Isn’t daylight savings time fun? Like having jet-lag without all the travel! Excellent. It does throw me off, at 10 this morning I thought it was closer to 12. Now I’m sleepy, but it is only 9 so I’m staying up.

Weasel and I went on a cycling adventure to a nearby National Trust site today. We left about 10:30, got there an hour later. Walked all through everything and got home at 2. Now that we know the route, I think we could do it in about 50 minutes. It was a beautiful day so walking through the gardens was wonderful. Weasel took loads of pictures, if/when we sort through them I could put something up.

I’m two episodes away from having seen every episode of the Powerpuff Girls, happy me! Going to watch the movie yet again afterwards to round off the experience. I have all of Doug to work through next. Then I’m thinking I might share Eureka with Weasel. We shall see.

And thank you Dan for suggesting just having the Christmas meet in Cambridge. I had thought about it, but I wasn’t sure how willing people would be to travel. I shall make a thread tomorrow outlining my ideas and see how it goes.

I went to the library this morning. I’d planned on just dropping my books off and leaving, but I got tempted. So I now have a shiny shiny stack of nine books. Browsing was very enjoyable. I love my MP3 player, no people to bother me, no noises, no distractions, pure bliss.

Weasel and I have started making plans for our little holiday at home this weekend. Doodle is here tonight as usual for band practice, he is staying the night. Tomorrow is fairly up in the air, but I suspect at least half of it will be spent with Doodle. Sunday we’ve decided to cycle to a local National Trust site and tour the gardens. The weather report is good at the moment so we’re very excited. We invited Weasel’s parents to join us, but they’re off visiting Weasel’s Nan so it’ll be just the two of us. Monday we’re going to go shopping/browsing. We recently learned that Long Tall Sally is opening a shop locally and since Weasel is a lovely 6′1″ tall she appreciates their offerings. We are hoping to pick up some Christmas present inspiration too since we’re drawing a blank for nearly everyone we need to shop for! Tuesday is still blank at the moment, but I’m sure we’ll think of something. We’ll be slotting in every day things and homework and gardening among other things too I’m sure.

I put Internet Explorer 7 on my computer at work yesterday and it makes me sad. It looks so much like Firefox. I hate that they can do that and it isn’t illegal. Grr. Our work website looked fine in IE6 and the fonts were awfully small in Firefox, IE7 displays the fonts bigger and bolder. So now I suspect we will have to re-jig all our CSS again and try to find some compromise between the three of them… not to mention Opera, Netscape and lord knows how many others.

I love reading Neil Gaiman’s blog*, he links to some very cool things and I get to stay abreast with all his doings. Recently, he linked to an article at Wired.com featuring Very Short Stories, including one from him and many other big names. So my plan is to start a thread on the forum and ask everyone to write their own. I have a few ideas, but nothing concrete yet, but I’ll share when I can.

* if you’re on LiveJournal, you can subscribe to his blog’s RSS feed on your Friends page – subscribe to mine while you’re at it!

I’m due to talk with my Mom in about 40 minutes, I’m sort of nervous because she’ll probably still be tender about her sister and I feel so helpless because there’s nothing I can do to help. It also seems to frivolous to talk of life as normal. Guess I’ll just have to wait and see.

I sort of volunteered to organise the UKA Christmas meet, I have an excellent idea of a games/food/chatting/drinking type meet, but I need a venue that will let us hang out there for at least five hours without getting grumpy. Ideally we’d like to not pay for the privilege but rather promise to spend at least £100 in food and drinks. We’ll need tables to play games on too. We also need to be able to hear each other so tasteful volume in background music. So if anyone knows of a friendly pub in London please let me know! Think I might just have to dive right in and start arranging it and hope someone knows somewhere later on.

I just bought a remote for my Vision:M. The volume is controlled by a touch pad and since I’ll be wearing gloves in the winter… you get the idea. Hopefully the buttons will be of reasonable size so I can push individual buttons even with huge glove fingers.

My aunt’s funeral is today. My Mom sent me a photo of her. She looks like herself which is a relief. Car accidents can sometimes make people not look like themselves. My Mom also said it would be the first time in nearly 26 years that all her brothers and sisters will be in the same place. This isn’t as surprising as it sounds, my Mom has 11 brothers and sisters. We have a family reunion every year, but invariably someone won’t be able to come for some reason. I have an uncle who decided to distance himself from the family back in the 80s too, but I think he has come around somewhat now. I just feel so bad for my uncle and cousins and my grandparents and my Mom and my other aunts and uncles. I didn’t know her all that well, with hundreds of relatives all over the place you lose people unless they make a big stink. And I have a lot of aunts who like to make a big stink. She was a good person and it is sad that she died.

