TV Controllers

Dear Mr/Mrs TV Controller,

I'm well aware that I have to retune my TV after lunchtime on 30th September or I may not receive all the channels I currently have. Could you please stop telling me every time I change the channel. For someone who channel hops as often as I do it has gotten a little annoying.

Many thanks
R

Baby Boy

One of my best friends, who I threw the baby shower for, had her baby boy on Saturday night. I've not been able to visit as she isn't up for visitors having had a really rough time bringing him into the world.

I can not wait to meet him, it feels so strange to think that she has a son. I'm so excited for her as I know she will make a wonderful Mum, I just hope she can forgive him the trauma of his birth. I'm worried that he is going to make me totally clucky though O better watch out!

Help

Right I realise I'm probably being daft but can someone please tell me how to put my Blog Award on to my page? I want to show it off!

Thank you
xx

Spain

I'm just back from 4 days in Spain with my sisters (#1 & #2). This is what we went for and what we got for 2 days.


Unfortunately we got this for day 3 and 4.

Despite the weather I still had a great time catching up with my sisters and talking about the wedding, work, life, you name it. We spent 2 days in the sun, reading, barely moving, and the third day in the apartment watching the rain, barely moving. I didn't want to come home. Back to work tomorrow.

My first blog award

So I was given my first blog award by Gaynor from Our Day by Design.

10 random things about me:

1. I don't really drink alcohol, I might have a couple of drinks but I get such a horrendous headache which can last for days it just isn't worth it.

2. I love crime mysteries be it TV or books among my favourite shows are; The Closer, Law and Order (all varieties) and CSI (all varieties). My favourite authors are; James Patterson, Karin Slaughter and Kathy Reichs.

3. I love bubble baths - we have a tiny bathroom (1.9m x 1.5m) but when we re-did the bathroom O and I insisted that we have a bath even though all the designers told us not to bother. There is nothing better than a hot bath, a book and a bar of chocolate!

4. I would love to go hill walking and see some more of the scenery that Scotland has but I have a bad back which means that on any given day my level of ability range from walking 10 mins to the shops or 7 miles (I'm usually in agony the next day).

5. I love Strictly Come Dancing and X Factor, although I stop watching X factor when they get to the live shows I prefer the auditions.

6. O and I are both very very short sighted, I'm getting quite worried about how much worse my eyes are able to get before an optician isn't going to be able to help me see.

7. I love my niece and nephew so much, I'd jump in front of a bus for them. If this is how I feel about them how will I feel about my own children?

8. I was never taught grammar at school (no seriously, my junior school didn't do it and my senior school assumed my primary school had done it) and I've never really got to grips with it. So I'm sorry.

9. I'm not house proud, I'm actually quite lazy when it comes to housework but luckily O is worse than me so if we maintain my standards we should be ok.

10. Blogging still scares me slightly, I can't believe people actually read what I write (THANK YOU)! (Still can't get Blogger to do as it's told).


So that is 10 random things about me in a totally random order!


Now to pass on the award:


Dreaming of an aga
Naturally Nina
Some vague utopia
Conversation Pieces
All about Mhairi
7 year wedding
My Life in Transition

I'm going to stop there as the other lovely blogs I was going to mention have very recently had other awards.

Possibilities for O's wedding ring

O won't wear a wedding ring, he doesn't wear any jewellery and doesn't intend to after we are married. But we do believe that he will need a ring for the day. O is a gardener so I like the idea of his ring containing some symbol of nature. Found these on etsy....

Robandlean

ATGJewelry

AliBaliJewellery

I'm off work for a few days before I head to Spain which is why there is a flood of posts.

Lottery Houses

(I'm not the only person that does this - I know that my sister does it too)

I have a habit of trawling estate agents and finding houses that I'd love to own but we are never going to be able to afford unless we win the lottery (really ought to buy a ticket to increase the chances of winning). Below are a few pictures of my current dream home:

It has it's own boat house!!

From S1Homes

The Joys of Cat Ownership

Written April 2009

So they say never go to bed on an argument (although yea to Practical Wedding who says just get some sleep!). I can also recommend never going to bed with a mouse in the room. Not sure where the mouse came from, or when it was brought in but the fact that we have 2 cats kind of gives me a bit of a hint.

