Random Ramblings - October 2022

October is when fellow author, Teri Polen, holds her “Bad Moon Rising” event.  It’s a fun way to get to know about some possibly new to you paranormal or horror books you may want to read, as well as learn a bit about the authors who wrote them.  IT runs all month long, and is always a lot of fun.

 

I’ve participated in it eagerly for a few years now, and this year was no exception.  My interview went live on October 8th 2022.  Yes, I know I’m slow posting about it on here.  Anyway, if you missed it, and would like to read my answers to the questions I picked from the list of fun questions Teri comes up with for us to answer as part of the event, you can go here to check out my interview.

 

Don’t forget to check out the other authors’ posts while you’re there too, especially if you’re a fan of spooky reads.  Or pets… Pets ended up featured a lot in many of the interviews this year as it turned out.

 

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In other news: Lilie and Logan got groomed.

 

Technically they were groomed late, because they were officially meant to get groomed on September 29th.  But the groomer had an unavoidable family emergency that meant he had no choice but to reschedule, which meant they ended up getting groomed on October 1st instead.

 

Of course, we had to get photos of them freshly groomed, so here they are:

 

 

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There was a Harry Potter crafting call I went to recently.  They were making a monster book of monsters and a bowtruckle.  I didn’t bother making a monster book of monsters, but here’s the little purplish pipe cleaner bowtruckle I made:

 

 

They would usually have little twiggy fingers, some tiny leaves sticking out of the top, and tiny little black eyes.  But I didn't have anything to do those things with, so I just left mine as it is.

 

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  We were making toilet roll covers in one of the recent ACB Crafters crochet classes.  Well, we were meant to be making pumpkin ones, but since the only orange wool I have is what I don’t want to be touching until I’ve made the tea cosy for my witchy tea pot, I just grabbed a random ball, which turned out to be purple.  Then I decided to make it two different colours so grabbed another random ball, which turned out to be a different shade of purple.  Then I just didn’t add the extra bits that would make it look like a pumpkin (the stem and leaves).  The end result was this two tone purple toilet roll cover:

 

 

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I made this crochet ghost in another of the classes:

 

 

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 I also made this little crochet cat:

I know it's the wrong colour, but never mind.  I got bored of playing, "What colour is this?" so just went with the last ball I'd asked about when I got fed up of asking.  Anyway, it looks more like a turquoise pikachu (one of the Pokemon) than a cat, so I'm going to have to make a yellow one with a slightly zig-zag-shaped tail so I can actually accurately call it a crochet pikachu. LOL!

 

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Speaking of crochet: I’ve still got a long way to go with it, but I’m making progress with my crochet blanket.  It’s a big enough square now that you can actually call it a blanket in progress.  I don’t know if I’m going to make it with finishing it before Winter arrives, but at least if I don't it will keep me warm while I’m working on it.  LOL!

 

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I've also been working on a raglan crochet bag, which was one of the kits I needed sighted help with.  The actual crocheting is fine; I can do the crocheting myself no problem.  But the pattern is in print and I need someone to read it to me.  So Dad's been reading me the pattern while I work on it.

Raglan wool is not fun to work with.  It's like crocheting with straw.  I have no intention of ever voluntarily being anything that requires me to use it in the future.  The pattern is fine (even if it sounds like gibberish to Dad, who isn't familiar with crochet at all so has no idea what the terms mean) but the papery wool stuff is horrid to work with.  They included some hand cream with the kit, and I can easily see why.

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We've already identified some kits from the selection I got from the subscription services that Dad will be doing for me, or have to help me with a lot.  I wish I could do them all, but some of them just aren't practical for me to do with my lack of sight, and I'm likely to get frustrated with attempting it.  The main thing is to have the kits get put together really, so we've decided those he'll need to do himself he can do while I work on some other project alongside him, whether another of the kits or something else I might want to work on.

 

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I'm also working on some loom knitted socks.  I haven't gotten very far with them yet, but I only learned to loom knit at the start of the year, so I think I can be forgiven for being slow at it.  Besides, I've also been working on several other projects, as you can see from those I've shared in this post.

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A while back my Mam gave us her Kindle Fire 7 so we had a second one, since she wasn't really using it.  I've been using that one so that Kelly could have my Kindle Fire 8, since my one had a bigger screen.  But they had a deal on the newer version of the Kindle Fire 8 a few weeks ago (don't know if it's still on offer, but it was then) so I took the oppertunity to grab myself the newer version of the Kindle Fire 8, along with a sturdy purple case for it, so that Kelly can still have the old Kindle Fire 8 and Mam can have her Kindle Fire 7 back.  Plus, I got a brand new more current model of the Kindle Fire 8 out of the deal.  Both Kelly and Mam are happy with the arrangement, and I definitely am, so everybody wins.

 

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My iPhone needed upgrading too.  I was still using an iPhone 6S, which was starting to be an issue for updates, and the battery life wasn't as good as it once was any more.  My mobile contract had reached the point where I was entitled to a free upgrade months ago though, so I contacted my provider to arrange that.

I now have a purple iPhone 12.  It's a light purple, which both Dad and Kelly describe as being, "A lilac-ish colour."

Kelly has one too.  Not a purple one, but an iPhone 12.  His first smart phone.  His is black.

So far we're both loving our new phones.

 

 *~*

 

Mam and I did a bit of a Halloween photoshoot with the dogs.  This year we had a bat theme going on.

 

So, in the below photos, Lilie, Logan, and Izabel (Izabel is Mam's dog, for anyone who doesn't know) have a little purple charm on their collars that’s a bat on a bow, and a dog toy that’s a black and pink bat with orange feet in the shot with them.  The bat toy is one of a pair of them I brought for the dogs recently.  Lilie had already removed the squeaker from hers before we thought to use them as props for the photos, but Logan’s was still in good enough shape to use.  Anyway, here are the photos: