Hump day is here!

So the other thing that has changed by moving out (the first thing being cleaning all the time) is that I no longer really wanna go out. I have no desire to be cruising the city in the evening.

I have spent the past year going out to eat at restaurants at least on a weekly basis and even before I got around to taking the moving out seriously, I was getting the feeling that restaurant food really isn't that great.

Now as I have my own kitchen and my own stuff and my own stove and fridge. (you getting the idea right?) All I want to do is play with it! Eating at home is much cheaper anyway and you don't have to deal with bad service, over sized portions and things not arriving as you expected them to be. (I once ordered a cheese and tomato tramazini expecting a fancy cheese and tomato sarmie and got a super flat supper chewy cheese and tomato paste flavoured pitta bread - yuck). Now at home I can eat what I want. (this does occasionally result in rich food heartburn or some edible but obscure results - cabbage soup is not for beginners)

Yes, I attempted to make cabbage soup. But as I am lacking a blender and a pressure cooker... the final result was more like a vegetable stew/gravy with meat flavouring to thicken it. It was none the less delicious and warm :)

Along the same anti-social vein. I used to go to movies a lot. As in every Wednesday kind of a lot. Now with having Monday, Tuesday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday evenings prescribed to activities (does a boyfriend count?). I really only have Wednesday and Thursday evenings to call my own. and after running the Fri-Sat-Sun-Mon-Tue gauntlet, I usually arrive home on a Wednesday drop my bags, shut the front door and go "aaaaaaaah - that front door is not opening until after breakfast tomorrow!" - and then fulfil all my dreams of a extremely comfy slipper-ed homely evening at home making dinner and chillaxing (possibilities of bubble baths too)

And so yes. I have a quiet little social life when I can.

I realise now that this is ridiculous to say because as quiet as things are when I can make them that way... I haven't done any reading since I moved in. I have stopped reading! 24 year old Frank does not like the non-reading 25 year old Frank. boooo! How could I have stopped reading?

It is a very sad state of affairs.....

Next post will be less complaining and more fun-ing... barring any irksome events...

How it should be

Just keeping with the house keeping theme....

For the record, Ironing Day is Sunday evening usually. Basically ironing day directly follows GoVisitParentsWithABasketOfDirtyClothes day...

Wooow is it that late already?!

So I haven't really said much here lately. Especially since so much is happenign with moving out of home and turning 25 and all and all and all.

Ironically the thing that I should be saying the most about being moved out of home is the very reason I have not been blogging:

Being independent is very time consuming!

My average day runs like this:

• alarm goes off
• I oversleep
• I throw some clothes on, some toast in my mouth and a cheese sarmie and some fruit into my lunch bag and rush out the door.
• Decelerate slamming the door while checking I have my house keys and car keys - because if I lock my house keys inside the house... I am screwed.
• Drive to work - this takes anything between 35 minutes and 90 minutes. (I usually check email in the heavy sections of traffic and give people the impression I am already at work ... genius!)
• The next 8-ish hours - Do Work
• Travel home from work usually after rush hour
• Stop off at the shops for groceries/cravings/whimsy-s
• Go home
• Unpack goods/bags/tight shoes
• Cook dinner
• Eat dinner
• Wash up after dinner
• Clean kitchen floor after the wash up

By this time it is usually going on 9 or 10pm and I am exhausted (and probably soggy - I am a very enthusiastic dish washer.)

And as I start most mornings with a deep regret of sleeping late, this time of night is not really a good time for starting new activities. Usually I wander about my little palace tidying up random things and debating whether to watch another episode of House/Dexter/Bleach or to read a book. I am ashamed to admit that teh book doesn't win that arguement very easily.

And then as teh rest of the evening flies away, I make acquaintance with some soap; check all the doors are locked; switch off the lights and love my pillow.

And all this is teh quiet days. Some days I fit in a Brownies meeting between work and home and other days I fit in Bible Study in a similar time slot.

so in general I am finding all this cooking and cleaning and tidying and making homing gets very very busy and is very time consuming...

don't even get me started on weekends....

