Category Archives: General Ramblings

The Day After

Aww, shucks guys. Thankyou for the lovely comments ๐Ÿ˜ณ Now, let’s see what I get called for haircut#2 (silly fool comes to mind). Just remember it’s partly OtherHalf’s fault for that “not much different” comment! Every time I have my hair cut any shorter than “really long”, I regret it the next day. Today is no exception. You would think I would have learned by now! There’s nothing really wrong with the cut, I’m still proud of the diy-ness of it. But I just don’t particularly love it.

Oh well. My hair grows like quicksilver, so it will back to photo#1 length in no time. In the meanwhile, it still looks pretty cute (thanks Jo :giggle: ) when I have it up in a ponytail.

DIY-Hair (Again) and Other News

Well. OtherHalf took one look at this morning’s photograph while he was at work. And said “it doesn’t look much different”. So, me being me, I went back for more diy-haircutting happiness ๐Ÿ˜ฏ He arrived home a short time ago, and agrees it is now “much different”. An absence of disaster at the back of my head has been confirmed, and so I’ll try and get another stunned mullet photograph tomorrow (post nasty-deadline).

In other news, the mailman arrived today bearing gifts for all. For me, another RAK! A big hug for Kelly, who sent me Sweetheart Tree’s Whispers in the Pines – gorgeous. I am overwhelmed (again) by the generosity of strangers. I’m not sure what I’ve done to deserve it, but it makes me happy. Thank you Kelly ๐Ÿ™‚

For OtherHalf and I both, new credit cards. With a scary upper limit. Let’s just say I could have a spectacular fall from the wagon with this little bit of plastic. As we had no say in what limit was given to us when we applied, we’re somewhat taken aback, and have every intention of requesting a lower limit. It scares me that credit is handed out with such reckless abandon. People with less sense than us could get into serious trouble. (Though I must say, we had a few moments of fantasy, dreaming about the kick-ass home theatre system we could set up!)

For Finn – and this is bizarre – a chain letter. You remember those – the snail mail equivalent of “Forward this to 496 friends or have bad luck the rest of your life” email. Only this is the 3-year-old equivalent. “Send one sheet of stickers to the person at the top of the list, give a copy of this letter to 6 friends, and within 2 weeks you’ll receive 36 sheets of stickers”. Y’what?

Finn was excited to receive mail with his name on it, but I have no intention of participating in the craziness. I might post some stickers to my friend’s little boy with a “thanks, but please don’t do that again” note attached, and buy some stickers for Finn as well (his bestest thing, don’tcha know!) A chain letter! For 3-year-olds! Now I’ve seen everything.

Yes, Hello!

Up to this point, my appearance has been somewhat of a mystery (to you, dear reader, not so much to me). But now… ta-da, here I am! Don’t adjust your monitors, and no, this is not a sepia-toned photograph. Just call me Miss Brown. Brown hair, brown eyes, brown top :giggle:

Why am I posting this semi-stunned-mullet photograph of myself? Well… I just cut my own hair! Happydance! Due to hairdresser-phobia (there has got to be a long and impressive word for that), I’ve been wanting to try it for ages, but have been too chicken. Today I just figured well heck, why not! My hair is long enough that I would have plenty of leeway to get it fixed if I really stuffed up. And really, I only chopped an inch or two off it, so its hardly a dramatic change.

Not only is my hair pretty long, but it’s slightly layered at the ends, which made it really difficult to stuff up. I used ye olde ‘flip hair over head and cut straight’ method – leading to slightly choppier, more accentuated layers (the effect I was going for, honest). Then I tapered up the sides to my face. Now, I know in the pic it looks slightly uneven, but it’s really not, I promise. It’s the way I’m holding my head. Can I just say – taking your own photograph in the mirror is not as easy as it sounds! Believe it or not, this is the least of the stunned-mullet looking attempts.

I’m pretty happy with how it turned out (hair, not photograph). Not to mention more than happy with the price I charged myself :giggle:

Memish

As a rule, I don’t do memes*. Much for the same reason as I don’t do blogthings and other assorted novelties – you’ve seen it all before, and I don’t think memes add terribly much to a blog, for the most part.

But… in an effort to actually drag this blog back to the world of stitching, I’ve decided to start giving you my 2 cents on the Stitching Blogger’s Questions. This week, the SBQ is as follows:

What is the most challenging specialty stitch you have ever stitched?

