Soledad's Journal

I crossed the Danube today because I had a hairdresser's appointment; my hair looked so wild horses would have bolted in fear from the sight. A good thing we don't really have many horses in a big city, isn't it?

In any case, after my haystack had been tamed I made my usual round at the craft shops, etc. And what did I find? My favourite craft shop, a really big one, had closed at the end of January. It shows how often I got to go there; but it's big blow. They had so much wonderful stuff, even though they weren't exactly cheap. I'm moderately devastated.

To add insult to injury, AO3 had been down since last night, two. At least it was up and running in the early afternoon when I got home, which was a relief. I need my daily dosis of fanfic, since that's the only thing I read nowadays.

To end this entry on a positive note: I've finished the TEDI teddy clone. There will be pictures later, when I've made a few more plushies.

... has been finished as well. Take a look here. Again, I added the original photo on the package, so that noadvertising can find the right one, should her local Tedi have them.

I'm more or less content with the kitty, especially with her expression due to the added eyebrows, and the pink heart on her chest. The only problem with these Tedi toys-to-make-yourself is that they are made from such a stiff felt. It not only wrinkles badly, there's also no way to stuff them without giving them a rather prominent goiter, but that can't be helped. My friend Evie declared that her granddaughter would love the kitty, so I'm content with the outcome.

Not much else happened. I had to cook for two days, as tomorrow the One technician is due to come and replace our old internet modem (apparently, it can no longer deal with the improved speed), which makes me nervous in advance. I hate changes. I prefer things to remain the way I was used to them. Clearly, I'm getting old.

Okay, I'm royally pissed! I've been watching older episodes of "Richterin Barbara Salesch" on the Sat1 channel, and now some of them are suddenly auto-dubbed. What the freaking hell? Isn't there enough English-speaking stuff out there, now they are auto-dubbing German channels? And not just this one - I tried to watch some baking stuff, namely how to make Bratmandeln at home, and one of those was auto-dubbed, too. I've tried to find out how to remove the auto-dubbing, but apparently, I can only do that for the stuff I've uploaded myself. If anyone knows ways to do it for other videos, too, please tell me.

In other YouTube news, I'm about to go cold turkey on the stupid stuff I've been watching too much lately. I've blocked several dozen channels and hope for the best. We'll see. That will give me back a lot of time I've wasted in recent weeks.

We also had choir practice today. One of M's pets showed up again - joy, joy... not really. M finally realized that the way too ambitious Kodály piece simply isn't doable with about twenty people, more than half of whom is middle aged (to put it mildly). So we'll sing something else instead, which is, at least, a relief.

Meaning the little decorative stripes for all 12 mini sewing kits. They aren't spectacular, but they are nice enough; now I can start putting the kits together. Another item out of my hear - yay!

I also had to cook today, so I made honey chicken for two days, with new potatoes and a mixed salad. Which means: no cooking tomorrow - always a good thing! I can go out and visit a few of my favourite craft shops tomorrow, assuming it won't be raining. And do the grocery shopping in-between. There's nothing like good time management.

On the writing front, I've actually written four pages today - alas, not for any of my ongoing WIPs but for a story I've been planning for years but never got any further than the prologue. Well, writing is writing, right?

Also, we had a bit of internet scare in the afternoon. Since we got our TV via the internet modem, that meant no TV, either. I restarted the modem for good measure, and fortunately, after two or three minutes everything came back. But we still missed the first 5 minutes of The Great Canadian Baking Show due to all the hassle, which was annoying. Even though it was a re-run and we'd already seen the episode before.

It has been raining last night - and all day today. A very mild rain, which was fortunate as I had to go to Telekom again to verify my personal data. If you have a Domino card pre-paid mobile phone, you have to do it once a year, and I didn't dare to postpone doing so because I could have forgotten about it and thus lose my phone number. That would be... unfortunate.

Anyway, I went out in the late morning, and after Telekom I visited the Savoy Park (mini) shopping centre. The craft-ish shops, namely Pepco, Kik and Tedi had nothing that would interest me - lots of money saved that way. *g* So I spent it on cleaning detergents, shampoo, handcreme and the likes in the Auchan supermarket. All justified as we were running out of them, and since I didn't have to buy much else, I could haul the shopping bag home without throwing my back (is that the right expression?).

We had leftover soup and leftover salad from yesterday, so I decided to use up some sliced bread I had bought last week and that had not proved very tasty. I made toast sandwiches, baked in the oven, with turkey sausage and grated cheese - it was a rather filling meal. Tomorrow I'll cook for several days in advance, as on Friday I'll have to do the second half of the cleaning. Not having to clean on that day will be a relief.

On the writing front, I tore up the existing (almost 4) pages of Chapter 3 (of EMV III. - Hunter, Prey) because I realized that the infodump was overwhelming. I rewrote the first three pages, replacing most of that with different stuff and saving the major part of the infodump for a future scene where it will work much better. Or so I hope.

Nothing was done on the crafting front. I had a very short night, the 'Net acting up on my just when I wanted to take a last look at my mails, and for a while I didn't know whether the 'Net was down completely or my new iPad hadn't survived the last automatic update. Fortunately, it righted itself in the end, but it took over 40 minutes, and I didn't get to my bed before 1.45am. Consequently, I was fairly dead on my feet all day.

