Books I read in January...

So here we are again, another month gone, another reading list to post.....

Okay, so this year I am trying to read the book of the month books for both the M/M group and the YA GLBT groups...... (Though I've read all 4 of the Feb books chosen in the M/M group already)... I am also going to try and do the Pick it for Me challenge and have signed up to the best of 2012 challenge (though out of the 67 books I have already read 31 of them....)

So to January - complete list below - but two stand out favourites this month.

Rentboy by Fyn Alexander... which just clicked with me. Aside from the MC's,  I particularly loved the twins and their Aspergers characterisations (such as food on a plate not touching, the not being able to make choices etc) were just so well done..... on and the brief cameo from Kael and Angel made me smile.

The other standout book was Skybound by Aleksandr Voinov.  I am not usually a fan of short stories, but this was an excellently written historical whose characters really gripped you from the start and the whole thing left me rather choked up.

as always (r) = re-read.

1. Bound to Please – Kimberly Gardner (r)
2. A  Strong Hand – Catt Ford (r)
3. Calling the Show – J.A. Rock (r)
4. Kamikaze Boys – Jay Bell (YA GLBT book of the month)
5. Moonstruck – M.J. O’Shea & Piper Vaughn - Sadly this was really an unnecessary third book with characters who did not have enough about them to make their own story.

6. Love, Hypothetically – Anne Tenio
7. Snow Angel – Sharon Bidwell (Jan pick it for me book)
8. Beggars & Choosers – Mia Kendrick (YA GLBT book of the month) - edgy content makes this one really suitable for older teens only.

9. Heart in Hand – Salifiable (M/M group book of the month) - Yes Chris, I finally read a hockey fic :)

10. The Student Prince – Fayjay (M/M group book of the month) - This Merlin fan fic came at the right time as I was gutted by them ending the TV series but it made me laugh a lot.... and wish to introduce the word "twatwaffle" into everyday conversation.

11. Secrets, Skin & Leather – Sean Michael - I'd wanted to read this for ages, but it was only recently made available on Kindle - much better than some of his more recent books

12. Falling into Place – Tia Fielding - High up on my list of favourites this month

13. The Rise of Alex Caldwell (volume one) – Casey Cox
14. The Rise of Alex Caldwell (volume two) – Casey Cox
15. When I say when – Tia Fielding
16. Rentboy – Fyn Alexander (see above)
17. Too stupid to live – Anne Tenino
18. My roommate’s a Jock, well crap! – Wade Kelly
19. Offside – Ryan Loveless
20. Not his kiss to take – Finn Marlowe
21. Change of Heart – Mary Calmes - gah, the words are "have to", not "hafta" really, this winds me up completely for some reason...

22. Know Not Why: A Novel – Hannah Johnson
23. Shane and Trey – Anyta Sunday
24. Rare than Rubies – E.M. Lynley
25. His Own Worst Enemy – Stephani Hecht (YA) - Way to short and highly predictable 3rd book in the Haven Coffee House series...

26. Conquest – S.J. Frost
27. Skybound – Aleksandr Voinov (see above)
28. Chase of a Lifetime – Ryan Field
29. Chase of a Dream – Ryan Field
30. How to Repair a Mechanical Heart – J. C. Lillis - geeky fun read but with a very abrupt ending

31. Where Nerves End – L.A. Witt

Typing one handed......

A few weeks a go a friend who is extremely important to me muttered rather plaintively that she really wished I would try to be a bit more careful as it worried her the number of self inflicted injuries I seemed to get.

Now, I really don't like worrying people so since then I have tried really, really hard to think before acting...... and I am doing really well..... apart from the odd paper cut I haven't managed to trip/fall/cut my fingers, stub my toes, walk into anything, set any part of me alight or in fact blow anything up.

Now I maintain that the reason I am typing this one handed, and with my left hand in fact - which by the way, when you touch type at 80 words a minute usually is extremely frustrating -  is not in fact because I have done something stupid..... I think perhaps the weather Gods and Goddesses needed appeasement.

I went round to visit mother earlier - and stare glacially at her soon to be ex lodger - as I was leaving I was sitting in the car with the door open talking to mum who was at the end of the garden path, my right hand was kind of waving about as I talked (habit, my hands talk as much as my mouth usually - particularly when I am explaining something).  As I was doing this there was a large gust of wind and my car door suddenly slammed shut........... on my ring and middle finger..... I screamed loud enough for the neighbours to come out to see what was wrong.

10 minutes under the cold tap, whilst I broke out my best Anglo Saxon vocabulary, I had a completely numb hand, save for two very throbbing fingers.  Nothing was broken so I very carefully drove home where I have partaken of pain killers, arnica tablets, and spent another hour or so with my hand in ice......

Now I would like to maintain the story that a gust of wind cannot possibly be my fault and it was purely an accident and doesn't count for the whole injuring myself by doing stupid things lecture.

