Flat stuff

So not a great title, but hey ho. This post is an array of stuff semi-related to my flat.

A few days after I started my detoxing, my lovely flatmate and her boyfriend decided it would be good fun to torture me by ordering pizza. Not only did they order in, but they made salivating noises of extreme pleasure at the taste of the pizza. Apparently it was good pizza. It was mean to torture me though. I am happy to report that I resisted eating any of it. I had vegetables instead.

Friday I joined Lindsay and Adam for a drink. I thought it'd be a good idea to put a hair bobble in Adam's hair. It's not a great photo, but if you look hard, you can see a spike sticking out of the top of his head. What fun!

I decided that my office was just too white and bland. So about a week ago one of the premises officers cut some bits of wood for me at my request. I also borrowed some paint from the art department. This weekend I finally got around to painting them. (I'm going to be hanging them in my office to add a splash of colour.)

I'm annoyed with this one a bit. I misspelled believe and had to paint over it but the green paint I'd mixed was all used up. I couldn't quite mix the right colour again, this is the best I got. grr!

I've got a third painting but haven't decided what to "write" on it. Ideas welcome.

Set your mind at ease

My post about detoxing apparently "startled" some of my blog readers. Why is Karen detoxing? I didn't know she struggled with alcohol / drug? I don't. The detox is just a way of clearing out my gut and body of all the rubbish food I eat and the "not so great" lifestyle I lead (ie stress / sleep deprivation). It's also a great weight loss exercise. Just trying to get a bit more healthy, that's all.
Today is detox day 8. I made it through a whole week.

Detox Day 4

So I've been out the last two nights and detox hasn't gone great. I'm conscious about the fact the I'm meant to be detoxing and I have made an effort, but it's not been great. Last night I had a grilled chicken salad. Everything ok bar the chicken. I drank water and herbal tea. So it was ok. Tonight I drank cranberry juice, but when a drink was being bought for me (I didn't want to put the new person off that i was out with) so I had a cranberry and vodka. So 2 vodkas and a chicken breast. Not great, but I could have been worse.
I did do an hour exercise dvd today ... does that make up for it?

Detox anyone?

Today is day 3 out of (however long I can keep it up but at least) 28 days of detoxing. I figured with all my stress as of late and the rubbish my body has been through - well it just needs a re-boot. So detox here I come.

I did let my flatmate know I was detoxing, I however didn't warn her that the first week I start I get quite moody. Now I didn't omit this little tid bit on purpose, I had actually forgotten. Last night my moodi-ness / short temper got the better of me and I snapped a bit. I then recalled to warn my flat mate that I tended to be moody for the first week. I also apologised. {enter apologetic face here}

So, as I mentioned it's day 3. I am happy to report that I have kept to the very strict vegan, wheat free, sugar free, caffeine free diet. I am going out tonight and tomorrow. I'm not sure how my detox will fair through these two excursions. {sigh} If being healthy (ie eating healthy) is meant to be good for you - why is it so hard to keep to? Shouldn't it be easier than this?

If you're interested in the detox I'm doing, I've pictured it above: "Carol Vorderman's 28 Day Detox Diet" ... and after that "Detox for Life" - yippee (yawn)

Ouch!

It's just fit people's cruel joke on us un-fit people. Work out videos. Ouch! If anyone fancies their abs and inner thighs and neck / shoulders hurting for a few days, I highly recommend this.

It's nice to have time

I had my hair cut on Thursday, I was LONG over-due for a hair cut. It'd been 8 months since my last cut and I even resorted to trimming an inch of split ends off before camp - I was desperate and had no time to get it cut*. I went in thinking I would chop it all off into a bob (as normal), my hair dresser (who never agrees with my suggestions, but is normally right) convinced me to keep it long. He was right, again, he did a great job as usual. What do you think?

While trying to get a photo of my new hair cut, there were a few out-takes. Enjoy :-)

*too busy at work, barely anytime to eat and sleep let alone get hair cut - remember?

I fear I'm becoming a Londoner...

