I ended up getting the new headphones, a DVD (Out of Season Open Season (oops!)), a handbag, 3 new hoodies, 9 pairs of underwear, 13 pairs of socks (where do mine keep going?!), 3 vest tops and 14 new tops. Oops!

On the left is my wardrobe before I put all of the new clothes in. On the right is my wardrobe after I had put all of my new clothes in. It’s starting to look quite full and a lot of my clothes were in my wash basket!

I also got Killer some new toys (a grass house and a wooden tube) but I don’t think he likes them very much, since he sat in his corner and sulked all night and just generally ignored them.

I had a look around Flickr^{^} last night to see how other people were doing it; rings seemed to be housed in little dishes and necklaces hung up on hooks or key/towel racks/holders.

We already had hooks at home and I knew where I’d like them to be placed, I just needed to get a dish to house my rings. And off I went to the city centre…

I decided to start with the charity shops; I wanted something unusual and thought that a charity shop might be the most likely place to find something like that.
I found a this cool little ceramic duck that opened up (like a dish with a lid!) but the duck was really ugly, so I decided that, if I couldn’t find anything else, I’d go back and buy the duck.
When I went into the British Heart Foundation shop, I found a set of port glasses, which I immediately fell in love with. Unfortunately, if I wanted to buy one, I had to buy the whole set (six). Fortunately, the whole set only cost £1.75!

(I also found a set of three brass duckings and mother duck (£3.95) and a ceramic white duck (WHITE DUCK?! MUST BE MIIINE!!!11) (£1.25). I didn’t need them but I got them anyway. My mum hates the set of ducks but likes the white duck. Oh well – I like them!)

After I got home, I spent most of the day trying to make my desk and shelves look less cramped and cluttered and got my step dad to put the hooks up for me.

I ended up with this:

My desk is clear, my shelves are tidy and not cramped and my necklaces shall remain untangled.

Maybe this will inspire my sister to clean up the crap in “her corner”?

We both ended up late but I got to our meeting up place before he did. While I was waiting, I heard a lot of noise coming from my right. I looked over and saw women practising their…pole dancing. In the middle of the city centre. In the middle of the day.
As soon as I spotted Matt coming, I walked over and asked him if he wanted to watch some pole dancing. He agreed and we went over. After we watched one performer, we walked off around the corner, before returning because I wanted to video it and put it on my blog (and Flickr and YouTube…). So we returned and I started filming the performances. For you lot because I know how interested you would be!

A little while later, we decided we were hungry. Matt suggested we get something at Subway, so off we went. Matt was amazed that I’d never had a Subway sandwich before. Honestly – it’s not that interesting! I’ve never had a Starbucks coffee either!
So yes, I had my first Subway today. AND IT WAS LOVELY WHY DIDN’T I TRY THIS BEFORE?!! I had meatballs and cheese in a 6-inch honey oats bread, with lettuce and green peppers. And I loved every single, messy, mouthful.

Eventually, we decided that we have had enough and would go and drive around on the moors but first – he had to pick up some cat food for his mum (I’m assuming she doesn’t eat it herself).

As we walked in, I spotted the pets and Matt left me looking at the furry little balls of fur while he picked up the cat food. When he came back for me, I told him I was going to buy a hamster.
Matt reminded me that the hamster would need a hamster cage, food, etc. I was all “I’ll need to buy food but we have loads of hamster stuff at home – we’ve had LOADS of hamsters!”, then I remembered that my clean-freak step-dad has been left unsupervised in the shed recently.

I rang my mum up to ask if we still had the hamster stuff and I got “YOU’RE NOT GETTING A HAMSTER!”. I lied and told her that I had already bought the hamster – oops! Turned out that we din’t have any hamster stuff left; Pete had gone and thrown the lot out.

We rushed off to another pet store, one where the prices were slightly more affordable – £30 for a hamster cage! I don’t think so!
I picked up this short, fat cage containing a house, bedding, wheel, drink bottle and food bowl and also got some wood shavings and a mini exercise ball.

We rushed back to the pet store, with me thinking that if I get everything except the bloody hamster, my mum will kill me.
I ran in while Matt was parking and bought my dear little hamster, some little fruit-flavoured wood things (helps keep their teeth short and clean) and some hamster food.

We drove home, with me holding the hamster box and Matt trying to drive as smoothly as he could. By the time I got home, I was convinced that my new little hamster was dead, as I could feel him sliding around the little box every time we went over a bump or around a corner.

When we got home, I set up in his little cage and…he wouldn’t come out of the box. Matt had to leave after a while and told me to text him when the hamster ventures out. My brother got a bit bored of waiting and ended up tilting the box to slide the hamster out. The hamster wasn’t dead, just sleeping.

As angry as mum was when she first heard about him, she fell in love with him when she saw him.

His name is Killer and he is a Russian Dwarf Hamster. And I love him.

After getting it out and attaching my charms to it (6mm split rings are AWESOME. Kinda like plug-n-play for charm bracelets!), I decided to look for my old, broken charm bracelet which doesn’t fit anymore.

