That ballet class Wednesday night kicked my butt. And for the record, I wouldn't consider it "intermediate" by any stretch! I think that was blown away by petit allegro when we were told to "repeat and add battu - to everything". It's Saturday and I'm still sore.

Laundry Discuss: I have made my own for over a year now. Easy, cheap, and ny husband doesn't react to any artificial fragrances. I can make six months' worth at a time and store it in a couple of gallon bottles.

Vent-None right now. (Finally!)

Celebrate-I slept for almost 12 hours. I think that definitely helped improve my outlook. I don't have to be anywhere until 2p, so why rush? Love it.

Celebrate #2-I'm volunteering at the cat rescue next Sunday. It'll be a good chance for me to start looking for a new furry companion.

Detergent discuss-I use All's Free & Clear.

Arak^ You make your own? With what?

Vent: I have no vents at the moment, life is pretty ok this week

Comment: I've been watching Junior MasterChef Australia all morning (from last year - I missed it on tv at the time) - And HOW ARE THEY SO GOOD? Do they get recipes? Do they just know recipes for cakes and tarts and pavlovas out of their head? Because that is insane. They are 10-12~!

Discuss: The weather here is crazy, this summer has been very odd. Yesterday it was about 24C (about 76F) and HOT in the sun, but nice in the shade. Today it is overcast and blah. Last Thursday it was so windy that bits of trees were falling down. I want a decent summer! Ugh

Sparkz: With one of the recipes on this page. I usually go for one of the washing soda, borax, and soap combos. Anyone who may decide to try it, I recommend reading this page also.

I do not have anything to vent about. I got more hours in work yesterday, and I had a lovely evening with friends tonight.

We found a new flatmate who is also French, and seems lovely. She has a Scottish boyfriend who lives across the street, which is weird, but nice that she'll be able to see him easily, but I hope that she doesn't spend all her time there. That remains to be seen.

I own a beautiful pair of KG by Kurt Geiger black and white pinstripe stilettos with a huge black satin bow on them, they have a pointed toe, and are all satin actually. I love them, they make me feel fabulous, and I wear them enough for them still to feel special when I do.

I feel that I put more effort in when I do my nails myself, and I can't justify spending money on something that won't last that long for me anyway, because of the kind of work that I do, so no, I do not go to the beautician to get nails done.

When I get ready in the mornings, I like to take my time, and usually give myself an hour, I always have to shower when I wake up. Ten minute shower, hair drying/styling, sometimes I let it dry naturally, sometimes I make myself lunch, do make-up, some time for the computer if I feel like it, and out the door after breakfast and brushing my teeth. This morning I took somewhere between fifteen and twenty minutes because I slept in, I had a short shower, dried my hair, got dressed, lifted my work uniform and had breakfast. I forgot to brush my teeth (euw.) and left.

Weather here is getting lovely and refreshing. I like cold, sharp weather over rainy or grey days. It's minus 2 according to my computer, which is 28F. It might snow soon... I'd love that!

I just use Ariel, and Tesco own brand fabric softener. Nothing too fancy, the pure white one, I don't like strongly scented clothing.

I have a few different plans for tomorrow, but now that Sparkz mentioned baking cakes, I want to bake! I also need to double check my hours for work for next week, get some food in, go to River Island because I saw some cool clothes there when my manager sent me out to get him a bag on my break the other day, and read up on the spec for a job I'm thinking of applying for. As well as meeting up with my friend. I think I should get up early, and shower and make a plan for the day to give me time to do all the things I want to do. I probably won't have time to bake. Pants.

VENT:
It's schoooool tomorrow. It being the last first day back ever doesn't help me. My body clock is craaaazay. And I only did 15% of the study I said I'd do back in Dec!
CELEBRATE:
But the first day is not so bad, I spend part of it showing the fresh meat (i.e Yr 7s) around And I have a double free to get some work done in, so not too strenuous.

Finlandddd

We went cross-country skiing this morning, which was new for me. Yesterday we went ice-skating OUTSIDE, I'm having so much fun here! It's about -20 degrees, so totally freezing, but YAY!

I was going to come in and write a huge long vent about my various inconsiderate neighbors waking me up from 3a on. But my self love bootcamp activity for today is to change my thoughts and be more positive. So instead of letting loose on them, I realize it's a weekend. It's not like I had to be up at 7a for work. I slept until 10 & can have a nap later if I need to. All in all, annoying, but no big. Time to move on.

However I am getting a migraine which might foil my silks plans later. We shall see. I really need to do something about my stress level because that's exactly what's causing them. My less than stellar diet probably isn't helping. Again, at least it's a weekend and it's not like I'm missing work or any serious obligations.

I'm gonna have some tea, try to relax a bit, and see what happens.

