Alaina Chesney Online

Where to start - so in no particualr order or gramatical sense:

I stained my decking to a mahoganny. its awful - just after one coat I can see how awful the paint is and it wasn’t exactly easy to apply. I am quiet upset and gutted as I am having a few colleagues at my house on Sunday for a BBQ (or grill depending on weather) for the first time and wanted my garden to look spot on. So I have decided to bite the bullet and buy two paint brushes and properly paint it. Rather than attempt the ronseal stupid decking stain again. It currently stands as a terracota mess decking colour. photos on flickr to follow (reminder - must pay for pro account!). Bought a lovely new patio table, 2 3 seater benches and 2 end bechnes for a 8-10 seater solid wood table from BBQ this weekend - apparently 75% off, cost only £139 It looks lovely and I really hope it goes together well and lasts a few years.

I am very worried about the fact I haven’t done anything for the charity newsletter - which has to be passed to the charity by end of August. EEK. So guess I will have to start using my lunches to pull some info together. Going to troll some blogs and flickr accounts to find some good content from some generious people.

Fat class has been going OK. its going on and off, on an off. Now three weeks off - i need to keep it up even if its only 1/2 lb this week off.

Been car less on and off for several weeeks. An idiot went into the back of me at a roundabout so 10days with bodyshop, then got it back for the brake and hazard lights to start coming on and off with no warning and staying on. So went to smart garage to get it looked at - then fixed today yeah - but they told me that the bumpers that were replaced havne’t been fitted properly and have to go back to the body shop to be remounted. great. my car is sitting in various forecourts with a full tank of my money/petrol. i love the medical appointment i have for the accident claim - its in 2 months time! yes, cause i will still have injurys by then - sigh. directline haven’t even got word if the guy has admitted blame for the shunt yet.

Been for another snowboarding lesson - 3 & 4 - my god the lift is hard work for me! Went up and down and up and down god knows how many painful times. I am goofey footed too, which makes the flipping lift 10times harder to get used to as I find it harder grabbing the lift. Dismounting is amusing te he. Got to go for a practice session for level 4 again as I wasn’t good enough - was very tired and still sore from car accident. I also had a very bad fall/twisted my board - so that didn’t help as I had to end 20mins early cause my leg hurt too much. I still enjoyed it though and I am addicted!

Being a designer is boring. At least I know the sort of thing I want to do in my future.

Cats are well - even if they are shedding furr for britain! And I am looking forward to going to scotland with my mum at the end of september to lay flowers for my dad’s birthday and for my mum to have a mini break. Been to see many films as well due to the unlimited cards we have - and i loved Wall-e and Mama Mia! Looking forward to Hell boy and Watchman - and no doubt go to see Harry Potter - since I have seen all the others now! Clone Wars next

There isn’t enough time in the days just now - from trying to do some charity stuff, to cinemas, to personal work, to keeping on top of housework, diy, learning to snowboard, cycling (which I am now doing in the morning if I am awake enough as I want to free up evening time), laundry, playing with the cats, seeing friends, spending time with Dave I just give up. I really do. I want to learn a couple of things in my spare time - but how?!?! I don’t even have enough time to keep track of my Weight Watchers and I know this is contributing to my small up and downs in weight over the last 6 weeks. I am stuck indeed.  So ramble over. Have a good day.

I don’t know where to start. I suppose at the beginning of what I can remember i guess!

WW has been going poorly, 2lb gain, 2lbs loss, 2lb gain, stay the same and what not. So thats my goal this week – make the biggest effort ever this week. Nice soup, toast and WW jelly for lunches, and low fat carb dinners after cycling. I am going to make a lovely mushroom risotto tonight, yum.

