So… the real reason I haven’t been blogging…

I’ve wanted to tell you all this for some time but I just wasn’t sure how you’d react to this news.  I didn’t want this to change anything between us or the way you think of me.

Pause for dramatic effect…



The reason I’ve been away is because I’ve been busy starring in the movie ‘Looper’ and being married to John Krasinski.



But never fear- movie promoting is over and it’s lovely being back with John (*sigh* I wish!) and normal blogging should resume.

Sidenote- it was SO distracting that in the movie, Emily Blunt had the same bed linen as me.  Maybe forty years in the future, Ikea reproduces some of their old range?  And she had the matching lamp in her living room.  Even dirt poor movie-verse Emily Blunt has the matching lamp that I couldn’t justify buying.  Just another reason to be jealous of her :)

Last weekend…

my friend Anna and her husband came and stayed.  Anna and her hubby are from the UK but I originally met them when Anna did a year abroad studying at my uni in Australia.  We met through church and have been friends ever since (although I’m not very good at keeping in touch!!).

So I decided that it was my job to play tour guide.  Anna is a super organised person and already had the itinerary mapped out so I was more like the tour bus driver and she was the tour guide!  I LOVED being a tourist in my home town.  We went to the local water park that I have scandalously never been to and had an absolute blast!!  I am a little wary of water slides but I think I got over my fear.  The big ride there was the Aqua Loop.

(Pic found here with this article)

You get into a compartment and then there’s a countdown and the floor drops away and you do a massive vertical drop into a loop.  I was terrified waiting for the countdown but the ride itself was so quick that I didn’t even have time to be too scared!  If you don’t get enough momentum, then you don’t make it all the way through the loop.  I was worried that I’d get stuck!!

Then we went to Seaworld (we have one here too!) and Boy Roomie joined us.  I was very excited that we were going because… we were going to go swimming with sealions!!  We started off the day with the sealion show.  This is such a cheesy show but I absolutely adore it.


Then we fed stingrays (which was scary because they were so excited for the food that they seemingly kept trying to flop out of the tank) and we looked at sharks.



Then it was time to swim with the sealions!  We swam with two sealions and one seal.  The water was SO cold.  I couldn’t stop shivering but once I met Wendall, I instantly forgot about being cold.  I gotta admit, I was a little afraid when he got into the water and “stood” up in front of us.  He was just so huge.  330kg or 730lbs for those Americans amongst us, which Wendall technically is being a Californian sealion and all.


Not the greatest picture of me but Wendall looks a babe so I love this picture!!  I’m standing up in the water, so you definitely get an idea of how huge he is!  You’d put your arm around him and he put his flipper around you.  Then once the picture had been taken, he’d use his flipper to push you out of the shot so that the next person could take your place.  Cheeky boy!  We got to play ‘catch’ with him and pet him. 

Then there was an Australian sealion called BJ.  He was super cheeky and adorable.  He seemed about half the size of Wendall but was still a big fella.  We were able to fit a harness to him and I got to tag along beside him while he swam.  It was amazing.  Except for like I said, he was cheeky and decided to do some “dolphin style” diving.  I was so busy enjoying the experience and smiling that I got a mouthful of water.

Then there was a New Zealand seal whose name escapes me.  He was not in the mood to follow instructions and kept darting about in the water, which was breathtaking to watch.  We got out of the water and were able to pet him.  Because he normally lives in a cooler climate, he had fur on him.  I thought he felt like a wet daschund!  He did a few tricks to mimic his natural behaviour in the wild, like washing his face which was completely adorable.

Anna took a ton of photos and hopefully she’ll post them soon so I’ll probably talk about me and sealions again :)  It was such a magical experience.  I am desperate to do it again!!!

Adventure!

Today I dragged Boy Roomie and Tessa out on an adventure with me.  I have wanted to go geocaching  for YEARS.  I even asked for a GPS device for my last birthday but didn’t get one.  And then a week ago it dawned on me that maybe there was an app for that and lo and behold there was!

For those not in the know, geocaching is basically like a treasure hunt except with really specific coordinates.  There will be a container with a log book that you fill in and sometimes there are little items that you can swap.

It was a beautiful sunny Sunday afternoon and I asked Boy Roomie if he wanted to go on an adventure.  He was lounging on the sofa browsing the internet on his phone and honestly, I don’t think he could be bothered.  However, I stood there and he eventually agreed.  Besides, I needed someone to hold the dog for me whilst I went searching through the undergrowth for the prize.

