Friday 21 December 2012

The end of the world... well, it's not like I could exactly ignore it, could I?

Given what day it is and given that I have been prone to talk about the end of the world and preparations needed for said world end in my blog before, it would be remiss for me not to have an opinion/comment/musing on what it is that we have experienced today.

You see, out of all of the many ways people have predicted the end of the world to happen and the ridiculous amounts of predictions dates that have been "foretold," this day, the 21st December 2012, has to be one of the most famous. Today we have to endure one of the most horrific things that could possibly happen, today the Mayan Calendar ends...


I don't know about anyone else but I literally do not know what on EARTH I am going to do with myself now that I no longer have a Mayan calendar to follow and abide by. I mean, come on. Who else is literally cacking themselves right now?

Without the Mayan Calendar, we have... well... according to them, we have nothing. Because the Mayan's didn't believe in noting down the date past today, of course this means that the world will no longer exist. Because (and I was just saying this the other day to someone), if people don't live a life according to what the Mayan's want then there is no life worth living.

And so, in short, because of all of this sound factual evidence and complete belief in a culture who liked to sport beards (Mayan's wore beards and white robes, right? Or am I getting this confused with something else? (In my defense, if I am wrong, it's only because Heinakroon hasn't written a blog about it yet and I don't trust any other source of information as actual fact or education)) ... where was I? Oh yes, because of all of this being completely and utterly true and there being no chance that we could ever live in a world without the Mayan logic and order keeping us in check, the world is going to end. It is going to end... 8 hours ago?? At the end of the day??

I'm going to go with the end of the day as obviously it couldn't have been 8 hours ago because we are all still here!

So as we are not completely out of the woods just yet, I suggest a lot of last minute apologising for bad things and being nice to people and also finding underground bunkers with enough food to last the rest of your life in case it's a meteor that gets us.

Either that or get into the fetal position and cry and plead that somehow whatever evil is coming our way, it will mysteriously overlook the house that you are in... you never know, it might happen.

For more tips on how my subcconscious brain thought of surviving our impending doom... check out my Online Novel, which is conveniently on... The end of the world! Would you believe it? It's almost like I planned it that way! (If I did, then it was totally by accident, because I don't usually look past the end of the week and I wrote this last month).

Anywho... one post finished that is totally current and also a complete plug for my book! Isn't it great when things like that happen?

Peace out my lovelies.

Monday 17 December 2012

I've reached The Point of Laze and there is no going back

So I may have mentioned before that I am one of those people that has a tendency to procrastinate in lots of new and exciting ways (and by 'new and exciting' I mean 'same and boring', hence why it is called procrastination).

Through all of my many moments of procrastination I have developed a rule that I have tested, observed and now feel I am ready to share with you.

This rule is simply called 'The Point of Laze.'

The Point of Laze is a place that most of you will be all too familiar with but may not realise that it is called this... mainly because I gave it that name and haven't talked about it until now. But still, we're learning, people!

So in order to explain to you what The Point of Laze is, I want you to think in your head of something that you really need to do right now. It could be a big thing like pay a bill, or little like clean your teeth (not that I want to lower the importance of teeth cleanliness, remember children 'it's always good to keep all your teeth until you're at least 35... then you can start to let go a bit'). Anywho, think of a thing... have you got it in your head? No? Well, I'll just wait a little longer for you. It's okay. I have wine...

Okay. So now that everyone's got the thing in your head, I want you to then just sit and look at your computer. Don't do anything on it, just look at it. Maybe examine the photo on your wallpaper of your dog or cat or Eric Idle or whatever it is that you kids are into these days. Perhaps you want to squint at the photo and notice that your cat/dog/Eric Idle looks a lot like your son/daughter/John Cleese when you do that. How about you then go ahead and examine the actual screen of the computer. See if you can finally get round to scraping that bit of dust/mud/crap that has been there for goodness how long.

Once you've done this, your eyes might start to wonder to that little icon at the bottom/side/middle/top of your screen. The little icon that invites you to a wonderful neverending world of completely anything you can think of... the little icon that connects you to your internet provider. (For me it's a little fox hugging the world in such a loving way that I simply cannot resist trying to get in on that love.)

