Lou-quacious

For nearly 18 months now, my left shoulder has been “ouchy”.  By which I mean, there are stabbity pains in the joint, the muscles down my upper arm have gradually got more and more tense, and putting my arm back to put on a coat or whatever sometimes just didn’t really work.  In summary: ow.

But hooray, I’ve finally worked my way up the waiting list and a couple of weeks ago I saw the physiotherapist at the hospital for my first appt.  And guess what?  My posture is completely borked, and my back is as tight as an exceedingly tight thing, which has caused and/or exacerbated inflammation of my shoulder ligaments(? tendons? I forget).  Then blah blah tl:dr subsequent tensing of the arm muscles and it’s all been a whole catch-22.

So, I’ve got exercises to do, which I think are definitely helping, but the one thing that she said also needed to be sorted out asap was my computer desk ergonomics.  I spend an awful lot of time sitting here, and I have known it needed sorting out: there was a shelf for the monitors which put them too high even if I had my chair up as far as possible, which in its turn meant that my short little legs were dangling in the air.  Plus, I was smooshed up against the wall on my left side and, it turns out, had my mouse too far over to the right!  Whoops.

I have actually been looking for a new desk for a while now, but can’t really afford one just yet.  However, my brother came up with a couple of excellent ideas: Mum is redecorating his old bedroom, complete with new furniture which meant that his old desk was going spare.  So I’ll be getting that once we can get it over here.  And then he asked if I could detach the monitor shelf.  That hadn’t even occurred to me.  Yes, I could.  So I did.  Then I moved the printer (which was on the right of the desk), pulled the desk away from the wall, and put the printer in the resulting space there instead.

It’s not the perfect solution: there’s a middle shelf bracket that means I can’t put the monitors right to the back of the main desk, but since the keyboard is on a pull-out tray, I’m still a good distance back.

I’m left with less workspace for now, but only until I get the second desk.  And I’ve been able to put my chair back down to a me-sized height.  This means that I’m finally, for the first time in years (!) sitting properly at my desk.  So much better!

I think it also helps that a bloke I know is doing a course in sports massage at the college, and I get to be one of his guinea pigs.  Doing the physio exercises unsurprisingly stretched things in my back that’d been determinedly tense for ages, so it was fab having that ironed back out again.  I have two more sessions with him to go, too.  :-)

Mirrored from Enchilada Sunrise.

I know, I know.  It’s been ages.  Again.  I won’t try to update on everything that I’ve been up to, so here are five things: three good, one sad, and one dusty.

The Good.

1.  I have a new blog!  What on earth for, when I hardly ever post in this one*, you may ask?  Well, this one has kind of got too unwieldy for me, so I’m taking out the ‘Review’ categories that I never use, and narrowing the focus of this blog to be… well, what I actually do post about, which is knitting and bipolar, for the most part.  So no real changes, except to how I think about it.  Never mind, it helps in my weird brain.  So the new blog, Frozensoul.net, is my review blog.  So far it’s all book reviews, but it’s for whatever I feel like reviewing.  TV, movies, music, podcasts, gigs, events, stuuuuuff.  I’ll probably go back to posting general life stuff and fandom rambling at Dreamwidth / Livejournal, as well.  There may be some crossover there, though.

2.  I’m going to be an auntie!  My brother and sister-in-law are expecting a little girl this summer.  Yes, I am knitting.  Mwahahaha!

3.  The doctor (psychiatrist) reckons I’m well enough to start back to work gradually!  So I’m going to be looking into the Permitted Work scheme, and speaking to the Bridge-builders worker at Together, as she has info about all of that.  So far, the vague plan is to get back to freelance web design part time, and see how that goes.  Fingers crossed!

The Sad.

My lovely fuzzy Xandermog has moved on to hog the big sofa in the sky.  He was really ill last year, and he never completely got back to full health, although he was happy and active and pesty up until he got ill again last month.  It was all very quick, and he went peacefully – lovely Adam the Vet did the necessary while I was stroking Xander.  It’s very strange and quiet to be mogless, even though he wasn’t a noisy cat most of the time.  But I’d had him for over 11 years, so I spose I was used to his presence.  I shall probably find a new furry dictator to arrange my life fairly soon.

