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Only a few days left until the arrival of the new year.
I have high hopes for 2011, since this current year has been quite good and has left the bar quite high.
In 2010…
…We sold our old house in Byfleet and moved to Basingstoke.
…We celebrated our 1 year wedding anniversary.
…I was sent to Madrid to an international fair to represent my company.
…Spain won the Football World Cup.
…Jon and I adopted Tommy.
…We had a decent summer in the UK.
…We saw Brand New, Deftones, Coheed and Cambria, and Ludovico.
…I’ve taken up serious hobbies like card-making and cake-making.
…My mum came to visit the new house.
…We visited a few new towns in the UK (Farnham, Cambridge, Salisbury, etc)
…Jon decided to make the biggest change in his life and moved jobs.
Of course, there have also been other bad things and sadly 2010 will be remembered as the year when we lost John Evans, Mari Tere and Yani. It is also the year when my teenager niece got pregnant. And the year when miscommunication within my family let my brother sell his gorgeous house and find that his dream home went away.
I just hope that 2011 is as good as 2010. I don’t ask for more.
I am sitting in front of the computer waiting to be given the go ahead to go down to the supermarket to buy the ingredients for the cake I will be baking for tomorrow.
In my list I’ve got: caster sugar, eggs, cocoa, self raising flour, cherries, kirsch, double cream and chocolate.
I will be making a Black Forest Gateau!
But yeah, that’s for tomorrow (Christmas day). Nothing special going on today. British people don’t celebrate Christmas Eve the same as the rest of Europe, so today is kind of special without being special.
We will be spending Christmas Day with part of Jon’s family. We will have the traditional turkey with all the trimmings, then the cake, and then we’ll play some games. I hope we have a great day because I am really missing the Christmases of my childhood when everybody was always in party mood and we all had a great time, singing Carols and playing with each other. It seems like the party spirit has been long gone (at least in the Spanish side of the family) and I wish I could bring it back.
I will report on the success (or lack of it) with the Cake soon 
Merry Christmas everybody!!
“I’m dreaming of a white Christmas
Just like the ones I used to know”
Well, kind of…
I’m loving the snow this year. Seeing the snowflakes fall, seeing it settle, kids on sledges, making snowmen… It’s really fantastic. Despite the cold weather, one can’t help but feel cheerful with such a white scene.
However, with the snow comes the travel chaos. Roads, trains and airports have been seriously disrupted for the last couple of days. And my main problem is that they are announcing more snowy weather for Christmas day. Yep, that is going to be a problem, because we are supposed to spend the day with the family and nobody knows if the roads are going to be okay for driving. And the following day we are seeing more family, everybody is supposed to be travelling that day… and of course, nobody would want anybody to risk their security by travelling in icy and snowy roads.
And finally, we still don’t know the forecast for New Year. Is it going to keep snowing? I am supposed to be on a plane to visit my family in Spain for the first time since last Christmas, and despite the fact that I am not 100% looking forward to that little break, I am not looking forward to the travelling chaos either. I already had enough of that last year when we were stranded in Malaga’s airport* for 15 hours because of the snow in the UK (*and I don’t know about the brand new terminal in Malaga’s airport, but the old one was terrible – overpriced drinks, food and no entertainment at all)
So yeah, snow is gorgeous and fun when you are at home, playing with it in your back garden, when you have got plenty of food and drink supplies in your fridge and you really don’t need to go anywhere. Say you have to leave your house for anything, then you’re f*cked!
Change is one of the words that I’ve used the most lately on my facebook updates and other places, and it’s because there are important changes to come in my life soon.
The first one, and the most important one, is that Jon has got a new job for a different company and will be leaving Andromeda. Jon and I met at work and have been together since. We moved in together quite soon after meeting and haven’t been apart for more than 4 days at a time ever.
We wake up together, come to work together, have lunch together, drive back home together, have dinner together, watch TV or a film together, go to bed together. A fine routine. The one that my life spins around of. Sometimes we would socialise separately, or he would spend time at his computer whilst I watched some programme that he’s not interested in. But I could easily say that we spend 90% of our time together.
And this is going to change from January 10th onwards. Then we will become another couple who only see each other in the evenings and weekends. I really think that it will take some time for me to get used to this.
The second big change happening soon will somehow affect me. My company has just been bought by a big multinational company (shhh, it’s not official yet! We will be told tomorrow.. but I just happen to have this confidential information, hehe) and hence we expect big changes to happen. We have been assured that nobody (important) will lose their job…
The thing is, nobody was expecting Jon to move on and he is going to leave a position to fill. I’ve heard rumours that I may take some of his responsability on board, meaning that I will be somehow promoted to something else.
This scares the life out of me. Jon decided to move on from Andromeda because he needed a challenge. His job was too easy for him, he was on his comfort zone. I, however, am happy on my comfort zone. I’ve done my role for 3 and a half years now and I am just starting to feel happy to deal with it on my own, without any supervision.
I know that if I am given more responsibility I will happily take it, however, the initial fears will haunt me for a bit.
Then you better start swimmin’
Or you’ll sink like a stone
For the times they are a-changin’
Audio Secrecy is the latest album by Stone Sour (whose singer is better known as the singer from Slipknot, too. Although I don’t really like Slipknot that much, only a few songs here and there).
The album is awesome, and even Corey Taylor boasted that this is the best album he’s ever done (but, let’s admit it, their self titled debut album back in 2002 was damn good too). I’ve heard it about three/four times today. Back to back. Which to a 20-year-old Maria would have meant nothing, since I used to listen to albums for days on end. But to the 32-year-old Maria, who barely has much time for music anymore, this is quite a feat.
It has been a long time since I fell in love with an album like this last. It was love at first listen. I can remember feeling like this with other albums, like for instance, Circa Survive or Taking back Sunday a few years back. Some of my other favourite albums were not love at first listen, but the type that “grow” on you.
This album has got 17 songs and I can’t find one that I don’t like. In a scale from 1 to 10, most songs would score an average of 8. And then there are a few which are simply a 10. I think at the moment my favourite one is number 13: Imperfect. This may change, though, as I listen to the album more and more.
