Things get Artsy: Crafty Creatives Review

I'll admit that I'm not exactly an artistic genius. I'm not much of a drawer, I can't make sense of water colours and, at 23 years of age, I'm still banned from using charcoal in the house because of the amount of damage I've been known to cause with it in the past. But I love arts and crafts. I'll give anything a go. I've knitted a blanket, made birthday cards and scrapbooks, sewn my own Halloween costumes, and let's not even bring up my obsession with the glue gun.

So I was thrilled when Crafty Creatives offered to send me one of their boxes to review. They are a monthly subscription box service and each month they send out different types of creative goodies.

Actually getting my hands on the box was a bit of a drama. I was out when it got delivered so it got returned to the Royal Mail Office, which wouldn't have been a big deal if I could have actually found the Royal Mail Office. Bear in mind I've lived in this town since birth. I've been to collect parcels countless times before. It should not have been as traumatic as I made it. But I an incompetent human being and, as a result, I ended up driving around in circles for twenty minutes, reversing into a wall, getting harassed by a fellow driver with no patience, and getting stuck in a pointless narrow lane. When I eventually found my way to the office the mean driver behind me bullied me and took my parking space and I ended up having to park on the double yellow lines, which I hate doing.

Then, package in hand, I drove home and arrived back in my street at 3:25pm. I live opposite a school. 3:25pm is not a good time to arrive home. Exhausted, frustrated and in desperate need of a packet of crisps, I wedged myself across our drive, aware that the back end of my car was over my neighbour's drive (and boy does he go into a rage about that kind of thing) so I couldn't leave the car. Then there was a very confusing stand-off between me and a woman who, for some reason, refused to move from outside my house for a whole 25 minutes. All in all it was very stressful.

But, thankfully, my cute little box was totally worth it! I imagined the it would be full of poms poms, pipe-cleaners and the like, but it actually contained an Inkodye set from Lumi. At first I was confused. Then I became slightly more confused. Then I read the instructions and suddenly I was very intrigued.

Let me explain this the best way I can. It's a kind of sunlight activated dye for cotton and other natural fabrics. You apply the dye to your fabric and then you cover it with objects or photograph negatives to partially block out the light. Then you leave it in the sunlight and the dye gets activated. 

My set included the dye, the wash to use on it afterwards, a little roller, a photograph negative and some pieces of fabric to practise on.

And it gets cooler! You can download the Lumi app, which has all sorts of ideas for you to try. Plus, you can upload your own photos and they'll send you a negative to print with. So you can print your pictures onto cushions, clothes, pencil cases..

Look! You can even have my strange face on a jumper!

Odds are I would never have tried or even come across Lumi Inkodye if I hadn't got my box from Crafty Creatives. That's got me wondering about how many other fabulous crafty goodies are out there waiting to be discovered! If you're an arty type person and love getting goodies in the post you can take a look at their website and have a little nose for yourself.

Beware friends and family, you will all be getting photo printed goodies for Christmas!

Happiness in Photographs...with Filters: 100 Days of Happy.

I'm sure everyone is familiar with the 100 Days of Happy Instagram challenge. Well, I decided to give it a go and, despite the fact that mine lasted more like 150 days due to my overwhelming forgetfulness and inability to count, I'm finally done. So, in celebration of my commitment to technology (you all know how much I hate it) and because nothing particularly exciting has been happening recently for me to write about (apart from that super exciting thing I can't share with you yet) I thought I'd do a recap of my 100 days of happiness. Some are fun, some are weird, some are tenuous, but here we go.


Day 1

Day 1: (even though I failed at 30 days of happy) New shoes. Because sometimes you need to feel like Barbie #100daysofhappy #shoes #pink

It all started with my pretty pink shoes. I saw them in Miss Selfridge and simply had to own them. I don't think I've actually worn them yet though...


Day 2

Day 2: My beloved Britney may be off the the scrap yard, but today I got an early graduation present #100daysofhappy

This weekend I surprised my parents by taking a train back home from Exeter and turning up on their doorstep. They, in turn, surprised me with the news that my beloved KA, Britney, was being scrapped because the mechanic couldn't even complete the MOT. Something about some part of the engine falling out...

Anyway, on Day 2 I picked up my new car, Tink. She's lime green. We go on epic adventures.

Day 12

Day 12: Hurray! Winning the lottery was a little bonus for this week #100daysofhappy

This was such a great day! My parents were away in Prague and, being the wonderful daughter I am, I cleared out all the kitchen draws. I found about a dozen old lottery tickets and, what do you know, three of them were winners! Naturally I kept the winnings as payment for cleaning the draws.


Day 23

Day 23: Free pizza! I got to sample the new Pizza Express menu today to write up a review. I am so full it hurts #100daysofhappy

This was the day Hayleigh and I went and stuffed our faces with free pizza so I could write up a review for Pizza Express. Yes, I'm more than happy to work in exchange for food.


Day 27

Day 27: And breathe! My mother won't allow celebratory champagne with lunch but it's a celebration nonetheless

After all the tears, the late nights, nightmares about Miss America and after spending so much time reading Gone with the Wind that I began to believe the Yankees really were coming, on Day 27 I finally handed in my dissertation. The title? From Hoop Skirts to Daisy Dukes: The Changing....umm...something about the Southern Belle. Clearly I've repressed all memories of it. 


Day 53

Day 53: "Nanna, auntie Aimee wants a whisky." How well trained these children are! #100daysofhappy #worldsbestaunt #alcohol #jackdaniels

As much as every day with my little munchkins is a happy day, it's quotes like this that make me realise how blessed I am to have such a cool niece and nephew. 


Day 65

Day 65: I may look anything but happy in this picture, but that's only because I was hungry. It's day 3 of the #clean9 and I've lost 9lbs already and feel great! That's something to smile over. (But I could do with a stack of pancakes right now) #100daysofhappy #weightloss

Yes I craved pancakes for the entire week and yes I was grumpy when everyone else was chomping on burgers and I had to sit there sipping on water, but I really did lose 9lbs in 9 days! That made me very happy.


Day 73

Day 73: I can't believe it, but the most amazing three year adventure has come to an end all too quickly and today I graduated. It was a fantastic day in spite of the ridiculous hat #100daysofhappy #graduation #hooray

Day 73 was my graduation day. I drank champagne, threw a stupid hat into the air, and hugged Floella Benjamin! And, on top of all that, my hair remained pretty much under control for the most part. Success! 


Day 97

Day 97: World's coolest birthday present. Entrepreneur Barbie! She will sit on my desk to inspire me each morning. Yes, I'm 23. #100daysofhappy #barbie #grownup

A+ to one of my closest friends, Thorny, for paying attention to my ramblings about the release of Entrepreneur Barbie and getting me one for my birthday. I LOVE her! Don't tell me Barbie is a bad role model to girls. No other woman has been a doctor, astronaut, vet, politician, teacher, and entrepreneur, all whilst rocking killer shoes.


Day 100

Day 100 (finally!): At long last I have my official results from university. I have graduated with a 2:1 with honours! Better late than never #100daysofhappy

I wasn't exactly thrilled when I got a kidney infection back in January and had to miss my exam. It meant I had to defer it until August and haul my butt all the way back to Exeter to sit it during the summer after the lease on my house was up. Then I couldn't get my result the same time as everyone else, but at last, on Day 100, I could officially say I had a 2:1 from the University of Exeter. 


And so 100 days (or significantly more) have passed and I've had plenty to be happy about. True, I omitted some of the more mundane ones ("I'm happy about...my bed"), but I really liked this challenge. And it was nice to sit down and look through them all this evening. So if you haven't done it yet, maybe you could give it a go. 

And you should DEFINITELY follow me on Instagram. @aimee_oddball. 

My Birthday: Smiling, Laughing and, Eventually, Wailing

Fear not! I haven't abandoned you! I know I've been a terrible blogger for the past two months and I'm really sorry. I've recently had something really exciting going on which has been taking up all of my time. I can't wait to tell you all about it...but I can't for another few weeks. I know, I know, suspense is a killer.

What a can tell you about is my birthday party. I turned twenty three a fortnight ago (and yet the night before my birthday I got asked for my ID to prove I was sixteen so I could buy a lottery ticket) and, to celebrate the anniversary of my glorious birth, we had a BBQ. All themes were banned after the Wonderland Extravaganza I organised last year. Apparently my mother wasn't entirely on board with the amount of glue-gunning and googly eyes required to make our garden look like a Lewis Caroll novel.

