Soledad's Journal

Today I went to the government office again to compare Mum's personal data as they stand in her ID with their database as there seem to be some inconsequencies between the two. Well, guess what - since I didn't have a written empowerment from Mum, I didn't get any further than the info desk. Speak about owing the devil a trip, as we say in Hungarian! The most annoying part is that last night I even thought to get such a writ, just in case, but forgot about it in the morning. Getting old and distracted sucks!

The current stand of things is (including our most recent clashes):
bureaucracy:3, me:1. I'll have to go back another time. We wouldn't care as a rule, but we'll have to switch to optic phone cable eventually, as the old system won't be in use much longer, and the landline is on Mum's name. We tried - and failed - to transfer it to mine because (what a surprise!) her personal data didn't match the ones the Home Office has. And we still have no idea why!

Anyway, I had to leave without being able to achieve anything and came home in a really sour mood. Worked a bit on Christmas card #34, did a bit of writing, we had some leftovers for lunch, and then the physiotherapist lady arrived and I left for choir practice.

Before choir practice I made a detour to the horologist to see if our two dead alarm clocks could be repaired. Well, the shiny new one (that an on a battery) was a lost case and had to be replaced by a similar one. My decades-old, mechanical Russian clock, however, wasn't beyond help and will be repaired - for three times the price the new one cost. I left it by the horologist anyway; it's a good clock, it was part of my life for a very long time, and I prefer mechanical clocks to these new battery-driven ones anyway. My wrist watch is roughly 80 years old (Mum got it from her uncle as a young girl) and still works better than any these smart things or whatnot. Yes, I'm old-fashioned and stubborn. It's an expensive character fault, but it's my money to waste, right?

Both of us. No, really. We had a visit from the extremely talkative chiropodist lady, and she was in rare form. Can you imagine someone talking in one go for two and a half hours (about topics who are either way outside our interest or positively revolting) without even needing to breathe? We were both totally useless for the rest of the day.

That said, I still managed to finish one lavender sachet and sew on the appliques to the rest of them. Fortunately, such work doesn't require any higher brain activity. I also wrote quite a chunk before Mrs Chatterbox arrived, so that's done for today, too. We had the last rests of the Shepherd's Pie for a late lunch and then we both needed to lie down for an hour or so.

God, my brain feels like a dried-out sponge!

1) It is still frigging hot. We hit 35°C again today.

2) I actually managed to do the hall and the balcony today in little more than an hour (good preparation is everything) but I still have the living room and the two bedrooms before me, and that promises to be hard. Too much stuff everywhere.

3) I gave the card with the baby Jesus another try. First I've removed part of what was already done because I wasn't satisfied with it. Then I stitched the baby's face - it didn't turn out as I hoped because I used too thick thread, but I'll be damned if I redo it. It's just a holiday card, not some elaborate church decoration, for God's sake! The same with the small cross that I've redone for the third time and it still doesn't look like on the template. I decided that it will have to do.

4) A cursed grasshopper has taken on residence in my study/workroom/whatever. I've been chasing it around for days but the stupid bug is hard to kill. I hope it will starve to death in our concrete bunker, soon. I so hate sharing my living space with insects, it's crowded enough as it is!

5) Still no writing today. When I'm done with all my chores I'm too brain dead to think. Apparently, I'm too braind dead for following a stitching pattern!

Do you remember when I last year tried to make pink grapefruit jam and ended up with syrup? Well, the exact opposite happened to me today. I wanted to try my hand on lemon jam and ended up with candied lemon peels. Either I've cooked those poor lemons on too high heat or I cooked them too long. The end result were very nice candied peels with almost no liquid part. Ah, well, they'll serve me well for baking.

Not much else happened today - it was way too hot, and we had to survive the chiropodist lady, too. Which meant we couldn't let the blinds down or else she wouldn't have seen properly, not even with artificial light. Gah, it was hot in the afternoon inside the flat! Not as hot as outside, of course, we 'only' had 27 degrees compared with the 35 outside, but still way too hot. This summer is murderous. My friend Evie told me that her plants are dying in the garden, no matter how much she's watering them: their leaves get literally burned in the heat. It doesn't look well for her beans, which is a shame, considering the amount of hard work she puts into the garden.

And now to semantics. I've been watching some YouTube videos analyzing the ginger whinger and his wife's latest interview on CBS and stumbled over the completely idiotic expression 'unaliving' him- or herself. For pity's sake, people being suicidal is bad enough, but crowning the problem with such ridiculous euphemisms won't make people more aware of it; or is it some kind of control? Isn't it allowed to speak about such things openly anymore? The world has gone mad indeed.

I got up an hour earlier today to finish the last necessary preparations for our cleaning lady who was supposed to come around 11am. At 9.30am she called and said she couldn't come, after all. Apparently, she is ill - must have been a very sudden illness, as last evening she was 100 pro OK...

( Feel free to ignore the wining behind the cut )
I didn't have much energy left for anything, but I still managed to make half a card. I mean, I stitched about half of a star, with double silver thread, which wasn't an easy thing, but I'm proud of having done at least that much.

Looking forward to tomorrow and to a second attempt to make millionaire slices. My caramel was practically soup at the first attempt (several months ago), but now I've bottled caramel creme that I had bought at Aldi and hope for better results.

I've finished the first ones - partly with Louise's help - and I think they are super cute. See for yourself:



Aside from that, I cooked lunch, we had a visit from the physiotherapist lady and we had our last choir practice. Concert is on Sunday, let's hope we'll do well.

The alternate medicine shop/bioshop/whatever it is called in English, where I used to buy certain natural supplies (like argan oil) has closed since I last was there. They still have their online shop, but I don't do online shopping, so I'll have to find another source. *insert bad words*

I was out of the house all morning - unfortunately, not for reasons I'd like to be out of the house for. It started with a battle with the bank, which I lose - I didn't have a rat's chance against bureaucracy. So I'll have to find a way to drag my 92-year-old mother (who can just walk very short ways around the house) to the bank to prove her identity. Or have official copies made of her documents (by a notary or whatnot) and send them to the other end of the country where the bank has some administrative centre. *insert really bad curse words here*

To get at least something out of the day, I made another page for the baby book before starting my odyssey. It isn't completed yet, but almost. I'll have to add a few tags and cards, but otherwise it's done... and very pretty, if I say so myself. No sewing today; the abused fingers are still recovering.

After the bank fiasco, I visited Tedi, Pepco and Kik - all shops that also sell craft supplies. Bought a few little things and heroically resisted the temptation of some really beautiful jam jars that were also really expensive. I mean, I do need more jars, as I've bought all the frozen blueberries and raspberries, but paying as much (or more) for the jars as for the fruit seems a bit extreme. So I called my friend Evie and she promised me some jars, as she isn't planning any jam-making before high summer. We regularly re-use the emptied jars, I've just run out of mine.

Having done half of the food shopping in the same shopping centre, I came home, put down my booty and turned back to Aldi for the aforementioned frozen blueberries. There I met my neighbour, IT guy's wife, and I finally know what time I'll have a good chance to actually speak with the guy. I might get my antivirus programme renewed in time, after all.

... of choir practice, that is. For no actual reason (aside from the fact that the weather has turned nasty overnight); I just didn't feel up to the challenge of getting dressed up "properly" and out of the house at all. Yeah, ridiculous, I know, but there are days like that. Tomorrow I'll be all over the town all morning anyway: have to compare dates with Telekom, have to try getting a new ID card, as the old one is just about to run out of validity, have to do some food shopping and so on... So, no trip to school today.

Instead, I've finished cutting out the little bear shapes. I've got enough part for 19 mini-bears, which is a ridiculous number, so I'll have to make at least one more on principle (don't ask why because I have no idea). I've also worked on pot holder #2, which will include the original pattern of Mum's deceased gown on one side. I think it looks nice... or it will once finished.

On the writing side, about half a page done: the beginning of Chapter 17. Alas, right now I don't have the faintest what's gonna happen in Chapter 17... that's one of those filler parts before the real action starts, and I'm rather vague about the real action, too, so... At least I hope it won't take me another 8 years to finish the next chapter. *fingers crossed*

We still had leftovers, so the only thing I had to cook was a soup, using up the water in which the asparagus had been boiled. It took me all about five minutes, but Mum loved the results, so those five minutes were well invented. ;))

In the afternoon Mum had a visit from the physiotherapist, we watched some telly and then lazed around. No outside walk for us today, as temperatures have dropped dramatically, it was windy all day with some rain in-between.

Oh, and LJ played a nasty trick on me! They turned my settings to this stupid modern post editor - fortunately, I found the way to turn it back. Damn it, why can't they leave old folk like myself alone to do things our old-fashioned way?!

I had the second session with the insurance lady. It lasted over two hours. My mental energy is below the red line, even though I took a nap after she'd left. But things are more or less finished now, and I hope I've made a good deal.

I also was grocery shopping in the morning, including visiting the pharmacy. One of Mum's medicines apparently isn't available, and won't be until the end of the month. Fortunately, it's one against osteoporosis, so it isn't life-threatening if she doesn't take it for once, but it's still annoying.

Due to the things mentioned above, I was completely useless for the rest of the day. *yawns*

Still no luck with frigging Pinterest.

... is the other baby book I'm currently working on. The boy version of it - obviously, as everyone's favourite consulting detective would say. In any case, I've finished the front cover today. It's quite different from the girl version, but I like it a lot. Take a look:



I apologize for the quality of the photo. The iPad mini has its issues with the colour blue. Or rather, it turns everything white into blue and pale blue into a much darker blue. I used the corresponding sheet as in the girl version, and in reality, it's the same light, decent hue. I've edited the photo within an inch of its life, until the pattern became almost invisible, but it's still several magnitudes too dark. Grrrr!

We also had our concert today... with mixed results, to say the least. The first two and the last two pieces went well - I even got my solo part and managed not to mess it up - but the middle of it was a disaster, to put it mildly. Something was wrong with the amplifiers, so we barely heard the piano (well, keyboard, actually), and very little from the sopranos. Which is a problem when we have to hit the right tone based on what the sopranos are singing! So yeah, the three pieces in the middle kind of fell apart, even though the audience probably didn't realize it. *sigh*

Okay, this was a busy week. Let's hope the next one will be less stressful - starting with tomorrow!

Oh, and for some reason DW has stopped sending me notifications! I checked my Settings, and they are supposed to! Double Grrr, as I no longer can check DW on the mini since they have switched providers or whatnot. :(