xans

Btw, pic of my and my darling from the end of Feb. Clicky here.

Fin.

Okay, so I've been pretty lame on the updates, few and far between. I keep meaning to set up the internet at home, and then I get busy, or distracted, or flustered and I don't do it. Flustered is the main excuse. I'm good at that.

I am, of course, happy with my life, mostly. Sometimes work gets me down, or the whole uni thing, 'cause seriously: blah. I freaked out at the beginning this year and cut back to part-time uni and part-time work. Small bites. But five months in and I'm still madly in love with Alan. Living with him is domestic bliss. All we need is kittens.

I've indulged over the weeks, buying this or that set of lego, because I can. The only sucky thing is being more prepared to HIDE the legos, 'cause we've had three guests over the last few weeks who brought kids with them, and two out of three went straight for the legos. The other just latched on to me and mooched my breakfast of crumpets, and took over my computer. She went completely shy on Alan, 'cause she hadn't seen him since she was a baby, which amused me 'cause he was trying to be all nice, whereas I just ignored her--so like a cat, she came straight to me for company.

The lego is cool, though. I got Star Wars sets, and some medieval ones with dwarfs and orcs and trolls, or they could be ogres. I might possibly snag some Indiana Jones ones... The Lost Ark set has plenty of treasure, or possibly the chase with his dad, 'cause Indy's dad is cool, too. They've got fucking novels for instruction leaflets, these days. Maybe it's because I'm getting the big sets that I never could have as a kid.

We are also indulging in a coffee maker, grinder, and new electic kettle of a pricey but high-quality nature. And they're red, which is the perfect colour for the kitchen. Going to learn to make cafe-esque lattes and the like. MM, real coffee.

Also working on getting back into the baking thing. He loves my cornbread/muffins, or the blueberry ones that came from the box... and my 'nana cakes. I made some brownies, but they were a bit gooeyer than I intended. I like 'em gooey, but not that gooey. Still, mostly it's getting familiar with the dodgy oven and stove. But yeah. Baking fun, if it makes a bit of dishes.

We have lots of chocolate in the house... the small boxes of Cadbury roses, that are like... $8 or something? They're selling them at his work for $2.99. So, yeah, lots of boxes of roses. PLUS I've still got two king size dark chocolate bars that I'm nibbling away at. I love dark chocolate, I really do, but I can't pig out on it like I do with milk chocolate.

I got a sexy sweet pair of boots for $40. They hve nice solid high heels that I can walk all day in without killing my feet. I'm very happy. And Alan likes what they do for my sweet, sweet ass. His fascination with my ass, I don't get. The boobies I understand. I have nice boobies. But I don't get the ass thing. Still, he gives me pervy looks and I like it. I think he wanted me to mention here how much I love the sex with him. 'Cause it is pretty damn awesome. And I'm not just saying that 'cause he wants me to.

Hearts for my friends.

Fin.

have not had time to make post of DOOM. Have been too busy using time off to play Dungeon Siege 2 or watch Alan playing Dungeon Siege 2 and telling him where to go because he ALWAYS gets lost. I only sometimes get geographically embarrassed. I also pick up and ditch characters as quick as it takes to achieve a quest specific to that character... although one of my parties now consists entirely of female characters, including the scorpion. "Does this armor make my butt look big?" "Fuck off, Taar." Taar is such a goddamned greenie.

Fear I may be coming down with cough. This sucks, as I hate cough medicine. Alan was coughing too, so may have to get something so we don't make each other worse. He says Vicks cough medicine is good. So long as it's not that cherry red stuff that makes me gag...

Almost lost my USB disk at the library the other day, but someone found it and turned it in, so I got back. Yay.

Need to take time to read Heroes season 2 transcripts to get my canon knowledge up-to-date. Then I can offer better feedback on certain things. *nods* Also tempting to watch some Firefly again. What I really should watch is Ewan McGregor and Charley Boorman's Long Way Down, since I've had that for over a month and not done so. I can play with legos when I do it.

I have lego dwarfs. And orcs. And troll/ogre creatures. This, including my kings and knights and samurai and witches, wizards, star wars people, space people, divers, and paridisa folks... half tempting to get the Indiana Jones set with him and his dad. :D

*coughing fit*

Hell with this. See ya 'round.

Fin.

What an interesting weekend we had... Friday and Saturday being our weekend.

