Cat Love :) (by sarah)

It was Valentines Day and the table was set for a lovely meal, the hoomins had all been working really hard on it, both the bigs and the small bigs or as Lithium liked to think of them... THE KITTENS.

The Kittens were fearsome lovely things and were fine as long as you made sure you only go strokes and NOT hugs. Kisses weren't too bad but there were a bit snotty and drooly in general so Lith felt they were best avoided.

Sparkly hearts and beads and glitter had taken over the house the last few days and now there was a wonderful food smell wafting from the kitchen. Lithium's tummy rubbled - she was a very hungry cat.

She looked up at the table, it was all set out with place mats and candles and what not. It looked so lovely and the hoomins always brought the food to the table so it made sense that the place to be was on the table. The only problem was... Lithium was not allowed on the table. She walked around the table three times trying to decide what to do and then checking that the hoomins were all busy she hoped up onto a chair and then onto the table.

And... promptly settled down!

When the hoomins came in they stopped and stared at Lithium, normally they shouted and told her to get off the table but this time they oohed and ahhed and the biggest of the Little Bigs stroked her and scritched behind her ears.

Lithium made sure she was right in the corner of the table - cats like corners, it was because it was very mathematical and cats like maths. She sat at a special angle cutting the corner into two triangles - it was lovely.

But she didn't remain that way for long, with everyone moving about the candle flame started to flutter, looking exactly like a small thing to be caught and if not eaten then chewed alot!

Ears pricked to attention she prepared to leap and take down her foe!

But the light went off and a small big distracted her and explained that the candle was hot - she would have burnt her paw! Horrified Lithium reached out her paw to the Hoomins for inspection - just incase she had accidently burnt it anyway.

The Littlest Little Big assured her it was ok, she even kissed her! Now Lithium was drooly and had to groom her fur clean by licking and licking, everyone knew that cat drool was hygienic unlike hoomin drool.

Then she settled down and with a bit of petting began to purr loudly.

But after a while Lithium got bored, there was still lots of lovely cooking smells but where was the food?

She began to mew pathetically but all that happened was the Little Bigs stroked her which was all very nice but not what she had in mind! FOOOOOOD!!! Hoomins could be so silly sometimes!

Complaining meoawly she got them to put the light on again - it had nothing to do with the lost spoon and bad eyesight of one of the Bigs.

It had been very Catmospheric with the lights out, Lithium had to agree and so they put the light out once more and they sat in the flickering candle lights.

Finally the food showed up, Lithium's nose twitched and she sniffed at it but there was no meat :(

Poor Lithium had forgotten that the Biggest Big, the one that went all the way up to the sky, he only ate grass like things. Hoomins were so strange. Feeling disappointed she meaowed and licked his hand.

But the the Medium Big or was she the Smallest of Big Bigs? Got up from the table and went and got a special tasty from the fridge which she put on Lithiums fish shaped plate. Lithium jumped off the table and rubbed herself all round Mummy's Puss-Big Hoomins feet and then chowed down on the lovely yummy that had been put out for her.

It was a lovely Valentines Day for everyone.

(This story is part of The Wiggly Pet Collection)

Cheese and Soap and Skillz (by sarah)

At the beginning of the year when we were setting down our New Year Resolutions, me and Alaric realised that we were still stuck with exactly the same stitches for kniting and crochet that we started with three years ago. All our projects have been variants on a theme.

We also wanted to move forward with the home stedding stuff, having added chickens and allotment since moving house. So here is my first cheese - it is a soft spreadable thing but I am very proud of it - I might also have accidently made a butter but that's cool too and is being used :)

The other skill we've been meaning to try has been soap making and we thought this would tie in really well with the yarn craft side of things. So the easiest way of learning the stitches is to knit or crochet squares but I have to be making something or else it wont happen - I've never been good at practice - learning yes but practice no!

Anyway we are basically knitting and crocheting flannels or face/wash cloths to go with the soaps. Here is my first crochet attempt - I think it is double with single as the edging - it is lumpy and bumpy and miss shappen but I am so happy - of course it took me like a month to create.

This is the current one - a single crochet - lets hope I can remember how to carry on with it now Mum's gone home - I really struggled with the double when she wasn't about.

I have also added on four different rag rug making techniques to the skillz I haz, recently, plus improvisational comedy and sketch writing so I am feeling quiet chuffed. I am also nerviously awaiting proof copies of a book which is more painful than I would have thought!