Go ahead and click on it. Your home page comes up. You don't really know what you want to do with the internet now that it's there but you figure it would be a waste if you didn't at least try searching for something. Perhaps you want to go to a friendly social networking site to help you on your way. Go ahead and check out youtube, surely there has to be something new that's been recommended to you. Or maybe facebook, perhaps someone's put up an adorable and yet hilarious video or photo of their child falling down. Or perhaps you could even go onto twitter. People are always posting links to a neverending series of blogs and videos and websites for people to enjoy. In fact I'm pretty sure a 'plumsauce10' is on there providing a link to an online novel? Could that be? And it's completely free? Wow, I'm so impressed, here's a link to it right from this blog.

So now you probably have a series of available things to look at, laugh at, cry at, throw things at and so on and so forth. It's about at this point you realise that the beaming sun outside your window has in fact disappeared completely and it is pitch black. Or you might have realised that the hot meal you had just cooked for yourself and is sitting by your computer waiting for you, is now completely stone cold. Or, if you are like me, you are now sitting in a dressing gown with a towel around your hair for a completely redundant reason because not only are you dry from the shower you swear you only just took, but your hair, which had been thoroughly washed and conditioned is also bone dry too. Which sucks because you know that you can only really have a decent chance at brushing it whilst it is wet as when it dries it just hates you and anything with bristles.

It's at this point where you are faced with the decision... either you can be sensible and do the decent thing and get on with your life and the really important things that you have to do in it, or you can go against everything that is sensible, open up your blogging site and start to write a blog on being in this state. If you chose the latter... ladies and gents you are officially in The Point of Laze.

FYI: The Point of Laze also works for the choice to tweet endlessly, look through a photo album on facebook that you uploaded three years ago... (which then leads to looking at the people you were with in those photos, wonder where they are now and then go search for them, stalking their facebook pages like a real pro), choosing to go through a particular person's youtube account's whole back log of videos... even if there are 200 to get through, going onto IMDB because you wonder what that child actor you loved is doing now or just simply typing 'monkeys falling off trees' into google.

I know you've all being dying to know what to call it. Now you do. You're welcome. And also, I only charge 50p every time you use it. It's like a copyright bargain.

Peace out my lovelies

Sunday 16 December 2012

Just in case you have a burning secret you want to tell me and shizzle

Hey peeps!

It was brought to my attention recently that I'm a little hard to contact should anyone really need to... aside from my blog, twitter, facebook fan page, my other blog and my other blog. But all of these are open for everyone to look at all the comments made and so if anyone of you beautiful chickadees fancied tellling me a secret you wouldn't be able to because there's no way.

As such, I decided that it was probably a good idea to get myself one of those new fangled electronic messaging things... I think they call them 'Shemail?'... Something like that anyway.

This process I decided to do via hotmail as it tends to be my go to place when I want to receive mail electronically. I went to fill in the form and enjoy the wonderful process that is 'trying to find an email address that hasn't been used yet on an email provider that caters for the entire world and has done since the internet was created.'

...


This was not a fun process.

I mean, it was... but for like five seconds until the fifteen thousandth email address I had tried was rejected and I was ready to throw my brand new lap top across the room in a move I was certain I would probably regret after I had done it...


Anywho, I started out with this little exercise all full of gusto and hope. Stupidly thinking that I could get away with using an email address like 'randomemailofaplum' or 'emailofaplum'. This was not the case. Instead I got the annoying little message from hotmail saying that it was not available.

So then I thought, well I can still have this awesome email address, I just need to add a complex amount of numbers after it and then things will be great. I started with the ever optimistic number 10 as this is the number on my username and so really easy to remember.

Nope.

I then went on to try a series of ridiculously long and complicated numbers that meant something to me so that I would remember it when it came to giving out said address, but that might be considered as too random for others to have used...

Obviously someone else was using the same secret number codes that I use. Not only that but they also consider themselves to be a plum who likes to be random in their thoughts and emails. I died a little inside over this as I felt my own individuality disappear through a deep and dark crevice. However, I didn't want this email provider to win in destroying my own creativeness. So I began to expand on the theme of email and plum, hoping that something would come out of it that would restore my sanity.

The options I went through (with added numbers and shizzle as well) were these:

howtocontactaplumonline
howtorandomlycontactaplumonline
aplumlikesemailssoemailme
iwanttoemailplumsauce10please
iwanttoemailarandomplumplease

and so on and so forth.