On Friday we came into town to meet up with Alan's sons Chris and Joe (my first time meeting Joe). I also bought this celtic triquetra necklace at Lotz of Potz... see if I can find a picture online of sort of what it looks like. ETA: Something like this only pointing down. And we had coffee at cafe cuba after chatting with the boys. Thought about seeing Sweeney Todd, but missed the afternoon screening and didn't want to wait until night. Had things that needed doing at home, like the dishes. And when he was preparing dinner, I was sitting on the floor sorting out my CDs while listening to Josh Groban (the CD is slightly fucked though. Maybe there were too many scratches on the one we copied, but the sound is off on some of the tracks... but plenty of it is just fine and his is a beautiful voice.)

Anyway, we were doing the dishes when Alan got a text from his youngest, Jon, asking if he could come see him. Jon's had to go to hospital since he had been having these nosebleeds that wouldn't stop, and he was falling over from blood loss. They've cauterized about seven veins in his nose, but they think the one that is not stopping is up too high in the nose. Have to cut in from the side and such. But the poor boy is confined to the bed, alone in Wellington hospital, his gf unable to visit (she having just had a minor op on her ovaries), and yeah... he wanted to see his dad.

Oh, I should mention that Chris had his boyracer car stolen, with his gf's computer and his cellphone in it as well. We were going to borrow Tarns' comp to attach Alan's computer as a slave and back up some files before reformatting it since his XP's gone caput. And Joe is staying with them at the moment because he just broke up with his gf. As I said to Alan, about all we need now is a text from Kathy saying, "Dad, I'm pregnant and I've broken up with Scott."

So Saturday we didn't go to the gypsy fair, buy my computer from Harvey Norman (more about that), and see Sweeney Todd. We went to Wellington, visited Jon, didn't see my friend Glenn (had hoped to), bought my computer from Harvey Norman (hang on, I'll detail that in a bit), visited Alan's brother Steve in Greytown and got his dragons back... it was an eventful day, and we did rather enjoy our weekend. And now I have my computer.

For now, it's name is Orlando. It was the first name to come to mind, but I may change it if someone can suggest something better. My other option is Mr. Burns. My account name is Bitchcakes.

Anyway, this is the info from the catalogue, for the curious:

HP Pavilion M9070A Media Centre PC with 19” Wide LCD
• Intel® Pentium® Dual Core 1.8GHz • 1GB RAM • 320GB HDD
• Dual Layer LightScribe DVD±RW SuperMultiDrive
• nVidia GeForce 8400M GS 256MB Graphics with HDMI output
• 15-in-1 card reader • Built-in wireless • Built-in TV Tuner & Remote
• Windows® Vista™ Home Premium.

All that for NZD$1798 (down about $400), plus we got speakers worth about $70 or $80 for $30, and then there was the 2GB flash drive they were selling for $26 that had been about $60. So all up I spent $1854 to get my baby. Lord, but I had that moment of nervousness of having it say DECLINED on my purchase, even though I knew I had to have close to twice that in my account.

And the Vista thing isn't too much of a problem, except that my darling gave me the Dungeon Siege game, and it's incompatible with Vista. We have no internet at home at the moment, so I can't just hop on and dl a patch so I can play it. Mostly the problem with having Vista at the moment is that it's not very good without an internet connection. ~le sigh~ We need to speak to the landlord, see about the kind of internet they have-if it's just dial-up or it is possible to get broadband out where we live, but it'll suck to just have dial-up. It's a little annoying that not only can they not sell me an XP disc, but that Vista comes pre-loaded onto the computer, so I don't even have a disc for that. Should I have a problem and need to reformat, I'd have to go out and buy a disc. That's just not cool.

Anyway, mostly I'm happy with my shiny new computer. It is a thing of dark beauty. That being said, it shows my priorities are straight when five minutes after getting home, I'm not on the computer loading some other game, but stripping the clothes off my darling for a bit of lovin'. And that he's letting me, instead of heading back out the the car to grab his tobacco and rolling a ciggy first. We're so in love with being in love with each other.

Fin.

Saturday I went to see Once with blue_raven which was interesting in the fact that it is the first time we've actually done something together...more than just handing over a video tape or her being very confused when I stop in front of her to say 'hi' as she waits for her parents outside a cafe. (I was amused; it had been two years since we last saw each other and she had no idea who I was at first.) It was also interesting because it was a fun movie to watch. Funny in little quirky ways, beautiful music (gotta get ahold of that soundtrack), and an interesting and nice story...

