As my master commands.....

Last Sunday morning (when in-house tech support was looking the other way) Destructo Boy was fooling around with the webcam on the new posh unpronounceable computer.


He thought himself highly amusing with this effort.





He wanted you all to see too.

Halloween

BWHAHA



BWAAAHAAAAA




BWAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAAAAAAHAAAAA




AAAACK! COUGH, SPLUTTER!!




BEING AN EVIL CACKLING GENIUS CAN BE TRICKY SOMETIMES ;-)

feel Blogger unneccessarily rude today.

Have just been visiting over at WhippetGood and on leaving a comment am confronted with the word verification - mingymi!!!!!!!!!!

Now that is just not on is it?

Thank you

all for your sympathy on my plight, although I am slightly perturbed at the devious nature of those who comment on this blog, but I feel I should be totally honest with you. You see as the laptop dried out things got a little brighter.


In fact it reached the point where CK formulated a plan. Once it was safe to plug the Dell back in to the mains the in-house tech went through every key on the keyboard. Of those that worked they either showed as '4, e, y, d, f & g'. This included the tab key and the space bar.


However the mouse was still in working order so during our spending spree at P.C. World my tech support suggested splashing out an extra £5 and bought a new USB-linked keyboard. I feel ever so clever and posh as I sit typing away on a keyboard to one side while I look at a screen in front of me.

If I am very careful one day I may be allowed to touch!

Yay for comprehensive home insurance.

Having survived the debacles of CK trying to iron the living room carpet, the mega-overflowing kitchen sink (three inches of warm water to wade through) and 'someone' (whistles tunelessly while looking at the sky) burning the back of an armchair with the iron (don't ask) I gave into the demands of the gods and set our home insurance to full cover.

Having paid out those premiums for the last five years it was with joy that I phoned the insurance company to claim for the sad demise of CK's laptop. For yes it was actually HIS that we use generally in the house. Despite MY protestations that 'we didn't need a new laptop mine was FINE', it has actually sat upstairs in its lovely, padded backpack untouched since this lovely Dell Inspiron 1501 first arrived about 18m months ago.

Do you have a greater appreciation of the horror I experienced when I spotted the water pooling over the keyboard?


However, after several telecons back and forth it was all sorted out and we could expect a voucher from the insurers to buy us a new laptop in just a matter of days. So Friday afternoon, post swimming and football and with their sweetie day sweets clutched tightly in their hands, we bundled the kids into the car and headed the 20+ miles to our nearest P.C. world. En route the terences were placated with suggestions of takeaway food and after nearly 3/4 of an hour mooching around said computer place were starting to get a little bit restless.

It was fortunate for us all that CK had made up his mind by this point and purchased himself a shiny, new, whizzy computer that apparently does lots of clever things.

I say 'apparently' because I am only allowed to look at it from a distance. But it seems nice enough.

It's heeeeerrrreeee!!!!!!!!

THE BOX has made it home safe and sound - you guys weren't kidding about the tape on that sucker, were you?


I have taken three thousand and twelve million photies unfortunately this very old computer isn't really a friend when it comes to dowloading my pictures so that shall have to wait. But you are all so amazingly kind and generous and lovely and wonderful and I shall be offering proposals of marriage to you all at some point.


The only thing that has come back to me is the balls of red (burgundy, maroon, etc) yarn and quite honestly I am chuffed b/c I really liked that yarn.


Once I finally got inside THE BOX I found a veritable Aladdin's cave - yarn, beads, gold, patterns, oh, oh, oh!!!!


I have put together a list to tide you over until there are pictures. If you recognise something you put in these please let me know. In case you didn't get my email or are choosing to ignore me (ha! as if!!)


two balls of *sparkly gold* green, v. soft yarn brand RYC. (Is this Rowan, I don't know??)
two balls of multi-hued blue/green Debbie Bliss yarn
A watercolour paper pad v. pleased to see this as donkeys take up a lot of paper ;-)

a set of watercolour pencils
a box of small beads (greens, pinks and some metallicy ones)
a skein pink lacing braid
spool of gold thread
a bag of blue and pale blue and white beads
bag mixed buttons
Pre-stamped, cross-stitch baby bib
Portable stitch storer spool gadget thing
'All Our Yesterdays' cross-stitch kit of children on a beach
a Melly & Me 'Mrs Perkins' pattern
fabulous lime green, blue and chartreuse floral pattern fat quarter
three pieces of v. delicate, pretty floral swiss cotton
Elements Star bead necklace kit
1 'fat quarter metre' of pretty flowerpots w flower on pale background
'Village Fabrics'
Elephant wooden spoon kit and dinosaur pencil pot kit
purple bead bracelet in pretty bag
Brown w small geometric pattern fat quarter.
A teddy bear kit with patterns for both Noggin and Nutmeg



Some huge thank yous on top of the already grateful and joyous thank yous I expressed before.

