Happy Feet

I've just had a bunion on my right foot straightened- indeed, removed. General anaesthetic was fun and I'm now zonked on codeine and writing this in a bit of a haze. It hurts but not much. See pic. I'm very excited to to see the foot itself when the bandages come off briefly tomorrow. Meanwhile its a somewhat epic journey up and down the stairs to the bathroom. Everything seems to be an effort......can't wait to wear normal shoes though....zzzzzzz

It must be May

It's pouring with rain today but yesterday it was perfect Mayday Garland weather


From my mobile ;)

New hair!

New dreads and cyberlox for Hastings!


From my mobile ;)

Blue skies without aeroplane trails. Suddenly it's peaceful.


From my mobile ;)

Clocks from my earlier years

I used to go down to Covent Garden with my grandmother to see the water clock and I had forgotten it was there. I looked upwards and it's still there, but alas not working. This picture of it was taken with my phone and treated to a "Lolo" effect using an app called Camera Bag. Why is it not working? One of the metal characters used to randomly water passers-by. Surely it's a public work of art and therefore worth maintaining? It looks sad, still and quiet, even in the sunshine.

From my mobile ;)

Spring! The grass is riz.

Wow the sunshine is really cheering me up today. Tree blossom and warmth- East London seems unusually inviting. I have even got a new whizzy blog thing for my (ahem) iPhone. I have lost 10lb of blubber and I am looking forward to summer without a wedding to plan! In other blog news I really ought to update Grilla Styling. Thing is, I got so fat I didn't like my pictures, oops! Perhaps summer will lend all my projects a new lease of life. Ah, that must mean I need a new notebook ....


-- Post From My iPhone

telephonic joy and sadness in rice

Last week I returned a phone that I had found on the ground to its grateful owner. She is from Taiwan and she gave me these gorgeous little biscuits with my name in Kanji on them. She told me I was a wonderful person. I always think that any person would try to return a 'phone that they found, but obviously the real world doesn't work like that. It was a charming little ivory and gold Sony Ericsson phone and I searched her texts to find numbers of friends who may know her, tracked down her lecturer and found out her email address. I felt very nosey! Yesterday I put my (purple) mobile through the washing machine by mistake. Its sad little wet oblong face is blank and black. Placing it in a bowl of raw rice (thanks Google) for 12 hours at first appeared to partially revive it but it is now once more defunct. I'm lucky to have isync and a memory card so I've lost no data but it feels, in a small way, as if I've lost a friend, and found one. To have been able to give the gift of someone's phone back with all its precious pictures, numbers and messages from family is of far more value than losing my own phone which is just a lump of purple plastic/metal without its data. The biscuits are probably made of rice, too. Isn't it strange how the funniest things are linked. As luck would have it I'm due an upgrade so It'll be hello HTC Hero. I wonder if I can write applications for it in Python? hmmmmm

New year (again)

Well here is another year, and more importantly another decade. I feel like I've left the last ten years behind...officially! I find all the conversations about when the date "actually" is, whether there is a Year Zero, etc, tedious. I find this particular date handy to hang a feeling of closure on, and it feels good to me. The picture is from Udevalla in Sweden where I finally went to visit Paul.... at minus 15! Snow boots minimised the#uksnow disruption for me and worked perfectly in Sweden too. Thank goodness.

The best thing that has happened to me lately is getting a brilliant new job. 2009 was a whirlwind- moving house (of course- I do it every year don't I? did I? hmm can't remember) purple wedding, my job at BAC ending, and I'm now working and training at the same time in Flash animation and various bits of code. This is probably the first job I've ever had thats a perfect fit for my capabilities- I'd always thought I'd left it too late when I stopped programming in Basic in 1980-whatever at primary school to catch up- it appears not. I've always somehow regretted not going down the Computer Studies route... thought as my friend Paul pointed out, he likes to think of me as his friend the jeweller...not his friend the computer programmer! I suppose I'll always be a metalworking girl and aspiring gemmologist at heart, but the pure detail and predictability of code, plus of course its visual manifestation in Flash, is right up my street and I've never been happier...in fact I actually look forward to Mondays! I bet there are not many people who can say that.

