The Knitting Revolutionary

Prince!

...oh and I bought new stuffs to paint over the red bits as they fade.

You gotta love a product that uses Prince songs for names...

New Hairs!

Don't ask me how much it cost - I've never spent this much at a hairdresser's before. Ever. Nor even half. I couldn't really afford it, and I don't really care. So Ha! *glee*

Update!

It's been a while. I've been doing a lot of stuff, including changing jobs (*gasp*) and batting off the black dog with a stick. I've also been spinning lots, and have made a gorgeous new dye colourway called Salamander (which are mythical fire elementals, ooooh)

So here's what I've been spinning: The first is a teal green mix of silk and merino, all wound on to my Andean plyer and ready to 2-ply, and the other is a bunch of purple merino that Rachel bought for me (yey Rache, you're awesome) and I'm thinking I might Navajo ply that, but I'm still thinkin.

Knitting: The Green Jumper is stalled with too-short sleeves, and lies around the house looking gorgeous but fragmented. Bit like me on a Sunday afternoon. (bwahaha)

Meanwhile I've started a new sage green cotton jumper called Twisted - you can see it on Ravelry (username monnsqueak) if you're a Raveler, but here's the first shot of the back. Look at that shaping! Mmmm! Slight problem with this one already - I measured and started this one about a month ago and have since gone on (another) diet. So 2 1/2 kilos later, I'm hoping it won't look like a sack on me when I'm done. *sigh*

Anyway, I'm off to feed my WoW addiction while living in jealousy of M-H running around Wales and hanging out with other knitting legends. *sigh* Have a wonderful long weekend!

The weekend of heppy!

I have had a WONDERFUL weekend!

It started Friday night when Liz and Chelle came to stay with us for a night, and I went out to have nyummy asian food in Dickson with them... mmm. Laksa. How can you go wrong!

We got up reasonably early, and despite the fact that Canberra isn't very big, Chelle got lost going for a walk. It might not be big, but it's hell confusing - all the streets are curly and curvy, and because Canberra has no billboards (yeah, it's a bit Pleasantville) and the burbs aren't that old, it's actually quite difficult to find your direction because of the distinct lack of landmarks. It's all curvy roads and dry roadsides and rather conservative looking homes, and poor dehydrated drought ravaged gardens. (Well except for the parliamentary circle and anywhere near the lakes, which are divinely green and rather lovely). Anyway. I go rescue Chelle, who was half way back to Sydney, and we all took off to Belconnen fresh food markets and had brekky at the organic cafe there. Pretty nice. The eggs are amazing, though the quality of their roasted veg has gone down - no zucchinis or other greens, just sweet potato, pumpkin and carrot. Other than that it's a gorgeous little cafe with really good organic coffee and incredibly indulgent chocolates, and lots of hippy-chick sorta things like ear candles and organic sushi ingredients and stuff. We were having so much fun that we forgot to take photos. Always a good sign :D

Then I took off to work for a few hours, and after that the foody joy continued.

I was wailing away a week or so ago about how it's a bit sucky that Lebanese food is so luscious, but takes so long to prepare, so a few girlies put their hands up for the experience of coming over and making stuffed vine leaves. If you do this alone, you need about 3 or 4 hours. If you have girlfriends and a bottle of wine, you can knock it over in 2. And the 2nd hour is when they're cooking on the stove top, so it's an hour of rolling spliff-type munchies, and an hour of hanging out, drinking wine and gossiping enthusiastically about all sorts of silly stuff.

Divine, wonderful, beautiful way to spend a Saturday arvo! There will definitely be repeats of the experience, next time I'm doing stuffed zucchinis. *droool* The recipe for the stuffed vine leaves is very accessible, you can find it in this little Woman's Weekly book. A lighter, more traditional lemon-flavoured style can be found elsewhere, but I love this one because it's so sweet and rich with the tomato sauce.

And finally, the roast of doom later that night. Need I say more? Despite a no-show (silly boy doesn't know what he's missing, nor how sought-after a seat at the Doom Roast is), it was a raging success, especially with Maddi's home made margarita ice cream. Mmm.

Could it have been any better? Not in a million years. Bring on the 4 day week, I feel like a million dollars :D Now I'm just hanging out with a glass of rose and reading Jane Austen by candlelight. *heppy heppy heppy*

Vile capitalism, as experienced by the girly shoe shopper

I got a cute little shoebox package in the mail today... eeeee! They're my lovely new Fluevogs, which I've been squeaking and squawking about for the past 2 weeks, and they fit! And they're mine! Whee! I was pretty excited about them, I got them from ebay for about $100 (including postage), and they're probably worth about $300. Yummm. I love bargains. The bottom of the shoe has this funky thing which says To Love or To Hate, The Choice is Yours... and then on the heel 'choose love'. *smiles gleefully* I can hardly think of anything cuter to put on my feet. Besides a labrador puppy, perhaps. So yah, that's me getting all girly and materialistic. Shame on me, shame... because something that's this much fun *must* be bad. Hehehe.

