Alien Spouse

365 Plus Some More.

This is my 2050th post, and with it I have successfully completed over an entire year of NaBloPoMo, which means I've posted at least once a day since the 1st of November 2008.

That is a lot of blog.  However, I seem to have fallen off the blogroll for November, which is weird because I could have sworn I was on there, so I'm not eligible for a prize. Le sigh.

Oh well, I bought my own prize!  Some really cute badges (American translation: Pins) from Nut and Bee, which I found today and I warn you now everything is just lovely.  All this stuff is so adorable, and there is even a little Happy Crochet badge, it's so difficult to find crochet stuff!  Everything's always knitting, and you know I like knitting too, but crocheting deserves some cuteness too.  After all, without crochet there is no amigurumi, and that is the very epitome of cute in crafting.

Cigar Box Decoration.

Living with cats is, as I may have mentioned, like living with aliens.  There is human logic and there is cat logic, and they have almost no points of correlation. Nancy particularly loves sitting on a table and patting at objects until they fall over the edge, at which point she'll stare down at them from the table in surprise and then move on to the next object.  It's really funny and sweet when it's something you don't particularly care about, like a pen or a handful of change, but it does mean you have got to be careful where you leave things you do care about.  We are fairly certain Nancy knows what happened to Doc's wedding ring, but she's just not saying anything.

With Nancy's behavioural quirks in mind I decided to buy a small box to put on my bedside table, where it could hold all my important stuff.  So it needed to be big enough to hold my watch, my phone, my glasses and whatever jewelery I forgot to take off before getting into bed; but I didn't want an actual jewelery box, because I'm just damned awkward.

Fortunately there's a small newsagents near us that also sells cigars, and they also sell the empty wooden cigar boxes, so I bought one of those (Naturally I chose a box that used to house Churchills).  It's the perfect size, and it has the bonus of smelling nice. Over the original logo on the lid of the box I've added a skull sticker that my friends Laura and Jasmine gave me ages ago that I've been saving for the right project.  I love that you can still see the gold medals from the logo in Miss Skully's eyes!

Now I need to work out something fun to do with the sides of the box, and I think I'll be turning to a tip from Martha for that.  She mentions in her latest Christmas issue a brand of Japanese paper tape, which has lovely patterns printed on it.  Martha recommends it for wrapping gifts, of course, but I think that could work very well around the edges of the box, don't you?

Knit-O-Rama

This is the red cotton cowl that I finished last week, I knitted most of it in a moss stitch and then the frill at the top is three rows of crocheted shell stitch.

It's mainly to wear instead of a scarf, but it's also cozy as a hood and it's stretchy enough that I can pull it down over my shoulders like a small poncho.

This is what I've been knitting today, I suspect it's a muffler which I'll wear with a kilt pin.  The pattern I'm following, for this part at least, is a weird sort of knit one, skip one and then pick it up on the way back technique.  I think this is what it's meant to look like, and even if it's not I quite like it anyway.  So there.

A Tour de Fource of Sorts.

I'll I've done today is watch a marathon of "America's Next Top Model" (Season Two), knit, brush the cat and successfully stay awake for over 12 hours.

Quite honestly watching "ANTM" which was a bit pointless as I knew full well who won as soon as I worked out which season it was, but it was just animated wallpaper really.  The knitting was more productive as I'm learning how to knit with three colours at once, and using up three balls of merino wool that were taking up space in my stash.

Of course, I am most proud of the staying awake for twelve hours, but brushing Edith without getting kicked is always quite an achievement.  I don't like to show off, but I actually managed to brush her tummy AND the left leg of her fluffy pantaloons.  Unprecedented.

No Shopping, Some Dropping.

The day after Thanksgiving is known as Black Friday, and it's when shops have huge sales and open at some ridiculous time in the morning to crowds of baying bargain hunters.

The traffic to town was just crazy, because it's like a nationally mandated first day of Christmas shopping, and the thing I couldn't help noticing was that no-one was smiling.  You could see cars loaded down with freshly-cut perfect Christmas trees on the roof rack, and piles of bags in the back, and the people in the cars looked either totally blank-faced or really cheesed off.  I thought consumerism was supposed to make everyone delirious with joy, but apparently not.

Doc C and I gave that a swerve.

