Red Shoes’ Neighborhood

There is a natural disaster headed your way. You get 4 standard sized canvas grocery totes to fill with valuables and provisions to bring with you to a safe place. What would you put into your 4 bags and why?
Submitted by dejablu503.

I would put my wife in one, my two children in another, and a copy of Moby-Dick in the third. I'd leave the fourth bag at home.

Nobody shout. It's Friday, and really, who doesn't need a little peace and quiet on a Friday? ESPECIALLY AFTER OUR PARTY! Ouch. We had fun! And from the great photos we've seen, so did you. Thanks to everyone for coming along last night, it was fantastic to see so many of you. After a hectic last-minute change of venue, we were all a little worried. But you can't keep a good MOOster down, and everyone made it there – and made it great.

We had Stickers, as modelled by the ever handsome MOO interns, Jake and Angel. They're photographed here by Alicia, but please, all future model bookings should come via me...

We had balloons, as beautifully shot by _sarchi

Postman Pat came along too - Alex took this photo. Pat was delivering MOO orders, placed by party people earlier this week.

There were bowler hats, like this one, modelled by Meg Pickard, and shot by Richard.

Some of which were  cunningly customised-on-the-go, like this one, shot by tommyajohansson

Each bowler hat had a sticker inside - if you found a black and white cat, you won a prize! If you found the stray ginger cat, then the boobie prize was yours... Well, we say boobie prize, but really, who wouldn't want a signed photo of Iain, our lovely project manager? On reflection, maybe the lovely lady who won it...

We had food - or so I hear. Look at these people! 'Twas gone in a flash! This photo is by Annie Mole

and this, of the aftermath by M.J.S.

It was pretty hot inside, so lots of people headed for the ouside space - and partied from light:

(photo by symphonic knot)
 
'Till dark

(photo by AnnieMole)

In a nutshell? A fun time was has by all...

(photo by _sarchi)

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And a tiny PS: look what happened today... the lunch company totally got our order wrong. We were supposed to have 29 pies for lunch, and we got...

Sixty! Sixty pies. Which makes a very happy MOO Crew:

(Thanks to blackbeltjones for the photo of Richard.)

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Thanks again for coming - and have a great weekend!

I am a farmer who raise ducks and cows. The animals have a total of 9 heads and 26 feet. How many ducks and cows do I have?
Submitted by The BlueTie.

I have 5 cows and 4 ducks, but only because one of my cows has two heads. It is a portent of the end times.

Hello! Some freebies and offers for anyone who's interested.

1. 25 free tracks plus one free audiobook:

Just go to www.emusic.com/mojo . I think you'll have to sign up with them, but it's easy to keep track of how much you've downloaded and easy to cancel.

2. TimeOut subscription for £ 29.99:

This offer was still valid yesterday. Face value of the magazine would set you back £152.49 for the year, and this is the best long-term offer I've seen, working out at 59p per issue. The catch is it's direct debit, but the bonus is that the following year's subscription is also billed at £29.99.

Have a look at www.timeout.com/offers/SC1977A

On a more personal, and slightly naughty, note, I used one of those self-service checkouts in Sainsbury's yesterday. I paid £4.20 on my card for some buy-one-get-one-free stuff, and the machine went on the blink. Cue much annoyance and swearing. Then it gave me £5.80 change. I didn't notice until the nice attendant pressed it into my impoverished mitt as I tried to leave. Seemed rude to say no.

Anyway, it does raise the issue that these machines can be pretty rubbish - and presumably more likely to make mistakes that aren't in your favour. I'll be checking my receipts more carefully in future.

Nick has an interview. With an agency he really liked the look of. They're based in Gloucestershire.

Logistically this could prove problematic. After all, we live about 100miles away. And we can't move until our mortgage repayment penalty lapses in October 2009.

However, I'm really excited about the potential.

I told you I had itchy feet.... it's not that I'm discontented with my life, or our home, just that I'm not one for waiting for the next thing to come along, and we really have nothing to plan until next year, so I'm feeling restless.

