Knitting 2014 (by sarah)

So last year I knitted 2 bears, most of a creeper cuddly, heart coasters, tinsel, holly and the such like, I also made a pattern for my bucky ball but I haven't published it anywhere I as want to test it first - if anyone is interested let me know please

I tend to put the knitting stuff up at Ravelry.com I am 5affy on there if anyone wants to friend me I do tend to be a bit sporadic with it though. I want to catch up and put all my knitting challenges on Salaric Craft but am so far behind now that is a major undertaking so we shall see.

Actual knitting wise I want to finish stuff off - there is the berry bear blanket which is for Mary and was supposed to be for her birthday - if I push the boat out maybe I might finish it in time!

I'm still knitting Jeany's Christmas present - a creeper scarf so I want to finish that first along with her creeper stuff toy which pretty much needs sewing and stuffing!

There is a science knit concept I am working on as part of my Science Communication course right now which is having to take priority. But if I can pull it off as an actual working thing is going to be awesome!

I'll be doing some quick knits like roses etc... to pop on etsy. The trouble is I get Wednesday whilst Mary eats her lunch after mini mice climbing to knit and maybe Thursday during film night plus odd bits here and there but it is all moving forward nicely and I learnt two new technics over Christmas.

Alaric is still clicking away at my tea cosy And of course he is in charge of making the pockets for the berry bear blanket - but I think he has the sewing bug as I keep finding the sewing machine out and things fixed!

Jeany still loves finger knitting - so much so that I have given up on the concept of buying tinsel every again! She has just started with a knitting nancy peg doll so we shall see how that goes - she was rather taken with a rainbow or crazy loom thing she saw at a friends party over Christmas so I think she maybe saving her pennies for that at the moment.

I am also still working on my upcyle knitting loom to make upcyled shopping bags - we shall see

Doh Mummy! (by sarah)

Mary will be three at the end of this month, she tells me off in Lojban if I knock something over etc... she counts and she said her first lojban sentence over the Christmas period.

She has tantrums the like we've never seen with Jean and she screams, she also smiles and is cheeky cute and caring when she is thinking. She loves to look after baby things, dolls, teddies, cats (not entirely sure what the cats make of being tucked in and given toy kittens as their teddies but they let her do it).

She loves climbing sooo much and the little bears I knit her. She is shy of the other children but that is getting better and is part of the reason for going. She's moved up a section at nursery and is ahead an age group for most of their assessments. She is no longer behind on the social ones and has worked out that only certain people understand lojban etc...

She is currently learning colours - she says the correct one in lojban but not in English, she will hold up colouring pencils to me to check the colour and in general does this for objects she doesn't knwo. She is actively learning, seeking and exploring. She doesn't have Jean's patients but has fine motor skills and writes 'snails' as she calls them - these are spirals on paper.

Mary immitates sound really well, from chickens to engines to music, she sings and you know which song it is and she loves the hammond organ. She has opinions on what is good music and at the moment it is sadly Barbie Girl which she asks for and will dance too for hours, on loop.

Potty training... hmmmm somedays she is great others she is just too busy and doesn't want too know. She is naughty, pushing her boundaries and grinning whilst doing so - a contrast to Jeany who tends to accidently do things wrong. Mary says please and thankyou! Sometimes she gets them round the wrong way she has never said ta! Though she knows what it means.

She loves Gromit and Aardman animation in general, though what she really loves is She-Ra! And she holds her sword aloft etc... She will sing the theme tunes to things including the music of Harry Potter etc... enough that other people recognise it.

She is cuddly and clingy and full of character. And it doesn't matter where I had the plough dough - how high or low - she will get it and take it into the rooms with carpet!

Plans for the Year (by sarah)

Main one for me is just to get my college stuff over and done with, I think if I was to do anymore I'd look at doing a module a year or doing it full time. Seems a contradiction but it's the way I work best - I have to either be immersed in it or have it so that I can potter along with it.

Apart from that I am really nagging Alaric to try and get that novel off of my old laptop - yes the same novel I was going to get sorted last year - yes that one - now hush.

There is the Monster Blogs 5 yr thing and all that jazz! Hoping to get more things on Etsy and do more of the Bristol Markets.

Mainly though I want to actually meet up with and write to my friends again. I feel I've been really bad at this especially the last few years.

House wise there is the leaks and things to get fixed which I am hoping is not going to be a huge headache to be honest but know probably is.

Five Years of Monster Blogs (by sarah)

This year the monster blogs are 5 yrs old on average So I thought I'd do a little celebration. Mainly I will be trying to finish various projects off.

This month I am starting with the poetry Muse Monster game which I hope to have on sale properly by the end of the month.

I'll also happily write flash fictions for people if you leave a character or some words or even a story starter in the comment field below

2014 – New Year New Fear (by sarah)

The festive period has been trying - it has by no means been the worst one we've ever had but there are catastrophic Christmas's and then there are just bad Christmas's - this is the latter.

Lot's of medium and small things have been going wrong - washing machines breaking resulting in 3 weeks of hand washing, a pain flare up for me, boiler breaking so not hot water or heating for almost two weeks, vomiting kids (at various points and for various reasons), tiles flying off the roof, Al getting sinusitis badly resulting in headaches were he couldn't look at writing etc..., a misunderstanding meaning the work I'd done for college was all wrong and has to be redone, spam attack on blog breaking my emails so I then don't see the requests for the changes etc..., kitten is being duffed up outside and has over cleaned her fur as it itched in healing meaning she has bauld patches, garden water logged so emergency stuff has to be done for Chickens, workshop roof leaking (again), there is more but it's pretty trivial and is only an issue as it's all happening together :/

But you know we have insurance for the roof and insurance for the boiler and so it is being sorted and we where given cash for Christmas by a few relatives so fixing things for the chickens was too bad.

For every thing that has gone wrong wonderful things have happened - christmas jumpers appeared in the post, I actually managed to go and attempt climbing (huge huge break through for the pelvis especially as it was my shoulder that stopped the climbing and not the pelvis!), Jean and me are really enjoying going to Games Workshop together to paint her little hobbit figures, I met up with a dear friend I haven't seen in a long long time, I have a beautiful little niece, friends brought round hand knits they had made the girls and chocolate and stuff, I sold poetry books at a level I wasn't expecting, I won an advent competition and massage oils arrived in the post from the local college and so on.

So I am really stressed at the moment and really fearful that things will get worse but at the same time I feel resigned and also on finding our dinning room roof is leaking this morning - to cries of 'It raining in my house! Oh dear broken!' from Mary - I am awaiting the next good thing and yes I am writing this instead of finishing of my course work but I can't do anymore until my emails are fixed and that is chugging away in the background on my laptop so for now I am off to eat some cheese and biscuits and discuss plans for the year with Alaric.

Happy New Year everybody.