Soledad's Journal

My paid account has finally expired, after nearly twenty years. The LJ people generously added first three months, and then another month to it, but it's over now. I understand that they can't afford to do more of this; as long as no giant ads appear on my journal, I can live within the limits.

I also finished the Easter baking by glazing the last biscuits and filling the cookie tins my friends (not all of them but some of them) have brought for this purpose. I feel strangely relieved that it's (mostly) done, but I also feel incredibly tired. Of course, the sudden weather changes might have something to do with that - from 19 to 0 degrees within 36 hours! - but still...

I had originally planned to make some egg baskets today, but I couldn't bring up the energy. So I took two individual naps instead: one in the morning, one in the afternoon. Now I feel vaguely like a human being again.

Mum volunteered to make the meat balls (known as Faschiertes over here), which meant that she made the mix and shaped the little balls; then she was so exhausted that she needed a little lie-down, the poor thing. I fried the Faschiertes, made mashed potatoes (the instant thing, not the real one) and Erbsengemüse, and we still had that sponge cake with Quark-Himbeercreme from yesterday, so it was a proper midday meal, even without a soup.

I also dealt with some official stuff concerning the old insurance (the one we have cancelled), we watched some telly, and now the day is basically over again. Tomorrow I'll have to go to the bank (the shared costs for the building got raised again and I need to give them the new transfer sum), which will probably last fairly long. But there are shops in the little shopping centre that sell crafty stuff, so it's okay. *g*

Note to myself: I need to buy the Easter ham, and some walnut kernels if I get any.

So, I went to my bank today in the hope that the lady clerk will have an idea how to deal with the "paying for LJ" problem. Well, she had not. The only credit cards our banks deal with are Visa and Mastercard, and those don't work with LJ, unless they have been issued by Russian banks, which my card has not. She was also not familiar with the YooMoney payment service, and the computers in the bank underlie serious restrictions, due to data protecting (with which I whole-heartedly agree), so we couldn't check out the link LJ Support had sent me.

So, just for the record: has anyone managed to renew their paid account? And if yes, how did you do it? I still have a month to figure out a way, but I have no idea what to do. :( Help, please?

In other news, the two rag dolls have gone to their new home. My friend and ex-colleague was over the moon, she loved them so much, and didn't mind that they are (more than a bit) oddly shaped. So, that's one tiny piece of success for the day. One has to count one's blessings.

I've also made Mum's birthday cake: a chestnut one, with chocolate icing and decorated with mini marshmallows. We haven't cut it yet, as the big day is tomorrow, but she approved of it.

More social life was had as I talked on the phone to two more former colleagues; all in all, it was a good day.

Today was the day of small accidents. Not the "I've hurt myself" version, mind you, at least not physically.

I've planned to bake four different kinds of cookies today. Preparations last night went on until 2.15am, so I got up after a mere 4 and half hours of sleep with a brain that was ever so slightly clouded. Hence the accidents, most likely.

The little hazelnut stars require a hazelnut meringue topping - only that the amount of topping the recipe suggested was twice as much as I actually needed. I don't know why; I bake these cookies every year for Christmas, an while the topping is always a bit too much, it was never this much in the past. Well, I had to do something with it, so I added chopped hazelnuts, grated lemon peel and white chocolate sprinkles and lo and behold! a new cookie was created. And one entirely without flour, so my friend Evie will be happy with them.

Accident #2 was LJ-rated. I started deleting some userpics I don't really need, to bring down their numbers to 30, in the hope they'll allow me to keep that many. Unfortunately, I ticked the wrong box once and managed to delete the very icon I've been using the picowrimo posts for uncounted years. So dear pico members, don't be surprised seeing Gildor Inglorion in the older posts. I don't think I'll have the time (and energy) to go back several years and change the icons back, so I simply uploaded the "magic" icon to picowrimo and made it the comm's default icon. *sigh*

BTW, I'm wonder if and when I'll hear back from LJ support... :(

Just ten minutes ago I got all upset and nervous. Trying to answer a few comments, LJ told me that the page is not available. I tried my Friends page - same answer. Fortunately, after clicking to Home and Know issues and stuff, it finally came back on its own, but it gave me the jitters. This is my only way to contact the outside word, most of the time, I can't lose it!

Okay, I've calmed down... more or less. It was a fairly uneventful day otherwise. Mum took her weekly shower in the morning (on other days she uses the washstand), then I went grocery shopping, and with that, the morning was over - despite the fact that I only went to Aldi and Auchan, two supermarkets that are situated on the opposite sides of the same road! The vending machine at Auchan was out of coffee beans, so I had to drink a cup of hot chocolate instead. What a sacrifice - NOT! But the machine doesn't give a stirring... thingy to hot chocolate, which was mean of it. I need those things for my popsickle crafts and only have several dozens of them! *g*

Lunch was phenomenal. We had leftover Tütensuppe, and I bought ham-and-cheese croissants and doughnuts with apricot jam filling for afters. Luckily, Mum likes such improvised lunches as well. Tomorrow I'll have extensive kitchen duty (cooking and baking), plus Saturday is laundry day, too, so it was good to take it easy today.