All of these not only had been taken but they had been taken enough times that adding 2785 at the end still came back as taken... I have never felt so generic...

So of course, by this point I was beginning to lose all kinds and forms of patience. Not only did I have to cotinuiously try email accounts that continued to state that I had a boring and unimaginative brain, but I also had to enter in that stupid little box code thing each time to prove that I wasn't some robot made of spam or something.

I was losing it well and truly. I was getting angry and IT WAS ALL HOTMAIL'S FAULT. As such, I decided to take it out on them by slagging them off in my new email address suggestions:

therearenouniqueemailaddressesleftanditsallhotmailsfault
iamsoboredoftypinginemailaddresssuggestions
ihatehavingtofindauniqueemailaddress

and so and so forth.

You guessed it people. All of these were already taken... I don't think I was particularly surprised by this given that I couldn't think of anyone having to go through this process and not then resorting to email addresses complaining of the frustrations involved in said email address.

I'm not ashamed to say that this was the point where I was getting frustrated to the point where there were actual tears forming in my eyes (I have had a very weird day today, my emotions aren't playing nice at all).

I wanted to scream... so I did. But of course, because I am one of those people who prefer to express my emotions internetually rather than deal with them in real life like a normal person. I resorted to typing my scream rather than actually speaking it out, (I didn't want to terrify The-Five-Year-Old).

So I wrote the following in the 'email suggestion' section:

aaaaarrrrrgggghhhhh

Then realising that this was an email for my blog and so should have something in relation to the blog I changed it slightly:

aaaaarrrrrgggghhhhhplum

I hit enter.

It went through.

It was accepted.

Due to this, ladies and gents, I now have a new email address that it completely unique without any numbers to prove that someone else is exactly like me... It is unique. My frustrations with the world and my choices in how to spell the sound of screaming and mixing it with a fruit is unique. Huzzah!!

So all that being said. If you would now like to contact me and have lots of secret conversations with me about secret things that may or may not then end up being published on this blog because... well... come on, you can't tell a person who writes every aspect of their every day down for the world to see, a secret and expect them to keep it... that's just ridiculous, then go ahead and write me a little something. I like getting mail.

Little tip when spelling the scream is to use 5 a's 5r's 4g's and 5h's. I would hate for you to spell it wrong and end up speaking to my doppleganger who grew up learning to spell her scream a little differently.

My new email address is:

aaaaarrrrrgggghhhhhplum@live.co.uk

I'm working on sucking up to Younger-Brother-Daniel (who is responsible for the beautiful design you see on this blog) to get him to design the shizzle out of the email address so that it will appear down the side. Hopefully that will happen over Christmas!

Peace out my lovelies.

Saturday 15 December 2012

Saturdays rock

Saturday. The day when people get to relax and not worry about whatever stresses have been plaguing their days... Isn't it awesome?

For one day we get to not worry about whatever is going on. We get to be normal and think that the world is our oyster. We get to go through life for one day without thinking about what really matters.

It's an awesome day. It's a loop hole to all other stressors. It's the day where you get to say, "so what?" to all of the things that have been making you feel like crap.

So as such, I say enjoy today. Don't stress. Don't worry about what life is making you do. Just stop. For one blissful day. Stop and say, "yes, today I'm good, today there is nothing to worry about; Today, I don't have to feel like the world is on my shoulders. That thing that makes me feel bogged down and alone? It doesn't matter today." Today you can do anything. You can be anything. You can become all that you hoped to be. You can believe in the most ridiculous things and for some bizarre reason, it will happen. Because today is a Saturday which means that everything you dreamed will happen.

And if it doesn't? Don't worry, your life is littered with a neverending supply of Saturdays. Which means that whatever you want to happen, will happen one day. Because where would this world be without a Saturday? It would be lost. That's where. But we don't need to worry, because Saturdays will always exist forever and always.

I love Saturdays.

Saturdays mean hope.

Enjoy them.

Peace out my lovelies.

Wednesday 12 December 2012

Welcome to Procrastination town: Population - Me

Sup dudes.

