with a little help from my ( j'land ) friends

I'm here to ask a favour tonight. A friend at work asked me to vote for his best friends wife so she can win the chance to be in a show in Vegas. Apparently this woman is a burlesque dancer/Marilyn Monroe impersonator & has the chance to appear in a show in Las Vegas, the link below takes you to the voting site, you can only vote once on any pc though. The top 6 girls get to appear in the show so I thought I would give her a better chance by asking all of you to vote if possible, the one I want you all to vote for is Jami Deadly. I appreciate not everyone will want to do this but what are friends for if I don't at least try.

http://www.vivalasvegas.net/intranet/vote_main.php

 

Thank you to all those that do vote...VampJack x

Sharing my culinary adventures

Hello again peoples.

Today has been a relatively good day, back to work after the weekend ( hey, I said relatively good day ) & although a bit boring cos its the third straight week of dealing with Customs paperwork issues it wasn't too bad a day.

Got home & had a really nice beef in red wine hotpot kinda thing that Nic's dad made for us. After dinner Nic decided she wanted pancakes, normally the first couple are a bit of a shambles but today they were all perfect. And this is where I want to share my culinary adventrue with you, we had the usual pancakes with sugar & lemon juice but just for fun I decided to have somethnig different - pancake with mint aero balls!! Now I know what you're thinking but trust me it was really nice, a bit weird but really nice.

So you take 4 ounces of plain flour & sieve this into a mixing bowl. Next make a well in the centre of the flour & take 1 large egg, add the egg into the well & slowly fold in the flour. Whilst doing this also add 1/4 pint milk & water mixed to the flour & egg. When the mixture is a smooth batter add a little oil to a frying pan & heat, when the oil is hot pour off any excess & then put the pan back on the heat. Pour some of the mixture into the pan & swirl around the pan to make a nice round pancake. When the pancake is nice & brown underneath flip it over to cook the other side - then just before taking it out of the pan add a few mint aero balls to the centre of the pancake so they start to melt. Once the balls are half melted put the pancake on your plate & roll it up so the melted chocolate is in the middle & voila - minty aero pancakes!!

Okay so its Nic that should have the cravings for weird food but I like messing with food to create new taste sensations, although I do have to admit my creations do not always taste as good as the one above. I also made a curry tonight & perfect example of my last comment, its okay but not as good as the last curry I made. Part of the problem is I used the leftover lamb from yesterdays dinner but we cooked the lamb perfectly yesterday so it just fell apart. This is nice for a roast dinner but when stirring the lamb into the curry it just disintegrates so the curry turns to mush.

Last night I was gutted, I was watching 24 & something happened that I never thought I'd see. I can't tell you what just in case you haven't seen it yet but Nic & I were both gobsmacked at Jack. Got to work today & my friend said the same thing, its just not right but after the last series I guess the writers think they can get away with anything. But I gotta say - shame on you Jack.

Tonight I have been watching 'When KISS ruled the world' on the biography channel. I have loved Kiss since I was a kid & feel all nostalgic now, mind you I didn't like the way they ignored Eric Carr's role in Kiss' success. If it wasn't for the fact that he died I'm not sure Kiss would have reformed with the old drummer Peter Criss. My best friend is a huge Kiss fan & has told me it is my job to educate L'il Vamp about Kisstory when he's old enough!!

Thats enough for tonight, bye for now.....VampJack x

 

good news & goodies

So thats another week gone, another week nearer to meeting my son. I am so nervous but so excited. on friday Nic went to see the midwife & she confirmed the irregular heartbeat has now disappeared so all is well, apparently it may have been because L'il Vamp was sucking his thumb, this apparently can cause his heart to miss a beat ( strange but apparently true ). My sister told me when she was pregnant they couldn't find the heartbeat so she was told to drink a cup of ice cold water to wake the baby up, maybe its just me but that is cruel! So the heartbeat thing is 1 less thing to worry about, now I just need to worry about having enough money, how many times he's gonna puke on me & how many times I'm gonna have to change his dirty stinky bum!!

This week we have got the car seat which was fun trying to get it fitted in the car ( can't wait to have to do it when he's in it ), Nic has bought a moses basket on the internet so that should turn up next week & we bought L'il Vamp his first books yesterday. Nic only ever reads trashy gossip mags or biographies ( & she doesn't read them very much ), her family are not exactly what you'd call bookworms but I love to read. Both my sister & I were brought up to love books & we both still do ( me more than my sis )so I am hoping my son takes after me & enjoys reading. I read him a story last night, The Gingerbread Boy which was great because I remember the story from when I was little. we have decided I will read him a story each night so he gets used to me reading to him.

