euro advantage

It's one heckuva busy week, and it's only Tuesday. My workplace had a series of meeting today to address some major budget cuts and 'redundancies' (as they say here... as it seems 'lay offs' isn't enough of a euphemism) which will affect everyone in communications and marketing. I'm sure if i hadn't already quit, this would REALLY stress me out, so it's a good thing Dean and I are taking a long weekend in Prague on Friday :)

This morning I also booked myself and my big sis for three days in the City of Lights (Paris, dummy!) later this month. Yippee!!!

I might complain a lot about being so far from friends and family, but I guess living in Britain has some perks.

just another weekend in Oxford

Spring in Oxfordshire just keeps on giving. We've had weeks of loveliness and, after last year's "spring" (aka endless winter) in Aberdeen, I keep pinching myself to make sure this one's real.

Yesterday we attempted to bike to a nearby village, but my failed attempt to jump a curb landed me with a flat tire. I bussed home and we went by car instead.

Some shots from my stroll through town and our exploration of Stanton St. John

new housemate

On any given day, in any given town, quirky design shops draw Dean and me in like a giant cartoon magnet. One day, shortly after our move to Oxford we gave into the pull of one such shop and found ourselves giggling and fawning over Alessi's cute and quirky 'Orientales' line of kitchen products.

His coworkers scoffed at his choice, but when I opened up the lillybird soya sauce dispenser from Dean for Christmas, I was pretty tickled.

When Valentine's Day came along it was this entirely peculiar banana milk jug and, thanks to our most recent visitors, Christina and Michael, the milk jug comes into context, and we can have a laugh every time we have tea. Meet the latest addition to North Lodge's current host of characters: Sugar Monkey.

Come join us for tea some time. He'll be happy to see you :)

talented friends

ummm, wow, I'm listening to a brand new track recorded by a dear friend, Zaac Pick, and am feeling awfully proud of him.

He's got a free download available which will knock your socks off. Download it here.

His wife's pretty talented too... she takes some great pictures :)

ban comic sans

I, for one, cringe every time I approach the Coquihalla Tollbooth and see the green-lit OPEN sign... it's not because I resent the $10 toll (c'mon, six lanes in rural BC - that don't come cheap). No, and Dean will attest to this, I protest every time I have to drive under such a bold disregard for good type.


Apparently I'm not the only one, according to this Wall Street journal article.

Once I'm gainfully unemployed I might find the time to rally together my own group of activists around the title Ban Papyrus!

seven weeks and counting

It's a blissful 20 degrees outside and I'm in a basement office huddled up to a space heater writing about corporate governance. So surely it's little surprise that I'm getting awfully excited as the countdown dwindles toward the (temporary) end of my professional life.

I still can't answer the ol' WHAT'S NEXT? question, but I'm feeling more at ease about that ambiguity. If you knew how much has been going on and will continue to go on in the next few months, you'd understand: there really has been little time to worry between house guests and travel plans.

Plus, I am trying, finally, to put down some roots in Oxford. Step one, spend time in Oxford (aka, quit job). Steps two through ten will have to be put on hold until the end of the countdown, but they involve pleasant-sounding things like going for long exploratory bike rides with Dean, meeting new aquaintances for coffee, and volunteering somewhere I like. One of these steps is, obviously, also to find a job in Oxford, but I won't rush that one.

I had intended this post to be a bit of an update, but *sigh* that just sounds so exhausting right now and darn it I have a feature due in two days. harumph!

mildly indulgent wish fulfilled.

I have been lusting after one of these Lovely Design address files for YEARSSS. I have always loved the idea of a rolodex, but hated the way they look. Voila - the perfect solution. There just never seemed to be a time when my own disposable income and Lovely Design's production capabilities aligned. At long last my name is on the waitlist for the now-back-in-production loveliness. Shall we call it an early birthday present, Dean?

less than twitterpated

So, I twittered ...tweeted? twat? (laugh away you Brits). And I'm pretty sure I'll live to regret it. Plus, I used a four-letter word.

And as I did so, I mentally predicted my mother's reaction, but I did it anyway. Sure enough my inbox this morning contained the maternal reprimand i anticipated. Bless her. I love my mom's motherly-ness.

In defense of my word choice:

My view on cussing has been mostly shaped by a wise and wonderful English teacher who told his impressionable grade 12 class that certain words should be deposited in a reservoir. He acknowledged that these words serve a purpose, but that if you dip into the reservoir too often, they lose their meaning. When used sparingly, they have great impact... for example if you stub your toe, rear end a fellow driver, spill red wine on a white shirt etc... or, say, if you find yourself at the edge of a great digital abyss sure to devour hours of your life and all the words you mean to save for your blog. And frankly, I do feel a lot like Frodo, teetering on the rim of Mount Doom.

Just like I knew my mother would respond to my language faux pas, i knew signing up for twitter was a grave error.

And this is before I even knew about twitter etiquette. Thanks Julie (or should I say @frizzbarks), for informing me AFTER THE FACT, that there is an entire code that must be followed which requires responding 'at' (not 'to') people's comments and doing something called 'retweeting'! Plus there is a completely mysterious overuse of the hash key (#) which i have yet to decode.

I also made the mistake of 'following' the tweets (twats) of certain celebs suffering from twitterrhea (ahem john mayer, ashton kutcher, lilly allen... where are these people's publicists?!)

I quit my job to regain my life, but I fear I may have just lost it again.

i said i'd never do it.

oh crap.