I was motivated yesterday

I got so much done yesterday. I was quite proud of myself. I was up at 7 and drove Liam to work, then I came home and fixed the car backseat thing that River sits on. The straps holding the attaching clips had frayed. They had become really brittle in the sun, and I had to cut out the frayed bits and attach the remains back together. It was quite fun figuring out how to best attach them. I ended up sewing them together and reinforcing the join with duck tape.

Next up was the hammock - our old one's ropes had also become sun-frayed and we replaced it. So I got to mess around with more bits of rope. But we have a hammock again. Yeay.

I went bra shopping - unsuccessfully - but even that didn't kill my motivation.

Then I got 1,500 words written. I'm doing an online writing course and am working on an entirely new story. I'm really enjoying it. I'm trying "discovery" writing, so I have absolutely no idea where the story is going beyond the next few scenes. But the characters are fun. The side-kick is a bit psycho-homicidal and those type of characters are always fun to write.

And after all that I fixed the brakes on Liam's bike. This bike is my newest project. It's been a mess since we moved here - flat tires, chain covered in sand, brakes that were so tight the bike didn't move. I haven't looked at the gears yet, but I imagine they are in an equally sorry state. I've always wanted to learn how to maintain / fix a bike and I'm using this as my learning bike. It's funny how not mysterious a bike is when you actually start learning about how all the pieces work. I used think the brake and gear wires were set with some kind of techno-magic-precision-engineering, but it's nothing more complicated than a nut / bolt you can tighten and loosen. And the wire tension you just fiddle around with until it's right. Crazy.

So I cooked dinner then, and after that we went to the shop and bought random things (I got a Nalgene bottle), and then I played Skyrim until bedtime. Ahh Skyrim - I am, once again, entirely addiced. I even got a funny buzz in my solar plexus region the other day I wanted to play so badly. Oh my god. How do Bethesda do it? How do they makes games that do this to me?

Anyway. I must go get some writing done. I'm on scene 6 and I'm supposed to be on 9.

Food Entry and other things

I haven't done one of these in a while.

We made pizza last night. We each kneaded our own little bit of dough and put on our own toppings. It was wonderful. Mine had a ricotta / garlic powder / parsley sauce, caramelised red onions (when I say caramelised I really mean fried with oil, spices and salt), baby spinach leaves, smoked salmon, feta and parmesan cheese. Unfortunately all my flavours were strong and none really came to the fore (but I think the onions were winning). lordkilljoy had a standard pepperoni pizza (with extra red chile).



Lunch today is going to be amazing (if the rice will ever cook). I got random ingredients (stuff about to go off in the fridge) and threw them together into a one-pot meal thing. It's composed of brown rice, half a red onion, most of a red bell pepper, half a can of stewed tomatoes, salt and minced chipotle chiles in adobo sauce. Oh, and a squeeze of lemon juice. Nom nom nom. Even though I haven't eaten it yet, the bit of sauce I tried was delicious. I'm starving. Come on, cook. It's been an hour and the rice still isn't done.

I'm trying to get a bit fit for the 40km cycle me and penelope_stone are going on. Yesterday I cycled 5 (miles or kilometres) on the cycling machine in the gym, and today I did an easy 5 and a hard 5. I was happy to be done the hard 5, but by the time I got home I was fine again. So I think the machine is in km, because after 5 miles I'd be way more tired. And... on the road, it takes me 5 minutes to go 1 km. And I was on the machine for 15 minutes, and I was working a bit harder than I do when going to the shop... So I guess I have to work up to 45. I don't think I'll be able to add on 5kms every day. Or maybe, with breaks in between. Or maybe do half easy and half hard.

Today

River and I went out for a cycle this morning. It was fun, but she doesn't pull her weight, so it's like going uphill the whole way. I was somewhat tired after 15 minutes. It took me ages to get my bike ready this morning, though. The mover guys had turned the handlebars sideways and it was a little hard to get them back right again (especially because I had the wheel backwards the first time and had to do it again).

