Making it up

last night, I decided to upgrade thunderbird. I read the instructions, followed them to the letter, and got an installation that wouldn’t launch. Not good. When I went searching for answers I discovered it was a known problem, thankfully with a known solution. So put it in the install instructions!

So that was last night adequately taken care of. I decided at that point that I’d had enough of computers, and took up crocheting instead, completing the first 10 rounds of an elephant’s backside as seen here Fun.

Today was a full day. The children had a party, up in Brighouse, and I’d planned to go to hobbycraft on the way. Would it surprise anyone to hear we didn’t make it? I’m quite upset about it actually - the demo today was jewellrey making and I wanted to see it for myself, not just for Big. But it was mainly her who didn’t want to cooperate in getting organised, so leaving early just didn’t happen. We did manage to make the presents for the birthday girl though, so hopefully that will go down OK.

Party was OK, if a bit short. Quite amazed by these places dropping the length down to 90 minutes - by the time you’ve had half an hour on food, there really isn’t much playing time at all. They have to be making a killing! Had a slightly disturbing conversation with one parent who told me she’d taken her daughter out of the kids’ school to put her into nursery at the school she will be going to next year so that she wouldn’t get left out of this years worth of making friends. So socialisation issues start ever younger as well it would appear. It wouldn’t have occurred to me to think about that side of it

Then we went over to see a sister of mine, as it was her birthday yesterday. She was thrilled with the parchment craft card, and the hand decorated keyring Big had made her, so that made for a pleasant afternoon.

And by the time we were home it was tea, bath and bedtime. Small is now bouncing up and down the stairs and our pizza is in the oven. The day is looking up

Oh, and in other news, we’re working away from having a tv in the living room. Tim has set up a media pc which appears to be quite cheerfully locating around 60 tv and radio channels, which appear to be more than sufficient to our needs, so we will be disposing of the enormous tv via freecycle just as soon as I get around to it. We’ve also unplugged the sky box, so I must do something about that subscription pronto!

I’m rather enjoying the change, about the only thing I’m actively missing atm is A town called Eureka, which I daresay will make it onto dvd sometime or other. Or on to a channel we can get

webcameron - first blog.

Sounds an awful lot like the background noise when I’m working from home though

As you can imagine, this is the sort of thing that would get me all worked up

100 most frequently challenged books of 1990-2000. I was trying to work out how many I’ve read. I think it’s only 20, but there are several of my all time favourite books within that 20. Quite amused to see that there is one the children rather enjoy too

So, what are your favourite banned books then? Mine include A Wrinkle in Time (Puffin Modern Classics) and To Kill a Mockingbird.

Oh, make that 21. I didn’t notice The Outsiders (Puffin Modern Classics) first time around. Quite funny how many of these are modern classics (according to the publishers anyway!) and even funnier how many of them I’ve read because I was made to at school.

Yesterday, I made the trip to the kids school in just under an hour. (It’s around 40 something miles, to give you some context). I then travelled 4/5 of the next journey (about 4 miles) in under ten minutes, and the last fraction took me 40 minutes

I arrived at work fuming gently - the reason for the hold up was two lorries that had bumped at a junction, and then been abandoned partially blocking the road. There was plenty of room for little cars like mine to get through, but the other lorries that use that road were struggling, and a road sign was taking the brunt of it.

Heading into the kitchen for coffee, I picked up a book of poetry from the table, and opened it at random.

“What is this life if full of care we have no time to stop and stare?”

Hm. Yes, well.

And on the way home we had another 20 minutes stuck on the M1. Fortunately today I’m working from home. (And on my lunch just now )

While I’m here, I’d like to congratulate Jenn of lactivist fame, who has had her second baby

I don’t hold with these mamby-pamby, new-fangled mobile phone ringtones. Young people these days don’t even know what a proper phone should sound like.

Here’s one I made earlier… mp3 | wav

You know, I can remember when people didn’t have mobile phones. It was better back then, someone sent you a message and once you had read it, you could eat the pigeon.

