The Knitting Revolutionary

Canberra bashing

I have this really bad habit of Canberra-bashing. It's sort of fun, taking the piss out of this town. After more than two years of living here, I still don't like Canberra much, and I've resigned myself to the fact that this is the way it's going to stay.

I am, however, trying to move from my current stance, which is completely loathing the place with all of my being, to accepting that this is where I live and it isn't my first choice of city but hey, here I am and despite this I'm happy. I'm working on it.

It's hard to do it when everything that shits me gets blamed on Canberra. Like "god it's cold, I HATE the cold, I hate being cold AAAARGH I HATE CANBERRA SO MUCH", or "Man, I wish I could get a job as a counsellor, Sydney has lots of jobs and Canberra has none AAARGH I HATE CANBERRA SO MUCH" or "I miss SUMS and I don't wanna join SCUNA and I HATE CANBERRA SO MUCH"... basically anything that annoys me gets blamed on Canberra. Which is sort of unfair.

Even when I lived in Sydney, I was in love with the city. But now that I don't live there, this is growing into something of an obsession, an almost unhealthy one, since it's detracting from my everyday happiness. I'm not doing myself any favours here. It doesn't help that even Sydney people think of the city as the centre of the universe, or at least Australia. I had to laugh listening to ABC Classic FM this morning where someone was saying that Kookaburra National Musical Company has only actually produced shows in Sydney so far. At least Sydney Theatre Company has the good grace to call themselves that rather than the National Theatre Company.

Conversely, I find it highly annoying that Canberra calls its art gallery the National Gallery (I HATE CANBERRA SO MUCH! ...oops) - the Art Gallery of NSW is bigger and better in my (rather biased) opinion. But hey. This might be just another example of me indulging in Canberra-bashing once again, hehe.

The thing about it is that hating this town takes a lot of energy, and ultimately it makes me feel unhappy and discontent. I don't think that I'm ever going to like it. But what I'm aiming at here is just to stop carrying on about how much I detest it, in the interest of my own peace of mind. Is this possible? I guess I'm just going to have to wait and see. 

whine whine whine

There are 81 psych jobs on the Psych Xchange email today. Sounds good, yes?

How many in Sydney? 19. Hm.

How many in the ACT?

None. Count 'em on your (clenched) fist. None.

Some days I seriously feel as though I'm living in a shit-hole pretending to be some sort of fucking capital city. What a joke.

Autumness!

...is apparently the best time in Canberra.

I'm inclined to agree.

That's all! hehe

Speaking of Canberra...

... which most people know I already think is a dried up and dull old town (fortunately we have a bright and shining local knitting, spinning and weaving community which redeems the place entirely in my eyes)...

It does have some cool elements, one of them being that nifty stuff like hot air ballooning happens right in town and over the burbs, unlike Sydney where it's all down way out west, and so you never see this sort of stuff unless you live somewhere near the M5 and Campbelltown anyway.

So we're sitting in the loungeroom and David says to me, "hey, I can hear a balloon!" To my quizzical look, he explained "a hot air balloon" and race out the back door (once the obligatory birdy-check had been done to make sure Phoebs was actually in her cage).

And outside...
The Questy balloon!

We hopped up and down a bit and (I) squeaked in excitement as it floated serenely over our house, close enough to see the faces of its passengers, making no sound except for the occasional whoosh of flame. Maybe next Easter weekend, when I'm all employed and moneyed up. :D

In anticipation of winter

but if I had the money, and was interested in spending that much time on my appearance every day (haha)...

I'd buy soooo much stuff like this. Oh yeah. Er, yeah it's an ebay link. I'm not saying you have to buy this stuff. I just want to. Hehe. Mmm. Pretty skirts. Gloves. *sigh* http://tinyurl.com/36yrrk

:D yummmmm....

Oh, and I know it says bridal. Ook. I was actually looking for gloves, since Elky stayed over the other night and I kidnapped her glove erm she left her glove behind accidentally. Hehe. And, feeling in a somewhat aquisitionish typa mood, I was looking for them online to see if perhaps I could find some for my cold pinkies this winter. And I did! Woot! http://tinyurl.com/35qlxt and oh, they're so nice. My lovely old pair of Italian leather gloves which I've had for years are starting to fall apart after their many hours of faithful service, so I'm eyeing off new ones. And since the budget probably *won't* stretch to another pair of bank-breaking Mazzolenis,  I think I might get some curly-lambswool ones for this winter when Canberra decides to go sub-arctic.

I won't even *consider* putting up the sites for thermal underclothes that I've been looking at. I know they're ugly sex-killing revolting garments... but the cold, the cold! I CAN'T FEEL MY LEGS!!! AAAAARGH!!!!! Sorry, just practicing my lines for winter. Hehe.

Work woes

I've got the unemployment blues.

