Lou-quacious

It's carnival week again, and I'm excited. Whee! I know it's daft, but it does make me feel like I'm little again and it's the summer holidays. *g* Not only that, but the Olympics starts technically-today (I'm going to bed any minute, really), which for me mainly means the Ravelympics. Which is like its own Olympic Games, only for knitting! No, really. I'm going to be having lots of fun with it anyway, and it might make me actually sit and watch some of the actual Games on telly if I have something to occupy myself with knitting-wise at the same time.

Since multiple affiliations are allowed, I've signed up to be in Team TARDIS (duh), Team Dog, Chicken and Aardvark (AKA the Brighton & Hove (and surrounding E Sx) Safari Knitters), and Team Posh Knitters. The 'Events' I'm doing are WIP Wrestling (because my WIPs need wrestling into submission very very badly!) plus the Handspun Heptathlon for Team DCA (yes, I've started spindle spinning, but no, I don't have to do seven sub-events, it's just a catchy title) and the Amigurumi-n-Toys Toss for Team TARDIS during which I'm going to actually try to crochet an Adipose. Well, it's sposed to be a bit of a challenge, you see, so I thought trying two small projects in crafts that I'm a novice at would give me that and also give me a break from wrestling the WIPs so that doesn't get to feel like a chore. There's method in my madness! This time ;-)

Getting back to the carnival, there's been various events going on all week and I've been down to a couple. I got well and truly drenched last Sunday, going down to the gig in the Old Town - elen_ancalima was visiting, so I was showing her the typical British summer seaside weekend ;-) Which of course includes sudden torrential rain! Anyway, I'm hoping to go down to a knitting exhibition thingy tomorrow afternoon, and of course to the main Carnival parade itself on Saturday.

Anyway, I think I'll wrap this up now and get to bed. Zzzz. With a bit of luck, it should crosspost to LJ*. However, I have now decided to change how this site works, so alterations to the look (as well as 'my end' of things) will be coming.... er.... some time this year? I have planning to do first! Night all.

* HAI LJ! Looks like that worked, then. Hoorah :-) So FYI that last para about the changes to "this" site actually apply to loopylou.co.uk.

1. I seem to have a thing for lists recently.  I think it's all the web coding I've been doing.


2. I have a few people to wish a very Happy Birthday to - some are a little late, sorry!  So, elen_ancalima and megolas, I hope you had lovely ones, and sbisson, I hope yours is similarly fab.


3. Web server still down.  Or rather, new server not up and running yet.  Gaaargh.  Naturally, I now really want to do all sorts of things that I need that server to be up for.  Like post to my knitting blog, and read my blogroll.  Why didn't I back that up into a feedreader?  D'oh!


4. I made my friend C some fingerless mitts for early-xmas.  Apparently he liked them lots, because today I received a really nice webcam in return!!!  Bweeeeeee! :-D  I'm now all set up for video chatting on Skype - don't know yet if I can v-chat through Trillian, which is what I use for AIM/ICQ/MSN/Yahoo chattage.  But if anyone wants to see my ugly mug and have a voice-natter (the camera has a built in mic), now you can.


5. Must get on with the xmas knitting.  I'm getting there, but I'm not done yet!  Wish me luck...


6. And talking of xmas, thanks to those of you who've sent me cards.  *hugs*  I... haven't sent any out this year.  Thing is, I'm now on a really tight budget, and I can't actually afford the cards and stamps.  Sad but true!  Therefore, it's e-cards this year.  Just as soon as I've made the graphics. *slacker*


7. The knuckle joint of my left index finger hurrrrrts.  Probably from the incessant knitting, unless I squashed it when I nearly dropped the printer.  But I think it hurt before that.  I reckon I need a splint.  Or the wah-mbulance. *nod*

And now, have a meme:
I know very little about some of the people on my friends list. Some people I know very well. I read your journals, or we have something else in common and we chat occasionally. Some of you I hardly know at all. Some of you I don't know at all because I didn't friend you back (yet?). Perhaps you haven't been around for long, perhaps you lurk, for whatever reason. But you friended me and I thank you for your interest in my words.

But here's a thought: why not take this opportunity to tell me a little something about yourself. Any old thing at all. Just so the next time I see your name I can say: 'Ah, there's so and so...'

I'd love it if every single person who friended me would do this. Yes, even you people who I know really well. Then post this in your own journal and see what gems of knowledge appear.

It's a week til the Blogathon, and so I feel that I can now unashamedly BEG for sponsors now.  Go on, please please please please pretty please with sugar (or hot and nummy fandom character/pairing of your choice) on top?


It doesn't have to be much, but every little counts.  If everyone on my flist sponsored me $5 (a mere £2.50), that would work out to quite a hefty amount!

In case you missed the last post in which in rambled about this, the blogathon is a 24-hour sponsored blogging event, in which participants make a post at least every 30 minutes over the 24 hour period.  It's taking place from 6am PST (2pm GMT) Saturday 28th July - 6am PST Sunday 29th.  Everyone chooses their own charity, and then tries to get as many sponsorship pledges as possible.

If you choose to sponsor me, all you do now is sign up at the Blogathon site and enter the amount that you're willing to sponsor me for (a 'pledge').  You don't pay anything until after the event, when you'll get an email to let you know whether I completed it, and telling you were to donate your pledged amount.  Just like a normal sponsored event, only online.  And instead of me collecting the money from you, you pay it directly to the charity via their online donation page.

