I've got a SPRING in my step...

And I'm full of bad jokes like that!

I went to get weighed last night, after Easter... and only put on half a pound, which is easy to lose plus more, so I am happy! Eating chocolate ALL week (and boy, did I ever eat chocolate) I thought I was going to put on a lot more, so thank Zeus I didn't!

As it's Spring and I'm all happy about the weather, I have been looking into buying some new trainers to take me on my jogging travels... but I don't know which ones to get. I like Acer trainers but I kind of like Nike too... so I have to try to decide what kind of investment I'm wanting to make! I also wanted to buy a new bike... but it's just one of those things that is beyond me... how in the world do you pick a bike? This is something that shouldn't be this hard to do, but it's proving difficult to say the least. Not that I can afford both a bike and new trainers, but still!

Shopping is something I don't tend to do a lot of, but when I buy I usually buy big! At the moment I have so many things I need to buy it's upsetting to think of my money going kaput! But needs must!

Anywho, without further ado. Spring is here:

Easter, Birthdays and the importance of discovery...

Boy!

What a weekend, eh? The weather alone has made this one amazing, however I have to say, I did have other distractions that kept me bobbing along quite happily over the past few days.

I feel it is important to say that I write to you in the middle of trying to write my 2nd to last assignment for Uni. It's a self assessment assignment and I'm not really in the mood! But alas, I figured I should take a break and blog whilst I remember, and I can honestly say this Blog every day in April has gone a little awry, I can also honestly say that writing almost every day has been a pleasure! :P

I digress, anywho. On Friday I went to a local park with one of my friends. Just for a wander and a walk. Now, I have been in this park before and drive past it a hell of a lot, but I had one of those 'What the hell?' moments, when we walked through the greens and was greeted by a HUGE expansion of grass, water, basket ball and tennis courts and all sorts of amazing-ness. I seriously couldn't believe all of this park life was on my doorstep, so to speak... OK, about 15 minutes away from it, and I never knew. I felt like I had discovered something great. My friend, on the other hand, couldn't quite grasp how I had never been there before. And I really don't know why I haven't. It just goes to show, sometimes you just don't know what good things lie on your doorstep until the sun comes out and you decide to go for an adventure!

In other news, I was supposed to go to Harrogate on Saturday with my boyfriend, but the weather said it would be thundery at some point so we gave it a miss and went to Manchester instead. I love Manchester. It's one of the best cities in the world. The buildings, the shops, the food! I would never get bored of going to town and finding new and interesting places to go. Not that I do that though. We have a bad habit of only ever hitting up the same shops. Starbucks, Magma, HMV (both on Market Street and in the Arndale centre), Fopp, Arndale food hall and Waterstones. And then either food or home... but it's the perfect day (for us) and so it was great on Saturday as the weather was beautiful. We then hit up a Nepalese restaurant for dinner, which is SO SO good and SO SO cheap!! WIN!

I guess everyone knows it was Easter this weekend but it was also my boyfriends birthday and we celebrated by eating a HUGE Easter meal and eating loads of chocolate. Diet be damned this weekend! No one should not eat chocolate on Easter. No one.

And that concludes my

holiday from my assignment. I must get back to it... really... I should...

Sam

Honestly, I'm speechless...

I literally have nothing I want to blog about today. It's finally happened. I've got no words to fill this awkward Internet void of silence... How embarrassing.

So here are so nifty pictures courtesy of www.weheartit.com

On a side note, I love how it is 21:46 and as I write this I can still hear the birds tweeting despite it being dark out. it turns out they like the nice weather too! Of course, Sammi won't be a happy lady if they carry this on all night... oh who am I kidding? I will sleep no matter what! Jeez, I'm tired. I'm sure I'm coming down with something.... meh!

I'll blog tomorrow if I have time, but if not.... it will have to be Sunday, as I have far too many important things to do than blog! Like see friends, and walk around Harrogate ALL day! :D

Toodles.

Sam

Let's do it outside!

As the title suggests, this post is about doing it... outside. NO! Not like that, you dirty pervert! Jeez, this is a family show! No, what I'm talking about is doing things you would normally do inside, outside. Which means, yes, I suppose you could count that first thing you thought about. But I won't. You know why? Because I'm a god damn lady!

