Pooch's Christmas Message

It is with sadness that I look back at the last year and consider all the wasted opportunities for annoying my Byrne. There have been many good instances, and I only wish there was enough space on the interweb for me to relate them all here, but I don't feel I have really made the most of the time we've spent together. I want to assure you, my loyal readers, that this will change in 2007.

Yours grumpily, Pooch

(woof)

Get UP! (get on up) Stay on the Scene! (get on up) Like a Sock Machine! (get on up)

Ahhhh, good old James Brown. Nobody does it better. Yes, here I am - sock machine supremo. I may detest the 4 needle method but those socks with seams have been leaving my needles at a fair old pace. I finished two pairs for me in the last couple of days both of which were started months and months ago but got put aside for ghastly xmas knitting.

Both pairs are sadly a little on the large side. But who needs svelte socks?

Here is the ghastly baby set that I did for someone my Mum knows.

Bernie did the hat - godbless'er - which lets me safely segway into an update of the knitting situation at work. Some time ago you may remember me casting myself in the role of evil stepmother slash witch in the snow white story tempting a young, defenceless colleague into knitting a mobile phone cover. Well.... she has finished a scarf with not a single mistake, ends sewn in and all, and has caused such consternation in her department manager at all this display of skill that it caused her to go out and buy needles and yarn to start her own. (Being a posh bird [and that is me writing that right so you know she must be pretty damn posh] she bought debbie bliss 100% cashmere at something like £10 for 25g. Asked me to cast on for her which I gladly did and knitted a row just for the experience. Verrrrrrrry lovely but that scarf is going to be worth its weight in gold.) So that is 3 colleagues converted. Oh yeah.


Now before I continue I want you to promise not to laugh. Because I finished my mum's jacket and, um, it looks a bit odd. You know this woman....

Well, make sure you don't think of her when you look at this:

Yeah, I know.

So anyway, the winner of the first challenge for the Proud To Be Crafty zine was Ingrid Curl. Hoorah! And what did she win, well well.....

Well done Ingrid! And you can enter challenge two - just get hold of a copy of the zine and find out all about it.

Happy Christmas Everyone!

ATTENTION

ALIENS ARE COMING TO ABDUCT ALL THE GOOD LOOKING AND SEXY PEOPLE.

YOU WILL BE SAFE .

I'M JUST POSTING TO SAY GOODBYE.

I'm not kidding. I've been sitting at my desk sniggering like a school boy who's just been told a fart joke for the last 10 minutes.





Now that the xmas knitting is gone and done I have had a chance to join some new ATC swaps. While perusing the web for vintage nudes (as you do, at work, when your screen faces the whole room) I came across this website. Obviously I wouldn't take any of the images from this website as that would infringe copyright but they are all remarkably free of watermarks and there is an amazing variety.




It is amazing what you can find on the web. For instance I can see the one on the left making an appearance on an ATC sometime soon.

Someone else at work has been made redundant in a rather unexpected reshuffle. All a bit odd. What is odder is that I got a kind of random job offer from a website that uses ZoomInfo to find likely candidates. What is weird is that I typed in my name and out of all the Al*x B*rne's in the world (and there is one who has won lots of oscars for costume design) I come out 3rd on their list. Try yourself. If ever there was a reason for not putting your real name, at least in full, on your blog this is it!

Cast off the old, in with the new

Finished the bloody xmas knitting! Just checking in quickly as had a hectic day off yesterday frantically knitting, stitching and otherwise fiddling with presents after a busy weekend in manchester with Pooch's family. ALL DONE! Thank ****.

Have sent out about 35 copies of the zine which is rather good and have had some very nice comments back. You can still get a copy here.

Have more pictures of cherries to be posted but none with me so until tomorrow........

Impromptu lectures

When I got to work this morning I got called into a photo shoot for our Events business's new brochure. Being sober and upstanding I got to stand at the front behind a lecturn and pretend to lecture. Except I saw no point in pretence and decided to go for it. My homily (sp?) covered many subjects including

• the music of william shatner


• balanced scorecard


• the distribution of staff survey results


• the height of some of my co-workers


• the flying spaghetti monster

It worries me that there are some people out there who do not know about his holiness, the FSM. Here he is:

I know. He's breathtaking. I have asked Pooch for the gospel of the FSM for xmas. I love him, and Pooch, and want to be touched by his noodly appendage, and the FSG's fnah fnah. I feel it is important that anyone who has heard about Creationism should also read about Pastafarianism.