I'm going to bed now...... without cats as I don't really want them clawing at my hand demanding to be stroked....... I am not convinced there will be much sleeping going on mind.......

Sheesh.... this has taken forever to type.......

Feeling completely "meh" ...

I'm bored

Completely, utterly, totally and terminally bored

Bored with work, bored with my home life (if you can call it a life), bored of winter, even at some points bored with reading.

And I haven't got a clue what to do about it.

I feel like I want to make some major changes with just about everything in my life, but then I just kind of falter because I haven't got a clue how to start making them.  There are things I want to change that are just totally out of the question, there are things I would love to change but I haven't got a clue how to and there are things I could probably change but am just too damn scared to actually do anything about it.

So instead, I stay stuck in this stupid rut of get up, sort critters, go to work, come home, sort critters, read/knit/write and then go to bed only to start it all over again... with the exception at the weekends when I miss out the work bit and get to do laundry and housework instead.

Looking at friends at work who are all in their early 30's I see them all with friends, families, lives.... Then I look back thinking what the hell have I actually done in the ten years since I was about there age..... and realise I have absolutely fuck all to show for it.... in fact, I could go back further and say 20 years without stretching the point.

It's not even as though I feel like I've failed at life...... more that just I haven't got a life........I can't even remember when I did last have one (or at least one of my own that wasn't manipulatively controlled by someone else)

It's not like I can't be organised and dynamic and go do things for myself..... I am just failing right now to see the point.

Oh well, I'd best not break the cycle of boredom, time to go to bed so I can be up for work in the morning.......

I hope the arrival of spring comes early and these feelings turn out just to be seasonal.......

Further adventures in hair dying......

So this morning, I was bored, I looked in the bathroom mirror and thought 'blergh' my hair had grown so much as I didn't exactly have roots showing I had a nice band of normal hair colour and then about 3 inches further down it was faded aubergine.... and by normal hair colour I'd be generous these days in saying that there was an equal fight between the boring mid brown colour and the silver it seems to be going as I get older.

So, having got a box of hair dye sitting in the airing cupboard I decided nothing ventured nothing gained and proceeded to dye it....... allegedly "deep red"

On an positive note to this story - I did not dye the cat..... nor did I dye the bathroom (which believe me is a huge improvement on last time - there are still a couple of aubergine patches on the ceiling.....)

However, by the time I had gone through developing, rinsing, conditioning and drying I was catching sight of bits of my hair out the corner of my eye and thinking... erm... not so deep red.... more sort of well....

So, where there were silver bits at the front it's kind of bright ginger, on the brown bit's it is a nice deep red, but on some of the aubergine bits it's gone almost black..... it's patchy and there are some stripes in the front...


I went to my sister's for lunch and she decreed it did in fact look like I had dyed my hair to look like a tortoiseshell cat.......

I'd strip it out and start again.... but I fear seeing the level of silver it is would frighten me!!

Weekends....

This is going to sound strange to most I guess, but I am actually really not enjoying weekends very much at the moment.

I had thought, without my coursework to do I would be able to use the weekend to relax and unwind, even perhaps have some fun.... but it isn't happening.  Sure there are lots of things I could probably do but it just isn't happening.  Friday night I am usually completely worn out after work so end up crashing on the sofa with the Kindle, or on the phone for ages to friends or family. Then on Saturday after the housework has been beaten into submission I am finding I am either completely bored out of my head and want to do "something" but have no idea what (not helped by the fact that there is no one local I really have a burning desire to spend my time with - yep I am an antisocial cowbag).  It's either that or wish to just curl up in the dark and hide till Monday morning.

Okay, so I should really make an effort and go out and do things - I don't even need to have someone to go do things with, I could do them on my own but that isn't really very appealing.  On top of that the weather recently hasn't really been very accommodating. This weekend we had about 30 cm of snow falling on packed ice on Friday night which meant Saturday wasn't a day for going anywhere... though thankfully the cold snap appears to be over and it's a tropical 7 degrees C today.... it also rained in buckets over night and all the snow is now gone.

Whichever way I am feeling during the weekend is not helping me to relax..... even if I sleep for a decent length of time at night it's frequently broken sleep with periods of lying awake looking at the ceiling..... and it's a very boring plain white ceiling....

I am hoping this is just seasonal and as it warms up and the days get longer I will snap out of this and find some positivity..... for now though I will hang onto the fact that come Monday morning I can go to work and not be stuck in this house feeling horribly trapped.

Midweek mumbling of the disconnected kind....

Yesterday, after my optimistic post on Monday, didn't get off to a brilliant start when it took me 45 minutes, the help of 4 neighbours with 2 shovels and a lot of spinning about and sliding to get the car out the drive and off the road.... though I didn't burn the clutch out.... the trouble with having a car with naff all power in it (tis a 1.1 litre petrol engine) means that when you it three inches of packed solid ice on a frozen brick surface you aren't going anywhere.

