A story nothing to do with sewing, since I'm still just sewing ties.

About a month ago, my laptop, which I'd been using for about a year (having bought ex-rental for $200 as a temporary thing while I "found one I liked enough to spend a lot of money on") died on me, handily right before I was about to head off on a trip to Adelaide, which meant it was easy enough for me to find a temporary replacement laptop for my temporary replacement laptop. I bought a pretty decent spec Toshiba, for $390, but it's a brute of a thing with it's 17" screen compared to the 12" I had before.

A friend of mine is in need of a new laptop too, so when I went up again last weekend I told her I'd have a look at the ex-rental places to see what I could find her. Crazily, the ex-rental place that I had got mine from had gotten rid of their ex-rental part, so there wasn't quite the range I'd had last time, and unfortunately there didn't appear to be much in the ballpark that mine had been: it was either a lot less for a lot worse, or a bit more (about $450) for about the same. There was also a very cute little white thing in the corner without a price on it, but while I was off looking for a man who would ultimately tell me that it was already sold, the friend that I was with googled the serial number on his phone, and the reviews were pretty good. But I couldn't get a hold of Steph back home who wanted the laptop, so I didn't buy her anything.

I left her a message explaining the situation and when she called back that night she said that if I was okay with her paying me back over two weeks she'd have a decent one, since unlike me she doesn't buy a laptop just to tide her over till she buys a laptop. Weirdo. So we went back the next morning and, what do you know, the little white laptop has a price tag of $417 on it and that man that's there now says nope, no-one's bought it, and when I get all excited because the man had told us it was sold, and that we'll take it, he throws in a $50 HDMI cable to say sorry we had to come twice.

And yeah, you can get an $8 HDMI cable at Woolies, but it's the thought that counts. The thought might be: "Wow, Radio Rentals really overcharges people on their accessories" but I'm getting a six-month old laptop for $600 off it's RRP, so that's kinda irrelevant.

But the whole point of this kinda complicated computer shopping story is this: I had the big laptop, which I had named The Queen of Sheeba, for about a month. It was nothing at all like I wanted. It's big, it doesn't have a touch screen, it has a full numerical keyboard, which meant that whenever I went to scroll down I typed 00000000000 a lot. The power cable plugs in on the right hand side, which, for someone who sleeps on the left hand side of the bed, was really quite annoying. But in that month I'd gotten kinda fond of the big girl. I loved how fast she booted. She's twice as fast as the last laptop, and about 8 times faster than Steph's ancient piece of crap, so she's gunna be completely blown away. She felt solid, like you could invade a foreign country in her. Okay, that's a bit weird, but I liked her. Had I not found this one, I think I could have overlooked the fact that it was so damn difficult to photoshop anything without a touchscreen, and we could have hung out and made stupid facebook posts for the next three years, till her harddrive fried itself and I went into mourning. I didn't feel that way with my previous laptop, but I did the one before that, and it's a nice feeling.

So I've been quite slow in moving to this new one, the Baby Princess of Sheeba, it being the one size model down from the Queen. It was handy that I could use mostly the same drivers and that I still knew where all the program installers were, and Steph's quite glad to be getting a few thousand dollars worth of fell-off-the-back-of-a-modem software and movies and TV shows, but during this transition week, while I spent my nights moving ones and zeroes from one end of the network to the other, I kept on using the big one whenever I had to do anything. Maybe because it still has the mouse plugged into it: the black and red mouse not really coordinating with the shiny white. But the queen is moving out tomorrow, and I finally un-synced Firefox, and "obliterated history from the beginning of time" on Chrome. That is a web browser that takes it's deletions seriously.

I've only known it a month, and even though it's so lovely to be able to pick up the baby with one hand and fling it under my arm and know that, even though I probably never will, I can fit it into my handbag if I have to, and that it's almost as speccy as it's big sister, and that I'm sure that given another month I'll love it just as much, as of right now, I'll be sad to see the Queen go.

God save her, because I don't think Steph knows that much about antivirus software.

OhMyGodMail!