Instead we got up really late, had breakfast and drove over to our favourite bakery to pick up lunch.  Then we went for a walk around a lake in high winds, I felt really awake after that!  By the time we got home I was feeling sleepy, and I had a lovely three hour nap with a purring Edith sprawled across my stomach.

The Giving of Thanks.

It's Thanksgiving!  Which I like to think of a trial run for Christmas, as far as the competitive eating part of it goes.

Things I am grateful for (Because that's what I'm s'posed to write about today, right?)

• My lovely Mum being so lovely.
• Doc C being a sweetheart
• Nancy's little chirps of happiness
• Edith liking to sit on my feet
• Co-incidence and strange happenstance
• Tea
• Books
• That Mono goes away eventually
• The internet
• Nutella

Yep, that just about covers it I think.

Martha Says It's Christmas.

I bought this year's Holiday issue of Martha Stewart living. Not that I ever make anything in it, but it's lovely to flip through and pretend that I might. Plus if there is anyone more addicted to glitter than me, it's Martha. Shiny!

Yarn Based Creativity.

Today I finished off my red cotton cowl, which is mostly made from moss stitch (American Translation: Seed Stitch) with a frill made of 3 rows of shell stitch crochet.  It's cosy!

So now I'm wearing that, whilst starting my new project which is a wig hat for my friend Hannah.  I've decided on a colour scheme of orange, with pink streaks.  This requires me to work out how to an a single stripe into ribbing, and I can't find a pattern in any of my books, so I'm doing some fun swatching.  I love experimental swatching!

Finally, I read today that Threadless latest spin-off contest is to crochet and/or knit anything you like based on a Threadless T-shirt design (The Threadknits website has all of the rules and contest details).  I already have one idea that Doc thought was hilarious, and no I'm not telling you what it is yet!

Yay for Getting Excited and Making Things!

Cat and Toy Mouse.

Nancy has always enjoyed pushing small things off tables, and it's taken me a while to realise that that would probably mean she would enjoy pushing things down the stairs.

So now I leave one of the foil mice halfway up the staircase, and it will just sit there until Nancy feels like playing with it.

Of course, being Nancy, she will not do this when I've got my camera ready to capture the magic.  So you'll have to believe me when I say it is adorable, instead here is a photo of her staring at the mouse, and another of her giving the thing a thorough nomming.

Edith's Not For Turning.

Essential oils are apparently not the key to Edith's feline psyche.  I have no idea what it is that she wants from us.  Diamonds? A pony? Front row seats for Lady Gaga?  What?

sigh.

Shiny, Shiny, Shiny!

With Christmas trees and decorations everywhere by now, it's hard not to be effected by the Christmas spirit.  Doc and I needed to buy a few cleaning supplies from the hardware store, and whilst we were there I thoroughly enjoyed looking at all of the decorations on offer. 

I found a great set of shatterproof baubles, in great shades of silver, hot pink, petrol blue and lime green; I have no clue how I'm going to be using them yet, but they are too fun not to get.

Shiny!

Get Excited and Make Things.

Making stuff is one of my favourite things, so naturally I love this version of the "Keep Calm and Carry On" poster.

Even better, the designer Matt Jones is happy for this image to be used for non-commercial purposes under a creative commons licence. He's put several different downloadable formats up on his blog, and also has links to sites that are selling t-shirts and prints to raise money for some great causes.

Bad Girl Edith.

Edith.

She continues to be one of the most affectionate, charming and beautiful cats I've ever had the pleasure of knowing.  However, she also continues to pee in the hall way.  I am so glad we put plastic down to protect the carpet or Doc C would have lost it with her by now.

Foil?  Ha!  Edith scoffs at foil, well to be accurate Edith pees on foil.

So, Internet, what next?  Well, I think I'm going to try spraying the hall with diluted essential oils, which will have the side benefit of making it smell nice to us, but the main point is that there are some oils that cats really don't like the smell of.   I'm going to try lavender, and I'm fairly certain she won't like grapefruit either so I'm going to give that a try too.

Please keep your fingers crossed.

Location: Lounge. Status: Lounging.

Mono is tedious, but stressing out and pushing myself is not helping; so I am taking the excellent advice of my friend Hillary, and I am having a proper duvet day today for the good of my health.    I have actually got out of bed, and put some clothes on; but they are really comfy warm clothes and I haven't put any styling product in my hair!  Crazy!