Lesley over at Moogsmum who has made me a real ass in the course of this swap ;-)DottyCookie who made a fantastic set of stitch markers AND THEN put them on a teenyweeny little piece of knitting with titchy needles. It is so wonderous that I shall be backing it, attaching a pin to have myself a fabulous brooch!
Kitty who sent me a sweet card.
Gina sent me something I have longed for for some time - a tin (right there I was pleased) of cupcake papers and flags from Momiji. *le sigh*



Last but not least was the presence of The Blue Guy in the box. It was mentioned to me at some point as THE BOX made its way around the troops and I had assumed this was the Blue Guy who played in people's homes and then went back to WMK tell all. But this one came with a passport and his very own camera so I have my fingers crossed that he will be allowed to stay :-)



It has been great fun to have organised this lazy man's swap. I know that Snailblazer's original Box Swap has also recently returned home to roost. She and I are currently in talks about a U.K. v. Aus BOX SWAP in 2009. I shall keep you posted.............

He's gone.

Left yesterday morning. Went back to his house to try and sort out 'alien' child.


Speaking only for myself and not this establishment's general management let me say - I think it will take more than a few minutes chat to sort that child out. Something more along the lines of some elocution lessons, a class or two in deprtment and six weeks basic military training. With hard labour.


Computer still very not happy. Am using Aust. b-i-l's old one he gave to Babyman DestructoBoy.


Anyone remember the scene in new Dr.Who when the Doctor regenerates and turns into David Tennant? I feel a bit like that "'s funny, new teeth. Well, new everything really." Finding my way around this keyboard is proving somewhat odd. I may not even edit the weirdo typos that appear as I construct a post so you all can join in the regeneration process with me.


Feeling a little disjointed. The hour is late and the crafting supplies stretch from the ironing board in the kitchen through the living room culminating in a huge heap in the dining room. However the end result of all this mayhem is a pencil roll for Pr. C-W to take to a birthday party on Saturday. Yay me!


Oo! Oo! I knew there was something I had to ask all you clever innernet folk...... please can someone explain to me why my Gr(yr) 2 son is being taught to add up starting with the tens??? His scientist father is about to have a nervous breakdown at the senselessness of it all....


Thanks.

He's here again.

My b-i-l is here for the weekend again.

Theoretically it is to prepare himself for looking after house and hounds while we swan off for TGTH. In reality it is to hide from the crap situation he has built for himself in his hometown. The crap involves several many women (I ask myself why. Another reason I know married the right brother ;-) as well as an alien child who is now 17.

Quite honestly, if he wasn't going home tomorrow I would probably get on the train myself. So far tonight he has said he likes my daughter now (therein followed a five minute diatribe of why she used to wind him up), that we are ripping off an elderly neighbour and that he is the king of any house he comes into and he will be in control. Now if alcohol makes you say all sorts of stupid stuff would this not be the gods' way of saying DON'T DRINK so much.

Locket, I haven't forgotten my promise from his last visit. Honest. I may just have had to rejig at some point.

Oh. Dear.

Yesterday I learned a salutory lesson or three - laptops are

) not water soluble

b) do not grow when water is applied

and

c) not at all responsive to the beneficial properties of a cold shower.



Through a fault all of my own (with some little physical assistance from a handy terence) my laptop had a rude awakening yesterday afternoon. One third of a cup of water knocked over onto its keyboard.



Overcoming the shake in my hands I threw a towel onto the keyboard, hopefully sucking out most of the water. I then rang CK and confessed my sin. Once past my surprise at his lack of emotion expressed I agreed that unplugging it from the mains was probably the best course of immediate action.



After some hours of it sitting keyboard down I booted up the computer and in that time a family of mice had taken up residence. They were not happy about the whirring noise apparently because MY GOD! they squealed. I turned it off quickly and didn't look at it for another 24 hours.