I've been doing this whole 'go to bed at nine and actually have a decent night sleep' thing recently. It's been grand, I have to say. With the exception of the extremely bizarre dreams that I've been having but then again, if you know me by now, you will know that I am no stranger to the bizarre dream/terrifying nightmare. (In fact, I have taken the liberty of turning one of my nightmares into a novel which I am uploading onto the internet each day a chapter at a time (shameless plug I know (here's the link)))

Tonight appears to be the exception to the early to bed rule I have been setting myself. If I'm perfectly honest, I'm not too hopeful for the actual 'bed-going' to happen any time soon given that I have needed to pee for roughly about three hours but I have been too lazy to get up and go... I'm not kidding, it feels like there is a small hefty child sitting on my bladder. But apparently the extremely uncomfortable feeling I am experiencing (almost to the point of pain) is not enough incentive for me to get up and do anything about it.

All that being said, if I am unable to perform this small insignificant task, I am not predicting that the actual 'getting-ready-for-bed' routine will be happening any time soon.

Do you know what I've been doing instead? No? Good, then I will tell you.

18:30. Watched Vampire Diaries (do not judge) on my computer
19:30. Finished off a highly mundane game I had downloaded from Bigfishgames.com
20:00. Finished off the latest chapter of my Utopia novel (link available here) for One-And-Only-Daniela to read whilst simultaneously educating Lgalaviz about the wonders of Wine Gums over twitter (apparently the Americans don't have them which I personally think is a travesty)
20:30. Looked for a new game from bigfishgames.com that I had already bought but hadn't finished for some reason or another.
20:35. Found the game I was looking for
20:37. Started to download the game
20:40. Checked the daily general maintenance checks for my blog in the overly obsessive compulsive way that I do (most of that is code talk for checking out the stats)
20:45. Got distracted and started to read posts I wrote a couple of years ago but because I have the memory of a fish, it felt as if these were brand new posts written by someone else.
20:46. Threw insults at the posts from my blog, pointing out all the bad grammar and the unlikelihood that the events described actually happened.
20:50. Started to sing along with the Von Trap family I am now living with as they sang in the living room (and thoroughly enjoyed myself in the process)
20:55. Checked the stats on my blog again
21:15. Started playing the game that had just finished downloading.
21:30. Realised that I had actually already completed this game and that doing so the first time had creeped the living daylights out of me because there were creepy ghost girls and eerie broken dummies involved.
21:31. Stopped playing the game immediately
21:35. Checked the stats on my blog again
21:55. Went onto Facebook and spent the rest of the time until when I started to write this blog (at around 23:30) getting lost in the black void that is facebook. During this time I realised one very large and very dominating fact about me and photos... I do nothing but pull stupid faces... all the time.

Want to see? No? Good, here we go:









...

I think the word you are looking for is 'special.'

Peace out my lovelies.

Tuesday 11 December 2012

I'm fund raising!

So, I may have mentioned a couple hundred times that I am planning to move to America in July 2013 for 6 months... It's all very exciting, but since making such plans I have come up with two very ominous and concrete observations:

1. Moving to America is expensive.
2. I have no money.

...


Do you guys see my predicament here? All my lovely ideas in my head are so exciting and dancing around on the fluffy clouds constantly knocking aorund in my subconscious, but then reality hits and it's like 'Woah reality, you're kind of a bitch.'

Anywho, I have come up with two sure-fire ways of getting around this tiny-if-not-slightly-crucial hiccup I have now found myself in.

1. Move to a house that doesn't drain every single part of your income so that you find yourself hanging outside the local supermarket at the end of the month in the shadows, waiting for someone to accidentally drop some of their groceries as they are leaving... (not that I've ever done that, *cough cough*)

2. Find awesome and interesting ways to raise money so that you can go to America and not end up in a new country, hanging outside a new local supermarket after the first two weeks in the shadows, waiting for someone to accidentally drop some of their groceries as they are leaving...

Number one I HAVE DONE! I have written down my tiny little list on a sheet of paper and put a massive tick next to it, adding flourishes and stars and flowers and other such embellishments in order to show how super on top of things I am by being halfway through my list... Don't believe me?

Check it out:



Number two however, takes a little more planning... I've considered just walking around with my hand out and my best puppy dog expression in order to make everyone feel super sorry for me and just give me the money but I feel that as I'm essentially asking for money so that I can go travelling people aren't going to be fooled, no matter how adorable I may look.