So one of my best friends is getting married in about 5 weeks, and since she's a short arse, she decided that us bridesmaids could all wear flats while she wore heels. I'm cool with this, since heels at a wedding pretty much inevitably mean either strappy ones or pumps, and I try to stick to boots when it comes to heels. But looking around the mount and a few shopping days in Adelaide hadn't turned up anything, so I had a look on ebay and found these.

I'd ordered them about a week ago and today when there was two blue parcel cards in my post office box I just assumed that, because I hadn't made it to the post office on friday, they'd accidentally just put one in both days. But no. As well as a little pink box of shoes, there was also a big brown box.

With cookies!

And gold lame fabric! And a crocheted snowflake, but I forgot to take a photo and yeah, I'm blogging from bed. But it was white and waaaay more symmetrical than any of my misguided attempts last year.

And it had come all the way from Thea in California! There was a card in there saying that she had thought of the gold fabric for my rock star-looking jacket from ages ago, but I'm not sure that it has enough stretch for the elbows so I think I might make myself a badass new pub bag with it. I might even use some studs on it. And a fierce, chunky chain link strap.

It might take me a while to get to though, because it feels as if I'll be spending the next five weeks in the lead up to the wedding making ties. Because I'm working in the afternoons when the other bridesmaids could help out with making invites and table decorations and so on, and also because I'm the only one that can sew, I agreed to make the ties for the boys in the satin to match our dresses. It's taken some trial and error with patterns and interfacing and such, but I've got my patterns sorted and now I've just got to work through the hours and hours of handsewing that the damn things need*.

I may resume quilting in a procrastinatory rebellion.

*I only need to make 5 regular ties, two boys ties and a baby tie, but blergh, they're so boring.

Story of my life.

This week I altered a dress for a friend for her 18th birthday this weekend. Then on friday night I sewed myself a gorgeous navy blue cowl-neck sheath dress to wear out with her.

Unfortunately we got a bit carried away with the celebrating and the drinking and forgot to take any photos :(

Happy Halloween.

It was so nice to come home tonight and not have to make anything. I think I was so excited by the fact that I could just spend the night on facebook and tumblr and youtube that I got a bit carried away, which is why it's now 5.30am.

Anyway...

A cool cat, a cow and little red riding hood. All made by me.

A cool cat and a cow holding tails, and getting photobombed by the boy who couldn't be arsed doing a costume, so we made him wear teddy bear ears.

The ears of the cow... she didn't wear them because they kept flopping over her eyes.

Group piccie.

As much as I was sooooo sick of working on this stuff by last night, I'm also so glad I did it. Only two of the daytime staff did anything, and only two of the people in this photo (the witch and the bloodsplattered guy) aren't wearing at least a little something I made. But we had a fantastic night, got quite a few compliments (a couple were skeezy, but they were balanced out by the adorable ones from little kids) and generally enjoyed ourselves.

The fact that I can now, still, 7 hours on, still feel the ghosts of the sunglasses/headband combo pressing against the sides of my head seems like a small price to pay.

And it's over...

As of 10 hours from now (8 hours of which will be spent sleeping) my holidays are over. Sad times, though, admittedly, considering it was only 5 days off, short times too.

I've spent most of the last 5 days sewing costumes for Halloween, from a whole heap of ears:

To a truly bitchin' Red Riding Hood cloak, that I don't even get to wear because I agreed to do it for Chantelle.

And a cow print onsie that's given me a lot of trouble because it's for someone who's a completely different size to me. And that doesn't matter with animal ears or badass crepe georgette (why did I pick that fabric? It was horrible to work with) cloaks. But on me, the crotch is almost down to my knees, and the legs are waaay too long, which stopped me from putting feet on it like she wanted. I've put some buttonholes at the ends of the legs though, so I can make her some button on feet later.

And a half dozen boring black capes that I'll probably insist management wear, since I like the idea that they can be the villains of the piece. I'm still going with being a cool cat. Brittni (who we often call Britta) is going to be one too, so I think that means that halfway through the shift I need to get myself some white wings and a halo and be the cool cat that had too many drugs.

Hopefully I'll meet some more Community fans in the process. The world needs more cool cats.

Me ow.

The distinct advantage that quilting has over dressmaking is that the photographs, and therefore the bloggage, are a whole lot easier. But, as ever, I'm busy being too obsessed with my wardrobe to quilt. And too crap at taking selfies to logically explain the last few days worth of sewing. Also, I just realised it's 5am, which would explain why I can't words.

