Still most definitely here

A few hours ago I e-mailed someone and told them that I needed to get back to blogging but that I wasn't going to rush it because there's too much going on right now.

And then I really felt like I needed to blog.

(This is why you should never scratch an itch.)

But then I realised that I most definitely do not have any coherent thoughts at the moment that would make blogging worthwhile. I need to work on that and then post. Which is precisely why I shouldn't be posting at this moment in time.

(Is any of this making sense?)

There are so many things I want to tell you about - moving out, moving in, new surroundings, killing myself unpacking, crochet stuff, Stitch & Bitch exhibition stuff (it's this Thursday!), Warfarin nonsense (having been ridiculously low for all that time I went this morning and I'm a whopping 3.9 - too high too thin!! I feel like I'm on a really rubbish version of the Price is Right.)

And this is why I need to logically order my thoughts and decided what to blog about and how to go about it.

But I do have one tiny favour to ask you.

Shall I start a new blog??

I feel like this blog has been wonderful, it's been the best yet and I feel I have come on leaps and bounds in terms of expressing myself and making bloggy friends. However. It was also founded and based upon a significant period of my life which is now over - should I start again somewhere else?

At the very least I need a name change seeing as I, you know, now don't live with a boy.

So I open it up to you lot:

1. Do I stay here? (In which case what the hell do I call this blog?!)
2. Do I go and start afresh? (In which case what the hell do I call this blog?!)

This is precisely why you shouldn't blog on a whim. My posts need to be ordered and thought out, otherwise I come off sounding like I have mental problems. Just think what it's like to be around me in person.

A post about a lot of random things

1. My INR result is 2.2 as of Sunday afternoon. Hurray hurray hurray celebrations galore. Thank you to all of you who kept their fingers crossed for me, it must have worked. 2.2 is within range (I have to be within 2 and 3) so I now no longer have to inject the Fragmin. Which is a relief because this is what my stomach currently looks like.

I know. Too much information isn't it? Ah well. I like to share.

I'm back at the clinic on Friday morning and hopefully all is stable and good and well.

2. I have a new anti-coagulant friend. His name is fluffy cat and he lives at the house next door to the clinic. He's usually waiting to be let in the house and he sits on the recycling bin then when he sees me he comes to say hello. I love him.

3. Did you want to know how the baby moorhens are doing? They're doing great, and growing up nicely. They don't hang about in the big group anymore, there's usually just one or two about on their own. They still have enormous feet.

4. Fred and Lily have now gone home and I will miss them muchly. Lily had a habit of climbing in things this past week, two examples are shown below. Photos that I missed included when she climbed in the laundry hamper and when she climbed into the shower and sat looking out at me. Fred did nothing hilarious so there are no photos of him.

5. The blanket is finished!! I do intend to take better photos of it in decent light to show you but for now you will have to do with this photo of Lily modelling the finished item which is currently residing on the back of the sofa.

6. And now to the point. I am taking a break. A break from blogging. Inspiration has been in short supply lately and there are going to be some changes and upheavals going on very soon. I think you probably know what's coming. So until I can get my head sorted out I'm going to have to love you and leave you for a while.

I'll still be hanging out on the blogosphere, reading your blogs and commenting away. I'm far too nosy to go completely silent.

So I'll see you when I see you. Knowing me it won't be long. I'm prone to the dramatics.

And posting pictures of my stomach.

This bank holiday I...

1. Went to the anti-coagulant clinic every day

As I mentioned in my post on Friday, my INR reading had gone down, i.e. not the right direction. This has meant my warfarin dosage has been bumped up and a visit every day to keep an eye on it. I am also now injecting myself with Fragmin, a fast-acting anti-coagulant, in an attempt to thin my blood out more quickly. Injecting myself was a quite frankly terrifying prospect but it's not a big deal anymore, I just have to grab a load of fat on my stomach (I knew there had to be a good reason for me being overweight!) and stick the needle in. It doesn't hurt too much, just a little scratch and I feel very brave when I do it.

