Day 1

First day of blogging every day. Good start. Not that much happened since yesterday. I'm still way on track with healthy living. No running in the morning, have to be nice to the knees, but good cereal/yogurt/milk breakfast, salad with mackerel for lunch, now a nice berry smoothie and later there will be fruit! Probably some plums, apricots and nice white flesh peaches. Some dates for the sweet tooth. And tonight nice whole-wheat noodles with courgettes and tomato sauce. Good stuff.

Now that I have bored you with my healthy living there is really nothing else to tell. There are some builders in the flat across the hall. They did turn off my water without warning earlier. So I went down and had a chat with them. Water is back now. I also called the bulky waste disposal people at the council and arranged for them to pick up our old TV. For free! Just have to bring it out to the street Sunday night so they can pick it up Monday morning. That will be another workout since that thing is heavy!

I also managed to send out some emails and messages. Staying in the social interaction circle. Go me! Made bf take out the garbage, did the dishes, watching some more Gilmore Girls. Good day. Yesterday I changed up the blog a little bit. Really don't know if that is the final look but I like it for now. I wanted it to be bright and clean. Still not perfect, but it's getting there.

Now I'm waiting for the amazon package to arrive with my study things. I love getting packages especially if they are filled with books. Ok, this time only uni books but they are still good. I threw in a couple of DVDs for my enjoyment, so it's a little fun too. Just have to try to sneak it past bf. I'm supposed to save money now.

Couple of hours to go till bf comes back from work. We're still waiting on word when he's 'allowed' to leave for Singapore. Well, the longer he stays the longer I have him. Not  gonna complain about that. Meanwhile I will entertain myself with looking at clothes I will not buy but dream about wearing.

You can find them here

Aren't those adorable. Really would love those, and about a million others. Sigh...

Welcome to the Limelight!

from FruityCuties

She's finally here! Little Lime has entered the world today. Happy Birthday!

I'm back

Sorry for not posting for so long (though not sure to how many people I am apologising here). I have been on holiday in Germany to visit family. Lots has happened or is happening.

I had my last day at work end of July. It was not a bitter-sweet moment, just sweet. One of my colleagues (and only friend at work) was going on maternity leave the same day and we went out for dinner with the others from the office. To Wagamama. Was yummy food. It was a little bit weird because one of our colleagues threw a little hissy fit just before and didn't show up or say good-bye. He then basically turned into the topic of the hour which was nice since I hate being that. But when it was time to go I went with a grin. Not looking back not regretting anything. 

After the last couple of months of work I was really stressed out (part of it probably had to do with me not liking my job the other with many people being on vacation) I really needed a break. The plan was to hang out a week with bf and basically roam around England. Well, that didn't happen so I booked a last-minute flight to Germany. I was supposed to attend a family gathering with my grandmother anyway. Though I desperately tried to get out of that but ran out of excuses when the holiday fell through. So I flew to Hamburg on Saturday morning, very early, spent the day with my sister and then we drove to my parents place in the middle of nowhere. 

The next day was the family gathering. For some reason my grandma got this idea yesterday that it would be nice to have the whole family together on a day in the summer to have breakfast and lunch. I don't mind that at all and it's fun to see the family. It's just that not all of us live conveniently within an hour drive of her house. So she always ends up being mad at one person or another for *gasp* having to work, attend uni or being on holiday (in August, who would have guessed). I think it's a good 30 people she's trying to accommodate. Anyway, it was nice, good food. Of course always those aunts there that I would prefer not to see, who scored my email now and will be in contact to meet up when she's here. Urgh, wish I could have avoided that, but am not very smooth at avoiding social interactions and refusing information without being rude. So a little piece of paper was handed over with too much personal information on it. I like most of my family, I really do, but I guess everyone has this one person that they are desperately trying to avoid. My aunt is of the kind to be avoided. I guess she's not a bad person, just a very annoying one. Always asking too many questions, or making too bold of statements ('oh, you gained a LOT of weight since we've seen each other last. You having personal problems, should we talk?'). But anyway,  everything else was fine.

The rest of the week was very uneventful. We had decent weather, so we went swimming a couple of times, even went running once. Of course we had too much good food. I gorge on bread when I'm in Germany. It's just some of the best bread in the world there and so much variety. I turn into a pig at breakfast, no kidding.

