My food choices seem to have got very limited and boring of late, partly because of allergies and trying to eat sensibly, partly from lack of inspiration.

So here's the kind of post everyone likes to comment on:

What's for lunch today?
(or what *was* lunch, depending on when you read this)

I'll be having ham with toast, coleslaw and cherry tomatoes, which is tasty but happens a tad too frequently (it was ham and coleslaw and baked potato for dinner last night, after all..)

Whisper it quietly but the antiobiotics seem to have done the trick and I'm feeling better, have more energy and more ability to cope with life (odd wibble notwithstanding), so am back on track trying to eat healthily - need to get more green leafy veggies into me, plus some extra vitamin tabs will hopefully help - and get more exercise, two walks a day plus any trips to the shops, where possible. Yesterday I got to the bus stop and back after lunch, plus a wee walk at night, a wee *scamper* more like as the rain it did raineth most heavily and unexpectedly upon us, eep. Today I headed to my favourite lamp post and stood enjoying the breeze tossing the trees on the opposite side of the road.

I need to rediscover who a hobbit is. I'm a linguist and a musician and an academic as well as wife and daughter and housewife and researcher and cook, but I keep missing out on the music and language and study thing

The other night I had enough concentration to curl up with my history of the hebrew people book, I'm sure the library would like it back as I've had it since September last year, and read the relevant bits of the Bible too, before breaking off to watch Torchwood cos that was rather more enticing than dry historical stuffs, to be honest.

Then yesterday I dragged out the music stand and my book of 50 classical guitar solos, plus geetar, and spent several hours on and off sight reading some lovely tunes, reminding myself of old favourites, trying some new ones and getting back into the swing of things, yay me. Got an achy shoulder now, I'm so out of practice!

There was too much housework etc today for musicking, but I did get a PSP Monster Hunter fix, slayed 5 Giaprey with the Dual Blade thing, tis very effective, whee!! ::grin::

Tomorrow will hopefully contain more guitar work and maybe some Chinese.. the Latin books keep tempting me, and I should brush up on my Hebrew, but one thing at a time, I guess...

Other things are troubling, but basics I can get a handle on at least.

I'm pleased to say I'm feeling much more myself thanks to these antibiotics - of course, they're wiping me out such that an afternoon nap has been necessary each day but at least I'm able to do stuff otherwise. Like go for walkies twice on Friday, as well as nipping to the shops, and feeling like playing the guitar somewhat, and able to help out more with the household chores without feeling it was too challenging.

I also played plenty of Monster Hunter both yesterday and today, hired me a felyne, though our first quest with the little cat helper didn't go too well, as it kept throwing bombs at the monster just as I was rushing up to attack same with a sword, so I got caught in the blast.. oops. Did better today though, and it was handy having back up to take down the weird white ape-like things - this after having run away very fast from a big dragony thing in the mountains, before sneaking round behind it to slay the popo I was sent there for. Running away = good with a thing that scaly and scary, eep.

I felt up to doing my free weights before lunch today which felt great, not been well enough for nearly a month for that now, and I went for a walk after lunch too, sorted the laundry etc then came upstairs and lay down to listen to some Michel Thomas Chinese (nearly a month not able to do that either). So many words sounds alike so of course they're all in the same sentence, what a tongue twister some of these phrases can be! Lying down with my head in the pillow and the headphones on and his mellow voice was possibly not the best plan though, as I dozed off, had to go back a few tracks when I came back to the land of the living again ::giggle::

Forest's been busy editing images and chatting up his harem so I don't feel too bad about keep dozing off, if the weather settles a bit we can maybe go somewhere more interesting than Somerfield next week - its great the heatwave has ended pretty much, though it was muggy today, but the torrential rain doesn't do much for out and aboutness, on the whole..

Now if I can just shift this neuralgia and suspected stomach bug! :7

Its amazing how much easier things are when you use the latest version.. all the problems I was having with battling WordPress to get just a simple image displayed where I wanted it? Sorted. Now I've upgraded from clunky old 1.5 to fab new shiny 2.8, yay widgets!

Less yay on uploading files, amending configuaration files and poking around inside MySQL settings, the latter mainly because I was trying to log in with the wrong username mind you *facepalm* Only took me three go's round the settings to finally spot that.

