I’ve had a very, very busy week! The rota at work was totally upside down as Jamie had a dentist’s appointment, meaning I didn’t get a day off until Sunday, ugh. I hate when things break my routine! After work on Saturday I spent the evening at Dan’s sister Sara’s, for a belated birthday curry and drink. We ended up watching the Micheal McIntyre DVD – quite funny, but not amazing. I will admit though, I much prefer his stand up stuff to seeing him on panel shows. He winds me up something rotten on panel shows. It’s so exciting to see her son James standing up on his own, throwing stuff about and biting doors! He’s such a cutie, even when he’s pulling your hair and grabbing your jewellery/boobs/watch. I can’t believe he’s going to be one in a week, time really does fly!

On Sunday Dan & I went to the Frog & Parrot for dinner, before going to see Hayseed Dixie at the Plug. To quote Dan – “You haven’t lived until you’ve heard War Pigs played predominantly on banjo and mandolin!”. I wasn’t quite sure what to expect, given that I’d not heard much of their stuff before, but had heard lots about them. I was really glad we went, in spite of my feeling generally unwell most of the day, as it was a great night out.

For anyone who spotted the Rocky Horror Show reference in the title, give yourself a billion points and a cookie! I went to see the Rocky Horror Show on Monday at the Lyceum. When the Rocky Horror Show comes to town, the Rocky Horrors staff HAVE to go!

That photo is absolutely best viewed in original size, so click it through to my Flickr stream! We had a great night, obviously, and yes my boss IS the guy in the stockings. I didn’t have the maid’s apron & headpiece to start off with – I stole them off Khairul after the show. It was super short notice so I’d just gone for a general level of trampy goth, rather than an actual costume. Eve absolutely stole the show though (red wig, gold hat) – she’s one of those amazing fancy dress people who can get away with anything!

I finally uploaded the pictures of my birthday lilies  to Flickr. They’ve just about started to wilt and die now, which makes me sad. I’m still amused whenever Dan buys me flowers, the novelty still hasn’t worn off. Fairly early on in our relationship, before he unofficially-but-sort-of-officially moved into the flat at Broomhill, he came over one evening as he would quite often. I opened the door and found him standing there with these flowers, and I promptly burst into tears. Romantic gestures like that were kind of new to me, and I vaguely remember bawling something about not even having a vase to put them in. Smooth as anything, Dan had already noted this the last time he’d been over, and had bought me a purpley-pinky glass vase to put them in. He’s very good like that, and I’m very, very lucky to have him.

On that rather soppy note, I’m off! I have a busy evening of nerdery planned with Dan, Kim & Leon! Not entirely sure what nerdery will transpire, but that doesn’t matter.

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!