Long time no blog.<\/p>\n
I seem to be one of these types of people that blogs most when things\u00a0are rough. When things \u00a0are good I generally feel I have nothing to\u00a0report. Journaling for me has always generally \u00a0centered around\u00a0emotion rather than day-to-day activities. But I digress…<\/p>\n
Holiday in South Africa – 23 Dec – 11 Jan<\/p>\n
Pete and I spent 3 weeks in South Africa over the Christmas period. It\u00a0was truly wonderful. \u00a0Pete and I each spent it with our respective\u00a0parents but did see each other regularly and \u00a0stayed over at the\u00a0others house from time to time. For me most of my time was spent\u00a0relaxing \u00a0in the sun shine, spending time with my dog Misha, and\u00a0going out shoppping and having \u00a0breakfast with my folks, Mark &\u00a0Haylie. We also spent a lot of time with out friends Julian \u00a0& Belinda\u00a0and Lara & Ash & their kids.
\nChristmas Eve we spent with Pete’s parents and some of their friends\u00a0and other relatives. Then Christmas Day we spent at my house with my\u00a0family. for New year’s Eve we went to a \u00a0house party at Julian &\u00a0Belinda’s house. They threw a party with the theme Casino Royale and\u00a0had set up Gambling tables for Roulette, Black Jack & Poker. Having\u00a0never gambled before it \u00a0was quite a learning experience and LOADS of\u00a0fun. Everyone dressed very smart with lots of \u00a0“bling” and costume. Pete took a twist on the theme and dressed as Hunter S.\u00a0Thompson in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, complete with broken cigarette in a holder. It \u00a0was excellent.
\nIt was also Belinda’s 30th on the 4th Jan and a bunch of us went to\u00a0get tattoos. I had my \u00a0tattoos done first and had my power button done\u00a0on my wrist and also had a blue swallow I’d \u00a0had drawn for me years\u00a0ago, on my left shoulder. My brother, Mark, liked the power button\u00a0idea and decided to get the same thing so we would have matching tattoos. My \u00a0swallow came out fantastically and I can’t wait
\nto expand on it. Unfortunately the power \u00a0button scabbed really\u00a0heavily and I caught it twice so a lot of the ink has come out and\u00a0it’ll require a touch up. Mark had puppy paw print going up the inside\u00a0of his left arm, the \u00a0power button and his old monkey tattoo reworked\u00a0as it was looking shit. Belinda went last, \u00a0she had a dreadful fairy\u00a0on her shoulder covered up with flowers and green swirls. It came \u00a0out\u00a0really good and she’s also going to have more work done on it when\u00a0it’s healed up. My \u00a0Mum and Paula (B’s friend from Denmark) also hoped\u00a0to get inked, but we ran out of time. We \u00a0had been there the whole day\u00a0already and only left at 8pm. My Mum decided she really wanted\u00a0something on her wrist though so we booked in for the next day and\u00a0Haylie decided she would \u00a0bite the bullet and go for one too despite\u00a0her fears. So we went back the next day and my \u00a0Mum had a flower done\u00a0on her wrist in black and grey, and Haylie had a rose on her chest. My\u00a0Dad is still too chicken \ud83d\ude42
\nMuch sun-tanning was done, good food eaten, alcohol drank, and time\u00a0with friends and family \u00a0was very special. At the end of the holiday\u00a0Pete and I both didn’t want to leave and \u00a0realised how much we miss\u00a0everyone back home and the lifestyle we left behind. Last time we\u00a0were there in Oct ’07 I felt relieved to be returning to the UK and\u00a0leave behind the dangers \u00a0of South Africa, despite missing family and\u00a0friends so much. This time however we’ve seen a \u00a0lot of improvement in\u00a0the place and didn’t feel at risk like before. There’s still a lot\u00a0that would have to improve before we considered going back though, and\u00a0the money issue would still remain. You just can’t afford the same\u00a0things in South Africa that we can afford here. We’d have to be\u00a0earning huge to afford the same living standards. Our holiday made me\u00a0VERY homesick though. I miss being so close to my parents and brother,\u00a0and my folks aren’t getting any younger. We had to force my Dad to go\u00a0to the doctors on my last day there as he was having dizzy spells.\u00a0Luckily it was only blood pressure and now he on pills for it, but it\u00a0made me realise that as they get older more issues start arising and\u00a0I don’t want to be so far away should anything happen.<\/p>\n
Outings:
\nI’m going to see Emilie Autumn on friday 29th Jan. I’m not sure\u00a0what to expect from the show, but I’m sure I’ll have fun anyway. I’m\u00a0going with 2 work colleagues, Faye B who is based in my office, and\u00a0Gemma who works from our sister company. I haven’t actually met Gemma\u00a0yet, but I know we have similar taste in music and get along well over\u00a0the phone and email so it should be fine.\u00a0Then next week wednesday, Pete myself and Liam are going to see RAMMSTEIN! Sweeet. We have really shitty seats at the back because we booked so late, but who the fuck cares, it’s Rammstein!<\/p>\n
My Goals for 2010:
\nClear some of my debt
\nLoose Weight (I started this last year with success, but after looking at holiday photos I’m even more motivated)<\/p>\n
Body Modification:
\nMy lobes are definitely still staying at 0g\/8mm. I’ve accumulated a formidable jewellery collection, that would scare me if I worked out how much it is worth. (Could this be a contributing factor to my overdraft? most definitely!)
\nStretch my 2nd lobe piercings to 10g.
\nI definitely want to expand on my swallow tattoo, and maybe grow it into a shoulder\/back piece.
\nMore piercings? who knows. Maybe a sternum microdermal, but nothing else on the books at the moment.<\/p>\n
Things on my mind currently:
\nUnfulfilled dreams are still in the forefront of my mind. Those being the dreams dependant on Pete. So fucking frustrating but there’s nothing I can do about it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Long time no blog. I seem to be one of these types of people that blogs most when things\u00a0are rough. When things \u00a0are good I generally feel I have nothing to\u00a0report. Journaling for me has always generally \u00a0centered around\u00a0emotion rather than day-to-day activities. But I digress… Holiday in South Africa – 23 Dec – 11 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[70],"tags":[78,80,82,84,65,81,79,83,66,68],"class_list":["post-282","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-journal","tag-78","tag-body-modification","tag-concert","tag-emily-autumn","tag-holiday","tag-micro-dermal","tag-piercings","tag-rammstein","tag-south-africa","tag-tattoo"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3RawE-4y","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/violetsteel.com\/wordpress15\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/282","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/violetsteel.com\/wordpress15\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/violetsteel.com\/wordpress15\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/violetsteel.com\/wordpress15\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/violetsteel.com\/wordpress15\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=282"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/violetsteel.com\/wordpress15\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/282\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":346,"href":"https:\/\/violetsteel.com\/wordpress15\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/282\/revisions\/346"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/violetsteel.com\/wordpress15\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=282"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/violetsteel.com\/wordpress15\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=282"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/violetsteel.com\/wordpress15\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=282"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}