I committed car abandonment last night half way down the road where was easy to get out this morning.  The car is there again tonight as the bit in front of my drive is still packed ice.... and I don't want a repeat performance.... I am sure the neighbours don't either.

The down side to this is 45 minutes of standing about in the freezing cold, shovelling snow etc is really not good for someone whose joints don't work at the best of times..... by tea time last night the arthritis flare up in my knees, hips and lower back resulted in an evening of lying flat and keeping as warm as possible.  It's been a bit better today.  All of this is not helped by the fact that it turns out I am allergic to one of my pain meds, so had to stop taking it, and trying to come off the other..... last night I would have killed for something stronger than paracetamol.

Today a friend of mine posted a picture of her new naked kitten...... wearing a fetching green stripey sweater...... now I have always insisted that mine did not need or in fact want sweaters....... which is something another of my friends argue about as she's had to be banned from knitting something for them..... alas she saw the kitten pictures and low and behold I can expect leg warmers at least for Gina and Hugo at some point in the future..... As if my poor cats weren't laughed at enough for the extreme ugliness :)

Work was hectic but boring.... the run up to the end of the financial year (which happens on 30th April) is upon us again, which means everyone wants everything doing, like last week.... I have shed loads of drafting to do to get money in...... so of course Rupert has early spring fever and is spawning plot bunnies at speed...... I've threatened him with castration if he doesn't stop .... I've now got four sets of voices screaming at me from inside my head....... but still feeling far too negative about my writing to do anything but listen to them.

Tonight I have had a nice long chat with a friend after which I've come upstairs to discover that the cats have eaten my mouse mat........ I mean seriously, I know that you are poor deprived indoor house cats who aren't allowed to roam free and hunt..... and it has the word mouse in it..... but it's not a real one!  I shall go lay out some cat treats around the upstairs of the house for them to hunt later whilst I curse them and try use my ancient roller ball mouse on a bobbly desk surface.....

Snow Day.....

very fuzzy photo of my back garden this morning

I didn't get to work today.... we had 19 cm of snow overnight and it was impossible to get out onto our road.....(and yes, I know, this is nothing snow wise compared to some people but for us it's serious!).... so I had a snow day

Well I didn't, because I took work home on Friday just in case this happened... so I have instead sat at my kitchen table and drafted really horribly tedious documents all day *snore*

(I did have a small break in the afternoon when I felt my head would explode, in order to finish the book I was reading, but then got frustrated as the author will use the
word "hafta" instead of "have to" which drives me nuts!)

The dogs weren't impressed and kept looking at me in disgust wondering when I was going to go away.

The snow isn't showing any signs of melting, in fact we are down to -5 degrees this evening..... but tomorrow I intend to be bravely optimistic and scare the neighbours by trying to get the car out to go to work.

In the meantime, to cheer myself up this evening I've booked my place at the UK GLBTQ meet.... go me!!  Now I have something fun to look forward to as I wish spring would arrive faster

Winter weekend.......

So, Friday, it snowed... well it snowed Thursday night, but not really enough to make it exciting.  Friday's major snowfall happened else where for the most part... though it did start properly snowing here at about 1pm... by 3.30 pm the roads were getting rather well covered and the powers that be decided to let the staff who lived out in the Peak District or over an hours commute away go home... they also let out those who had to make child care arrangements as some schools were closing early.  Now usually I hate it when people refer to my various critter as my "children"... no seriously, they aren't, they are animals, they are treated like animals, they behave like animals (which is not dissimilar to children I suppose) .... but my boss insists in cases of bad whether they count as children and I had to go home at 3.30 pm - such a hardship!

In total we got about 6 cm or so of settled snow..... and on Saturday I woke up, for the second time having already wondered out into it at 5.30 am, to the sound and smell of the bloke who has recently moved in opposite burning his clutch out whilst spinning around and sliding his car across the ice on the road....... which was the point I decided that Saturday was going to be a staying home, wrapping up warm and pottering about kind of day....... there was some fairly constructive reading, a bit of cleaning and some cooking.  Impressively the supermarket shop delivery arrived on time... though the driver had to leave the van halfway down the road and walk the rest of the way as apparently our road was the worst they'd been on.

Today I was determined I was going out, snow and ice be damned!  I really actually hate being stuck in the house for any length of time as I feel completely stifled by it and need to get out or I start going a little stir crazy.  There was still a fair bit of snow and ice lying on the road but this wasn't going to stop me. I cleared off the car, measured up what room I had between the parked cars, stuck it in reverse and went for it......straight out of the drive, between the parked cars, round the corner and then into gear and off down the road..... got out first time, no skidding, no sliding and no wheel spins...... some of the neighbours were out watching and boy did I feel smug...... I got the car back into the drive later without problems too :)

In a fit of organisation I've made lunch for tomorrow .... in slight disorganisation I lost half of my stir fry to Gretchen when I had to go answer the phone when I was having dinner (it was dad, it couldn't wait).... and I should now be in bed..... but unfortunately I discovered some NCIS fan fiction that I am rather enjoying and I keep forgetting to watch the time.......... 