But a theme emerged on its own and that theme was Jack Daniels. We had Jack Daniels chicken, Jack Daniels cupcakes, Jack Daniels bottles as ornaments and generally so much Jack Daniels that I spent the entire next day wondering whether or not I'd be able to survive the hangover.

But the BBQ was a success. My friend Beth from North Wales came to stay again. She is the perfect person to have around if you’re planning a party. No matter how many cupcakes need to be iced, no matter how stressed I am about the distinct lack of batteries for the fairy lights, no matter how challenging it is to choose the right pair of shoes, she is always able to keep a level head, sort everything out and stick Toddlers and Tiaras on to calm me down.

Everyone had a great time. Auntie Linda insisted on being the ‘quiz master’ despite the fact that the ‘riddles’ she was asking us were, in fact, jokes. Lauren managed to sneak at least three Jack Daniels cupcakes before I managed to explain to her they weren’t chocolate (and then possibly another two afterwards). And I got up on a chair and sang pretty much the entire Frozen soundtrack at the top of my lungs. At one point, during my somewhat overly enthusiastic rendition of Love is an Open Door, it was only my uncle’s quick reactions that stopped me falling off the chair. I didn’t miss a note despite the near death experience.

As the night progressed we ended up squashed into my Dad’s man cave (his shed decked out with all kinds of weird and wonderful man-type things). It was there that we had a sing-a-long to Les Miserables. It was well past midnight by this point so my sincerest apologies to my neighbours.

And then, when the last of my guests got up to leave, the vodka got the better of me and I burst into tears. There is a reason I don’t drink vodka. I’ve sat on a pavement crying into my handbag at the age of eighteen, wailed with strangers in the toilets of Wind Street on more than one occasion and bawled my way through many a walk home in Exeter and vodka is always to blame. It’s a real conflict of interests because I simply can’t rule Cosmopolitans out of my diet.

So, after a lot of singing, dancing laughing, drinking and, eventually, wailing, I headed to bed. And bed is where I stayed for the whole of the next day. Since then even the thought of alcohol turns my stomach. So, odds are, my twenty fourth birthday party will not be Jack Daniels themed. But, crying and vomiting aside, I had a really wonderful time. I only wish I’d eaten more burgers…

A Princess Perfect Frozen Party...and Some Woman in a Wig.

The Littlest Loon turned five last week and, as a family, Wellingtons are not known for throwing low key, run of the mill celebrations. I attempted to throw a small, casual gathering for my birthday last September and ended up with a full blown Alice in Wonderland extravaganza  ("I want it to feel like an opium trip...lots of clocks and giant mushrooms..."). So it seemed only natural that I would spend the weeks leading up to Lauren's birthday battling with the glue gun, brushing glitter out of my hair and running around town trying to find a life-sized Olaf balloon to put together a Frozen themed party fit for a princess.

The party itself was a roaring success. True, there was a brief period at the start when things looked a little rocky. Lauren worked out how to use the smoke machine and, within a few minutes, you couldn't see from one side of the room to the other. Then the smoke alarms went off and the rest of the building started to evacuate. Right in the midst of the piercing shrieks of the fire alarm, the Elsa impersonator turned up and added an entirely new dimension of weirdness to the scene. Her yellow wig was off centre and her black bra was on show. Overall, I'm not sure anyone was convinced she was really the Queen of Arendelle.

"I'm not sure anyone was convinced..."

But, once we'd deactivated the smoke alarms, opened all the doors and windows to let out the fog, and 'Elsa' had left the building, things really picked up. We had all the usual children's party games, pass the parcel and musical statues. Then we brought out the karaoke, which was simply adorable right up until the third or fourth time I had to listen to another rendition of Let it Go. There were happy children everywhere and, after the last little one headed off with their party cone and a big grin on her face, I was more than happy to take a deep breath, relax into a chair and have a Jack Daniels. Who would have thought organising a fifth birthday party could be so stressful?


Anyway, I thought I'd show you some of the little bits and pieces I put together for the party in case any of you are planning a Frozen themed party of your own and want a few ideas. Most of the decorations I made were put together with things I already had around the house so be creative. In this instance anything with glitter is probably going to work just fine. 

I rushed this sign yesterday morning right before we went to the party and it's taken me until just now to realise I'd spelled Arendelle wrong (I knew it didn't look right!). Luckily most of our guests can't read very well yet so I think it went undetected for the most part.  

