DIY because no one else will

Yesterday I continued the revamp of the interior of my flat but don’t get any ideas of granduer, it’s not posh at all. I decided that the excuses regarding my writing situation had to stop. I have been fussing (mostly to myself) that:

* Working on the dining room table is frustrating as everything has to be packed away to eat on it
* When I have written a section that then needs editing I have no printer at home and I just find it hard to edit on screen
* Everything around me is in such disarray it is distracting

So all of these are easily solved by buying stuff. So yesterday I went out and bought a printer, a desk, and a new filing cabinet. I then spent a few hours assembling the latter two items. Voila - a nice work area. I do need a good work chair with next month’s pay before I throw my back out (more) but I am satisfied with the current situation. Managed to do quite a bit today too. HURRAH!

One issue - the new printer appears to have a pdf phobia and I am not sure how to cure it. It likes everything else but appears to deny the existence of any pdf I throw its way. Odd.

Michael arrives in three days - so many reasons to be in a good mood.

Tea-ing off

My tea arrived today, and my blackcurrant jaffa cakes. Had the dilema of trying to decide which of the new teas to try first, wanted a cup of each but that would have been excessive, not to mention necessitated more mugs than I have in my office. As of right now I can tell you the black tea with vanilla and coconut is divine. The other boxes smell good but will have to wait, yes ladies and gentlemen I have been sniffing tea boxes. My officemates think it is funny to be this excited by tea.

The jaffa cakes are not bad, I do think orange is better but blackcurrant is not bad. They should be called currant cakes or something though as the jaffa does not hold true.

All change

In acknowledgement of the fact that I am turning to knitting as my retreat from dissertation writing (and frequently instead of dissertation writing), I decided to do something else in the hour break I gave myself just now. I rearranged the furniture in my living room. Those of you who have visited will appreciate how difficult that is, there is not a whole lot of scope for different furniture arrangements in my small living room. I like it - it’s cosier. Plus it was exercise moving stuff around and now I feel invigorated. Fun! A change is as good as a break!

Thumbs up!

Today I have entered a new world - the world of MITTENS! Turns out that opposable thumbs make life more difficult in some situations - despite being helpful in so many others. However, I have triumphed over all my troubles and here are my new babies:



The funky pink stripe matches the hat I made for myself a while back. I can be all matchy-matchy. Ooh the excitement. I like mittens.

Breeding program

Unbeknownst (that’s a great word) to me - all my stuff has been breeding behind my back. Surely I cannot be responsible for bringing all of these things into my flat? It is quite clearly impossible. There must be a conspiracy going on. I don’t know how stuff multiplies, but it does appear there is a correlation between how useless it is and how much room it takes up - the less I need it, the more of it there is. Weird.

I am trying to counteract the crazy goings on with many rubbish bags and a vigilant attitude. I shall win this war, though the fight may continue for many years to come. I will stay strong.

I do confess that the extra wool products that entered the flat yesterday are entirely my doing, although they were donated by the nice people I celebrated Thanksgiving with. It appears they have a wool problem too and what better way to solve it than by passing it on to someone else. I may be making the biggest blanket ever at this rate. I like squares though. If anyone wants any squares knitted I am the girl for the job. I also do a nice sideline in hats.

I think I have had too much for the day and should retire to bed. Feeling rather alert though - maybe some sudoku will send me on my way to bedfordshire. Those sudoku books are quite adept at survival - they saw they were threatened earlier by the rubbish bag of death and now they are beckoning me back under their spell.

Writing my dissertation is quite clearly driving me mad.

wHAT the heck?

Well the shoulder situation has impeded my knitting the last few days but I have finally finished hat number… five actually. Two have been gifted to others before making it into blogdom. I should rename my blog something clever to do with hats, I am relatively low in such inspiration though - as the title of today’s blog testaments! Well Beetle, this hat is for you, I hope the red is about the right colour.



And now it is time for bed. Tomorrow is thanksgiving, not a holiday I grew up celebrating but any day off work is as good as any other to me (and any day with roast turkey and the yummy stuff that comes with it is fine by me). So Happy Thanksgiving to all who read this, I give thanks for all of your friendships a lot (corny but true).

