So I started working about 6 weeks ago – right around the time I got the yucky shingles. Basically, I’m freelance writing from home.. so I’m on the computer 25 hours a day (yes, days in my world have 25 hours!) .. and on one of my procrastinating days, I did my first bit of online shopping! (airline tickets don’t count).. And I got this pair of boots that I’ve had my eye on for like 6 months!!!

I love to shop.. Just LOVE it.. And I haven’t been able to shop recently. The only shopping I’ve been doing has been at the Value Mart in this little town we’re living in. But I’m not complaining, I love the Value Mart!

Anyway, so there is a story behind these boots.. which I’m going to share with you. You can just skip past this and scroll down to look at them if you can’t be bothered to read..

Ok, so when we were living in Europe, I would get Canada-home sick, and would look on the Aldo, Spring and Chinese Laundry (who I think might actually be U.S.. but I digress) and I would taunt myself with the shoes – since the don’t ship internationally..

And I saw this beautiful pair of boots in Spring for like $80.. and they came in beige and burgundy and they were perfect. So every so often, I would go back and look at them and drool over them.. So when I started working, I remembered that I had to look online for these boots! But, since it had been so long since I saw them, they had been relegated to the clearance section… and they were down from $80.. to $25… but they didn’t have my size

They had the beige ones in a size 11.. which just would not work at all.. ok, I guess I could have kept that scrunched up paper in there, and looked like a weirdo with giant feet.. but that’s really not a good look. And they had the burgundy ones in a size 6.. but i wear a 7 from that store.. so they would not have fit at all.

So every few days I would go back and look and continue to taunt myself with shoes that were not in my size.. until one day, I clicked on the beige ones… AND THEY HAD A SIZE 7!!!! It was so exciting! I’m even smiling about it as I’m writing about it!! What’s more, they were doing a free shipping promotion.. so not only was I getting a super cute pair of boots that were originally $80 for only $25, the shipping would be free!!! I had to buy them.. I just HAD to!

And they arrived 2 days after I brought them! And Monkey decided that the box was his new toy and had a riot jumping in it and generally being crazy. But then he started eating the box, which is not good.. anyway, I’m sidetracking again. I think it’s time for me to stop writing and for me to show you all a picture of these boots!

ahhh!! aren’t they perfect?! yes… yes they are! <3

It’s been a maniacal few months! I had the shingles, which was absolutely horrible.. and then I started working, so I’ve not had much time for writing or for much else! Well, I have had a tiny little bit of time…

I’ve been taking a bunch of pictures for you all of my various things! I’m sorry if this post sounds like the rantings of a crazy person, but it’s pretty late and I’ve been writing non-stop for like the last 6 hours.. and there are a whole bunch of things in my head that I want to share with you all, and to be honest, I’m not sure where to start!!!!

Ok, I’m going to take a few minutes to plan out what to write about and do a few posts.. just so it’s not too overwhelming with like 10,000 words and a ton of pictures!

But for now, I will leave you with this picture that we took of my kitty cat, Monkey, when I was just getting over the yucky shingles..

Yes, that is a cat. No it’s not a photoshop lying picture – if it was, I’d make myself look less pale and sickly.. I’ve been looking online and think he might be a part Maine Coon cat.. they’re big and huge and have giant feet and hairy toes and love playing in the water and LOVE to talk.. which is *exactly* what my kitty likes to do!! and this is the only way I can pick him up without him trying to take my hand off.. he seems to like it – for a little while..

The ASA claim that images in the ad are misleading to the public and may actually exaggerate the product’s benefits.

I’m sorry.. Anyone who has so much as glanced at a make-up product ad will tell you that it’s been re-touched to hell.

Sadly, I’m one of those people who see a mascara ad and literally *have* to go and buy the product. Remember the L’oreal Telescopic Mascara? Yeah… it’s living it’s days out in my eye make-up bag. My eyes certainly didn’t look like Penelope’s at all..