As such, I have come up with an awesome plan that is drawing on a very old talent of mine that I haven't used in about five years... I'm going to be productive. I'm going to be organised. I'm going to use the organisation to put together a productive thing.

Ladies and gents, I'm going to put on a talent evening.

Now before you all start simultaneously jumping up and down in excitement, clapping your hands together and screaming "Horaay for Lisa, this will be the best thing ever!" Just simmer down. (If you haven't been jumping up and down because you react to things like a normal person instead of the weird way imaginary people react in my head, then... just stay as you were) Five years ago I used to put on events like this a lot. I ran a drama and dance group and spent a lot of my time singing and performing like the little monkey that I am. However, looking at it now, I have an enormous list of barriers to break through to get to the night that I am planning...

One

I have become ridiculously and immensely lazy. Yes. You see I can't so things by halves, never have been able to. So when I decided that I was going to take a break from the "every night working until 2am to get performances ready and on time so that they are perfect and nothing less", I jumped ship and landed in the complete other side of the spectrum. As such, for the past five years, I have been the kind of girl who likes... shall we say... Non-movement. Of any kind. I am telling you, I can sit on my arse and procrastinate for days at a time. In fact, nowadays, if I'm not being paid for the work I do, then I tend to just sit and stare. Sometimes I'll put some music on. Sometimes I'll even talk on the phone to people (although this tends to be limited to Family and One-And-Only-Daniela). But mostly I just sit.

There is no coincidence in the fact that writing has to be the least active thing a person can do. The only muscle work out that my body gets is my fingers as they type... that and the occasional arm stretches as I lift my lap top from the ground to my lap and then back again, of course I only move it back again when I want to grab a light snack... (I ate an entire box of 'Go Ahead' breakfast bars last night, which I know is completely healthy because they say so on the box)

So with that being said, from what I remember of organising events like what I am planning, there is a severe lack of sitting on my arse involved and a massive increase in getting up and doing stuff. This is going to take some doing, let me tell you. And I know you might all be saying, 'but Lisa, you just said yourself that you can jump from one end of the spectrum to the other'. That's all well and good, but apparently it's a little easier to jump into the 'doing nothing' spectrum than it is to jump into the 'doing everything and never stopping ever' spectrum.

Two

The title of the night is 'Talent night.' The talents involved in said night I was once able to do. Now however, thanks to the joyous period of my life outlined in point one, are not so easy anymore. My main reason? Guys, there is something that you all need to be aware of if you are planning for a five year stint of snacking and sitting... inevitably, unless you have the metabolism of Superman (is his metabolism fast? He never seems to gain weight and the rest of him seems to be pretty quick), then you will find that wieght gain is going to be a very strong factor in your every day life.

For me, yes, that has been a large (pun!) aspect of these past five years. To say that I have gained weight would be sugar coating it, I would just say that I've got fat. And I don't mean fat in the way that most members of the female gender complain about when suddenly their size 6 skinny jeans seem a little snug, no I'm a full blown member of the hefty club nowadays. In fact, I am five seconds away from finding the closest 'Big and beautiful' clothes shop and dancing my way down the street to it whilst listening to Mika's 'Big girls, you are beautiful' song on repeat.

I'm not exactly bothered by it, I'm not at a level where my hearts in any trouble and I only get out of breath when I run... anywhere... or walk fast. But overall I've accepted my new weight. However, when I have the plan to choreograph a dance routine like the ones I used to do all those years ago that involves bending my body in interesting shapes and moving around for longer than a minute, I do fear that I may come off as slightly rusty/out of shape/special. It should be interesting to see... I will make sure that I record said event so that you can all marvel/laugh at/cringe at my attempts.

The other contributions I shall be adding talent wise involve singing and writing (in script form for some small sketches) and then the rest I'm going to turn to my lovely volunteers to come up with their own beautiful routines and other such talents!

It's going to be exciting and (I hope) not a disaster at all. I'm aiming for end of February/beginning of March for the performance to take place. Of course, if you are in the London area and would like to take part/laugh at/pay money/throw things, then do let me know and I'll be happy to add in the acts!

Wow I wrote a lot today. I'll stop now.

Peace out my lovelies.

Monday 10 December 2012

Nothing like a bit of awkwardness to start your week

Line-Manager-Monica has been publicising my blog today. This is nice and I'm all for a bit of publicising as I do like people reading my wierdness and all that jazz.

