Friday night, I was sat at my computer being extremely bored. I was so bored I even managed to spend thirty minutes on Facebook. Anyone who knows me knows that I can’t stand Facebook and I only go on it to check status updates and accept all the things people have sent me. I rarely update my own status because there are too many people who know me offline on there and I’d rather them not know my business to be honest. Its strange how I trust my online friends more than my offline friends. Anyway, back on topic! After realising that I had been on Facebook for that long and hadn’t gotten anywhere, I decided to find something new to do. I got a brochure from Dell a couple of days ago in the post. They send me them every few months for some unknown reason - I have never purchased from Dell even though I have looked several times. I went on their website to see what laptops they do because in the brochure it said that you can get a pretty basic, but decent one for only £350. I added all the little extras that I would like, like the integrated webcam and more hard drive and a HD screen. I was surprised at home much laptop memory you can actually get now. I know that makes me sound so behind with things but I really am when it comes to computers. When I was younger and I lived at home I used to be up to date with computers all the time because I was constantly looking online at the new products. The last laptop I had was only around 1028MB RAM or something ridiculous like that but now I could buy one better than my computer! So yeah, I’ve decided I really want a laptop. I miss having one upstairs so I can go online, watch films and listen to music in bed. I think after my camera, I will be saving for a laptop.

When you become a parent, if your unfortunate enough to not have an extra room to count as a playroom or the kids don’t have a big enough bedroom to even fit a single bed in - like I do - then I’m guessing your living room looks like mine does; infested with toys. Every evening (when I feel like it anyway), I tidy the living room floor of all the toys and try and fit in hooving it up too. It must take me at least thirty minutes to organise the toys so they all fit either in the toy box or at the side of the fireplace especially on a bad day when Meghan decides to get every single toy out. I would love Meghan to have a bigger bedroom or to have an extra room in the house where I can make a play corner for her. Houses are so small over here and so expensive. The house I live in now is rented and the rent is really inexpensive for anywhere in my area. For me to get a house even this size in the same area, the rent would go up by at least £100 a month. I really could use an extra room though - a dining room or another bedroom or even a bigger living room would be nice! It would be nice to think about moving in the next year or so but I’ll need to get myself a job first!

Yesterday, we had to make the decision to put our hamster, Snowball to sleep. He was Emelye’s hamster but since she’s only here two days a week most weeks, me and Alex did most of the caring for him (its been me solely for the past two months). I really got attached to him, more than I realised. His kidney’s had failed and he hadn’t even urinated for two days. His stomach was so swollen and he stopped eating. He was just sleeping constantly. Alex took him to the vets on Monday afternoon and they gave him two shots of antibiotic but it did nothing. The vet told him to bring him back today but we didn’t think it fair to leave him another day so Alex took him back yesterday. My bedroom is so quiet without him. I’m used to being woken up several times by him moving around and chewing the cage. I woke up quite a lot last night, panicking that he’d got out of his cage because I couldn’t hear or see him. I know it was the right thing to do but I was more upset than I thought. Everyone is on about getting another one - not now but in the future - and I’m sorry but I just don’t want another. For one I can’t deal with loving a pet for only two years and having it taken away from you. And two, I just don’t want anymore responsibility. I mean, I’ve love a bearded dragon but I don’t want to be tied down even more than I am now. I don’t plan on getting anymore pets full stop after Jak and Daxter have gone. It really is too upsetting when they die.

I’ve been doing most of my blogging over at Love Duckie recently. It was nice to get it back up and running again and I’d pretty much forgotten about here. I hope everyone had a lovely Christmas. I have been ill and it wasn’t really anything special anyway. Too much stress leading up to Christmas I think and I’m just glad for it to be over. That sounds so miserable but I can’t help how I feel! Meghan enjoyed herself though and she loved all of her presents and appreciated every single one of them. I had to send her main present back today for a replacement though. We got her Elmo Live and it decided to not work from the moment we took it out of the box. Its not that it doesn’t switch on, its that it doesn’t stand up straight and falls over every time it tries to sit down. Hopefully the replacement will be sent by the end of the week so Meghan can finally play with it properly.

I’ve decided that this year  am doing to be starting the 101 Things in 1001 Days rather than having some resolutions. Its nice to have lots of little goals to work on over the next couple of years rather than one that cannot be broken over a year. One of my main goals for the 101 Things is definitely the weight loss. I’m at a lower weight than I have been in a long time right now and I plan to lose another 10+ pounds to get down to my goal weight. I’m doing it all myself with no need for help from any kind of diet pill. I’m looking forward to getting started with it and I’m planning on really doing it this time so I can be ready for my holiday at the beginning of April. You can view my 101 Things over at Love Duckie from January 1st as I won’t be posting it here. It’ll be too hard to manage it at two blogs at once.

Well I’m off to watch Superman Returns. Its been on for half an hour but its finally getting half decent so I’m going to step away from the computer for a while and watch the rest. Sorry about my pathetic excuse for a blog. I’ll try and fit another one in tomorrow.

Everyone knows I wear glasses (and for those who didn’t know; well I do!). Next month I am due for an eye test and I really want a new pair of eyeglasses. I bought two pairs a year ago but I can’t wear one of them because Meghan has bent them all out of shape and the lenses have loads of scratches on them. The ones I wear all the time are getting the same and they just feel old. Anyone who wears glasses will know how they feel after you’ve had them for a while. You just know its time for a change. I’m actually thinking about going back to contact lenses again to be honest. I really don’t like wearing my glasses all the time. Especially when I’m doing the band photography because my glasses usually end up pushed against my nose and it really does hurt! I feel a little more confident when I wear contact lenses too.