V. excited b/c early this afternoon it booted up. And then it opened up to my desktop (we each have one, we're dead posh here y'know ;-) I was left with a white screen. All white. Figuring this to be a bad thing I turned the whole thing off with the dead button.



CK worked his magic this afternoon, not only did he lose the white screen but he got the innernets back on. Yay for built-in tech support! Evidently the marriage licence was worth the money. But it didn't last. The computer living I mean. Not the marriage, that seems fine.



I am using an old laptop from Babyman's DestructoBoy's room. Having already made WMK gasp tonight I must confess there are six computers in this house. They range in age from 18 months to 12 years. Obviously the one I have potentially fatally maimed is the newest. So 'Tonight, Matthew I shall be playing on a very decrepit 5 year old laptop.'


Posting may be intermittent.

Confession time

dear Innernets,

last night I tried to poison my children.

It started off as a day just like any other one - with John Humphries haranguing some dopey politician as I stirred my son's porridge to a cooked state and shared some choice words with my daughter about brushing her hair before going to school.


I was stitched up by two UNO sharks in a competitive game of cards after lunch.

To recover my composure I went into the kitchen and set four lamb shanks to slow cook in a pot with some garlic, vinegar, brown sugar, onions, water, bacon, passata and just a little bit of red wine. I thought it would be all right to deviate from the recipe a little. There was no dark sugar left so I just used the pale brown sugar. I thought it would be okay, honest.

The oven was on a low medium heat, it was what the recipe said and later, again like I was supposed to, I turned it down to low for the last hour of cooking. Okay, perhaps I used a little bit too much vinegar but it really isn't very easy to obtain accurate measurements when you are pouring from a five litre container.

I checked the potatoes for green skin, they seemed normal. And the broccoli had only been purchased a few days before. It had been included in dinner on Monday so I felt safe using it. Oh! If only I had known.

You see Innernets, at 6'o'clock last night I sat my children at the table and forced them to eat real food. There wasn't a piece of cheese, pasta or other standard set meal in this house in sight.



I have learned my lesson and they have promised to stop making retching noises when I suggest something different for dinner.

SITS

You know about these girls right?

you do. I've blogged about them before.

Of course you do. I must have done.


These are my SITSas and today is the inaugural annual blogathon.


The Secret Is In The Sauce is a fabulous concept Heather and Tiffany have put together to share out some of that comment love we all crave. Everyday a blog is featured , showcasing some woman's view of the world (and to date it has been just women), letting us see a little corner of someone else's world.

So now every morning when I log on I get to go visit another country, to date Norway, India and America. I have also played host to my SISTas. Yes that's right, I have had my day in the commenty love sun and boy did I bask! I forgot to count up the actual number of comments I rec'd but I know it took me the best part of three hours to send a short reply to them all!

Since signing up to SITS there have been a few blogs I find myself repeatedly drawn back to

Mama Kat

American in Norway

T.P.U.

I am still exploring the bank of fabulous blogs building up over at The SITS house and it is great fun.

bugger! and hooray squared!

Have just started sewing up Will's cardigan but I seem to have buggered up the sleeves. Why did one look like the heel of a sock? I can't even get the other one to pin properly into place.


I tried to undo the sewing up but succeeded only in making a hole. I have to confess my next step was to slice the top off the socksleeve in attempt to unravel it. This didn't work either. As a consequence it is now residing over on the other side of the room behind the dog bed. In a cut to bits, straggly, yarny state. Bloody buggery thing.


Hooray for modern veterinary science! Black Dog had his bollockectomy today and all went well, although CK swears the hound is barking in a higher register ;-) Even better was having an appointment with the vet nurse when I collected him. This means all was well with his eye and we are free and clear after nearly three weeks of him wearing the vet bling. Which, by the way, made the vet laugh this morning and when I picked him up this aftie the nurses had found him a smiley face sticker.


Hooray also for my incredibly talented friend Locket who it seems now has a dog ;-) We wish you many happy hours in your new dog. Or something like that.



