moving to university

today is the day I move to university.
its a very weird feeling, I think my mum summed it up best, it feels like I'm just going on holiday for a couple of weeks, it hasn't quite sunk in how long-term it is.

this morning I'm packing the rest of my stuff, in particular everything in my room (i.e. photo frames, hair stuff, jewellery, clothes). which is going to be a mission but never mind.

we're going to head to oxford after lunch, so I've got a couple of hours to pack everything. then we wait for PJ to come home before taking me to my halls. although PJ has conveniently managed to get out of having to move stuff when we get there since he's now on crutches with a badly sprained ankle...and it takes alot for my brother to be in pain and have to suffer with crutches...so maybe I'll let him off.

I'm writing this blog on my new laptop which is very exciting but still taking some getting used to. my dad just got back from food shopping so after that we're going to pack things up.

its very very weird to be having to pack up most of my room and just going round making sure I get everything from each room.

anyway I ought to go and continue packing!
much love xxx

new laptop

my new laptop has this feature where I can access my blog in a slightly different way. this is just checking to see if it works!

much love

deliberately ringing phones

well it wasn't the doorbell that woke me this morning, it was the phone ringing instead.
who knew I would pretty much predict that happening! it wasn't my laptop being delivered, that's happening tomorrow though, instead it was the stupid hospital asking some questions about my private healthcare insurance from when I had my blood tests and stuff, they say they don't have the information but we've been sent invoices so they clearly do have it...whatever, basically it was a pointless phone call that woke me up.
I know I sound pretty grumpy about it, and I probably shouldn't since 9.30am isn't super early for most people but since I have nothing on this week I was hoping to make the most of it and sleep lots...but doorbells and telephones have had different ideas!

but you read that right, my laptop is coming tomorrow :D yey!! sometime between 8am-1pm...you can guarentee it'll be 8am!
also tomorrow I'm going to visit my cousin before going on to visit wales with Hannah (we're doing it to prove a point!) so hopefully my laptop will come before we leave.

other than that, I have been packing today, I've packed my shoes/coats and most of my kitchen stuff and most of my bathroom stuff! tis very weird but exciting to be packing up my life like this.
that's all for today, am sure I'll blog before I leave on saturday
much love xxx

we have a new doorbell

after a repeat of the events in my last blog this morning (spontaneously ringing doorbell waking me up) I decided enough was enough! after consulting my dad about which one he wanted, I went and bought a doorbell, I also managed to find the special batteries all on my own :) I tried to install it myself too but it needed new holes drilled and that's where I drew the line! but I felt pretty pleased with myself and hopefully tomorrow I won't be woken by silly ringing doorbells!

exciting news: my laptop is finally in the delivery stage! after being told it was delayed and might not be here in time for me going to university, it may be here by the end of the week :D

although you can just imagine that it'll now be delivered early one morning and the doorbell will wake me up anyway! typical!

my birthday last weekend was brilliant :) I had a really good day on friday (the day before) too, I had a haircut and my mum had booked a suprise manicure for me so that was fun. and then we had the Space leavers dinner which was alot of fun. Gareth, Anna, Hannah and I were on a table together which was next to another table with lots of nice people on. we had dinner, chatted and then had some awards given out...I received the 'Andy's Slave' Award for stuffing a million envelopes!! which was funny :) I also got a special thanks for the work I did during my gap year which was nice...they got me a High School Musical folder & stationery set! there's a photo of the moment I got it and the look of pure joy and excitement is ridiculous!
on saturday we had about 40 people at our house for my birthday BBQ, it was such a good party! the people basically split into two catergories, the adults/parents of families and my friends/youth. there was some overlap throughout the afternoon but mostly people were in those groups and I was quite happy to flit between the two :) most of the families left about 3pm but my friends and youth type people stayed until 7ish playing wii and just chilling. and I still had the evening to hang out with my family.
I got so many cards and presents :) I felt very loved, particularly from people who I wasn't expecting anything from! just seeing all these people want to come and spend my birthday with me was very sweet and made me feel special!

this week I am busy packing and sorting stuff for uni but I will post in the next couple of days about that!
for now I'm going to go crash in front of the TV!
much love xxx

spontaneously ringing doorbells

today I was woken by our doorbell spontaneously ringing...again and again and again!
it's been doing it on and off this week, which is very confusing coz you wonder if someone is there but when you go to the door there is no-one and it's still ringing!
yesterday PJ changed the ring setting and it seemed to be fixed but this morning it rang, so I pulled myself out of bed to look out the window (no-one there), it rang again a few minutes later (no-one there), then it rang a total of 8 times which is how long it took me to get downstairs and disconnect the front of the button outside, which appears to have stopped it from ringing....now I just have to hope that people just knock on the door instead of trying to fix our doorbell....

