A house of lurgies

I made it all through winter without getting horribly sick, so I'm not  really bitter about getting sick now - just surprised at how bad this bug is. Muscle and joint aches, head like a door got slammed on it, and a phlegmy brick in my breathing passages -it could even be 'flu.

This is my second day off sick - yesterday I started and finished a knitted hat (from Oak Trail from Alana Dakos' Botanical Knits) which is lovely and warm and would have been really useful to wear yesterday when I was feeling bone-chilled (but today it doesn't feel cold so the hat goes straight into storage).

TLM is also sick, and the boy has a painful stye in the eye.

I had to make a block booking at the doctor's for this afternoon!

Happy Halloween to you too.

Naked sofa

My sofas are about 14 years old, and from the day they arrived in this house I have always kept them well-covered. 

I could done the Cantonese thing and used thick clear plastic but I knew(from experience) that would not be comfortable...

So in the summer I'd cover them with cotton throws (until they disintegrated, when I replaced the throws with some awful navy blue covers), and in the winter I covered them with those furry synthetic single-bed-size bed covers  (one in gold, the other purple).

Yesterday I decided it was time to live with the sofas in their original colours, which is what I attracted me to them in the first place.

Knitting injury

I've hurt my left wrist. Whether I stretch out my fingers, make a fist, lift something heavy or just twist and turn it, it gives me pain.

And I'm left-handed, which makes it worse.

Bah.

A jolly good spoiling

I had a great birthday today. Initially I was bothered that I'd have to get up early to take my mum to the lab to get her quarterly blood test done, followed by what I was expecting to be a horrific hour at the supermarket (also with my mum). But then I thought "what the heck's wrong with spending a little time on my birthday, with the woman who made it all possible?" After that everything just got better and better.

The boy and TLM spoiled me horribly. Apart from two wrapped presents (a trendy polka-dotted knitting bag with matching needle case, and a set of Taschen fashion books), they also took me shopping at Kirkaldies.

Although TLM did get somewhat bored at that point - but that's probably because (if she is to be believed) she was so excited about my birthday today that she didn't get a wink of sleep last night. And in any case her mood improved considerably after the boy bought her a new game for her Nintendo DS.

So anyway one of the additional presents I got was a pair of leaf-green NYDJ jeans. They were so comfortable! It's all that industrial strength elastic apparently, which keeps your flabby bits in check and supposedly lifts and separates too (maybe not that last bit) - and makes it possible to bend and touch your toes without cutting yourself in half.

Having said that, when I checked out my rear view I really noticed how big my bum  looked (no doubt it's true size and not an optical illusion), which I don't get with my Mavi jeans - so I guess NYDJ jeans don't quite work magic...

I so love the fit of the new jeans that...I now consider elastic waist pants as a viable style option. It's probably not the intended outcome of the jeans designers!

a small clay nation

I found some modelling clay at Uncle Bill's (a shop for thrifty folks, like a cross between a 2 Dollar shop and the Warehouse).

So one afternoon TLM and I got crafty -

This is my creation - an alien city mayor

This is TLM's crocodile

Also from the mind of TLM, a snake, a rabbit, a penis-shaped alien tree and a boob-monster

Thrift - maybe it's genetic

We all laughed when my friend's brother, at their dad's funeral, talked about how thrifty the dad was - how he refused to chuck out his favourite armchair, and bought toilet paper in bulk. I laughed because my mum is a lot like that.

My mum used to by loo paper in cartons of 72. They rested in her spare room alongside the  equally bulk cartons of laundry powder and dishwashing liquid. (In a civil defence situation she might run out of drinking water but she'd have a spotless bum.) And she uses a pastry brush old enough to remember my first teen-angst tantrum.

So, if the new undies I bought for TLM turn out to be too small ( apparently Asian 7-8 year olds are the same size as Kiwi 4-5 year olds) - is it over the top to sew little scrap fabric inserts into the sides to make them big enough?

Attending the funeral of someone you don't know (well) - supportive or morbid?

This is an issue that I've been struggling with for the last few months, because three of my friends have lost a parent this year.

Even though I'd only met said parent a few times (when I'd known the friend for many years), I went to the funeral because it seemed the best way for me to offer support to the friend. After all, I can't whip up a casserole and I'm really no good at touchy feeling hugging (it's my Chinese upbringing probably).

Surely if they didn't want me to go to their parent's funeral they wouldn't have passed on the details to me? But when I was there I'd felt quite awkward because, unlike those who got up to speak, I had no stories about this person. There was little connecting me to them.

The boy thinks that it's morbid and not really right to go to a funeral unless you know them reasonably well.

But a couple of years ago when one of my workmates lost his dad, our whole office closed up for the afternoon to attend the funeral even though most of us (maybe all of us) had never met the dad. In that case, the colleague seemed genuinely pleased to see us.

I really don't know whether there's some definite protocol about this situation. Is it different depending on the country?