I upgraded to Firefox v 2 today. I haven’t decided what I think of it yet. The buttons aren’t as cartoony as before. I like the spell checker, it works here in WordPress, and I suspect it will work on forums too. Speaking of WordPress, there is an update available for that too, I’ve downloaded it, but I can’t decide if I dare install it or not. There are a lot of threads on their support forum reporting scary problems that I really don’t want to have to deal with. So since the release is only two days old I shall wait a few weeks and see what changes.

Blanketgirl, Keeley and Doodle have all at some point mention Gnarls Barkley and indicated that he was worth listening to. So I finally did yesterday and he is definitely worth listening to. Reminded me of Alabama 3 and Faithless and something else too – all good. I particularly enjoyed Necromancer. I also finally got around to listening to new Evanescence album today and it too is good. It usually takes me a few listens to figure out if I like something.

Weasel and I have next Monday and Tuesday off, I get six days off as a result. I’m very excited. We haven’t made any definite plans, but I suspect there will be homework, movies, cooking/eating, sleeping, snuggling, relaxing and gardening involved in some measure. Most of all though, we’ll just get to spend some un-rushed, quality time together.

Over on UKA we’re discussing fast food, someone came out with the whole ‘fast food is cheaper’ line and I couldn’t resist. So my post:

It is actually cheaper to buy base ingredients in bulk and cook your meals yourself than it is to buy ‘cheap’ fast food.

If time is an issue, make a big batch and freeze it. When Weirdo was last here we made a shepherd’s pie, I froze four portions [or two dinners]. I made a stew last weekend, there was enough for eight portions [four dinners] again it went in the freezer. I made cookies yesterday, they’re in the freezer now, I expect they’ll last for at least two weeks if not longer. And I know that my cookies are not full of preservatives and extra salts and sugars.

As for the money side of things, I make my own bread. I buy four 5kg bags of organic flour from a local co-operative for £15 – then a few other bits and pieces like skimmed milk powder, yeast, sugar, pumpkin seeds etc. for about £20. All of this lasts for about six months at two loaves per week. So a year’s worth of bread is only costing me £70 – meaning each of our loaves is 67p.

According to Tesco.com a typical Kingsmill loaf of bread is 90p.

And it is worth noting that my loaves are 825g and most store bought loaves are only 800g.

That’s just one example, it is true with hundreds of soups, sauces and casseroles etc. And cooking it yourself is a lot more fun.

I didn’t get to cover my weekend before last with Horatio, which makes me sad since it was our anniversary weekend. We had a wonderful time, I think we both agreed it was the best visit we’ve had in recent memory. We went to see Clerks II on Friday after some fun shopping at Arjuna [health food store]. I didn’t connect that I would miss my weekly call with my parents if I were at the cinema at 3, so when I got home, I felt suitably guilty and called.

My Mom wasn’t home but my Dad was and WOW. He and my Mom have been having counselling over the summer and he has been working really hard at relaxing and not getting so worked up about everything [I am my father's daughter]. Anyway, when I called he said ‘hey, you’re a friend and someone I can talk to’ which was odd, but I went with it and he started describing how he was feeling frustrated with the church because it seemed to be so present in his life. He doesn’t want to leave or anything like that, he just wanted some flexibility and he wasn’t sure how to express it to my Mom. So I got to chat with him and help clarify his thoughts. He said that he was really proud of me for being brave and moving here. He was happy that I was happy. He normally doesn’t say things like that. It was really amazing. I’ve always loved my Dad and felt a stronger connection there than with my Mom, but I couldn’t ever figure out how to just be with him without rabbiting. I always end up trying to fill in the silences so he won’t just leave. I’m hoping this means he’ll be more inclined to talk with me.

After I finished on the phone, Horatio and I went to dinner. It was really yummy and we had great conversation. On Saturday we went running – hilarious! We’re both fairly fit, but running is not what we normally do. Having been good, we got to spend the rest of the day playing Settlers and eating yummy dip. We finished the evening with Clerks I and all the extras in the 10th anniversary DVD box.

On Sunday we tried out a new cycle path to one of the villages south of the city, sort of between my old office and my new one. Then we stopped off for scones and cake by my new work around lunch time then cycled home again. Only took about two hours, but it means that I have four ways I can go home depending on how much time I want it to take.

