hooses for mooses and spiders in hats

Behold, a regular old tin of mints.  Open it up and...

What's this?  A teeny-tiny bed for a...

...mouse, a mouse in a peppermint striped dress.

 Here she is, tucked up in her bed.

This is one of my makes from last year that I couldn't share until Christmas was past, for fear of ruining surprises.  Not that my youngest niece, Elsie (nearly 3), reads my blog, but her mum does and sometimes it's nice for parents to get a surprise too.  I was a bit sad to part with this mouse.  Like most things I make from my imagination, she didn't turn out quite how I'd pictured (for example, she only has red shoes because I made her too tall for the tin and had to hack her feet off!) but I hope you'll agree she's lovely nonetheless.

I didn't make as many handmade gifts this year, so Elsie was the only one to get something handmade from her auntie.  It wasn't favouritism, just that her older brother and sisters have had lots of handmade presents over the years but Elsie, arriving so close to Dulcie, has kind of missed out on that.  I try to make amends whenever I can.

One of Elsie's unique selling points is her passionate love of spiders.  I'd got Christmas decorations for all her siblings (including an amazing dinosaur bauble from Designosaur for my nephew) but couldn't find a Christmas spider anywhere.  Surprising, huh?  Ha!  So I decided to crochet one.

I used this pattern and learned an amazing invisible decrease in the process.  It really is invisible, even on a black spider with white stuffing.  I wish I'd known about it when I made Dulcie's Foxy.  The Santa hat I just ad-libbed.  This is why I love crochet - I'm a relative beginner and yet I can ad-lib a Santa hat in a jiffy.

Mr Spider hung around on our Christmas tree for a while before we wrapped him up.  I was a bit sad to part with him, but it seemed only fair that he went to live with the spider lover in our lives :)

the sweetness at the bottom of the pie

I'm meant to be at the pool.  I said I would be, but I'm not.  Instead, I've spent most of the morning in bed, finishing this book.  I enjoyed it so much!  Am I starting to like crime fiction, or is it just that I like stories about precocious girls in crumbling abodes?  Either way, so good!  And a very pleasant change of pace following on from 100 Years Of Solitude, which I found slow and hard-going, though not unenjoyable for all that.

Not that I have any hope of completing the Semi-Charmed Book Challenge any more (Gabriel Garcia Marquez and his 22 characters named Aureliano put paid to that!) but I've done a bit of a rejig of my categories and am still going to keep going and see how many points I can amass.  Here's what I'm planning to read now.  (Red means yet to read, green means I've read it.)

5 points: Freebie!
 THE DEATH OF BUNNY MUNRO (Nick Cave - 288 pages, audiobook) 

10 points: Read a book written by an author who has published at least 10 books.

 THE GRAVE TATTOO (Val McDermid - 400 pages) 

10 points: Read a book of short stories.

 VAMPIRES IN THE LEMON GROVE (Karen Russell - 243 pages) 

10 points: Read a book with a food in the title.

 THE SWEETNESS AT THE BOTTOM OF THE PIE 
 (Alan Bradley - 363 pages) 

15 points: Read the first book in a series that is new to you.

 SHADOW OF THE WIND (Carlos Ruiz Zafon - 487 pages) 

15 points: Read a book that was originally written in a language that is not your native language.

100 YEARS OF SOLITUDE (Gabriel Garcia Marquez - 457 pages) 

15 points: Read a book written by a local author.

BUDDHA DA (Anne Donovan - 352 pages) 

20 points: Read a "bookish book.

 THE THIRTEENTH TALE (Diane Setterfield - 456 pages) 

20 points: Read a book with a direction in the title.

 EAST, WEST (Salman Rushdie - 224 pages) 

25 points: Read a book from a genre you don't usually read.

 THE PAST IS MYSELF 
(Christabel Bielenberg - 288 pages, autobiography) 

25 points: Read a book with a song lyric in the title.

 FREEDOM (Jonathan Franzen - 576 pages) 
(i.e. Freedom by George Michael) 

30 points: Read two books with a different meal in each title.