The three of us sitting at the cafe later, and me struggling to find a topic of conversation that could get us all involved in talking... movies was the topic that was easiest. Must remember to burn a copy of Equilibrium for her, and steal a copy of A Dog's Breakfast from her. A nice wee exchange.

Saturday afternoon at the Esplanade with my darling was also nice, except that the heat got to me and I was still kind of delicate and recovering from the tummy bug of Wednesday/Thursday. It made going to work a real bitch. But oh well, work is work and my paycheck will be sweeter for it. Kind of like how they called me again today asking if I could start early... this at about noon when I start at three and work till 10... like I'm going to work over nine hours at checkouts. I said I'd come in around 1:30 or 2. I know they'd like more from me, but I have a life and everything, yeah?

Fin.

Well, I'm back in Palmy now, and was able to catch a couple hours in Bella's bed (after a hefty make-out session with my darlin). I did sleep on the bus down, but of course I kept being woken up... plus the driver was speeding a lot, I think to make up for the delays loading and unloading, and that made the ride bumpier. At least I had two seats all to myself, though.

Was so good to see him this morning. Would have been nice if he could have been picking me up to take me straight home, but, oh well. We can wait a little longer. He can call me anytime he likes now. :D

Going to be interesting working until closing again. People are going to be super pissed they can't get their last minute booze from the supermarket. I wonder how many drunks we'll get? I fair few I should imagine. That's gonna suck.

Working 'til closing again tomorrow night. Weird to think of the place closing, 'cause, really, we could be a 24/7 operation, but they'd probably struggle for people willing to work those public holiday times unless they offered more than time and a half and day in lieu. I still don't understand closing New Year's night, though. Mind you, I don't understand the day after New Year's being a public holiday. Ah well, who'm I to question when it's going to fatten my paycheck?

James Blunt stuck in my head.

Fin.

Okay, since I have all the time in the world at the moment, I'm going to make an attempt to cover the ups and downs of my life over the past two months. That I haven't really said much about in here.

So, back in June, I'd moved into this temporary women's accommodation place, while I job and flat-hunted. Landed two part time jobs, one at a supermarket as a checkout chick, and one at Mitre 10 mega in the service aquad. One of my coworkers at said Mega was looking for a female flatmate to move in with him and this other guy, and rent was about 90 a week. So I moved in with Ben and Clayton in August sometime.

It was okay, had a lot of fun when Ben was over in Aus and Clayton had this friend Lauren visiting. We went out on the town and stuff, got pissed several times and I discovered red wine makes me nauseous. So boo to that.

Ben came back from Aus, two weeks later than planned, and we fought a lot. His little peculiarities got on my nerves, I felt he was behaving like a child as he tried to treat me and Clayton like errant children in "his" house. And it was revealed that he would be moving back to Australia to be near his estranged wife and their three four kids. (I got to find out from the landlord's wife that Sam had had their fourth in September when he was over there. I lived with him and he didn't fucking tell me that.)

I was quite angry about the shit Ben left behind. He owed me money, which was factored into the price I paid for his fridge. I couldn't afford his washing machine straight away, but I had plans to buy that too. But he'd also left a bunch of other furniture and rubbish for me and Clayton to deal with--Clayton busy with his own plans to go an an OE. And Ben owed him money, too.

Anyway, I ended up with the fridge, washing machine, microwave, and kitchen table along with all my stuff. But I had no flatmates and couldn't afford the rent on my own. Not even til too possible other flatmates could be found. So it was back to the women's accommodation place, and time to start flat-hunting again. On the upside, Nga still lived there so I had at least one friend to get along with to begin with. But the other girl Christy was not bad, either.

Gladys, who used to live there, got to hold on to my bottle of scotch as the place was alcohol free, and it gave me an excuse to visit her (although I got so busy with work that I didn't get much of a chance to).

We had another girl move in, who had lived there before as well, by the name of Bella. And alternative-lifestyler, she and I got along very well given our like of kink. She more than I, but the other girls were quite vanilla compared to us. Still, another fine friend in my life with her.

Flat hunting was hard. My time was consumed between working, sleeping, and making sure I got my chores done... not to mention being social, and any bits of shopping or whatever I needed done, that sometimes, yeah, the flat-hunting got put on the back burner. And that was not a good thing because the house closed down from the 22nd of Dec to the 21st of Jan, and I really didn't want to up and move my shit all over again.

