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The cab to the Cancer Center cost $10 and took half an hour to arrive. Fortunately, I'd allowed an hour, so I still had some time before my appointment. As it turned out there was paperwork for me to fill out. They said it was in the packet they sent me, but it wasn't. There were only three sheets in the packet, and the paperwork they gave me ran about ten pages.

The doctor I saw did in fact find the lump, but she told me that the only options we had were immediate surgery to remove it or waiting six months to see if anything changes. She couldn't biopsy it because it doesn't show up on ultrasound. Without ultrasound, she couldn't be sure she was sticking the needle in the right place and wouldn't be able to trust the results. She did say that it was entirely possible that the thing is healthy tissue. Apparently, breasts get lumpy as a woman ages and the tissues change.

She was extraordinarily neutral on the subject of surgery. My impression was that she favored the wait and see approach, but she never said that. I couldn't point to anything that gave me that impression, but it is the impression I got. Perhaps it that, if she favored surgery, she'd have made a stronger case for it as opposed to simply saying that it was, in fact, an option.

I have opted to wait. In November, I'll have another mammogram and ultrasound and then see her again right after. We'll see then if anything's changed. Unfortunately, that appointment is the day before Cordelia's next dental appointment. I'd rather not deal with going out two days in a row, but I'm not sure I want to reschedule anything.

The cab home took over 45 minutes to arrive. I actually called the cab company a second time to make sure they hadn't forgotten me. I'm very glad the weather was good (it was nearly 70F) or I'd have frozen. There was a place to sit, so I did. Unfortunately, it was low enough that I bruised my thigh on the top of my boot in the process of sitting down.

Cordelia did fine during her hour at home alone. Hopefully she'll be willing to do it again. I'm pretty sure, for example, that she won't want to come along for my dental appointment in July, and the mammogram and such in November will run until at least 4:00.

Scott did the grocery shopping on the way home from work, so we have food. Cordelia's been eating cereal mixed with yogurt for her breakfasts, so Scott bought quite a bit of yogurt.

This afternoon, I shall try to bake a cake for Cordelia. I'm pretty sure I can do it. I can definitely stand for ten to fifteen minutes, and that should be all it takes. I still haven't heard from Scott's sister as to whether or not our niece is coming, but we have five other girls coming. Cordelia doesn't want us to refer to it as a 'party.' She says we should call it a 'hang out.'

I had some moments of panic last night-- I downloaded a Flash update, and when I restarted Safari, everything was well and truly borked. I use Safari pretty much exclusively for Google related stuff, and all the Google windows I opened were just jumbled blocks of zigzag patterns and confetti. Firefox was fine, fortunately. Eventually, I restarted my laptop entirely, and that seems to have fixed the problem, but I was very worried that I wouldn't be able to do my [community profile] metanews work next week. That really works best with two webbrowsers.

Speaking of [community profile] metanews, one of the new volunteers has said that they want to take on LJ and AO3. I sent them a fairly long message yesterday that detailed how to link find in each place and what to do with the links once they've been found. Hopefully, I wasn't too confusing and didn't forget anything important. I'm also hoping they will start link finding this week.
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We don't know yet if Scott's going to be working late tonight. We're expecting it, but we don't know. I've already warned the FATE group, and they're making alternative plans, just in case. We should know by 4:00 which should be early enough to let people know if we are able to have the game.

I've confirmed that Sunday's Girl Scout meeting should end by 2:30, so I'm aiming to have Cordelia's party from 4:00 to 6:00. I just need to get a definite list of who she wants to invite and send out the emails. It's so very last minute that I expect some people won't be able to come, but we can try.

I didn't actually do any link finding yesterday. I plan to dedicate the rest of today to that. I think that will be enough time to finish up. I did, however, send out an email to our potential volunteers. I went on and on rather a lot, so I'm worried I'll have put them off. I'm also worried that, because the time involved is considerably more than the other moderator promised in the help wanted post, these people will decide they can't help after all.

Scott ordered some presents for Cordelia last night. He had to be the one to do it because he has Amazon Prime, and I don't. If I put in the order, things wouldn't arrive before her birthday. He'd been meaning to put in the order since Sunday but kept putting it off because he didn't want to do it while Cordelia was around. I'm not sure why-- She doesn't come look at his laptop unless he invites her.

I do need to get reading glasses. I just have to get my act together on it and investigate the various online options people have linked me to. My need for reading glasses was brought home to me when Cordelia asked me to show her how to thread a needle and I couldn't see the eye of the needle. It's not something that's likely to come up often, but it is something I need to have the option of doing.

I'm thinking I might be ambitious and try to empty the dishwasher today. I think I can walk well enough and long enough for that, and it really, really needs to be done (and Scott's unlikely to be in a position to do it if he does work late tonight). If that doesn't hurt, maybe I'll put away laundry. I haven't done that in weeks.
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I remembered to take an Ativan when I got up this morning as part of my preparation for my appointment later on. It's always hard for me to remember that I have the Ativan, and when I do remember, I feel sort of like I ought to power through without it because I know I can. I just will pay a higher price without it than with it. I didn't think I had any medications-are-bad-suffering-is-noble tendencies, but apparently, I do.

I think the Ativan helped with the dread leading up to leaving the house. That's always the worst part of any expedition. Once I'm actually out the door, I'm too busy being hyperalert to process any feeling of being scared.

I did find out when I got to my appointment that they've been billing things incorrectly. For some reason, they didn't record my primary insurance, what I have through Scott's job, at all and so were billing Medicare as primary. I'm really surprised Medicare didn't pitch a fit and refuse to pay anything at all. Usually, they do when something like this happens. At any rate, a whole slew of thing going back into March will have to be rebilled and reimbursed and repaid. I just hope none of it lands on me.

