Scribblings By Sass

I'm Back!

2010-06-11T14:17:00.000-07:00

Not that it really matters, cause er, noone reads this. But it's a useful place to store the odd bit of tat from my life.Things would be a lot easier to explain if I wasn't a lazy cow and updated my blog on a regular basis. However, life in a nutshell can be summed up as...

Shortly before Xmas we left our trainspotters paradise and moved to Garstang. Why we did this has now escaped me, moreso why I decided another 3 month stint of staying with my parents was a good idea. It was helped a bit more this time by the fact we were both working however.

So for the last 3 months we have been living in a 2 bed flat in Arsehang that is part of a new build, though I think they must have built ours over the duration of a Monday night Coronation Street. Well the flat is nice enough really, but its next to one of those pubs that you just don't go in, and there are children with babies everywhere you look...

Needless to say, it looks like by the time it gets to my birthday I will be heading back Lancaster way - but will it be rent or buy?

Other than that, I'm running an eco-friendl y cleaning company and have passed my Second Degree Reiki, so hopefully in a few months I will be doing a bit of that too!

I cant be arsed to add anymore to this, mainly because any other stuff I don't want to discuss online here. So here's some pictures...

As soon as we got to Garstang, it snowed. A lot.

Walked up to the top of Nicky Nook. Starting to lose weight at this point, I've now lost a stone and a half since last year whoop

Cleansing my crystal ball in a bluebell wood

I love the woods I do

Hefner hanging out with a chunk of Rose Quartz

The Awakening

2009-10-15T12:12:00.000-07:00

Here I am. I've scuttled over from my other blogs, feeling a bit naughty because I broke my rule of Updating All Of My Blogs All Of The Time.

Tonight I am on Jam-Jar Wine (That Paul Masson stuff).

Oh yum.

So in a nutshell what has happened recently...

Sadness! Two of my lal boys have passed over. Jeordie decided to randomly pop his clogs, then my beloved Trent O'Pig followed a week later. Only Hefner is left now, but I don't think he's too bothered as it means he gets all the vegetable scraps. An online memorial can be found for Trent O'Pig here (He lives on thru the power of the internet! Feel free to sing 80's power ballads to him!)

What else? My blogs have got bigger and the word is spreading (particulary around Garstang!), and I'm currently studying to become a holistic therapist. This is something I wanted to do 3 years ago, but life basically put a big sign in front of me saying "YOU'RE NOT READY YET!!!"

I studied massage and aromatherapy back then, which is something I want to pick up this time with a more professional qualification so I can practise. I've also passed Reiki 1st Degree (just got to write up my case studies then I should have finished 2nd Degree too).

Basically everything is very busy at the moment - so I'm just going to have to wait and see where life takes us!

Away to Whitby

2009-07-30T08:41:00.001-07:00

We went to Whitby for a long weekend, thankfully before it really started to tip it down. This is part of the view from the hotel...

Whitby is reputedly a pretty haunted place (though I never saw anything, grump). Was this Captain Cook's ghostly ship sailing out to sea? Nah, but for 2 quid you could have a ride of this replica and sing silly songs.

There are a lot of steps in Whitby. A bloody lot. If you can get to the top of some you can get some lovely views such as this one...

Here I am looking rather pleased with myself. Unfortunately, shortly afterwards I dared to wade in deeper and got a rather wet crotch.

Well, it was cheaper than flowers.

A rather jaunty angle of the Church at the top of the 199 Steps. Dad recovering from said steps in corner.

Don't you just love the warm and friendly welcome that the Church gives you?

I'm Still Here!

2009-06-18T02:28:00.000-07:00

Wow, it's been over a month - oh dear!

I've been a bit of a busy bee with getting my websites up and running - links are in the sidebar people!

My Freelance Writer site includes another blog, where I add information for fellow writers, as well as any useful resources I find on the Internet. This is also the site to go to if you want any web copy, articles, or absolutely anything produced by my own hand! I'm going to start work on a portfolio section to add to my site as well.

The other two sites are my journey into the world of hyperlocal blogging, something I'm finding very enjoyable and hope to develop over the coming months. So if you live in Garstang or Kendal, keep checking back to watch my baby blogs grow!