Work tomorrow........ hopefully...... there is white stuff falling quite heavily from the sky at present though.......

Four letter words...

Rude ones... or at least impolite ones... I have been uttering them since it started snowing here as I left for work (actually I have been uttering them all day thanks to a colleague leaving without notice and some of her work being dumped on me to sort out this morning).  The weather forecasters have been promising us that the Snowpocalypse is on its way... but that wasn't meant to start till at least half way through tomorrow....... this is the UK folks, the Snowpocalypse will result in about 4 cm of snow and shut the entire country down......

That said, the road I live on is made of brick.... which when you add snow and temperatures of -5 means it's an ice rink so getting out to work tomorrow is going to be, erm, fun.... I may slip about a bit but I shall get there... my neighbours are apparently quite impressed with my determination and driving skills when it's icy

I am told that uttering four letter and other impolite words is not a good habit to have ......... alas there are some things that only good old Anglo-Saxon expletives can really fully express...

The other four letter word that blights my life at present is diet....... I am on one, kind of..... I had already given up caffeine and am trying to eat healthily...... then my Macmillan Nurse suggested I might want to give up yeast products to help prevent my leg flaring up again (apparently because I am going to be prone to bacterial infections it will help)... this "suggestion" translated very clearly to "you will".... so bye bye yeast products...... which means no bread!

Now as I've said before when deciding that I was going to become decaffeinated..... I can't do moderation... it's not that I have no will power... I am sure I do... somewhere....it's just easier and makes more sense to go cold turkey.... which means in terms of healthy eating, that gone from my diet are all yeast breads (thank goodness for pita bread and wraps), any cake type things, anything with pastry, all chocolate, sweets, ice cream etc... and most cheeses... at least all the interesting ones!

I've never been a fan of processed food, and having been vegetarian for so long it's not that difficult to eat healthily if I stay focused on it and don't get lazy... which is where I usually fall down.  It's going fairly well so far... 2 weeks in and I am not bored with it and haven't given up...... I have no idea if it's making a difference only time will tell.

Which brings us to another reason for me cursing a lot about the snow.... I have to get to work tomorrow I've a dozen chocolate cup cakes with vanilla frosting on the side in the kitchen for a colleague's birthday... and if I don't go to work temptation may get the better of me!

A whining post about parents....

Sorry, this is a purely letting off steam kind of post as if I don't vent here I am going to either end up bursting into tears or yelling at someone that totally doesn't deserve it.... feel free to skip said post and visit again later...

Dad hasn't been very well since New Year..... which is like the understatement of the year given that he's dying, he's just being a bit more serious about it at the moment.  The doctors mucked up his medication and he ran out of one of his tablets, as a result he has been stuck in bed for the last three weeks nearly.  His partner (sheesh, nearly 18 months on and I can't bring myself to call her his wife) is crap... back in October/November he had a bad reaction to some of the drugs he was trying out and all his joints became swollen so he couldn't get out of his chair.... but she left him there without food or drink to go to work with no one in the house for 9 hours!  When ever she worries about him, which obviously happens a fair bit, she phone my mum and whittles on at her about him and and all her worries........ No matter how hard we try to get her to phone either me or my sister she won't do it.... mainly because dad doesn't want to upset my sister and the partner knows I have no time or patience for her.

Mum has decided, after seeing dad before Christmas (yes, they are still friends, and speak to each other, visit etc), that dad has in fact given up and is just waiting to die.... which is upsetting, but being a hard hearted bitch (my mother's words a couple of weeks ago) all I can think is please, just let him go soon and painlessly.... and yep, am still a complete coward who can't face going down to see him.

Last week I posted a bit about mum's straight laced lodger, who it appears is really taking the piss.  Mum let her rent the attic before Christmas and was under the impression it would be short term till the lodger found somewhere to rent properly or bought another property..... only she's done fuck all bout finding somewhere else to live - why would she, mum's only charging her peanuts to stay there.... they were friends, but the way things are going the friendship is going to blow up very shortly as the lodger keep criticising mum and making snide remarks.  Mum asked her when she was moving out, as she has visitors coming at the end of February - only to be told that the visitors could come in half term when the lodger would be house sitting for a week! WTF!!

What with the lodger, the radiator leaking just before Christmas (which meant she needed a whole new set of radiators), dad and the water pouring through the roof incident last week mum's anxiety levels have understandably gone through the roof.  This evening (or rather today) her telephone has gone on the blink and despite several calls to the service provider, and them assuring her it was fine, she lost her temper with them when it still didn't work.... She then phoned me for sympathy and when I couldn't help her with her phone hung up on me..... she then phoned my sister and had a tizzy down the phone to her.