You see, I was trying to think of something to blog about this afternoon, as I was walking into the next town in the swealtering heat, and still as I was eating sushi, and even as I was painting a room with my dad. Thinking of each activity in turn, and contemplating using one of those thrilling subjects as the shining star in my blog. A blog about walking in the sun? meh. Not really exciting. Even if it does feature me, pale as a pale thing, exposed to the sun and all the dangers that could entail. Then I thought about blogging about sushi, because I love it so. But, what's cool about raw fish? NU-THING! So no. And then I thought the only thing more fun than watching paint dry (which you can do here: http://www.mirimgs.com/webcam/paint.html) is reading a blog about a girl who was just painting. Again. No thank you!

And then, my dad handed me the best idea for a blog ever. after hearing a strange buzzing sound, he walked into the back garden wondering what was going on. He returned and said "she's cutting his hair". Referring to our neighbours. I laughed at this and a million (ok, not a million) hilariously similar situations popped into my head. So here is it.

THINGS YOU DO OUTSIDE JUST BECAUASE ITS A HOT SUNNY DAY THAT YOU WOULD NORMALLY DO INSIDE:

*Cut someones hair (apparenlty)
*Teach a class of children (because they are so much more attentive when faced with the entire world!)
*Cook (when your kitchen is several steps away and you want to get food poisoning)
*work out (when you normally hide in the gym because you don't want people to see you sweat)
*Eat (because sitting outdoors makes your food taste better!)
*Sit in the park at night (when normally you'd be running the risk of being stabbed)
*Play guitar in your garden (because you're sure your neighbours want to hear how much you can't play!)
*conduct a job interview (Because nothing says 'professional' when your oiled up and soaking in those rays!)

These are just a few I thought of on the spot. Please let me know if I have missed any. And just for clarification, these are all things I think aren't really nessesary to do outside. This isn't me lovin on summer, this is me hatin' on people's oversharing of normal activities! :P

Sam

My most popular blogs

Sup? I like to look at my blog stats. Just to see what's happeneing on my page etc. because, as mentioned yesterday, I like seeing what makes people tick. See what people like to see in a blog, of such. And it always makes me laugh to see that one of the blogs I did a looong time ago still gets the majority of hits. And I mean about 600% more hits than any other blog post. It was a post about fashion. I don't usually do fashion posts, because I am a nerd who has no real style. plus, there are so many fashion blogs out there that me doing fashion things would be insane, as I'm not even a beginner in that sort of thing, I'm a 'I kind of like fashion but don't know anything about it and don't have the time to become interested in it' kind of girl. Just this past week one of my other posts has started to get more hits too. The 80's blog. So, people, as it turns out, love seeing pictures of people wearing clothes and wearing 80's makeup. Who knew? If I was the sort of person who wanted to get a lot of followers just for the hell of it I would just post pictures of clothes. But, well, ASOS do that AND they have the bigger idea of selling clothes too... like most clothes shops... so I don't really see the need. Plus, I like my random blogging. I blog what I think, when I think it. Much like in real life, when I say what I say when I think it... Meh. I've lost my train of thought. Thanks for reading my ramblings! Sam

Google Trends

Yo! So, I find it incredibly interesting to see what is trending on Google in the world. Well, I say world. I only usually look at the UK and US trends, because, well, that's just what I do. You see, I figure if I know what people are interested in googling, I can come up with interesting posts. I'm not trying to get more readers in a sad and desperate, needy 'I want people to listen to me' way. I just like the idea that someone might stumble onto this thing and think - 'hey! this girl is kind of amusing'. I know. I fail at this! Derrrr..... Back to business. I look up google trends. And I'm sorry, as much as I want to blog about interesting things and talk about what everyone else is talking about I can't in any way expand or debate on topics such as: Pass over (Because I know nothing about it) Robert Ebert (because I have no clue who he is) Superman Returns (Which I could go into, but the blog would be Loooooong and people would find I have too much to say on the man in blue!) Atlas Shrugged (Say whaaaa?) Syphilis (Seriously, people have been googling this enough for it to land in the top 10) You see, as much as I want to be talking about current affairs, I can't. because that's just mental. What is wrong with people? why is no one googling 'The Only Way is Essex'? Or 'Why is Spotify going to screw me over big time in the next few months?' - why? Alas, the bigger questions in life go unanswered as people google 'Ice Age' and 'Molly Ringwald'. Ok, I'm actually interested in that last one! I'm super impressed people still give a shiiiiiiii damn. give a damn, I meant. ;) Well, sweet people, I am going to go back to listening to my 'coffee shop' playlist. Which I may post once I have it sorted. It's basically a list of songs I would like to listen to in a coffee shop. yeah... I don't know why either! Laters! Sam

I know this doesn't count as a blog post but...

