Can I help?

Apparently there's something about me that says "I know where you want to be." Something about me that isn't even visible.

About a year ago, a friend asked me in an email if, because I work in the information profession, I end up with many people asking me for directions frequently. I said no because it didn't seem to me that I was asked often enough to make it unusual; afterall, I live in Cambridge which is a tourist trap in the summer. Something strange has happened in the last year. It's possible that I'm just more observant of my direction giving, but I think there's something more to it.

Twice in a little over three months I have given directions to someone that has rung my doorbell because he/she/they have somehow made it to Ekin Road but that's not where he/she/they want to be. The first time was when students that I recognized as frequenters of my library (and they recognized me as library staff) had been dropped off by a taxi to the completely wrong road. Tonight, an Italian language school student had wandered off the beaten path in search of the home he is staying in. The first time, I directed them using a map and hoped they made it to their destination; tonight it was just easier to put on my shoes and coat and walk him to the correct road since he had no understanding of where he was. I have also encountered numerous other language students in need of directions to the right road or the nearest bus stop. And it seems that a lot more people have come to my centrally located library to get directions to other places on campus.

I like giving directions. It makes me feel useful and helpful. It does seem frustrating, though, that I can't get delivery people to find my home but strays have no trouble. What is it about me and my home that says "I can help."?

packet lunch

Each working day, when I get home, my cats are VERY ready for me to feed them. Maegan is waitin' atop the fridge for love and her biscuits whereas Owen greets me at the door with a yell and won't leave me alone until I set down his watery chicken filled bowl. Then I get to sort out my lunch. The last few months, apart from a day here and there when I had leftovers or a purchased sandwich, my lunch has been soup - soup because it fills me up, it's easy to heat up in the steamer and it's easy to count the calories.

Today Maegan had a special treat of wet food for lunch thanks to Ocado's penchant for giving away free stuff - making today a complete packet lunch.

Good weekend

Neil and I had another lovely weekend. Nothing specifically wonderful happened but this morning I have the feeling of just finishing a good weekend. I've designed a few new cards and become a little ahead of the September birthday game (and finally caught up on a very delayed graduation card). Neil has been working on a new project which he's excited about, I like it when he's excited. Unfortunately, I feel kinda guilty because I'm finding this project difficult to get behind. I'm being as supportive as I can and I'm sure it will look wonderful when he's finished. I just get nervous about building a large water container from scratch and projects that mean Neil's testosterone levels sky rocket. He's not very relaxed when it comes to the frustrations of diy (do-it-yourself). So far so good though.

It was a good weekend despite watching some bad films. We watched Ju-On: The Grudge 2... please don't bother. I'm easily scared by horror films but even I wasn't convinced by this one. I don't remember seeing the first one, but Neil says this sequel seemed like they were just cashing in and lacked the story to do a decent job. We did watch the whole thing though, which is more than I can say for Hellboy. It was recently on telly so we thought we'd see if it was worth going to the sequel which is coming out in the theatres now. We won't be going to Hellboy 2. Which is odd, because we've really liked other things involving Guillermo del Toro.

It was also a good weekend despite our suffering garden. We took in our last tomato harvest, and it's a big one. I need to find space to ripen tomatoes and things to do with them after. Tomato blight hit the crop again this year, but counting or blessing we at least managed to ripen some tomatoes this time. We won't be deterred! We'll just rotate our vegetable plan and try again next year. In the meantime, anyone have a great recipe for tomato sauce that I can keep in cans to use for pasta and pizza over the winter? I mowed late yesterday, about 7pm (I can do this because it only takes a half hour to mow our grass, at the most). After finishing we had a wander around the garden pointing out the good, the bad, and the ugly. The ugly was already gone since we'd taken out the tomatoes on Sunday. But the bad is that we have a lot of hard graft planned for the winter in the form of digging over lots of soil, digging out lots of rubble to possibly extend the pond, and digging in more soil for the front flower beds. Lots of digging. We also need to plan the vegetable garden a little better so we order our organic seeds and start our plants off on time. The good is the fabulous looking decorative corn and things we learned from all the herbs and flowers and vegetables we planted this year. Gardening has a steap learning curve, but it's very rewarding and there's always next year to do improve. I'll try to add a picture of the corn later when the sun comes out (hopefully).