I remember seeing a Julia Roberts Lancome mascara ad and an Eva Longoria L’oreal ad and thinking how magical this product must be in order for it to make your eyelids grow their own LONG, synthetic, perfectly curled eye lashes AND also make your skin look like a baby’s behind. And you cant forget that they’re all wearing a boatload of eyeliner too…

Julia Roberts’ mouth also looks a little bizarre.. but that’s probably caused by another one of Lancome’s products.. And Eva Longoria’s eyelashes are SO not real!

But back to Kate Moss and Rimmel. Apparently, the agency behind this campaign told the ASA that Moss was wearing fake lashes, but couldn’t support this claim. The ad in question is for Rimmel’s Magnif’eyes mascara. What do you think?

I think that taking one look at that should be enough to convince anyone that there is some kind of eyelash trickery going on there.. both in the fake eyelash and photoshop eyelash tool department.

So the ASA is concluding that Rimmel is no longer allowed to run this ad, and any subsequent ads that feature any kind of eyelash manipulation (synthetic or digital) are to carry a disclaimer.

Yeah right. Can you imagine..?! then EVERYTHING would need to have a disclaimer on it. Underwear ads, toothpaste ads, perfume ads, shampoo ads, car ads.

The next Victoria’s Secret ad is going to say something like:

“This push up bra will not make you look like Adriana Lima. This push up bra will not make your hair look flowy and perfect. Nor will this push up bra make your legs look 17 feet long. This push up bra will not make you tanned. Photo editing, wind machines and special leg-lengthening camera angels were used in this advertisement”

Girlfriend, please.. This is what makes people buy stuff. And lets not even start with store mannequins who are pinned into the outfits the stores. “This mannequin is pinned into this outfit. This outfit will not actually fit you like this. Sorry”

And while they’re at it, they might want to approach Subway and McDonalds. No sandwich or burger I’ve had ever looks like the pictures. Sauce all down the side, lettuce sticking out everywhere, fries coming out of the container in about 50 different directions.

False advertising? Well it worked didn’t it? Of course, I think to myself as I eat my lopsided burger with Big Mac sauce running down my hand.

Maybe she’s born with it.. Maybe it’s Maybelline.. or maybe it’s just good old Photoshop!

So in regard to the crocheting, I’ve got a few things on the go..

I’ll split it up into a few posts, just so it’s not a bunch of different stuff on the same page. I wouldn’t want to overwhelm you all!

So why no writing? Well, I’m going to be cheeky and blame my boyfriend He’s been hosting a Minecraft server. While we have 3 computers in the apartment – 2 laptops and an iMac, he’s been using my laptop to host the server. To be fair, I told him to use it because the iMac is slower and wasn’t good enough to use as a server computer and my laptop is awesome..

And at first, I figured I could use the iMac to write my posts etc.. But it doesn’t have any photo editing software.. I say “photo editing software” as if I know what I’m doing.. which I don’t. I actually use paint (don’t laugh)! which the iMac doesn’t have. I love paint.. It’s wonderful, it’s easy.. and I only crop and/or resize my pictures.. I don’t fiddle with the colours or anything (which I probably should sometimes..)

Regardless, the iMac doesnt have paint, and unlike my awesome laptop, the iMac also doesn’t have a card reader for my camera card chip thing. I mean I could put them on my laptop and email them to myself or add them to the blog server.. Yes, why didn’t I do that?!?! ……

Anyway… I do apologise for not updating. I have been taking pictures, so there are LOTS of things to show you all!!

The first story ran two days ago and it was about a press conference that was being held in Washington, DC about UFO contact. The conference was aired yesterday (I’ll link the YouTube video: here – it’s long, so be warned!) and several accounts were given by former members of the US Air Force of their experiences with UFOs in various different places.

The difference between these men and, say a blurry picture taken by some random person, is that these people have evidence. They have photographs, first hand visual accounts, they’ve seen the radar blips, etc.

Coincidentally, yesterday there was a story about the UN Office for Outer Space Affairs (UNOOSA). Sounds like an alien noise eh! Maybe it means “take me to the being in charge” – hey, they’re probably more advanced than us, therefore need less syllables and words to communicate.. just a thought. Enough rambling.. So UNOOSA allegedly appointed a new leader: you can read about it at Time.com and CNET.

