Dec3

The iPhone saga, part 1

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The iPhone saga, part 1

Now that my iPhone has gone hysterical, I have put my SIM in my old SE K810i. As a phone, it works pretty well, and I like the camera in it more than the iPhone's. The buttons however need a harder push than I usually give them, which annoys me a little, and doesn't feel too nice on my fingers -- the reason I got the iPhone in the first place.

I went to the T-mobile store where the kind gentleman looked at my phone and said %(quote)Oh, that looks bad!%. He explained that I needed to bring a full copy of my receipt (silly me, I forgot to copy a certain part) or that I could fill in the online form and arrange it with Customer Service that way. He said I have a two year warranty by default, I've only had the phone for fourteen months, well within those two years, yay! I filled in the form online and the CS will phone me tomorrow to arrange everything.

I worry slightly that it will take a couple of weeks to get this resolved, with the holidays coming and all. On the other hand, I immediately noticed how much I rely on my iphone and I'll take this iphone-less time as a sort of experiment to see how I handle life without the iphone. It feels weird.

Funny how easy one get used to things.

Can you imagine not having an internet or mobile phone connection? Ten years ago I had my first mobile phone and used dialup, I think my first digital camera followed later. Now I have a mobile phone with internet and camera. And DSL. Not that I mind.

Dec3

The supermarket broke my iPhone

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The supermarket broke my iPhone
Crap. :(
broken iPhone

Today I ran some errands. I got prints from my lab-work and then headed to the pharmacy to pick up my medication. My MTX(Methotrexate) went up in dosage so I had to get new prepared syringes. I left my prescription there on Saturday and they told me then to pick it up on Tuesday / Wednesday. So I went today. Unfortunately, when I got there and after waiting for a bit, they told me they wouldn’t give me more because I picked up my prescription two weeks ago already. I explained that I got a new prescription for a higher dosage right after I picked the other one up. The girl at first thought the prescription said 15mg (old dose) but upon closer look, it did indeed say 20mg. The note, made by the person accepting my prescription Saturday, said 15mg however — someone screwed up. She did promise me to order it right away and to come back tomorrow. A bit annoying.

I then went to the supermarket around the corner to buy some fruit (tangerines and bananas) and some crackers. I happily listened to my music, feeling slightly annoyed by the pharmacy thing but also looking forward to some nice tangerines. When I got outside and checked my iPhone for the time, the screen had gone nuts. All the while my music played, but the screen won’t display anything sensible.

I suspect tangerine-envy.

Tomorrow I’ll go back to the store to have it repaired. I miss it already.

Nov30

Away with the nausea.

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Away with the nausea.

When I woke up from surgery, about half an hour after they sewed me up again, I felt nauseous. They gave me an injection of something which helped a little, though I did stay nauseous all the time in the hospital.

I have an anecdote there: I got this medication that didn't help so much, so one of the nurses (bless her) switched me to something else, and that worked great. This after exclaiming:

bq. But this stuff relaxes your stomach! You don't have that anymore, I will give you something else.

The stuff I got after that worked great. The next time they wanted to give me that other stuff again, but I and TG protested heavily and I got the other stuff again. They also turned down the epidural (took away one of the opiates) to help with the nausea.

It never went away completely.

Now that I've removed certain foods from my diet (wheat-products and milk) and have stopped taking the Plaquenil I have a lot less nausea. It hasn't gone away completely (yet), however, it has gone away a lot. Instead of mostly nauseous with some nausea-free hours, the reverse happens most of the time. I only have the last week or two to look at, so I won't yet do a little victory dance. It looks good, though, and that makes me happy.

Nov26

New foods.

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New foods.

I've tried a few gluten-free options this week, including a pre-made gluten-free bread. It doesn't taste much like wheat-bread and it crumbs easily without having that spongey texture -- somewhat like a loaf cake -- but it works as a base to spread something (peanutbutter, creame cheese) on and it gave me no issues. Success!

