"Just Squeeze your Butt and go up in the Air."

My post-university life has continued to idle by in a really boring way. I have no money, nothing to do, no where to go and, worst of all, Jo Frost's Family Matters has finished for the summer so I have nothing to watch while I eat my poorly prepared lunch. On the up side, I'm doing really well at Rollercoaster Tycoon.

I have, however, taken up a new hobby. Hayleigh and I started cheerleading a few weeks ago. If you can look past the fact that I have no co-ordination, upper body strength or balance then it's the perfect sport for me. You know, as in I like big bows and rhinestones. I have an abundance of enthusiasm, but a distinct lack of talent. 

I tried out cheerleading in university and I loved the whole jumping around, throwing people up in the air thing. Plus they had great jackets. But it was really cliquey and high heels were banned from socials. So that didn't work out for me. But this club is totally different. The girls are all lovely and in no way judge the standard of my forward rolls, which are wonky to say the least.

Initially it was a shock to the system to attempt handstands and cartwheels for the first time in over fifteen years. There was a lot of flailing. And falling. Then there are the stunts. Trying to muster the strength to get someone up in the air is a lot harder than it looks. And after last night's practice I'm convinced I'm going to have a foot-shaped bruise on my right boob. On top of that my left wrist hurts and I pulled my groin attempting a somewhat over-zealous jump.

But it's fun! Last night Hayleigh and I were the first pair out of the team bonding game because I couldn't remember the rules and just collapsed on top of her in a state of panic. It was a bizarre and hilarious point in our friendship. So was the awkward head-butt we did when we caught the flyer and kind of accidentally kissed each other.

Perhaps it's a good thing my life has been a little dull lately. There's no way I could deal with random late-night adventures with every muscle in my body aching.

UPDATE!

I simply must share my childlike excitement over the new cheer bows I got in the post. Lauren wanted one for her cheer try-outs yesterday (she did a lot of standing in the corner pouting so I doubt she made the team) and I got really jealous and ordered one for myself. Obviously. I mean, they are obnoxiously large and sparkly. What's not to love?

They're made by Bella Bows on Etsy and look at them! They are absolutely amazing! The detail is fabulous and the quality is great. This lady has some of the nicest designs I've seen and the lowest postage we could find (bonus!) because everyone knows the best cheer bows come from America.

I only have two questions:
1. Can I wear it casually around town because I love it so much?
2. If Lauren doesn't make the team, will it be acceptable to steal hers?

My Life as a Grown Up gets Boring...and Sticky

I know things have been quiet on the blog-front recently. That's an understatement. I'm actually surprised virtual tumble-weeds haven't started rolling across the page. But that's just a reflection on my life right now. No job = no money = no fun = nothing to ramble about. I haven't even graduated yet and I'm already fed up with life as a full-time grown up.

I had every intention of sharing the highs, lows and inevitable humiliations of my night out in Swansea this past Wednesday. Unfortunately I woke up on Thursday morning with nothing more than a vague recollection of a McChicken sandwich and the stench of shisha clinging to my hair (I dread to think how much that cost me) and that hardly makes for a gripping blog post. Seriously though, that was the first and last time I will drink Bacardi. 

Hayfever destroys my face 

I'm meant to be on an exciting adventure today, but I managed to make a pig's ear out of it. Tonight is the Cosmopolitan Super Bloggers Masterclass (or some kind of similar awesome name to the same effect) and I've had my ticket for months. I was counting down the days until I could go up to London, make new friends, learn lots of great tips, and, perhaps most exciting of all, take home an epic goodie bag. Unfortunately, while I was counting down to the 23rd July, the event was in fact on the 23rd June and, while planning a trip to London was never going to be easy, planning one in two days with no money was impossible. Especially when certain friends who live in London refuse to return your frantic messages, begging them to let you sleep on their sofa. I will name no names. Cough cough Tim! I'm so disappointed I can't go!

To make things even more boring (and miserable) my hayfever has forced me to barricade myself in my bedroom. I genuinely thought there could be nothing worse than sitting in my little room with a flannel over my face, wheezing like Joseph Merrick and listening to the rest of the world enjoying the first glorious summer Wales has seen since the Dark Ages. But then I went downstairs and realised all the Jaffa Cakes were gone and I hit a whole new low.