They saw me before my appointment time. I was actually out of the building three minutes after my scheduled appointment time. The PA I saw told me that I only need to come back if I don't seem to be getting better and that I should, as much as possible, stop using the boot. She thought it was still better to use it for going out, but she said that, within the next four weeks, I should start using the brace when leaving the house. She thought that I might need the brace all summer, at least when I'm leaving the house. I might be able to go to bare feet inside the house. I guess I'll be wearing knee socks every time I go out this summer. They're the only ones I've got tall enough to protect my skin from the velcro on the brace (the crew socks I usually buy would not be quite tall enough, and the ankle socks I wore exclusively all last summer... Yeah).

She did tell me I should start exercising but only low impact stuff. Walking is still out. She suggested an exercise bike, and we do have one. I'm just not sure I can use it very easily. It's very awkward to get at. Also, the last time I was doing it regularly, I couldn't manage more than five minutes on it before my knees were killing me. Five minutes is more than nothing, but it's really not very much.

I had to wait about fifteen minutes for a cab home, and they have nowhere for anyone to sit out there (and there's no way to watch for a cab from the waiting room-- no windows). I was pretty chilly because, since I was wearing the boot, I was wearing shorts and knee socks.

I got the same cabbie on both the trip there and the trip home. Both times, he thanked me for the tip of 'two hundred pennies.' I thought $2 was a reasonable amount on a $13 trip. I don't know if he was being sarcastic or if he thought it was funny or what. It's just that calling it 'two hundred pennies' makes it sound like he thinks I was being cheap.

I think I did four or five hours of work for [community profile] metanews yesterday. Hopefully, doing the same today will get me through most of what needs to be done. I do now have email addresses for the two potential new recruits, so I'll be emailing them later this afternoon with an outline of the jobs that need to be done. I've at least experimented with doing most of them, so I can explain how the various things work.

Scott did not have to work late last night (he expected to), but he will almost certainly have to work late tonight and Wednesday. We're hoping he can avoid Wednesday because his FATE game is supposed to meet then, and we'd be sad if we couldn't do that. I really enjoy both the game and the opportunity to interact with some non-Scott adults. We do think, though, that we've got enough leftovers to see me and Cordelia through two nights of Scott working late if we need to. I'm not sure what we'll do if he works late Thursday, instead. Our leftovers will be gone by then.

I have 20-30 emails that I need to deal with today or tomorrow. In two days, I've gone from 115 items in my inbox to 146 items in my inbox. I'm afraid of things I need to keep track of getting buried permanently. I also need to fill out paperwork for my appointment on Friday, pin down when we're having Cordelia's party and invite everybody.
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We didn't do much yesterday until it was time to leave the house to go meet Scott's family for dinner. The restaurant served 'pan-Asian' food. There were Japanese, Chinese, Korean, Thai and (I think) Vietnamese options on the menu. Scott's mother and sister both got bibimbop, so I assume that was safely gluten free. I had chicken with vegetables. Scott had chicken teriyaki. Cordelia had chicken fried rice. She said it wasn't as good as what she's used to from the place we usually go.

We got there first by at least ten minutes. Apparently, nobody'd made reservations because the restaurant was not expecting a group of nine at 5:00. Fortunately, they had space to seat us pretty much immediately. Of course, Scott and I were guessing when we said nine-- If our brother-in-law's sister and parents had come, too, it would have been twelve. We had no idea if they were coming. It often happens for things like this. We thought it especially likely since our BIL and nephew had been at a Boy Scout camping trip up until an hour or two before the dinner and so wouldn't have seen the other side of the family earlier in the day.

Service was only so-so. They divided our table in half, and neither waitress thought they were responsible for Scott's parents, so we had to yell for a waitress to come back to take their orders. I think the waitress for the other half of the table was a trainee, but I'm not sure.

When we got back to Ann Arbor, we went to Orange Leaf for frozen yogurt. Cordelia's best friend and her family were there already, and they let us sit with them. I had cheesecake and pink lemonade frozen yogurt. Scott had three or four fruit flavors. I'm not sure what Cordelia had.

I need to email the Girl Scout leader to find out whether or not there's a meeting on Sunday. If there is, we need to schedule Cordelia's party after that. If there isn't, I'd like to have Cordelia's party start at 1:00. I have confirmed that Cordelia's best friend isn't available at all on Saturday (well, she might be available in the morning, but I don't really want to have a party before noon). Cordelia wants a fairly small party, only five or six girls. (Which isn't, I suppose, all that small. It's just that it doesn't include some of her new friends from school. All the girls she's talking about are people she invited last year.) I think I have email addresses for all of the families involved which is a big relief. The school hasn't done any sort of directory this year, so getting that information for new kids is really difficult.

I'm not sure Cordelia has gotten any taller in the last six months. In November, she was about an inch and a half shorter than I am, and she's still visibly shorter than I am. I really, really hope she grows some more. She'll be really disappointed if she doesn't end up taller than me. She does keep remarking that I'm not so very tall and how strange it is that she used to think I was quite tall.

I really, really don't want to do my [community profile] metanews work this week. I may end up putting some of it off until next week just because I run out of time. I don't know. It's just so much easier to do other things instead. I think I'm burning out. We have got to get those other volunteers on board quickly. The senior moderator has promised to email them today, before she goes to bed, but I'm not sure she's going to (I think she might already be in bed. I don't have a good feel for the time difference between here and where she is).