I found the old charm bracelet…and a few other pieces of jewelery…

Oh, that’s not ALL of it…

(And that’s STILL not all of it; some of my pieces of jewelery have mysteriously grown legs and walked off, thanks to my sister. Oh and I was still wearing my pearl necklace from my lovely boyfriend. )

I don’t even wear most of this stuff. Worse than that, I don’t think I have EVER worn most it and there are a couple of pieces that I’m actually allergic to (I get the most beautiful welts come up!).

I don’t know what to do with it all. For now I’ve just piled the lot back into my desk drawers and onto my necklace/bracelet tree (actually a mug tree).

I suppose I could sell some of it on eBay, along with the Elle and Lacoste watches I own and have never worn!

(By the way, if you think my jewelery collection is bad, just wait until you see my watch collection!!)

Up until Wednesday evening, I felt fine; slight cold coming, no problem. Woke up Thursday feeling rather “icky”. By the end of the evening, I had to go home early because I felt really bad and absolutely knackered.

As melodramatic as it sounds, I woke up on Friday wanting to die; every inch of my body hurt. I got to work and, half an hour later, went back home again. I collapsed in bed at ten and was woken up at about half one because Myke phoned me, wanting to know if I was still breathing and stuff. (I was but barely – my nose was totally blocked.)
Other than what I’ve just written, I don’t remember what happened on Friday and that’s kinda scary.

I got myself up early this morning and into the city centre because I only had like, TWO presents to get and FIVE cards and THAT’S IT! Christmas shopping = done!

Well, that was a bloody mistake. I got in town at about twenty to ten and finished at around half eleven, so I wasn’t in a LONG time. And I wouldn’t have been in for so long but MY GOD, THE QUEUES.
(Like, Woolworths is closing down and currently has a 50% off sale. I was in there for ten, so it’s still pretty early – the shop has only been open for about an hour. As I walked in, I saw that the queue stretched from one side of the shop to the other.)
Anyway. By the time I was walking to the bus stop to catch the bus home, my head was hurting, my eyes were hurting, my lips were hurting where the skin’s all split (it hurts to TALK), my neck, throat, shoulders, arms, torso, sides, hands, legs, feet and every other part of me were hurting to a point where I wanted to lie down and die or something. But none of this pain was anywhere near as bad as my back.
So yes, lots of pain. I did a bad thing for my poor liver and took two paracetamol, followed by two “fast-acting” ibuprofen and that only took the edge off the pain. :\

I paid for my little excursion today but it was worth it – I don’t have to worry about Christmas anymore.

Now if you don’t mind, I’m going to go and collapse in bed again.

• My sister turned 18 on October 11^th. For this special birthday, I got her a Zebra-print mobile phone^{^} and a Jack Skellington head knocker^{^}.
• I also got a new mobile phone for me; I was on the lookout for a new one, since my old one was getting – well – old. I saw the LG KS360^{^} and fell in love. It’s got a QWERTY keypad, which is better for texting on. Since it’s on Orange (it was only available on Orange at the time) and my old SIM card is a Vodafone one, I had to get an Orange SIM card; I got the Dolphin Pay As You Go package, which means I get 300 free texts a month when I top up £10. (600 free when I top up £20!) My new phone is called Little Pilot.
• Myke bugged me and bugged me and bugged me and I finally gave in: I started watching Farscape^{^}. And I love it. My favourite character is Pilot, he’s so cool!
• My O’Neill coat is old (it’s about three, maybe four years old). It’s a ski jacket but no longer keeps me warm, so I was in the market for a nice new, WARM coat. I looked around and I ended up with this coat.^{^} I paid £50 for it at the time and that might seem a lot but my O’Neill coat? Cost over £100, so it’s not that much in comparison.
  Also bought myself a new umbrella (my last one snapped in half and almost took my eye out) and a new handbag.
• Those new shoes I talked about in my last entry? The pair from the cheap shoe shop decided to die on me last week – the chunky sole detached itself from the top of the shoe, so I once again had to buy myself a new pair. I ended up – again – with two new pairs of shoes and guess what? THEY HAVE HEELS. And I haven’t broken my neck yet! Okay, so they’re only like, an inch high but still – I’m wearing HEELS again! Hopefully, these will at least last me through the winter. I’m sick of buying shoes.
• I’m almost done with my Christmas shopping – I still have to get my dad a present, Myke his main present, Tay’s present and three of my grandparents a present each but other than that, I’ve bought all the presents! I even bought presents for the “in-laws” and for my dad’s new girlfriend and her kids. I also bought wrapping paper earlier, so out of The Extra Christmas Crap, I just need to get Christmas cards! How are you doing with your Christmas shopping?

I’m now starting to bore myself, which means that you must be very bored. So I’ll bugger off for now and ramble some more soon!

I quizzed some of the girls at work about what was available. I was told that knitwear was starting to arrive and there were actually sleeved tops too!

I went in today with high hopes and came home disappointed.