Okay, first things first: Christmas card #24 is finished. I wanted to embed the actual picture here but clearly that is no longer possible since Pinterest has revamped their site again. Of if it is possible, I haven't found the way yet. So I'll simply have to add the link, which is here.

In theory I could upload the picture to the LJ scrapbook, but my paid account runs out in December and I still have no idea how to renew it, so I have to be very careful with my storage space. It's so frustrating!

Outlook is also having the hiccups and keeps sending me this message:
Something went wrong and we can't sign you in right now. Please try again later.
The Microsoft account login server has detected too many repeated authentication attempts. Please wait a moment and try again.
I've tried it several times, with the same results. I don't know what the heck is going on with them - I never had any problems with Hotmail/Outlook for the last 25 or so years! Their service status says everything is up and running - only that it is not! Both my DW and AO3 accounts are bound to Outlook because the sites for some reason refused to accept my gmail address, so it's really not fun!

Aside from the net woes I did the grocery shopping today, prepared things for tomorrow's cleaning frenzy and did a bit of writing, too. But this net-not-working-properly thing makes me crazy!

Edit: Outlook seems to work just fine on the iPad. On my desktop PC it briefly appears, I can even read one or two new messages, then the dratted message pops up again. I'm afraid it has to do something with the PC still running on Windows 7. Damn it, I don't have the time and the nerves to get myself a new PC and learn to use a new operations system!

I got this e-mail today:

Dear Soledad,

Someone has requested a password reset for your account. You can change your account password by following the link below and entering your new password:

Change my password.

If you do not use this link to reset your password within a week, it will expire, and you will have to request a new one.

If you did not request this password reset, you may ignore this email and your previous password will continue to work.

I did definitely not request this password reset. Should I contact Support?

In other news we continued (but not finished) putting the flat back in order, we ate iced plum soup for lunch (cooked early in the morning) and I had three phone calls with friends/colleagues. Temperatures have climbed as high as 34°C outside and 30°C inside the flat. We're still focusing on pure survival.

My internet connection has been wacky all day. So, if I vanish for a time, I (hopefully) won't be dead, just unable to go online. See you all later!

Update: The connection is still wacky. Since the mediabox works via internet, sometimes we don't have telly, either. Vodafone custome service promised a techie for Friday morning. *fingers crossed*

Chiropodist lady talked us to death, again. IT cousin (don't ask me how many times removed - I can never figure it out) is still down with the stomach bug, so we postponed the miracle for next week.

At least it seems I might have get my smartphone on Friday, which would be an enormous help. *fingers crossed again*

I've cooked for two days in advance because tomorrow the insurance lady will come and talk us to death = a whole afternoon can be written off. So I made all the preparations for lunch; that way I only had to fry the meat when the time came.

Then I collapsed for an hour (yesterday was a very long night because Spektrum Home had brought back "The Repair Shop", which, naturally, started around midnight), until the new episode of aforementioned Repair Shop would start. Some Mum duty happened, though, so I rested for roughly 35 minutes instead.

In the middle of the Repair Shop my friend Evie dropped by for a short visit. Which was very nice, but it means that I'll have to watch the re-run around midnight again = another very short night, since tomorrow I'll have to get up earlier. I got things to do at the post, at the bank, at the pharmacy, etc., before the insurance horror happens.

After Evie left, we watched "Richterin Barbara Salesh" - well the second part of it anyway. Then I finished cooking and washed some of the dishes. We had a quite late lunch - around 16.30 - and then we both collapsed a bit again.

The Canadian Bake-Off ended yesterday and they haven't started a new season. Drat! We'll watch Season 8 of the original GBBO that will start on a different channel, soon, instead.

Again, no crafting done. The morning hour and half in which I can do such things got sacrificed for the slave labour otherwise known as housework. For the second day in a row, and tomorrow won't be any different. I hate it not to have a quiet hour for such things. :(

Pinterest is still acting up, and my main PC starts showing signs of old age, aka slowing down. I'm not happy! A new PC means a new operations system, which is always such a bother!

... even if it is a mistake. *g*

My phone rang in the late morning - number unknown. It turned out to be a former choir colleague from the Oldies: the choir in which I once used to sing in but haven't done so since Mum's accident three years ago. The lady - someone roughly my age - wanted the recipe of the cookies I supposedly brought to choir practice this morning. After some clearing conversation it turned out that it was someone else from the choir; someone who happens to have the same given name as I. It was really funny, especially as the lady's daughter once went to our school and actually knew me.

Other than that it was still a culinary morning. I baked cheesy buns - basically, savoury scones, only of yeast dough - and actual orange and cranberry cream scones because I had a box of whipped cream that came dangerously close to its 'best before' date and needed to be used up. Both turned out quite well, so tomorrow we'll have Tütensuppe and baked goodies for lunch... and a tiny bit of Shepherd's Pie that we couldn't consume today in its entirety. Gotta love leftovers!

After all this I was too tired to do any quality crafting. I did repurpose the buttons of another nightshirt, so that was some sewing, and I've cut out a handful of decorative elements for the baby books, like tags and cartouches and the likes. They will come in handy later; and they didn't require any higher brain functions to make.

As for Pinterest it still refuses to let me upload my pictures. I wish I know what the hell is happening. *gnashes teeth*