So last week I got my hair cut, really short. I just wanted something easier to maintain, and keep it ‘messy’, surfer lookish…

I went to Foo Fighters, Wembley Stadium, on Saturday night. In short, awesome. AWESOME. I have never been to a big gig like this, just smaller ones like Jimmy Eat World in Carling Academy, or gigs in boro, never a big stadium like this, so I was blown away! We were in the top tier at the gig, but still had a good view and had a boogie to Zane Lowe who dj’d in-between acts/sets. I am still amazed at how good the gig was (being a Novice gig goer!). Myself and 86,000 people had a hell of a night! I congratulate London travel and tourism/Wembley gig staff for their planning and effort, what a well oiled machine the night was. Getting in and out of the gig went quickly and smoothly and the staff on the streets with megaphones made me giggles directing the foot traffic to the right train stations! J they opened with my favourite song and finished with my favourite song! We were honoured with Led Zepplin in the encore, as they didn’t perform on the Friday night *insert grin*. Dave Grohl got worked up at the end as it was his biggest gig, ever, and he had performed with his idols, LZ. Check out some of my pics on my flickr account. Still the debate, who’s better live Daft Punk or Foo Fighters… both awesome in their own rights for different styles of gigs.

Unfortunately, the next day, I got a puncture, in the middle of Watford. So £70 later and 2 hours waiting we set off home on Sunday, in a car at 26degrees. Nice.

Last week I went to see my mum and got a couple more hours snowboarding lessons/practice in. My god did the fall I had hurt. It still aches today! Mums dog, Barnie, is lovely and is getting himself into lots of trouble by pinching stuff off the coffee table and munching it, food or not, it’s his – Tesco clubcards, muffins, ipods – its all game!

Got a busy charity month, with lots of fundraising prep to do as we are at a show at the end of June for big fundraising push!

Did I mention my friend forgot my birthday last month? Yes I am still bitter. This is the friend who I would have to repay with my head on a platter if I forgot their birthday, let alone go visit them 200miles away for it. When she recalled it was my birthday (after our other mate pointed it out) I got a bunch of flowers, postal flowers, 3 Lilly stems. I am still bitter and really bugged me. I rather they just said ‘sh*t sorry I forgot’, than send pathetic flowers and a note saying sorry i forgot. My fiancés best mate remembered! Granted I would call him a friend too now, but he went out his way to buy me a card, and hand post it (he works for Royal Mail the irony) through my letter box!

Oh, and cycling in Darlington is starting to really p*ss me off. I have no idea about Darlington as a whole as I am not from the area. So doing ad-hoc cycling is a challenge. Trying to get my hands on a FREE cycle map is also a nightmare. I have requested a couple with no joy. I really hate the lack of services/advertised services we have in the county. In the last 3 weeks I have had my bin bags opened and rummaged through. Hopefully whenever we do get wheelie bins this might stop, but its a nightmare.

Work is annoying me. Can’t put my finger on it, but it is. It’s a particular project (we have a dozen businesses all with lots of ‘projects’), it always has been a struggle from the start for me as I feel I have no, or little, respect/input (lack of a better phrase/word) with the project. Organisational cock-up’s and lack of communication and instructions mean even the littlest of things is a struggle and nightmare. It also means I have spent a lot of my OWN time and personal life working at home to get stuff done. My college (also dismayed) in the office says it’s like playing tennis with them. Every time a new ball is served they like that idea/concept/tactic and the other balls are forgotten and just pushed aside. Imagine this being a 22 set match! You get an idea of how I feel. It also questions me using my contacts for work also; as I have a few contractors/freelancers who does ad-hoc work for us across projects. These are professional contacts I have made overtime through business and personal life, who have been reliable, deliver what’s wanted and cost efficient/effective. Projects like these really put these contacts and my relationship with them in jeopardy, when decisions are made that I can’t control or even agree with. Ho Hum. I have no idea what I want to do in five years time, but I can’t still do design. Its sometimes thankless and unrewarding.

I do a lot of work, design wise and development wise. This month alone I have designed an email campaign that went out to 130,000 people, an application form for all new accounts and contracts, implemented design changes and updates to a website used by 80,000 people a month, and designing a mini prospectus for another of our projects. I do have a diverse job, it also is rewarding, but god is it hard graft at times. Not the actual ‘doing’ bit, the communication and getting things moving/progressing bit. The other people bit. I really do want a job where i can sit in an office and just work or in a zoo with animals, something I really enjoy with a passion. I have looked into the education bit, but its the affordibilty of doing this. *sigh*.