This is a collage of recent things that have made me smile

* Row One - a reminder that Halloween approacheth, a snap of the THREE yards of some IKEA fabric I bought in a charity shop for three pounds (a def. hooray!) and the pattern for the knitting I was doing on the weekend (quadrilateral equations :-~)<


* Row Two - Blinged up vet bling (went easy in the end b/c had to leave line of sight for him), my son just slipped my shoes on the other morning (froot loop), CK working out the knitting pattern.*

Row Three - Hair style recently created by Princess Curly-Wurly, more blinged-up vet bling. Another reminder.

The magic of imagination

Have you ever met my friend Missus



She is an incredibly talented sew-er with a love of books and a tendency to hang out with some very cheeky boys and girls.


Some many months ago Missus Ric-Rac mentioned her abiding passion for seldvedge. This timed perfectly with my deciding to do a Fortnums quilt (why no, it ISN'T done yet!!)



(The dotty bit down the side with writing on it is selvedge)

So I cut all the selvedges of anything that wasn't standing still and sent them off to Jodie. My kids threatened to call Childline when I started colouring little dots down their legs at mealtimes.


I bought more fabric for the Fortnums quilt and hived off the selvedges, folded them neatly and put them soenwhere reeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaallllllllly safe and I have promised Jodie that when I find them I shall send them to her for the next big project ;-)


In the intervening weeks between the first care package and losing putting away the second Jodie has created what is undoubtedly a work of art, a creation of some magnifigence and unbelieveable beauty and imagination.

Move over YSL, I present the VS&L* selvedge New Look.







(*Ballarat joke - is still in operation??)

Black hound update.

Today we saw the vet again.


"The eye seems to be okay." the vet said. I am not sure how she knows as it is covered by his inner eyelid. Do psychic powers come under the remit of the RCVS?


My black dog is either lacking in brain power or memory skills because as we approached the exam room he automatially headed around to the pre-op kennels! Or perhaps he likes the whole being clipped, prodded, drugged and stitched thing.


He has more drugs for the next few days and then *WHAM* into surgery again for a bollockectomy on Monday. While he is under she will take the stitches out from his eye and (fingers crossed) all will be well.

As he will be ensconced in his vet bling for at least another week I have promised the childer that, with a little help from a hot glue gun and the contents of my craft cupboard, we can make it look reeeeeeeaaally pretty! Pictures to follow.

Aaak! **EDITED

Baby Will has grown so much he is becoming too tall for the wee prem.size cardi I made some many months ago. His mother asked if I would do one a little bigger for him.

With great delight I took myself off to the walking distance wool shop and in among all the esoteric yarns and fibres and what and what I found a LOT of Debbie Bliss Cashmerino. Mama Will likes stripes so I went for something which appealed to me as much as I knew it would her. That's right - green!!

I know have shoulder shaping to do before calling it 'knitted' with just a touch of sewing up and edging is required until it can be properly called 'finished' An evening or two of work and then Voila!.

So why 'AAAAAAAK! in the title? Because with just these three inches left I have misplaced the pattern! I cannot find that blurry book anywhere. Neither under couch nor under dog. Not behind other books or behind small children. It has just gone missing!

I know the basic premise. K2, SKPO, knit to last 4, K2tog, K2.Or is that decrease for the sleeve? But to how many stitches? Didn't I have to do an extra row on this side of the front? How many buttonholes???

So if any one can tell me about the decreasing on the stripey baby cardigan (3-6 month size) in the Debbie Bliss Cashmerino Book 2 I would be ever so grateful.


Does anyone else have a deep and abiding love for Nuno? Also for 'A little goodness'. But this week I bought from Nuno so they are first in my affection as I type.

I placed an order on Sunday afternoon GMT+1 and this morning at just after 11 the nice parcel force man arrived with my packet of fabric joy all the way from Japan.




Now I just need to figure out what to do with it all?!?!?!


EDIT

I found the book. Strangely enough it was on top of my 'rescued from neighbour's trip to the tip' craft cupboard, which (since about six weeks ago) is where all my craft books live. So all ye do not despair. Sometimes when you are looking for things there is always a possibility they might actually be where they are supposed to be!


BTW, as I write this the black hound is lying next to me on the floor having just completed his dog ablutions (does anyone else have a dog which bites its nails?). I have released him from vet bling hell for a little bit and discovered that he is now missing about a 3" square patch of fur from his throat area :-( Poor thing it is in the regrowth stage and must be v. itchy.

"My child is so clever."

I state here and now this is not about my kids. That I know of.