My sister phoned me in tears after mum hung up on her.  Apparently mum's been phoning her having these kind of massive anxiety attacks at all hours of the day and night.... and when the phone rings really late at night she picks it up in absolute fear that it's the call to say dad has gone.  Mum has always had a bit of a problem with alcohol, she started drinking rather heavily when she and dad were getting divorced and whilst it's been fairly under control she does tend to drink whiskey when she's anxious, which makes her very depressed. (Mum's drinking is one of the reasons I don't really drink and am happy to be the designated driver if I am going out)  My sister admitted that when she and her partner went round for dinner on Saturday last week mum had drunk a small bottle of whiskey... my sister was mortified as her partner had never seen mum like that in the year that he and my sister have been together.

Tonight we were both pretty sure she'd been drinking again, so first my sister and then I tried to phone her mobile... which she'd switched off.  We ended up going round to check on her because in her anxious state, with alcohol, we were worried she'd do something stupid.... she hadn't but she was in a complete state.

My sister and I really don't know what to do, she won't admit the anxiety is a problem - we both want her to speak to her doctor about it... we also want her to formally get rid of the lodger.... we are going to speak to dad's partner and make it clear that she has to stop burdening mum with her problems about dad

Arghhh, I just wish I could fix everything......

More book type stuff....

In which I am going to mumble semi incoherently about star ratings, Marmite and books (not that I recommend getting Marmite on your books... particularly if the books are on your Kindle)

I've recently read a couple of books which come highly recommended by all and sundry, have excellent star ratings and "must be read" apparently........ thing is for me, they just didn't work.... and to borrow a phrase I've seen bandied about, it maybe that these are Marmite books - you either love them or you hate them - though admittedly for me hate is too strong a word.... I don't actually know if I am capable of hating a book... I can dislike it, not get on with it, be bored to tears by it... but hate? no, probably not...

I am wary now of reading books which "everybody" ... okay so say 95% of all readers and raters on Goodreads think are 5 stars, though this is not because I worry I'll dislike them, but rather because in my own mind I will build up the book thinking it's going to be brilliant only to feel kind of let down by it when it doesn't really grab me the way I'd built it up to.

The thing is.... there isn't really a problem with this at all.  People are all different, they like different things.... it would be boring if we didn't..... and this includes the books they read.... There are a few reviewers on Goodreads and on the blogs I follow whose reading opinions appear to gel pretty much with mine and whose opinions I will trust but I am no longer looking at the overall star rating for a book, or going for the popular choice.....

Which brings me to star ratings....... I am sticking with the fact that my star ratings are for my interpretation... pretty much I can say though, if it gets a 4.5 bounced up to 5 or a 5 stars it will definitely be a book I re-read (and yes, more than once)... 3 or 4 stars means to me it was an enjoyable book... and I think I've only given one book a 2 star review...  I have left some books I've read without star ratings at all.... not because they don't deserve any but because these have either been hugely popular books but just not for me or because something in the story bugged the hell out of me and I can't rate it because that one thing overshadows the rest of the book for me, but is really not the be all and end all of the story.

One thing I can't stand is seeing people questioning someone else's rating or review.... after all these ratings are personal opinions nothing more... some readers and authors have said they hate seeing low ratings that aren't justified with reasons... but really, if the star ratings are just personal opinions and what one person loves another may hate.... and we are back to Marmite again......Upon which note I want Marmite on toast.. but I am pretty sure there is no bread in the house......

Today I have been infected by an ear worm...

Well Hugo appears to be none the worse for his marinading in chilli and yoghurt yesterday and is back to normal today... if you count sleeping on the top of the door and then falling off normal....

It is bitterly cold here (note, I am British, for me bitterly cold is anything below 3 degrees Celsius and it hasn't cracked freezing here today) which means I've spent a great deal of time in front of a heater in one room or other in the house... the warmest room is the study which is doubling as a laundrette as I desperately try to get my work clothes dry for tomorrow...... the coldest room is the downstairs toilet... not a place to linger at present......

At some point early on this morning I picked up an ear worm (repetitive type rather than bloody annoying) and as it's a song that I actually rather like I thought I'd share....

And now alas I must go prepare for Monday and work.....

The Naked Cat & the chilli.....

Oh dear, poor Hugo.....

Earlier on today, in an unusual fit of organisation, I decided to do some cooking to fill up the freezer with easily defrosted and re-heated meals, and to get a head start on some things to take for lunch.... So I made some bulgar wheat salad, potato salad, a load of vegetable & lentil soup and finally put a large Quorn curry into the slow cooker......

