AND another one.

Making stuff

Tonight I have been a lazy bumface and have sat on said bum (not on my face.. just the bum) all night.

Our telly has been broken as has the FM band on the radio.

I have been online.

I have sewing to do but without audio distraction couldn't be bothered to do it.

I have facebooked. I have emailed (quite a lot - work stuff mostly) and I have blogged.

When it came to blog-time I was so bored that when I visited Bond (first blog I went to) at http://www.bigleathercouch.com/ I was just downright rude. I was kidding and I'm not concerned he'll take it badly... but still I would not have posted had I not been bored.

So WHY WHY WHY have I driven myself nuts in this fashion when I have a house full of things that I love? There are loads of things I can do. I have gigs to prepare for, pupils to prepare stuff for, crafting to do..... but no.

Inertia.

I am definitely a bum-face.

As to crafting:

been at it again. (Not this evening.)

Decided to learn to quilt. This looked easy. Still have to sew all these flaps down......

Spongebob Pack Holiday

We have had our planning meeting and the pack holiday is now sorted! Our theme is Spongebob Squarepants.

On pack holiday the kids will arrive on Friday night. They will unpack, make their beds etc, do a craft, have supper.

We will then have a campfire in pjs(sing song) and they will go to bed where I imagine they will giggle and whisper and talk until one of us goes and tells them to shut it (politely). Repeat the last action ad lib.

Saturday - they will be up at the crack of dawn but I will not break until 7.30am.

In the morning our main activity is a treasure hunt to the Loch. Do you think a hunt with clues for directions or a treasure hunt where they collect items and get prizes for the biggest, smoothest, greenest items is more fun?

In the afternoon we have a craft/game with fishes that my Mum taught me - very cool. We will also have some outdoor games and hopefully some duck bobbing (ducks and hooks etc).

Sunday - Only activity is outdoor games but we have lots of crafts. They will also do a fair bit of tidying and packing.

Craft ideas so far on a Spongebob theme.

Squidward Tentacles windsock. Glue some white nylon or crepe paper depending how much nylon fabric costs into a tube with a pipecleaner ring glued into one end. Draw on eyes and glue on tentacles from ribbon or crepe paper. Tie string to the wire on either side then to a stick. Take it outside when it dries - bingo.

Spongebob Squarepants - using those yellow sponges they have in the supermarket. No idea beyond that and I've left it to someone else to crack this one.

Fish Game - Cut big fishes from thick card with a hole punched in the end. Colour them in with pens with red or blue as the main colour. Tie a length of string to the fish and attach a cardboard spindle to the other end of the string. Mix them all up so girls get a fish at random. Unwind the wool so the fish are on the opposite side of the room then hold heats - the kids wind as fast as they can - first fish wound in wins. Have a semi-final, then a final to establish winner. Other kids have to cheer for one colour (prob the one they had themselves) and you can have a commentator too.

Other Crafts: Fimo modelling, bookmarks, posters.

They also have in the diary I swiped and re-jigged some wordsearches, colouring pages, word scrambles, space for drawing etc.

This will take place at the end of September and it's my test camp. Fingers crossed as I handed the permission form in late and don't actually know whether I can get the tester there that weekend yet.

Eating

I like food. I like cooking and eating food.

This morning after only 4 hrs sleep I got all muddled up and had lunch for breakfast....

I had a beef sandwich with picalilli mustard pickle stuff.

Now it's nearly lunchtime (something I am considering because I'm hungry again) and I think perhaps it's cereal o'clock.

I have had a madly busy morning hiding from Jehovah's Witnesses and watching Saturday Kitchen on tv with the work I should be doing untouched on the sofa beside me. See what I said about this year being a good one??

It's gonna be a good year

If things carry on as they are going just now, we'll have a lovely 2009-10 year. I hope.

Generally I am very happy.

Letter Writing Question - help required

When I am writing to the parents of my Brownies I start the letter:

Dear Parents (as I know all mine are going to the parent rather than a guardian),


My question is - How should I end the letter? Yours faithfully seems too formal.

Mum's Visit`

I've had a surprise (ish - she told me last Thurs) visit from my Mum. She arrived on Sunday and we've had a great time.

We did the quiz on Sunday and came fifth. Rubbish!

We went to Helensburgh and had fish and chips before coming home so I could wait for 6 pupils not to turn up while Ma cooked us dinner. Deeelishus.

We went to a job interview/meeting thing in Edinburgh then took a trip along the coast then back through Peebles to arrive home in time to go out to The Sisters restaurant (mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm) for dinner.

We got up early to go to the train station where we had time to go for coffee and croissants before she headed home.

As I still have not bought batteries for my camera I have nothing to show YOU from this visit but I do have a pair of new earrings, a necklace (beautiful) from my Dad and a massively expanded waistline.

Edinburgh and the Festival

Edinburgh Fringe Festival or even the full Festival itself: Excellent.

Working in Edinburgh DURING the Festival: NOT excellent. For reasons I shall disclose.

Tourists. They just get right in the way when they stop every 100 yards to point at a bit of architecture, or to look at their festival map. Grrr.

mmmmmmmmm.

I have decided. Playing the trumpet is DEFINITELY the best.

i am late organising myself AGAIN

TC's plan to organise herself today:
Morning:
Finish bingo game.
Plan Brownie Camp properly.
Plan Brownie term.
Plan Centenary Party.
Afternoon:
Practise the trumpet.
Evening:
Play Monopoly bingo game to test it!

what to knit next?

that is the question.