In other news, the fire alarm the firemen installed a few months back started screeching incessantly in the early hours of the morning because the battery was starting to wear out. It wouldn't shut up until someone hit it with the feather duster. This ridiculous ritual would start again every fifteen minutes until I lost my patience and ripped it apart with my bare hands. Now it's just making a feeble, but continuous ticking noise and there are bits of plastic scattered all over the landing.       

So, the past few weeks have been fairly uneventful. But, regardless of how high the pollen count gets and how swollen and sticky my eyes become and, in spite of my ever-dwindling lack of funds, I simply must get out and have some crazy new adventures. Even if it's only because the bloody ticking of that fire alarm is going to drive my crazy otherwise.

The Littlest Loon: Like me, but Smaller and Louder.

My four year old niece, Lauren, is a loon. When her older brother first laid eyes on her he said, "Welcome to this world" as if she was an alien rather than a newborn. At the time we thought nothing of it, but looking back he may have been on to something. At two months months old she started to growl at us. She has only very recently grown out of it.

"...my little diva..."

Cupcake Mumma has a cute little interview with her daughter on her blog called 43 Questions for Midge and I thought I'd steal the idea to try out with Lauren. Unfortunately, I knew my little diva wouldn't have the attention span or patience to sit through forty three questions so I cut it down a little.

When I turned up at my brother's house yesterday afternoon, Lauren answered the door in an Anna dress, high-heeled Snow White shoes, fairy wings, and a face full of make-up. Her left eye was covered in purple eyeshadow and the right eye was plastered with pink eyeshadow. I'm not entirely sure if she was trying to set a new trend with that one. Then she began dancing and referring to herself as Strawberry Girl. It was a while before I could sit her down to answer my questions, but the answers were...interesting.

The following is what happens when you ask a four year old loon questions about herself. Everything I say is in orange, Lauren's answers are in purple and side remarks from Ellis (he couldn't help himself) are in green.

What makes you happy?

....

What makes you happy?

....I'm thinking....

Oh, ok. Take your time.

...Playing with Ellis on Infinity.

What makes you sad?

When Ellis shouts at me when I want to play infinity.

That's a lie!

What makes you laugh?

Bursting balloons.

If you could do anything today what would you do?

Oooh. Anything? If I bought an Elsa doll like my Rapunzel doll with long hair and not any plaits. Elsa one...umm...with the dress.

How old are you?

Four.

How old am I?

*Shrugs*

Have a guess.

...Thirteen?

What do you want to be when you grow up?

Princess.

Who is your best friend?

Tommy.

What is you favourite animal?

Oooh. Unicorn!

*Sigh*

What is your favourite song?

You know.

Let it go?

No.

Cutie Patootie?

No. 

Underpuppy?

No.

Gangnam Style?

No! Wreck it Ralph! *Laughs hysterically*

What is your favourite food?

Chocolate.

Where is your favourite place to go?

Neverland.

What are you really good at?

You know. Balancing.

What are you not very good at?

Jumping.

What do you want for your birthday?

The Elsa doll like my Rapunzel one.

What did you do today?

Play princesses.

If you were invisible for a day what would you do?

Umm...go in front of them?

"...a four year old loon..."

So there you have it. It's like a window into the mind of a deranged person. When the questions were over, she looked at me and said, "Now I'm going to follow you wherever you go because I love you. I will follow you. Forever. You can't walk away from me."

"So...kind of like a stalker then?" I said.

"Yeah."

"Ok. Great."

But I want to leave you with this anecdote. Lauren went into my brother's room one morning, woke him up, leaned in close to his face and said, "Mam Morgan is going to die in one hundred sleeps." How creepy is that? We have it marked on the calendar. Just in case.

The South West Blog Social and Nails Barbie would Envy!

Last weekend I travelled back to Exeter for the South West blog social. Never has a train journey seemed so long. There I was, standing in the cramped space near the toilets with half a dozen of my fellow travellers when the train stopped to let yet more people on board. First on was a pregnant woman with her five young children, followed by a somewhat large and very stifled-looking woman with her somewhat large and very stifled-looking daughter and then, after five or so more people had squeezed into their respective little spaces, an older lady with an enormous backpack and a fully assembled crib got on. She insisted on dragging it past everyone to the luggage compartment, injuring a few of the pregnant lady's children as she did so.