(Finally I made a large tub of fruit salad to pick on during the week....... alas said fruit salad was a tricksy thing and at one stage not vegetarian.... until I re-washed the grapes which I'd managed to bleed over when taking them off the stalk... having been viciously attacked by the sharp knife I was using to cut the melon into chunks just before hand)

The Quorn curry has in it fresh ginger, garlic and chilli's..... which were the last thing I cut up and threw into the pot before switching it on..... being as it was then feeding time for the critters I flung wings at the dogs and went up to deal with the demands of the naked ones.....

Deciding to check my e-mails whilst I was upstairs I was swiftly joined by Hugo who insists on clambering all over me, the desk, the keyboard etc.... he's doing it now, I can't actually see the screen as he's stood in front of it tapping on my fingers as I type...  So being an obliging serf to their needs I gave him the obligatory cuddle and he rubbed himself all over my hands.........

I was still pottering about upstairs half an hour later when he gave a very distressed sounding yowl and started shaking his head.... there was saliva frothing at his mouth which he started clawing at.....I thought for a second that he was going to have a fit..... I got hold of him and laid him on a towel just in case but his eyes were normal and he was showing no other signs..... he was just very distressed........ As I was trying to calm him his mother jumped up next to him and went to head-butt my hand, but then sniffed and drew away in disgust..... which was when it twigged.... the poor cat was covered in the residue from the chilli which had transferred to, well, all over him as I'd been stroking him.

So how do you remove chilli from a naked cat's body??...... I ended up basically covering him in plain yoghurt (it was either that or bathing him in milk but I didn't have enough)...... really, seriously messy, as I couldn't keep him still.... thankfully I'd thought first to shut him in the bathroom to do it, but still, it went everywhere....... then I rinsed him off in some very mild kitten shampoo.... Given that it's freezing and he has no coat, I then had dry him off with the hair dryer.... which whilst it appears he likes to come try get under it when I am doing my hair it's a totally different story when it comes to being dried himself.....

He seems to have forgiven me now...... but he's sniffing very carefully at my hands before I am allowed stroke him........ the curry was nice though.....

brain to mouth communication error of the day....

Well, this evening I have managed what turned out to be a fairly amusing (well for me anyway) example of failing to engage my brain before opening my mouth.... I mean seriously, there is a connection, but sometimes it seems to just short circuit on me at the worst moments.  It's a good thing my mother is used to me!!

So what did I do?

Being as it's very cold here at present, and forecast to snow over the weekend, I decided that it would be an excellent time to visit my mother for tea and gossip as after (a) she has heating in her house which I don't and (b) I could stick a load of clothes through the washing machine - after all if I get snowed in the last thing I want is to run out of underwear (well outerwear too I suppose, but the underwear always seems more important somehow)

So, I was sitting at one end of the kitchen table, my mother was at the other end making a batch of meatballs.  In the middle was sat my mother's lodger - I say lodger in the loosest sense of the word.  She's a friend of mum's, who recently sold her own house but hasn't yet found a new place to live - so she's currently living in mum's attic (yep the one with the leaky flat roof)..... she's a retired antiques dealer and, well to be blunt, a complete know it all with extremely definite opinions on everything.  I am hoping she finds somewhere to live soon as she's driving mum up the wall - only mum's far to nice to say anything.

Anyway, there we were, nattering about nothing in particular, as I carried out with my knitting and mum with the cooking.... her friend was holding forth about something when mum suddenly interrupts and says,  "roll into 24 walnut sized balls." There is brief pause and she continues "what sort of size is walnut size?"

Now without thinking or looking up from my knitting (in my defence I was trying to keep my double moss stitch straight at the time) I replied, "the same size as a bloke's prostate gland, a healthy one anyway."

It took about a minute for me to realise the conversation hasn't restarted.  I looked up from my knitting to find them both looking at me, mum's friend is looking totally horrified, like I've said something outrageously rude, but mum, bless her is biting the inside of her cheek and trying not to laugh.  Eventually she managed to say with a completely straight face and dead pan expression, "useful to know, but not exactly helpful when it comes to working out the size of the balls."

Well that cracked me up altogether as my mind went gutter-wise (it is a direction, it's the opposite of heavenwards) at high speed.  Mum managed to hold off laughing until her friend had fled the kitchen to return to her attic

Mum thinks she'll have the downstairs of her house to herself this evening :)

Taking time for myself

Normally I don't make myself promises to do things for me, because, well, at the end of the day, doing things for myself is something that seems to lack importance (as opposed to doing things for other people - which I know has led to me being told on several occasions that I am a doormat, who should only expect to get walked all over.... but I can't help it, it's just me, I like to do things for other people, hells I even like to look after other people, cook for them and stuff .... I don't consider myself a doormat, it's just the way I am).

