jenepel

So lately for whatever reason I completely suck at blogging. I've decided to blame it on tax season, which may or may not be true. It is true that I'm working longer hours, coming in early, etc. The good thing is that it's almost the 15th. I can't decide if it's a good thing or a bad one that we have holidays between now and then. It's certainly not helping us get stuff done in time! Between B and I we have 28 outstanding clients right now. I just don't see those all getting done. Thank goodness for the June 15th overseas extension. Not that a million more won't come in before that. He needs to stop taking on new clients. Also, I'm doing freelance stuff after work, so that's filling some time too. And it seems to take more research.

I'm going home (well, to my parents) this weekend for the Easter bank holidays. I have some tax stuff to do, a few meetings to happen while there, all freelance stuff. But other than that I'm planning on cleaning out my room, scrapbooking a bit, and seeing my friend Kathleen's new baby. I've seen pictures, but I can't believe he's about three weeks old now and I haven't seen him yet.

There are tons of things I could go over here but it gets to a point when you just can't catch up on everything that hasn't been written. So here are a few randoms:

1. I kinda got spoiled for BSG by reading our last virtual season episode. It was silly, just an off the cuff remark by Rory about who the last Cylon was, but it sucked. Not much to do about it, and as Seb says there are plenty of other surprises, but still! Ah well. My fault for being only on the second season I guess.

2. I just got an email from hotmail thanking me for having my account for over ten years. So bizarre to think it's been that long.

3. March was a big month for us to have couchsurfers. I just looked at the calendar and we've had 13 people in the last six weeks. That seems like a lot. It's been fun though. We haven't had any bad ones (yet) although of course some are easier than others. For one thing it definitely makes it more of an effort if their English isn't great. But in general, I have to say thumbs up. It's a great way to meet interesting people and it spices up life a little, having all these randoms flitting in and out.

4. I went dancing last weekend with Kaite (ladyvivien) and a few of her friends. (Also one of the current couchsurfers, a Texan from Austin, came too.) We went to this Indie-music night at a club in Camden. I haven't been out like that in ages, so it was a lot of fun. I always forget how much I like to dance. I still want to go to the CandyBar, which Kaite mentioned before as a possibility, but it got shunted or forgotten. I'd like to see it though, and am not going alone. Kaite???

5. We've officially started our craft group. Claire did a FB group (crafting bitches!) and people have joined. So technically now we've had two meetings. We did decoupage last week, which I think was a good choice because it didn't take much prep time. We haven't really planned out what else we're going to do though, so that's gonna take some work.

6. I have kinda sorta serious big news that I do want to write about in here but haven't gotten around to yet. It will take some careful drafting, and I don't quite have my thoughts in order yet, but hopefully that post will come soon. Some of you already know what I'm talking about. I don't want to make a big deal about it, but it's big to me, so whatever. Maybe soon.

7. And because it's easy, and I just saw it on reipan's entry this morning: When you see this on your flist, quote Buffy The Vampire Slayer.
"And the monkey says 'I mock you with my monkeypants!' And then there's a big coup in the zoo." (Pretty much my all time favourite scene, ever. Also, I love in the beginning when she asks about his arm and he says "suddenly painless" - I almost quoted that part. Oh look, I just did!)

Eh. I'm sure there's tons more but that's all I can think of for now. The 12th this month is Easter Sunday, which seems very fortuitous, so I should be able to get some good Norfolk pictures. I think we're going to a party or something in the afternoon.

Man I'm tired. I can't wait until I'm on the train headed home.

This entry is like three days in the making. I kept emailing portions of it to myself!

After a bunch of false starts, I finally have actual couchsurfers at my house! Currently two Belgian girls are staying for a few days. They're absolutely adorable and so far a lot of fun. Last night they came home (after what sounded like a long day of sightseeing) and we cooked dinner. Well, they cooked dinner and I helped as much as they would let me. (One of the highlights was this language gaffe - "We bought some cheese, so now we just need to rape it." After much laughter, the actual word was revealed to be (of course) "grate".) We chatted over cooking and eating, and it finally (as all conversations nowadays seem to) led to the US presidential election. Always interesting to get a few more opinions. More interesting to me though, was that we then segued into Belgian politics, which I of course know nothing about. But man, it sounds totally insane! And they were having trouble agreeing on it themselves - in between the English explanations there were frantic conversations in Dutch. Not to mention that as good as their English is, words like referendum, constitution, parliament, etc take a while to get out. So yes, good stuff. Also, they brought Belgian chocolate. :)

Otherwise for couchsurfing I have two other groups booked – well one is just one girl actually – for next week or so. I also have a million more requests in my inbox to deal with, and could fit at least a few other people in, but haven’t decided. I can see how it gets out of hand! You get so many requests (London) and you hate to say no to people, but you also need to have a life. We’ll see what Rach says.

OH! RACH GETS HOME TODAY!!!!!!!!! Just a thought. (This icon is totally Rach and I, back together again!)

I hennaed my hair last week with the henna from Turkey and I’m not sure how it went. I still have brown roots, and I can’t decide if it’s just my roots are darker since it’s getting colder, or I didn’t do it right since I did it myself, or that henna isn’t as strong. I also tried to do my eyebrows, after reading that it was okay, but I don’t think it made much of a difference. It did, however, dye the skin UNDER my brows orange for a few days, so that was fun.

How about some TV news? ( 90210 is lost on me, but you should ALL watch Brothers & Sisters. )

I went home this weekend because S&L were visiting from the US and of course wanted to see K&J. So we all took the train up together, and much fun was had. It made me miss Trev though, because otherwise the whole group was there! Also, I spent some quality time with mom and dad, since on Saturday we went to this living history thing that a nearby village was doing. Then, on the way back we stopped and picked some blackberries, which are going (along with some apples probably) into a welcome home crumble for Rach tonight.

And now, just for fun - ( a picspam from the weekend )

I feel a bit weird at the moment, not sure why, but my stomach isn't happy. And I need to go home anyway, so that Rach isn't waiting for hours outside in the rain. So I might just take off. We'll see what Bruce thinks...

I woke up this morning with "Don't It Make My Brown Eyes Blue" (Crystal Gayle ) in my head. Which is strange, because I don't think I've heard that song in years. It used to be one of my favourites when I was a kid. So yeah, that's very weird.

This entry is mostly to rant about Bones, because I've just finished watching the S3 finale and I am totally speechless.

( Cut for Bones Season 3 Spoilers )

Tomorrow I have my very first couchsurfers coming – two girls from CA – so I’m pretty excited about that. I also have two others coming at the beginning of next week. And then Rach gets back (YAY!) so I’m not sure what our plan for the rest of the month is. I have like five million requests though, so I need to decide something soon. I already weeded out some of them for various reasons, the biggest being if their group included a guy. I said explicitly on my profile that I couldn’t host men (because of the weird landlord rule which I’m not willing to risk for couchsurfers during our last month in the house) and yet people keep asking! Even after I went back and put it in block capitals on the main description part, I’ve still had some requests. Man people are dumb.

Speaking of dumb? The Republican VP choice. Even over here, you can feel the waves of derision.