No this is not going to be one of those bah humbug type posts – i’m not allowed to bah humbug anymore – I have a child, I’ve now got to embrace the joys of Christmas and foster a belief in santa – something that may eventually lead to a schoolyard kicking as said belief disintegrates, but why borrow trouble eh? We’ve got a good 3-4 years before that happens – and anyway, I’ve found a place that teaches kung-fu to kids..

This is why, for the first time ever in a place of my own, I have a tree. As you can see, it’s covered in pink stuff – this was not my choice, Stef was seduced by the displays at cruise hill and succumbed to the lure of pink baubles. I have to admit though, it turned out better than I’d expected *grin*

Isabella's first tree

I have completed my Christmas shopping with days to spare – even the laggards at Amazon have got it together enough to dispatch the remainder of my order just in time, fingers crossed it arrives tomorrow so that I don’t have to eat those words eh? In between pulling my hair out over college work I’ve also been busy crafting some truly lovely items of jewelery (even if I do say so myself) so it’s a fair bet that if you’re a female reading this and we’re related – you know what you’re getting this year – again lol

..reminds me, need to photograph this lot before handing ‘em out – I keep forgetting to do that! This hobby is another reason I’m glad we had a girl, it’ll make birthday parties easier – just teach ‘em how to craft something unique that they can keep! (well, ok, it might work once..)

Right, speaking of coursework.. I have an extension for the lit review; it now ha/s to be submitted online by Christmas eve – no rest for the wicked eh..?

Merry Christmas you lovely lot – I’ll be posting festive Izzy pics after the event so keep an eye on flickr and facebook..

Half the interesting ‘new media’ apps are USA based and every website I’ve looked at for things I’ve considered purchasing of late are ‘ship to US only’ sites *sniff* ah well, I’ve taken to collecting pretty pictures instead with which to console myself. Let’s face it, I’m unlikely to have the cash to spend on pretty things soon, everyone seems determined to tell me how expensive childrearing will be – like I hadn’t already figured that out for myself!

So.. Forget the Alexandrite earrings, I’ll just gaze at this Aquamarine and Alexandrite ring I’ll not be purchasing because even if they did ship to the UK I can’t justify the $538 price tag (or £270.88 in real money)

I came home to a ton of emails, too many twitters to catch up on and the sense of missing out on ‘stuff’ – I hate missing out on things. *sniff* ah well, at least I ate well, got a tan (yup, I’ve temporarily lost my 31 year old pallor.. It’s disturbing) and some much needed exercise – and the first use of my ‘cripple badge’ as we’ve taken to calling it, I’m so glad I applied for it, not only does it save on parking fees but not having to walk for miles to get to the car when I’m feeling cack is worth its weight in gold!

We took many a photo (or at least Stef did) The ones he took in the slate mine made the place seem bigger and far more interesting than it actually was (not a ‘tour’ I’d recommend) but it was fun all the same due to the company we kept.

This picture however.. Every time I saw this cafe in Barmouth I had to chuckle, as Stef said, it’s not so much that the ‘C’ is missing leaving that rather amusing word in it’s place – it’s the fact that someone has taken the trouble of moving the ‘A’ over so that the amusing word is more apparent.

The last day was incredibly blustery, so much so that I had next to no sleep because the wind was tossing the tent around so much that I swear if we weren’t inside it the whole thing would have blown away – as it is it was like lying inside a snare drum with the sides thrumming away all night long. Stef of course had no problems – I swear that lad could sleep on a needle point through a hurricane! Obviously we had to pack up in the wind and the rain just to make life interesting – to be fair Stef did most of the work while I skulked about and hid in the car out of the weather (I’m such a wuss) there is video footage of our last night but we’re still trying to convert it to a format I can stick on here, once we have though *grin* you’ll see why it was such fun packing up – t’was a tad on the blustery side..

Anyhow, we were off the island by 10.20am on Saturday and heading home. We got in and booted up the pc’s so we could get in a quick net fix before crashing. After 3 hours kip we were up and getting ready again because we were booked into the casino for a meal with dad and co as it was my brothers birthday. Richard and Louise had traveled up from Daventry for the weekend and Robert joined us so it was a cracking night.

