Life and pondering the merits of a NO REFUND CULTURE
Loved stuff
Loved stuff: My Nike IDs
Jul 17th
I am totally in love with my new Nike ID trainers. They are so comfy and feel like a pair of slippers. They are my perfect trainers because I designed them on an app on my iPhone a month ago. They then get made especially for you. How cool is that? Not at all expensive either.
Check out the website www.NIKEiD.Nike.com.
Love Nike even more now.
Loved stuff: Inspiring people
Jul 15th
Over the course of the last few months I have made a number of new acquaintances, friends and people that I have reconnected with that have really inspired me. Past uni folk, people that I have met up with through Twitter engagement and through work. These people are smart, kind and thoughtful. Great stuff.
Loved stuff: The new karaoke that makes you smile
Jun 6th
If you watched the Eurovision Song Contest last week (like me) you may have enjoyed the excellent flash mob of Europeans (and folk from other countries close[ish] to Europe) dancing away during the interlude before the scoring started. My friend Rhian is fascinated by the flash mob and has pronounced it “The new karaoke”. Flash mobs certainly aren’t that new but added to a sing along they give a karaoke a big lift.
There really is something mesmerising about watching a flash mob get going. Loads of people all moving in unison, it is amazing. There must be some genetic reason that our eyes get glued to this (matching armies make you fixate in the same way). Anyway, here is a selection of flash mob antics from YouTube – ENJOY…
EUROVISION 2010 – takes a while to get going but stick with it (the heavy handed bouncers at the start are classic!) PS London flash mob contribution rubbish in this video – ho hum it just matches the TERRIBLE last place performance of the UK this year!:
BEYONCE SINGLE LADIES (100 OF THEM!) – sound not great but brilliant dancing:
A MEGA-MIX FROM BONDI BEACH – camp as hell amazingness:
OPRAH AND THE BLACK-EYED PEAS:
Loved stuff: Su-Bo is just amazing
Nov 27th
I have downloaded Susan Boyle’s new album. It is stunning. I am getting Streisand-like goose bumps just listening to it. Wild Horses, her first single, makes me well up with tears every time I hear it. Her voice is absolutely beautiful: totally, overwhelmingly stunning. I know I am gushing but it is fabulous.
Apparently the album is breaking records left, right and centre in terms of number of downloads, blah,blah,blah. I am not surprised and wholeheartedly encourage you to get yourself a copy (or at least get one for your Mum for Christmas but load it up on your iTunes first). ;+)
Never has the saying about a book, its cover and judgement been so apt. The stylists have really gone to town on her mind and she is looking much groomed. I hope she stays her quirky slightly dishevelled self (great to see her with neat eyebrows though).
I want Mr Cowell to set up a Leona and Susan duet on the night of the X Factor final.
Actually do you know what, on second thoughts this might be unwise, I might end up hospitalised with emotional exhaustion!
Loved stuff: My advice… get on and commit to ‘The One’
Oct 16th
Now you may or may not know, but on the 29 August, six odd weeks ago, I married my boyfriend. I am so pleased that I have done it. Chad and I are officially partners in crime.
There have been a duo of recurring questions that people have asked me:
Question one (in the one hour lead up to and after the ceremony): Are you feeling / did you feel nervous?
Question two (from about two weeks after the ceremony): Do you feel different?
So the answers to these…
In response to question one the answer is ‘no’ – I’d never felt so serene and content in my life.
The response to question two is ‘yes’ and also ‘no’ – let me explain myself – yes I do feel different, but not different different – just a more intense range of emotions than before: more secure, happier, more loved, more committed, closer, just more of a range of positve feelings that started in the first few days of meeting my (now) husband.
In the finale of my official wedding speech I talked about one of my favourite characters from one of my favourite TV shows of all time: Charlotte from Sex in the City. I loved her character – she always believed that there was ‘The One’ and she never lost the faith, despite the disappointment, despite kissing many frogs that never morphed into the prince.
As I mentioned in front of my friends and family (having consumed a suitable volume of bubbles) – I’ve ‘kissed’ many (many, many) frogs and had the most disastrous and toxic six and a half year relationship (that a therapist [I need a whole separate post on my belief in the power of talking to a professional] decided was with a narcissistic psychopath). But I never lost my faith, like the fictional Charlotte, that ‘The One’ is out there.
My toast at the end of my speech was: ‘To Chad, to my amazing Chad, my The One’.
He is just that, and I am going to work really hard to make sure of it.
I am sorry that this post might come across as ’smug married’ but I don’t apologise and I don’t care if I sound preachy.
So many of the people I know don’t throw themselves into a relationship – they hold back, play games and quite frankly waste time. You know if the one you are with is a keeper or a stinker who needs to be binned.
If your partner is your best mate (who you love doing intimate stuff with) then just go for it.
Loved stuff: Bring back The West Wing
Oct 1st
The night before last we finished our The West Wing box set – seven season, 157 episodes of total and utter brilliance. Chad calculated that we have watched it all in 160 days (since I got it from Claire as a birthday present back in April) – now that is dedication.
I’m sad that it is over and that I’m not going to get to see how the Santos presidency differed from the eight years of Bartlett’s. Ho hum.
If you don’t know anything about the programme then the Wikipedia entry is really good. I can only encourage you to buy a box set – it is totally ace. My friend Sally has recommended that I watch the one season of Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip that was also written by Aaron Sorkin.
Well at least I have achieved one of my goals of 2009 to watch the whole thing – it’s good to achieve one’s life ambitions ;+)
Loved stuff: Post-It notes
Aug 23rd
I have always loved Post-It notes (they are just to pleasing). When I was small we used to occasionally visit my Dad in his office and we were allowed to raid the stationery cupboard. They were only the boring pastel yellow ones in those days but I loved them. I use Post-It Notes for everything these days at work and I still think they are fab (although I avoid the pastel colours at all costs).
Check out this video – it is so much fun (and brings a huge smile to my face)…
EepyBird’s Sticky Note experiment from Eepybird on Vimeo.
Loved stuff: Being horizontal
Jul 29th
OK – I know I am meant to be in off-line mode (see today’s other post below) but as I wean myself off the laptop (this was a hybrid day after all) a ‘happy holiday’ tweet from @jonmoss inspired this post as I waxed lyrical about the fact I had been horizontal for most of the day. So hear is the post…
There are times when you cannot beat being horizontal – in this bodily orientation I get to do some of my favourite things:
- Sleep
- Lying on the couch listen to music / watching a movie on TV
- Sunbathing with a book (normally under an umbrella)
- Floating on a lilo in a pool
- Lounging on the grass after a picnic
The best horizontal moment of the day is when you first get in bed (especially if the sheets are brand new), you get in position, nuzzle with the pillow and feel the day drain away as you drift into unconsciousness – perfect.
Thankfully for me sleep arrives very quickly and unless I have something pressing on my mind normally I go to sleep in under 60 seconds (normally less than 30). My definition of insomnia is sleep that takes more than 2 minutes to come – if this happens there is something huge in mind and its best to get vertical again and get out of bed (horizontal and over processing a problem in bed is the only time that horizontal is not good).
I just thought that being dead involves a lot of being horizontal – so that is actually probably the worst type of horizontal and is generally best avoided.
There are lots of great things about being vertical – but being horizontal is definitely my favourite.
PS: I actually wrote this post while laying on the couch!
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