...Anyway. I'm still very into Community, and Britta, with my spirit wardrobe, was wearing a denim jacket with grey fleece sleeves and a hood. I still had a denim jacket in my cupboard that had survived every round of salvo-ing purely for the reason that I felt it was important that I still owned at least one, even though I haven't worn it in at least two years, due to a strong fear of coming off too double-denim-y. And I'd rather die than come off double-denim-y. But last weekend I dyed a pair of my skinny jeans black, and that means I can wear a light blue denim at the top without looking at all matchy-matchy. So I chopped out the sleeves and drafted myself a hood design and the only grey heavyweight fleece they had at Spotlight was kinda weird fluffy on one side, slightly silky on the other and it was $13p/m but hey, I wanted a denim jacket with grey fitted sleeves and a hood and I wanted it by the next day. And I did it, and I had it, and it's bitchin, and it's nice to know that after two years of just chilling in the cupboard, it's going to go back into rotation.

As well as this, it's Halloween on Wednesday. Now, for the most part, I'm very opposed to having Halloween in Australia. Good on the Americans, it seems like a lot of fun, but when it's done in Australia it comes off as a Valentines-Day-esque grab for the consumer dollar. On the other hand, we don't get to do enough fancy dress, and Wednesdays are (sadly) not really drinking days (though admittedly, I drank this Wednesday) so the initial plan for a fancy dress drinking party got canned. But there was vague mention of Woolies going fancy dress for the day and I'm pushing for it. I want this. I want costumes at work day, to the point that I have drafted a onesie pattern to make for one of the girls at work in cow print. I want this to the point that I bought 5 metres of black cotton lawn from the $1 clearance rack at spotlight to bulk churn out some capes. I want this to the point that I've offered to make some animal ear headbands, because animal-ears are a traditional lazy-person's costume.

Hey look, teddy-bear ears. And my newly altered jacket. Twofer selfie! I'm actually still wearing these, four hours later. I think when I get up tomorrow I might put them on and pretend like they're not even there, just to see people's reactions. I think they are adorbs, and plan on mauling the faces off anyone who disagrees, just like a real bear in a badass re-purposed jacket would.

But, keeping with the theme of wanting more of Britta's wardrobe, my personal animal ears option is the "cool cats" from season 2.

My sunnies are a bit different and my leather jacket is out in the car, and also on this first version they're a bit too big, but I'm sure I can pop them on someone's head. I need another cool cat to be cool with me.

The handy thing about making these is that I'm sewing the ears onto the headbands by hand, and you can still watch TV while you're handsewing.

DVD commentaries, come at me.

I wish so hard that it was real...

So a couple of weeks ago, for reasons that now escape my memory, it came up at work that I knew one of my co-workers credit card details off by heart. Obviously, a couple of the girls at front end immediatelly decided we should use them for something, and an epic international holiday was decided on. Over the course of the rest of the shift, this hypothetical holiday was hashed out, attendees decided apon and dates chosen. There's about ten of us. I say "about" because we have been arbitrarily uninviting and adding people as we see fit.

We left for our hypothetical holiday yesterday morning.

First up is 4 days in New Zealand. We arrived at Mt Hutt last night and spent today skiing. Tomorrow we are going to try snowboarding. Then we are flying to the north island, because I want to visit Hobbiton. That's what we're doing Thursday, and then Thursday afternoon we're doing a tandem bungee jump. Annalise, Emily and I are agreed that this is very important, (so important it may actually become a real life - albeit more local, thing) and we want as many of our co-travellers to join in as possible. Brenton has to, we have decided. It's his credit-card we're using, so that's only fair.

Friday morning we are flying to Hawaii. I picked Hawaii, mainly because Shay was there at the time, and I was jealous. I haven't made any hypothetical plans for Hawaii yet, though I believe it has been decided that we shall learn to surf. I claimed my plan was to start drinking on the plane and not sober up till we landed back in Melbourne. That was before I was quite ill on Sunday, so I have postponed my drinking till we reach Hawaii, at which point, mimosas: come at me. Nonetheless I have hypothetically sourced some lovely south island red wines.