The Dusty.

I’ve been spring-cleaning.  Or really, I spose it’s getting on towards summer cleaning by now!  It’s an ongoing project.  My allergies aren’t impressed, but I’m sure they’ll be happier with the final result.  I’ve sorted out a whole load of things that I was hanging on to for no good reason – hairbands and scrunchies when I’ve had my hair short for over a year with no intention of growing it again, and so on.  Old make-up, random bits of paper and fabric… so much clutter!  I seem to have all manner of things that I’ve stashed away “just in case” they might come in handy some mythical day.  But no!  I need to get rid so that I can do the re-organisation of my living room that I’ve been planning for months.  I will get it done!

*ETA - "this one" meaning Enchilada Sunrise, not DW.  Oh the confusion of crossposting!!

Mirrored from Enchilada Sunrise.

I have no time to make a the post I’d planned tonight (knitting & spinning related)… although it serves me right for leaving it so late.  I’d planned to have a nice bath, then post and be off to bed.  But no, fate intervened.  Or my Downstairs Neighbour did, by hitting the fire alarm for the second night in a row and setting it off (then hiding in his flat until the rest of us banged repeatedly on his door).  Luckily I was just out of the bath and decent again!  However, now I’ve had to get out of my PJs and dressed again because in all the drama, our neighbour from the garden flat is locked out – he was asleep when the alarm went off, and left his keys in the inside of his front door.  Downstairs Neighbour didn’t hit the alarm on purpose, btw – he’d probably had a few and made a mistake.  But there’s a £40 call out charge to get the thing fixed.  Luckily we had a glass panel so could do it ourselves this time, but… argh!  I really hope he doesn’t do it again.  But now I must get back downstairs and see what progress has been made Garden Flat Neighbour getting back into his place…

[Half an hour passes]

… Yay, go us!  Thanks to a group effort, Garden Flat Neighbour is now back indoors.  As are we all, warm and dry out of the pouring rain.  It took my ladder, Upstairs Neighbour’s Son#1 (to wriggle through GFNs bathroom window), and GFNs torchlight and assistance in getting Son#1 over the garden wall.  And now I’m going to dry my hair, and get myself to bed.

Mirrored from Enchilada Sunrise.

I keep meaning to post, but then I forget. Um. But I am still mostly here, and reading my flist a fair bit of the time.  I'm just sometimes doing other things, like knitting and spinning (moar below) and reading.  Since I've mainly been reading, here's that book meme from a million years ago in interbets-tiem:

The BBC allegedly believes most people will have only read 6 of the 100 books here:
How do your reading habits stack up? Bold those books you've read in their entirety, italicize the ones you started but didn't finish
(I shall also add a little "m" to the ones I've read multiple times)

( Booooooooooooks )

Of course, none of those are books that I've been reading recently - those have mainly been of the sci-fi / fantasy bent.  Nothing very new there, then.

Otherwise, as I said, I've been spinning and knitting (and playing with websites, of course).  The knitting has mostly been socks, mittens (fingerless and ... not), gloves, and finally finishing off Mum's birthday shawl.  From last year.  Ahem.  I now also have the strangest urge to actually sew up those two jumpers I knit about a bazillion years ago.  It's not the actual sewing that's been putting me off: it's clearing the space to pin out the bits.  My tip flat, let me show you it.
The spinning is something new.  Ish.  I've been spindle-spinning for a few months, but only a little bit every now and again, and as a result I'm verrrrry slow at it.  This means that my small fibre stash has been nevertheless "too much" for me to be likely to get through.  Not any more, though: Jo has lent me her spare spinning wheel (an Ashford Kiwi), and for the last week I've been zooming away.  I'd learned the basics last October at the Knitting Safari day in Brighton, and then I went to the Kent Guild of Spinners Dyers and Weavers meet with Jo this last Saturday.  I haven't broken out the 'good' fibre yet, but as soon as I'm done with my current lot of 'practice' (= I'm not sure what it is... it's blue!) stuff, I will. :-)

(Hai LJ! I'm not ded!)