Incidentally my colleagues already think I'm nuts so were not surprised at any of the above topics.

Just before I go - is the word 'bodkin' really in such decline? Even women in their 50s claim not to know of the word. I feel like it was one of my first 10 words like dada or potty. Reassure me here - others do know of and use it don't they? What else would one sew up seams with?

One word meme

Where do these things start?

Yourself: Ditzy
Your boyfriend: Pooch
Your hair: awful
Your mother: Bookish
Your father: Distant
Your favorite Item: Chocolate
Your dream last night: absent
Your favorite drink: chocolate
Your dream car: red
The room you are in: impersonal
Your ex: numbered
Your fear: madness
What you want to be in 10 years? Poochetta
Who you hung out with last night? Pooch
What you're not: Unhungry
Muffins: chocolate
One of your wish list items: wool
Time: lacking
The last thing you did: kiss
What you are wearing: cords
Your favorite weather: rain
Your favorite book: Freakonomics
The last thing you ate: cherry!
Your life: patchy
Your mood: sleepy
Your best friend: Louise xxx
What are you thinking about right now? dinner
Your car: none
What are you doing at this moment: hungering
Your summer: warm
Your relationship status: dreamy
What is on your TV? nothing
What is the weather like? windy
When is the last time you laughed? just now
Who do you tag? anyone?

310th post

I made that the title as there must be something to celebrate in this otherwise most unlovely of Tuesdays. Those masochists among you who have been checking in for some time now may have heard me mention the film "Zoolander" once or twice. There is a point in that film where Hansel (Owen Wilson) is telling a story to a group of himilayan pygmies while baking bread. It goes something like this....

"So I'm free-basing down this mountain in the alps and all of a sudden I feel the snow slide under me and I'm like 'oh no' and suddenly I'm falling and I'm falling through the air waving my arms and screaming 'aaaaarrrgggghhhhhh'.... when all of a sudden I'm like.... 'Hansel? Haven't you been smoking Peyote for 6 straight days? And isn't it possible this all a hallucination? And you know what?..........It was! I was in Utah. I've never even been to the alps!'

(Pygmie) 'Cool story Hansel!'"

From which story you will of course guess that it was only at the end of the day that I remembered I have PMT. Everything was fine up to when I got back from lunch and so to say it was an awful 'day' is taking it a bit far. It was more like an awful 2 hours which may run into tomorrow a bit but frankly who gives a shit.

Hoorah, hoorah, for I am not mad!

Had a day off yesterday and spent it putting in hard graft on xmas presents. And also putting in some serious cherry consuming too. Here are the two combined in my effort to be a bit yarnstorm-ish.
Aren't cherries fabulous? And don't they just taste great? You know, I didn't even like cherries until about September. Now I can't get enough of them.














You'll also see my beautiful pink denise cables in the photo above which are an early xmas present from The Pooch via Woolly Workshop. They remind me of just how much I totally adore my denise needles. I was further reminded of this when my blog went awol when I switched to blogger beta at the weekend. About 2 days it was missing for - rather annoying. When it came back all the info from the sidebar had gone so I had to look on google for a cache'd one and it came up with this. They really are so good. I have the plymouth bamboo interchangables and frankly they are not up to much. Fine to knit with - in fact divine to knit with - but not enough cables for a multi knitter such as me.

Here is a kind of knitting themed post of what I shall be knitting first once I get the xmas ghastlies off the needles. It's the socks that rock yarn I got in a swapbot swap. Aaaaahhhhh, lovely yarn.....beautiful yarn.....lovely yarn. Soon I will come back to you my pretty....

Ok. That's enough time off the ghastly knitting. All that remains is for me to insert a quick political spot...

[Ding, Dong, Pinochet is dead - hoorah hoorah may he believe in hell so he can rot there]*

....and to apologise for the lack of a report from Pooch's Kennel. He seems to be enjoying the attention too much so I'm going to suspend it for now.

*My revised religious beliefs still maintain that I can spell the 'r' word wrongly and have been updated to include a bit about how if you believe in heaven or hell you might end up going there. But if you believe that when you die that's it then that's what you get too.

Hexalong - yippee!

There is a woollywormhead pattern in knitty, which also contains umpteen other cool things. I am joining the knit along for it! Click on the button below to get to it or the pattern is here.

This is me, right?

