a long time and I’m (almost) feeling upbeat and (almost) considering leaving the house today.

Looking out the window I would say it’s a day that Colorado Springs would be proud of. For those of you uninitiated to the weather patterns in the Colordo Front Range, Colorado Springs weather has the amazing ability to “look” like t-shirt weather, but once you get outside you can’t feel your fingertips.

I’m having an “all alone” weekend. Giles went up to Carlisle about two hours ago and won’t be back until tomorrow night. Frenchy is somewhere in the Middle East – the **** (please insert you favourite obscenity) decided it was a great time to see the sites of Egypt, Jordan and other hostile Middle Eastern countries. Sean is in Manchester, a place I’m banning myself from until my finances improve considerable, and everyone else is – I don’t know. Point is I’m saving the weekend for some self-introspection and chores.

** excuse me a moment, need to restart the PC – it’s finished its automatic update**

Right, I’m back. Don’t you love real-time commentary? It’s much more interesting than painfully reviewed and polished commentary. Only I know what I’ll come out with (and I only know 3 seconds before it’s on the page).

Automatic updates are superb. I haven’t turned the laptop on in about three weeks so as soon as I logged onto the internet it got busy and started updating itself. Great things PC’s - they just pretty much look after themselves. Obviously they’ve learned it’s faster (and safer) than waiting me to download all the necessary updates.

I HAVE taken it upon myself to download the latest release of Firefox. Now, not to be a browser evangelist, and I’m not one of these Microsoft-is-evil individuals, but Firefox is a kick-ass web browser. Yes, Internet Explorer is familiar and safe, but we all need to step outside our comfort zone every-so-often. Go on and try it , you’ll LIKE it (and its free!).

http://www.mozilla.org/

Talking of interesting websites I feel obliged to point this small article out to all of you. I should have posted it before the election, but I didn’t, so here it is now.

George is an ass

This article is just another reason why I cannot stand George Bush and his politics. Excluding the entire Iraq thing, the man is managing bit by bit to completely alienate entire international community including all of the American ex-pats who live in said community (me). What kind of message does BLOCKING his website send? It says he doesn’t care about anyone else outside of the United States, and that those Americans who live outside the country are less important and less AMERICAN that those who live in the country.

The man is an ass.

Please, please, PLEASE try to defend him. I always love to hear reasons WHY that man and his hyper-conservative, right-wing cronies should be running the most powerful country in the world.

As the day moves on, I need to get my little bum (or not so little, my gym visits have dwindled to once a week) moving and do some productive web development. I’ve dedicated the weekend to improving my site, and *hopefully* but tomorrow night it will be worth checking out!

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Ok, so it’s like the fourth month of living in not-quite-put-away-house. This is much worse than the living-out-of-boxes house and not quite as bad as the oh-shit-we’re-living-on-a-floodplain-house. The not-quite-put-away-house is a difficult one. You can’t REALLY complain because most of the stuff has eventually found homes and the rest you only use occasionally anyway. But that’s the point. When you want to make use of ‘occasional’ stuff, say in my case, a CD (did I mention that my CD’s were deemed occasional, but I was promised they will be given the first home when one comes available). So I want to listen to a bit of Tom Petty, maybe some Bon Jovi, or even some Spice Girls. Most (lucky) people would go to their CD rack or a bookshelf. I have to first move a very large box from the top of a wardrobe and then, if I survive, dig through three layers of CD’s until I find the one I want.

By this time I’m exhausted and bored. Needless to say, whatever emotion prompted me to actually LOOK for a CD has left me anyway. So I no longer bother and will continue to live a music-free existence until our space-creation plan is complete.

And what is this space-creation plan? The answer to all of our storage needs is simple: a loft conversion. In two weeks builders who will not only disrupt my life, but also move walls around and generally make a big mess will once again invade us. I will then have three weeks (ish) of sawdust, dirt and not to mention a sizable hole in the roof. That’s what I’m really looking forward to – being exposed to the elements.

I’m already cold. It’s no longer summer and, the sun keeps insisting on going down before 7:00 PM (I think I have SADD).

So the solution to the not-quite-put-away-house is to turn it into the empty-cups-of-tea-builder-filled house. (I’m seriously considering leaving them a note telling them to do their own washing up. ) But, fingers crossed after the whole ordeal I will have a little sanctuary at the top of the house with my books and CD’s on shelves instead of in cardboard boxes.

What a fantastic Christmas present.

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Its not Monday, but I'm feeling INSPIRED (this hasn't happened in very_long_time and I thought I'd run with it). Giles went to Oswestry this weekend with some of his mates so I've been all alone for almost 48 hours. An occasion for two reasons: firstly, this is the longest I've spent without Giles since before the wedding and secondly I have no idea what to do with myself.

Prior to moving in with Giles I could entertain myself for HOURS. In fact, give me a weekend and I've build-you-a-website, clean-your-house, read-AT-LEAST-one-book, or catch-up-on-some-much-needed-shut-eye.

What does a married woman do with her first free weekend? Until today, nothing useful at all. For all those married women out there, here is a quick run-down of useless ways of spending a weekend sans partner.

Friday

1) Go out with your friends to the pub and have *few* quiet drinks.
2) Go home at a normal time, stopping by the local take away and buy the stinkiest pizza on offer.
3) Eat the pizza in front of the music videos OF YOUR CHOICE. If you like Metallica, you watch Metallica!
4) Leave the pizza box on the floor. Don't pick it up until the day your husband is getting home.
5) Crawl into bed in big comfy pyjamas and sleep in the middle.
6) Wake up the next day and do whatever you want. Get out of bed. Say in bed. Text your friends for hours and hours.

