| Hiccups! |
[Jan. 5th, 2010|11:18 pm] |
The baby has the hiccups Big Time! He's been at it for like 10 minutes now! I hope he's ok. My last doctors visit was actually with a midwife, because my doctor was on vacation. It was neat! She told me how the baby was lined up - which is to say, perfectly. His spine is to my belly button, which means no "sunny side up" baby! She said he wouldn't move much at this point, maybe a little side to side, but he was in a good position. His head is still down, and she pointed out the butt for me. That was neat. She also recommended an herbal iron supplement (Floradix) which supposedly has less side effects, but I haven't had time to go pick it up yet - it's only at Whole Foods, and not at the one Tom went to last weekend. Although I just found it online. Maybe I'll just buy it there. I keep forgetting my vitamins, what with everything else that's going on. The blood sugar testing is just okay - the lack of schedule over Christmas just destroyed my testing routine, so I'm trying to get back into it. I'm hoping I won't have to take any insulin. Bleh. At least I'm not forgetting the blood thinners very often. Those are very important!
I am just getting really tired of being pregnant. The baby is getting quite heavy, and I'm starting to have cramps and "practice" contractions more frequently, and the diabetic eating restrictions are just making me crazy (I am never going to eat peanut butter again when this is over), when I feel like eating at all, and not barfing. But I'm getting close! 34 weeks - that means the baby will be "on time" anywhere from 3 - 6 weeks from now!
So folks probably know we're putting our condo on the market, and are shopping for a house. We hope to actually lower our payments and get more space, but the trade off is we'll be out out in the burbs near Tom's work, rather than near Boston on the T. There is commuter rail out where we're looking, but the commute time is 45 mins to 1 hour. Ergh. Not much we can do about it, though, if we want a house we can afford. So far we haven't seen much that is good - inventory is really low and most of it is either really weird layouts or "fixer uppers". Or Tom hit his head at some point during the tour. One day I swear he hit his head like 5 times. He says he doesn't remember many of the houses he saw that day, either. Owie! Our realtor says more will be coming on the market soon, and we're already starting to see it. This weekend we're going out to Harvard (the town, not the school) and Ayer - there are about 5 or 6 houses that are less than 15 minutes from Tom's work. Ayer schools aren't great, but Harvard schools are quite good. We've also looked some in Maynard, Chelmsford, Westford, Littleton and Tyngsborough. Hopefully we'll find something we can live with soon.
As far as selling our condo, things are on track. Everything extra has been pulled out of the house and sent to the storage unit we rented - even Tom's office has been cleared out. The stager came and arranged all the furniture, and the realtor came and took pictures and said that things look good. In addition to all the cleaning and dusting and packing and sorting, we also patched and painted two iffy parts of the ceiling, as well as painted one baseboard where the paint was peeling off, and touched up all the moulding and doors in the entry way. Tomorrow Tom is going to touch up the appliances and the sink. He has to do that while I'm out, because it's not low VOC and some of the chemicals in it are bad. It's looking pretty good now, it almost feels new already. There's a preview showing for all the agents at Bowes on Thursday morning, the listing goes live Thursday afternoon, our first actual showing for one of our realtor's clients is on Saturday, and the first Open House is on Sunday. It's all so crazy! I'm not quite sure I'm ready to let go of this place, but we just can't afford to stay. Plus it's starting to feel quite small with all the baby stuff. We really need 3 real bedrooms. And I hope we find a place with at least 1.5 baths. We'll just have to see. |
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| Doom and Gloom |
[Jan. 4th, 2010|03:46 pm] |
The boiler froze up again this morning. It did this before Christmas, but it started working again that evening, and the landlord's handyman couldn't find anything wrong with it. Then it happened again the next day and yours truly decided to RTFM - turns out that the boiler wasn't installed properly and the condensate pipe gets frozen in cold weather, filling the boiler's condensate trap which triggers a safety shut-off.