My new favourite sweater-I-knitted-myself

Here's the second-to-latest thing I've knitted - a tweedy blue A-line sweater with removable cowl and elbow length sleeves. I've been wearing it a lot - whenever it's been cold enough (even though it hasn't actually been cold much this winter. Is this what winter in Queensland is like?)

Slight more info is on Ravelry.

This might be my mostly style-y outfit right now - the sweater with a navy merino dress, black tights and studded cherry red ankle boots.

My new favourite movie of all time

When I get asked what my favourite movie of all time is, my answer is usually based on the movies I can remember - which is probably quite a small proportion of the movies I've seen and enjoyed at the time.

At various times my answers has been either "Don Juan DeMarco", "Zoolander" or "City of Lost Children" (the latter mostly for the weirdness).

It has taken multiple viewings of "Bend it like Beckham" for me to decide that - now - this is definitely my favourite movie of all time.  I saw it at the movies when it first came out and saw it again a couple of times when it was broadcast on the telly. But watching it tonight (on Maori Television)  has done it.

It's got the culture-clash theme, of which I am an extreme sucker. But there's also the impressive football skills, the larger-than-life Indian wedding spectacle, and the very, very pretty Jonathan Rhys Meyers. (And of course Parminder Nagra is just great. Since this movie I've only seen her in a handful of ER episodes. What a shame, I'd far rather watch her than Keira.) All the characters are wonderful, even the narrow-minded mums. Oh, and the music!!

It's probably the most feel-good movie ever.

As an aside, right after the movie ended the next show on Maori Television was "Monkey" - a remake of the old Japanese tv series about a Chinese myth, which used to be on tell when I was a teenager. I used to think back then how weird it was that the characters were Chinese but speaking English with Japanese accents. But the version showing tonight was dubbed over in Maori. Excellent!

Month-end catch-up

TLM's birthday was a couple of weeks ago - she turned 8.

8!

Still can't make her own breakfast in the morning and still takes a lot of nudging to sort out her lunch box, but then the bench is designed for tall adults and the girl takes a while to wake up.

Lately she hasn't been complaining as much about her friend-situation so hopefully this means she's getting along with everyone and isn't finding their games boring all the time.

We all went tree-planting last Saturday. I'd never realised digging grass-ridden dirt on a slope could be so physically hard...

Yesterday TLM did a face plant in the school playground. Thank gawd she's not smart-alecky enough to tell everyoneI beat her up - can't blame anything other than bad luck and inattention. Her face is like a mild version of Harvey Dent at the end of Batman II; pretty on one side, slightly scary on the other. Poor wee thing.

This evening I had an accident of my own, and learned that even if it's just a fruit knife - it's a Victorinox knife you don't clean it with your finger!

Ups and downs

On the upside, I decided I was sick of pretty leather-like bags that rip to shreds after less than 12 months of use, then promptly found a really good fake Mulberry Alexa bag which I loved and bought, not caring whether it was real leather or not. I've always liked this style and it has lots of pockets and stands up when I put it down.

On the downside, TLM is apparently at that age when girls learn how to make friends and negotiate the whole alpha girl dynamic that you find in groups of girlfriends. She like to do what she wants, how she wants. Although there are at least 10 people she calls friends, she sometimes complains that she's lonely at lunchtime with no one to play with. We tell her that she should try going along with what the other girls want to play and maybe they'll play her games next time - but I've no idea how much she does this and whether it works. I do know that she does have fun wither her friends and classmates sometimes.

Then one day she will tell me she's lonely and just wants someone to play with her. We parents aren't suppose to try to 'fix' this problem for her, she's supposed to learn how to deal with it herself. But it makes me so sad because when I've felt lonely at times in my youth it was horribly depressing. I hate for her to be sad and lonely.

a 6.5 earthquake, and I didn't even feel it

There's been a swarm of earthquakes and aftershocks over the last three days:
The one that hit on Friday made our office building shake and we all scamperd under our desks.
There were three early this morning, and I slept through two of them. The third rocked our bed enough to wake me up, but not so much to prevent us from going back to sleep.
The relatively big one was just after 5pm today, 6.5 on the Richter scale. I was in the car with TLM and we didn't feel a damn thing.
On the news it sounded like buildings in the city centre suffered damage here and there, and I heard that the power went out in a couple of suburbs.
But here at my place, and even at my mums place, there's little trace of the shake (except for my mum's nerves).
Lucky, I guess.

A history of the artist

In another attempt to rid my sensitive eyes of whatever's making them go vampire-red every day, I did a total spring-clean of my bedroom. This meant shifting furniture, pulling bits and pieces from wherever they'd been wedged in between furniture, and removing the rug. I mopped the wooden floor with hot soapy water, wet-dusted everything except the clothes hanging on my garment racks and even cleaned the windows (frame and glass).

