dynamite_lady: (Default)
There are some days when doing a small, simple task seems to stretch out for several times as long as it should. Writing an abstract for a conference, for example, or sorting recycling. Today was not like that. I got up a little before 10. Gave up on getting a newspaper because by 1030 it's touch and go whether the local newsagents would still have an Observer, and I didn't want to go further afield. Worried a bit about whether I would get everything done that I normally do on Sundays - we're going to the pub this evening so that contracts things a bit. On that basis, I'd moved our usual roast dinner to lunchtime, which I knew would make the morning a bit less chilled than usual but would have the flipside of not having to worry about it in the evening.

By 1pm (lunchtime unless there is any reason to have it at another time) I'd managed to create a roast dinner, with my first attempt at vegan toad in the hole (tasted good but trashed my dish), and also make a batch of bread for packed lunches and do the first load of washing up. By half past two I'd washed my hair, done washing up load #2 (one of the few tasks I can do with a towel on my head and no glasses on) and dried/styled my hair. Then blogged the toad in the hole over at Veganicity. Haven't achieved much since about three though - time to have a shower and think about dinner!
dynamite_lady: (Default)
LJ is showing signs of life (and I have more information, courtesy of the DW news page strangely enough) but intermittently - I managed to read my friends page and establish that you lot weren't having a massive party in my absence and that my account hadn't been hacked, but when I went back to make a post the page wouldn't load. So here I am.

I've often wondered whether, when at home alone, I should lock the door while hanging the washing out. Technically the washing line is only a few yards from our door (which is around the side of the house and up some stairs - downstairs gets a normal front and back door but there isn't much point in that one storey up), but you don't get the best view of the door from it. Usually I don't lock the door but I do shut it. Anyway, we're both at home this morning and it was Ducki's turn to hang the washing out, so since I have a good view of the stairs and door from the sofa he left it wide open. Usually the oddest thing that happens is that cats try to come in. Now, I wouldn't really mind the cats coming to say hello. I like cats. But we aren't going to be here much longer, so I don't want them getting used to actually coming indoors because a) they might scratch or piss on something belonging to the landlord and compromise our deposit and b) the next tenants might not be cat fans. Amazingly not everyone loves kitties, bizzare... Today the stakes were upped a bit because the invader was a small child, singing a little song while peering up our stairs. I had a slight moment of panic - I'm not sure what you're meant to do if a genuinely lost toddler turns up at your house, calling the police might come in somewhere, and cracking open the orange juice stash. Luckily she turned out to be attached to the lady delivering the free newspaper, who said something like 'don't be nosy' and led her little darlings away.
dynamite_lady: (Default)
Title courtesy of a dream I had last night - I was at a vegan meetup (not with my current local group, or not just with them) at a resturant everyone had been raving about - but our group was led through the nicer bits into a dark, cold and noticeably manky function room up a few flights of stairs. Luckily I woke up before having to eat anything there. The nadir was going to the loo - the bowl had similar falling-through-the-floor tendencies as the ones in the new bit of the Portland Building at Nottingham, only worse so I was keeping my weight on my hands on the floor while peeing. Then because I had dreamed about peeing I woke up worried that I'd wet myself, and was relieved to be able to go to my un-grotty bog along our short landing and cuddle with Ducki afterwards.

So, I'm back on DW for a bit because LJ seems to be down. I'm still not entirely sure if this is my problem or a wider one. But if it is a wider problem I'm hoping some of you will gravitate over here and find me on my little duck island. If you're someone I know and you want an invite, comment. It is weird coming back to DW after a long absence and reading the posts from two years ago, I thought I was demoralised now but that summer was one of the worst times in my life without much real reason for it. That was one reason I started posting here, I didn't feel the hysteria about LJ so much, but I wanted to blog all that stuff somewhere vaguely seperate. And now to be honest I just want to do some personal blogging somewhere. Veganicity is good but not the best place to talk about loo bowls falling through the floor.

For anyone who is still somehow checking in at this blog and hasn't found my real one, wow you're obsessive ;). The real news is that I've moved to Stirling (Scotland) with Ducki. I've been teaching part-time during the university terms, and spending the summer largely keeping my head down and doing PhD corrections (painfully slow with painful being the operative) and writing a conference paper about the Camp for Climate Action. We're looking at houses to buy. That's really up in the air though. I'm looking forward to moving somewhere a bit bigger than the flat we have. Now we've 'proved ourselves' - we know our relationship *can* survive being in an enclosed space together and seeing each other's mess, but we also know that this is a flashpoint for arguments and one that could be more easily avoided if we had a couple more rooms. So that's how it is. Just need to get something now.

And another thing, we're having serious internet bandwidth crap here. So while I'd love to post photos, that's not possible for a while. :(
dynamite_lady: (Default)
Well, I'm out in the country trying to regroup a bit after two months that were more stressful even than I've admitted to myself or anyone else while they were happening! The issue being that my summer job took up a lot more time and energy than it has done in previous years - more students, more issues generally, a lot of uncertainty about aspects of the course plus the need to set an exam and plan revision. The exam marking in a week's time looks like a breeze in comparison to the rest of it, and if you've heard me whinge about marking you'll know how serious that is. Anyway, I've had a day and a half of just pottering around and (literally and metaphorically) getting air, making vague (for now) work plans, touching up my roots (an inch of brown stuff, that's way more than I normally allow) and generally decompressing and being relieved. I'm not sure I know what an un-stressed me looks like any more, but if I can catch a glimpse of that mythical being before my thesis reaches the last stage of urgency it will be great.