River's barking has gotten really out of control since we moved. A lot of trucks and cars go by on the road outside (it's the main way into the estate - thank god we aren't facing the main road) and she barks at every one. She barks at dogs walking outside the window and dogs barking in other apartments. She's even taken to barking for attention. It had to stop. So yesterday I resorted to negative reinforcement. And it's working really well. Every time she barks I say no and tap her on the nose. Not only does she stop barking right away, but the amount of barking has lessened in the one day I've been trying it. So I' happy for that, but sad that it had to come to this. I tried all the positive reinforcement (treats for being quiet, etc) I could think of, but that just seemed to make her worse. I also don't think she's getting enough sleep. She's not relaxing at all. She's been getting about 8 hours sleep in the night time and not napping during the day as she usually does. I was making dinner this morning (stew) and her head was nodding as she sat beside me. The poor thing is wrecked. So I think the sleep deprivation is making her anxious too.

I don't have much else news. We ordered my dress last night. There's no way we could afford one in a shop so I ordered it online from a company in China who tailor the dress to your measurements. I'm really excited about it, but I really hope the company isn't bogus and that the dress makes it here. Well, it has until the end of January to arrive, so we'll see then.

I think that's all my news. Did I mention I got a new keyboard? It's a microsoft Arc and I really like it. It's small and fits my hands perfectly. The only problem is that I keep hitting enter instead of apostrophe. That will take a little getting used to, but I will eventually.

Right. I have to finish tidying away the last of our stuff. The things left are the things I haven't a clue where to put (that sentence was badly worded, but you get the idea surely). Here goes... I might have a little biscuit before I start for motivation. Oooh - actually. I saw these dog biscuits in Costco and they look delicious. The ingredients are like oats, honey eggs, and other stuff that I'd actually use to bake biscuits. But I couldn't just bring myself to eat something that was labelled for dogs. That would be a step over the line from being eccentric to being downright weird. So we didn't buy them. Even though, clearly, I'm still thinking about them :(

Anyway. later.

cycle to the park

what is it with me not posting for a while and then making two or three posts in a day? oh well.

yesterday, i wanted to cycle to the park, but it was too windy. i kinda regretted not going, because it was a beautiful day and the warm weather isn't meant to last after the weekend. today was equally beautiful, and slightly less windy (still a bit windy) so i went to the park today. it's 5km away (5.1 according to google, 5.3 according to my bike). it was a wonderful cycle. google chose a route for me that didn't involve too many hills (there was just one steep one). the park was nice, but the moment i got there the sun went in. and it stayed in until i decided to leave.
i was on my bike, just accelerating to go home, when the sun came out. so i plonked myself on some (very prickly, dry) grass and sat in the sun for a bit. i watched small clouds and smaller aeroplanes (airplanes?) cross the sky. eventually the wind got a bit cold, though, so then i went home properly. i have no idea how long i stayed. not that long. i left at quarter past 1, and was home at quarter past 3. i was cycling for 45 minutes. so that makes... an hour and a bit. mad.
it was lovely to sit outside in the warm sunshine, though.

right so. i'm going to go now.

Snow Cycle

I want to post about my cycle, too, but cycles and airport security do not go together at all, so this gets its own post.

It was 0°C at 9am this morning. I wasn't really inspired to go out for a cycle. So I waited a bit and the temp went up to 2. Still cold. I was cold, I really didn't want to go outside. So I had the bright idea that if my body was a bit warmer going outside wouldn't be so bad. A quick google and a few seconds later I had a youtube of warm up exercises open.
Yep - I did warm up exercises for the first time ever going out for a cycle. I'm glad I did, too. It was freezing outside. The first minute of cycling was so cold. I was only wearing a long sleeve wicking top and I could feel the cold air hitting my chest. There's a long hill pretty much first thing once I get out of the 'estate' so that warmed me up nicely. I got cold again on the way down the other side of the hill, though. I couldn't feel my fingers.
Sort of half way around my circle (it's more of a very lob-sided pentangle) it started snowing. Just a flurry, but it was snow all the same. I sort of wondered what I was doing out for a cycle, but I didn't go out at all last week (it's amazing how the cold makes me want to stay inside), so I felt if I didn't force myself out today, I wouldn't go for a cycle until February.

