Another Weekend Gone

A bit more of a relaxing time this weekend, managed to fend off the retail therapy by going shopping after work on Friday which left me the whole weekend to just chill out and potter around indoors. Had a few chores to do as usual but also found some time for me which is always good to be able to do. To be honest particular times of the month aren’t good for me if you get my drift, and so its difficult to find any energy to do anything other than veg out. Had a bit of a play with some RAW photos taken at a windmill last week, a friend of mine is getting married there and I have been asked to do their wedding photos. The lighting is not ideal but no worse than the average church and at least I can use flash if I am careful not to be a nuisance! Quite looking forward to the challenge, wouldn’t do it for anyone else mind, people are not really my sort of subject, but it will be good experience. Still haven’t had the chance to get this tattoo practice sorted yet, I really want to find some time to print out some test sizes and make up a sheet of practice tattoos so that I can work out just the right size and location for it when I get it done. Think it’s definitely a case of when and not if anymore, I will just have to “grin and bear it” if it’s a bit painful, plenty of people go back time and again so they can’t be THAT bad!

Willesborough Windmill - http://www.willesboroughwindmill.co.uk/

Ease Period Pain - http://www.magno-pulse.com/product_info.php?cPath=21&products_id=49

A New Nose Stud!

Well against everybody’s good advice, I took the plunge last night and actually did it…changed my nostril screw out for an ice blue threadless titanium barbell. It looks very cool and it doesn’t seem to have traumatised it too much either. That’s despite my hands shaking so much I looked like an alcoholic desperate for their next drink!!! The screw came out fairly easily but it was harder to find the inside of the hole even using the insertion guide, without that I think it would have been impossible. But once the guide was in place the barbell just clipped on the end and I pushed the whole thing back through my nose thus leaving the opening of the barbell on the outside which is where the ball plugs into. All in all it took just a few short minutes. At least now I don’t have loads of metal peeking out from my nostril, you can barely see the end of the barbell and length wise, allowing for the fact that its still healing, it’s perfect :-) Later on I’ll be able to change the ball for a different coloured one or get one fitted with a gem, various colours are available although personally I prefer the clear diamond look, it goes with anything. I might even change my ear barbell for the ice blue one I have so that they match, for now anyway, as I want to wear the black spiked one while we’re on holiday, think that will look very funky. Will have to lavish some TLC on the nose for a while till it recovers but it seems pretty good so far all things considered.

Links for the websites selling the barbells are here : http://www.piercing.org/shop/nose.htm or http://www.anotherhole.com/store.php?crn=280&rn=397&action=show_detail or http://www.kolopiercing.com/index.php?cPath=94_289

I can thoroughly recommend the bars and was well impressed with the prompt delivery from Piercing.Org. The barbells also come highly recommended in various piercing forums probably in part due to the fact that the front ends can be changed easily without the need to remove the whole bar. They are also delivered from Piercing.Org already autoclaved which is handy.

Retired Folks?

What is it about retired people who feel the need to go back to work??? Here in Paradise we have people who have left and are now back doing “short-term” contract work which seems to last forever and I wonder if that will be me in 15+ years time, will I be so sad that I’d rather stay at work than enjoy my hard earned break from the daily grind? I sincerely hope not, I’d like to think that I’ll have enough hobbies and be comfortably off financially to enjoy pursuing them. My mother-in-law “retired” recently and I wondered how she would cope being at home all the time, I shouldn’t have been surprised then to learn she has gone back to full-time work again, despite not having the best of health. I just cannot comprehend why people want to stay on when they officially reach retirement age, from where I’m standing right now I want to go early, sod staying till I am 65 years old! I enjoy my photography and pottering about with my photos on the PC that I cannot imagine not being able to find things to do to occupy myself when I can finally jack my job in. Like most people I work to live rather than live to work and after almost 25 years of it so far I am sick of it. My Dad and several other people I know enjoy retirement so much and fill their time so completely that they end up wondering how they managed to fit in going to work ;-) All I can say is roll on retirement, that or win the lottery!!!

