Category: Geeking

22: Other Bloggers for Bipolar

I’m not the only person to be blogging for and about bipolar during the Blogathon.  There are more people blogging for other mental health issues too.  I’ve already linked to a couple, but I’m going to do so again because you should visit them, and sponsor them if you can:

You can see the full list of bloggers who are participating on the Blog List at Blogathon.org

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Listening to: Bat For Lashes – Sarah
via FoxyTunes

14: A recommendation

While I’m eating my dinner, can I just point you in the direction of an excellent post that Cia made about ‘normality’.  I’ve been asked a question about this by Ptyx, and I’ll give a bit of my own take shortly.  But I think that Cia says it so much better than I can – you should definitley have a read of “Are you normal?“

Topics for the Blogathon / Q&A

As I said yesterday, one of the things I’m planning to do during the Blogathon is to talk about some of my experiences with being bipolar, and I was hoping that people would ask me any questions they have about the subject so that I could have a go at answering and maybe make some things clearer.  I’ve thought of some possible topics to start with, so here’s a handy poll:

[poll id=”2″]

Or do you have any other questions or related topics you’d like me to expound upon?  Is there anything specific that you’ve heard about bipolar, or gathered from the media, that you want to know about?  Or do you want to know about stupid things I’ve done while manic?  Or what knitting has to do with it?  Feel free to ask absolutely anything (er, about bipolar / being bipolar) even if you think it’s a bit personal – if I feel it’s not something I want to talk about then I’ll say so, but I’m going to try to be as open and thorough as possible with this.  Anyway, leave any other questions in the comments.  Thank you!!

And as well as that whole topic, I’m planning to post about:

  • Knitting: what’s on my needles, recent finished objects, and what I want to do next.
  • Spinning: it’s the last two days of the Tour de Fleece!
  • Books, film, TV… maybe.  Things that I’ve been reading or watching recently, which may include fanfiction.  (Funnily enough I’ve just started reading Harry Potter fanfic again, which is what I did during the first Blogathon I took part in back in 2003.  Oh the synchronicity!)
  • Links to other ‘thon-ers (mostly likely when my brain has shut down in the middle of the night ;-) )

I think that should keep me going!

On Giving In Gracefully

So, back in March I made some bloggy resolutions about what I intended to do for weekly posting goals.  Obviously, I haven’t kept those up… and then I started feeling like I was in catch-up mode all the time with myself, and oh noes, panic!!  Which is bad, since this blog isn’t supposed to be a duty!  Therefore, I have Made A Decision: I’m giving myself permission to “give up”.  In actual fact what that means is that I’m going to forget about Project 365 this year, since taking the photos already wasn’t working out – maybe I can go again another year, but I’ll see how it goes.  I’m still going to do the Friday 5 whenever I feel like it, but not necessarily every week.  I am going to try to post more about knitting and spinning and things in general.  This way, it’s more of an adjustment of my goals to something more realistic, rather than really giving up.

Another thing that I’ve decided to let go of is taking strict part of the Sock Knitter’s Pentathlon ’09.  I haven’t been knitting very fast this year, and I’d ended up knitting nothing but those socks and still not finishing them.  It all got a bit too much like hard work!  So even though I love the patterns for the first two socks, and I really like the look of the third one which has recently been released, I’m not going to start #3.  I do intend to finish the first two socks, but not as my most immediate projects.  Instead I’m going to go back to my other knitting works in progress and try to get those finished off.  They’d been pushed back while I was knitting just socks.  That’s meant that I’ve now almost finished the shawl I’ve been making for Emily (I’m casting off at the moment, but that’s deadly boring so I’m just doing a few stitches at a time then putting it down again *g*).  And I’m really looking forward to picking up the projects I’ve been neglecting and making some real progress on them.  Hooray!  I don’t even feel like starting something new, because my old projects are almost like new ones by now.

