What’s in a name? Part two

When I started putting stuff online I didn’t want to do it as me. I was nervous about what people might say. Scared that people from my past would look me up and belittle my efforts. And over time I wanted to be other bloggers including Alison from Brocantehome, Gala Darling, Jennifer at Vegan lunchbox and numerous daily outfit posters. I’ve always believed in the ‘act as if’ rule where you fake it until you find your own way. Interestingly I never even tried to be Nubbytwiglet; I know my limits.

So like many people who want to hide or become someone else I used another name. Maybe not a nickname as it’s one I gave myself. Midorigreen came from a weekend away camping with a spoof military theme. My group of friends called ourselves the cocktail regiment and all adopted names with an alcohol theme. With my love of all things green and Japanese midorigreen seemed ideal.

It also seemed ideal when I looking for a name to hide behind online. Since then I’ve begun to think of midorigreen as my alter ego. She’s a stronger, more powerful version of me who has emerald green hair and can actually play bass guitar.

So what’s been the point of this post and part one? Well I’ve decided it’s time for a new blog. This blog was my space to grow out of the place I was in when I started it. I’ve always thought September was a good time for new starts. So from the start of September you’ll be able to find me at www.midorigreenuk.blogspot.com

Don’t expect radical changes in content. I’m still me, I’m still growing and changing (and that’s going to be going on for a lifetime – this is not a novel or a film). I will continue to be inspired by other bloggers. The only real change will be the title and that I’m not hiding in quite the same way anymore.

It’s that time again…

When I feel that my bloglist needs a bit of updating. I’ve got a habit of holding onto URLs for blogs that haven’t been updated for ages in the hopes that one day I’ll log on and there will be a new post. The thing is that there is no shortage of marvellous blogs on the Internet so there is no reason not to refresh and update my list regularly. I really must put a blogroll on my blog!

I’m biding farewell to Casey Paper Rock , another little blog, the healthy lunchbox , Flippantly vague musing of a quirky vegan, Made by Tess , and veganlunchcast .

New additions are Charade , Second hand shopper, empty-purse , aimee marie and sparkle and glitter. Most of these I’ve discovered via UK Lady Bloggers and am looking forward to meeting some of them in person at our meet up on 24th July.

In other news I’ve been busying refashioning, allotmenting and running the prettylittlehotel otherwise known as my home. Pictures soon – next week if not this one!

NaNoWriMo

As a child I wrote stories all the time or made up scenarios and got my toys to act them out. As teenager I wrote the opening pages of a hundred novels that never got any further. I wrote poetry full of teen angst. I wrote stories at school. I did a creative writing course during sixth form. I wrote an excellent short story for A Level English Language which scored an A and then…

Nothing. Maybe the odd poem here and there. Factual diary entries. Reports and press releases for work. No fiction though. Occasionally the idea for a story would occur to me and I’d think about it but I never even got as far as putting pen to paper.

This summer I began writing fiction again. It’s almost as if suddenly I’ve got things to write about. Like I opened up the stories floating around in the ether and they came running back to me. I don’t know if writing a blog has helped. Maybe. Maybe not.

I’ve got few things I’m working on. But those are going to be put aside during November. I have signed up for National Novel Writing Month. Between 1-30 November I will attempt to write a 50000 novel. Quantity is apparently more important than quality so I’m looking forward to seeing what forced creativity can do.

P.S. I’m really doing it so I can have one of those cute widgets on my blog letting everyone know how much I’ve churned out.

Things I Love Thursday

Wearing black and green – my two favourite colours. I feel so good in them, particularly if I made any of the garments myself!

Getting to spend the whole week writing and looking up authors for work.

Winter boots - Iwant more pairs

Sleeping really well

Getting my hair cut – it just got too long!

Inspiration from books, blogs, the radio, nature, friends etc

How gorgeous England looks – the different colours of leaves on the trees are amazing and they go together so well

Share the Tilt love over with Gala Darling

If you’re looking to waste some time in a vaguely constructive manner…

You could probably do worse than take a wander over to the National Archives website. One of my many interests is family history so I‘ve wandered around the site during my periodic bouts of activity in this area.

They recently released (declassified?) a load of files containing details of UFO sightings.

There’s an interesting mix of handwritten forms, typed letters and computer printouts. I quite like the idea that there is actually a form called ‘report of an unidentified flying object’ and that someone sat and tough about the information required. One of the sections asks about background regarding the observer. Soberness (or otherwise) seems to be frequently commented on. One admitted he had had a few drinks, while another was a ’stable and sober lady’. I’ve never associated drunkenness with hallucinating lights in the sky, but perhaps I’ve been missing with the wrong type of drinker?

