Eau de Cheap

I absolutely hate seeing luxury perfumes making their way into low-end department stores.
I know, it's elitist and shallow, but surely the manufacturers should be protecting the integrity of their brands by maintaining exclusivity? Offloading your merchandise for $50 a bottle at Big W or Target hardly screams opulence.
Sure, Britney's plastic-bottled creations are perfect for a discount chain, and if people want to buy 'designer replicas', they're welcome to. But the moment I see my favourites popping up in the cheapy catalogues, is when I deplete the bottle, and not ever buy it again. I suppose they're my favourites for the very reason that they're unlikely to be candidates for bargain time.

Okay, I'm done.

Hey, does anyone know when the next Clinique Gift Time is? I need to replenish my supplies (I am sooooooo addicted to Clarifying Lotion), and who doesn't love a little something extra?

Dear God, I am starving. I beseech you to conjure up a goat's cheese tart between your other, rather more important duties.

Allo!

So, what's happening?

My car died. It's been resurrected since, but I'm very, very lucky that it only cost me around $200 to fix, including the towing charge from Brighton to my mechanic in Somerville.
Apparently there's a chance that the head gasket might warp in the future, which would cost over $1000 to repair. My mechanic is gobsmacked that I was able to make it as far as I did without frying the engine... I got to within walking distance from work, which was handy, really (I say this retrospectively, at the time I was CHEESED, especially as Stu was in Sydney, so could only save me from afar).

I keep waking up at around 4-5 am, inexplicably. I'm not feeling too tired during the day, nor am I falling in to bed exhausted, but I feel robbed.

I've been playing squash about once a week with my little brother John - so much fun! But he's like, mega-champion of the squash world, and I am ultra amateur, so his patience is something to behold. I'd love to play more often, but Stu's reluctant to take out a membership, and John only has so many days to spare. Anyone down my way wanna play?

We've changed just about everything to do with the wedding - we'll eventually elaborate on that on the other dormant blog.

Still doing well at work, winning awards, getting bonuses and receiving compliments. Hurrah! Sometimes though I feel that it's too good to be true, and I'll be back in an admin role, or worse, unemployed again... but then I guess that's why I make an effort - once bitten, twice shy, all that.

I'm the same old weight as usual. It goes down, 'my time' comes along, it goes up, I work out really hard, it goes down, I have seventeen birthdays in a week, it goes up, I play squash, it goes down. I'm going to see a counsellor, to make sure that I can maintain my enthusiasm, and learn to say no to grandmas who insist I must have cake.

That's all - smooch!