Category: State-of-Being

Browser Shenanigans …

My online world broke this morning, like this tile broke … and was rethought in the way that I’m having to rethink my desktop …

I was glad to hit on a familiar page at last with this one … my WordPress dashboard. Thankfully, it was the same as it’s always been. I heaved a sigh of relief when I arrived.

It was then 2.30 PM and I’d struggled since I sat down after breakfast and chores to get back to my familiar scenario. My troubles began when suddenly my online bank was unavailable and the helpline operator and I thought at first that I’d been hacked.

But no, my then-browser updated overnight and apparently threw up a firewall that kept me out of my bank as well as several other places. Well I thought, away with that browser. I de-defaulted it and all my problems began.

Who knew there’d be 500+/- settings, and that there’d be a whole different architecture to accustom myself to, and that there’d be a bunch of new rules? One good thing about the new old browser is that everything is easy to find. I learned more about browsers in a couple of hours than I’d learned the whole year with the de-defaulted one.

I hope all the new stuff sticks in my head, as do I hope that all the stuff I have open on the desktop stays on there when I close the laptop. That I don’t have to find it all from scratch again next time I open the lid.

And although I enthusiastically welcome the password app, I also wrote down a bunch of them. You never know when you might be shut out, and at what level.

I managed to retrieve the situation without the help of an AI assistants, I’m glad to say. What FB AI assistants are doing beggars belief.

Food: GF Bread

‘Falling off the Wagon’, is a phrase that originated in the Temperance Movement, according to Wikipedia.

Meaning falling of the water wagon back into alcoholism. Getting back onto the wagon means getting sober again. I’m sure I’m not telling you anything new.

Every so often I fall off my gluten free, dairy free, lowFODMAP and sugar free penny-farthing-bicycle and then I am in pain and discomfort.

Getting back onto my penny-farthing bicycle is a matter of figuring out where the bad stuff has crept in. While one teaspoon of gluten-containing flour in a loaf of bread is not going to cause any problems, a cup of 100% wheat flour will. And I’ve been mixing spelt flour in my baked goods to encourage yeast action.

And having that bread daily. Having anything you’re sensitive to daily, is another no-no for people with a lot of allergies, intolerances and sensitivities.

Having a particular food once every three days usually prevents a build up of the bad chemicals in the body. But sometimes all I want is to be able to eat something without worrying what it will do to my chemistry.

That’s when my penny-farthing slams to the ground and I fall by the wayside.

Which is why I’ve started experimenting with baking my own bread. Commercial gluten free breads tend to have a ‘stampede of ingredients’, and the breads that are any good aren’t always available. The phrase ‘stampede of ingredients’ … so appropriate to food intolrances … comes from the MooGoo people, who make natural skin care products.

Cutting gluten-containing flour from my diet only half-fixed my problem. I came to the conclusion yesterday it has to be a capsule filler causing me grief. I’m now taking 0.9 mg LDN daily, either a (3 x 0.2 + 3 x 0.1) dose equaling 6 capsules, or (4 x 0.2 + 1 x 0.1) equaling 5 capsules.

Meaning, I’m taking a lot of Avicel cellulose filler. And I’ve been reading in a pertinent group that this stuff gives a lot of people grief. They either have their capsules compounded with a different filler and that’s a minefield I don’t want to go into right now, or they throw the contents of their capsules in water. The LDN dissolves and the Avicel is the residue at the bottom of the glass, and then drinking the water.

That’s what I’ll be doing. I still have about one hundred and fifty capsules to work through before I can ask for a different filler. It’s a real “Good Grief, Charley Brown!” situation.

Lunch … couldn’t wait any longer. Wilted greens, avocado, a few olives and the equivalent of approx 2 slices of newly-baked bread. A third of an apple. A jug of hot salted water.

After stopping the bread machine for a minute, I hauled out the bucket and scooped out the equivalent of two slices of bread. Bucket back in to finish the cycle, 28 minutes to go. Going on the texture of the bread, it looks like it will be my most successful loaf yet.

In Hospital

Anthony Roberts from Tony’s Bologna reminds me to talk about something I’m emotionaly responding to … not sure of the grammar there.

I’m not in the mood for grammar. I’m cold, hospital aircon is like the Antarctic. I’m standing swaying, with a blanket over my shoulders in my ED hutch (roomlet in the energency department) at the Mater (Hospital) in South Brisbane.

Been here for four and a half hours, had a canula put in that’ll give me the pip for weeks the bruise surrounding it is momentous.

