All the things
Just came home from a week away, and I'm pretty mentally exhausted, so, dot-points it is.
The Bad:
* A whole suitcase of memorabilia and photographs that we thought was safe in Jackie's garage.... was actually full of damp and mould. It must have got soaked wet at least once in the two years it's been sitting in her garage. So, now we have a bunch we had to thow away, a bunch we hope to somehow save, and a bunch we have to preserve somehow before throwing the originals. There was a notebook in there from way back when I was writing my Teapot 'verse for Harry Potter fandom, that's full of things like story snippets, house plans, and such, a lot of world building things that just don't exist anywhere else. It's impregnated with damp and mould, and I'm just going to have to photograph or scan each page before tossing the original. And a bunch of photographs from my midteens, for which I know there are no duplicates, got stuck together. I'm going to have to try to separate them. I spent most of Saturday crying.
* We had to buy four new tyres and get the wheels aligned and balanced while we were away. We knew they'd got bad, but the car was genuinely at the point where it was feeling unsafe to drive. Fortunately, we were able to get an advance on our pension from Centrelink to pay for it (like an interest free loan that is paid back by a reduction in our pension for a few months) but still. And the mechanic listed three things that needed doing in the next eighteen months or so, none of them under $350, and one of them nearly $500. So, we have expensive car repairs in our future.
The Good:
* People kept giving us things. Like, amazing things. There's the very much appreciated jar-saving, which will help with the 'everyone is getting jam or marmalade for Christmas' plan, but there were other things. Like, alisso gave me three pairs of shoes. GOOD shoes. A pair of Fitflops, a pair of Doc Martins, and a pair of Converse. Considering my One Star suede Converse sneakers were literally the next thing we were planning on replacing, I now no longer have to. The Converse and the Fitflops are practically brand new, so, I can wear the Fitflops to walk in, since I have to start walking if I'm going to shift the unwanted weight I've gained. And her mother gave us all this brown rice that they'd been given by alisso's brother,since he's gone no-carb and alisso and her mother don't eat it, and also whole case of cans of Coke, leftover from a party because nobody drank any. When we were leaving, alisso also washed our windscreen with this cleaner stuff she'd bought in bulk, which made the drive home a lot easier, given we were driving west at sunset.
And as I was literally walking out the door of my mum's house to go home, holding my handbag and my laptop bag, I made some offhand comment to my brother about having to get mum to attempt some repairs on my laptop/crafting bag next time (all the seams are very obviously giving way) and he instantly went into his bedroom and returned with this practically new, gorgeous leather laptop shoulder bag, and told me he'd bought a backpack for his laptop and no longer needed it. I actually stood there asking if he was serious for a couple of minutes, I was so stunned.
So, people are awesome.
* We finally watched the Deathly Hallows films! Yes, I know we're years behind, but we had a tradition of seeing them at the cinemas with Emma's dad, and our moving away and Andy's wedding and his mental health (he's finally been dxed with bipolar) meant we'd never had a chance to sit down and watch them together. In short, I loved them. There were some things they'd changed that I didn't understand why, others that I thought made a lot of sense. I missed the Harry and Ron hugging, that seemed to have been taken out altogether. Apart from that, though, I was really impressed with how little they'd sanitised the darkness, and how much of the sinister aspect of Dumbledore's character they'd retained (because I do think he's an incredibly sinister character). I adored the Prince's Tale. I gave all kudos to Rickman's death performance, in being able to make the 'look at me' moment not creepy, as it always seemed to me, but somehow lost and afraid and vulnerable. They cut the horrid moments with Remus that I didn't like, that I always hated and rejected from my headcanon. And the epilogue was actually okay! The makeup wasn't dreadful, and they cut the awful blood purity remark Ron makes that I hate in the books. But yes, on the whole, very very happy. We're going to rewatch at some point in the next couple of days, to pick up all the things we missed.
* A childhood thing has been achieved! There are very few American things I like - I don't like the chocolate, for example. But when I was very little, you could get Goober's Grape and Peanut Butter out here. I don't know when it stopped - definitely before I was ten - and I've missed it ever since. We went to an import shop with alisso, and got a bunch of things - Whitman's sugar free boiled sweets, a couple of Kool-Aid colours for dyeing with, and a jar of Goober's. I'm excited, but also kinda nervous that it won't be as awesome as I remember. But I actually have it, and sometime soon I'm going to open it and have a bit. Now, I just have to find out if they can get Tang, which has disappeared from shops, too. It's an ingredient in the crunchy-coated chicken recipe that was a childhood summer dinner staple, and I have barely any left in the jar in my cupboard.