The main plan for today is to sleep, but I'm also going to read, knit and play music for Edith to go into kitty ecstatics over.  She particularly loves pop, dance and jazz, preferably with a female vocalist.

If I feel like it later I might even move from the comfy chair to the sofa, but I'm not making any firm plans just yet. 

It's Thursday. It's Ten PM.

Can't update blog.  Watching nail-biting finale of "Project Runway".

Well ok, maybe nail-biting is over stating it; but no time spent with Tim Gunn is wasted.

Actually, Mum also sent me a copy of Nina Garcia's book "The One Hundred" for my birthday, which is a style guide which lists 100 items that Nina regards as the cornerstone of personal style.  And do you know what?  It turns out Nina and I have very similar taste, which makes me feel rather good about my wardrobe instincts.  Thanks Nina!

The Watch Has Two Faces.

As you may remember from back in September, I decided that it was about time I started wearing a watch.  I put three different watches on my Amazon wish list, and my lovely Mother somehow knew exactly which one of the silver-watches-with-quartz-movement-and-a-black-leather-strap was my favourite.  She is amazing like that.

I love it!

As you can see it's got that classic tank watch feel to it; but with a long face to accommodate two dials on it, which you can set to different time zones. 

So I am now able to see the time in both the United States (Arabic Numerals) and Great Britain (Roman Numerals) at a single glance. I find that very reassuring.

The Prisoner (2009): Six Questions

The mini-series finale of the re-make of "The Prisoner" was on last night.  It wasn't great.  I really tried not to sit through the whole thing making mental comparisons to the original, because that's not really a fair fight.

The burning questions (that may involve spoilers) I had after watching it were:

1. When are sci-fi script writers going to get over "The Matrix"?
2. How is it that, over forty years after the original series, all of the women in the re-make are substantially weaker characters?
3. Why were some of the British actors allowed to keep their normal accents, and others required to mangle an American accent?
4. Were the huge holes in the logic intentional to make things feel more surreal, mirroring the holes appearing in the village, or was it that the writers forgot their own universes' laws of logic?  In particular, given the final revelations about The Village's genesis, purpose and location how on earth did The Village come to have a seedy sex club?
5. Wait, so who actually died? And why did that guy apparently die die, but not that woman?
6. How did Eleven Twelve retrieve the cupboard key that he threw in the middle of a freaking desert and we saw get covered in sand? That was just stupid!

Oh, what a world! What a world!

Today has not been good, not for any reasons that I couldn't have seen coming; but I was quite happy with my blinkers on pretending not to notice. Suffice to say this whole Mono thing is just totally messing all sorts of things up, and there is not a damned thing I can do about it.  

La lalalalalalala LA LA LA I CAN'T HEAR YOU!

So my day consisted of going to work, where I sat at my desk and cried and cried and cried until Doc swooped in to give me a big hug and take me home.  Then I climbed into bed, drank a huge cup of tea, spoke to my Mum (Love you Mum!) and settled down to sleep with both cats purring away on me.

When I woke up Doc put the DVD of "The Wizard of Oz" on, which isn't honestly my favourite Judy Garland film, but sometimes it's really soothing to see things go from black-and-white to Technicolor, with some over the top musical numbers.

Sprawling Cat on a Step.

I took this photo of Edith sitting on the stairs just before I left for work this morning. It makes me giggle.

Edith has such a serious look on her face whilst sitting in the most inelegant pose possible for a cat of her great beauty.  Doc thinks I should photoshop in a beer bottle.

You should have seen her face when I showed her the picture.

Be Seeing You. The Re-Make.

Humph. Ok re-make of "The Prisoner", I'll concede that naming Number Two's son Eleven Twelve, which would be the American way of saying my birthday, might have softened me up slightly; but you didn't completely suck. Fine, I've said it. But that doesn't mean I don't still have my guard up, if I learnt anything from the original it's not to trust what THEY say or do.

How I Slept Through Saturday.

This morning I was woken up by the pitiful mews of a hungry Nancy, so I got up to feed her and Edith.  The sun was shining through the morning mist, and the leafless black trees so it all looked gorgeous and ethereal.  I love Autumn!

