Katiefoolery

If I have one major, over-riding problem that stands in the way of achieving anything, it's that I'm rubbish at starting things. Even if it's something I really want to do or something I've been looking forward to for ages, that hurdle known as "actually starting it" somehow seems insurmountable.

A while ago, I voiced a desire to start a blog where I was free to utter all sorts of nonsense regarding clothes, shoes, various other things that we wear and the process of acquiring said things that we wear. I really wanted to do it, so much so that I went and acquired a domain and set it up to link to a blogger address.

Back in February.

February.

It was at about that point that I encountered the "actually starting it" demon and shied away, despite the voices clamouring at the back of my head about how much fun this blog could be and how much I really wanted to start it. And yet, it has remained untouched since then.

Until I finally put a stop to all of this nonsense and wrote an intro post on Saturday. And you know what? It wasn't as difficult as the Actually Starting It demon would have me believe. The best bit is that, now I've started, it will be much easier to continue on. Finally, I can start having fun with a blog I set up months ago!

So, uh, this is the bit where I formally invite you all to come over and have a look at see if you like what's going on. And maybe you could click on the "follow" button so that it looks like I have some friends. (This means I will also follow you in return, because that's just the way I roll. Or something.) The picture to the right there is just to give you helpful directions to what the follow button looks like - clicking on that one won't actually achieve anything except frustration, I'm afraid.

At the moment, my intro post is sitting there on its lonesome but it will soon be joined by others. Many others. I have plenty of ideas for future posts - I have been gathering them since February, after all - but I would love to hear if you guys have any suggestions, too. Do you have any questions? Any suggestions for topics or themes? Please post them in the comments so I can offer them a nice comfy chair and a cuppa by the fireplace and generally make them feel more welcome than they could possibly imagine.

And now, to the point of this whole thing: a link to my brand new (well, newly-dusted) blog. Click on the image below and you will be taken there!



(Cross-posted from my LiveJournal.)

OK, so technically I promised that this would be photos of the new house.

It isn’t.

I do have photos of the new house.  The difficulty in bringing them to you all lies in the fact that a) I am lazy, and, b) uploading the photos involves overcoming said laziness.  But I shall.

In the meantime, please accept this list of best ofs served up by my week.

Best moron of the week
This one seems like a contradiction in terms, but oh well.  The award goes to the guy who walked up to my bus-stop this afternoon and proceeded to sit down and smoke, despite the fact that it’s illegal to do so in a bus shelter and that, thanks, but I don’t want to die of lung cancer.

So cue me walking away to stand up and wait for my bus after a long day of work in which precious few breaks were to be found.  The main reason for their scarcity probably lies in the fact that they were cunningly disguised as more work.

And then, this lovely gentleman GETS UP AND CONTINUES ON HIS WALK.

*swears at length*

Strangely enough, bus shelters aren’t actually your personal under-cover smoking seats - they’re BUS SHELTERS.  People might want to, I don’t know, shelter under them in air that isn’t carcinogenic.

Thank-you so much.

I need to swear some more...

*does so*

Best achievement of the week
Actually waking up when my alarm went off.  Once.  I had it set for 6:45am (although it’s actually 6:30am, since I follow in the age-old tradition of putting one’s alarm clock ahead in order to encourage timely efficiency... when all it really does is assure me I can safely sleep in for fifteen minutes longer).  So, as I was saying before that ridiculously long parenthesis interrupted me, I had it set for 6:45am, which only resulted in my sleeping in ’til seven.  Aha! I thought to myself.  If I set it for six thirty, then I’ll only sleep in ’til quarter to seven!

Which was a fantastic theory.

In reality, I woke up at six thirty and just slept in for half an hour instead.

But not this morning!  This morning I was up and stumbling about in the miserable darkness mere minutes after the alarm had gone off.  So huzzah for me and my timely rising.

Best catastrophe
This is an odd one and I apologise in advance for it, but the world’s going to end and it’s all my fault.  I’ll probably expand on this at a later date.

And finally...
Best quote of the week
This one goes to Bindi, although it’s mostly for randomness.  The quote in question?  “I try not to look at my sister-in-law’s ass.”

Yeah.

I don’t know whether to be relieved or offended.

I spent most of this morning without power.  Gosh it was great.  One minute, I was eagerly popping my fruit muffins in the toaster, the next I was powerless.

Well, apart from the lights.  The lights were working fine.

Not so the toaster, the central heating (waaah!), Bindi’s hairdryer, the fridge and anything else you care to mention that involves a power-point in any way.

Thank goodness I’d just made a cup of tea or I would have gone insane.

I’d relate the following couple of hours of pointless phone calls and frustrated waiting but a) it’s really boring, and, b) would involve far too many mentions of how damned cold I was.  I was freezing!  The weather had been looking up at the start of week, but it had taken a turn for the worse and seemed to be mocking the whole situation.

So... cold...

Oh, did I mention that I couldn’t even turn on a computer?  No warming glow of the monitor, no internet.

So... very... cold...  I think some of the shivers might have been withdrawal symptoms from my beloved internet, too.

So, there I was, wrapped in too many clothes for comfort (including a scarf wound about six times around my neck), reading my new manga until my fingers were too cold to hold things up any more.

When the electrician finally arrived, he said such inspiring things as:

“Oh, I really hoped it wouldn’t be one of these types of fuse-boxes.”

And:

“Damn, I don’t have any of these fuses.”

And then we worked out that the toaster had caused all this trouble.  The toaster.  The stupid, piece-of-rubbish four-slice toaster that's too narrow to fit anything but the slimmest bread slices and that toasts things unevenly anyway.  That pointless, frustrating, AGGRAVATING toaster caused all of this trouble.  So now we have to dispose of it.  At this point in time, I can’t decide if I’d rather burn it or smash it with something heavy.  Both options are incredibly attractive.



In non-toaster related news, I’m enjoying the new range of styles that LJ has given us, courtesy of VOX.  It turns out they’re going to start leaning towards CSS customisation now, so I might actually have a chance of customising it to suit my purposes!

*stabs S2*

The other day, in further un-told adventures of the water leak in the front yard, I happened to be pushing my way through the rather considerable weeds along our back fence when I noticed something bright green on my left hand.  I do believe I uttered the word: "Bleh!" and shook my wrist furiously until the green flew off.  It was only then that I realised it was a baby praying mantis, so I went and grabbed my camera in order to take a picture.  It was truly tiny - no longer than five centimetres in length.  Goodness, they're creepy looking things, though.




In other insect-related news, some ants decided to pay a visit and trekked all the way in to picnic at Pickle's food bowl.  Needless to say, they were bundled out in short order, never to return, or so I hope.

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Votes are now open for the 2006 Australian Blog Awards, although if you're inclined to go and vote, pack yourself a picnic lunch and take a drink.  Either that, or just put your top two or three preferences in and leave the rest to be automatically sorted.  I probably shouldn't say that, but after arranging eighteen votes in order for the Best Designed Blog section, I was too exhausted to vote on anything else.

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In writing competition news, the KSP SF/Fantasy Awards are now open for 2006!  I've already managed to bully two people into entering and I think I already have a story lined up in my own head for the competition.  Entries close on the 26th of May, so all those Australian writers of SF anf fantasy have plenty of time to get some stories together to submit.  In a further bonus, entry is free if you're 20 and under.