I got home, and penelope_stone's warning about re-heat pains was loud in my memory. So I did some cool-down (aka warm your body up again after being so cold) exercises (using the same youtube as I did for warm ups). It may have helped? I still couldn't put the shower as warm as usual, and my core was still cold after the shower. It's still cold now (a little, only). I'm wearing fleece pants and warm socks and it's wonderful.

About the cold (my brain goes samui wa (寒さ)), it's set to get colder though January. It should start to warm up a bit in February, and should be lovely by April. Woo. Bring on the spring.

first cycle

I went out for my first cycle in Albuquerque. It was amazing. The temperature was 4°C, but it was similar to 16 in Ireland. I love cycling in the sunshine. As I neared home, I didn't want my cycle to end. But I told myself this is my first cycle at altitude and I didn't want to overdo it. But really, I felt fine. I did struggle up the hills a bit, but that's partly because I'm used to cycling on flat ground. I didn't run out of breath; but I was being careful. There's nothing worse than that my-lungs-can't-breathe-in-enough feeling. I saw two birds, ground birds, i think. They live in the hedges around here (when i say hedges, of course, i mean sand / pebbles with bits of dry-looking plants growing around them).

Yea. I haven't much else to say.

bike's super healthy

So, instead of going and pumping up my tires, i just brought my bike for a service. it tuned out one of them was blown, anyway. so i got new, thorn resistant, tubes and they tightened all the wires and things. so my bike is perfect, and i didn't get to go out on it today. awh.
i will tomorrow, hopefully.

i had a fun video chat yesterday. got to see loads of family i wouldn't get to see, even in normal conditions.

i don't really have much else to say...

bikes

I just put two bikes together. I've never put a bike together before. I was sort of making a haymes of it, and then got the internet to help me. The first instruction was turn the bike upside down so it is resting on the saddle and handlebars. Sometimes my lack of common sence amazes me. I console myself by telling myself, if i was a d&d character, i'd have high int (intelligence) and low wis (wisdom). Yeay. But they went together easily after that.

Now the only problem is that my handlebars are loose and I don't have an allen key to tighten them with. And my tires are flat, practically falling off the wheels. I did lordkilljoy's bike too. So we'll have to bring them both for a service on the weekend. I just want to go for a cycle, though. Ah well.

Oh, yea. If you hadn't read between the lines, the fact that i had bikes to put together means our shipment arrived. so i have loads to sort out. i should do that now.

facebook

Yesterday, penelope_stone signed me up to facebook. She gave me a username and password and was like, 'okay, now you fill in the rest.' Yeah. I'm going to keep it to real-life friends and family, which is why I'm not posting my user name here.

But, just as when I joined twitter, I will still be posting here. In fact, this journal will be 9 in 5 days. Isn't that cool. It will be 10 years old next year. A whole decade of random posts on stuff that happens to me.

In other news: I get to cycle into Intel today. That'll be fun. I've always wanted to cycle into Intel.

I went into the kitchen today and was at the sink looking over at a blank space where Nymph used live. And when I went into the kitchen last night I was still worried about turning on the light and making noise that I'd wake him, even though he's down in Kerry now. I'll get used to it in a while. Sure, in a few weeks everything will be completely different.

Yeah. I don't think I have much else news.

I'm trying to read four books in a month (good luck to me). The first is Elantris, and I'm about a third of the way though. I may actually get it finished by the weekend, because Sanderson's writing is not complex at all. In fact, i'm finding it a little too simplistic, but that's okay. It definitely reads more like a YA (young adult) than an adult fantasy.