 I loved these little jars! I made three of them and each was slightly different. They were very simple to make, although quite time consuming. I made some very small tissue pom poms (instructions can be found on Google), glued them to some ice blue straws and embellished them with glitter and sparkly ribbon. I cut some snowflakes out of plain white card (who knew snowflakes were so hard to draw?) and added some gems and glitter and stuck them to the straws too. I made the little snowmen out of little white pom poms and coloured wooden craft sticks. Then I added some ribbon and sparkles to glass jars, stuffed them with cotton wool and arranged the decorations inside. 

I wish we had a better picture of the snow doorway, but you get the idea. The kids loved it (although by the end of the party it looked less like a flurry and more like the aftermath of a blizzard). I just threaded cotton wool balls of various sizes onto fishing wire. With the glue gun I secured each ball with a dot of glue underneath so they wouldn't slide back down the wire. Then I attached each length of fishing wire to ribbon, which we then pinned to the door frame so guests had to walk through the snow to enter the party.

These little food signs were easy to make and really emphasized the theme. It's essentially folded card that looks fancy because I added glittery snowflakes and cut it with a craft scissors. Sometimes the simplest things look the most effective.

I piped faces and buttons onto these marshmallows with writing icing. I never want to see another marshmallow for as long as I live, but the kids really loved them.

 

The Sven cupcakes were a big hit! All I did was ice my cupcakes with chocolate butter-cream, use mini marshmallows for the noses, iced on the eyes and mouths with writing icing and used cut up Curly Wurlys for the antlers.

Then my sister-in-law amazed everyone by making a three tier birthday cake. True, it's got nothing on Cake Boss, but considering she just picked up some icing and thought, 'I think I'll make Lauren's cake myself' I think it's fabulous! I thought cupcakes were stressful, but this is something else entirely!

Needless to say, it's going to be a while before I can bring myself to watch Frozen again. I'm still finding glitter in my shoes and last night, after weeks of stressful planning and late night glue-gunning, I slept for a solid twelve hours without any party related nightmares for the first time in a while. But Princess Lauren had a fabulous time and overall I'd call it a success. 

Now to plan my birthday party for next weekend. I've been pre-warned by my mother that this year all themes are banned...

The Job Hunt

Once upon a time I worked in a Call Centre. Customers swore at me and made me cry and I was gulping down Kalms as if they were Skittles on a daily basis. But I look back at that time in my life with a kind of wonder. Back then I had a monthly income. True, I also had no self-esteem and a great many nights where I woke up screaming about PPI, but I had money for YSL make up and Cosmopolitans and an endless amount of shoes. Three years later I have a BA, a great gaping hole in my bank balance and no job on the horizon.

I knew the job market wasn't great, but I didn't think a girl with my qualifications and infectious laugh (scrap that, it’s more of a cackle) would be finding it so difficult. I haven’t limited my options. I’ve applied for waitressing, admin, retail, secretarial…true I didn't apply for the grave-digging job my friend went for, but you have to draw the line somewhere. But, if nothing else, I've come away from my various failed interviews with experience…and something to write about.

The first interview I went to was for a sales position for a high end beauty brand. I sent off my CV, highlighting my sales experience and beauty channel on Youtube (I knew they’d want a girl who knew her way around an eyeshadow palette). A few weeks later, joy of joys, I was invited to an interview. At this point I genuinely thought it was in the bag so long as I could get my hair to lie flat on the day of the interview.

But when I rounded the corner of the department store on the day of my interview, I couldn't believe what I saw. Over a hundred girls were queueing up outside the door, all dressed in black. Either there’d been a tragedy in the shoe department or we had all showed up for the same interview. I joined the queue, prayed my feet would last in my new shoes, and looked around in despair at the hordes of girls. Faces all around with kohl eyes, red lips and hair that was lying flat. That day I queued for 2 hours and 15 minutes for my interview. Soon the queue was wrapped right the way around the side of the shop. On at least four occasions people approached me to ask if the shop was doing a giveaway.

But eventually it was my turn. It was worryingly similar to the kind of quizzes you get in magazines for teen girls. I kid you not when I say that at the end the interviewer added up a score to see if I’d passed or not. I did. I’d be called back for a follow up interview…some time between April and June. After wasting an entire morning and getting blisters on my feet, all I had was a vague promise that, some time in the future (no one knew when) I could come back to try and impress them all over again. My nine year old nephew runs his loom-band business better than that!

