sugarlemon

Tagged!

Posted on October 5, 2005 | Comments Off

Hi Terri 😉 You have the dubious honour of being my first ever tagger. I suppose since everyone had to tag 7 other bloggers, it was inevitable I would be reached sometime. Now, I know I’ve said (more than once) I don’t do memes, but how can I resist, once I’ve been tagged? Besides, I can whip this up quickly… so here goes:

7 Things I Want to Do Before I Die:: Go Hot Air Ballooning; Have laser eye surgery; Visit Spain; Ireland; Canada; Make a Quilt; Learn to do lampworking.
7 Things I Can Do:: Make the world’s best Tiramisu; Anaethetise rabbits (no, really!); Understand Java; Play the piano; List the first 20 elements in the periodic table; Give magic mummy kisses; Pat my head and rub my tummy!
7 Things I Can’t Do:: Cook without a recipe; Play 3D ‘puter games; Abide Spam; Feign interest convincingly; Forgive and forget; Fly a kite; Refuse chocolate.
7 Things that Attract Me to Another Person:: Intelligence; Sensibility; Sparkling Eyes; Abilities I lack; Tall, dark and handsomeness; Creativity; Humour. Whoa, whaddya know. OtherHalf has all of those qualities. Lucky for him :giggle:
7 Celebrity Crushes:: Corey Feldman; Corey Haim; Christian Slater; Sean Astin; Jason Bateman; Andrew McCarthy; Joey McIntyre. What? Well, it doesn’t specify *now*, does it :giggle: I’m talking 15 years ago here.
7 Things I Say the Most:: “Oh, for crying out loud”; “Finn, NO!”; “Hey there”; “No problem”; “Be careful”; “Love you”; “Can’t wait until uni’s finished”.
7 Bloggers I will tag:: Nope. I’m sure you’ve all done it by now 🙂

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Posted in Memes

Thrice a Quitter

Posted on October 4, 2005 | 1 comment

Looks like in my haste, I misread the SBQ for this week. It is not, in fact, time to introduce you to my UFO after all! The question, in fact, is this:

Have you ever just quit a project while in the midst of it? (We’re not referring to UFOs here, rather projects that you know that you’ll never work on again.) Why? What did you do with it – throw it out, give it away, put it away?

Yes. Yes I have. Two, in fact. No, wait… three. Before I really got into stitching, I had a few false starts. Partly due to my tendency to jump in the deep end instead of starting small 🙂

The first chart I ever bought myself (this is probably 15 years ago, or thereabouts) was Teresa Wentzler’s Summer Carousel Horse. This must have been back around the time when DMC had a dye change in the range of grey colours that the horse is stitched with. (I know that now!) So I took my aida, chart and floss home, and made an enthusiastic start. I stitched only about a square inch’s worth before I realised my fabric was not big enough – I think I had a piece the size of the design, no extra. So I chucked that piece and started again. Once again, I only stitched a little before I realised something was not quite right. The greys I had didn’t even seem to be in the same colour family. Some were more blue than others. I didn’t really know what was going on, but it discouraged me so much that I ended up putting that second start away for a long time. When I got into stitching again a few years back, I pulled that project out and binned it, and sold the chart on ebay. I still like the carousel horses (I now have the booklet with all four of them in), but I have so much more to stitch before I want to go back and try stitching one again!

My second bin-it project was similar. I had purchased Mirabilia’s Garden Verses, and a pre-packaged fat quarter of Belfast linen to stitch it on. Again, I started enthusiastically, and part way into the border, realised this fabric was also the wrong size – or rather, it might have fitted, had the FQ been cut on the straight. I still have that fabric with the little bit of border stitched in it. I’ll probably salvage the fabric for another project one of these days.

The third project I quit was actually a smaller project – I had convinced myself maybe I needed to start small, by this stage! I had a Dimensions Charts & Charms angel which was OK, I suppose, but in hindsight, not really to my taste anyway. This project was the one where I found I cannot count, and the reason I now grid everything but the smallest project. The froggies visited me a lot throughout the time I stitched on the angel. I probably stitched it twice over, but I only had about half of it actually done at the time I discovered yet another major error, and ruthlessly chucked it!

Heck, with a start (or 3) like that, it’s somewhat amazing I kept coming back to stitching at all :giggle:

1 Comment

Posted in Counted Stitchwork, Memes

Sad Face

Posted on October 4, 2005 | 1 comment

I wasn’t going to post this, I was going to answer this week’s SBQ. I probably still will, later. But I’m feeling a little confused and miserable about something right now, have to get it off my chest.

