Yahtzee January 30, 2008
Posted by graciek in Going Out, Life in General.Tags: beginner's luck, yahtzee
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Went round to a friend’s house for dinner tonight and we played Yahtzee afterwards. I’ve never actually played Yahtzee before and it seemed like quite a simple premise. I think I must have had the biggest stroke of beginner’s luck. First go I managed to get Yahtzee in my first 3 rolls. Then on another go I threw the dice and got a straight without having to roll again. The third freaky thing was I threw the dice and got a pair of 5s, then I threw the remaining 3 dice and one popped out of the dish and jumped straight into the rack next to the 5s – guess what value it was… yes another 5 and I also had yet another 5 in the dish! Flukey. I ended up having to put a zero against the “1s”. But managed to win with a score of about 280. Not bad for my first go. Off course now whenever I play I’ll be rubbish!
Summary of the day: Went to work, Got the last 2 interviews written up and sent off, Had leftovers for lunch, Got some analyses done (looked like a DNA profile when I’d finished), Went to Rachy’s for Thai Green Curry (yummy) and Yahtzee, Watched Torchwood
Baby’s First Bit of Furniture January 29, 2008
Posted by graciek in Life in General, Pregnancy.Tags: changing unit
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Went to the 2nd hand shop today and bought a chest of drawers for £29! They’re a sort of walnut veneer 1960/70s kind of thing. Nice and sturdy, not like today’s flatpack that is only really good as long as you don’t move it. It has 4 drawers so lots of space for baby’s clothes and stuff. It has some 1″ edging on the back edge of the top surface already and hubby is going to make 2 side edgings. Then we’re going to put a changing mat on top (I think Ikea have a basic one for £2.99). So that’s baby’s first bit of furniture. Shame there’s no nursery to put it in yet, we now have an empty study that needs redecorating. Hubby is going to make a start on it next month. We don’t want to spend much on furniture as we’ll prob ditch it all in December when we move to Oz. Other bits we want to acquire are a moses basket and stand and a comfy armchair for nursing. That should be it for the study (we already have some shelves up in there). Thinking of going for a warmish off-white colour and then using ornaments and accessories to brighten it in there. May also do a painting on canvas while I’m on maternity leave.
Summary of the day: Wrote up more interviews and models, Went to ehb for lunch with some colleagues, Waited around to do some consultancy for first years only to find that the room had been booked for an exam and hence the session was cancelled, Went home via 2nd hand shop
Strangoid Dreams Again January 28, 2008
Posted by graciek in Life in General, WTF?.Tags: Strange dreams
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I’ve been having some weird dreams again.
-A few weeks ago I had this bizarre dream that I was pregnant (well, that’s not a dream, but) I was sitting cross-legged and I looked down and saw that I had 5 legs and then realised that I was in labour! I woke hubby up and told him about having an extra leg hanging out and then he said, actually if I had 5 legs then I would have 3 extra legs. For some reason 4 legs didn’t seem to be alarming, it was the 5th leg that freaked me out. What a peculiar dream (I put it down to eating cheese on toast before bed).
-I dreamt hubby was chasing me round and poking me in the face with a pencil (v annoyingly) and then I woke up in a 1/2 dreamlike state and hubby was holding my arms as I was fighting back trying to avoid the dream pencil. It took me about 5 mins to distinguish between dream and real life.
-Last night I dreamt that I was food shopping at a supermarket and it was like Supermarket Sweep apart from I think I may have been rushing round trying to find ingredients for a party which I guess I was late for.
I do dream a lot, I think I probably dream most nights but can’t remember many after the first 5 mins of being awake. Some dreams are really cool and I just want to go back to sleep, sometimes I’m sure that I dream certain situations and later in real life I get total déjavu, other times they are just odd. I don’t have many nightmares thankfully.
Summary of the day: Went to work, Looked online for a pressie to send for my Grandma’s birthday, Did some process modelling, Had a telecon at 4pm (rerun after last week’s incident), Got home and hubby had made spag bol for dinner, Sold my computer desk (now the study is empty it can start it’s nursery transformation)
Clothes Shopping January 27, 2008
Posted by graciek in Life in General, Pregnancy.Tags: Jan sales, maternity wear
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Finally gave in and went clothes shopping this weekend. Trawled quickly round Loughborough shops but no sign of any maternity wear in any of the high st shops. So after church today we went to Fosse Park (big retail park off M1 in Leicester). After about an hour we came out with a small selection of clothes that I think will get me through the next 6 months. As it’s our first baby it’s really hard to know what to look out for and I must admit that all the various mechanisms, elastics, ties and buttons for making them expand are bamboozling! My prepregnancy trouser size was 12, but I did buy a couple of size 14 trousers before Xmas when my old trews got a bit tight. The maternity trousers are massive!!! After 20 mins in the changing rooms adjusting them all to the minimum waist they at least stayed up, however they gape a bit where there is extra material. I guess in a month I’ll be grateful for being able to let them out. We spent a grand total of £72.15 on 3 pairs of trousers, 1 jumper, 1 hoodie and 1 smart top. Seems like quite a lot, but when I worked how much it would have been pre-sales we saved ourselves over £50 and I got an £8 student discount too. Not bad really. The only pain was that the sale rack was for all the “non-regular” fits so we had to trawl through maternity, tall and petite clothes are jumbled up together.
