"What's she been up to?" catch-up
Mar. 5th, 2015 10:25 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
janewilliams20Because I haven't posted for a bit.
There was St. David's Day, and my David on night shift. So we had Welsh Rarebit for brunch, I fed him lamb chops and leeks and potatoes in a cream sauce before he left for the next night shift. And I baked Bara Brith (which meant planning it the day before to get the fruit soaked, go me!)
Next day, Dave's birthday. Coming off night shift... so I'd sent him to work with Nice Things to eat (though the team planned on it being kebab night), and did him really nice brunch. Would you prefer
a) chocolate crepes
b) croissants with smoked salmon crescents
c) sweet pancakes with bacon and maple syrup
d) all three?
Yes. He did.
Evening meal - where would he like to go for dinner? How dressed up? He wanted to phone for pizza... OK, this is me not objecting.
Tuesday, MIND day, digital photography in the morning, glass-painting in the afternoon. There was good sunlight, so we took our little cameras and went for a poke round St Andrews Church, then came back and discussed how to use Photoshop to sort out the problems of over-blown stained glass windows. I have homework, having my own PC - edit some of my own photos using the new techniques. Pics later... but I got compliments on some of my composition, and that encouraged me, when home, to drop a couple of entries into a photographic competition I'd had an email about, using Photoshop on the way (entries needed to be 300 dpi, they weren't).
Glass painting - my A4 piece is declared done, it just needs framing. Onward to the "on a jar" part, where I'm going to paint a picture of some comfrey on a jar I intend to store comfrey tea in. I've found a water colour on the web, copied, cropped, printed, and put the result inside the jar. Much finer work than I've done with the paints before. Today was tracing the outline with a fine pen, then doing the first colour. Tried to do the leaves, looked at the shade of green, wiped it off again. I need to go paint-shopping. Sorted out how to balance the jar while painting, too - the lid from a plastic box, and blu-tak.
But the best bits weren't in either of the classes. One of the organisers wanting to know where something was in the store cupboard, so asking me. One of my crochet pupils coming back to me to discuss her progress - did I have some more spec-chain ends? (yes), how were we going to assemble and line the granny squares she was making into bags, and then a note that she was getting a bit bored with this and would like to do coasters. I spotted a simple coaster pattern in the drawer. I handed it to her. I know she can't cope with reading patterns, so I was expecting to have to go back and show her how to do it, probably several times. But when I went back... stuck? Scared? She was half-way through round 3! She'd finally managed to decipher a simple pattern, and according to her, it's all because of me! Yay! Two very happy people. (Crochet friends: it's an amigurumi circle.)
Then Dave picked me and took me to Watton-at-Stone have three teeth extracted.... actually, it wasn't all that bad. Injections with a very fine needle (what needle?), a Magic Xray Machine where I stand still biting a mask while the thing whirls round me and goes in and out (beam me up!), and a very good oral surgeon. I was sent away biting a chunk of gauze and with warning about bleeding, soft foods only, and preferred pain killers. I've had no bleeding (took the gauze out as we went round the shops on the way home), took one painkiller that evening mainly as a precaution, and am heading rapidly back on to solid food.
Wednesday, both of us home, mainly spent doping around in my case (plus cooking for both - haggis and mash, kedgeree), and Dave hit the workshop. Wow. Somewhere, there are before and after pics, but the difference is amazing, and the main bin was full of bits of metal, wood, and sawdust as a result.
I didn't get as much done as I'd hoped, but the one thing that did happen, happened well. I'd made some cards over Xmas, where the design didn't fit any standard envelope, and promised myself I'd get around to making envelopes for them someday. We have a similar problem at MIND, where people have made cards and then not had envelopes for them. So, not only did I make my own envelopes, by two different methods, I documented the process, with lots of photos. I now have instruction leaflets for Friday, when I'm taking the card-making kit in again, and doing that, frames for some of the glass-painting work, and whatever crafty things people want help with. I am now the group's go-to person for any craft, it seems, even the ones I've never heard of.
Today, Thursday.... the one definite thing is my second "Psych Health medical Assessment" appointment. First one was Saturday, and was helpful, constructive, and traumatic (going through Those Events again, explaining what the "suicidal tendencies" had felt like). This will probably be less traumatic, but it's at 19:00, so Dave's coming home early to take me, and more importantly, take me back - I wasn't fit to drive immediately after the last one. I'll take the rest of the day fairly easy, make sure I have all the prep done for tomorrow (MIND plus uke practice). A trip into town to pick up a prescription and visit Aldi, and cleaning/mending some bits we found in the workshop, I expect. Should be doing homework for the online history course, and the photography course, but I'l see how that goes.
Overall? Concentration is still all over the place, memory of what I'm meant to be doing is lousy, and the slightest problem (ah, but I need to go and get that piece of paper from a different room) causes a total stop. I'll get there. Slowly. If I skip 2/3 of the things I'm "supposed" to be doing, nobody but me will even notice, much less care.