The team

I vaguely knew where the geocache container would be and so we walked over to the area.  The clue said it was situated alongside a river path and we honestly walked up and down it for about ten minutes holding out the iphone in front of us like explorers of old would hold out a compass.  The geocahce would be ten metres in front of us and then all of a sudden, it would be twenty metres away.  So annoying!  I started to get frustrated and so I googled the clue that I was given.

I read that someone said that they enjoyed the nifty way of getting the cache and I realised we weren’t looking for buried treasure.  I looked up, right in front of my face and there it was.



You pulled that branch down that was attached to a bit of wire that was attached to a container inside the hollow of the tree!  I felt like I was in an adventure story a la Enid Blyton.  When I told Boy Roomie my feelings, he didn’t get the reference but I hope you do.

Inside there was a whole heap of stuff outlining geocaching and a log book and some goodies.


I swapped one of Jenna’s kitty key caps for this… thing.  I don’t know what it is.  It reminds me of those ribbons people wear for breast cancer.



This is the tree from a bit further away.

The hollow is sticking out of the left side of the trunk about halfway up.

It was so much fun and has definitely whetted my appetite for more adventures.  Has anyone else done something like this?

Weekend Recap

I went home for the weekend to celebrate Mothers Day and it was lovely.

But I forgot my phone when we went to lunch on the day so no pictures.  We had a picnic near the ocean and the weather was absolutely gorgeous.  We were joined by mum’s friend, my aunt and cousin.  Great company.

My cousin took this picture of me… drinking wine and stuffing my face.  You know, the usual.



Then I went home on Monday and Millie was all about the snuggling.  For once I am thankful for chilly weather!  Cuddled up with a blanket, watching a zombie movie.  I was in the mood for zombies!



Mum and I went on a Kmart expedition and I saw this cute outfit that I absolutely had to buy.  It was perfect… just not for me.


Look how cute she is!!  And there's a hood as well.  She's not a fan of the hood... yet :)

Hello dear world!

It has been a not really busy week so I have no excuse as to why I didn’t post but here I am.

At work this week, two of my (haha, “my”) bulldog puppies came in for a check up.  Hopefully this means that they have chosen our practice to be their regular vet clinic.  They were both just darling.  The girl was a whopping 7.5 kilos at 10 wks!  Her brother by comparison was 5 and a bit kilos!!  The girl was one of my favourites from the litter and she continues to be a delight.  Wish I could have taken photos.

Saw “The Avengers” again with Boy Roomie.  I actually enjoyed it more the second time round.  Purely because I didn’t have that anxious feeling in my stomach when New York City was being destroyed.  And I LOVE that some of you guys get that feeling too, that’s awesome!  I don’t feel so alone in my weird ways.  We’re all weird together :)

We went on a “Roomies date” (plus one) last night.  We went to a fancy restaurant and I spent more money on food than I have ever spent in my life but it was good.  The restaurant was quaint and sweet, the food was delicious and the company delightful.  We all put our glad rags on.



And then this is me trying to pull a ninja move in order to get all my outfit into the picture!

Didn’t work. Missed my boots.

This morning I woke up and it was a little chilly therefore my kitty wanted to snuggle- yes!!  I got a giant mug of tea and snuggled with Millie whilst watching the finale of Vampire Diaries.  I have no idea why I am so unbelievably obsessed with a teen drama about vampires but I am.  Let’s blame Jenna :)



Happy weekend and Happy Mamas’ Day to you all!!!!!!

Adventures in Pet Sitting

Thanks to the (almost) non response to questions for my vlog, I have happily shelved that project until another time I get bored.  Knowing me, it won’t be long :)

Buddy was a gem as always.  Friday night, I let him sleep in the bed as per usual.  He’s so funny.  He knows the drill and gets right into the bed, digging his way through the sheets until he’s right in there with me.

Then on Saturday, I was like “No.  I must be strict” so I put him back outside where he normally sleeps.  Then I woke up at 2:30am and couldn’t get back to sleep, being in a strange house with odd noises… so I let him back in.

That picture is him judging me whilst I was having my dance party.  I love that picture of him!