I've actually been wielding the pointy sticks with a bit more direction and intention lately, and I'm almost finished the green jumper, which is looking gorrrrrgeous darlings. Mmm. Pity I totally missed winter with this one. My only regret is that the fluevogs exactly the same as my purple ones but in this same green were snapped up by someone else. *sigh*... being a girly girl is *so* tough. I might give it up, real soon. Yeah.

Shoes. Of all things, SHOES...

I'm not usually the sort of girl that gets all excited about shoes. Really I'm not. Well, I might get a little bit excited when I pick up seriously lush boots at the op shop for $30, or cute chunkus shoesies for $4; both cause for much excitement, but more about the bargain itself than the shoes.

But I have to say, I nearly WET myself with the glorious glee of discovery when I found this website...

www.fluevog.com

Oh. Yum. Yummmmm. *drool* *twitch* *want* *lusssssst*

Go there, lose yourself. My credit card is cringing with fear and dread already. Muhahaha!

They have one distributor in Australia, a shop in Melbourne called Sole Devotion. Apparently their website is due to go live some time in the next month. And they do mail order. They are even cool with people doing paper-tracings of their feet to get the size right. Eeeek!

Mmmmmmmmmm.

Everything hurts...

I've taken today off sick - work has a conference day, half of which will be lectures and half of which will be "activities" (mine was dru yoga which I was actually looking forward to), followed by a dinner dance tonight.

Well, I laid my cute dinner outfit on the end of the bed last night ready for it, but my body had other ideas, and woke me up in the middle of the night feeling pretty crap. Yep. Time to menstruate, darling, and I'm giving you two choices, you can either drug yourself up to the eyeballs and grit your teeth through the next 24 hours, or you can drug yourself up to the eyeballs and go back to bed.

I wussed out and chose option number two. My supervisor tells me that work require a medical certificate for this, since so many people try to wriggle out of the conference. Booo. I sincerely hope the dr gives me one, as I always feel like an idiot when I'm floored by my periods. Like I'm letting the team down, you know?

Del put it perfectly just now (chatting online), when she said "Yes, it's something you don't like talking about, and should be femcho enough to work thru".

Yah. That'll hit the nail directly on its painful little head right about now. Perfect, thanks for the absolutely spot-on summary Del. So me and my heat bag are off to the doctor. Bummer about not getting to wear my swishy skirt though. Meh. It's a day for sleeping, knitting, and trying not to feel bad about taking the day off for girly reasons.

The hair!

I couldn't wait.

Hee hee!

This is me... Fredless. Mmm mmm!

and in profile:

I was actually going to Anton's to book myself in to have my old long mop chomped off (that is not a typo! Mwahaha!) and saw a sign that said INSANE HAIR... and I thought... yep, that's what I need. Great service, lots of fun, and fantastic hair that's very spiky and fun and just what I wanted.

*happy*

In case you want their details, Insane Hair, Garema Place Civic, 6257 6883. It only cost me about $50. Yay!

A date with destiny

*drum roll please* ... I have an appointment.

*grins excitedly*

10am, 22nd Sept (next Friday, a week tomorrow). It's time for Fred to go.

Fred's my pet hair-monster. It all started out innocently with me and Fred, he's always with me and sometimes even keeps me warm, though not generally safe. I noticed this phenomenon that, when my hair started to get longer than about my shoulder-blades at the back, it started to develop a life of its own. It'd slip into my drink for a quick sip the moment I turned my head, or try to take a bite of my steak while I was deep in conversation over dinner. It'd insinuate itself between my friends and I constantly, and even started to get in the way in bed. And one dark night, it introduced itself to me. And that's how I met Fred.

Fred and me have had an ongoing thing for some years now, and we've gone through some great times together. Although I complain about Fred's philistine manners and inappropriate behaviour, he's been cheap and easy to maintain while I've been a student, hardly ate a thing (except for a small rodent once, but I don't talk about that until I've had at least 3 red wines), and never needed any visits to the vet... er... hairdresser.

But all good things must end... and I must say I've just outgrown him. Or maybe it's the other way round, and Fred's outgrown me. I think it's time for him to go and find his own way in the world.

Next Friday, Fred and I part ways.

Forever.

YEAH!!!!!!!!!!!