Archive for November, 2008

Sock it to me, baby!

Wednesday, November 26th, 2008

My manic state has calmed somewhat since my last post. That’s not to say that I’m not completely and utterly bummed by the whole situation, but it’s amazing what a good meal (that you don’t have to cook or wash up after) and a couple of beers will do for perspective.

Socks for my dad’s birthday will not be done in time. I’ll be waving one complete sock at him, and a pair in progress. The first one isn’t looking too bad though.

I’m very much digging the Regia colourways that are out at the moment. This is my second pair in Galaxy. Hopefully they won’t be too flamboyant for the auld fella. Men can be horrendously conservative in their colour choices when it comes to clothing. Gray, black, brown, yaaaawn!

I won’t be totally empty-handed though. I managed to get a card and some chocolate today, which are always good things, and an envelope from Oxfam Unwrapped should be arriving in the morning as well. I’ve bought him some chicks. Very cute. One of the fab things about Oxfam is that the recipient gets a card addressed to them, with your personalised message inside, and a magnet with a photo of your gift on the front. Fabulous! I’ll be picking up some more bits from them for Christmas presents again this year.

My stroll towards dinner last night (Mongolian Barbeque - yum!) took me in a round about way past some of the big department stores. Arnotts, I will begrudgingly admit, have a really nice window.

Arnotts window

When I was younger, the window in Dublin to beat belonged to Brown Thomas. They used to have a different theme every year, like Nutcracker, or Fairytales, and each window would be a different panel in the story.

It still annoys me terribly that for the last 3 weeks I’ve been hearing Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer every time I pop out for a carton of milk though.

Right, bits to wrap up here, then on to a bus back home. I’d like to say that I’ll get my rules of the road revision done, or as far as the heel turning on sock two, but I suspect that I’ll just end up falling asleep with my coat wrapped around me, trying not to wake myself by headbutting the window.

Not that I’ve done that before or anything….

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Herding cats

Tuesday, November 25th, 2008

The only way to describe the last week is “herding cats”.

Work continued to explode until Friday, and now I’m left to do the mop up. Fine, it’s work. It’s fixable. If I couldn’t hack it, I wouldn’t still be here.

I finished HusBeast’s galaxy socks, and not only did I start a pair for my father (his birthday is Thursday) but got the first man-sized sock done in under a week, and am on to the second. Pure win, that is.

I’ve been window shopping online for a spinning wheel, as I’m now hooked, and a digital camera as we’ve still to replace the one that was stolen on honeymoon mark 2. I sent off all the bits to renew my learners permit, and everything was going rather well, if quickly.

So my driving test is on Friday morning. At 8am. Less than optimal, but at least it means that it’s out of the way in time for breakfast, and if it goes astonishingly well and I somehow manage to pass, I can have my full licence by lunchtime. Yesterday I get a phonecall from my mother telling me that my insurance is up, and that my exhaust is making some freaky noises. I can see the spinning wheel money vanish in my mental calculator.

My mother said she’d gone ahead and booked me a couple of pre-test lessons with a friend of hers who is a driving instructor. Peachy. One is for lunchtime on Thursday, and the other is for fricking 7am on Friday! I’m seriously contemplating cancelling that one, as it means the whole house would have to get up at 6am - the law here changed in June, so I can’t drive out of my front gate without a person who has had a full licence for at least 3 years sitting beside me. Argh.

As it turned out, my insurance is fine. The renewal cert from February had just gone missing, and has since been recovered. Win. Mental calculator back nearer the happy place. This wasn’t to last though.

Turns out that after a year sitting on my parents driveway (and only being driven up and down the drive for “exercise”) that my car has a few bits wrong. The exhaust was only the beginning. I need new brake pads…and new brakes. My two back tyres have to be replaced. Engine needs tuning. Fluids need changing, as do spark plugs and whatever the hell else was on the list that adds up to over a grand and a fricking half (or around $2k).

You might want to scroll past this next bit if you’re easily offended.

Fuckityfuckfuckfuckfuck.

Arsebiscuits.

OMGWTFBBQ!!!!!

It’s safe to look again!

If I hadn’t been a customer of the garage for years, I’d think they were taking the proverbial out of me. They’re a main Ford dealership, so they can be a little more expensive, but they’re not going to charge me a tenner for topping up the air in my tyres or anything. The list of things that need doing comes to 15 items. Oh, plus I’ll need to get a car wash, some L plates, and spend an hour hoovering out the inside before the test.  The real sickner is that even after trading my left kidney for some spare parts, it might not even be ready in time for the test. It’s possible to do my test in my instructors car, but that’s another chunk of money as I essentially have to hire it for the hour.

Can I please have a do-over? One that means I can afford my beautiful wheel some time before I’m 40?

