Argh, I have been so busy these last couple of weeks it’s unbelievable! It’s all a good kind of busy, thankfully, but I can’t say too much just yet. Let it be known that life is good and exciting right now – for me AND Dan.

Last weekend we went to Alton Towers (again!) and finally got a chance to ride Thi3teen. It was entirely worth the 80 minute queue – not as scary as all the promo hype had built it up to be, but still amazingly fun. I’d love to go again soon, but it’s already twice this year now! We are rollercoaster nerds though, heh. One day we’ll have the money to go on a crazy coaster holiday to the USA. One day…

Knitting has been put on hold for a bit – I have a sleeve to finish, then I can sew up the Blythe sweater I’ve been making. I’ve not done any crochet in a couple of weeks either, but I did make a set of hats with some tasty alpaca flavoured yarn. Last night was the first chance I’d had to take some pictures (ie. free time after work + nice weather = GO GO GO!) so Dan & I went to Graves Park for a little adventure.

I took literally dozens of pictures, and had a really hard time deciding which ones to upload. Click here to see the rest from this little excursion. Dan took the DSLR out with us, and I had a little play with it for the first time. I’m getting much more confident with it now, and I’m really pleased with how the pictures came out. This is one of the photos I took with the DSLR -

I’m in love with how dreamy it came out – I think it really works with the fuzzy little hats.

Right then. I suppose I’d better run away now, and get on with the million and one things I have to do. Hopefully it won’t be too long until my next update!

Well well well… What do we have here then? That’s right, it would appear to be a clean and sparkly, revamped version of glitterbat.net, how very exciting! Okay, so maybe it’s not all that exciting yet, but it will be. At least, it will be for me.

It’s been well over three years since I started using WordPress, and if I’m completely honest my blogging has been somewhat… fragmented. Up until now glitterbat.net had been my Blythe blog, with a little bit of urban vinyl and other toy related chatter thrown in for good measure. I flirted with a personal blog at /alive, and in all honesty can’t really remember what happened to it or why I stopped writing there. My Livejournal is pretty much dead now, I’ve not updated it in almost a year… and you know what? I miss blogging! So, in a bid to get back into this, I have decided to spring clean glitterbat.net, and revamp the site as my blog – after all, the little bits and pieces I have scattered all over the internet are bits and pieces of me. It feels so much better (and makes much more sense) to bring it all together in one place.

I think it would be best now to round up what’s been happening in my world. Since finishing my psychology degree I have gone full time at Rocky Horrors, and am ridiculously happy there – for the time being. My lovely colleague Kim has gone back to college, and I have taken her full time hours looking after the shop website, as well as all the day to day joys of working for Sheffield’s finest alternative retailer. I kid you not, I don’t think I could be more happy at work. The sensible part of my brain knows I can’t stay there forever, but for now being paid to fit corsets, have funny coloured hair, and be choked by Alice Cooper is a pretty sweet deal.

Dan & I have moved out of the student hovel, into a lovely flat in a converted Victorian detached house in Sheffield. It’s huge, beautiful, and cheap – and we have a cellar that’s perfect for home brewing! We share our home with the most adorable dwarf hamster, Earl Arashi von Shiverbug. He’s not the brightest hamster in the world, but I love him to pieces regardless.

I’ve been getting back into my dollies, now I have free time that is actually free time and not just time for sleeping between full time university, critical discourse analysis and working 32 hours a week. I may even be getting a new Blythe doll soon (it’s been a while, believe me!) in the form of Simply Guava! Look how beautiful she is!

She’s the one with the pink hair, and the sausage dog, just to clarify. I’m not struck on Mango at all really. A good friend of mine will be visiting Japan soon, and much to my delight will (hopefully!) be bringing a Guava home for me!

Fuelled in part by my plastic girls, and mainly due to my need to do something creative/useful with myself, I have taken up crochet. I’m still learning, but enjoying every last stitch immensely. It’s something I have been threatening to learn for a long time now, as my Mum is ridiculously good with a hook, as was her Grandma. Though my Nan can’t crochet, she used to knit loads, and has kindly given me all her old knitting needles so I can try to teach myself to knit as well. My most recent crochet success was the Blythe Bubble Dress I made, just by playing about with some Twilleys Silky cotton and a 2mm hook over a couple of evenings.

I think that’s just about covered most, if not all, of the important goings on for now. I’ll be tweaking bits and pieces on the site for a little while, so please excuse anything messy or broken for a little while!