Crafting-wise I had little progress. But I have finished stitching together the windmill page and the one with the fox, so half the songbook is done, which is good. We watched some crap telly, and then I took a nap in the afternoon because I'm still drained from yesterday. And now we are another day older. I keep wondering where the time goes so quickly.

... is still a holiday over here, so TV programme sucks as usual on such days. Therefore I decided to do some minor crafting and finished decorating the gardening notebook for my friend Evie. It is basically a hardback notebook I got from the_wild_iris years and years ago, with lined pages, but I can't write into hardback notebooks very well, so it was just sitting on the shelf, gathering dust. Now I've prettied up the inner cover (no need to do so with the outer one, it's pretty enough) and will give it to Evie as an Easter gift.

Lookie, lookie:



Also, I've decided to give the Hefezopf another try, as the mixed Easter buns landed in the bin. Guess what: the Hefezopf turned out disastrous as well, hard as rubber. I think there must have been something wrong with the last package of flour, as the shrotcut pastry for my quiche was almost impossible to use, too. At least I hope it was the flour and not some weird curse that killed my baking mojo. That would be seriously frightening.

The other thing that I found mildly shocking was that someone obviously reposted my previous entry. I respectfully asked them not to do so again, but I still don't like it. I don't want to turn my LJ friends only - I like to connect with new people - but if this happens again I won't have any other choice, I'm afraid. Why do people do such things? It's bad enough that LJ allows it. :(

Today was very frustrating; I spent the morning at the bank, without being able to get my things done: their entire system was being "refreshed". During office hours, while clients were waiting. After an hour I got enough and left. Apparently, the system came back just 5 minutes later. Annoying, but there's nothing I can do about it in hindsight.

Morning being ruined, I tried to do a bit of crafting in the afternoon... with several interruptions by phone calls, Mum's various issues and all that. As a result, I completely ruined an entire page of Baby Book #2 and will have to redo it tomorrow. Grrr!

One of the phone calls was from my insurance agent who's going to visit me next week to take a look at my various contracts - which would be a good thing in itself, if she weren't a person who talks a mile a minute, without the need of taking a breath. Next Friday will be most likely wasted with that. *sigh*

Also, I didn't have access to LJ for several hours - and that during a picowrimo session! It's back now, but I'll copy the pico entries to the DW mirror site, too, just to be on the safe side. Coming to think of it, I'll do that with my own journal entries as well.

At least I managed to do some writing. One has to count one's blessings. And at least the subtitles are back on YouTube... for now.

I'd be very grateful if someone could tell me what to change in Settings, so that LJ wouldn't automatically throw up the new comment field whenever I make a comment anywhere. This is a brand new thing and gets on my nerves. I prefer the old one and would like it if I wouldn't have to switch manually back to it by every comment I make.

Aside from that, it was a rather common day. I went to food shopping in the morning, and it lasted a lot longer than expected because Thursday is when supermarkets come out with the new sales, and especially older people overrun them. I ought to have got up a lot earlier, so that I could be there around 8 o'clock, but simply couldn't. Getting up is becoming increasingly hard the older I get. *sigh*

Since I came home late, we decided not to cook today, but eat sandwiches for lunch. I'll cook tomorrow. Instead, I finished the sealing ship page and started on the red helicopter one. Tomorrow, if there's enough natural light, I'll take a photo of the finished page.

That about ate my afternoon, too, plus I had a long, nice phone chat with my friend Evie, and the day is basically over. Where does time go so swiftly?

Why can't I choose a userpic of my choice in comments while it isn't a problem with new entries? *gnashes teeth*

Anyway, it was a relatively quiet day today. I've finished the seaming of the seal pages and even wrote a few lines of dialogue, so that's good. No need to cook, we still have leftovers for tomorrow, so that's good, too.

We had a visit from the physiotherapist, who helped taking down the curtains that will be washed for the big spring cleaning. Other than that, not much happened, which is the way we like it.

... is really short. It contains a single item: paid LJ time. I've had a paid account since 2003, all the time thanks to lovely people who gifted various amounts of paid time on me. It isn't so that I couldn't afford it myself - I just can't technically do it, as I don't have an international bank account; our national currency being as weak as it is, it isn't accepted anywhere else.

This doesn't mean that any of you has to give me such a gift. But if anyone is inclined to do so, I'll be very grateful. I don't need extra userpics or whatever else there is: just plain, simple paid time, so that I can keep my current icons and scrapbook pictures, as well as keeping my LJ ad free. I'm covered till next April, but after that I'll be in need... :(

I've just realized how much I've got used to LJ today, when I accidentally deleted the entire content of my Dreamwidth inbox today. That's the second time already. Being an old fool, plus using sausage fingers on the tiny iPad mini touchscreen is annoying. *sigh*

Not much else happened today. I was baking and cooking for my upcoming birthday party. Hopefully, no-one else will get ill until Friday. I haven't had a real birthday for three years, for various reasons. I'd be very upset if this one would get cancelled, too.

All of a sudden my journal looks completely different, at least on my iPad. What had LJ done behind my back again?

Update: Okay, on my desktop PC it still looks like it always did. Now if I could only find a way to undo the changes on my iPad, too!