And here ends my advice for weekend without a husband. I really am so boring that I did no more interesting, independent or inappropriate things. By Saturday afternoon, I found myself wondering my house (a repetitive pastime as my little English semi only has five rooms) looking for something to occupy my time. I finally sat down on the couch about 1-ish and didn't move for EIGHT HOURS. I then shifted myself upstairs to the bed where I promptly fell asleep to something-or-other on the history channel. While my night of general misbehaviour was fun, I was bored without anyone around to talk about it after.

Today, I've given myself a swift kick. After a fitful night of thrashing about (don't know why, but I've taken to pulling the fitted sheets off the mattress while I sleep - Giles doesn't take any notice) I pulled myself out of bed and down to Tesco for 10 am and it was closed. A bit, frustrated ARRRGHHH to this country where shops can only be opened for seven hours on a Sunday. I put gas in the car - it has been so long I couldn't remember how to get the gas tank cover open - and went down to B & Q for some tester paint pots, light bulbs (I've been doing my makeup in the dark for the last few mornings) and a garden rake (£15 for a garden rake! Blasphemy!). Then, back up to Tesco where half of Stockport and their children where waiting to be allowed to do their weekly shopping.

My advice: For the love of God, please don't take your children the grocery store if you can help it. It is NOT considered a good day out and someday a disgruntled shopper (me) will inadvertently run them over with a trolley.

By 1:30 I had finished the weekly shop, raked the back garden (I just looked out the window and the leaves have all returned) and painted little test patches in the front room. The room now looks like a crazed decorator has snuck into the house. To expedite the removal of the little paint squares, I've made a decision: "Old English White" and accenting with "Promenade" (olive green). This, however, could be swayed into "Golden Suede" and "Ivory Cream." We'll see what the hubby has to say when he finally gets home!

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Its_Monday_the_fourth_of_October. How the hell did that happen. I am so not in the swing of things. In fact, I think I’ve lost my swing. (Kinda like Stella loosing her Groove, but that’s a completely different story) As of late, I’ve been a bit…. Disjointed? Disassociated? Off in la-la land? Somewhere around there, you get the picture. I’ve been doing pretty much whatever pleases me at the time. (Things that please me: American drama. Good Wine. Nice food. Being warm. Snuggles).

I’ve thrown caution into the wind and followed the brightest light out there (i.e. doing what sound the most fun and takes the least amount of effort). After two weeks of this I’ve become disastrously unorganised and a bit fuzzy around the edges (literally, my trousers are getting tight again). The state I’m in is_not_good. Disorganisation leads to lack of focus. When I loose focus I get lazy (who would have thought!). When I get lazy I tend to frequently find myself either a) down the pub or b) prostrate in front of the telly – neither of which are terribly good uses of my time.

And for the two weeks I have DONE NOTHING of note. I think my heart, body and soul took a unscheduled holiday after I finished the thank you notes and closed the wedding list. I got the finger and they headed to Fiji not only leaving me in sweater weather that is growing colder, darker and damper by the days, but also with no defence against my worst sin – sloth. I will finally admit it to the world: I have strong tendencies towards wrapping myself up in a woolly cardigan watching hours of telly. You all might of thought I was this amazingly motivated women who was going to take over the world (Giles did, and then I moved in with him), but really the only thing I’m planning to dominate is possession of the remote control.

For the past two weeks I’ve schlepped around the house occasionally washing the dishes or throwing a load of laundry INTO the washer (I regularly bribed Giles to take the clothes out and hang them up). I haven’t seen the inside of my gym for around three weeks and when I went back this evening I couldn’t remember how the treadmills worked. I haven’t studied my JAVA in a month. My website is floundering badly (I feel guilty neglecting my baby, but something bigger and stronger than my self-discipline is taking over my mind…).

As of today I’m giving myself a kick in the ass, otherwise I’ll find myself at fifty with an expertise in American Drama as my only accomplishment. Realistically, I just need a schedule. My entire life I shunned calendars, planners etc; you know, anything that involves MAKING PLANS (arrrrggh). I rebelled. I wanted to be spontaneous and free; run off to exotic places with inappropriate men. (like all women who want to be free to run away with inappropriate men, I never did it. Now I’m married and unless Giles develops inappropriate habits and wins the lottery, I think as a dream, spontaneity and freedom need to be put to one side).

Also- way back when,-I had a memory. I could remember what people said to me in passing four years ago on a night out. Now can’t remember what I had for breakfast, let alone what I have to do after work. Today, I was on the phone and forgot why I phoned the call centre in the first place.

For these reasons, I’ve conceded to fate and I’m putting myself on a schedule. (I might even formalise it by writing it down. What a novel idea - carry a personal planner around with me. Hmmm. Right. Don’t know if I’m ready for that type of organisation quite yet. )
My first commitment in my newly formed schedule is to post a blog EVERY Monday. I’m going to become accountable to my readers! Of course there is every possibility that with my new found structure I might become boring (though I’m afraid it’s happening already as I posted a blog about plants. BTW- Big mamma is doing better!) . Plodding boredom is a risk I have to take, but I have just one little request. If I get too boring someone PLEASE, PLEASE post a comment and let me know. Us boring people often think we’re actually quite interesting and tend to whitter on, and on and on...

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