Quatorze's Journal

City orienteering yesterday was FUN. ^_^ As was the CSI NY marathon we indulged in later in the day, even if we still didn't quite manage to catch up to date, but on the other hand it's nice to know that we still have a couple of episodes waiting to be watched.

And now I really should wake up properly. Maybe a shower would do the trick?

Good lord... I think it just might be ready. *collapses* Short of editing, of course, but still. What the heck has gone into me?

Maybe next week I'll actually do some real work again, too. But now it's home, home, home for a three-day weekend because tomorrow is May Day! And we'll be going again to the "city orienteering" with the doggies. They've even promised clear and sunny but rather cool weather, so it should be pretty perfect for the purpose!

Yay!

For the umpteenth time: when will I learn to go to bed earlier? Don't I know by now, from own experience, that the current amount of sleep per night just is NOT ENOUGH? I hate feeling drowsy, unfocused, with an attention span of maximum three seconds, and yet I keep doing it to myself over and over again.

SIGH.

The "good" part is that a major reason for my sleeping too little is that I was writing last night. Yeah, of course there is no actually good reason for being stupid, but at least I wasn't working on any self-imposed duties, right? Besides, I did get a bit carried away when typing up the bits and pieces I've been scribbling in this one notebook over several months. I soon realized that pretty much of it was unusable, in most cases simply because the story had taken a different turn, so I started to go through it all, typed the little that was still OK for further use, and tore out pages with "no, no, this is just crap" or "pfft, that's so not what happened" or "blah blah blah, is this now the fourth or fifth sketch for the same scene?", etc. Didn't quite get through it all, though, because in the end I was getting just too tired. But anyway, now I dare finally believe that the goddamn story is going to be finished some day yet. O_O

Hmm, and now I guess I have to at least pretend that I'm actually working. Maybe I'll put my headphones on, look smart and concentrated, and try to get on with this one choreography... *shifty eyes*

Here, have some nekkid Nani Corleto, just for the hell of it! ^^

In fact I'm not in a particularly shiny mood today. Haven't slept enough, blah blah blah, spent the entire evening typing show entries, blah blah. We all know the drill. But I'm not going to let that affect me too much because, frankly, that won't change anything.

Also, all of a sudden it's spring, even up here. Ice and snow has melted enough so that we can again hear the stream across the road to our house. Before I'd quite fallen asleep last night I heard the hum of rain pounding on the metal roof. And the doggies are once again carrying loads of very fine sand into the bed. Oh joy.

( And then some blabber about writing. )

Back to work again after the sudden decision to take Friday off and do some traveling, and goddamnit if I haven't forgotten to take the memory stick along. Shouldn't have just assumed it was in this one pocked of my usual bag, should've checked first. Especially as it wouldn't have taken more effort than just open one zipper and peek in. Suckage. 

Another thing that sucks is that money's running out. Thank goodness it's Aigha's payday soon. Note to self: go to the bank one of these days and ask if we could pay just the interest for a few months now, to get us over the summer. It would've been tight anyway even without my layoff weeks. 

I'd want to be out of here, working on this one choreography instead. Funny, after getting that one squeezed out last year, now I've already got one all ready waiting for the summer course and am well into making another one. This from me, after I swore for years I've got no talent for that. Hey, of course I'm not claiming they'd be some immortal masterpieces, but then who said I should put the bar that high?

I really, really, really need to learn that about 6 hours of sleep is not enough for me. Therefore I also need to finally learn to say "hell no" when Aigha suggests watching an episode of something when it's already around 10 PM... because for some unfathomable reason she then always takes at least three quarters of an hour to get to bed afterwards (heaven knows how she does that) so that it will  be around midnight, probably past it, before there's any chance of sleeping. 

And, since the Little Bitch invariably wakes us up by her hellish barking as soon as one of us moves the wrong way -- in other words, somewhere around 6 AM, when we're just beginning to drift out of the deepest sleep -- there's no chance of me sleeping any more after that, for all the adrenaline in my veins. I swear that one of these days I'm going to toss that dog out of the window without opening it first.

Yeah, I'm tired. And I'm also extremely pissed off, for many reasons. I don't think it's wise for anyone to cross my path today because I thoroughly feel like making others feel equally lousy.