O and I were getting ready for bed when I noticed this black dot flash into a corner, thinking I was maybe seeing things I went to investigate, and sure enough the little black dot flashed past us again, along the front of the set of drawers and behind the set of 3 huge wardrobes that are in the bedroom. I’m not usually too squeamish about these things as I’ve had to come accustomed to picking up entrails, however they aren’t usually in my bedroom, and I’ve never seen them move quite so fast (being that they are usually half eaten by the time I see them). However as it was about 23.30 by this point, and the fact that it was behind the wardrobes that we wouldn’t be moving at that time of night we decided to go to sleep and worry about it in the morning.

All went fine until 2.55 this morning when I was woken by the noise of nibbling paper – coming from O’s side of the bed. Trying to ignore that I rolled over and buried my head under the pillow, however what I failed to ignore was the mouse climbing the curtains and running along the metal blinds! If you can imagine the sound of very tiny nails running along a blackboard in the pitch black can you imagine how unpleasant that might sound? More pleasant was the thud the mouse made when it hit the ground having climbed back down the curtains – but it managed to scurry away from this adventure. At this point I decided that I had suffered alone for long enough! So I woke O up – his response, send in the cats!!!!!

So I got up and opened the door, lo and behold there was the cat waiting for duty, so I turned and walked back to bed, as she turned and went to show me where the food bowl is – this is a trick that she demonstrates every day. So I followed her, picked her up and dumped her at O’s side of the bed – having not seen anything that caught her attention she again decided to demonstrate where the food is kept – clearly thinking I was daft. Having again dumped her further up O’s side of the bed closer to where I thought the mouse was hiding she finally managed to spot it. Not being the brightest spark in the place she made one failed attempt at getting a paw on it and forced it under the bed (which it may never reappear from). At this point O was getting grumpy and ordered that the cat be left to do what she does best in the dark. (I would have to argue that although she is a very accomplished hunter outside put her and any beast – mouse, spider, wood louse inside and she is completely incompetent!). At exactly the same point I turn off the light O manages to turn over and brush against my leg, me being a little highly strung at this point thought that the mouse was in my bed! I screamed and had to be peeled off the ceiling by O who found the whole thing quite amusing.

I would like to say that the story had a happy ending i.e. Cat caught and ate mouse and R slept soundly with that knowledge. However the prospect of a mouse that she couldn’t get to kept the cat entertained for about an hour – being 100x larger than the mouse in question she makes quite a bit more noise when scrabbling about under the bed trying to figure out where it had gone! She also finds people moving under duvets equally as fascinating so wasn’t really clued up to what was required of her. However after that the Owl came in, with I think her own catch so the Cat went and played with that, leaving me to try and get back to sleep, knowing there was a mouse about a foot away from my head! I must have some how managed this as it was 6.30 when I was again woken to a mouse squeaking – this invoked absolutely no response from the cats at all, I think it might be stuck among O’s national geographic collection which is under the bed!

We have left the cats and the mouse in the house together and I hope the inevitable will happen – apologies to the animal lovers however a sleep deprived R is not a happy R!!

Kitchen

So as well as planning a wedding for some time next year (still no idea on a date) we are also going to re-do our kitchen - just a few ideas from here.

I love the wood and the white brick tiles.

Mostly I like the chopping board and the contrasts of the different shades of wood

If only we were neat enough and had nice enough dishes!

Odds and Sods from this weekend

A huge thank you to Gaynor from Our Day by Design for my first blog award. I'm working on my list of 10 things and trying to narrow down the list of blogs to tag.

Woop woop Go O!!! O plays a very random sport which no one has ever heard of, I'm not even going to try to explain it as it'll take to long and it'd mess with my anonymity. Anyway this weekend he was selected to play for Scotland at the Euro Championships - I'm really pleased for him.


My parents came to visit this weekend, this is the first time I've seen them since we got engaged so it was lovely. We went out for a fabulous meal on Saturday night and then last night we went to see the Big Yin in Edinburgh. He was hilarious - absolutely fantastic.

My parents and I looked at a couple of venues this weekend (just an initial outside looksee, O was busy being selected for Scotland at the time). So far our only priority is the size of the dance floor, it has to be big enough for a decent ceilidh. Any ideas in central Scotland?

Bouquet

I love this bouquet, which was posted by this lovely lady, who originally found it here.

Interesting day at work

So I've had an interesting day at work so far. I'm getting a new manager and moving into a new team, all of which I had no idea about until 12:00. Wonder what is next on the agenda - oh that'll be the shit hitting the fan!

Hurray for sensible Grooms

This weekend we attended the fantastic marriage and celebration of G&M. (My arms and shoulders are in agony from an over enthusiastic orcadian strip the willow!)

