On my toes
Looks like I'm getting back in the swing of regular, albeit weekly, posting. This is a good thing!
This past week has been full of nice stuff - all weeks should be this pleasant, I think.
When I went with Alex to the hospice social day (Opening Doors) on Tuesday, I received a lovely facial and hand-massage - the trainees from International College of Camille were present, doing make-overs and massages and pedicures and the like. I feel a bit guilty sometimes receiving these relaxing things (when a patient could be in my place), but I have to remind myself that a) they're there for a few hours, and everyone who wants attention gets it, and b) as a caregiver I deserve pampering too! A very good pampering it was, and I glowed all day.
I also attended a very successful job interview mid-week (reminding myself all the way there that 'I am made of awesome' obviously did the trick), and I now have additional part-time work, a few evenings a week, to supplement my income. I have some more from-home admin-type work as well. This is all very, very good, and will make the household finances a lot happier :) Working part-time in a few different roles really suits me, as it keeps the hours flexible, and my interest high. Some of it is extroverted people stuff, and some is time-alone focus stuff, and the balance will work well for me.
Saturday we helped ekmahal and Tobermorey to move house. This involved bed-assembly, duct-tape, filthy jokes, sally lunn, and (eep) me accidentally backing into their new letterbox. No major damage, however! Their new place is HUGE, and *nods* definitely going to move Waifs and Strays to there this year (at their suggestion).
Saturday evening Ben and I joined the Wolverines having dinner at neongraal's place. It was a real pleasure to not have to cook, and the food - dinner and dessert - was delicious! We were completely bushed by the time we got home, though.
Thursday and Sunday were complete relaxation days, where I spent a lot of time in bed, some time on the computer, painted, watched more Buffy S2, and stayed in my nightie all day. Luxury!
TV
~ Ben and I watched the third ep of Fringe. It continues to be creepy, cool, and compelling - Ben and I are both enjoying it, although for completely different reasons. Interestingly, neither of us is that enamoured of the main character (but we both like Astrid a lot)! Took me a while to click that Broyles is also Abbadon from Lost, though.
You know you can see Walter's lab notes every week, right? His banana cake recipe after Ep 1 was hilarious.
~ Heroes eps 1 and 2 of S3 (were they played together?). Interesting twists, specifically Sylar getting Claire's power (I was so sure that was a dream sequence of Claire's, until it actually happened) and Claire's lack-of-pain afterwards. I wonder if in future-Peter world something similar happened, but at a later time? That Claire had fantastic make-up and a cliche'd costume, but was damned hot.
Hooray for some Bruce Boxleitner action! And Nikki/Tracy - hmm. Didn't she burn to death in a building or something? Speaking of, where is her son? I thought he was interesting.
Future-Peter's fucked things up pretty badly, huh? Is a world with 'villains' on the loose and Sylar invulnerable (and Nathan god-touched) better or worse than the one he's from? Boy, is his mom pissed ...
Silly, silly Mohinder. Still, getting to see him shirtless made up for not seeing Peter shirtless!
~ Wipe-out. I blame bigtaz for making me watching this, and it happened to be the 'Wipies' episode, so we got to see the worst of it all. Granted, I laughed (a lot), but I felt like a worse human being afterwards. I miss The Krypton Factor and L&P Top Town.
Books
I plowed through a lot of books this week, nearly all of them re-reads, and for good reason.
~ Lady Slings the Booze, by Spider Robinson. Can't go wrong with punsters, sexual openness, crime and time travel now, can you?
~ The Curse of Chalion, and Paladin of Souls, by Lois McMaster Bujold. I really like this fantasy series, as much for the world it's set it and for the characters within it. Definitely has the Bujold touch though, making characters memorable and the protagonists loveable despite their faults.
~ Richard Adams' Favourite Animal Stories. Many familiar, many not. Most interesting discovery is that I can't read the Br'er Rabbit stories in the original argot Joel Chandler Harris wrote them in. What happened to the children's book with great coloured illustrations where I could actually understand what was going on?
Movies
Whilst eating Deb's delicious dessert on Saturday evening, we poured animation into our brains, via The Animation Show Volume 1. (Mixing Don Hertzfeld and Mike Judge is creeeeeeepy.) There were some amazing animation styles and stories, and most of them held us spellbound. According to the wonderful interwebs, there are more volumes, which I think we may have to track down ...
These are what Ben and I decided later were out favourites from the disc (with youtube links):
~ Aria by Pjotr Sapegin
~ Das Rad by Heidi Wittlinger
~ Brother, Cousin, and Uncle by Adam Elliot
~ Bathtime in Clerkenwell by Alex Budovsky (below, and my personal favourite, for the music as much as the animation)
~ and, of course, Billy's Balloon by Don Hertzfeldt
And tonight! Tonight I'm off to see the new documentary about Tim Minchin, Rock n' Roll Nerd (I won tickets, and am delighted)! I'll let you know how it turns out.
And if you haven't heard of Tim Minchin? Oh dear ... go and watch this - the first thing of his I ever saw :) (My icon is Tim Minchin, incidentally.)
