real life

Whatever Wednesday – write your own obituary

Posted on August 22, 2013August 22, 2013 by bekswhoknits

Every Wednesday/Thursday I’ll be blogging about the topic that comes through my email courtesy of Shay & Alissa. If you want to join in the fun, email Whateverwednesdays@yahoo.com to get a heads up on the topic for the week.

write your own obituary

This very nearly read “incarcerated at 28 after her upstairs neighbours woke her up at 4:30 and she violently intervened”.

But instead –

She passed away in her sleep at 86. She was well loved and was a regular at the local bowls club where she was known for being crap at bowls, but made damn good sausage rolls.
Her favourite place in the world, was the front porch where all the people most important to her would gather, giggle at knitted penises, drink too much gin, and play card games each with their own rules that the others didn’t know.

A crazy cat lady who knitted cats, but is most quoted as saying “get off my lawn!”

She is survived by a crochety old man who is going a bit deaf, is actually good at bowls but will soon die of a broken heart (too harsh?), and her best friend who has the biggest collection of knitted mustaches known to man. And they’re still cool.

FO#21 – it’s a blanket!

Posted on August 20, 2013August 20, 2013 by bekswhoknits

I only have two WIPs left!!
And I’m up to the sleeves on one of them!

But I have two left (not including a pair of socks that I intend to frog) because I finished off this beauty.

I even made my bed for the occasion. (Slightly more difficult as HeWhoFishes and I both aren’t good at sharing a blanket. So we have one each. Which pretty much throws the whole making the bed thing out the window. At least it does in my head.)

Whatever Wednesday – TV!

Posted on August 15, 2013August 15, 2013 by bekswhoknits

top 5 favourite tv shows

There were strict instructions for this one. Which sucks because usually I take a left turn when approaching these topics. Specifically we were told “… that doesn’t mean your top 3, or your top 7, or I don’t watch TV because I’m too cool and do things like art projects, I MEAN YOUR TOP 5 FAVOURITE SHOWS”

Yup message received agonisingly loud and clear.

1) Doctor Who
Surprise surprise.
I first started watching the 4th Doctor and Romana II. And then came the reboot and Eccleston and fantastic. And then David Tennant (swoon) and then tumblr and fangirling and squeeeee!!!!

2) Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Considering I had never watched this until 2 years ago, I am completely hooked and could probably get more of the lyrics from Once More With Feeling correct if I was forced to sing for my supper.

3) Black Books
I will get messages from my brother at 2 am quoting black books.
I have also spent a night, with my bestfriend on the recliner, me and my boyfriend on the couch and him getting black books quotes not just from the tv, but from both of us, with bonus cackling.

4) Parks and Recreation
I have a bracelet which says awesomesauce, so that probably qualifies Parks and Rec to be on this list.
Both April & Andy, and Ben & Leslie tie for cutest couple on television.
Actually this show is just bad ass. All the relationships in the show have

5) Pride & Prejudice the 1994 tv series
This was the first tv show that I ever fangirled over. Wet white shirt Colin Firth.
Mum & I would stock pile the ironing to watch this together. Oddly enough Dad and my two brothers would find something else to do.

And unfortunately this was the biggest gif of wet shirt darcy I could find.

Honourable mentions:
Firefly, Coupling, Downton Abbey, How I Met Your Mother (although just finish already!), Fawlty Towers, Black Adder, Mad Men, 30 Rock…. and i’m going to stop now before I agonise over this post any more.

Here have a video of the doctor who credits in the style of the Buffy credits.

Whatever Wednesday – something for granted

Posted on August 8, 2013August 7, 2013 by bekswhoknits

Every Wednesday/Thursday I’ll be blogging about the topic that comes through my email courtesy of Shay & Alissa.

something or someone i take for granted

I’ve always had an overactive imagination. Most books, movies, tv I consume I imagine what life would be like in that world.
I just started watching Breaking Bad and so my thoughts have been about how I would handle cancer, or losing a loved one, or having a drug addiction, losing a house, living on the streets, and struggling to eat.

At any given moment the absolute worst case scenario is flicking through my head. Almost like the flashbacks in Scrubs except in a flash I’ve fallen over, broken my wrist, unable to work, and selling my body for crack.