I know how to fix it now - using ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) greyeyedeve's wheat-filled microwavable neckwarmer in a plastic bag, placed on the pipe until the ice melts a little and the water pressure forces the icicle out. Last time I lagged the pipe to stop it happening again, but it seems that wasn't enough.
When I went down to the basement to reset the boiler, I found water all over the floor. A waste pipe from the upstairs bathroom had burst and now there's a lot of wet cardboard down there. Fortunately due to the interestingly-sloping floor I think it missed most of my identity activism stuff. Doubly fortunately, it looks like the pipe from the sink rather than the toilet...
Many things are going wrong today, from my virtual machines to a quote for some Lib Dem campaign materials coming back at some 250% of what I was expecting. I've got a lot of things to do but find myself burying my head in the sand, because every time I start something, something else goes wrong.
I'm starting to wonder whether I'll ever be able to deal with the problems that life throws my way again. Since work made me ill, I've given up so much, passed up so many opportunities because I didn't have the spoons. But it seems that trouble expands to fill the space available, and I'm not getting a break in which I can recuperate. Perhaps I won't do until I find a new job, but hunting is hard when I have to deal with the prospect of returning to my current one, let alone my flat falling apart around my ears... |
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| A post that will require patience & understanding |
[Jan. 3rd, 2010|11:21 pm] |
No... I wasn't going to make a post on 2009; it felt like so many already had, there wasn't really much for me to add.
But then I got thrown on NY. Not that the night was bad; quite contrary: it was excellent with many close and loved ones, people generously bestowing drinks on each other and the spirit being in the right place completely. But Meg (Kekhmet) gave me the sweetest look saying how glad she was seeing me this happy, remembering how badly things had caved in & affected me previous NY there. I probably only grunted something, as, well...words as to this year has somewhat failed me. My pragmatic self has not quite adjusted to life having swung me to a person & place I had long since let go of. It's ironic how many times you stand at the treshhold of a new year realising how very little you saw anything come in the twelve months from when you last stood on it; & the pendelum this particular year beat all previous ones.
This is a quiet post. Quiet in the sense that there won't be the usual exclamation marks, the upbeat voice and the enthused camraderie ~ the public Anki.
This I will be open about to you all: the hardest things these past years of not talking to Ray, of moving on from what happened, was to treat the long history we had had ( 2002 to 2006) as non existent. As necessary as it was to move on from an umitigated negative situation, embroiling a lot of people who should not have been involved and certainly damaged their own souls by being so (I'm quaint enough to believe in the concept of the soul), it created a strange situation where I felt I could not mention what had happened or the history that had been. Not even a passing jest (perhaps there was a thorn in my voice, but it was passing) on exes seemed to do anything but kill conversations and make people feel awkward. So silence extended over it; snow, dust, whatever grew atop. Wounds perhaps healed; anger calmed to contempt, sometimes something even milder. But what had started as a means to find health again, & which very much was health the first two years on from it, became, with time, a pretence I couldn't stand. I felt breath was deprived me. The wordlessness grew in my chest, like an unburstable bouble - stuck between my true self & the public person. In all my grand scene visibility, ironically perhaps, I felt strangely invisible.
Then, at the beginning of last year, of 2009, anger grew tired in me too. Even if justified, and even if grosly misrepresented, I could not hold on to it any longer. It grew out of me. And with it perhaps also the grain of passion that it had once grown out from. I gave up on life. Not in a major depressed way; more like a moving from, and falling away. I did not care about life as much and, strangely, made my peace with that too. The only constructive action that appeared left to me, was to attempt to find a nodding level with Ray so that at least edge could be taken off tensions, before I'd possibly take time out from the scene for a while ~ travel, seek a job abroad, just do something new & different. Be creative once more.
Not that I got a chance too: Happy died, work overtook me (palpitation period) and my Grand Quadrogenerian Birthday took all my time. Dave_exile & I also concluded we were more fond than in love and parted. It was summer before I could consider anything. And then, haphazardly, in a most unplanned way, Ray and I found ourselves at the bar at Slimes, talking. A light, neutral and civil conversation, but one that thunderbolted us both at the ease of it, the simplicity between us. Out of which, and most of you have seen, the rest is history.
