Well it's finally Friday. I am so happy about that I feel like I should be wearing a glittery dress and riding into the sunset on a unicorn. As predicted yesterday, today was good. Of course it was raining sideways most of the day and cold as November.

I have never lived in a place where the wind was so strong that the rain is actually horizontal. Umbrellas are really useless here. You just look like an idiot with an inside out umbrella getting even more wet because you're standing there struggling with a soon to be broken umbrella. Horizontal rain aside, good day!

I went for a Thai lunch with some fun girls from work. Ladies who lunch! That is US! I was in a spring roll coma the entire afternoon. It's my happy place. Nice break from all the salad and other healthy foods. Of course I'm going to have to have some serious Billy Blanks energy with the work out tomorrow to cancel it out. Which brings us to tonight's topic.

So, when I'm home alone I'm usually fine. I consider myself a fairly tough girl. No night light required. Well, I do make sure all closet and cupboard doors are shut because leaving them open is just stupid because everyone knows that's how goblins enter our realm. That's just common sense.

A couple nights ago however, I had a true moment of panic. I just finished up a work out and was all salty and gross. Shower was definitely needed. Now, I usually do the work out shower thing early in the evening but I switched it up so it was about 10:30 at night before I was heating up the shower to clean and jammie up.

Our bathroom is pretty big. The shower is separate from the bath, which is nice actually. The shower is a cubicle opposite the tub with a glass door. Nice set up even if it is a pain in the ass to clean every week. But I digress.

Shower is heated up and I'm in there de-stinking myself. Just as I cover my face with a foamy exfoliating scrub I hear it... Someone is walking around upstairs.

O_O What in the holy hell is that?

My heart pounds like a Transformer running down the street. The next five seconds my train of thought went something like this:

Fuck OK, someone is in the house.
I AM COVERED IN FOAM AND CAN'T SEE MY ATTACKER! *quick rinse and stedies feet*
Stay calm.
How can I be fucking calm!? I'm about to do karate naked!
It's OK I can take him, I'm a vicious naked fiery beast of Hell! *flexes*
Oh god what if I die and they find me in the bathroom and take pictures of my ass? >_<
I need to look now and try REALLY hard not to get killed. *wipes steam off glass*

I'm shaking slightly and I look through the wiped off part of the shower door. I am ready to take this bitch down, I know he's coming so I have the advantage. I feel slightly more confident even with the horror of potentially having to fight with out clothes. At least I'll be slippery and hard to grab on to. Another advantage. Look again... ready.

Nothing happens... it's totally quiet. Then I see it.

The goddamn cat was hiding in the bathtub and jumping out at Bean! She did it as I watched and I heard the same sound... like footsteps. The acoustics in the large bathroom mixed with the running shower water dulling my hearing a bit made it sound EXACTLY like someone walking upstairs.

I burst out laughing at how absurd the situation was... I couldn't help it. I'm such a noob. I rinsed the conditioner out of my hair and got out and promptly equipped jammies. Of course I was still shaken up so just to be sure I wasn't just hoping that was the answer, I checked the whole house ninja style. Sure I looked REAL scary in my baby blue fuzzy robe. :P

After that escapade I was left feeling uneasy. The home alone paranoia set in. My imagination is way too over active to have something like that happen. So, in true dork form, I got out the sword we have from the closet and put it next to the bed... Just in case. It's not even sharpened, but I could knock a burglar out if I had to or at least scare the shit out of him. Probably not many crazy ladies with sword skills on the Isle of Man.

So this evening as I was going about my evening routine I hear the footsteps again. Thankfully I was fully clothed at the time. I investigate the bathroom and the girls were at it again so I thought I'd make it today's kitty photo shoot. Their new fun game goes something like this from what I could gather:

Yuki enters the bath and waits for Bean to come sniffing around looking for her. Plays with the strange sheep thing hanging on the faucet until she comes.

Bean pretending not to notice her sniffs the floor of the bathroom. Yuki readies herself.