Celebrate: Last night I went out with friends for a much-needed night out at Dave and Busters, had an amazing time hanging and playing games AND slept in till 11 today! Sleeping in is unheard of in my life.

Vent: After playing games and hanging out, we went into the bar area to have a drink and order some apps. Nobody was waiting for food and our buffalo wings and cheese fries took OVER AN HOUR to be made. Was not thrilled. At least they didn't charge us for the food since we put up a fuss about it and our waiter disappeared into thin air! Crazy night.

Detergent: I use Purex laundry detergent. I have had sensitive skin forever and this actually works for me and has not caused any problems for me, yippee!

Vent: I have so much work to doooo. And most of it's in Spanish, which doesn't help.

Celebrate: I just found out my former coworker is pregnant!! She's a few weeks ahead of our fellow coworker. I am so freaking excited to buy them baby stuff.

Detergent: I use Purex sheets, because they're easiest and fairly cheap.

VENT: None.

CELEBRATE: I slept until noon today...noon! I never sleep that late!

CELEBRATE: I went to Mass tonight and it was nice I missed it so much last semester!

Home at last! Tired, tired. All in all a pretty good weekend. I am sad because the pool and hot tub were closed for renovations and I was really looking forward to swimming in January. We had dinner last night at Benihana's and it was YUM. Saw Rhapsody and met one of the Jabbawockeez dancers. Daughter got a shoutout from one of her teachers, can't remember which one...

Good to be back home, though. These things are always exhausting.

Laundry: I have used Arm & Hammer scent and dye free for many years. Too many allergies to take a chance on something else.

kk~

Two high school students from my hometown committed suicide this weekend. Community is shattered.

^ That's awful.

I think I'm getting sick. I have a low grade fever and I'm not ready for school this week. I'm so behind!

VENT: Over the weekend, we changed our thermostat settings so that it's now set at 62°F from 10:00 PM each night until 4:00 PM the following day. That's pretty chilly, y'all. Especially for me, because I'm one of those people who's ALWAYS cold. Not exactly conducive to throwing the covers back and bouncing out of bed in the morning. But I can't complain too much, because we absolutely do need to do this to save money.

CELEBRATE: Mild weather continues this week! I should be able to get in some good outdoor workouts, which I'm looking forward to because I just bought new running shoes that I'm dying to try out.

LAUNDRY DISCUSS: We use Tide Coldwater. Although I have to admit that I have not done a lot of research on other brands of detergent that might work just as well in cold water, and I probably should, because that stuff's expensive.

NEW DISCUSS: What do you set your thermostat on during the winter? Do you have different settings for day and night? Like I said, we are now setting ours to 62°F at night and during the day when we're not home. It's set to switch to 68°F in the evening, but we hope to keep it more like 60°F most of the time by using the fireplace.

VENT: Panic attacked ALL night, and got very little sleep. My chest feels all tight and I just feel icky.

CELEBRATE: Craig deserves the best boyfriend of the year this morning. He went to the living room to sleep even though he's sick because his snoring was keeping me awake, and he drove me to work this morning at 6:00 because I was feeling so awful. Do not know what I would do without him.

CELEBRATE 2: Our 2 year anniversary is in 11 days. How exciting! We're going to try to get student rush tickets to The Lion King.

Laundry discuss: Gain, right now it's the tropical island scent. I really need to switch to a more earth-friendly detergent, but I love the smell of Gain so much, it smells like home.

Thermostat discuss: We have it set at 67 during the day and just off at night. I usually work at 3pm, so we wake up around 9:30 or so to wake up and the sun is up by then, so it's not as god awful to just get out of bed. Last night we left it on all night because I had to get up really early this morning.

Vent-I haven't slept well in 2 days. I feel like a zombie.

Celebrate-Umm, I'm wearing some of my new clothes?

Thermostat discuss-I keep mine around 75*F because I live in an 850 sq foot apartment so it's not that expensive. I do try to turn it down during the day when I'm not home. I actually rarely have a heating bill over $40 in the winter. The summer, on the other hand, is $80-$90. Air conditioning ain't cheap!

Vent: Got told our Boss is leaving today. He's the best person at my work, well the best manager, and the rest of us are a bit worried/ disgruntled now he's leaving and none of us want the guy who's replacing him to be promoted. So. Yeah. And I feel like everyone else in team (of 7) is pretty near to quitting too, so the whole team might fall apart soon....

Celebrate: HOWEVER= have talked management (well boss who is leaving in 2 months) into letting me work 1 day a week at AWESOME place, (who can only offer 1 day a week) and go down to 80% at current job. So yeah, maybe can avoid politics and just do my own thing?