I'm going to TGI Friday's! woohoo! I'll think of you when I'm eating amazing food and drinking my free refills of coke! ahhhhhhhh....... Sam

If you like a lot of chocolate on your biscuit

Join our club! You don't really have to join. But you should consider it. I just wanted to hit up a quick post to update y'all on my recent weight loss acheivement. I have now lost 10% of my body weight, which is pretty nifty. The loss in general has slowed down, but I'm still losing every week, so its a good thing. Just trying to make sure I don't put any back on, which is hard considering I have a boyfriend who likes to make delicious pizza's at 2 in the morning. You know, right when you have the after midnight munchies. Humph! But oh well! Tomorrow is going to be a good day. i can feel it. I get to spend it with him. I love midweek days together, they happen very very rarely. So... nothing else to say? Nope. I didn't think so! bye all! sam

I really don't know what to blog about.

So.... I just googled 'Google Trends' to see what the world is talking about. Or at least looking up when they should be at school/ at work/ doing uni work from home.... and it looks like Kelly Clarkson is a hot topic. Now. I'm not going to look into why this is, as I want this to be a short post, but... Kelly Clarkson... really? She must still be going strong in the US of A, because over here she isn't even a blip on the radar... sadly, the only people blipping on the UK radar musically are.. well... no one. I just looked up the UK top 10 chart thingymebob and its all US artists in the charts. Sometimes it makes me sad the UK can't produce good music (hey! Don't take offense! It's just rare at the moment. You can't argue with the facts, maaan), but then I think. Well. Why would we? We don't make good TV shows either, or films that much, so to hell with it! I lost the point of this blog post... sorry! Toodles! Sam

Lets go back to the 80's, man!

Totes! I think the 80's should make a come back, and not just in the editorial world. sure, you see 80's tributes in magazines, and on the catwalk, but no one is gutsy enough to bring it back in 'real life'. Not even I. Although one day I will do it, I just need a few drinks first maybe? :) I was googling 80's hair and makeup, because I like inspiration. I love big hair. I try to get my hair big before I go out - not stupidly backcombed big, like those girls who don't fully comprehend WHY you backcomb hair, but big in a sense of its volume, curls and personality. Hair should have personality!

When I'm talking about 80's I'm not meaning over the top hair and makeup a la Joan Cusack.

And I'm certainly not talking Madonna 80's - which is just messy!

No folks, I'm talking styled, colourful and fab! Perfect makeup, great hair. Debbie Harry is a great inspiration:

And if we're bringing it into the here and now I really LOVE the way Drew Barrymore plays with colour and volume:

But if all else fails, forget the 80's and just go Anime extreme. Which is what I plan to do. If I could ever pull this look off! haha!

Keep on truckin'

Sam

Stuck in the Middle With You.

Yeah. So, I find myself stuck in the middle a lot. Mostly because I chose a strange relationship to get in the middle of. Lets start at the very beginning. I go out with a guy, who is the brother of my sisters boyfriend. So we, as 2 sisters, date 2 brothers. It's sometimes annoying and sometimes fun, but mostly at the moment its awkward. You see, my sister and her fella are struggling in their relationship. It doesn't seem to be running too smoothly at the moment and I can't get involved. He is...well, I love him as a sort of half almost brother in law in 2 possible ways, and friend. But, well, he's a bit of a fool sometimes. And he lies. A lot. About where he goes, what he does... what he keeps in the garage that no one is supposed to know about (but we broke in the other day to look and it wasn't a good find. think heater lamps and soil). And I can't tell my sister any of this. Because i don't want to be the one to come in between their relationship. They have to figure it out for themselves, right? I can't tell her that he smokes, and drinks more than she knows. Can't say that he is selling god knows what on ebay and uses fake names on the internet. can't tell her I think he's dealing and he is in a ridiculous amount of debt. that he got £16k last year from his mums pension, but has already blown through it. Why can't I tell her, you might ask? Well, put yourself in my shoes. You would be the one to cause trouble. You would be the one who would be breaking 2 people up. You would be the one pointing out these errors in judgement, and although one day she would thank me for it, he certainly wouldn't, and it might be I have to live with him in my life for ever as I plan on staying with my guy forever if I can! I'm in the middle. And it sucks. Sam

I'm not a happy puppy!

Grrr. It has just come to my attention that when I store up blog posts and then publish them at a later date it doesn't say I published them on the day I actually published them on. I know you know what I mean! haha. I mean, I wrote a blog post t'other day, but saved it. Published it today and it's gone out with a date of the 6th, rather than 8th. Well, it just makes it look like I'm not blogging every day, but I can assure you. I am! This is just one of the many annoyances Blogger is causing me at the moment. For instance, the loss of any kind of editing on my posts. I hate not using colour and effects on my posts. It makes them boring. Grrr. Blogger. When I manage to fix you I can promise you that there will be so much colour it will make you sick! Sam

Setting myself an unattainable goal, yet again!