Did you ever get the idea that someone just didn’t like you? I’ve been experiencing this feeling for a couple of months. I really have nothing concrete to base this on. A particular person in my life seems to be constantly avoiding me, despite my friendliness towards her. However, in the company of others, she will appear to be perfectly pleasant. So really, it’s just vibes that I’m basing this on. I’m usually reasonably perceptive about these things, and it isn’t that I’ve never had people not like me before (get that for a double negative!) It’s just always been blatantly obvious before, y’know! The silly thing is, I really don’t crave this person’s friendship, so I don’t think I’m coming across as a desperate loser :giggle: As I said, I’m just friendly in a general friendly-towards-strangers sort of way. I wish the courtesy could be returned. If not, I would prefer she would just get her dislike for me out in the open, then we can all go on our merry way.

Sorry for the blah. I need to get past this. Hopefully “talking” about it will help me. I’ll be back later… it’s time to introduce you to my UFO!

1 Comment

Posted in General Ramblings

I Am Me

Posted on October 2, 2005 | 1 comment

With all the hoops we’ve been jumping through with banks lately, in order to get our home loan approved, our day-to-day banking switched over, and what have you, I’ve become rather accustomed to undergoing the 100-point identity check. Upon meeting someone new, rather than say “Hi, I’m Melanie”, I’m just as likely now to just to whip out the driver’s licence, Medicare card and birth certificate:giggle:. It’s got me musing about how we prove we are who we are. Particularly since I’ve run into a few little… um… “issues”. For the purposes of illustration here, let’s say my middle name is “Krispy”, my married last name is “Kornflakes”, and my maiden last name is “Krunchy”.

(Ah, but how do you know those aren’t really my names?!)

Anyway.

Issue #1: Bank accepts birth certificate as part of 100-point check. Bureaucrat in State Revenue Office does not accept birth certificate, as birth certificate is in name “Melanie Krispy Krunchy”, not “Melanie Krispy Kornflakes”. Well duh, I wasn’t born married. Offer Marriage certificate as evidence these two are one and same. Instead, must attend police station to have “Change of Name Statement” witnessed, even though I am not changing my name, have actually been known as “Melanie Krispy Kornflakes” since y2K. Learn lesson, and do not use birth certificate again in 100-point check.Issue #2: Bank will not accept Certificate of currency of insurance because said certificate bears only “Melanie Kornflakes”, omitting vital “Krispy”. Return to insurance company to request addition of “Krispy” to certificate and resend to bank. Curse OtherHalf, whose lack of middle name I have previously always poked fun at!

Issue #3: Post Office responsible for forwarding of mail requests maiden and married names, ‘just in case’. No space for maiden name on form. Insert “Krunchy” in parentheses after “Kornflakes”. Confirmation arrives in mail, citing “Melanie Kornflakes Krunchy” as a member of household (ok, totally my fault, and let’s not go into missing “Krispy” on this one). Phone Post Office concerned that confusion will arise, and no mail for Melanie-Anyone will be forwarded to new address. Informed that should have filled form in with both “Melanie Krunchy” and “Melanie Kornflakes” persons. Oh fer crying out loud. I am now two people?!

Don’t you think that just sometimes, it would be easier to undergo fingerprick-DNA-analysis a la Gattaca, to prove your identity? At the very least, it would probably be easier to be known by a number our entire lives, rather than having to hoop jump because of middle and married names. Oh, OK, or not change our name when we marry. But that’s a whole other issue-filled post and I just don’t want to go there! I like my married name 😉

1 Comment

Posted in Family, General Ramblings

Dread October

Posted on October 1, 2005 | 1 comment

It’s October. I’ve been trying not to think about this month. Things will be scary this month. Not just on Halloween. And not only because of the big three-oh (and no, I’m not really worried about turning 30, I am actually a little peeved about not having the time to celebrate). What comes after is far more worrisome:

Big scary birthday on the 11th (dinner with friends on the 8th is the closest I’ll come to celebrating until November)
Big scary uni deadline on the 13th (Usability Eng)
Big scary uni deadline on the 15th (Web Database Apps – and group work, what’s more:ill:)
Big scary house settlement on the 17th(… please, please, please let all go well)
Moving day on the 19th (less scary, providing 17th goes smoothly)
Big scary uni exam on the 27th (Usability Eng)
Big scary uni exam on the 29th (Web Database Apps)

Bet you can’t guess what I’ve got planned for the 30th of October! (Here’s a hint: a visit to Lush shall be in order) 😆

In other news… There have been the most niggly little delays on all the house paperwork, which are driving me to distraction. Take now. Now, the loan documents are in, or on their way back from, Brisbane. Brisbane! As in: the opposite end of Australia to us. Now, this could partly be explained by the fact that our home lender of choice is in Perth… a different opposite end of Australia (bet you didn’t know we had so many ends down here!) In Perth, they might be excused for not knowing that there is a similar sounding suburb in Brisbane to the one we live in here in Melbourne. They might be excused for stuffing it up once. But not twice. No.