I'm frustrated with my current library book, not because of the content-- that's interesting-- but because of the size of the book. It's relatively thick and also tall and wide, so holding it is awkward. I think the size is because it's heavily annotated and each page has to accommodate a double column of text. The font is not particularly large for the the notes, either. Each page of text has at least a page and a half of notes. I'm finding the notes more interesting than the main text. The book is Pioneer Girl, Laura Ingalls Wilder's autobiography.
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I need to corner Cordelia to make plans for her birthday. At the very least, I need to know who to invite (and I need to get Scott to pick up invitations). She keeps disappearing into her room and not coming out. Her birthday is a week from Sunday, and we probably ought to send out invitations this weekend at the latest if she's going to have a party. The problem is that the weekend of her birthday isn't great-- There's almost certainly a Girl Scout meeting between 1:00 and 3:00, and Saturday is out because her best friend has religious school and wouldn't be able to come. Maybe Saturday evening? Either after dinner or we serve them cheese pizza. But Scott might be working all day that day. It's one thing to have the party while he's at work; we've done that before. It's quite another to have it while he's trying to get showered and all that. I hate to go with Sunday evening given that the next day is a school day.

I also need to spend a little time with Cordelia's Amazon wishlist and order a few things for her. Normally, by this time, Scott has bought some stuff, but things have been so difficult that I don't think he's had time even to think about it. I rather suspect that this is going to be another year when he doesn't have a present for me on my birthday because he hasn't had time to shop. I'm about 90% sure he and Cordelia haven't even thought about Mother's Day.

The [community profile] metanews posts are finally up. I broke out all the Age of Ultron meta into a separate post, and that shortened the full post enough that I didn't have to split it on LJ. If there's as much Age of Ultron stuff next week as there was this week, we'll probably break that out, too. It helps people avoid spoilers.

Speaking of spoilers, I'm using the 'warning:spoilers" tag an awful lot on the [community profile] metanews posts. I kind of think I'm using it excessively and that people ought to assume that any post talking about the latest episode of a show has spoilers for that episode. Heck, most posts about any specific canon contain spoilers. I just don't warn for, say, Harry Potter spoilers at this point. Right now, I'm taking the spoilers warning onto links for the most recent episode of a show (when I can determine what that is. I can't always because I don't follow 98% of the canons we link. Good thing I don't mind spoilers myself) but not for anything older than that. I just felt kind of silly warning for spoilers on Age of Ultron links-- Of course, those have spoilers. Is anybody actually assuming that they don't? Even the bits we excerpted from various articles were likely to be kind of spoilery.

I did, for the first time, have reason to use a 'warning:nsfw' tag. One of the blog entries I linked was talking about the history of sexually explicit comics and was heavily illustrated. I probably should also have put it on the article about how it's still taboo to show a penis on screen and why the author thinks that's so, but that's all text and so less problematic.

Scott's expecting to have to work twelve hours tomorrow, 3:00 to 3:00. That'll probably happen a lot more, going forward, as summer production ramps up. I really hate that production demands are highest during the times of year when the working conditions are worst.

Scott's family is likely to want do something for Mother's Day. I haven't heard anything about it, though, and usually, they'd email me and not Scott, so who knows? I would kind of rather not because I'd like to stay home and try to get things done (or to have Scott get things done since I still can't really help with the laundry), especially if Sunday is Scott's only day off this weekend. He'll need to fit in four loads of laundry, the grocery shopping and enough cooking that Cordelia and I don't have to order carry out when he works late this week (I'm expecting Monday and Tuesday again, so weekend cooking is really essential).
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I guess we find out today whether or not I can empty the clean dishes out of the dishwasher. Scott forgot to do it last night, and it must be done by 2 p.m. when the cleaning lady comes. I know I can put the dirty dishes in; that just requires standing in one spot and going back and forth between sink and dishwasher. I don't want to leave all the dirty dishes in the sink because then the cleaning lady will wash them, and there are much better things for her to with her time, things we can't do.

I want to shower today, but I'm not sure I should. I definitely need to wash, but a bath might be the wiser course, especially given the need to deal with the dishes. I don't want to overdo again.

The breast care clinic called yesterday (naturally while I was on my cell talking to Scott). My appointment is a week from tomorrow. That means three appointments next week. I really, really have to remember to take Ativan before I go out. Otherwise, I'm not going to make it through the week.

I'm already debating canceling the dermatology appointment. The thing it's for is so very small, and I'm pretty sure it's just a tiny cyst. It's right next to my right eye, so I can't get a good look at it, however. My doctor said it was a skin tag and that it was inflamed (which isn't a surprise since that corner of my eye waters frequently and I end up wiping it dry repeatedly). There is a history of skin cancer in my family-- My father's father was always having to have things removed. But he worked out of doors for decades, before sunscreen was a thing.

The other link finder for [community profile] metanews is pressed for time. Their father is back in the hospital. I don't know if they're going to get their links in or if I should try to cover for them. They said they'd have the links in by now, so maybe I should just go ahead and do their stuff for this week. The family emergency also means that they haven't gotten me the email addresses for our potential volunteers. I'm more frustrated about that than about the links because the addresses should take less than five minutes. I can do everything after that.

I discovered yesterday that Scott has hung my bathrobe in a place where it's impossible for me to get it. The doorbell rang yesterday before I was dressed, and I went for my robe. It wasn't where I usually put it, on the hooks on the bedroom wall. Scott had hung it from a hook over the bedroom door that's high enough up that I can't reach to unhook it. (Scott's a full foot taller than I am, and I doubt it occurred to him that there'd be a problem.) Fortunately, the doorbell was just someone leaving a package, and they left it on the doorstep when nobody answered. Now I just have to remember to make Scott take my robe down. It completely slipped my mind while he was home yesterday.
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I think I'm giving myself an amnesty on the question of pursuing DW and LJ meta relating to Age of Ultron. I'm simply overwhelmed by the volume of posts (and that's just on my reading lists and links from my reading lists). I've written up nineteen links for AoU so far this week. Most of them are to blogs and similar sites, so I probably ought to get a few more LJ and/or DW posts. I'm just finding myself totally unmotivated.