There were no windows. Very soon it started to smell like stale sweat and it wasn't long before the pregnant lady wedged the toilet door open and sat down on the loo, with her five young children sprawled around her on what I'm guessing was not a clean floor. After an hour the somewhat large and very stifled-looking woman offered to spray something on my face to cool me down. I assumed it was water. It was not. It smelled like fruit juice and made my skin itch.

So, needless to say, by the time I got to Exeter all I could think was, 'this social had better be worth the three hours I just spent stood inhaling other people's perspiration'. Luckily, it was even better than I could have imagined! Ok, so prepare yourself for some serious, shameless name-dropping because I met so many lovely bloggers and you should go and check out their sites...after you read this, of course.

I'm not a shy person, but when I first turned up at Oddfellows (which, luckily for me, is a three minute walk from my house), I was a little overwhelmed. The room was already filling up with people and photographs were being taken from all angles. That's one of the hazards of a blogging event. Everyone has a camera.

"In amongst the piles of sensible-looking cards..."

I decided my priorities were first to get a drink in my hand and second to make some friends. I sat down at a table with Hannah from Cupcake Mumma and Issy from Life and Times of a Student and they were really sweet. Issy studies English too and Hannah has two children, which amazed me because she looked so amazing. That isn't to say that women with children usually look like swamp creatures or anything like that, but it was one of those, "What? You have children? But you're so young and radiant looking!" type scenarios. I feel that in fifty words or less I've just offended mothers everywhere, but trust me when I say I know what I mean and it's not a bad thing.

Moving swiftly on from that...

I tried one of the signature blog cocktails that were made especially for the event and they were delicious! The till downstairs was broken so I had to venture up a set of creaky wooden stairs to order my drink. As I walked into the upstairs bar the barman was taking a tray of cocktails downstairs.
"He'll make yours up when he comes back." The manager told me.
"Oh great." I said. "Will he bring it down...?"
"No, you'll have to wait."
"Ok, I was just wondering because I'm a little nervous about getting back down the stairs in these shoes."
Maybe he thought this was an attempt at a damsel in distress act rather than a genuine confession about my complete lack of co-ordination or balance, but he was a little patronising when he said, "I'm sure you can manage to walk down the stairs."
Unfortunately, though, he was wrong. At the top of the stairs my heel got caught in a gap in the floor boards, I lost balance and spilled half of my drink over myself and (the horror!) ruined the heel of one of my favourite shoes! People just don't understand the extent of my incompetence. The only plus point is that no one was there to witness my humiliation.

"Even Barbie would envy these nails"

There was so much going on downstairs! I had my nails done by Rachel from Monkey Nail Art. I love them! Even Barbie would envy these nails they're so pink and sparkly. She was so talented and so nice to chat to. Then I dropped off my new business cards at the business card exchange. In amongst the piles of sensible-looking cards, the pictures of me pulling
a ridiculous face really stood out...I'm not sure if that's a good thing or not. We had really interesting talks about publishing, advertising and content. There really was a bit of everything going on and something for everyone. Oh, and I had a giant pizza to myself and felt no shame.

Then there was the raffle. Determined that for once in my life I would win at a raffle, I bought 6 strips of tickets. Ultimately it paid off because I won twice. I think the "Yesssss!" when my name was called was perhaps a little too enthusiastic, but I wasn't as loud as I was the time I won £10 in bingo so presumably my social etiquette is improving.

The day really slipped away from me and it seemed like no time at all before I was collecting my goody bag and thanking Albertine from Dippy Writes and Jodie from a la Jode for putting together such a wonderful event. And then I got home and stuffed my face with complimentary Quiz cookiesQuiz cookies and riffled through my freebies. What a fantastic day! I would quite happily stand squashed between a smelly woman and a crib for three hours to attend a day like that again!

And...
If you'd like to see what sort of goodies I got at the event then your curiosity can be satisfied by watching this video. Because I'm kind like that.