How I’m managing my life with emacs org-mode (by alaric)

It's no secret that I'm a busy person; often, when I decide to do something, a few years pass before I actually get to do it. So the only way I keep afloat is by the judicious use of computers to track my task lists. I rely on automatic systems to make sure I always know what I need to do today, and what are the most important things I need to do "sometime" that I can do right now. There's no way I could keep all that in my head without forgetting about things and letting people down, or feeling stressed because I'm juggling too much in my mind, or not being able to find the best thing to do when I have a free moment.

As I've mentioned before on here, I want a personal information management system based on predicate logic, so I can express complex relationships between things easily, and tell the system how to infer knowledge automatically. However, "build one of those" has yet to hit the top of my TODO list, so for now I'm using emacs' legendary org-mode. This lacks the rich semantic power of my proposed PIM, but it's already implemented and has a nice editing interface :-)

A few people have asked about what I've done, so here's my attempt to document it.

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The Extreme Reading Jean (by sarah)

So Jean's friend came up with an idea over Christmas and that was EXTREME READING which he did and took photos of to school. The school promptly nicked the idea or though he is helping coordinate so nicked isn't the right word!

Anyway Jean is now Extreme reading - the book of choice is How It Works written by the XKCD comic guy - this was one of her Christmas presents - it was supposed to be mine but she got excited about it when she saw Al wrapping it. It has now been read several times!

We took it to the climbing wall because extreme sports can always be improved by reading right? Cause everything is improved with reading... Not sure what we are going to do as a follow up though!

12 years… (by sarah)

So today I went to the Drs to see how the weight loss was going and stuff, I was convinced I had piled it on over Christmas I felt a lot stockier than before Christmas and to be honest I ate a lot reaching 1600 on alot of the days. This is about the 1400 stable and 1200 weight loss that I sorted with the nurse. 1600 is what I was eating before I went to the Drs, the amount I was eating and wondering why my weight was creeping up as everyone knows women have 2000 calories a day - unless you are me. I am short, had a boarderline thyroid for a decade or so and as it turns out have the lighter Asian skeleton like my dad (as well as the afro-carrabean spin from my mum) - add in the low mobility and I was screwed.

But between tablets and the discovery that I can't eat wheat and sticking to the low calorie counts to loose the excess weight, I have been loosing weight but I seriously ate some food over the holiday and then my birthday and so on.

So imagine my surprise and delight when I go and find I have lost weight, not much but I have lost weight still. The key being that due to pelvis being a lot more stable I have been out doing more stuff, doing running games with the cubs and even managing a 20 minute climb. And then they said my bloods were all good, all the tests were normal!!!

That is the first time that has been said to me, no not sures, or a bit high, or oooo that's not goods or it's boarderline or here's a tablet to help control this. So amazing!

And that is the first time in about 12 years possibly more.

One of the conversations I had with the Dr recently was that I don't know what energy level I am supposed to have - I've not had "me" energy since I was 18, I don't think 30+ normally have the same the energy as a teen so I have no idea if I am back to normal or not and to a certain extent I kind of don't care either as I am so much better than I have been for so long. I feel a little bit sad that that bit of life is kind of missing for me but at the same time I have the girls and though maybe I could have taken them to more things if I'd been weller I also know they love snuggly time watching films and colouring and stuff and I still took them to parks it was just some days I couldn't and when I did it was the outing for the day.

Interestingly I came home thinking about what I was doing last time it looked like I might get better with all the back treatments and exclusion diets at Chelsea and Westminster. That was like 12 years ago as was me trying to get a PhD place, the one I really really wanted was with the Open University, but it relied on Beagle2 landing and collecting data. It didn't happen, the beagle disappeared and today I watched the press-conference live of how they've found it sitting there on the surface of Mars. It made me smile, bitter sweet and poetically lovely.

Maybe when I have a cyborg body I can fly to Mars and say hi to it :)

Of course with hindsight I think it was for the best for me, I became so very sick and my friend who got the PhD funding did far more with the chance than I think I would have because fundamentally I am a shyer person and just not as good at Chemistry and form filling!

And anyway I am not sure I wouldn't be in a similar place to were I am now anyway.

2015 is kind of gearing up to be an amazing year.