That's partly because I'm burned out on AoU and partly because LJ and DW posts are a PITA because we always ask permission before linking. That means I have to write up the potential link, stick the write up in a Google doc just for things we don't yet have permission to post, ask for permission and then track the mod in box to see if we get permission. If we do get permission, I cut and paste the link text to the main document. If we don't hear anything, it sits for two weeks, waiting, before we delete the link. If we get a definite no, we delete the link immediately, of course. Most people who want to say no just don't ever answer us. At least, I assume that's why they don't answer.
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I overdid yesterday. My bad foot hurts like the dickens. Just taking off my sock last night was painful. Normally, I shower on Wednesday mornings, but I think this week I'll put it off until Thursday to give my foot a chance to recover.

I'm not quite done link finding for [community profile] metanews. Most of what I have left to do is LJ and DW stuff, though, and the other link finder doesn't yet have their stuff in, so I'm not delaying anything by not being done myself.

I am kind of burned out on meta about Age of Ultron. There are dozens of posts about it on LJ and DW, and I'm not convinced we should link all of them, but I have no idea how to select what to link. Right now, it's mostly a matter of accident, but I've seen several posts on my own reading list that I haven't marked for linking and probably should have. I wish we had the time and staff to do a dedicated post just for Age of Ultron meta. I think that would make sense.

I am realizing that it's a really, really good thing I don't mind spoilers. I hit a lot of them, doing stuff for [community profile] metanews. Most of them are for things I'm never going to watch or read but still. I mean, I have a fair idea of who lives and who dies in each new Game of Thrones episode, and I've never watched a single second of the show.

Scott worked late again last night. He did make it back to town in time to vote but only just. The school bond proposal passed. The state proposition for raising the sales tax to fund road repair failed overwhelmingly (I think the figure I saw was 85% against). I voted for that just because I don't think we'll get anything better and because the roads are in desperate need of work.

Cordelia and I considered several different options for dinner tonight (I actually thought about cooking. My foot hadn't started to really hurt at that point, so I thought I could), but we ended up with pizza. We got enough for Scott to have some, too, and Cordelia will have dinner for several nights, just from the leftovers of her pizza. It wasn't cheap, so I hope we can work something better out for the nights Scott works late next week (there are now four vacancies on second shift, so there will be lots more overtime. Scott thinks his third overtime shift this week will be a go in early on Saturday, but he's not sure yet).

I'm up right now because I was having serious reflux trouble. I'm very surprised by that since I haven't had anything of the sort in many, many months. I ate at about the usual time tonight, and I didn't eat anything I hadn't had before. I have no idea why this time's different. I just knew that, if I stayed lying down, I was going to be in real trouble, so I got up and started reading stuff on my laptop. After I post this, I'm going to try going back to bed. It's been two hours. Hopefully, I can lie down safely now. Thank goodness I can sleep in.
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I slept later this morning than I intended to. It was after 10:00 when I got up. That means that I'm squishing together when I take my morning meds and when I take my lunch meds because we're going to a birthday party at 1:30.

The LJ and DW Metanews posts went up over night. I did the Tumblr post because the other moderator was having issues with a slow connection and couldn't get Tumblr to load. There were a couple of html errors in the post that I've fixed on DW and LJ (I haven't the slightest clue how to fix them on Tumblr). Both were my errors, but I think two errors is pretty good in thirty pages of links.

We do have templates for how to lay out the links, and if I used those, I wouldn't make most of these mistakes, but going back and forth to get the templates takes so long that it would probably double the time I take writing up a link. I'd rather just type from scratch and deal with the occasional error.

I'm torn as to whether I want to write after we get back from the party or whether I want to get started on link finding so that it's not quite as hectic Monday and Tuesday. Writing is definitely tempting. I keep not doing it, and I'd really like to get this chapter moving. On the other hand, the link finding has to be done at some point.

I am thinking to sign up for Remix this year simply because I love the challenge of it. I qualify in Weiss Kreuz and Narnia, so it should be relatively straightforward to find someone to write for me. I'm not sure what to offer-- They're opening things up to any fandom in the tagset this year. I'm not sure how that will work in terms of knowing what to offer since that really depends on what fandoms people want to be remixed in. It would be very easy to offer a bunch of fandoms that nobody's asking for, but at the same time, even a very tiny fandom might be in someone's sign up. I don't know. I think they need a nomination period of some sort.

I have pretty much promised to offer to remix Naruto and Narnia. I don't know what else makes sense for me. I don't feel like I have to know a fandom in as much detail to remix it as I do to write from scratch.

We apparently just had an earthquake. I didn't notice, but Scott and Cordelia both did.
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Scott is apparently playing up my broken foot to minimize his required overtime (given that that still meant two twelve hour days this week, I'd hate to think what the week would look like without that). He's given them an exaggerated sense of what I can't do without actually lying about it. Basically, nobody there has ever had a broken foot or lived with someone who did, so they're imagining things pretty much as they were when I wasn't allowed to put weight on it at all.

This week's [community profile] metanews post isn't up yet, and I'm concerned. It's not my week to post, and I'm pretty sure the person who is supposed to post is in Australia, so it's not likely to go up today unless it goes up pretty late. The last time we ran this late, we ended up skipping a week and doing a double long post. I really don't want to do that this time because the post is already too long to fit into a single LJ post (it runs over thirty pages in Google docs). Also, I don't think that readers will enjoy having a double sized post dumped on them. I don't think anybody has time to deal with something that large.

I haven't heard from the other moderator in a couple of days in spite of having sent some emails. It's likely that they're just busy, but I always worry. I have offered to take charge of getting our potential volunteers up to speed. They've been waiting for weeks, and we desperately, desperately need their help.