Right so. I'm going to go now.

posting drought

i really have to start updating my livejournal more. i suppose i don't because most of my days are the same: get up, write, play games, read, sleep. i don't update when i'm writing because i'm writing, and too caught up in it to do much else. i turn my computer off in the evenings, so that's why i don't update then.

excuses, excuses.

i think my main problem is that posts about what i'm doing seem so self-centered, and boring.
like: i went for a cycle on saturday, which was brilliant, even if i am a little unfit (i got over that after about 10 minutes, though - went about 12km).
does anyone really want to read about this stuff?

it's kind of funny, because i update my site every week without fail - i have an alarm set to remind me. maybe it's because those posts are so informative and inspired. i just find writing here so... mundane.

i suppose i just have to wait for something interesting to happen.

the sun should shine and i should go for a cycle everyday

about an hour and a half ago, i decided to go for a cycle. i'd had enough of staring at the sky wishing i could jump into it, and swim around in its smooth blueness, and decided i should enjoy it some other way than just in my imagination. so i filled up my water bottle, put on my helmet and went out on my bike.
and i didn't want to come home. i did my usual 12km route, then continued on along the canal because the day and the sunshine and the warm air were just too much of a delight. and to stall going home even longer, i sat under the brand-new, spring-green leaves of a chestnut tree. pure bliss.

and now i'm sitting here, with both the windows open (a little paranoid that a wasp will fly in) and dream of being outside again.

a new week

so, i brought my bike for a service. now everything is working again and i've taken to exploring the countryside looking for a good route. i think i've found it. it's 13km - starts along the canal, goes over the train tracks and the motorway in a kinda big loop home. it's lovely, though, because there are hardly any cars on the roads - just people out walking their dogs or their children. yea - might do that one again tomorrow. if it stays dry today and dry the day after i might try some trails the next day, but right at the moment it's way too wet and muddy for it.

i've rewritten the start of the fall again. i now have 2 pages that i think might actually stay as the final thing. i need to add a bit more atmosphere, but it might work. or i might look back on this in a few months and go - i was so wrong. and i'm thinking of changing the title. the fall is used for so many books and films. i want something a little more original.

lordkilljoy got threecornersquare back for me. he's hosting it on his site and he bought me the domain for my birthday :) looking forward to getting it up and running again, since google closed down it's pages thing and sites isn't nearly as good. actually - i'd say that if there was one service i thought google was doing a bad job on, it would be sites. it's just not versatile enough.

mmmm, i don't have much other news. i had a good weekend at home. barry's game was great. because we don't get to meet that often, doing single quests each session works out way better. and we still manage to make a heap of trouble for the world... adventurers! pah - good for nothing but breaking things and being ignorant. yea... this week we released a litch-prince on the world. and of course we ran away and left whatever villages are nearby to thier fate. see - adventurers!

bike troubles

yea. my brain really wasn't working yesterday. i knew there was something good that i wanted to post about, but i just couldn't remember it. it was the trip to denise and eamonn. seeing everyone was brilliant. louise is a mentally lively girl of 6, denise and eamonn haven't changed much, and their house is very similar to how i remember it. it seems everyone is getting on well. we tried to make plans to meet up again while penelope_stone is around, but everyone is busy.

My bike is giving some trouble at the moment. i'm not sure if it just needs a service or if there's an actual problem with it. the chain doesn't stay on the gears - it keeps slipping down to the next one and sort of permanently clicking over, as if it wants to change, but can't. i wish i knew more about bikes and how the gear system works. so that's really annoying. yesterday the chain fell off in the middle of me cycling - with no provocation at all. i haven't gone out today, because it's a little intimidating and aggravating not being able to trust your gears. i should look stuff up online.

not much else to say... i'm still playing sacred2. my main character is almost at level 30. i got to fight a dragon last night, but he killed me. well, actually - i just wasn't fast enough to drink a potion.

i think that's all my news.

summer fun

i cycled 16.3kms today, mostly by accident. i left the house intending to do 12, had a nice route all planned out, but somewhere along the way i must have missed a turn-off, because i ended up in celbridge. yep - just checked google maps and that turn-off was easy to miss. but at least now i know that i can do 16kms with only slightly more difficulty than 10. well, the last km was all downhill, so maybe i should set my new target at 15. agh - i just had the worst thought: go the other way and have a 1km hill at the start of the journey. maybe i won't do that. i'll just have to keep a super-special eye out for the turnoff.

