AshesFromStars

A few weeks back I blogged about how I was on the lookout for a new pair of glasses, since I’ve had mine for a couple of years now and although I love them, they are getting a bit worn out and in need of an update. I’ve been scouring the internet looking for websites that sell cool glasses in my quirky style (my current frames a bit emo and two-tone. And awesome beyond belief) and I wish I’d come across Zenni Optical before Christmas, because their Holiday frames are so cute!

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After goodness how long of not going out, ever I seem to be doing it a lot recently. Which I’m rather happy about. Take this week for instance, on Thursday night I was out with people from work which was a fantastic idea at the time until I realised it was nearly 3am and we started work at 6.45am! Friday during the day was spent half asleep and drinking a lot of Rock Star just to keep me awake. Not going to repeat that again.

Tonight I’m going down to my friends house. We were supervisors together in my old shop so it’ll be great catching up with him, missing working with him and talking random rubbish. It was his birthday during the week so am going to drop off his birthday present and do some serious catching up. No doubt he’ll end up getting me drunk which will not be good for anybody involved, I just don’t do drinking very well at all. I’m blaming him for the change in my taste in music, I’m listening to Clubland 14 at the moment.. what!? I’m a rock chick for goodness sakes. It’s due to him constantly playing Clubland CDs in work that I’m so into dance music these days. I use the term dance very loosely mind you, it’s just chav-tasticness at it’s cheesiest.

I’m really wanting to go to London to see Lou as well, or maybe it’s more to do with the fact that she practically lives in Beach Blanket Babylon and it looks gorgeous. And the small matter of who (used to be?) the executive chef there! Lou is an old friend that I know from way back… from GirLand.com. Gosh that takes me back. Anyway she’s living in London, is a fashion student and I’m generally 100% jealous of her life! We’re going to do a joint DITL just to see exactly how different our lives are, even though I know that they’re about as opposite as you could get. Interesting to see the results I think!

Eek! Running late, I need to go get ready to go out, and make sure that my new UGG boots from UGG Knightsbridge actually fit. They’re going to keep me nice and toasty tonight waiting on the bus!

I will try rather hard not to post an entry later if I’ve been drinking, but usually I can’t help myself posting rubbish that I think is amusing at the time…

I’ve gone from updating nearly every single day to barely managing to get online at all! Sorry, this is what working in retail at Christmas does to you, you work your ass off all day then come home and fall asleep in front of Lipstick Jungle!

Yesterday in store we had our quarterly director’s visit. They went really, really well as far as I’m concerned. You never know what they’re going to be looking for or checking so it’s a bit of a gamble…you know, wither you have this in stock or that advertising on the shelf. Obviously you should always have things in stock and have advertising on products but it’s not always possible… whatever, the manager and I got a compliment saying the shop looked better than ever and we briefly spoke about my move to that shop so all was good.

Now that the shop’s up to the standard of getting compliments from operations directors, I really want it to stay that way. It’s far too easy to let things slip and have a mad rush getting things back on track for visits.. why can’t it be like that all the time? I’m on a mission to make sure that the place stays as tidy and clean as possible - all the time. It won’t be easy, but who ever said it would be?

In other amazing life-of-Mel news, I’ve finished my Christmas shopping. Woohoo! I did 99.9% of it online, at about 3am last Friday. It’s still to be delivered, wrapped and whatnot but at least I’ve done it. And on a pretty tight budget to be honest. I’m impressed with myself on that one, since I always spend way more than I mean to because I just have to get everything that I think the person will like - no self control when I’m shopping what so ever.

What else have I been up to? Hmmm. I’ve started talking to my ex-boyfriend again, after not seeing him for about 4 years. Well, I don’t even think we spoke to each other then. I had gotten my job back in TK Maxx for Christmas and was sitting in the break room, talking to my manager about what I’d been up to since I left. And guess who walks into the break room? Yeh - my ex-boyfriend. Seriously think that was the single most awkward situation of my life, ever. No, actually working on a till right next to him was and trying not to laugh probably was! Anyway, I downloaded MSN messenger again after a life time of not using it, and could only remember about 4 email addresses of people that I used to talk to and he was one of them. It’s been interesting catching up!

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!

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.

1. Websites had version numbers in the titles - like AshesFromStars.com version 26 - punkrawk!
2. Everybody had plugboards in their sidebar?
3. We all felt rather ?
4. It was mighty important to tell your visitors what you were currently wearing, drinking, eating, watching, thinking…
5. Greymatter and Bravenet guestbooks ruled the ‘net
6. Speaking of sidebars, why did we have them 100px wide with 6pt justified text? Or was that just me?
7. Scrollbars were coloured to match layouts, especially when they were for an iframe
8. exotic backgrounds included black and white grid boards and punky photoshop brushes yanked from LiveJournal icon communities.
9. We didn’t use words for navigation, preferring to use 001, 002, 003, 004, 005 with no title tags instead.
10. TodaysDomainOnline.com was the place to plug your site?

Needless to say, I just found one of my old websites and cringed.

For example:
reviews.chemical-69.org
hellodarling.org
sparkling-stars.co.uk

lookiez I made a layout for glowenshi and it bloody well rocks! I love it love it love it love it love it! hehe…it’s totally, and utterly….well go see for urself anf sign da gbook while ur at it! hehe
xox

- sparkling-stars.co.uk blog entry from August 03 2001.

I will go silently and die of embarrassment now.

Yup, November. The time where I start worrying about Christmas presents that I’ve to buy, how I’m going to out-do myself over the presents I purchased last year and how the heck I’m going to stick to my budget. Oh, and the fact that I only have two more pay days until Christmas.

Not only that but I have my mother’s birthday between now and Christmas too; and she’s the hardest person on the planet to buy gifts for.

Usually I love shopping, even window shopping. But come November I hate it due to the Christmas music, decorations and people seem to become so rude when the holiday shopping season starts. I’m trying to do as much as I can online this year to stop me wanting to kill Santa’s little helpers and throttle unhelpful temp staff that seem to take over the shopping center.

I have some amazing ideas for gifts this year, I’m just thankful that I have a small group of family and friends because every year it’s getting harder to think of gifts for each and everyone of them. Take for instance my grandmother. She’s nearly 80 and her entire life is made up of reading magazines, doing crosswords and watching the few channels on cable she can work out how to access. Every single year I struggle to find a suitable present for her. This year I’m taking the easy way out - £40 in Debenhams vouchers.

Have any of you started your holiday shopping yet? Or are you one of the amazing people that can leave it all until Christmas Eve and still end up with the best gifts ever?

You can share your own shopping confessions over at shopandconfess.com and win up to $1,500. Just remember to use my blog as your referrer!

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