Scott is planning to go see Age of Ultron this weekend. I'm not sure exactly when. He tried to talk Cordelia into going with him, but she refused. He doesn't want to go alone, but he doesn't have anybody to go with. Maybe he should call his sister and see if her kids want to go with him. That's what he did for The Hobbit.
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I don't think wearing the brace yesterday did me any harm. It wasn't as comfortable for my foot as the boot but was more comfortable for the rest of my leg than the boot is. I don't know.

I made two phone calls yesterday that I'd been putting off. I called Kroger to ask them to order me a tube of Gel-Kam (fluoride gel for my teeth, helps with sensitivity problems). I also called our dentist to see about changing Cordelia's dental appointment. That was set for the 12th which is also the day when I see the orthopedics people again. I didn't want to do both on the same day. The dentist is actually able to get us in on the 14th at the same time which is really nice. I was afraid we'd end up waiting for at least a month or have to come in earlier in the day (with a 3:30 appointment, Cordelia still misses half an hour of school, but I figure that's better than missing three hours which is what an earlier appointment would likely require). A Thursday afternoon appointment isn't ideal because it means not being here when the cleaning lady comes, but we've done that before. She can lock up when she leaves if Scott's not home yet, and I will be home when she arrives.

Scott worked late last night. I wimped out on dinner and sent Cordelia to Subway. She forgot to have them put the ranch on my chicken bacon ranch sub, and I forgot to tell her that I wanted spinach, so she only got me lettuce. She ate half of her sandwich last night and half for breakfast this morning. I was half hoping she'd save that half for dinner tonight. Scott's supposed to be working late again. Oh, well. We do have enough leftovers for one meal.

[community profile] metanews seems to expand to fill all my available time. I'm not sure what to do about that. I'd like to do other things than that and my general wandering around the internet. I just can't seem to focus. I do think I'm finding more links on our LJ reading list than the other link finder gets from the DW reading list, so I'm not at all sure why we stopped checking LJ. The rationale, as I recall, was that we weren't getting more than a link or two a week, but I'm finding at least a dozen a week there, possibly more. Have things changed or am I more thorough than whoever was linking before? Most of the links I get are to things off LJ, so maybe whoever did it before was ignoring those?

Scott did discover why he was having so much trouble getting his laptop to back up-- The program was trying to back up both of his hard drives, and one of them, the one he uses for photo and video storage, has over a terabyte of data. Time Capsule was simply choking on the volume. He did a full back up of both hard drives. I think, from here on out, he's going to have his working hard drive back up automatically and only back up the storage drive when he makes changes.

I know there were other things I meant to write about, but I can't for the life of me think what they are. I guess I'll do a supplementary post later today if I remember.
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I did not go to the library yesterday, but I did shower. I did that while Scott and Cordelia were at the library which was probably not a great idea, but I was feeling nasty and couldn't stand to wait any longer. I almost slipped getting out of the tub, but that wasn't because of my bad foot/ankle.

Scott actually changed the sheets yesterday! I'm thrilled. It had been about seven weeks, and I like to change them every other week. It's just something that pretty much has to be done on the weekend. It doesn't take very long at all, but even ten minutes is more than Scott has in him most weeknights. Hopefully, in two weeks, I'll be able to help with the next change.

I'm wearing the brace instead of the boot this morning. I probably won't wear it for much longer. I want to work my way up to wearing it longer, but I think a couple of hours is about the limit right now before I go back to the boot.

I did a fair amount of link finding yesterday. Hopefully, that will mean I only need to do a couple of hours today and a couple of hours tomorrow. There's one blog I'm linking to a lot now (it covers shows I haven't seen anything for elsewhere-- The Returned, The Messengers, Forever, Olympus, and some others I'm forgetting) tends to do a long, detailed recap of each episode followed by a few paragraphs of meta analysis. I always wonder if people are going to be willing to slog through the recap to get to the meta or if they'll assume there isn't actually any meta to be had.

I'm also wondering about our policy for warning for spoilers. We don't have any clear guidelines as to what merits a warning, so I'm not really consistent about it. I am labeling all Age of Ultron reactions and analysis with 'warning:spoilers' because that's obvious, but what about a two week old episode of something like Supernatural? It's also often not clear to someone who doesn't know canon when meta draws on recent canon versus old canon, and I don't know most of the canons for which I find links. Right now, I'm trying to tag for spoilers if I know the post is talking about the most recent episode of a show, but I don't always know or remember. I'm less clear on what to do with books or games. Those seem to me to have a longer period for spoilers, and not everything is as clearly past its spoiler date as, say, Harry Potter. (Yeah, I'm not warning for spoilers for Harry Potter. That ship has sailed.)

Scott grilled some turkey last night and then forgot to turn off the grill until two or three hours later. He leaves the grill on a while after he takes the meat off in order to get it partly cleaned, so forgetting is easier than it might otherwise be. He also tried to grill some broccoli but concluded that broccoli is not well suited to the grill.

I'm trying to figure out, while listening to some CDs I've recently acquired, whether some songs are actually songs I like a lot or if they're simply songs I know well from my teenage years. It matters because I have a playlist of songs I really like a lot, and I'm trying to decide which of these songs I want to add to that. (The playlist in question is really, really big, something like 36 hours of music.) These songs are fun to sing, and I wouldn't mind hearing them frequently, but do I really like them? How to judge that?
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I'm debating whether or not I should go to the library with Scott and Cordelia today. I'm probably capable of it, and doing some walking might be good for me. On the other hand, walking still hurts, so I don't know.

I wore the brace for about five hours yesterday, and that was simply too long. By the time I put the boot on, my foot really hurt. The boot's far from ideal, but I don't bend my foot when I walk in it, and I don't move my ankle as much. I just wonder whether I'm making a mistake in not wearing the brace more-- It may be that those movements hurt because I haven't done them much in weeks and that I need to do them more not less.

