Thursday 20 June 2002

Well woo and hoo - we had a couple extra hundred pounds this month (full financial news later) so I could do a teensy bit of retail therapy. The excitement! The buzz of late-night shopping! The thrills! Hm, well, you can see I don't get out much ... I met Sam in town after work and we did a few bits and pieces. I bought:-

- a new mascara (Maybelline Volume Express or somesuch - they were out of Full'n'Soft and the brush on this one looked nice and phoofy; my old mascara was long past it's use-by date)

- a new eyeline (Rimmel, smoky grey; much needed as I had no eyeliner at all and had been making do with eyeshadow and an angled brush and that may be what make-up artists use and all but it just results in me getting sore red eyes from powder getting into my contact lenses and tears dribbling everywhere)

- a new bra! (this was the most excited and long-awaited purchase. My breasts have been really sore lately (no I'm not pregnant - just a hormone surge or something) and all my old bras are very very dead, the underwire in most of them has twisted and the fabric is in tatters, and they all make my breasts even more sore, so it was quite vital that I start replacing them).

After trying on several - really quite an exhausting process - I settled on a Wonderbra bra, but not one of those scary huge push-up ones, with about three kilos of padding in them, this is one of the "shaping" bras and very nice it looks too. I've definitely solved the style dilemma too - I've always worn full-cup bras because, well, because I'm a C cup and ... oh you know ... they're, well, round ... anyway the full cup of my current (now ex) bras have been cut too high and the top has been digging into my breast and leaving unsightly red marks. So this new bra is very low cut, more like a half cup style I guess, and whilst other bras have always had quite a bit of fabric and underwiring and engineering between the breasts this one just has a twist of fabric connecting the two cups. So it's kinda sexy, I guess (the male half of the human household definitely thinks so) being plunge-y and lots of cleavage and breastage on show, but I haven't lost any erm "support" or comfort in the process. In fact they're much much nicer than any bra I've ever had. AND they were only £15 instead of £20, so yay. I shall definitely be getting a couple more when possible, plus there's a couple other new styles in the Wonderbra range that aren't of the scary huge variety (they still have lots of those but I hate to think what The Girls would think about being up under my chin somewhere ... ).

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So that was very exciting. Hee. I still need a couple more bras, as I said, plus shoes, oh dear do I need shoes ... Just comfy walking shoes, basically; I have dressy shoes and work-wear shoes (loafers etc), and hiking boots and sneakers (which are called trainers here and I never can remember, ack) but lately my pairs of walking shoes and boots (one of each) have been very uncomfortable and losing their support. Pretty much like the bras I guess ... Oh my feets and boobs, oh oh oh. I've spotted an exceptionally cute pair of Ecco suede sneaker-type shoes, very cute (I repeat) plus very comfortable indeed, and fit all the requirements so ...

Then I need cycling gear. Oh I'm not getting into flashy kit like Sam (who has a couple sets of team bike wear - bib shorts and short sleeved top in bright colours - and looks gorgeous) but I could do with a pair of cycling tights, as jeans are hopeless and anything with a flappy ankle gets caught or is just annoying, and leggings just won't do as they're way too thin and have a tendency to dig into the wrong places. So I really do need a pair of cycle tights, with a chamois erm seat (gusset? is that the word?) to make my adventures on Phoebe just that bit more pleasant. Sam, of course, generally loves the idea of me in lycra full stop, and is pushing me to get a top as well, which I may well do as t-shirts are either too short and leave too much exposed and cold when riding, or too big so they flap around and that's annoying. We'll see how we go. I've found a couple sites on the Web that have good gear for wimmin so ...

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I promised a financial update so here goes; it's unfortunately yet another crappy circumstance to add to our collection (berloody IND etc etc etc) and our otherwise blissful existence. See, Sam was due a pay rise in April, but due to change-overs in contracts and other bureaucratic messes, it didn't come through until this week; he also had a heap of overtime due. We were thinking pretty much along the lines of "wheeeee! some extra cash! yay!" but ... When the payslip hit Sam's desk it did not look right at all ... In fact it was less than usual which is not a Good Thing. So he checked it out and queried and found that Human Remains (oops sorry, Human Resources) had the wrong contract and were paying him at a level below what he actually was. Now this is bad (a) moneywise and more importantly, really, (b) career-wise. I mean, if you're a Senior Systems Developer (and Net. Admin. guy as well) you want that specified in your contract, right, not that you're a general techie type. Sam was pretty upset about it all as you can imagine (made a change from being being depressed and distressed, at any rate) and checked it with his bosses who basically responded along the lines of "no fucking way is that right", and so they've taken it back to HR to get it fixed. But who knows when HR will get around to it, given they've been so delayed to begin with? Argh, argh and argh.

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As we weren't getting that bit extra (well, quite a bit extra) this month, and while we still had a little to play with (see eyeliner and mascara, purchase of, above) it set us way below budget. It meant I couldn't afford to pay the bill of the rheumatologist I've been waiting three months to see - I had an appointment on Tuesday and had to cancel it. Kind of a bummer, and I was a bit upset, but then I figured, I won't hear anything new anyway, and he's not Zeus (who I miss like hell right now) so why bother? Fatalistic and not in a good way, I know, but you'd probably feel the same as me. I'm so sick of being sick, all the time, and nothing helping. Ack.

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Now what else has been happening? Oh, insert customary rant and whinge and snivels in re: Immigration still not processed my visa. Feck. This is getting ridiculous. (I did get a letter back from the local MP though - most impressed!)

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We've also commenced working out a few projects to do around the house and "yard" (there's a huge area out back but it's completely covered over in grey concrete slabs, dreadfully depressing). We have some ideas about starting a garden - I'll write more about that - and of stripping the wallpaper off downstairs and doing a bit of painting. The decor is vile, truly vile, being red geometric shapes on cream, and having that split effect that the British seems so fond of, but makes the room look smaller and more crowded; you know, where the top half of the wall is done in one design, and the bottom in another? Sheesh I hate that ... and I cannot put up with it anymore. The hall, stairs and upstairs rooms are not quite so bad so we will probably just paint the living room/lounge and the hall and stairs and leave the bedrooms for now.

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