At the time of posting my INR is stuck resolutely at 1.7 and has been for the past 3 days. It just doesn't seem to be onboard with the whole concept of thinning out. I'm now taking 10mg of warfarin, which is a pretty hefty dose, and injecting the fragmin every day. I'm back at the clinic on Friday afternoon so fingers crossed there'll be a 2 on the machine!

2. Went to a barbeque.

We were undeterred by the rubbish weather because we are hard. BBQs suck when you're on Weightwatchers because there are way too many points on offer. It is very annoying. But I did my best and had quite a bit of the sweetcorn because that's all good. It was also one of the first times I was surrounded by drunk people and not being one of them. It was strange. And annoying.

3. Attended a stitch-a-thon.

One of our Stitch & Bitch group is off to Ghana for a couple of weeks in August to a charity she worked with before. They are currently trying to raise funds to buy a landrover to get between villages and we held an all day stitch in at a cafe in Hull. We had a little bucket and told friends and family and people came and stuck change in our bucket and admired our stitchery activities and we managed to raise £115. Not a bad day considering we basically wanted an excuse to sit about and stitch all day. I managed to start and finish this piece for the exhibition at the end of the month.
4. Did some crocheting.

Oooh what does that picture look like? Does it look like I've joined all my squares together? Oh hell yes. I managed to join all my squares together after a lot of dramatics and eye-rolling and squeals of temper. Now there is just the edging to do (no idea what I'm doing with that) and it is finished. Can't quite believe it.

5. Revelled in getting an extra day off

Although I generally think of work as something which gets in the way of doing the things I really want to do, I have to admit that sometimes it has its benefits. One of those being that we get an extra 3 days holiday a year for free - usually the Tuesday after the last bank holiday in May, the Tuesday after the August bank holiday and a day at Christmas. I didn't do much with today, especially as it's rained all freaking day but any day at home is better than a day at work.

6. Picked up two visitors
Mum is off to stay with my sister for a few days so we have taken delivery of Fred and Lily. So far they have mainly slept. I keep going in to the bedroom and fussing and poking them but they've been resolutely boring. This is why they bug us at 3am - they sleep all frickin' day.

7. Got my bake on
Haven't baked since starting Weightwatchers because the thought of finding out how many points were in the stuff I was making made my brain bleed a little bit. However, the WW website has some recipes and today I made banana and Malteser muffins. Only 4 points each, thus eliminating the guilt out of eating something 'bad'. I will be rewarding myself with one tonight because I just found out I've lost another 2.5 pounds (meaning there's officially 10.5lbs less of me than there was 3 weeks ago).

Views from the sofa

What I can currently see...

A foot which is much less swollen and getting less painful by the day. Thankfully not broken, a discovery made by a late night trip to A&E on Bank Holiday Monday just to make sure. Just a very bad sprain. Story of my life. I am incredibly clumsy and have lost count of the number of times I have cockled over on my ankles but somehow have never broken a bone. Must be all that milk my Mum made me drink when I was younger.

Pretty tulips that Mum got me as a present for looking after Fred and Lily for a week.

Mr Tree who is looking obscenely green. Seriously. Didn't I tell him in the last Tree Project post to slow the hell down?

Everything I need on 2 little tables:

- cup of tea

- glass of water

- my best friends, Ibuprofen and Paracetemol

- Grey's Anatomy Series 2 - currently re-watched most of this series in the last few days

- New book on the go, Stephen King's Duma Key

- Aida, hoop, thread and needle ready to start my next piece for the Embroidering the Truth exhibition

- Granny squares. Look at how many now!! Eighteen baby. Eighteen. I feel that the end is almost in sight. Almost.

Unfortunately all the relaxing and fun is almost at an end. Mum is taking me into work later this afternoon to pick up some work to bring back home and get stuck in to. Much as I would just love to be off sick, there's a part of me that knows I should be more professional, I can do work, I just can't walk at the moment. Planning on being back in the office on Friday, although we'll have to see how the 20 minute walk in to work goes.

Something else I can see? In the distance, lying on their side, the cause of all my misery...

I can't decide whether to throw them out or frame them.

