Only posting because I’ve set myself this challenge! My cold has gone from my chest to my head… I’m so glad it waited til today, though, or I’d have missed Christmas dinner! *g*
Oh well, back to bed. I will feel better tomorrow, I will.
Category: Blogathon
Chriiiiiiistmas time…
… mistletoe and wine. Or in my case, mince pies and lemsip! Yes, I was feeling a bit grot, but I had a lovely day nevertheless. I spent it, as is traditional, at Mum’s. We ate loads of nummy food, opened all our pressies, and watched Dr Who and Wallace & Gromit. Yay :-) I hope you all had one that was as good (or even better and germ-free!).
Anyway, I’ll try and remember to write more tomorrow, but now I’m off to bed. *ded*
On different voices
Did you know that people have two (at least) voices? “Chest” voice and “head” voice*. I guess most people only use one most of the time, or don’t notice when they switch from one to the other. Mainly, it’s your chest voice that you use for speech. When you sing, you’re much more likely to leap from one to the other, particularly when there’s a large difference from one pitch to the next. A lot of singing training is to do with getting those different sounds to be consistent with one another. Not to have an obvious bridge moment where you suddenly go into high-squeaky mode or back down into your lower register. If you’ve ever played a wind instrument you’ll know what I mean: it’s much the same thing. It’s got to be smooth and without any odd swoops or jags or squeaks.
Anyway! The point is, right now I have very little chest voice. Speaking is all over the place. There are definitely swoops and jags and squeaks. Unless I deliberately pitch my voice into my head register. Singing, needless to say (particularly since I’m a soprano), is perfectly do-able. Not great-sounding for some things, but do-able. I went to Christingle service at my Mum’s church, and she was most surprised. I’m not going to talk in my head register, though, because it makes me sound about five! I’ll get by – I feel pretty much ok, I just sound croaky.
Huh, that was a sudden swerve into music geeking, wasn’t it? Um. Have a Christingle:
HAPPY CHRISTMAS!!
* This isn’t breath support: that’s another thing. Which comes from the diaphragm and… oh never mind ;-) I’ll shut up!
Seasonal socialising
Whew – today I’ve been round to A’s for pre-Christmas… um… muffins! And company and chat and stuuuuff. It was fun :-) I even have photos of little H wearing the hat I made him back in the summer – hee! I’ll download those off the camera and post them here at some point.
Now though, I’m off back to the sofa and that last-minute knitting! Aaaaaaah!!!
Passing post
Can’t spend long at the computer, because I need to be sitting with my feet elevated. D’oh. Still, I’m to stop taking the new meds, so hopefully I’ll be back to normal (ahem) soon. I am quite pleased with myself that I’m managing to keep this BloPoMo thing going, though. Even if it’s with boring posts like this…
Oh well, back to reclining on the sofa and knitting it is. Oh, it’s a hard life!
The amazing expanding feet :-/
It’s looking like I’m experiencing a side-effect from the new medication I started a couple of weeks ago: oedema. My feet and legs have swollen up, and I think my arms have a bit as well. My skin feels too tight. Oh yay fun. This happened to me a few years ago, quite severely. It was in the summer, so I thought it was because of the heat or something and I ended up having to go to hospital for a few days for tests-and-boredom. I’d rather like to avoid that this time, so I shall give the doctor / CMHT a call in the morning. This time of year, I don’t really want to get to the point where I can’t fit any of my shoes on!
In other news, I’ve been knitting away – and in fact I’m going to go back to that now, with my feet up on the sofa (should help the oversized feet problem a bit!) and podcasts in my mp3 player. Aaaah :-)
However, before I go back to that, I just wanted to mention that I’ve now downloaded and watched Strictly (ILU iPlayer) …. and woohoo! What an awesome finale! I’m sorry it’s over for another year now though, cos it’s so sparkly and feelgood! Still, there’s the Christmas special to watch. Yay!