Well, sort of. I'm a bit despondent about it all, having only had one interview since I started applying for work at the beginning of this year. I'm putting in applications for all sorts of stuff, but I'm not getting a whole lot in return. I'm thinking outside the box - I don't NEED that internship right now... but what I do need is maybe a foot in the door, so positions such as research assistant in mental health, yep, I'm there.

But I hear nothing back, and the interview that I attended well over a week ago bore no fruit. I can't help but lament the higher number of jobs being advertised in Sydney - 25 versus 8 on Psychxchange, a whopping 122 versus 12 on seek.com.au. *sigh* And of course they all want experience, or to have completed masters. I'm wondering if choosing the internship option has been a mistake. I'm only going through what most new graduates go through, I suppose. I'm not as despondent as this sounds, but some days it's just... difficult.

So... it's chin up and I'm thinking that in lieu of looking for temp work, which I hate, I'm just going to have to step up my little cottage industry wool-dyeing projects. I've dyed 3kg of wool in the past 2 days, and I've listed the first little batch on my sales site, http://monnsqueak.typepad.com/colour_revolution/ - so you can go over and have a squizzy. Keep your eye on it, I'll have a whole lot more up tomorrow. Keepin' busy!

The weeds grow, the dirt don't

This is what most Canberra lawns look like at the moment...
Revolting, but just the way it goes here at the moment. Droughts are not fun things to experience, but at least for me it's just my lawn and not my livelihood and farm dwindling before my eyes. I tried to do this thing called weed-n-feed on the yard a while ago, apparently it encourages the grass to grow and kills off the weeds. Well, the weeds went wild anyway, and the grass got very very sunburned, and is now pretty much dead. So I'm dealing with the weeds the old-fashioned way.
This is about 20 minutes worth of yard-weeding, and I got probably about a third of the obvious weeds. I have this fantastic little tool that I got from Bunnings which you slip into the ground and yoink up the weed, roots and all.
I'm really getting into the garden at the moment. My current mission is to drought proof the front garden, which is starting to suffer a bit, by putting wood chip mulch all over it. So today was rose-feeding and woodchippin' day, and while I was on a roll, I filled in the blank corner with a yummy new grevillia. Yurm! I'm only half way through floofing up the front garden, so I'll photograph it when finished. I never had much of a green thumb until now, but David is taking his role of co-gardener rather seriously, and reminds me every second night to water the plants.
The current water restrictions for the ACT can be found here: http://www.actew.com.au/conservation/Stage3Restrictions.aspx and there's a link to download them as a pdf document. Fines start at $200 so do be careful! And as for the odds and evens system, every one talks about it, but I didn't actually know how it works until the ever-informative google came to the rescue. It merely means that if you live in an odd-numbered house you water your plants (can or hose only) on odd numbered dates between 7 and 10, and even numbered or unnumbered houses can water on even numbered days of the month. Simple, and it seems taken for granted that people know what this is. Now you know!

Springy springliness sproing!

Spring here has been an absolute delight. I prefer Sydney as a city. I find Canberra mostly too conservative, a bit boring, hardly any free entertainment (is Tropfest the only decent free thing we get here?) though I must say finding a knitting group as mad-hardcore as SSK was a wonderful surprise, so I'm calling it quits on that point. Hehe. Anyway, one thing that Canberra has that Sydney doesn't that I'm really enjoying now that it's spring is real seasons. In Sydney, ya sorta get hotter and colder, and that's summer and winter. But here... well there's been explosions of life and greenness everywhere, and I've been floored by how lovely an experience it's been.

So what I've done is just photographed a few little bits and pieces of lovely surprises that keep popping up in the garden here - the person who lived here a couple of years ago has planted lots of amazing stuff, like trees which were bare and are now not just budding, but flowering, and bulbs which keep popping up all over the place, like little surprises every time I look at the garden. Yay!

Visitors!

Life's all about priorities.

Yeah, study schmudy. We had to go to the yummiest Indian restaurant ever, because having dinner with M-H and Sandra was a priority, ya know, like the important stuff in life. And it was an awesome night! The food was great, the company better, and the camera nonexistent. Oops! They were, apparently, sussing out the boy to see if he's going to be kept or not, but I'm still waiting on the 30-page report in the mail. Hehe!

AND we had to spend an evening of wine and knitterly goodness with Emma and Morgan, who stopped by overnight on their way to Sydney. Big fun to be had there! Am I jealous of Morgan moving to Sydney? You bet your sweet dpns I am. Lucky for Canberra it has a very attractive lure keeping me here. ;)

AND then the following morning, we were booked in for the Canberra fun run, but I'd gotten mixed up with my dates, and it turned out Adie and Wilky were visiting Sat night, not Tuesday as originally thought. Oops again! It turned out fine, of course, and once again prioritising worked its magic, and another wonderful but camera free morning of brekky at Belconnen markets ensued. *happy!* Yah, there'll be another fun run, but you never know when you're going to get your mates in from Adelaide again.

