Thursday 21 June 2012

Why I probably wouldn't survive a zombie attack

The other night I had such a vivid dream about a zombie attack that it made me feel like it was inevitably going to happen. This got me thinking about the reasons why I don't think I would survive if it did happen (morbid? me?).
1.       White girl can’t jump. Even if I put all of my energy and effort into jumping, I still can’t manage to get more height than 3 or 4 inches. This has been an ongoing joke with Scott, he finds it hilarious but it also means that should I ever have to jump a fence/car/obstacle whilst being chased, the likelihood of me being successful would not be high (like my jumping).

2.       I can’t run fast. Pretty self-explanatory really. My ‘jogging’ speed is the same as the other half’s leisurely stroll. So I’m not going anywhere in a rush on foot. This won’t be a problem as long as the zombies are old style zombie movie where they just kind of meander around as opposed to the ‘running at full speed’ type zombies of modern day.

3.       I am clumsy. See this post. I fall over, a lot. I can just see me tripping over something at a crucial point of escaping and becoming a gonna.

4.    My car rarely has a full tank of petrol in it. I'm not one of those people who keep it topped up 'just in case' (though I doubt their 'just in case' is a zombie attack).... it's regularly (right no in fact) got the red light flashing to tell me it's almost empty. This means should we have to jump in the car to escape/save family members/whatever then we won't get far without having to fill up. Which could prove to be tricky what with zombies literally biting at your ankles.

5.   I'm lazy and don't go food shopping regularly. I don't like food shopping even though I love food. This means that like today our cupboards are pretty bare and so should we need to barricade ourselves in our house there wouldn't be much to keep us going aside from the odd tin of tuna and baked beans.

6.   We live pretty much smack bang in the middle of England. This means there is no sea around for us to sail away into. You never see zombies swimming really so I think that would be a good escape route. That or a helicopter. We don't have a helicopter either.

7.   We don't have easy access to guns here. I don't know one person who owns a gun. It would have to be a more of a 'Shaun of the dead' approach to zombie killing, throwing random household items until we find something that works. I also don't own an axe, a sledgehammer or a samurai sword.


So if this does happen, I think I'm pretty screwed.
Picture is from Zombieland

Tuesday 12 June 2012

Diary of a ten year old part 3

Well these are special entries today because it is my baby little tall, but younger sister's birthday. I can't believe 15 years have gone by since she was born.There is a fairly big age gap between my sister and I; 11 years without any other siblings in between seems to raise a few eyebrows when I tell them. I have to explain that yes she is my full sister, my parents were still together at the time and it wasn't the case of my mum or dad having a child with a new partner which I think is usually the case with big age gaps. I was an only child for 11 years and it was a massive shock to everyone in the family when my mum found out she was pregnant.

I cried. Typical 'only child' behaviour thinking someone was going to come along and take all of my mummy and daddy's attention and I would be forced to live in the attic surviving only on rotten fish heads...... Or something like that. The truth was that I was scared, I had always noticed how much my parents LOVED babies and thought I would just be the boring older child that they wouldn't like as much. What an idiot. Anyway I didn't feel like that for long and I soon became VERY excited about the arrival of a baby sibling. I always wanted her to be a girl, not that I told my parents at the time because I thought it would have been mean to not want a brother. But deep down I almost knew I was going to have a sister.

I made my parents promise me that I would be the first person they told when the baby arrived, because I wanted to be the first to know if it was a boy or if my wishing had worked and it was a girl. This actually meant that when my dad was trying to get hold of me whilst I was shopping in Sainsbury's with my Mamma (that's grandma for most people) he had to lie to a family member who had picked the phone up and said the baby hadn't arrived yet haha.

Anyway he did get hold of me in the end (crazy to think that mobile phones weren't used as much back in the day and people actually used landlines) and down I went to the hospital to meet my new baby sister. My first memory of her is holding her and thinking "why is her head covered in lard?".... Obviously it wasn't lard, they hadn't greased her up to help with the delivery but it definitely looked like it.




I love how I refer to her as 'it'. 'It' will be born tonight haha.


I think the above spelling may be a contributing factor to why people tend to call them C-sections.

This is when she was 2 hours old.
Yes I am naturally a blondie.