So anyway, I made some decisions whilst I was off work over Christmas, part of which was that I was going to take time this year to do some things for myself.... the main one being to pluck up courage to go to the UK GLBT fiction meet in July....... as I posted a few days ago, the time off is now booked and I've realised that because I pay my Council Tax over 10 months rather than 12 I have a spare £90 in the budget in February and March..... £90 being the cost of the tickets for both days, but without a stay over (thank goodness it's only in Manchester!)...... So, come pay day at the end of this month (or the end of February if I bottle it) I am going to book myself a place..... and then have a good few months to psych myself up to go (or panic myself until I am completely grey!)..... I am terrible at meeting new groups of people - the last time I was a newbie at a meeting of internet people I managed to get myself into the kitchen to help out and could thankfully hide in there for most of the time on the pretext of being helpful - so not an option this time ....

Other things I am doing for myself include switching off at 4.00 pm when I leave work and trying to put it out my mind till the next day - which I have failed at big time so far.

I am also going to have a couple of evenings a week where I don't answer the phone - unless it's a pre-planned phone call (my counsellor really liked this idea!) or an emergency.

I am going to try and make more of an effort with the house - and look for a gardener that can at least come and tidy things up for me.

I am also going to spend at least three nights a week having a couple of hours playing with yarn, whether at home or when I am out (knitting after all does like to go to the pub and socialise)...... though I suppose this is really only partially for me as I don't knit for myself but love to knit for other people.  I don't like to promise to make things for people (okay so I do have 2 pairs of socks to knit for other people where they've given me the yarn so I must do those) but I like to surprise people with things.... my current project is one of these things.... then there are imminent new arrivals to knit something for....

This is dangerous though, because I find myself surfing Ravelry...... which resulted in me finding the perfect knitting project to do for a friend, as from recent conversation (which primarily involved a mission to the gutters to rescue my now very dented and tarnished halo, and for her to go hunting a pocket demon to train) I think this little chap would like to go live on her desk and help guard her pencils!  I wonder what colour she'd like??

Stone the Gargoyle
(www.devonmonk.com/knitting-gallery)

A weekend with minor excitements.....

Sunday night with work looming over the horizon comes round far far to quickly!

This weekend has been one of doing things.... mainly because I promised myself I wouldn't spend my weekends just reading (well, okay, there might be the odd weekend) and instead I would make myself do something productive.....

Which means that this weekend I have....

- tortured all four of the dogs by savagely maiming them with excruciatingly sharp object so that they are no longer able to walk without severe pain and injury......... or in other words, I cut their nails..... they only thing they can no longer do is making tappy noises on the hard kitchen floor which means that Hope can stealth attack and arrive on my lap without warning......

- cleaned up, trimmed the grass edge and bleached the hell out of the kennel run.... it needed doing and there was a dry day on Saturday so grabbing the opportunity before the next week of rain, or heaven forbid, snow arrives.

- Combed out fully the fur ball known as Gretchen....... by the time I had done I could almost grow a spare spitz out of the undercoat I'd removed from her....... I have plans to do the others, don't tell them!

- Visited mother to carry out daughterly duties (and use the washing machine).... which was quite complicated as I arrived to find her having a complete tizzy because the flat roof in the attic was leaking water into the house..... my mother bless her is a drama queen at times and you'd have thought the world was ending....... when I told her to find her insurance documents and ring them she got quite snappy as apparently when she'd phoned my sister at goodness only knows what time this morning to stress at her about it she'd been told the same thing......I am not sure what else she was expecting from me... possibly to join her in her dramatic moment...... instead she got a small lecture on learning to act proportionately and that a leaking roof was not in fact a life and death situation...... apparently at nearly 75 she feels that if she wishes to be dramatic she will be....... mind you the roof now has a tarp on it and a temporary fix until she can get two quotes for the insurers.

- Unwound and balled up 3 skeins of new and exciting yarn (well these particular ones were new to me, it's one of my favourites to play with) and am now about 1/4 of the way through a new and fun knitting project (erm, which  was actually on my to knit for Christmas list, but hey, you know, surprise gifts throughout the year are welcome I'm sure)

- Had one of those special moments involving melting plastic, glass fragments and flames....... okay, it goes like this.... I have some really nice glass candle holders that sit inside little metal pots on the kitchen window ledge.  On Saturday I had had one alight for a while and as I was sitting at the kitchen table reading (yeah, I did do some of that this weekend too) I caught rather more flame than I would have expected out the corner of my eye.  On closer investigation, namely walking up to it and leaning over the sink to look, I noticed that all the wax residue on the glass holder was burning and the wick itself had burnt out.  On tiptoes I leant further forward to blow it out but it wouldn't go out.  So I picked it up........ which would be my first mistake..... cos the pot it sits in is metal, and was hot, and there were flames, and I dropped it into the plastic washing up bowl in the sink........ where it started to quite happily melt the plastic as I blew at it quite dramatically..... giving up I turned the tap on to put it out..... and the shock of the cold water on hot glass, well, exploded it quite dramatically........ I managed to get the water out the bowl, leave the glass bits in and then carry the whole thing to the outside bin without further incident...... and then went back to run my hand under the tap cos I realised my fingers were a bit warm.........