Well… I most assuredly have an answer to that. The cable chain stitch is quite the most awful thing I have ever put myself through, stitching wise. I have to say, this is a stitch where the effort required far exceeds the effect. Not worth it, by any stretch.

I used this stitch on a freebie ornament from Kreinik. A big part of the difficulty was probably the fact that it needed to be stitched with #8 braid! Can I offer a suggestion? Don’t do that. Just don’t!

In the end, the piece turned out stunning. It can be seen in my gallery** – cable chain stitch can be seen in gold, third band from the top, and in red, second from the bottom. Sadly, it’s still waiting to be ‘ornamentified’ (to use a Rotation BB term). I’ll get to that someday… along with the many others sitting finished in plastic baggies in my stash box :giggle:

My Blog Should Be Purple

According to Blogthings. Just in case you were wondering ๐Ÿ™‚

And…

“You’re an expressive, offbeat blogger who tends to write about anything and everything. You tend to set blogging trends, and you’re the most likely to write your own meme or survey. You are a bit distant though. Your blog is all about you – not what anyone else has to say.”

Well damn straight. Who else is it going to be about?!

Don’t know about that setting blogging trends bit though. It took me until 2005 to even start this thing, so I’d say I’m pretty far behind in trendset-iness.

I’m not really interested in making my blog purple, so nyah, Blogthings. I have many ideas running through my head for my perpetually delayed template re-jig, not one of them is purple.

Dum de dum…

This post is rather full of good nothing-ness, isn’t it? I need more nothing-ness in my life. I would rather be stitching, but in the 10 minutes I’m taking a study break for, I would get next to nothing done, and would want to stitch for the next 2 hours, instead of slaving away on a Web Databases assignment.

Speaking of stitching, I received goodies yesterday! So happy – Laura sent me a wonderful chart, (which Finn promptly decided I should start stitching for him, but since he deleted a vital chunk of my Usability Engineering assignment on Tuesday, he’s not in line to be demanding anything of the sort :grr: ). Sorry, I digress. It’s Unicorn, by Peter Underhill. Finn does have a point, it would be pretty funky for a boy’s bedroom ๐Ÿ˜† Then Mum arrived, and forced new fabric on me! A beautiful bluey-purpley solo from Silkweaver – and a huge piece, too. I’m envisioning a Mirabilia Fairy on it. Can’t wait to stitch again.

Before I disappear, here’s the 5 second update on the Grrr things in my life (in case you care):

    ~ Auto-pinging: I think not working. Let’s see how it goes this time. Will manually ping if necessary. Update: nope, it IS working. Yippee!
    ~ Car: fully repaired as of today – ask me again on Sunday! ๐Ÿ˜›
    ~ Washing Machine: not working, but problem finally diagnosed.
    ~ Washing Machine Company: won’t replace, will repair.
    ~ Stupid motorist who hit my car and denied it: Hmmm, I actually don’t know. Must find out what’s going on with that. I’m kind of curious to know what story she’s going to come up with :giggle:

In The Realm of Spooky

Don’t know if it was the recent sighting of someone I went to college with, or if it was the glib ‘stalking’ remark I made in an email to a friend. Perhaps it was the recent post by Laura about an ex-boyfriend of hers. Whatever prompted it, I have been doing my own teensy bit of cyber-stalking tonight. I found something I thought quite bizarre.

I looked up two people whom I was once very close to in college – one an ex-boyfriend, and one an ex-friend. I need not elaborate on the whys and wherefores of either relationship. But at the time, they had little to do with each other, and as far as I know, still have little to do with each other.

Anyhow. It turns out that they live only three blocks from one another. That in itself might not be so strange, were we all still in the same city. But no, both of them moved almost as far away from me as it is physically possible to do while remaining in the same country. (Actually, I’m fairly certain that it has nothing to do with me, however it does make me wonder :giggle: ). So that’s why I find it so completely strange that they independently moved all that way, and they ended up so very close!

I wonder if they run into each other in the supermarket…

I wonder what they talk about…

๐Ÿ˜ฏ

Before and After

I am now getting to that point in my Masters degree where, because I “don’t work” (aka I am “just a mum”), I am beginning to be asked what my plans are for when I finish. Courtesy of the wacky dudes at the Southpark Studio*, I am now able to demonstrate to you visually, exactly what “my plans” are:

Exhibit A:
Mel before finishing Masters degree:
before finishing Masters degree

Exhibit B: Mel after finishing Masters degree:
after finishing Masters degree

*Link discovered on Robin’s Nest. Thanks Robin ๐Ÿ™‚

Washing Machine: 4, Melanie: nil

Ahahahahahahahahahahaheeheeheeheeheeheeeeeee! :topsy:

Yes, folks, we have moved from the minor breakdown phase, into the loony hysteria phase. The washing machine broke down again last night. I assure you, I don’t know which deity-of-machiney-things I have offended, but I promise, I’m sorry. Please, please, can’t I just have some appliance-breakdown-and-vehicle-collision-free time now?