YUKI ATTACKS!!!!

Rinse. Repeat!

Have a great Friday all and try not to get attacked in the shower.

Today was a pretty crap day. I didn't get much sleep last night and the work week always seems to burn you out by Thursday. Sky is broken so no TV, which is annoying because they are a bunch of thieving bandits who sell your email to spam sites. So when it breaks, you tend to see all the really wrong things about television.

Tomorrow is Friday and that automatically gives you a second wind. Some of the ladies from work and I are going for a Thai lunch tomorrow which is my favorite so it can't possibly be a bad day! I plan on going into a spring roll coma tomorrow afternoon.

So, after an hour long work out that would kill a normal person and other things around the house... the time just went away. The girls and I are just sleepy and nothing funny or cute is happening in the house tonight. Fuzzy robe and jammies and the kitten has parked herself there for the duration of the evening. Otherwise, there would be more interesting shots. Oh well... Thursday Booo.

Ni ni!

No kitty pics today unfortunately. I just got in and it's too late to try and chase the girls around with a camera. This evening instead, I went on a boat!

A bunch of us met up after work and climbed aboard the new IOM ferry boat to take a two hour sail around the island. I was excited since there could be pirates and seeing parts of the island you don't normally get to see would be pretty.

I tried getting some neat pictures, but the boat is fast and it was hard to stand still to get clear shots. Here are some highlights:

Nice shot of the town Laxey... at least I think it's Laxey? It kind of all looked the same.

I'm pretty sure this looks exactly like the thing in Goonies where they hold up the coin and it matches the hills in the water to the restaurant with the entrance to the underground cavern. Maybe we should go poking around there and find treasure! I shall pack a picnic lunch and we'll make a day of it!

I was hoping to see some pirates and possibly fight a notorious monster for a good drop... and save some Manx noobs and be a hero. I got excited when I saw this off in the distance. Unfortunately, they didn't attack us.

So, it was a nice evening and I was glad I went. A pirate attack would have made me feel like £18 well spent, but all in all it was a good night.

As I was walking to the car I took a couple nice night time shots of Douglas (the main city here) since I never have my camera when I'm there, let alone at night.

I think I'll write a letter to the Isle of Man government tomorrow telling them that Christmas has been over for 7 months and they should consider getting the ladder out and taking the decorations down. ;)

Today the cats weren't in the mood for a photo shoot. Yuki was however eager to do some hunting. It's part of our daily routine. This happens every day when I come home from work and sit at the desk to check various sites, email etc. It goes something like this.

The prey is chosen. Today the pretend dinner of choice was... Bunny!

The prey gets dropped on the desk where I'm working. Then the next important step every good carnivore knows... you hide and wait for the prey to come flying at you.

And of course the final step... Victory!

This goes on for a good 15 minutes until I get up and go on about my evening. It's a good part of the day ^_^

Snow's bachelor thing is today/tonight. Let's all have a moment of silence for his liver and probably his dignity. Let's hope Ainge doesn't have any funny ideas about leaving him in the desert wearing nothing but a "kick me I'm not Irish" sign taped to his back.

<3

Monday. Yeah, I don't have to say much after typing that word do I? It wasn't terrible though. Work is...as it was the last two weeks, EXACTLY like this. By Friday, I feel like I am completely covered in plaid.

All that aside, I tend to get all chipper and have an _I can tackle any project that comes my way_ attitude on Mondays. By 5:00, I'm like an animated corpse except with less brain function. Oh well. By tomorrow all will even itself out.

I realized today that being alone causes you to be more observant of your surroundings and situations. I suppose with less distraction, you have no choice but to focus on what's actually around you. While waiting for the cats to put on costumes and dance around so I'd have some good pictures to post, I just pointed the camera around the room. Here is what I concluded:

1. My cats have more toys than most children living on Earth and beyond. And in the end, they'd rather play with a plastic twist tie wrapped around a wire and/or garbage.

