huagl – Page 7 – Crafts, Cats, and Occasionally Cursing

Did I Mention I Like to Crochet

It’s been a while since I let you know what I’ve been up to, craft-wise, so I thought it was about time to do another recap. Since my last post I’ve basically been only doing crochet. My poor cross stitch is still half finished and now in a box where I can’t see it and feel bad for not wanting to finish it. I’m sure when I finally unpack my craft boxes (which will probably be after we move out of this place, if I’m honest with myself) I’ll get the urge to finish Mr Magpie so I can get him framed and on the wall, but for the moment I’m pretending he doesn’t exist and crocheting instead.

Crochet and cats on the front steps on a Saturday afternoon

I made a blanket for Ally, and finished it in time for it to be a housewarming (and new lounge-christening) present. I sadly forgot to take photos of it when it was done, but she chose a gorgeous colour combination of light grey, peacocky blue and a grassy green for me to make ripply stripes with. It was pretty big by the time I had finished it, and I considered keeping it for myself. I also made Tiger some toy balls out of the leftover yarn, and apparently she approves of both the toys and the blanket. She obviously has discerning taste.

Looks like I've got a new project to pass the time. #crochet #hexagons #crafts

After that I decided I would never make a full blanket at once again. I bought a variety of cotton yarns and started making hexagons with it so I could sew them all together. They’re much quicker and more portable than a whole blanket, so I thought I would power through them any chance I got and make a really big snuggly blanket out of them. I have about 80, which is a good effort, but it makes a small, pathetic-looking blanket. I’m so sick of doing hexagons though, so I bought some really soft yarn on a whim and made a scarf out of it instead of buying more yarn for hexagons.

This scarf, to be exact. I would crochet on the train in the mornings, and when it was slow at work, and of an evening, so it came together pretty quickly. People made fun of me a little because the yarn matched my hair, but I think it’s a good thing; the scarf always fits in with my outfits because my hair is always the same. Plus it’s quite warm and that comes in handy now that the mornings are getting quite chilly.

But it seems that now that I have allowed myself to buy red variegated yarn I can’t stop myself. The floodgates have opened and no yarn is safe. I must have it all! I bought some gorgeous felted stuff and while I was trying to go for something different I just couldn’t go past the red and orange colour. Plus I’m using it in a striped blanket, so I’m going against my previous vow and making a whole blanket at once. It’s going to take forever and be my biggest blanket yet (I think), but it’s already looking pretty cool so hopefully it looks awesome when it’s done.

It seems i Must only #crochet things that match my hair from now on.

I’m trying out a new stitch, Larksfoot Stitch, which I think looks neat, but someone commented that the red stripes look like chops and now I can’t unsee that. Lets see if I ever make her something if she asks! (I probably will, I’m always happy to make things for people other than myself)

So that’s where I’m up to! Sorry about all the instagram photos, but now that the sun is setting before I even leave work I don’t have much time to take proper photos these days. Sure, I could take them on the weekends, but I’m too busy sleeping for that kind of thing!

Grown Up Life

I keep meaning to update this more regularly, but at the moment it just feels like all I’ve been doing is working and watching Korean tv shows, which isn’t that interesting to talk about.

Getting used to full time work is something that is taking a while to adapt to. I am ok with getting up and going to work every day (although now that the mornings are getting colder it’s more of an effort to get out of the nice warm bed), it’s just that I feel like life is kinda passing me by. During the week our day consists of getting up, going to work, then relaxing in the evenings before going to bed and repeating the process. Then on the weekends we just want to relax, which means sleeping in and hanging around the house. At most we will go to a cafe for lunch and have a bit of a wander, but that’s about it. I always wonder how people can have interesting lives while working full time; do they just have really packed weekends?

That being said, the past few weekends have been slightly more interesting than usual. Last weekend was Mother’s Day, and because Ben’s Mum’s birthday was then too, we had a big lunch in Newtown with Ben’s family, his sister-in-law’s family, and my family all there. It was the first time Mum and Ro saw Ned in person, and he was suitably cute and endearing. Scout hid under the bed the whole time they were here. We had Thai and Mum got to put some faces to names that I have mentioned in our talks. She also got to show off her new car, which was suitable new and fancy.

