Cosmetically Expensive

Just like cosmetic surgery is expensive so is fixing cosmetic damage to luxury items. A car can be said to be such an item.

Today I opted to drop into the PC store while I was out and pick up the cheap neoprene case I wanted which was only £6.99 and not worth paying shipping and delivery on.

So getting to the store I notice only one disabled bay empty but the car in the next space was parked crooked and over into the last space slightly and the passenger had the door open fully into the remaining bay. Turning into the space I parked as far left as possible given the stupid concrete bollards that the store in their infinite wisdom placed at the very edge of the bay.

After seeing me struggle to get out, as I need to fully open my door because of my disability, the passenger decided to reluctantly close her fully open door to allow me to get out. Entering the store I took note that said car had no disabled badge and was being used as a pick up area when the actual pick up area, larger than the bay, was available two spaces away and totally clear.

But I digress.

Cruel B*tch

Cancer is a cruel bitch. Tomorrow I have to attend a funeral of a man who failed to live to see his 45th birthday, which is heart breaking in and of itself.

What's really sad is that this isn't a shock anymore. This is not the first funeral I've attended of a cancer victim and I know it won't be the last. What makes this more poignant is that the first person I lost to *C* had the same type down to the minute details that this person struggled with so I don't have to imagine what he and his family and friends went through over these past months. I already know.

Family First

Well as you can well understand family must come first. As my nephews other set of grandparents aren't available for a couple of weeks we are looking after my youngest nephew every day. As well as doing the school pickups ourselves so my time generally devoted to being online as well as on my own hobbies is greatly curtailed. As such excuse my absence in the next couple of weeks.

Massager

My latest 'aid' that I bought with the help of my DLA arrived today. It's a seat topper massager, I had one years ago which went AWOL when we moved to this house a few years back. My Mother and I both have Homedic Shiatsu Pillows but these are quite a bit more limited, but no less helpful in their own way, that the seat topper.

It cost me around the £25 price ticket including postage, I'll be putting video or pics up to show it properly. Probably better than I can explain in written words.

I love that I can massage (with or without heat) my entire spinal column, my shoulders and all the way over my hips, all at the same time. Also the massager has three separate areas, bottom, middle and top of the seat and you can use them altogether or in one or more area at a time.

DLA is a benefit which is there to help cover the added costs that living with a disability/long term illness can incur. My seat topper is just the latest 'big' purchase I've made courtesy of my DLA. There is regular smaller items like special shoes/clothing requirements (as well as those which require regular replacement due to quick wear/tear), specialist food/drink, specialist facials cleansers (I can't use regular soap) as well as special hair shampoo/conditioner due to the side effects of medication and some of my medical conditions themselves cause.

Snow ... YK !!!!!

I noticed that the forecast is for snow .... again !!!!!

Please don't let it come true, I'm fed up with the continual attacks of snow we keep having. It wouldn't be so bad if the payoff was any half decent summer weather but we haven't had more than the odd day - or in most cases a few hours - of relative sunshine since the bad bad bad winter of 2010.

If nothing else I would like some time where I could save my family on heating bills as the continual price increases are bad enough without having to burn our heating in the supposedly 'summer' time of year.

My parents received their bill for the last quarter just a couple of weeks ago and it was almost £400 ... and that's before the latest increase hits us. And people think we are exaggerating when we say that our DLA is crucial for things like heating because I know that my bad reaction to cold and damp has led to our heating being on a lot more than my parents themselves need.

Luckily my Mother believes in paying all year long into credit but that doesn't make the higher bills hurt us financially any less just because my Mother plans for it and continues saving/adding to our credit during the times when we don't actually burn our heating.

Update

Well it's just a quick update from me today again. Tomorrow my Uncle - who passed away last week - is due to be cremated at 12.30pm. So I have to go across town at around noon and try to get a decent parking space as close to the crematory that I can so I don't have to mobilise too far given how much pain I am living in at the moment. It's more than usual and that's saying something.

Some of my problems is due to the over doing that I have been doing but as I had no other alternative or option I had to 'over-do' more than usual over the past two weeks. Unfortunately I haven't been able to rest more to recover during this past week while my brother is on holiday with his family and I have a break from child minding duties.

Shame but RL does not give you breaks just because you desperately need them.

Excuse Me

First excuse any absense at the moment, we have experienced a death in the family so life outside cyber space is quite hectic keeping all the 'balls in the air' so to speak.

I had planned a few well thought out pieces to begin preparing for my blog here over the Easter break while I no longer had child minding and school runs to interrupt my daily chores. Unfortunately such as losses can't be scheduled so I apologise in advance if I don't get back to what I hope will be my fluid schedule which I have been trying - without much success - to get up and running since the start of the year.

I'm Still Here

Well, I'm still here, kind of ...

