2p for a flight?!

Yes, it's true. I booked plane ticket for 2 pence!!* And that includes tax. So I couldn't pass it up. Tomorrow (the wee hours of the morning) I'm headed off to Norway with a friend from work. I will try to update you when I get back, but until then, au revoir!

*4 cents for you Americans

What a Friday!

I was meant to go to an 80's party tonight so last night I was frantically trying to sort out an outfit. Even thought I didn't end up going to the party (it was cancelled in the end) I thought you might enjoy laughing at my outfit:

I'm loving the "out of it" look on my face!

My "leg warmers" are toe socks that I cut off the toes and pulled up. The top is a boob tube that I wore on holiday a few years ago and the pink pants are courtesy of my grandmother. All in all I think it made a great 80's look. (If only I had those stirrup pants from Rachel S - if you don't know what I'm talking about click this link for the picture)


So I didn't end up going to the party, but my friend Ed came round and I made him tea (dinner / supper or what ever you'd like to call your evening meal). He made himself comfortable and dined in style

I'm sure his mother would be so proud of his manners :-)

We then headed into the city and I ended up meeting my flatmate for a drink as well. I unfortunately have no pictures from this part of the night (boo Karen), but did get to meet some fun people. One of whom had been stopped at random by the police earlier today under the Terrorist Act and search for explosive paraphernalia - how random is that?! Then it was back home to my bed ....




So my bed, here's whole other subject worthy of a post of it's own (but I'm too lazy to do another post so I'll tack in onto this one.) A few months ago I went to bed and noticed there was a damp patch near the head board - I thought I'd spilled some water until I realised my ceiling had leaked onto my bed. So I phoned the landlord to get him to sort it out. My landlord called the freeholder (renting a flat is SO complicated!) who called his site manager who called her worker guy (did I mention how complicated renting a flat in London was). After he failed to come round I called my landlord back, who in turn called the free holder, who called the site manager who called the worker guy who finally arranged a time to come to my flat and look at the problem. Then again I heard nothing back. This is going on over three months now, but I'm pretty laid back about the whole thing: it only leaked the once, and although the wet damage was getting worse, I don't own the flat. I did call the landlord back about a fortnight ago just to let him know no one had been in touch since the worker guy had come. That's the back story to today. Today while at the bank I get a call from my cleaner (yes I am VERY lazy and I do have a cleaner - and she's lovely!). The cleaner tells me that my ceiling is raining on my bed. By the time I got home she had tidied the bed and put the mattress against the call and cleaned up the excess water. This was around 2pm this afternoon. I left a message on my land lord's phone to let him know what happened. I also called the freeholder direct, as I wanted to get the ball rolling as this was now urgent to get sorted. He told me he'd get straight onto his site manager. 3:30 rolls around and I've heard nothing so I call the landlord back and leave another message and I also call the freeholder. He tells me he hasn't been able to get in touch with site manager; he had sent her an email with my number asking to ring me as a matter of urgency. I express my concern at the urgency of the issue of a ceiling raining on MY BED and he called his roof guy and passed my number onto the roof guy. 4:30 rolls around and my landlord calls to say he's just got my messages and is sorry and will get straight onto the freeholder. At 5:30 the roof guy FINALLY calls to say he can come round at 10am on Sunday, if that's ok. "Can you come tomorrow?" I ask. "Normally I would, but tomorrow I can't. Sunday's the earliest I can come" say he. Does anyone out there find this to be remotely acceptable? Seriously, please leave a comment if you do. I certainly don't! Grrr, grr, grr, grr, grr!


Oh yes, the icing on the cake. Around 8pm the site manager rings me. 6 hours later. How is that answering an urgent matter? Please tell me. GRRR! I told her I wasn't satisfied waiting the weekend and I might get someone to come out tomorrow and I'd forward them the bill. She said this would be fine (or something like that). I don't know that I will because I don't want to get stuck not being reimbursed for the work. But I'm pretty irritated with the whole situation.

Luckily my flatmate is out tonight, so I'm sleeping in her bed. Tomorrow, I fear I will be on the couch. How wrong!!!!



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SUNDAY UPDATE

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Sunday this man came to look at the roof. He didn't come to fix the roof. So outraged! Not at him, but at the situation! Grrr!!!

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MONDAY UPDATE

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A big thank you to God for giving us friends. One of my colleagues at work is married to a builder. I did a bit of fast calling today and he was lovely enough to come by and do a temporary patch job to my roof. Thank you John!!!

SO very funny, have you seen these?

The joys of living with my flatmate

Before I get to the joys of Lindsay (ie "the flatmate"), a quick picture from earlier today. A friend / colleague came into my office hot and sweaty from his cycle to the school and proceeded to strip off his shirt to cool down. I can't say that this has ever happened in my office before. I decided it was definitely blog worthy, but for his anonymity I chopped his face out of the picture.

Now onto the lovely Lindsay. In the cupboard, I found this tonight:
which ended up being a half used Oxo cube (beef stock cube) rather than a rat terd (which I think it looks like). Logical.

Lindsay has also decided to redecorate my white cushion: with a little red wine - always nice to have a bit of colour in the flat.

And she's a really good cook. No honestly, she is. Tonight, for example, she made broccoli and stilton (blue cheese) soup, which was quite nice. ...but the flat smelled of armpits for the rest of the evening!

(Ok, for those of you who can't tell, this blog was meant in jest. Lindsay is really lovely and I am just taking the mick.)