Today I also tried some quinoa with grilled shiitakes and that didn't go so well. I thought the quinoa did not work for me, however, on testing, it turns out the shiitake caused the problems. When I checked the date it had passed its sell by date for some time already, oops. The rest of the quinoa went well, so I'll call it success too, hurray!

I found out it helps a lot if I keep on snacking / eating all day long. It prevents those moments I feel blown up because I ate too much. This makes it clear to me I have to stick to eating small meals, because my body can't handle the bigger once -- unlike some other people in my family.

Some time after surgery I went to see a dietician and she told me to eat at least 150 gram potatoes, 200 grams of veggies and a good chunk of meat (100-150 gram) for dinner1. This qualifies as a normal meal, for people with a stomach. This will never ever fit into me during a normal dinnertime. Apart from the amount, the time I need to eat has changed too. It takes longer. I could technically eat the above meal in around 2 hours or so. I don't like that, I don't want to spend more than 30 minutes on each meal, unless I go out to eat with friends. I want to have time away from food too :)

  1. This, by the way, despite me telling her at the beginning that I don't eat meat and she still thought she had to suggest the 100-150 gram portion, and suggest it several times. Stoopid. And tiring. ↩

Nov26

The medication rollercoaster

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The medication rollercoaster
The medication rollercoaster

My new rheumy -- so far, very pleased -- agreed that nausea caused by Plaquenil doesn't help me. I didn't even have to explain it, he told me to stop taking them right away and to increase my MTX. This means I need to get new pre-pared syringes.

This makes the MTX basically the only 'real' medication I still take, apart from the occasional naproxen or paracetamol (Tylenol).

I do take a decent load of vitamins in a medicinal way, not taking them causes plenty of issues, and they may interact with each-other / other meds so I always count them as medication.

My last blood-test showed a deficiency of vitamin D, ferritine, low B12. Still waiting for the vitamin B1.

Currently I take:

MTX
once per week, as injection, for the RA
folic acid
once per week, to counteract the side-effects of MTX
vitamin B12
once per month injection due to inability to absorb
vitamin D
as cod liver oil, twice per day, also comes with vitamin A, and as tiny tablets, four per day, for 'senior citizens' which just have D in them
multi-vitamins
also for 'senior citizens' which has extra vitamin B1, iron and zinc, twice per day
calcium
twice per day, with extra vitamin K and D

Mixing and matching turns into another juggling game because too many of certain vitamins (A) and minerals (iron and zinc) poison my liver, and my liver has a hard time dealing with all the other poison already, so I don't want to push that ;)

My body needs lots of fine-tuning.

Nov1

You can’t ‘be’, unless you do.

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You can’t ‘be’, unless you do.

Procrastinating from my Nanowrimo-novel (3471 words) I found Hugh Macleod's article ' don't worry about being an artist. just worry about getting the work made. '.

It reminded me of how I know some people that graduate in something or the other, and then say 'Oh, now I am a real <insert random profession>'.
When then asked what they really do then, they usually don't have an answer to that. But at least they can say 'I'm a <insert random profession> now!.

Apart from these, a lot of people also seem to think that creativity (in any shape and form) requires talent. They don't really know what this talent actually means, but clearly some people have it and some don't. You get born with it, or maybe some fairy comes by at night and sprinkles it on you.

I don't believe in talent (or that evil cousin called 'luck'). I believe in (hard) work. I believe in doing. I believe that when you have an interest in a subject you need to dig in and put in the hours and hours of work to get 'good' or 'great' at it. Getting good / great requires work more than this vague talent. Sure, some people seem to do it more easily, however, most of these creative things take practice. And practice means work. It means failing and loving your failure because of the unexpected result. It means hating your failure and deciding you want to do the opposite. It means challenging yourself. It means stretching out to the borders of your sanity to see if you can, and then crossing it. It means stretching to the edges of your ability and finding you can go further than you thought you could go.

So I make this bold statement that you cannot be unless you do.
You can call yourself a writer, an artist, a whatnot. But if you don't actually do it, then you just stuck a label on yourself. Ask yourself what you would like more.

Oct25

Dear Nano, don’t scare me like that.