The only parts I didn't do were the walls, because I'd only be able to clean the lower 5 feet of them.

At some time in the past, the boy had decided to wedge in my old paintings and sketches in behind my tea chest. so I dusted off the plastic folders and took everything out to see whether I wanted to keep anything.

Amongst the self-conscious scribbles from my art classes and my attempts at abstraction were a number of nudes which I'd mostly forgotten about, as well as a couple of self portraits which were a revelation.

In the end, I was happy to chuck out about 80% of that stuff. But I kept my favourite painting and drawing.

My knitted dress

I thought it turned out quite well. It's the cable panel dress from Designer Knitting magazine

Polar blast? Not today.

So I took a day of work today because I've felt a cold building up for the past week and last night I felt absolutely terrible (nose running like a tap, headache, stiff upper back, wheezing).

And I thought "It's probably a good day to stay at home, what with the gale force freez-ies predicted for tomorrow"(really - folks in the South Island have been shopping like the day before Good Friday, and preparing to hunker down for the next couple of days).

But...actually it's not been that cold. I turned off my heater just now when I looked out of the bedroom window, admired the lovely big rainbow in the sky, and noticed that I can't see my breath (there's no heating on in that room).

Also, I feel not too bad.Maybe it's the calm before the storm (cold-wise and weather-wise). I suppose I'll just have to wait and see.

Time on our backsides

You've probably read the news stories about how a sedentary lifestyle can be lethal - that is, even if you go to the gym religiously, the more time you spend sitting, the earlier you'll die.

The first time I read about this, I was on my lunch break. I spent the following hour bent over my workstation, trying to type whilst standing. Then my lower back started to ache, so I had to sit down.

Well, I've spent the better part of the last three days on my bum, all because TLM is sick with a constant cough and a forehead you could fry an egg on (but she wouldn't eat it because she doesn't like egg). She's been on her bum all that time too, except during those moments when she felt well enough to leap about like a well child. And the boy - he seems to have caught the lurgy, so is spending more time that usual saving the world through computer gaming.

I haven't actually minded this relative inactivity, because it's allowed me lots of knitting time - which I've needed, because I'm trying to knit a dress and have already ripped it back from hip to armpit TWICE after realising my sizing was overly optimistic. And I would really like to be able to wear it while it's still cold enough to.

I did go to yesterday's World Knitting In Public Day event, where there was a small but friendly group of knitters including a visitor from Cape Town and an art history professor from Idaho.

My weekend of exploded sinuses

I thought I was having my third cold in 4 weeks - when it suddenly dawned on my that my latest cold (at least) was in fact terrible hay fever. It's the kind that has me sneezing so hard that I almost hit my head on the floor, and kinda sounds like cannon-fire.

It wasn't helped by the fact that I spent a few hours cleaning the house yesterday and had decided to finally tackle the thick blanket of dust around the boy's workstation. It was blanketed, I tell you!

On the plus side, I went to a sock-knitting workshop in the afternoon, part of the Handmade festival this weekend. I went to learn how to knit socks, but also to meet fellow knitters. It turned out that the women I did speak to weren't quite as knit-obssessed as I, and I even had to help a couple of them with their stitching!

So now I can knit socks (at least,  one miniature sock), which means I can finally use that beautiful sock yarn I bought two years ago...

Choo!

A last hurrah for summer

One beautiful Sunday afternoon we decided to go down to the beach and check out the rock pools. It was awesome.

Some Neptune's Necklace

Sea anemone

View of the fishing boats with Marine Education Centre at left

sea kelp, with TLM for size reference

sea slugs

And then there was one...

In memory of Munchy the caterpillar

About two months ago, monarch caterpillars finally started to appear on TLM's swan plant (which she's had since Christmas).

First one, then another, and so on until there were five caterpillars of varying size, chomping their way through the swan plant leaves. We were so excited to be part of the monarch butterfly life cycle!

TLM named them Munchy, Crunchy, Punchy, Lunchy and Yawny. They munched and crunched (as you'd expect) until there were very few intact leaves left.

And then they started disappearing. Punchy was the first to go, and then Lunchy, until....there was only one left on the plant. The birds must have been picking them off once they got big enough to be noticed.

Then we found one dangling from the top of our wooden fence. Hooray, we thought. It's about to become a chrysalis!

But he didn't turn into one. He uncurled, and then just hung there until we realised that the life had gone out of the poor creature. We were down to just one caterpillar after all.

Every day we go and check on Yawny, hoping he gets to complete his life cycle and become a chrysalis and then a butterfly. Hoping that he doesn't become a bird's dinner.

Knitting round-up

A peaked cap for me...

...using two buttons I bought at the Underground Market

A slightly chunky-fying funnel neck top...

with an abstract design on the back which I made up as I went

A beanie for my mum, for Mother's Day

And a wool/mohair/angora tunic for TLM, who wins as this post's cutest model.