I wanted to share a moment that practically had me out of my seat cheering. During G's (the groom) speech he said - (I'm paraphrasing here)...

.....they say that your wedding day is supposed to be the happiest day of your life, and there is no denying I'm having a great time but I have to admit I'm looking forward to tomorrow when
a) I'm still married to my beautiful wife
b) We don't have a wedding to plan, order of services to print, bands to pay, kilts to hire etc etc.
c) We can relax and get on with living our lives together
I truly hope that we'll have plenty more happiest days to come in the future.......

And O did really well with his speech I was so proud

Pictures

My blog has been very text heavy so I thought I'd add some pictures

The Cat

The Owl

O's Great Aunt's ring which we are going to have remodelled

Our beach, where O proposed

This weekend

O is acting as best man for our friends G&M.

He is quite a shy boy and so isn't looking forward to giving his speech, I hate it when he is nervous because I get nervous too. However when he read me his speech I knew that he was going to be fine, this part in particular;

"G had to choose someone to complete these duties and I’m sure he would have loved to have chosen his best friend, unfortunately M already has an important role in todays proceedings so here I am."

Sometimes he amazes me.

Oh and he made me swoon when he tried on his kilt last night!

We're not having a Wedding

We're creating a marriage.

There have been lots of brilliant posts about not concentrating on one day, when you are creating a bond that will last the rest of your lives. I read them wanting to shout "hurray".

I don't particularly want a wedding, we've had a couple of friends get married with only their parents in attendance and it is sooo tempting. However I couldn't get married without my sisters and O’s brother and sister there and by the time all our family are there then what is a few friends for good measure and then the ball is rolling and it seems to get bigger and bigger.

Every time O and I talk about the wedding we get stressed and irritable, but when we talk about being married and our future we agree, smile and giggle.

So the word Wedding is banned from our house, we will have a marriage ceremony and hopefully a kick-ass party and then live happily ever after (or some other cheesy cliché).

Anonymity

So I’m struggling with my identity – ha-ha no change there I’ve been struggling with that since I was about 13.
But really what should I reveal or not reveal via my blog. I haven’t told anyone about the blog as I’m worried that they will find it strange and will laugh at me (seriously in my late 20’s and still worried what other people think – grow a pair girl, sorry inner dialogue not really helping with the identity crisis).
But when people comment (thank you Peonies* and Anna*) it feels rude not to sign off with my name or at least some sign off rather than My Spare Thoughts – perhaps I should have come up with a better name or perhaps I need an alias.
Anyway for now while I deal with my inner turmoil I’m just going to be R.

*updated links to these brilliant blogs please visit them and enjoy the loveliness

Blogs

I may have mentioned before that I have no self control, I have become obsessed with blogs - about weddings, marriage, babies, design you name it I'll read it.

I have also discovered Google Reader through a very wise wedding blogger and if I didn't now have so many on my reader I might be able to find her again and give her proper acknowledgement.

When I began my obsession I used to read the blogs from the beginning to try and catch up with all the details so I wasn't starting the story half way through, but I've discovered that this is actually going to drive me insane. There are simply not enough hours in the day to read all the lovely posts that are out there in blog land. Over time perhaps I will reduce my reading list but for now I'm trying to absorb it all - my brain may explode.

The Owl and The Pussy Cat

Went to sea.......

Well not exactly as they are cats and they don't like water.

We have 2 cats, 1 that looks very much like an owl because of her huge big eyes and face shape. The other looks like well, a cat, but she is the Peter Pan of cats as she is tiny and she'll never get any bigger.

This is a picture of the cat I'll need to dig out a picture of the owl.

Both our cats are from rescue centres, we got them separately having spent months trying to find the right one we ended up with 2 by mistake. The owl is incredibly timid she can not be picked up and will allow you to stroke her for seconds at a time. As she is a rescue cat I truly hope that her timidity is result of being an independent stray for such a long time and not because she was mistreated but we will never know. The cat is much more sedate, she will let you do anything to her and has yet to complain, she just doesn't understand sitting on your knee and being petted, if we want a cuddle we have to go to her.

Our cats love each other, they tolerate us to a certain extent, but the cat love for each other runneth over! To the extent that you walk into the spare room (where they sleep) and you will occasionally find them spooning. No seriously.

They also enjoy regular mini-breaks together they will often disappear for 3 or 4 days together and then return within minutes of each other as if nothing happened.