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Dear Nano, don’t scare me like that.
Stuck under the sofa.

This morning I got up and walked into the livingroom, finding Nano (looking smug) on the sofa with an empty chocolate-bar wrapper between her paws. I thought I had stored the bar away, cause I always do that. Not last night, unfortunately, so when I saw her looking at me and the leftovers of the wrapper, I freaked out a little. A call to the vet calmed me down (kudos to the other person on the line), as we calculated how much she had and what type. She had about half of the ‘minimal toxic (not lethal)’ dose, the vet said.

The vet told me to keep an eye on Nano, feed her some extra to dilute the chocolate somewhat and check to see if Nano drank enough. She drank a lot today, and spent some time on the sofa making small whining noises (I suspect a tummy ache) and seems otherwise fine.

This of course happens right after boyfriend suggested poisoning the dog in my Nanowrimo-novel.

Oct18

Getting ready for Nanowrimo

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Getting ready for Nanowrimo

This year I decided on a slightly different approach for Nanowrimo. Other years I'd jump in with both feet on November 1st, and this years I decided to do some pre-work (which, in other years, only happened in my head). I've made notes about my characters, a timeline, wrote part of the backstory that will not end up in the actual novel, and I made an outline. I haven't finished it yet, still have 6 parts to go. Once I have 31 parts I can use those to write one part per day (a 1667 words).
I like this approach. Somewhere halfway I got a little stuck with how the story should go from a certain point and I let it sink in a few days and then came up with the answer. If this had happened during Nanowrimo I would have lost several days (or at the least, spend them in great frustration).

On to the last 6 parts! [progpress title="Nanowrimo Outline" goal="31" current="25" previous="20" label="parts"]

Oct14

Another year, another Nanowrimo

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Another year, another Nanowrimo

November lurks around the corner, so I had to join Nanowrimo again. I decided to try a different approach this year and have slowly outlined my planned novel. Initially I wanted to go for horror, with brutal murders and such (I blame this on watching the entire 'Friday the 13th' series, as well as 'Nightmare on Elmstreet', and ending it with 'Freddy vs Jason'), but my story seems to have converted more into a regular thriller with no supernatural murderer.

Ah well.

And it'll have a dog.

Oct10

Homemade white-chocolate-ginger-cheesecake with a sauce of caramel and sweet chili, and some chocolate sprinkles.

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Homemade white-chocolate-ginger-cheesecake with a sauce of caramel and sweet chili, and some chocolate sprinkles.
Homemade white-chocolate-ginger-cheesecake with a sauce of caramel and sweet chili, and some chocolate sprinkles.

200 grams cream cheese
100 grams white chocolate
1 teaspoon grated ginger
1 teaspoon gingerroot-powder (or more to taste)
1 tbsp sweet chili sauce (roughly)
1 tbsp caramel

Make biscuit bottom (I used readymade, happened to have it…)

Melt chocolate au bain marie, mix in cheese, put in cakeform. Layer over biscuit bottom, put in fridge for an hour or two.

Mix sweet chili sauce with caramel and drip over cake.

Trying to imitate the Wagamama version ;) It turned out slightly runny, but not too bad. Tips to firm it up appreciated.

(boyfriend said ‘it tastes cheesy’)

Sep24

Prints for sale!

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Prints for sale!

Hurray! I managed to get proper envelopes and can now finally officially sell prints!

You'll find the order-page in the menu at the top ( buy prints )

For every sold print I will donate £1 to Imogen May who desperately needs a communication device to communicate with, well, 'the world'. Read more about her on her website.

And now, chocolate to celibrate! Woohoo!

Sep22

More wallpapers.

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More wallpapers.

I've almost got everything up and ready to start selling prints. As a 'kick-off', I put up the images as downloadable wallpapers (the same images I use to print, but lower resolution).

[download id="3" format="1"] [download id="4" format="1"]

[download id="5" format="1"] [download id="6" format="1"]

Tomorrow I'll go buy (hopefully) the envelopes in which I can send the prints out. I don't want to make the buying option available until I know for sure I can send it all out.