Happy late new year and all that jazz.

I spent my new years lying on a sofa with my favourite pink blanket and watched get him to the greek with the boyfriend and his little brother.
Nice, effective, no effort required.

After hearing that a very loved member of the family was getting put down (no we were not supporting Dignitas or anything...) Poppy, a cat that has been around for 19 years and was me if I were a cat.

We were all devastated by her death :(

New years eve also marked the 5th anniversary of my Grandpa dying as well, so I tend to avoid trying to celebrate as it seems rather disrespectful.

New years night was a ridiculous amount of fun though. I met up with my most favourite person from my time working at Cabot Circus, we (and our blokes) went to a rather nice restaurant which is marketed as 'Pan Asian' AKA buffet with lots of different noms & a chocolate fountain at the very end.
Turns out, there is an awful lot of food I can consume in 2 hours!

That actually was a good start to my new years resolution (no, not posting more...that would just be a sick joke) as I am intending to make an effort to see her at least once a month to catch up & get rather drunk.

Despite the overindulging last night, I still managed to get up vaguely early and drag people shopping >:) so more clothes I don't need and have no room in the wardrobe for then!

If I can be bothered, I may be nice and take some photos tomorrow, but it is rather unlikely for me to post two days running!

Holidays and my latest lame excuses for not posting.

Well I hope of any of you that bother reading had a very enjoyable Christmas time.

^ Now that is out of the way.....
I have been very damn busy with all of those last minute shoppers and crazed bargain hunters recently, not much of a surprise seeing as I work in retail.

Very happy to say that we managed to make it back to Wales to have a real Christmas with my family. We shall ignore the fact that my long-suffering boyfriend had to drive us back at 10pm Christmas night so he could go into work the following morning.

It was a rather lovely day, filled with cackling that other people have to do the washing up after the obligatory xmas lunch, presents, explaining to my smallest sister that I was not eating a regular duck, nice ducks don't make it to the dinner table and its only those nasty vicious ducks that go and bite people end up being eaten by me, some really awful photos, PUSH FOR ICE (a longstanding joke that makes fun of my older sister) and then off to a more civilised dinner with my Dad & that side of the family.

Most likely not making much sense right now, but as usual I have had a rather stressful day and I now feel like I am dying, so I cannot think straight to save my life.

The chipmunks have managed to re-align their sleeping habits, so that we are not rudely awakened at 2am.
This makes for a happy Zilla, as it did get a bit tedious having to sleep on the sofa!

Other than the usual festive crap, yesterday was Rob's 21st birthday & our 5 year anniversary.
We ended up down the local pub. How romantic.
Luckily, a very amazingly good friend of mine I used to work with back in the Cabot days mentioned meeting up for a meal and catching up, so Saturday night I get to have a proper meal and amazing company :)

I can't be bothered to type anymore, not that I have anything interesting left in my life to talk about anyway.

Happy happy happy!

It seems I have managed to find this weird inner happiness thing recently.
Not sure where that came from but anyway!

Blah blah blah I haven't updated in ages, the reason for that is I have been busy, with work, with the BEAUTIFUL chipmunks my amazing boyfriend bought me for Christmas (even if the little buggers do wake up in the middle of the night and keep us awake) and with generic Christmas shopping.


Look at me! I am a cuuuuute chipmunk NOM NOM NOM!


Work is going rather well now, I think it was just a case of needing to wait it out and riding with it. There were a few teething issues to start with but I think it has all settled down nicely now.
It also helps that the management in my store won the lovely new deluxe GHD sets last week as a company incentive & I only just found out (and received mine) today!



I mean? who wouldn't be gloriously happy with that?

The Christmas music hasn't driving me mad yet, but that may have been due to not having music for almost 2 weeks due to technical issues and almost going mad from the silence!

Aside from going home to see my family for ages, life seems to be going well.
Reconnecting with a very good friend that somehow managed to get away is also helping with the positivity :)

<3

The post where I complain about Christmas.

I have done pretty much all of my present buying.
Every year there is a set way of how Christmas works out.

Presents for my family are bought by me.
Presents for my boyfriend's family are bought by him.
Everything is from a collective being known as Rob & Rach (or as my dearest sister will find out on Monday when her first anniversary card arrives, Pimpzilla & Batman.


Christmas day gets spent with my family.
Boxing day is a random messed up day involving lots of travelling.
The 27th gets spent with his family as it is also his birthday.

My Christmas shopping gets done usually really early.
His gets done the week before Christmas.

So imagine my shock when I get told a package from Play.com is arriving imminently and I am not allowed to open it.
At that moment I looked him in the eyes and asked if it was Keith Lemon related.
I just had that bad bad feeling Christmas day may end up being awkward.