Having read this post if you EVER hear me say such stuff about Princess Curly-Wurly or DestructoBoy please (metaphorically) slap me upside the head.

Please note it is not my intention to offend people. But if it happens, tough. This is my online not-so-secret diary and I shall say what I choose.


So my rant? Here it is:



I exist in a mostly middle-class universe. This is a market town. There is a low crime-rate. We have a museum, an art exhibition space. There are many shops selling fabulous things, not least the deli which sells all kinds of weirdo cheeses, oils and other things we didn't even know we needed.

This town up here on the Hill (and some of you flatland dwellers may recognise this syndrome from your area as well) is also home to the most clever, talented, intelligent, skilled children ever in the history of the universe. No, really, it is true. Just ask their parents. It would seem that every child in the local vicinity was an early talker, walking from minutes old and has an untapped IQ of 752.

Even when said parents are informed that their own beloved darling is falling behind or (GASP!!) actually just normal they refuse to believe it. You see, 'Clemista only acts up at school b/c she has such a high level of intelligence that she is bored. Her skills are not being channelled effectively.'

Or perhaps 'Clemista' and her ilk are simply unfocused b/c no-one is making them actually listen to the grown-up in charge b/c 'one doesn't like to stifle creativity in a child so clever'.

Well, let me just say as one who has to deal with those 'so clever children' on a regular basis - you are making mine and your child's life difficult. And when I say your child may have some issues relating to his peer group I don't mean it is because he is precociously intelligent and mostly interacts with adults. I mean your child has been babied and is in fact emotionally immature!

It seems to me to be a peculiarly middle-class thing too. I don't know why. Maybe we all want our little 'Clemistas' and 'Henriques' to be fabulous and cannot accept the fact that like us, their parents, they are just ordinary.

Hmmm.... who knows.

The day in which I pass on the crown and also brag a little bit.

This collage contains some of the terrific things that have come into my life recently.

Some are quite old and have been rediscovered in the clean-out of my little green house. Some are brand new and now disappeared. Others lurk around my house.

Reading left to right:

Row 1. Eggs from the chooks chez Wonderwoman (not!) (we had the for tea that night), a collage (one of several) made from Halloween table confetti by Pr.C-W over the weekend, detail of the Christmas tray I painted 2 years back.

Row 2. The actual printed, really FOR SALE cards of my donkeys - I give you FrankenDonkey, Witchypoo Donkey and Ghostie Donkey.

Row 3. The side of a sewing box (only 2 sides painted! One day I will finish it!), long view of the Christmas tray, a Russian Doll donkey I was inspired to put on the other side of the bag I received in the R.D. swap.

Now for the crown passing on.

It has come to my attention today that perhaps I am not the only person involved with Blogger who has a following. One was by accident; I read a post by Katy over at 'Ginger Monkey'. Apparently she has nine!!! However Locket has taken great delight in pointing out to me that she too has a whole gang of followers. That truly was a cruel blow, I heard her cackling as she said it.

(I feel so pathetic now)

So Katy I bow low before you. I commit to you my Trashciples. Locket, I commit to you, well.... something.

My people rise to the challenge!

Like all good deities I create tasks to challenge my followers and my people.



You rose admirably.



I shall cast wide the net of crafting mojo so that all may take freely.



This shall be your reward.

Three!

I gotta new one. I gotta new one, da da da da dah....

The following increases, I think it is now legitimate to call it a following - they number two in total!


Hello April - Trashciple #2 :-)

Should I proclaim myself 'something'?

I have a follower (Hello Kristie! waves). I am ever so chuffed to think anyone reads this blog - (seriously, how did any of you find me?) and now I have a follower.



Is it incumbent on me to do anything for this following I have built? (Hmmm...can one be a 'following'?) Should I be making proclamations?


'Crafting is good.' Or perhaps 'Donkeys rule!!'



Need I set out strictures by which to live?



You know, something like


Notes for a blogging crafter, this is the word of Trash.



'Make space for self.'



'Share of your time, productivity and friendship.'



And each recital of anyone of these phrases could be completed with

'This is Trash Talk today.'

This is a matter of great seriousness to me. I have a following, a girl has to stand up and be counted when she has responsibilities y'know.

Shall retreat now to my cave atop a hill to ponder this issue further. Pronouncement to follow.