Finally there's a link to my other half's website - He does the website design and search engine optimisation side of things, and he's really rather good at it.

Apart from that, there isn't a great deal to report. Hefner is seriously fat and looks like a snowball, and the poor thing has a cold. I fed him lots of spinach and now he thinks he's Popeye.

Right, I'm going back into the abyss...

wine-inspired thought of the day

2009-05-13T12:07:00.000-07:00

Google does a lot of things.

'Is there anything Google cannot do?' I pondered. Which brings me on to a couple of suggestions to add some more strings to their bow.

Google will walk your dog while you are at work, down whichever route you specify on Google Maps. It will also search for any poops your mutt makes en-route and put them in the Googlebag.

Feeling tired/want to go out with the lads/wife's a munter? Google will satisfy your other half while you get on with your life. Simply log into your account and select length of session, approximate no. of orgasms per session and preferred methods of stimulation. Google recognises that you are likely to be unsure about the latter, so helpfully provides you with a 'random' option.
If I actually thought about it I could probably go on all night so I'll leave it there.

Update

2009-05-13T07:56:00.000-07:00

Yes, I'm dicking about with my blog layout. I have a lot to learn!

You wait, by 2012 I'll be a Blog Guru. And I'll look back fondly on these days.

Change in the House of Flies

2009-05-12T05:58:00.000-07:00

People who know me will be shocked to discover that I got up at half past 6 today. Er yeah, in the morning. And I intend to continue with this now the summer is here (well maybe the summer bit is wishful thinking, it's just lighter). I have a lot to do. It's all very secret, mainly because I don't entirely know where I'm going with it yet. But once my husband returns from his day job, I shall be using my pester power to get the design of my website underway. It will be a beautiful thing.

Time for a few pictures now...

Me in my rather lovely wedding dress, pretending I'm not freezing in gale-force winds.

Surveying my kingdom part-way up Winder in Sedbergh

UV rocks at the Keswick Mining Museum!

Congratulations are in order to my parents, who are celebrating their silver wedding anniversary today. It may also interest you to know that in September, I will reach the age of...25. Hmm.

Recap

2009-05-02T16:05:00.000-07:00

Haven't blogged for quite a while now, but worry not, you haven't missed much in my terribly exciting life. At all.

Well I am now Mrs Greenwood, which makes me feel older, but in a good way. The wedding day was possibly one of the windiest days of the year, so I completely and utterly froze my tits off when it came to the photographs. My worries of being pissed before the ceremony were unfounded as I only had time for 2 glasses of wine, and spent from half 8 till half 2 in the afternoon getting ready.

Anyway my purple wedding dress went down a treat, sadly I had to go home and get changed in the evening as by that point id been laced into it all day, forgot to eat much of the wedding breakfast and was on the verge of passing out. Thankfully after changing into something more comfortable I got my second wind, and got pissed as a fart.

The honeymoon was spent up in Sedbergh in a house looking up at Winder fell, which we had a ramble up to the top of one day. It was very relaxing apart from the bits where I had to drive.

I cannot write anymore as my headache is back. It may be something to do with the half bottle of gin I've drunk tonight. Surely not...

Migration

2009-03-12T05:33:00.000-07:00

So to update - I am getting married 2 weeks tomorrow. I'm currently a mixture of excited and nervous, but as Martin is going down to Birmingham tomorrow for his stag weekend, I am currently shitting bricks. Possibly not whole ones. I haven't had a panic attack yet, but I'm not far off, so I'm sure they will grace me with their presence later on.

My plan is to go to my parents' house on Friday night. Not only can I get drunk for a nominal fee, I will also have people around me to calm me down and stop worrying. My plan is then to drive back on Saturday after my dress fitting, so I'm not sure how I will fare then. If anyone wants to go to the pub in Lancaster...!

Roll on the 21st - and look for a 6' Queen of Hearts stumbling around Lancaster City Centre...

(Trent's mind is) Slipping Away...

2009-02-15T06:15:00.000-08:00

Oh for Godssake... read this (then puke)

NOW what do I do??