I finished re-working my course work today. I’m so relieved. It was very difficult to figure out what I should add, in the end I think I got it all, I’ll have to wait and see. Weasel is kindly posting the lot for me tomorrow.

I made my very yummy stew on Friday. It is sooo very nice. I love stew in winter. I got four dinners for each of us in the freezer now and lunch for tomorrow for me in the fridge. They join two very nice shepherd’s pie dinners that Horatio and I made when he was here last time. He doesn’t have a lot of confidence in the kitchen, so I sat in the kitchen doorway in a chair with a towel/hot water bottle for my back telling him what to do. He did very well, made the shepherd’s pie for dinner and made fajitas for lunch. I couldn’t stand up straight at that point and when I was standing I had to be all hunched over – painful.

My tummy is completely better now, my cold is nearly gone and my back is much improved. The only problem I have now is that while I’m asleep I’ll end up on my back or my stomach and the pain won’t be enough to wake me up so I just feel very sore in the morning. I haven’t been to the gym in a week and a half and it’ll be two weeks by the time I get back. I feel very guilty. But I just can’t see how I could have done it.

So you all know, I have changed my e-mail address. I have been getting over 150 spam messages a day to amy[at]periwinkleblue[dot]co[dot]uk, so I have decided to move. I’m very annoyed about the whole thing. So if you need me, e-mail ezekiel[at]periwinkleblue[dot]co[dot]uk

I re-discovered my Amazon wishlist today. I am busy combining all my shopping lists and ranking everything. It looks like a lot right now because Weasel and I haven’t really bought anything since January. Our debt is rapidly decreasing though, we only owe £1600 now. We should be on target for our end of the year goal. We’ve decided to budget our Christmas for everyone else and we’ll buy our media server in the new year when we can buy it free and clear. Being debt free is a much better Christmas present anyway!

My Mom called yesterday to tell me that one of my aunt’s has passed away. She was in a car accident on her way to her son’s for a baby shower. His wife is due in about two weeks. My Mom and another aunt were just behind her and they recognised her car as they approached. The car and turned over and landed on her. No one else was hurt. I’m not entirely sure how I feel yet. I cannot believe she’s dead. I feel so bad for her husband and their children/grandchildren. She was only 53. I’ve never lost anyone like this before, it hadn’t even occurred to me that relatives could die. My grandfather died about five years ago, but he was very ill and having complications from his diabetes. It was more of a relief when he passed. The only other family members I’ve lost were my great grandparents, but they were in their 90s and their clocks ran out. I feel so bad for my Mom and her parents. The thing I keep thinking though is that it could have been my Mom. She was only five minutes after my aunt on the road. I know logically that my parents are going to die, but it has always been in the abstract… until now I guess. It is scary.

Well, I have a cold. I’m amazed at the chain of events. Putting my back out, falling off my bike, upset stomach, cold… I stayed home from work on Monday and tried on Tuesday only to leave at 2. I’m glad today was my day off. I’ve been able to go slowly. I’ve had a headache all day, my stomach is still a bit questionable, but my back is much better.

I think I’ve probably mentioned Settlers and what an excellent game it is. Horatio found a program we can use to play online, Sea3D [no longer available] – so we have been playing here and there and it is so fun. Screenshot of one of our more recent games in which I built a very long road.

I mentioned that Weasel had been body snatched. Her behaviour has changed drastically in the last few weeks and it has taken me completely off guard.

For example, I was in the shower and said I needed to mow the lawn but I really didn’t feel like it. By the time I’d finished and put myself back together again she’d already started mowing. Weasel two months ago wouldn’t have done that. Another example, I came home from work one day last week and she’d made bread, had a shower and was just about to do the dishes.

These have become every day happenings. I’m over the moon and I love having the help. Part of me is scared it won’t last though. I’m trying to be optimistic.

I found a use for YouTube, music videos and interviews. If you like Tori, go check out The Big Question interview, it is amazing. I’m working my way through VH1 Storytellers with her now. I watched all the Vast videos the other day, Heather Nova videos, Freshman video from Verve Pipe… what an amazing chance to see things I’d otherwise miss out on. Also KeepVid.com for saving the ones I really love. Thanks for Weasel for letting me know about that one.

I’m sure there are loads of other things I need to mention and comment on, but my poor brain is still in blechy mode.