My car, my mobility outside my home, went in for it's third year service plus first MOT test. When the provisional booking came in a few weeks back I booked for the 'first window' for drop off so I would get my car back by lunchtime with any luck, Arnold Clark offers three time slot windows for servicing, 8am to 10 am, 10 am to noon, noon to 2pm. 2pm is the latest you can drop off a car for servicing that day.

I got confirmation that while my service dept. didn't offer actual times for getting servicing the earlier you can bring in your car the better as they operated a first come first serve operation.

So up I was at before 7am and on the road by 7.30. At quarter to eight I was first in the queue waiting for the service dept. to open up while it snowed heavily. Yuck!!

So we were first to the desk to hand in my car, when we asked if they could give us an estimate of how long it would be we were shocked to the core to say my car was booked in for the entire day and could be picked up at 5pm. I asked how that was possible when I didn't book it in for the entire day, I've had two services before and each finished by lunchtime why is it now taking an entire day when I was waiting for them opening, kind of takes the mockery out the first come, first serve they assure you of.

We asked how long it would take, because an MOT test takes 30 to 45 minutes at the most, so why does the service (which we've gotten two years previously by lunchtime) mean that it will now take 9 hours to have my car ready for pick up?

So they went and checked and the mechanics said the service would take two and a half hours, and the MOT would take place after the service ends. So that would mean a little over 3 hours tops, so why is my car not being ready for three times that?

They explained that they were booked for the first appointments hence while I was booked in for a whole day.  We explained that we didn't book for a whole day, we tried to book for first thing when the dealership opened and were told that the depot didn't accept timed bookings and worked on a first come/first serve basis. The mechanics said they would try their best to have it ready by lunchtime but they couldn't guarantee it. We thought about not having the MOT done today but the soonest MOT they had opened was for next Tuesday and my MOT was due by Friday. Luckily the mechanics managed to have it ready for 12.30pm but we have to go back first thing on Friday as I need four new tires, my left front is approaching the legal limit on tread and all four are beginning to crack between the treads (something that has never happened on any car of mine in almost 15 years of driving). So it's going to take four hours to get the tyres done so I was asked to bring it in the 'sooner the better' on Friday so we will be waiting for the dept. opening again on Friday.

Another Day

Another day is gone already. My brother dropped his boys off at our house around 11 am saying he would be back between 1 and 2 that afternoon and asked if we could feed them lunch as well.

We headed off to the supermarket after putting the youngest two's Kindle Fire HD tablets on charge for them. We got home just after noon and fed the boys lunch.

Both 1 and 2 pm came and went without any sign of my brother or contact via phone, then at just before 4 pm my brother arrived to pick up the boys. We figure he might have went home after he had completed his tasks and brought down and put away his Christmas decorations without the boys being underfoot.

The new Wii game I bought for the boys arrived today and they spent most of the afternoon playing with it, at least the youngest two did, while the edlest watched what passes for children's TV these days.

So that's how my day went.

Welcome ...

to 2013.

I'm sorry I haven't blogged much over the past few months, it's been at least two weeks since I last updated this blog alone, life has been super busy. I've been pulling a lot of extra childcare help for my nephews. The two youngest had a stomach bug the last week before Christmas while the eldest went through an operation to remove both of his big toe nails.

School returns in less than a week's time, where has the holiday went? It's almost time to get back to a normal life again.

Christmas was busy, childcare not withstanding, and time flew in. Before I realised it Christmas was past and it was the first of the New Year.

Health-wise it's been hit and miss but that's only to be expected during this time of year and all the rain we've been experiencing is anything but good news for my RA. Tomorrow we have my nephews being dropped off at around 10 AM but we also have grocery shopping to do for ourselves tomorrow morning as well. Busy, Busy time.

We had my nephews last Thursday and Friday as well the eldest on Monday past. We also saw them yesterday briefly on New Years on their way to my brother's in-laws for the day.

So another early night tonight. But that is par of the course at the moment as well.

For Christmas I got the Samsung Series 3 Chromebook, which I'm typing on right now, as well as a replacement for my 4th generation iPod touch with an upgrade to the 32 GB model.

I hope everyone has a good festive season regardless of whether or not they celebrate the holiday itself.

Seasons Greetings

So Christmas is fast approaching once again and in a week we will be getting ready for the last ‘sleep’ before Santa as the children’s programmes keep informing us.

This coming week will undoubtedly be the busiest for myself and my family, what with getting ready for the actual day, finishing shopping for stocking fillers, finish wrapping (started doing this this afternoon!), delivering wreaths to my family graves, three different graves at two different cemeteries (which is scheduled for Wednesday), grocery shopping for the festive break (scheduled for Sunday the 23rd, the 23rd being our preferred day leaving Christmas Eve for preparing food and any emergency items we need to rush to the supermarket for before early closing time).

And those are just the tip of the iceberg for the coming week, also tomorrow (Tuesday) and Thursday are childminding days when we look after my youngest nephew then put him into his nursery class at 1pm. Also my youngest nephew has come down with a stomach bug which is a shame as he is just getting over a horrid cold.

