Warm Fuzzies
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R and I seem to have entered some new phase of our relationship lately, and it’s wonderful. We’re extremely lovey-dovey, all cuddly etc, and it’s very special. I keep looking at her and realising afresh how much she means to me – and I tell her so. R does the same, and it affects my whole day 
I’m not sure exactly what’s triggered it, but I think perhaps some of it is that both of us have taken a further step within ourselves, and let go of some of that last bit of self defence – you know that piece of yourself you keep seperate so you still have a way out. Trust and closeness develop over time, and while we’ve always trusted each other, there’s a deeper and more abiding trust that comes from two hearts truly recognising each other, and admitting those feelings without reservation. It’s at that point that you’re wholly dependant on each other – I wish for no-one else in my life, and if I were without R I know beyond a shadow of a doubt I’d be lost. Everything I think about involves her – when I see something beautiful I think about what she’d say, or that I’d like to share it with her. It’s not a chore to make sure I think about her wishes when I’m making plans, as I no longer think about just me. My life is so wrapped up in R and the munchkin that anything else seems out of place – and it’s a rather excessively wonderful place to be
We had another snuggly afternoon today, once the muppet was in bed for his afternoon snooze. R was going to read lying on the bed, so I jumped on to claim a nuggle tax before going back to my book. I decided I shouldn’t go to sleep there, as I want to sleep reasonably early tonight (cranking things up at the gym with an extra set of the circuit tomorrow) but eventually I decided not to deny myself and just snuggled down.
The interesting thing is, no matter what else I had planned for whiling away my weekend, I never feel that time spent snuggling or sleeping next to R is misspent or wasted. It seems kind of like an investment of sorts – re-charging the nuggle batteries at the same time as putting some focused effort into a non verbal confirmation of just how I feel about her. Makes me very happy Plus she’s the snuggliest woman in the world, so it’s all good!
Last vestige of Christmas
Well I finally dragged out the tree today. Still haven’t worked out what to do with the bucket full of sand yet, but it will come to me. Today was spent having a massive cleanup, tidied all the rooms of the house, wiped benches, did dishes etc and finally got around to throwing out all the ratty old clothes I have that I shouldn’t be keeping – mostly trousers with holes in them, and the old pairs of trousers I brought with me from England. I should one dya be able to fit back into that size, but it’s a long way off, and those trousers are very old So now there’s a good deal more space in the chest of drawers and all the clothes from the big pile in the lounge have found a home. Now I just have to work out how to keep the clothes pile from re-generating, and I’ll be sorted. God it’s nice to be able to walk around my bed without tripping over though!
Financial Planning
In the car yesterday B came out with a good one. He was saying “I wish my mum and my daddy would get married, then we could live in one house and be together all the time, and get lots of money.” When queried on what we’d use all the money for, he replied “For all the things we need, then when we have everything that we need we’ll spend it on Boys Stuff!” hehehe and when R spluttered about this he suggested “Well Mum could have a Barbie set!” >:) For those who don’t know, R is about as un-barbie girl as you could want I love the muppet.
Saying Goodbye
Well Tuesday saw ‘Nana Shirley’ and ‘Uncle Mark’ head home, to much hugging and tearfulness. We drove them out to the airport in the morning, making a little stopover in elwood for some photographs. We got some nice ones, although for some reason Mum kept looking at everything but the camera so the best ones of mark and I have mum either frowning or gazing off camera… However there are some great ones of the muppet and Mum. On the way back to the car, Muppetty was showing off his running prowess, when the treacherous footpath sprinkled itself with sand and conspired to knock the poor little fellow off his feet, resulting in a huge scrape on the elbow and nastily skun hands. Poor Moschops – he was very good though, had an initial wail, then calmed down within 10 seconds and just blubbed a bit. He let R clean his wounds and put bandaids on them and was very brave – which he got extra points for
On to the airport then, and one coffee later it was time for farewell. I imagine it won’t be long until either Mum and/or Mark move out here, or at least we go to see them, but the muppet was very very upset. As he said “it’s very sad when you say goodbye to someone you really really love”. As an indication of how well adopted Mark and Mum had become – a quick anecdote from Monday night…
Big Michael had come over to play for a while, and we had pizzas from Dominos – which were great. When B went to bed, he gave me a hug, then went to give Big Michael a hug but suddenly gasped, pulled back and gave Mum and Mark a hug first. Then he politely informed Big Michael that he ‘had to hug the members of his family first’! Ain’t he cute…
So he was distraught, and Mum was bawling, R got teary and Mark look at the floor a lot 
It was nice having them over, and I was sad to think I’d not see them for some time – although for me it’s a little easier as I know how easy it can be to get in touch or even to fly over. Still, I hope Mum manages to get a settlement out of the hospital and can move out here. Muppetty would love it and it would definitely be much better for her…
Ach well – God bless and safe journeys. We’ll see you both again sometime soon.