So then I had breakfast and played with the cats for about an hour, before curling up in a patch of sunlight on the sofa and sleeping for 3 hours.  Then Doc took me out for lunch, and a quick trip to the yarn shop.  After that we came home, and I went back to sleep again on the sofa.

Yeah, Mono is apparently called the Kissing Disease, because that's one way the virus is spread, but that name gives the mistaken impression Mono is fun.  Actually it should be called the Cat Nap Disease, because I definitely slept as much, if not more than, Edith and Nancy today.

Find Happiness Within (Hint: Ice Cream Can Help With That)

Last night we went out for a really nice birthday dinner at the new tapas and martini bar in town, where I can highly recommend the cheese plate, the calamari and the Dry London Fog (which is a shaken vodka martini with two olives stuffed with blue cheese.  Yum).

We then went for a drive to let dinner settle, before getting some ice cream from Marble Slab, whose trade marked slogan is "Find Happiness Within".  I wish they had that printed on a t-shirt, with a suitably retro graphic.

In case you are wondering, Doc had his usual, which is a scoop of coffee ice cream with pecans mixed-in.  I went for a scoop of birthday cake ice cream, with frozen raspberries mixed in.  Fabulous; particularly on your birthday, curled up on the sofa in your PJs, whilst watching "Project Runway" with your husband and your cats.

Yeah, married couples in their mid-thirties know how to party.

Woooh!

Whip It! (2009)

We just got back from seeing "Whip It!", which is SO much fun!  It's Drew Barrymore's directorial debut and it's about Ellen Page's Bliss Cavendar discovering a roller derby league in Austin, Texas.

You have got to give it to Drew, she can pick a project and the casting was spot on for every single role.  On the track Drew herself is a charming maniac, Juliette Lewis was particularly inspired as the bitchy "Iron Maven", and Andrew Wilson (who will always be Beef Supreme in the Alien Spouse house) is just the most patient coach ever. Off the track Cavendar's parents are played by Marcia Gay Harden and Daniel Stern, do I even need to say how great they are?  I thought not.  Plus Alia Shawkat as Bliss' best friend Pasha is so sweetly rebellious and fun, she's so great at running good girl interference to help her friend do what she wants.

I loved Ellen Page in this, and her journey from a reluctant beauty pageant queen to a rough tough roller derby jammer via a pair of Barbie rollerboots is really enjoyable to watch and oddly touching.

Mainly it was a well constructed film about a group of strong women having a great time on their own terms and covered in great tattoos, fishnets and attitude.  What is not to love?

Oh, and the sound track was rocking!

Yeah, I kind of liked it.  I s'pose, it was alright.  (Squeee!)

Beautiful Birthday Cards.

Doc brought me home at lunchtime, and on the way we stopped off at the post office where there were very exciting parcels from my lovely Mum.  They weren't there yesterday, so her timing was pin-point accurate and all the more impressive for it!

One of my Mother's many many talents is her ability to find the perfect card for any occasion, so it's always a pleasure to open an envelope with her writing on.  Look at these beauties:

I think I may need to get these framed.

Just so stunning, and almost guaranteed to make any Londoner and/or Brightonian get a lump in their throat.    Mum got these from the Obiko website, and they are from the Seagull sites range.  Also, Mum tells me the artist was very nice too!

The Many Teas of the Alien Spouse Household.

We ran low on all our tea reserves at once, so we had to restock as a matter of some urgency. As you can see we take our tea very seriously round here. 

From left to right, we have:

1. Constant Comment - A black tea blend with orange and spices, which I really like.
2. Green Tea - Doc's green tea.
3. Earl Grey Green - Green tea with bergamot, which I have a huge cup of every morning for breakfast.  Seriously my breakfast cup is about 1/2 a litre.
4. PG Tips - When making tea for each other we always ask "Normal tea?" and that means PG Tips.  Any other tea has to be clearly specified.

Tin Foil Training.

Yesterday evening I covered the hall carpet in tin foil. 

It looks as though crazy people live in our house, and they are trying to stop the aliens reading the floor's thoughts.

Actually I'm still trying to find a way of discouraging Edith from peeing by the front door. It's a technique I read about on an internet forum, so either this is actually going to solve the problem, or it's a low tech and particularly cruel variation of rickrolling for cat owners.