I'm blogging for MDF: The Bipolar Organisation.  ( This is their mission statement from their site )

I chose them because as you know, I have bipolar disorder myself and I really support this organisation and their goals.  In short, they're pretty awesome, and they deserve all the donations they can get! :-)

As for what I'll be doing for the 'thon, well, I even have a theme!  I'm not actually going to be doing it on this LJ, but on my blog (although if you want to keep track of my blogathoning via LJ, there's a feed for that blog at loopylou_co_uk), and I'm going to be knitting the 24 hours away.  And guess what?  If you sponsor me £5 / $10 or more, I'll knit something for you to say thanks.  Possibly not during the actual 'thon - it depends on what I feel like doing at the time, and I'm not going to just knit you something totally random... you will get some say in the matter ;-)  I'll post on the blog in the next few days about the kind of things I'm thinking of.

So yes.  Please sponsor me?  It's for a worthy cause!

Hmm... so, the other day I finally got around to signing up for a Flickr account.  Not so I can have an online photo album, because I already have one of those at my personal site, but pretty much so that I can post pics directly from my camera phone to this LJ.  Therefore, once I'd done all the setting up and so on, I sent a test picture.  And, nope.  No sign of it yet either on Flickr (I assume it should also show in my album there?) or as a post here.

Question is, is it a Flickr thing, or is it something with my O2 emailing do-whatsit?  Because the last time I tried emailing a pic from my phone to my own usual email address, it took days to arrive.  Never had done before, but maybe.... they hate me because I have an old-ish phone?  Or something?  Or don't pay them much?

I spose I could try mailing a pic directly to Flickr.  I'm sure I had the right email address, though maybe I should double check it again just in case.  Anybody got any other ideas about what it could be, or what I might need to do?

Just in case anybody's interested, I've started using my old blog again.  Mainly it's going to serve as my knitting blog; there might also be some stuff about being bipolar and how knitting has been useful there - less immediate and personal bipolar-related entries than this journal gets, if you see what I mean.  More along the lines of poncey essays ;-)  But probably not much of that.  As well as all the knitty stuff, I'm hoping to get some book reviews (knitting related and fiction reading) and music reviews done.  Perhaps some podcast ones.  We shall see.

I'll probably continue to mention knitting - certainly anything fandom related - from time to time here, but if you want details and, ooo, pictures, the blog is the place to be.  And just in case you can't be arsed to make that extra click (why should you?), there's an LJ feed so you can keep an eye on it from your flist here: loopylou_co_uk.  Isn't that handy?

Wow, I've suddenly come over dead tired.  Like, one step from faceplanting into the keyboard tired.  Probably because I've actually been exercising my brain for a lot of the day - very unlike me!  In fact, exercise of any kind is pretty unlike me, and I've had an oddly busy week, so maybe that's it.

So let's see... I had my eye test on Monday, and got a few things done at the shops.  I've been doing various bits around the flat all week.  Tuesday... I'm sure I did something, but all I can remember right now is that I finished the front of the little jumper I'm knitting - now I have some dreaded sewing together to do before I can finish up the neckband and try to assemble it into something like a proper garment.  Hah!  Wednesday, I had an appointment with the Jobseekers "outreach" people at C. House (which is all of 30 seconds walk from my flat, so no excuses there!  Unlike the whole five minute walk to H. House, oh noes) because I've been on Incapacity benefit for bloody ages, and something about a policy change, and anyway it's voluntary for me to go and see them which it wouldn't be if I'd gone onto Incap Ben more recently.  Whatever.  The point is, they were basically checking up to see how I was doing, but not putting any pressure on.  And in fact the lady I saw has offered to make enquiries for me about local choirs, and also suggested I could do one of the free courses they offer.  Now, most of them I'm kind of more qualified to teach (future volunteer work, maybe?), but there are a couple - creative writing and digital photography - that look interesting.

Anyway, the rest of Wednesday I was stuck indoors (because I would have been so outdoorsy otherwise *snerk*) while the window fitters came and replaced some of the not-quite-right windows.  At last, I have obscured glass in the huge bathroom window.  Yay!  Then in the evening, I went to "yogalates" (bit of yoga, bit of pilates, apparently) with Ally and Clara.  Which was really good (and yes, alright, I do sometimes do exercise - don't tell anyone!), only it turned out that my gym membership, being a concessionary one, doesn't cover classes in the evenings.  D'oh!  So it cost me £4.60 - I think I shall go to the Saturday morning Pilates class instead, then, which is free on my card.

Thursday morning was taken up with the window fitters finishing the windows.  Then Mum was here Thursday afternoon and we were doing flat-sorting things.  And then today, Ally came over.  Which was lots of fun.  We made cream of mushroom soup (soooooooooooo yummy, and even healthy into the bargain since it's a low fat recipe), and worked out a load of stuff for her website.  The upshot of it is, she's going to have a separate site altogether for her online jewellery shop, because she can sell worldwide from that, and keep her existing site as more of a portfolio display site.  Gorgeous as her mirrors and glass panels are, they're not exactly easy to pop in the post, so that side of the business is necessarily more local and can be based around her physical shop with the website as a backup marketing tool.

... I think my 'work' head came back.  Huh.  I almost sounded like I know what I'm talking about just then, and that's just weird.

But I'm still dead tired.  Which isn't all that surprising, because what with being distracted by the cat and my Mum phoning (oh, did I mention?  My broadband is back!  Wooohooooo!), it's taken me about two hours to write this, and now it's definitely bed time.  Zzzzzzzzz!