Waiting for the results of the CT scan I had half an hour a go figuring if there’s a good/bad reason for the blockage in my gut. Waiting for the pain to be flushed out.

ED beds are the pits, as I’m sure everybody who has ever languished in ED knows. I’m too tall, my feet always flush against the footboard. How do really tall people manage?

Does it sound like I’m moaning? Does to me. Emotions are totally tied into physical sensations, you know? There is no brain body separation.

The time is 13.13 … one of those synergies I have with time. When I check the time, ther’s more often than not a little pattern to enjoy. Synergies might be the wrong word. I’m frazzled, frustrated and freaking!

OK, I can still do alliteration. Can still think. Discomfort is in overdrive. Now to find a pic that describes how I’m feeling …

Water color-painting .. practice

Learning a craft takes a lot of practice. When I was stil pretty new to watercolor painting, I used to try to paint on any type of paper and thin cardboard.

Not all of it worked. Art calendars featuring photographic art have a lot of marble dust in them. Paint sits on top until it dries. Made for some interesting experiments.

Then for a while I used mixed media papers, they worked better and I still have a few of those paintings.

Lately I’ve gone into 200 gsm paper specifically made for watercolor and since I have a problem throwing out good things that might be useful one day, I swear I’ve hung onto every bit of used 200gsm paper I’ve painted, it seems like.

Of course I laugh at myself but then don’t throw anything, I have a bag full of painted scraps for collaging.

Recently I’ve felt the need to practise painting a ‘wash’ or ten. Something I have a lot of difficulty with. So ended up with ten washes on four sides.

Made them into a little art zine … if I have that terminology right. Here the back and front covers (three washes)

The story was going to be about a red planet but the nickety nog said No!

Several aspects about this booklet please me quite a lot. The size, a quarter of an A4 page. It’s just enough for a short fairy story. I like the way the torn edges of the pages look edged with gold.

‘Hariet Reed’ is a pen name scrambled from my real name. Good for the witch telling this story. I don’t like the stickers much, will rethink that aspect. The random design of the pages (all those washes) worked well.

The story became a dark in color as wel as plot little tale about a nickety nog demanding a five and after being offered various juicy morsels and rejecting them, stealing five gold coins.

The story lacks cohesion, there are a couple of glitches, as well as other things I could’ve done better. The gold coins for example.

Some of the coins are gold-leaf on pva glue, none of them turned out round and some were rounded later with acrylic paint. And then towards the end I thought might as well paint the whole coin with acrylic gold. Worked the best of the lot.

All useful things to remember for when I make the next little story book. Only the last two pages were over-painted to help the tale end.

Knitting, Mark One

A while ago I started an experimental knit that I intended to serve as a base for a crochet design of leaves and vines.

What happened to that?

This. The rolling up just never resolved itself. The more I knitted the tighter and higher it rolled.

OK, so experienced knitters will be saying I’ve done something wrong and I accept that.

Too tight? Nope, as loose as possible with yarn no thicker than a regular two ply, knitted on 4mm knitting pins.

Weird yarn? Maybe. 60% cotton, 40% viscose. No spring in it. At all.

Wrong stitches? Very possible. Stitches in the body of the work are fine. Loose and drapy as desired.

Increasing at the beginning of each row? The problem has to be there! Ffor the purl, rear of the work, row I increased by sticking pin into back of first loop, knitting that plain, then bringing knitting needle forward to knit a purl and continuing with a purl line.

Did the opposite at the front of the work, making a stitch at the beginning of the row by knitting a purl, yarn to the back then knitting a plain and coninuing in plain.

These made nice edges, one that I’d never seen before on the purl side of a work …

And yet, by the time I’d knitted twenty rows the first five had rolled up. After I unpicked those first five—with difficulty—the next five rolled up as I was doing it.

By sixty rows, the first fifteen had rolled up. No matter how I draped and folded the resulting cloth the bottom rolled up. By the time I’d knitted eighty rows I knew I had a twisted disaster and finished it off.

I may deconstruct it and use the yarn for another project, but this was already the second knit that that yarn featured in. Not sure how well it’ll stand up to the strain of pulling apart again.

Note that I said ‘twisted disaster’ …

Avatar Remaindered 18

Having a problem posting Avatar Remaindered 18, which I meant to put up yesterday. It obviously didn’t stick. Today the same trouble.

Let me put up a picture. The chapter is called Into the Chasms … Working on it.

Well, it worked. Whatever I did. Really not sure and–you know how it is–I’d rather not touch it in case it disappears again.

18. The Chasms, postedDownload