I have a new phone! The phone company called me and said would I like to change plans to one with more data and get an iPhone 5 as well and I said ok. I don’t mind paying less a month and getting a new phone.
Plus new phone means an excuse to buy new cases.
I don’t quite understand my obsession with pretty cases, but I spent a few hours looking and trying not to purchase all the cases.
I stumbled across head case designs and they were just too cute not to share. And I may have bought 1 or 3 of them.
(The picture links to the eBay page)
These are the three I bought. No doubt you’ll see them in selfies soon enough.
Of course this means I now have a surplus of iPhone 4S cases which need a good home. So if you have an iPhone 4 or 4S and are interested in any of my cases (below) shoot me a comment or an email and let me know which one you’re after.
I would particularly like my tardis to find a loving home.
Every Wednesday/Thursday I’ll be blogging about the topic that comes through my email courtesy of Shay & Alissa.
If you could live in a different decade, what would it be, and why?
What a difficult question.
I’ve always said that I am so incredibly grateful to be living in an age where women can have a credit card, own property, and vote without a husband.
So as much as I fantasise about living in a Jane Austen era, I know that I probably wouldn’t survived too happily.
So to answer this question I’m going through the historical fiction section of my bookshelf where I can imagine myself as living in my favourite books (neatly avoiding a lot of problems which would occur if current-day-beks was herself in these decades).
Pride & Prejudice – All that focus on getting a husband? No thanks, although wet white shirt Colin Firth might persuade me. Plus I think all that delicate needlepoint would get me down. I rather prefer embroidering swear words.
Anne of Green Gables – Canada sounds so beautiful, all the trees, all the reading, all the spare time, plus Gilbert Blythe is dreamy. I’d quite happily be a red haired trouble maker running around PE Island having adventures and eventually going to college and being a teacher. I think I could live that life rather happily.
Persuasion – Possibly my favourite Austen (even without wet white shirt Colin Firth), and it’s probably because I relate to Anne Elliot so much. I fact I think 1814-1815 England may have suited me, if I had the life of Anne Elliot. She had a certain autonomy within a rigid class structure which would suit me quite well. I could at least survive in that life. Plus Captain Wentworth! (swoon) [it is becoming very apparent that I have the hots for a lot of fictional men. Totally normal right? Wet white shirt Colin Firth amiright?]
Seven Little Australians – I had to stop myself from re-reading this as it has been a long time since I flicked these pages, although the pages are so well worn. What would it have been like to grow up in Australia in early 1900s, when English customs were still observed even though they were impractical. I never saw myself as any one character like I have with all the other books I’ve mentioned in this post.
Rilla of Ingleside – Who would possibly choose to go back in time and experience world war 1. in spite of that, part of me wants to live this story. It was written so soon after the end of the war that history wasn’t set in stone and attitudes completely formed. It would be terrible to have lived that life, such hardship, loss, and uncertainty, but something keeps drawing me back to this story. It is a romanticised look at the horror of war from a young girls perspective.
The Other Boleyn Girl – I have such a fascination with the Tudor period. The dress, the manner, the patriarchy and the religious upheaval. With history so often we get the condensed version, it was (once again) a frightening time to be alive and be a strong woman, but if I had a time machine I would go to the Tudor period in a heartbeat.
Any of the famous five series – I would travel on all the Five’s adventures in a heartbeat. From the descriptions of caravans, to all the adventures. I really want to travel the 1940s English and. Welsh countryside drinking ginger beer and eating raspberry ices.
So really I want a tardis to visit all these fictional worlds and live the life of fictional characters. Which probably means I’m more than content to live in the decade I live now. But travelling through time and fiction would be nice.
Did I happen to mention wet white shirt Colin Firth??? If you’re confused, then the video explains it. If you know what I’m talking about, you’ll probably watch the video anyway.
Well if you have a look at my most played artists for this week you won’t find the shins.
We had a stereo on board, which we could both plug our phones into and there was no one around.
So when HeWhoFishes was out on the dingy I did leap at the opportunity to sing and dance around like the crazy lady I am.
And I wasn’t dancing to the shins.
But when we weren’t being nostalgic and listening to Jebediah, and I was enjoying the solitude of being away from society and on a boat, I was listening to this song.
(And just to rub it in, here’s my photo collage which I use as my work computer background. One of the reasons I use hipstamatic, Instagram, and the a beautiful mess apps is not so all my photos look twee [which I do like] but it makes it easier to put into collages because they all use the same dimensions. My work computer has no fancy unworkrelated software so I resize the photos to 7cm using microsoft word and then copy and paste them into paint. Then I can chop and change photos as I like )
Once upon a time, there was a girl called BeksWhoKnits and a boy called HeWhoFishes.
The two of them set off early on Friday morning and drove as the sun came up. And at some point around 9:00 arrived into Walpole.
The stocked up on supplies, and made sure that they had every thing they needed. They weren’t to be coming back to the shore for a while.
Off they set on a houseboat into the inlet. Quite soon the houseboat was transformed into a home where the next 3 nights would be spent.
They reached their first destination. HeWhoFishes set to fishing, BeksWhoKnits to knitting.
The fish weren’t biting from the back of the boat, so HeWhoFishes went off in the dingy to explore further.
