Alien Spouse

Working Hard for the Moneys.

Last week I was covering the shop during the owners' vacation, which was both nerve wracking and fun.  It's nice to know people can trust you with a whole shop for a week, but equally (OMG) I was in charge! Eek!

Nothing too terible happened, apart from the shop lifting of one pair of $12 sunglasses - which was more annoying than anything else because I knew it was happening, but didn't trust my instincts.  Damn it!  Still I also met some great customers, and helped some people find clothes that they loved or just had a really nice chat with someone interesting whilst they browsed.  Not bad really.

I also pitched an idea to a client for a advertising campaign, and they liked it which was really exciting - I mean they haven't signed a contract yet, or anything but still!  They didn't go off in a strop or go silent on me, so that's pretty good.  We also have a new team member at the studio, who interned there last year; so she knows everyone already, has some fun stories and gossip; AND she's insanely talented - to put the tin lid on it she is absolutely lovely, and I like her a lot.  Ugh.

All in all, I'm enjoying my jobs at the moment.  I actually have job satisfaction again, and I'd almost forgotten what that was like.  It's nice.  It's really really nice.

Kinetic Art.

Having moved from a one-bedroomed shoe box to a palatial two-bedroom-and-a-dining-room bread box we find ourselves suddenly feeling that the space is a touch spartan.  I mean we want it to be fairly minimalist, and we certainly don't want clutter - but Eva's room echoes because there are only three small pieces of furniture in there right now!

We are going to by a sofa/bed to go in there at some point in the next month, because otherwise where will Moth sleep when she comes to visit? (squeeee!) Before then though we have to do something to make the space feel a touch more inviting and fun for Eva; I especially thought she needed somethinbg entertaining to look at whilst lying in her crib.

So we bought her a mobile.  Not one of those sugary sweet nursery mobiles though, oh no, we went with a design classic that also happens to depict one of my favourite birds.

It's a Flensted Swallow mobile, and the minute I saw it I was like "Oh,  of course!  That!"

The shop we bought it from was the rather lovely Mod Sprog, and they had all of their Flensted mobiles on sale - So we also got this one for the living room.

 

This is the Flowing Rhythym mobile in red, which was originally designed in 1955 so, of course, it goes nicely with our current mid-century modern look AND our love of red home furnishings.

I knew exactly where this one was going to hang, because there was an ugly hook screwed into the ceiling in th ecorner of the living room, so I knew I had to put something there to at least excuse the damn thing.  The trick was going to be how to hang up the one in Eva's room, but the mobile is extremely light so I thought that I'd take the advice of the manufacturers and use a drawing pin (US Translation: Thumb Tack).  I got out the step ladder, grabbed a drawing pin and unpacked my new avian friends.

When I looked at the ceiling above Eva's crib I was surprised to find that there was already a drawing pin there in almost exactly the right position.  Dude, that's just spooky.  I mean it's not like there are drawing pins all over the ceiling here; there is just that one precisely where I wanted it to be.  Asheville just provides everything... (or, and this is just a crazy theory, that room has been a baby's room before and the crib is in the most logical place for it).

Better! Back to Work!

Well, someone slept for most of yesterday - and it wasn't Eva!

I feel a lot better today; for one thing my throat no longer hurts and now it merely feels like my ears won't pop, which is a distinct improvement. This morning was a bit groggy from the night-time cold meds so I felt like my head was bobbling around on my shoulders like, well, a bobble head and I'm not sure I was making that much sense before I'd had my second cup of coffee.  Fortunately I could limit most of my interactions with people to e-mail and that meant I could hone my words to make sure they made some sense before I hit send.

One very good thing about working part-time is that I don't feel completely exhausted by the end of the day, so when I got home I still had enough energy to play with Eva and read her a story.  After that I needed to have a quick nap, but then Madam had a nice splashy bath and she went to bed like a little lamb.  I, meanwhile, get to enjoy a glass of wine but I'm sure I'll be in bed well before 10.

Tonsils. Ugh.

On Sunday I started to feel a little bit under the weather, and it was my old nemesis - My tonsils.  Whenever I'm ill it usually starts with a sore throat, which is really annoying and painful; particularly if it spreads to my ears.  At that point I usually just want to chop my head off just above my shoulders, because the rest of me seems to be totally fine.

This time I have deployed the three main weapons in my self medication aresenal:

1. Throat lozenges (in the UK - Lockets. In the US - Ricola)
2. Tea (PG Tips, lime tea, lemon and ginger with honey)
3. Alka Seltzer : Cold Formula

Those three things plus a lot of sleep usually help, and having slept for most of today I am feeling better.

I can't really complain though because I haven't been even remotely unwell for over eighteen months (I don't think you can count being pregnant as being ill) and, even better, neither Doc C or Eva seem to have caught anything.  That is a huge relief all around.

Singing My Baby to Sleep.

The bedtime routine for Eva involves singing appropriately soothing songs for about twenty to thirty minutes - And "Twinkle Twinkle" is only a couple of minutes long, no matter how slowly you sing it, so you either have to sing it on repeat, or come up with something else.

