Celebrating life from the inside out (original) (raw)

Things I should be doing during naptime:	[Jan. 22nd, 2011\|02:32 pm]Philosophical wool and oil of vitriol
[Tags\|foolishness, life, lists] [mood	doh]Updating my cvGetting the house tidyCleaning the bathroomPutting away the veg from the veg boxKnitting on Miles' blankie (progressing nicely, thank you, but I'm jonesing for new projects)Writing Gwen's thank you cards from Christmas (very late now, yes)Checking out our household insurance, and seeing whether we could make some savings.What am I doing instead? Posting on LJ, and migrating files from my very elderly scavanged laptop to my slightly less elderly one. There is method to my laziness, honest. It's all justified, cos THEN when everything is on Amur (newer laptop) I'll be able to do at least 2 of those tasks more easily. Really. It's rubbish when your procrastination doesn't even convince yourself. A very dear friend of mine confessed this week that she cleans when she's happy, sad, worried or triumphant, it's her go to meditative activity. She seemed to think she was confessing to a problem. I'm sort of envious, and very impressed. I do also think that she could come and work out some of that energy here, but that my house must give her the fits every time she comes round. I had a scary medical/financial moment this week, where through my own idiocy I wore my insulin pump into the swimming pool. This is not recommended in any of the literature that they give you when you get the pump. They are supposed to be "splash proof". I'm not sure complete immersion of a very battered pump fits under that category. It went into total electronic shutdown, proclaiming an error code which basically signalled I had dropped it into the pool. The lovely nurse at the hospital told me to call the company that supplies the pump, but NOT to say how it had come to fail. Great strategy, except for that fact that as soon as I mentioned error message 7, I was asked how it had got wet. Oops. The next question was: is this ON your household insurance? Ooops. Because: "items this expensive are almost never covered without being listed individually". OOOOOoooops.The answer is 2.5 grand. No, I don't have that to hand. Bugger bugger bugger. The lady on the phone conceded that she would talk to my rep, but it looked like I would have to pay. I spent the rest of the morning pretending that I wasn't REALLY REALLY angry with myself, and testing my blood sugar every 2 hours, and having shots of short acting insulin. Argh. Significantly later in the afternoon, I got a crackly phonecall from some sort of angel superhero geordie called Emma, who announced that I a loophole in the programmed senescence of the machines means they will send me the fancy bluetooth enabled remote control pump. I may have told Emma that I would bear a child for her, give her my kidney, or complete any task she required. I may also have cried. So now all is well. I know more about my insurance policy, and I'm slightly less likely to be an idiot in this particular area.So kids, check that your valuables are actually covered!
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Things I should be doing during naptime:

