The GirlAlive Blog

Bad blogger! No cookie!

I haven’t been posting here nearly as much as I should because I’ve been busy/distracted/slightly grumpy. So here’s an update about stuff and things.

I got my new spinning wheel, and got it all put together and I picked up some bobbins from a nice little local online shop (since it only came with one bobbin). I got a couple bobbins full of singles spun, and then started plying them together. It was all going well until it started making a “chunk chunk chunk” noise, and I noticed that the nut holding the wheel on fell off. It seems to only have a problem when I’m plying (spinning counter-clockwise), but it is fine when spinning (clockwise). Weird. So I guess I’ll just have to keep an eye on that.

There’s nothing for me to do at work lately, because that’s just the way the workload has fallen at the moment. It’s very frustrating because I’ve also been sick again. So I have to show up for work, with my head pounding and nose dripping, because I’ve already been told off for taking too much
sick leave, and when I get there, there is nothing for me to do and no real reason for me to be there.

In guinea pig news, everything is good. Since Homer died, Spike has been a little bit off. He’s been kind of touchy and not as affectionate as he used to be. But for the first time since last summer, this week Spike has seemed more like his old self. He’s been pretty much the old happy snuggly Spike. And he and Elvis are still fighting, but not any more than any pair of guinea pigs stuck in a cage together. But Fudge is the really amusing one at the moment. We gave him a little wire ball that hangs from the ceiling and holds hay. He’s nuts about that thing. He won’t touch the hay in his hay rack, but he’ll clear that thing out in an hour, and then hop around like it’s his birthday when we refill it. Last week he was trying to yank the sheet off the bottom of his cage because he likes to crawl
under it, making a mess in his cage and making him stinky and gross. So just to distract him, I threw a small towel in his cage. Now the towel is his new best friend. He snuggles with it and burrows under it and drags it around the cage. It’s very cute.

Outside of work, crafting and rodent wrangling, I’ve also been working on the beginnings of a few more projects. They are not ready for the public yet, but I dream that someday they’ll be successful enough that I can quit my job and spend my days at home doing stuff instead of in a cubicle, doing
nothing.

Random thoughts

I just won a spinning wheel on eBay. It was another of those things where I threw a low bid in early, and didn’t get much competition. But it’s cool cause it only cost about £115, when the retail on one of those new is about £300. And the seller is a hospice in England, so it’s going to charity.

My husband has tomorrow off work because he’s staying up all night to watch the Superbowl. It starts at 11:00pm here. And it doesn’t even have the proper superbowl commercials. Which is why I’ll be sleeping.

Just before posting this, I was having a poop and reading the Argos catalog. I can’t believe that today, in the year 2009, they still have their toy section divided into “boy’s toys” and “girl’s toys”. All of the science toys are in the boys section, and all of the dolls and toy cash registers are in the girls section. Cause in this country, all girls are expected to accomplish is plopping out kids and working at a grocery store. It’s a little sick.

I’ve uploaded a few more rodent videos to my You Tube account. In case you care, here they are:

Craft angst

I really totally want the newest upcoming issue of Craft magazine.  The current issue, volume 8, has a section on weaving and even a little cardboard loom.  I love weaving. 

The problem is that I can’t afford to subscribe because it costs a fortune for delivery to the UK ($50 for 4 issues).  I can’t buy a single issue either because it’s current, so you can’t order that issue online.  It’s supposed to be on newsstands August 5th, but not in the UK.  

Anyone out there think they can find this issue for me?  I can pay, or trade for stuff from my cafepress shop.  I can even trade for a ball of handspun wool or something.

Alana

Spinning

A while ago I bought myself a drop spindle.  It’s a clever technology that been used for a few thousand years to make thread and yarn.  I also bought myself a big bag of random wool bits from Etsy.  After a large amount of spinning and pulling and plying, I now have a huge weird callous on my right index finger, and this bunch of yarn:

It’s all squishy and pretty and crazy.  I’m not sure what I’m going to knit with it.  

Also, I went to a party last week and on the way home I saw a hedgehog on the sidewalk, just waddling along.  It was so cute!  I’d consider getting a hedgehog for a pet, but I don’t like pets that eat meat.  They tend to have stinky poop.  I like my little vegetarian hamsters and vegan guinea pigs. 

Alana 

Cheap food in Penicuik.

I’ve been complaining to my husband a lot lately about how there are no mid-range restaurants here.  So we found some. 

Generally in the UK, there are two categories of restaurants.  There’s the fancy Gordon Ramsay-type three course meal that costs a fortune kind of places.  Then there’s the take-out places.  And not much in between.  Now, let me be clear that this isn’t necessarily a bad thing.  In the US, it’s easy to find a place to have an affordable dinner for four, but that place will inevitably be a franchise like Applebees or Perkins.  It’s all very homogenized and frankly mediocre.  When restaurants cost a lot, you tend to cook your own food more and that is healthier.  But sometimes I want someone else to cook a meal for me and bring it to a table where I can sit and eat at my leisure.

So we’ve found some cafes.  They don’t serve dinner.  You have to make it lunch or breakfast.  But it is food that someone else cooked.  And it’s cheap and good.  

The first place we tried was called Joyce’s Cafe, and it is in the Penicuik town center just between Farmfoods and the newsagent.  It’s the perfect place to get a full fried breakfast, with an egg, sausage and toast and beans and black pudding (which I shift to my husband’s plate).  And all of that for about 3 pounds.  And that includes tea.  We’ve been there twice, and it’s been great both times.  It’s brightly-lit and the people who work there are friendly and nice.  But nothing there is healthy, so it’s just kind of a treat every once in a while.

The other place we tried was the Gallery Cafe, which is just off the high street, next to the inexplicable Belgian consulate in the Penicuik town center.  It’s run by the Penicuik Community Arts Association and there is a vegetarian cafe downstairs with a craft shop upstairs.  It’s lovely.  I had a toasted cheese sandwich and my husband had the soup of the day (a very good split pea and pepper soup, according to him).  The shop upstairs had knitted stuff, jewellery and pottery by local artists.  And lunch for both of us cost less than 5 pounds.  Much healthier than the fried breakfast place too.

So we’ve found two nice little cafes less than ten minutes away.  I’d highly recommend either of them, depending on whether you are in a carnivorous mood or not.

Alana 

addiction

My name is Alana, and I have an alpaca addiction.

I was surfing through the "nearly expired" listings on Etsy a while ago and I bought a few small balls of hand dyed alpaca wool from Larkspur Funny Farm.  Now I’ve entirely fallen in love with alpaca yarn.  It’s all soft and squishy and made from alpacas, which are some of my favorite animals.  Alpacas are like little tiny llamas.  They’re cute and fluffy.  The problem is that their wool is also quite expensive for someone who usually only buys cheap acrylic yarn from the 99p store. 

For my family and friends, if you’re ever stuck for a gift to get for my birthday or Christmas or anniversary, or anything, you probably can’t go wrong with a big pile of alpaca yarn.  If you really want to impress me, buy me an alpaca farm and a spinning wheel.  

Back to trying to stretch my tiny ball of alpaca wool into a viable knitted scarf…

Alana