The little guy suffers from separation anxiety pretty badly so if I’m to be away for a long stretch of time, there are some meds I can give him.  On Sunday morning, I was off to the movies with the Roomies.  The meds are given about 45 minutes before you leave.  I ended up leaving about an hour after and was saying my goodbyes to him when I noticed that when he came up to me, he couldn’t walk in a straight line.  He was like a drunk little doggie.  Of course, the first thing I thought was that he’d been poisoned as his owner had mentioned something about laying rat traps recently.  I was freaking out and doing all my normal checks on him.  I nearly cancelled on the Roomies, I was so worried.  Then I realised that it was probably just the anti-anxiety meds and I might have accidentally overdosed him.  Terrible vet nurse!!  But… the drugs he has are actually just generic xanax so I hoped it would be the same as a slight overdoes with humans, just a little bit sleepy.

I set off to the movies but my mind was in overdrive.  I actually practiced the phone call I would have with the owner, telling her that her dog had died.  I’m so melodramatic!  I did enjoy the movie (The Five Year Engagement) but thought it dragged towards the end and that kept me thinking about Buddy and his dead little body, lying cold outside as he’s dead by my hands.  I raced home and usually he is waiting for me by the door but of course he wasn’t.  I opened the door and started calling for him and he came flying through the door, absolutely fine and back to his normal self!   He got the biggest cuddle ever!!!

I walked further into the house and noticed some odd little black bits on the floor.  I picked them up and it was little bits of wrapping that seemed to have a coffee brand on them.  In the exact same instance, I see into the living room and on the carpet is a torn plastic bag.  My first (again- melodramatic!) thought was that he’d found a bag of chocolate coffee sweets and eaten them all, meaning he’d gotten a double dose of caffeine and would die.  I ran over to the bag and it turns out it was his dry dog food.  Somehow he had gotten onto the table and grabbed it… and ripped it open and eaten it all.

I still can't believe he got onto the table!  Thank goodness there was only about one more meal’s worth in there! 

So I am feeling very exhausted.  All that stress and worry.  It’s exhausting looking after other people’s pets!  But cute.

Sleeping in the little igloo he made for himself in bed…

My time at Supanova

This weekend I volunteered at the Australian version of Comic Con which is known here as Supanova.  It was a ton of fun and I’m so glad I did it.  We worked two shifts and then got time off in the middle of the day to wander around.

Unfortunately my volunteer registration seemed to have slipped through the cracks and I wasn’t on the roster.  Which meant that I wasn’t allocated one of the big names that I wanted, like my friends who got the Weasley twins and Inara from Firefly.  Nonetheless I was in charge of the line for Richard Horvitz.  People seemed super excited to see him but I was freaking out and frantically googling the guy to try and find out what he’d been in as I had no idea!  He’s a voice actor and was pretty darn amazing.  I enjoyed hearing him do all his different voices for his fans who all delighted in seeing him in the flesh.  He was so sweet with his fans and really took the time to chat to all of them and make them feel special.  I was impressed!  The poor guy, his voice was starting to sound hoarse by the end of the day!

My joy of the day came when Admiral Adama himself brushed past me.  Eeeek!!  So exciting.  Apart from the fact that he looked so old, it made me feel sad.

My personal thoughts on some of the guests: Summer Glau was absolutely gorgeous.  Every time I see her on TV, I don’t think she is particularly pretty but in the flesh, she is divine!

Peter Facinelli (the Cullen dad from Twilight) was directly opposite me during his signing and was unbelievably handsome.  When my line was quiet, I spent a LOT of time just staring at him in a creepy manner.

During my break, I watched a panel done by the Weasley twins.  They seemed like nice guys and were old hands at answering any type of question thrown at them, either from small adorable children or creepy old women (I dread the day I will become one of them!).

I was very proud of myself as I didn’t spend any money on celebrities, I just had a great time peeking at them.  I loved wandering around and seeing all the stalls but my favourite part- seeing the costumes.  The only thing I didn’t enjoy was being pushed aside by a guy who was dressed as Darth Vader.  I truly hope he just didn’t see me when he was wearing his mask- I hope he wasn’t getting too into his role as Vader because that’s really douchey.


Ghostbusters having a chat to Mal from Firefly, whilst Princess Leia (wearing ZERO underwear) hangs out in the foreground.



