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performance review

The heavy world bears down one me. Beneath its weight I want to crawl into a little ball and hide from the world. I want to be insignificant. Invisible. Inconsistant, they said. Peaks and troughs. Hit and miss. Highs and lows. I absorb this... I am silent...

 

Really, I want to yell...

 

I AM HERE!

 

At least there are highs to offset the lows! At least I aren't flatlining.

 

meh...

New toys to test drive...

tree pretty, fire bad

fire real bad...

if only tears could put those raging fires (that are yet still flaring) out...

belated shoesday...

(I am sure it is still Tuesday somewhere in the world... and if it's not, I am sure the Obamaniacs will still be celebrating this historic Tuesday :)

Today's post is brought to you by these lovely snakeskin and patent leather heels...



These gorgeous platform heels were picked up for a steal at a Novo sale - they still require a bit of breaking in - but I think they are absolutely divine!


I am a big fan of these new platforms that have that extra height incorporated into the upper - gives a much sleeker look and conceals that half inch handicap you have on everyone else (and relatively speaking, makes that stiletto a little less steep, and a little kinder to your Achilles tendon)

However, that internal platform does decrease the flexibility of the sole, particularly under the balls of your feet.The plan is to have these in the winter wardrobe rotation.

PS - Welcome to Obama and Good Riddance to Dubya!

New Year, New Me?

So I'm not completely with the idea of resolutions, and particularly new year resolutions, but sometimes you know that if you want to make a change its good to a metaphorical starter's pistol go off in your ear and hit the ground running. 

One of my big goals this year was inspired by a kooky dream I had -  

I was in an op shop, looking thru vintage knitting patterns when I decided to make a purchase. The sales assistant said she couldn't take my money as she had no change, but there was another way. She opened up a huge big book of appointments and told me I had to give blood. The appointment she gave me? 01 January. 

I know that the red cross blood bank is bleeding for donors (couldn't resist the pun) but I haven't quite been brave enough to bleed for the cause myself. I took this dream as my subconcious telling me to 'harden up, princess' and start donating this year. 

I happen to not be overly fond of needles (the non-knitting kind:). 

In order to face my fears I got a small tattoo in 2003 to 'beat the fear of needles'. However, lately I have been beginning to feel unworthy of such a tattoo if I am still giving into the fear when it comes to donating blood. 

I did get really close to donating once - I went in the door, filled out the questionaire and then got the finger prick test to check a few levels. It happened that my haeimoglobin was right at the bottom of the healthy range - and would have dropped into the unhealthy range if they had taken a couple of pints out of me. 

The plan to see this one thru comes with a little help from The Man - who is a regular donor. We are going to make appointments at the same time (as soon as he can donate again) and he will be there to hold my hand. He is also planning to feed me a heap of red meat the week before so I can get my iron and haemoglobin levels sky high so I don't work up all that nerve and then fail at the last minute.

If you would also like to join me in bleeding for a good cause check out the Red Cross Donate Blood webpage.

My second goal is to get moving - and start running a little more. This has been partly inspired by webgoddess and brave-and-slightly-crazy and partly inspired by a quote I read somewhere about "the black dog is lazy, if you exercise he won't bother to chase after you" (lucky Pierre hasn't a lazy bone in his body and enjoys runs with me in the park!)

I am aiming to do the couch-to-5km, but may do a couple of the sessions for more than the usual 1 week. The aim isn't to go fast, but just to get moving and build up a bit of endurance. If you're keen to see how I am going I have added my nike+ mini to the right sidebar. (the mini is also on my facebook profile.) So far the running is going well - although the forecast in Melbourne on Wednesday was for 39C, so I got up and went for a run at 6:30am when the temp was 31C (it only dropped down to 28C overnight) so I wouldn't have to worry about going to a run in the hottest part of the day when I got home from work. Ironically, the cool change came through at 9am and we dropped down to 21C. My desire to avoid the hottest part of the day had me running right in the middle of the heatwave :)

And the third wish for the new year? To get a haircut. Seriously. It has been more than 18 months since I last got a haircut so I am a little overdue. The plan was to go to the verrry cool gothic hair salon down the road and get the type of haircut that would dishonourably discharge me from the military (seeing as I no longer have to conform!). There were pipe dreams of dark, dark brown hair with blue/magenta and fire-engine red accents, but that will have to be put on hold for a while. Due to the office closing over the new year I ended up having to take over 45 hours of unpaid leave - so my paycheck was more than a week short this month. I may have to go somewhere for a bit of trim in the interim until I have some play money I can splash out on lavish haircuts. 

Try MOO for Cheep!

I love Moo's stickers and minicards - if you wanna try Moo yourself, check out the offer below! We like making new friends at MOO... And any friend of yours is a friend of ours, so, we'd like to offer you all something good. If you forward the following unique-to-you code to friends who have never bought from MOO before, they'll get 20% off any 1 MOO product. Your unique friend referral-code is: H94A9K

Lets all be a little subversive....

Yesterday I got an email from Amazon telling me that this book was finally shipping to me:




(there was no way I was ever gonna be able to make it to the exhibition)

Yesterday Gwet posted a link to this video on facebook:

The Colbert ReportMon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c

Nailed 'Em - Radical Knitting

Colbert at Christmas
Colbert Christmas DVD

Green Screen
Bill O'Reilly Interview

Co-incidence?