This is me, right, with a young lady we will call Vinnie. Except she's not holding an apple. It's more like she's holding her first ever piece of red knitting. She managed to do it without a mistake and even cast off and on with no problem. Not too shaky for a newbie. Incidentally, mobile phone covers are the new pot holder. She was just lamenting that she is away for the weekend and has nothing to knit on the train. Oh yeah. I got her good.

I don't have long to blog today as just as I sat down to do this the xmas fairy landed in our office and I got heavily involved in The Decoration Project. Believe it or not I am one of the tallest on my floor (at 5'7" - place is full of midgets) so was called on for lots of sticking of blue tak. Fortunately we have a temp in who is seriously 6'10" and so no standing-on-rotating-office-chair-accidents took place.

Off to see Sound of Music tonight with the in-laws and then a weekend of family style debauchery - i.e. Greenwich market and Harrods. Have a good weekend everyone!

PS: BUY THE ZINE ;)

Live life like you're gonna die... because you're gonna

Nope, not a return to madness but the title of a great song that Will Shatner stars in. Let me lay some lyrics on you...

You'll Have Time
(William Shatner/Ben Folds)

Live life
Live life like you're gonna die
Becasue you're gonna
I hate to be the bearer of bad news
But you're gonna die

Maybe not today or even next year
But before you know it you'll be saying

Is this all there was?
What was all the fuss?
Why did I bother?"

Now, maybe you won't suffer maybe it's quick
But you'll have time to think
Why did I waste it?
Why didn't I taste it?
You'll have time
Because you're gonna die.

Yes it's gonna happen because it's happened to a lot of people I know
My mother, my father, my loves
The president, the kings and the pope
They all had hope

And they muttered just before they went
Maybe, I won't let go
Live life like you're gonna die
Because you are

Maybe you won't suffer maybe it's quick
But you'll have time to think
Why did I waste it?
Why didn't I taste it?
You'll have time
'Cause you're gonna die

There's more but I don't want you to get bored. What was making me think about this song was that I haven't been able to take my second anti-d for the last couple of days for various reasons and boy, am I feeling the effects. Lethargy, confusion, I feel like I'm thinking through treacle if you know what I mean. My memory is shot too. This is how I was feeling before I started taking the second one on top. It got me thinking about what a funny old thing the brain is and how the odd chemical here and there can make so much difference. It also reminded me that getting better is only the beginning of the end and I still have the long cut-down period to get through. But once I get to the end of it and once I have cut down there is a whole big future out there waiting for me.

Current medical thinking is that it is not wise to get pregnant while taking prozac. Bit of a no brainer some might think but there is research suggesting it adversely effects the brain chemicals in the baby. At one point they thought you should leave it for two years after stopping but this has been shorted to one cycle. I'm not gagging to have kids but that bint at work asking me whether I was pregnant did get me thinking about the whole thing. The idea no longer repels me anyway.

In knitting news am still banging away at the ghastly xmas knitting. Ghastly. Soon be over. Am also gearing up for the in-laws visiting this weekend which means a visit to 'Sound of Music' starring the people's choice woman who I think is called Carrie. Means I won't be blogging much towards the end of the week.

Right, back to the ghastly knitting....

Moo is home and has brought donuts!

Nicked this from Mooknits.

You Are a Caramel Crunch Donut

You're a complex creature, and you're guilty of complicating things for fun. You've been known to sit around pondering the meaning of life... Or at times, pondering the meaning of your doughnut. To frost or not to frost? To fill or not to fill? These are your eternal questions.

What Donut Are You?

*sigh* another load of no-sends on swap-bot.com. I am so disillusioned with that site although I have done a lot of good swapping on it. It is just so dispiriting when you make something, like a handknit dishcloth, and then get nothing back. I have just signed out of all the swaps that hadn’t started yet and will just slog through the ones I have left and then leave it entirely with atcards.com and the eclectic ATC Yahoo group. Maybe.

I have this internal conflict going on at the moment concerning the throny issue of organisation. As much as it may seem to conflict with my whole life I would really like to be organised. I am always writing lists but then tend to lose them or at least lose interest. The area of swaps is another one where I really want to be organised but am just not getting there. I have an excel file on my PDA but I keep forgetting it. Then I started another list in my notebook but keep forgetting about it. Then I tried writing it down but the paper wasn’t wide enough. My latest decision is to go back to the paper route but (and this is the big BUT {dissimilar to my big ol’butt}) I am going to do it landscape on coloured paper.

I had to break the paragraph there to leave room for the hushed she’s-a’fricking-genius type silence that just happened there. Who’d have seen that one coming?

