Bad news

My computer is dying.

It’s limping along for about twenty minutes or so before it crashes and has to cool down.

Which means I have just enough time to write in my blog before it’s out of commission again.

30 March. Sic transit gloria mundi.

And since we’re saving our shekels so I can have a holiday, blogging is going to be low priority. As is Facebook and minecraft. All my projects are officially on hold until further notice.

I can write about life, here, but since I’ll be doing so on my tablet from now on, it’s going to be slightly arduous. Yes, I have the Tumblr app. I have not played with it yet, so I don’t know if it’s going to make me do the paragraph tags so I don’t have a pure wall of text for a blog entry.

What I do know is that it won’t let me re-order my queue. That’s a desktop-only privilege that is grudgingly loaned to laptops as well since they’re technically “real” computers and not glorified tech toys.

Seriously, Apple… You spent a lot of money on developing the iPad - why not give it more functionality and let people decide what’s convenient for them?

But I digress.

Any text entry could be the last before my mac finally turns its metaphorical toes up. After that, eleven days of ponies before normal rambling resumes.

Be prepared.

It doesn’t mean I have nothing to say. It just means that saying it has now become massively inconvenient.

Getting better slowly.

My weight went up yesterday. Not because of extra eating now that I’m on my feet [7th Mar] but because of the extra moving I’ve been doing.

I put on some muscle mass.

Muscle weighs more than fat, so I’d rather have it.

My fat-weight’s been going down, too, according to hubby’s technoscales. And I have some nice looking graphs to show for it.

Today, I’m getting some laundry done whilst the sun doth shine. Though I do have to check the clouds now and again for signs of rain.

My heel still hurts. Less and less with the heel insert in/on. That still doesn’t stop me having “rock days” or “knife days” when it feels like treading on the aforementioned nouns. On a good day, it’s like having something round and hard lodged in one’s footwear.

On a bad day, it’s like trying to walk with an open wound.

The extra good news seems to be that my knees are behaving themselves.

You know you’re getting old when your body says “snap, crackle, pop” and your breakfast says nothing.

I should keep a look-out for my passport, but the way my feet are going, I think I’ll just pick up the “we missed you” card and collect it from the post office.

I’ve already decided that, should I need a cane, I want it to be just like Lawrence Talbot’s :) only in my size, of course.

Ah well. That’s for another day. I have a washing machine to check and laundry to put out. 

5th Mar 2012

This is the first day walking without assistance. My weight has steadied out at 88.5 kilos for the second day and the house is a fucking sty ‘cause everyone left everything because they knew this day was coming.

Walking hurts like a rock in my shoe, even with the gel pads made to make walking easier. Without them, it hurts like a knife in my heel. Ergo, walking costs spoons. I have to sit and rest when I can no longer stand to stand.

However, despite goddamn painful feet, I have: swept the debris on the floor into piles, put a load of washing on, put two loads of dishwashing on, put out the garbage and the recycling, and re-swept up a pile because Shiftless is a goddamn fat, lazy, insensitive arsehole.

When I started sweeping, I knew I could only do it for so long. I could not sweep delicately around debris piles like Shiftless’ shoes and socks, so I took up a policy - if it looked abandoned, it would be swept.

I knew Shiftless was awake [music at an appreciable volume] so I knocked on his door and told him to gather his shoes and socks before I swept them.

Shiftless, in his fine tradition of ignoring every last thing I say to him, ignored me. I swept up his shoes and socks. Mayhem rescued the shoes, but left the socks to be tumbled about in cockroaches, dirt and debris.

Shiftless finally wakes, I gave him the “I told you so” speech. Shiftless pretends he’s deaf and roots through the quasi-neat pile after his socks like a pig after a truffle.

I apologise for that remark.

Pigs are way neater, politer, more considerate and smell better than Shiftless. And you can train them to help you clean the house.

At the time Shiftless was doing his bad pig impression, my knees had decided to go on strike after I had to sit down and sort out the overflowing garbage bin, so I couldn’t put my weight on either leg. I could not, as far as I knew, stand up again. I was trapped on a bar stool and watching an inconsiderate dick scatter my hard work to the four winds.

So I yelled at him. Loudly.

Hubby noticed, but said nothing.

I can only hope and pray that Shiftless gets a brother-to-brother lecture on the way to work about being less of a prick to a wife who’s doing the best she can with fewer spoons than normal.

Hubby has me for the rest of our lives together.

Shiftless is only staying until he can afford to move out - or I finally snap and dump all his shit on the footpath and change the locks 'cause I’ve had bar of him.

So tell me, dear readers - am I already justified?

Thanks a bunch, Notch

So, you’ve all heard by now - or all of you that care about Minecraft - that they’ve updated Minecraft again with taller worlds. Yay. And jungles. Yay. And massive trees. Yay. And pet cats. Yay.