Going to be much easier for my auntie to post to, and add images etc.

Phew.

Time for lunch, methinks!

Further to my previous post, and much fiddling and poking at code and trying out themes (most of which were too modern and didn't work..)

It seems I have WordPress 1.5 which is a bit limited, but the upgrade process looks very confusing.. I'm happy with the basic theme I've got, but I'd love to put the logo in the sidebar at the top, does anyone know how to do that for WordPress 1.5, most of the online instructions are for later versions, talking about tools tabs and widgets and I ain't gots.

Blog is here

Ah the joys of boils, not. I've given up trying to treat it, them, whatever with the hot compress method as they're just moving around so as I had to get my blood pressure checked anyway, I trotted off to the doctor today. Took a whole hour for a ten minute appointment thanks to her running late, and the chemists being amazingly slow, so its just as well forest dropped me off as usual.

My blood pressure's down a bit already thanks to the diuretics, 156/88 rather than 158/94 so I'm quite pleased though the doc seemed to be expecting a bigger drop, its only been a month or so yet though. And she gave me horse tablets antibiotics to shift the boils, and we both agreed she didn't need to have a look or a poke to see them (rather a relief given the location).

Fingers crossed the infection getting cleared out will offset the dragging effects antibiotics usually have on me.

Been napping and reading and failing to get round to playing Monster Hunter, though I helped out on someone else's FarmTown on FB this morning so my pixellated fix is reasonably sated. I felt lousy last night but am slightly better today, did manage some guitar noodling for once so that was good, making up pretty noises is very relaxing.

Um, hi, asking for help again.
( no longer needed )

I love my Monster Hunter game, even though it is supposed to have a steep learning curve, because its so addictive and creative and even when I'm not playing I've been thinking about it. And I found the farm and know how to recruit a Felyne, but some of the learning curve?

Lets just say its down to user ability. Or user intelligence. Er, or lack thereof..

Like heading off on my first quest and realising my hunter was still in her underwear heading for the snowy wastes. Oops.

Second attempt today, donned all the cold weather gear, grabbed the items from the box, went off to do daring questing type stuff - well, ok, picking flowers in the mountains but hey, there were monsters! And insects! And er, the big placid cow things with horns.. all of which were going to make mincemeat of me cos I forget to take out a useful weapon and just had a small knife.

Um.

::giggle::

Luckily our foraging at Tesco was more successfully as I bore home cold chicken and an aubergine and english muffins which made a very nice change from ham or fish cakes for dinner, which is all I've been able to face in the heat this week!

Other than gaming I've been reading a lot, the latest Stuart McBride thriller cos the library asked for it back, even better than the previous titles, and many vampire/werewolf books, including The Devil Inside by Jenna Black which had lots of sex and some SM scenes and rather wonderfully, two gay men having a very active sex life including bondage and torture, with the heroine really getting off on the whole idea. Given how long it took Laurell K Hamilton to even admit there's such a thing as steamy fun consensual non-het sex I was most impressed.

Tis blessedly cooler here, we had much rain and the temperature has dropped by a good 4 or 5 degrees, depending where you are in the house. Which is great, because the heat was making me feel really ill last night, was passed out on the bed with little on, concentrating on resting and breathing, ugh.

I feel lousy today though, stomach bug and a brand new boil plus rather fragile, and too fuzzy to play Monster Hunter, though I had good fun yesterday scampering through the mountains in the training school, collecting magic blue mushrooms and killing some kind of small dinosaur thing that tried to eat me.

Other things that tried to eat me yesterday included the little snake - noticed there was some fluffy mould growing round Zeb's waterbowl, my hand slipped the other day & the substrate must have got wet, so I had to go in to clear that out. Snake would not, of course, move out of the way and started getting aggravated so I picked him up and he tried to bite me (very determined tiny gape) but I just held on gently and after a bit he calmed down and then just snuggled in and enjoyed slithering through my hands. He calmed down enough such that I was able to cart him around in one hand while I sorted fresh water and a clean bowl with the other. It was a two person job though as Forest cleared out all the substrate in the tank for fresh and we made Zeb happy by pinning his tree back up on the side of the tank, for him to climb up and down and up and down and up and...