...comes to work bloody well knowing that it's going to be a quiet day and yet doesn't take the mp3 player along? >_<

But wait, wait, it's bellydance day so I have the CDs!! *goes digging into bag*

So I'm at work, and there's very little happening. Extremely little, in fact. I should try to dig up some stuff I could work on, but... don't much feel like it. Sending out a few e-mails doesn't really count as proper "work" in my books, and it looks like most of the people with whom I've been working on stuff recently aren't here. *sigh*

So I guess I'll just while away some time thinking aloud. ( And the rest is cut for excessive and random blabbering, as usual! )

So, back to work it is... and I'm not too happy about this. It feels extremely weird to be in the office again, not least because it's eerily empty in here?! Quite a few people have opted to have a lay-off period this week (hmmm, why might that be? *scratches head*) so there's hardly anybody around, just empty rooms with no lights on. 

On the other hand, also my Inbox was surprisingly little packed. This is definitely good, even if it also makes getting back on track more difficult. In a way it might be better if there were half a dozen emergencies that all need immediate attention Right Now -- because now it's far too easy for me to drift into la-la land! And that is a very real possibility, after I've spent the past two hectic days at the dog shows. Yeah, the shows went damn well overall, despite everything, but now I'm not exactly well rested, and my eyes are tired from the dust and odd color of the lights...

Took a moment to look at suitable second-hand cars on sale in the area. Doesn't look good, because of course there's nothing available in the "for a pittance" price range we could afford at the moment. Oh well. I guess I'll just have to get accustomed to getting around in a car where the left rear corner is completely ruined, because I sure as hell am NOT going to lift a finger to get it repaired. It wasn't me who smashed it in the first place. 

And damnit, looks like I won't be getting to next Saturday's show with a company-paid train ticket after all. Must look at alternative methods then. 

It's 7 PM and only the first show day is over, and I'm half dead and in need of sauna, and have successfully averted something of a catastrophe caused by a last moment cancellation, and have also just typed and uploaded the results to the Net and...

Oooh, fuck it, who am I kidding here? It's not as if that would be of interest to anybody but me. *vanishes again*

Two of the most HUMONGOUS hares I've ever seen were just a moment ago hopping in a very leisurely fashion on our back yard. 

Hah, so did I perhaps imagine there'd be an overabundance of free time for me? Of course there were the dance lessons last night, as well as some assorted dog show related things -- spent several hours both yesterday and today getting stuff ready for the weekend -- and taking dogs out for walks. And, what do you know, now it's already Thursday afternoon. Tomorrow evening will be eaten by the last long-commute dance lessons of this season, then over the weekend I'll be working both days at the show, simply because we couldn't find anybody else to write English. *sigh* So I was supposed NOT to go there, but there you are.

Oh well. I did make an attempt to write (or rather edit) some stuff, uh, was it Tuesday? Might now take the opportunity and try to go on with that, especially as Aigha is at work and thus not in need of the Mac at the moment. Although getting some fresh air wouldn't be a bad idea, either, especially as it's a gorgeous day outside. In fact I might kick myself up in a while and start walking towards the town about an hour before she finishes for the day, so that we'll get a nice walk and she can then pick us up somewhere. Sounds like a plan.

But now, let's try out this writing thing...

Now the left rear corner of the car is ruined. Aigha has backed it into a tree. *growl* Just brilliant. How the fuck are we going to get that one repaired?

What, so Easter holidays are just about over? Haven't really paid that much attention, for one thing because they don't mean anything to us anyway except a few days off, and besides, now that I haven't been going to work for a week I hardly even noticed. Well of course we've had some Easter eggs, duh, but that's just about it.

Didn't get the letters mailed before Easter, though, but on the other hand that gave us all Friday to get them ready and sorted out. Now there's a huge box waiting for tomorrow morning when Aigha goes to work again. And we've also got the rest of the stuff done as well (note to self: make pdf's of the catalogues right now and email them to the printing house!).

