All new look!

Well i decided i was fed up of my old look so i've made the change to something s little more ... well ... green!

I've also decided to include a list of what's on my TBR pile on my website so hopefully it'll scare me into actually reading some of them.

New shoes

Well i've finally managed to get some new shoes! A pair of brown suede boots with fur inside, they're lovely!
I'm also currently cooking my parents Christmas cake. It's on hour number 1 so i'm going to be here for a while.
My NSSHS arrived on Friday and TOH hid it for me (i'm not the best at keeping presents until the day). And i've been really good and haven't looked for it yet. I did have a good feel etc. of it before i handed it over and i think there are 2 books in there which i'm highly excited about.

Nintendo DS

Well hello there!
Update: - My fossils are doing well, they're still very interesting. I'm up to how plants started to evolve in the Paeleozoic era (that's the one before Mesazoic) *show off*. I've learnt what makes a good fossil (not much oxygen, no predators, small grains of filling in type stuff, not much movement of evnvironment, lots of none breakdownable material, and other things which i can't remember), what type of fossils there are (body, trace, chemical) and some of the different type of species which occurred in different time periods.
- My course may start to suffer now because i'm going to buy about 2 games & the browser for my DS. Along with the Wireless network in the house (thanks OH), i might not been seen outside for some time!
- I'm going to try to get my certificate in contemporary science before the end of next year. I'm going to start the mammals short course in November, then something in February probably Oceanography, then the Google TU120 in May (funded by work).
- I'm trying to save some money to get some Uggs from www.snuggugg.com (anyone who knows me feels free to buy them for me i'm a size 10).

I think that's it, anyway time to go shopping!!

Fossils with the OU

Well i'll be starting my course on September 1st. I could already be studying apart from the fact that one of my cats is currently "in-season" and is calling sufficiently loudly that i was kept awake a large amount of last night. She seems to know when i'm about to do something which requires a certain amount of quiet, then she sets off yelling and trying to break down the spare room door. We're trying to keep some kind of airlock system in the house, hence her living in the spare room (incidentally this is my study room).
I've been a very good bookworm and only bought 1 book this month ("Doomsday Book" by Connie Willis).
TOH is currently trying to shelve the remaining walls in the house, unfortunately the house is 200 years old and spirit levels hadn't been invented at the time. The walls are currently causing all the shelf units to sit just on the balance point over the staitcase. This along with the fact that they're all on the wonk compaired to the "vertical" walls is causing me to look at the floor constantly so that i don't fall face first down the stairs. It really isn't fair to put this much visual strain on a person who the lady at SpecSavers said, "Well we can't do anything about your eyesight, you'll just have to hold your head at a funny angle so you can see straight"! I have an astigmatism, my left eye doesn't look up very well, my right eye doesn't look right or down very well so i'm pretty well stuffed.
Anyway, that's enough of a rant for one day, i bet you wish i stayed away permanently now.

Open University

Well, I signed up for the fossil course on the open University, now all i have to do is wait until the middle of the month when my course materials will be arriving!

TOH had a look at my blog the other day and promptly burst out laughing (not a good reaction). Turns out he was amused by my entries about books, particularly the one about trying to decrease the size of my TBR pile. This is because on Saturday i wanted to go book shopping, so TOH sat me down on the bed and asked me to pick all the books out of my TBR pile that i had acquired since January this year. Easy i thought it'll only be a couple ... WRONG ... turns out i've acquired 34+ books! And since i've only read 33 this year, it means i'm only just breaking even on the reduction front. Mind you i seem to have sped up with my reading, i managed 10 books last month.

MyLifeBits

This looks like an interesting way of thinking MyLifeBits i'm not sure if it's a good thing or not. Personally i'm trying to increase my memory and my mental ability (i'm Brain Age 27 now) and i'm not sure what would happen to these faculties if i could just put everything i needed to know into a computer programme.

I've been taking an interest in things like Second Life, There & IMVU. They all seem very interesting but my computer at home isn't good enough spec for them to work :(

Decision made!

Right, i will be doing my course in Fossils etc. i have decided, all i have to do now is for my creditcard to get paid (sent off today) then i can start spend on it again :)

Also, i've been rapidly updating the HLG Wales website so it has all the presentations etc on it (very impressive i know)
http://www.cilip.org.uk/specialinterestgroups/bysubject/health/subgroups/wales/wales.htm

I've also started to read the DaVinci Code, i know i know, everyone else has already read it ...

Decision Decisions ...

I have a slight decision to makes, nothing enormous but i'm still having trouble.
Basically i've been looking at the Open University website and i noticed a very interesting couple of courses they're running in September. The first one is Fossils and the History of Life, & the second one is Studying Mammals. They're only £115 each, and they include loads of stuff for that along with the course materials, for example, books & DVDs.
The reason i'm having trouble deciding is this: firstly there is something in the air with the OU, in that they're going to be giving taster courses for free in October, however, i'm not sure if you would get points for these or whether they would be worthless. Secondly i'm supposed to be saving my money for an extension to my house, however, i don't really think i'm going to be able to save enough so i'm probably going to have to take out extra on my mortgage.
I'm going to have to mull over this decision for a few weeks anyway (i forgot to pay my credit card bill, and now i can't find the old bill, and basically i'm too lazy to find out how to pay it without the bill). So if anyone out there *echo* has any suggestions or has done either of these courses please give me advice.