Things that irk me at work

(yes - usage of the word "irk" is still going strong)

 

So say you send a very polite email to some one at work that occupies a position in the work heirachy that is considerably higher than you. And as they weild far more power over peoples happiness than you do, you are very polite and you ask nicely for what you need. So nicely do you ask that it takes you 20 minutes to type the email that effectively has the complexity.

 

"Dear [Great Ruler of all Creatures great and small]

I am [this person]. I am working on [this task]. I need [this item]. I need it for [this reason].

Thank you,

[Name]"

 

And if you are fortunate enough, you get a response that boils down to "I acknowledge that you have sent me an email."

 

and then.... *nothing*.

 

....not a single word.

 

It sort of says to me, "You are inferior and irrespective of how urgent/important/life threatening/world peace threatening your request is, I have absolutely no interest at all in answering it. Go play in the sand pit."

 

I hate it. I think it is just plain rude. I wouldn't have bothered the royal highness (no one in particular, rather several on different occasions) if I could have solved the problem myself.

 

It's bad treatment of petty-underlings.... which has dilbert-esque unproductive demotivational consequences.... which usually isn't good.

 

Anyway onwards we go with the LOOOMING deadline... (without the item I need)... 

 

Electricians cost....

oh my {Blasphemous Words except then I would be blaspheming} !!!

The plugs weren't working in my new place and so I called in an electrician. They looked at teh wires in my board and checked the plugs in the place and tightened a few screws.

 

Today, the invoice arrived from the electrician.

 

Cost of labour - an acceptable price I guess for two chaps to do their technician thing.

+ cost of one single plug = price to take large family out to dinner at McDonalds including grandparents (I could have done that myself with a R30 plug from GAME)

+ 6 new labels for the Board = a price, which if I were buying the stickers per meter squared, would be equivalent to buying a new 1-series BMW (I could have relabeled the board with permanent marker)

 

 

To add insult to injury, the plugs are still not working all the time. I can hear the switch sparking on cold and lonely nights.

 

Now before you say, "But you are an electrical engineer!!"

 

1. Yes I can also unscrew and rescrew wires in a board however I would have to use a hairclip as a screw driver as I do not own a tool set (well actually my teeny-turner is missing)

 

2. Due to my present work schedule and the fact that I forget to buy groceries, I usually leave early in the morning and arrive home as it's getting dark or after, hence you can't repair a board while keeping it live to keep the lights on.

 

3. The electrician has lots of other nifty tools that they only teach you about in tech school (I however have niftier tools called software.)

 

Sigh... lesson learned. (the price of the materials is the ridiculous bit not the labour rate - bunch of sharks who inflate prices because I live near a larney area...)

Getting my #¿£@! together

... Literally and probably methaphorically...

So I have to now pack up everything (in the invisible boxes everyone promised me that are crowding me out of my room except for a small invisible passage way) and move into my new place. I am generally moving in a counter-clockwise direction around the room and have tidied/packed my CD's, my desk, my stationary and paper desk drawers, my jewellery, and today my dressing table.

I this process so far I have dug up some things that I had lost and or forgotten about and or didn't know I had. Today I found an old photo of a boyfriend. So old I think it was an out dated photo when I got it. It's an old learners licence photo and so the lighting makes his face odd. So odd in fact the photo resulted in my friends giving him a nickname behind his back - The Pretty Boy.

Anyway I pondered upon the photo and what to do with it... For it's existence serves no real purpose other than melancholy thoughts. Perhaps to loose it to find it again and ponder more. Perhaps to stash it for poking fun at The Pretty Boy (TPB) again. Perhaps to burn it and raise my crazy lady status (in fact photo's don't burn well by themselves - I tried it before).

I opted for a boring option and shoved it into a photo album of pictures just as old as it... It is however never to late for the crazy lady option... (until you have actually taken the option... then it's too late to think about poisonous chemicals in burning photograph ink and paper)

I smile and wave at police cars

... And if they could hear me I would shout, "Keep up the good work!"

I have this utopian idea that if we treat police officers like they have an honourable job instead of calling them piggies and flipping the bird, then they may too see themselves as an important honourable people and corrupt cops may be no longer... The eventual goal of course Always being World Peace! :D

(Kinda doesn't work as well when you are waving and smiling while breaking the speed limit zooming past them :/ )