Weekend News

Another fun-filled weekend over with! Spent Saturday doing some retail therapy with the daughter as per usual, till she went off bowling with James and his folks for his sister’s 9th b’day. Then had a nauseating evening at Country listening to a band called Swing Commanders. Don’t get me wrong, they were excellent at what they did, very talented musicians, but their style was very much not my thing, too jazzy and after a few songs they all seemed to sound the same. Not a country band in the true sense of the word although they seemed to go down well with most people. Then I spent yesterday catching up on the garden, it badly needed mowing and weeding so despite my dislike of gardening in general I got out there and now it looks tidy and presentable again. Spent a little time surfing the web, reading the usual forums on tattooing and piercing and posted a couple of queries. It’s always good to seek other people’s advice about things and I posted my first tattoo query as I am seriously thinking of taking the plunge over the winter months. Hopefully I’ll find time to have a practice run with this tattoo paper I bought so I can gauge the design for size and location etc. I’ve been so tied up lately with this KCPA Comp that I’ve hardly had time to do anything on the PC that hasn’t involved spreadsheets et al. Still hopefully I’ve got a few weeks to just chill out before my holiday and catch up on my own stuff for a change. Did manage to order the blackline cones for my barbell and a threadless barbell for my nose which I may well fit before we go away. I know it’s probably a tad early to be changing it but think this design will prove to be more comfortable than the screw is now. Sometimes my nose feels a little tender inside and wonder if the screw moves about too much. Anyhow back to the daily grind…

Nose Piercing News ...

Recently my nose piercing has been feeling a tad uncomfortable at times, I believe the technical term is “pissy” ;-) For those of you out there who have any piercings you’ll know that it’s something that seems to happen to all piercings at some time or another and is usually their way of saying they aren’t happy about something. Because it doesn’t look as though anything sinister is going on I’m not that worried about it. I’ll just have to continue with the sea salt soaks and wait for it to settle back down again. I’ve gone back to doing them twice a day again as per the instructions, it’s amazing to think that the studios are usually right all along isn’t it? Keep mulling over the possibility of changing the nose screw before my holiday, currently it’s made of titanium and I wonder if the bioflex material would prove more comfortable as it’s flexible (the clue’s in the title!) and it worked quite well in my ear, but not sure if I have the nerve to do it myself or whether to ask at the piercing place to see if they would do it. To be honest it’s probably too soon to be thinking of changing it regardless of the reasons behind it and I’ll end up regretting it like I did my ear. Ideally they suggest waiting for 6 months before changing the jewellery for the first time but I am so damned impatient. That’s why, up till now, I haven’t purchased any jewellery for it, if I haven’t any indoors I can’t be tempted to do something stupid! As I want to order some cones for my ear barbell though, I could order the bioflex screw and then hide it at work so I’m not distracted by it at home. My daughter would probably kill me if she found out I was thinking of changing it, she moaned so much about my ear that I had to do it when she went out. Hang on that sounds like a role reversal, it should be ME moaning at HER for going behind MY back ;-)

Weekend Doings

What a weekend! Managed to get to the Kent County Show after all despite waking up at 7am on Sunday to the sound of heavy rain and thunder. Fortunately by the time we left home it had stopped raining and apart from a few drops around lunchtime the day was very hot and humid. Only downside to the day being a distinct lack of sleep the night before due to my nose piercing being rather itchy and me being paranoid that I would scratch in the night and pull the screw out. Was disappointed that we didn’t see the wolves this year or Titan the robot, I believe he was there but with the crowds we must have kept missing him, the wolves I’m not so sure about. It’s such a large venue that it’s difficult to be sure you’ve seen everything. Got some photos though so am pleased about that, even Julia used the camera this time which is a bit of a first. She keeps saying she wants to get into photography and is studying it as part of her Art & Design Young Apprenticeship scheme at college. I think James enjoyed the day, at least he’ll have enjoyed spending it with Julia, despite the fact that he was nursing a pretty banged up elbow after a run-in with some slippery shoes :-)

Friday 13th ...

