AshesFromStars

I just realised that I’ve had my glasses for nearly 4 years, without having any followup eye tests - oops! I have no excuse either, all eye tests are free in Scotland and you can’t get cheaper than that. I think what’s put me off is that fact that the price of glasses is so high, my current ones were £150! Granted they are DKNY ones with anti-scratch and anti-glare coatings on the lenses and I got a second pair free, but I never wear them as I don’t think they suit me anymore.

See me and the boy were talking about Christmas presents and I was throwing ideas around and decided that I’d love a new pair of glasses, I wear them all day every day and I’d like a change. Plus there’s a good chance that my prescription for lenses will have changed over the past four years. So of course I did what I usually do, hit Google in search of glasses that I like before I take the plunge and go get my eyes tested again, since it’s something that I don’t enjoy very much.

I came across Optical4Less.com which sell loads of different eyeglasses at really, really cheap prices. Like, well within our price range. And they offer worldwide shipping and they have a sort of virtual mirror system, where you can upload your own photograph and try on their frames over the picture to see what the glasses will look like on. Awesome. I’ve got my eye (haha, no pun intended) on two pairs that I really like that the boy said he’ll throw in as part of my Christmas present as long as I go and get my eyes tested this week. I guess I’ll just need to take the plunge and get it done.

The glasses that I’m interested in are just like the ones I have just now, typically. But they suit my face. And at $29 you can’t really go wrong, can you? There’s some frames on the website at $15, heck that’s like £10 - the price of a good bottle of wine or a return train ticket into town. That’s crazy cheap, exactly what we need in the current economical climate!

1. What’s a profession you believe to be overpaid?
2. Who’s a musician you believe to be overrated?
3. What in your life could stand to be overhauled?
4. What’s something interesting you recently overheard?
5. Who is the most overextended person you know?

1. Generally, anybody who works less than me but gets paid more. I work solidly for 10 hours a day, don’t really take any breaks and get a measly £6.65 an hour. Rubbish
2. The Beatles. I really can’t stand them, and I cringe and cover my ears any time I hear that bloody ‘Imagine’ song. Sorry, but John Lennon isn’t god and that isn’t the best song in the world, ever.
3. At the moment, probably my debts!
4. Aha, if I told you that then it wouldn’t come true. And I didn’t specifically over hear it, I was meant to hear it but not in the way that I did. Lets just say it made my heart race…in a good way
5. Financially, myself.

From Friday5.org

I am mighty confused about life at the moment. And I just want one bloody thing right now and I don’t know if it’s going to happen but the excitement and waiting is killing me.

My LiveJournal has all the juicy details, if you’re interested.

I am so darn annoyed right now. Like I said in the last aside that I posted, I’ve spent the entire day typing up the last module of my management training program which is due in tomorrow. I knew that I was either there tomorrow or next Wednesday, but wasn’t too sure.

The reason I found out that it was tomorrow? My ex boss text me this morning to tell me. Apparently there was an email sent to our stores informing us that we were to attend head office tomorrow and take everything with us as it’s to be handed into the operations director at the end of the meeting.

Question is, why didn’t somebody from my store phone me to let me know that I’d to take all my folders with me? Is it that darn hard to pick up the phone and let me know? I know that I’m not liked that much in this shop (mainly due to the fact I work damn bloody hard and show them up) but trying to sabotage my career by not passing on important information? That’s pissed me off.

So now, I’m going into the shop tomorrow morning. Just show up at 7am in order to print a few things off that can only be accessed and printed via the POS systems back computer and to make a point of asking why on earth nobody called me.

Don’t get me wrong, I’d have realised that I was there tomorrow by reading the timetable that’s in my folder. But I wouldn’t have known that it had to be 100% completed in order to be handed in and checked to allow us to pass the course.

Thankfully I’m just tying up loose ends now and just need to collect some evidence in the morning. And print about 200+ pages using the shop’s computer… hopefully we’ve got loads of paper in the shop or I’m in big trouble!

I got a text message this morning at 9am from my old boss informing me that our MTP is due in tomorrow at 10am to the bloody well director of the company. So I’ve been writing up the module that I haven’t started yet, answering questions I’ve missed on previous modules and generally tying everything up.

I still have about 10 hours ahead of me. And no way to print it - my printer is broken. *scream*

Dear mum and brothers
I know you all read my blog. Bare this post in mind when you start my Christmas shopping. You know I deserve it all.

1. Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab ‘White Rabbit’ perfume oil
2. Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab ‘Gluttony’ perfume oil
3. Canon Digital Rebel camera
4. Rock & Republic Jaguar bootleg jeans
5. Seagate Freeagent Xtreme external 1TB hard drive
6. Anything from my amazon.co.uk wishlist below
7. Hugo Deep Red perfume

Thanks
Bestest Daughter/Sister in the world.

So, as of Monday 1st December VAT in Britain will fall 2.5% to 15% from 17.5%. But what does that actually mean we, the Great British public, are going to be saving?

Not much, to be honest.

Going from a retailer’s point of view (that’s me, by the way) the things that we won’t save money on are:

1. Alcohol
2. Bread
3. Tampons, condoms, nappies etc (you’re only charged 5% on these to begin with)
4. Fresh meat
5. Pet food
6. Newspapers / Magazines
7. Jaffa cakes!!

Basically, anything deemed as being ‘essential’ we don’t get taxed on to begin with so we won’t save money on those. Anything that’s deemed as a luxury, like biscuits, we’ll now save 2.5% on. So a packet of Chocolate Digestives in my shop will now cost 89p, previously costing 92p. The mighty Jaffa cake was deemed not to be a biscuit (i.e. should have 17.5%15% tax on it but a cake (i.e. no tax charged) because ‘biscuits go hard, cakes go soft’ when they’re stale.

Big bloody wow.

Could we not just have a slash of 2.5% in income tax? That would save me £100 a year. Actually, that’s rubbish too.

The only way this will make a difference to me is I’ll save about £10 on my Christmas present shopping, as I usually spend about £250 at this time of year. So that’s £10 that’ll go on cigarettes or something, which will kill me quicker and increase my chances of needing the services of the NHS! I hope Labour know what they’re doing…

1. How’s your health?
2. How was your day?
3. How’s the weather?
4. How do you expect to get anywhere in life with an attitude like that?
5. How many people made you smile today?

1. My health is actually very good for a change. For once in my life I’ve spent the entire month of November free from the cold or flu (touch wood) and haven’t had anything wrong with me in a few months. Heck, now I think about it I haven’t even suffered from PMT as badly as I used to in about 5 months. Result.
2. My day has been very good, thank you very much. I slept late (well, 9am) and got up to a lovely breakfast of strong black coffee and a chocolate croissant. Not a pain au chocolate, you understand. But a gorgeous all-butter croissant covered in chocolate flakes. It was delicious. Very French. I went to the post office and posted six parcels and met the boyfriend for lunch. Then we came home, had some couple time and when he left I jumped online. Been sitting on my laptop for a few hours now
3. The weather is quite good for Scotland today, actually. No rain. No snow. Damn cold though. But I like cold, it means I can wear my gorgeous heavy knit scarves and my military-esque black wool coat. And not look like some strange peeping-Tom
4. I have a pretty carefree attitude, so I expect I’ll go far. Thanks for the concern, though.
5. I know I made my boyfriend smile! And hopefully when the people who bought things from me will smile when they receive their (amazing wrapped and packaged) jewellery on Monday will smile too.
   As for people making me smile? I suppose my dog when she came bounding at me when I got home, and my boyfriend ♥

from Friday5.org

This is crazy; I’ve made over 15 pieces of jewellery today. As well as having to go to Head Office for a meeting which was a complete and utter waste of time, there wasn’t any point in me going there to ‘learn’ things that I already know about. That’s 4 hours of my life that I’ll never get back.

It was a good laugh though, got to meet some of the managers from the new shops and seen some people that I’ve not seen in ages - managers from other shops and my two mates from my old shop. That was worth the effort going.

As for the jewellery, I’ve sold 10 things since Saturday morning. Three online through the website and a few to friends and my mother’s friends. Plus I’ve covered all my expenses so far so everything I make now is profit, until I start buying charms and chains again!

Day off tomorrow and I can see myself spending the entire day doing absolutely nothing apart from catch up on all the TV that I’ve missed over the past week.

I admit that I’m pretty lame at including photographs in posts regularly here at AFScom. It mainly comes down to the fact that I constantly forget to take my camera out with me, half the time I forget something simple like a jacket when it’s cold so it’s no wonder my digital camera gets left at home.

