As promised

An update on how the day was weird, and turned out to be tiresome indeed.

It all started with not being called to wake up. Well, before that, my dad was prevented from waking me up at 5:30 by brother and mom. I'd said my goodbyes to brother yesterday evening before going to sleep, not seeing the point in waking up in the middle of the night, murmuring a 'don't jump the plane unless you have a parachute' comment and go right back to sleep. Or, with my luck, be awake for the rest of the night and having to do all of today on 5 hours of sleep. So, we said goodbye, safe journey and all that good sobby stuff before going to sleep. Dad did not wake me up.

DH on the other hand, can be trusted to call at any time in the early morning before he goes to sleep. Never after 8:00, or he knows I'll get on to him for not going to bed before midnight. He doesn't 'do' clocks and never checks the time during the evening, right until the moment he decides he's getting tired. That didn't happen until 1:30 his time, which is why he called me at 8:30 in the morning, when I was no longer around to answer the phone.

Mom didn't call me from the airport, as I had told her repeatedly that I had set the alarm, and that between it and DH, I would certainly be up before 8:00. Which is why I frantically called her at 8:20 to ask what time I was to have expected the first batch of kids to show up, right after the father of the first batch finally got to leave for work.

At 8:13, I woke up, screamed a little when I checked my watch, jumped into my clothes and down the stairs to open the door to two slightly undercooled kids and their father, holding his phone from when he was calling the house phone, wondering if anyone was there. Well, I was. As it happened, just as I was zipping up, the alarm went off. 7:15 Winter Time. Gods I felt stupid and inadequate. Luckily they were the first batch to be expected, so none of the other fathers needed to know. In between arrivals I managed to brush my teeth and put on socks and shoes. Not a great start of the day.

Of batch #1, 100% has a cold of the running snot type, followed by 100% of batch #2. Batch #3 was snot-free, and assured me she had eaten all of her dinner the night before, and even finished her yoghurt after. Believe me when I say that's quite an accomplishment, as she only ever does that here, and only after much power-struggle has been overcome. At 9:00, one child was removed from the flock to sleep. Which he did, blissfully, for 90 minutes. By 10:30, after Tweenies, Tubbies and King Koos, breakfast and a coffee, the parental unit finally returned from Zaventem, having gotten themselves lost in Antwerp in search of that really cheap gas station. Left the house for a few minutes in search of cheap fabric, and returned to find much snot, unhappiness, and a 2 year old trying to get a feel for where my boundaries lie. Corporal punishment is so last century, but I can sometimes see the point of it. By 14:30, I was ready to leave the house but had an instant soup instead. Colds never help, and I was clearly tired and grumpy, but dear Gods, we can start our own "stop procreating" lifestyle group just with the 4 of them there. Just before soup, the most rational and least demanding one (who sleeps in my room) farted in her sleep, filling my room with sewage-grade stink. Mom transferred my 'wages' which is really kind of her.

Book club book #1 has arrived, so I can go pick it up anytime. I was late responding to the Ravelry position, but they got over 1500 applications, so it wouldn't have been any use anyway. Looking at the NHTV job site made me feel incredibly inadequate again, being in the place of under-over-qualifiedness. Will call about it tomorrow regardless. I would quite like to be a lecturer. I'd be a quite cheap one too, I imagine. They should hire me. Also applied for 3-month in-house translating job to be done in Germany for Gaming company, which will surely come to nothing.

Lovely Laura interrupted this posting, with more and new job openings in the Midland area. Sweetness, found lots more in the DFW range, which is currently slightly more convenient. Still, thanks bunches, sent them all on to DH, who is out, doing important expensive stuff.

Tonight the Screnzy starts. Actually looking forward to it, even though it won't be good, make no money or won't help with the future one bit. Still, it's something to do of an evening, when there's nothing on the telly.

For now, still working on the Blue Mariyam Bag, almost done with the crochet bit, and managed to score some fabric today.

Life isn't all bad, but I'm having that wine anyway. Bottoms up.


PS. Laura's cats are adorable little tigers.

The added joy of a Pretty Coffee.

Today, the girl whose name I'd almost forgotten, Anne, made an Effort on our coffees. Apparently she's reading up on Pretty Coffee on the internet. I say go Anne, keep up the good Work!



We managed to keep dry all morning, something which just couldn't keep up all day. A flash rain which lasted about 5 minutes fell on me the second I stepped outside (duh) of the practice after therapy today. As soon as I put the key in the lock of the back door, it stopped. In good news, I'm getting a haircut in the morning. Most of tomorrow will be filled with prepping for Ron's leaving party (sure, we're happy not to see him for 6 months. Ha!) and the party itself. Hope to have some time to myself in the midst. I've got a few things to attend to myself. Like #1, though it's Saturday. Mustn't forget to put in for Ravelry. I'm a Bamboo, y'know?

#1 Find a job.
One more option going at the moment, after another one 'pulled out.' They sent me another option, but I guess I'm not going hungry enough to work outbound callcentre yet. Sorry.

#2 Ti bag
Starting over was a good plan, I'm much happier now. Here's what it looks like.



Like I said, much better. Haven't managed to find liner fabric, as I've got the original one in my other stash, far far away. Hope it won't become a big issue.

#3 Book club book
Not going so well. #1 hasn't showed up yet, #2 is still part of a big stack of probably not very important mail, and this is the situation of pre-book club book.



