please find my list for the week below:
- Love… especially mine. This fabulous feeling where you can be unashamedly yourself and not have to worry that your other half might wake up one morning and realise they don’t find you as sexy/smart/funny as they did when they went to bed. This love feels so… huge and pure and real. Even at a distance of three-thousand miles, I still feel the most ferocious of fires burning in my little heart for him. I feel so much like there is nothing I have to hide from him. I don’t have to pretend to be something I am not for fear that he may not want to spend the rest of his life with me. I feel like I am finally allowed to be danie again. Be me and be loved entirely for it, no questions asked. He loves me for everything about me and says he will for the rest of our lives. Why do I believe him? Because he never stopped. He’s held a torch for me since the day we met and it hasn’t faltered one iota, and I feel exactly the same way. He and I are in this for the rest of forever and I can’t help but be excited to see what it looks like.
- My friends… every day I fall deeper in love with all of my friends. They are just the most stupendous, wonderful creatures in the world, all for their own special reasons. I love that I have so many friends here that have supported me through this crappy divorce. I love that most of my creatures in America have been lovely and kept in touch despite me being really lame. I love that ALL my beasties are so wary of the muffin and want to grill him to ensure that he will be perfect for making danie happy. I adore that I have a special, wonderful bond that is tailored individually for each friend which makes what we share outrageously unique and beautiful.
- Knowing people fear me… yeah, I know this SOUNDS terrible in theory, but me coming back to work has REALLY whipped a lot of people back into shape. Let me tell you one of the things I do… at my job, one of my titles is ‘Casenotes Investigations Lead’ and before I went off, that entailed me monitoring ALL movements of patient files on an online, in-house tracking system. This online system allows people to book files in and out when they have been received or sent. I monitor ALL movements, collate the data and target trouble areas for the purposes of increased training and to reduce the risk of incidents and near-misses (GOD, how fucking awesome does THAT sound?!). So, before I went off, I was in charge of ringing people if a set of patient files hadn’t been moved for seven days. While most people would be fairly relaxed about this, I wasn’t. I wanted people to get it right the first time and if they didn’t, I wanted to put the fear into them so they wouldn’t do it again. As you can imagine, with my time off, not a lot of chasing had been done. One lady has done SOME of it, but she really is fairly chill about it. So in walks danie again, ready to kick some butts. Since my return, I have been gifted a more exciting role that involves me doing a LOT of data collating and reporting and REALLY closely monitoring problem areas but also, when a certain area is giving the lady who is NOW doing the daily calls hassle, they set me on them. After about two weeks of chasing issues with one location, this lady came to me and asked me to sort it… I rang them and asked for the person responsible (grace) and they passed me on to her with a murmur, ‘it’s DANIE, gosh it’s danie!’ I politely asked her to sort it by lunchtime or I would forward a request for her to fill out an incident form for each of the un-booked-in files (of which there were twenty-eight). Within one hour all the issues had been sorted. It makes me pleased to know that I have instilled that kind of fear in people. I ring, they hear my name and immediately stand to attention and sort their crap out. It pleases me.
- Lovely people from IT… of all the people I have missed during my time off, in the top three is a gentleman that works in IT called David Wiggins. Because I am an efficiency and IT nazi, I log A LOT of calls. David has grown to know me as the sassy American who is VERY aware of what needs to be done to troubleshoot a problem. He is also familiar with the fact that danie does not need to be patronized. We always have some fun banter and enjoy a nice little chat when I ring. I made my first call to mr. wiggins today and he was more than delighted when he rang me back. He told me I was a troublemaker and said that he presumed the lack of calls from the for the last two months had been denoted to one of three things: 1) danie was very ill, 2) danie has been able to sort out any and all problems with her computer and network without the help of IT or 3) danie gets more annual leave time than anyone EVER. I confirmed my absence was clearly as a result of the latter and we mused about how nice it would be to have more than 31 days of holiday a year. He was delightful and I appreciate delightful people. Another honourable mention for excellent IT staff is Lydia, who is a super-sassy negro who has the biggest wedding ring I have ever seen in my life. We tend to sit around and eat a lot of wasabi peas and talk about America when she comes into the office.
- Being back at workies… I won’t lie, I was slightly apprehensive to return to work last Monday. Nonetheless, I returned and it was triumphant and has been made of win. Granted, it was slightly strange my first few days (as everyone acted as though I was just some fragile, incapable creature and were therefore too frightened to come to me with work to do) but it soon picked up and I am really, REALLY happy to be back. To have a routine again and feel needed and like I am contributing to something greater than my woollen creations and increasing my friend’s risks of diabetes with my baked goods. I feel like I have just slid right back to where I needed to be and feel really happy and confident.
- My typing abilities… 86 words per minutes with only a 92% error rate, GO ME!
- My new necklace… I knew the instant the muffin linked me to the site that I would NEED to own the fabulous piece of jewellery that was highlighted in the first entry. I saw it and KNEW my life would not be complete unless I had it in my life. I ordered the necklace and came home to find it happily awaiting my excited face on Friday. I squee’d and then pranced to my bedroom and tossed myself on my bed and kicked my legs around like an excited adolescent. It is everything I could have ever hoped for and gets the BEST reactions in the world. People either ADORE it or think it is for sure the most disgusting thing they have ever seen. Me, I feel it is the best purchase I have ever made in my life.
- Confidence… since speaking to the muffin, my confidence has increased by leaps and bounds. Every day I feel just slightly more comfortable in my own skin and am expressing that in all the right ways. Since I’ve been in England I have had an anchor around my neck in the shape of insecurity and I am very slowly and cautiously shifting that anchor off myself. I gained a lot of weight in the last five years and granted, my recent loss of nearly 3 stone was not achieved in the healthiest of ways, I have STILL lost it and I feel incredible for it. I feel so much happier to prance down the street when a dress I bought ages ago fits in the morning. It makes all the difference.
- meeting new people
- blowing my nose
- buying new underwear
- hot water bottles
- teeth
- the fact that i was designated the official orchestrator for 'project secret santa' in my office!
- barbies
- dr pepper
- cups of tea with three sugars and LOTS of milk in
- racist texts from janey
- really FUCKING hot baths
- architecture in helsinki
- rainbowfish
- painting my nails
- augusten burroughs
- my sequinned leggings
- my enchiladas
- home-made spanish rice
- scented markers
- the precious bear mug i got from my janeyface for my birthday
- lying with my body pressed against the radiator on a particularly frigid day
- interesting facts
- being one step closer
- when my horoscope is apt
- OMGASHLEYISENGAGED!!!
- making to-do lists and then crossing things off of it
- the fact that i am now the muffin's friend on facebook (i know it sounds sad, but i LOVE being friends with people on facebook and it was always QUITE a sore subject when it was brought up)
- and the following photos... enjoy!