Nic has been busy washing a L'il Vamp's clothes this week & has even ironed a few of my clothes ( trust me this is a historic event ), I was ironing the rest of my stuff today & did the rest of the baby clothes, it was like ironing action man clothes. We have got some really nice stuff for him that I can't wait to see him wearing, I just know that we are going to have loads of clothes he outgrows that we will not want to throw away, my sister is only just getting rid of some stuff  now from my 8 year old nephew.

We finally got our new fridge freezer on thursday after lots of arguing with servis & argos, Nic had a call on tuesday to say we would get the fridge delivered by argos on thursday, then on thursday they said they had nothing booked & it would be delivered on monday so I rang argos & servis ( i wasn't very nice at all ha ha ). Turns out that servis were actually delivering it direct so we are going to call argos tomorrow because you can guarantee as they are not talking to each other we will end up with another delivery tomorrow if we don't call them. But the main thing is we have got a fridge freezer again, you don't know how much you rely on these items until they aren't working.

Well better go, got to shave my head before Top Gear comes on, then there's 24 later tonight. We've only had 2 episodes of 24 this series & already I am completely hooked. Prison Break was great as well, it was episode 14 last week but we had a break of about 6 weeks ( i think ) so I was really missing it, well worth getting episodes online before they are shown here. Blade was a bit disappointing last week but its early days with that so I shall hope it gets better.

Cathcup with you all soon... VampJack x

 

 

Stupid bloody fridge freezer & a boss her lies her ass off

Hello again peoples, I know i haven't been updating my journal regularly but to be honest I am struggling to find the time these last few weeks.

So the good stuff that has happened this last week, my mum came to visit on saturday. I don't get to see her very often so was nice to see her even if it was only for a few hours. She has just got her disability travel pass so it was nice & cheap, me being the person I am I have been winding her up telling her its her oap travel pass even though she's got a few more years before she gets that one!! She brought us some goodies for L'il Vamp, we particularly love the little devil suit, it even has a hood with devil horns & its got a tail, he's gonna look soooo cool.

Getting quite excited about the new formula 1 season as well, loads of new cars have been unveiled in the last week & testing has started again. I promise I will try & limit my F1 entries ( well at least until the racing starts properly in march ).

On the bad side... our fridge freezer packed up last week. I called Servis on wednesday & surprisingly I got through straight away & was told an engineer would be out thursday, sure enough 8.20 thurs morning he was here but only for 30 seconds. He said the gas unit had gone & someone would be out the following day, friday afternoon the 2nd engineer came & said we needed a new fridge. Now considering I have an 8 month pregnant girlfriend who has been told to drink plenty of milk I was not too happy when they told me that they couldn't do anything until today. We were told a manager would call us back but did they hell. So this morning I was told again the manager would call Nic ( I was at work ), once again no call so I rang & refused to get off the phone until a manager took my call. Nice lady got hold of the engineer for the report ( as the engineers manager had not forwarded it ) & made arrangements for a new fridge freezer to be delivered. Only problem is as we got it from Argos they organise for Argos to do the exchange, Argos say they have ordered it from Servis but it could take 10 days. The only thing I can say is if you work for Servis pray you do not get me on the phone tomorrow because you will be calling samaritans straight after.

Now onto my lying boss. Last week we had a team meeting where she stood in front of the team & point blank told us that no one in the team is getting a 1 on our productivity targets ( we were complaining how hard it is to get a decent score so she was trying to defend the targets ), today we got our month to date figures & guess what? no go on have a guess...yep, plenty of us are only getting a 1. So my boss lied to us. Her justification was that over the last 6 months it works out at a better score - well duh, we were complaining about how things are now. Not only that but we also complained that agents in other countries are reverting files to us virtually as soon as we have contacted customers istead of giving customers chance to call back with the info we need, my boss told us to email her examples. So i did. And today she told me I should be putting it in the files not emailing her...so why the hell did she tell me to email her in the first place. Hopefully I shall have the last laugh though, we've had our rota's for feb, I'm on lates the week before the baby's due & earlies the week he's due. I tried to get my boss to change the rota or put someone on mirroring my shift ( on lates & earlies there's only 1 person from my dept ), my thinking on this was that if I get the call I will be in my car 2 minutes after getting the call & work could be left in the sh*t without anyone there covering my role, therefore I was trying to help. My boss's reaction was, well if we do end up in the sh*t it'll only be for 1 day then we can get someone else to cover the rest of the time. Hope I get the call at 1 minute past 6 when on lates  so they have to struggle through the last 1 & half hours!!