This past week has been full of nice stuff - all weeks should be this pleasant, I think.
When I went with Alex to the hospice social day (Opening Doors) on Tuesday, I received a lovely facial and hand-massage - the trainees from International College of Camille were present, doing make-overs and massages and pedicures and the like. I feel a bit guilty sometimes receiving these relaxing things (when a patient could be in my place), but I have to remind myself that a) they're there for a few hours, and everyone who wants attention gets it, and b) as a caregiver I deserve pampering too! A very good pampering it was, and I glowed all day.
I also attended a very successful job interview mid-week (reminding myself all the way there that 'I am made of awesome' obviously did the trick), and I now have additional part-time work, a few evenings a week, to supplement my income. I have some more from-home admin-type work as well. This is all very, very good, and will make the household finances a lot happier :) Working part-time in a few different roles really suits me, as it keeps the hours flexible, and my interest high. Some of it is extroverted people stuff, and some is time-alone focus stuff, and the balance will work well for me.
Saturday we helped ekmahal and Tobermorey to move house. This involved bed-assembly, duct-tape, filthy jokes, sally lunn, and (eep) me accidentally backing into their new letterbox. No major damage, however! Their new place is HUGE, and *nods* definitely going to move Waifs and Strays to there this year (at their suggestion).
Saturday evening Ben and I joined the Wolverines having dinner at neongraal's place. It was a real pleasure to not have to cook, and the food - dinner and dessert - was delicious! We were completely bushed by the time we got home, though.
Thursday and Sunday were complete relaxation days, where I spent a lot of time in bed, some time on the computer, painted, watched more Buffy S2, and stayed in my nightie all day. Luxury!
TV
~ Ben and I watched the third ep of Fringe. It continues to be creepy, cool, and compelling - Ben and I are both enjoying it, although for completely different reasons. Interestingly, neither of us is that enamoured of the main character (but we both like Astrid a lot)! Took me a while to click that Broyles is also Abbadon from Lost, though.
You know you can see Walter's lab notes every week, right? His banana cake recipe after Ep 1 was hilarious.
~ Heroes eps 1 and 2 of S3 (were they played together?). Interesting twists, specifically Sylar getting Claire's power (I was so sure that was a dream sequence of Claire's, until it actually happened) and Claire's lack-of-pain afterwards. I wonder if in future-Peter world something similar happened, but at a later time? That Claire had fantastic make-up and a cliche'd costume, but was damned hot.
Hooray for some Bruce Boxleitner action! And Nikki/Tracy - hmm. Didn't she burn to death in a building or something? Speaking of, where is her son? I thought he was interesting.
Future-Peter's fucked things up pretty badly, huh? Is a world with 'villains' on the loose and Sylar invulnerable (and Nathan god-touched) better or worse than the one he's from? Boy, is his mom pissed ...
Silly, silly Mohinder. Still, getting to see him shirtless made up for not seeing Peter shirtless!
~ Wipe-out. I blame bigtaz for making me watching this, and it happened to be the 'Wipies' episode, so we got to see the worst of it all. Granted, I laughed (a lot), but I felt like a worse human being afterwards. I miss The Krypton Factor and L&P Top Town.
Books
I plowed through a lot of books this week, nearly all of them re-reads, and for good reason.
~ Lady Slings the Booze, by Spider Robinson. Can't go wrong with punsters, sexual openness, crime and time travel now, can you?
~ The Curse of Chalion, and Paladin of Souls, by Lois McMaster Bujold. I really like this fantasy series, as much for the world it's set it and for the characters within it. Definitely has the Bujold touch though, making characters memorable and the protagonists loveable despite their faults.
~ Richard Adams' Favourite Animal Stories. Many familiar, many not. Most interesting discovery is that I can't read the Br'er Rabbit stories in the original argot Joel Chandler Harris wrote them in. What happened to the children's book with great coloured illustrations where I could actually understand what was going on?
Movies
Whilst eating Deb's delicious dessert on Saturday evening, we poured animation into our brains, via The Animation Show Volume 1. (Mixing Don Hertzfeld and Mike Judge is creeeeeeepy.) There were some amazing animation styles and stories, and most of them held us spellbound. According to the wonderful interwebs, there are more volumes, which I think we may have to track down ...
These are what Ben and I decided later were out favourites from the disc (with youtube links):
~ Aria by Pjotr Sapegin
~ Das Rad by Heidi Wittlinger
~ Brother, Cousin, and Uncle by Adam Elliot
~ Bathtime in Clerkenwell by Alex Budovsky (below, and my personal favourite, for the music as much as the animation)
~ and, of course, Billy's Balloon by Don Hertzfeldt
Click to view
And tonight! Tonight I'm off to see the new documentary about Tim Minchin, Rock n' Roll Nerd (I won tickets, and am delighted)! I'll let you know how it turns out.
And if you haven't heard of Tim Minchin? Oh dear ... go and watch this - the first thing of his I ever saw :) (My icon is Tim Minchin, incidentally.)