Then there was the job I attempted to apply for in the new coffee shop in town. The manager didn't look pleased when I turned up.

“I have got a job going, but, to be honest, I really need someone older who has experience and isn't going to just work here for six weeks and then quit. I don’t want people wasting my time. I’ve had enough people wasting my time.”

“Oh…well I know I look young,” (10:1 he thought I was in secondary school) “But I’m a lot older than I look and I…”

“Yeah, but I need someone who knows how to run the place. I've had people in here who can’t even turn the coffee machine on. If you haven’t got experience don’t even bother. I won’t even read the CV.”

“Actually, I've worked in a coffee shop before. I know how everything works and…”

“Yeah, but the thing is I've already hired and fired seven people. I just don’t want people wasting my time.”

“Ok…so do you have an application form or…?”

“No.”

I'm not entirely sure whether that counts as a failed interview or whether it’s just an indication of how strange some people in Port Talbot can be.

Then there are issues with my qualifications. Because, what they don’t tell you when you’re revising for your GCSEs is that it’s possible to look too smart in a CV.

“I know you got an A in Maths, but we do everything on the calculator here anyway so it won’t do you any favours.”

“I’ve seen your qualifications. But this job isn’t rocket science, you know.”

And so the job hunt continues and my treasured student life seems all the more fabulous by comparison. Instant noodles and mouldy bedrooms beat this job hunting malarkey any day. 

From Public Pools to the Royal Treatment

Everything suddenly came to a screeching halt. No new blog posts, no new Youtube videos, my nails are a disaster and I can barely remember what my friends look like. Over the past month all of my time has been sucked into some kind of vortex and I'm not entirely sure what I've even been doing other than looking for jobs and mourning the loss of my footless and fancy free student days.

Maybe I haven't adjusted to living with my parents again yet. I'm used to waking up to a plan I made the night before or a totally blank canvas ("What's the plan for the day? Four hours of Netflix followed by cocktails and the Sex and the City drinking game with my housemates? Why not?") Last week I woke up to the sound of Lauren scampering into my room.
"We're going swimming!"
I broached the subject with my mother. Admittedly, rather tactlessly.
"Swimming? Nobody consulted me. I could have had plans for all you knew."
"You don't though, do you?" She said, knowingly.

She was right. It was meant to be one of those blank canvas days. Maybe I'd have gone to pilates. Maybe I'd have gone to the pub. Maybe I'd even have finally gotten around to writing my new blog post. But my blank canvas day was snatched away and instead I was heading to the swimming pool with two small children. Still, my soul was, as of yet, uncrushed.

That quickly changed.

We drove all the way over the Swansea, only to find out the gym we're a member of wasn't open to children for another hour. Try explaining that to a four year old diva. So we ended up on the road again, heading towards the public pool in Neath, which, as it turns out (the lady on the phone failed to mention this little gem) is free for all school children after 2pm. Wonderful if you're a ten year old, but not so great if you arrive at quarter to 2 with a small child in a wheelchair and a tiny loon with no patience and find yourself in a queue that winds itself around the building. Especially as my mother had phoned ahead to make sure we could go straight over with the wheelchair with no problems.

Lost adrift in a turbulent sea of scores of screeching children with a worrying lack of manners, I started to lose it. To cut a long story short, the staff at reception made me despair at the state of humanity (and the education system) and I ended up wandering around in a towel looking for change for the locker. This is why I pay a monthly membership for the Village. That and the Village has ample room to do hair and make up when you're done working out.

Anyway, that's the kind of thing I have to put up with now that I'm no longer living the glorified student life. One small mercy is that I had to come back to Exeter for today's exam and I stayed overnight on campus. It was like being a fresher again, brushing my teeth in my little en-suit, collapsing into bed safe in the knowledge that there was nothing to wake me except an alarm I personally controlled. No one tried to make morning conversation. No one asked me to do the dishes. It was bliss.