The second week I went back to Hamburg with my sister, her hubby and my nephew. They were all still off work/school. I had another lovely lazy week there. They don't have internet so I was completely cut off (which was kinda nice, but I also hated it! I was missing all those lovely blogs I usually read). We went to playgrounds, played a little Wii, had some beers, rented movies, went to the Baltic Sea for a day, to Lübeck. But in general it was very relaxed. 

Really needed the break. It was so nice to be out in the countryside, see some trees, breath some fresh air. I actually did some proper weeding. Took forever. We worked on it with three people for five days 1 to 2 hours a day and there is still weeding to do. But it was nice to get the hands all dirty. Ah, the simple life. Uh, and I had tons Italian ice cream. Can't really find that in London.

But anyway, now I'm back in London. This is where the new life starts. Now that I'm back I'm supposed to prepare for university. Which I have every intention to do. Just not today.

I did prepare a bit yesterday. I paid my tuition, I ordered my first books from amazon (that I did love, and of course I added some fun stuff!!!). Today I'm supposed to look for work experience/ internships. But not really in the mood. Maybe I will dust off my Japanese textbooks and study some. That I would count as work. Too bad that I already dusted off my Gilmore Girls DVDs and have those on 'play all'. Such a guilty pleasure.

Another thing I am planning to do is live a little bit more healthy and lose some weight. Uh, how I hate to do that. But, I did go grocery shopping yesterday and only bought healthy food. First step: eliminate all temptation from the house. Done. Now I want to look up some nice recipes so I won't get bored of the food I'm eating. The only way this will work is if I don't feel like I'm forbidding myself to eat certain foods, but instead trying new healthy things and eating a variety of things. We'll see how long I can go on like that. I have tons of fruits here that I can snack on and am going to buy some nuts and dried fruits to further my selection. Also tons of tea and coffee in the house. And some yummy innocent smoothies. Love those. They can substitute for candy. Not sure what to do about chips yet. Any healthy alternatives?? Second step is exercise. I went for a run this morning! Thought I try to do that twice a week or so. It's still only 2km. But better than nothing. I thought I'd die when I started this morning but by the time I got back to the house I felt I could go on for longer. I should really look up a longer route now.

I also wanted to post more. Thinking since I am unemployed and all and not starting uni till next months I will try to blog every day for the next thirty days! Really hope I can keep all of this up. Healthy living, studying, blogging. Lots to do! But hopefully the more I do the more motivated I will get.

Sorry to bore you all with a long post. Trying to entertain myself a little bit today. A good friend (you know who you are, maybe I entertained you a bit with this while you waiting) is giving birth today. Scheduled via c-section because of possible complications. Have my fingers, toes and everything crossed that can be crossed. Very excited!!!

So let's hope you will hear from me tomorrow!

Plans falling through

Last week has been an eventful one. Not so much for me but for bf. On Wednesday he was approached by one of his clients and asked if he would like to do a project in Singapore for them. Well, who wouldn't. I thought that sounded amazing and told him to go for it. It will only be four weeks so brilliant. Here's the kicker. He has to leave next Saturday. Come again? That's right after I have my last day at work and right when we were supposed to start our vacation together. We hadn't booked anything. We wanted to do day trips and explore London a bit. Together. He first didn't want to go, but I wanted none of that. So we decided he should go. He had to decide by Thursday. Yup, that's right, they gave him a whopping 12 hours to make a decision on that. I know he'll love the project. He's not too excited about the whole flying there, but he'll get over it. He'll be back the last weekend of August and is off for that week. But then he'll leave again to go to India to work on a project there for two weeks. This one was actually planned long in advance and he's looking forward to that. Just not the whole flying around.

Now, I am really happy for him. I know he'll love it in both places. At the same time I'm extremely jealous because obviously I would love to be asked to do stuff like that too (not that I have any expertise in that area or am in any position to expect that). And I am extremely disappointed because I will be free for August and the beginning of September. Seven weeks of no job bliss before starting to study that I was hoping to spend mostly with doing nothing, some preparation and with bf. But that's not going to happen because he'll be gone six weeks out of the seven. Very disappointed indeed. 