If this was an old washing machine, I would be less concerned about the situation. In fact, we would have replaced it by now. But it’s only four years old. It’s still under warranty (thank goodness – some time after we bought ours, the warranty period dropped to 3 years, we were lucky to get the 5, as it turns out). This machine is a complete and utter lemon, let me tell you. At 2 years old it had to have major structural repairs – the drum ended up being replaced. At 3 years old, the pump was replaced, and we were told to ‘just live with’ some odd noises the drum was making. (Incidentally, at that point I was told I did ‘too much’ washing… what?!) Now, at 4 years old, it has had its brains replaced – the expensive-looking electronic board which controls the whole thing. But the burned out board turned out to be just a secondary symptom of whatever is really going wrong, because a week after that was replaced, it’s gone out of its tiny mind again. I’m ready to dig the thing a grave, warranty or no warranty, I tell you.

I’m not going to be petty and name the brand (ahem-Italian-starts-with-‘A’) , but for darned sure we will not be giving them any more of our dollars.

By the way, no, the car was not terribly damaged in the brother-in-law incident. In fact, to make lemonade out of lemons, an old scrape that I was responsible for myself (neighbours fence ๐Ÿ˜› ) has been covered over by the new damage, so the repair will be like a two-fer-one freebie! In the light of ‘one-week-after-it-happened’, I do feel mildly embarrassed by my breakdown, but as I said at the time, it was not really about the car. It was more about the everything. I’m good now. Hysteria is much more fun :giggle:

Smash Magnet

Sooo…

You’re gonna love this!

Five hours after I wrote that last post?

My brother-in-law backed into my car.

My newly repaired car, not four days after picking it up from the repairer.

:grr: :grr: :grr:

I’m able to smile (wanly) about it now. At the time, I had a minor breakdown in the bathroom. Stupid, really. All the things that are going on in my life are so infinitesimally small… it’s just that cumulative effect thing taking a hold.

In better news, the exam timetable for this semester came out today. I know, that doesn’t sound much like a good thing. And in fact, it is a little scary, my two exams are within two days of each other. The good bit is that my exams are earlier this semester, so I get it over and done with. Last semester I had three weeks of twiddling my thumbs er… I mean studying, before the exams. This time, I’ll be done on the 29th of October, so I’ll have two entire months off before my final unit in January. Yay!

On The Upswing

Didn’t I tell you I’d post an all GoodThings post someday soon? Well, things are not quite all good, but are definitely back on the upswing.

The washing machine finally stayed dead long enough for TheGuy to see what was wrong, and hoo-boy was it nasty. The control board had burned out badly enough to have charcoal on it! I don’t want to know what one of those things costs, I’m just super glad the machine was still under warranty.

The car is fully repaired and happy to be home again. The liability issue is ongoing. Let’s not talk about that :giggle:

Then, good things arrived in my mailbox on Tuesday and Wednesday. First, official notice of unconditional approval on our home loan application. There had been some delay in that, for reasons beyond our control. Second, a lovely stitched piece by Annette arrived. This was the final mailing in the seasonal exchange we took part in last year, and I just love it, it’s a great design. And thirdly…stash! For me! New Stash! I’m sure you can tell how happy I was about that – I bounced around the room for a good half an hour :giggle: Kati from The Wagon sent me these great Paw Printings charts which have been on my wishlist for a good long while:

I think I have enough black perle cotton in my stash to stitch the ornament on the Onyx chart, and suitable substitute beads, so after I finish my red piece, I might treat myself to a new start. I can do that right? It’s only small, after all…!

Thanks Annette and Kati. It’s so nice to share a hobby with such a great bunch of people. Kati’s gift was a RAK (Random Act of Kindness), which have just been introduced on The Wagon. I RAK’d someone this week too, but shhh, it’s a secret!

Oh, and the final GoodThing I have to report? I’m not going to turn this into a weight loss journal. But. I’ve lost 5.5kg in the last 6 weeks. Happy Dance!