2009-02-03T06:01:00.000-08:00

Well it's gone and bloody happened hasn't it... thanks to the Great Conspiracy, me not being a fake, 2-faced backstabber and a load of other vague bullshit that was laughably off the mark, I find myself out of a job. So kids, don't work hard, cause for some people you'll never be middle-class enough and they won't think you are even worthy of polishing their shoes.

So like many people at the moment, I'm sat here thinking 'wtf??' and wondering where I can find a job when they are sort of turning into hen's teeth. This would be my ideal opportunity to throw caution to the wind and write for a living, the only problem with that being that if I earnt peanuts from being the office monkey/scapegoat, then I'll be earning their shells doing the thing I want to do. Do I have qualifications? Does A2 English Language & a year of the same at uni count? Do I have experience? Hell yeah, I've been using a pen and paper for 22 years!

Incidentally, I was drawn back to Helium today and found the weird piece I wrote about various guinea pigs that have had the misfortune to have a slightly eccentric straggly-haired kid looking after them. Would you like to read it? Testimonies: My Guinea Pig. Look, it's got to number 1! Ace. Obviously the star of the piece is Trent, spotted here Hangin' With Jeordie...

Where the sod is the hash key on a MacBook??

Heres Hefner (he's having a drink, which I might do in a minute...)

Obviously, losing my job 8 weeks before my wedding day is not very helpful to say the least. But we've found some cheap and cheerful table centrepieces... just a candle in a bowl with some stones, but does anyone give a crap what is in the middle of the table? Can they even see straight at this point?

Well I have two things to be getting on with now - writing my CV (pls employ me, I am ace) and writing until my hand falls off.

2 months to go..

2009-01-26T12:25:00.000-08:00

...until I earn the title of 'Mrs Greenwood'! And I have one wedding present that I'm desperately hoping to get...

A peg for my nose. I am surely marrying the gassiest man on the planet. Not only do I endure the usual being-trumped-on-in-bed, but now I cannot relax in my living room without inhaling toxic fumes. If anyone finds this, I want you to know that I had a long, painfully stinky death.

In other news, I've now ordered my wedding flowers from Mrs Bouquets. Decided to go with artificial flowers, as they cost less and I can get them out in 15 years and be all nostalgic. The bouquet is made up of ivory roses, with a scattering of black pearls & feathers.

So I'm currently planning the table centrepieces, after being told I really should have some. If I cant think of anything creative enough, I may go down the vases-filled-with-old-sweet-shop-sweeties route.

I would write more, but I can no longer breathe.

I don't like Mondays...

2009-01-19T14:10:00.000-08:00

I really don't pay attention. I spent weeks crafting my first proper article on procrastination, and now I have become the queen of it. I will write something this week, I promise.

I've also become one of those women that spend their entire life on ivillage and fertility friend. Only a female TTC (thats Trying To Conceive for the uneducated) could possibly get excited about cervical fluid consistency.

Work is dreary as ever, and I have become a creature of routine:

8.10 - Roll out of bed, walk into at least 1 door, and swear a lot when contact lenses refuse to go into eyes.

8.30 - Potter round flat getting ready and telling the people on GMTV they're a bunch of f**king idiots.

9.00- Have half a fag out the kitchen window, and swear at the spirit of Martin for leaving some electrical equipment switched on.

9.25 - Watch the trailer for todays Jeremy Kyle, snort and leave for work.

9.30-11.00 - I can't remember, I go into autopilot.

11.00 - Smoke other half of fag. Go to the toilet and slap myself round the face to wake up.

12.00 - Have a cup of moccachino. Ponder life.

13.00-14.00 - Go home for lunch. Talk at the guinea pigs.

14.00 - 17.30 - A mixture of swearing, looking out the window, wee breaks and huffing and puffing.

17.40 - Arrive home. Wake up. Drink.

See you tomorrow...

Moving On

2008-12-31T04:34:00.000-08:00

Well would you look at that, it's New Years Eve already. I have been looking forward to this day since January...

