Happy Birthday Weekend

No, no not this past weekend, the weekend before that (23-25 Jan) ... yes, I know my blog's way behind in being updated was the weekend for birthdays and birthday parties. Friday night was Kevin's (colleague & friend) 30th birthday party. I somehow managed no pictures, so there's no running commentary (sorry Kev!).
Saturday night was Vicki's (colleague and friend) 28th birthday, still hanging on to those 20s!!! It was a great night.

The birthday girl herself, for some reason Vicki's parties always end up with people drawing on each others faces. This face painting was my present to Vicki!

Vicki's flower power face painting skills on ???? - sorry forgot his name :-S

??? drawing on Ollie (have you noticed the stakes are getting higher - small lipstick on Vicki, bigger eye liner flower on ??? and now massive cake icing drawing on Ollie - eek!)

Face painting done, we moved onto dancing which somehow led to people patting their heads and rubbing their stomachs (or trying to anyway!)
Vicki's in the background, don't know the other's names. I'm rubbish at this name game thing here!

From practicing co-ordination (see above) we went onto flexibility. I was taught (and mastered .. well kind of mastered) the lotus position

Then I asked Vicki if she was able to put her foot behind her head, she had a go. Almost!

Apparently her 6foot+ boyfriend, Will, is more flexible because he can - SHEESH!!!

This is an uncrumpled version of Will, he also got attacked with the eye-liner face painting.

And a random picture to end. This is Ben, he's a flute teacher at the school where I work.

Besides the rainy, windy, horrible weather, and the falling on my backside crushing Vicki's flowers / breaking my onyx bracelet / hurting my wrist and dvds from the shelves falling on my head and breaking an umbrella - it was a brilliant night. It was a brilliant night anyway ... although after all that destruction, I don't know if I'll be invited back to Vicki's flat. In my defense the falling over wasn't my fault.

Sunday I went to see Australia with Matt. I was meant to meet him at Angel tube station at 6pm. I decided to drive up to the city and tube it across the city. After an hour of bad Sunday afternoon traffic (who's ever heard of bad Sunday afternoon traffic!!) and road works, I trekked across London on the tubes, only a few minutes late ... until I got off the tube at the wrong station!!! I showed up at 6:30. Matt's seriously gonna hurt me one of these days for being so late. No matter how much time I give myself, I'm always late when I meet him. Sigh.

Real vs Virtual

So I've been wondering if beating my head against an actual brick wall would be less painful than the virtual one I'm currently bashing. Any thoughts?

(Yes I know it's been a long time since I've updated my blog. Yes I feel sufficiently guilty about this. Yes I feel even worse that my sister, the notorious non-blog-updater, has posted more recently than I have. I'm busy at work. I'm averaging 13 hour days in front of a pc at work, the last thing I want to do in my little time at home is stare at a pc, sorry. I'll update you soon. Update for now: I'm more than busy at work...hitting my head against a brick wall isn't so easy you know!)

Gluten for Punishment

Because my actions yesterday, I have to admit that, yes, I am in fact a gluten for punishment. But honestly it wasn't intentional. "What", I hear you ask, "did you do to earn this title". I accidentally worked out twice in the same day.

Thursdays after school Eugene, a personal trainer, comes in to lead a fitness class for the staff. Because I find it easier to push myself with someone telling me what I should be doing, I have been trying to convince Tyrone, the Head of PE, to get Eugene in for a second day a week. To this Tyrone suggested I could join he and Rob, another colleague's workout session in the morning before school for my second workout of the week. But as they work out on a Thursday, this wouldn't work for me - I'm simply not able to work out twice in one day and survive. And besides that, I'm sure it's better for my heath to spread out my workout sessions over the week instead of 2 in one day. So that's the background.

Yesterday I had a meeting after school, meaning I couldn't go to the fitness session with Eugene, so I decided to crawl out of bed extra early (if you read my last post you must know what a difficult task this is) and work out with Tyrone & Rob from 7:30-8:30. I was there at 7:30, they were late. Rubbish! Because I wasn't going to get a full hour's work out I decided I must give 120% to make up for it (plus I was working out with guys, I had to "keep up" with them, I couldn't look all girlie and inferior to them - I have my pride). Workout over, shower had, I went about my day.

