Recently ... [3]

+ So, because I apparently have THE shortest attention span like, ever ... I've changed my blog's design again. Not too much, but I just decided to make the colouring of it a bit more autumn/wintery. I'm pretty proud of it, yo. Especially the menu mouseover effects. I am such a nerd. I really need to get out more.

+ I've now got over 80 followers! Eek. I feel pretty proud of that, too. Thanks guys, for thinking me interesting enough to follow. And especially you guys who comment so much - I feel really lucky when I see some blogs that have a similar amount of followers but don't get anywhere near as many lovely comments as I do ♥

+ I've been drinking tea lately. Which is weird, because for years I was convinced I didn't like it (again, weird considering how my mother loves the stuff. She seriously drinks about 5 or 6 cups a day). But one morning in work I needed something warming to wake me up, and since I HATE coffee, I thought I'd give tea another try. And you know what? I actually liked it. Once I'd added some sugar and milk, at least. So now when someone in work offers, "Anyone want coffee? Tea?" I can actually reply with, "Tea please!" It makes me feel all grown up. Yeah.

+ I was going to do a post a couple of days ago about Kim Kardashian's marriage. Or lack of it. But it turned a bit ranty so I didn't post it. The gist of it was, though, that I'm fed up of celebrities treating marriage so casually. Marriage is supposed to be something that is forever. And yes, of course I understand that some marriages break down. But so many celebrities just don't even seem to try to make it work. Marriage absolutely isn't the next step of a relationship. If you can't even be bothered to try to make a 72 day old marriage work, then there should be some law to stop you remarrying. I don't understand how some people can get away with claiming that allowing gays to marry will ruin the sanctity of marriage, when 'celebrities' like Kim & Kris are out there, spending millions on a wedding, then waltzing out just when something slightly doesn't seem as fun as it once did. It makes me angry, to be honest.

+ And with that, Dan and I are off to the pub for some dinner and drinks. Yes please.

Date night.

It's half term this week, so to celebrate Dan completing half a term of being a real teacher, and because I had Friday evening and the whole of Saturday off, we went out for a meal and drinks in Frankie & Benny's, yay!

This is what I wore: (cue standard 'in-the-mirror' shot)

Not too dressy, but it was COLD out, and I've never been one for fashion over warmth. That's just crazy to me!

I love Frankie & Benny's. There's such a yummy selection of food, and the cocktails there are super strong and delicious too. I was planning on taking photos of all our courses, but after two glasses of the Long Beach Iced Tea (like Long Island Iced Tea, but with cranberry juice instead of Coke), um, I forgot!

On the bus I realised my lack of pictures, so I tried to take some, but the bus wouldn't stop moving. How inconsiderate.

Dan cooked me a full English breakfast in the morning, because he's super lovely like that :) We went for a walk in some fields afterwards, but I'll save that for another post (something for you guys to look forward to, haha).

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Last night I got to Skype with Sam, one of my best friends from my year in Colorado. We talked for over two hours, and it was so lovely to catch up. We hadn't spoken in far too long. I really miss that girl. Long distance friendships are tough.

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I'm guest posting over at Mary Rebecca's blog today, so you should check it out!

Sniff.

How has it been 5 days since I've updated this blog of mine?! I'm not sure where the time has gone!

My parents came down to visit me on Wednesday, and we had a lovely day. Unfortunately I didn't take my camera with me! I assumed my mother would have hers and she assumed the same about me, so we ended up with no cameras. Disappointing stuff.

I sometimes wonder what would have happened if I hadn't moved to Southampton with Dan and had moved back to Cardiff instead. Would I still be living at home, or would I have got my own place to myself by now? I really miss my parents - I always thought I would live just around the corner from them, the way my mother lives only a 15 minute walk from my grandparents, but clearly that hasn't happened. I'd like to think that one day I'll get to move back to Cardiff. I do miss it.

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I came down with a cold on Wednesday evening so spent most of yesterday curled up in bed finishing reading One Day. Yes, I decided to jump on the bandwagon and read it, since everybody and his brother seems to have read it. I really enjoyed it. I liked that the ending wasn't the traditional happy ending that it so easily could have been.
It was the first time in AGES that I've literally not wanted to put a book down (that probably accounts for the lack of blogging!), and I was left feeling really inspired to write. I love books that give me that feeling.

I called in sick to work this morning, but I'm going to drag myself there this evening (I'm working a split) because I hate feeling like I'm letting people down.

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Oh, and I'm featured over on For the Love of Blogs today, so you should go and check that out! (it's not all the exciting, mind you).

If you've come over from there, HI! Welcome!

New layout! (+ blog awards)

Guys, guys, check out my blog! I've changed the design!

I've gotta say, I'm pretty proud of it. I'm far from an expert at blog design (my HTML knowledge is somewhat lacking), so when something comes out just as I imagined it in my head, I get all excited and pleased. Whaddya'll think of it?

(I've also changed the URL, so it's now missish.blogspot.com, just FYI!)

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Also, I've been given TWO blog awards recently, by the lovely Jenni at The Content Notebook and by Steph over at Thoughts and Things. Thank you girls!