[Jan. 22nd, 2011|02:32 pm]Philosophical wool and oil of vitriol

[Tags**|foolishness, life, lists] [mood**

doh]Updating my cvGetting the house tidyCleaning the bathroomPutting away the veg from the veg boxKnitting on Miles' blankie (progressing nicely, thank you, but I'm jonesing for new projects)Writing Gwen's thank you cards from Christmas (very late now, yes)Checking out our household insurance, and seeing whether we could make some savings.What am I doing instead? Posting on LJ, and migrating files from my very elderly scavanged laptop to my slightly less elderly one. There is method to my laziness, honest. It's all justified, cos THEN when everything is on Amur (newer laptop) I'll be able to do at least 2 of those tasks more easily. Really. It's rubbish when your procrastination doesn't even convince yourself. A very dear friend of mine confessed this week that she cleans when she's happy, sad, worried or triumphant, it's her go to meditative activity. She seemed to think she was confessing to a problem. I'm sort of envious, and very impressed. I do also think that she could come and work out some of that energy here, but that my house must give her the fits every time she comes round. I had a scary medical/financial moment this week, where through my own idiocy I wore my insulin pump into the swimming pool. This is not recommended in any of the literature that they give you when you get the pump. They are supposed to be "splash proof". I'm not sure complete immersion of a very battered pump fits under that category. It went into total electronic shutdown, proclaiming an error code which basically signalled I had dropped it into the pool. The lovely nurse at the hospital told me to call the company that supplies the pump, but NOT to say how it had come to fail. Great strategy, except for that fact that as soon as I mentioned error message 7, I was asked how it had got wet. Oops. The next question was: is this ON your household insurance? Ooops. Because: "items this expensive are almost never covered without being listed individually". OOOOOoooops.The answer is 2.5 grand. No, I don't have that to hand. Bugger bugger bugger. The lady on the phone conceded that she would talk to my rep, but it looked like I would have to pay. I spent the rest of the morning pretending that I wasn't REALLY REALLY angry with myself, and testing my blood sugar every 2 hours, and having shots of short acting insulin. Argh. Significantly later in the afternoon, I got a crackly phonecall from some sort of angel superhero geordie called Emma, who announced that I a loophole in the programmed senescence of the machines means they will send me the fancy bluetooth enabled remote control pump. I may have told Emma that I would bear a child for her, give her my kidney, or complete any task she required. I may also have cried. So now all is well. I know more about my insurance policy, and I'm slightly less likely to be an idiot in this particular area.So kids, check that your valuables are actually covered!

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I must apologise in advance	[Jan. 7th, 2011\|08:42 pm]Philosophical wool and oil of vitriol
[Tags\|foolishness, internetry, internets will you forsake me?]I have just laughed so hard I couldn't breathe. This does mean both that I am about 9, and that I have a particularly low and foolish sense of humour. Don't listen to this around anyone who might be shocked by, um, anything... actually, maybe just don't listen to this in company at all... Don't say I didn't warn you. Definitely not safe for work, unless you work in a brothel, or maybe the porn mines. The lord of the books of the 55 arse-hymens of stone(yes, I know, honestly).
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I must apologise in advance

[Jan. 7th, 2011|08:42 pm]Philosophical wool and oil of vitriol

[**Tags**|foolishness, internetry, internets will you forsake me?]I have just laughed so hard I couldn't breathe. This does mean both that I am about 9, and that I have a particularly low and foolish sense of humour. Don't listen to this around anyone who might be shocked by, um, anything... actually, maybe just don't listen to this in company at all... Don't say I didn't warn you. Definitely not safe for work, unless you work in a brothel, or maybe the porn mines. The lord of the books of the 55 arse-hymens of stone(yes, I know, honestly).

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(no subject)	[Jan. 5th, 2011\|08:00 pm]Philosophical wool and oil of vitriol
[Tags\|house, me, stuff] [mood	terrified]I am postponing taking down the Christmas tree. This year we have been extremely pleased with the festive awesomeness of our small misshapen real treeinapot. I was doubtful it would survive its trip indoors, but it seems to be thriving, even while covered in enough lights to decorate a 7 foot tree. We have sheep, and frogs, and hideous coloured baubles, and some eggs, and bees and stars and ladybirds and just listing our ornaments makes me happy. See? I really don't want to take it down. I do know that I will love the space once it's come down and everything is back in the box though, so this week down they must come.I have always been terrible at keeping the house clean and tidy, but sharing our living space with a tiny whirlwind and all of her toys has made me really really love and want to fight for some tidy space. Not that I didn't appreciate and like the clean before, just it didn't matter so much. Now I fear that unless I tidy regularly the tidal wave of duplo, sticklebricks and soft toys might overwhelm us completely, and that tidying includes all the books, and maybe running the hoover round, because dear lord, the dust bunnies! They're mahoosive. I fear I may be gone some time, but I go to establish a tiny foothold in the mountain of our STUFF.PS Giant gingerbread octopi are extremely tasty, and you can also make them terrorise tiny gingerbread men in an amusing way.
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(no subject)