So after the initial 'shock' I started thinking about what I wanted to do in those weeks. For some reason being all by myself and lurking around the apartment don't look as much fun if there's nobody there in the morning and evenings. Thought about organising an internship or work experience with a publisher. But I guess that is a little bit last minute now. So I gave in to my parents nagging and am going home for some time. Don't know when yet, but will go see them for a couple of weeks. The rest of the time I will prepare for my studies, read books and play video games. That will still be fun. But I'm just so disappointed that our holiday plans fell through. 

Maybe I will still apply for work experience, but not sure yet. I do want some down time before starting my master and putting all my energy into that. 

So yeah, funny how within 12 hours plans for the next couple of months can be changed so quickly. Boo on that. Not that I'm not happy to see my family, I just had different plans and was looking forward to that. 

Now we are enjoying our last weekend together before he's leaving on Saturday morning. Early. Ah, I wanted to go out and get drunk with him on Friday celebrating me getting out of my shitty job. Not gonna happen now. Gonna go for dinner with work people on Friday and then rushing home to help pack and see him for the last time for four weeks. I know it's only four weeks, but still. I'm off work with nothing to do and he's leaving on my first day of freedom. Not blaming him at all, I would have jumped at that opportunity too. Just wish things would have turned out differently. Well the good thing is I have an über-friendly bf at the moment who's trying to make up for leaving me behind. It's sweet but I keep telling him unnecessary. Ah well, I will enjoy it as long as it lasts.

Tuesday off work fun

Thanks to working on Sunday I'm off today and supposed to enjoy a perfectly lazy Tuesday. Since basically everybody else is at work being lazy is double the fun.

It all started out well enough with sleeping in (well, till seven but that's good enough for me) and then decided not to go running. I have gone the last two Saturdays and enjoyed that immensely. But I figured I shouldn't overdue and go whenever I can. I keep it to once a week for now, make the run longer the next time and then possibly in the future go running twice. The idea is if I push myself too hard I will give up easier. By keeping the work-out simple and not doing it too often I will stay motivated. Easy as that. So lazy Tuesday it was.

It's still hot over here, so I figured I jump in a shower and then just run around in my underwear. Bf was kind enough to remind me that landlord will swing by today to test fire alarm. Fine, so sweatpants and t-shirt it is. When he left I was digging in the back on the bottom of our wardrobe for my favorite pair of white sweatpants. Very excited when I found them. Fun was spoilt when I tucked on the band at the waist and it felt weird. Kind of hard not elastic like it's supposed to feel. On closer inspection there was a yellow stretch round the whole hip area following the string. And it smelled like pee... WHAT!??!!? Ok, by this point I'm freaking out a bit. WTF? Why is this yellow, and smelly? Toss the pants to the side and pull out everything that's on the bottom of our wardrobe, literally smelling every piece and looking into holes of our pillows and blankets. But nothing, every other piece looks fine, smells fine, no holes, no pee, no nothing. Which is nice. But on the other hand I really have no idea what happened to my pants! Could it be that I put them away when the string was still moist from washing and then it rotted (and turned yellow and started to smell like pee!?!?). Yeah, this is freaking me out a little. I put the piece of evidence in the kitchen for bf to have a look at tonight. I want second opinions. Anyone an idea what could have happened here? I really don't want mice in my apartment. I don't think it looks like a mouse attack. But I really have no idea what else it could be.

Yeah, so not the nicest start to the day. But I vowed not to let that bother me. So I did the laundry, made some breakfast, settled back with a nice mug of green tea to calm down. That worked fine for a bit. But when I get to the bottom of my mug, and I wasn't really looking before because I was reading stuff on my laptop, I noticed a big fat mosquito floating around in my tea. Now, I realise that I won't die and it's not harmful at all. But I hate insects, especially in my food/drink and when they bite me. And I'm still shaking by the attack on my clothing. Put me right back into my foul mood. Hmm, I know there is a cookie somewhere in the kitchen. Maybe I will just eat that to cheer me up. Though with my luck I will probably find maggots in it once I have it half eaten...

Here's to a better second half of the day...

Bringing it to a close

I just finished my last Sunday at work! It was kinda crappy but thanks to my lovely co-worker and some preparation on Friday I was able to leave on time anyway. That brings me down to nine days left of work. Cannot wait to get the hell out! I usually try not to talk about work on the blog. Firstly because I don't really have appropriate and nice things to say about it, and second because once I leave I wanna forget all about it. 