Stef even had a bit of a flutter on the roulette, I went from rolling my eyes to being reet chuffed, he started with £20 and came away with £175! My man’s a lucky one that’s for sure, I don’t think anyone else did as well from our party. Mind you – it’s getting to be a bit of a pain now, at any of my family do’s I spend the night having to listen to everyone tell me how great Stef is – like I didn’t already know that LOL

Still, I guess it’s good to know we have the universal seal of approval eh?!

It was an absolutely fabulous wedding on Sunday – so fabulous in fact that it’s taken me until today to recover from it *grin*

The minister said those magical words ‘Could you please be upstanding for the entrance of the bride’ and so we all stood, then waited, and waited.. after about five minutes she said she’d just pop out to see what the hold up was – this led to much nervous speculation and plenty of ribbing directed at poor Allan who looked to be on the verge of tears before the minister came back in and took her place.
Lj came through the doors looking positively radiant and the relief in the poor lads eyes was eclipsed by awe as he took her in.

The ceremony was moving – as it should be. The bride and groom, both nervous and failing to hide it, caused many an indulgent chuckle to run around the room as they stumbled through the vows. They were holding hands as if they were both drowning and the other person was all that was keeping them afloat, you couldn’t mistake the genuine love between them, it was a privilege to witness it.

The ‘wedding breakfast’ was pretty damned fine, you can’t beat tasty food – though calling a 3pm steak dinner ‘breakfast’ seemed a tad on the odd side but I guess that’s what ‘posh folks’ do eh!? Speaking of posh.. We scrubbed up pretty well for the day, even if I do say so myself.

I know.. I should really get some sun, believe it or not – I actually used some of that ‘tanning moisturiser’ and I’m caked in foundation, without those cosmetic touches I’d look like a corpse.. (Not a good wedding look methinks..) Let’s just blame it on the lighting eh?!

But look at those eyebrows. Go on.. Do they look a little ‘different’ to you? Not quite as straight and bushy as usual are they? They look almost unnatural in fact. That’s right, (Kelly – you will feel my pain on this point after reading that guest post I did for you)

I got PLUCKED!
I now know the slight discomfort that is tweezing. In all honesty it was nowhere near as bad as I’d thought it would be – but I still got bullied into it by my stepmum, Stef did nothing to help me wriggle out of it and dad.. Well, no point looking in that quarter when a film is on, I wouldn’t mind but I wanted to watch the film too! *sniff*

Anyhow, I have to eat my words, it does make quite a difference. I can’t promise I’ll keep on top of things because I’m just not girly girl enough, but it doesn’t in fact hurt quite as much as I’d thought and the end effect is quite pleasing – but I’ll never wax, plucking is as far as I’ll go on the home torture front.

Anyhow.. I could talk about the speeches and how Allan reduced the room to tears by breaking up after the first few lines of his (he was just an emotional wreck all day, it was kinda sweet) and I could tell you all about the lass who ended up pole dancing around the singers mic stand at the evening reception.. But no instead I’ll just say it was a fabulous day followed by a fun evening. As family do’s go it’s right up there amongst the best of ‘em.

I just hope the happy couple are having twice as much fun on their honeymoon in Mexico this week. Best wishes to ‘em and much love.

Actually, this post has been prompted by a link my fave Ubuntu tech posted on twitter, it had me doing an idle search for a costume after joking to Stef about maybe doing that for the next fancy dress party we attended.

Now.. I’ve looked through most of the links on Leia’s metal bikini and I’ve come to the conclusion that even if I could by some miracle find one in my size – it’d look way too daft, I’m cursed ‘blessed’ in the chest department so even if I got my budha belly in trim, I’d still look like I was about to keel over from the weight of all that metal..

What..? you want proof?

*mutter* *grumble* Fine!

K, here’s the Lara Croft pic you love so much..

..and now you see why I rarely get my legs out – look at the state of those knees! I had to greyscale ‘em – you’d go blind otherwise, i’m so white I’m blue! Apparently..
Now for the side view.. I keep a ‘belly’ for a reason, if I didn’t have belly flab I’d look even more off kilter than this!

So there you have it, even if I could find the outfit in my size at a price I could afford – it’d ruin many a male fantasy and because I love you guys I just couldn’t do it to ya’s.
I’m all heart me aren’t I?