Sing me a story, laugh me a lullaby

We have a robin who makes her nest over our backyard porchlight every year. She's done the same this year, and she's been there for several weeks now, yelling at us each time we open the door to let Ascii in or out. It's funny, because you'll be somewhere in the house and hear the backdoor open followed by someone saying 'sorry Mrs Robin!'. The little robins have hatched now and Mrs Robin must have decided we're okay, because she's been feeding them right while we sit on the porch and watch. It's so cool to watch! I have a few pictures, but I can't get too close, so they aren't the best.



The first one is her feeding the birds, the second is her sitting on the roof with a worm in her mouth, and the third is the nest with a little bird peeking out. There are four in there. When she comes to feed them, they all raise themselves up and tweedle at her and she drops the food in one of their mouths, then waits a second and one of them will stick it's butt in the air and poop and she takes it and flies over to the fence and drops it on the ground to keep the nest tidy. It's really interesting to watch.

In other news, I've been feeling pretty crap lately, healthwise, and when that happens, I like to learn new things to distract myself, so I've been learning how to colour in lineart. I still can't draw to save my life, but I do quite like colouring. Here's my first attempt, done with Photoshop Elements and my tablet:



The lineart is by Hashm0sa here, and featured in a gallery on DA with free lineart to colour in. It's not perfect (my colouring) and I'm still working on how light works, but I'm happy with my progress. The sketch reminded me of Phryne Fisher of Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries's fame (Mum and I have been watching it on Netflix), so I coloured her to look like that.

In a very 1920's fashion, Mum has ordered me to 'convalesce' from my health woes for the past two years, which have been varied and yucky. And it's very hard to just sort of look after yourself and sleep if you're tired and go and sit on the porch and read your book and pretend like you're on holiday when there's stuff that you could be doing that would be helpful to other people, but you can't really do because you're so rundown. But I'm working on it. By watching robins and colouring in pictures.

Quick health update: I went to the doctor on Wednesday to get the results of my CT scan that I had done in Emerg when I thought I had kidney stones. And I totally had kidney stones, despite what the skeptical ER thought. In fact, I had a 4mm stone and a 2mm stone in my ureter at the time of the CT, which was the day after I went in. And I had hydronephrosis, which is a swelling of the kidney, suggesting that at one point, my ureter was completely obstructed. I'm guessing that was the period of time I felt like my kidney was going to explode. It's also kind of dangerous, so thanks, ER doctor, for not believing me and making me think it was all in my head.

While I've been not well, I've been keeping myself entertained, first with Ancestry.ca's free weekend, which actually led to me buying a month's subscription because I discovered that the stories that my Great-Grandfather had a first wife who left him and was never heard from again were at least partly true! Very exciting stuff. And scandalous: my GGF married the first wife in 1925, and by 1927 my grandfather was born to another woman, so that is a short turn around. Due to the unknown whereabouts of first wife, my GGF and GGM didn't marry for forty years, so scandals all around! And this is not to mention the fact that my GGF was baptized by the priest and listed as being of 'unknown parents'. Now, if I could just figure out how my Great-Great-Grandmother on the other side of the family got to Canada after magically popping up on the 1916 census, I will be quite content. Seriously, Amelia, how did you get here? You sent your son ahead. Then your husband and other two children. I have their boat records. How did you get here?!

The second form of entertainment continues to be Avengers Academy on my iPad. It's really getting fun now. Here are a few screen caps of my favourite things (click and they get bigger)


In order, left to right:
1. Pepper (in her Rescue armor) literally putting out Tony's fires.
2. A statue of Howard Stark.
3. Steve 'bringing back' the Charleston.
4. Pepper looking at files. On the roof. Because she can fly now.
5. Tony testing out his hoverboard.
6. Steve practicing ricochet angles, while Sam, Natasha and Janet dance, and Loki broods at the bar.
7. Tony working with JARVIS.

I get a lot of tooth pain with migraines, and my tooth was killing me on Monday night, in anticipation of a big, huge, giant snowstorm we were having on Tuesday. Or so I thought.

But the migraine went away, and the tooth pain didn't, and then I came to the conclusion I probably had an abscessed tooth. And yep, I do. Thankfully, the pain seems to be settling down, and I'm on antibiotics, but I have to have a root canal next week and a crown put on.

And I have my period.

Well, no joy on getting my stories back, and last night, my external drive failed as well. These events, coupled with the fact that my computer was behaving so erratically for the last little while that I was afraid to use it, has resulted in me biting the bullet and getting a new computer. I have got with a Mac this time, as suggested by my dad. Windows has been nothing but trouble for me since XP stopped being supported.