I had though it would be fun to photoshop our faces onto pictures of people standing in the snow but Google has been rudely unforthcoming with the kind of starter images I need for that. If there's something worse than finding out that your plans for a huge international holiday on a friends credit card can't follow through because said card only has a $1000 limit, it's finding out that you can't even fake the holiday in a fun way for facebook.

Actually, no the fact that I'm not actually on the trip of a lifetime right now is worse.

If anyone wants me, I'll be on ebay, buying myself some souvenirs, while I sit here in bed eating crumbed parmesan from the jar...

If I have to...

Obligation craft is such a weird thing isn't it? Lets be honest, we don't sew because we have to, and if we did have to, we probably wouldn't want to any more.

The main reason I make stuff, I think (and actually, it's the reason I do most things) is curiosity. I either want to see if I can, or want to see how well I can. I have terrible vision in my mind's eye, so if want to see how a quilt will look, I have to make it. That also explains why I dislike binding. It is obligation sewing. It is a necessary evil that gets you to the bit where you can put a quilt in the washing machine and have it come out all crinkly.

Hems are pretty much the epitome of obligation sewing. I can't be the only one who hears the question "hey, you sew don't you?" and immediately thinks great, hems... before they've even asked it. It's interesting to note that most people I will shoot down without any guilt whatsoever (because, hems...) but a friend that has agreed to give you a waxing appointment at 11 at night, you're quite happy to. But then, she said she thinks I'm like the Hulk, cause I don't even flinch when she's doing that bit of the underarm that really hurts.  All part of why I love her I guess. There needs to be love, to willingly do hems.

Tassels on scarves need a fair bit of love too, especially on a red and white scarf, as a Hawthorn supporter. Of course, it might not be a Swans scarf (Hi, number two on the ladder, having fun down there?) it might be for a Where's Wally costume. Though I find it hard to believe that a woman who's been knitting for 80 odd years doesn't know how to put tassels on a scarf.

On the other hand, Nana Joy's probably spent the last 80 years deflecting requests to take up hems in favour of knitting blankets, like she wants to. So no doubt she's also an expert at delegating that last little dull bit. When I grow up, I want to be just like her.

The Plan

The plan for tonight was to finish work at 10.30, go to the gym and come home home to try to have an early night. I start at 12 tomorrow, and that's early for me. But I forgot my headphones, and EmmStaff, who is one of the most gorgeous, tall, athletic, pretty, smart, funny, insecure 17 year olds I know, was going to try to sneak into The G underage, and wanted me to come with her. And because I adore her even though I really should hate her, I agreed. It was her best friend's 18th and that was going till midnight and I figured that would give me time to finish the half-sewn olive green version of my fantastic jacket.

Long story short, she got in, we danced, I had two drinks, there was some country boys in there, I decided I'd have a crack if the opportunity presented itself, it did, I've got it even in town, and then I ninja'd away to take Emm home, and came home myself. It's no later than I would have been up anyway, I had a fun evening with a different crew, and it was a good reason to finish off my jacket, which I'd be procrastinating on for no apparent reason.

What's more, because there's no-one else up this end of the house, I figure'd I'd have a go at getting a picture of it, since the dark green's probably easier to photograph than black.

I think what this picture best shows is that my fingers are freakishly long, and that the bathroom mirror really needs a clean.

When all else fails, sit on the floor in the passageway with the tall mirror leaning on someones door and take wonky photos, and wait for instagram to fix them.

Thanks instagram.

The BnS Post - Stonerollers 2012

...

(That would be the pause I give when someone asks me how my weekend went.)


Well... (that would be the traditional beginning) It was awesome. I had been a bit worried for the last couple of weeks that a) the weather would be shit and b) that I would have hyped it up a bit too much in my brain, resulting in the inevitable dissapointment.

But, thankfully, wrong on both counts. Saturday morning we left a dreary grey sky'd Adelaide, and we took the curly mountain road (Eagle on the Hill) instead of going through the tunnel, and that was AMAZING. All Caps amazing. Pulling onto the the off-ramp from the freeway, going up the mountain, it got super-foggy. There was NO view. Just white. Curly, twisty roads, up and down hills, white either side of the road and visibility ahead of about 50 metres. It was like living a dream sequence. I considered doing a loop and having a second go, but Casey was driving her car ahead of me, and I wanted to keep convoy. But back on the freeway it all burnt off, and even though it wasn't exactly warm, it was nice in the sun.