It seems really strange that 1 month today my son is due. I can't wait, I am really nervous about wether we'll cope financially & how it'll change our lives but at the same time I am really excited. Rest assured I will get the first photo's on here at the earliest opportunity. Nic has another appointment with the midwife this friday so hopefully L'il Vamp's irregular heartbeat will be okay now. I ordered the car seat online last night so that should be here tomorrow, we're still looking for a moses basket as the one we were supposed to borrow has broke. We still need to get the cotbed but we have a little time before needing that, we want a specific one but they're still out of stock at the moment so fingers crossed they get them in soon. A friend is moving this week & has said we can have her old stair gates as her daughter is getting old enough to not need them all now so that is a real help ( might stop me falling downstairs in the morning when I've had no sleep the night before!! ).

How many of you watched 24 last night? We have been eagerly awaiting this new series since the last one finished. I have managed to get my mum, sister & bro in law all hooked ( they're well behind though, they are having to borrow my dvd's ). And tonight I think prison Break is back on in US so I will be watching that once I have d***lo**ed it, & also we have the new Blade series that started last week. This is more tv than I normally watch in a month!!

Right that's it for tonight. Remember to wrap up warm ( even when you're indoors ) & don't throw snowballs or you'll have the pc police after you for bullying. Take care all.... VampJack x

the end of another week

Here we are at the end of another week. I don't know about you lot but I seem to be having a lot of trouble getting a decent night's sleep over the last few weeks. Maybe its just me, perhaps its some mystical force giving me a glimpse of what life is going to be like with a baby in the house!

We had a bit of a scare this week, Nic visited the midwife & was told L'il Vamp had an irregular heartbeat & she had to go to the hospital straight away to get it checked out. She text'd me asking me to leave work so I could drive her to the hospital. Obviously we were both very worried about this, neither of us knew what this would mean but we were both preparing ourselves for the worst. Once the nurse had hooked Nic up to the heart monitor she said " I take it the midwife told you this can be quite normal at this stage of the pregnancy", well as it happens.....NO SHE BLOODY DIDN'T. Now if the midwife had told us this we would have still gone to the hospital a bit apprehensive but we would not have been the nervous wrecks that we were. It is really unfair when something like this happens, okay so maybe we still had to go & get it checked out but the midwife should have realised how badly we would react to the news. Why don't these people realise what sort of problems they can be causing by not telling us it can be normal, it's not like we'd say sod going to the hospital if it can be normal. We were told everything seems to be okay, L'il Vamp's heart misses between every 4th & 15th beat but they said we shouldn't worry too much as he appears healthy in every other respect & after all, he's still in there for a reason, he's still growing & developing. Nic has another appointment in 2 weeks with the midwife so we'll have it checked again then. I was so angry that its a good job the midwife wasn't at the hospital, I may have slapped her if she was.

It feels so strange that in 6 weeks we should be holding this little child in our arms, the due date is 22nd feb. What sort of parents are we going to be, will he like us, will he totally stress out the cats!! My sister is moving in march so during the february half term she is going to bring us loads of other hand me downs from her 2 boys ( personally I think she's just making excuses so she can come & see her nephew ). My sis can't wait, I think she's more excited than us. Not sure if I told you before but when I went to see my sister & told her about the baby she said she was really happy that she was going to be an auntie. There's only me & my sister so I am her only chance to be an auntie on our side of the family, her husband's sister has 3 kids and he wasn't too impressed, he couldn't really see how much difference it makes with being an auntie to my kids instead of being an auntie by marriage.