I was going to get a laptop, but the desktop was cheaper and better for what I was using it for, so I have a nice little Mac sitting on my desk now. I have named her Issie, in hopes that she will be stalwart and protect my files with the care one would expect from her.

I may still be able to get my files back, but for now, I'm looking on it as starting a fresh notebook--literally. I'm sure getting used to Mac life will be a bit of an adjustment, but so far, I am liking her for all the five minutes I've had her going. I've also started using Google Docs for saving my stories (thanks for the suggestion, joonscribble).

Anyhoodle, stories may be a bit sparse until I can get my self back on track, but I hope to get myself in order soon enough. Thanks for all the sympathy yesterday, it was very appreciated!

So, my mum decided I should go to the doctor's today, after her characteristic swap from the 'you're fine' nurse, to the 'maybe you're not fine' mother. It's an inner struggle she has, I get it. We've recently had to switch doctors and our new one leaves appointments blank for emergency, same day people. I rang and had an appointment within half an hour. To give perspective, once at my old doctor, I rang a month in advance for prescription renewal and the first appointment they could give me was for three months later. To get to not only have an appointment while I'm still feeling the same symptoms, but within the hour of my phone call is a miracle. Is this how Americans feel?

Good news: I did not rupture my eardrum.
Bad news: I have an ear infection and probable strep throat.
Worse news: there is not a single fuckin' antibiotic available without food dye in it.

I am not allergic to food dye. I had that tested earlier in the year. I am, however, sensitive to food dye and have completely cut it from my diet and felt much better for it. When I eat food dye, particularly one derived from the cochineal bug, I get a pounding heart, a flushed face, and a tendency to have panic attacks or feel paranoid. It is not a pleasant experience. I have had amoxicillin before (as the very Russian pharamcist told me) and I don't remember being very strange on it, so I hope it will work out.

At the very least, the next seven days should be fun! I apologize for any weird posts I might make.

I've recently moved my laptop out to the new desk in the living room, so that I'm not hunched over in the den all the time. It's much more comfortable, but I've been having a problem with my Wi-Fi, where it would get a little exclamation mark symbol over it and tell me the connection was limited, and if you ran troubleshooting, it would correct itself and inform you that the default gateway wasn't open, but it was now. This happened in the den, too, but occasionally. Out here I was getting it every few seconds, which made the Internet almost unusable. It is a known issue with Windows 8, which no one seems especially hurried to fix. I did research and tried all the tips and nothing worked. At one point, I couldn't even connect to the server, period, until I realized that, in my frazzled state, I was spelling the network password wrong because there was only one L in the assigned password where there should have logically been two because the English language is STUPID! Ahem. Anyway, I finally discovered that you can get interference on a Wi-Fi signal if too many other people around you are using the same channel, and out here I'm picking up about seven more hotspots than I was in the den, so I changed the channel (after spending half an hour trying to figure out how to even log in to the server to do that, why must everything be so hard?!) and now it's been working for twenty-four hours straight, with only one drop out.

My mum told me I was resourceful. I think that's a polite way to say 'stupidly determined to find the answers for things when you get indignant'.

These events, coupled with some stupid family drama in regards to the wedding I attended on the weekend, made me very happy to discover this elephant with a ribbon. Because how bad can life be when an elephant is that happy just to have a ribbon and be a beautiful ballerina?

My word fairy has taken a face plant. I think I might have worn her out. We were going on really well! There was a plot! I had a plot! With...like...plot in it, and stuff. And it had chapters. Chapters!

Now, I'm just looking at all my ongoing stories going '....' and my word fairy is just '....'. Even my fluff is broken.

Maybe if I let her take a nap, she'll come back.

This cold is making my brain very strange. I am seriously having the weirdest random story ideas. Usually being ill makes me quite productive, word-wise, but instead my brain is just like 'here, dwell on this very random thought for half an hour until you can't tell if it's a good idea or a terrible idea'.

At least I'm making good headway into my set design projects. Because that's productive.

My e-mail address has been hacked, so anyone who has received spam from me, I am very sorry. I've reclaimed the account now and got myself a new e-mail and am changing everything. Thanks!

Bad Things That Have Happened So Far This February:
(not necessarily in chronological order)
( Cut for length. )

Good Things That Have Happened So Far This February:
- Um....
- I wrote a story?
- And due to a mix up over aforementioned front door lock, we some how walked away with a free lock and a $99 credit for the hardware store, which they insisted on, even after my dad point out that we didn't need the credit.
- There were chocolates on Valentine's Day. Including one that managed to somehow have a rasperry and caramel filling simultaneously.

In other news, I grilled my mum on medical stuff for a fic last night and subsequently had a dream where I was working in a clinic, trying to look after patients without knowing how and desperately hoping no one would notice. It's okay brain, I don't think we'll be called on to do actual Burr holes at any point.