I remembered a fair number of other lullabies, but not a huge repertoire, so then I moved onto a selection of songs from "The Sound of Music" - This is odd because it's not one of my favourite musicals and never has been, and yet I know the whole "Favourite Things".  Doc C has never seen the film (or stage version), so he thinks my rendition of "Edelweis" is lovely, and it seems to have a suitably narcotic effect on the kidr.

Now I've gone a little more classic jazz musical by adding a few Cole Porter standards ("You Do Something to Me", "Miss Otis Regrets", "Don't Fence Me In" are the most frequent) along with "One for my Baby (and One More for the Road)", which is perhaps not the most traditional of nursery rhymes but it does the job.

This evening out of nowhere "Diamonds are Forever" made an appearance.  It's come to Bond themes now?  Oh dear.

One of the lovely things about Asheville is that there are so many talented and creative people here, and they are so damned nice as well!

The shop stocks the work of several local artists, and I've always really liked the line of jewellery made by Amber Hatchett that we sell.  Amber creates sustainable jewelery from an eclectic range of found objects - Her pieces can combine vintage charms, chains, bullets, antlers (that were shed by the live deer!) or any number of other things.  All of her necklaces are gorgeous, but they are so very individual and unique, none of the ones we had in the shop were exactly right for me.  Fortunately I knew that Amber also takes commissions, and I had one or two lovely shiny things that I thought she could make me something from.

I selected a few items that I thought might work, and Amber agreed to make me two necklaces from them.  I was SO excited when she told me they were ready, and that she'd deliver them on Sunday!

This one is made from a glass button that fell into my lap when we went to see "Guys and Dolls" in London, it popped off Sarah Brown's jacket during the Cuba number.

The pixie pendant I've had for as long as I can remember, and I'm frankly amazed I haven't lost it.  My Mum bought it for me from a gypsy!

Amber added two tiny leaf charms, along with her signature touch of several different kinds of chain.

I love it!

The other necklace was made from a large glass brooch and the matching clip-on earrings; I loved these but they were so heavy they really did not work as they were originally intended. Now, with the addition of a gorgeous vintage Ulsner pendant they are the perfect statement piece.  If the statement you want to make is "Fabulous!", obviously.

Fake Grass Drying Rack.

This new drying rack is great!

We found it in the baby section, and bought it just for Eva's bottles and pumping stuff, because those things will fall over if you look at them too hard.  Now that we've got a dishwasher again (The LUXURY!), we're obviously not hand washing as many dishes and so we don't need to use the larger dish rack - Besides, when Mum stayed with us she described that rack as "lethal".  The larger plates wouldn't stand up in it, unless they were propped up with a small plate; and all of the cutlery would slide out; and if the mugs or glasses were a bit too short, they looked like they might fall out of the side.

So we've stopped using that one, and we're just using the fake grass now, which is much more efficient at holding things AND looks better.  Love it!

Dancing = Crying?

For some reason that I simply cannot explain I get tearful  when I watch choreographed dancing done by people or animals who have a lot of enthusiasm but no professional training.  I have no idea what that is about, but all three of the following videos have made me well up.

Mary Ray on the Underdog Show. Music :Scissor Sisters "I Don't Feel Like Dancing"

 

 

Nasa scientists doing their own take on "Gangnam Style"

 

 

Father and Daughter Dance (Choreographed by Kathleen Hahn) to "Everybody Dance Now"

 

 

 

 

The Previous Shop Me and Resuming Knitting.

Last week I popped into the coffee shop next to my (heheheh!) shop, and got chatting with the very nice girl behind the counter.  When I mentioned that I was working two days a week next door, she said "Oh! You replaced me when I left!"

I had heard a lot about her, all glowing, so it was nice to finally put a face to the name and she was just as lovely as I'd heard.  I asked what she was doing now, and it turns out that her main focus is knitting - She's writing patterns and teaching people to knit.  Naturally I was intrigued, and friended her on Facebook the moment I got to a computer!

That conversation has also inspired me to get out my knitting needles again, especially since I retrieved my stash of craft supplies from storage at the weekend.  I have just cast on a lace scarf from a pattern on Ravelry, and I'm going to use up some half-skein remnants I have on an extended swatch before starting on the scarf proper.  I'm doing that because so far I have yet to succesfully knit any lace, and I want to iron out the technique before applying it to the actual project.  I'm really enjoying this already!

 

Exhausted.

I am so tired - I am actually not 100% sure that I'll make it through the whole of this episode of "Star Trek".  Mostly I'm just tired from working and keeping care of the baby, with a dash of still having to unpack a few boxes which is particularly energy sapping for some reason.  

Really I just need to start going to bed earlier of an evening, because Eva is sleeping really well again, but she has settled on six a.m. as the proper time to wake up.  Ugh.  I have no idea where she gets that from, neither Doc C nor myself are that keen on mornings.