The Pooch forms one corner of an uneasy triangle in my life at the moment, the other two corners being me and my muvver. Mumsy has asked that the cottage be a laptop free zone at xmas (we are going down to her this year) and Pooch has taken this rather personally. I spoke to Mum about it this morning and she has taken his taking it personally rather personally. Her argument is that it is antisocial. Pooch’s argument is that he wouldn’t dream of asking her not to bring a book or me to bring my knitting. My compromise is that the laptop stays elsewhere for xmas day and is then optional on other days. My argument is also that by his very nature Pooch = antisocial so you can either have him sitting in a corner glowering at the laptop screen or just sitting in a corner glowering. He looks as cute either way although the light from the laptop gives him a kind of ethereal anti-halo which does something for his image although I’m not sure what. All this calls for another entry from the kennel.

(Big Brother announcer’s voiceover…..)
Day 2 in the Pooch Kennel

Set alarm for 6.40am then objected loudly when Byrne got up at 7 and wanted to turn the light on. Even though she brought me a cup of tea I still loathe her. After she had left drank tea with sulky expression on face while counting ways to bring about her downfall. Got up and rearranged two bottles of wine in my 56 bottle winerack. Made my winerack some tea but it didn’t want it so I drank it.

Last night spent some time enumerating the number of meanings of the word ‘Byrne’.

1. Byrne? – cry of a wounded Pooch (wounds are generally a self-inflicted hangover)
2. Byrne! – sharp bark such as one uses on a cat when you have caught it munching on the Sunday roast. Used to reprimand and gain ceasing of current action. Usually ineffective.
3. Byyyyyyyrrrrrnnnne – stealth Pooch gearing up to ask for something.
4. Byrrrrrne – howl of despair when disco-ordinatedness has made me hit myself in the face again.
5. Byyyyyrrrrne – exclamation of surprise, such as when Byrne is found building my winerack. Usually denotes pleasure. Also used when discover Byrne has embroidered ‘Byrne was here’ on my underpants.

Me & my winerack have some tea

Every day in every way....

Do you know how much knitting I have to do? God damn christmas. Bah humbug! I am also somewhat preoccupied with the memory of how much time the MBA is going to take up when it starts again in May. I have to learn to really make the most of all the time I DO have. Which includes no more xmas knitting. NO MORE. But it's a bit late now. Oh poo.

Have been thinking for some time that Pooch should have a blog to put across his side of things. I wanted to call it Pooch's kennel but he has steadfastly refused to do one and this afternoon officially trademarked his name meaning I can't use it at all. So I have decided to have Pooch's blog as a subset of this one. So here follows the first entry of Pooch's kennel

Sunday 3rd in the Kennel

Got up today and drank a lot of tea. Then went back to bed with tea and my laptop. Did you know that the ATG couldn't find the SPU input with their elbows? Spent 3 hours on wikipedia reading about code breaking, mafia bosses with funny names and crocodiles while drinking tea. Surprisingly little overlap. Byrne bought me a winerack. About time since I've been asking for one for more than a year. She had to put it together because I'm too disco-ordinated. Yay, disco! Let's dance like Bez from the Happy Mondays. And drink tea!


My Winerack
(except mine only has two bottles in and I officially give Byrne permission to keep her shoes in the rest of the spaces. This is official because it is on my blog.)







So apart from that there is not much else to say and still can't post any pics as is all too sensitive. Oh except....
These are are just some of the squares I've been crocheting in my spare moments. It's a humungous blanket from the interweave crochet mag my SP bought me oh so long ago. I'm really enjoying it actually. And I like the modular nature which means I can just do a little bit at a time but see how it is building to make the whole. Which brings me on to the subject that is never that far from my mind.

I had my appraisal last week and was talking to sean about my feeling of isolation in my role and what I think I have realised over the last couple of days is that it's something that isn't going to change and as I'm not working closely with anyone I'm the only one who's going to notice what I do achieve. And I'm not going to notice unless I define the signposts or whatever they call them. Tomorrow I'm going to go into work and use the wonderful MS Project for something other than ATCs. Maybe.

lalala

Look at this site: http://www.captionmykitten.com/index.php?id=37&cap=584

Fricking hilarious.

So I have been away partly because I have been finishing issue 2 of the zine (and it is FINISHED and being printed as I type). You can order your copy here: http://proudtobecrafty.blogspot.com

Anything you want to share?

One of my colleagues just asked me if I was pregnant.













Great.