So! Well... BEDA is going well for me so far. Lots to blog about when I put my mind to it. I'm also being good and saving blog posts a day or two early and then posting them as and when I wish, which is so unlike me. I'm not normally this blogging prepared! I decided I was going to start a new blog. But I decide to start new blogs all the time, and I set them up and then miserably watch them fail, as I don't have the time to tend to other blogs apart from this one. But no. I am going to set this one up for sure. Because I have purpose and practise on my mind. My Boyf got me a couple of books for our anniversary (sorry, I won't talk about it any more after this post! :P), which are to help people write, basically. Fiction, mainly. One of them is a writer coaching book and helps you understand how to write a story, how to get out of the fear of writing, how to create characters, lots of stuff someone needs to know if they fancy giving writing a go. Which I do in the long run. The 2nd book I have is writing exercises, where you read a chapter and write for 5 mins a day. Different themes and challenges that are supposed to help you grow and learn. SO, to conclude, this new blog will be my writing space where I will share my creations to hopefully get feedback, and just get some stuff out there! I am in the thinking that if I make myself blog about it, it will keep me on track. Make me push myself to do it. And this is what I am planning to do. I promise to at least try to set it up!!! Sam

ALIAS

click. For one of my anniversary presents my boyfriend bought me the entire box set of Alias. If you don't know what Alias is I will briefly explain. Alias is a tv show which was originally aired around 2001 - 2002. It featured a brilliant cast, led by Jennifer Garner (who at this point was pretty much a newbie to the scene of tv or film) and some other famous now-not-then faces. She was a university student who also happened to be working as a spy for the CIA... and so it began! It was 24, before 24 even knew how to count to .... well... 24! It was a fast paced spy tv show about the CIA and double agents, and ridiculas outfits and wigs and love interests and bad guys. And it was pure genius. It was created by JJ Abrams, who, of course everyone knows now, but didn't really know back then. And I really think its the kind of TV show everyone who likes spy drama, sci fi, and everything else would like. It was so well written and filmed that it really does appeal to a variety of people as its not just one genre of tv shows. Anyway, the reason I am telling you all this is because we now have the entire box set and we're going to start watching them all again (well, me again, the boyfriend for the first time). And I'm excited! Sam

Sweet Dreams Are Made of... Sucker Punch!

Woo! I am not going to review Sucker Punch as much as how I am going to rave about how much I loved it! Yesterday was me and my boyfriends 2 year anniversary, and for that special occasion we went to the IMAX in town and watched Sucker Punch - now, that might not sound very romantic to most people, but to us it's pretty much the equivilent of a cruise in the bahamas or something, because we love movies so much! And each other... of course! ;) We strolled to the cinema late afternoon to pick up our prebooked tickets - premier seating right in the middle, back row! - although there was no need, as it turns out 4:45 on a Tuesday afternoon is the perfect time to go to the cinema as there were only 6 of us in there, and me and my boyf were the only ones in the premier aisle! We did indeed feel superior! Anyway, onto Sucker Punch! Well, what can I say? It was loud! The first thing I noticed was the volume. I don't usually like loud noises and the sound of it did make me shrink back into my seat a little bit, but it totally immersed you in the film. The soundtrack throughout was brilliant. I'm going to be listening to that for a while I think. Emily Browning, who plays the lead character 'Baby Doll' sang the opening song; sweet dreams are made of this, and that has been playing in my head ever since. Google it, YouTube it, Spotify it - it's a great remix. As for the rest of the film - it was dramatic, and depressing, and exciting, and in the end I think it was really heartbreaking. All of these things hidden underneath the fast paced mental-ness of the story line. I won't ruin the story, because I didn't read up on it before we went, depsite waiting for it's release for several months, and that was part of the charm. I knew it was about a girl who was sent to a mental asylum and tries to escape with a mish mash of pals - and it all takes place in their heads etc. But it's so much more than that, and I really do recommend seeing it at the cinema if you can because it looks great on the big screen. All in all I loved the characters I was supposed to love. Hated the ones who were awful and was captivated the whole way through. Which, to me, screams great film. And I really want to watch it again as soon as I can! This has been a Sucker Punch love fest. Please let me know if you saw it and what you thought! Sam (ps. blogged still won't let me edit blog posts )

It's finally here!