Scott and I finished off season 5 of Leverage yesterday. We thought that the season, on the whole, was weaker than preceding seasons, but it was still pretty good. We enjoyed the last episode quite a bit. I may have to go looking for Leverage fic (assuming I get into reading fic again).

I started this week's [community profile] metanews link finding yesterday and got through about a third of the blog list. I haven't found nearly as many links in terms of just happening on things this week, and I'm kind of glad because it leaves me with more time for other things.

Scott and I ended up staying up way late last night. We usually turn out the light between 11:00 and midnight, but last night we hit 1:00 with the light still on. We didn't get up until well after 10:00. It's a bit after noon now, and we've only just had breakfast. That really throws off my medication schedule for the rest of the day, so I try not to do that, but many Sundays, that's just the way it is.

I'm wondering when I'll be able to go back to volunteering at Cordelia's school. I don't think it will be this week, but I'd like to go back soon. I miss it quite a bit. I'm just not sure how useful I'd be as I couldn't shelve a considerable percentage of the books due to not being able to get down near the floor with my leg in the boot.

I have to call and try to reschedule Cordelia's dental appointment. It's the same day as my next orthopedics appointment, and I really don't want to try to do both in one day. The timing is such that I almost certainly could do both, just looking at that factor. The orthopedics appointment is at 10:30. The dental appointment is at 3:30. Even assuming it takes two hours to have the morning appointment and get home, I'd be in plenty of time to pick Cordelia up from school at 2:30. I just don't think I can face going out twice in one day.
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I'm trying the lighter brace this morning. I already have a problem with it-- Bending my foot as I walk hurts. That is, in fact, the main thing that hurts when I walk. This brace is great at supporting my ankle but does nothing at all for my foot. I'm also finding that, as I sit at my laptop, I tend to rest my toes on the floor and lift my heels which, of course, bends my foot in a way that hurts. I can't do that when I'm wearing the boot. I don't know. I'll probably be back to the boot later in the day and be glad of it, even if it is uncomfortable, too.

Scott had to work late last night. We weren't expecting it, but one of the guys on second shift had a family emergency (his mother was in an accident) and couldn't come in. On the plus side, Scott working late got him out of working today or tomorrow, so there's that.

I managed to cut up the chicken so that Cordelia and I could put it on salad greens for dinner. There was enough left for Scott to have some, too, when he finally got home. Cordelia didn't complain nearly as much as she usually does. She was unhappy, earlier in the day, when I wouldn't let her eat any of the burger buns. I pointed out that Scott will probably make turkey burgers again this week and that one package of ground turkey generally makes four burgers. That's exactly how many buns we have left, so I want to save them.

I've been thinking about [community profile] metanews policies. We pretty much always ask for permission before we link anything on LJ, DW, or AO3 (the exception is an LJ or DW account that is clearly identified as an author's professional journal. Even then, we'd probably ask. The only reason this exception came up is that we wanted to link to a post with comments turned off that was written by an author who had blocked PMs). We don't ask permission for Tumblr (I'm not even sure how we could) or blogs. Most people say yes, but some people do say no or don't respond at all. If we get no response, we hold the potential link for two weeks and then delete it because we figure that a silence that long is meant to be a no.

I do think that LJ and DW, for most people, have a certain expectation of a relatively small audience, so I think asking permission makes sense. I'm always a little sad when someone says no, but I can understand not wanting a sudden influx of strangers. I'm not so convinced that we should ask about things posted unlocked on AO3-- That's a very public forum and doesn't come with the same expectation of a controlled audience that LJ and DW do. Of course, we haven't done anything with AO3 since the first week of March because the person who was doing that had to quit. I just didn't feel like I had the time to pick that one up, too.
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Cordelia and I ate leftover pizza last night, so I escaped having to do any food preparation. We'll have salad tonight when Scott's available to cut up the chicken. Scott picked frosties on his way home, so we had a nice treat after dinner. I should probably see if I can make jello today so that we have something for dessert tonight. Cordelia's not as insistent about dessert every night as she used to be, but it's nice for all of us to have something of the sort.

I poked around on the [community profile] metanews Tumblr yesterday. I think the reading list there may be too big for any one volunteer. I spent over an hour to go back about 24 hours, and anyone doing Tumblr for us would have to go back a week at a time. That's an awful lot of time for one person, especially given that there's a lot of stuff that we haven't yet found that we ought to be following. The current reading list is mostly Sherlock (with very little meta) and A Song of Ice and Fire. A couple of weeks ago, I added some Buffy stuff, but Tumblr is a fire hose, and I'm not at all sure we can sip from it.

Our cleaning lady is regularly working more than two hours (usually about two and a half), but she won't let me pay her for the extra time. She says it's her choice to do it. And it is, but... Her time is worth money. At least, if I do ask her for extra time to work on the basement (once I can actually go down there again), she'll let me pay her for that.

I think I forgot to water the plants last week. They seem to have survived, but they were very, very dry when I watered them yesterday. I always feel torn about the plants. I don't actually want either of them. Well, the Christmas cactus isn't so bad. It's got a nice, convenient spot, right by a window. The other plant is something annoying that Cordelia brought home from camp two or three years ago. It grows constantly with a singly runner that seems to want to extend infinitely. I've wrapped that around the pot as well as I can. I tried cutting it to stop the growth, but it just sprouted a runner from another point. None of us like the dratted thing, but I can't bring myself to kill it. (I once had a poinsetta that I kept for years. It was green the whole time. I just couldn't bring myself to kill it or abandon it.)

I finished reading both of the books I was reading and have started a new one. The new one is a biography of someone who lived about a century BC, and the author admits that she's speculating a lot because the sources are so thin. This one is an interlibrary loan book, so I'm giving it priority for now. I do, however, need to read the graphic novel that I've already renewed once that's due a week from Sunday.

