With friends like these...

The Good News:

I got a promotion (of sorts) at work on Monday, which means that I can now use all of the functions on the till and no longer need to call upstairs if I cock up or if someone needs to return something. I am very pleased with this. Kurtis was less than pleased as he's been working in the store since before Christmas and is still on the lower level, but Kurtis is nice enough, but he's a ditzy sod and Michelle doesn't trust him with the higher till functions when he's still messing up the lower ones.

I'm also being trusted to put the Gift Aid takings in pretty much every day I work unless Sue is counting up the till because for some reason she always nicks off with the form and takes it upstairs. I'm not sure why she does that because I'm perfectly capable of adding it up myself xD

My shark swim is in three weeks! Doesn't feel that long ago that I booked it, so yaaay.

Also I found a voucher that my sister and bought last September for a photography session. It's up on the 22nd of this month, but I emailed the place anyway, and they told me that fortunately they can extend it and they're going to call me to arrange a session, so that should be fun! They ask for £50 deposit to make sure you turn up, but you can get that back at the end, or use it to buy some of the photos they take.

Ben has finally stopped trying to chew his feet off. We had to get a cone for him eventually, which he didn't approve of, but it stopped the licking/biting habit for long enough that his paws could properly heal and now he isn't doing it anymore. He's currently asleep on my bed, the little sweetie.

The Not So Good News:

I got news back from my job interview, and unfortunately I didn't get the job. The same usual stuff about the quality of applicants being very high and unfortunately I was one of the ones they dropped. Mum thinks I should ring up and ask where I went wrong but I don't really want to, I'm just going to chalk it up to experience and move on. I think she was more miffed about it than I was to be honest! Oh well. Keep calm, carry on and all that.

Starting to lose a lot of enthusiasm with this whole job search thing.

Other Stuff:

A few days ago, I put down Game of Thrones in order to read Good Omens, as a number of my friends have been raving about it lately. I might give a full review when I'm done, but at the moment (and at the risk of being lynched), I have to say it's nothing special. Yes, it's funny, I'll give it that, but the narrative trips over itself at times and sometimes drags, and I don't really think it utilises the best of both of the authors. I do adore Aziraphale and Crowley, though, and their interactions definitely make it worth reading.

In other news, I bought a TARDIS for my goldfish. I kid you not. Here, look.



Check that bad boy out, how cool is that? I found it for £1.50 in the charity shop where I work, and I wasn't sure what it was for at first, but as soon as I realised I just had to buy it. His usual castle can get a bit of a break.

Lastly, we have a mouse living in our kitchen. It's decided to live in the back of the cooker and I'm not sure where exactly it's living in there, or how it's not boiling alive when the oven is on. We've caught three and think this is the last one, but it is so devilishly smart that it keeps avoiding the traps and getting the better of us at every turn. It comes out in the evening, when we're all still up, and I've seen it several times now (and almost caught it once!), as it's run across the windowsill or counter when the light's been turned on.

Today, I was in the kitchen when I heard an odd noise, like gnawing. I eventually located it. The mouse was inside the toaster. I got my stepdad to listen, and he tried to arrange the various traps we have to catch it, then moved the toaster. It shot out, and avoided all of the traps, and went back down behind the cooker again. People keep telling me we should get a specialist to sort it, but I don't know what a specialist could do that we haven't done, at this point.

I don't want to end up killing it, it's not as if it's there to be malicious, but it's a mouse, and they carry diseases, so it can't stay in the house =|

First of all, what on earth is this.



I don't know what it is I just know I want more of it.

Secondly, we discovered today that we have mice. Mum opened a cupboard and found one dead in a trap that's been in there for months, and then later opened the cupboard again to see another in there. She shut it, then opened it again when Amy asked what was wrong, and the mouse jumped out and ran under the radiator cover. I wasn't there, I was in my room and all I could hear was shrieking, and the dog going mental.

It managed to get back into the cupboard again and they've re-set the traps. I feel kind of bad for the thing, it's only tiny, but now I'm a little concerned that there might be a nest... |:

... and the time for putting Ben in boxes.



Ben puts up with this kind of treatment with a kind of resigned patience, because he knows we don't mean anything by it, we just think it's cute. He was only in there for a minute while my sis snapped a picture.

=3

Since getting back from dad's I've spent pretty much all day every day watching Stargate SG-1. I'm most of the way through the third season, and man did the season two DVDs have some weirdness going on. Halfway through one of the episodes was out of order and at the end of the season there were two season one episodes (ten and fourteen) after the final episode on the last disk. You'd really think that they'd notice something like that.