So, I'm up watching the US election results show.  Projections are looking good for Obama so far - whew!  I'm not sure I really grok this whole Electoral College system, though.  It sounds a bit overly complicated.  Wouldn't it make more sense to divide it down by county, if one vote / result per state isn't enough?  Or, you know, do it by actual votes cast?  Or would that be too obvious?  Heheh.  Maybe that makes sense to me because it'd be pretty much the same as it works here (each constituency elects one MP by popular votes cast, the leader of the party with the most MPs at the end of it gets to be Prime Minister).  But then, the presidential votes aren't tied to the votes for congress, so I spose that's not much different to when we have elections for national and local government at the same time.  Except for the part where your actual individual vote seems like it counts more... I dunno.  Hmm.  I don't know enough about it.  Anyone want to educate me?

I am feeling vaguely, well, not quite irritated, but exasperated perhaps, by the interview I saw with Jesse Jackson.  Not all of it, but the part where he said that if Obama is elected then it shows that any black, hispanic, or woman can do anything... and if they can in America, then why not in the rest of the world too, like in England or France.  Um.  Did he miss the part where we had a female PM for over a decade, and how Germany currently has a female Chancellor?  Although maybe he was reasonably enough thinking more of the ethnic minority side of things, because I don't know about the rest of Europe (oh, ignorance!) but I do agree with that.  We have to be dropping the ball in terms of proportional representation, and definitely in senior government. *sigh*  Once again I don't really know, but I certainly have the impression that there are very few in the Commons and perhaps a few more appointees in the Lords.  Come on Britain - are we going to let those Yanks get one up on us?  Tcha!! ;-)  I certainly hope what's happening in the US has some effect here as well.  Fingers crossed!

I'm off for the weekend tomorrow, camping with a group from C House.  It's probably going to rain, but I don't care!  I haven't been camping for years and years and I'm really looking forward to it.  I've been wanting to go for ages, but didn't know who to go with or how to get there.  This trip solves both those problems right out of the box - I think there are about 15 of us going, in fact, which in its turn means no problem getting a lift from someone.  Also, I've volunteered to be one of the 'first wave' who'll go ahead to start pitching the tents (half the fun, hello!!) and get the site ready for those who physically can't do that stuff.

We're not going far, either, which means maximum actual camping time since we have to strike camp by midday Sunday.  We're just far enough away to be away: near the beach at Norman's Bay.  No internets, and I dunno what mobile reception will be like (although I suspect it'll be fine).  Regardless, I am taking my phone (for Twitter and text and oh yeah, phone calls if need be!), fully charged.  And my Palm with travel charging leads just in case there's somewhere I can plug it in should it run down.  What, it has a ton of ebooks on!  And my mp3 player and a CD player as well.  Yes, alright.  I fail at tech-free camping, but it's not like I'm going 'proper' hiking-camping this time.  I don't have to cart the stuff around with me that far, and I'm not going to be miles from nowhere.  In fact, I'm going to be only a couple of miles away from one of my cousins' houses, but that's not the point. *g*  Taking music and books (if in e-format) and knitting is still getting away from it all in my world.  And those are only really for evenings and after 'lights-out' if I can't sleep, or if the weather is too crappy to do the other stuff we've planned.  Which is nothing strenuous: daft games, walking on the beach, art and photography and so on.  Oh my God, did I mention that I'm really looking forward to this?

It's probably partly that I haven't had a holiday for so long.  The last one I had was for the LoM con last year, but that was pretty busy.  It's was brilliant and I had the best time, but it was a full few days! :-)  And before that?  Well, I've had visitors here, which has been lovely, but I think the last time I went actually away would be when I went to Germany to visit my lovely missnoxie and go to Ring*Con in '03.  (And then I was ill while I was there for some of the time.  Oh dear.)  So, yes.  HOLIDAY!  Camping holiday!  In my awesome purple and green dome tent!!  Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeee! :-D

Hah, what a good start to post every day week I'm making!  I forgot to post yesterday and nearly did today as well.  To excuse myself slightly, I did start writing a post yesterday... but then the cat distracted me, and then my Mum phoned, and... yeah.  Ooops.  Other than that, I had a fairly productive day.  Did lots of housework-y things, and so on.  Went shopping, to the post office, charged up my gas and electricity meters...  Took quite a few photos, too.