Bekswhoknits explored the life of Stephen Fry and made some steady progress on her crocheted blanket.
The talent of reading and knitting was well practiced and she was quite accomplished by the end of the trip at first reading from the iPad and then later balancing actual books.
The days flew by and fish continued to be caught, books continued to be read, and WIPs turned into FOs.
Each day had a new location, and each morning a new sunrise to wake up to.
Even washing the dishes somehow felt easier.
There was talk of rejoining civilisation for a Saturday afternoon, but the wonders of technology meant that football could be watched aboard the boat.
More fish were caught, HeWhoFishes made friends with a pelican named Harold. Beks eyed Harold warily and preferred to remain indoors.
All too soon it was time to return the houseboat. There was talk of sailing into the sunset, but it proved impossible so we returned to the shore and reluctantly made our way back to the city.
The houseboat is a perfect choice when two people wish to do nothing but fish and knit (and read, and embroider, and watch football).
Fish tally
Too many herring to keep count of
20+ Black Brim
10+ Skippy
10 School Whiting
6 Snook / Garfish
1 australian salmon
1 Mullet
Finished Object list
The Fry Chronicles
Revenge Wears Prada
The Colour of Magic
Death Comes to Pemberly
“manners cost nothing” embroidery
teal, black, and grey broken rib cowl
crochet flower
Significant progress on
– vanilla latte pair of socks
– crochet blanket
Even if it’s not Wednesday here (because I live in the future aka Australia), it’s Wednesday where this blogging challenge is taking place.
Confused yet??
Every Wednesday/Thursday I’ll be blogging about the topic that comes through my email courtesy of Shay & Alissa.
This weeks topic is my first kiss.
At age 6 I got married. Not a childhood slavery marriage but in the sand pit at Primary School we had a pretend wedding where I and the lucky boy (whose name I don’t even remember) got married, had a quick peck, before going on our honeymoon.
I wish I could remember what I though a honeymoon was. I’m sure it was hilariously off base.
My first proper kiss with tongues was in year 9. At the time our little social group had 5 girls and 3 boys and so the boys got shared out so the boys got passed around. (I tried and there’s really no better way of phrasing it. We were young, we thought love triangles were fun and normal.)
So it was all very awkward and unnatural. We asked each other for permission before holding hands. Eventually at a party it was decided that we should kiss. Peer pressure.
So we went down into the orchard and kissed. It was ok.
A couple of weeks later when we’d broken up and he was going out with my friend, she rang me and asked me if this guy was a good kisser.
I said “meh – it was pretty sloppy” or something along those lines before she announced that he was listening in on the other line.
The good old days of landlines and three-way chat. I wasn’t even allowed to have a phone in my room so this conversation was probably held in code inthe kitchen. If I was lucky I could use the phone in my parents room, but they door had to be open.
I eventually wrote a very thinly veiled story about these people with the premise being we were all going on holiday together. It started off as a romance, slipped into soap opera territory, and by the end of it became a teen slasher. I think I nearly killed every one off.
Knitting is trending today due to photos of the Australian Prime Minister being published in Women’s Weekly.
Rather than pick fights with random people on twitter (never a wise idea) I’m channeling my annoyance into reasons why knitting is awesome.
And then I got distracted by pretty yarn and all my anger faded.
Which is the number one reason knitting it awesome. Pretty yarn.
etsy link here
Plus
-it’s relaxing
-it’s good for my mental health
-it makes marathoning tv shows somewhat productive
-it makes watching all 5 days of test match cricket somewhat productive
-you can make things while you wait at places
-you can’t fidget and knit at the same time
-ravelry!
-you can pretend to save money by making things you see in shops (when really by the time you add up time and yarn$ you haven’t saved anything)
-learning new things
-all the geeky patterns
-the heightened sense of awareness of other people’s knitwear
-other knitters, even if you have nothing else in common there’s knitting
-that smugness whenever you see someone knitting in tv or books
-and for someone who spends her work day on a computer I really like being able to say “I made that”
Ive finished my 10 stitch blanket. I know I was saying a couple of weeks ago it will probably take me a few more years to finish but it’s done.
The secret? Make it smaller.
Now this isn’t just pure laziness. The idea came to me when I was cold at the office. I am always cold. I do have a heater, but I don’t like using it all the time. So I was using a cardigan as a lap blanket and my wheely chair kept running over the sleeves. I started thinking about patterns and what I could quickly whip up when I remembered my 10 stitch blanket was just about big enough.
I worked on that steadily over the weekend and finished it. Just in time too. The circular needle broke with about 15 rows to go.
I also made a video about it. Particularly how I do the corners. It’s a bit different to how the pattern says but I think it’s easier. Special thanks has to go to HeWhoFishes for being a lighting and camera man. I couldn’t have got the close up shots of my hands without him. Also as a non-knitter he said he understood what I was doing, so I think I did an alright job of explaining myself.
Making a tutorial was one of the goals I set myself for 2013, but I never imagined I would film a video.
To finish off the blanket I added a simple crochet edge.
I’m really pleased with it. But I don’t think I’ll be making another one soon. And certainly not one in sock yarn!
polka-dots & sparkles 