Oddly enough, the first time the documents actually arrived here. Incorrect suburb name, correct postcode. Eagle eye that I am (I wish now I weren’t), I spotted the error. I thought it was excrutiatingly minor (being the address we are about to vacate, not the one we’re purchasing), but that I should check with them anyway, as we are talking legal signyourlifeaway contracts here. I phoned the bank, the error was ostensibly corrected, and yes, new documents must be printed and sent out. Waiting. Waiting. Waiting.

After what seemed like too long, I phoned our mortgage broker to ask him to chase down the documents. It was he who shortly thereafter informed me the documents were/are in Brisbane. The error was not corrected. In fact the postcode was “corrected” to reflect erroneous Brisbane suburb. Crap.

So now, 16 days out from settlement, the documents should once again be winging their way to us. Hopefully the corrected documents this time. Or else I will scream 🙁

1 Comment

Posted in Family

The Day After

Posted on September 30, 2005 | 2 comments

Aww, shucks guys. Thankyou for the lovely comments 😳 Now, let’s see what I get called for haircut#2 (silly fool comes to mind). Just remember it’s partly OtherHalf’s fault for that “not much different” comment! Every time I have my hair cut any shorter than “really long”, I regret it the next day. Today is no exception. You would think I would have learned by now! There’s nothing really wrong with the cut, I’m still proud of the diy-ness of it. But I just don’t particularly love it.

Oh well. My hair grows like quicksilver, so it will back to photo#1 length in no time. In the meanwhile, it still looks pretty cute (thanks Jo :giggle: ) when I have it up in a ponytail.

2 Comments

Posted in General Ramblings

Tagged DIY hair cut

DIY-Hair (Again) and Other News

Posted on September 29, 2005 | 2 comments

Well. OtherHalf took one look at this morning’s photograph while he was at work. And said “it doesn’t look much different”. So, me being me, I went back for more diy-haircutting happiness 😯 He arrived home a short time ago, and agrees it is now “much different”. An absence of disaster at the back of my head has been confirmed, and so I’ll try and get another stunned mullet photograph tomorrow (post nasty-deadline).

In other news, the mailman arrived today bearing gifts for all. For me, another RAK! A big hug for Kelly, who sent me Sweetheart Tree’s Whispers in the Pines – gorgeous. I am overwhelmed (again) by the generosity of strangers. I’m not sure what I’ve done to deserve it, but it makes me happy. Thank you Kelly 🙂

For OtherHalf and I both, new credit cards. With a scary upper limit. Let’s just say I could have a spectacular fall from the wagon with this little bit of plastic. As we had no say in what limit was given to us when we applied, we’re somewhat taken aback, and have every intention of requesting a lower limit. It scares me that credit is handed out with such reckless abandon. People with less sense than us could get into serious trouble. (Though I must say, we had a few moments of fantasy, dreaming about the kick-ass home theatre system we could set up!)

For Finn – and this is bizarre – a chain letter. You remember those – the snail mail equivalent of “Forward this to 496 friends or have bad luck the rest of your life” email. Only this is the 3-year-old equivalent. “Send one sheet of stickers to the person at the top of the list, give a copy of this letter to 6 friends, and within 2 weeks you’ll receive 36 sheets of stickers”. Y’what?

Finn was excited to receive mail with his name on it, but I have no intention of participating in the craziness. I might post some stickers to my friend’s little boy with a “thanks, but please don’t do that again” note attached, and buy some stickers for Finn as well (his bestest thing, don’tcha know!) A chain letter! For 3-year-olds! Now I’ve seen everything.

2 Comments

Posted in Family, General Ramblings, The Kids

Tagged stickers

Yes, Hello!