So I don’t think I take anything for granted.
I know how quickly things can change.
It doesn’t take much for me to imagine this life I have, this life filled with love and comfort to all come crashing down.

And so I am grateful. I am grateful every single morning that I can get out of bed.

I’m young, in love, buying a house, have some amazing friends, a career which not only do I enjoy most days but also pays for bills and yarn.
Even though my family and I don’t always agree on everything they still support me and my choices.
I can vote, own property, have a degree and access to good medical facilities.
I have the internet at my fingertips to teach me how to knit, let me watch doctor who that hasn’t aired in australia yet, and communicate with people from all around the world that I would never have known otherwise.
I have clean air, running water, access to public transport, food in the fridge, and electricity to run the multitude of appliances we probably don’t actually need.

The feeling of gratitude is almost overwhelming.

I’m grateful everytime I go to point out how nice something smells and realise my boyfriend can’t.
I’m grateful every single time my little brother comes off his motorbike and gets back up.
I’m grateful everytime I hang out with the two most important people I have in my life, that they still choose to hang around me and haven’t given up like so many other people.

I don’t think I take anything for granted because I always imagine that the second that I do, it will be gone.

Whatever Wednesday – food glorious food

Posted on August 1, 2013January 9, 2014 by bekswhoknits

Every Wednesday/Thursday I’ll be blogging about the topic that comes through my email courtesy of Shay & Alissa.

favourite recipe

Hmmm. Food. Long time readers of my blog may have noticed that I haven’t posted a recipe for a while. This is mostly because I haven’t cooked in a while.

HeWhoFishes has been in charge of dinner and he’s been doing a bang up job.

So I’m going to show you back through my archives and my favourite things I have cooked. All the photos link to the recipe.

Zucchini slice.
This is my mum’a recipe and it’s the number on thing I search for on my own blog.
It’s comforting, easy to make, and good hot or cold.

Beef stew
Oh how I love stew. It’s so easy. The oven makes the house warm and it smells fantastic. Bonus because it’s cheap.

Rissoles
Apart from the obvious reference to The Castle (classic and very quotable Australian movie), Rissoles are a favourite in this house. Once again very easy, and can be made as cheaply or as fancy as you like. Another one of mum’s recipes.

And something sweet – Lavender Pancakes
It probably sounds strange, but these were really scrummy.

And if I didn’t know that dinner for tonight had already been taken care of, I think I would be picking up the ingredients for stew on my way home from work.

It’s a hard life, but someone’s got to do it

Posted on July 29, 2013August 2, 2013 by bekswhoknits

So the big news is, we’re buying a house!
Well, hopefully.

We’ve found one that we both really like, is in our price range and has ample room for fishing rods and yarn!

We’re putting in the offer today and if everyone crosses their fingers it will be accepted and we’ll both live happily ever after.

I’m not naive enough to think that this will just happen. There’s still mortgages to organise, equity to leverage and a lot of things to work out even before we can consider it a done deal. My previous house buying experience was horrible, complete with smarmy real estate agent, lost paperwork, and months of house hunting. So it can’t be any worse than that.

I don’t want to provide a link to the property in case we do buy it and then the whole Internet has my address, but here’s a little teaser.

I think I could get quite used to this view. It is a very happily situated house.

I’ve also set to work on a cushion for my youngest brother.
He’s moved into a place with some mates, and it’s definitely lacking some homely touches.

So I’ve done one side, and am still to decide what should be on the other.

I don’t know what I’m more excited about, a pantry, not hearing children (or pigs) running above us, or that I will have natural light!
I think the natural light wins.

Whatever Wednesday – bobby pins

Posted on July 25, 2013August 2, 2013 by bekswhoknits

Every Wednesday/Thursday I’ll be blogging about the topic that comes through my email courtesy of Shay & Alissa.

Confession: What do you spend too much time doing

Searching my house for bobby pins.

My Aussie readers would probably remember the ad where a genie pops out of a bottle and after sending her deadbeat boyfriend to the other side of the world, the lady wishes for a never ending packet of timtams?

Well I am convinced that my life would be easier if I had a never ending packet of bobby pins.