Aside from 2006, this has probably been the most challenging year of my life so far. It's been good, bad and fucking awful at times, but I have come through with the man I love, and also a greater sense of who I am, and who I can be. My mindset has definitely changed for the better, and thankfully it's no longer due to shovelling anti-depressants down my gob as I haven't taken any for about 18 months now.

Now (touch wood) we have found somewhere to settle, and will only move when we can buy a house or the family gets too big for a 2 bedroomed flat! Lancaster is ideal - it's classed as a city but is small enough to get away with being a town. I hate big bustling cities, anything bigger than where I live now and I refuse to leave the house. It also has the benefit of being close to the Lakes, and not being Kendal.

Flat is also much easier to keep clean, apart from the cream carpets which do not appreciate Martins black socks pottering over them. Picture on the left shows our little box bedroom, home to my altar, and the guinea piglets.

I'm also becoming a bit of an earth mama. Already obsessed with herbal tea, I now regularly meditate, am learning the Tarot, and have decided that due to their addictive nature, I must start making my own jams & chutneys. I also try and get my food off the market instead of the supermarket.

I am currently musing on the laws of attraction after reading The Secret - tried it with Martin on the trains we got to Manchester, well 2 out of 3 train doors stopped directly in front of us! For me, the law, already backed up with physics, fits in with my beliefs of Wiccan spellwork to channel thoughts and energies into positive results. At the moment I need a helluva lot of this energy to channel into being able to start a family. In our case it will take more than doing it at the right time of the month, and it's still uncertain whether it's even possible for us yet. I know I should be enjoying life now etc. but I still have a wish to become a mother that is so strong, it even surprises me that I would ever feel like this. And it isn't going away.

As for tonight, I'm not sure what we are doing yet, considering I just caught a bug and my head feels like it's going to fall off. Fuck it. It's gonna be a good year.

ADS (Autumnal Dysfunction Syndrome)

2008-10-26T08:30:00.000-07:00

I am suffering with ADS. I do so every year, it kicks in 5 days before the clocks go back. I made it up.

So I haven't posted any ramblings recently. To be fair I have been fairly busy, with going to work 9(30) till' 5(30) (DOWN WITH THE SYSTEM!!!), getting angry with the damp/lack of hot water/Satanrabbit/melting heaters, planning my wedding, and attempting to write.

On the writing front, I have FINALLY submitted my first article (don't hold your breath...), and am well on the way to giving birth to 2 more. My first 'success' saw me earn 25 pounds for a picture of Trent with the plastic top off a Cornetto on his head being published. I am now hoping Trent becomes a cash cow when it comes to the woman's weeklies.

The sudden surge in writing has obviously been achieved by the fact my dream has now become possible. Yes, I can sit in Starbucks on my Macbook now, because a) Starbucks has now opened in Lancaster, and b) I forgot we earn sod all and bought a Macbook. This was only because last year I was extremly foolish and bought an Acer laptop...with Windows Vista on it!! So of course it's now dead.

The only problem with this is that once you've had Mac, you'll never go back. Which means I get very grumpy at work when I have to use Windows. Ugh. There is nothing better than typing away on my Macbook on a Sunday afternoon being not quite sure of the new time because of DST and a large glass of red wine.

On the wedding front, I've still got a fair bit to do but am having a rest period. Groomzilla is doing the invites and getting flustered. Dress is bought - v. dark purple and clingy as hell (in a good way), but I cant afford to put on ANY weight. I just need to keep the wine bump in check and I'll be fine. We are having pagan handfasting rings instead of boring gold bands since I am a super-dooper witch (and we cant have the actual handfasting ceremony - my evangelical mother would almost certainly refuse to come)!

Nuggets

2008-08-01T03:52:00.000-07:00

I am very excited. Not because I have just got a job in the centre of Lancaster (although I am looking forward to that), but because I have just been into my parents' attic and found my globe. And it still lights up! I am moving in 2 weeks, and I am taking the globe with me. It will have pride of place in my study, er I mean spare bedroom.

I will need to buy a desk for my sudden increase in paraphernalia. The one I am currently spending my days working from is covered in various half-written drafts of articles, pens, lighters, lots of books & magazines, and usually a red wine bottle. I am currently torn between starting a new article, going through my first draft of another, pitching some story ideas some where, or ploughing through all my stuff and re-packing the boxes that have fallen to bits. I have no idea where most of my things are as most of it has been packed away since mid-January.