Every year I say I will dress up- and every year I forget until I’m at the convention!  I made a vow that next year I would dress up.  I got really excited when I worked out who I would be.  I decided to dress up as Cersei from Game of Thrones and that way I can justify going all out on the costume because I can then wear it to the medieval fair when I go.  That made me super happy!

This was my volunteer’s lanyard with all my pins :) I brought a pin for my ‘Send Something Good’ buddy.  So many girls asked about my mockingjay pin!

A very bored Sunday

I woke up yesterday and felt horribly under the weather.  I bravely soldiered on but today I was like “nope, I’m having none of it” and I didn’t do anything today.  Except for one special home project.

From this tragic scene in Hunger Games

comes this delightful picture

This is called “The Art of Rue-ing by Marc Marcos”.  Here is a how to:

1. Find a sleeping victim
2. Arrange an array of flowers around said victim
3. Perform the Hunger Games salute
4. Take pictures

Happy Hunger Games.

I saw this a few weeks ago, giggled and then promptly forgot about it.  Until today when I was suffering from cabin fever and was home alone.  So I present to you: The Art of Rue-ing by me and my animals.





And a ‘true’ Rue picture:


I realised I never really got to write about my Hunger Games love before on my blog because I was away when the movie came out.  But I believe this post encapsulates it all pretty nicely :)

It’s been a while

My friend came and stayed for a long weekend.  It was a lot of fun and I’ll be posting pictures in a bit.  Probably later this afternoon.  I dropped her off at the airport and went straight to work, so it’s been non-stop.  Today’s a day off in the middle of the week and one I am very grateful for.

I thought I would welcome myself back by posting a video that Boy Roomie took on his phone last night.  We’d been eating chips and Nilly had been drooling and begging for one so we decided to leave the last chip in the bag and put the bag on the floor.  The resulting video is what follows.

 

And you get bonus audio of ALL the people that live in the house.  Boy Roomie, Girl Roomie and moi.  I am the one that cackles “Why is she going backwards??”.  I promise I don’t sound like that in real life.  It was just hard to talk between giggling.

My weekend

Wow, I feel like I haven’t been on blogger in forever!  In my last post I said that I was going to try and have a proper weekend instead of doing nothing like I normally do.  I actually managed ok.

Saturday

I got up in the morning and went and visited the dog I am pet sitting.  She is such a delight.  I was convinced that she was going to have the puppies during the weekend I was looking after her.  She did not, phew!!

Look at that little face :)  I love bulldogs, so ugly that they’re cute.

I came home and baked.  I think I will put up the recipe for it but just to whet your appetite (pun!!!!!!), here is a picture.

Chocolate chip cookie stuffed with Oreo.  YUM!!!!!

Then my lovely friend Kristy came over and we went to see a movie with Girl Roomie.  The movie was rated R and I got carded.  I am 26 and I had to show my ID to prove that I was over 18.  I *will* be thankful of this once I’m older!

We came home afterwards, had dinner and a couple glasses of wine and then did what normal people do when they’ve had a few glasses of wine.  Stalk people from high school via Facebook.  Then we got bummed out because everyone was saving the world in exotic locations /engaged/ married/ had babies. 

Sunday

I was all pumped to go to church but I literally have no idea where the time went and by the time I was ready, church would have been half over :(  Went and visited the dog again.

Came home and hopped in the pool, it was a beautiful sunny day and I floated around and read my book.  Boy Roomie’s extended family came over including his little nephew, who is always terrified of me when he turns up at the house.  But by the end of the visit, he was loving me because we played together in the pool and I played soccer with him afterwards.  He has an impressive kick already!

I got major burned in the chestal area.  I hadn’t intended to be in the pool that long but I got sidetracked playing with cutie pie.  Thank goodness my face moisturiser is also sunscreen.  I hate getting burned, it’s so bad!!

And that was my weekend. I'll post my 'February' photos soon

Whooo are you?? Who, who, who who???

And so goes the theme song to CSI.  I admittedly don’t watch it anymore and I only really ever liked the original one (Las Vegas PD forever!!) but CSI was such a huge part of my life in high school.  Completely obsessed.  So when I heard that there was a CSI exhibition in my home town, I was all about getting there.  Ok, so despite my eagerness it took me three months but I finally made it.  And dragged my mother along.