And I now have to re-make my adventure map in progress because I’m that gosh-darn obsessive-compulsive.

Boo.

It’s times like this that I wish Minecraft had a copy-paste mode. Or mass replace commands like the maps in World of Minecraft (coughfreeplugcough).

Because digging/rebuilding a large volume of large rooms with scenarios and redstone and every last sort of malarky I could think of is not just a can of arseholes. It’s not a sack of arseholes. It’s a frikkin’ large shipping container of arseholes with a side order of armpits.

At least I get the swamp/jungle I wanted in room 3.

And then there’s the thing I’m dreading - destroying the original. Yes, ‘cause retard!me decided to add hazards like lava and water and monsters, oh my!

At least it gives me something to do when I’m resting my feet.

Lies, damn lies, and Mayhem

My son seems to be a pathological liar.

I’ve reduced his computer time. I catch him out and lecture him EVERY single time [average: about 5 times a day, including made-up stories to “fit in” with the conversation]. We’ve even spent an entire night telling lies to him so he gets an idea about how frustrating it is to live with a liar.

He still lies.

He lies to get the things he wants. He lies to get out of the things he doesn’t want. He lies about shit nobody cares about. He lies about who did what with whatever and without permission.

Short of chaining him upside-down to a wall [or similar over-the-top punishments, like the parenting classics of smacking his arse ‘till it glows in the dark or washing his mouth out with soap] I have run out of ideas.

And every single time, he promises that he’ll never lie again [or, recently, he’ll try to cut down] and every single time, it’s the same story.

He forgets to stick to the truth.

Gah.

I’m an honest person. Apart from the occasional fling at amusing hyperbole, I’ve been accused by my best beloved of being “too honest”. And that’s the sort of thing you can’t tell people 'cause they assume it’s a lie.

Massive win for the forces of cosmic irony, there.

My husband’s an honest fellow. He actually manages to include the societal norm of “little white lies” that help others out and whatnot.

To be honest, I never quite figured out how often and how big is “okay” to lie, so I stick to a safe zero.

So how can my first-born son be such an outrageous liar?

He definitely doesn’t get it from the people nearest and dearest to him. He may pick up being an outrageously antisocial arsehole from Shiftless[on his bad days], but not lying.

He picks up an astonishing amount of rude words from yours truly [and a “just because you can” slightly-hypocritical lecture when he uses them] but not lying.

He’s definitely inherited his father’s love of sitting in front of computer screens for hours on end… but not lying.

Maybe it’s my fault. If I instantly landed on him every last time he told me something as gospel, or checked up, or otherwise treated him as a very small criminal suspect, he’d give up trying.

Maybe if I constantly treat him like a liar for a month or two he might get the hint.

And maybe pigs will fly and I can get bacon by skeet shooting…

Any parents out there with ex-liars who managed to turn their young to the ways of truth? How did you do it?

Last week off my feet

It’s Wednesday of the last week I’m supposed to stay off my sore foot. Come Monday, the crutches go back to the chemist’s and I pretty much have to clean up after all of the slobs who left everything to the forces of entropy.

I’m already gnashing my teeth.

Right now, whenever I put weight on to my sore foot, it hurts like there’s something sharp stuck in the heel. It probably won’t be much better come Monday.

And of course the whole house expects me to be a whirlwind of cleaning activity. I’ll be a limping near-disaster of activity within my limits and it seems like I’m the only one who knows it.

At least it does, here and now.

Powerhouse is still extra busy learning nursing and the only other people who really want to help me out are in Perth [Hi!] and that’s pretty much it for my social network.

I’m sick with worry about whether or not I can get back on top of the housework before it’s time to leave on a holiday we possibly can’t afford and I have no money this week.

D'aaaarrrgghhh!

At least the passport paperwork’s finished - if not filed. That’ll happen when the express post parcel arrives from scenic Coominya and I can personally haul it off to the post office and finally get it on the way. Urf.

And since it’s the 29th of February, we have a fine tradition of Topsy Turvy day. Where the kids get to boss me and Hubby around - within reason. The kids’ll have fun with that, at least.

I have fun, too. I play up like the kids do when I ask them to do something.

So I’ve arranged a little something in my queue…

Basically, I had nothing to write, yesterday [27th Feb] and queued up all my attempts at Doctor Whooves care of Generalzoi’s pony maker flash-toy. Then I found out I did have something to say and had to rearrange things.

‘Cause who wants eleven days of ponies before you get to find out stuff?

…okay, so some folks might want to see it. Desperately. I can promise you it’s not that magical. Really.

So from now on, I’ll rearrange my queue when I actually have content so the ponies are bringing up the rear. If you see them, it means I’ve (a) stuffed up somewhere, (b) been really really busy and unable to blog or © decided to let them go 'cause I have twenty bajillion entries.

