My Life's Ingredients

My Mutsch is coming on 23rd and at the moment our house is not fit for guests ... not at all!! Football stuff all over the place as well as paperwork!! I'm on holiday this week and will tackle the house, so I just have to do routine cleaning until my Mutsch arrives. Have started probably in the most "secret" spot - the master bedroom - but the messyness of it just got on my nerves. So I have spent 3 hours going through stuff and throwing things away/putting it in recycling bags. 3 hours in one go is not really what Flylady suggests, but I was on a roll... Clocking off from house duties for the day though (apart from doing the washing up after dinner). May try to do some scrapping later ... just have to clear some space... (oops).

Mmmmh.... think I found one reason of my scrappers block.... you can see it below ... I really have to clear that mess ... best before I am going shopping to Perth on Tuesday ... errr... just so I know what stash I actually have ... The other reason are 2 big boxes for photos ... far too many to scrap... and now add to that the ones on the PC from my digi cam since October last year!!!! :O

.... have updated it again.

Have decided to finally join in the ATC craze ... and have taken part in the Summer Scrappin' Holiday VISA Swap. 3 ATCs for Swaps done. AND - of course one for Sharon who gave me my first ever ATC!!! Sharon, hun - it's here waiting for you either for us to meet up or for you to provide your new address!! :) Hope you (and my swappees) like it *looking anxiously* ...

Some of the kids in my road are rubbing me the wrong way round since... mmmh.. World Cup? They are playing football (soccer that is) between the parked cars in our cul-de-sac (and our car had some muddy prints to prove that in the past). They don't care about a) the cars and b) other peoples' front "garden" (well.. it's a 3x1 m patch I'd guess). Found a broken off lower branch of one of my bushes 3 weeks ago (and that couldn't have been the strong winds we had then!!!) and today when DH put out the wheelie bin he found my lavender plant - taken out of the patch and put onto my bags of compost beside the bin. I had only planted it on Monday! Ok, with the current heat it was probably on the verge of being dead anyway, but that's not the point. Why can't the wee buggers STAY OFF OTHER PEOPLES' PROPERTY???!! I suspect a couple of them but cannot pin them down to it so cannae complain to the parents. ... And what parents they are ... the kids have n

... and I feel it this year very badly... :) Coming originally from mainland Europe I am used to summer temperatures of 30 to 35 degrees ... no problem. Okay, we have outdoor pools and lakes in order to cope with the heat, but still. Edinburgh's Summer this year is just a heat wave - we got 25 degrees on average for over a week now, and I am absolutely exhausted! Think I am living too long in this country already, coming up 8 (!!!) years in October. My goodness... is it really that long?!?!?! Got so used to Scottish Summer of maybe 1 day approx 24 degrees and that's it... cannae cope with that "heat". My Mutsch reported 37 degrees in Germany - OMG, I think I'd probably DIE there now in that heat!!! Missing the outdoor pools/lakes though... :( A friend in Canada has also 35 degrees ... in CANADA!!! Would you believe!! So ... yes, my body has adapted to Scottish Weather ... quite a funny thing, isn't it? Wonder how the weather will be in August!

Phew! Got at least a POSITIVE reply to my 17 letters regarding shadowing/internship. While ActiveX cannot offer me the internship (insurance reasons) they are willing for me to be an observer. I am going to call them on Monday to make appointments ... looking forward to this. At least there are still people who are willing to help (there are still others who don't even have the curtesy to say "Sorry, but no"!!!).

Mmmh...my DH has a secret (??!) ambition ... to become a writer. And he's done already some attempts, including writing sketches for the 2003 BBC Comedy Awards. He and his co-writer friend have now placed their 3 sketches on YOUTUBE . Have a look... Oh... they came 2nd btw!! :)