Makeup

Aug. 3rd, 2009 09:33 pm
dynamite_lady: (MyManga)
Filler post because I feel the need to blog something light and fluffy rather than some of the darker and less fluffy thoughts doing the rounds of my brain cells. (The good stuff roundup is being saved for when I need it more!)

My attitude to cosmetics changes fairly often. In general though my policies are that a) I don't buy anything tested on animals and b) if putting the stuff on becomes a chore then I stop.

Often (especially in term-time and extra-especially at the start of each term), putting on relatively subdued makeup becomes part of my daily routine. At some point I hit a limit where I think 'hey, this is getting boring'. That's when I start cutting back on makeup or maybe saving it for times when I can get away with the more dramatic stuff. Other times, I feel pressure to look 'perfect' (not going to happen since my natural appearance is part of the raw material here!) by erasing all signs of stress. Then I rebel a bit. Or sometimes I make a conscious decision that if I feel like I 'need' makeup then it is time to do away with it altogether for a bit, because the 'need' isn't good for my self-esteem and my skin can't take foundation every day.

Right now, however, hiding my seemingly constant air of washed-outness while at work seems like a bit of a triumph. I have had a shitty summer term: can't blog any real details of my job, but in the light of a bereavement and an accident on top of a generally increased workload it can be difficult to keep up morale. People's reaction to my unfoundationed face might be the last straw there! More importantly, makeup tends to cheer me up - especially if I have scope to experiment with colour - and the routine involved calms me down and gives me a break from the racing my mind is prone to. If my hand is steady enough to hold an eyeliner brush when I get to that stage, I am less panicky than I was. And if I can be distracted from the worse aspects of my life by something that small, life can't be as bad as it sometimes appears!

*Whinge*

Jul. 4th, 2009 04:49 pm
dynamite_lady: (Default)
I got my ID checked for the first time in a year this morning, and refused for the first time in about two years. (In a supermarket buying alcohol for future use - I don't start that early even on Saturday!)

A few reasons why this annoys me:
Underage drinkers are often pushing it to pretend to be 18. Why would they risk adding an extra 10 years?
I was using a debit card. Do UK banks even give those to under-18s? If they do then I am *obviously* old, because I remember a time when this was unheard of.
The other contents of my basket: lasagna sheets, broadsheet newspaper, cornflour, vegetables, wholemeal bread and walnuts. If this is what 16-year-olds buy for themselves, they're more sophisticated than I was, and I could cook pretty well at that age.
The booze: a magnum of French red table wine. Not expensive, but outside a teenage budget unless they are (again) a sh*tload more sophisticated than I was at their age. And I certainly wouldn't have had the foresight to buy sufficient quantities of the stuff to cook with and have two nights' worth of drinking.

There's also the fact that I never got ID'd when I *was* underage. I went to high school in a university town where bar and shop staff tended to assume young people were undergrads. And I did *not* drink enough in those two years to remotely feel that this morning's problem and other incidents like it are karma!

Still, I did at long last buy a full-sized espresso pot - obviously I'm old enough to drink coffee then...

Blowy

Jul. 2nd, 2009 04:20 pm
dynamite_lady: (Default)
No not *that* sort - what do you think I get up to when Ducki is away?!? No, the title refers to the first appearance of the electric fan in my living room. It took me a few hot days to realise that the thing I'd bought as a heater in the winter actually had a cold air function, and until now I've been content to leave it in the bedroom (where it lived from October to keep me warm while getting dressed) and use it to air the place for a bit each night before trying to sleep. Today, however, having the openable windows open wasn't enough, even if I did find the ventilation hatch on the landing skylight. (the living room windows probably *do* open, but sodded if I can work out how!) So I removed the piles of newspapers from around the coffee table (funny how they get dropped there rather than miraculously flying to the recycling area), excavated the electric socket and plugged the fan in. It has pride of place on the coffee table and has improved things a lot!

Wodka!

Jun. 16th, 2009 07:20 pm
dynamite_lady: (Default)
I am going to a friend's leaving party at the weekend and thought that some flavoured vodka would be a nice thing to take. Except, being skint and in need of diversion, I decided to make the stuff. I have fresh blueberries, so will spend this evening poking holes in them and inserting them into a bottle of Teh Sco's (inverse) finest. I also have some dried cherries and cranberries - anyone know if they'd work for flavouring spirits?

And because things sometimes fit together (although not often), I also wound up buying some beetroots to make soup with. Now, I always flavour this with horseradish and paprika, but know from experience that the *best* thing to put in is a shot or two of vodka. So that solves the problem of how to make space for fruit, and how to unwind after a rather intense seminar!
dynamite_lady: (Default)
Should I feel bad that I want to be on here? Ok, my day-to-day look is a whole lot more practical than the folks on here - right now I am wearing a black t-shirt and loose black linen trousers, with dye-covered hair piled on top of my head, and my going-out clothes involve enough cleavage and fishnet-age to ward off any thoughts of overheating, and my normal concession to summer is a tube of factor 50 and a huge floppy black sunhat. And I know that the site is to a great extent taking the piss out of goths. But still, I WANT!

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