Oh! The end of the tax year... wait... no! I mean, my 2nd year anniversary with my boyfriend. It's crazy and not crazy at the same time. It feels like only yesterday we nervously sipped our vanilla lattes in Starbucks and talked for 3 hours about films and other such nonsense. And yet, it feels like we have know each other forever! To celebrate such greatness we are going to Manchester for a wander. We're taking in a movie at the IMAX (Suckerpunch, which I'm sure I'll tell you about tomorrow), and having a meal at ZiZi (one of our favorite places to eat!). I can't wait, as we've been waiting for this day for ages. :D Happy! What also makes me happy is I got an email from the Open University people, telling me not to panic and I can basically start level 2 at the end of this year if I feel like I'm ready to move on from level 1, and I can make up the missing points from level one at any of the other levels. Which might not make sense to you, if you haven't looking into how OU works, but to me, it makes sense and makes me feel like a weight has been lifted. I'm going to start level 2 in Oct. and study 'Reading and Studying Literature' , and then the year after that 'Creative writing' and then after that 'Advanced creative writing' and then see where I'm at with points etc. and do a couple of other courses to get a degree qualification... it's going to take longer than I thought and I was going to do a couple of courses at once, but I don't want to get bogged down in too much work etc... well. That's my thinking at the moment anyway. We'll see how it goes. I have to sleep now.... I must sleep. Oh so tired............... Sam

The Saga Continues....

Well! To say I'm stressed in an understatement. I am sat here in my boyfriends room - he asleep and me happily typing - and I am still stressing about Uni stuff. Basically, I have found out I should have been doing about 2 more courses this year. Which wasn't explained to me when I signed up! I was intending to get a degree in 3 years. And the website seemed to tell me that was possible if I followed a certain route. Took the suggested courses and that was that. But now it seems that I should have more 'points' for my first level. Which means I have to take 2 classes next year at level one stage, rather than progress to level to, thus rendering this year a sort of 'foundation' year. Not happy. Not only that, it seems the courses I need to dp next year don't start at the same time. One starts this November. That's fine. The other... well... it starts at the end of 2012. Erm... no thanks. I can't spread the first year over 3 years. But do they have other courses starting at the end of this year for year 1? No. So... basically they are making it impossible for me to get a degree in less than 4 or 5 years. I don't have time to waste my life doing that. This was supposed to be something that I did whilst working in a job from hell so I could get out of there and do something else with my life. But apparently the God's want me to suffer... WHY?! Humph. I'll figure it out and keep you posted, until then, i bid you all farewell! sam :)

Amazon, why do you tease me?

Humph! I love amazon. I've said it before and I'll say it again, because I buy absoluetly everything from there. Everything! (OK, maybe not EVERYTHING, but about 90% of my purchases are Amazonian). I tend to trust everyone on Amazon, who have a rating of anything over 90% as you would, wouldn't you? well, I'm totally dissapointed with a recent purchase and am SENDING it BACK. I never send things back. I'm so useless at sending things back I still have shoes that don't fit me because I love them and I am too lazy to send them back. But this book is going back. 'near perfect' condition, they said. 'Like new'. What they failed to mention was that it is a book from a library. And its WELL read. Worn and pages torn. With the crappy plastic cover and... dare I say.. Yellow pages. I'm a book lover and demand all NEW books I buy be in mint condition to a certain extent. It was nly about £4 but that's not the point. If I went to a used book store I would buy a book as I have just described it. But from an Amazon seller, who said it was 'like new'. No. No sir, I won't stand for it. Back you go, and I'll be without a book for the next week. Grrr. Sorry - book ranting, and Amazon ranting. Whatever next?! Cold pizza from Dominoes? Sigh! sam

Questions you wish you'd never asked!

Ha! I had to blog about this because it literally made me laugh out loud. I was sat at work and someone walked past. A colleague made a joke, saying to this person 'What do you think you're doing leaving at this time?'. You know when you wish you'd never asked? I think she had one of those moments. This guy just started rambling on about how his mother had diabeties and a cough and its taking it out of her so he's off to pick her up some medicine... on and on and on and on. I was sat chuckling to myself, as things like that amuse me. Whenever anyone asks me 'How are you?', or 'What's up?' - I reply with the standard 'Fine, thanks' and 'nothing, why?' - because I believe no one really wants to know. Sure, sometimes they do, but a normal person can tell when someone wants to listen to you rant. So what is it about some people when they think everyone wants to know their ultimitely dull business? I'll never understand! Over and out! Sam