It was really busy in town and I hate crowds and queues. A lot of the clothes I could kind of see myself wearing were not currently available in my size (sold out) or, upon trying them on, I realised that they don’t actually suit me.
Most of the shoes had insanely high heels (I can’t wear a heel at all – my ankles freak out and I end up on the floor), were made for people with stick-thin legs or had foam-like soles (which wear out within a couple of months).

The tops I wanted to buy were supposed to be mainly for work but also something I could wear if I wanted to leave the house for any other reason. I’m a conservative dresser by nature; I don’t do sleeveless, low-cut, above-the-tummy tops anyway, so this should have been an easy task.

Most of the knitwear available was white or nearly white. I’m not a size zero and I have curves; I cannot get away with wearing white or near-white clothes.
I did find a few tops I liked in Primark but the queues put me off; that store is a very large one and the customers were queuing from one end of the store to the other and the cashiers are so bloody slow!

I sulked off to Peacocks and found three tops I liked, two of which were knitted and all three were cowl or roll necks.

My previous pair of work shoes were a pair of fake-Uggs I bought from Primark for £6 about a year ago. They were really comfortable, warm and could be worn both over my trousers and under them. Although it would be nearly impossible to replace these shoes, I was willing to try.

And try I did. I must have gone into all of the shoe and clothing shops in the city centre, instantly “feeling up” the soles and dismissing the soft soled ones (if they’re foam or soft soled, don’t buy them because you’ll wear a hole through them within a couple of months).

I finally ended up with two pairs, both black, both suitable to wear to work.
The first pair are high ones, with a little stripe of fake-fur around the top and along the sides. They have a chunky sole, so they should last me a while. I got them in a cheap shoe shop known as The Shoe Zone. Cheap my arse; they cost £15…but they have a rubber sole, so they’re forgiven. At least I got £s;5 off, I guess. =\
The other pair are like a black version of my sand-coloured Benetton Uggs; medium height, pretty plain to look at and rubber soled. I bought them from Next and got them for a third of the original price, so I’m pretty proud of myself. And. I love them to bits! I wanted to wear them home and I want to wear them now!

I was in town on Saturday and thought I’d have a look around the two best known piercing shops and seeing what they had to offer. I had also planned to talk to the person who pierces me and to see what they have to say.

Sadly, Tribal Voice has been closed until this Friday because it’s been flooded. So, off I went to Blue Banana.

I was just looking at the plugs, tapers and stuff and one of the cashiers asked if they could help. So I said that I was planning on stretching my ears.

She ‘advised’ me on starting with 10g (2.4mm) CBRs. She said that my holes are 20g (0.8mm) (they’re actually at 14g (1.6mm)), so starting off with more than double the width would obviously be a good idea.

I did buy the CBRs (not for use NOW though, I’m waiting for my crescent stretchers to come through the post ) and I thought that I’d give it a go; try and get those babies into my ears. I didn’t put much effort into it but I could immediately tell that they weren’t going to just slide into my ears, so I’ve left it.

If I’d have followed her advice, I’d probably have very sore, swollen and most likely torn earlobes. I’m so glad that I’m not an idiot.

Let that be a lesson, kids – ask a professional before doing any modding to yourself.

Yesterday, dad picked Josh up at 9am to do stuff (they ended up shopping. My brother’s least favourite sport!) and arranged to meet me and my sister outside our work at 1pm.

When Taylor finally got out of work, she made us go on a hunt for the xbox.

First, we went to HMV. But Tay didn’t like the deal they were offering, so we went to Game. She didn’t like the deal they had on there, so we went to Zavvi (Virgin Megastore). The deal they were offering wasn’t good enough, so she made us go back to HMV.

She haggled with the poor sod in HMV and managed to get the xbox 360 (with a hard drive), Grand Theft Auto IV and Guitar Hero III for £250. We saw an xbox 360 earlier – just the core, so no hard drive – for £200. Each of the games are about £50. So she managed to get a REALLY good deal!

They also got a 20metre ethernet cable and another controller. EVERYTHING together cost less than £300!

I learnt a valuable lesson yesterday: Always take my sister shopping with me!

Josh had the xbox set up yesterday, while Tay was at her boyfriend’s house. However, because he’s not yet 18, he made ME sign up for the xbox live account thing. And I don’t even get to play on the bloody thing until Tuesday.

I opened the box and look at what was inside:

20 new Beanie Babies, to add to my collection^{^}!

After my excitement had died down a little, the post came. With the post came Roary the Lion:

About ten minutes after waking up today, I could hear rustling coming from the hallway. I peeked around the kitchen door and saw the postman SHOVING a small package through my letterbox. Inside that package was:

Bananas the Orangutan! He was a birthday present for my mum but came a day late. Oh well, better late than never, right?

About an hour after Bananas came through the door, there was a knock. I answered it to see a postman holding a very large box. Inside the box were MORE Beanie Babies:

On Tuesday, my collection looked like this:

Today – Saturday – my collection looks like this:

I love you, eBay^{^}!