The cold shoulder

Went to see the shoulder specialist today - a whopping 6 weeks since I had the MRI, but we had conflicting schedules and I got the flu during my last appointment (well not during the appointment but it prevented me from going if you see what I mean). Well the rotator cuff is fine so the pain in the shoulder remains a mystery. I got a cortisone shot with some anaesthetic in it, the whole process involved a rather large needle. However, luckily the needle pain relationship is not a proportional one and it was surprisingly OK. The shoulder hurts more now but I think it is just looking for sympathy and it will be fine when it realises it has high hopes that are unattainable - either that or it heard the Dr say ‘endoscope’ and is rather nervous it may have to go through that.

On a side note - I rather like the word endoscope, it had a certain ring to it. Endoscope, endoscope, end-o-scope, end….o….scope. Ahhhhhhh.

Shopping is bad for your health

So yesterday I had one of my most eventful shopping trips ever. I was just getting a few groceries, and a ball of wool (it’s an addiction, I cannot help myself) and when I had scanned all my items in the aisle where you check yourself out I realised that I had left my handbag in the car. Thankfully the nice lady at the counter was able to take all my items and let me pay here once I returned. I did have a brief panic that perhaps my bag had been in the shopping trolley and been taken but I felt the me forgetting it option was more likely - and I was right.

I then left the store and it has a little area out front where cars are supposed to yield for people crossing with shopping trolleys (trollies looks wrong somehow) etc.. I looked both ways and there were no cars that close, so they could all stop if needed for me. I was about halfway across when I realised that the closest car was going to hit me if I did not take evasive maneuvers. The lady was too busy looking for a close parking spot and not at all busy looking where she was going. She was speeding up and heading straight at me. I abandoned my shopping, although it was a close call I did nearly try and take the trolley with me . Sure enough as I ran away she hit my poor shopping and the trolley fell over. Luckily it is hard to break wool, whereas I am much easier to break so I made a good call. Lady proceeded to get a little hysterical and apologise. Honestly, why do people here spend 10 minutes looking for a close parking spot when they are capable of walking and none of the spaces are more than a minute away from the store?

It’s the trolley I feel sorry for, she may have ended its shopping days forever and they don’t have retirement homes for shopping trolleys.. oh no their fate is far worse.

More mad hattery

I think I am all hatted up now for my trip to Whistler in a few months (less than two actually Woo Hoo). Here is my latest creation:



More simple beanie for the days I don’t feel like being be-tassled. Been making hats for other people too. They are almost as instant gratification as knitting gets, as they don’t take too long to make. Now I have some of the yarn used for the beanie left…. what to do, what to do….

Hyper organised

So this evening I have made, signed, and addressed all my Christmas cards - to be fair they are not all hand made (but over half are). I do need to include letters in many of them and I wish I had it in me to do a bulk letter to all the extended family - alas those of you who know me will understand that I just cannot do that. I value the paper and pen far too much. That’ll be the next job on my list - oooh I don’t have a list yet so I get the pleasure of writing one and that will be on it and I will dutifully cross it off. Hurrah!

I have spare ribbon and various other craft items if anyone else is in need of Christmassy crafts. Otherwise I can be found knitting - the squares for my blanket are going well and a few friends have new hats too, but no one wanted one quite as funky as mine. Some people have no taste.

Stay on the topic

The wonderful M is having trouble staying on topic as we talk. Poo head.

Tea time

I like tea. Today I was shopping online for tea, there are varieties I miss living here and I figured that was silly as with the wonders of the internet I don’t have to miss anything. Ahh the wonders of my two favourite cards - my wireless and credit - together they bring me the wonders that this planet has to offer. All the looking at tea made me want tea and I had a very satisfying cup. MMMmmmm memories. I found what I was looking for, and some more varieties I did not know I wanted until I saw them. Tea in the post - how lovely. Oh and for the Brits among the readership I added some jaffa cakes to my order - BLACKCURRANT jaffa cakes! I was shocked. How much has changed since I left. I await them with baited breath and hope they do not disappoint me, not that a jaffa cake would be aware if it disappointed me. I could never eat an aware jaffa cake, it just wouldn’t be right.