Discuss: I can't stand hot at night. When I lived in Canada, I used to turn thermostat down to 17 (so 62?) at night otherwise I couldn't sleep. Now I live in NZ, where most houses don't have central heating. We just use heaters (stand alone or built in in newer houses) per room, and turn off at night. We don't get snow but do get cold at night sometimes in the middle of winter. Often for about a couple of weeks every winter I have a heater in my room. I put it on a timer and make it go on for about half an hour every 3 or 4 hours over night. Heats up the room enough to stop me freezing!

Tip for saving money on thermostats? Close your hall doors. And section off large rooms with hanging blankets (if you want to go extreme about it). Often people are wasting large amounts of money heating rooms they aren't in. If you turn off sensors in hallways or close doors so rooms where heat enters stay warm, you can save HEAPS. See this thread: www.getrichslowly.org . . .

I might reply here, then go make myself a cup of tea or something.

(((UberGoober)))

Don't have a thermostat, but all the radiators in our flat are set at half-way between on and off, so they heat up, then switch off, to save gas. Except in my flatmate's room, who has the heating on FAR TOO MUCH! I hate it. I hate that amount of heat. As I've said to my mum, I don't want to pay for something that I actively want the opposite of. (I've sometimes got in from work or just being out, and planned on opening the windows as I got up the stairs, only to arrive into the flat to find that my flatmate has the heating on.) I cannot afford it. Hate Hate Hate Hate Hate it. At home the hottest my bedroom ever gets is 20C, so about 68F, and here that's generally the coldest it is because of the amount the heating is on. Awful! I like it at about 17/18C 62-65F I've told my flatmate that the heating can't be on for more than an hour at night. It's rubbish because I'm not there often enough to know if it's on or not. We will have to wait and see if the new flatmate likes heat or not.

Vent-The online scheduling system for silks sucks. I keep trying to sign up for classes and it keeps prompting me to pay. I ALREADY PAID. And to add insult to injury, I'll have to be on the "waiting list" for the Saturday class because it's full.

Celebrate-Taking tomorrow morning off. It's planned and I so need it.

Discuss-Stress relief? I need it like WHOA.

VENT: I wrapped my shin too tightly last night, so now instead of shin pain, I have calf pain, and I'm supposed to do a lot of walking tonight. Also, I still can't quite get this ergonomics situation figured out at work. I remember last time this happened, I dealt with shoulder pain for several weeks before I finally found the configuration that worked for me. At this point, I'm strongly suspecting that someone who was here visiting from another office "borrowed" my desk while I was working from home. I know I don't really have the right to say that they can't do that, but if that's what messed everything up, that really sucks.

CELEBRATE: We have been approved to dress down every day for this entire month! I have said it before, and I'll say it again: I would gladly take permission to dress down every day over a pay raise. Ridiculous but true.

STRESS RELIEF DISCUSS: Exercise, most def. When I am doing something that really challenges me physically, my brain has no time to wander and therefore no time to worry and fret about things. Other than that, I tend to go for escapist-type things, like video games, books, movies, etc. Anything that will let me get lost in another world for a while.

VENT: I forgot to ask my new advisor to sign my add/drop form and her appointments are filled up until next week! It's a problem because if I don't get these classes dropped by Monday it's a W on my transcript instead of nothing.

CELEBRATE: I'm no longer a nursing major! It feels good!

CELEBRATE: My good friend is in town for a few days and it was a complete surprise to me and I'm going to dinner with her tonight

Vent: Why is it the neighbor always wants to mow when I have a headache?

Celebrate: Just got a refill on my Zomig. And the insurance paid!! Woo hoo! So glad because it's like a $250 scrip. For NINE pills, ugh. Yay for grace periods!

Room temp discuss: About 70, year round. It really doesn't get that cold here that often in the winter but in the summer, the heat can be screamin' outside. I do not mind paying for my AC!

Ladies and/or other peeps, I reallllly need you to hold good thoughts for me right now. A solution to a problem I've had may well be just on the horizon. So, fingers crossed, silent prayers, good fairy wishes or any and every good thought, please keep them in your heart for me. Now, nappie time to try and ditch this headache.

Hugs, kk~

Vent-None actually as my tiredness is completely self inflicted. I'm running on about 4 hours of sleep and I'm oddly not bothered by it at all.

Celebrate-Had a great time last night. Met some cool new people and stayed up way, way too late on a "school night". I'm supposed to go out wtih them again tonight, but I think I may need to sleep LOL.

Discuss-What time do you consider past your bedtime? Mine is definitely 1130p.

VENT: Office drama is stupid.

CELEBRATE: I don't know. I'm sure there's something, but I'm feeling really blah today. I'll probably find something to celebrate about once I get home from work though.

BEDTIME DISCUSS: I don't usually start feeling like, "Holy crap, I stayed up too late," until around 11:00 PM.