There was a pretty big line at the gate, and we all decided that, obviously, we'd start drinking. But I accidentally got one of my strong ciders, and had 3 standard drinks in a half hour... by the time I actually got to pay for my ticket I was dying of indigestion and trying really hard to play it cool. One we were actually in I pulled back a bit, but I kept at it and didn't return to real sobriety till today.

The ball itself consisted of me dirty dancing with as many people as I possibly could and making out with a dozen guys. I stopped my actual alcohol drinking at midnight, which is a good plan if you don't want to wake up with a walking dead hangover, and got on with the all important picking up. I even managed to get about 4 hours of sleep.

Recovery today was almost more bonkers than last night, because I did it all again sober. More overambitious dancing, more boys, and a wet tshirt contest that was very much about the wet and not so much about the tshirts. They'd chopped them down but thankfully my boobs are small enough that they were still covered. No-one else's were, so I kept a shred of dignity by comparison and got my horrible sticky clumpy hair somewhat rinsed out.

We hung about till about 3pm, sitting in the afternoon sun at the campsites after recovery stopped at 1, then we eventually got mustered to go, got KFC and headed home.

Tonight, I faced the biggest challenge of the whole weekend - there wasn't enough hot water left when it came time for me to take my shower.

It was horrible.

Still yawning...

Well, it's midnight. I've had a pretty big day. I was up at 7 yet again, and, even though Meagan thinks she might be able to reset my body clock, I'm pretty sure that I'll sleep till 2 on monday afternoon and then I'll be back to normal.

Today was shopping for wedding dresses day. I mean, that was the whole point of us coming to Adelaide, and we had appointments and everything. But I found myself thinking how glad I was that I didn't do fashion design, because I may well have ended up working in a place just like those shops. And even though I've been lucky enough to get a nice bride, the fact is that the girls at those shops have to deal with a dozen every day, and some of the ones who were in there when we were seemed like right cows. I get that it's stressful and all, but you're devoting a day to trying on pretty dresses, in flattering lighting and with people whose job it is to make them look as good on you as they possibly can. Maybe you should try cracking a smile?

Anyway, we found two dresses she really liked, one at each store, and we ended up going back to try on the first one. I'm really glad we did, since I liked it a lot better, and once she'd put it back on again she did too. Also, the people at the second place were really rude, and the quality of some of the bridesmaids dresses looked a bit skiffy. I certainly wouldn't have paid $350 for them.

After we had that sorted we went to Marion Shopping centre for a bit, and it made me very very keen for next week, when I get to spend two whole days lone-wolfing it. It's been lovely spending time with Meagan, but I still don't feel super close to the other bridesmaids, who were all at school together. Don't get me wrong, they're all very nice, but I don't know them that well yet. Certainly not well enough to spend two hours wandering around a really big shopping centre with them, which is why I was really glad we split up for the second hour.

Tomorrow... well, I've no idea what we're doing tomorrow. Driving home at some point, one would think, but it's all a bit of a mystery.

Off, off and away...

Bags are packed, CDs are burning as I type, car foods have been organised and spare batteries charged. And though it probably wont actually work/help, I'm going to try for a couple of hours nap time.

Solo roadtrips, that take off at lunchtime, are much more my thing.

Good Questions.

Why is laundry so much easier when you're dancing badly to the music in your headphones?
Why do I only ever get the urge to tidy my room at 2am?
Why did all these coathangers end up under my bed?
Why do I own so many dresses?
Why do none of them look as fabulous as I want them too?
Where did my boobs go?

I ended up finding my boobs in one particular green dress, after trying on SEVENTEEN other ones. That's right, I had 18 dresses to try on tonight. In my cupboard. There are actual dress shops with less dresses than I have. I didn't even try on my fancy dresses, since I'm trying to get started on my packing for Stonerollers next weekend, and I'm not going to wear one of my good ballgowns to a BnS ball.