The art of washing

Look at this. Isn't it beautiful? that's the art of hanging out the washing, that is. The art of placing damp clothing, expertly flicked and shaken to remove creases to dispense with tedious ironing, onto hangers. The art of placing clothes pegs where their little bite-marks won't show. The art of re-shaping bras for a smooth breast line in the sun, a bit sexual. The art of placing much loved clothes straight into the wardrobe once dry and warm and slightly crisp is satisfyingly stress-free. Chore-like effort is reduced by choosing to take pleasure and by giving a little thought. Clothing thus treated glows when worn. One of the many things my mother taught me is how to do the washing and I am most grateful every time I step out of the house in my lovely clothes. I do so love clothes. And I DO hate ironing.....!

being married

So.... this is what its like being married. Oddly, the dynamic has changed. There is now an "Us" and a "We" in a more official way. I have my own family that I chose. The wedding was widely commented on as the most relaxed, best food, best music wedding ever. I thought so! Such a fabulous day, followed by a week of total shock and Jazz. AAAAAAAA I AM MARRIED! OMFG MY HUSBAND IS PLAYING RONNIE SCOTTS WITH THE LJC!!!Back to work tomorrow......under a different name...and paperwork paperwork paperwork. Today- houmous on toast and relative normality.

Shopping trolleys and Hoovers

Another vaguely lonely photo. Wouldn't it be fun to do a 1950s style photo shoot with an old Hoover? Hoovering the grass in a headscarf and bright red lipstick. I'm in the wrong job. I want to somehow combine my people skills and creativity. I want to help people using art! Hmmm. Also I need to get.... kicked up the bum regularly to actually DO SOME ART. I wonder if the portfolio course at CSM is the right thing to do? I did get in there once. Onto their Jewellery BA. Or how about the creativity courses at IATE. Or how about this course about work? Surely if artists like Paul Alexander Thornton, who doodle like that, and object-maker Bwana Spoons! exist then so can I? Exist? I mean, as myself- messy, colourful, creative- can I?

Wow!!! cute things!!!!

Not this photo. This photo is sad. Sad as in melancholy. look at it. I don't need to explain it. THIS is cute.

My family and other Edward Hopper portraits

I took this photo (when I upload it- have lost the wirething and the boxthing isn't playing) at a family reunion barbeque. Subjects- my Mother and Brother. I don't think ether of them in actual fact were having that dreadful a time- I just think they both look completely isolated from the scene and from each other. Thats what gives the picture such an Edward Hopper look.

Starting a new blog on a different tack

Like my friend crazymum with her Charlotisms, I do sometimes feel like no one understands the way I think. I have created a new game to stimuate me creatively- not sure where I got the idea from- though I believe it was after a double espresso and a grappa which shows that alcohol has had at least one positive effect on me for all the negative ones......anyway its all about rushing round clothes shops with a friend and 2 cameras, picking out stuff I would NEVER wear, screeching to a halt in the changing roms and pretending to be models- taking crazy pictures Austin Powers style then retiring to a dark arty coffee bar to giggle over the results. And then blog the pictures.

see Grilla Styling for more..... its VERY blank at the moment but watch that space!

Later

Extremely battered after an emotional week....  I don't want to talk about my week.

I think this blog needs more and better pictures. Of sleepy bumblebees perhaps- I took this one on macro using my new camera, a remarkably cheap £50 Canon with 7 mega ding-dongs. Fun! more pictures to follow. Crazymum has just got the same camera for her photo blog- her pics are awesome. go see. 

Also I think I want a laminator just so I can laminate things. Feathers and things. Dragonfly wings. later.... 

Perhaps I ought to try to refresh my life with another Wild Book Week. Would make a change from Wild Beer Week which is pretty much what I've achieved this week!! yurgl. (my new word for exactly how I feel today) perhaps I'll feel better later.....