The fish tank appeared to have sprung a leak but I couldn't find it, but either the strategically placed superglue that I put on the bottom of the tank sealed the leak or the fact that there was never a leak at all seems to have stopped it. I have no idea which. Either way the sun is shining, the tank is clean, and all that jazz.

I keep trying to put aside a day to do everything. All the writing that I want to do, as well as some other stuff that should probably be more important but isn't somehow. My priorities are really messed up xD

I went a little quiet on you all for a while there didn't I? Well I think I deserved a break after that month-long ficathon. Jeez. I really outdid myself there, even if the LJ outage seemed determined to stop me from posting the last one how I wanted it. Ah well.

I suppose I've been taking a break, thanks to my muses being tired out, and the weather being bloody awful. A little sunshine is all well and good but when it goes on for days and bumps the temperature in your bedroom up to 27+ degrees (C) for over a week, even at night, it really does begin to wear on you. Thankfully, it's a lot cooler now, and has been raining a lot. Back to the traditional English weather. I missed it.

It seems that Fate doesn't really want me to have pets. One of my fish died, which granted was partly my fault because I should have seen it before I did, but now the goldfish is developing black marks on his fins and the base of his tail. I've looked it up, and apparently it's the marks of healing from ammonia burns. And it was my fault. I'll not go into details because it was a rather daft thing I did, but it was my fault. Luckily, and I'm not overly concerned because of this, his personality hasn't changed. When he had finrot he was very withdrawn and hid all the time, but with these black marks he's as active and curious as ever. I'll be keeping an eye on him over the next week and making sure he's getting better because damn it I refuse to lose another fish.

Speaking of pets. The dog had his booster jabs today. And a bath. He's asleep now but he'll be sulking later.

I've been keeping an eye on the world news lately, since the current economic crisis is something which interests me. Something is going to have to change, and it's going to need to be something big, and something very soon, and it's going to have to come from one of the larger countries or Europe, because there's no way that any country is going to be able to deal with this alone. We're all too tightly knit together now for anything like that. I didn't think I'd see global collapse in my lifetime but it looks like I might, I just hope that the governments don't turn to squeezing the 'middle classes' even harder while the top 2% wealthiest continue to get their taxes cut. We're already being squeezed hard enough, thank you very much. I'll be lucky if I move out of this house before I'm thirty.

In more personal news, left this late on because really, if you care, you will have read this far, my sister is now seeing a counsellor. She's still not got over being broken up with (it's now been six months) and from where I can see she's stuck in stage four of the bereavement process. It's... irritating. Yes, I am sympathetic, but when mother tells me that Amy's told her that she's feeling upset and 'betrayed' that I will go to her ex's house (one of my exes, who I am still friends with, lives with him and two other people), I can't really do anything but roll my eyes. She's bothered that I will see him and go to his house when she won't and can't, since she no longer knows where he lives. This counsellor business is going to go one of two ways. Either it's going to help her through things, or this woman, however nice she is, is just going to be someone else that she talks to and it never goes anywhere. Ahh I don't know. Maybe it'll help and maybe it won't. We'll see.

I spent three (or was it four?) days playing Dragon Age: Origins, Dragon Age: Awakening and Dragon Age II all one after the other. Then, after some conferring with my friends Frames and Kayla, and my boyfriend, I decided to take the plunge and buy Oblivion. I've played it before, but I could never get the hang of the combat, which really, is rather borked as far as.. everything goes. I'm not very good at FPS because I can't aim very well, which was why Fallout 3 was always perfect for me. VATS saved my arse more than once. However I noticed when I was playing that I was using it a lot less, and my aim was a lot better, so I thought I'd actually be able to play Oblivion. Thankfully, I was right, and I am very much enjoying it. With 28 hours clocked and at level 4, I'm a Silencer for the Black Hand, an Apprentice of the Fighters Guild, a Bandit in the Thieves Guild, an Evoker in the Mages' Guild, an honorary member of the Order of the Virtuous Blood. and a Knight of the White Stallion. I also have a cute house on the waterfront in the Imperial City. Yes it's just a shack but it's nice and cosy and I rather like it. I wouldn't say no to a bit of a fancier place, though.

To my surprise I've encountered very little trouble. And I haven't been accidentally turned into a vampire yet despite clearing out a vampire den. Yay me~ I might try out vampirism eventually, just to see how it works out for me.

Derp.

Sadly, my poor shubunkin, after valiantly wriggling around the bowl for a week with barely any tail left, has passed away. I can't help but feel to blame for it, but... I won't say I didn't know it was coming.

Ah well.. >:

I went to Pets At Home and got some treatment for the fish yesterday, and today they seem a little more alert and are starting to show more of an interest in what's going on. It's strange how their personalities changed so much after they got sick. I had to separate them, if only to help with the concentration of ammonia in the tanks while they're trying to get better since I don't really want to risk changing the water and sending them into shock. Hopefully they'll recover.

