Thursday 8 January 2015

Lately

The closest thing to a white Christmas we get around here, but the frost can be gorgeous, especially when it frosts over more frost!

   I don't feel like I've actually properly blogged in a while. It's all been shop or exercise-related. Well, I had a wonderful Christmas. I found some Christmas cheer when I woke up that morning, and I had a wonderful, quiet day. I received some wonderful gifts, too - quite nerdy I see when I look back on them, but I love them all the same! A World of Warcraft Murloc mug from Seeg, as well as a 'keyring' (far too big and heavy to be so) of Frostmourne, the weapon of my favourite World of Warcraft villain, Dragon Ball Z season 3 (given to me two days after I finished season 2, so I was over the moon that I got to finish December's workout with the next season instead of having to find something else) and season 4 of Robson Green's Extreme Fishing (I like his attitude and the people he meets, especially tribes who show old methods of fishing, it's surprisingly informative).
   I think I gave a few good gifts, too, including a copy of Firefly for my Dad because I know he'll love it, Assassin's Creed Rogue for Seeg as well as a few other things.
   My sister popped round in the morning with her sons and things got a little bit noisier at that point - understandable with a 4 year old running around with a fart blaster - but it was nice to see her as we rarely do anymore, and after a quiter afternoon we had a lovely roast duck dinner.
   I'm glad to have found some more Christmas spirit again, but I am gradually realising I'm not 8 any more, and Christmas will never carry the same excitement for me as it did back then. If I ever have a child that could well change, but at this point in time, I'm the youngest person in the house and, I'm quite sure, the only reason any decorations ever go up.


   It was Seeg's 25th birthday 3 days after Christmas, and that was good fun, too. I got him a Gamecube with Mario Double Dash, his favourite Gamecube game, but his brother sold his console when he moved here several years ago which he was gutted about, so we had a lot of fun playing that, and I got him some Mario bubble gums to go with it from Japan Sweets Nom which I thought was a good little addition! I also got him a really nice Grey Warden t-shirt from Bioware which he loved, with the faction's crest and vow on it, and a Corsair headset which cancels out noise...a little too well. It's hard to get his attention when he's on the computer now, but at least it's great quality!

   We went out to see The Hobbit: Battle of Five Armies on the 30th of December like we did the last two years as a sort of joint birthday celebration since they're so close together, and it was a good film, but I think I can say, though it pains me to do so, that there are a few problems I have with the film, but I'll go into those in another post.
   It was a nice afternoon out, though, as lately all we've gotten out to is the Post Office. I even managed to snatch up a few of Lush's special Christmas bathbombs and bubble bars instore nearby, which I didn't expect to find, so I was chuffed with that!
   Otherwise it's been fairly quiet, and it's been wonderful to relax and recover from the busy sales period that is December. Now I'm preparing for Valentine's Day (when 70% of your sales come from overseas you have to act fast if you want to be able to outline shipping deadlines), but with my own birthday tomorrow, I'm still taking it a little slow. I have began fulfilling orders, of course, and I've also returned to work on pieces for my exhibit, but how well that's going, I can't yet tell. The pieces I'm working on at the moment need lots of small details which are really fiddly and I'm still in the middle of them all, so hopefully in a couple of days I'll know if they've turned out well or not. If they have, then I can knock off 5 new animals in one week, which would pretty much make up for a month off of such work! So, fingers crossed!

   I've also managed to get back to my book, which is (I know) nearly finished, but with more or less all that remains of that book already written in note form, it's an easier case of simple convering the notes into actual literature. I'm struggling to get back into it after a month and a half away, but I'm getting there. Slowly, but surely.

   We're having a wheelchair lift installed in the house so that we can get mum around more easily, which is a big overhaul with floors and walls being cut away, but it needs to be done. Seeg and I will be away when this is happening, visiting his family in The Netherlands again, so at least that's a stress off of our minds, although in a way it's just been replaced with another. But it will be nice to get away, I suppose. I can't complain, either; his parents let us stay in their house, feed us and everything, so at least we don't have to wrestle with hotels, just the transport. Still, despite The Netherlands being so close to the UK, it's very surprising how different the culture and architecture is. It's quite a gorgeous place, really.

   But that's all that's been going on with me, a flash update for you if anyone should care. This post was more for me, anyway, getting my thoughts in gear because it has been a cluttered sort of few weeks, so at least lining out what happened has helped clear my head.

   I hope everyone else's Christmas and New Year was great! And that everyone was warm and safe, above all else.



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