hiding

Needless to say this is a v bad day. To make matters worse I am hiding in the bathroom as Alex is dealing with another furry friend that has got trapped, I think a baby of the one that got dealt with yesterday. I think we can safely say I will not be EVER appearing on Fear Factor and that I am a huge cowardly custard.  On the other hand I am looking at Alex in a whole new light, my hero and an excellent strategist whose chess like placement of the glue traps is clearing this little problem up.  By the time the exterminator gets here next week he will hopefully just be sealing up holes to keep the little buggers out.

Bugger, I hear something else and Alex is taking the rubbish out…..whimper……

butterflies

With a very fluttery stomach I am calling it a night. A bit scared about what I am going to wake up to in the morning. A bit like a nightmare Christmas when you don’t know if Santa is going to creep in and leave you goodies or steal all your toys, leave the taps running and unplug your fridge.  Please forgive me if I dream of Canadian sheep, as I am after all human.

company

A little before seven o’clock this morning Alex turned to me and said “I don’t want you to freak out but……”. This had my alarm bells ringing for a number of reasons, mainly because Alex is not particularly communicative this early in the morning. The most I can generally expect at this time is a grunt, that can be translated to mean “You have all the covers and for my last few minutes in bed, before I have to go to my proper job in the city that pays the bills and buys you glittery nail polish, I am going to have my share of the covers and the bed”. So, I think to myself if he is starting a conversation this early it must be big news….. divorce, redundancy, maybe he has been masquerading as a trekkie all these years and it’s a LIE….. Nope, he qualified his opening remark with, “there was a rustling in the kitchen and I went to check it out and I saw…” before he even finished I had jumped in with a mouse!!!!! It turned out that we have both heard a scratching every now and again and it looks like the little bugger, hereafter referred to as Edmond, had broken through. Since we are on the fifth floor, I am assuming he is either a roof dwelling mouse or a fourth floor fella trying to move up in the world.

This could have been a lot worse; ants or cockroaches or a Republican president lurking under the sink. My OCD kicked in and I furiously attached the kitchen throwing out all the open packets in the cupboards (which didn’t result in much). Of course nothing in the cupboards had been nibbled, just the loaf of bread that Edmond had munched on in the wee hours which I had shamelessly left on the counter. In hindsight of course this was a smart move. So now our landlord is sending over a guy next week and I bought some sticky pads to put down in the mean time (an Alex job I think).

Now my beloved has just called to ask if I have seen Edmond upon my return from work and that we had to get this problem sorted as mice breed like tribbles. Sometimes I wonder which reality we are operating in…..

symptoms of the snowball effect

I have been running around for the past few weeks like the proverbial blue-arsed fly. It has all caught up with me. I’ve gotten a bit run down and haven’t been able to shake the sinuously cold that’s been dogging me for over a week – in short I am a bit ‘under the weather’ so to speak. So I gave in, took yesterday off work and did nothing more stressful than due diligence on our sock draw. Then today instead of rushing straight from my shift to yoga, I have returned home to sit in bed and listen to the wireless. Bliss.

I am one of those people that takes on more than they can handle, but juggles and some how manages to get them all done (in the end). All be it at some mental or physical cost. Back in the days of yore when I, briefly, was an assistant for an web enabled recruitment search firm (they loathed the term internet start-up, though if they got as much press as lastminute.com then I think they would have happily accepted the term) I got myself seriously over stretched. Alex had just left for the bright lights and yellow taxi cabs, so you could say that there was a certain void that needed filling. Initially I’d been taken on to assist the office and customer service manager and to handle the accounts (no-one had touched the invoices for months, bar to hastily write cheques). After two weeks, my manager left. Someone else got customer services and I got the office management. Which really wasn’t that much of a change in work load as she had been grooming me to take over since day one. Everyone in the office was over stretched and long hours were the norm. Slowly odds and sods started floating my way. A rather full but varied plate was now in front of me. Then disaster struck and we went into liquidation. The ones with more sense left and I, who always loves a challenge and a bit of excitement, decided to give it a month. In my short time there I’d grown from being a small cog, who when I’d been originally interviewed by the MD he’d shown me all the interest of something unpleasant he had step on, to the point gal running the day to day show. Customer service, admin, promotional brochures, accounts, web stats, blah, blah, blah. I was their girl Friday.

It was fantastic. I loved it. Then it all ended, we got new backers and the old staff returned. Then it was not so much fun. I still had the same workload but people were loathed to reward my loyalty with a more interesting position. I guess to promote me they would have needed to replace me with two or more people. Needless to say, much to their amazement, I left shortly afterwards.

My point, what was my point – other than to try and remind myself that I once was a semi-professional – I still haven’t learnt to stop grabbing at every opportunity that comes my way. So, note to self, I must start practising a little restraint.

nice one

Finally, tackled the laundry mountain that has been threatening to consume our flat (not to mention the inhabitants). Compared to the majority of my friends, and other apartment dwelling in the tri-state, we have it easy, as there is a washer/drier conveniently located next to the bathroom. No hauling our dirty smalls to the basement communal laundry or out into the big wide world. But, still I let it grow. I think it’s because I loath putting the clean clothes away. Our wardrobes are rather titchy, yes I got the larger one, but it always seems to turn into a logistical nightmare. Were after ten minutes, I break and start cramming my tees higgledy piggledy. Ideally I like to separate my tees into – plain, dressy, graphic, plain vests and graphic vests.

Moi, a tad anal…never!

Generally when I am sorting the clean laundry I put the Archers on. Tonight I had the pleasure of listening to yet another sport ideally suited to being covered on the radio soap. In the past we have had card games, riding, micro lighting, darts and now tug of war!

the big push

The arrival of a new set of shelves has spurred me on to ‘de-clutter’ and give things a jolly old tidy around the flat. The particular area that is the main cause for concern is my desk in the bedroom – where the shelves shall be setting up home – all summer it has been threatening to turn into an EU paper mountain.

Now, the only music which I could get down and dirty to whilst accomplishing my task is an old favorite, Meat Loaf. And, yes I have to sing along as I go. As the closing verse of Bat Out of Hell purrs out of my ipod, I am taking a moment to step back and share with you my work area.

Ahhh… I think I shall enter it into the Turner Prize.