Since both blogs awards require me to give seven facts about myself, instead of boring you by giving 14, I'll just stick to 7 ;)

1. I was born 4 days late.
2. I used to have a gap between my two front teeth, but years of dental operations and braces mean that, alas, I no longer do. I miss it a little bit.
3. The Pixar film Up made me absolutely bawl my eyes out, but I didn't so much as shed a tear during The Notebook.
4. I've lived in 6 different bedrooms in 4 years.
5. Ben & Jerry's Half Baked is my favourite ice cream of all time. Seriously, give me a tub of that and I'll love you forever.
6. I went to see the first Pirates of the Caribbean in the cinema 3 times.
7. I spend far too much time thinking about my blog/blogging in general.

I'm passing on the award to ...
Brittany at Adam and Brittany
Aly at It Ain't Always Pretty But It's Real
Bree at Simply Girly
Eric at A Pocket Full of Chuckles

Recently ... [1]

+ I had Sunday and Monday off, yay! On Sunday Dan and I did some shopping in Sainsbury's and M&S, caught up on Don't Tell the Bride (is anyone else as obsessed with that show as I am?!), and visited Dan's mum and sister who recently got back from a trip to Morocco.

+ Dan had the wonderful idea of going out for a carvery last night, because one near us is only £3.69 on a weekday. And because we were hungry and didn't want to wait for food to cook (haha, we're so lazy). £3.69 for all that meat and veg and potatoes and gravy! Happy days.

+ I was at work until 2.30am on Saturday night, cleaning up after a wedding reception and private party. The people having the private party would not leave until 1.30am. And yes, okay, I get that they paid to rent the room etc, but there were only 5 of them left and we clearly were all itching to get that room cleaned so we could get out of there (we weren't exactly being subtle by the end!). A little consideration might have been nice. It's not as if we get paid any more on top of our normal wages for working that late.

+ My manager is currently pretty high on my list of favourite people, because he gave me this coming Saturday and Sunday off, and didn't take away my day off on Thursday either! Which means that, money permitting, I can go to London on Saturday and see (some of) my lovely girlfriends!

+ I'm planning a pretty major blog redesign, involving the newly re-found blog I mentioned in my last post. At the moment I can't decide if I'm going to export all the posts from this blog to the other blog (and risk losing all my followers), or if I'm going to swap the blog URLs (which seems a leetle bit tricky for someone not gifted with much technical computery knowledge), and then change the branding of this blog afterwards. At the moment I'm leaning towards the latter, despite its trickiness, because I don't want to lose and confuse my lovely followers!

Hi, I'm Emma and I'm a serial blogomist.

The other day, for whatever reason, I decided to look up a Blogger URL that I really wanted, but was already in use when I tried to use it for my blog address a while ago (when I was making my previous Blogger blog, actually). And you know what I discovered?

I ALREADY OWN IT!

It was a blog I made years ago, that I last updated in 2004. As soon as I saw it, I remembered it, and spent a happy hour or so reading through the posts I made on there. It was from the beginning of Year 11, after I'd spent the whole of Year 10 keeping a 'web diary' about the goings on in my life. I stopped doing the web diary but wanted to do something similar, just in more of a relaxed way, so I started that blog. I wasn't a massive fan of it, though, and abandoned it in mid October.

Since I really wanted control of it back, I tried to remember what the log in details for the account would have been. I couldn't. I tried the only two email addresses I could think I might have used when signing up, but neither of them were the right one. BUT. By doing that, I discovered another blog that I'd had and completely forgotten about! This one was from my second year of university and lasted a little longer, although with the posts being more sporadic.

I had zero recollection of having kept this blog, but reading through it made me laugh at some of the memories I'd otherwise have forgotten. And then it made me all nostalgic for second year. But I digress.

Today I had another attempt at gaining access to the blog I really want back. It seemed so sad that it was sitting there on the internet, so close yet out of my reach just because I couldn't remember my damn log in details. Then I had a brainwave.
Back in the day, I used to write down the username and passwords to things I signed up for (I know, I know, you're not supposed to do this, but I never did it with anything 'important'. And I don't do it any more. Which might explain why it sometimes takes me so long to log into things when Chrome kindly forgets my password). Was it possible that I'd written down the log in information for this very blog?

Yes I had! Hallelujah!

With baited breath, I entered the log in information. It worked! It actually worked! Google asked me if I wanted to update the account and add it to a current Google account I might have. Why yes Google, yes I do!

So now my wonderfully old blog has been added to this account. I have control of it again!

I'm not entirely sure what to do with it. What I'd really like to do is use it for me now, since it's the username that has been with me since I was 12 or 13 and is still with me today. But it seems weird to add new posts to a blog that has happily been in hibernation for so long. And I can't just delete those posts, now can I?!
Also, I'm establishing myself here. I'm not sure I'd be able to move to a third blog in the space of a little over a year without losing followers all over again (when I moved from The Little Grey Cells to here, hardly any of my 60-odd followers came with me. Seriously, I was more than a little upset at this). I'd just really really like my blog to be 'me'. Truly me, not a fad name as The Little Grey Cells and I Am the Chaser kind of are. And 'missish' is truly 'me'. Hmm. A quandry indeed. I shall muse on this.