I totally forgot

Blimey, i totally forgot about this blog (sorry Alasdair).
Well i managed to get most of the books i was talking about, along with a few others. I'm trying my hardest to read everything i have now, but i've only managed 30 so far this year (darn DS distracting me).
I'm currently looking after a mother cat and 4 kittens, all black and white (there is one randy black and white tom out there). The mother's name (prenamed) was Baby and is now Sadie, so i just have to name the kittens. Atm, they're called, "Oi you" "What the..." "You little ..." & "Awww ...", not the best for trying to rehome them, so i'm going to have to be a little more imaginative.
My knitting is not going to plan, the baby is going to have to wear a baby scarf from mad aunt Sarah at age 18 (years) the way i'm going :( I'm hoping mum is going to dust off her knitting needles when i send her the other patterns i (rather over-ambitiously) bought. I think TOH got it right when he described it as a "passing fad", he decided he would rather i had decided on the DS being the fad (so he could have it).

Much excitement

I'm so excited!! Brain Training (DS game) is out today, plus i just got an email from the Filofax website to say that the style i wanted is now in stock! Guess where i'll be off to this afternoon after work :)

Book Challenge

TOH has challeneged me to read one of the three large piles of books beside my bed before the end of the year, this means no more book buying (apart from the ones mentioned previously).

I'm going to have to get through another 16(ish) books, i've already read 20 books so far this year. Mind you i tend to get through about 50 books per year, so i should be ok, as long as they're not enormous books. I might just try to sneak some of them into the gaps in the boxes of books to be read under my bed.

I think there should be one of those emails about this, you know the ones that start "You know you're addicted to books when ..." I suppose having about 150 books in my TBR pile is showing some kind of addiction, either to books, or pilling books ... not sure :)

Nose Job

My nose is now fixed! I went to the consultant for my referral and he said he could see the problem and promptly cauterized my nose for me. But i have to say it is incredibly painful and uncomfortable, it feels like i have a burn up there and that i need to sneeze the whole time. Anyway, hopefully no more nosebleeds *fingers crossed* and no more visits to A & E.

I also have the correct form for HLG Wales bank account so that should be up and running asap. This form looks loads more user friendly so i shouldn't have trouble filling it in at all *phew* What with setting up the webpage & the bank account i'm feeling a little drained, but at least once it's all set up it should be easier to look after.

New Books

I'm so excited! There are going to be 2 new books, by authors i love, published in the next couple of months. I've been waiting for so long for them to arrive and now they're arriving with a month of each other.
The new Lynne Flewelling is due on 3rd July & the new Jacqueline Carey is due on 12th June. They're both out in paperback then (i think) so i'll be able to buy them and not have to wait months more for the paperback to arrive.
Now all i need to do is stop myself buying books (and infront of TOH so i look very restrained) for the next month and i'll be able to buy them both.
Oh, and i just remember that the Jasper Fforde book should be out soon and that one i'm allowed to buy in hardback because that would make all the copies on my shelves look the same.
I know that last comment makes me look incredibly sad but it all makes a difference :)

Web Design Class

Well, off i go to my web design class, now the question is do i show my tutor all the web things i've been doing while not going to his class? Probably not because it would confuse the dear. I suppose i should get TOH to host my web design class pages on his server once it's up and running (8 days until broadband).
I've just noticed that my email update arrived at some point over the w/e, i know it says Thursday but it definately wasn't there then, i was checking frantically to see if it had worked! I'm not altogether sure why i would want to update my blog by email though ...

Testing the Email Update

This is just a test to see if i can email my updates.

Pants

Today started out pants with a lovely morning nosebleed not to mention some badly damaged books being returned from another library and some very annoying things being printed out on the printer, but it has turned out ok. I've sent the boss out with everything she needed for her meetings this afternoon and i have loads of work to do. I much prefer having stuff to do at work than being bored, i hate being bored and just sitting there.

I'm going on a home visit this afternoon with the other half to the posh end of town which should be interesting, the best bit of home visits is getting to see some lovely homes and getting ideas for my *imaginary* new home. The only bad thing is even though a home might be perfect for a new cat i always get niggles worrying that there might be something about it i haven't seen. I know this is daft because i check everything out, and the cat might well get itself injured doing something totally harmless but i'm a born worrier :)

The First Post

Right, i decided to create a Blog for myself so here it is :)
I'm hoping to put descriptions of the books i'm reading, any of the knitting i'm doing and my Animal Crossing - Wild World exploits into this blog.

Oh my life, i just checked to see how this all looks and i'm so impressed. What the heck am i doing learning Dreamweaver at night classes for when Blogger does this all for me, and Google looks after my main page? Oh, i remember, i need certificates to improve myself ...
Right, here's my main page, just in case you want a look:
http://shelbycat.googlepages.com/home
not the most exciting but not bad considering i started all this today. Now all i need is to get a digital camera and i can go completely online crazy :)