Monday 11 June 2012

Oh what a jolly good jubilee!

So as you may or may not know last weekend it was the Queen's Diamond Jubilee - that's 60 years she has been our Queen! Personally I'm not a big royal fanatic. Don't get me wrong, I watched the Royal wedding last year and watched bits and bobs of this years festivities but I don't go mad for it all. Between you and me, I'm not even the biggest fan of London.... I'm too much of a country bumpkin!One person I know who loves all things Royal is my Step mum. Although to me she is just known as Heather. It was her birthday this weekend just gone and I couldn't pass up on the opportunity to give her a Royal/British themed present so I put this basket together. We don't have lots of money to throw around at the minute but I still wanted to give something special. Some things I made and others I bought, but I was pretty proud with how it turned out and wanted to show off. (I play I play :P)


The obvious colour combo for a 'British' theme would be red, white and blue. I wrapped her gifts in some scrapbook paper that had come free with a craft magazine.



I decorated the basket with ribbon and made some bunting because what's more British than a bit of bunting eh? The 'Happy Birthday' street sign also came free with the same magazine as the papers.



I made this to attach to a brolly that I bought her because I liked the play on words and like to think I am funny.... Also it was quite relevant due to the typical British weather on the day. And how it is now, it's almost the middle of June and no sign of sunshine!


I found this corgi cross stitch pattern the night before her birthday but thought that I HAD to give it to her. This meant I stayed up until around 3am and got up early the next morning in order to complete it. I stuck magnets to the back of it so it could stick on her fridge.
And this is the commemorative plate that I bought her.

The other gifts included the items needed for a cream tea (i.e. scones, clotted cream and jam) and some tins shaped like a red phone box, bus and Big Ben containing tea. Like I said I was really chuffed with the end result and was even more chuffed when she rang me to tell me that she loved it all and was really grateful for the time and thought I had put into it. Just goes to show that you don't have to spend a lot to please people :)

Sunday 3 June 2012

Bubble Bobble!

I've recently been getting back into cross stitching. Whenever I say I cross stitch to friends they think it's hilarious, try as I might, I just don't seem to be able to convince them that not all cross stitching surrounds cats, forever friends, or little girls in bonnets having tea parties (I have nothing personal against any of these they just aren't my bag -baby-)
Instead I have been finding patterns for more 'me' things. Particularly gaming ones.

One of my ULTIMATE favourite games is Bubble Bobble.






Anyone who has ever played this with me knows that we aren't stopping until we reach the end, I will eat all of the big fruits/ice creams/fries that fall from the ceiling and I want to do all the bubble popping.
Not a lot of people like playing with me.




Anyway, as a tribute to this amazing game I have cross stitched Bub and Bob.


I know that the blue is a bit off for the colour he is meant to be, but I had to make do with the colours that I had in my possession and I'm really happy with how it turned out.
I found the pattern at www.spritestitch.com - this website is amazing for gaming based crafts!
I am planning on stitching a few of the other characters from the game and displaying them somewhere in a geeky corner of our house.

Monday 28 May 2012

Diary of a 10 year part 2

I thought it was about time that we revisited my ten year old self and see what drama's were occurring sixteen years ago.

Amongst other things, 1997 was the year that my classmates and I discovered the Spice Girls. Yeah GIRL POWER. I vividly remember 'Wannabe' hitting the charts and everyone wanting to learn the words and the dance moves. We all had our favourite 'Spice'. Mine was Baby Spice at the time, sometimes it changed to Ginger Spice because I loved the colour of her hair. Anyway there was a period of time when during play time all most of the girls would split into groups of five and become the Spice Girls. We would sing and dance and do the peace sign proclaiming that we had 'Girl Power!'
Here are a few diary entries dedicated to those 'good old days'......

Here is the first time I mention us 'doing the Spice girls' - in hindsight I probably could have worded it better.
I can tell you now, I wasn't happy at being Scary Spice. As mentioned above Baby was my favourite but it was the politics of the group. I had no choice.
Also, I highly doubt that it was one single topic on 'Space and Tudors', pretty sure they didn't ever overlap.