It's a bit early, by my standards, to be getting sorted for a ball, but I've got quite a week ahead of me. Thirsty Thursday is off, because in the wee small hours (actually about 6am, but that's still barely medium sized) I've got to go into town so I can get driven to Adelaide. As long as my snoring doesn't wake the baby, I'm allowed to sleep in the car - it's a bridal party trip to the city to look at dresses and flowers and such for Meagan's wedding. Three days in Adelaide, then two days at home, then back to Adelaide for a lone-wolf shopping trip, and then it's Saturday and time to drive down to Murray Bridge for Stonies.

Gah, crazyness. So it's best that I start now: two loads of washing done, dress picked, fur coat found but not yet cleaned. It probably needs to be professionally done, but I think they'd disapprove of the fact that I let it get covered in food dye and then put it in a box in the shed. I only paid $16 for it, so I don't feel all that bad, I just know it's gunna make a mess of me when I go to clean it out. Food dye, even when it's dried in, gets everywhere once you wet it again. I'm usually covered in dye days before I even get to the ball, but with it forecasted to be cold and miserable, I'm gunna need my coat.

Heyyyyyy...

Before I begin, I'd just like to point out that the tumblr logo is essentially the facebook logo upside down, and I put tumblr next to facebook on my bookmarks bar when I noticed this just so I could look more closely at the two together, and now whenever I go looking for tumblr, I can never remember where it is.


Aaaaanyway. Stonerollers is in less than two weeks (squee) and, just like for the last 3 balls, my friend Anna has been saying she will buy a swag and come. She came to Harrow, but without a swag, and simply attending a ball will not earn you a quilt. If I love you enough, you get a quilt just for being generally pretty awesome (usually for your birthday, but sometimes for christmas.) If I just like you, the rules are: Baby or swag. That's it. And if I don't like you, it matters neither how many babies you squeeze out of your lady bits nor how many swags you buy: no quilt for you.

Since the purchase of a swag has been long intended by Anna, so has the making of this quilt been long intended by me. I found some bundles of pink batik and blogged them so long ago I can't find them online, and for her birthday I trimmed them down to squares and used the offcuts to piece a pillowcase, but the squares have just sat on the shelf waiting for her to get a swag, so I know how big the quilt will need to be. I think mine is about 100x180cm - long and skinny. But as swags come in different sizes, so too should their quilts.

What's more, the fabrics are all a bit same-y. There's mottled pink, pink with pink swirls, pink with blue swirls, pink with rainbow swirls, pink with rainbow square swirls, pink with rainbow lines... And I can't really come up with a design, so much as a jumble of similar pink fabrics.

So, what I'm thinking is maybe I'll add some strips of rainbow piecing. I've had these mottled solids in my stash for a while now, and I figure if I just cut a couple of strips from the end I'll be able to make a couple of nice little bits of spectrum to break it up a bit. I've got real solids too (the ones up the side) but I like it all being motley.

In more random news, the Vogue/McCalls pattern website is having an amazing sale, $3.50/$1.50 a pattern respectively. I bought seven and the postage to Australia was $25, but these are patterns that retail for $25 EACH here. I plan on making myself this in black, and going around looking super badass, maybe fighting some crime, or maybe just scissor kicking people in the face, because, in my mind at least, that's what you do when you're badass.

But the pants... I'll pass on the pants. They're a bit too genie for me.

It's alright...

I had some misgivings about tonight - drinks with the girls after work, when I have to start at 12 tomorrow. Those misgivings got worse when I found out that we were planning on actually going out out as opposed to just sitting on the couch with a couple of drinks. But it turned out to be really really fun; an hour of gasbagging about work, then going to The G (that bit was kinda boring) and then off to Shads. It's been a long time since I've had a night out with people from work, it's been even longer since I've been to Shads relatively sober (less than one drink per hour) but, actually, I kinda loved it. I guess it all depends on who you're with, and if you get to dirty dance with some random guys, then all the better.

Achoo.

The fact that I'm allergic to my best friend's dog literally makes me cry. Literally, as in my eyes water and my nose runs. That's what literally means, contrary to what you may have read on some people's facebook walls. When I read the word literally being used in the wrong context in a facebook post, I literally mentally disapprove of their inability to correctly use the word literally.