Under the wire
Ooops, only just got this entry done. And I can’t even think of much to say. Um. It’s been a pretty average day, really. A normal one, even. I did housework*, the postman delivered the last parcel I need for Christmas (phew!), I knitted, I even wrapped one present, and I went over to Mum’s this evening. I’ve actually had the computer off for most of the day – most unusual!
I haven’t watched any telly either: we had a yummy Chinese takeaway at Mum’s, then played board games. So I’m going to set the Beeb iPlayer to download the Strictly Come Dancing final shows and Casualty for me overnight, and watch those tomorrow. I very nearly got “spoiled” for the Strictly final, I think, by foolishly looking at my LJ friends page: someone was talking about it, but I only got as far as seeing that she’d mentioned Strictly and hurriedly scrolled back up! *g* Of course, now it’s really tempting to go back and read to find out who won. Or look at any number of news sites. Or Twitter. Oh internets, sometimes you tell me too much! It’s all too overwhelming!! ;-) I’m off to bed!
* although there’s still some to do tomorrow because my brother picked me up earlier than I’d anticipated
Let’s see how I’m doing…
I’m still not ready for Christmas, quite, but I am slowly crossing things off the list:
Write and send out cards of both types.- Knit like there’s no tomorrow (I’m not doing many knitted presents this year, but there are a couple I want to get done).
- Put up tree and decorate. (In progress!)
- Wrap presents.
Write christmas card list (e-cards and tangible ones)Buy cards and stamps (tomorrow).Work out budget for presents (tomorrow when Mum comes over).Go present shopping – both online (asap) and IRL (w/ Mum tomorrow, prob also later this week).(Presents all DONE DONE DONE! HA!!)
I went to the HRC Christmas Party today… or the end bit of it, at least. I got waylaid by my neighbour, and although I did need to speak to him myself, I didn’t mean to end up talking for so long! Still, I got there in time to nab three chocolate fingers, listen to the band’s second set, and then go up and have a sing with them for the last few songs. Which was fun! I didn’t have time to think about it and freak out, which I think helped. And in a weird way, since I’d had a bit of a wobble when I first got there because it was a large, strange place filled with people (oh noes!), being crammed on stage felt like a much more familiar and safe environment! I know, I’m just odd.
Casting off and on again
I’ve been working away on Christmas presents again today, and I got to the casting off part. Only I managed to do it too tightly the first time. D’oh! So I dug out some online tutorials to help me decide which technique was going to be easiest to use instead. Ta-daa:
Knit Wiki: Binding Off Techniques (text instructions)
Techniques with Teresa: Binding Off at Knitty – various techniques for flexible bind offs, including the sewn bind off. (Instructions with photos)
Techniques with Teresa: Binding Off, Pt 2 at Knitty – decorative bind offs. (Instructions with photos)
Tubular Bind-Off in K1 P1 rib (Instructions with photos)
k1p1 invisible bind-off tutorial – a lovely flexible bind off that I’ve used for toe-up socks when I’ve done them. Has similarities to the Tubular bind off. (Instructions with photos)
In the end I went with the sewn bind-off, and it came out perfectly. Plus, it’s dead easy – always a bonus.
Now to go and cast on the next thing…
Knit Jamming at Aardvark
Got back from Knit Jam a short while ago. Hi Jo! Hi Lesley! Hi Leila! Hi everyone else! And there are lots and lots of everyone elses now that we’re meeting at Aardvark. I suspect the scrummy cake has something to do with it! I really hope it carries on with this many people in the new year :-)
Anywho, I got a good chunk of knitting done, but there’s still more to go, so I’m off to slave over some pointy needles for a little while more before I go to bed. Not for long though: I’m tiiiired!
Toothy drama
I’m not having very good tooth-luck at the moment. It’s just the one tooth, really, but I broke a chunk off of it (I had an encounter with a rogue popcorn kernel) a couple of weeks ago. Then yesterday, I finally had the dentist appointment to get it patched up – they sort of stuck filling amalgam to the side of it. Which still didn’t cover up the sharp edge completely, but I have another appointment to go again next Monday that I think is to add another layer or something. The trouble is, despite having followed the instructions not to eat for 3-4 hours after the appointment yesterday, and not even having had anything crunchy or hard to chew… the filling fell out again this evening. D’oh!!!! I s’pose I’d better call the dentist tomorrow and see if I’m still to go in on Monday or what.