I put my hair up exactly the same way for work every day, and it requires bobby pins. I keep them in a tea cup.
I’m a practical person, even my display of pretty tea cups is functional. Some contain stitch markers, earrings, bobby pins, or scrap yarn.

So every month I will purchase a pack of 50 bobby pins. Then somehow over the course of a month or so they disappear. I have no idea where they go. But eventually I get down to the state where I am now, where I can’t find any of the bloody things.

If I was a clean person I’d probably be able to keep track of them. Take them out of my hair, and then put them back in the tea cup straight away and use the same 4 bobby pins for the rest of my life. But I’m not and I don’t. So I am destined for a life of pulling up couch cushions with one hand holding my hair in place, searching for a damn bobby pin.

It’s also pretty tricky taking a photo of the back of your head but I tried.

Whatever Wednesday – heartbreak

Posted on July 18, 2013July 18, 2013 by bekswhoknits

Every Wednesday/Thursday I’ll be blogging about the topic that comes through my email courtesy of Shay & Alissa.

biggest heartbreak

I thought about this long and hard. I have had my heart broken a few times. Ex boyfriends, ex bestfriends, people that I though had my back but when it came to it they didn’t actually.

But there was only one heartbreak that I look back on and wish was different.

And that is something I don’t want to share with the interwebs. So instead I’m going to talk about the last time my heart ached.

I had a day off on Monday. My body needed sleep and it got it. In that state of ‘really don’t want to leave the covers of the bed’ I turned on Netflix to see what I could watch.

I clicked on Orange is the new Black thinking that I’d give it until I got sick of it. That’s my usual plan when watching something I know nothing about.

Half an hour into the 13th episode I fell asleep because I just could stay up any longer.

I was absolutely gripped.
If you know nothing about the series, it’s a Netflix original based on a memoir of the same name. I have since read the memoir and it is very very loosely based. In many ways this makes it a better series because one of the things that I liked most about the TV series that wasn’t in the book, was the many and varied stories that were shown.
It’s set in a women’s prison, with the main character being a pretty white girl whose girlfriend was involved in drug smuggling and she helped out. She then moves on with her life, but 7 years later the case is brought to trial and she is sent to a minimum security prison.
But as dry as the original premise is, the ensemble cast of fully fleshed out characters is the real strength.
Episode 3 was where it really got me. I’m not going to be all spoilery, but these are bad people. They’re all in prison for a reason. But they’re also women, mothers, daughters, friends, lovers, and enemies.
And their stories made my heart ache because for every story there was pain.
I am well aware that these are fictional characters, made up for the screen loosely based on reality. But for me it wasn’t a stretch to think that these were real people and real experiences and my heart aches for every single person who is facing that life. Not the prison life, but the life that led them their in the first place.
Because every episode focuses on a different inmate so we get to see her story, the decisions that were made, what led them to prison and who they are as a character.

I enjoyed this series so much that I watch it all (bar 30 minutes) in one day.

If you have Netflix it carries the Beks Stamp of Approval.

(And because I also read the book I’m totally including it in my books read list)

The theme is by Regina Spektor and was specially written for the show.

Whatever Wednesday – First Kiss

Posted on June 27, 2013June 24, 2013 by bekswhoknits

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.

Ahhh youth.

Thank you

Posted on June 21, 2013 by bekswhoknits

Firstly If you haven’t seen today’s google doodle, check it out.
It is very cool if a little inaccurate.

The real reason I’m posting twice in one day is I wanted to say a huge thank you to everyone who commented on Wednesdays post/rant.
I wanted to reply to all of you, but every time I started a reply I would rephrase everything 3 or 4 times. Trying to respond to everyone proved really difficult, still I wanted to say how much I appreciated all your kind words and support.

For someone who shares a lot of herself on the interwebs, I have trouble articulating my thoughts and opinions. I’d much prefer to stick to my comfort zone and write about my own experiences. People can’t argue with experiences. They can argue with opinions and there are some people on the internet who will seek out these sorts of posts for the sake of starting some argy bargy.
So I want to thank you all for reading it in the spirit that was intended.

I am truly grateful that I have so many awesome friends (yes I consider my followers to be friends) who send me such kind words.
This also includes those friends who may not have agreed with my opinions but didn’t choose to comment.
I appreciate and cherish you all!

xx
Beks