* Downloaded the nine hour chronological cut of the five pre-Avengers films, and I have that to watch in the next while. Also downloaded a whole stack of stuff from Youtube, so that we didn't have to struggle with our home connection to watch things. Got few other films and tv shows, too, so we've refreshed our viewing options for the month at home.
* I bought the special edition Dawn Treader from ebay for about $27 inc postage. That's a whole stack cheaper than anywhere else I'd seen it - JB was still flogging it for over $40, as were some other ebay sellers. It should get here early next week! Looked into prices for the Iron Man films, too, and it looks like my best bet for extras is to go with the blu-ray versions, which isn't a huge surprise. At some point, I suppose we'll actually have to invest in at least a blu-ray drive for the computer, if not an actual player. It seems to be the way everything's heading, and I have no doubt that the special edition Hobbitses will be blu-ray all the way, possibly fucking 3D, but there is no way I'm getting a 3D machine, ugh.
* Nearly finished knitting pieces for the third figure for the nativity set for Roger, Judy and Justin, so once that's done I'll start with the Epic Jam and Marmalade Making venture. I've got all the ingredients, it'll just be a matter of getting the kitchen clean and being methodical about it when I do make it, since that seems to be the way to achieve jam rather than burnt mess.
* Bought a bunch of lovely Cleckheaton yarn on special from Lincraft that I'll probably use to make stuff for market sale in the future. It's tweedy and pretty, and I got about half a dozen different colours to play with. I'm thinking adult hats and fingerless mitts are the way to go, since they sold well, and they're fairly quick and easy to execute. A reminder, too, I do take commissions! So if anyone out there wants anything knit, or crocheted, do ask. If you're a northern hemisphere person, I'm happy to fast track it so that it'll get there soon, since I know it's well into autumn for you guys now.
This entry was originally posted at http://iamshadow.dreamwidth.org/363105.html. Please comment there using OpenID.
The Bad:
* A whole suitcase of memorabilia and photographs that we thought was safe in Jackie's garage.... was actually full of damp and mould. It must have got soaked wet at least once in the two years it's been sitting in her garage. So, now we have a bunch we had to thow away, a bunch we hope to somehow save, and a bunch we have to preserve somehow before throwing the originals. There was a notebook in there from way back when I was writing my Teapot 'verse for Harry Potter fandom, that's full of things like story snippets, house plans, and such, a lot of world building things that just don't exist anywhere else. It's impregnated with damp and mould, and I'm just going to have to photograph or scan each page before tossing the original. And a bunch of photographs from my midteens, for which I know there are no duplicates, got stuck together. I'm going to have to try to separate them. I spent most of Saturday crying.
* We had to buy four new tyres and get the wheels aligned and balanced while we were away. We knew they'd got bad, but the car was genuinely at the point where it was feeling unsafe to drive. Fortunately, we were able to get an advance on our pension from Centrelink to pay for it (like an interest free loan that is paid back by a reduction in our pension for a few months) but still. And the mechanic listed three things that needed doing in the next eighteen months or so, none of them under $350, and one of them nearly $500. So, we have expensive car repairs in our future.
The Good:
* People kept giving us things. Like, amazing things. There's the very much appreciated jar-saving, which will help with the 'everyone is getting jam or marmalade for Christmas' plan, but there were other things. Like, alisso gave me three pairs of shoes. GOOD shoes. A pair of Fitflops, a pair of Doc Martins, and a pair of Converse. Considering my One Star suede Converse sneakers were literally the next thing we were planning on replacing, I now no longer have to. The Converse and the Fitflops are practically brand new, so, I can wear the Fitflops to walk in, since I have to start walking if I'm going to shift the unwanted weight I've gained. And her mother gave us all this brown rice that they'd been given by alisso's brother,since he's gone no-carb and alisso and her mother don't eat it, and also whole case of cans of Coke, leftover from a party because nobody drank any. When we were leaving, alisso also washed our windscreen with this cleaner stuff she'd bought in bulk, which made the drive home a lot easier, given we were driving west at sunset.