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Trials and tribulations…and shiny

Thursday, November 13th, 2008

Thanks for all the supportive comments - I really, really appreciate them.

Coding continues. Managed to do stuff far too late into the night and, much like knitting when tired, ended up frogging the whole bloody lot in the cold light of day.

Argh.

Work is exploding all over me in a bad and messy way. We had a system problem, and long story short I have the best part of 600 emails in my inbox. Naturally, they’re all high priority. I managed to crawl out of the office at 7pm last night, and mostly due to the mail server temporarily falling over.

I’ve got some photos for you as well, but like so many other things during a changeover, I’m working out the kinks in getting them up here.

Sorry this is all very boring, but I’m holding on to the edges of sanity with my fingernails. I have my driving test at the end of the month, the same weekend as my dad’s “I didn’t get those socks I was promised from my daughter” birthday. HusBeast has an interview for a proper job tomorrow. He’s not sure if he even wants the proper job at this stage. This one at least. Let’s see how things pan out anyway. Better to go than to regret it and all that…

Now if the postman would only bring my shiny to me, I could get some things kicked off! Mmmyarnblanks…

Notice the distinct lack of talking about the socks. Not the birthday socks for my dad. Those, at this stage, are as likely to be done on time as..as…most construction jobs in Ireland. Every evening I tell myself that I’m going to go home, have dinner and finish the piddling 2 inches of ribbing that would mean the finish of the Galaxy socks. I’m positively embarassed that they’re taking so long to do. Embarassed, and a little pathetic.

Maybe I should suck it up and start burning the midnight oil again. Sleep is so overrated. Right?

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Best laid plans…

Tuesday, November 11th, 2008

…and so on.

This web design thing is much more….fiddly than I remembered. I actually may need to read the manual brew up a lot of coffee to get through this. I’m an arty farty type, but I’m also a bit of a perfectionist, which is where the trouble comes in. I know that websites are a fluid thing (or should be) but if you are all willing to hang about ’til I get done, I want it to be worth the build up!

Blog mark one, I’m going to leave up and running for a little while. I’m hoping to be rather clever and pull all the old posts across here, so that I can eventually kill mark one entirely. I know this is going to be a bit of a pain in the butt as all you lovely people (I like to pretend that I have squillions of readers and am not just talking to myself) will have to update your bloglines/bookmarks/whatever, but I would like to think that it’ll be worth it in the long run.

The front page is looking rather depressingly like a page marker. The upside is that HusBeast is working on some custom graphics and the like for me, so it shouldn’t take too long before I can cast off my virtual apron and put my feet up with a cup of tea.

Well, what do I have planned? The blog is a big chunk of it at the moment. I’ve been getting more and more annoyed with the old blog lately, so this is just the breath of fresh air that was required. I’ll also have some of my rather delicious (if I may be so bold) handpainted yarns up for sale before the end of the year. There will be a few more surprises as we go along, but that’s all I’m going to reveal for now!

Yes, I know, yet another website with a yarny blog flogging even more yarn in the middle of a recession.  Perhaps I am barking mad. It wouldn’t be the first time that I’ve been called it and, let’s face it, it won’t be the last either! I’ve been thinking about doing this for far longer than I’d care to admit at this stage, and recently decided to take the plunge, thanks to some gentle encouragement from my other half, and some much needed abuse and “get off your arse”-ness from those fine people over at Lazy, Stupid and Godless (Ravelry).

I promise to blog regularly and post lots of embarassing pictures if you’ll come along for the ride.  After all, what’s life without someone something to laugh at on a Monday morning?

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Welcome!

Tuesday, November 11th, 2008

Well hello there, and welcome to mark two of the blog.

The site is still very much a work in progress, and I’m feeling very old and out of the loop as it has been quite a few years since I’ve done any web design. It’s truly scary how fast things change. I remember learning how to make frames in college. Frames!!!

Anyway, I just wanted to say that it’s lovely to see you over here, and I hope that you’ll subscribe and leave me comments to tell me how well or badly I’m doing with things!

Take care,

GaietyGirl

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Today is made of pure WIN

Wednesday, November 5th, 2008

I know, I know, I’ve been a crap blogger lately. I promise you a catchup really soon.
I just had to break radio silence and say

THANK YOU, AMERICA!!!!!

I’ve been following the presidential race for the last year and a half, as have a lot of people in Europe, with bated breath. Yesterday was an amazingly stressful day, and the need for sleep took over in the wee hours of the morning, with the final call yet to be made.

Today I woke up and found that…well….history has been made.

Also thank you Florida. You look so damn good in blue.

Shortly after arriving in work, I got a phonecall to say that a (legit!!) competition I had entered had come up roses, and there’s an iPod in the post.

Today is a fricking awesome day. I’m totally buying a lottery ticket at lunchtime!

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