Still Blogging

It's been quiet on my blog lately, and I'm sorry about that.  I guess work has been taking up most of my energies and I haven't really had anything very interesting to blog about lately either, so these two things combined have meant a dearth in posts.  I don't want to stop blogging though, as I love to keep in touch with the lovely people I've met and engaged with via the blogging world, so I will try to keep posting as often as I can, even if it is only a couple of times a month. To make up for it, this is going to be a long one, so brace yourself.

I have made a slight change to my blog in that I will now be moderating comments as I have noticed lots of spam comments being made on my posts lately and I want to prevent this in future.  Apologies if this causes you any inconvenience, but I notice that many of the blogs I read regularly do the same thing too anyway.

As indicated above, life has been pretty routine of late. On the days I'm working I throw myself into it full steam ahead.  That's just the way I am. I'm still enjoying my job though which is definitely a good thing. I'm slowly getting used to earning slightly less money each month, approx. £200, as my hours have reduced by half a day per week under my new contract.  This month I fared better, as I didn't have too many expensive things to pay out for, but last month was a bit of a disaster.  Next month, most of my money will go towards spending money for our upcoming trip to Australia to visit my sister.

Time is hurtling by at the moment. Before we know it, we'll be sat on a plane for 28 hours on our way to Brisbane. I'm now starting to look forward to the trip, but I haven't started packing yet.  At the moment, I'm just trying to get on top of our washing and ironing, to make it easier when we all do pack. I'm also trying to get ahead of myself at work to help things along whilst I'm away. One positive is that I have already sussed out some Zumba classes close to where my sister lives which is exciting. I love trying new classes. I've also bought some sun cream and a few clothes too, which is a start.

I had a bit of a shopping spree in the H&M sale.  I don't normally buy much new, as I tend to just buy things from the charity shop in which I work, or others that I visit on my days off , but I made an exception on this occasion, mainly because it's a special long haul holiday and I wanted some new t-shirts.  In the end, I bought three dresses too, but I don't regret it, as they will all be useful for wearing to work on my return from our holiday.

One was this black jersey t-shirt dress with pockets that wasn't on sale and I've already worn this one to work.  It's very comfortable and easy to throw on. It could be worn on the beach or poolside too.

Another, was a loose fitting khaki tie belted dress with lovely bell shaped sleeves. I'm definitely looking forward to wearing this one, but I'll probably wear it without the belt.

The third was  a lovely smart fitted lace dress, which will be great for more formal occasions and looks great on. This one in particular will be good for work days when I want to look a bit smarter, such as management meetings and visits to the shop from Head Office. This was the most expensive dress at £15, the other two were £12.99 and £10 respectively, so I didn't spend a whole lot. I know they aren't the most colourful items, but I don't tend to wear prints these days, save for harem pants which I tend to wear with plain t-shirts or tops.  I can always jazz these up with a colourful scarf or jewellery.

I also bought this PU biker jacket this month for £15, after the dog literally dragged me into our local RSPCA charity shop.  She must have known it was in there.  She loves going into this shop, as it is really dog friendly and she always finds something interesting to sniff. On this visit, the Manager also gave her a couple of treats, so I'm sure that it's now going to be a regular haunt of ours on dog walks when we're passing.

On the same visit, I found a £10 note in the pocket of a pair of jeans I tried on, so my visit was worth £28 to the charity instead of the £18 I actually spent. (The item wasn't gift aided so there was no way of knowing who the donor was)

In other news, LB finished her exams two week ago and after a weekend of partying, is settling into her extra long summer holidays.  She's got her Prom tonight and then her results in August, after which she's officially left her all girls' school, provided that she gets the results she needs to go to the Sixth Form College of her choice. She's already given her school uniform to the school, to sell to other pupils, so lets hope so anyway!

Last week, was a week of dental appointments for her, one at the orthodontist who has agreed to treat her in 15 to 18 months, once she works her way up the waiting list, and the other with her normal dentist for a check up and to find out what the orthodontist said. This week, it's all about prep for Prom, so she's had her nails done and her fringe cut in order to look her best. It's all new to me, as we never had such things in my day, but I'm sure she'll have a nice evening and why not. She deserves it.

Today, is also plot inspection day on our allotment site, whereby all the plots on our small site will be judged and the winner of Best Plot and Best Newcomer will be decided.  I don't think we'll win anything this year, as we won Best Newcomer last year, but the plot is all planted up and looking tidy.  OH and I ventured there at the weekend and cleared all the weeds from the paths surrounding our plot, as we'd been asked to do so  in a newsletter. I didn't take any photos I'm afraid, but here's a couple from a few weeks ago. It's all grown up a lot more since then, but is much the same otherwise.

I found this really cute sign at Poundland a few months ago, which now has pride of place over the compost bin. I hope it makes the judges smile.

To be honest, it's mostly OH's work this year on the plot, so I have him to thank for being on top of it, as I rarely have the energy to go there.  We did our usual on Saturday, of taking the dog with us and then going off to the pub afterwards for supper, which was nice.

Anyway, that's about me caught up for now.  I've spent the last two days cutting blank paper out of all of LB's old school exercise books, which she has now thrown out. I will use this as scrap paper. I've got enough to last me for the next 10 years I think.  I only use it for shopping lists, scrappy notes and for quilting, but it's better than just throwing it in the recycling unused. I have kept back some of her school books, namely Maths and English, just in case of any possible retakes. Let's hope this is not necessary.

Anyway, I must go as I've waffled on long enough.  See you in my next post.