And as I was literally walking out the door of my mum's house to go home, holding my handbag and my laptop bag, I made some offhand comment to my brother about having to get mum to attempt some repairs on my laptop/crafting bag next time (all the seams are very obviously giving way) and he instantly went into his bedroom and returned with this practically new, gorgeous leather laptop shoulder bag, and told me he'd bought a backpack for his laptop and no longer needed it. I actually stood there asking if he was serious for a couple of minutes, I was so stunned.
So, people are awesome.
* We finally watched the Deathly Hallows films! Yes, I know we're years behind, but we had a tradition of seeing them at the cinemas with Emma's dad, and our moving away and Andy's wedding and his mental health (he's finally been dxed with bipolar) meant we'd never had a chance to sit down and watch them together. In short, I loved them. There were some things they'd changed that I didn't understand why, others that I thought made a lot of sense. I missed the Harry and Ron hugging, that seemed to have been taken out altogether. Apart from that, though, I was really impressed with how little they'd sanitised the darkness, and how much of the sinister aspect of Dumbledore's character they'd retained (because I do think he's an incredibly sinister character). I adored the Prince's Tale. I gave all kudos to Rickman's death performance, in being able to make the 'look at me' moment not creepy, as it always seemed to me, but somehow lost and afraid and vulnerable. They cut the horrid moments with Remus that I didn't like, that I always hated and rejected from my headcanon. And the epilogue was actually okay! The makeup wasn't dreadful, and they cut the awful blood purity remark Ron makes that I hate in the books. But yes, on the whole, very very happy. We're going to rewatch at some point in the next couple of days, to pick up all the things we missed.
* A childhood thing has been achieved! There are very few American things I like - I don't like the chocolate, for example. But when I was very little, you could get Goober's Grape and Peanut Butter out here. I don't know when it stopped - definitely before I was ten - and I've missed it ever since. We went to an import shop with alisso, and got a bunch of things - Whitman's sugar free boiled sweets, a couple of Kool-Aid colours for dyeing with, and a jar of Goober's. I'm excited, but also kinda nervous that it won't be as awesome as I remember. But I actually have it, and sometime soon I'm going to open it and have a bit. Now, I just have to find out if they can get Tang, which has disappeared from shops, too. It's an ingredient in the crunchy-coated chicken recipe that was a childhood summer dinner staple, and I have barely any left in the jar in my cupboard.
* Downloaded the nine hour chronological cut of the five pre-Avengers films, and I have that to watch in the next while. Also downloaded a whole stack of stuff from Youtube, so that we didn't have to struggle with our home connection to watch things. Got few other films and tv shows, too, so we've refreshed our viewing options for the month at home.
* I bought the special edition Dawn Treader from ebay for about $27 inc postage. That's a whole stack cheaper than anywhere else I'd seen it - JB was still flogging it for over $40, as were some other ebay sellers. It should get here early next week! Looked into prices for the Iron Man films, too, and it looks like my best bet for extras is to go with the blu-ray versions, which isn't a huge surprise. At some point, I suppose we'll actually have to invest in at least a blu-ray drive for the computer, if not an actual player. It seems to be the way everything's heading, and I have no doubt that the special edition Hobbitses will be blu-ray all the way, possibly fucking 3D, but there is no way I'm getting a 3D machine, ugh.
* Nearly finished knitting pieces for the third figure for the nativity set for Roger, Judy and Justin, so once that's done I'll start with the Epic Jam and Marmalade Making venture. I've got all the ingredients, it'll just be a matter of getting the kitchen clean and being methodical about it when I do make it, since that seems to be the way to achieve jam rather than burnt mess.
* Bought a bunch of lovely Cleckheaton yarn on special from Lincraft that I'll probably use to make stuff for market sale in the future. It's tweedy and pretty, and I got about half a dozen different colours to play with. I'm thinking adult hats and fingerless mitts are the way to go, since they sold well, and they're fairly quick and easy to execute. A reminder, too, I do take commissions! So if anyone out there wants anything knit, or crocheted, do ask. If you're a northern hemisphere person, I'm happy to fast track it so that it'll get there soon, since I know it's well into autumn for you guys now.
This entry was originally posted at http://iamshadow.dreamwidth.org/363105.html. Please comment there using OpenID.