You have to like my calorie spelling!

This is a great tool I found:

www.glamour.com/health/activity/calculators

7 Points earned from snowboarding on Friday this week… here comes nandos!

Well I ache. I ache all down my lower back, my ankles and neck. Why you ask? Snowboarding. IT WAS ACE! I am hooked and want to go back. Will have to wait till pay day but I can’t wait for lesson 2. I managed to not fall over - until i was at the bottom doh! Anyway… I loved it. I can now see why my friends enjoy it so much I must thank a fellow blogger and friend who goes boarding for his support and basically if it wasn’t for him and his mates I probably wouldn’t have thought of going boarding anyway!

So my birthday got off with a flying start… and what a lovely start. I got up nice and early to get my presents from dave, a big electric wok, homemade weight watchers muffin cakes, new teesside uni hoodie and WestWing series 6 & 7 from his parents… so off to snowboarding and some shopping. Followed by a nice veggie Nando’s, and some crazy golf. I had a huge delicious peice of chocolate cake from starbucks and enjoyed every minute of it (I was not doing WW yesterday, there was no point!). I have lost 30 1/2 lbs in 11 weeks. I can have a day off

Got home to find a nice pressie from my housemate, again a plant I can no doubt kill, but its from the national sceince museum. Then we went to pizza hut with a couple of other mates. My friend sarah bought me tonnes of presents - including a hedgehod veggie brush - sounds odd but I love it. We managed to confuse the waiter by splitting the bill. To avoid this problem at the bowling I just paid for it on my card, which I couldn’t really afford but saved bother later - I won at the bowling, but dave letting me win. Which I wasn’t amused about and spoiled the bowling for me as a whole. Ah well. But lots of nice pink birthday cake my lovely lil’ friend brough to pizza hut and I was dead chuffed with all my presents and activites and had a well earned day off and fun! I am very happy and had a great birthday.

On a different note - I am having a bad day, a ‘don’t like my job’ day. I met a man today which has made me realise even more that I don’t want to be a designer in 10 years time. I really don’t. Just got to work out what I do want to do. *sigh*. Might go into programming or something and just sit at a desk all day at a PC.

2 Stone Done! Next? Well another 2 stone before Christmas 2008 hopefully. It has taken 11 weeks to loose the first 2 stone which is the easiest to loose (even thought I did have some cake on Saturday!). How did I celebrate? I had a lovely veg-o-rama dominos pizza and it was lovely! Now I must go spinning tonight and cycling for the rest of the week as I feel slugish from no exercise lately.

So, Alton Towers was good - although I got very wet and soaked on the flumes since I was at the front *urgh*. But fun was had and I think dave now knows what it is like to go to a theme park with a child ‘how much longer’, ‘are we nearly there yet’, ‘am bored’ - and that was just waiting in an hour que for ‘Air’ which was ace and by far my favourite ride so far! w00t. We even paid £3 for a locker to keep our lunch safe - and quiet cunningly we managed to get an outdoor seat under a big parasol just as the heavens opened really bad. So nice lunch and relax before going on the big rides… i think all the walking and screaming helped me loose the cake weight from the Saturday at my mums.

Saturday, went to my brothers for the day. Not only did I break my mums back door to the garage I managed to damage my shoulder in the process. We couldn’t get the back door to move, unlock or turn. The only option was to break it in. So i did. Oooops. I got to open birthday presents early, and was delighted with a new travel suitcase for my business trips away (butterflies in a retro soft green, kahki and pink colours), new pots from my nan (john lewis ones!), and a garden ornamanet in a weird cat shape (will supply a photo shortly.). We saw a lot of Barnie too - his bum isn’t attached the rrest of him! He is a lovely dog and apptly named…

Yesterday i went to my old neighbours to take photos of her horse, Maggie. It was delightful and she was a wonderful Clydesdale horse so was very imposing in the photos. At the end of the day she rolled about in the grass like Phantom (my cat) does on the floor… never seen such a large beast do such a lovely and delicate move… was a delight to watch and photograph.