...before you panic, no not a fully fledged London yuppie, but too much of a Londoner. This weekend, I've come up to the midlands (where I lived prior to London) and the 'Londoner' changes have been in my face obvious. Evidence 1: I stayed with a friend one night and was astounded by the fact that you could go outside and hear nothing - there was no noise: no road traffic, no drunk people shouting down the road, no neighbours (it was a house, not a flat with thin walls), no sirens, there was just silence and nature. Evidence 2: (Same friend's house) I could not get over how big the place was - it just kept going and going. It's a decent sized house, but I was amazed. (I put this down to the fact that I basically live in one room (my lounge / dinner / kitchen) and this house was 5 bedrooms, with several reception rooms.) Evidence 3: Yesterday I went out with a friend and when buying us a couple of drinks was shocked at how cheap they were - half the price (at least) to what I'm used to. Evidence 4: I went to the movies with a couple of friends last night and the parking cost £1.50 for (around 2 1/2 hours) - £1.50? seriously?! I can barely park for a half-hour at that price!!! Evidence 5: I can park my car for free without fear of a parking ticket most places I go, but yet I still look for parking signs to tell me how much time I have and how much I have to pay. The evidence just keeps building. Oh dear. I think I need to leave London soon before I become a yuppie.
So.... I've come to the midlands this weekend (as stated above) on Thursday.

Thursday
I hate driving out of London. I hate being stuck in traffic. But I power through this hatred. And keep motoring (pun intended). When I left London the sun was shining brightly and it was wonderfully warm weather. The further north I got (keep in mind I only went 135 miles north), the worse the weather got. In fact there was a point the traffic slowed from 80-90 mph to about 40 mph because the visibility was so poor. I of course had to take a picture for you.

See how dark it is?! This is around 12 noon.

This picture is solely for my mother. My lunch on the journey north. I thought she's be impressed that I made a sandwich that was mostly green. This is her kind of sandwich.

I had my hair cut and my eyebrows re-shaped (they were getting a bit out of control again).

And stopped that night with a friend who was at their parent's house dog sitting one of the cutest dogs ever! Holly is a very energetic dog with lots and lots of hair. That night I decided she might like to see, so I pinned her hair back. If I had a pink bow, I probably would have put it on her, I'm sure Holly's glad I didn't have a pink bow

Friday I went to a Tapas restaurant with Nick and James and stuffed myself. I left with food all down my shirt and on my trousers - grrr. I guess I need to re-take the "how to eat with a knife and fork" class.

There was a pesky wasp that thought our food was lovely too. As I'm allergic to wasps / bees / flying things that have a nasty stinger thing, I kept jumping out of my seat and running away. The sun also decided to come out and shine in James's face. He tried out my stylish sun glasses. Nick commented that he looked like Elliott Gould from Oceans 13. What do you reckon?

After lunch I had an hour or so before meeting up for a drink with my old boss and friend Shirley. Shirley managed to get away without me snapping a photo - how'd that happen??!

Then I headed to Susan* and Ashley's house. We ended up getting a Chinese take away and going to watch Hancock at the cinema. Handcock wasn't what I expected of a Will Smith movie. It was ok and had some good parts. The filmotography (which I'm sure isn't a word) was hard to follow - a bit like watching Cloverfield - camera angels everywhere.

And that brings us to Saturday
Saturday morning was a lazy start. I headed over to Castle Donnington (the village I moved to London from) and visited with the family that now lives in my old house. They're soon to be moving from the house and are finding it a sad thing too. I'm telling you - it's a great house!!!

Then I headed to Heanor (30-40 minutes north of Castle Donnington) to visit with Ken. Ken's been and out of hospital having surgeries on his ankle. His last surgery was only a few weeks ago so he was being very good and staying off his leg. (I tried to entice him out of the house for some fresh air, but he resisted.)
John was there when I arrived, soon followed by Patty.* They had arrived back home late Friday night from a wedding in Portugal. Here's John and Patty showing Ken some wedding photos.