I went to the UNOOSA website (I’m probably on some kind of watch list now – and don’t even think about clicking and then blaming me for your name being on the list right under mine!!!) and aside from learning that they’re looking for interns in Vienna (wouldn’t that be fun!), I learnt that this office will be celebrating it’s 50th anniversary next year!

But according to news sources today – since all news is old after 5 minutes, the UN has denied that Malaysian astrophysicist Mazlan Othman is going to be Alien Ambassador of the World. What a shame – I think the aliens would like Vienna!

Ok, I’m no extra terrestrial/UFO obsessed person, but you have to admit, it’s a little suspicious…

After a few not so quick Google searches, I found that there have been several press conferences with the men from yesterday’s conference (and more), stating pretty much the same thing. UFOs were spotted at nuclear weapons sites and are said to have disarmed said weapons. And all these men and women would be willing to tell their accounts under oath, before congress.

Speculation time. So what does that suggest? Maybe it’s like that The Day The Earth Stood Still movie or Knowing, where the world will get blown to pieces because humans are so awful and the aliens are just doing the rest of the intergalactic community a favour, or maybe it be as Stephen Hawking said in April 2010 – don’t talk to aliens, we’ll end up being their bitches! He basically argues that when two very different civilizations (for lack of a better word) get together, the stronger, better armed, more advanced one will always come out on top (think of the Native Americans and colonial white folk and how well that ended..). You can read the TimesOnline article here.

Do I think there are aliens? Sure, why not. I mean, we’re here. So why wouldn’t there be other equally as advanced (we’re not that advanced), intelligent (and we’re not that intelligent) beings someplace else?

I just think all this news at the same time is very fishy. And I wouldn’t be surprised if some time VERY soon there are aliens knocking on our doors.

“It’s always been known that people have internal dialogues with themselves, but until now, we’ve never known what an important function they serve, this study shows that talking to ourselves in this ‘inner voice’ actually helps us exercise self control and prevents us from making impulsive decisions.”

Well that’s good news. I’m always talking to myself.. Sometimes my boyfriend will catch me mumbling to myself and give me the side-eye or call me crazy, but now I can tell him that it means that I am merely exercising my self control!

I just won’t tell him that it’s actually a full on conversation between myself, Josh Duhamel, an imaginary wedding planner and an imaginary divorce lawyer.. Because I’m pretty sure that classifies me as a special should-be-heavily-medicated kind of crazy.

Don’t judge.. Fergie must have racked up some SERIOUS karma points in a previous life! I’m just saying..

And I’m kidding, by the way. Really, I am…

However, I do talk to myself.. But the conversations in my head are only between me and myself. And are normally a running commentary of what I’m doing.. For example, whilst drying the cutlery and putting it away, the following may occur, “Have to dry the cutlery and put it in the drawer.. I hate watermarks.. Oops, that’s where the forks live, you’re not a fork, you’re a spoon!”. Ok, maybe I have conversations with the cutlery.. But they’re not really conversations.. It’s just me talking to the cutlery…

I think it will only be an issue when the spoons start talking back to me…

Spoon: “Oh I’m ever so glad that you put me back in the right compartment, it was absolutely terrifying being with those things with big giant spikes on their heads..”.

Vicky: “You’re very welcome. How polite you are. I would not have expected such lovely manners from a piece of Ikea cutlery – no offense”.

Spoon: “None taken! At least I’m not plastic like you with your big giant fingernails. The nerve of calling me cheap. Please close my drawer, I do not want to look at you”.

Vicky: “Asshole spoon. You’re getting replaced tomorrow” *Slams drawer*

Yeah… If that ever happens, then we DEFINITELY have a problem!

One of my friends here in Budapest is taking a manicure class, and when she started her course in June, she asked if I would go to the class with her to be her model/guinea pig. Which is SUPER exciting! I used to LOVE going to get my nails done!

But then I realised if she has to do hand nails, then she would probably have to learn foot nails… She called last week asking me to go this coming Wednesday for a manicure and a… PEDICURE.

EEK!

Alright, how do I say this without sounding like a crazy person…??