This entry tickles me. For a start I love how I talk about it being 'spellings' on Monday and then spell coming as 'comeing' in the same sentence. It also seems that it had got too much for me being Scary Spice and Kayleigh (who is the same Kayleigh that Matthew with the love heart for a 'M' said he liked on my birthday) was becoming too controlling. It was time to move on and become Posh Spice with Lindsay but I was also prepared for it to not be a permanent move.
I don't know if I did leave the group on Monday, I doubt it because surely that would have made it into Monday's diary entry but it didn't so let's assume I found happiness in Lindsay's group, even if I did have to be Posh Spice.

Sunday 27 May 2012

Let's make a list

Well well well I seem to have been absent for a little while and I don't really know why. It was my birthday last week and then we went away last weekend as part of my birthday present from my Dad but I've been back a whole week so that's not really a valid excuse is it?
Anyway what better way to get back into the swing of it than to compile a list.
I love lists.
I can make a list out of pretty much anything.
I write 'to do' lists, 'don't forget' lists, meal lists, films I want to watch lists, various shopping lists. I then make a list from my list.
Oh yes I'm a double 'lister'; there's always a draft then a final cut. My other half always laughs at the fact that I make a shopping list, then have to make another one where I group the foods together into 'fruit and vegetables', 'dairy', 'meat', and 'other'. Writing this is making me take a long hard look at myself and wonder if I have a problem.

So here is my list on why I like writing lists:
- I like to pretend there is order in my life. If I'm honest I don't really follow the lists as enthusiastically as I write them. I enjoy the writing of the list far more than completing the list.
- I like to cross through things when I've done/got them. There's a sense of accomplishment that you can't get from just thinking 'yep done that', no I want a visual aid too.
- I LOVE writing lists if I've got a good pen. I don't mean an expensive pen just a 'good writer', you know the ones that feel good to write with, that are smooth and don't leave blobby ink marks. My pen of choice is usually a simple biro.
- I like to empty my brain onto paper, it helps me to see if there is anything missing/extra needed.

I could go on an on but I won't. I understand not everybody is as passionate about lists as I am but I'm sure some of you will be a fellow list maker. Come on, put your hands up :)

P.S. I'm also quite partial to filling in forms. Even if I don't need the things the form is for. I'm not painting a 'cool' picture of myself am I?!





Monday 14 May 2012

My name is Katie and I am a crazy dog lady.

There I said it.

I've always had and liked dogs but since last year when my Dad bought me Penny as a belated birthday present I have become a fully fledged crazy dog lady.

*warning photo heavy blog post*

She was tiny when we got her, I was scared to take her home.

Sometimes she sleeps in funny positions.

She loves to look out of the window.
If she is in the house, this is usually where I will find her.

Give her a plastic bottle and she'll be your best friend.

She likes to dig in the garden and leave paw prints all over my kitchen floor.

When I'm sat at my desk, you can find her here.....

..... or here.

She recently passed her driving test.
I know, I'm hilarious.

She loves to be close to you.


But she does have her limits.

Anyway, hopefully I have just got it all out of my system in one sitting so I don't have to bore you every week with dog talk!

Laters taters x

Thursday 10 May 2012

I Am So Very Clumsy

Hello :)How are you?
Me?
I'm fine thankyou.
Aside from falling over and almost doing the splits whilst simultaneously covering myself in green slime. Niiiiiiiiiiice. Haha yeah I fell over in our 'conservatory' today. I use the term 'conservatory' lightly because it is really the remains of one that was built cobbled together by some previous owners. The roof in it is collapsing and has holes in it, we took the window out to get our settee in the house and half of the floor has been taken up. So really it's like a shack that has been attached to the back of the house. When it rains outside, it rains in there.
This means the wood we put on the floor to cover the gaps can get slippy and has also grown/accumalated some green slime on it.
This morning I slipped on said slime and one leg went one way whilst the other went the other. Not cool.

I fall over, a lot.
Some other incidents include:
- 'tripping' over in a field where there was nothing to trip me up. Yep I trip up over my own feet.

- falling up some stairs in a shop in front of other people and a woman behind the till who was trying to hold in her laughter. That hurt my pride as well as my knees.

- falling in the garden whilst trying to get the washing in. I went over on my ankle and that one really hurt. The neighbours would have had a giggle if they had seen that one.