For Christmas this year I have made about five of my gifts. I have only finished knitting one of the scarves I have started and I still have two more to complete, one to start and a hat to start. I use to cross stitch Christmas cards but I don’t really have the time for that anymore. My mum likes to hand make cards and she also likes to do scrapbooking. She made my nana a scrapbooking gift a few years ago and she got no appreciation for it so I think thats put her off a bit. I would much prefer a personal, handmade gift from someone rather than a store bought gift. If its something I can wear or something I can use daily, it would be perfect. I’m not expecting many presents at all this year and I’m not giving out as many presents as I would like but at least the things I am giving out, have been given a lot of thought and I’ve spent time on it and not just gone onto Amazon and clicked “Buy”. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, I plan to do that too!

I am officially back. For good. I promise. I messed my website up yet again and finally had the motivation this morning to get it sorted out and it was something pretty simple. Extremely simple actually. I still don’t my other blog back up and running but the amount of opps I have over at PayU2Blog makes me really glad that I have this place back up and running! You’ll see loads of paid posts until I catch up with everything but I promise by weekend, I will be back on track with things.

By the way, Wordpress 2.7’s dashboard is going to take a lot of getting used to. Its very nice but everything had moved!

First it was problems with my databases. Then it was problems with my hosting. I’m back again now. I may be doing a move over to my friend’s hosting as she said she will host me, which is lovely. Right now, even $6 a month is too much money. To be honest, I missed blogging a lot to begin with but I think I’m going to find it quite hard to pick up again. I’ve not blogged now for around three weeks and thats a long enough time to get out of the routine of it. I have had no ideas for posts and I haven’t really been that bothered about blogging. I just thought I would since I have five spare minutes and so you know I’m still here. Even though its been off and on for a while!

I’ll go ahead and move my other blog now because that one is just not working at all. I don’t know how I’m going to get my WP files from it but I’ll figure something out.

One of those things that I have never bought for the house since I moved out is any kind of tools. Its rather annoying having to go and ask my parents to bring a screw driver round just to fix something or a hammer just to put a nail in the wall. Its something I really need to invest in. Some gardening stuff would be nice too. I keep meaning to put some shelves up in the living room for all my DVD’s and CD’s and I was looking at some power tools to help me do this and came across air tools. They look pretty cool but to honest I wouldn’t know what the difference was!

Before I start, I’ll start by saying I’m sorry for not being around much and when I am around its only to do paid blogging. I’m going to try a bit harder from now on and I’ll start with this.

Even though Alex isn’t here, I still have his little girl stay with me. There is no room at his mum’s house for him never mind Emelye as well so since she has her own room and a bed here, its just easier for her to stay with me and then Alex come and get her in the morning. The first week she stayed here without him, everything was fine. She went to bed no problem and was asleep by the time I went upstairs so I left her DS in her bedroom for her to play with in the morning. Last week, I was making her bed and laying her PJ’s out for her to get into and I found her DS under the pillow. I moved it onto the desk in her room and mentioned it to Alex to make sure he checked where it was when he put her to bed. As I had imagined, she’d put it back under her pillow with every intent of playing it in bed. She hadn’t touched it all night when she was downstairs and she’s usually on it from when Meghan goes to bed until she goes to bed. After Alex took the DS off her we had this huge thing about how she was missing her dad and tears and screaming and all this along with Meghan not going to sleep just really pushed me over the edge. I got Alex to speak to her on the phone and calm her down so she’d go to sleep and she eventually did. This week she went to bed perfectly. I went upstairs at about 12.30AM and she looked asleep so I turned her lamp off and left the DS near the door for her to play with when she woke up in the morning. I got all ready for bed and got into bed to read for half an hour. I heard her moving around a bit but just thought it was because she was moving around in her sleep. In the back of my mind I thought she might be getting out of bed to get the DS but I thought I would give her the benefit of the doubt and leave her to it. I got up this morning, got Meghan ready and popped my head into Em’s room to tell her to come downstairs and she was still fast asleep. The DS was by the side of her bed so she had obviously been playing on it to god knows what time. I left her asleep and she still wasn’t awake at 11AM when Alex came round. I don’t understand how she wasn’t asleep by 12.30AM. She went to bed at 9.30PM so she’d been lying awake for three hours waiting for me to come up and bring her DS. Needless to say, she’s not going on it all day and I won’t be leaving it in her room for a long, long time because I just can’t trust her.

What is so bad about going to bed? I’m having a few problems getting Meghan to go to bed at the moment too. The main thing is that she won’t go to bed for anyone but me. Emelye has never been a good sleeper and its always been something that frustrates me. No, I didn’t like going to bed when I was younger but I did. Up until I was about 12, I had to be in bed at 7PM on school nights and at about 8.30PM at the weekends. I can honestly say I never remember doing anything more than reading with a torch but after a while it got so awkward that I just stopped doing it. If I knew I couldn’t go on my Nintendo DS until morning, I would go to sleep sooner so I could get up earlier and have a longer go on it, not stay up until stupid o’clock and be miserable and moody in the morning.

Between me and Alex, we’ve tried everything to get her to go bed. I don’t think she has a set bedtime at home so that doesn’t really help much. She goes to bed here between 9-9.30PM as she’s here at the weekends and there is no exceptions. When me and Alex were living together, we rarely got any time to ourselves because she’d be coming down or crying or generally just being a pain in the arse getting up and making a noise upstairs. Im hoping its something she grows out of because I’m pretty strict when it comes to bedtime and unless you have a decent enough reason to be getting up, you need to stay in bed. And thats it.