I canceled my hold on one book that would have had to be picked up Saturday at the latest. I didn't want to make Scott make an extra trip downtown. I put a new hold on it, but I won't get it for many, many months as there are 22 copies and about 200 holds. Oh, well. There are many other books I want to read. I can wait.

Scott is listening to Whales on Stilts on CD. He says it's basically a Phineas and Ferb episode but longer and darker. I think that's fairly accurate. He hasn't decided yet if he likes it. He will probably finish it before the end of next week, and I haven't put a hold on anything to replace it. He says that's okay because he's got an audiobook on his iPod that he wants to listen to.

I've been having a lot of trouble with my mouth being dry. It's been going on for weeks now. I'm a little concerned that this may mean something's screwy with my blood sugar. I don't seem to have other symptoms of type 2 diabetes, but I can't help worrying. That's something I definitely don't need. Ah, well, I'll get my fasting blood sugar done in early May. That will tell me.
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I had a very nice lunch with Scott's sister and her friend. We went to Cafe Marie. My SIL and I arrived just as her friend was walking up. The friend looked familiar to me but didn't seem to recognize me so maybe not. Then again, she may be someone I've seen at the public library a few times or something like that. We talked a lot about kids and schools and a bit about business-- My SIL and her friend both have their own home businesses selling products from different companies. My SIL does Stampin' Up. The friend does Norwex.

I ended up bringing a Norwex catalog home because one product in it looks intriguing-- The have an extra absorbent head towel thingy that's long enough that I wouldn't have to fight to get all of my hair into it. The microfiber head towel I've got now isn't nearly long enough for my hair, and bit are always hanging out and escaping. I don't know, though; it's $24, and I know nothing at all about the company. My SIL's friend did say that she and her daughter both use them and that her daughter's hair comes down to her waist and fits easily.

My right foot and ankle aren't hurting any worse today than they were yesterday, so apparently I didn't overdo. I'm more than a little surprised because we had to park a fair distance from the restaurant and walk to and from it. My left ankle and knee are kind of cranky, though, because I'm walking in ways I'm not used to and because, when I get up from sitting at my laptop table, I can't readily put weight on my right foot due to space issues caused by the boot.

My SIL has permission from her alternative practitioner to slowly start reintroducing foods into her diet. She wanted to start with cheese, but the practitioner said absolutely not dairy. They negotiated, and goat cheese is apparently fine (the practitioner claims it's easier to digest than cow cheese). My SIL wants cheese back because her regular doctor is quite concerned about how much weight she's lost. My SIL wants something she can eat that will provide more calories than what she's currently eating.

I did about an hour of link finding before lunch and another five or six hours after lunch. The other moderator has asked me to post again this week because they're ill. They haven't yet told me that their links are in, so I probably won't post until tomorrow. I've got to find a balance between [community profile] metanews and writing. I seem to be able to do one or the other but not both.

Scott made turkey burgers last night. Given how much ground turkey we have, I expected him to make a lot of burgers so that we'd have leftovers, but he only made four, and we ate all of them. I have no idea what we'll have for dinner tonight. I'm saving the last piece of chicken so that I can chop it up tomorrow night when Scott's working late so that Cordelia and I can use it on salads. I had Scott buy some of that pre-cut lettuce because I didn't see myself being able to cut both the chicken and the lettuce.

I have two books I've almost finished reading. I just need about ten minutes on one and maybe half an hour on the other. I have about half a dozen other books that I want to read but haven't yet started. Three of them are manga volumes, so they ought to be quick reads. I've just been putting those off because they're yaoi, and I haven't been in the mood to deal with the conventions of the genre. I have been reading some fic, nothing spectacular, just some relatively okay and long stuff.
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I spent about seven hours yesterday on [community profile] metanews, and I'm not done for the week yet. That adds to the two or three hours I spent on Saturday. I think I'm spending too much time on this, but I can't help wanting it to be done properly, and no one else is currently available to do it. I want those other possible volunteers on board now. I am a little worried that the senior moderator is telling people that this is an hour a week commitment. The blog list, even just half of it, takes considerably longer, and I strongly suspect that doing Tumblr would take a lot longer, too.

I ended up giving myself a headache while working on [community profile] metanews. It started about midway through the time I spent and went away within an hour of me stopping. I don't think it was purely eyestrain because I kept using my laptop after I stopped link finding. I suppose I'll see if I get a headache again today.

Cordelia was very disappointed that Scott was working late last night. The school actually sent home a coupon for the PTO fundraiser at Olga's, and normally, we'd get dinner there under those circumstances, but there was really no way to make it work with Scott getting home around 8:00. I generally need to eat before 8:00 if I'm going to bed at 11:00, and that's especially true if we go to Olga's.

I emailed Scott's sister on Saturday or Sunday to say that I'd love to have lunch with her and her friend today. I haven't heard back from her which surprises me. Maybe she figures there's nothing to say. I know her appointment's at 11:30, so she's unlikely to get here any earlier than 12:30. I'll just aim to be ready to go by noon, and that should be fine.

I think I overdid somehow yesterday even though I didn't do much. Maybe I should have had Cordelia prepare dinner. When I took off the boot last night, my bad foot really hurt. I still slept reasonably well, thank goodness. I didn't go back to sleep after Scott got up, but that happens sometimes, even when my foot doesn't hurt. I just hope that going out today isn't a mistake in that regard. Well, even if it is, I really need to get out of the house for something that's not a medical appointment. It will be really nice to talk to someone who's not Scott or Cordelia.