My meeting started earlier than expect and thus finished earlier than I anticipated. This meant that I could catch the last half hour of the fitness class with Eugene, and as I didn't have a full hours workout, I rushed off to join Eugene. Oh. My. Gosh. Eugene's session was extra hard. I think it was a combination of already being physically tired from the morning work out and that Eugene was working us extra hard as it was the first class of the New Year. I repeat: Oh. My. Gosh. There were a few times that I actually thought I would have to give up, but I hate to let anything defeat me, so I pressed on. Ouch.

I was spent after the session with Eugene. All I had the energy for was to collapse. And so I did. (Well, I had to do another 2 hours of work before going home, but once I got home I collapsed!) So today I'm extra sore. The tops of my thighs, the side of my thighs, my gluteus maximus (ie me bum), my sides (are they my obliques?) my arms and shoulders - all sore when I move. And the rest of me is exhausted - no energy to move. I am paying for yesterday!

I try and defend my actions by saying "but it wasn't intentional - I only intended to do one session". This doesn't even justify it in my mind - a person has to put a lot of effort & exertion in a workout session. So I have no defense, other than I'm a gluten for punishment. Regardless of my poor defense, I still ask for sympathy - I hurt!

Happy Monday?

The oddest thing happened to me when I woke up Monday morning. I have to give you a bit of background before I tell you about what actually happened though.
I hate waking up. It's not that I'm "not a morning person", I just hate waking up, having to get out of my warm, comfortable bed and switch my brain on and start functioning. Whether it's 6:30am, 10am or 7pm - I just hate it. Don't get me wrong, I like the fact that I do wake up - I like being alive and not in a coma ... I just don't like the waking up part of it. My face gives me away in the morning - I have an extremely scary morning Karen look. For those of you that have seen it, you know what I'm talking about. For those of you who haven't seen it, be thankful. To sum up, morning Karen = very scary Karen.
Back to Monday. Monday I woke up with a smile on my face*. A smile! On my face! When woke up! That never happens! And it wasn't just any day - it was a Monday, the start to a full, busy and stressful week. AND it was more than a smile - I was in a good mood. A good mood! On a Monday morning! And, AND it doesn't end there - I was in a good mood all day. (The fact that I worked till 7:30 didn't even seem to dampen my mood.) For no reason, other than I woke up with a smile on my face and I was happy. Very peculiar!

But never fret. Tuesday it was back to scary morning Karen!

*For those of you wondering: No, I hadn't just had a really good dream (to my knowledge anyway). And for those of you with a less than pure mind, the answer to that is no as well!

More adventures of the wandering Karen

Have you missed me? I think this is the longest I've ever gone without updating my blog!! It’s been too daunting of a task to think about updating my blog … so I’ve been avoiding it … which makes it an even bigger task. I obviously didn’t think this through.

I’m mostly going to recanting the Christmas break as there’s too much to say in a brief post. I will post pictures and stories – oh so many stories – at a later date. The short version of my Christmas: I had a wonderful family Christmas in Kansas at my parents. My grandmother and Aunt Dotti came out from California, My sister and brother-in-law and niece drove up from Arkansas and my cousin (who is currently living with my parents) and I were all present. Ive never before experienced a Christmas with that much family. Such a blessing to be able to be there with everyone!

I flew back to England on New Yea’s Eve and haven’t coped well with my jet lag ever since. Or I’m suffering a bout of insomnia. Or I just have a lot on my mind. Either way – I’m not getting much sleep at the moment, which is ever so irritating, but once I’m tired enough, I’m sure I’ll sleep – isn’t that how the saying goes?