So, slowly now, I can speak of it. i can say Ray's name without people jumping; speak of past years and have them acknowledged. The blank gap is returned with colourful, strong history. Literally so: Ray and I are going through the old emails to understand where we went wrong, & our determination to stay together this time around is so strong we have in addition started couple councelling to ensure there isn't any route left untried. Love in a strange new way is taking form; old and new embraced. Questioned, tussled, held and sometimes with shards of once were upsets piercing through. At large we are doing very well.
And the bouble in my chest is part bursting; I can breathe again.
I want to say thanks (and perhaps express surprise) so many of my friends have embraced Ray and met the change with good will. It is curious that where I have expressed hesitation, my surrounding has been encouraging & supportive - I did not expect that. It took me aback and warmed me so many included Ray's name with mine in their christmas cards. It seems I am the last one to digest this actual change & recognise I am in a relationship.
I also want to take this opportunity to clear a possible (?) issue - perhaps to relieve people from asking the question, mainly those on Ray's side: I can confirm nothing untowards ever happened between Ray and I whilst he was seeing Liana.
I believe Liana has already stated the breakup was due to long standing problems, and this is what Ray has conveyed to me too. Ray & I only became a couple over a month later (17/10 to be exact). Prior to that matters were so charged with disappointment & resentment, that all Ray & I could do was engage in a strange battle of trying, expressing anger, drinking awful rum, beat each other in cards and, to handle how hard it was to talk again, hold one another. Things were so emotionally difficult it took us over two months to even properly look at each other; both of us only darting glances before that. Most of my friends know this, but I gather on Ray's side this might be unknown ~ so I'd like to be upfront, and clear this up, so everyone can start 2010 with minds afresh.
There might be a couple other past issues that I may have to clear up in the months to come ~ I hope you will all bear with me. Most of them I hoped would simply fade off in time, but, from what Ray has advised me, this did not happen and my silence has allowed misconceptions to fly around. My intention is to keep it brief should it come to that. Neither will it be an invite for anyone to be involved, merely an establishing of the true facts. This to end some unfounded perceptions.
My love to you all~ A. |
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| Reminder: kvm and network routing |
[Jan. 2nd, 2010|03:24 pm] |
Since my laptop hard drive died the other day, I've been having to restore my system to its former working glory. I'm currently sorting out the networking of my virtual machines. Given that I'm currently poking through old LJ entries to see if I documented this at the time, I figure it's worth writing something about now. Basically, I want to be able to have my VMs access whatever network I'm connected to without reconfiguring, whether it's wired or wireless, home or away. I stole a lot of this from this article.
( geek ) |
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| Recent cooking |
[Jan. 1st, 2010|11:14 pm] |
Recording the recent upsurge of cooking.
Sunday, pork tenderloin and baked vegetables
Monday, chili and quiche (the quiche came out a bit watery, and I forgot to add cheese til the end)
Wednesday(?), beef stroganoff over pasta
Friday, spinach, ham and cheese frittata, and steamed string beans |
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| Happy New Year! |
[Dec. 31st, 2009|04:51 pm] |
To everyone that I haven't caught up with over Christmas: Hope you had a good one and have a very happy New Year!
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| Hard Died |
[Dec. 30th, 2009|08:55 pm] |
Bah, the hard drive in my laptop has finally gone for a burton. I knew it was on its last legs for a while, hence doing a full backup of my home directory before Christmas; I was just hoping that I could get a replacement before doom happened.