i'm still playing sacred2. my seraphim (whose name is seraphina) is at level 18. she's annoying and i want to play an evil high elf, but i don't want to invest 10+ hours leveling another character. i don't think lordkilljoy would let me. i'm hogging the tv every evening. i feel terrible. i'll just have to buy sacred2 on the PC and play it on his computer instead.

penelope_stone is coming up on saturday evening (giving me a change to get into town to see delichan and mytholder's comic launch thingy). we're going to visit denise and eamonn on sunday evening. I haven't seen them in forever. I'm kinda excited about it. and granny and martene will be there too. it's great. i'll finally get to meet louise too. it's crazy having cousins that you've never met.

ok, gotta go now - make the place presentable for penelope_stone. and hopefully get a bit of writing done too, but i doubt i'll get much done before lordkilljoy comes home.

speed speed speed

today, i hit 40km/h on my bike. it was cool :) that's almost the speed limit - i'll bet with a good wind behind me i could totally make 50. i had a good cycle today, though maybe i pushed myself a bit hard. i was pretty wrecked when i got home - all buzzy eared. i don't think this is such a good thing, but i recovered quickly. so according to my bike computer today, i did 7.4kms in 24 minutes at an average of 19km/h. my normal average is about 17 (or 14 if i'm just cycling to the village).

anyway - the 40km/h thing - i was going down the only hill in my journey (actually there is another hill, but it's the downslope of a bridge and isn't long enough for me to get up much speed and the road slopes up again straight after), it's like this pathetic hill, though... more of a slope, really. i mean, gravity was helping, but only a little.

in other news, i had a good weekend in cork. the street performance festival was good fun and the weather held up for it. it's on in dublin this weekend, and i might go along again. there were a few acts that i didn't get to see in cork that seemed good.

the bamboo out on the balcony has two new shoots coming up... at least i hope it is bamboo shoots, it could be some sort of random weed, because it is outside, but these stalks look serious, not like weeds which are weedy (which is why we call weedy things weedy). yea...

we watched speed racer last night. i really quite enjoyed it. just so long as you didn't question anything it was a fun movie, i liked the effects and the colours and the characters.
ooh - over the weekend i watched a film called push. i'd been iffy about it, not having heard anything about it, but i enjoyed it too. i liked the setting and the character powers. i'd classify it as an urban sci-fi - sorta gritty camerawork mixed with elements that you won't find in a normal action flick, but which arn't like aliens and spaceships and stuff. or maybe urban fantasy would be more like it... because there was really nothing to make it science-y, but a bit to make it fantasy-ish.

yea, i think that's all. got to get back to writing now.

there is a slim chance that getting online twice a day might help with Lj posting

I did a 10k cycle today. well, my bikecomputer tells me i did 11k, google maps tells me i did 11.6. either way, that's not too bad. it was a lovely cycle too - took 35 minutes. if i could just do that every morning, i think i would solve all my angst problems. because i have loads of energy today... or it could just be hormones.

i made an interesting lunch today. couscous with tuna, but the couscous was taking all the flavour out of the tuna (i think that's all couscous does - remove flavour) so i added some hot sauce and it was yummy. hot sauce (the stuff that goes on chicken wings) goes really well with fish.

i don't really have much else to say. there's a street performer's competition on in cork this weekend, so i think i'll head down for that.

ooh - in all the fun with london, i totally forgot to say that i'm going to muse in november. kinda excited about that. i saw them at glastonbury 05 and they were brilliant.

ok, back to writing now.

it is a beautiful day

i just cycled an 8km round trip. 2 to the shop and 6 home. as you can clearly tell, i went home the long way round. but it is such a beautiful day out, i just did not want to go home through the village. so i headed out into the countryside and did a big loop around. and it was wonderful - the air was a perfect temperature for cycling, the sun was warm, the countryside was green and growing. my only problem was that i didn't have a drink with me and i was dehydrated by the time i got home. but a large glass of juice sorted that out.