PS. To Mr/Ms Anonymous who left the comment on my last post which had more than a slight tone of judgement to it - I'm 27. Thanks for asking :)

The devil's craft: a retraction

Some months ago I wrote a post about my first attempts at crochet. It had been a long old battle and I was feeling despondent. No matter how hard I tried, I just couldn't enjoy it. I had a strong suspicion that wool and hook were conspiring and laughing at me behind my back. The Stitch & Bitch girls were ready to drown me in my hot chocolate, such were my moans. I would pore through the pages of Attic 24, jealousy oozing out of my pores.

However, because I'm a stubborn little madam (hello? I'm an Aries aren't I?!) I refused to give up and with the help of a little tin bird, I eventually found my way.

Since that second post I have undergone a small transformation. My cross stitch has lain abandoned for who knows how long now as I sit and I hook. I've got in to my stride and it's more than a little bit addictive. I love the speed with which the squares begin to take shape. One problem with cross stitch is that you can work on it for hours and it resembles nothing more than a colourful blob on the aida. With the granny square you can see almost immediately where you're going and how bloody brilliant it's going to be.

Maybe it's the repetitiveness of it that's so soothing, just going round and round and round and round. Minimal concentration, maximum output.

I discovered you can crochet on the train on a recent trip to Manchester. I'm not going to lie, you get a few pretty strange looks, but I was brave enough to withstand them. (Must be a sign I'm getting older, I'm becoming less bothered of what people think of me.) I have a train journey down to Newton Abbot at the end of this week - 6 hours. The wool is coming with me. Podcasts are lined up ready to put on the i-pod. It's going to be acesome (yeah I'm still pushing that one).

It's not been without it's troublesome times. I have faced unknown hardships along the way including severe cramp, the perils of discontinued colours (hurray for the internet), the ordeal of making sure the colours are in a complementary order and, perhaps most importantly, the flippin' expense of it all. This is not the cheapest hobby I've ever taken up. I might have to take up another one to fund it - hunting for truffles maybe, or selling drugs. I'm not fussy.

But these traumas have been swept aside as I gaze with what I can only imagine is some kind of maternal pride at my woolly baby, taking shape before my very eyes. Sometimes I'll lie on top of it and pretend it's finished (too much information? Really?) I reckon 25 squares ought to get me a damn fine blanket. 36 squares would be amazing but I don't want to aim too high (and neither does my bank balance).

So I apologise to you crochet. You are not the devil's craft after all. Although you have done a pretty good job of subverting my attention away from all other crafts.....hmmm.

Easter and Birthday Review

The celebrations are over for another year and next time my birthday will be all my own (well apart from the billion other people that share it).

I'm not really in a wordy mood at the moment, got a lot going on in my head at the moment which makes it virtually impossible for me to string sentences together. Not sure if this is the place to air those worries or not, that's my next big decision.

BUT ANYWAY.

Easter saw us all down at my sister's for the weekend, all the family together. I always feel a little tense about these things. I don't know why, it's not that we don't all get along, it's just that sometimes I feel like I need to make an extra special effort to make sure everyone's having fun. I don't know why that is really. And I would normally go in to more detail and examine that in more detail, but like I said, head is not in gear right now.

Festivities of the weekend included;

- a trip to the pub (essential)

- a lark about Ashby Castle, which my youngest nephew absolutely loved. He could have spent hours there, running about with his little foam sword. We climbed all the way up to the top of the tower and waved at everybody down below.

- a lot of crocheting. Done a whole 12 squares now. I put them over Rowan the dog to get a feel for how they will look when they're all joined together.

- a little Easter egg hunt on Sunday morning for youngest nephew.

- lots of fun presents for me.

The boyfriend got me DJ Hero, which I've played so much I've given myself cramp in my left hand. We've got Guitar Hero already but I don't love it to be honest, I don't like many of the songs. This bad boy is brilliant though. Not only are the songs good but they're all mashed up together, you can't go wrong!

The boyfriend's parents also got me an amazing present. Some artwork that I've been lusting after for a long time. A metalwork picture of a shoal of fish.

It doesn't photograph brilliantly, I've tried taking loads of photos and none of them really do it justice. It's so beautiful, the colours are just divine and I can't believe they got it for me because it most certainly was not a cheap present.
Things may be a little quiet over here for a bit while I sort things out in my head. Alternatively there might be a post every day as I attempt to purge my brain of all its confusing thoughts. Just consider this a warning :)

The day it all fell in to place.