So far the results have been, um,.. mixed?..  But I am cautiously optimistic, please keep all fingers and paws crossed for us.

Cat and Yarn.

Last time I bought yarn, I happened to get two hanks of red cotton.  Before I started knitting with the first one I wound it into a ball, but it took ages because I let it all get tangled up as I went.

This time I unfolded the hank carefully and held it taut between my knees.  That worked a lot better.

And, as you can see, I had the very close supervision of Miss Edith Cavell-Cat.  She is fascinated by yarn and all things yarn related.  She is such a cliche.

Do NOT Drink Me.

I bought this water-bottle a few weeks ago, as it happens it was just a few days before I caught Mono.  At the time I bought it simply because I love my skull-and-crossbones stuff.

The timing is somewhat ironic, as it's now the bottle I'm using at work, because of course, it is a Plague Bottle that is covered with Mono Lurgey (American Translation: Cooties) now.

Nothing Happened Today.

So tired today.  I slept in late, then I ate pancakes, then slept some more.  Then I made a spinach smoothie, and lazed around.  Then we went over to see Randy, I ate veggie mince chili and knitted.  Now?  I'm exhausted again, so back to bed.  Ridiculous!

Oh, by the way - So Doc C has been swearing up and down that he has had Mono already, so he insisted I could still kiss him and not worry about it.  Yesterday he called his Ma and actually asked her if he had Mono.  She said one of his brothers had, but that Doc himself hadn't.

Great.

Doc's new theory is that he must have had a very mild case when he was a kid, that was just mis-diagnosed as the flu or something.  I am sincerely hoping this is true, because I do not want Doc to get Mono now.  That would be beyond awful; because, of course, it would mutate into Man Mono and I can't even begin to imagine what that would be like.

Red Cotton Moss Stitch.

When I knitted my turquoise wig hat I made a mistake, actually I'm sure I made a lot of mistakes, but there was one that I particularly noticed:

It looked kind of cool, and I realised that I'd inadvertently added a moss stitch (American Translation: Seed Stitch) to my nice neat rows of ribbing.  That wasn't what I was meaning to do at the time, but I thought I'd try it with my new project.  It's a red cotton cowl, and it's going to take forever to knit up, but I'm really enjoying it.

It looks like lots of little H's, in a polka dot pattern. 

Fun!

Three Good Things.

1. Very excitingly I will be buying this book from Rex Parker, replacing my current copy of this title; because I want as much of my Marsh collection to have vintage covers as possible.
2. I also bought some new clothes today, nothing particularly dramatic; a denim skirt, a pair of cords, and a black sweater, but the skirt is a US size ten so a UK size 12.  Um, squee!
3. And we found blackcurrant jam in one of the local supermarkets.

Yeah, I'm pretty easily pleased actually...

And Another Thing...

By the way, now that I'm somewhat on the mend from Mono, guess what? My impacted wisdom tooth, that has been no trouble at all for a whole year, has suddenly decided it wants to get in on the action and is starting to ache. Isn't that great? The timing really could not be any better really.

Cats in the Morning.

Aren't they beautiful cats?  I took these pictures when I got up this morning, and both my girls were looking particularly demure and lovely.

Nancy was sitting on the stairs in the sunshine, and Edith was, well, let's have a look at where Edith was sitting.

She's casually sitting at the corner of the railing around our mini-landing, which is about an inch and a half wide (Look at that top photo, she can't even fit both paws side-by-side on it!), and she's fifteen feet above the living room.  In the background you can see that Edith is actually a couple of feet above the ceiling fan. I think it scares me more because I see the view out of the window, so I feel like she's about fifty feet above the ground.  This makes my blood run cold and my palms go sweaty.

Edith jumps up there to wait for us to get up in the morning, and I can hear her getting up there, which she achieves by jumping high enough to grab on by her front paws and then scrabbles like mad with her hind paws.  Just the sound of that freaks me out. 

Now of course cats are much more agile and sure footed than humans, so perhaps I shouldn't worry.  However.  There are claw marks on the stair banisters, which suggest a feline has attempted to walk the banisters themselves, and then found that the combination of the angle of the banister and gravity makes that impossible.

I can't decide if this means our cats have very poor judgment, or if they incredibly calculating and know exactly how to scare the hell out of me.  Neither is good.