As my nice huge fear was confirmed, we had managed to buy each other the exact same present.

Now normally it would be a random coincidence, but Keith Lemon is held with the upmost regard in our relationship. I actually do worship the man.
Luckily there is one other person I know who adores him as much as I.

So when my little spoiled present arrived in the post yesterday, we had to have the inevitable trip to Cabot Circus to visit a VERY speical someone.
A someone who made the last 2 years of my life an awful lot brighter than it would have been.
Her name, is Emily Bee.

Every friday I would show up to my shift and see her, usually greeting her with a very loud greeting of 'POTATO!'
In my leaving card, she actually did write 'you bang tidy bitch'.
This made her the easy choice to receive a random unwrapped present yesterday in the middle of her shift.

This also made a very good excuse for me to buy a much needed reindeer jumper dress, and a replacement present for Rob.


After all that, we headed to the local Hooters for some good service, good boobs & good food.

Then he got dragged around the shops again in the snow in search for Dr Martens.

I kind of decided I needed a pair, but still unsure of which colour I actually need.
Hopefully my Mum & Nan are going to get me a lime green pair for my Christmas present!

& I am just going to end this blog right here, before I sidetrack myself with randomness again.

P.S. I fucking hate Christmas music.

Sugar equilibrium & my usual dramas.

I knew it had to happen someday, but I finally have had to kick the lucozade habit that was becoming rather pronounced in my daily routine.
Managing to go without any for a day led my driving instructor to ask me if I had taken something. Definitely not a good sign when he works for the police!

Couple of days on from that and I still feel like crap, but now I am topping up my sugar levels with jelly belly beans. I don't think anyone really realises how hooked you can get off sugar.

Today has been eventful but for completely the wrong reason, another driving lesson when I almost got myself and driving instructor killed on a bloody roundabout.
Just when I seem to be getting on alright with them, I completely cock everything up again and then decide I don't want to carry on driving anymore.
The more positive note was learning to do a second maneuver, I can add a turn in the road into my list of skills.
The fact I was swearing and going 'ahhhhhhhhh' while trying to do it doesn't matter, although I was warned against doing that if I ever get as far as a driving test.

Basically not a good day, all that and then the most bitching headache I have ever had in my life makes me just want to give up on everything.

A nice 10 hour shift in work tomorrow just makes me feel even more like giving up, switching my phone off and never getting out of bed ever again.
Just hoping we have some nice stock come in with our delivery in work tomorrow.
Think I need a nice festive jumper for xmas.

Progress...?

What another bloody hectic week.

The week started out fairly normal, the odd bit of overtime here and there, until we reached Wednesday.

On Wednesday I was meant to be in the store with the assistant manager, but unfortunately she had caught a nasty bug so had just come in for an hour to do paperwork and a few other bits and bobs before I could get in for 9.
So at 9 she went back to bed bless her as she was not very well at all.

So I had the fun job of actually running the store for the day!
It turned out to be one of those things you think would be really easy, but when it comes down to it, its hard work and stupidly stressful.
Either way we made it through the day unscathed and I felt pretty damn good about the way the day went.

Thursday however was a bit of a joke in my eyes.
The bite sized version: manager in traffic due to accident, I was outside in the cold by myself for an hour and a half. Apparently I should have just gone in anyway and been around, instead I waited till another member of staff turned up to go in and open up for the day.
People had wrong numbers for other people, massive mix up and as I was outside, not inside it caused a bit of a disaster blah blah majorly stressful.

So its all been rather up and down.
A few xmas presents arrived, some more ordered, life goes on basically.

Now just waiting on the boyfriend to come home to give me a big hug.
Hoping next week isn't as stressful.

hmmm.

Well I have finished my first week at my new store, although my training hasn't started yet :/
Problem being that I have come from a massive store where I knew what I needed to do, down to a store a fraction of the size and I feel like a fish out of water.
I don't know what needs doing and when, whats expected of me and what to do when there is no customers in the shop and quite honestly I am finding it frustrating as hell that I need to be told the simplest of things because I don't know how the shop runs, other than its a hell of a lot different to what I am used to.
I hate being made to feel like an idiot because I haven't closed one door at a certain time or what time the floor needs to be vacuumed.

I know I have only done 3 shifts there and I am still due to be trained but I really am wondering if I have in fact done the right thing.
At least in my old store I knew exactly what went on and all the routines, here I just feel simple :(

My first day I enjoyed, even though I didn't really do very much, but it was just the excitement of doing something new. Day 3 and just feeling stupid and like a small child is not enjoyable.

Seriously hoping next week I feel more positive, too late to go back to my old job :/