Chaos has grown to the stage where she can reach the key in the gate. Which means we have to find another legal way to keep the gate locked, yet allow access to people who need to read our meters.

She proved this, of course, by opening the gate and letting the dog out for an adventure.

Twenty harrowing minutes later, we got the hound back home by the simple expedient of ignoring him and opening the gate for him. Gah. Miss Chaos got a lecture and I had to put the gate key away, well away from the gate.

We’ll figure out another stopgap RSN.

In the meantime, I really want to finish the First Mum’s Kit for a new mum in the family, find some heel inserts to soothe my spur(s) [we only found one. Haven’t looked at the other foot, yet] and get all my shit together for Thailand.

So far, I have a power adaptor and a pair of ballet flats for travelling. I need to get a shitton more crap.

Ah, but I have plans. I’m going to prepare an itemised list of the things I’m packing and have it in my carry-on. And I may spend some time being inspected because I’m being too helpful. I just kind of expect that, these days.

Drama Llama is moving in….

The dog somehow got into my car. He chewed the back seat. He chewed the driver’s seat belt. He didn’t get into anything else, thank goodness, but I’ve been packing death.

It could have put the kibosh on my travel plans.

Thanks to the blithe spirits, the insurance mob told me they’d spring for everything shy of $500. Ouch. But not so much ouch as total replacement would have cost sans insurance.

I need to pack summer stuff and I may be buying most of it in foreign lands, ‘cause everything over here is winter themed, now. Blarhhhh.

And I have to get special shoes just for the airport so I don’t track foreign greeblies into other countries, or track them back into here. I’m thinking Ballet Flat type shoes. At least the heels can’t fuck up my feet.

It’s them or some converse sandshoes.

I did get some hep shots. Last week. My shoulder is still effing tender. They weren’t kidding when they said there’d be soreness in the arm.

And in six months, I can do it all again so I’ll be protected for twenty years. Yay.

One more week of hobbling and I should be back on my feet. IF I can find some of those damn spur heel inserts in a ladies’ size ten, I should be able to walk around without too much further pain.

I might have to order them in. More $$$ down the drain.

On the plus side, I have a rental car for the week it should take for my car to get fixed. I just have to remember to not be paranoid about qualifyers. And be completely paranoid about locking the thing when everything that should be out of it is out of it. And do the same for my beloved zippy little car when it comes back home.

And a nice person from the RSPCA is going to come around for free and help us teach the hound not to chew the expensive things.

Now I can’t work on the adventure map 'cause I have to stake out the front door and the phone for the people who are supposed to come by and do things. Nargh.

D'aaaaaaaaauuuuuuggghhh!

Baby shower’s been cancelled, because the baby in question’s been born.

The Mum will still need my unpatented first Mum’s survival kit, so we’ll have to arrange to visit sometime RSN.

With, or without the frikkin’ sarong.

So now Mum-in-law has to rattle up here to get the paperwork to get it back to the friend so she can initial it and get it back to me so I can submit it and finally get my passport.

Glah.

And, to make things interesting, I’m getting started on the things I need to pack for a trip. I now have an adapter so I can charge my devices and stay in contact with the world.

And I’ve got to remember to be slightly devious and pack some of my stuff inside a smaller suitcase inside a bigger one. That way, I have enough room for the trip home and all my purchases/souvenirs.

And take some art supplies. Definitely.

There goes the other shoe…

Drama Llama stopped by and handed me a little quote-unquote “gift”. Dramatically, of course.

The friend who verified my identity forgot to initial a correction on the form she filled out, verifying my identity.

I now have to wait for the weekend, attend a baby shower, and hand over a vital document so it can be initialled in the correct place and sent back to me.

Which now also means I have to gather up a First Mum’s Survival Pack.

Said survival pack includes: 1 set of terry towelling nappies, 1 travel pack of baby wipes, 1 cotton sarong, 1 biggish tube of the pawpaw rash cream that works like magic and one entertaining /educational toy for the spawn. I may throw in some onesies and mittens.

The original included an instruction booklet, but that document is on a drive I can’t currently access. Yay.

The cotton sarong is extremely useful. If Mum is breastfeeding, then it gives Mum and Bub adequate privacy. It also serves as sun shade, blankie, emergency wrap and - if you’ve run out of terry nappies, a mess mop. I get cotton because it washes like a dream, and I get a sarong because some people have very funny ideas if you ask for a scarf.

Some people have very funny ideas about what makes a sarong, too, but you’re less likely to trip over such a weirdo.

The good news is I have a good idea on where to get all this crap. The bad news is it might cost a small fortune.

Most, if not all of that stuff, will remain useful until potty-training. Trust me. They are the items I found most useful when mine were tiny.