DH and I had the Sunday off (i.e. no training with the Wolves) so we decided that we would finally go and do the "Cow Parade" ... or as many cows as we could get in that day. With the cows being located between Ocean Terminal in Leith and the Edinburgh Airport and The Gyle Shopping Centre we knew we wouldn't be able to get every one done. With a little (???) delay we left the house at 1pm and decided to take the car instead of going by bus to get more cows on camera. We started off with "Pri-moo-la" at the Royal Botanics, which was just a quick "I jump out, get into the Gardens, search for cow, take picture, phone DH to pick me up again from the main entrance" thing... :) I have to admit that we had a couple of these "jump out of car - take pic - get back into car" over the day, specially as we took quite a while at Ocean Terminal. We were amazed how mediteranean (sp?) Leith feels when the sun is out and it's hot. We "caught" s

Have finally finished my Dad's birthday present ... it's a "Paperbag Book" (i.e. a small scrapbook made using paperbags - like the brown paper lunch bags) with things that remind me of him. And ... the present was only a little over a month late! OOOPS!!! But well... April to June were very busy and stressful months for us and my dad was on holiday over his birthday anyway ... he hasn't received it yet as he's on holiday this week ... AGAIN!! ;) Here it is:

That's in brackets because I am an agnostic/atheist anyway .... Yesterday night it kinda hit me ... gosh, £3,200 is quite a lot of money ... specially if it only buys you 40% CHANCE of getting pregnant... isn't it? We've agreed to try our luck again for a December/January cycle. And at the moment it doesn't seem much more ... it's only luck. The specialists don't have a clue what went wrong, they won't change anything regarding dosage of injections etc ... the only thing they suggested (and that seems to be across the board with all the other girls at the ACU) is losing weight. But back to that £3,200 ... it's a big thing. It's ... a 2-week holiday in Florida for DH and me including all the shopping and possibly even tickets for Disney/Universal/SeaWorld. And it's going to be the 2nd amount to pay end of this year. One of the girls who are at EFREC with me had her 5th (!!!!) negative last month. That's hard. And not even one teensy NHS attem

Today was all in the name of movies/TV series really .... we met Sharon and Graeme for Pizza (possibly our last bigger meet before they move down to London ... buuuhuuuuuu!!! :( ) at Pizza Hut as a thank you for them to man the Tuck Shop at Meadowbank ... and afterwards we went to see "Pirates of the Caribbean - Dead man's chest". Great movie, absolutely funny, and the ending definitely showing that they have filmed both 2 & 3 paralell... can't wait until next year to see the 3rd part (felt a bit like a TV series at the end ;) ). Interesting what story you can make out of a Disney ride ... LOVED the dog with the keys again, and then at Tortuga the drunk man coming out of the well (that's soooo the ride!). One of the crew on the ship who picked up Will Turner actually looked like our new headcoach ... LOL!!! It was a fun day and we 4 thoroughly enjoyed it. Have to make sure to meet up with Sharon again before she leaves though. Have asked them to come with us t

We had a 2 minute silence at work on Friday for the 7/7 suicide bombing in London. Everyone was informed the day before about this, and managers were told to speak to their teams about this. I am not religious or anything (think I am some sort of an agnostic ... ;) ) but then - a 2 minute silence is not about religion in the first place. I think it's about respect for people who died and also for the families etc. But there are just some people who CANNOT understand that or just WON'T do it. Observing 2 minutes of silence is hardly a problem, is it? If you need to muck about just RESPECT that others want to observe it. Why laugh and talk loud about. I mean - those people have been sitting in a different area of our open plan office, but I still could hear them, so they didn't even ATTEMPT to be quiet!!! It's not as if they haven't been informed about it (was sent out to everyone via e-mail, and it was on the news and in the press for goodness sake!). I mean - yeah,

Feels different, going to work on a Monday and being off on Wednesday - but that seems to be the way for the first 3 weeks in July at least (agreed to switch my part time day due to staffing numbers). Today I decided to do some catch up on housework. Have done 4 washes and also moved some football stuff up to the first floor so we have more space in the kitchen, livng room and hall. It's not all put away properly, still have to go through things etc. But that can wait until weekend or next Wednesday. Due to weather conditions (after nice sunshine until about 3pm we suddenly had a thunderstorm with massive downpour) I was just dashing about to put in the washing and then didn't do much more. I did write 17 letters for internship/shadowing though - hopefully I'll get something positive there ... *fingers crossed* Righty ho - think DH wants to catch up on Battlestar Galactica episodes, so this entry is short again.