However, I have a limit to how far someone can talk positively about me until I have to start counter-acting against them. Today my limit was reached.

You see, Line-Manager-Monica was talking with some people I work with as I was quietly sitting there playing my new 'I-have-to-be-obsessed-with-some-form-of-game-so-I've-chosen-this-one' game. At the moment it is 'The Simpson's Tapped Out' ... seriously, if you guys aren't playing it yet then do so. It's a free app game and is available on all your apple goods. I think it's also available for other android phones but my friend the other day was having trouble downloading it on his so I'm not too sure... Anywho. There I was, tapping away on my own self-built Springfield when one of the guys who was with me asked what I was doing.

I excitedly started in on my advertisment for the game whilst thinking to myself that Matt Groening should totally hire me as his publicist because I am totally winning in getting people to play the game. I had them all enthralled completely, they were hooked and wanted to know more, so I kept on going. All the while, Line-Manager-Monica sat there next to me and let me go on and on. After I had finished she turned to the two guys and simply said:

"One thing you need to know about Lisa is that she gets excited about pretty much anything. I won't even start talking about what she's like when a new shipment of stationary comes in." (best day in the office)

I simply shrugged outwardly, trying my hardest not to prove Line-Manager-Monica right, whilst inwardly I was dancing about and saying to myself I totally wrote about this just the other day! I have no filter for my excitement at all! How exciting that someone else has noticed that!

Anywho, Line-Manager-Monica then went on to publicise my blog to these two unsuspecting colleagues of ours. She said that my posts just proved how excited I get and that if they read it they would 'be on the floor, laughing.'

I stopped being excited at this point and a large level of dread fell on me. Suddenly there was all this pressure to be funny. What if my colleagues went on this blog thinking 'Hey, hey, I'm ready to laugh and wet myself and then have to stitch up my side due to all the splitting it will be doing' and then they get to it, read a bit and then just fall into an abyss of depression as they realised that I wasn't as funny as they thought and actually now they didn't get the laugh they were expecting so they just start to cry instead????!!!!

I wanted to say something along the lines of "actually I'm not that funny, chances are you will be bored stiff reading it and just want to jump off a cliff afterwards." But then I realised that this isn't a good way of publicising one's writing which is what I am really trying to get better at doing.

So I then thought of maybe still publicising it a little but downplaying Line-Manager-Monica's comments by saying something along the lines of "You may laugh, but the likelihood of laughter is really minimal so don't be too disappointed if you don't." However, that then opened me up to look like I was fishing for a compliment which I hate.

So after going through all this in my mind, I resorted to my default position whenever I receive a compliment of any kind... I start mumbling incoherent words under my breath and my body went into shut down mode. For those of you who are confused on what shut down mode looks like... it basically is me but hunched over, facing the floor and busying my hands with anything it can find (lucky for me, The Simpsons was still open on my phone). I stayed this way until the conversation had changed topic. Once it had, I rebooted again and straightened my back, engaging into eye contact once more.

After typing all of this, I realise that this now looks like one massive fish for a compliment. Please do not see it that way. In fact, if anyone dares say anything nice in the comment box I will send you a virtual slap. Only nasty insults and general slagging off allowed today please. Actually, if you don't make me cry then you don't win today. Sorry.

So that's it for today methinks. Except to say that my online novel is still going on, on my creative writing page. There are nine chapters uploaded now, with a new chapter uploaded each day. It's about the end of the world, so if you weren't depressed by reading this... go ahead and check it out.

Peace out my lovelies.

Thursday 6 December 2012

It is COLD!!!!

Dear all,

It is that time of year where I receive the first of my country's extreme weather and I decide I'm ready to complain about it in post form.

Ladies and gents, in case you wanted to know because you are interested in the types of weather throughout the world, here's my input... It is cold in London today.

I'm not kidding, I walked into work today and, due to the fact that all of my clothes are still in bin bags partly because I live in a world riddled with denial and partly because I have to use a hammer to put my chest of drawers together and whenever I get home The-Four-Year-Old I now live with is usually asleep, I cannot find my gloves at all.

...


After reading that last paragraph back, I feel that it would be important to highlight that I'm not living with just The-Four-Year-Old, her mum, dad and siblings live there too... just wanted to clarify that before any rumours started up.