Did you want to know how the crocheting was going?

Dare you ask?

The answer is a very big, excited, "It's going well!!"

The main problem is that I haven’t really had the time to spend doing it ‘properly’. In the evening, the cross stitch calls to me and I oblige it, what with trying to make cards for people’s birthdays and anniversaries and producing stuff for the Stitch and Bitch project (can't believe I still haven't told you about that), my time is pretty much eaten up.

I did go out and buy some lovely wool in an attempt to make myself sit down and wield my hook and produce a work of art. There was no way I was going to let the money go to waste!

But then people were all selfish and died and stuff so that meant that the wool was left abandonned, shoved under the bed in the spare bedroom, out of sight, out of mind.

Until.

Last weekend. When the boyfriend and I spent the night at my Dad's house doing a spot of dog-sitting. This is Jess.

(Who is irrelevant to this post but I thought you might enjoy a picture of a dog.)

And I proclaimed that day to be The Day I Would Crochet. The wool was brought out of hiding and the laptop was packed along with our pyjamas because the laptop held the secret weapon to Crochet Domination.

Little Tin Bird was to be my Master (or should that be Mistress) of all things wool and hooky and with her instructions of how to make a basic granny square I began...

...and I only bloody went and succeeded!

I didn't even have to pull it out and start again once (cue smugness), I just went round and round and round and round until I decided I had a square I liked the size off and stopped. And I managed to complete this one square by the end of Sunday evening which I thought was rather marvellous.

And since then I've done another square..

And started on the third.

And hopefully one day I will have enough to make into a blanket at which point I will turn to my Master in a very whiny voice and say "But how do I stitch them all togetherrrrrrrr?!"

(Sometimes I worry that my crochet stuff looks different to the other pictures I see but I just put this down to the fact that I'm special and left-handed. And whilst we're on that topic, I've discovered that I can't use my left-handedness as an excuse for not crocheting because if you reverse the directions it seems to work. For me anyway.)

The devil's craft

Like many before me I was seduced by the adverts.

They promised me things.

I felt like they had answered my prayers. How did they know I had declared 2010 the Year of the Crochet?

And here, before me, for a mere 99p (to start with) I could learn! There was wool! And a hook! And easy step by step instructions!

I was whisked away with it all. I had visions of a home like Attic 24 - I would bask in the adoration of those who appreciated the magic I would weave with a hook and some wool.

Has anyone ever told you how frigging annoying crocheting is?

Afterwatching the DVD and reading the magazine, I embarked on my mission - easy peasy.

Not easy peasy.

Turns out either I can't follow instructions or the instrutions were no good (I'm tempted to go with the former if I'm honest) because what was appearing from my hook bore no resemblance to what I was supposed to be producing.

I spent a whole day trying to figure it out. The boyfriend must have been sick and tired of my ball of wool begin thrown across the room. As I hooked and then tore apart my hook, the wool became as frayed as my temper.

Help eventually came in the form of Stitch & Bitch, where one of the girls showed me the error of my ways.

After many many many more attempts (including a complete inability of crochet straight lines, I had more curves in the edges of my work than Kelly Brook), I finally crocheted a square of treble stitch.

There was much rejoicing.

But this wasn't good enough. I want to make the square that the magazine wanted me to make. If I didn't do it I would feel it was mocking me.

Well mock away magazine because I officially give up. I have everything you asked of me. I have pulled apart countless swatches and instead of looking like the picture in the magazine, my square bears no resemblance to it whatsoever.

I didn't want to make your stupid blanket anyway.

My Stitch & Bitchers have solidly stood by me and encouraged me and have put up with me temper tantruming in the corner. They eventually managed to get me to make a flower which I am very proud of (but which I can't really do anything with because it is a rather crazy shade of orange). I will persevere however and next on the list is a granny square.

But for now, I'm returning to my soothing cross stitch for a while. It understands me, it makes sense, there aren't a billion different stitches and instructions, just up one hole and down the other.

Peace and tranquility have returned to the flat.

For now...