When they first started disappearing together they went for a long break of 3 weeks, we were quite worried and contacted the local vets and our neighbours in case they had become locked in a shed. Everyone gave us strange looks when we informed them that we'd lost 2 cats - that is just careless surely?

A lovely lady saw our flier and phoned me to say her husband was back from walking the dog and thought he had spotted them on the river bank (presumably hiding their pea green boat) near our house. How we got them back is a long story including a dog, O being punched in the face, an animal trap, a cold few hours in a car and me looking out of the window in amazement.

We've learnt to worry less about their little holidays, in fact the only time I do start to worry is when one disappears without the other, I figure if they are together then they'll look after each other.

#1, #2 & #3 (Me)

I'm the youngest in my family and have the joy of having two older sisters, my Dad has numbered us according to birth order, you'll hear him handing the phone to my Mum - "it's #3";

#1 is 13 and a bit years older than me and she left home when she was 16 (to spend a year in the USA). We have never lived together (when I was aware) and spent a lot of time not really getting on, there was of course sisterly love but she lived all her life experiences so much in advance of me we never really connected (she got married when I was 13 and had my wonderful nephew when I was 15 and then my niece 18 months after that). She also spent 10 years of her life as an only child so you can kind of understand her not being over the moon to have 2 little brats breaking up her home. Over time we are slowly reconnecting and the gap between us is thankfully shrinking. We are finally becoming sisters.

#2 is 3 and a half years older than me - however she also left home when she was 16 (spent a year in Holland)

Let me just clarify my parents are the most amazing people and they were fully supportive of my sisters leaving home so young. In fact they both volunteered for the organisation which set up exchange schemes for young people to experience another country for a year - we used to get new 16 year olds living with us all the time.

So #2 and I have had our fair share of sisterly battles - we have stolen each others make up and clothes and fought like cat and dog. Having come through that time relatively unscathed we are much closer. Our life paths seem also to be practically in line, it's good to have someone to voice your concerns to that the world is a crazy crazy place.

We have asked #1 & #2 to be my bridesmaids, however as they are both older than me and glamorous independent women the word bridesmaid didn't seem appropriate so from now on I'm going to call them my Best Women.

p.s. visit Project Subrosa who also numbers her siblings but there are 6 of them!

Budget airlines suck!

HUGE BIG FAT SWEARY WORDS!!!!!!!!!!!!

I’ve just nearly had a frigging heart attack.

My sisters and I try to have a holiday once a year just the three of us. I love these holidays we barely talk to each other we sit in the sun and read trashy crime novels but we bond silently!

So this morning my sister asked me to check how much my flights had cost so we can share the cost of the holiday equally (they live in London so are on a different flight). So I go onto my emails to look at my flight confirmation. "Budget airline"* cretins that they are sent an email last week to reconfirm the booking I didn’t really think anything of it as I get an email of rubbish from them telling me about the latest deal at least twice a week. However on opening this one up I noticed (today!) that I’m flying Sept 22nd to return Sept 27th now an air raid siren started going off in my head. I’m fairly sure we are going on holiday on Wednesday and that’s the 23rd September. So I double checked the original booking email that I have and there it is in black and white 23rd – 27th. So phoned customer service (10p/min) trying to keep calm to be told that within all that spam that they sent me they actually sent me an email telling me that they've stopped flying out of Edinburgh on Wednesdays and now only fly Tuesday or Thursday!

Would I like to cancel my holiday! NOOOOO I want to fly on the day that I had booked to fly on, they sent me so many emails among which they changed the timing of my flight 3 times, they just snuck in there that they’d actually changed the DAY of the flight.

Well after all that drama I’m now flying out of Glasgow airport at the same time as the Edinburgh flight! Still need to persuade O to take me to the airport for a 6am flight?!

Apologies for the excessive use of exclamation marks I've only just stopped my heart racing.

Baby Shower

I threw a baby shower for one of my best friends on Sunday. She is the first of my friends to have children and is due in 19 days!! It is scary to think that we are moving into this grown up world of responsibility still not sure that we look after ourselves very well let alone another human being. But she so so wanted to be a Mum we were thrilled for her when she got pregnant, unfortunately she has had a terrible pregnancy so I think bubs might be waiting a while for a brother/sister.

Baby showers are a new thing to the UK, so it was really just an excuse to get all her friends together before little bubs arrives. We had far too much food but a good time was had by all. In future will hold the baby shower more than 19 days before the baby is due as Mum to be was shattered by the end of it all.