There was St. David's Day, and my David on night shift. So we had Welsh Rarebit for brunch, I fed him lamb chops and leeks and potatoes in a cream sauce before he left for the next night shift. And I baked Bara Brith (which meant planning it the day before to get the fruit soaked, go me!)
Next day, Dave's birthday. Coming off night shift... so I'd sent him to work with Nice Things to eat (though the team planned on it being kebab night), and did him really nice brunch. Would you prefer
a) chocolate crepes
b) croissants with smoked salmon crescents
c) sweet pancakes with bacon and maple syrup
d) all three?
Yes. He did.
Evening meal - where would he like to go for dinner? How dressed up? He wanted to phone for pizza... OK, this is me not objecting.
Tuesday, MIND day, digital photography in the morning, glass-painting in the afternoon. There was good sunlight, so we took our little cameras and went for a poke round St Andrews Church, then came back and discussed how to use Photoshop to sort out the problems of over-blown stained glass windows. I have homework, having my own PC - edit some of my own photos using the new techniques. Pics later... but I got compliments on some of my composition, and that encouraged me, when home, to drop a couple of entries into a photographic competition I'd had an email about, using Photoshop on the way (entries needed to be 300 dpi, they weren't).
Glass painting - my A4 piece is declared done, it just needs framing. Onward to the "on a jar" part, where I'm going to paint a picture of some comfrey on a jar I intend to store comfrey tea in. I've found a water colour on the web, copied, cropped, printed, and put the result inside the jar. Much finer work than I've done with the paints before. Today was tracing the outline with a fine pen, then doing the first colour. Tried to do the leaves, looked at the shade of green, wiped it off again. I need to go paint-shopping. Sorted out how to balance the jar while painting, too - the lid from a plastic box, and blu-tak.
But the best bits weren't in either of the classes. One of the organisers wanting to know where something was in the store cupboard, so asking me. One of my crochet pupils coming back to me to discuss her progress - did I have some more spec-chain ends? (yes), how were we going to assemble and line the granny squares she was making into bags, and then a note that she was getting a bit bored with this and would like to do coasters. I spotted a simple coaster pattern in the drawer. I handed it to her. I know she can't cope with reading patterns, so I was expecting to have to go back and show her how to do it, probably several times. But when I went back... stuck? Scared? She was half-way through round 3! She'd finally managed to decipher a simple pattern, and according to her, it's all because of me! Yay! Two very happy people. (Crochet friends: it's an amigurumi circle.)
Then Dave picked me and took me to Watton-at-Stone have three teeth extracted.... actually, it wasn't all that bad. Injections with a very fine needle (what needle?), a Magic Xray Machine where I stand still biting a mask while the thing whirls round me and goes in and out (beam me up!), and a very good oral surgeon. I was sent away biting a chunk of gauze and with warning about bleeding, soft foods only, and preferred pain killers. I've had no bleeding (took the gauze out as we went round the shops on the way home), took one painkiller that evening mainly as a precaution, and am heading rapidly back on to solid food.
Wednesday, both of us home, mainly spent doping around in my case (plus cooking for both - haggis and mash, kedgeree), and Dave hit the workshop. Wow. Somewhere, there are before and after pics, but the difference is amazing, and the main bin was full of bits of metal, wood, and sawdust as a result.
I didn't get as much done as I'd hoped, but the one thing that did happen, happened well. I'd made some cards over Xmas, where the design didn't fit any standard envelope, and promised myself I'd get around to making envelopes for them someday. We have a similar problem at MIND, where people have made cards and then not had envelopes for them. So, not only did I make my own envelopes, by two different methods, I documented the process, with lots of photos. I now have instruction leaflets for Friday, when I'm taking the card-making kit in again, and doing that, frames for some of the glass-painting work, and whatever crafty things people want help with. I am now the group's go-to person for any craft, it seems, even the ones I've never heard of.
Today, Thursday.... the one definite thing is my second "Psych Health medical Assessment" appointment. First one was Saturday, and was helpful, constructive, and traumatic (going through Those Events again, explaining what the "suicidal tendencies" had felt like). This will probably be less traumatic, but it's at 19:00, so Dave's coming home early to take me, and more importantly, take me back - I wasn't fit to drive immediately after the last one. I'll take the rest of the day fairly easy, make sure I have all the prep done for tomorrow (MIND plus uke practice). A trip into town to pick up a prescription and visit Aldi, and cleaning/mending some bits we found in the workshop, I expect. Should be doing homework for the online history course, and the photography course, but I'l see how that goes.
Overall? Concentration is still all over the place, memory of what I'm meant to be doing is lousy, and the slightest problem (ah, but I need to go and get that piece of paper from a different room) causes a total stop. I'll get there. Slowly. If I skip 2/3 of the things I'm "supposed" to be doing, nobody but me will even notice, much less care.