Other than that, today I have mostly been knitting and listening to podcasts. Which is good, as I have lots of both to get through! Oh, and I also went to the Carers & Families coffee morning at the Hastings Resource Centre with Mum. I’m having a Christmas dinner there tomorrow too. Nom nom nom!! :-)
Ten Days to Go
You know, I haven’t counted down to Christmas like this since I was little. It’s only because I’m doing this blog thing and it’s making me more aware of the days passing! Anyway, I have re-organised and updated my list a little:
- Write and send out cards of both types.
- Knit like there’s no tomorrow (I’m not doing many knitted presents this year, but there are a couple I want to get done).
- Put up tree and decorate.
- Wrap presents.
Write christmas card list (e-cards and tangible ones)Buy cards and stamps (tomorrow).Work out budget for presents (tomorrow when Mum comes over).Go present shopping – both online (asap) and IRL (w/ Mum tomorrow, prob also later this week).(Presents all DONE DONE DONE! HA!!)
I also bought my own Christmas present from Mum today. I was already out because I had to go to the dentist, so I thought why not and jumped on a bus down to town instead of waiting for the one to go home. And the first bus that came was even the one for the Old Town, which was where I was heading. Clearly, it was meant to be, because I now have not one, but two pairs of boots. One pair bought for the awesome factor, one pair more for practical reasons. Both comfy, though, which was the main thing. I had meant to get something more… well, not girly, but less unisex, but I really like both of these. It’ll be tough to turn them over to Mum for her to wrap! *clings to them*
No time to type!
I need my fingers for knitting! Can’t even show you a photo of what, since it’s a Christmas present. I shouldn’t have spent so much time fiddling around starting to get WordPress to work exactly how I want yesterday. (In case you’re wondering, the installation is lurking in a password-protected directory on the server until it’s ready to be moved across to the site root and go live.) Anyhow, back to the knitting I go….
Future changes…
I’ve spent most of today playing around with the new version (2.7) of WordPress with a view to moving this site and blog over to using it in the new year. I love it! I liked the previous versions, but this one is even shinier, and so much more intuitive to use than the newer versions of MT for me. Sorry, SixApart… I’ve been using MT for almost exactly five years, but it’s just not for me any more. I’m going to keep my LJ though, so I’m not completely decamping ;-)
The main trouble with the changeover is going to be preserving permalinks for my blog entries, and recreating my tags. Those, I can’t import. Everything else seems to go across fine, which is good. I’ve already imported the entries from my old blog to test it out, and installed a few useful plugins. Next thing is to create a design / theme. Whee :-)
Of course, I’ll also have to re-theme my photo gallery… I should probably upgrade the version of that, too. I wonder if it’d be easier to do that, or to use a WP gallery plugin and run it all from the one place. Hmmm. It’d muck up all the images on this blog if I changed the gallery to something new, though. Oh dear, the agony of choice!!
Progress…
I’ve made some definite inroads into my list – see:
- Write christmas card list (e-cards and tangible ones)
- Buy cards and stamps (tomorrow).
- Write and send out cards of both types.
- Work out budget for presents (tomorrow when Mum comes over).
- Go present shopping – both online (asap) and IRL (w/ Mum tomorrow, prob also later this week).
- Put up tree and decorate.
- Knit like there’s no tomorrow (I’m not doing many knitted presents this year, but there are a couple I want to get done).
And since I plan to write my cards tonight, that’ll be another thing crossed off. Yay!
I spose I should add another couple of items onto the bottom though if I’m going to be thorough. Presents have to be wrapped, after all. And, um…. is there anything else? Well, if there is, I shall just have to hope it comes to me! My sieve-brain, let me show you it!
In more everyday type news, I also went to the psychiatrist today…