Tick Tock
On that note… it’s quickly driving me crazy waiting to hear about my petition. It’s going to be a long three months… but it will be worth it I guess. As R says it gives me time to slim down some so buying a dinner suit won’t be a waste of money
UPDATE: I just noticed that my first blog post was in April… which is apparently when my initiation should take place. Possibly I’ll have some good news to report on my ‘blogaversary’ as Trisha puts it!
Hobbies
So I’ve been thinking about the things I’d like to find time to do. There is a long list, some of it just fanciful, but basically I’ve decided to try to make time in my life for the list below – predominantly by watching less TV and playing less computer games
Get back into practising the violin
Paint my 40K army
Finish Poetic License 2.0
Teach R how to play Chess, and get back into it myself
Get on with writing stories and Vampyre stuff
These are the things I want to find regular time to do. I’ve discovered that, at least for the present time, trying to set a particular time and day when I do it never works – there are always exceptions or things that come up and it gets messed up. What I really need to do is cut out of my life the things that are wasting my time, so I can get more of the good stuff in. At the moment it’s a little difficult, but I’m fully expecting to have much more energy of an evening or weekend once I’m getting back toward being in shape, so hopefully these things will also fall into place.
I derive great pleasure from painting the miniatures for example, but I rarely dedicate any time to them, as it all seems like a lot of hard work. I really want to get into playing the fiddle regularly so I can actually become useful at it, but again I never seem to pick it up. In the Year of the Shiny Nate I am determined to fit at least some of these activities into my regular schedule – plus I sincerely hope monthly lodge meetings as well
Cigar Night
The other night I went to a cigar night, organised by the inimitable Otis, my hairdresser Otis and I are discovering we have quite a bit in common – and I was quite chuffed to be invited along on Wednesday evening. As it turned out, about a dozen or more of the men who turned up were from his Lodge, so it was very interesting chatting to them.
The cigars were awesome – habanos from Cuba, and very very tasty. A good time was had by all – and I was struck by how friendly the guys were, and how openly they welcomed me as a friend of Otis’. Everyone quickly got the idea I was interested in petitioning, especially since Otis had brought the form along with him – so I got to talk to a number of them about thier reasons for joining and their experiences etc. I had a particularly good chat to Alex, the W. M. of the lodge, who asked me a bit about what interested me about masonry etc etc – we got along quite well and had a good old chinwag. Overall I had a really lovely night – everyone was very cool, and it was great to be amidst such a bunch of like minded people.
The other side of it is that it’s kinda nice to be indulging for charity half the money we each paid went toward our cigar (we also got a funky little cigar cutter) and the other half went to a charity – in this case the salvo’s. So you feel a little indulgent but at the same time you’re aware you’re doing something for charity so you might as well enjoy it I think I’ll be going along to the next one…
You can’t do that Dad!
In the car this morning as the lovely R gave me a lift to the train station because I’d slept in after last nights event (more later) I was so tired I mentioned I might take my alarm clock in so I can have a sleep on the bean bags at work – and the muppet sang out “You can’t do that dad you have to work!” hehehe when I clarified he told me it was alright but not when I wasn’t on lunchbreak ;p
Picky Picky
Wahey – Yesterday I finally cracked the padlock I’ve been mucking about with, with the feeler pick. IE I picked it manually – pin by pin. It’s relatively easy to do with the rake, but it’s more challenging (and fun) to do it manually. I also managed to pick the lock on my desk drawers at work three times today I have only managed the padlock the once, as the cylinder is strong and I tend to get sore fingers and give up before I get the last couple of pins. Might be easier with a better tension wrench than a broken strip of metal methinks – I might order one online, but in the meantime I think I’ll try grinding down one of the numerous allen keys I have kicking about the house…
Manifesto of Shinyness
Ok, so here are all the things I wish to achieve in the Year of the Shiny Nate – I won’t promise to achieve them all, as I don’t want to fall short and break my word but I will promise to make every effort to achieve all of these…
- Wash the dishes more often, so they don’t build up as much.
- Stop watching the television so much, and do something else instead – maybe play boardgames with R or work on some of my backlog of projects.
- Work on being more energetic when I come home from work – cook when necessary rather than flopping in front of the tv
- Eat what’s in the cupboard, rather than order takeaway. This will be helped by my dish washing resolve, and will require me putting a bit more effort into sorting things out rather than settling down when I get home.
- Paint my warhammer army – spend regular time getting my models painted up so I can finally play with them!
- Get better organised at sorting the washing – empty cupboards and chest of drawers of old crap that I can’t wear any more, so I can put away other washing and no longer have these bloody big piles of clean washing in the lounge…
- Train every day of the working week wherever possible, and sometimes on weekends too.
- Keep a personal training diary to keep track of how well I’m doing, including my diet
- Stop buying crap
- Get my taxes done… for the last three years…
- Make meditation part of my daily routine
- No more getting wasted!
- Regular Violin practise so I can finally learn to play the damn thing.
These are what I’ve thought of so far – I may add more as they come to mind.