Basically I am preparing for the first week of August that bf will be off work as well. We scratched the plans to go somewhere on vacation, mainly because we are both too lazy to organise it and also because we wanted to head to the south of France. I think it will be too hot for me there at the moment. So we are planning to do many day trips in that week and just be generally a bit lazy. I put Brighton and Kew Gardens on the list. Since I am usually not exploring London a lot I should really use that opportunity. I might add a musical or other night time entertainment to the list. My guess is bf will want to do a casino night. Fine by me as long as I can stay at the Roulette table. Yeah, becoming unemployed and then blowing money at a casino doesn't sound like the smartest idea to me either.

Can't really think of other things to do. But I am sure I'll come up with something. Or bf will. Since it should be a  shared holiday.

Anyway off to enjoy the rest of my Sunday.

Back on the healthy track

The title might be a little pre-mature. But I have been trying to go back to some healthier eating and living for awhile now. Never quite managed to get there. I think I just wasn't in the right frame of mind.

Yesterday though, I managed to get up at a reasonable time and go for a run. Shocking, I know. Haven't gone for a run in about a year. When I came back from it I felt absolutely exhausted, but in a good way. Just collapsed on the bed and enjoyed getting some blood into my brain. After checking on the mapmyrun I did 1.7km in just under 20 minutes. I say that is not bad. Felt great the rest of the day. Had a nice salad for lunch. Ok, in the evening I sinned a bit. We were invited over to a friend's house for dinner. She made really nice food, chicken skewers and salmon as a main with green veggies and basmati rice. And as a dessert a mascarpone lime cake. Yummy! Only had one slice was very proud. I think I did well with the food. But on the drinks I faltered a bit. We had brought two bottles of white wine, another couple brought two bottles, another friend brought two bottles and our friend already had two bottles in the house. Yup, at about 2 am when we split all of those bottles were gone. Uh oh. 

I feel surprisingly good this morning  though. No headache. I was a good girl though and for every small glass of wine I drank a big glass of water. Spent a lot of time in the bathroom but I think it was worth it. No feeling sick or feeling particularly drunk. Score!

For the rest of my body, it's another story though. I swear, every muscle in my body hurts (except my arms). My back, my tummy, my bum, my legs, my hips even my feet! Amazing. I guess that is good at least I know I got a good work out. Especially excited about the tummy, that has been growing a little  bit of late.

Switching to another topic. I only have three weeks left at work. Yay! It's still stressful because we always seem to be a couple of people down, but who cares when it will all be over in three weeks!

It's the boyfriend's birthday tomorrow. His present won't come till later in the month. Which he knows so it's fine. But I was thinking of maybe getting him something small for the day. I really wanted to take him to dinner, but he is working crazy hours at the moment. He probably will just wanna go to bed when he makes it home. 

Still crazy hot over here. But I have gotten used to it now. Avoiding to go outside though. The sun is crazy strong. When I went to the train after work on Friday I was exposed to the sun for maybe five minutes and my skin was already starting to turn red. At five in the evening! Crazy. So yeah, I am hiding out. But enjoying it. Pretending I am on holiday every day and just being lazy and cooling down with tea and ice cream (yeah I know, not that healthy, but has to be enjoyed while the heat lasts).

I leave you with this. My laptop feels too hot, need to get my hands off it ;-)

Weekend Post

It's a hot weekend in London. Not really in the mood for anything. Just hanging out in my underwear surfing the net, watching the football and F1 and catching up on anime. 

Went to the hairdresser and got my hair chopped off. She was really hesitant and I had to tell her about five times to take it off. It's still not as short as I wanted it but at least it feels a lot cooler in the heat now. Maybe I'll go again in the next couple of months to get it even shorter. For some reason hairdresser never wanna cut my hair short, but leave it long instead. Don't really know why. So much more convenient when it's short.

Already downed a couple of beers. Trying to stay cool though and drinking some tea. Hot drinks cool me down. Don't know why. I figured I'll post a few pictures from the wedding. Don't really feel like commenting on it. So please, just enjoy the pictures and then go out and enjoy the summer. It's beautiful over here at the moment! I enjoyed it this morning with a long walk when it was still cool. 