This weekend was also exciting because we went to Marrickville for the first time since we moved to Stanmore, and we’ve also started letting Ned outside for a little bit. He has a collar now (which he hates) so I’m a bit more willing to let him wander without strict supervision. I still worry about him wandering off, but I just didn’t want people to think he was a stray because he’s still pretty small. Scout seems to get a bit confused about Ned when they’re outside; twice he went up to her and must have caught her by surprise because she puffed right up and tried to fight him. I don’t understand how she didn’t recognise him, seeing they’ve spend every day together for the past month.

He is such a photogenic cat. I busted the good camera out for the first time in ages and all the photos I took came out nicely. Now if only he wasn’t so bitey.

Family Addition

I have some exciting news that I have been meaning to share for a little while now. I wanted to wait until I was sure about all this before letting everyone know about the newest member of our family, but now that he seems to have settled in it seems like the time is right.

Everyone, meet Ned:

Ben and I have been talking about how we felt bad about Scout being at home all day by herself, and trying to work out whether we could get another cat to keep her company while we were in this small apartment. I follow the Cat Protection Society on facebook, so I get updates when they have new cats up for adoption, and fell in love with another ginger cat, Timmy. It was just before pay day so we didn’t have enough money to adopt him, but Ben agreed that Timmy was super cute and would probably get adopted quickly. A few weeks ago I looked at the cats again and saw Timmy was still there. Ben agreed to go visit CPS that weekend, which I took to mean “we’ll get a cat” and was super excited about it.

We actually didn’t end up getting Timmy in the end. We looked at the kittens first, just in case, and there were two gingers that I was interested in (I have had my heart set on a ginger cat for ages; when we got Scout we actually went to look at a ginger who was way too excitable for us) so we chose one to give a bit of a cuddle.

As soon as I picked him up he started purring so loudly, and snuggled up into my neck. Ben an I cuddled him for a little while before going upstairs to the adult cats to say hello to Timmy and see if we liked him more. He was cute, and friendly, but my heart was set on the kitten, who didn’t even have a name at that point. Ben agreed, and we took him home straight away.

He is the most laid back cat. We put him in a carrier box and he just purred the whole way home; we pick him up and are silly with him and he doesn’t mind at all. Scout grumbled and swiped at him for a few days and he just kept trying to be friends. He has a kitten’s arrogance which was exactly what we needed. We knew Scout would try and put up a fight, but that she’d also give up quickly enough if the other cat didn’t seem to be reacting to her threats.

And that’s how it is! Scout has begrudgingly accepted the fact that Ned’s not going anywhere and now plays with him. She even tries to clean him at times, but he has no time for that when there’s running through the apartment to do! He has a lot of energy, which I had forgotten about since Scout had calmed down recently. He plays with anything, but especially loves scrunched up paper and will carry the paper balls around and throw them for himself. He is much smarter than Scout, but also a really persistent little thing; we will constantly whack him or move him when he’s doing something he shouldn’t and he just keeps going straight back to what he was doing and doesn’t seem to register that we’re angry at him.

So that’s our exciting news, a new kitten baby! Hopefully I’ll be able to take more photos of him, but at the moment if he isn’t asleep he is constantly moving so it’s hard to catch him in focus.

Employment Opportunities

I don’t know if you’ve heard, but the news on the block is that I have a new job. For a while I technically had two jobs and they overlapped for two weeks. I was essentially working 7 days a week for that time; I wouldn’t recommend that anyone try that out, because it sucked balls and had to go back to drinking coffee in the mornings to be able to survive the days.

I went back to QBF when I found out one of the girls there was going overseas because I was really starting to stress about my unemployment and going back there meant I didn’t have to actually apply anywhere and get trained or any of that. It was a job of convenience more than anything else. Two days after I started back one of the other girls got a proper job so we were going to have to employ someone new anyway. The next day I had a job interview and was asked to start as soon as possible. So much for going back to retail for a while! Nat was upset that I was leaving basically as soon as I came back to the QBF Crew, but understood that I would be an idiot to give up this job to stay in a retail job that I didn’t overly like.

