The Cult of Ellen

Posting three days in a row? Surely not! Today, I feel a sense of accomplishment. I finished sticking pages in the book I've written for my nephew and I trimmed the edges, so it's ready to be parcelled up to post off tomorrow morning. It's called "Where's My Tractor?", and I picked up a little board book from a charity shop, which I've very cheekily stuck my pages over.

( Where's My Tractor? )

So, there's that, which is a good reason to feel accomplished, I think. Other reasons are that I got up at 11, despite falling asleep around 4am (again!), prodded the pups, visited my in-laws, did a yard pickup (3 large dogs have 3 large bottoms and leave lots of large 'presents'), went to Lidl, put away the shopping, peeled and cooked a pan of roast veg, made a pan of veg soup, fed the dogs, unstacked the dishwasher, and knitted most of a cowl. I've even made my not-unsuccessful way through today's 5 minutes of Italian and French practice (DuoLinguo really is an awesome app) and made another Kiva loan.

Cue much tiredness! In a couple of minutes I'm going to kick the dogs outside for their last wee and give them their dentastix (best tasty ever!) and go to bed, where I'm hoping I'll actually fall asleep earlier than stupid o'clock, so tomorrow I can get up and Do More StuffTM.

Here's hoping tomorrow won't be another tired day! I need to go get the Tesco shopping, post Dan's book, pay the vet bill off and pick up more Loxicom for Planck, then head round to the council offices and pay Planck's dog license renewal. There's always more to do! G'night, y'all!

Well, not quite - I've finally uploaded a few photos, though, so I'm putting them under a cut to save bandwidth for those who aren't interested in suchlike.

( This way to the photos! )

In other news (not under a cut so people don't run into the photos if they don't want to, sorry...): my bike is in the bike shop! I took it down Sheffield with me last Wednesday and dropped it off at Decathlon for its free 3-month service, expecting them to adjust the cable tension and leave it at that. Instead, it appears to have some kind of gear problem, which I'm hoping they've either fixed or replaced the gear arm (under warranty) by tomorrow so I can pick it up again. I'm starting to feel as though I have finger-of-death for bikes... Or it could be that they use cheap derailleurs...

I went to my ME course on Friday and learned about Graded Exercise Therapy. Which is how to, when my energy scores are consistent and I'm feeling as though I'm ready to start increasing the amount of, well, anything I'm doing, increase my activity level without causing an increase in my ME symptoms. Of course, since my bike's been in the shop since Wednesday, that's meant I walked home from the train station on Wednesday evening, then back in on Thursday morning and out again, then to my course at Bootham Park Hospital on Friday morning and from there into town and home again, and into town on Saturday. I got the bus home on Saturday afternoon. (I also walked into town and back on Tuesday night to the writing group, but that was because I didn't get ravenlas to get me a lift because he has an ear infection, which is now clearing up nicely.) So today has been spent largely on the sofa doing little more strenuous than knitting and occasionally hanging out another load of washing on the washing line, and I am tired, and my legs are a little wobbly and I'm running just a touch of a temperature. Ho hum, so it goes. I shall go to bed shortly and should be fine in the morning.

Anyway, thanks to the ME course, I have a letter, which I took to the council offices on Friday, and I filled in a form and had my photo taken and as of in a few days time, I should have a free bus pass, enabling me to travel on the local buses and not have to pay the extortionate fares. Awesome! It'll mean I can try walking into town to the station one or two mornings a week and be able to catch the bus back, thus getting a bit more exercise but not tiring myself out. Hurrah!

So, I have handouts. I'll type them up soon and post them here for anyone who's interested. Have a great week, y'all! I'm going to duck back below the parapet again.

Friday was a bit of a bust. I got some more knitting done, but I woke up with ulcers where my tonsils used to be. Which was rather sore. So I left work early, went home and tidied up more of the spare room and saw Sue, Dave and India (wanolj), failed to have a D&D game, sat on the sofa and watched telly. With takeout. And wine. Hurrah!

Saturday, though, kicked ass (for G.E.D. month, that is). Not quite such a sore throat, so I got up early(ish) and went to Ikea. Where I spent a chunk of my dividend (in lieu of pay), had to get a nice man to help me put boxes on the trolley and another nice man to help me put them in the car. Which was rather full. *heh*

So Saturday's list looks like:
Fitted draught excluder to the back of the letter box.
Put legs on the huge table.
Tidied more of the spare room.
Bought and put up shelves in the kitchen.
Tidied kitchen.
Bought more shelves for the kitchen and for the hallway.
Bought curtain rail for the hallway.
Bought 3 chests of drawers for the spare room to replace the current ones.
Emptied the paper shredder

Also (but not on the list) did several loads of washing and took them to the launderette to dry, went to VJs and saw friends (yay!) and met up with paul_marks who is visiting while Tuesday.

Go me! *happy dance*

At some point today I intend to take and put up photos of the clothes which are going free to a good home (there are more). Would anyone like a wide 3-drawer Malmo chest of drawers (Ikea) in birch veneer? Also there's a little white 3-drawer MFI-style cheapass chest of drawers going free! I'll even drop it round to your house! As long as, yanno, that's York. Leeds, maybe. Bread machine, anyone?

( Kitchen shelves! )

Right, back to drilling holes in the walls...

Today I have:

Written 800 words of a short story and added 600 words to the sequel to Desperate Measures.
Started clearing out a slushpile.
Started clearing out my email inbox.
Taken down the end of the bannister that was still attached to the wall, filled the holes, drilled new holes (with a trip to B&Q for a new drill bit as the old one was around half the length it used to be), and put the bannister back up.
Drilled holes in a tile and put up a shaving mirror in the bathroom.

And amongst all that I have been to work (we had a power cut), cycled home, made and eaten dinner, put the dishwasher on, emptied & refilled the dishwasher and put it back on and had a cup of tea. Now I'm finally sitting down with a bowl of apple crumble and another cup of tea. And then I'm going to bed. Because tomorrow is another G.E.D. day!

So, I'm busy at work. It's release week. I came in early, had lunch at my desk, documented several patches. And then. I spent the last hour writing a 1,000 word story. It's horror, which I don't normally do. It's also erotica, to an extent, which apparently I do do. And it's got an alien gigolo in it. It's also called The Whole Chicken.

Sometimes, my brain is just wrong.

Now I must put the story down and go finish some documentation. Gah. I expect I'll be sending this off to somewhere like Flash Fiction Online, or Pseudopod. But first, I'm going to terrorise my writing group. Bwa ha haa!

( My brain is mush... )

Edit: Interestingly, I took an online Aspie test to see how my brain is doing (thanks to John Scalzi). And today, I'm Aspergic. I scored 158/200 on the Aspie score, and only 98/200 on the neurotypical (non-Aspie) score. I bet if I take the quiz again at the end of next week, I'll score completely differently. Hmmm... Oh, the joys of being a Gemini, and having a brain which runs in several different configurations, making me several different people at once. What shall I wear today? Who shall I be today? Yeah... today I am an aspie and my brain is mush. How're you doing?

Just for keeping track of those things which, in theory, I should keep track of in 2007. Maybe...

2007:
( Story submissions )

( Stories written )

( Books read, films watched, games played )