apprentice_lurk

((I am of the unshakeable opinion that there is very, very little that a hot bath cannot solve. Ohhhh that was worth the wait. *slides under the water happily*

And now that I'm thoroughly scrubbed and dripping all over the floor, time to hunt down some dinner. And preferably some good conversation as well. Someone help me prove that my mind hasn't dissolved, dammit! *pads off in search of food and Triad*))

So, everyone seems to be doing the summary-of-the-year thing, obviously enough. We've just sat in the living room, had dinner and traded anecdotes about various nefarious things that we've done or had done to us at school, so it seems like a good enough time to get contemplative.

At the beginning of 2007, I was stuck in a miserable household where we had an extra body lolling around on the sofa, another housemate hiding in the back bedroom and the other two shrieking at the top of their lungs upstairs for eighteen hours a day. I was writing a thousand words a week for my dissertation, steadily working through my word count, and reading up on coffee, women in breeches and why men went to meeting houses to pretend to have babies with my laptop locked to my bedpost so no-one threw it in the river.

A few months later, I finished my dissertation in a state of nervous god-knows-what and stayed in bed for a week to get over the resulting practically-flu. The university had screwed up the dates, my housemates were screwing around with the bills and I was beginning to get the feeling I was going to get screwed over by everyone except the too-distant girlfriend I was pining for. It was a kind of tense equilibrium that lasted for about four months afterwards, until I came back from America with yet another bout of disgusting flu, more aches and pains, bags under my eyes and the realisation that no-one had bothered to deal with the council tax like they were supposed to when I was away.

And then the housing situation exploded, shortly after I got the first real full-time job of my very short career and discovered that the nine-to-six thing was far worse than I ever imagined a nine-to-five ever being. (I'm still maintaining that I've not been so ill on and off in a five-month period as I have when I started working there.) The money situation got better, the housing situation got worse, and we've only just cottoned on to the fact that if circumstances hadn't aligned at exactly the right time Mikki and me'd have effectively been out on our ears or carrying four people's rent between us.

...Which brings me to the last month or so, which has undoubtedly been the most fantastic bout of housemate-related lunacy I've ever had the priviledge to live through. It's been like living with a real family instead of housemates, except I can honestly say I like the lot of them. ;)

So, this, then - may all your housemates be honest, may your family be close by but not in your pocket, and may the next year be better with bills than this one. And thank anyone listening for my Triad, 'cause I highly doubt I would have got this far without going spare without them.))

((Okay, now it's official. No ifs, ands or buts, aside from maybe the headcast's - WE HAS A HOUSE! :D

And it's a HELL of a house, let me tell you. I hadn't realised how absolutely frigid the Colony was before we moved here; I was actually comfortable sitting in the living room - huge! Comfy! Soon to be having a sofa in it! - at gone midnight and wasn't that much more than 'a bit chilly.' ;)

And! And! We have a working shower, a huge bath, a bathroom that looks like something from Arabian Nights, a kitchen I can actually cook in, winding stairs with a big old wooden door separating the upstairs from the downstairs which is just awesome on principle as well as keeping the noise down and the warm in, an oven which I swear is like something out of Girl Genius...

...Oh yeah. I'm happy. ^_^ I'm far more relaxed than I've been for a good six months, though I've yet to stop jumping like a kicked cat every now and again - I feel like I've just been rescued from an animal sanctuary. *sighs*

And there are flowers everywhere! There's a rose bush curling around the shed in the back garden, and the garden has a pond for pretending we have waterlilies - I don't know if there are any or not, but unfortunately I'm an optimist ;) - and there are ivy-tiles around the oven and ivy painted on the basin in the bathroom. :D ...And did I mention the stained glass window in the bathroom? *flails!* This is so many shades of awesome!

We don't have the internet hooked up yet, but fingers crossed that getting the phone line won't take too long. I can't remember how long it took getting the Colony connected the first time around... :/ Regardless, I can get to my email once a day at work, and everyone who needs it has my number, yes? *cuddles all* Basically, me and Koi and Mikki are home and safe and thoroughly squeeful. We managed to cook dinner in a clean kitchen for the first time in months! I squee!

You lot take care of yourselves, okay? *dances happily, cuddles all and goes to collapse from lugging boxes*))

((This is going to be interesting - I've managed to slice my forefinger with the scissors when I was trimming my fringe, so I'm hopping about over the keyboard like a three-legged frog. Hrmm.

Suitcase is packed, adrenaline levels are at an all-time high, suitcase and hand luggage is packed. I'm waiting for Rath to be done in the bathroom, sitting on the bed in my pyjamas with my laptop, and valiantly resisting the numerous packets of cake-based junk food scattered around with the willpower of someone who's just stepped on the scales, more fool I. I didn't quite manage to do everything I needed to today - Tesco's summer range, at least in terms of the swimming stuff, seems bound and determined to deny any knowledge of the bikini top I bought there a month ago, despite still having everything else that was in stock back then. Seeing as how the lower halves of bikinis that might've matched seemed built for women with their hips under their ears, I now have a bikini consisting of a pretty white top - and a pair of swimming trunks from the on-sale men's section. They're really comfy, aside from the great hunk of netting inside the trunks themselves designed to hold in various bits of anatomy I don't actually have.

I might need to get creative with the scissors later - carefully avoiding my fingers - and snip the elastic out.

...

*giggles* ^_^))