- falling out of my Mum's car when she was dropping me off at school. I got the nick name 'elephant foot' from one of my friends for a while after that one because my ankle swelled up so much.

- falling over at my old job off of a tyre and having the children laugh at me as I fought back tears because that one REALLY hurt my ankle. One of the kids came up to me and saw that I had been crying, she said sorry and 'are you going to tell your mum that we laughed at you?'. I'd forgotten the days when 'I'm telling my mum' could provoke fear haha.

- falling over whilst trying to open the door to the post woman. This was the most recent, aside from todays incident. I tripped over and the post woman was screaming 'are you ok? are you ok?' probably thinking that she was going to have to break down my front door to save me. I had to jump up fast and just think 'answer the door, cry later'.

 I am very clumsy and have weak ankles. Fact.

Sunday 6 May 2012

This week I have mostly been making....

.... well finishing because I started it ages ago..... a baby book for my friend and her beautiful new arrival.

I have a confession.
I like to make scrapbooks.
But don't put my pictures in them for fear of 'ruining' them because my life doesn't really seem 'worthy' of scrapbooking it at the minute.
I used to be like this with stickers when I was growing up. Just looking at them rather than sticking them anywhere.
My current drawer full of stickers would probably tell you that I am still a bit like that.
I know I'm a loser.

Anyway, as I said, I made this for my friend and have left space for her to put all the pictures she wants to in it and write about different things baby Mabel (I know, old school name isn't it) has done/how she develops etc.

Shall I just show you it?
If you thought 'no', you should probably close your eyes right about.......

NOW :)


 The front cover with a space for a picture of baby :)

 In the 'crib' the card opens up to put all Mabel's birth stats like date of birth, weight etc.
 This opens out if you pull the elephant.
 Mini frames for mini pictures.

 These hands lift up so you can put a picture underneath.
This is a mini envelope I made and put a little 'Happy Birthday' card in it for her 1st birthday.
And this present opens up, with the bow pulling up to reveal another tag :)


This is just a selection of pages; I didn't want to bore you too much. Each page is also a pocket that has a tag for more pictures/writing because I made envelopes out of card and then covered them with pretty paper and begrudgingly.... stickers :) I then bound it with my bind-it-all and bob's your uncle. I didn't want to make it all pink and girly girly because my friend isn't really too 'girly girly'. Plus I loved these papers.

You can open your eyes again now :P

Thursday 26 April 2012

The diary of a ten year old part 1

I was sorting some stuff out the other day and came across my Winnie-the-pooh diary from 1997.
1997 was a pretty good year; I turned 11, my sister was born (yes there is a big age gap between us), I started 'big school' and it would appear that I started to become interested in the opposite sex. Shocking!

I just had to share some of my diary entries because they really tickled me. I think it will be best to split them over a couple of posts because I don't want to overload you with 10 year old Katie - she's a bit full on sometimes.
So this first lot of entries all surround my 10 year old love life:

22nd April
So yeah, from the start I obviously played it cool and wasn't overly dramatic or anything. Loving someone for infinity isn't that long is it? I love how after making such a statement I then have to also write that I went swimming (with Emma), like that was equally important on that day.


2nd May
Oh dear. I can't believe Emma told my secret, when just over a week earlier I had been swimming with her. Don't think I was a happy bunny. I love how I turned the 'M' in Matthews name into a love heart.

17th May
My birthday, as you can see. How tragic a diary entry is this? I actually remember this. I had had a bowling party and both Matthew and Kayleigh, amongst other friends (including Emma - we made friends) came and in the car on the way back he said he fancied Kayleigh. And it had to happen ON MY BIRTHDAY. Oh dear.

10th June
This was the last diary entry relating to Matthew. It had been exactly 49 days since I had admitted my 'infinity' love for him and he had gone and got a girlfriend who I was obviously not happy with. I wasn't bitter or anything. Honest. It would appear that that was the end of my 'love' for Matthew and I had to move on. (p.s. the part about my Mum related to her going in to hospital to have my sister)

14th July
Then there was George. As you can see, that was pretty short lived.

22nd October
And finally there was Sam and the cycle begins again.



Who knew a 10-11 year old could have such a drama filled love life eh?