Ok, well, I have a major issue with my feet being touched.. Actually, even seeing someone else get their foot touched makes me uncomfortable.. Those of you who had the pleasure of living with/near me in school will remember me promptly running from the room when one of my room mates was getting her feet rubbed… *shudder*

Anyway, needless to say, I’ve never had a pedicure before. Just thinking about it made a giant knot form in my stomach.

So my friend came over yesterday, and brought all of her manicure/pedicure bits and pieces with her. She wanted to explain to me what she would have to do – because she knew that I was mildly freaking out about it. Which was actually really nice of her.

She got out this pretty pink case and opened it up to reveal what appeared to be surgical instruments. So I started laughing – a little manically – as she began to explain what scraper was used for what. (“You’re going to do WHAT with that big giant CLEAVER??!? and what the hell are those secateurs for?!?!!?”)

And as she was talking, I kept saying to myself “it’s not going to be that bad”.. Which, if I think about it rationally, is true. I mean, nothing bad is going to happen. (I guess the worst that could happen is me accidentally kicking her… :s) But she did say that she’s only going to do 1 foot.. A semi-pedi!

Hey, I might even like it enough to get the other foot done!

I guess I should explain my little compulsion to those of you who probably think that I should be institutionalised…

I don’t like the feeling of my foot being touched.. It makes me feel nauseous. That is all. I don’t know why. Maybe I’m just weird. But that’s how it is.

My boyfriend could accidentally brush his hand past my foot and I will literally jump 2 feet away from him and start squeaking at him “WHAT ARE YOU DOING?! WHY ARE YOU TOUCHING MY FOOT??”, while staring at him with full-on crazy eyes. And then he will roll his eyes and tell me that I’m crazy and tell me that its not like my feet are ugly or weird and that I’m being a drama queen. I don’t know..

We’re all a little crazy, right? Some slightly more so than others.. *ahem*

My favourite thing to get was these individually packed face masks. They had so many different kinds – warming ones, relaxing ones, exfoliating ones. There was an entire rack of them! Whenever they were on special, I would turn into a crazy Chinese lady and buy a basket full.

Anyway, since being in Budapest, I sort of forgot about my face mask stock piling – until I hit the drugstore this weekend. They had these masks on special for something ridiculous like 150 Forint for a pack of 2 (which is like 50p or 75 cents or something). So naturally, I got 6 packs. (As I’m typing this, I can’t believe how much of a “crap-on-special” hoarder I am.. despite the fact that my skin is VERY fussy as to what it likes and doesn’t like.. which apparently I forget when I’m in the middle of some bizarre mask-hoarding spree.. I digress…).

Even as I was buying them, I thought to myself “what if they’re crap? I’m going to have 12 packages of rubbish..”. But of course my inner hoarder took over and pushed the voice of reason aside, and I went to the cash with my treasures.

A few days passed, and I decided to try out one of these masks. They only had 2 types – reviving and cleansing (the fact that there was only a choice of 2 kinds should have meant something too…). I went with the pretty blue cleansing one. Everything was going perfectly – until it came time to rinse it off. It came off my face, but left me with a few patches of blue.

After much scrubbing, the patches became sort of a bluish tint. It wasn’t overly noticeable, but of course, I thought I looked like an Avatar creature.. minus the sparkly face designs. Sadly/thankfully, there is no photographic evidence.

The moral of the story is… If it can be classified as cheap crap, don’t buy it, because it might actually be crap and you may end up with a blue face. More importantly, don’t stock pile it. Hoarding expensive, high quality crap is fine. But hoarding cheap, rubbish crap is what compels people to label you as a crazy person.

I’m all for saving money. I think the urge to be frugal comes as our age increases.. You know you’re grown up when you start looking at the cost per sheet on the loo roll…

As I mentioned in a previous post about beauty on a budget, only buy things that you need and that you’re going to use. There’s no point saving money on stuff that is going to spend the rest of it’s days hiding in a drawer. Or, as I learnt this weekend, there is no point saving money by paying for a sub-par product. As my mother always says “if you pay peanuts, you get monkeys”.