In other news, I have my half year appraisal today and I am Dreading It. It's not going to go well.

I am a farmer who raise ducks and cows. The animals have a total of 9 heads and 26 feet. How many ducks and cows do I have?
Submitted by The BlueTie.

Who's a clever little shitkicker, eh?

I am a farmer who raise ducks and cows. The animals have a total of 9 heads and 26 feet. How many ducks and cows do I have?
Submitted by The BlueTie.

See - I know how to solve this, cos you'd use quadratic equations. Unfortunately I've forgotten how to solve quadratic equations.

I still might have a go though.

Or I might just do it through trial and error.

4 Cows and 5 Ducks = 9 heads, and 26 feet. Unless one of the ducks is that 4-legged one that hit the news a while back.

My gym plans have been on hold this week because of being sick. I'm still not 100% and my tongue is a disgusting yellow still - apparently a sign of illness. I am cross because I really wanted to get back stuck in and start seeing a trainer to devise a plan for me to lose 2 stone by Christmas.

I did however, spend the evening cleaning the house, and I feel much better for it. It's not perfect by any means, but at least no dust or dirt is now visible, and things are tidied away. I'm sure that was a bit of a work out.

I weighed 12st 4lb this morning, so I've lost nothing in the past week, but I have been comfort eating toast, butter and marmite, so it's to be expected.

I have been more adventurous with our dinners this week - I suspect that will all go out the window when we're both back at the gym. On Tuesday night I made a delicious beef and Orzo stew (I found some Orzo in a little shop in Boston). Last night we had Quorn Swedish Meatballs with a sweet and sour sauce (okay, out of a packet!), but instead of roasting a squash, I cubed it and dry-sauted it up with some cumin and coriander and then added some water to steam it through. It was lovely, really nutty.

Tonight we're having the vegetable biryani (the store were selling big bags of Aubergines quite cheaply, so I'm having to use them up!).

Tomorrow night I am cake baking for my brother's birthday party on Saturday.

We talked frankly about having children. I am once again going through a vehement "I really don't want them" stage.

We've decided more or less to plan to go to New England next Fall (2009), but maybe plan for a Spring 2010 baby. Of course, this probably won't work out as planned, but it gives both of us at least 6 months breathing space to not think about it. I have been obsessing too much.

Nick is looking into new jobs at the moment. I'm hoping he'll find something that will let him work from home so that we have the flexibility of moving at the end of next year, I guess we could stay where we are, and I love my house, but I am getting itchy feet and want to move somewhere bigger.

I just feel like a load of my life is on hold at the moment, and dependent on other things that I can't control. I don't like that.

What question do you wish you'd never asked.
Submitted by cha0tic.

Je ne regrette rien.

Got connected to the internet and the work network etc. from home. Hurrah. It's taken 17months for me to figure it out...

It does, however, mean that I have to sit on the stairs. Hmm.

I am currently downloading the databases to my hard drive, at which point, I should then be able to resume my position at the kitchen table.

I am preparing for my appraisal on Friday. Boss wants us to really spend a lot of time on it, as they will be scrutinised by HR more than usual (looming restructure announcement), and I suspect that we could all be under threat of headcount cuts. Unfortunately I am finding it hard to do a good sell job on my achievements to date this year, because none of the things that have gone down really well are really aligned to my objectives. And I am off-track on most of my objectives, mainly due to things out of my control, but that doesn't go down terribly well with the powers that be.

So, now I am feeling pretty shit about what I have achieved this year and dreading my appraisal - that's a great frame of mind to be in to go in and sell yourself and ensure that you keep your job, right?

In other news, the cleaners we arranged to come today and do a big clean couldn't make it after all. But now I've done the tidying away, I reckon I can clean the house myself - I'll tackle it over the next few days in the evenings. Although I have a birthday cake to bake on Friday night, and then ice on Saturday morning. And we're out on Saturday and Sunday as well. Pants.