Remember, Remember The Fifth of November.

Happy Guy Fawkes!

Doc made me a jacket potato with baked beans and sausages, and took this photo of me playing with the sparklers we had saved from the Fourth of July.  The choice of t-shirt was unintentional, but doesn't it look like the face of Big Ben has flame bursting out of it?

And those flappy things at either side of the sparkles, those would be my hands.  Apparently, I still get very excited about sparklers.

Birthday Wish List!

OMG! It's like eight days until my birthday!  And, weirdly, it's also eight days until Doc C's birthday too!  What a co-incidence!

It's one of those things about our relationship that we are just used to by now, so we discuss "Our Birthday" in much the same way as we discuss "Our Anniversary" or "Our Plans for Christmas"; but other people find it endlessly fascinating.  I can see how it's romantic, but it's also very convenient, in that there is no chance of one of us forgetting the other's birthday in that classic of sit-com plot lines. This year our combined birthday presents and Christmas presents to each other will be a trip to England, which is long overdue and I am so looking forward to it.

When my lovely Mother asked what we wanted this year, I sent her links to our Amazon Wish Lists.  Then I got overexcited, and turned it into a Wordle. As you do:

Of course in this format you can't really make out many individual items, but yes Tim Gunn is on there.  Admittedly in book and bobblehead form, but if anyone wants to send me Tim Gunn himself, well, feel free!

By the way, the type face I used for the "Birthday Wish List" caption on the Wordle is called Bleeding Cowboys, and that pleases me so much.

Current Book: Arthur Conan Doyle - A Life in Letters

I'm reading "Arthur Conan Doyle - A Life in Letters" which is just fascinating. I particularly loved the letters he wrote as a school boy; they are so hilariously Victorian in tone with their fascination with health and mortality, mixed with the abrupt changes of subject that you can expect from any 8 year old.  It's all, and I only paraphrase very slightly here, 'Sadly two boys died last week of the croup.  50 new books were bought for the library which is very jolly now'.  Brilliant!

At present I'm reading the letters he wrote as a struggling young doctor trying to earn some extra money by writing short stories for magazines whenever he had a spare moment.  He hasn't created Holmes yet, but he is en route.

I only bought the book because it was on the sale table last time I had the pleasure of being in a large book shop, and I wasn't sure what to expect from it.  So far my affection for Conan Doyle has remained untarnished; even though I'm completely sure we would disagree on any number of subjects my impression of him remains charmingly avuncular.  Of course I'm not even half-way through the book yet, I may still end up throwing it across the room in disgust.  (I'll try to remember to update this post when I've finished it.)

Life with Mono

I've been in bed since 8:30pm, and as I got up at 8:45 this morning, that means I've spent atleast twelve hours as a functioning human being today. Woot!

My First Knitting Project.

This was my first knitting project, which I made and wore for Halloween. For costume styling purposes I highly recommend also putting on a hat, or a head scarf, because that makes the wig looks much more like cartoon character hair.

I actually really like it as a hat, because it's really comfy and has nice ear coverage.  It's quite a light hat though, so I've been wearing it over the top of a crocheted wool skull cap to add in an extra layer and keep my hair from poking out.

I didn't make a real Green Queen mask, just this virtual one, for one thing to keep the old secret identity in place and for another to cover up how tired I look.  Stupid Mono!

***Post Script*** You can find the pattern for free on-line here.

Halloween on the Brain-Slug Planet.

This is the brain-slug wig I made for Doc to wear this Halloween (I picniked in the Frankenstein mask to protect Doc's anonymity).  Doc was really pleased with the whole thing, and has already said that this is going to be his costume for years to come.

The wig itself was five bucks from KMart, and I think it's supposed to be an Elvis wig, but really it was just a curly mop.  I definitely couldn't have made anything better, and, a couple of times at the Ghost Train, I forgot Doc was wearing it and lost him for a minute or two. 

Obviously the crocheted brain-slug really added that touch of verisimilitude that a cheap wig needs to be convincing.

Workin' 10:30 to 1 - What a Way to Make a Livin'!

Today I went into work today for three hours, and I had forgotten how hectic it can be.  On top of the backlog of stuff for me to do, my computer was running incredibly slowly, wouldn't open a whole bunch of documents and, to top it all off, the dreaded Blue Screen of Death popped up twice, so I had to hard re-boot.  I was totally exhausted by the time I got home, and curled up on the sofa for a couple of hours.