It was so great!  Admittedly, it was probably for younger children (low teens and over) but we had a ton of fun.  We got to view a fake crime scene with a dummy, take notes, look at bugs under microscopes, do DNA analysis, compare tyre tracks, watch an autopsy on a dummy.  And we had to present our case to Gil Grissom himself.  I was genuinely scared I would get it wrong and Grissom would be disappointed in me :)

But never fear, me and my trusty companion saved the day and brought the right perp in for questioning.  And we got a certificate to prove it signed by Grissom!

It took us about an hour and I got to wear a lab coat throughout the whole thing so I felt super official.  They took some great photos of me and my mum as we worked on solving the case.  There was a fab one of us hard at work in Grissom’s office, it genuinely looked like we knew what we were doing.  Shame we couldn’t take our own photos as their photos were so expensive.  But then we ended up buying up big in the gift shop anyway!

My mum was chuffed with her cop notebook and I love my CSI thermos cup.  I want to use it as work and it’ll make me feel super official when I have to do lab tests!

And this is me with a crime scene outside the building.

And this is my mum not being sure how the camera works.

Look who's been busy!

I've had a semi busy past couple of days.

Thursday- lunch with the family. My cousins who I very rarely see as they have jobs overseas were back in the country. We ate so much food! Both guys have huge appetites and ordered practically everything on the menu. I had to have a nap when we got home in order to try and digest all that food but when I woke up, I felt like I had a hangover. A food hangover, I guess.

Friday- worked at the vet specialist.

Saturday- struggled to finish my stupid assignment. It wouldn't send as an attachment and I was freaking out. But it was just my computer being lame on me. I really need to get a new one. Thank goodness I managed to sort it all out eventually and send it off. Then mum and I went to see Captain America. SO good! She didn't want to see it but I think she enjoyed it even more than me! She's such a closet sci-fi fan!! Really fun movie, just the right amount of cheese and action. And then right at the end of the movie after the credits, they had a trailer for the second Avengers movie. I can't wait! Shame it's coming out next year.

Sunday- went back to home after staying at mum's. Had just settled in for a quiet afternoon read when my roomies arrived home and were about to head straight out again to KMart. At the last second I decided to go with them and then we proceeded to buy up the entire store! But we brought some fun stuff for my room.

This is how we get stuff done. Girl roomie was deciphering how everything went and boy roomie followed the instructions. I supervised with my glass of wine :)

And this is the finished product!
I love it so much!! And then I also brought a photo/painting for my room as well, which they hung for me too.
I love it so much! It's New York (obviously) and has posters for both 'Phantom' AND 'Wicked'! I seriously had the best time when I went there, I'm scared to go back because I don't know if it will live up to my memories of it.

Hope you all had a brilliant weekend!

Medieval Festival (cue thousands of exclamation marks)

I literally don't know where to begin but be warned this will be long! So let's start at the very beginning.

This is what I wore (and by wore, I also include my hair!)




















And yes, that is an incredibly cheesy grin on my face! I was more than a bit excited. And then I felt odd because I didn't buy anything special to wear... I genuinely own and wear these clothes in my day to day life. Not in that combination, but it makes me wonder if my personal style is 'Medieval Peasant'? Not the most stylish of fashion concepts I think you'll agree!

It took a while to get there and we got stuck in traffic but we made a game out of it, peering into every car beside us to see if the occupants were dressed up. Thank goodness for our tinted windows! We only ended up seeing one or two people dressed up in their cars but it certainly made the time go quicker.

As we were walking in to buy our tickets, there was hardly anybody dressed up but once we were inside there were so many people all dressed up! It was BRILLIANT!!!!!! I wussed out and took zero photos of people because I am a scaredy cat. But my favourites were this guy with long red hair and beard who looked like he'd stepped off the set of 'Braveheart' in his Scottish warrior regalia. And this man in full on leather armour with a minotaur helmet on.

I think you can see one or two people dressed up, but I put this picture up so you can see what a gorgeous winter's day it was. Perfect clear blue sky, sun beating down on us and a crisp wind to stop things from being too hot.

Now, when me and my roomies get together, we usually indulge in our love of food. There was SO much food on offer- big hunks of meat, pies of every flavour and even a stall called The Vegetari Inn (say it aloud, it wins my award for best pun of the day). We went to a Spanish stall and they both got taster plates and I had chorizo and palenta. You'll have to take my word for it because we'd all nearly finished when I realised I should have taken photos. Well, it's not like I have a food blog. Throughout the day, we also had poffertjes and various other sweet things.