[Jan. 5th, 2011|08:00 pm]Philosophical wool and oil of vitriol

[Tags**|house, me, stuff] [mood**

terrified]I am postponing taking down the Christmas tree. This year we have been extremely pleased with the festive awesomeness of our small misshapen real treeinapot. I was doubtful it would survive its trip indoors, but it seems to be thriving, even while covered in enough lights to decorate a 7 foot tree. We have sheep, and frogs, and hideous coloured baubles, and some eggs, and bees and stars and ladybirds and just listing our ornaments makes me happy. See? I really don't want to take it down. I do know that I will love the space once it's come down and everything is back in the box though, so this week down they must come.I have always been terrible at keeping the house clean and tidy, but sharing our living space with a tiny whirlwind and all of her toys has made me really really love and want to fight for some tidy space. Not that I didn't appreciate and like the clean before, just it didn't matter so much. Now I fear that unless I tidy regularly the tidal wave of duplo, sticklebricks and soft toys might overwhelm us completely, and that tidying includes all the books, and maybe running the hoover round, because dear lord, the dust bunnies! They're mahoosive. I fear I may be gone some time, but I go to establish a tiny foothold in the mountain of our STUFF.PS Giant gingerbread octopi are extremely tasty, and you can also make them terrorise tiny gingerbread men in an amusing way.

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(no subject)	[Jan. 4th, 2011\|09:40 pm]Philosophical wool and oil of vitriol
[Tags\|family, nonsense]Happy New Year all! We celebrated the new year mainly by going to bed at about 9.30 and then sleeping through the night. I was woken by fireworks at midnight, but ignored them comprehensively!On the first though, we had joyous celebration, as I met my nephew for the first time. My brother and his wonderful wife had been in Lesotho to meet and adopt their gorgeous son. They managed to join him in time for his first birthday on Dec 1st, and we managed to join them for a few hours on their Heathrow layover on their return to Canada. Miles is adorable, and I don't think I've seen my brother this happy and relaxed for many years. The shock of being the parents of a one-year old instantly has been overall a positive experience for them. We were all very gleeful in the strange transitory world of an airport hotel, but we did bring a delicious lunch and champagne, which made it a better stopover than their previous one! Our drive from Heathrow to Harrogate was long but probably the best day of the year to do it... Poor Gwen managed pretty well, despite boredom. The week between Christmas and babymeeting was mainly made up of drinking champagne, playing with Duplo and wheeling Gwen around on her new trike, I may also have eaten some cake and had some champagne. It was lovely. Knitting was also quite important. I have discovered an email group which seems to be the epitome of geek knitting. The designer is inspired by all sorts of pleasingly geeky books, so there are loads of shawls named after Discworld characters, or after other fantasy and SF characters and worlds. It's like my happy place, which Mup describes as being populated with fanfic, porn and knitting... I'm not sure he's entirely correct, but those three things are probably components. He's left out the geekery, and the biscuits!Right, onwards, and I will try and post more and chat more, honest.
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(no subject)

[Jan. 4th, 2011|09:40 pm]Philosophical wool and oil of vitriol

[**Tags**|family, nonsense]Happy New Year all! We celebrated the new year mainly by going to bed at about 9.30 and then sleeping through the night. I was woken by fireworks at midnight, but ignored them comprehensively!On the first though, we had joyous celebration, as I met my nephew for the first time. My brother and his wonderful wife had been in Lesotho to meet and adopt their gorgeous son. They managed to join him in time for his first birthday on Dec 1st, and we managed to join them for a few hours on their Heathrow layover on their return to Canada. Miles is adorable, and I don't think I've seen my brother this happy and relaxed for many years. The shock of being the parents of a one-year old instantly has been overall a positive experience for them. We were all very gleeful in the strange transitory world of an airport hotel, but we did bring a delicious lunch and champagne, which made it a better stopover than their previous one! Our drive from Heathrow to Harrogate was long but probably the best day of the year to do it... Poor Gwen managed pretty well, despite boredom. The week between Christmas and babymeeting was mainly made up of drinking champagne, playing with Duplo and wheeling Gwen around on her new trike, I may also have eaten some cake and had some champagne. It was lovely. Knitting was also quite important. I have discovered an email group which seems to be the epitome of geek knitting. The designer is inspired by all sorts of pleasingly geeky books, so there are loads of shawls named after Discworld characters, or after other fantasy and SF characters and worlds. It's like my happy place, which Mup describes as being populated with fanfic, porn and knitting... I'm not sure he's entirely correct, but those three things are probably components. He's left out the geekery, and the biscuits!Right, onwards, and I will try and post more and chat more, honest.