- and that's about it for my weekend, oh save having only changed the bedding 2 days ago, I now have to go and change the sheets again because Gina has thrown up in the middle of the bed...... why when she has the whole of upstairs to chose from does she always manage to do this just after I've changed the bedding??

Book type stuff....

Having finally done some maths....

Last year in total I read 392 books
Of which 41 were re-reads
2 were non fiction for the purpose of research
the majority of which would fall into the category of M/M romance but with there also being books in the genres YA GLBT, crime, fantasy and historical

On average I read 32 books a month
I have 88 books sitting on my Kindle waiting to be read (around 60% of these were freebies).  3 of these are books I have read and sit on the Kindle all the time as ultimate comfort reading.  I really need to read at least 10 of these a month before I buy any more books!

I still don't review - save for the comments I put on the books read list each month as I still maintain that my opinion is probably not going to be that helpful to the majority of other readers given my own personal slightly warped view of life and books (not to mention I have my personal bugbears concerning transatlantic spelling & grammar)

In reality I have been reading M/M romance for a short time .... but I have some firm favourites author wise who will remain on auto buy (despite the occasional book just not quite being as good as I had hoped). I have no preference between stand alone books and series (though I prefer series with the same MC's rather than those that spin off with new MC's each book).... the completest in me will keep reading a series, even if it seems to have gone off the boil.

I am astounded by the amount of work some authors in the genre are putting out there or have in progress at anyone time...... and I fear it does show in terms of deterioration in quality of plot lines and editing.... I still maintain that one or two good, high quality, well edited and polished plot driven books in a year is really the maximum an author should be looking to publish. I also think there are a fair few publishers that need to take a step back and look at what they are putting out and whether in their push to put out more in volume they are leaving their readers disenchanted and tarnishing their writer's reputations.  With the sudden interest by many of the adult M/M publishers to  have a range dealing with YA GLBT books I am worried that there will be a sudden decrease in the quality of these books given the push to get them out there onto the market.

One of my main issues at the moment appears to be the "ooh, look, a minor character, quick, spin it out longer and give him is own story" even when there isn't really a story for him to tell...... these books tend to be a high sex to storyline ratio and a rush to a happily ever after with virtually no plot.

So, that's some reading thoughts..... as for writing... it was pointed out to me that I haven't got any course work to do any more, so I have no excuse for not getting back into my writing..... a few more books which leave me feeling meh about them and I will probably start thinking that I can actually write but until that happens I will probably stick to reading

In which normality returns.......

Or as near as dammit as we get to normal round here!

Today was back to work day...... which meant last night I went to bed at my normal time...... couldn't sleep so I read for a while.... then tried again..... and again....... and got up at 1.30 am, let the dogs out pottered about a bit, then tried to go to sleep again.... I then managed that fitful kind of sleep where you aren't deep enough asleep and every blessed noise wakes you... by the time I got up at just after 5 am I was wondering why I'd even bothered trying......So after sorting the critters I went back to the sofa thinking I'd just dose until 6.30 am when I had to get up and start getting organised... only to be woken by the alarm out of a very deep sleep feeling totally disorientated!  Such a good start!

Work was, well, work.... I have quite a lot of stuff booked in for the next few weeks.... including a hearing next Monday, which I tried to pass off to one of the advocates in the team only to be told that given I was now qualified I could do it myself .... grrrr...... not impressed!!

To cheer myself up I booked some days off - a couple around Easter weekend and some in July for mum's 75th birthday and for the UK GLBTQ Romance Writers and Readers event... now I have the days off I have to pluck up the courage to sign up for it (though alas only as a day visitor not for the whole weekend) .... and then I have to find the guts to actually go!

On a positive note, I promised myself I would start making much more of an effort with my lunches... rather than grabbing fruit and yoghurt from home and then realising this is not enough and attacking the vending machines.... so today there was cous cous and veggies (tomorrow there is pasta salad)..... I did point out to my team leader who was admiring my lunch and bemoaning her soggy tuna sandwich that she shouldn't get too excited my usual (lack of) organisational skills will probably kick in by the middle of next week!

Hope this evening involved sofa surfing with the Kindle as I had bugger all energy to do anything else.... and now it's nearly bed time....... and I've just discovered the new nightshirt that I got for Christmas has a little breast pocket in it (complete with little purple button)... which begs the question why?  It's only a tiny little pocket, I don't think it could hold much...... suggestions welcome though...

And now I must go, because Gina has just managed to throw her ping pong ball down the stairs to the dogs domain and it needs to be retrieved...... I am such a well trained human!!