There was also a tavern which we stopped in and had some cider. And watched a gurning contest. Gurning is where people pull the ugliest face they can and the ugliest face wins. Roomies and I fell in love with a contestant called Ian who was middle aged and definitely not on his first cider of the day. When it was announced that he had come third in the contest, us and a random group of guys protested so hard that we 'changed history' and Ian came second!!

There was lots of swordfights throughout the day. Some were choreographed and some just involved a blunted sword, a shield and the attitude 'just go for it'!

















But I was really there for the jousting! We started off a 'boom-boom-clap' a la 'We Will Rock You' because since 'A Knight's Tale', I think that if you go and see jousting, it has to happen at least once. It was awesome when the whole crowd was going... but we had to stop as it scared the horses. The jousting was really good, I love seeing the horses and the outfits and nothing puts me more into a Medievaly state of mind.

There was some amazing craftsmanship on offer and if I was a billionaire I would have walked away with drinking horns, jugs shaped like dogs and about a dozen cloaks and other assorted outfits. Alas, I am not- so I contented myself with a dragon charm (see previous post) and a celtic cross necklace.

The day was so much fun and I can't wait for the next one. I might have to hit up ebay or etsy for an actual costume. I had severe costume envy going on.

Hope your weekends are just as fun. Thanks for all the support re: my failure as a monitor of animal health during operations :)

Work and Weekend Update

Work
From what I can gather, the girl that was supposed to be leaving work, will be staying on. Sucks for me because they now won’t be paying me to do my work experience and mainly because now they will probably only be able to offer me 10-20 hours once I finish at the end of the year, instead of the full time work that was originally offered. BUT Suzanne is really lovely and has been immensely helpful to me since I started and she's new like me, which is good- we can muddle through together. So although it means less work, it means more friends. And that is a GOOD thing. People over money any day.

We had a farty, farty dog on Friday. Oh man. It was in the back room, waiting to have an operation to have a lump removed and it was farting something chronic. Which made me giggle. But then she continued when she was on the operating table which was not funny because it stunk out the operating theatre and I nearly died!! Then as soon as she woke up from the anaesthetic, she pooped in the cage and got it all over herself, so we got her out of the cage, where she promptly pooped all over the floor. We cleaned the old girl up, cleaned the cage, cleaned the floor and then waited a while to make sure she wasn’t going to go again. It seemed like it was safe so we popped her back in the cage, where she IMMEDIATELY went again!! Pulled her out and she went all over the floor. Cleaned everything up and then... yep, you guessed it, she pooped the second she was in her cage again. It was one of those ‘laugh or you’ll cry’ moments. The vet came along and decided to take the dog for a walk to try and clear everything out of her... and she pooed on the walk too. And it wasn’t normal poo, it was foul smelling, slimy poo. And then it was lunch time :)

Afterwards, Jess and I continued chatting and I had my hair plaited and up (practicing for next week!) and for some reason that got Jess talking about the local Medieval Faire (I’m sorry, I have to spell it that way!). It’s happening in July and we are going!! We spent most of the day talking about braiding hair (she showed me a great website) and planning what we will do at the Medieval Faire.
Things we will do:
drink ale at the tavern
crush on the jousters
join in with the Medieval dancing
And Jess is going to braid my hair for the event. I sense an epic blog post!!

Saturday
Lunch with the grandparents and then went to the movies with my mum and saw a nice little movie called ‘Get Low’, which I wouldn’t really recommend to you unless you are over 60 or you have an old soul (like me). Not much happened but it was nice and made me mad I wasn’t born in the good old days. But then I had the song ‘Low’ by Flo Rida stuck in my head for the rest of the day. Went home and watched Doctor Who... which ended up being another pesky two parter, grr!! It was nice to see Rory take on a bit of the limelight though.

Sunday
I went to a random church because they had a Gospel Music service. SO much fun. I wish I had more gospel music in my life. Mum came along with me, even though it meant leaving our house at 7.30 in the morning and neither of us are real morning people. Then we went to Ikea and we got a quilt for me, as well as a vase because I have decided that I will spend my spare money on flowers.

Hope everyone is doing well. I am shut in my room pretending to be doing my assignment but secretly I am on blogger (clearly). Downton Abbey starts tonight. I am looking forward to a soap opera masquerading as a period drama. This is going to be good!