Curry Night

Today my friends came round to tea and we made real proper curry from a curry recipe book.

The day before I had made some potato cakes with spinach and spices: turmeric, chilli etc. My friend had made a basic curry sauce from her new book - which we needed to use for both curry recipes we had chosen. Also after the onion chopping mushing stage the book tells you to hold some sauce back so you can cook the meat in it later.

Yesterday my boyfriend picked my friend up from her house on the other side of the city. He drove back and picked me up from work, then headed home. We arrived around quarter to 5 and went straight in to begin cooking.

We cooked for 2.25hrs and managed to make: Potato things *can't remember their name*, naan bread *peshwari and plain*, chilli sauce, egg fried rice (wouldn't have been my choice with curry), Chicken Jhool and Lamb Ghost.... very nice!

This morning I have had Chicken Jhool and rice for breakfast, consoling myself with the idea that they would have cury for breaky in Thailand. Not SO convincing - still think it's greedy really!

Head

Ouch.

I was too drunk and I have no idea how I paid for anything last night. I hope my friends didn't bear the brunt. I do have tipex all over my fingers because one friend spent about 1/2 hr manicuring us with tipex.

Shopping

I am about to go shopping to kill time, as in 2 or 3 hours I can re-paint the living room door.

Fun.

Positive Day (a bit late)

I missed Positive Day! This may not sound like the most positive start to a Positive Day post. I missed Positive Day because my frend called and we went out straight after work. I have great friends - Positive Point 1.

We went to a pub I love, then I texted a friend to ask what she was up to - she replied to say she was working in a pub nearby but was bored. We decided to drop inn. We arrived and she was having a really bad day. So we stayed until she was happy again. Positive Point 2 - Friends can really brighten up a dull day.

A few months ago after I had been very busy with work I made a resolution to put friends a bit higher up my list of priorities. It is easy when you are tired to make excuses and to go home rather than seeing people you like. Fight it! Go out and meet people. Or call them. Keep in touch the best way you can. Friends make life more fun x

If you've happened upon my post PLEASE link over to http://www.dustbunnyhostage.com/ for more Positivity!

Film Marathon

We went to see Public Enemies first - Johnny Depp and Christian Bale. This film was great - thoroughly enjoyed it! It's a gangster flick of fairly significant length (2.5 hrs) and it was moving. Nice. Did I mention before at all that I LOVE JOHNNY DEPP?

Our second film was Transformers 2 Revenge of the Fallen. This was a complete pile of crap which I will never ever sit through again. It is also TOO LONG at 2.5hrs of out and out lousiness. It has a very basic plot that isn't well planned or developed. There are ridiculous situations throughout. All the women are HOT but have no personalities. Good things about it.... you get to see the yellow autobot again - he's a lovely robot. Otherwise I'm struggling.

Finally we saw THE BLUES BROTHERS! In the cinema. Yey. The cinema was sold out and the air conditioning appears not to work for that number of people. So the smelly guy next to us (who preempted every line of the film) got smellier and smellier as the movie went on. Luckily the film was funny enough that we didn't notice much.

Leaving after Transformers would have been disappointing but three films in one day is one too many - next time I'll stick to a doubler at the most.

cinema

Aiming today for a 3 film cinema marathon... wish me luck!

Bathroom Part 2

We spent this weekend fixing up the bathroom floor. Under the layers (cork tiles, glue and paint) we found nice reddish tiles. They are fine except the one in the doorway corner had a split in and wobbled.

I lifted half the tile and put some glue down to fix it. When I re-laid the tile it didn't sit quite right. I called my boyfriend but didn't wait for him, then stood on the tile... and heard it crack.

Oops.

A small piece of hardened grouting had gone under the tile and was lifting the corner. When I stood on the tile it just cracked in half the other way! So now it has 2 cracks, but is glued firmly.

We're going to leave it as is - after all the work stripping the floor it can stay plain tiled for now.

It was quite a productive weekend. We have also replaced the flush thing in the toilet and it now flushes perfectly.

Bathroom Floor

This weekend we decided to take up the cork tiles we stuck down 6 years ago when we moved into this flat.

When we moved in the first thing we removed was the carpet from the bathroom. Gross. Under the carpet someone had badly painted the tiles in white with green and blue squares. We used cork tiles to cover this, because we didn't have much money and saw them in the DIY shop when we were getting paint.

The cork tiles were pretty badly laid and looked fairly bad fairly fast.

So we lifted them yesterday. My boyfriend did most of this - it was really hard work. I had to hit the scraper thing with a hammer to get it under the tiles because of the glue, then lever them up.

Lifting the tiles left glue and patchy paintwork.

So we have since been scraping paint with paint stripper, white spirits and a lot of elbow grease!

The next job is cladding the bath.

out of the habit

As a lazy blogger these days I am so out of the habit of updating this thing that I have started to forget its even here.

Anyway - I have been away again, this time to visit my friend and her son in York. It was a lovely trip and the wee boy is still great fun. We ate out, went to the park, went shopping, visited the railway museum and chatted into the small hours.

Ooh - and I bought myself the coolest bag of mixed buttons I have found yet. We enjoyed spending time rooting through and organising them into colours.

Now as I know my friend occasionally pops in here I'd like to say "Thank you for inviting me and for putting me up (up with me?)!! You're welcome to a return visit any time."