This whole moving milarkey thing is getting pretty carazy now...

I'm moving house again today... yes, that is correct, that would be the fourth house that I have lived in since I started this blog 2 and a half years ago... how ridiculous is that?

Also, each time I do this, I have found that my hoarding abilities are halved and I find myself thrown into a situation whereby I am now the owner of half the things that I had in the previous house... For those of you doing the math, yes that is meaning that my actual stuff that I am packing is becoming a little on the low side.

For example, when I moved into my new flat (the one that I had when I started blogging), it took a good four trips to get everything from my family home to the new home as well as a few ikea trips for furniture etc. When I moved into the second flat with the lovely Ex-Housemate-Anna, I had to use two cars and two trips to move from one flat to the other. On moving to The-Family's house last December, it took one car and two trips. Today, I'll be lucky if I fill one car... I'm pretty certain that my entire worldly possessions will fit into a suitcase on route to the house after this one...

You see, this time round, when putting together the beautiful flat packs from the wonderful world of Ikea, in my chest of drawers and desk, I came to the realisation that, although the furniture at Ikea are of a reasonable price and fairly easy at putting together, thus giving you an air of being an awesome queen of DIY, they really don't work well with a person who lives the lifestyle I tend to... in that after taking them apart for a second time, they are going to be really reluctant and not at all happy at being asked to be put back together once again. Thus the reason this post happened....

So yesterday, I found myself packing up the car with Mrs-Host and heading off to the skip to dispose of furniture that I realised, at the point of throwing it into the skip, I hadn't actually paid for yet... wow, that's a bummer. It was bought on a credit card, that I am still in the process of paying off...  I couldn't decide whether I found this piece of information distressing or not...

Anyway, because not only do I find myself moving house more times than I cut my hair (true story), I also find that when I move, I like to move into a living situation that I haven't tried yet... so here's the rundown of what I've done so far:

1. Lived with Parents: I have lived in 7 different houses belonging to my parents.
2. Lived in a house owned by a friend: I lived with Rachael-The-Bully for 18 months
3. Lived in a flat on my own: I did that for a year.
4. Lived in a flat with a friend: Please see above
5. Lived in a house with a family that is not my own: I shall be leaving them today.

Which leads me to:

6: Live in a house rented by four other people as well.

Yes, this is my new adventure. I shall be renting a room for a bargain price, complete with own bed, furniture and (this is the bit that terrifies me) plant. I will be living with a couple I've already met, (lovely people, loving them already), and two mysterious men that I have yet to meet.

I think I will do fine in this situation as, due to learning this with my therapist recently, I am actually quite a passive person. I guess I've always known this, but the actual degree of my passivity has really only recently come to light. Seriously, I avoid all instances of confrontation and argument. To the point that I tend to just let things go at a stupidly high level.

Although this is fine, and actually a quality I quite like about me, in terms of there being little in my life that people can do that actually gets me to the point of getting pissed off with them... I do find that it has it's drawbacks, as I tend to then find myself just letting things go that  I really shouldn't... and then when I do eventually bring up the courage to do something about it, it scares the crap out of the people around me because they never expected that I was capable of formulating a reaction... anywho that's a whole can of worms that I'll save for my therapist, rather than burdening you with it.

Instead, I thought I'd let you in on a little insight into my passivity from something that happened over the weekend.

My parents came into the country (they are now living in Ireland), to come and see a show in London for their 31st Anniversary. It was one of those things whereby it started out to be just my parents going to London, which then turned into Older-Brother-Glyn and his girlfriend Amy coming in from Essex, and Younger-Brother-Daniel travelling in from Bristol (all of this is pretty impressive, especially Younger-Brother-Daniel's trip, if you know anything about the geography of England (If you don't, please feel free to take in a sharp intake of breath and say 'Ooooh, aaaaah' 'amazing' and so on and so forth)).

Anywho, it turned into the whole family being together in central London, where we ate food in restaurants, watched 39 Steps in the West End and finished at a Burger King, where my mother was the most impressed she had been all day, after she found that the drinks were not only free refills, but that the machines that poured them, offered a huge range of different flavoured cokes and fantas, she wouldn't have elsewhere found in the country. Yes... it was a very exciting day for Marmie.