Real snail mail and the meaning of doodles

One of the total joys of the Internet is silly sites.

I’m quite taken with Real snail mail and I just love that the organisation behind it is called Boredom Research. Your message gets sent to a server and then waits for a snail to crawl past and pick it up. Then the snail carries the message until it reaches the drop off point sending on its way. Not certain how concerned I should be about the welfare of the snails?

This morning I found my self doodling for the first time in ages (maybe because I wasn’t actually sitting at a computer?). I did a load of 3D type boxes which is not the type of doodle I usually do. I’m much more a hearts and flowers type. So I decided to look up the meaning online.

So I peeked at http://drawsketch.about.com/cs/tipsandideas/p/doodle_boxes.htm which says that I have an orderly mind and love of routine (just what Dear Heart was teasing me about this morning).

I also checked out http://www.nationaldoodleday.org.uk/about/meanings.html
I love that there is a national doodle day. The interpretation was all rather vague, but strangely comforting. Anyhow as the site says : 'Interpreting doodles is not an exact science, but speculating about their deeper significance is fascinating and can be rewarding if it gives insight into ourselves, our friends, family or people we work with.'

I suppose random internet surfing (while avoiding doing something unpleasant or boring) can be seen as an electronic version of doodling!

Perplexing things about the Internet

Why do blogs you love stop posting just as they’ve become indispensable to your day?

Why don’t radio stations put their frequency right in the middle of their homepage? I’ve had to resort to wikipedia to tune into radio one.

Where do people with very full virtual lives find the time? Or is the virtual life their main life?

Does anyone use blog directories?

Pictures that sometimes refuse to appear on web pages, yet on other occasions on the same PC they’re just fine.

Why do you discover amazing (yet unrelated to your search) sites when you’re searching for information you really need. Yet if you deliberately go searching for fabulous new things to add to your favourites list nothing exciting, novel or weird shows up…

Virtual or actual?

Dear Heart and I have a lot of CDs and DVDs. We even have some cassettes and the odd bit of vinyl (remember the messages that were sometimes scratched in run out groove?) lying around. I’m not certain we actually own a working cassette player and we certainly don’t have a record player. No matter how many storage boxes and cabinets we have our collection always seems to keep outgrowing the available space.

We don’t buy enormous amounts of CDs and I sometimes wonder if the storage issue was an underlying thing behind this.

One of the things that we really liked about iTunes was that the music was virtual. It lived on the computer and iPod and you didn’t need to worry about housing it. It also meant that you’d never open the case to find the CD missing and then have to wonder which of the hundreds of other cases it could be in. I wouldn’t have to spend time organising the cases in to alphabetical order only to have Dear Heart, in the best rock ’n’ roll style, show total disregard for this and put them back any where.

We’ve gleefully downloaded tunes that we recall from our youth and that we thought were gone forever (except in out memories). We’ve bought albums on the spur of the moment because we suddenly realised that we needed to hear them.

But I’ve realised that I miss album inlays. I like looking at the band photographs. Even better I like looking back at old inlays and remembering how cool I thought the band looked. Now I sometimes wonder why they thought it was a good idea to wear what they did and why I thought it was a good idea to copy them.

I like to read the bits where the band thanks everyone they ever met. You wonder what it was that ‘Matty at Anslow’s Donut Place’ did that got them a mention. And isn’t it every music fan's secret fantasy to have the inspiration for a song credited to them on an album inlay?

I like to read lyrics. Pulp’s inlays always contained the instruction “please do not read the lyrics while listening to the recordings”. Lyrics are an area that Dear Heart and I have endless discussions over. We both have a history of mishearing song lyrics. We also have debates over what the lyrics actually say. Our latest bout in this regards ‘In these arms’ by Bon Jovi. I’m certain that “the poet needs the pain”, Dear Heart thinks he “needs the pen”. Surely pain sounds so much better. We purchased this one from iTunes so we can’t check for certain.

This has lead to us deciding to purchase things by artists we really like on CD and purchase work by groups we are less interested in virtually. However I’ve now hit a little snag with this. Alice Cooper’s new album Along Came a Spider is something I would buy on CD but I think that the iTunes version has bonus tracks.

I suppose I’ll buy the iTunes version and hope that someone in the near future invents that downloadable inlay which goes beyond the cover artwork.

Do dead people watch you shower?

I must say it's not something that has ever worried me, but it clearly bothers enough people out there (and isn't there quite enough to worry about as it is?) for Harper Collins Australia to publish a book on it. And the author has a myspace page on the subject.