 I hope I will feel better after I've gone through the masses of boxes of STUFF that I seem to accumulate. A lot of it is due to my idea of what tidying up is- shove everything thats on the floor into the nearest box/bag and sort it later. Except now I have dozens of such mixed-up boxes and bags, two holidays only half-unpacked. Everything which I have been thinking "oh I must do that later..." well, today IS later. Much later.

Glitter Limes

Well. Today I have mainly be feeling rubbishly achey oversleeping and working, skipping class, eating chocolate brownies (2) and now- reading galadarling's blog and zoetica's tweets (rainbow girls who are just like I used to be, about...ooh ten years ago) and have found the following:

Glitter limes.

http://www.glitterlimes.com/

WHY!!!! I mean, why? Whilst I like concept sites- and of course I make jewellery- this one takes it a bit far. Meaning, clearly, that it is one of my favourite websites of all time second only to www.purple.com and of course the Toast King's home, weebls-stuff.co.uk.

Too tired to put proper links in.

Stuff I've always wanted to do.

....... stuff I've always wanted to DO as opposed to stuff I've always wanted to HAVE, which is what I seem spend my life thinking about. However many purple sparkly things I have it does not appear to add up to happiness- and by that I mean the satisfaction of a job well done, somewhere, even in a small way. So here it is, a list of things I have "always" wanted to do, some more recent than others of course;

Design my own font

Paint a room with stars and clouds on the ceiling and trees on the walls

Design and make my own range of soft cuddly clothes

Knit a whole jumper 

Have an art exhibition

Be on the fourth plinth (yay footache)

Make a scarf out of socks

Make a usb powered funky light (yay physical-world hacking)

Climb a mountain

Inspire people with colour

Run a successful website that inspires people

Skydive (I'd be frightened but still want to do it)

Run my own business (again)

Live abroad (Milan)

Learn another language

help others (always)

die knowing my life meant something (well by then I won't care but hey)

Isn't it strange how the list goes from geek to chic to freak...!!!! And the tasks get bigger and bigger...and it doesn't include "have children" because I assume that will happen anyway...how socialised am I!?!?!????

Insomnia

Now that I have a shiny shiny macbook I can surf in bed without cursing and swearing and wanting to smash something. Which is just as well because I can't sleep. Today I have avoided doing any work on impending essays at all by having a cafe breakfast, dozing in a patch of sun, cleaning the bathroom, investigating 5 graphic t-shirt sites, nearly blowing lots of money on t-shirts I don't need, making DIY fairy wings, eating cheap imitation After Eights, making  chili, drinking hot chocolate and buying ribbon and diamante on ebay. Which sounds like I've had a busy day but to me its felt unbelievably lazy. I have also been adding photos to my computa with iphoto. Here is a lomo fish-eye photo of a sock monster I made who is called Tintagel, sitting in Tintagel castle. Oh yes.

Tshirt habit

Bony and Cloud By
FrigoBanjo

Love it. Want it. CUUUUTE! Have opened up my own tshirt shop for fun while I try to get my head round vector graphics ;) Via Inkscape. How DOES one make a design appear on a transparent background?? *scratches chin*
http://fionafiona.spreadshirt.net/en/GB/Shop

Red Shoes

I am a busy person. Too busy to blog, it would seem. Well here I am again to foist my meaningless gibberish upon the wide open empty unlistening internet. I have an odd affection for this blog. I love to read other's blogs but not my own- I find myself stuck for words often, stumbling over things- I have done so much in the past few months, yet so so little. I sometimes think my best ideas come when I'm drunk but they probably don't....(I'm not drunk BTW!!!) so here I am taking my lunch break at 11 o'clock because I still haven't learnt not to eat too sugary a breakfast... and paying off debt like a maniac becasue I still haven't learnt that shiny shoes do not make me happy. Well, not THAT happy. Actually, they make me quite happy. I have one pair of shoes imparticular which I shall put on now.... I keep them in my desk drawer at work for Those Days, of which Today is one, I can feel it despite my wakefulness. They are bright red with pointy but not too thin heels which are also red- a little strap across- and not too pointy toes. Bright shiny vermilion red court shoes. They click on pavements and embue me with an efficiency unheard of on a Monday....