Blog award!

I got another blog award; I'm so excited! Kathy digs my blog, yay!

1. Thank the person who gave you the award.
Well thank you Kathy! And thank you for being such a regular commenter on my blog; it really means a lot to me ♥

2. Reveal 3 random facts about yourself.
- Despite having a boyfriend to cuddle at night, I still have to have my cuddly Eeyore in my arms.
- I sucked my fingers (not sure why I was a finger rather than a thumb sucker) until I was 10, and gave up to prove to my grandmother that I could do it.
- I love trashy reality TV. Possibly too much.

3. Pass the award on.
Kate at Kate As Of Late
Allie at Of All the Nonsense
Ash at Emerald Doodles
Helen at Half the World Away.

Guest posting + fajitas.

This week I went from being a guest post virgin to guest posting on two blogs!

My first guest post was over at Kaley in Japan on a post called Emma's Stateside Travels, in which I talked about the travels I did while I was living in Colorado.

The other guest post was over at Jess's blog Life ... Live It! in her 10 Simple Things series. I listed 10 of my favourite simple things that make me happy.

You should go and check them out, yeah? Cool.

And - in unrelated news - here's some photos from Tuesday night, when Dan's family came to ours for dinner:




We did a Mexican food buffet, with chicken or beef (and a whole host of other fillings) to go in wraps, and some cheesy nachos and dip. It was rather delicious, though I say so myself!

My first blog award!

I've been given my very first blog award!
The lovely Tiffani over at Pretend this is Fiction thinks that my blog is on fire (she also called me funny and sweet, which I'm going to be basking in for the next few days, oh yes).
I'm a new reader of Tiffani's blog, and I can't wait to read more of her amusing and/or thoughtful posts.

The rules state that I've now got to give 7 facts about myself, and then pass the award onto more equally lovely bloggers. So, here goes:

Seven Facts About Emma

1. I'm an only child. Growing up as an only child with no pets made language lessons a bit annoying. You know those lessons where you have to learn how to say how many brothers and sisters you have, and/or how many pets you have and what they are? Yeah, my teacher told me to make them up. I was a little offended by the idea my real life wasn't interesting enough to be translated into German.
2. I'm left handed, and in the teeny 2% of left handers with parents that are both right handed.



3. I've been to Walt Disney World 13 or 14 times (I've genuinely lost count. I feel bad about this).
4. My favourite song of all time is Beverly Craven's Promise Me. It's not a cheery song, and isn't really like any of the other songs on my 'favourite song' list, but it's so haunting and beautiful.
5. I started keeping an online journal years and years ago, when I was 14, on LiveJournal. I actually still have the same account, although I rarely post on there these days (compared to the 3 or 4 times a day I posted on there at the peak of my LJ blogging addiction!).
6. I epilate, rather than shave, my legs and underarms. It's a lot (A LOT) more painful initially, but it means the hair grows back so much slower and thinner. Which is useful for someone as lazy as me when it comes to hair removal.
7. When I was younger I had a Beanie Baby that I used to take everywhere with me. His name was Bongo.


See? Pretty cute, right? (the monkey, not me, obviously. I've no idea what's going on with my hair. Or my teeth, but that was an ongoing thing).

I give the Blog On Fire award to:

Little at Romantically Challenged - I loved the design of this blog straight away, and then I got drawn in by the content. It's so open and honest, and I love the Secret Sunday posts.

Emma at DayDream Believer - This is my lovely friend Emma's blog. It's a great way for me to be nosy at what she's doing, but it's just a great blog because she posts so many great photos about all kinds of things, from clothes to bands she's seen.

Mallory at Seedling - The photos on Mallory's blog are stunning! They manage to make every aspect of her life look colourful and fascinating.

Brooke at Go Grad Girl - This blog is a fun selection of posts, from the Things I Like Thursday posts to more everyday posts about Brooke's life. She's also in the same 'just finished university' boat as me!

Ta-da! Wasn't that fun?

Another blog?

In my several years on the internet, I've started many many blogs. Some of them no longer exist (my Highlighter Stars and my Snafflecake ones, for instance), and some of them I've just given up on (more than I care to count, but most recently: The Little Grey Cells)

In any case, here I am again. I've just finished university, but I've not officially graduated yet. I'm in limbo. What better time to start a new blog? Watching myself get out of limbo should be a half decent experience to blog about.
In my attempts to get out of limbo, I will be doing some or all of the following:
- Moving away from Brighton
- Moving in with my boyfriend (his name is Dan. I imagine his name will come up on a frequentish basis) in Southampton
- Finding myself a half decent job.
- Waiting to find out if I have a job I applied for 6 months ago.

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No more blogging about things and in a way I don't want to, just to try and get some more followers (in fact, I've turned off the followers gadget thingy. Less pressure). Blogging should be self-indulgent. Let's see how this goes, shall we?