I should go back to HabitRPG. I've been on hiatus from that for two or three weeks now because I just couldn't face it right then, and I haven't been able to get myself to go back. I did put my character into the inn, so the other people in my party aren't suffering because of me not checking in.
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I didn't do much yesterday. Mostly, I poked around AO3 and read mediocre fic. I spent a couple of hours working on links for [community profile] metanews, but I stopped when I hit the two big lumps of saved off links-- More Hugo Awards stuff and a bunch of Tumblr posts about a Sherlock con called 221B Con where there was recently some nastiness that has spilled over into Tumblr in a fairly big way. I haven't dug very far into the 221B Con stuff and probably won't, but I have enough links to give people an introduction of sorts. It's just that, yesterday, I couldn't face tackling either group of links. I also haven't yet touched the blog feed, and that's going to be time consuming.

I'm debating whether to risk another shower today or whether to take a bath instead. A shower has the advantage of getting me cleaner, but it might make my ankle hurt worse tomorrow. A bath will probably be a lot easier on my ankle, and Scott is home in case I need help. I just don't really like baths unless, for some reason, I need to soak in hot water for a while. It's warm enough right now that I don't feel any urge to do that.

Scott suddenly realized, about 7:00 last night, that he hadn't yet cooked dinner and that he didn't have everything he needed to make the turkey burgers he'd promised Cordelia. Instead, he cooked chicken. Cordelia wasn't particularly pleased, but she ate it. We'll have turkey burgers tonight, most likely.

Sunday mornings are difficult-- I'm generally out of ripe bananas (Scott buys some on Saturday, but they're usually not quite ready to eat on Sunday. Also, he only gets five or six at a time, and that only works out if I eat something else on Sunday) and so don't have anything easy for breakfast. Scott makes pancakes or waffles eventually, but those usually aren't done by the time I'm supposed to eat (half an hour after my morning medications). This morning, I couldn't find anything portable except a bowl of goldfish crackers. That's far from ideal, but I suppose it will hold me until there are waffles.

There's someone in Yuletide chat who, back in February, offered to take a look at one of my WIP. I put in on Google docs and gave them permission to edit. Then they vanished from chat for two months and didn't reply to the one email query I sent. They've returned to chat just this week but haven't said anything to me. I'm trying to decide if I should query or not. I mean, they're by no means obligated to look at my stuff or to talk to me about it. I'm quite clear on that. I just wonder if they even remember. I doubt it was as important to them as to me (I think a lot more about my writing than anybody else does or should), and something kept them away from chat for two months. I suspect whatever it was was important to them.
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We ended up solving last night's dinner dilemma by having Scott pick up KFC on the way home. It wasn't ideal since it was nearly 8:00 by the time we ate, but it was a lot better than fighting with Cordelia over what to eat. I had reached the point with that where I was just going to have her make herself some ramen and heat up some frozen green beans. I have no idea what I would have eaten. A bag of potstickers can easily feed five or six, and it wouldn't make sense to cook all of them just for me (I'm not sure how well storing an opened partial bag in the freezer would be. We've never tried it. It might work).

Scott will be working late next Monday and Thursday. The current plan is for him to cook like crazy this weekend so that we have plenty of leftovers for the week. I hope it works. I also probably could handle one of those frozen meals that goes in the oven forever, but I'm not sure Cordelia likes any of the ones we've tried. There's a vegetarian white lasagna that Scott and I really enjoyed, but, although Cordelia tried it (she will try just about anything), she didn't like it at all.

I've been poking at [community profile] fail_fandomanon a bit. It's an incredible time sink. I think I'll have to be careful only to stop in occasionally and to choose which threads to read very, very carefully. I have other things I want to do, and I don't want to look up at the end of this weekend and find that I've still done no writing. I did find one sub-thread complaining about the SJW tendencies of what [community profile] metanews links to. I managed not to say anything, but I really wanted to tell them that, if they don't like what the newsletter is linking to, they should volunteer or, at the very least, suggest links to blogs they think we should be following. There's only so much two people can do. Besides, I think the stuff they were complaining about as SJW crap is interesting to read.

It was so warm in our house when we went to bed last night that I asked Scott to turn on the ceiling fan. That helped considerably, but Scott thinks it created problems with water condensation in the hose of his bi-PAP. He had to get up around 5:00 to empty the hose and ended up knocking the entire bi-PAP off his bedside table. I'm not sure of the best solution to this. I've been feeling really warm at night for months now, and warmer weather is just going to make that miserable.

I'm trying to decide if I should risk showering again this weekend or simply take a bath which should be less stress for my foot and ankle. A shower might well be worth the risk of increased pain the next day. I don't know, though. I think I'm not remembering Thursday's pain clearly (though, as I recall, it eased off a lot once I got the boot on).

Scott's sister is coming to town to see her 'doctor' on Tuesday. She offered to pick me up on her way to her appointment and drop me off at Barnes & Noble, but I had to say no. I don't think I could handle walking around the store for fifteen minutes, let alone the hour I'd likely be there. It's a pity because I enjoy bookstores and haven't been to one for months. She's also invited me to join her and a friend of hers for lunch, and I said yes to that. I'll enjoy getting out of the house. It's been weeks.
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[community profile] metanews is finally posted for this week. It took a lot longer than usual because the post was too long for LJ. Splitting it meant re-doing the tag list for each half of the post, and that's the most time consuming part of things.

We've gotten a comment from someone who would really like us to type out the name of the source blog for all blog links. Right now, we just put in '[author's name] (blog)' and leave it at that. I suppose I can see wanting to know what blog the link goes to, but it would be a lot of extra work for those of us doing blog links (which is pretty much exclusively me right now. I'm hoping that will change, but...). We've previously had people wanting us to distinguish between blogs that pay contributors and blogs that don't, but we don't do that because we have no way to know which is which and because it would also be more work.

The blog feed is already a really big task. On a slow week, it takes me at least three hours (and often more), and we keep adding new blogs to our feed (I added five or six this week alone). I hesitate to change anything else that would make the whole thing harder.

ETA: I wrote this about three hours ago and thought I had posted it. Checking now, I see that I never did, so here it is.

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