So now I am working at the gaming company that Ally (remember my old housemate?) has been working at for a few years. I am a Production Assistant, which at the moment means answering messages that people send in when our facebook game isn’t working properly, general admin stuff and a bit of game testing to see if the developers have fixed the bugs they say they have. Most of the time they haven’t and I get a strange satisfaction from being able to consistently break the game.

I’ve been here for about a month now and I’m really liking the place! My coworkers are all really nice and friendly (also most are super nerdy so I feel cool around them) and the atmosphere is pretty laid back. My bright hair and piercings are not an issue in any way and there isn’t a dress code, which means when I don’t feel like putting in an effort in the morning and wear tights as pants no one cares at all. Even when I dress like a slob I tend to look more put together than half the staff. If Mr “Socks and Slip-On Sandals” can get away with wearing his trademark ensemble then I’m pretty safe with my fashion choices.

The office is just down the road from Ben’s work, so we travel back and forth together which is nice! Sometimes we get lunches together too, but most of the time we do our own things during the day and meet up after work to travel home. I’m still getting used to this 40 hour work week deal so most of the time it is hard to get out of bed in the mornings, but Ben is worse than I am so it makes me feel good that I manage to catch the train on time every day (unlike him). I also seem to beat Ally to work every day too, but apparently everyone beats her to work some days. When I meet up with Ben in the afternoon we normally buy stuff to cook for dinner (we’re not that great with planning ahead for these things) then catch the train home. Afternoon trains are almost always old unairconditioned trains, which sucks, but I guess that won’t be so bad once the weather starts cooling down again.

I feel sorry for poor Scout. Now she’s left alone all day she seems to have gotten even more clingy than before. She’s taken to laying in front of the door whenever we’re in the lounge room just in case we weren’t aware that she didn’t want us to leave. I have tried to find things to entertain her when we’re out, but she doesn’t seem to notice her toys most of the time so it’s no use. Hopefully once this lease runs out we can get a slightly bigger place now we can afford a bit more rent and get Scout a friend to help keep her company during the day. I saw one up for adoption that I’m wishing we could get now, but I’ve been told I’m not allowed.

So that’s my latest life update! Now if you’ll excuse me I have to go and catch up on the sleep I’ve missed since having to get up at 7 every morning.

Migraine Madness

Last night when I went to bed I had the most painful headache imaginable; it felt like my left eye and my jaw on that side were being stabbed repeatedly with a very sharp, pointy implement. I get headaches often enough because of common enough reasons like dehydration, eye strain, mystery brain pain, but I know how they feel and even the ones that concentrate behind one of my eyes was nowhere near as bad as this (and those ones are fucking dire).

Somehow I managed to get out of bed and take some painkillers, though I honestly don’t remember how. I just remember taking them and then was back in bed laying on my stomach so I could press the heel of my palm against my eye in an attempt to relieve the pain until the sweet codeine kicked in. Ben said it took maybe 15 minutes before he could tell that I had fallen asleep, but that time felt like it went for hours and I was worried it wasn’t going to be numbed enough for me to get enough sleep for the night.

So I woke up in the morning groggy as hell, and spent the rest of the day feeling half asleep but thankfully headache-free. Of course if the migraine was still around I would have called in sick, but it’s very rare that headaches linger after that initial course of codeine. Even when I had migraines in high school, where I was in so much pain I couldn’t see or walk properly and ended up vomiting, were fixed simply enough. I just spend all day feeling like my thoughts are stuck in molasses.

The only thing that seemed to help was tea. Hot, sweet tea with a teensy splash of milk made me feel just that little bit more human which made doing the customer service stuff I had to do a reality. Sure I was still a bit slow, but that was better than just sitting there staring blankly at the computer screen.

So let’s give it up for tea. I know I’ve been drinking coffee lately, but you know I’ll never leave you for real baby. Coffee’s just a fling, it doesn’t mean anything to me. You’re the real deal; you make me all warm and fuzzy inside. Let’s never fight again, ok?

(credit for images: 1 – 2 – 3 )