I recently read an article “Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants– A New Way To Look At Ourselves and Our Kids”, which I thought was fatuous. How would he class someone who makes their own ring tone (Googles for and downloads source files, gets audio editor software, mixes the sound file, bluetooths it to their handset), but wants the sound to be the same as phones he remembers from forty+ years ago?

BBC NEWS | Technology | Internet’s future in 2020 debated

Many of the surveyed experts predicted isolated and small-scale violent attacks to try and thwart technology’s march.

“Today’s eco-terrorists are the harbingers of this likely trend,” wrote Ed Lyell, an expert on the internet and education.

“Every age has a small percentage that cling to an overrated past of low technology, low energy, lifestyle.

Hm. Now, I don’t feel like an eco terrorist, and I’m certainly not particularly low technology (she smiles, tapping away at her wireless laptop while submitting post to blog on her own server!) but I don’t actually see that low technology or low energy is particularly overrated. Odd quote.

yet again.

I’ve created a new page that I’ll list stuff on as I get to it to get rid. It’ll be some stuff for sale, some stuff for postage, some stuff for pickup…at the moment the only thing on it is a five in a row manual!

How did we get to have so much stuff? I’ve almost found the floor in one corner - does anyone want some yellow curtains? Given them by my sister, and we don’t have curtain tracks anywhere in the house…

Big is finally sorting her room, and Small has flaked on the sofa. He’d been bouncing around beautifully all day, although with an increasing frequency of cough. Then a friend of mine popped by for a natter and a cuppa, and shortly after she left, he collapsed in a pathetic little heap, refusing point blank to get ready to go shopping. I’ve called Tim and asked him to acquire milk on the way in, then one of us will need to shop tomorrow instead.

Right, must get back to ruthlessly sorting and reorganising. I think I feel some paperwork coming on as well - surely not!

handy at least!

It’s not quite 10 o’clock on a Sunday morning. The tv is playing to itself (must replace it with music). Big is sitting at the newly cleared art table doing more parchment embossing and decorating. Small is doing a paint by numbers at the dining room table. Apparently all the numbers mean yellow

Pictures of harmony. Might turn the machine off and go and sit down and do some more crochet. Made a good start on that hat for myself last night with some yarn I couldn’t resist in Hobbycraft (It was on a buy one get one half price…and it isn’t going into the bottomless stash, it’s being used straight away!)

(Oh and Merry, managed to get that other game going last night. Success all round now.)

we have shoes, well actually boots, for Big. I’ve lost count of how many shoe shops we’ve been in and didn’t even try to count how many pairs of shoes we’ve tried on - it’s taken 3 weekends to sort this out! And then, icing on the cake, machine refused my credit card! The cheek of it, bill was cleared just this week, and wasn’t anywhere near the limit anyway Then I’m standing looking at one of those horrid machines, trying to remember the pin code for a different card…

It *was* quite an expensive day. We went to Hobbycraft who were having a demonstration day on card making with parchment paper. She was completely surrounded by ppl the first twice we tried to watch, so we occupied ourselves buying stuff… I’ve got the wire to try that necklace now! Then we finally got her all to ourselves, and she explained how to emboss with parchment paper, and let Big have a go. I can see that working really well, so we went back into the shop (we hadn’t been through the checkout) and put some more stuff in the basket… I have been doing lots of overtime - seems only fair to spend some of it on fun stuff!

I did object however to their computer calculating the prices on their half price items incorrectly - I checked my receipt on the way out and took a sharp turn in the direction of the customer service desk. 8.97 with 50% off is not 4.97. Probably took nearly 10 minutes to sort it out and refund me a pound - not sure whether that was really worthwhile!

And after all of that, we headed off to M’hll itself, past the remnants of the accident that had held us up on the way in. (It looked like a fairly straightforward shunt, van into back of car, but there was a fireengine, three police cars, and while we were queueing on the opposite side of the road an ambulance came up behind to join the fun).