in other good news, i got yoshi to eat a live cricket today. the lizard-specialist vet (the vet who'd seen him on monday knew lots, but got the other vet to give us a call yesterday) rang last night and practically gave out to me because his diet was so bad. she insisted we feed him live gut-loaded crickets and try to get him to eat veggies and stuff. so yea. the only way i could get him to eat a live cricket was to let it crawl on my hand. yoshi is such a spoiled little lizard... won't eat crickets that aren't hand-fed.
but anyway - i'm just happy that he's eating live ones. now we can start a rotational system of: crickets out of main container - into veggie container for 2 days - feed to yoshi. i figure if we have about 6 crickets in the veggie container at all times, we'll have enough nutritional food for him.
we are never, ever going to be able to go away on holidays, though. i couldn't imagine asking anyone to come in and hand-feed him crickets. but maybe we can just leave some in a bowl and he'll eat them by that stage.

penelope_stone is staying with us at the moment. it's really cool having her around, i get to have late night watch her tidy stuff away sessions again. i missed those. all we needed was some music on or something! it would have been like home again. ah well. she's climbing all week, but we're heading into town on saturday.

i don't really think i have any other news. i'll go now.

rock band

me and lordkilljoy are in a band! i'm the singer and he plays guitar. and we have 260,000 fans! we've rocked across america in a glorious run of great shows and worked our way up to bigger and better all the time.
of course, this is all in my imagination (and rock band on the xbox). it's so much fun, especially on easy, when i can sing along to a song i have never heard before and still get 95% or something. craziness!

we played gears of war the other night too. it was fun. more fun than i was expecting - it's a third person shooter, and the emphasis is on shooting from behind cover. i had fun anyway.

on saturday i got my bike serviced. it needed it's "new bike tune up" and i'd meant to get it done before now, but anyway.

i can't really think of much else to say. jordan's original muesli has too many raisins in it.

stuffs

the fog yesterday was quite amazing. it built over the day getting thicker as the day went on (i find that wierd about here. in cork fog disappears during the day). it was cold and humid and generally miserable. but it was ok, because me and lordkilljoy spent most of the day inside playing the ps3.
anyway - i went out to my bike this morning and there were little icicles (wow that word looks wierd) hanging off my handlebars. it was kind of funny having to remove them. it would have been funnier if it hadn't been so cold.

my cinema card arrived today. yeay for not having to have money on me going to the cinema. now we just have to make a point of going at least twice in the month.

uummmm, my life has really turned into some kind of bowl of nothingness. oh for the days when i could ramble on for ages and ages and actually have news to say. or even if i had no news, i had random things to say, now everything is just blank. and i don't know how to fix it. maybe i should look into doing some kind of adult education course for the next few weeks. i wonder is there anywhere around here doing archery? that would be great to take up again.

k - gotta go.

things

I applied for a new job yesterday. The last straw in my patience with the company i'm working for now was the rota for next week. i'm working 46 hours and have only one day off. i nearly cried when i opened the email and looked at it. but it did give me the kick up the bum i needed to actually go look for a new job. and it's pretty silly. they gave me so many hours in an effort to get more sales, but i am going to be way to tried to actually sell anything by next week. pah - working 7 days in a row and them having one day off. then i'm guessing i'm not going to have a day off until christmas day. but that would be 7 consecutive days without a break and that goes against my contract... so we'll see.

in other news - excellent news - lordkilljoy got me a bike for christmas :) it's cool. the guy in the shop let me cycle it around for a bit last night and it's amazing how a new bike works. not like my bike, which has some problems.

i had a wierd / cool dream last night where i was a tourist wearing a cross and a photo of the pope and people thought i was "a little bible girl." there was a castle-type-thing with a view over the town and out to the ocean. as i was exploring the castle a massive wave came and drowned everything and we could see fish swimming around out the windows.
that was the quick and nasty version of my dream, it was actually quite good.