2. We buy a goddamn LOT of books and graphic novels and need more shelf space. This is just one. Overflowing shelves like this lurk all over the house. Perhaps we should boycott future purchases until every single one is read by both of us.

3. Yuki really likes laying on the Mom Couch™...

because 4. the main feature of the Mom Couch™ is the built-in automatic snuggleator with optional promise to provide gooshie food if those currently residing stop destroying electronic devices by munching wires.

Finally 5. Bean totally blends in with the bedding like some kind of Predator with a much less scary face. Sleeping might be difficult tonight if I hear her purring next to my face. I'm hoping she doesn't have any futuristic weapons up her paw and I SWEAR if I hear even a faint "what the hell are you" in that purr tonight, I'm sleeping outside.

Got the sketchbook out today. I'm making progress, which feels great. Sundays always seem to be a drag though. Early onset of depression comes with the few hours before the new work week. So, I figured I'd do something fun. I baked an angel food cake and decided to have an XMen movie marathon. Lame? OR AWESOME! It feels pretty awesome. Then I interrupted to post pics which I couldn't do earlier due to battery depletion of the camera.

The girls were just laying around not doing anything interesting. I figured I should make it Hedgie awareness day instead.

Here is Yuki pretending not to notice she dropped old school Hedgie for me to throw out the door.

We recently aquired new Hedgie. He still needs to be dunked in the water bowl and washed in several loads of laundry to become a true equal.

She has about 800 toys and plushies, but the hedgies are front and center every day.

Here's to ending a good weekend even if it was lonely and starting off to a good week!

Day three. I've been on my own for three days now. I realized I have more to write and get out of me than my kitty photos. I have completely lost my internet mojo. My creative mojo. I used to buy stones and carve them for fun. I used to paint just to see what would happen. I used to write blog entries not just about what was cool on the internet, but what was great and sinister about life. I used to find time for this stuff. I made time for this stuff.

I have so much to do for this wedding. I don't care about table cloths, or flowers or other stuff. I let the professionals tell me what to do and write a cheque. I do however have to design the invitations and other assorted stuff. That is so much pressure for me. I know what I want, just have to do it. I wish I was in school again... or could time travel back for just a day. I found it so inspiring to be around artists all day. Now, I sit around people who deal with payments and accounting. It kills my soul a bit every day.

I need some music to charge me... I have to get up and just do something even if it stinks, until something that doesn't stink happens. It always does.

Well, I took the first and most intimidating step for getting mojo back. I took a picture of myself as well as the cats. I haven't done this in so long, couple years? It was intimidating. I guess I need to embrace I'm not who I was in the past. I need to put myself out there and just write and create and not care if it sucks or if I'm too old or not good enough. Crappy photo taken with the powerbook built in cam, but there it is.

I wouldn't feel right not posting a kitty pic as well... we tried having a movie night earlier but the girls weren't feeling the Ed Norton Hulk movie since I guess they've seen it before. They took naps.

Finding a way to beat creative cones in the road is so hard. I'll get there though ^_^ The house is lonely with out snowy... but he's off getting his creative brain working and I want to do the same while he's away. I will take this time and make something out of it. It's all we have right?

<3

snow is alive for now... things are going well. Apparently a small man came to his room to collect his suit for dry cleaning. Good thing because rolling into a swanky place in a too expensive Italian suit is great. Rolling in with it covered in wrinkles and cat hair, not so suave.

Working on wedding plans, working, working out. Trying not to be jaded I have all this work to do and no vacation ;) Ah well, strongly considering booking a hot stone massage or something primpy like that for fun.

As for the girls...

A hedgehog was just dropped on my desk indicating it's time to play. Hope everyone has a great Friday!

snowchyld left for Vegas for his bachelors do and to attend Defcon and BlackHat today. I'm sad and I think he might end up in jail or in a gutter with stripper glitter all over his face. I vowed to take pictures of our kitties to post whilst he was away in the sparkly ghetto paradise.

Day 1:

Yuki kicking back in her kitty carpet tree house.