Summary of the day: Went to church, Helped out at Sunday School. Went shopping at Fosse Park, Had KFC (naughty) for lunch, Came home, Fell asleep on sofa (it’s hard work shopping and growing baby), Felt dreadful, Had a shower and felt human again, Had mini-fashion show with new clothes!
Happy Birthday Lou! January 26, 2008
Posted by graciek in Going Out, Life in General, Mocha dog, Parties.Tags: 30th birthday
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Our friend reached the big 30 milestone. She is officially XXX rated!! Suppose what’s scary is that we’re not too far off that ourselves. When I was young I don’t think I ever contemplated being 30 or what I would have expected to achieve by then. Lou had a massive house party with the first BBQ of the year (luckily it wasn’t raining/snowing, but was bloody cold)! Mocha made a new friend called Maggie, who’s an 11week old staffie. Mocha didn’t quite know what to make of her and kept hiding (think Mocha is finally getting a taste of her own medicine for when she was a boisterous little puppy harrassing older doggies to play).
Summary of the day: Went food shopping (by myself, so proud I only spent £39 on the week’s shopping which included £15 on a present), Cooked canneloni for lunch, Went to Lou’s 30th party, Managed to stay up till midnight!
Where’d all this washing up come from? January 25, 2008
Posted by graciek in Life in General, WTF?.Tags: cooking mess
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What? I spring cleaned the house yesterday yet this afternoon there seemed to be a kitchen full of stuff and grease to clean again. Got back from work a bit early and set to work cleaning – AGAIN. Unbelievable, where did it magically come from? Grr! It’s most irritating that it finally got lovely and spotless less than 24hrs before, and suddenly the one-man husband whirlwind took charge in the kitchen for dinner and there’s board, knives, plates, bowls all over the place. When I cook there is 1 board, 1 knife, 1 spatula and at most 2 cooking pans. I’m v economical with utensils while cooking and keep stuff on the board. When hubby cooks there is flour all over every surface, oil splattered everywhere and various cooked/raw juices of things spilt on the worktops and floor.
Summary of the day: Work, Tidying, Knackered!
Early Spring Cleaning January 24, 2008
Posted by graciek in Life in General.Tags: spring cleaning
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I decided to take the day off as holiday (I have quite a lot of days still to use up before end of March) and spent the day giving the house a mini spring clean. The kitchen got a good sanitising, scrubbed the cupboard fronts (wow, it looked white until I cleaned it after which the unclean ones looked yellow in comparison), mopped the floor (until the mop self imploded and turned into a pile of rags sans pole), cleaned the hob (inc all the burners and racks), scrubbed the tiles and extractor hood. Yuck – so greasy! Armed with my duster, sponge, cleaning products, bin bags and some kitchen roll, I then got to work emptying all the bins and sorting out all the random piles of paperwork that seem to magically appear in each room. Dusted all the surfaces and even did the doors. Put various things back into their homes (scissors, etc). Reconfigured the rowing maching (it was quite heavy and I probably shouldn’t have done it, but no strains caused). Vacuumed the whole house top to bottom. Felt good once I had finished. It only took about 5 hrs. Finished at about 3pm feeling a bit faint then realised I hadn’t had lunch yet and come to think of it I only had a chocolate digestive biscuit for breakfast!! So cosmetically the house is looking lovely again. Still need to do the windows and ledges, use the really caustic stuff on the oven (prob a job for hubby, or need to find a facemask from somewhere) and the skirting boards are looking a bit grubby. By then I guess the rest of the house will have got into pigsty state again (it only seems to take 2 or 3 days in our household).
Summary of the day: Lots of cleaning, Gave a piano lesson, Made tonkatsu, Sold our futon, Played Wiilympics, Went to bed
So Sleepy My Eyes Are Shutting January 23, 2008
Posted by graciek in Life in General, Pregnancy.Tags: sleepiness
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I haven’t felt so sleepy for ages. I’m sitting here trying to watch Torchwood and my eyelids are literally closing. It’s like they’re so heavy I can’t make my eyelid muscles open. I slept well last night, I had a fairly normal day, ate a small dinner, yet here I am not just feeling the normal knackered, but feeling like any second I might drop off! It’s like being in the world’s most boring lecture after having partied all night – you can’t stop the sleepy feeling. This growing babies malarkey is really tiring.
Summary of the day: Went to work, Had another telecon, Worked like at maniac speed till the end of the day, Came home and made dinner, Settled down to relax…. zzzzzzzz
So Unprofessional! January 22, 2008
Posted by graciek in Life in General, WTF?.Tags: confusing time zones
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Oh dear. I had a telecon planned with someone in the US. I’d talked to some of his colleagues in the same group and they were in Minneapolis so I sent him an email saying if you are in Minneapolis then I will call at 3pm (UK)/ 9am (MN)! He replies, yes the timings are fine. I call today at 3pm ….. guess what. Apparently it’s 7am in the morning, he’s just leaving to go to work in ….. CALIFORNIA!! wtf? So after much embarassing grovelling for calling so early I managed to reschedule. Oh dear. Worse still I thought I’d better check the other guy we are calling tomorrow (also the same group) and he’s not in MN either, he’s in Pennsylvania!! So this week we would have had one 2 hrs early and one 1 hr late!! Good think I checked for tomorrow! He probably thinks I’m some English fruitcake!
Summary of the day: Met up with some guy from E.On, Prepped for the interview, Rang up, Rescheduled!! Came home to find hubby had made a Chicken Chasseur from scratch (me thinks he’s been pretending he can’t cook so that I do it, as it was very tasty indeed).