So let's talk about nicer shower related things like the new Lush emotibombs which are essentially bath bombs for the shower. I'm always sad that I can't make use of bath bombs because a) I only have a shower, b) baths are too time consuming, c) the water in a bath is never hot enough and d) baths are not very good for the environment. Hence I imagine that I will be making a trip to Lush this week to examine the goods in person.

Enjoy the sunshine today and remember not to grumble about being too hot!

You only find it when you stop looking

I ache all over today. Yesterday I did half an hour of rowing. It's much better exercise (and harder work) than I'd ever imagined. Despite the indecisive weather we had a fabulous time. A picnic on the river bank (supplied with style and Pimms by the divine Miss Mimi) followed up with half an hour actually on the river. Dear Heart and I took an oar each and attempted to make our way up and down the river without tipping our passenger overboard or hitting any other vessel. Lots of laughter.

Today I discovered this lovely link to an office where they have a had a decorated cubicle contest. It's so creative and fun. I guess it must be a good place to work. Isn't it totally marvellous what you find on the Internet when you are looking for other things altogether?

Last week as part of my ongoing quest to expand my boundaries/horizons I selected a couple of CDs pretty much at random from the 'A' section of the library. My choices(?) were Talkie-Walkie by Air and Move Along by The All-American Rejects. They were OK. I listened to both several times and did occasionally find myself singing along. I always though Air looked painfully cool and hence scary so I was pleased to find the album quite accessible and not too hip for me! I won't be adding either to my iPod just yet though. Off now to select something from B or Z.

What is the universe trying to tell me?

I'v got one of those weird things going on.Bascially it's where something that I normally would devote minimal attention to turns up and I keep coming across references to it.

So last year I was reading this frankly bizzare book called Faghag by Robert Rodi. The book goes on about The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand. Not being familiar with The Fountainhead, I looked it up on wikipedia, thought 'hmm' and moved onto my next read. But then it kept turning up in everything I read. Finally When there was a reference to it in a Meg Cabot novel (one of the Heather Wells series) I gave in and read it. I don't think it was life changing, although it was very interesting and I gave it to a couple of other people to read. I had to read it thought because I kept thinking it might be the universe trying to tell me something!

The other week I picked up Simon Doonan's book Beautiful People from the library shelves pretty much at random. I thought it was very funny indeed. It put me in the mind of Andrew Collins (Where did it all go right? and Heaven knows I'm miserable now, but not his third volume, That's me in the corner). Then I pick up the Sunday Times style magazine whch I read every week and he's got an article in there. And now Gala Darling has picked upon him in Carousel! So what is the universe trying to tell me this time?? Answers please.

Summer Naturals

I like to use vinegar and bicarbonate of soda for cleaning. However, despite the supposed trend towards natural products it's been getting increasingly difficult to find white vinegar. BoS is widely available but in tiny tubs.

Happy last year someone wrote to the Guardian Weekend magazine with this query and someone suggested a site called Summer Naturals. I ripped the page out, stuck to the front of fridge and promptly forgot all about it until recently.

I purchased 5 litres of vinegar and 2 kilos of BoS. It's been great to be able to fill up both a glass bottle and a spray with vinegar. I'm planning on filling up a pretty jar with BoS and I'll need to find a suitable container to store the rest in.

I'm also going to give making my own table spray a go using the recipe here. I'll report back her and let you know.

And remember life is not a rock video but it's not a dress rehearsal either.

Recent web wanderings

I thought I'd share with you a couple of websites I've wandered across recently.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/thread/ I'm not quite certain about this effort from the BBC. It looks interesting but I find the video format rather annoying. Still it's good to know that the BBC are taking an interest in such things. Guess this is a watch this space.

I've suggested this one http://www.mealopedia.com/ to friend who wants to shift (quite) a few pounds, isn't terribly experienced in the kitchen and is cooking for one. I'm disappointed by the lack of vegan options. However, I thin it could provide real inspiration via the random menu selection.

I've spent the last few days trying to find a cannelloni recipe that doesn't include spinach or mushrooms as Dear Heart isn't keen on either of them. I'm not terribly keen on simply pumping pasta tubes full of cream cheese (vegan or otherwise) so this has been a bit of struggle. I finally decided to just make a really thick tomato and soya mince sauce to stuff the tubes and to top it off with white sauce. I hope it comes out OK.

Twitter

I have signed up to Twitter and you can find me at http://twitter.com/midorigreen

I have mixed feelings about whether this was actually a good idea. On the one hand it's a like the best bit of Facebook with any annoying applications. However, I'm rather uncertain as too why anyone would actually be interested in odd statements confirming that I'm eating lunch or listening to music or have just seen someone in a pink hat.

Is this the shape of things to come? Will we all sit in our houses in years to come (apart from some kind of service class who will be actually doing stuff like growing food and removing waste) just updating our activities moment by moment?