I’m also thinking about giving in using Coppermine for my photo album software.  Yes, I’ve been using it for years on this site, so it seemed like a more sensible decision to keep using it and integrate it with WP rather than migrate to something else.  But there’s a good photo album plugin for WP, and the integration plugin for Coppermine doesn’t do precisely what I want it to do – it’s a great plugin, and it’s probably perfect for everyone else… but I’m picky!  Also, I do have to do some tweaking of the source code every time it updates because of the way I have my Coppermine set up, and… well, in the long run it might just be easier to change to using something more integrated with WP.  It’ll mean not having to theme Coppermine to match WP, too.  I’m going to ponder it a while more, but I expect I will change over.

Why am I mentioning this, when no-one but me cares?  Because it kind of fits the theme of the rest of this post: I’ve been hanging on to some things that I should have gracefully given in on a while back.  Letting go and making a few small changes will make things easier.  Note to self: change is good, and giving up on something doesn’t necessarily equate to failure.  There we go, that’s my deep personal insight for the day.  Now I shall stop rambling, let go of this post and send it into the big wide world (= hit the publish button)!  TTFN.

A bit of a catch up

Oops again: I managed not to blog for yet another whole month, and missed my 8-year Blogoversary in the bargain (thanks for the ‘versary wishes!). So what have I been doing?

Well, I’ve done a couple of websites for my brother and another group in his year at uni, for one of their group projects (no, I wasn’t doing the work for them! They’re allowed to ’employ’ people for various jobs that they can’t cover themselves in the group). Gave me a chance to do something new-ish with embedding streaming video and audio, and play with some CSS3 as well. Hooray!

Talking of websites… I still haven’t got the redesign for this one sorted out. Really must buckle down and do that. I had to delete the (MT) search script for the blog because it was being hammered with spam and overloading the server… hopefully when I switch over to WP I won’t have that problem. However, I want to get the new design done before I change over (so I don’t have to faff around turning this one into a wp theme as well), especially since I’m going to be running the whole site apart from the photo album through it.

Other than that, I have got some knitting done: I finished Em’s mittens, and I’ve even managed to blitz through the rest of the WFS [RavLink], which is actually Mum’s birthday present… from last year. Ahem. But it’s done now! All except a bit of weaving in, and the all-important blocking, that is. I’m thinking I’m going to evict the cat from the bedroom tomorrow, clear off the bed, and use that for blocking it on. If it doesn’t get dry in time, I can always sleep on the sofabed for one night. I’ve actually been quite organised with my knitting so far this year: I still have several unfinished projects, but I’ve put most of them to one side and worked on just two or three… which has meant I’m finishing, or getting towards finishing things! My final pair of SKP08 socks, and the gloves I’ve had hanging around for ages with just one done are both well on their way. No pictures today, though. Site redesign first! Off I go again to work on that :-)

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

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!!

Testing Blog It crossposting…

So, after much faffing around, lets see if this really works. Can I post to both my blog and LJ (and Twitter, and the FB feed or status, not sure which yet)? And if so, hi LJ! I’m back!! Well, I’ll try to be at any rate. Obviously right now I’m over here on Facebook, and if you want to add me on that you need to know my real name.

Anyhow, I’m off to do some coding for a site that doesn’t explode my head before I go knitting this evening. So, not my personal site then. Which I really have to sort out, but zomg, trying to integrate the blog and the photo album and the links and all their various templating methods…. why did I think that setting the site up like that was ever a good plan? (Because I didn’t do it all at once, then?) Yet I’m reluctant to abandon MT & Coppermine & Linkster and the hand-coded pages for a single CMS that I’d have to import all that data into because eep, what if I lose something on the way? Oh, it’s all too much like hard work for me. I give up!

Shiny newness

There’s something new around here. What could it be? *g* Nothing all that exciting actually, except a little bit to me in a geeky way: I finally got around to upgrading to Movable Type 4.1. Which is nice. You can’t tell much difference from here, except that the Blogroll didn’t upgrade and so now all my links are a horrible blobby mess. There are a couple of ways I could sort that out, but the quickest might be to go back to using Blogrolling for now.