 BREAKFAST OF CHAMPIONS (Kurt Vonnegut - 302 pages) 

and THE CORONER'S LUNCH (Colin Cotterill - 272 pages)
 
125 points achieved, 75 points to go!  I'm already predicting that Grave Tattoo and Freedom won't be read, or at least not before the challenge deadline is upon me.  Ah, well, I can but try and I could always sacrifice swimming for reading...?  Yes, nice try, Laura.

swim sunday # 2

 

I ain't no Esther Williams!

Target total this week: 109
Lengths swum this week: 30

Total lengths swum: 120 (11 ahead of target)

I'd need to swim 43 lengths this week to meet next week's target.

So, the big picture is that I'm doing well, being 11 lengths ahead of my rough overall target.  But the finer detail paints a different picture.  I am finding this so hard.  Worrying about my neck/back, since I do slow breast stroke with a very poor raised-head technique, I decided to mix up my routine and swim back stroke now and again when the pool was quiet.  I'd always found back stroke easy, but I guess I hadn't tried it much since Heartgate.  I got into the pool, swam two slow lengths and had a near-death experience as a result.  I guess the kicking required is a lot more aerobic than my usual frog legs.  It was horrible and I had zero faith that the lifeguard would spot me slipping under the water in an unconscious swoon, but was trying to judge just the right moment to shout for help, i.e. not so soon that it might turn out to be an embarrassing false alarm but not so late that I might actually die on his "watch".  So I didn't shout, but I did kneel in the shallow end and wrap my arms around the bars and cling on for dear life until I recovered my vision and could breathe and wasn't listening to a frantic pulse in my ears.  Well, I guess it couldn't have been THAT frantic as my defibrillator didn't go off!  Small mercies etc... Ha!  Anyway, I lived to tell the tale and even swam another 28 lengths (of super-slow breast stroke, of course!) before leaving the pool.  Then I went home and passed out on the bed and was fit for nothing else.  Though I did end up doing some gardening - or should I say, "gardening" - despite the exhausted wooziness and general lack of oxygen.  Ee gads!

So, the plan?  Well, no more back stroke for a start!  I'm quite happy to remain a slow breast-stroker, if you'll pardon the clumsy expression.  Slow and steady might not win the race, but at least it crosses the finish line alive, touch wood.  And I'm trying to weigh up the rest:exercise ratio and figure out what's more important to me because the only times I can swim this week are times I really want to be resting.  (And tidying, which I know should be further down the priority list, but I'm thinking a tidier house would facilitate resting, which is high up the priority list, hence the fact I should be resting and not tidying.  Or swimming?  I think you can see my problem!)

I'm going to force myself to go swimming on my rare day off tomorrow, but I will take it easy and not worry too much about how many lengths I manage.  And I won't force myself to squeeze in another swim this week.  One is enough when I'm tired and busy and have almost 5.5 months of challenge left, right?  Right.

And in the larger scheme of things heart-related, I've asked work if I can reduce my hours.  It was kind of a scary decision, but now I'm so excited at the prospect.  I think it will make my life so much more manageable and enjoyable, if a little less financially stable.  But, you know, priorities.  And you know I'm trying not to view it as a slippery sloping downward spiral, don't you?  Yeah!  It's not, it's not, it's not.  It could be the start of an uphill climb :)

swim sunday #1

 

 (This vintage swimming suit available here.)

So, here I am with my first Swim Sunday check-in.  I went swimming after work on Thursday despite really not feeling well and almost failing to climb the stairs out of the underground.  I struggled through 34 lengths and felt thoroughly demoralised and started wondering if the challenge was actually going to be too challenging.  However, feeling the pressure of this post looming, I managed to squeeze in a second swim today, thanks to Graham taking Dulcie swimming at a different pool at the same time!  (She won't let me do lengths if I swim in her vicinity.)  And today I felt much better and managed 56 lengths and enjoyed every one of them.  The tramp through the rain to get there and back was less enjoyable, as was being soaked through to my underwear.  The walk home was also a step too far, physically, and I haven't been fit for much else since I got home.  I almost knocked on my neighbours' doors because I was scared to be alone in case I died, that's how tired I was.  So a lesson learned - take it easy(ish) and at least remember to spare enough energy for the journey home!  But aside from exhaustion, I'm feeling great.  I'm ahead of the game and have a few lengths stored up for weeks where I don't have a good-heart day where I can make it to the pool.  I'm doing this, people!

 

So here are my stats for this week.  I'll repeat this in each Swim Sunday post, as much for myself as anyone else.  I realise this probably isn't that exciting for my readers, but I need this to keep me motivated, I think.

Lengths swum this week: 90

Cumulative target for this week: 54
Total lengths swum: 90 (36 lengths ahead of schedule! Go, me!)

Cumulative target for next week: 109

Lengths needed to meet that: 19

Has anyone else been joining in?  Care to share your progress, or lack of?

edinburgh, anyone?

Look who's been born at Edinburgh Zoo!  Who knew Malaysian tapirs were so adorable?  I just showed these pictures to Dulcie.  After asking what kind of animal it was, her first response was, "Mummy, why is the baby so CUTE?"  Why indeed, Dulcie. Why indeed!  I think we might need to make a pilgrimage to the zoo soon.

craftathon 2015!

Long-time readers of this blog might remember Craftathon 2011, where I challenged myself to try my hand at 16 creative activities over the course of the year.  Considering the unexpected twists and turns the year took (three months of morning sickness, a diagnosis of heart failure, the birth of a premature baby, two months spent in hospital) and my general inability to stick to my goals without getting distracted, the challenge was pretty successful.  The highlight was learning to crochet (making the beloved ripple blanket, pictured above) which is now my go-to craft for all occasions.

But there were plenty of crafts on the list that I didn't get round to, as well as some that I've developed a hankering for since, so I've decided (despite the fact I should be concentrating on other more important but less exciting areas) to launch Craftathon 2015.  Yay!  It's not going to be the epic of 2011, but its more modest scale should fit in better with my lower levels of time and energy.  I'm also thinking having less crafts on the list will give me more opportunity to pursue crafts not on the list at the same time because I already know I want to crochet, embroider, do a Gocco print etc, but I want to prioritise these crafts I have rarely or never attempted.

So, here's the list...which I'm reserving the right to amend if there's anything I've neglected!

CRAFTATHON 2015!

1. Beading

2. Paper cutting/collage

3. Lino printing

4. Lace making

5.  Sew an item of clothing for myself

6. Needle felting

I'm hoping I'll have lots of fun, maybe find another new long-term hobby and have some nice finished products to keep for myself or to give to others.  Selling my wares is not going to be my priority, I just want to enjoy myself.  Is anyone else planning a crafty challenge for themselves this year?

looking for a new year challenge?

Remember about six months ago I challenged myself to swim the equivalent of the Channel in six months?  Well, I failed (as you know) but I'm being all Robert the Bruce about it and am going to try, try, try again.  I even treated myself to a lap counter (pictured above) which I am predicting will be the best £10 ever spent as swim time will become thinking time instead of counting time.  Multitasking to the max!

So I'm starting this challenge now and am aiming to swim the "Channel" by the end of June.  I've worked out the Channel is the equivalent of 1360 lengths in a 25 metre pool.  Leaving myself a few spare days at the start of January (realistically I know I won't be getting anywhere near the pool until the 5th at the very earliest) and a few days at the end of June to squeeze in any last-minute emergency lengths, this works out at just over 50 lengths a week, 54.4 to be exact!  I'm going to update the blog with my progress each Sunday (give or take) in a dedicated Swim Sunday post in the hope that this will keep me on the straight and narrow.  I've worked out how many lengths I should have achieved by each Sunday between now and June, working on the basis of swimming an equal amount each week (which I know won't be the case) so I can see how I'm getting on throughout.

Anyway, I just wanted to ask whether anyone fancied joining in this time?  My sister, Kerry, and her friend Anest are both going to give it a go and I'm recruiting you, Caihsnah, since you already have a lap counter!  Ha!  So that's four of us so far.  I'm thinking the more the merrier really, although anyone who starts putting us doggy-paddlers to shame will, of course, be "promoted" to swimming the ACTUAL Channel! ;)  My thinking was that anyone who felt it would help them to keep going could leave a comment on my Swim Sunday posts to tell us about their progress or whatever, but of course you could also join in anonymously if that suited you better.

P.S. Happy New Year!