Anyway, spent the weekend in Oxford with the Pooch where there was a complete lack of yarn shops. I think I may claim the last week or two as an unofficial start to another stashalong month of abstainment. Can I do that retrospectively? Maybe if I told myself it was going to be a 2 month stint. But then that would mean missing out on the sales. But then I do have enough yarn to bury my pregnant looking form several metres deep so maybe that won't be such a bad thing.

OK, yes, 2 months, but backdating it to when I last bought yarn. Naturally this calls for a ticker to be created......


In knitting news I have finally finished the jumper for the wretched child and have begun the leggings - probably about 1/4 done on those. A colleague has offered to knit the hat to save the baby from total hate-knitting karma which is nice of her.

The second issue of the ProudtobeCrafty Zine is almost finished! (Go here to pre-order a copy and find out more) Hoorah. This is partly due to my being borrrrred at work - but you know how that bluesy tune goes as I sing it so often. It is my appraisal on Wednesday and I am expecting to receive another sonnet on tact and how I don't have any but at least it should be followed by some objectives I can't complete in 2 mins.

ATCs continue to occupy my thoughts when they are not taken up with knitting or the speed with which I can minimise my screen should someone important suddenly appear over my shoulder. I am quite into the digital versions where you create the image on the screen and print it out. I really think I should have been a graphic designer. Maybe it isn't too late although I'd need to take a pay cut for about a decade. Anyway... I am seriously into layering in photoshop. Ad speaking of layering - I am thinking of chopping all my hair off again. But considering I have a round face/head/body will this make me look fatter? Or more pregnant? Let us not forget it made me look quite weird when I was skinny.

Big old rant time

I've got a few minutes to spare and it so happens that my temper has been sorely tried today so what else does a blogger do in that situation other than sit down and inflict their views on the world?

I have been in a training course all day on customer care. I have been in a training course all day with a load of people who are mostly perfectly nice and about 3 who are the most ignorant f*cking idiots you've ever come across. The thing that finally got my goat was the all-physicists-are-weird chorus that gets trotted out by the aforementioned idiots every now again. The woman leading the chant this time happens to be jewish so having said I found the statement rather offensive and being told how stupid I was I asked her how she'd feel if someone said "All Jews are tight."? Now what I should have done was kept my mouth shut and just privately reflected on how good life was in that I only had to come into contact with her at these sorts of events. Instead she got all uppity and said you couldn't compare religion and an academic subject. I don't want to offend any readers of a religious pursuasion but perhaps this is because science is based on fact whereas religion is based on a load of lala. Don't tell me all physicists are weird and then tell me it's 'normal' to walk around convinced there's a trumanesque god watching over you. What kind of dumbarse thing is that to say?!

Another thing (AND ANOTHER THING) that happened was someone who would be the stupidest person working here if it weren't for the 'normal' woman and one other who I swear has nothing but stale air between her earoles said that George Bush was responsible for 9/11. Completely. And possibly MI5. WHAT??? I can only imagine that she is a creationist. What kind of moron thinks that a man as dumb as george bush could possible orchestrate a disaster like that and fool EVERYONE into thinking it was bin-laden? She even wrote a web address on a piece of paper for me so I can learn the truth. THE TRUTH??????








I have a card at home.

On the front is a rather troubled looking lady with a speech bubble.

It says,

"I tried to be normal but the effort drove me mad."

I feel, people, that I keep trying and society just conspires against me all the time. I realise I shouldn't let these things get to me but it really does bother me an awful lot that f*cking morons

like this walk around and can do things like breed, vote, buy a gun.

Yes, I guess you could say I'm feeling a little bit tense. Rather than go and blast some of those 'normals' with a weapon I am going to go to a hip hop dance class so I can blow them away with my moves (should I ever meet them on a dancefloor). At least I am hoping this might turn out to be mildly enjoyable so that I can finally find a form or movement that I don't totally detest and can treat like exercise. If this doesn't work I am going to try pole dancing. I hear it's good for toning you up.

New Crush - behold a god

I have a serious new crush. I just watched sunday night's episode of Torchwood. Does anyone else get the raging horn, as I believe Derek & Clive called it, about John Barrowman? I am totally loving this man. YES I know he's gay but I don't care. I just adore him and am happy to do so from afar. And not only that but I think Torchwood is much better than doctor who. I love the 'grown-up' feel about it and that none of them are smug.

Um, that's kind of all I've got to say actually. Except,

I love John Barrowman

So there I was

minding my own business in a one-to-one with my boss when he turned to me and said "Well, one thing's for sure. You're not destined for a career as a diplomat."