Anywho, I have no gloves and so stepping outside into this weather this morning made my fingers complain non stop at me. Apparently they don't like being cold as much as the rest of me. And given that they were exposed to it the most, I swear I reached the point where they were so frozen, if I had tried to bend one, it would have just snapped away... luckily that didn't happen but just in case, I'm going to look for my gloves tonight... you know, because I like my fingers and would like to keep them and all. I get the feeling that without them, I would find typing these posts a lot more difficult... although I'm convinced I would master the art of typing with my nose eventually, I'm not denying that it would look bizarre to watch... especially in corporate meetings where I'm required to do the minutes at work... hmmmm, yes I think gloves are a necessity.

I'm spending Christmas again up in Scotland this year. (You may be all 'woah Lisa, a second ago you were talking about gloves and now you're onto Christmas? Some warning please!' But I would like to challenge anyone who is thinking about gloves not to also think about Christmas, those things obviously go hand in hand... unless you live in Australia, in that case I excuse you and welcome you to feel disorientated by the sudden topic swap.) I'm hoping that we may actually get snow on Christmas day this year, I hope this every year but I'm feeling especially good about this year, it feels like the one...

In other news (yes there's more, you lucky things), I'm loving my new little home. Earlier this week, I was leaving the house to hear a little voice call out 'Lisa!' I turned round to find The-Four-Year-Old come running up to me and give me a massive hug. I actually wanted to take the girl with me to work and just sit in my office and do cute things all day. However, she was still in her pyjamas and I think I would probably need to tell her parents in advance... Then yesterday morning, we sang disney songs before I left to work and I realised I may be falling into some form of happy-go-lucky fairy tale where everything is bright and fun and people break out into singing at any given moment and then the whole world joins in with perfect harmonies because they know exactly what's happening and are just excited to feel a part of the whole thing... Actually, I should probably check whether this is something that is actually happening. Judging by my extensive research of this (by watching Buffy episodes regularly), I gotta feeling, it could be demons, a dancing demon... no something isn't right there...

Anywho, I'm off to write some highly important fictional stuff. For those of you who haven't heard from my endless tweets, facebook comments and post updates (and if you haven't heard, I'm assuming you've been hiding under a rock somewhere with your eyes shut and your fingers in your ears whilst humming loudly), I'm also uploading my NaNoWriMo novel in my creative writing blog. A chapter a day at the moment. Today's is chapter three. Would love to know what you think. Check it out here.

Thank you also to everyone who has already been reading it, your feedback has been awesome and I love you all deeply with all of my being and other stuff.

PS: For those of you who caught my Buffy quote in this post, well done, you get a gold star and a pat on the back and a big sloppy wet kiss from me... sorry about that last one, but it's kinda a package deal!

Peace out my lovelies.

Tuesday 4 December 2012

Fancy a little light apocalyptic reading?

Hey guys,

So I've decided that I'm going to just go ahead and publish the book I wrote last month on my Creative Writing blog. I'll be uploading a chapter a day and quite honestly, if you don't read it bad things will happen like ... ummm ... every time someone looks at this post and doesn't then follow the link to my creative writing page, somewhere a donkey will drop down dead. Come on, no one want's that on their conscience, especially around Christmas time, how else will all the pregnant women get to the hospital to have their babies?

Basically, any of you who have been reading my stuff for a while will know that I tend to focus quite a lot on the end of the world, be it through zombie apocalypses or fake predictions of the forthcoming rapture... I like to muse on these things, you know... for fun.

Having this tendency I should therefore not have been surprised when my over imaginative brain one night decided to give me a nightmare that scared the living daylights out of me... which was ironic, given that it was night time and so really there only were 'nightlights' available.

I woke up in a cold sweat, thinking that the entire world had ended only to realise that it was still ticking away on it's own and it was only my own subconscious that had destroyed it. Well, I was terrified for like fifteen whole minutes until I had gone through the whole dream again in my head and suddenly thought... holy crap, that would make an awesome book!

Then NaNoWriMo came up and I thought, 'meh, why not?' and so for the whole of last month I was rigorously writing my own interpretation of what the end of the world would in fact be like. It's been awesome.

I considered what I should do with this book now that it is almost finished and figured, well why not show it to you lovely people? So I am. In the link down the right hand side you will see the link to my Creative Writing page where for the next forseeable future I will be posting a new chapter of my book each day.