First stop was Game, where we discovered it was the game we were trying to play in the newly aquired gameboy that wasn’t playing, so we bought a couple of others instead. We are now the proud owners, as a family of Babar: To The Rescue (GBA), and Barbie SuperPack: Barbie Secret Agent/Barbie Groovy Games (GBA). Felt hugely ignorant as I double checked while we were buying that I was buying the right type of game for the console we now have

From Game to the icecream stand - Small had wanted one on the way out of Hobbycraft and as he’d been so good in there, I thought it only fair to oblige him. Takes ages for a three year old to eat an icecream, and boy can he make a mess of himself in the process. Was mopping ineffectually at him with a couple of tissues when the woman sitting next to us leant over and said “would you like another tissue?” I was very grateful

And on to Clarks who were having comedy moments with their customer queueing system But eventually we got her some boots (I’d try to link to Clarks site to show them, but from experience I know that’s a fairly pointless idea). Which brings me back to where this blogpost started

And now we’re home. Small is watching the gameboy (not sure he’s *quite* got the hang of it yet, but he’s happy). Big has had a game, they’ve both had tea, and now she’s busy embossing and decorating parchment paper to make cards. They look really good - think we might have to quite quickly expand our equipment and go on to making holes in it and stuff.

Tim is off and away tonight (not 100% sure where he is just now, but fairly sure he won’t be back this evening, ) so we’re having a mummy day here. And jolly fun it is too

on crochet of course Think I’m building a wish list for birthday/ christmas

cover on New Ideas for Today’s Crochet interested me, though I can’t imagine wearing any of it.

Modern day classic, Stitch ‘n Bitch Crochet: The Happy Hooker

Really fancy this diary,

Although this quite appeals too. Not Your Mama’s Crochet: The Cool and Creative Way to Join the Chain Gang

and maybe one for Big: Cool Girls Guide to Crochet. Although I think I’d almost prefer to get that shipped direct and inefficiently from the states - $2.99 on Amazon.com, and £4.71 on amazon.co.uk. How does that work then???

I wouldn’t have got to see the most glorious skies on the way home, with an oddly deep coloured fragment of rainbow appearing to rocket straight up.

I wouldn’t have got to enjoy running and jumping over the puddles between offices at work.

And if the traffic had been flowing normally on the M1, I couldn’t have spent time staring at the sky on the way home.

Lots of silver linings this week. Today I got home to find I’d won a CD, Not That Kind, at some point in a competition I’m not sure I remember entering I’m rather enjoying listening to it - it’s not something I would ever have chosen for myself, but it’s quite fun.

At work, we had a good week, such a good week, that today we got bought pizza It’s really rather fun atm. Have any of you programming types out there read this book? Would appreciate opinions if so.

And crochetdude himself commented on my blog last night. Coo!

That looks like a good deal.

I will have a punt, bet I get outbid though.

…(Puts in low bid to make sure won’t win)…..

****, I won!

Just bought a desktop computer, by accident.

I have just taken delivery (for Jax) of what I believe may be the smallest Borg cube in the quadrant.

They have clearly assimilated a race of very, very tiny people as it is only about 150mm square.

You can get your children assimilated too, just go to BorgMerrily BeadMerrily

Oh yes, I knew there was a reason I uploaded this :borg:

when you get home, make yourself a nice cup of tea, sit down to enjoy it…and discover you forgot to boil the kettle before making it. Bleargh.

Think I might try that again.

Let’s see, I did promise to update a bit on the type of thing we’ve been up to. I made Big some doll’s clothes:

There’s a barbie top modelled after the yoke of the dress as well, but I don’t have a photo of that hanging around.

I want one of these. I think it would make a great toy.

Fantastic project:

A group of students from the University of Cambridge who plan on launching a rocket into space for less than £1,000 have taken the first steps towards achieving their ambitious goal.

Nova Balloon

on weboggle. Children are (relatively) quiet in bed, Numb3rs is just starting, and Tim’s making me a cuppa. All is well with the world.

It has not been so all day. From the journey in to work with the woman who strolled out onto a zebra crossing from behind a parked car, necessitating an emergency stop (just as well I was observing the speed limit really :rolls:), to getting home just in time to kiss children good night and be on clear up duty when Small decided to try to wash up his toilet seat (and trust me it needed washing!) and all the bits in between, it’s been kind of tough today. Paddling very very hard just to stay still, great fun.