Which meant that on Saturday we could indulge in some real fun! I spent the morning copying the video footage from Wednesday's show to the hard drive, then it was off to town for a slightly early b-day lunch with the parents, and in the evening we just couldn't resist... Sat by the Mac nearly until midnight, editing and adding titles and stuff, but we did get the DVD pretty much put together. ^__^ 

Now we've got a really nice compilation all ready to be copied to the people involved. And I'm so damn proud of everybody, both my dancers and the singers. The whole thing went so smoothly, there were no major glitches, the lights were beautiful, and everything looked good. What really surprises me that even I didn't look too bad (read: horribly fat) in my solo. That costume really does wonders!

So, what to do now? Hmmm. Now there's an interesting question. What am I going to do with myself this week, when I don't have the dog show paperwork to occupy every waking hour anymore? *scratches  head*

When I'm at work, at least I take tea and lunch breaks every now and then. But when I'm at home and working on something, it's not uncommon that I sit down at the comp and realize four or five hours later that I haven't even got up from the chair, except perhaps to load some more paper to the printer or to get a pen or something like that. *headdesk* And still I haven't got the stuff mailed today. FUCK.

On the other hand, it was a major relief when I realized around 2 PM that there was no way we'd get the stuff out today, no matter how crazy hard I tried, so it was really better to slow down and stop trying to do three different things at the same time. Decided to focus instead on just one thing at a time, and now I've made good progress too. Cue a massive sigh of relief. Okay, so we'll be spending quite a lot of tomorrow working on the papers, but who cares?

Oh, and the show last night? Went really, really well. ^__^

Ain't it a good thing that I'm sort of laid off at the moment? I mean, how the  hell else would I have had the whole day at my disposal, to spend on making dog show timetables and panicking about how many days of effective mailing time the goddamn Easter will be robbing from us, so now there really is some reason to panic about getting everything ready and sent out on time.

Oh, and of course there's also our own performance tomorrow evening to worry about?! Although, to be honest, I'm not in the least worried about that. I know that everybody knows their parts anyway.

Now, back to working on these dog show papers... or then not. Looks like I need a second pair of eyes, a.k.a Aigha, to cross-check the entries, and she won't be back for another hour or so. Meep. What am I going to do now??

Still feeling extremely lightheaded... well I guess it's no wonder. The past two days pretty much fall in the category of "not for the faint of heart, better not try this at home". No, haven't done anything extreme unless trying to be in too many places in too brief a time counts.
To elaborate: spent the better part of Thursday on the train, then went to a judging test on Thursday night (two breeds, passed both, YAY!), stayed the night at a friend's place and slept maybe five hours. Then another 5.5 hours on the train back, a quick dash home to get something to eat and to pack my stuff, and then the usual Friday exercise of driving 100+ km, teaching dance for 2.5 hours and driving the same 100+ km back home. No props for guessing whether I was tired by the time I got back! Luckily the effects of the exercise only properly started to wear off about 20 km before I got home, so I didn't have to use sheer willpower during the entire trip to stay a) awake and b) on the road.

And, as if that hadn't been enough, of course Aigha has a test to supervise today so we couldn't even sleep in, oh no. The alarm went off at its  usual pre-7 AM time, and it's totally impossible to sleep when there's one person getting ready for work and six dogs keeping a keen eye on her and telling me to get the hell up because She's Planning Something.

Oops. Now it's already 11 AM and I really need to get back to the kitchen. Must cook another batch of dogfood (or there'll be some very disappointed canines in the house this evening), and take some more chicken wings or necks from the freezer to thaw.  Oh, and the kitched could do with some cleaning as well. Not that I particularly feel like it, it's just that I need to keep myself moderately busy or else I'll keel over somewhere in a vegetative state. I need to go on typing those show entries, too, but that can wait a bit. If I now let myself get settled here in front of the Mac, I have a feeling I won't get up very soon, and that mustn't happen.

Thank goodness I've been able to resist the lure of BJD's, and thank goodness my monetary situation will force me to continue resisting them at least for the next fifty years or so.

But they sure are making it damn difficult, the resisting. What I mean?

This:  http://www.iplehouse.net/shop/step1.php?number=1377

I mean... he... he looks adult! *gasp*

And as if that wasn't enough, they then toss in something else, too... his evil incarnation:
http://www.iplehouse.net/shop/step1.php?number=1346

*fans self* Although the little elf-boy as his partner makes me snicker. 

Anyway, just one look at the prices is enough to stop me from losing my brains while drooling. But still, they're simply gorgeous.