The red line is the ridiculous route I took

What made it even better was that I was staying in Holland Hall, which will mean nothing to you if you didn't go to the University of Exeter and will mean everything to you if you did. Back when we lived on campus, hearing someone say, "I live in Holland Hall" was like hearing someone say, "My father wears tweed and shoots pheasant...which the servants then cook." At £6988.80 for a 32 week contract, it's officially like the Mecca of Exeter rah culture. Oh the rumours I've heard about that place...

After searching for it for 20 minutes and seeing no sign of it, I was concerned. I'd lived down that end of the campus two years ago. It isn't a big place. I took the most obscure route possible, finding myself lost more than once. ("Wait...why is there a children's park here? Where am I?" And so forth.) I started to worry there was some kind of Hogwarts-style enchantment over the place so that peasants couldn't see it.

And then I found it. Perched on the perfect spot for stunning panoramic views, close enough to campus to crawl there in the mornings with the least amount of uphill walking (a big problem in Exeter), courtyards, an outdoor dining area, a bar, full English breakfast with a selection of cereals and juices on the side...it lived up to all my expectations. Still, a girl like me with a valleys accent and an aversion to gilets would have burned upon crossing the threshold if it hadn't been during the summer vacation.

So call me a loser, but my trip to Exeter to sit my exam has been like a mini holiday. I got to have fried bread with breakfast, didn't have to share my bathroom, and no one ordered me to go swimming. In reality, I'm not really all that hard to please...

Another Little Loon

So I’m nearing the end of a 4 and half hour train journey up to North Wales to visit one of my best friends, Beth. I do not enjoy trains. Public transport is, after all, where society’s loons congregate. Like the lady across the carriage who stared intently at me for 20 minutes. And the old woman who stood in the middle of the aisle, shouting about everyone and everything and refused to take her seat because she was convinced the conductor was ‘up to something’.

So I thought it would help make time go by a little faster (and keep me from having to make eye contact with anyone) if I caught up on some blogging. Despite the fact that my life has become boring and meaningless since I left uni, it’s surprisingly hard to find the time to sit down and type up a blog. 

If you read The Littlest Loon then you'll get the idea behind this post. This time the spotlight falls on my nine year old nephew, Ellis, who was born an old man and, in recent months, has taken to informing me that I'm embarrassingly uncool (gone are the days when my knowledge of Disney films and extensive fancy dress collection made me a legend in his eyes).

A few weeks ago I asked him a series of questions to see what kinds of bizarre ideas lurk in that little brain of his. There are some very odd answers. Everything I said is in red and Ellis' ramblings are in blue. 

What makes you the most happy?

Having someone to play with.

What’s your favourite food?

Meat.

What advice would you give to mammy and daddy?

You’re awesome.

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

Not go to school.

You’re not in school now and you’re visible.

...Still not go to school.

What’s your favourite thing about Lauren?

Pause

She's cute?

What’s your least favourite thing about Lauren?

She annoying.

What are the best at?

Building things.

How would you describe your Auntie Aimee?

She’s amazing! (Emphasis added)

What’s your favourite memory?

When I went to Disneyland?

What part?

When I went to Sea World.

What was your favourite holiday?

When I went to Greece for the last time. 

If you could go anywhere where would you go?

Texas.

Why?

Because it’s awesome.

If you had a million pound what would you do?

…..

Mulling it over?

…..

A million pound. What would you do?

Go to Route 66 and buy the Lego Movie video game…because that’s the best game you can get and you can get a better chance of not having a glitch if you buy it in California.

…Ok.

What’s your favourite time of the year?

Summer.

Why?

Because it’s the season that people umm…go on strike. And you can go down the beach a lot.

Do you have a girlfriend?

No.

Do you want a girlfriend?

No.

Why?
Because I don’t.

What five words best describe you?

That’s too hard for me. I can’t.

What’s the hardest thing about being a kid?

You have to do more…you have a lot of problems because you have lots of bullies.

What’s the best thing about being a kid?

That if a ship is sinking, children get off first.

If you could have one super power, what super power would you have?

Oooh. I can’t think...Telekinese.

Telekinesis?

Yeah.

What do you want for Christmas this year?

Mmm. Disney Infinity 2.0 if I don’t get it… if it isn’t….no. No, not that. The Lego Movie video game. That’s the main one.

And now that I've shared the weird and wonderful musings of a nine year old loon, I have to return to my train journey of doom...making a concious effort not to accidentally glance over in the direction of the woman I'm pretty sure is still staring at me.