Alien Spouse

A More Temperate Sleeping Environment.

We are sleeping in the living room, because someone seems to have turned up the thermostat in our bedroom to "impossible to sleep in, or if you do nod off you'll have nightmares" again. They did that yesterday as well, the swines.

Still sleeping downstairs is quite fun, I like watching the fireflies outside and last night Nancy was pouncing on a crinkly mouse right next to my pillow. I think she hadn't noticed we were there, and she was doing all her fiercest moves. There was batting, pouncing and even some showing of her teeny tiny teeth. My little killer! She's so cute!

Pilates: I like It!

Today was my fifth Pilates lesson in the equipment room, which, including the mat classes as well, would be my ninth lesson in all.  Joseph Pilates said of his own exercise system that...

"In 10 sessions, you will feel the difference. In 20, you will see the difference. And in 30, you'll be on your way to having a whole new body."

And I think I actually am feeling a difference, which I could easily dismiss this as wishful thinking on my part, were it not for the fact that Doc C agrees and he signed us both up for more classes to take advantage of the the current deal the dance school is offering which ends in the next week or so.

I'm planning to continue taking lessons when they start up again next semester, and in the meantime I have a DVD and I intend to get the book that my Pilates teacher, Krista (who is great, someone give the girl a job when she graduates!), has recommended. 

My thinking is that if I'm already a third of the way towards a "...whole new body", I may as well carry on to see what that one is like.  It might have worked out how to get my lower ab muscles functioning.

p.s. I tried looping the ear phone wires over my ears when we went to the gym this morning, and it did help a lot.  Yay! The duck earphones are here to stay!

Techy Geeky Joy-Joy.

Today I learnt how to separate text out from a single column in an Excel spreadsheet with only a few clicks of the mouse, as opposed to individual cutting and pasting each and every record.  This may not sound like much, but when you are generating a mail merge for 158 students, it is really nice to know.

I'm noting it here, mainly because I use this blog as a handy aide memoir quite often, and I'll otherwise forget how to do it when I need it in a hurry again.

So:

1. Click on the Data tab at the top of the screen.
2. Select the column of data you want to work on.
3. Click the "Text to Column" button in the data tools panel
4. Follow the instructions of the Excel Wizard, and within three clicks you will have nicely separated columns!
5. Enjoy your triumph over the data, and perhaps celebrate by printing off some address labels.

Again that may not sound like much, but speaking as a woman who cut-and-paste her way through 80 names yesterday, I have to say I was delighted when our tech specialist showed me this quick fix today before I worked my way through a longer list.

Bird Feeder.

In the second parcel that we got last week from my lovely Mum were all sorts of treasures, such as Revels (they're bags of chocolates, and there are several different flavours all mixed together so you can never be 100% sure what you are going to get.  No "Forrest Gump" references please.), drinks coasters with definitions of our names on (Doc didn't quite know what to make of those, but I knew Mum included them as a joke), our DVD box set of "The Prisoner" (Yay! Sixties paranoia and sci-fi at it's finest) and an adorable cup shaped bird feeder.

Doc has set up the feeder on the balcony, and the birds seem to really like it.  They are still very wary, so my photo is not from the best angle but I couldn't move without spooking the sparrow.  In this photo you can see the green cup shaped feeder, but not the pole it stands on.  I'd say that the feeder looks like a stylised tulip, it's very pretty.

It's hilarious to watch small birds stand on the rim of the feeder to eat the seed, but then decide they want some variety in their dinner; so they mix things up a bit by jumping into the seeds and shuffling it around with their feet.  The seeds go everywhere!

Naturally the cats love this new addition to the balcony, Nancy in particular enjoys standing on her hind legs and having a good chatter through the screen door.

Duck Earphones: I Will Not Give In!

This morning I talked Doc into getting up half an hour earlier, so that we could get to the gym slightly earlier, allowing me to stretch properly, and cool down on the elliptical rather than just counting the walk back to my office.  I'm hoping that we'll be able to get there even earlier, so that I can add in some other exercises too, but if not the elliptical is still helping me get to where I want to be.