Also my eldest nephew is going into the hospital on Thursday to have an operation on his big toe, he has a horrid ingrown toenail which is causing the toe to become continually badly infected. It’s an in-patient appointment for a short operation which means he goes in early (around 8am actually) and hopefully will get out in the late afternoon at the latest.

Also on Thursday (or Friday) depending on my schedule (with my eldest nephew going into hospital that day we might have the school run and feeding the eldest two that afternoon/night) to drive across town and hand in our (my parents and I as well as a couple of small things on behalf of my nephews) presents for our aunt into her house as well as pick up the bags she generally has. Not all ours, mostly gifts for my three nephews, my brother and sister-in-law as well as our own from her to save my Dad struggling home on the bus with multiple bags of gifts.

So all in all a busy busy week!!

So hopefully it will be worth it on the day(s) to come.

So if I don’t get back to you before then, have a great holiday season regardless of your religion or beliefs on the season, I wish you all well and hope you have a great time.

Apologies

Excuse my lack of updates here, but my PC died and had to go away to be possibly fixed. It was away for around a month when it was finally returned by the courier service fixed with a new PSU installed inside the tower itself.

Since it returned a couple of weeks back or so it's been tricky. Half the time it crashes when I attempt to shut down which concerns me. So I'm babying it as I think it's not quite right. While the new part got the darn thing to switch on, which it wasn't doing hence the need to send it away to the repair-shop  but I think it's dying slowly. So I've spent the past week or so transferring content off my PC to external drives so if it does die again I won't suffer too much of a loss to personal data.

Monday Already?

It's Monday morning already, and I have had a very bad night last night. I kept waking with pains in my ribs which also made me feel sick to my stomach at the same time. Between waking, breathing through pain and trying not to throw up I barely slept a wink last night.

Very bad as I had to get up I had to up early this morning to get to my brother's house before he left for work at 8 am. He is due to have a repair man come look at a problem with his new side board sometime today, afternoon he thinks but he lost the slip of paper with the correct time frame on it, so it could be any-time.

Also as my sister-in-law's grandfather is due out of hospital sometime today her Mother wanted to switch child minding days from tomorrow to today. So we have my youngest nephew to not only put into preschool but also the two youngest to pick up just after 3 pm from two different primary schools. Both my brother and sister-in-law are primary school teachers and have parents night both tonight and Wednesday this week.

I am totally knackered. Fighting to keep awake after my bad night and my ribs are still painful and even breathing hurts at the moment. Also today we have to fit in our grocery shopping which we usually do Monday mornings, petrol as my car is getting really low, a preschool drop off, two school pick ups and a repairman at my brothers house to see to. My Father is also sitting in at our house as we have a plumber due this week, no firm day but an AM call. So he's having to sit in our house in case the plumber calls today, if he doesnt arrive by noon he is walking along to sit in here while I go for lunch for my nephew and us, then he will also sit in when we do the drop off and pick ups.

iPod Dictates

Hello there, long time no read, I am currently testing out the free iPod app for Dragon NaturallySpeaking version 12 which works as a wireless microphone for the software.

I'm currently using both the app with the software to dictate this blog post. I'm quite impressed with it so far, but find that unless the room is completely quiet I need to hold the iPod quite close to my mouth to have it to translate accurately. Fortunately with my television muted I can place my iPod down on the table in front of me and talk normally.

Respite

I attended my OT appt absolutely wrecked. No change in my hand strength test but I did have a major flare up when I had to press the darn machine to get the figures which led to me spending 15 minutes in warm water while at the hospital.

She advised me to go to my GP about my feet, she says Fibro doesn't cause that or swollen fingers which I am also suffering from a lot. Already knew that, I figure the fingers are RA related because I've had arthritis in them since initial diagnosis, as for the feet she reckons it could be arthritis or some unknown condition I've developed which can be either connected to my disabilities/diseases or not.

I found that PC World have changed the in-stock estimate for the Google Nexus 7 tablet instead of being the 2nd of August instead of the 10th which it originally was when I pre-ordered at the weekend. Probably explains why they charged my card yesterday and got payment from my bank. I wondered as it wasn't due back in stock for another 10 days.

Royal Fail ... Again

Well, Royal Fail, has failed again to deliver on time. I was due to get a memory card I ordered for my kodak camcorder by 1pm today and you guessed it ... no sign of it. No mail at all today to be honest. When the card hadn't arrived by 1pm I knew I wouldn't see it before Monday now as our mail depot (and most probably all RM depots everywhere) only work until 1pm on Saturdays. We only get mail on Saturday afternoons during the festive season and only if they are behind or swamped under and need to pay overtime to their posties to deliver the mountain of mail they have.

Got Space

Well, I've finally cracked and managed to decide which external hard drive I would buy for easing the space constraints on my poor old PC and to move some of the mass of videos I have on the laptop as well.