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(no subject)	[Dec. 12th, 2010\|08:40 pm]Philosophical wool and oil of vitriol
[Tags\|craft, knitting, lists]Normally this time of year, I am either in knitting for Christmas hell, or participating in a UFO-off, otherwise known as finishing all of the things I haven't finished. The latter is what I should be doing, as there are at least 8 things on the needles that I do actually plan to finish at some stage. HOWEVER, I really really want to be knitting any number of new things too. I will list my unfinished things, in order of "wishing to finish them", and in the vain hope that it might galvanise me into some sort of effort. lovely silk hat for my friend's baby girl. Status? about half-way there, should finish tonight or tomorrowgorgeous lace blanket for my brother's son (more on him to follow). Status? Getting there, but those lace rows are getting longer and longer. It's getting more exciting too though, cos I love love love the pattern.silk baby socks. Status? stalled cos Gwen pulled the needles out, so I had to start again, but they shouldn't take long.Socks for me. Status? sitting in my wool cupboard looking at me hopefully every time I rummage around in there. I know I have to go back a few rows though, and it's discouraging!My mum's orange cardi. Status? was on this list last Christmas. I have progressed much further, but it's almost the most boring thing I have ever knit. Will be lovely when it's done though, really, if I can just keep saying that, maybe I'll finish it. Was aiming to finish for Christmas, but Miles' blanket got priority.seafoam stitch stole. Status? I started this to use up all the gorgeous sock yarns I had, before I actually knit socks. I go back to it every now and then, when I'm not knitting anything more urgent. Any bets on how many years it will take to finish? I'm also thinking it could do with smaller needles, and a more clever use of the wools...mmmmStu's jumper. Status? Need to pull out the sleeves again, and put them back on. Know what to do now, know how, just have to GET TO IT (notice that I'm talking about this, although I will never discuss it with anyone face to face, ever. I also don't think that it's boxiness will block out, and as for weaving in the ends? Perhaps at new years something will happenthe jumper that will never die. Status? Actually would quite like to finish this now. Can't remember whether I started this while I was still mistakenly knitting all my stockinette through the back loop. Will let you know next year once Stu's jumper is finished.Really want to knit about 10 other fancy lacy things, including a chunky lace cardi, and a chunky lace shrug, finally finding patterns that I can use my extra fat wool in.What are you knitters doing? Are you building insulation for your houses out of lovely wool?
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[Dec. 12th, 2010|08:40 pm]Philosophical wool and oil of vitriol

