Well then! It's been a while! Everybody should thank darkspirited1 for dragging me back. I've been thinking about LiveJournal for a while now, wondering whether it was appropriate to return for the five quintillionth time, and whether or not there'd be a digital angry mob with pixel torches and electronic pitchforks waiting to skewer me for my negligence. As it is there's only a keyboard awaiting me, and Semagic.

What have I been doing these past three months, you ask? After the horrible ol' business that was - er, is - 2012, I've just been recovering, trying to get over my depression, and getting my life back on track. I did keep a non-Internet diary for a little while, which I will probably type up and post here backdated to fill in the gaps, and I have a Tumblr for when I really needed to rant or post cute pictures of my rats... but after nearly six years of LiveJournal, I guess Tumblr and my diary weren't enough.

In the time I've been away, I've managed to cut off all ties with university. Yes, chaps, I've formally withdrawn, with intent to go back in a year or so. I want to go somewhere more local, like Liverpool JMU or Hope. In the meantime, I've signed back on to Job Seeker's Allowance and am frantically applying for any job I can, because it transpires that Student Finance overpaid me by £700, and now they want it back. I do owe it, because I thought it was legitimate and spent every penny. If they'd have sent a letter out sooner I would have just paid it right back in one go but, well, my relationship with Student Finance has so far been tenuous and I think they secretly get off on complicating things needlessly. There's probably a scientific name for a complications fetish but I can't think of one right now.

Boffin, Barnaby and Thelma are all doing excellently! Aside from the fact that Thelma detests the other two, that is. I bought a huge cage from Pets at Home with a view to having them all living inside in ratty harmony but... er... okay, it was a battleground. Even after I spent weeks beforehand gently introducing them to each other. I started off with cage swaps every morning and evening (to get them used to each other's scents) for a few weeks, then moved on to free-ranging them all together on neutral territory; i.e. the kitchen floor. I suppose it's because Thelma is a solitary rat; she was alone for a year before I got the babies.

Note to anyone who will ever consider getting rats: never buy one alone. Always buy two at a time. Not two rats from separate shops; buy two from the same shop that were kept in the same cage, preferably same gender unless you want to wake up one day and have baby rats everywhere. Solitary rats need near-constant attention; I leave Thelma's cage open now and stay next to it almost all the time so she can come and go as she pleases. I should have bought her with a companion but back then I didn't know.

Jason and I are still going strong! He's sat next to me right now playing Oblivion, completely oblivious (see what I did there?) to the fact that I'm writing about him. Hey, Jason! I'm writing about you and you don't know! Hahaha! You have a beard! And now I'm stroking it! And you're calling me a tease.

If it weren't for Jason, I'd have actually gone out of my mind these past few months. He doesn't know it but he's been such a support for me. And he's also my inspiration; I have someone to do well for now, besides myself. If I was just working for me, it would be so easy to lose motivation. Of course I want to go back to uni because I can't see myself spending the rest of my days without a degree, but Jason's another reason for me to succeed. He isn't pushing me to go back to university; I'm pushing myself to go, for us. So I can get a degree, improve my chances of employment, and hopefully never see a Job Centre again. Optimistic, yes, but negativity gets a person nowhere!

Nothing much else has really happened. In April Jason and I celebrated our first anniversary in Southport, but I believe I wrote about that. In May, we spent just over a week in Northern Ireland, which meant he met the Irish side of my family for the first time, plus Mum's dog Cheeky. In June or July we had to rush my Dad into hospital after he'd had leg pain for ages; one day his foot went totally numb and he was in agony so, deciding that we wouldn't risk it in case it was another stroke, we called an ambulance. Thankfully, it turned out to be something altogether less serious (but still painful), sciatica - basically a trapped nerve, most likely from an old injury he sustained when he fell 8ft down a hatch during stormy weather on board one of the Naval ships he served on. He landed badly and his back/legs haven't been the same since.

In April, after a couple of tests, I was diagnosed with Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome... and told I was overweight. Which was a shocker, considering I'd always been a skinny lass as a kid and even now I do carry my weight fairly well. I was told that, as a PCOS sufferer, my chances of conceiving would be better if I was within a healthy weight range (about 150lbs for me, since I'm tall and large-framed), plus I'd have a higher risk of heart disease and diabetes than the average person. So I decided to make a big change in my life, and lose weight. Since the tests, I've gone from 210lbs (15st) to 189lbs (13st 7lbs) - so I've lost 21lbs in total since April, and counting. I'm walking a lot more, and I've taken to swimming on weekends... even though I can't swim very well at all; I need to use a float lest I be condemned to stay by the side of the pool and annoy the more seasoned swimmers.

As for creative stuff, I've been drawing a bit, sewing, painting, I've even attempted knitting... but no writing. I'm hoping all of that will change come November, when NaNoWriMo begins. I'm thinking of just continuing 'The Great Couch Happening of '69', since it's my literary baby and is positively screaming for some TLC. I need to get it finished in first draft form. It's been three bloody years in the writing so far and it's only a third done; I know where the story's going now, I just need to write the damn thing. And I'm hoping that NaNo 2012 will save my writing 'career'.

And... that's pretty much it. I think. These three months have been pretty uneventful otherwise; I've just been going to pub quizzes, chilling out with Jason, playing the XBox and having moodswings. Hopefully I can get more active on here again, because I love my LJ too much to let it fade away. And I love you guys, of course. The time I've been away I've missed you all a lot <3