I think not!

Drowned rat puppy...

The Man finally got the pictures off his fone from when the pup when for his impromptu swim...

Me the Adulteress

Okay - I'll admit it. I have been cheating on PTYS and posting a bit on a LiveJournal account.The stuff I post over there is a tad bit more personal than here. It's kinda more like the angst filled diary I kept when I was a teenager (consider yourself warned) but if you want an insight into another aspect of me feel free to check it out. Some of the posts are private, so if you wanna read those you'll have to friend me (I'm GingerThomas over there - bonus points if you can figure out why hint: think literary characters)

As well as facebooking, I have also started plurking a bit if you wanna find me over there.

So I am still around - it's just a matter of knowing where to find me :)

A really important care label

y

knitting for psychos

stumbled upon this mildly disturbing website today...

Beeched ez, broo!

Because it's beach season, and it makes me giggle*

*yes, us Aussies are so simple that the mere mispronunciation of vowels by our cousins across the Tasman has us collapsing in giggles.

Plinkten.... hehe
chups...hehe
i can't choo, broo...hehe
teeheeheehee :)

have i been living under a rock?

Docs do pumps...and they are so very funky...

My inner punk/goth/emo says "gimme-gimme-gimme"

More cute modcloth...

Re-usable toothpicks...




and cute kitchen utensils...




Oh...
and I so WANT this dress - even the name is cute - the Carmen Sandiego Dress!

Inspiring window shopping...

How cute is this! - found on moncloth.com.

rockin xmas tree

rockin xmas tree, originally uploaded by pierretheyarnsnob.

I got this teeny tiny table top xmas tree when it was no longer needed at work. Turns out it is the perfect size for my emergency sock club keyring 'ornaments'!

I LUFF my knitters xmas tree!

cccxiv - Kate Hudson gets crafty to cut costs at Christmas

hmm.. this article was obviously written by a muggle - everyone knows that these days you don't save any money by knitting.

Sure you get better value by knitting - but saving money? Unless you are re-claiming yarn from op-shops you're not really 'saving' money by knitting. And then wouldn't the bigger story be "Kate Hudson goes bargain trawling at the thrift store"??

I like that when I knit I can spend approx $50 on (somewhat budget) yarn and get a lovely pure wool sweater, made to high standards that completely suits me. But if I really wanted to save money I could buy clothing made in China much cheaper (obviously not made out of the same quality fibre, but it would still perform the function of clothing me and keeping me warm).

Perhaps I should write in and explain the value of knitting.

I can buy a months worth of socks for the price of a really purdy skein of sock yarn - or at least 3 pairs for the cheapest ball of sock yarn. And that's before you add in all the hours labour - even at minimum wage you're looking at looking at about $200 for a single sock...

The loss of a colleague

No longer a close friend of mine, but someone I went through all the stages of my interviews, recruitment, basic training and some of my application course with him. Sometimes he was pure mischief, trouble or a headache - but he was always good for a laugh. The world shall miss out on many a joke with the loss of him.

NAVY MOURNS LOSS OF SUB-LIEUTENANT JAMES BENNETT

Royal Australian Navy Officer, Sub-Lieutenant (SBLT) James Bennett, has been tragically killed in an accident at Devil’s Pool, Babinda Boulders, 70 kilometres south of Cairns.

SBLT Bennett went missing on 30 November 2008 when he fell victim to strong currents while swimming at the popular tourist destination. He could not be reached by the other members of his party.

An extensive search involving the Queensland Police, the North Queensland Fire and Rescue Service and an Emergency Services specialist dive team located a body on 2 December, which was today confirmed as SBLT Bennett.

“Our deepest condolences are extended to James’ family and friends during this very sad time,” Chief of Navy, Vice Admiral Russ Crane, AM, CSM, RAN said.

“This is a tragic accident that has touched many of our Navy family. James was a promising young junior officer full of potential. He will be sorely missed.”

SBLT Bennett was serving in the Mine Hunter Coastal HMAS Norman, which was visiting Cairns before returning home to Sydney, NSW.

Norman was returning from a very successful South East Asia deployment, during which he participated in Exercise Bersama Lima in the South China Sea and the Minor War Vessels Fleet Concentration Period in the North Australian Exercise Area.

Media release taken from the DOD website

cccxii - designer fashion?

So at the store today I was reading a magazine (shop til you drop) while waiting in the queue - and while I was flicking through one of the fashion layouts I came across a pair of knit cable hotpants...

just like these - but in an off white/ cream colour


These pics are from the Shakuhachi spring/summer show (photo courtesy of the Grazia website) - and looking at the picture in the magazine they seem to be made out of cotton. The first thing that came to mind...

saggy butt!

...and it's only $130 for the privilege. Reckon we'll see them in the next VK S/S?

However - trolling through all the other pictures from the Shakuhachi show I turned up this dress. Too bad that ugly tie-dyed rag is covering it up - I think it's actually quite pretty. It seems to be the same cable pattern as on the shorts.