Mission Accomplished!

Yup, today's the last day of February, and I have managed to post a picture for each of the twenty eight days. *faints*  A couple were recycled photographs, but the majority were taken on the same day of posting*. I'm definitely not gifted with a camera, and as my only 'tool' was my mobile phone (which doesn't have the best camera on there anyway), none of the pictures will win any prizes, but it's definitely been a fun challenge to complete, even if the challenge was self-inflicted (so to speak).

I'm into the last hour of the last day of the month (leaving things almost until the last minute as usual), so my last photo was a 'grab something - ANYTHING!!!! - and take a piccy' kind of thing. *shifty* Tomorrow is St David's day (the patron saint of Wales), and I have pulled out my daughter's rugby shirt instead of her usual school uniform.  In her younger days, she would dutifully wear the traditional Welsh lady's costume, but she's now at that awkward age where the children's costumes are far too small, and the adult costumes are far too big. She's would prefer the traditional costume, of course (complete with hat and mop cap), but I kind of like the rugby shirt as the alternative option.

Happy St David's Day to my fellow Welshies!

 *One photo this month was taken by my husband, not me, but as he did it on my behalf when I couldn't leave the house, I figure it wasn't cheating. *winks*

Pestering Plans Backfire

A couple of days ago I posted a note on my Facebook page alerting members of HPANA (the Harry Potter site that I moderate for) that I would be doing a mass delete of inactive story threads from the boards next week. The (somewhat sneaky) plan was to remind people that they have unfinished stories that need either completing, or saying good bye to. I was hoping that at least a few members would decide that completing a story was far better than having it deleted.

Anyway, a fair number of threads had people swiftly post a comment to them - making them technically 'active', thus ineligible for deletion - but most of these comments came from just a handful of readers who wanted to keep their favourite stories on the boards. Thankfully, there has also been a couple of authors posting too, with tentative plans to continue their stories.

So the plan worked in a way, though not as well as I would have liked. Unfortunately, it also backfired on me, and now the Guilty Star is hovering slightly too close for comfort. I had some friends post some pestering comments on three of my own threads. One of these threads contains short stories, and these types of threads are always safe as I believe they should always be available to read. However, I also have two longer length stories that I never got around to finishing, one of them substantially long. So I have spent the better part of today re-reading the last third of one of my own stories. It has been eighteen months since I last updated it (this is where that Guilty Star comes into play), and I seriously had no idea what was going on with it. I don't see me completing the two stories any time soon, but I owe it to myself to finish the story that I have, over the years, put a lot of work into. Not to mention that I also owe it to a bunch of readers who have stuck with me since 2005 -!- and have always returned to read whenever I posted one of my infrequent updates.

So the tale of Remus Lupin, boy-wolf, shy teen, and perhaps Best-Of-The-Marauders, shall soon be continued.

An Experiment

One of the nicest things about having short hair (as well as the easy manageability factor) is that you get to show off some nice earrings. I had my ears pierced when I was seven, but eventually had to let them close because of an allergic reaction. Over the years I have attempted to wear earrings on special occasions, but usually I have given up because my earlobes decided to swell to about three times their normal size.

As I am going out for the evening, I have decided to give it another go. I grabbed a pair of my daughter's sterling silver earrings (I've only tried gold in the past), dipped them in boiling water, bathed my ears, and with surprising ease (considering my last attempt was for my wedding, six and a half years ago) pushed said earrings into my ears. They seem fine so far, but it's only been half an hour. I guess I'll find out by the end of the night whether my ears will still look normal, or whether they will look like they've been blown up like a balloon....

*crosses fingers*

Here's One I Made Earlier

Or rather, here's one I took earlier. A picture, that is. I completely forgot to take a picture today what with one thing and another, but I don't want to fail on my Post A Picture Every Day In February thingy, so I am recycling a photo I took last year. *nods*

I took this when me and the daughter were waiting for a bus one Sunday afternoon. I had been busy that day - I'd worked my 6-2 shift, gone home and cleaned the house, bathed the daughter and got us both ready for a trip to the local pub. It was karaoke, and we were meeting daddy. The daughter was bubbling because she couldn't wait to grab the mike and sing Taylor Swift and Keisha songs, and I was looking forward to my pint of Guinness after a hard day's slog.

One of the few pictures of myself that I like, but the memory is even better.

Last Minute Change Of Plan

There was a slight accident at work today. And when I mean slight, I actually mean quite major. And possibly fatal, but thank goodness nobody was around when it happened. One of the strip lights in the warehouse fell down, bringing large amounts of dust, metal from the shelving, and glass from the light itself down with it.

There was an almighty crash, but with my poor hearing I thought it was my colleague dropping a tray or something in the kitchen. *shifty* The warehouse floor was covered in debris and was in complete darkness. The lucky thing was that my colleague from the kitchen was about to walk through that exact area, so she had an extremely close call, and I myself had only been walking through the area minutes before that. *shudders*

Anyway, I meant to take a picture of the mess so that I could post it on here when I got home, but I forgot. *shifty once more* So here's a piccy of the ornament that used to sit on the computer desk in my living room, but since we now have the TV and computer linked, this little fella now lives on top of the hi-fi.

Just Ask! We're Here To Help!

So we got our new uniforms at work today, and they are a vast improvement on the sickly green coloured blouses and black waistcoats that we've had up until now. What's more, the people at the top have been quite generous this time around and issued everyone with one top per shift and a jacket too.

I now have three black polo shirts (much more comfortable and practical than those pesky blouses) and a black jacket. Black being my favourite colour to wear, this is a good thing. And I can live with the 'Spar, There For You' logo which is printed fairly discreetly on the front.

Not so keen on the logo emblazoned across the back in huge letters though...

I foresee a future of finger tapping on the shoulder.

Got Milk?

So Tuesday's the day that I do my weekly grocery shop, and this week was no different to any other. I mentally calculated the bill as I was going around the supermarket, I hunted for bargains, I tried to find something different for meals but ended up getting what I always get...

I hate it. Seriously, I loathe grocery shopping. I actually hate all shopping, but as I never have any money to spare, grocery shopping is about the only shopping that I do. I'm sure that if I had pounds to spare, I would enjoy it a lot more, but shopping on a strict budget is frustrating at the best of times, and downright stressful at the worst.

Today my fridge is full, but as we near the weekend it was slowly but surely become emptier, with less options for the daily main meal. One thing that I always have plenty of is milk. I get through four pints a day, and with the local supermarket having the bargain price of two four pinters for £1.60 (most other places charge the same price for one bottle), my fridge is overtaken by milk on my shopping day.

There, I'm sure you'll all sleep much better now that you know that. *snort*