[**Tags**|craft, knitting, lists]Normally this time of year, I am either in knitting for Christmas hell, or participating in a UFO-off, otherwise known as finishing all of the things I haven't finished. The latter is what I should be doing, as there are at least 8 things on the needles that I do actually plan to finish at some stage. HOWEVER, I really really want to be knitting any number of new things too. I will list my unfinished things, in order of "wishing to finish them", and in the vain hope that it might galvanise me into some sort of effort. lovely silk hat for my friend's baby girl. Status? about half-way there, should finish tonight or tomorrowgorgeous lace blanket for my brother's son (more on him to follow). Status? Getting there, but those lace rows are getting longer and longer. It's getting more exciting too though, cos I love love love the pattern.silk baby socks. Status? stalled cos Gwen pulled the needles out, so I had to start again, but they shouldn't take long.Socks for me. Status? sitting in my wool cupboard looking at me hopefully every time I rummage around in there. I know I have to go back a few rows though, and it's discouraging!My mum's orange cardi. Status? was on this list last Christmas. I have progressed much further, but it's almost the most boring thing I have ever knit. Will be lovely when it's done though, really, if I can just keep saying that, maybe I'll finish it. Was aiming to finish for Christmas, but Miles' blanket got priority.seafoam stitch stole. Status? I started this to use up all the gorgeous sock yarns I had, before I actually knit socks. I go back to it every now and then, when I'm not knitting anything more urgent. Any bets on how many years it will take to finish? I'm also thinking it could do with smaller needles, and a more clever use of the wools...mmmmStu's jumper. Status? Need to pull out the sleeves again, and put them back on. Know what to do now, know how, just have to GET TO IT (notice that I'm talking about this, although I will never discuss it with anyone face to face, ever. I also don't think that it's boxiness will block out, and as for weaving in the ends? Perhaps at new years something will happenthe jumper that will never die. Status? Actually would quite like to finish this now. Can't remember whether I started this while I was still mistakenly knitting all my stockinette through the back loop. Will let you know next year once Stu's jumper is finished.Really want to knit about 10 other fancy lacy things, including a chunky lace cardi, and a chunky lace shrug, finally finding patterns that I can use my extra fat wool in.What are you knitters doing? Are you building insulation for your houses out of lovely wool?

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(no subject)	[Dec. 6th, 2010\|08:48 pm]Philosophical wool and oil of vitriol
[Tags\|back from the dead, food, foolishness, gwen]Easing back in gently. Due to "new austerity measures", alternately known as working part time in a recession, I have started planning menus. This is an effort to ONLY buy what is on the shopping list, yes ONLY (no half price wine Ms O, that means NO!). I think it probably has saved us some cash, but what it has definitely done is mean I am cooking loads more from my beloved cook books. Unlike certain other people I know, I don't list set meal per day of the week, but I do buy the ingredients for 7 main meals, and then we see how we go during the week. So far this week we've had pork ribs, Nigella's chorizo and chicken bake, and tomorrow is chilli. According to my tiny scribbled scrap of paper drawn over with cartoon cats this week also has pasta puttanesca, baking soda biscuits (plus whatever), fishcakes, and a chicken pilaf of some sort. We seem to be protein heavy this week, but I blame the cold. This has also driven me to search out tasty cooking blogs; has anyone got any recommendations? What is your go to meal for ease? What about to impress?Currently I think I do something tex-mexy for impressing and carbonara or poached eggs for ease. Could change though!Favourite of our discovered recipes are Nigel Slater's spicy meatballs (fnargh), and a Cranks recipe for cabbage with cream and mustard. Yum. In Gwen news today, she is very keen to learn morris dancing. She doesn't know it's called that, she just wants to do the dance where Mup and I sing morris type tunes and then mime the "Clllock" of the sticks knocking together. I was greeted this evening by her going "deeeddleedee CLOCK!". hmmmm, is this something social services will worry about? Are we creating a monster?
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(no subject)

[Dec. 6th, 2010|08:48 pm]Philosophical wool and oil of vitriol

[**Tags**|back from the dead, food, foolishness, gwen]Easing back in gently. Due to "new austerity measures", alternately known as working part time in a recession, I have started planning menus. This is an effort to ONLY buy what is on the shopping list, yes ONLY (no half price wine Ms O, that means NO!). I think it probably has saved us some cash, but what it has definitely done is mean I am cooking loads more from my beloved cook books. Unlike certain other people I know, I don't list set meal per day of the week, but I do buy the ingredients for 7 main meals, and then we see how we go during the week. So far this week we've had pork ribs, Nigella's chorizo and chicken bake, and tomorrow is chilli. According to my tiny scribbled scrap of paper drawn over with cartoon cats this week also has pasta puttanesca, baking soda biscuits (plus whatever), fishcakes, and a chicken pilaf of some sort. We seem to be protein heavy this week, but I blame the cold. This has also driven me to search out tasty cooking blogs; has anyone got any recommendations? What is your go to meal for ease? What about to impress?Currently I think I do something tex-mexy for impressing and carbonara or poached eggs for ease. Could change though!Favourite of our discovered recipes are Nigel Slater's spicy meatballs (fnargh), and a Cranks recipe for cabbage with cream and mustard. Yum. In Gwen news today, she is very keen to learn morris dancing. She doesn't know it's called that, she just wants to do the dance where Mup and I sing morris type tunes and then mime the "Clllock" of the sticks knocking together. I was greeted this evening by her going "deeeddleedee CLOCK!". hmmmm, is this something social services will worry about? Are we creating a monster?