2009 hasn’t started uneventful for me. Only seven days have past and there’s been a story every day almost. Saturday I lost my wallet (I blame my sister for this one – she gave me a lovely new hand bag for Christmas, but said lovely new hang bag very poorly shaped.) I paid for my parking, put the sticker on my car then headed to meet my friend. I was zipping my handbag up as I walked up the street I zipped my hand bag and noticed that some of my belongings were struggling to stay in my handbag. I reckon during this 60 second time period my wallet must have fallen out unnoticed. It took another 2 hours before i realised I had no wallet, and by the time I retraced my steps there was no wallet to be found. Sadness. I've never lost my wallet before!! It then took me 30 unanswered calls to the police station, 2 wasted trips to police stations and 10 answered phone calls to the police station just to report my wallet lost! What frustration! Lindsay and Adam (Lindsay is a good friend and a former flatmate) came over for a while to keep me company Saturday night. Poor Adam was suffering from the start of a cold and not on top form, but as always it was good to visit with them.

Adam & Lindsay

Sunday I stayed indoors (thinking this might be a safer option and it gave me time to lick my wounds of embarrassment - who looses their wallet?!) Monday began brilliantly as I woke up to a snow covered ground - I love snow!!

This is actually the snow that was left on Tuesday from Monday's snow (I forgot to take a picture on Monday, whoops!)

Monday was also the start back to work after the Christmas break. As hard as the first day back to work always is, our work place had a harder start. One of my colleagues passed away unexpectedly over the break leaving his 2 teenagers and wife. Another colleague had a car accident and was off work for the week, another had a nasty fall down a flight of stairs over the break and is out of work for 2 months, and another lost her grandmother. With all of the tragedy, I have to feel fortunate to be in good health! After work I had to convince the bank to give me money without any ID as my wallet was gone, not the easiest thing done.

Tuesday was a relatively quiet day, but I was super tired as I dealt with some kind of combination of jet lag and insomnia. For what ever reason I had a rubbish week of sleeping. Sunday night I woke up every hour on the hour, Monday night was a slight improvement as it was every 2 hours I was waking up. I also began the book The Last Lecture, a Christmas present from my mother on Tuesday night. Good book! I highly recommend it. (I finally managed to get to sleep around 4am!)

Wednesday I had a flat tyre to deal with. (Still fighting insomnia, I managed to sleep through the night once I got to bed ... I just didn't get to sleep until 3:30am Wednesday night!) Thursday I over slept and was a half hour late into work. (Not so sup rising with the limited amount of sleep I was getting!) I often sleep past my alarm, but generally I wake up about 20 minutes before I'm meant to be in work, giving me enough time to throw cloths on, brush my teeth and get to work on time. Not so fortunate this past Thursday though. Thursday evening as I was tidying up, I went through some mail I'd neglected. One of the pieces of mail was a delightful pentalty fine for not paying the congestion charge (if you drive through the centre of London during certain hours, you have to pay - if you forget, you get fined.) The Sunday before I went to the States I went into London to visit a friend, and obviously had forgotten to pay the congestion charge, oops! Bigger ooops was not opening my mail when I got back from holiday. I opened the fine notice on Thursday the 8th, I had until the 9th to pay or my fine would be doubled. Ordinarily this would be ok, discovering just in the tick of time that I needed to pay. On this occasion I was not so lucky though. Remember me saying I had lost my wallet? This meant I had no card to pay the fine with, Paying in person is not an option and I didn't have enough time (less than 24 hours) to post the fine. Oh the situations I find myself in!!! Friday morning I explained my predicament to a friend and she was happy to help, so I gave her cash and she paid my fine with her card. I never would have realised how inconvenient it is to loose a wallet! (Thursday was another sleepless night, again only getting to sleep around 2:30am!)

Random insert here - Ed paid me a visit on Friday the chair in my office was taken ... so he decided to make himself comfortable on the table. I guess this is pretty comfortable as it's not the first occurrence of this (click here to reminisce). I didn't have a great view!