Well what can I say, Friday the 13th again ;-) Today just so happens to be my ex-father-in-law’s birthday, imagine that, having to have a birthday on Friday 13th. Mine falls towards the end of the month fortunately so I don’t have to suffer other than to go into work unless I book the day off which is what I usually do as there’s nothing worse than working on your birthday. Hoping the weather picks up over the weekend, really want to visit the Kent County Show on Sunday if it stays dry and it’ll probably be Retail Therapy tomorrow with the daughter as usual. That is definitely the No: 1 female pastime ;-) or at least it is in our house. Thing is between now and then I’ve got stacks of competition CDs to process so I’ve got a tedious afternoon ahead of me. At least work packs up early on Friday so come 1pm I’m out of here!!!

Near miss...

Had a near miss last night whereby in a moment of absentmindedness I almost pulled my nose screw out, fortunately my brain kicked in at the last minute before any real harm was done but it goes to show how easy it is to do something stupid when we are not really thinking. I also changed my barbell in my ear rim for a straight one after ages of wearing the circular ones. They tend to feel the most comfortable which is why I stick to them and they look more obvious which I like but thought it was time for a change. In my naivety before getting my ear rim done I thought that when body piercings had healed they would be just like normal lobe piercings, how wrong can a girl be? After much trawling through various forums on the subject and from personal experience, it transpires that body piercings are a whole new breed of animal. They are happiest when they are left well alone which means not changing the jewellery several times a day and finding the “right” material for the jewellery, mine does not seem to appreciate steel, and of course trying to get the size right too. All these things apart from type of material, are of course immaterial in terms of normal earrings. Apart from a time when plastic earrings were all the rage years ago I’ve never found anything I couldn’t wear in my ear lobes. Though obviously they have been done for more years than I care to mention whereas my body piercings are a new and interesting addition to moi. Lets hope if I choose the tattoo pathway it is an easier journey ;-)

KCPA Digital Comp

Have been snowed under with entries for this competition since I got "volunteered" to help out! Why do people always leave everything till the last minute??? It's time consuming enough as it is just entering all the data and checking the images let alone having a stack to do each evening. Let's hope as the competition matures we will learn how to stream-line it!

Still there is some good work this year which makes up for last year, thought the entries were, for the most part, very unimaginative. Still I guess it's each to their own ;-)

Works Open Day 2007

Hi here's a quick snap from the Open Day held at my works this Saturday. Needless to say it's of my gorgeous daughter and her significant other, James, standing near an old aeroplane which was part of the static displays. All in all it was a good day, the sun was shining for the first time in ages and they put on a good show. It was well attended which was nice to see and everyone seemed to be having a good time. It was expecially good for James whose just spent a week there doing work experience. Think Julia is too arty for a work place like mine ;-)

Another entry from Paradise!

This is where I seem to be spending most of my time, how sad is that? Still it pays the bills as they say :-) My daughter's boyfriend, James, is here this week on a weeks work experience and so far it seems to be going rather well. They have found him something absorbing to do which is not easy given the students lack of experience and the short time they are here. But it gives them a taste of the real world and that's important when they spend most of their time in the cossetted world of school. Not sure what my baby will want to do for her weeks experience when she does it next year but it sure isn't going to be software engineering ;-) She's into all things arty, a bit like her Dad, so she would be bored stupid here. Not that they don't have illustrators etc here but that's not her thing either, illustrating for company brochures and the like.

Am sitting here hoping the sun finds it's way to the UK soon, it's been so wet for so long now. Keen to attend the Kent County Show next weekend as per usual but it's no fun in the rain
:-( It's a fantastic place to spend a day out, lots of farm animals and stalls selling all sorts of things. I like to take the camera along and snap away as usual but as it's mostly outside it can be dismal in the wet weather. Here's hoping summer is soon on its way!