Posted on September 29, 2005 | 2 comments

Up to this point, my appearance has been somewhat of a mystery (to you, dear reader, not so much to me). But now… ta-da, here I am! Don’t adjust your monitors, and no, this is not a sepia-toned photograph. Just call me Miss Brown. Brown hair, brown eyes, brown top :giggle:

Why am I posting this semi-stunned-mullet photograph of myself? Well… I just cut my own hair! Happydance! Due to hairdresser-phobia (there has got to be a long and impressive word for that), I’ve been wanting to try it for ages, but have been too chicken. Today I just figured well heck, why not! My hair is long enough that I would have plenty of leeway to get it fixed if I really stuffed up. And really, I only chopped an inch or two off it, so its hardly a dramatic change.

Not only is my hair pretty long, but it’s slightly layered at the ends, which made it really difficult to stuff up. I used ye olde ‘flip hair over head and cut straight’ method – leading to slightly choppier, more accentuated layers (the effect I was going for, honest). Then I tapered up the sides to my face. Now, I know in the pic it looks slightly uneven, but it’s really not, I promise. It’s the way I’m holding my head. Can I just say – taking your own photograph in the mirror is not as easy as it sounds! Believe it or not, this is the least of the stunned-mullet looking attempts.

I’m pretty happy with how it turned out (hair, not photograph). Not to mention more than happy with the price I charged myself :giggle:

2 Comments

Posted in General Ramblings

Tagged DIY hair cut

Memish

Posted on September 28, 2005 | Comments Off

As a rule, I don’t do memes*. Much for the same reason as I don’t do blogthings and other assorted novelties – you’ve seen it all before, and I don’t think memes add terribly much to a blog, for the most part.

But… in an effort to actually drag this blog back to the world of stitching, I’ve decided to start giving you my 2 cents on the Stitching Blogger’s Questions. This week, the SBQ is as follows:

What is the most challenging specialty stitch you have ever stitched?

Well… I most assuredly have an answer to that. The cable chain stitch is quite the most awful thing I have ever put myself through, stitching wise. I have to say, this is a stitch where the effort required far exceeds the effect. Not worth it, by any stretch.

I used this stitch on a freebie ornament from Kreinik. A big part of the difficulty was probably the fact that it needed to be stitched with #8 braid! Can I offer a suggestion? Don’t do that. Just don’t!

In the end, the piece turned out stunning. It can be seen in my gallery** – cable chain stitch can be seen in gold, third band from the top, and in red, second from the bottom. Sadly, it’s still waiting to be ‘ornamentified’ (to use a Rotation BB term). I’ll get to that someday… along with the many others sitting finished in plastic baggies in my stash box :giggle:

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Posted in General Ramblings

My Blog Should Be Purple

Posted on September 22, 2005 | Comments Off

According to Blogthings. Just in case you were wondering 🙂

And…

“You’re an expressive, offbeat blogger who tends to write about anything and everything. You tend to set blogging trends, and you’re the most likely to write your own meme or survey. You are a bit distant though. Your blog is all about you – not what anyone else has to say.”

Well damn straight. Who else is it going to be about?!

Don’t know about that setting blogging trends bit though. It took me until 2005 to even start this thing, so I’d say I’m pretty far behind in trendset-iness.

I’m not really interested in making my blog purple, so nyah, Blogthings. I have many ideas running through my head for my perpetually delayed template re-jig, not one of them is purple.

Dum de dum…

This post is rather full of good nothing-ness, isn’t it? I need more nothing-ness in my life. I would rather be stitching, but in the 10 minutes I’m taking a study break for, I would get next to nothing done, and would want to stitch for the next 2 hours, instead of slaving away on a Web Databases assignment.

Speaking of stitching, I received goodies yesterday! So happy – Laura sent me a wonderful chart, (which Finn promptly decided I should start stitching for him, but since he deleted a vital chunk of my Usability Engineering assignment on Tuesday, he’s not in line to be demanding anything of the sort :grr: ). Sorry, I digress. It’s Unicorn, by Peter Underhill. Finn does have a point, it would be pretty funky for a boy’s bedroom 😆 Then Mum arrived, and forced new fabric on me! A beautiful bluey-purpley solo from Silkweaver – and a huge piece, too. I’m envisioning a Mirabilia Fairy on it. Can’t wait to stitch again.

Before I disappear, here’s the 5 second update on the Grrr things in my life (in case you care):

Update: nope, it IS working. Yippee!

won’t

will

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Posted in Blog Blather, Counted Stitchwork, General Ramblings, Postgrad Study

Tagged car accident, cross-stitch, study, washing machine

Tagged!

Thrice a Quitter

Sad Face

I Am Me

Dread October

The Day After

DIY-Hair (Again) and Other News

Yes, Hello!

Memish

My Blog Should Be Purple

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