Woke up this morning to find tree definitely down. Silly snake, and he's been sitting on it all day so I've not had chance to sort it!

Snake care is often a two person job - I was glad dad happened to walking past at just the right point earlier in the week as I'd cleaned out Kithra's poop with her over my shoulder but when I went back to the tank to replace the one hide I'd washed, she was doing a turtle impression with the other one. Lifted out snake, plonked in dad's arms, replaced hides and log, replaced snake...

Its hot, I'm bothered, took me all day and much resting in bed to have enough energy and consciousness to get a shower safely and already the nice coolness of same is wearing off.

I'm enjoying a good book but really want to be playing my Monster Hunter game.

Which I was doing earlier, played the first quest in the Training School but no matter how many times I've tried I just can't get the hang of carving my dead beastie, and so I can't complete the quest, and the next one looks like it needs the meat from the first quest.. besides, a lot of the game revolves round making new weapons and armour from the bits of monster you carve up, so its a *vital* skill. I kill the beastie, I stand next it pressing the circle button as instructed, I gets no meats :(

Grr.

Nice person made me coffee, maybe dinner will help my mood...

Edit: duh.. you have to put the sword away before you can press the button to carve. This might be obvious... happier now, I gots meat, and spit roast, ooh! Plus its a smidgen cooler..

Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!! I can knit again!!

For.. ooh, 2 years maybe, I somehow lost the ability to knit, went from doing fairly complex lace and of course designing and knitting my Blues Creatures range of toys to not being quite sure what to do with these stick things, and having even the thought of knitting make me feel nauseous and panicky.

We've been doing some tidying over the past few days and I was sorting through a box to extract anything useful before it gets put away and there was a bag with knitting in, the green and cream bag I was making up as I went along, and I lifted it out and said to dad, "Oh, I wish I could still knit.."

And then picked up the needles and managed several knit stitches, realised it was a stocking stitch section so pulled those back and promptly purled a whole row.

I can knit! I can purl! I'm ridiculously pleased about this, but its more because losing a new found skill so completely was a tad.. worrying...

Now if only I felt up to finishing some of the many lovely projects I had underway... silk neck scarf, purple sparkly elephant, Shetland wool shawl, huge fluffy Wool-ease shawl.... Maybe one day.

For now, I'm just glad to know the thing with sticks and string is no longer a mystery!

Weirdly, the ability to read and think up patterns didn't leave, just being able to do something about 'em

It is too damn hot.. where's our thunderstorms? Still, once Forest was back we manage a good old censored last night, followed by takeaway (bit too heavy and greasy in this weather, sadly) and some more censored this morning, and then I've worn myself out today because mum was all upset and crying and not coping so I stepped into to do.. everything outstanding then some, actually. And then we went to the shops, and then I fed my dad (plonking stuff on a plate, not too challenging) and then I tried to curl up watching Sunday's Top Gear but dozed off instead...

Yay for coffee-making Forests!

Feeling slightly more human now, and hopefully will get to play a bit more of my new game later. Yep, Monster Hunters Freedom Unite turned up yesterday and I had a Forest to play with instead so only settled down late on to give it a whirl.. wouldn't say its a detailed game but it took half an hour just setting up the character, male or female is fine, then a choice of 8 outfits - the skimpier ones looked a tad odd on the male figure, I must say - and then over 30 possible faces to choose from, all skin colours, lots of expressions, and then you could pick from 20 odd hairstyles, and *then* could pick from 12 colours for said hair or fiddle with sliders to get the RGB balance just right, and after that a choice of 8 voices for the grunts and sighs and eep noises the character will make as she gets beaten up a lot (I have played the demo, this I know).

Phew.

After all that I just managed to wander round the mountain village a bit, admiring the wiggle of the lady warrior and thinking she'll catch her death walking down snow-covered streets in not much more than a bikini... ::giggle::

I has a Forest, la la la laaaaah la *does little happy dance*

I'm not into football, or many traditional British sports, or indeed much sport at all, especially not team sports. I do however have a soft spot for baseball, which for the true Brit afficionade involves many late nights watching Channel Five in the right season, or much nifty use of video recorders or Sky Plus instead of same late nights.