Today, I haven't been out because I'm laaaaaaaaaazy.  I've just been doing stuff around the house instead - mainly in the kitchen, which makes the Xandermog think he's going to get fed every 30 seconds.  He should be so lucky: he's on a diet.  Mwahahah.

Anyway, I think I'm going to get myself to bed now.  I've got a course tomorrow morning at the resource centre down the road ("Toolkit for Living": techniques to deal with the crazyheadedness and keep the old mental health good), so I have to get up on time.  Also, I'm sleepy.  Zzz.

Oh yes, I nearly forgot: I had toast for breakfast, both days.  I should try to be more inventive.  Toast with jam, perhaps?

[insert dullest stream of consciousness post evah about why I'm not eating lunch, deleted for your sanity and mine]

Um.  Torchwood tonight.  Yay!  Ashes to Ashes tomorrow.  Which... I like, I really do.  But I don't love like I did Life on Mars.  Come back Sammy!  But I'm ♥-ing Ray more than ever before.  And, urgh, I still can't think of anything not-boring to write, so I'll shut up and go away now.  I think my brain is just having a bit of a coasting day today, because I swear I had all sorts of interesting and insightful stuff that I've been meaning to post.  It's just hiding somewhere at the back of my cerebellum.  Yep, that'll be it.

Or perhaps I'm just hungry?...

1. I seem to have a thing for lists recently.  I think it's all the web coding I've been doing.


2. I have a few people to wish a very Happy Birthday to - some are a little late, sorry!  So, elen_ancalima and megolas, I hope you had lovely ones, and sbisson, I hope yours is similarly fab.


3. Web server still down.  Or rather, new server not up and running yet.  Gaaargh.  Naturally, I now really want to do all sorts of things that I need that server to be up for.  Like post to my knitting blog, and read my blogroll.  Why didn't I back that up into a feedreader?  D'oh!


4. I made my friend C some fingerless mitts for early-xmas.  Apparently he liked them lots, because today I received a really nice webcam in return!!!  Bweeeeeee! :-D  I'm now all set up for video chatting on Skype - don't know yet if I can v-chat through Trillian, which is what I use for AIM/ICQ/MSN/Yahoo chattage.  But if anyone wants to see my ugly mug and have a voice-natter (the camera has a built in mic), now you can.


5. Must get on with the xmas knitting.  I'm getting there, but I'm not done yet!  Wish me luck...


6. And talking of xmas, thanks to those of you who've sent me cards.  *hugs*  I... haven't sent any out this year.  Thing is, I'm now on a really tight budget, and I can't actually afford the cards and stamps.  Sad but true!  Therefore, it's e-cards this year.  Just as soon as I've made the graphics. *slacker*


7. The knuckle joint of my left index finger hurrrrrts.  Probably from the incessant knitting, unless I squashed it when I nearly dropped the printer.  But I think it hurt before that.  I reckon I need a splint.  Or the wah-mbulance. *nod*

And now, have a meme:
I know very little about some of the people on my friends list. Some people I know very well. I read your journals, or we have something else in common and we chat occasionally. Some of you I hardly know at all. Some of you I don't know at all because I didn't friend you back (yet?). Perhaps you haven't been around for long, perhaps you lurk, for whatever reason. But you friended me and I thank you for your interest in my words.

But here's a thought: why not take this opportunity to tell me a little something about yourself. Any old thing at all. Just so the next time I see your name I can say: 'Ah, there's so and so...'

I'd love it if every single person who friended me would do this. Yes, even you people who I know really well. Then post this in your own journal and see what gems of knowledge appear.

I've been quiet, haven't I?  That's because I've pretty much decamped to my blog (also available on loopylou_co_uk, *ka-ching!*), posting-wise.  I am still reading here a bit, though not as much as I mean to.  But I thought I'd just drop a quick post in to say where I am.  I'll probably still post here from time to time, if I have something especially fannish, or something that needs a friends-lock, to say.

I might actually be offline for a bit soon as well.  Don't know yet.  We'll see....