Actually it wasn't quite like that. The words that may have passed my lips before the long pause which preceded this statement were "Bring it on." Not to much of the "J'ACCUSE!!!!!" with pointy finger that I am imagining I have seen in some french melodrama as a "Yes, not everyone likes your style." Which is fine. Old Byrne would have gone into a tailspin about this and sat and had it go round and round and round and round and so on until she ended up on the phone to the samaritans. New Byrne is above such things. New Byrne accepts constructive criticism and uses it to learn and grow from, like watching an OU programme at 4am with your feet in a bowl of manure. So New Byrne sat on the tube (yes - sat - hahahahahahaha!) and did what she does best. I'd alrready got a gantt chart for my ATCs so this time I did a balanced scorecard of my life. I'm not going to put it up here because New Byrne understands that some things are for blogging and some things are private.

The most useful thing sean said (and there were a lot - he isn't one to just criticise and then leave you hanging) was "You are too process orientated. If you focus on the goal more then any progress towards it is positive." Which fits perfectly with the New Byrne life. New Byrne incidentally looks set to be an IT Project Manager. Oh yes.

So that's enough about schitzo byrne and the dizzy world of physics admin.

My crafty mojo hasn't yet reappeared. Have been slogging away on an erika knight baby jumper in cashsoft 4-ply in pale grey. Finished the equivalent of the front and one and a bit sleeves considering it is all being done in one piece. Leggings to do after that and a hat. Curse all babies.

Am having a silly amount of trouble finding a puzzle piece to alter as the conclusion of my altered art chat class last week. Does anyone happen to have a puzzle that has lost more bits than is good for it and who is prepared to put a couple of the hangers-on in the post to me? Can you believe people actually don't put puzzles with missing pieces on ebay?! They put everything else on there so I don't see why not. The idea of using just one piece of a new one repels me as a huge waste.

Another day in the life

Here is a microsoft project plan of the ATC cards I had to do when I created it on Tuesday.


Good, isn't it? For those of you who know about such things you'll notice that the tasks aren't linked but what I did do is make the time to make 1 ATC = 1 day so where the task is 4 days long that means 4 cards. Then I decided that I can make 3 cards a day. So my Alex resource = 300%. Then I assigned myself to each task and then levelled the resources to see when the making hot spots were. I fully intend to update it today and add in the slack bars but I don't want to run out of things to do like I had yesterday by 9.30am.

So peeps, do you get what I'm saying here? Yes, work is still a tad on the slow side. What I have done is written 4 project proposals and fired them off to various people internally. Much to my surprise one has been taken up and IOP Enterprises will soon own an online shop selling funky stuff with funky graphics on obscurely related to physics. This gives me about half an hours work to do later on which I'm saving so as I have something to look forward to.

All this means that the zine is practically ready - many thanks to those of you who have already pre-ordered #2 here. I will also soon be announcing the winners of the first challenge who will be in for prizes of crafty goodness. The first challenge was to make a pincushion (any theme) and get a photo of it to me asap. The best three get prizes.

In knitting news I am still on the xmas presents. NEVER AGAIN DUDE. I hate them all. Although apart from knitting I have been getting myself into a bit of a crafty tizz. I took part in the altered art online chat class on tues eve and it was FANTASTIC. Chat rooms are such great fora for this kind of class. The woman doing it was on one side of the US and there was me and others from the rest of the US and a couple of other countries. But when I actually came to sit down and do something I felt strangely unable to act. So in fact I haven't done very much in the evenings since then. I think I've lost my mojo a bit.

Pooch and I had the 2 1/2 year anniversary of our hooking up this week so tonight we are off out for dinner and james bond. Hoorah!

Blog trawl

Felt compelled to post for a staggering second time today because of the most recent cat picture over at Crazy Aunt Purls. I really wish I had a cat. Then my job wouldn't be so boring and I wouldn't get so obsessed with ATCs - apologies to annarella for banging on about them in a comment on your blog a minute ago!

Since I'm here, we also have the following from today's blog trawl....

• Excellent flea story linked to from purlpower (you just have to take a leap of faith that a story about fleas is worth the clicking to get you there) (and it is)
• New hat patterns from woollywormhead. Just splurged a full £1.75 on the spiral cap. But it's DPNs, curses. Then some things are worth the agony. Like childbirth. Or so I hear.

A light haul this time. Off to ATCards.com for an online class on altered art now. Yippee!