Today is....

… National Sing in your Car Day. I have already fulfilled my obligation but for those of you who haven’t - once you are done reading this blog go out to your car, sit in it and blast out a few notes. It can be YMCA if you desire, no one has to know.

As requested - the hat!

Uninspired for blog titles today

It is a rather cold and wet day today, the sort of day when I can only get out of bed begrudgingly and crave hot beverages and warm blankets. I was a good girl and went into my office to back up my data - well actually it was to back up my external hard drive to another external hard drive. I believe in backing up my back up. I could not face losing any data right now, I would have a break down. I am currently experiencing a love-hate relationship with my data, due in large part to my dislike of excel and its inability to keep itself from crashing on my poor old decrepid computer. It is a trial I must bear. I decamped to a coffee shop (where I can still be found) to improve the working environment a little, but a personal data slave would still come in handy. Any takers?

My advisor goes away on conference trips etc.. for the next few weeks and I really want to put my nose to the grindstone and get some of my dissertation written for him to read and pass judgement upon when he returns. Such goals require sacrifice - mine is that even my small social life must be forgotten. Luckily it is easy to lose things that are small and perhaps I will not notice the loss.

New additions

I added a tassle to my hat. It is the icing on a very fluffy, and not at all edible, cake. Fabulous.

It's been awhile

I keep meaning to blog but time passes and I don’t - sorry for those who have been checking, I honestly do not mean to disappoint. I am settled for the evening with a nice cuppa and thought now was as good a time as any - although OK a few days ago may have been better. I had this whole blog planned on Sunday (when my internet would not work) and now POOF it has gone and I am sans any ideas.

*Pause for me to ponder*

I was a knitting QUEEN this weekend. I decided to give myself the extra few days for recuperation (I did some serious sleeping too) and for some reason was drawn to being creative. I now am the proud owner of a fluffy ski hat complete with ear flaps. It is quite fabulous. I discovered that I have been hoarding wool somewhat (well I call it wool, it is some wool type thing in balls that is not actually wool as it makes me itch) and goodness knows what I could actually do with all this random stuff I have - so I took the decision to start knitting squares to make a blanket. Slightly longer term than a weekend (I got like 3 done over the two days along with two hats!) but my Grandma taught me to knit by doing squares and it has just had me thinking fondly of her a lot. There are few people I miss as much as my Grandparents.

New loves and recovery

So after a week of not doing much outside of lying on my bed/sofa/sofabed whilst feeling sorry for myself (the ultimate multitasking), I finally feel just about ready to rejoin civilisation. I am currently managing half days before I need to return to the whole lying-sorry feeling stuff. Kudos to the Doctor and the massive amount of antibiotics I am taking to combat the post-flu gunk.

Anyway lets move on… I have a new ipod shuffle. It is my current love. I am in the first few days of ownership so it has that whole new glow thing going for it still. It is TINY, so tiny and I am currently enjoying making playlists for the little thing. I hope my big ipod doesn’t get a complex.

The wonderful M has booked his flights to come see me - this is very exciting. I love visitors, especially visitors I love. Hurrah!

Choo choo

George chastised me for not including the picture of him waiting for the train in Philly. Because I am weak willed, and must obey my inner rabbit, here it is:

Philly recap

I thought I should write a little expose on my trip to Philadelphia (which I have the hardest time typing correctly even though I know how it is spelt). It was a work trip, and I really did work very hard, so not much sightseeing was done. I managed to take an afternoon to go see the Liberty Bell. For the Brits among the readership there is this story that this bell rang out from the tower of Independence Hall, summoning the people to hear the Declaration of Independence read for the first time.

So what did I learn? One: this symbol of the freedom of the american people was actually made in the UK. Two: their liberty is a whole lot smaller than I thought - the bell is no where near as big as I thought it was. George posed for a photograph so I can share my experience with you all. He is so photogenic.