I do hope that doesn't sound too depressive. I iced the cupcakes last night and consumed quite a bit of icing while trying to get the correct consistency. I don't usually eat much sugar so I think it might have disturbed my equilibrium today. Note to self: do not consume cupcakes (even if vegan and homemade) for breakfast.

A state of constant change

I tend to forget that the Internet is changing all the time. That just because something isn't on the Internet doesn't mean it will never be. And just because something isn't there doesn't mean it will never be.

It's only when I look through and update the bookmarks on my Google homepage that I truly realise the state of change. I've deleted a number of blogs from the list because either they have disappeared themselves (ton of bricks on blogger - not updated for at least 18 months), the blog has vanished (sewing my shadow on - this was a terrific blog where they author recorded her impact on the environment day by day. She now writes Life in Elgin which I find a little too local to be of interest), or they have moved to new blog (Primary consumer).

I think it's inevitable that bloggers go through ups and downs just like any one else. They will have times when they blog three times a day but there will be times when other stuff comes first. I must remember this and then I won't be disappointed when blogger vanish!

Happily Vegan lunchbox is back for a few posts, Gala Darling is settled in NY and posting daily and even Cooking Cute have managed a few posts. Brocantehome, Little Sips of Tea and Wardrobe refashion are daily visits I'm still hoping Kenny at Vegan lunchcast will pick up again.

I'm sad to see that Everything Vegan is up for sale. I always found something useful when ever I visited. I'm intrigued to see that when I search for dead blogs I have visited in the past the names have often been picked up elsewhere and they are alive under new owners. So I'm optimistic for the future - who knows what great blogs or websites are waiting just over the horizon?

Am I there yet?

As my regular readers know(and my stats suggest there must be some of you) I try to walk a couple times a week for my health (physical and mental). One morning a week I usually get off the bus part of the way to work and walk the rest of the way. However I have been mystified by the distance recorded on my pedometer and how this compares to the time it takes me to walk.

So I decided that I needed to know exactly how far it was. I did consider finding a paper map and measuring the route with a piece of string, but I decided to try the Internet first. This lead me to discover an amazing site http://www.mapmyrun.com/ There is also a .co.uk version of the site but it doesn't seem to have quite the scope of the .com for some reason.

Basicallly you draw a line showing the route of your run (and you can add points of interest) the site will then calculate all kind things including the distance. The run can be stored against your profile (useful should you decide to make use of the training log). You can also search for runs other people have entered.

As it turned out my pedometer is not measuring the distance correctly. What's more puzzling is that it appears to be doing fine on my Saturday walk. Still with this new site I won't need to worry too much about using the pedometer to calculate my distance. Which also means I won't be buying a new pedometer every couple of years.

On the subject of exercise I see I haven't yet mentioned the amazing Pilates class I'm taking on Monday lunchtimes. Prior to this my only experience with pilates was trying an video version of it with a friend aged around 13. We got bored after 3 minutes. So either I've matured, require less demanding exercise or it's just the amazing instructor because I'm really enjoying the classes and I feel fabulous after.

However I've had to jiggle my exercise routine around a bit as a result. It would appear the Pilates and Yoga use the same muscles. Hence Yoga on Tuesday lunchtimes was a teeny bit painful. So I 've shifted my morning walk to Tuesday and Yoga to Wednesday and that means I can sit in the park and eat my lunch today.

February here I come

Here’s my update of the changes for 2007 that I posted a few weeks back

Use what I have
I think I have conquered my glossy magazine addiction. Other good things to report are:
· I have not bought any clothes.
· have been taking lunch (and on occasion breakfast) to work.
· made my dad a birthday card and some fudge and popcorn to go with his birthday present.
· Sorted through the fabric and half finished sewing projects lurking in my study. Hemmed a skirt, finished turning an old pair of trousers into a skirt and made some spare curtain fabric into napkins.

EBay/ Freecycle at least one item per month
I listed 3 items on eBay in January. I sold one, didn’t sell one and the auction on the third is still open. I also sold my Mum on the joys of Freecycle.

Count my blessings
I so enjoy doing this one. It also ties in well with this amazing book on positive thinking I’ve been reading called Excuse me, your life is waiting. Written by Lynn Grabhorn, this is well worth a read, so get to your local library.

Be more mysterious
Not really sure how I’m doing on this one. I think it’s probably also about listening to other people more.

My to-do’s for February

Post at least one picture on this blog

Redesign my home page. It really needs re-doing and I've been learning a bit more about HTML at this marvellous site http://www.w3schools.com/

Post target update a the end of the month (unlike this month)

Those aren't many targets for February, but better to set small targets and exceed them than aim too high and lose heart.