in other news, tomorrow is the Space Leavers Dinner, very exciting, we're going to a restaurant in town and it should be good fun. both Anna and Hannah are coming so I won't be on my own and its really my chance to say goodbye to Space people, I'll probably tag along to the social on sunday night but that's more about welcoming new people whereas the dinner is about saying goodbye to us people going to university.
saturday is my birthday :D it's kind of snuck (I originally wrote 'sneaked' but was corrected by Kat and my mum) up on me, what with holiday club and getting stuff ready for university, it's suddenly nearly my birthday! I'm having a BBQ at my house with quite alot of people, after the kids play area company went into liquidation and I could no longer have it there, it kind of became a slightly more open invitation so hopefully lots of people will come along to celebrate with me and also it's almost a 'going away to uni' party too so will be saying bye to some people :(

in final news, my mum and my godmother have both got blogs now! Auntie A decided to get one because she reads mine and some others and decided that since she's about to go on a trip to the Dominican Republic with a team of doctors and nurses from the hospital where she works in the USA, that she might as well keep people up to date with a blog and also her eldest son has just left for uni. this led my mum to decide that over 40's could have blogs too (although I keep forgetting that both my mum and godmother are over 40!) so started one herself! will be nice once I'm off at uni to be able to read about what they're doing at home :)

that's all, off to learn how to clean a bathroom (something I need to know for uni!)
much love xxx

Holiday Club 2008

Champions Challenge 2008 at Christ Church :)
it was brilliant!!!
exhausting, slightly stressful but fun and exciting and just as great as always!

Monday was set-up day so I spent half the day at church putting up banners, setting up tables, practising and creating actions, pretty much the classic set-up day.

Tuesday was the first day, complete chaos as always! the kids in my group were brilliant and my leaders and teenagers were awesome :) they all really loved our room and really got into the idea of being the loudest at cheering and everything like that. the small group time was good and games were good too. Kat and I did our actions at the front, this year we were cheerleaders, the theme song was pretty good, not outstanding but good. the new songs werent great, the classics were still awesome though!

Wednesday was second day so things had settled down a bit but it was still exciting. today we came up with a chant for our groups and the kids loved it, the fake rivalry and being loud. we did crafts which was good, made medals and olympic torches. I enjoyed our small group time, the kids seemed to really get into the healing stuff, they even gathered round one of the girls who had a broken leg to pray for her, then half of them headed to the prayer shack :) it was great.

Thursday is usually the lull of the week, not new and exciting but settled, actually it was still a pretty good day, we came up with another chant again and just had fun in our group. the kids were brilliant, I was really fortunate with who I got in my age-group.

Friday, last day and it was great :) it started off with me getting another classic goodbye from church with a bit of a flanning...my hair smelt like lemons for the rest of the morning- it was lemon scented shaving foam. in craft we made hats which was fun, Anna made mine and it says 'I love Anna' hehe. I went home in the afternoon to shower and change before ending up back at church for the evening BBQ which I really enjoyed, I spent most of it on the bookstall with Hannah H which was really nice, got to catch up with her and talk to loads of the kids. I was only away from the stall to do the upfront bit, bit more actions and just some laughs.

I'm now home and EXHAUSTED!!!! dancing on stage, running around with my group, generally being enthusiastic all week has taken its toll, I wasn't sure I'd get through this blog coz I'm so tired!

the afternoons and evenings this week have been fun too. I've been finishing my shopping for university (I move into halls in 2 weeks!!!!!) and wednesday night I went to dinner with Nicola, Charlie and Gareth which was funny, food wasn't warm but the waiter made us laugh, he was so arrogant (he had a badge with 'Mr Stud Muffin' on it!) that it was laughable!
Thursday night Anna, Beth, Hannah and I had our Ladies what lunch birthday dinner at Anna's which was fun, then we also went on a drive in the dark which was interesting...particularly when a huge hare ran out in front of my car, we all screamed as I tried to brake in time, I did fortunately and didn't hit it, but it freaked us all out! not nice at all!

tomorrow I plan to do nothing at all! have a day to rest and relax. sunday is the holiday club morning service and I'm going to LF to be a cheerleader which is going to be great :)
next week I'm seeing Footloose (again!), it's the Space Leaver's Dinner, and my birthday!!
should be a good week, time is flying, I'll be going to uni before I know it! I'm excited! haven't really been nervous but i'm now slightly apprehensive, mostly coz it's so close I think I'm starting to think about it more. but I'm still mostly excited!

thats all for tonight I think, it's a pretty long blog I think and I hope to blog again very soon :)
much love xxx

results day

and it felt so good to not have to worry about it!
I mean, obviously I hoped PJ would do well (he got 3 A*'s, 4 A's, 2 B's and a D I believe) but for the first year in a while I didn't even have to think about a results day! all the people I know who took GCSE's this year did very well so that's good but it was weird to not be involved in any of it.

anyway other than that I had a good day, Mum and I did some shopping for university stuff, there's so much to get! but it's a lot of fun to shop for it all, and it makes it so much more exciting.

last night I had dinner round at Mike's house with his family which was very nice :) they'd invited me round ages ago but we never found a date until this week so that was alot of fun.

for the last week or so I've been mostly doing holiday club prep...I'm so EXCITED!!!! it's actually stupid how excited I get about it! particularly because I'm building up to it in such a way. it's going to be a good year, I just know it :)

on tuesday Kat and I went to Reading to do some shopping which was so much fun :) it was nice to spend some time just the two of us and we laughed so hard, particularly after seeing some chavs trying to be really hard whilst buying earrings and then going outside and getting into their gran's car!!!! hehehe was funny :D

other than that I haven't done very much, will hopefully have loads to write about next week during holiday club though.

oh by the way, I'm now friends on facebook with a couple of my flatmates and a few people on my course which is really cool :) getting to know people, makes it slightly less scary hehe.
much love xxx