Things that made me happy this week

Happy Fried-day, blog readers!

It’s cold and rainy over here, so I’m obviously over the proverbial moon about it. No need to match my mood to the glum weather – especially now that the weekend is but a few hours away… and my first wedding anniversary just around the corner… *eek*

There have been a lot of developments during the last week: finding out that the books I worked on have been provisionally approved, dealing with (big) changes to said books, working with a difficult person who sort of thinks I’m her slave, doing freelance work, finding out the time of my interview next week… in a word: LIFE.

But besides all that, there were a few things that truly made me happy/smile, and I thought that I’d share them with you via photos. The smallest things can make you happy (a smile, a mug of tea, a fluffy cat) – it’s just how you decide to view life & the situations you find yourself in.

Okay, enough of waxing sentimental. Here are (a few of) the things that made me happy this last week:

A book on origami my mum bought me

Taking this photo of Smudgy at the perfect moment – it looks like she’s laughing!

Buying myself a copy of the new Stephen King novel

Raindrops on the sunroof as we drove to work yesterday

A lot of attention/affection from Smudgy. Here she’s keeping me from my freelance work

The prospect of baking more yummy goodies – glad I bought this magazine 🙂

Busy times

Good morning you happy little campers you!

It’s hard to believe that it’s Fried-day again… and in one month’s time, it’ll be Christmas! 😀

Things are pretty busy here at work, and up until the end of February/ beginning of March, their only going to get exponentially busier! It’s exciting to see a book through from the planning stage right until the end, but the deadline we’re working with is crazy (nature of the industry). On the plus side, it’s allowing me to build on my efficiency and prove to the company what an asset I am *hint-hint* Still, after long days and weeks of juggling 20 different things and having to put up with the Department of Education’s undecidedness, it’s enough to spur on the madness (I was going to say it’ll drive you mad, but we’re all mad here). You know there’s no hope for you when you send your line manager an e-mail saying “We should all put on our thinking CAPS (yes, pun intended) about this”… CAPS being the new curriculum document that is in a limbo state of Final-final-final-final-final (but not actually yet final) version *sigh*

Today, for your viewing pleasure, I’ll be sharing a few pictures of what has been keeping me busy/ amusing me during the last two weeks. My Significant Other has already tried to outright bribe me into letting us test drive a car (that he isn’t going to buy, according to him) tomorrow morning. I told him that he doesn’t need to bribe me, that we’re in a partnership… but perhaps I should let him sweat a bit. He’ll have to find something pretty darn good to coax me with 😉

Have a superb day and gloooorious weekend, dearest readers! I’ve already been commissioned to bake cookies & cake for our Monday meeting (i.e. work), so that’s a bit of ‘fun’ lined up for my Sunday.

This is a picture from one of our Foundation Phase (i.e. Gr 1 - 3) books. My Significant Other always says he wants a fat cat, which is why I couldn't resist sharing this picture with him

From an illustrated school dictionary. My S.O. complains that he's (getting) fat, which is why this pic's so funny to me. Here's hoping he doesn't become so rotund & 'grumpy'... Oh, wait, too late for the 'grumpies'!!

The new Stephen King novel (aaaah!!) - had to wait nearly a week before it was available in SA, but it was worth it

Look how happy I am! Long live Stephen King ❤

We went to visit my S.O.'s uncle & aunt, where we met their new kitty, La Scala. Cutie!

After weeks of sitting with a computer that would spontaneously freeze & switch off, they FINALLY got me a new one: box, screen, keyboard & mouse... The screen is bigger, plus it has Windows7 on. Nice

In times of stress, keep calm & eat a cupcake! I baked these myself

Dinosaur cake for my brother-in-law's birthday... & no, its name is NOT Barney

Smudgy and I have been having nice cuddly times/ moments of affection this week. Fills my heart with joy & love ❤

I've been watching a LOT of Nyan Cat videos on YouTube this week - sad, I know... Need to get myself this scarf!

Putting the happy in my day

It’s heeeeeere!!

After months of anxious waiting, it has finally arrived: the latest Stephen King novel hits shelves today!

Since I find myself not situated in the US or UK, I’ve readied myself for the fact that I shall have to wait at least a day or two (or ten, with my luck) before I can lay my hands on one of these glorious tomes… but still, the excitement is there 🙂

Stephen King is always my pick-me-up. I have my Significant Other (aka The Husband), who is the light of my life, the wind in my sails, the blood and oxygen that keeps my heart pumping, and all those lovely clichés (all of which I truly mean! *love you Sweetheart*), but luckily he knows my devotion to the works of my favourite author as one of his ‘Dear Readers’.

As ‘fate’ would have it, I even wrote a blog post about this last year… almost a full year to the date, if you can believe that! At the time I had been feeling ‘off’ (check), suffering from my usual bout of bad headaches (check) and feeling nauseous/ light-headed/ dizzy/ listless (that is affirmative). Once again the famed Master Writer has come along to save the day – to make me forget about how icky I feel and helping me to escape into the wonderful world of words, what-if wishes and well-plotted suspense. At that occasion FULL DARK, NO STARS had just been released… and, now that I think of it, it was most likely also released on the 8^th of November or thereabouts, since I had to wait just over a week before it was in stores here.

Next year March/ April (in time for my birthday, hurray!) we have THE WIND THROUGH THE KEYHOLE to look forward to for all you DARK TOWER fans, and closer to the end of the year – probably in November, if you ask me, why not stick with the trend? – we can expect DR SLEEP (the much anticipated follow-up to THE SHINING!) Oh mortality, how fleeting you are, that you already make me wish that death never goes a-knocking on Master King’s door…

Okay, weird little sort-of worshipping rant aside, the latest novel is called 11/22/63 and takes a look at the Kennedy assassination. It’s another wonderful ‘what if’: what if you could go back in time and stop those three shots from ringing out, stop death and confusion and all that was still to come, putting the world onto an alternate course of history? Well, fellow readers, we shall see…

Now if only I could get my Significant Other to phone the bookstore and find out when they’re expecting the much anticipated novels *hint-hint, grovel, blatant plea, sad kitty eyes*

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UPDATE: How wonderful is my older sister Libby? After reading my blog entry, she phoned the book store and enquired as to when they expect to have the book in stock, to which they answered Friday. Thank you sooo much, sis! xxx