Since moving back to my parents (note to self - NEVER do this again. Sleep in a shop doorway instead) I have found lots of my belongings I'd totally forgotten about. Such as a crate full of Sylvanian Families, and my badge, gem and stamp collections. I got quite excited about this and Martin said I was a nerd. To punish him I'm taking them with me. They will surface every time I've had too much wine and I think everyone will think they are interesting too.

As well as thinking about writing articles, nearly starting to write articles and talking to the guinea pigs, I have also been drawing a fairy, reading everything and trying to calmly explain to my mother that no, I haven't put weight on because the scales say I am exactly the same as when I got here in May.

I am slowly becoming a writer. At least in the sense that I should probably be in some sort of therapy and I drink too much wine. I'm off to play with my globe.

I am reaching the point...

2008-07-21T07:17:00.000-07:00

The Manics sang 'little someone in my own little Guernica'. That's pretty much life at the moment, and I'm the dude sprawled out at the bottom of the picture with the broken arms. I'd much rather be the light bulb , but I think that's supposed to represent God. Maybe I should aim for halfway and aspire to be the horse.

Working Title

2008-06-26T04:03:00.000-07:00

Not a particularly good week in the land of Sass. I keep looking above me to check if there's a big black cloud, but living around here the sky is lined with them anyway. As if to add to this, my brain has decided its getting about as much stimulation as a Catholic nun, and keeps getting annoyed when I try to think about everyday life. Apparently there is a large part of the human brain that remains largely unused by the majority, which may be connected to everything psychic and spiritual. I think someones just opened the door in mine, realised the light bulb has blown and is currently off in search of a replacement. Until he returns, I am feeding my over-sensitive head with non-stop Nine Inch Nails and things to write.

I've decided to do this writing course, despite belief from some *cough* that I'll give up on it. The only problem is that it costs a couple of hundred quid, and nobody will employ me, probably because I had so many crappy jobs in the past. Bah. If something actually went right , it would be that I got a part-time job and became a freelance writer too. And found a wodge of banknotes in the carport.

So musically, it's been a very NIN-themed week. However, I can't take it seriously after watching the cartoons at http://www.theninhotline.net/meatpers/html/cartoons.html. They must be funny, cause I actually laughed...

I'm off to drink absinthe in the streets.
S

Do You Even Know What A Wawa Is??

2008-06-20T06:39:00.000-07:00

My poison of choice tonight is a rather cheap bottle of California White, and it tastes somewhat like badger piss. Well, how I imagine badger piss tastes. Im getting more of a taste for the red stuff now, but any kind of wine is the petrol in my writing tank. And after the shit that went down this week, I'm going to need a whole lot more refilling.

So for some time now, I've been trying to work out what I'm actually good at. 23 years pass, and my only conclusion is - writing crap. So thats what I'm going to do, just not entirely sure how to go about it yet. So far I have written an article about my guinea pigs for Helium. Well, it's a start...

Anyway, this is my first post, so I better explain my name, Sassmong. According to Urban Dictionary,

'This word is often used to cause confusion amongst a relatively normal sentence or used to signify the end of a sentence.Sassmong is also used as a censor and to give the sentence a double entendre.The use of the word sassmong can be used to compliment or to insult.'

We like. I didnt just use it because it's half my name merged with a word that sums me up, honest.

As you can see by my picture, I am trying to overcome my mental block on glasses, in the hope that if I start wearing them again occasionally, I may become more intellectual. Or at least cancel out the brain cells I kill off with alcohol.

I bought another self-help book yesterday. Nee-naw nee-naw...well I say self-help, but it isn't actually. According to one of those 'ooh, I do/have that' lists, I am a HSP. Hot Sexy Person? Gah, no it's Highly Sensitive Person. So im hoping it either tells me how to stop being one, or tells me that it's a good thing, though I'm failing to see how that is possible.

Has anyone got 5 grand they would like to donate to a very worthy cause??