I quite like video games of baseball too, used to have one for the PC, and a small pixellated Gameboy game which was most fun, and I was just thinking the other day a PSP baseball fix could be a groovy thing to have.

So I googled, and spent time looking at review sites (always good geeky fun) and discovered that MLB:08 The Show was pretty much the highest rated game out there (previous versions had some graphic issues, the 09 version had mucked about with some features..). And there was a rumour it might even have been released over here!

Er, no.

Europeans don't like baseball.

UK folk don't like baseball.

I suspect we'd have more of a chance of coming to like baseball if the game companies released the games, and if the television stations broadcast the stuff, oddly.

Still, there's always amazon.com and a quick check revealed that MLB:08 The Show was available to be sent to some non-US countries, whoo!

Wasn't going to buy it right now, just popped it into the basket to see how much shipping would be..

Cost of game: $29
Cost of game + shipping: $75

*drops dead of shock*

Yep, only way to get a little baseball fix is to fork out twice the cost of game for expedited courier shipping and a footnote about agreeing to let said courier handle customs and duty and agreeing to any further charges.

I don't think so, somehow.

Maybe I should get into tennis instead..

Its gone 3am and I really should be in bed, I'm very tired, and looking at page after page of chopsticks on Ebay likely wasn't good for my eyes/head: dad mentioned wanting some, and then I got distracted by the ooh!Shiny nature of some of the designs, never realised it was possible to be quite that atistic with sticks.

My boil finally made a proper appearance, has been lurking somewhat and thus not been able to be treated properly. Tis very sore but hopefully this means it'll sort itself out and I'll feel less icky, its uncanny how I always seem to get extra lurgies when Forest is away, or maybe I just notice more. I have carnal designs on his body when he gets back so I'd better be feeling better!

Was pleased tonight, I made the cauliflower cheese as planned, and adapting it to use ham instead of sausage worked really well. I only made a half batch and that was still tons, would have fed two of us happily, though all that cheese is not really good for me, so it will have to remain a treat. Actually, since I gave up chocolate I'm doing a lot better on general healthy eating (takeaway and KFC aside) and the rich, smooth cheesy sauce was wonderful, but just plain cauli would have been just as welcome. Tasty veggies.

I played Wipeout Pulse on psp (the futuristic racing game) and spent some time picking out the music tracks I could just about stand to listen to, and turning off the ones that were truly annoying. I don't "get" electronic dancy music that's nearly all beeps, and then remixes of same. My idea of good music to race to is heavy rock, lots of drums and a screaming guitar - luckily you can load your own mp3s into the game to listen to instead so I shall have to get round to that when I'm more with it, nice bit of Type O Negative and a few songs by The Who for starters, bit of Queen, Led Zep's Immigrant Song, oh yes. Any other suggestions for fast futuristic racing background stuffs, oh wisest of LJ flists? :) Mind you, we could name the whole selection "Music to Crash By" as I'm still a bit crap at the controls and spend much time bumping into the walls and trying not to blow up my ship..

Think the main reason I'm up still is cos forest is also up. In the air. Several thousand feet up in fact, he's flying back from the States even as I type, took off around midnight our time and lands at 7am or so when I will be soundly asleep rather than able to read txts or take phone calls.

*sigh*

Better wander off anyways..

Night lj! :)

Borrowed this from peaceful_fox, I love the glimpses these things give into people's lives.

What is your current obsession?
My PSP and the cool games.. oh and FarmTown on Facebook, awfully relaxing laying out an orchard and harvesting crops with chickens clucking and cows mooing in the background, and listening to the pigs slide around (they don't go oink, just make a noise like sliding a heavy glass across a surface, weird)

What’s for dinner?
Cauliflower cheese, with any luck, this recipe though I need to swap the sausages for ham as sausages are *not* my friends anymore

What’s the last thing you bought?
Um, pre-ordered the latest PSP game, Monster Hunter Freedom Unite, should turn up tomorrow.