Good day

Life happens. :-)

We're inching closer and closer to getting pictures taken of the study. The carpet tiles arrived today (thanks to my lovely neighbor who signed for them and helped me carry them from her house to mine). I haven't checked all the colors, but the one I did see looks very good. The cupboard doors have been quite the pain in Neil's everything this week. All we wanted to do was replace the door handles. They match the door handles I stupidly bought based on looks and not substance. How was I to know that beautiful and expensive hardware would be put together so poorly!

This weekend we have a couple of house guests (which may mean the carpet tiles get layed faster, or it may mean they get put off all together). One is a regular visitor who even has his own key to the front door. He's always welcome and it's always great to see him. The other is Patirck who hasn't been to Cambridge to see us in quite some time and has never seen the house except in pictures. He was suitably impressed. Now on to the adventure!

Redecoration continues

As you can see (if you've been here before last Sunday) I did a little redecorating again. The purple just wasn't working for me. I like purple, but it just wasn't what I wanted I like this green one. I'm not thrilled with the picture but it's a good shot with a smile. And in a way I kinda like looking at it knowing that I've lost weight since then. If you saw me now you'd see it in my face that I've lost weight. That makes me happy. The green makes me happy too. My favorite color is actually orange, but green makes me happy too.

The photo was taken by my friend Jessica when she was here visiting me. This shot was near the pond at the Cambridge University Botanic Garden. If you ever come to visit I will take you there (if you want to go). It's one of my favorite places in Cambridge. The rest of the banner was made using products from Scrap Girls. If you want to know the product list then leave me a comment and I will belatedly post the list. But as for now, it's back to real life decorating. The study is looking really good (and yes, study works better than den in m opinion). We just have one more coat of matt white on two walls and the ceiling, a coat or two of gloss white on the skirting and door, a shelf to add, carpet tiles to purchase and fit, and a portion of wall to paint green.* That may sound a lot, but when I think of all the work we've done so far this week... the light at the end of the tunnel is much more visible, so to speak.

Today is going to be an errand running day, even if it is Neil's official birthday. Happy birthday to my lovely hubby Neil! He's decided he would like to go to London on Sunday to celebrate. This is because we can have sushi for lunch, go to the aquarium, and then finish the day by seeing Wall.e at the BFI. Sounds like a nice day out to me, a great way to finish off our week's holiday, and the perfect way to celebrate my love's birthday (food, fish and film are three of his favorite things). Today's errands will be exchanging a couple of Wii games for store credit (hopefully), dropping off a friend's birthday present before she dashes off on her two week holiday in Wales, looking for curtain fabric, and picking up the last of the 8 foot shelves. We ran out of time to pick up the shelf on Tuesday since we had dinner reservations at Loch Fyne (lovely, lovely food) and yesterday was filled with rain. It's gotta be nice when we go because we have to walk the shelf home. It's 8 feet long... do you think they'd let us on the bus with it? Today looks sunny apart from a probable afternoon shower. I'm going outside to enjoy this while it lasts.

*I crossed these items out on July 11th. Woo-hoo! We're gettin' it done!

A change

It's all change around here. We're in the midst of redecorating the study/den (I can't decide which is the best name for purpose without sounding pompous). So I decided I could keep that decorating momentum going and do a little layout change on here too. How do you like the new banner? I'm not totally happy with it... I don't think purple is quite how I want it to stay. The sweet pea picture was the only one I was happiest to show off for the moment, so for now purple it is. I can't decide on the colours for the study/den either. Green is a definite, but to accent in blue or pink is the question. Pink would be very feminine and I'm not normally very feminine. I like the freshness of green, pink and white (the walls will be white) - but would that seem cold in the winter? However, dark and light blue with green is nice and a bit more practical (we have a blue futon in the room and my teapot and coaster are dark blue, light blue, green and white striped... and yest they are the source of this colour scheme option). The idea of practical is what is putting me off I think; sometimes I just get tired of being practical. On the other hand, I don't want to decorate twice.

I thought today might be a good day to add a little info about my blog title. Why student4life? When I joined a message board a couple of years ago I was just in the middle of the first year for my Masters course in library and information studies and felt like I had gone back to the begning of things, being a student again. I loved it and disliked it. Still do. I love learning and discovering new things. I'm so tired of feeling like I can't get on with life because I'm still studying about how to do it. So student 4life is both a declaration of wanting to learn for my whole life and a feeling of desperate fear that I will always be studying, feeling guilty that I'm not as studious as I mean to be, and never have free time again. It's a double edged sword that reflects the joy and guilt of study in my life, but mostly it's just who I am... a student for, of and in life.