Random ramblings from the Texan in London.

If you know me at all, you'll know that in the past I've been a terrible procrastinator. I come by it honestly, just ask my mother, but it's not exactly a desirable trait. When I was young, it was homework that got left to the last minute (sometimes literally, cut to Little Gabs scrawling the final sentences on a paper as it's getting passed forward for collection) and now it's housework or Grown-up Crap like getting my motorcycle collected for repairs. Yup, you heard me, best friend who for the purposes of this blog we'll title BFG (that's Big Friendly Geek to those of you not in the know). I just called to get the bike collected. The bike that broke down about a month ago, and I've been talking about having it fixed at least three times a week ever since. That bike. The roadside assistance guy is on his way now, and I will finally be back on two wheels instead of riding the Big Red Things (buses, as the BFG refuses to call them in his utter abhor...

I've always been a dreamer, in the literal sense. From a very young age I've been able to remember my dreams, and once I started a dream one night and finished it the next. This sounds great, and I've had some seriously fabulous nocturnal journeys through time and space, but on the flip side, not all dreams are good ones. I've had some proper toe-curling nightmares, and some of the worst ones have been in my adult years. The reason this is on my mind particularly right now is that I had a pretty gnarly one night before last, and during yesterday's aforementioned pestering phone call to my sister I told her about it. She told me that her boyfriend had been doing a little reading about dreams in general, and had researched (and actually put into practice) a tactic of dreaming deliberately. The research he found described the way to consciously go to sleep with a certain event or setting in mind, which basically ensures where your dreams will go. Apparently this ...

There's something extremely therapeutic about really cleaning something. I don't mean the tidying away, hiding things in boxes or drawers, making piles kind of cleaning. I mean moving everything and bleaching all the surfaces cleaning. I've just cleaned our bathroom, which so desperately needed it I should be ashamed to talk about it at all. Good thing I'm shameless. Now when you open the door (because it has to be kept shut to keep the cats from playing in the drips from the taps and leaving a thin coat of fur on every surface) the lovely clean scent wafts out, and between that and the sparkling surfaces and shiny, streak-free mirror, I have a warm sense of accomplishment. You might ask why I have time to clean our bathroom in the middle of the afternoon on a Tuesday. My last job was as a nanny with a family in Notting Hill, and they were awful. AWFUL. Three kids, all unused to behaving like humans, and two parents, both unused to behaving like professional empl...

So, I've been thinking about starting a blog for a while. I finally decided to stop thinking and just see where it goes. The blog title is a lyric from Dave Matthews Band, and it pretty much sums up how my life has been for the last ten years or so. One year of university, six months of US Army, four years as an illegal alien in Britain, two years on a spousal visa that looked at any moment as though it might not last, and now finally a fully established resident of the UK on an indefinite leave visa. I've been a nanny, a PA, a nanny again, and a general dogsbody for the majority of my adult life. I'm a die hard Pratchett reader, a music in almost any form addict, and having finally decided at the age of 30 what I want to be when I grow up, a horticulture student. I'm not entirely sure what form this blog will take, except that I have so many interests that it will most likely end up being a repository for random recipes and pictures of our cats doing stupid things ...