Ok, so what’s been going on in the last few weeks? Primarily, I’ve been trying to stay cool in the sweltering heat. It’s unbearably hot here in Budapest. There was a very intense thunder storm on Friday night. While leaning out of the window watching the lightning flash across the sky like a strobe light, I thought to myself “surely this storm will make it less humid out”. But no, it did not.

What else? Oh, we got a very cool coffee maker. The deal was that you “rent” the machine for free and just pay for the coffee cartridges. Which is awesome. But, I am not a coffee drinker. So thankfully, half of the cartridges we got were teas and milk and there was even some sort of soup base…

So, I just decided to make myself a nice cup of tea. This, by the way, is how you can tell that I’m English.. Who drinks a hot cuppa on a scorching hot day?! Anyway, so I picked a cartridge and waited for the machine to start doing it’s thing. Sure enough, it started spluttering out what I presumed to be tea. But it was suspiciously dark.. And then foam began to form at the top of the cup. So I started mumbling to myself about being an idiot for clearly having picked a coffee instead of tea.

After having sniffed at the cup and concluding that whatever was in the cup wasn’t tea, I added a spoonful of sugar and hoped for the best (because a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down, in the most delightful way). After a couple of sips, I began to question what it was that I was drinking. The foamy part had completely disappeared, it didn’t actually taste like coffee and it certainly wasn’t tea. It actually reminded me of the “Chinese CocaCola” (Ng Fa Cha) my mother used to make me drink as a child. It tasted and even looked like it, with it’s strange bitter yet sweet taste and it’s dark colour.

So I hit the coffee cartridge website and discovered that I was drinking some kind of barley tea. Which apparently has a lot of health benefits and is very popular in eastern Asia. I think that after drinking this tea, I have decided that I prefer my barley fermented

OH! Remember the aloe vera yoghurt? I finally grew a pair and ate it. Thankfully, it didn’t taste like ham *phew*!!! It actually tasted just like peach yoghurt (which really just tastes like vanilla, right?).. What did get at me were the “pieces” in it. They looked like little cubes of aloe vera gel.. But they tasted like peach and the consistency was like yoghurt-peach.. I think I’ll just stick to the banana yoghurt that I’ve grown to love! Yum!

Whenever we find ourselves somewhere different, one of the first things we notice is the different food. I absolutely love to eat, so trying different foods is great experience! And since I’m in Budapest, I have to make the most of the wonderful Hungarian cuisine! Nokedli and paprikas anything.. and rantott hus.. yum!

But then, out of nowhere I’ll see something that I think is very random… Just like with the chamomile tampons, I stopped, and thought to myself, “is that REALLY aloe vera yogurt?!”. Yes, yes it was..

So, of course, I brought a tub – which I have yet to try. See, the thing is, I don’t like the smell of aloe vera. I think it smells like ham. Maybe it’s just me, maybe I’m crazy.. Don’t get me wrong, I like ham, just not the smell.. And vegetation that smells like ham is just not right at all. And ham yogurt, to me, does not seem like a very appetizing combination.

Despite the fact that I think aloe is gross, it is supposed to be very good for you – not just for your skin but for your digestive system. So, I Googled it, and aloe vera actually has a LOT of uses. Here are a few of the good ones:

• Commercially used in lotion, yogurt, desserts and as a fresh food preservative,
• It’s derivatives are used in makeup, incense and razors,
• It is used as a fish tank water conditioner (because of it’s anti-fungal properties),
• Aloe vera extract is used for the dilution of semen for sheep artificial fertilization.

Well, now I wish that I didn’t Google it.. Sheep semen.. Really?! Seriously, I don’t understand how scientists come up with this kind of stuff.. “Hey Mr. Sheep Fertilization Scientist.. This sheep semen should be diluted.. It seems too concentrated, and diluting it could produce a higher yield.. I know, we’ll use aloe juice from this plant that I have on my desk…”. Do you think that’s what happened? I have to stop typing now.. haha!

Needless to say, I don’t think I can stomach the aloe vera yogurt today (despite it’s awesome digestive properties).. What with the ham and the sheep.. I just can’t!

Watch, when I do try it, I’m going to think it’s the best thing ever! lol or not.. Don’t worry, I will definitely keep you posted.