However, I'm now using a Debian Live bootable CD, and trying to get a DAAP server up and running on my desktop so I can stream music over the network; I've got access to the 'net and the desktop, so nothing too tragic has happened. |
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| D&D Memesheep |
[Dec. 30th, 2009|06:52 pm] |
| [ | Tags | | | meme, roleplay | ] |
| [ | mood |
| |  aggravated | ] |
| [ | music |
| | NoWave vs DeathBoy - "Waves of Paranoia" | ] |
I Am A: Neutral Good Human Wizard/Sorcerer (3rd/2nd Level)
( Baaaah ) |
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| [books 2009] last but not least |
[Dec. 30th, 2009|09:50 am] |
69. The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman
I suspect that everyone who cares has already read this, so I'll just say that it's lovely. I've been saving it till I had a chance to read it all at once, which I did over Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.
(With an additional hooray for spending Chrismtas with people who don't mind you curling up with a book all day).
70. Anathem by Neal Stephenson
Finally! I got through the whole thing!
Which makes it sound like a chore, but it wasn't. I loved this book (no big surprise as I'm a big fan of Stephenson on the whole). A masterful bit of world-building - when you think you have it all figured out, something changes and you realise it doesn't work like you think it does.
71. The First City: St Augustine Saga of Survival edited by Jean Parker Waterbury
A history of St Augustine that I picked up when we were there. Surprisingly easy read. I was left wondering how the Spanish managed to hang onto Florida as long as they did. I have enough training to wonder whether they really were that incompetent, or whether, as history is told by the victors, it's Anglo spin. Though the evidence as presented is pretty compelling for the incompetence case. |
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| spamassassin-3.3.0-rc1 for Fedora and RHEL5 |
[Dec. 25th, 2009|09:45 pm] |
spamassassin-3.3.0-rc1 was released today. Here are extensive release notes upstream of many improvements and bug fixes since 3.2.5. 3.3.0 trunk has generally of better quality in both stability and spam detection capability than 3.2.5 for many months now. I personally have been running snapshots leading to this beta release on my production RHEL5 server since early 2009. We expect almost no changes are necessary before 3.3.0 final to be released during early January 2010. This is the LAST CHANCE to test and report any problems.
- Packages for Fedora 12 or Fedora 11.
- RHEL5: I personally use this scratch builds. You will need some new perl module dependencies from EPEL5. The plan is to push spamassassin-3.3.0 final + new perl modules to RHEL-5 sometime during 2010 after extensive testing. I especially need test feedback of systems currently using spamassassin-3.2.5 with Mailscanner, Amavis or Mimedefang.
- Optional packages: These packages are not required, but they probably will improve your spam filtering results.
- yum install perl-Mail-DKIM perl-Mail-SPF pyzor perl-Razor-Agent
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| Merry Christmas Everyone! |
[Dec. 25th, 2009|02:05 pm] |
Probably not that many of you out on Lj or Facebook today, but here's my vintage christmas card for you this year (I know: not as amusing/quirky as previous years, but the deep snow serenity of this one had me pause on it). I did not get to go to Sweden as my budget got blown out of the window by the electrician's news; this not a loss though as I am having a great time here too! A nordic 'God Jul' to you all. :-D 
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| Christmas Eve |
[Dec. 24th, 2009|10:35 pm] |
Today I opened a monster storm of virtual presents in Farmville, cleaned and packed some more things away, and then we went out to eat for dinner at Henrietta's Table, one of my favorite restaurants! They always have a yummy cheese plate! I had delicious salmon and "mocktail" and yummy tea and Tom and I shared a gingerbread cake dessert. And he got alcohol - they always have the best pairings there! He had some kind of iced cider wine with the cheese that smelled delicious. We can always go back! I can't wait to be NOT pregnant and not on the gestational diabetes diet - it has even less flexibility in it than weight watchers. Sigh. Only about a month and a half to go! Luna (my cat) is having a very hard time understanding that I no longer want her sitting right on my stomach - it really doesn't feel good any more! So I've been trying to get her used to sitting on the side of my tummy - half on the armrest - that works much better. Well, Tom is playing his Mario game, and I'm fiddling around on facebook, but I might go to bed early tonight, I think! |
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