When has Plan A ever worked?

Paz and I got back from Belfast on Monday night, and have been diligently making progress on the house since then. I'm very bored of cleaning. I also had my first driving lesson in 10 years yesterday, which was rather more fun.

( Musings on my future )

The truly awesome lilithilien bought me paid time on Dreamwidth! *hugs her mightily* I now have to organise all my icons on IJ so that I can then port them to DW. And there will also be polls... But not today, I think.

Today, I am going to wear a sundress for the first time in two years (\o/ we actually have sunshine) and I'm going to make brownies. After lunch I shall go into town to meet Claire, who is up from London for a funeral :( but I'm still glad I get to see her. Then Paz and I have to empty our wardrobes onto plastic sheeting, dismantle the bed and set the mattress on another sheet. The new carpet is being fitted tomorrow! Am very excited *bounces* And tonight there will be Neverwinter Nights, and "Sneak Attack, bitch!" Or maybe some Smite Evil, depending on which server we play on.

It's half an hour into tomorrow and I've just finished doing my grocery shopping online. Isn't the internet wonderful?

I spent a nice day with my dad, who bought me lunch, and my cats, who were entertaining. Tomorrow (defined as the time after I have been in bed asleep; it's still today until then) I must get back to the painting. Therefore, tis time for bed.

Nighty night all, or enjoy the rest for your day, depending on your geography.

I love buying things with gift vouchers - I feel like they're free, even though it's actually a belated claiming of a christmas gift. Anyway, I have a new teapot for loose-leaf tea, and a large packet of jasmine tea from Tsang Foods on Haymarket. They also have 10kg bags of jasmine rice for about £12, which is stupidly cheap. As soon as I have my pantry ready, I'll be bulk-buying.

The builders are nearly finished on the house. They have a day of painting in the bedroom, and they have to take away all of the rubbish, but they're nearly done. That's not to say the house is nearly done, oh no! Now we have to redecorate every other room in the house. And clean about 15 times. There is so much dust, and Paz and I are adding to it each time we start sanding down the woodwork. Too much to do!

I should also be working harder at looking for a new job, although the redecoration work kinda qualifies as full time. Only without the salary :(

I've been reading some pretty great fics lately, but I've had no time to make a recs post. Note to self: must do that tomorrow.

Torrent!Fail: Paz is downloading something on a torrent. It appears to have eaten all of our 20 meg bandwidth. The stupid thing is that I think it's finished downloading, but it's eating more resources while it "idles". I don't have Paz's password to check and kill the process, so I am back to dial-up levels of slowness. How did I ever live without broadband????

Weather!Fail: What happened to Spring? I'm freezing to death here! And my boiler is currently 'outside' (although it will be 'inside' by the weekend) so I can't go and turn the heating on early, as I can't go out in the middle of the night if I forget to turn it back to automatic.

House!Fail: The outhouses that are about to become the utility room and pantry have structural door frames. Why would you put an exposed wooden frame in and then build on top of it? We need to have steel bars put in so they can take the frames away. Stupid 1950's crazy building ideas *grr arg*.

Builder!Fail: Why can't they take their mugs back to the kitchen at the end of the day? I'm not their mother!

Fridge!Fail: The seals are going on the fridge-freezer, so if the freezer door isn't extra-push shut, everything ices up. I have frozen carrots and limes in my veg drawer. Limes should not go 'clonk' when you move them.

Dinner!Fail: Nachos for tea, because I'm lazy.

In non-fail news, the tiler starts tomorrow morning in the bathroom, and the joiner will be here on Friday to fit the new back door. I can sort of see the end to all the building work now, although the house is a horrible mess and we'll still have to repaint every room. Does anyone know whether 2mm or 3mm grouting will look better with plain white tiles? I haven't a clue.

Also, Dreamwidth. I've noticed several people mentioning it recently, but I don't know that much about it. Should I be paying more attention?

It appears that it's been some time since I made a meaningful post of any sort (or even a meaningless one, at that). So, here be list:

• Got made redundant at the beginning of the month. They paid me quite well to go away, and it turned out to be convenient because...
• I have a house full of builders for the next month and have spent the last 2 weeks packing up and shrink-wrapping my life to protect it from dust.
• I have a big hole where the partition between the kitchen and the dining room used to be.
• I also have a small hole in the brickwork leading to the attached outhouse. While this will become our new utility room and part of the indoors, it is currently still part of the outdoors and is letting in the equinox winds. Brrrrrr!
• I signed on for the first time this afternoon. I'm finding the whole job centre experience a little bewildering - it's not really designed for people like me.
• I have a job interview on the 3rd, for which I will have to do quite a bit of research first.
• I will be going to London at Easter, where I will meet up with lilithilien, which will be way cool :D
• If I get the job (and find out before going to London) I'm going to spend a lot of my redundancy money in Long Tall Sally. There may also be a new ipod. If I get the job.

In fandom, I am being slowly sucked into Merlin/Arther fics (and I need a few icons) but I am still totally hooked on the McShep. Speaking of which, you should read Cycle by Lavvyan. And then go here. It is truly awesome that a little AU fanfic can spawn its own sub-fandom *hugs fandom*.

I shall make an attempt to post in a more regular fashion. But I promise nothing :D

I had hoped for internet access while I was visiting friends for a week, but alas, it was not to be :( So, I've just got home, checked my email (not too bad), ignored a heap of Facebook requests (also not too bad) and been through my flist. I reached skip=120 before getting back to the last post I recognised and I have 31 tabs open to read and/ or comment on.

But first, I have to sort out my washing, rediscover my bedroom floor, open and file my post, write a couple of overdue emails and start sorting out my old PC to give to mother. Then maybe I can read some fic.

Are holidays supposed to be this much faff?

Having had so little time over Xmas and New Year to actually get online and read my flist, it has got to the point where I cannot possibly catch up. So I'm declaring Flist Bankruptcy and not even attempting it.

If there's anything exciting been happening or a story you think I should really know about, comment here.

I have quite a few fics from the Fests that I need to rec, but I need to find the time to go back and a) remind myself of the story so that I have something to say and b) find out who actually wrote the stories!

You know, the original purpose of this LJ was to cut the length of my Fics Bookmarks list... it really hasn't worked!