Cool stuff | Semantically driven

A renewed interest in crochet

May 8, 2014 by Jen

Learning crochet

I used to crochet. I used to knit. I can’t remember when I last picked up a crochet hook, but stopping knitting was a bit more recent.

So when I got invited to a Nanna Skillz event put on by Yelp, I was pretty excited. I didn’t know what to expect but it involved dressing up, food, drink, nanna skills and croquet. How could I turn it down?

The dress code was white and I have an aversion to white, or it does to me. However, digging through my wardrobe, I found I have quite a bit of cream, including a cream crochet skirt with gold sparkles – an op shop purchase – and a beautiful vintage cardigan. I also dug up a cream crochet handbag that used to be my nana’s. Very appropriate I thought.

Crochet handbag and skirt

I had to drop my son off at a birthday party at a nearby indoor bowling place dressed like this when everyone else was a lot more casual. I just don’t care anymore but I would have been quite embarrassed a few years ago. When in doubt and a little bit nervous – strut. Surprisingly my son was okay with my getup until he saw the gold sparkles in the skirt.

It was a fun Sunday afternoon. I went by myself but caught up with people I’ve met on Twitter and in real life at other events. I love that Adelaide has a great Twitter community that extends into the meeting in person. I also met a few new people.

There was plenty of food to try and drinks to be had. I tasted cheese, salami, pickles, gnocchi, icecream, beer, whiskey and cofffee – all from locals. Luckily I hadn’t had time for a decent lunch prior.

The crochet ‘stall’ consisted of a couple of crochet rugs on the ground and some very helpful and patient crocheters. And once I put my glasses on I could actually see what I was doing better.

Now of course I’m all invigorated to try out crochet again. I’ve got some hooks and wool kicking around so I just might get cracking. I’ll have to relearn some more stitches and learn how to read patterns but I’m sure I can do that.

If I get good at it I wouldn’t mind making this crochet hat or this poncho.

crochet_hat_9 Fairy-Tale-Poncho-Collage

Skylanders characters

January 5, 2012 by Jen

Late last year I got to see a demo of the upcoming Skylanders game which I immediately knew that my son and I would enjoy as we’ve been Spyro fans since he got his first gaming console.

We received a copy of the game and have enjoyed playing it. Of course to get more out of it you need to buy more characters and we have bought one three pack and my son got another three pack for Christmas.

Of course he got some Christmas money and he’s itching to spend it on some more characters, in particular, an air one like Whirlwind because we don’t have that element yet.

However, this is proving quite hard. It appears as though many people got this game for Christmas and as soon as the shops opened after Christmas rushed out to buy more characters and there just aren’t any around that I can find – in Adelaide anyway.

I thought I’d try to buy online and even that’s proving hard. While normal retail prices are $15 for one character or around $29 for the three pack, prices on e-bay are proving quite different, ie more expensive. I refuse to pay that.

I don’t know if this is a ploy by the game’s makers to up the demand for these characters or whether they just didn’t anticipate the demand.

So until we can get our hands on more characters we will wait out this until more are available.

So far we have Spryo (magic), Gill Grunt (water), Trigger Happy (tech), Drobot (tech), Stump Smash (life), Bash (earth), Chop Chop (undead), Eruptor (fire), Flame Slinger (fire).

My favourites? The ones that can shoot, ie Drobot, Trigger Happy and Spyro and even Gill Grunt. The others, as you upgrade their abilities do some pretty cool stuff although I’m not a huge fan of Stump Smash yet. And it’s handy to use characters that can move a bit more quickly sometimes like Spyro and Drobot.

Deal Monopoly

August 2, 2011 by Jen

Tuesday, 26 July 2011, Day 245/365.

Sometimes it’s just too easy to tell him to go and watch tv when I want some time to myself. As part of my new parenting resolve I thought I’d try and find a game that we could play, and that he could also play with The Surfer’s kids.

I found a couple of card games, one being Monopoly Deal. I like the Monopoly board game but it takes way too long to play – you sometimes need an afternoon and I get confused towards the end when you’re running out of money as to what you have to hand over to keep on going and how mortgages work and all that.

The Monopoly Deal card game is great though because the first person to get three full property sets wins so a game can be over in about ten minutes which is sometimes all the time we have after a day of work etc.

We both love it and JJ wants to play it all the time. He keeps winning which is probably one of the reasons he loves it. It has the same properties as the board game so it is fairly familiar. It took us a little while to get it but once we’d played a few games it was easy to remember the rules. It’s also really good because it is a card game and therefore very transportable.

I also bought Scrabble Dash but that hasn’t had quite the same appeal.

Cause a girl needs retail therapy

December 16, 2009 by Jen

When I was in Melbourne I fell in love with these.

john_fluevog_Dollface

Or these type of shoes/heels. At around $400 per pair I was too scared to try them on because I knew that I would buy them. I regret it now because they don’t have a retail outlet in Adelaide. They’re John Fluevog shoes.

I don’t normally wear heels but these are supposed to be really comfortable. My friend tried them on and she found them really comfortable, and like me, she’s not a heels girl. We walked out of the shop saying how fantastic the shoes were and continued shopping.

The next shop we went into we were still talking about them and the shop keeper walked out from behind her counter wearing a pair and admitted to owning 17 pairs of these shoes. Wow, we thought, they must be good.

I still think about the shoes and plan on owning a pair one day. I could order online but I’d still like to try them on first.

But yesterday after taking JJ to see ‘Where the Wild Things Are’ I saw a pair of shoes that I ended up buying. They’re not quite in the same league as John Fluevog but will be a good practise run for me wearing heels. They were even on special and didn’t cost me that much.

There’s something about Christmas

December 7, 2009 by Jen

When I was pregnant I was heavily into denial that it was happening because it was such a shock. The thing about denial is that it’s a state of mind and that’s it. When you’re pregnant you’re pregnant, unless something awful happens. Anyway I moved on from denial once I saw that baby wriggling around at my first ultrasound.

I’m also trying to deny Christmas. It feels like it only happened three weeks ago and it shouldn’t be time for it yet should it? It makes me sick how organised people are – some have even done all their Christmas shopping. Not I!

It doesn’t help that all the marketing emails I get or lots of websites I read are all banging on about Christmas and I’m sure it gets worse every year.

Just incase you want a Christmas present idea for a little person – 5-12 years – who likes building things, the Lego City Helicopter Transporter that we reviewed might be just the ticket.

Now, could you please give me some gift ideas for a hard to buy dad and/or sisters? Better still just go and do it for me will ya?

Clothes clothes clothes

November 3, 2009 by Jen

Yes, my weakness is clothes. I love to buy them and I love to wear them and I love a bargain, and I love free clothes.

Do you have a wardrobe full of stuff but only wear 20% of it? Sound familiar?

I’m taking the Wardrobe Challenge and thought you might like to as well. Go and read about it over here.

Perhaps you’ll join me?

Making boring stuff fun

October 20, 2009 by Jen

This came across my radar yesterday via a Facebook friend. This video shows how to make stairs fun to walk up. How would you make stairs more interesting to climb? The title of the video and the image gives a clue.

See this and more on The Fun Theory website. I love it.