Being expected to cook a meal or two a week was also inconvenient, given my working, not to mention the fact we were rarely all home together at the same time. The rules of the house almost go by the assumption the residents have no lives outside of the house, which just ain't so.

Anyway, early November, I put in an application for leave at Mega for the last weekend of December. If I did that and didn't pick up extra shifts at Woolies, I could have four days up in Hamilton to see family and friends. But I was told the next weekend it couldn't be approved because no one gets leave in December or January, the busiest time of year. Well, I'd already made my plans and bought my (non-refundable) tickets assuming one little weekend off would not make a difference. So I handed in my resignation to finish on the 16th of December. (My manager said to my darlin that it was a shame since I'm such a good worker, but 1: they didn't even wait for me to leave before scraping my name off my cubby hole, and 2: I got replaced by another girl pretty damn easily, really.)

( And my deciding to quit Mega is how I landed my darling. )

This was all happening in the lead-up to Christmas as well, wasn't it? So I'd got mum and dad pestering me for a mailing address and what I want for Christmas (and I'm going, "I don't know where I'm living at Christmas!" and "I don't have any idea what I want, nothing big!"). And of course the customers at (either) work are in a rush, sometimes cranky, and it's a hectic time to be moving and all. Plus I told Dad and Suzy not to get me anything expensive because they bought my bike earlier this year.

Mind you, I came to the startling conclusion that I needn't do my shopping for anyone til Boxing day, because I don't see them til after that. Except for my darling, and I sort of got him two presents. The one before Christmas was some choc body paint and this, um, outfit? (It doesn't hide much) The outfit was for me to wear, 'cause I knew the effect it would have... and that was a good end to my Christmas Eve night. Work was such a bitch on Monday.

Our Christmas day plans were kind of ruined by the weather. The idea had been to hit up the beach and take a stroll before a picnic lunch. So naturally, it rained. Porbably just as well, because my six day work weeks, and adjusting to a schedule of broken sleep (getting up at five to be in town when he starts, then sleeping some more at Bella's since I don't start til afternoon...), I was so tired I took a nap or two, and had an early night. I felt bad because I kind of neglected Alan in favour of playing some Dungeon Siege, but as he told me later, he could tell I needed the mindless game thing to relax, and so he gave me some space even if he would have liked my company (and for me to have been a bit more amourous, but my mind wasn't cooperating).

(lmao I knew this would happen. I haven't signed up for a single extra shift this week, given the being out of town thing, so naturally I got a call from work asking if it would be possible to do a few hours this afternoon/tonight. Georgia said she'd make a note of my unavailability so it doesn't happen again.)

So Boxing day I did my shopping, and spent more money on myself than anyone else. Best I could calculate it was around $400, but then half of that was on the cell phones. I decided it was time I got a new one, just a cheap one, but nice, and then I also bought Alan one because he didn't have a vodafone, just telecom. And if I'm really efficient I'll set up txt2000 and BestMate so it's even cheaper than my current prepay thing.

I also bought a couple sets of lego, which was where I spent around a 100 more of the estimated 400. It cracked Alan up to see me sitting on the floor putting my lego sets together...butt nekkid. And that he felt the chill long before I paid any attention to it because I had my legos. Also, telling me to put my toys away and come eat dinner. It was pretty funny though.

I seem to have done well with my choice of presents for the family though. My step-sisters all got the same type of chocolates, which was easy enough and they were all happy. Savannah quite liked her glow necklaces. Amarah did cuddle with her little stuffed zebra, but Izayah was only slightly interested in his stuffed frog. Suzy does like her scarf and Il Divo cd (that I copied before giving to her) and I got Dad this drill bit set he asked for, plus the Spaceballs dvd (copied that one too).

My presents were quite nice too. From Mum I got the usual mix of clothes and itty bits (vair cute) and $50, from Dad and Suzy I got a set of pjs, the Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz dvds, and lollies. I got a diary from Carla. Oh, and Alan got me one of those stone dragon ornaments, one that's perching on an arch of stain glass.

I suppose... I should go have shower, get dressed, and do more than read the backlog of my f-list. I have read a bit here and there... maybe I'll make an effort to comment later, but for now... shower, clothes, food, coffee.

Still breathing.

Fin.