Friday I got a new flatmate. Which is a story in itself. So another good friend and colleague, Meghan, now lives with me. I'm not able to go into all the details, but Meghan had a really rough time in her last place and I "rescued" her. I try to tell her that she made lots of memories that she will look back on and laugh; that and she has learned many life lessons and is now much wiser. (Click here to remind yourself who Meghan is.) A possitive from Friday: I finally managed a normal bedtime and full night's sleep on Friday night - and boy did I need it!!!

Saturday was just one big adventure day. It started late and finished pretty late come to think of it. I had to go into work on Saturday (urg!) but before I headed in, Meghan and I made pancakes. Yum yum! Then I rushed into work for a few hours and came outside to yet another flat tyre. I kid not! Two flat tyres in one week! Flat tyre number two sorted I picked up Meghan on the way into town to do some returns. My items had not been worn, I had the correct packaging and I had my receipt. I didn't however have the card that they were purchased with as it was lost. Store number one didn't want to give me my money back, but instead would be happy to issue a credit note for the store. I have shopped at that store once in the past 10 years! A credit note wasn't helpful. They were not willing to refund the money onto a different credit card or one of Meghan's. I'm not a crier, but I was so frustrated at my fortune that I was very tempted to just sit down and cry. Meghan took charge and we decided to shop in store to try and find new goodies. An hour or more later Meghan came out with several treasures and I exchanged my unwanted goods for her cash and her new clothes. Bonus! We then went onto 2 other stores where I exchanged a pair of boots for a smaller size and found a second pair of boots that were marked down from £80 to £25! (My sister, the ultimate bargain shopper, would be so impressed!).

Above mentioned bargain boots

At store number three I returned a set of shoes that I had decided I wouldn't wear enough to warrant the cost and instead bought a pair of leather gloves (I lost one of my gloves last month - 1 glove is not so helpful!). I was hmm-ing and haa-ing whether I should spend £25 on these gloves as I wasn't over excited about them, but decided - I need gloves, my hand are cold! To my absolute delight they rung up at £3 ... 88% off! How chuffed was I!!! Meghan and I then headed to the grocery store (my cupboards were so bare!) and spent a good hour stocking our cupboards and fridge very nicely.

Then it was a dash home, a quick change, and off to Clare's (a good friend and previous flatmate) for a sing-a-long night of Mama Mia. I'd seen bits of Mama Mia and wasn't overly enthusiastic about seeing the whole thing, but went along for a girlie night with friends. I loved it. I'm not sure if it was the sing along with the girlies that did the trick or whether it's just a good film by itself - whatever it was, I'm a convert! After Mama Mia we were treated to a sing a long version of The Sound of Music, a classic!

Bad photo but you can just make out Clare's head in the right hand corner of the picture and Sophie's red hair in the bottom left of the picture.

Me, Sophie & Louise

My head had started to pound so around 1am I headed home for bed...but never quite made it that far. Instead Meghan and I ended up reading stories from the book The Last Lecture and then we watched an episode of The Gilmore Girls, finally getting to sleep around 3:30am!

Meghan reading me one of the chapters - what fun!!

Today I awoke with a return of my headache, only it had gotten worse! So I moped around for a bit before greeting the day. All my Christmas garb was in Meghan's room when she moved in (she moved in quite quickly and unexpectedly so I didn't have a chance to get the room all nice and clean and empty) so we stacked it in the hallway (by "we" I mean Meghan had to move my junk out of her room while I slept in on Saturday morning - I'm not starting out as such a good flatmate to live with I fear!!). Today I began the huge task of sorting it out. It's a huge task because in order to sort out the Christmas stuff and put it away, I have to sort my shed out so there is enough room. One of the "sorting" tasks was going through my photos. If you can recall when my shed died it's final death in October, I lost 10 years worth of pictures to water damage. When I say I "lost" a lot of pictures what I actually mean was that I put them in a box to dry off so I could sort them out when they dried. Today was the day of trying to sort them out. So I was pretty miserable trying to unstick these pictures and knowing that my photographic evidence of my memories is in ruins. Very very sad! The good news is that all the photos didn't get destroyed. The bad news is that my sorting and organising ended with the photos so my lounge is still a tip!

said lounge

Do you feel up to date?