In the meantime, I need to go buy myself some more demazin.

Good.

One would assume, seeing as how I've watched THIRTY HOURS of True Blood since Sunday night, that I'd make that my favourite for this week. Or at the very least, that I would make last night's strawberry cider, breadsticks and True Blood night my favourite thing this week. But I'm not going to.

Nor am I going to go with my fantastic friends at work, or trashy romance novels, or Wrigleys Strongmint chewwies, or even the very pretty yarn I got with the $10 voucher that Lincraft sent me.

Even though I find the tingly sensation that I get in my legs when I sit down in my skinny jeans to be weirdly enjoyable, that's not it either. Nor is it the entertainment I get from trying to push repelling magnets together.

Nope, today, my favourite thing is the tiny tick of my watch. It's so quiet that I can only hear it in the really quiet moments, and I don't get them too often. So I like the fact that the tiny tick of my watch is there to remind me when they're happening, so that I know to enjoy them.

Oh, okay, all the other stuff can be a favourite too :)

Things I love when I'm drunk

So, it's not even 2am. That's very early by my standards. But I'm calling it a night, being responsible and shit. I mean, I only got 5 hours of sleep last night, and I had a 5 hour drive today (not that it wasn't enjoyable or anything, but a 5 hour drive is a 5 hour drive, and a 5 hour drive is tiring) and I'm only little, so the 5 drinks I had in 4 hours, which is 7.5 standard drinks all up, is enough to get little old me kinda drunk. And I feel guilty, since Jeffy put makeup on me and everything, but unlike a regular ball, where I paid my $120 and ought to get my money's worth, I didn't really pay all that much tonight: I bought a round, and then 2 more drinks for me, and then I got KFC, which was next door to the pub, and therefore fantastic. So, if I wanna go to bed (and I do), I can.

But in the meantime, more goodness. Because just because there's alcohol in your life, doesn't mean there isn't goodness too.

I love my sister, and Jeffy, and Jamie too. They're pretty much always there when I'm drinking, and that regularity, and that predictability, is reassuring. The sun will rise tomorrow, and Casey will be there when I'm feeling drunk. Yay for both, except when the sun is shining in my eyes while I'm driving. At those times, only yay for Casey.

I love my friends that aren't here too. I miss them, a lot. Thinking back to the last time when I was at the Woolshed, with all of them, which would have been 8 months ago (cause Meagan didn't know she was pregnant yet) when we were all so close, and since then we've all drifted apart (Anna doing mornings now, Meagan off on maternity leave, Brenton and I being too busy in our own departments to ever really talk) but that doesn't mean I don't miss them, and miss talking to them. I'm still friends with all of them, I don't think any less than I was then, but life has gotten in the way. But I love them all.

I love the fact that our motel is about 20m from the pub that we were at tonight. And the fact that there's a KFC between the two. If there was a fabric shop in there as well, then I would be pretty much set up for life, but oh well, I can do that tomorrow.

I love MmmMmmMmmMmm by the Crash Test Dummies. Because, well, it's so freaking weird, and it makes no sense, in much the same way that life does, but it sounds good in your ears.

I love chewwys. I'm on Wriglys Extra Strong Mint with Cleaning Granules at the moment, and I love them. I didn't think of myself as a mint chewwy person, but since the other week when I had a cold, I can't get enough of them.

I love cider. I don't know why, it's possible that it's just because I also love apple juice, but under no other circumstances would I drink rotten apple juice, so maybe not. I know that spirits are a better idea than drinks with a higher volume to alcohol ratio, which, for someone like me who doesn't consume much in the way of liquids apart from alcohol, is better for the bladder, but I'd rather drink a cider than do a shot of vodka. Maybe because you can hold onto a glass of cider for a while, whereas a shot of vodka is all gone very quickly, and then people expect you to have another drink, and then you get even more drunk.

I love looking around this motel room and seeing how much stuff I've made. That bag, that cushion, that quilt, that bag, that bag, that beanie, that bag, that skirt. Craft is a funny thing, so often you can feel that it's pretty pointless, and just an expensive hobby that leaves you with nothing to show, but when you can have a quick glance around and see 9 things you made, being actually used, well, that's a nice feeling.