Extra points for finding the book in there. Will take it along for haircut, always get to read some there. As long as I stay away from the gossips I'll be fine.

#5 Screnzy
A few days left until fade-in. Plenty of ideas, Bionical Eye Man, Loser Man, and apparently I already forgot one. I guess two short scripts will have to do. Argh! Someone already did Lost in Translation, so I'll scrap that thought. Hmpf.

#5-#6 Make 'stuffs'
Work has begun, but I've seen the wisdom in single-layering jeans fabric. Wish I'd have seen it before it did the bulk double-layered. Much cursing followed. Shirt is going mildly better, as I've almost finished (part of) prepping. Would say that it'll be finished first.

Concluding, I'm in more pain than before I started therapy, and what's with these unstable shoulders? Seriously. I'm not watching as much TV as I have previously, which means I'm now up-to-date with my TROS Nieuwsshow podcasts. Just in time for tomorrow's edition. Battling on with OVT. Many, many more to go.
For tonight, it's comfort TV and crochet. You wouldn't think a day without screaming kids could still be this tiresome. And yet, I don't feel like sleeping. It'll come, just like mentioning sleeping got me back Screnzy idea #3. What does sleep beckoning look like?

What I'm working...

...on these days. As much of a to-do-list as a reminder for myself. Plus, you, my non-reader, will be able to find out for yourself how I fill my days. Because I'm just *that* interesting, y'know?

#1 Scour the internet for a job.
This seems easy, or maybe not, but searching a number of websites for suitable and not so suitable vacancies. This usually results in a reply similar to the following, or with the same meaning: "We think you're too smart, which means you will go away or get bored or tell us how to do things better, so we'll just hire someone we can tell what to do and they'll just do it." This seems rather irritating, especially when it refers to a very short term job (think weeks rather than months). However, it's all I get to hear, whenever "We have filled the position from within our organisation." Ta, people, for making me put in the effort.

#2 Make Maryiam/Ti her bag, and then another and find some things to start my very own Etsy store.
You never know what might come of it, but so far, the bag seems to be getting the better of me. I will nail (or crochet) it one day, and then we'll see who has the last laugh!

#3 Read the book club books.
As I currently only have book #2 and have not yet finished the book I was reading, I must really remember to do this. Hopefully #1 will arrive soon.

#4 Write a script in 30 days.
As if I don't already have nothing important to do with my time, I'm going to do it again. I'm going to write an absolutely unimaginative script which will never see the light of day, for the sole reason of being able to say that I did it. At least the idea came to me while watching TV (another one of those not important things I happen to do a lot) and the subject was a blind man with a bionical eye. Ah! The Potential! Don't expect to see this in cinemas near you any time soon or ever at all.

#5 Make that black shirt
My way of having a whole new wardrobe for very little indeed. Just need to sit down and do it, apparently. Same goes for #6

#6 Make that jeans skirt
As #5, but with jeans fabric and in the shape of a skirt. Eventually, I will wear all these projects.

So, while I'm doing all these *very* important things, I manage to help out mom, get me some Physio (is it meant to hurt more than before I started treatment?) stay up far too late and sleep a hole into the morning, not spend any money (see the helping of mom) and remaining a very dependent girl. Whatever happened to girlpower?

That's the kind of mess you get if you mess up your pattern and have to undo a bunch. But, Mariyam, work is in progress!

Oh, yes...

...Well of course. Better late than never and more such witticisms.

The book in question is named Scarlet, after the first part called Hood. I presume you can guess the subject, and in case you don't I'll give you another hint. Spoofed, they are men in tights. There's always google of course.

Anyway. Mr Stephen Lawhead, I'm a little disappointed, but I'll battle on, page after page. The story is good, I could just have done with a little less monk-writer-interference.

As I'm sort of hanging out (read: 'stalking') celebs now

.. I figured they are setting a good example by blogging a lot. If you're reading this blabbering, please send thank to @stephenfry, @neilhimself and @Templesmith.

I haven't been really active, apart from sending out oodles of job applications, which so far has resulted in no response at all, one interview (yay! but let's not cheer too much too soon) and one turn down from being "Too heavy a candidate" which I'm supposed to understand as they were looking for someone more stupid. How stupid is that? So, we're supposed to focus on the one interview which I expect to come to nothing for pretty much the same reason. Fun fun, but at least I can put it down as being one more interview experience.

In the mean time, I haven't been sitting around as much as I may have in the past, though sometimes I wish I could. Plans, plans, plans galore. I reallllllly want some money to go to Scotland again this year, as I'm knitting this large thing to help cover up a bridge. I think it's a fine idea and a great excuse to go. Don't see it happening soon though, or any time at all in the coming years. Which really sucks major bum.

I'm reading a book. It's the second in a series. Part one was great. The author is great, in general, I have a few of his books. This one, however is just plain annoying. The idea of a window story is for the window to exist, not for it to be pointed to *every single chapter*. Really annoying, but we're battling on since I can't afford to buy another book. Though, in other booky news, I'm joining a preliminary meeting of the scififantasy book club in Lattes. So it's not all doom and gloom, right?

Oh, and I'm still working on that horrendous cowl, since it'd be nice to finish it before temp goes up too much. I made a dress and am halfway though a wraparound. wayhay! Sooooo, trying to recovered from yet another cold and frantically attempting to motivate why the bank should hire me for this dumb job that they will find me "too heavy" for, I'll be here. I'll pop in again later.

Promise!