The thing with Mono is that it can take a really long time to be fully recovered, and I've already been off for four weeks.  So, whilst everyone in the office has been really supportive and understanding, I can't help but feel they want me to be back to my normal energy levels already.  I understand that, not least because I would really like to be all better again, but it will take as long as it takes!  Stupid virus!

The hours I'm going in this week are structured around Doc C's teaching schedule, so tomorrow I'm going to try and go in for 6 hours, 11 to 5.  My back up plan is to sneak off to Doc's office to lie down if I really need to.

NaBloPoMo '09.

It's the first of November, which means to bloggers everywhere it's time for (Inter)National Blog Posting Month!  As it happens, I started posting daily on the first of November 2008, and I didn't drop the ball for a whole year.

So what's happened in the past twelve months?  For those of you joining us now, lets have a quick recap:

• November '08: America got a new president, and I got my beloved iPod Touch.
• December '08 : Bettie Page died, and I discovered Constant Comment tea.
• January '09: John Mortimer and Patrick McGoohan both died, and I gave up trying to train the cats to use the toilet like humans.
• February '09: Edith killed our romantic Valentine cupcakes, and I ran the first Alien Spouse Mystery Crochet Contest.  I must do another one of those sometime...
• March '09: We began to go to the gym before work, and I discovered the internet wonder that is Hulu.
• April '09:  Doc C learnt to make crumpets, and we went to Philadelphia.
• May '09: I went whale watching in Province Town and got a tattoo of a key on my right wrist.
• June '09: Farrah Fawcett and Michael Jackson died.  The media went insane, I'm just surprised no-one's yet claimed it wasn't all an elaborate hoax to jump start Jackson's come back.
• July '09: Doc got his iPod Touch and a new bike.
• August '09: I passed my learners permit test (first go and no wrong answers) and signed up for my MA course in English Literature.
• September '09: Keisha left the Sugababes and I went for my two year anniversary of coming to America to be Biometrically Tested
• October '09:  I got Mono and slept through October.  No really, I did, and I still blogged every day, that is commitment.

I suppose the biggest change was that I started calorie counting, using a free app on the iPod called "Lose It!", and since November last year I have lost around 45 pounds (That's over three stone) and two dress sizes.  That makes a huge difference to my body shape, and I really wish I'd bought that iPod sooner, so I could have done this ages ago!  Seriously, I LOVE my iPod for this; not only does it count all my calories for me but it keeps me motivated on the eliptical in the gym as well.  The iPod Touch seemed like an indulgence before I got it, but really it's been very useful.

That was 2009, at the beginning of the NaBloPoMo cycle I taught myself to crochet and for 2010 I'm teaching myself to knit.  Well, I actually could already knit never ending scarves, but this time I intend to knit actual things.  To your left you will see the first few rows of a red cotton circular thingy, which is going to be a cowl, assuming that I've actually made it big enough to go over my head.

A Very Quiet Halloween.

Halloween was really quiet around here.  Doc left the front door open (The screen door kept the cats in and the bugs out), and set up a bowl of sweets on our wooden footstool with the small pumpkin.  He put his wig on whilst he was in the front room working on lectures and kept telling me to keep an ear out for trick-or-treaters.

But nobody came.  sigh.

The Doc was visibly disappointed.  I don't think there are that many families with kids of the right age around here.  Actually that's probably not a bad thing anyway, because Doc had taken the massive bowl of sweets into one of his lessons and the gannets had eaten everything except the tootsie rolls and the candy corn; so if there had been trick-or-treaters we wouldn't have had much to offer them. Instead we turned off all the lights to watch a couple of the cheesy movies I bought in Walgreen's.  I have to say I thoroughly enjoyed them both, but Doc felt they were lacking in actual horror.  Which is probably why they suited me down to the ground.

The spookiest thing that happened was that neither of us realised that today was daylight savings, so some of our clocks changed automatically and some didn't and that is always somewhat disconcerting. Well that, and two different birds have flown against the living room window today.  What is that about?  Birds flying into stuff is never a good omen, but atleast both of them survived the collision and the cats are having a lovely time waiting for one to actually make it through the glass into the room.