I love the dress I'm wearing tonight. I brought with me a couple of options, because I wasn't sure what to go with, and I decided to go with the simpler, more classic green dress, as opposed to the pink mullet-skirted ball gown, so I can save that for an actual ball. Probably a good thing too, because I saw girls tonight wearing mullet skirts in a non-ironic fashion, and I felt bad for them, because they don't realise what I bad idea that mullet skirt is. Also, the green dress makes my boobs look nice.

I love my wireless internet stick. I pay 30c a day, but it's nice to know that when I'm away, it's there, ready to help me blog, and listen to 90s music via youtube.

I love the possibilities that tomorrow holds, and the fact that, even if tomorrow falls short of them, it will still have been a very interesting day, that I'm glad I will haven gotten a chance to experience.

I love that I am the kind of person that finds everything interesting. 

The thing, I guess, is that life is really really interesting. Sometimes, we don't care, and sometimes we're too busy to notice, but occasionally, I suppose we have to leave the party early, once we've acknowledged that we've had our fun, and go back to our motel rooms, listen to a bit of Pearl Jam, and concede that, even when life seems like an endless rush, we still need to find the time to think about what's good, and what's missing, and if there's things on both those lists, find a way to take them off the latter, and raise them up on the former.


"... I know I was born and I know that I'll die, the inbetween is mine..." - Pearl Jam (I Am Mine)

Favourite things (in bold)

Friday! It's a pretty good day, what with how I usually don't have to work and all, and today it was my last day off till next Saturday, and since I'm driving to Adelaide then, and back the next day, I'm not sure that it counts, so it kinda felt like today was going to be my last day off in forever.

But I got to go see this guy again.

And if I had to pick one actual favourite, it would probably be him. But I don't want my pseudo-nephew to grow up in a world where he can only have one favourite thing, so let's have more.

In honour of our hostess with the mostest, I'm going to go with some very mundane things;

The scroll button on my mouse. It is the unsung hero of all the input keys. While everyone's all rightclick/leftclick/spacebar/enter I'm just leisurely scrolling up and down. Using a mouse without one is horrible, and I feel that laptops would be greatly improved if they had one as well.

Those pop-up lids on drink bottles. You can open the drink with only one hand. And your mouth, obviously. But rarely am I laying on my other mouth. And they're less likely to spill all down the side of your face.

Little watchband adjuster tools. So much easier than trying to shove a pin into the little holes with a pair of pliers.

Chocolate Croissants. Croissants, with chocolate bits on top, and chocolate ganache inside. $2.40 from the bakery section at woolies.

Don's Salami. I don't know why it's so much better than Han's, but it is.

Getting your waxing done by a friend instead of a professional stranger, because the converstion is much better.

Having really long showers on days when it rains, because that's the whole point of having a rainwater tank.

CD burners. Remember when, to make a mix tape, you had to do it in real time? I do, but thankfully only barely.

Finding a fabric at lincraft that you've been looking fo the likes of on ebay for months.

Paying half price for it.

Babies, Trucks, Crappy Poetry and Head-Devouring-Moss.

Meagan had her baby (around 4.30pm, Thomas James, 8 pounds 1, 51.5cm) and cause he's a boy, I'm getting started on my "if it's a boy" quilt - based on this pattern called On The Road Again, since her fiancee is a truck driver. It needs a fair few changes though - the bonnet is too long (trucks have shorter heads here - many have no bonnets at all) and the gap between the truck and the trailer is too big and in Australia semi-trailers need to have at least 3 axles, so there's not enough wheels for it to be road legal.

And that led to this:

Scanned copies, so I can draw all over them.

Which led to this:

Trucks are big,

Quiltmath is hard,

If you expect a rhyme,

You'll be disappointed.

Having done the basic math, if not the cutting layout, I spent the rest of the night sitting in front of the fire crocheting. I even finished a beanie.

Unintentional crimes of fashion. Whatcha gunna do?

It looks horrible - like a killer moss is eating my head. Still, it helped me get a good idea of how much decreasing to do to get a nice curve, and since the next one I've started is using a fluro-pink and white 8-ply, I have somewhat higher hopes. I mean, you've gotta love a fluro and white combo.