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(no subject)	[Dec. 5th, 2010\|09:39 pm]Philosophical wool and oil of vitriol
[Tags\|back from the dead, internets have you forsaken me?, is this forreal] [mood	embarrassed]Is anybody still here? prods gently I miss this, I think, definitely the people who I used to read, and even a bit the writing. Is the world of eljay still extant? My working days are too busy to cheat and check at work, and my home days are so full of child and knitting that I forget about the computer. I would like to make a space for my online community again though. So, um, a tentative hello? N.
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(no subject)

[Dec. 5th, 2010|09:39 pm]Philosophical wool and oil of vitriol

[Tags**|back from the dead, internets have you forsaken me?, is this forreal] [mood**

embarrassed]Is anybody still here? *prods gently* I miss this, I think, definitely the people who I used to read, and even a bit the writing. Is the world of eljay still extant? My working days are too busy to cheat and check at work, and my home days are so full of child and knitting that I forget about the computer. I would like to make a space for my online community again though. So, um, a tentative hello? N.

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(no subject)	[Jun. 25th, 2010\|10:01 pm]Philosophical wool and oil of vitriol
[Tags\|folk, links, music]This would seem to be made of almost pure awesome: http://www.afolksongaday.com/It's the mighty Jon Boden recording and releasing traditional unaccompanied folk songs, one a day, for a year. He's good, and it's all about social history and singing in public. Highly recommended.
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(no subject)	[Jun. 19th, 2010\|09:01 pm]Philosophical wool and oil of vitriol
[Tags\|adventures, craft, questions]Anyone fancy coming to play at this on Saturday next week? Earth and Fire 2010It's at Rufford Abbey Country Park near Nottingham, and there's a park, and the lake, and a sculpture trail and all sorts of beautiful art. I'm planning to go with Gwen.
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(no subject)	[Jun. 15th, 2010\|01:53 pm]Philosophical wool and oil of vitriol
[Tags\|gwen, recipes]So, sourdough bread the first was a limited success. Good flavour, good texture and crumb, sadly it looked a bit like a large risen pancake. Hmmm, I think I may need to reconsider doing the secondary rise in a loaf tin, or possibly keeping the dough drier.Also, although chickenpox does lead to at least 2 tough days, it has been followed by another three days where I had to stay home, but had a very happy baby to do it with, so all has been well. Also, I didn't ACTUALLY stay home yesterday. We went to visit a friend, and had a wonderful silly day.I recommend ViraSoothe gel though. Oh yes. N.
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(no subject)

[Jun. 15th, 2010|01:53 pm]Philosophical wool and oil of vitriol

[**Tags**|gwen, recipes]So, sourdough bread the first was a limited success. Good flavour, good texture and crumb, sadly it looked a bit like a large risen pancake. Hmmm, I think I may need to reconsider doing the secondary rise in a loaf tin, or possibly keeping the dough drier.Also, although chickenpox does lead to at least 2 tough days, it has been followed by another three days where I had to stay home, but had a very happy baby to do it with, so all has been well. Also, I didn't ACTUALLY stay home yesterday. We went to visit a friend, and had a wonderful silly day.I recommend ViraSoothe gel though. Oh yes. N.

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