Today's goings on

I know it's been a while since my last post. I'm working on getting pictures up from my recent trip to the States, but I am failing to find the energy to do this. So in the interim, here's what I did with my night:

A quick trip to London to meet up with Duncan who's headed off on a year long trip around the world. Bon Voyage Dunk!

Then it was home to enjoy a chocolate Easter Egg. Yum yum.

"Why" you ask "did you not mention your day?" Well, that's because I did nothing with my day. I was too lazy to go into work so I took the day off. Pjs all the way.

Happy St Patricks Day!

Don't celebrate too hard!

One meeting to go...

and then I can go home. The work day is almost over. I can see the end in sight. Here's hoping it's a quick meeting and I don't fall asleep during the meeting!

I don't think I'm gonna make it through the day

My concentration is gone, my vision not focusing, and I'm falling asleep as I type. How am I suppose to make it the entire day?!

Back in London

I arrived back to London at 6am this morning. I managed to get through immigration and collect my luggage and get through immigration before 7am. I was to the train station just after quarter past 7 and then after a short taxi ride I was at home. I was at home just long enough to shower and get dressed for work and I managed to get to work on time.
So now I'm at work and the biggest job for me will be to stay awake through the day. I only manged around 30 minutes of broken sleep on the plane - having a super large mocha from starbucks as I left Texas was not such a good idea! The suffering and lack of sleep is worth it though - just to spend a bit of time with my family!
Pictures to come.

A bit of a catch up...

...but not much of one as I don't have much time. I was so sleep deprived last week because I had so much to do before flying to the States. "Flying to the States, what?" I hear you ask. My parents (as I mentioned in an earlier post) were in the process of moving from Paris and my childhood home. The church I grew up at, Lamar Ave church of Christ, was having a farewell for them yesterday. I just couldn't not try and go. So last Friday I tried to arrange coming in for a flying visit to wish my parents off. Tuesday I finally got the ok from work and was able to book my flights. I flew into Northwest Arkansas (where my sister lives) on Thursday evening. We were due to drive down to Paris on Friday after Scott and Cheryl finished work to surprise our parents. Madilyn (my niece) didn't sleep Thursday night, so doing the 5 hour drive on Friday didn't happen. We left Saturday morning and headed to Paris. And boy were our parents surprised! They had no idea we were coming. What a treat for them. We all packed for a few hours Saturday afternoon and then went for one last family meal in Paris.
Sunday morning was church and then a teary farewell from Lamar Ave. Then it was back to the house to do more packing. Cheryl and Scott left to go back home around 3(?) and Dad headed down to Tyler with a full car of stuff around 3:30. That left Mom and I to finish all we could before heading down to Tyler around 8. It was a late night by the time Mom and I arrived in Tyler and unloaded the cars. (I have rented a car so I could come down to Tyler and see where they were going to be and help as much as I could.)
I spent a few hours this morning cleaning my parents kitchen and bathroom in the apartment they've temporarily rented (while searching for a new house to buy in Tyler). I'm now getting ready to leave Tyler, headed back to Paris to a dentist appointment (man my dentist looks after me here! ... and at such short notice! Thanks Dr Jay!!) and then up to Cheryl and Scott's house.
It's been an emotional few days to say the least, and I've been SO sleep deprived. I'm suffering from jet lag, the clocks moved back here so I lost an hour, and I'm working off 5-6 hours sleep a night. Tuesday morning I head back to England and arrive around 6am - then it's off to work for an 8am start - and a full day. The things you do for the people you love!!!
They're a lot of tired and emotional people in my family at the moment, so keep us in your prayers!

P.S. Before I left I had to get my flat cleaned and organised as my new flatmate moved in on Saturday! So it's been chaos all around! Welcome to the flat Lindsay!

(Updated 12 March 08: sorry for all the spelling mistakes. I've just corrected them - spell check wasn't available when I posted this Monday.)

Sleep deprived

That's me. Sleep deprived! I have a flatmate moving in on Saturday and the last couple of days I've been frantically trying to get the flat organised and ready for her to move in. Last night I didn't get into bed til after 3am. I've got so much to get done and my time is slipping away. On the up side, I've finally got an organised flat. Wa'hoo!
This morning was an early start as I have a lot going on at work this week. Tomorrow's even an earlier start. Oi vey! Best get of the lap top and back to cleaning.

God is Good

He has blessed me so much this past week. I had a meeting last week at work that went much better than I expected. This week I've been able to complete a lot of things and get through my "to do" list (that always seems never ending). I've also had some good news about a request I made at work, and so many things seem to be falling into place! Thank you God for my blessings!

What do you do at your place of buisness just before going home?

Me - I take a picture of the earrings my sister got me for Christmas so she can see what they look like on me. Thanks Cheryl!


(I smiled for you Cheryl, but no make up. Can you see a pattern: work = no make up, night out = make up)

Happy Mothering Sunday Mum!

I wanted to wish my mother a happy Mothering Sunday today. Each year I send my mother flowers on Mothering Sunday (Mother's day in England) because I think it's more of a surprise than sending something on Mother's Day in America (which is in May). That's my theory anyway.

This year I had 27 tulips sent to Mom with a note attached saying:

A tulip for each year that I've been blessed by being your daughter.

I can't possibly tell you how true that is! I have been blessed with a wonderful mother, and the older I get the more I realise how truly blessed I am by having my mom. She is a wonderful mother, faithful Christian and a great example for me. I can't think of a better compliment than someone saying "You remind me of your mother."