Right, going to enjoy my programme while meditating on problem solving (what to have for tea ). Hope all is well with you all in the blogworld, I don’t have as much time or energy to read around right atm, so I’m probably missing out on loads. And I will try to blog what we’ve been up to around here sometime soon - loads of little bits happening in a lovely low key kind of way.

Reading about the next feminist carnival Lingual Tremors: Carnival of Feminists is Coming to Lingual Tremors!, I was struck by the following quote.

# That a pathology/disease approach to normal life events (birthing, menopause, aging, death) is not an effective way in which to consider health or structure a health system.

I thought it was particularly interesting in light of the article I’d been reading about five minutes earlier, Doctors back mass hospital closures, especially the quotes:
“This will involve the closure of casualty departments, small midwife-led maternity units and children’s centres in smaller hospitals.” and “The Royal College of Midwives is alarmed that the plans may see the closure of small midwife-led units, believing there is a secret proposal to move more maternity services, run by consultants, into hospitals. Dame Karlene Davis, general secretary of the RCM, said last week that she was ‘dismayed’ by David Nicholson’s ‘prejudiced views’ that consultant-led units were better for mothers and their babies.”

Now, I’m not going to get into the highly emotive debate about safe ways of giving birth, except to throw in the extremely anecdotal fact that I personally felt hugely safer second time around giving birth on my living room floor, rather than the first time, when I’d been in a teaching hospital with all mod cons and multiple midwives and doctors around.

What I am going to say is that it saddens me that birth, a completely natural event, is still so hugely medicalised. Getting old isn’t, specifically, it’s a social concern, and until a particular level of medical care is required, ppl requiring support receive it in the community. So why are women giving birth instantly whipped off into hospital? It’s the wrong model, and it’s hugely more costly than it should be because of that. It should only happen when ppl actually need the medical care, as a minority will, but just because a minority will, doesn’t mean the majority should get it too.

If ppl don’t want to give birth at home (and I can imagine any number of scenarios where that’s perfectly plausible), women should have access to small midwife led units near to their homes (unless for a myriad of medical reasons they actually needed high level medical care, in which case it could be offered in a much smaller number of highly specialised and experienced units.) If you also focussed a number of other birth and baby related services to occur out of local midwife led units, I’m sure you could make them cost effective. I’d far rather not take my newborn baby into the doctors surgery on a two weekly basis to be coughed and breathed over by all sorts of ill ppl just to find out whether they are gaining weight or not. (Let’s not touch on the whole whether we should be weighing them two weekly at all…if we get the whole baby/ birth cycle out of the hospital mentality, we can chip away at the rest of it easier).

If you really always needed hospitals and doctors to give birth, the human race wouldn’t be here. I don’t doubt that there are instances where medical intervention is required, but they should be regarded as the exception not the norm - kind of like the fact I can walk down the street any number of times without a problem, it’ll be very unusual that I might fall and break a bone or two. But I could break a bone or two, so perhaps I should only do my walking in hospital just in case? Manifestly absurd, as is the hospitalisation of the birthing process.

Long hours, lots of driving, evening work, but hey, it’s Friday, I’ve had beer, and I’m about to go to bed and not set an alarm

Let’s see.

Kids had another great week at school - including the very long day where there was ludicrous traffic both morning and night. Think that was yesterday actually. In fact, Small was so happy being there that he attacked me when I got there to pick him up. Didn’t know whether to laugh or cry tbh. And when I say attacked, I really am referring to a full on physical assault - he scratched my arms quite badly and attempted to bite me as well as headbutting and hitting. Probably not the right response to pick him up and cart him out kicking and screaming, but I’d already done the reasoned explanation bit, and I wasn’t standing for the aggression.

Big has lost another tooth - she’s looking very gappy now as the missing front tooth still hasn’t come through. Beginning to be slightly concerned about that - it was the baby tooth that she had damaged oh so long ago at camp, and I’m wondering whether that damage could have had some effect on the adult tooth as well - the tooth she lost at the bottom afterwards has already been replaced.

They’ve had a quiet day at home with Tim and his new phone (thank you for asking, they are very happy together ) and I don’t think we have anything specific planned for the weekend, although I’m hoping for a lie in at some point.

And to make the most of it, think I’ll go to bed now