I've mentioned before that listening to my own selection of music when I'm in the gym is necessary to make exercising enjoyable, and it's made a massive difference to my motivation.   However, my duck earphones are still refusing to stay in my ears, despite my foam ear plug modifications.  What to do?  Naturally I consulted the internet, and mostly the suggestions seemed to involve buying a different set of earphones.  Which is no fun at all, I like my ducks!

Then I found one very simple suggestion which, if it works, will be fantastic.  Essentially the knack is to loop the earphone wires up behind your ears and over the top to the front, before putting them in.  That should just give them a little bit more support, and stop them falling out whilst I'm running.

I'll try it out on Wednesday and report back!

Build a Little Bird House (Mobile) in Your Soul (Or Office).

Here's the bird mobile in place in my office. I've played around with the photo a bit in Picnik to get the birds to pop a bit. 

I'm pleased with how it's turned out, and I like watching the birds drifting around in the breeze.

By the way, Edith did manage to chew threw one of the wires overnight, but it could have been worse.  I'm fairly sure she didn't actually eat of the fishing line, because it wasn't a lot shorter than in should have been.

Still, what is she like?

Bird Mobile Construction Day.

These are three of the polymer clay birds in position hanging up in my office window.  You can barely see the smallest one, which is at the top of the wire, because it blends into the window frame so very well.

I was determined to turn them, and their polymer clay friends, into a mobile this weekend.  So that's pretty much what I did today.

There are some pretty simple rules to making a mobile, which I found by the simple expedient of googling "how to make a mobile".  Essentially you start from the bottom up, and at every stage you check that the weighting is working for each level. This is easier said than done, particularly when you have Edith around and she is convinced you are playing a game with her.

In the end I snipped a wire coat hanger into four straight batons, I was planning to twist them into little eyelets at the ends and in the middle to tie the birds to, but that was not going to happen.  Naturally I got out my faithful hotglue gun, and just put beads of glue over each knot and over the raw ends of the wire batons.

Finally I glued one of the small birds into the hole of the bird house, and painted it metallic silver.

All I have to do now is find somewhere to put the thing, so the glue can totally harden over night.  Again, the difficulty is a floofy cat without a clear idea of the difference between a human possession and a cat toy.  Or maybe the problem is that I believe in the illusion of the difference between those things, whilst Edith knows the world is merely there to entertain her.  On balance I think it may be the latter.

Fireworks, Friends and Smores.

Yesterday evening ended up being totally different to my initial plans, but we had a lot of fun!  The weather turned out to be really nice, so our friends called to say they were going to come a bit later so they could watch the fireworks from the parkway.

Well that sounded like fun, so we decided to join them.  We sat in the middle of a meadow, watching coloured explosions rocketing over the tree line on the mountains, which was very pretty.  I just wish I'd put on a few more layers, because by the time the display was over my toes felt like ice cubes.

Then we came back to the house and made smores, lots of smores!  Yay! Happy Fourth indeed!

Fourth of July Lounging.

Today being the Fourth of July we invited some friends over to barbecue some burgers, and then play poker.  Somehow though I got the impression that today's weather was supposed to be bad, so I called everyone to cancel the BBQ part and come a bit later for the card game.

Well, naturally the weather is gorgeous today and we could have cooked a treat out there.  Grrr.

Still, that does give me more time to laze around reading Agatha Christie short stories and trim the cat's claws.  Edith wasn't exactly keen but acquiesced because with all her fur she's just too warm to kick up a stink at the moment; unfortunately Nancy was convinced I was trying to kill her and complained like hell.  I only managed to do Nancy's front paws, so we have to go through all that again to get her back claws too.  sigh.

Chin Rest.

As you can see Edith and Nancy have very different approaches to window shopping.  Well, it's either that or Edith's head is a lot heavier than one would imagine.