Work was a little better this week, despite not getting much sleep at all the last few weeks it seems things slowly getting back to normal at work. Once again we are having a move round, people moving desks...but not me!! I have a nice desk next to the window, we have rows of desks & a few little clusters, mine's in one of the clusters which makes it a bit quieter than some of the others. I have so far managed to keep my desk during a few desk moves which is nice because it means I get to concentrate more due to it being a bit quieter than others. They have announced that we are to get 3 more people for our dept so that should make things better as we can still give the quality we do but the bosses will be on our backs less because we will obviously get more work done. We lost some of the team a few months ago when they were promoted but we have not been able to replace them until now. Our boss is on about organising a team night out soon, normally I stay away from these things as I have no desire to spend all day with these people & then end up having a boring night with them as well. There are a few people that I would socialise with but we can sort our own nights out ( & yes Poodle, you are one of them!!! ), we all get on at work but most of the people are not the kind I could enjoy a pint with. I've just read that back & it sounds a bit snobby but its not meant to, I suppose you all have people at work that you get on well enough with but would not want to go out socially with them.

I think I have bored you people enough for today, I apologise if I have not left comments on your journals recently but I find it difficult to make time these days. I do still try to keep up with my alerts but as I find more journals that I like I have less time to leave comments for you all.

Take care all....VampJack x

 

Back to work again today, I think I should clear something up as well. I may have given the impression that I don't like my job, most of the time I do like my job. yes, sometimes I get bored ( particularly when doing a month of Customs paperwork issues ) & like all big companies we too have loads of managers that sit in luxury offices with no real idea what the day to day issues are in our roles, so hence we get changes made that only benefit the shareholders & the bean-counters. If they actually listened to us then maybe the customers would benefit more, so the job would be more enjoyable & this would ultimately lead to better revenue ( but what the hell do I know, I'm only the monkey obeying their every command ). So as I say I do like my job most of the time but like most people I use my journal to get things off my chest. In my last entry when I said I couldn't be bothered I was referring more to the drudgery of returning to work after the christmas/new year holiday, so sorry if I gave you the impression I hated my job.

Now that's sorted I can tell you I have spent a lot of the weekend feeling very sorry for myself & generally not wanting to do anything more strenuous than reading my book. Nic had other idea's & yesterday managed to drag me round Asda, Matalan & the city centre. We got some really nice clothes for L'il Vamp, some sleepsuits, a dressing gown ( really nice Tigger one, so nice & cuddly that everyone's gonna want to hug him ), some shirts & pj's. We got various sizes cos we don't want to end up with loads of newborn clothes & then find out he's a little porker!! Nic's been busy while I was at work today & sorted out his wardrobe, I swear this kids got more clothes than me now. We've already got the pushchair but that's at Nic's parents until L'il Vamp's born, we know which cotbed we want as well but its out of stock at the moment so we are looking every day until it comes back in stock because it's getting very close to the big day, we may end up having to get an alternative if it's not back in stock very soon. We have been buying him clothes but he hasn't got many toys yet, my sister has given us some & we have bought a couple of items but not much, then again when he's first born he won't need too many. We thought we'd get a few bits for christmas but only had 1 present for the baby ( baby monitors ), Nic's parents have threatened to buy him a coventry football kit, knowing my luck he will turn out to be a big footie fan ( I HATE football ) so I will have to watch footie just to please him. Still at least if he wants to go to the games I can get Nic's parents to take him ( unless he wants to see a proper football team instead of coventry ).

Well better stop blathering on, Nic's downstairs watching Nip/Tuck so I've had to pause my medal of honour game, the only downside to the game is that you can't save it until you complete a mission so I was going to go to bed & now I have to stay up & finish the mission during the adverts. Stay safe everybody & if you are in the UK......don't forget that umbrella if you go out this week!!

VampJack x

Man flu time again!!

I hate having a cold! I can't breath, my head aches, my eyes are sore & worst of all....I still have to go to work. I get so frustrated when I get a cold because my brain seems to take a holiday, I find it so difficult to concentrate.

Nic's gone to see a pantomime tonight so I get the house to myself & have just spent the last 90 minutes playing medal of honour on the ps2. I am so addicted to that game. Our friends mum runs the local brownies group & they've taken them to see the pantomime so they asked Nic along as well. Only bad thing is I can't chill out with my bottle of wine because I have to go & pick her up later, she did say she'd walk but no way am I going to let her walk home on her own. She would have to walk through one of the roughest area's of cov & it would take her quite a while to walk, she's not been too well lately so can't have her wandering the streets at night can I.

This last week at work has been so boring, the people I regularly talk to at work have all been the same as me, can't be bothered with working & I must admit I don't think any of us have really worked that hard. Then again what do the bosses expect.

Anyway gotta dash I have just had my orders via text to go and pick up Nic.

Bye for now...VampJack x