So in lieu of a photo, here's Adie's gorgeously cool contribution to our nifty leather guestbook! :D

I do hope those sheep escaped from the Evil Needle-Weilding Squeak of Doom...

Markets!

I do miss Sydney, but as was inevitable, sometimes this weirdass place does feel a bit like home. Which is good, because a girl's likely to go insane if she doesn't like the place she's living in. So one of the nifty things about Canberra is the Old Bus Depot Markets. Oh yay! Yummy food! Woolly goodness! And occasionally... a petting zoo, complete with tiny lambs and goats!!!

So we met Damien and Tori for coffee and lunch and while I petted the fibrey stuff, David ran around excitedly acquiring stuff... candle-holders for "us", bathbomb for "me", and for "he"...

...um... lawl? I took several very cute photos, which I've put into an album :D Now I just have to work out how to get the album to show. Hm.

Dinosaur nerds, quake with jealous rage. Mwahaha!

Mrs Beeton, here we come!

I started spinning this yarn when I still lived at Leichhardt with the wonderful Lizzie and Niv, and M-H, Sandra and Emma all within squeaking distance to me. It was one of the most gorgeous times of my life, with my dearest and most beloved friends surrounding me and just *being* there. It's occurred to me that the transition from Sydney to Canberra is being slowly dealt with in my mind, as I slowly finish off the projects begun in one place and finished in another, and this was no doubt planted in my mind by the inestimable Brenda Dayne. When she talked about her travelling sweater, the wool bought by her partner in Wales, taken to the US, begun in the US, and completed in Wales, I came very close to crying. Funny how certain stories touch your heart, sometimes completely by surprise.

As I tie off the loose ends of half finished projects and begin new ones, I also tie off loose ends of my life in Sydney and begin my new one here. And this little skein of yarn is one of them. I began spinning it one night sitting with Lizzie and Niv while watching Grey's Anatomy (which I still watch religiously! Ooh, this week's gonna be a good one!), the ultimate girly-bonding tv show *grin*. And I finished plying it yesterday, that momentous day when I actually BEGAN THE WRITE-UP OF MY THESIS! Ok, so I only have 266 words so far. But I'm aiming at working just one paragraph (minimum) in per day, and if I do that 120 words per day until the 26th October, I'll get it done on time.

I took two pictures with the intention of using only one, but this first one shows the yarn to scale - that's a five cent piece - and the other shows a really nice detail *and* the colours are much more accurate in the second photo. So there you go... I'm going to string some sweet little purple and blue beadlings onto and make myself the long-promised pair of Mrs Beeton wrist warmers. Ooh, so sweet, oldfashioned and classy!!! I have a feeling that the yarn's too fine for the required gauge. But if I don't use the actual pattern, I'm just going to add in a couple of repeats to make it go all the way round the wrist. And I have pretty small wrists anyway, so it should all work out. I'm hoping that the colour changes in the wool, which I've navajo-plied, will facilitate the colour contrast between the two ruffle layers. Yummeh.

...word count: 383

...days to go: 82

More beautiful things

I took this one foggy morning here about 2 weeks ago. Funnily enough, the cold hasn't been as bad as I thought it would be, though I dont ride the motorbike further than about 5 minutes at night time - it's just too freezing. So... beauty in unexpected places. I like it.

...word count: 266

...days to go: 83

Flowers

What have I been doing? And what's with the flower photos?

Well, sometimes I'm productive, and sometimes I'm not. Lately, I've not been so productive with my hands, it's all been mental stuff. Basically I'm working on settling here in Canberra and getting my head around a new and sometimes bizarre life. From meeting my ex's future wife and son, to finding out that the cold wasn't so bad in Canberra as I thought it would be, life has been a tumultuous ride for the last couple of years, and I'm just taking it easy at the moment, thinking, studying, and most of all, recovering.

So the story with the little flowers and the budding roses is this: Me and David moved to a new little place in Canberra, and the little garden at the front was mostly empty, a bit of straggly grass, some weeds, a few odd-looking succulents, a very dried-out old lavendar bush, and some bare, leggy rosebushes.

Some days here, I think that I can't stand Canberra at all, and I'll shrivel and die if I stay here permanently. Other days... well, other days I love it. And the other day was one of those days. I came home, and there was all this green stuff in the garden, it had just magically appeared! A whole row of little bulbs had been hiding under the ground, and the recent bit of mildish weather (like not below 0 at night) has coaxed them up above ground, and voila! I have flowers, flowers and more flowers! There are a few jonquils, and a few snowdrop-looking flowers with green spots on them (no idea what they're called). To add to the  joy, the roses are budding leaves all over. *happy sigh* And of course it's a metaphor, and one about as subtle as a 2x4 club. I do feel as though I'm magically coming back to life again. Oh, hello heart, is that you?