Anywho, in the first restaurant, Garfunkels, I had ordered the steak and chips, and had asked for the steak to be cooked Medium Rare, as I was a fan of a dash of juicy red inside the steak. The food arrived, we talked as a family... or rather bickered at a very high volume that entertained the entire restaurant on very important topics such as whether or not the trolley that disappears into Platform 9 3/4 is actually set up in King's Cross between Platform 9 and 10. I was adamant that this was a platform I found myself regularly going to, and that I hadn't seen it. Older-Brother-Glyn's Girlfriend Amy, was adamant that she had seen it there and that she had a picture of her next to it, to prove it. Whilst I fervently looked for this video (originally designed to show the world what One-And-Only-Daniela was like, but also provided proof that no such trolley existed between platforms 9 and 10), she also looked on Facebook to find her proof. Once the video was shown, Older-Brother-Glyn turned to his girlfriend and announced that it was clear what had happened in this situation... he told Amy that she should be more sensitive towards me as it was clear I was only a muggle, which was why I couldn't see the trolley.

That might have been the saddest moment of my life...

For those of you wondering two massive things through this little mini tangent... I will address these questions now:

1. The actual solution to the argument was found when Father googled it and found that, whilst they made building improvements to the station, the trolley had been moved around the station at different intervals. So, it was there, just not between platforms 9 and 10.

2. No, this is not the story about my levels of passivity, and yes, I am aware of the irony of this tangent which actually shows I am anything but passive in this situation. I would like to add a little disclaimer to the passivity rule in my life, however: All passivity in my nature tends to not apply to family based situations, as I have spent the majority of my life living with these people and, more importantly, lived with them at a time in my life when I was anything but passive and would make an argument out of everything. AKA: my teen years.

Now for the actual point I was trying to make, before my brain went off on one as it usually does...

Whilst in this restaurant, and after the steak and chips had arrived, I cut into the steak and found that it wasn't really medium rare, in the sense that it was cooked, and there was no red inside at all. Now, my reason for asking for the steak and chips was because I was looking forward to a nice medium rare steak, and looking at it on my plate, clearly medium to well done, if anything, I was a little upset. The conversation of this event, went a little like this:

Me: (Cuts into the steak, to see the medium to well done insides) Huh.
Younger-Brother-Daniel: What's wrong?
Me: I'd ordered a medium rare steak, and this doesn't look medium rare to me. What do you think? (I show it to Younger-Brother-Daniel)
Younger-Brother-Daniel: (Shrugs) I have no clue what a medium rare steak looks like.
Me: Marmie? (Shows Marmie my steak)
Marmie: It does look a little too cooked. Why don't you ask them to take it back and give you another one?
Me: I'd rather not. I don't mind, really. I'll just eat it, as it is.

I take a bite of the steak. It tastes nice enough. I cut into another part, it still doesn't look particularly pink. I decide to show it to Amy, sitting next to me. 

Me: Does that look medium rare to you?
Amy: Not really.
Me: Glyn?
Older-Brother-Glyn: It's too cooked.
Me: Dad, look at this steak, it is definitely not what I ordered.
Waitress: Is everything okay with your food, guys?
Me: Oh, yes. It's lovely. Thanks.

Waitress leaves. Dad looks at me with raised eyebrows. 

Me: What?
Dad: That conversation there was the definition of hypocrisy.

I believe it is clear that the degree of my upset was thus: I was upset enough to raise it with my family, showing them the steak and voicing my repeated fixation on a pretty mundane aspect of my food, but not to the extent where I actually wanted to put someone out of their way to do something about it.

And that's what it comes down to, I guess... I just don't like to put people out of their way... you know, in having to deal with wrong orders, asking for people to do me a favour, raising an issue with the way someone is behaving around me, asking people to hang with me... you know, the normal kind of stuff.

...

I can't help but think, that if I was a little better at some of those things, I might find myself in a situation whereby the longevity of time that a piece of meat has been on the grill, is not something that I class as the most interesting thing to happen to me this month...

Also, (to bring it back to the original point) I feel that my passive state should therefore warrant me to be a good housemate. If they play music until four in the morning, it's fine, I can get earplugs. If they steal my stuff, it's fine, I can see it as a lesson in not relying on my worldly possessions...

Having said that, I do feel that I should mention, I really don't expect my new housemates to be capable of any of the things mentioned above. And if they do overcook my steak, I'll probably just leave it... after I text my family, letting them know.

Peace out my lovelies.