Groom taking off for church.

And this is our ride. Notice the best men and ushers in morning suits!

Bride's dress with bridesmaids.

Theme was green again. These chips got me two glasses of champagne. Nice.

Thursday Ramblings

Haven't blogged in awhile and feel bad about it. I still read tons of blogs and enjoy it greatly. I have plans to go through my bloglovin account and dust it out a bit. There is just too much there to read. When we went away over the weekend I had over 200 posts to catch up to. Yikes. 

Today's post is just about getting back into the whole blogging thing again. So let me tell you about my day. It appeared to be a regular Thursday work day. But then girl who I don't really like took a spontaneous half day off. Nice. On lunch break I headed over to HMV and found that Gilmore Girls is back in print (or whatever the equivalent for DVDs is) and I finally got the fifth season. YAY! Still missing the seventh, but I am sure that will be back soon. And I got it for only £13! What a bargain. Very happy. I noticed some other shows that I still want to pick up, most notably Californication (but at £20 a season still too expensive) and Babylon 5. The last one I might pick up tomorrow just because I would really like to see it. Well, after successfully getting my GG geek on I headed over to Game and pre-ordered Star Craft II for bf as a birthday present. It comes out a week too late, but I figured he won't mind. He'll be busy on a project anyway and can't start to play it properly until he gets his new Macbook. Which probably won't be till August. So haha.

Back at work we started following the soccer games. No offence, but gosh were we all smiley and happy the closer we got to Italy being kicked out of the world cup. That was just too sweet. At the same time the longest tennis match in history ended. Thought that was hilarious. Those poor guys, felt really bad for the loser. Must be hard to lose after three days or however long it was. Great match anyway.

It's really hot over here at the moment. About 30 degrees and really humid. Clouds are drifting over us but it doesn't wanna rain yet. Windows are wide open to catch a little bit of a breeze. Not really happening so far. Though I did enjoy cool shower after work and there is a cold beer waiting for me in the fridge. Basically sitting here in my underwear sweating away. I enjoy this on a very basic level. Since I still remember the cold, long winter I am glad it's nice and sunny now. Tomorrow will probably end with sitting in Regent's Park sipping some cider. Ah, living the life. Almost forgot about the cheese cake. At work some buyers were tasting cheese cake and other sweets from all the different supermarkets over here and once they were done we got to eat it. I love cheese cake. Needless to say, supermarket cheese cake is not the best in the world. But it was free and it was yummy. Not saying no to that. I am just a tiny bit stuffed now so dinner basically fell flat. Though I picked up some instant noodles. Didn't have those in awhile and really crave them. But have to wait till it cools down to eat those. The beer will carry me over till then. Must be all those ramen blogs I read that make me hungry for noodle soup. Sigh. 

Otherwise an uneventful day. The weekend will hopefully be just as uneventful. Supposed to be hot. So we will be hiding in the apartment and possibly watch some games on TV. Germany is going to play England which will be brilliant. Don't really care who wins, but it's fun to watch anyway. Japan is on in a little bit. You have to beat Denmark! Please! Go Japan, huhuh!

I'll stop rambling now and will hunt down the beer in the fridge. Manchester brown ale. Doesn't that sound delicious!?!?

Secret Project Revealed

Sorry everyone for not posting for what seems like forever. Last weekend I finished my 'year of weddings' with the final one up in Yorkshire. It was a blast, but this is not what today's blogpost is about. I will come back to it later though promise. Once I have uploaded all the pictures it will be more interesting anyway.

Today I wanted to let you know what's happening with my secret project. As some of you might have read a couple of months back I was getting excited about starting something new. As of today I have informed my current employer of me leaving at the end of July. That is not the exciting news though. The reason for my departure is that I will go back to uni in September. I got accepted to a master of arts in publishing. It's a year long program running full-time. I am very excited about joining. I have wanted to work in the publishing industry for awhile now, but never managed to get my foot in the door. With this course I am hoping to get some experience and knowledge into me in order to be able to score a job in the industry next summer after I write my thesis (yeah, not too thrilled about that. Just did one three years ago, wasn't that enough!?!?).

Yeah, so this was just to let everyone now that it is official now. I am leaving my job at the end of July and beginning a new chapter in September. Now isn't that exciting!!!