Thursday 19 April 2012

7 Reasons why I don't like Facebook..... even though I still use Facebook


Everybody has Facebook nowadays. Parents (thankfully not mine), grandparents (again, not mine), Aunties, Uncles, long lost classmates, teachers, everybody has got into the Facebook action.
I first joined Facebook whilst I was at uni when my uni friends began telling me that 'Myspace was sooooooooooo dead'. When I first joined, you had to have a university email address, i.e. one that ended in .ac.uk here (obviously different for different countries) You could look at all the people's profiles who were in the same uni as you and then to see any others you had to be friends with them.

I don't think I can remember the point in time when Facebook blew up and everybody including people's pets started popping up, requesting to be friends and updating their profiles with pictures ('this is soooooo going to be my profile pic'), statuses and interests.

Anyway onto my 7 reasons of disliking Facebook:
*Before I start, this is only supposed to be light hearted and I'm sure to an extent I too am guilty of some of the following because I do still continue to use Facebook*

1. Pointless/too much information status updates - Guess what I don't care if your tea was really 'yummy' or if you're having a 'cheeky vino' after work. I also don't care for a minute by minute breakdown of the programme you are currently watching - if I wanted to know what's cracking off, I'd watch it myself.

2. People having 600 friends. 600? Really you have SIX HUNDRED friends? Whatever. Maybe it's me being insanely jealous that you can find 600 people who like you and want to be friends or maybe it's me being annoyed at listing somebody you met in a pub toilet, once, as a 'friend'. Either way, either way.

3. The 'Love my kids/ Love my wife/ Love my boyfriend/ Love my family' status updates. Wow you love your kids? No way, never would have thought that you would love your kids and I'm so glad you remind me and your other Facebook friends every other day. And really? You have the best boyfriend in the world because he put the toilet seat down/brought you a yogurt from the fridge/bought you some flowers? Wicked. I care.

4. People writing on the walls/photos/status updates of other people who are blatently in the same house/room as them. Open your mouths and talk to each other; you don't have to put on a show for us all.

5. Those 'woo it's the weekend' and 'can't believe it's Monday again' statuses - believe it or not I am aware of the days of the week and the order in which they fall. You don't need to remind me. I have lived through almost 26 years worth of weeks and was probably aware of the days contained in those weeks for at least 20 of those years.

6. The cryptic status updates. The 'I'm only going to give you a taster of something but don't want to go into detail about it on Facebook' status. The 'ask me a question about my status because I then want to announce that it's too personal for all to see' status. Get.a.life.

7. Game requests. No I don't want to send you a packet of seeds for your online farm. No. Just no.

As I say although these things do my head in; I still do use Facebook. I wrote my dissertation on Facebook - 10,000 words on it. In a way it's fascinating, but on the other hand it just annoys me. This means I have certain people on the 'show me less updates' option because I want to avoid the politics of friend culling. Oh it's all just too much isn't it :)

Anything that annoys you on Facebook?

How many times can I say Facebook in one blogpost? Facebook.
This is like my dissertation all over again.

Rant over.

Monday 16 April 2012

A New Beginning.

Hello or 'Ay up' as they say around my part of the country :)
My name is Katie and I have decided that my life is far too exciting to not blog about. This happened whilst I was watching Criminal Minds reruns, drinking my cup of tea and observing my dog eat/play with a fly that she found on the windowsill. I know, it's all so thrilling isn't it?

But really, I thought I would give this another go. This is actually my third attempt at blogging but we'll ignore that and pretend you are my first. The others didn't mean anything to me. Honest.

So shall we kick off with some 'get to know me' facts?

- I am 25 years old, almost 26.
- I live with my other half; who I have been with for almost a decade.
- We have a crazy dog called Penny.
- I love crap tv. It's my guilty pleasure.
- I'm not the best at conversation making and am quite happy to sit in silence. My other half makes up for this as he doesn't shut up.
- I get cold sores, on my cheek. They make me feel like this..
- I am a very messy person. I try not to be, but what can I say, I find a little comfort in a little clutter!
- And finally (for now)... I love to eat. Recently I have been eating too much and have become a bit of a fatty; so now I am dieting to try and feel more comfortable in my own skin again.

Laters taters x