I'm a little nervous about doing this because so far I have really only showed my fictional stuff to people I know well and as of right now, the only person who has read this book is One-And-Only-Daniela. She likes it but she is a little biased given that I've written a character into the book called Daniela Davids who is pretty much her with the handy addition of being a genius. She liked that. Ladies and gents, I could not have picked a better way to completely play into One-And-Only-Daniela's ego. She is loving it.

So that being said, I'm taking a massive step in showing this to pretty much anyone who wants to look at it. But I really would love to know what you think. I am happy for all comments, constructive or nice... however if you are too nice I may shut down as a person and suddenly be incapable of talking to you... I have issues. But all in all, even if it's just 'hated it' or 'it was alright' I'd really appreciate it if you could pop a little comment underneath, either here or on the creative writing blog.

In fact I'm already starting to feel awkward as I'm not sure what the proper protocol is for advertising my work without sounding like I'm overselling it or loving myself too much or... or... I don't know.

I've given more than one chapter today because I wanted to introduce the four main characters that I will be moving in between throughout the book.

So without further ado... I present to you Utopia.

Peace out my lovelies.

Monday 3 December 2012

My awesome plans and where I'm at... An explanation

Okay, so after the last post, I do believe that I have caused a little worry/confusion on what it is that I am planning for 2013 and my trip to America. So I thought I'd explain it all to you...

In July 2013 I am planning to do an internship at a church/university in Kansas.

Some of you took the opinion of my brother in the fact that this meant I was joining some form of religious cult. That's my fault, I haven't really told you all about me when it comes to that part of my life. As you may have gathered, I am a Christian. I have been my whole life. My parents are priests in the Salvation Army (AKA Salvation Army Officers) and I myself go to church each week.

I've held back talking about this part for two reasons:

One.
I'm not a massive fan of shoving my beliefs in everyone else's faces. I don't think it is that beneficial as it, more often than not, just pisses people off, especially if they don't want to hear it and my experience of Christianity isn't like that, it's actually by far my favourite thing in my life. So, I'm of the opinion that if people want to know about it then it should be up to them if they want to find out more about it.

Two.
Religion of any kind tends to evoke a pretty emotional response out of a lot of people. I'm really not in the business of upsetting people on this blog or making people feel alienated/angry from what I have to say, however innocent it may be meant.

This is meant to be a light hearted blog where people can come to wind down after a stressful day and as such, I try to keep it as neutral as possible!

I had a really long conversation with my dad about this over the weekend. He made a good point in that I've never mentioned this aspect of my life on here which is a little weird given that it is a large part of me. So I'm telling you all now!

So I am going to a church in Kansas in July but it definitely is not some form of weird cult. I have two friends who have been and come back and said it was amazing. I have been looking for a time to work out what I want to do with my life, whether it be travelling, changing my career etc and 6 months there seemed like the perfect option.

I am proud of my faith and am pretty sure that without it, I would not be the awesome and not-in-any-way-crazy-at-all person that I am today. It has helped me a lot in all my emotional crap that I deal with regularly and without my church I would most definitely be living under a bridge right now...

...

Oh yeah! I totally didn't tell you! I moved this weekend! I'm living with an AWESOME family. They've given me their attic... It is converted, they're not locking me in, in a remote corner of the house, I'm allowed out and everything!

They really want me to go away in July so they're keeping me at a discount price so that I can save, they're awesome.

I'm living at the moment out of boxes because I'm living in a pretend world of denial where everything is already unpacked so that I don't have to do it. It has been a long weekend. It's also sad because Housemate-Anna is now No-Longer-Housemate-Anna and that's longer to type which will make writing about her in the future a lot more difficult... Also it's sad because I'll miss her.

But there you are! My plans for 2013 all laid out for you to see! It's all very exciting and not at all scary... Except it is scary a little bit. I'm going to attempt unpacking tonight... Maybe. I also have a new computer which is awesome and has Windows 8 which is weird and exciting all in one. I case you're wondering, yes, I am as excited about having Windows 8 as I am about going to America next year. I tend to have no filter or idea of what level of excitement fits what. I blame my awesome personality for that... That and the new awesome happy pills I'm now on!

Peace out my lovelies.