What are you listening to right now?
Blind Boys of Alabama, Spirit of the Century
( Read more... )

And playing games is a great improvement on Tuesday, wherein I felt most strange all day and spent the afternoon lying in bed being a human water filter - pour water in at top, produce much sweat and er, other stuffs, dash to bathroom, drink more water, lie down again, rinse and repeat... ugh. Maybe it was the heat, or this boil, or possibly a stomach bug, but I did feel more human by evening, enough to finally get a much-desired shower, and we'd already planned to get takeaway so I had a nice portion of fish and chips to settle down to, along with some of mum's chicken chow mein as she was over-faced and it was very tasty, very fresh, we like this place. Being so close the food is piping hot and the chips have no chance to get soggy en route is a big plus also.

Maybe resting that much and getting rehydrated was what I needed, definitely very effective, if rather boring, I had Top Gear on in the background but can't say I really took much notice, repeats of old series anyways - the new series just started and I watched that the other night mind, great fun, a race set in 1949, a jag, a cool motorbike and a steam train, whoo (or whoo-whoo.. :) ). Great stuffs!

Today I was planning to do Chinese, play my games and make cauliflower cheese for dinner, so didn't do too much for most of the day and was still too groggy to cook - got all the ingredients and the recipe out, gazed at it, slumped in the chair and then decided to play it safe and reached for the takeaway menu again.

Bad hobbit.

Nicely stuffed no longer keeling over hobbit. This is good. And even though I managed zero Chinese the gaming was good, plus Amazon delivered me a groovy new book so I've read a good chunk of that already, Brent Weeks' The Way of Shadows, kid from the slums trains as an assassin, most enjoyable.

Gots a forest to talk too also, getting shown pretty pics of his sister's town, that man of mine is awfully talented be it naked ladies or painted horses :)

Ssh, don't tell Lara but I'm two-timing her with Kratos in God of War - got to love that game, the graphics and design are stupendous, and such fab cut scenes and building and things opening up, secret passages and stairs and slidy statues and ooooh *bliss*

I'm learning the differences between the two titles too (with a bit of help from walkthroughs). In Tomb Raider, when in doubt, leap around and there's sure to be ledge or something.

In God of War, when in doubt, smash something. Stuck at a dead end? Flail against a wall until it breaks. Trapped with nowhere to go? Smash shiny things until something happens... simple but effective, much button-mashing for killing enemies too, whee!

I feel miles better after a rather groggy day, yay PSP games and things to beat seven hells out of :)

Today started ok, turned on the 'puter to find a forest already up and about as his body's still on UK time, which meant I got to chat though I'd rather he got more sleep if possible, and I found various Tomb Raider walkthroughs of the "thou shalt go this way around and yah boo sucks if you took the obvious route and are now stranded up on a high bit" before finally coming across a nifty video of Youtube wherein Lara does everything I did with her (oo-er!) and so I can see how to get down now, and have proof I wasn't so daft for going that way, yay.

Also discovered the joys of the ITV video player - I caught the tail=end of new sitcom Mumbai Calling the other night and realised I was missing out on a treat, was most pleased to find all the previous episodes available to watch, so got the first two before realising a shower might be a good plan also.

I must have been late getting lunch, or didn't eat enough, or something, as I felt really odd later and napped under a blankie which didn't help, and then got panicky and was crying despite remembering to eat my snack. Dad brought me toast which helped, but I was shaky and crying again when going down for dinner, and it didn't help that the kettle died and tripped the circuit board so I had to scrabble under Forest's desk turning his external HD off and then later on again, plus my Sky box isn't letting me watch stuff again yet, oh and how the hell do you boil potatoes without an electric kettle to heat the water in first? Yes, I know, that last one is obvious but I wasn't thinking straight and all my life I've boiled water in a kettle and gone on to cook so was a bit lost...

Was told how to boil my spuds, made dinner successfully.

Ate, still shivery and nauseous and crying, mum made porridge which has helped...

A lot of it is this dratted boil which doesn't seem to want to shift, treated it twice yesterday and twice today but I think it likes me and wants to stay, grr.

Still, I watched some Criminal Mnds on dvd and I'm well-fed, and I got snuggles and smooches by text from a Forest and hopefully I can jump around as Lara later and maybe get another early night and feel a tad bit more human tomorrow.. fingers crossed.