Feeling a bit miffed that I missed yesterday's theme, but you win some, you lose some. I'll probably finish it at some point just for the sake of consistency but I'll be getting the others out of the way first. Today's is shaping up nicely. I think I really needed that break.

Also, thegreygarden  is awesome. Just sayin'.

How are all the lovely people on my flist doing today?

Almost half way through the usxuk event and still going strong! Honestly I didn't know if I'd be able to continue it and granted I have had one late entry but haro is made of awesome and I managed to slip by JUST THIS ONCE. Not that I wouldn't have posted it anyway because for some reason I'm insane and am doing a chapter fic in the middle of a community event. Well, if nothing else it'll make me keep at it.

Aside from that, I still have the two aph_fluffathon fics to write, which I don't see as being a problem in the least though neither of them are USxUK. I do keep saying I want to branch out (then I go and write 28 USxUK fics. I MAKE SO MUCH SENSE).

It's always nice to realise that the people you look up and admire to are real people too. I've been in touch with Scott Sava (writer and artist of The Dreamland Chronicles) and his wife Donna for over a year without it ever really occurring to me that Scott is rather famous in his line of work, and I just spent half an hour talking to Adriana Blake (Fall On Me) about tea of all things. Which then resulted in my getting a cup of Baroness Grey and immediately burning my mouth on it. I don't know why but people like that (admittedly I thought the same of haro and abarero before I first started chatting to the former) always seem to be something 'other', but I've experienced it with people that have added me to msn from Livejournal, when they see me as someone special and such until they realise I'm actually just like anyone else xD It's funny, isn't it.

My fish are still alive and the tank is quite easy to clean so that's alright. They both seem quite lively.

I have JUST NOW seen the new photo for the dwarves Fili and Kili in the upcoming film of The Hobbit, and I am suddenly very excited.



... Look at them. LOOK AT THEM. I AM SO EXCITED I CAN'T EVEN.

There's also Dori, Nori and Ori, and Oin and Gloin.



Not too sure about Dori's hair =P I can't wait to see the others!

 I posted a little while ago about adopting my sister's goldfish Barney. Well, since then, the tank he was in sprung a leak and he had to get a new one, which was a tiny little one gallon bowl that was, I thought, far too small for a three inch long fish. So, today, I went into town to get a new bowl. I came home with a much larger tank, new gravel, a little castle, and another fish, a shubunkin a little smaller than the goldfish we had already. I swear I didn't mean to buy another fish but I couldn't help myself.  The nice man at the shop gave me a bag of daphnia for them to eat to help them get settled free of charge, so they have that in there as well. All I'm concerned about now is them possibly going into shock and dying. The old fish has gone into a new tank, with a new fish, and the new fish has had to put up with the mile walk home in a little plastic bag, and is also in a new tank, with a new fish slightly bigger than itself.

At the moment they're both not moving very much but they're breathing quite happily (ie, not gasping), and they seem to be following each other around. They're not attacking each other (though I think Barney is being a bit of a bully) either so I'm going to take this as a good sign and hopefully they'll both be alright. At least it's quiet and calm in here so they're not being stressed out by people banging things down on the counters and such. Wish me luck for neither of them dying because I'd be rather upset if they did. I felt like I nearly killed myself walking home with them. It's a mile to town, and over a rather large bridge to be carrying a tank, gravel, a new ornament, while at the same time trying not to upset a fish. England's having another small heatwave and when I got home I was so overheated I was nauseous. All doors and windows were opened immediately.

As well as that, I also did something I've been meaning to do for about a week and bought a fountain pen for amael_elen . I'm going to have to wait until Monday to send it though, because the post office closes early on Saturdays. Oh well, I suppose I can show it to her before I send it. I can't believe it costs so much for a decent fountain pen where she is.

I need to do the first aid theme in the usxuk summer event today, and I have my idea already so I don't see it taking me too long. I think I got off to a pretty good start with my first one!

As I've been typing this the fish have been moving and eating the daphnia and I just covered the back of the tank (which faces the window) so it's a bit dark in there and they can chill out. I'll keep you posted on how they're doing.

I probably talk about myself more often than I think, but hey, here we go again.

Ben should be getting the cone off his head tomorrow so we can finally give him a bath. He stinks to high heaven, seriously, it burns the insides of your nostrils if you stay close to him for too long.

I spoke to a professor at university today and from the sounds of it she might be able to get me a few weeks of unpaid experience editing with a publishing company. It's just the kind of thing I've been after. Hopefully I can actually do it because if this turns out to be something I can't do then I don't know where I'm going to go from here.