I left Ken's for Ilkeston (15-20 minutes away) to have dinner with Patty and John and a good natter. I ended up staying there till after 10 and then headed to Susan & Ashley's for the night. (They only live around the corner.) Susan was out with some friends Saturday night and Ashley was watching a film when I got back, so I joined him. Somehow we ended up playing with the cameras on our phones. I have no excuse. It was late. It was funny at the time.

Sunday morning was church. I went to my old congregation in Stapleford (15 minutes from Ilkeston). I was tickled by the adults doing actions to children's songs. It seems that each week the adults are being taught children's songs, complete with the actions. Here we're doing "I'm all wrapped up, tied up tangled up in Jesus". After church I was meant to head to Lincoln, about an hour and a half north of church and spend the afternoon with a friend, but the friend was poorly. Poo! Luckily I was invited out to lunch with Simon, Pam and their 2 little girls (who aren't so little anymore). It was good to catch up with their family as it'd been soo long since I'd last been able to spend any time with them.

After lunch I headed home. Through the traffic. Boredom. But got home at a reasonable hour (something like 6pm), and decided to work off the Chinese I had for lunch and do an exercise video. Now that was just plain silly on my part! And I suffered for the next few days :-\

*For those who don't know, here's the brief summary. When I came to England a family sort of adopted me, meaning they took me into their family like one of their own. They look after me and check up on me. They're called Patty and John - my "English" set of parents (I even brought some laundry up from London once to do at their house - true parent figures :-) I normally stay with Patty and John when I come up to the midlands. This week they were on holiday till late Friday night. Bummer. I really wanted to catch up with them as it's been so long since I was last up, but this is the only week I was able to take off work. Susan is Patty and John youngest daughter and she and her husband, Ashley, live around the corner and have kindly let me crash at their house. Clear as mud?

Am I seeing things?

One day last week as I left work there was a large bin outside that caused me to do a double take. This is what I saw as I walked by

I said to myself, "self, what is that, take a closer look. Okay, so it is a leg. Interesting."

I thought I'd share this odd-ness with you. It was obviously a manikin, or a leg of a manikin, that someone throw out. But the bigger question still looms in my head: why do we have manikins at school?

Seperated at birth?

A few months before school ended, a young unsuspecting South African came to do some temporary work as a learning support assistant (someone that helps the special needs students). Now Meghan came during the time I was over-seeing cover which meant I was seeing her regularly (as I was signing her time sheets :-)
I barely had time to sleep and pay bills, let alone socialise before school broke up, so Meghan and I decided we'd meet up in the summer holidays. And so we did. We met up for a "coffee" this afternoon (which ended up being 2 smoothies, a cup of tea, a bowl of chips and a sandwich) and had a good old natter. Then we came back to my flat and watch a good ole Rom Com, Definitely Maybe, before she headed back to hers.

This is Meghan on the couch shoving some toffee popcorn in her mouth before I took the picture. I'm sure she won't thank me for this picture :-\

Meghan watching "Definitely, Maybe"

During the course of the evening it was revealed that Meghan and I are uncannily similar. Are humour was pretty spot on the same and we enjoyed making fun of the same thing, such as the Chinese I ordered from, get this, "Wok-u-like". On the walk back to mine it was raining and my flip flops had no grip so I decided to walk home barefoot. In hind-sight, this wasn't a good idea as I got a fairly sizable bit of glass wedged in my heel. I said to Meghan that she could look at my blog* while I preformed minor surgery on my foot. She wanted to watch me extract the glass first - I would have done the same! Weird, slightly disgusting, but true.

My poor foot with the glass shard in it

You can just make out the glass on my fingertip, my camera doesn't do close-ups so well.

Anyway, I had a great evening and it was good to make friends with someone who is so similar to me ... I know I know - the world can't handle more than one Karen G...watch out world, there's 2 of us!!!!

*I had mentioned my blog to Meghan earlier in the evening and suggested it would be a good idea for her to blog while she was away from home - it's a good photo journal and a great way to share experiences with your family and friends.