It’s a shame really, because photographs and pictures really make a blog in my opinion. I love seeing what people are up to, what their families look like, where they went on holiday - through their eyes.

One way to include blog pictures is to sign up for acobox.com where they host photographs specifically for you to post in your blog. You can add your own photographs for others to use too. The best bit? None of your bandwidth is used up as acobox.com host the images on their own site. Bonus.

I’ve had a look around their site and the have loads of images, all in categories such as ‘panorama’, ‘urban, ‘abstract’, ‘animals’, ‘plants’ plus loads more. And there are some great images on there, I love the one above it’s gorgeous and usually I’d expect to have to pay to use such an image through a stock photography website. It’s definitely one of those sites to del.icio.us for future use when you’re in a pickle for a photograph!

Uh, the new release of Twitter Tools has a bug. Sorry for everyone who got 100+ ‘weekly Tweets updates’ in their RSS reader. It’s disabled now.

I’ve had such a busy weekend, done more than I usually do and it’s made me so tired even though it was fun.

On Saturday morning I spent about 4 hours (and £30) finding charms, memory wire, pendants, beads, findings, chains, business cards, well everything really for my new website - honeybee-designs.com - where I’m selling all the jewellery that I make. I opened it on Saturday morning and I’ve made £20 already. Like, that’s crazy. I didn’t expect to make anything until I’d added all the stock and advertised it a bit more. The best bit? I only sold two items, a matching earring / necklace set to one girl. I’m thinking that I’m going to have to spend more time making jewellery than I expected. The fun bit is actually sourcing everything that I’m using to make my pieces, I’m especially into finding antique / vintage jewellery and giving it a new lease of life by updating it and making a brand new piece from it.

Later that night I headed down to the boyfriends house, where we started watching Law & Order Special Victims Unit. Gosh that program is sick but I actually really like it even although some of the cases that they’re solving made me feel ill. At around 8pm I had this sudden thought in my head that I didn’t have my shop keys to open up on Sunday morning, surprise surprise I’d left them in the shop safe - again. So I headed down to the shop to pick them up and decided to pop along to my friends Andy and Carly’s house/flat warming party. They’ve just moved into a flat just along from their work (my old shop) and 10 minutes away from my work so I couldn’t really not go see them. Part of me wishes that I hadn’t as I was so tired in work the next day and there were two people there that I don’t get on with (an other supervisor and his boyfriend, who I’d only met that night. Oh my god, camp as hell. Usually I love camp guys but this dude was overwhelming with his high voice and annoying habit of trying to talk to me when I wasn’t interested). The other part of me is so glad that I went - I love Andy to bits and I miss working with him so much. It was a great night, and I’m seeing him again on Thursday after a meeting at the work’s head office, yay!

Sunday during the day I was working, which was boring. When I was filling out the wage sheet I realised that I’d worked 54 ½ hours last week - that’s crazy. If you include Sunday (ie working Sunday-Sunday) that’s 64½ plus 3½ hours unpaid lunch breaks. No wonder I’m bloody tired.

Since I’d done so much in the shop over the past week I decided that we were having an easy day; everything was done and not much needed doing, just paperwork and tidying up. Although I did find out that my idea of an easy day and the staffs are two different things. It’s starting to piss me off how little they seem to do, or slowly. There’s two members of staff that are awesome and two that aren’t quite so awesome to work with. Funnily enough it’s those two that dislike me because I expect them to work. Hello, you’re in work getting paid, I’m going to make you do something for that £5.57 an hour. Like I’ve said before though, I’ve done the whole making friends in work thing, now it’s all about me getting my promotion and running a fantastic shop. I don’t care if they hate me, it’s my job to make sure that the shop’s run to the best standard that it can be and if that means I expect you to work stock then damn right I’m going to tell you when you’ve done it wrong and make you re-do it. Hah. No wonder I’m known as the bitch (in a loving way, you understand) with my ex-workmates.

• Richard Hammond in another Morrison’s advert? Noooo! #
• Jewellery site nearly ready to go live, woot! #
• http://rev.iew.me is keeping me awake. #
• http://honeybee-designs.com/ <- please fund my Christmas partying. Adding new products all the time x #
• radio1 live lounge 3 is amazing #
• The Automatic - Love In This Club is freaking amazing. #
• Google keeps crashing out on me #
• wohoo, got approved for the Knight Rider (2008) fanlisting. I feel like I’m 16 again #