The actual reason I finally did the upgrade is that I’ve been spending a lot of time playing around on Facebook (and I really do mean playing: I’ve installed a load of irritating page-heavy apps so I can play silly games. Sorry, Facebook flist!) recently. One of the things I installed was the ‘Blog It‘ app, which should let me crosspost to various places including here and my LJ, as well as update my Facebook and Twitter statuses. I know, spammity-spam-spam, make me stop. Anyhow, even though it’s a Six Apart developed app, it doesn’t want to work for this MT blog… and still doesn’t even after the upgrade and me trying a billionty different things. Ah well. So much for that. For now. :-)

If you want to friend me on Facebook, by the way, I should be searchable. I’m using my usual email for this site over there as well, and if you can’t find me with that, drop me a line or a comment here and I’ll send you some more details.

What else was I going to say? Oh yes: it’s WWKIP Day tomorrow, and I’m going to the event in Brighton. Hopefully Ms Charlotte is coming down too. Knitting-wise, I’ve reassessed what’s a current project and what’s hibernated, and I’ve cast on for the February Lady Sweater (actually a cardigan). It’s the first time I’ve tried top-down all-in-one-piece construction, and I’m very excited. No, that’s not sarcasm – I really am! There will be no seams! I might actually finish it relatively quickly instead of finishing the knitting part and then stuffing the parts in a bag to languish for years! Poor poor Chunky Jacket and Menace Jumper. I will finish you one day!

Project 365 #2, Day 7-11: 16th – 20th Jan

Here are the next five days of my Project 365 photos. If you want to see all the photos so far, click on the Project 365 category link, or check out the Project 365 folder in the photo album.

On to the pics (click them for the full sized versions):

Continue reading “Project 365 #2, Day 7-11: 16th – 20th Jan”

Reconnected.

Oh thank …. well, whoever that guy was in 2nd line support who finally figured out what the problem with my internets was. Which was that when BT had done some work at my local exchange on the day I lost my connection (Sat 26th), they had either deleted or not re-added (depending on what they’d been doing) my ISP’s domain to the list of ones that are allowed to connect. I spose no-one else uses that particular domain for their log-in round here – either that or it’s specific to each broadband enabled line. Actually, that would make more sense. Anyway, they’ve now put it back on the system and voila, I can connect. It’s liek magic, only with teknolegdgy *nods* I told them it was an authentication problem the first day it went wrong, but it took 10 days to get someone to figure out exactly where the trouble was. To be fair, the fact that BT were doing work on my exchange threw them off the scent so I had to wait for all sorts of tests and then a BT engineer to come out because everyone thought it was a line problem that just looked like an authentication thing… oh well. All better now!

So anyhow, I should probably get on with uploading the many many photos I have to put up, both for Project 365 and for my knitting progress. Which there has been lots of! I finished the Hedara socks and I’ve taken my Bigga jacket out of hibernation and begun the sewing up of that. Plus I’m still plugging away on the Chevron scarf of DOOM. Scarf in fingering weight = Never Again, as I think I’ve said before. But anyway, that’s all for another post really. I’m off to bed.

SP11 Package #1! :-D

So! My first SP11 package came! …. A week and a half ago. I’m a bad blogger and totally failed to post about it til now, but I did email my pal and gush a lot. *g* Also… I now, totally accidentally, know who she is! It’s because (a) she’s on my blogroll and Ravelry friends-list, (b) she really doesn’t live very far away from me, so even though all she put for a return address was a postcode, I recognised which town it was…. and (c) my suspicions were aroused because her real name was written on the little card that came with the scrummy hand-painted yarn she’d got me. So I asked her, and yes, it turns out she’s Janey. It’s kind of hilarious, because I was having such fun with the mystery aspect – not that knowing who she is has spoiled anything. But it’s fairly ironic that all those factors came together like that and gave it away. *g* Especially since I’m a relative newbie to the knit-blogging community and don’t know all that many people!

But anyway, on to the best bit: the PRESENTS! *mercenary* ;-)

Inside the box

I like the anticipation almost as much as the opening them up, so I took the box into my bedroom and sat on the bed to open it. When I opened it up, the gifts inside were beautifully wrapped in purple tissue paper and ribbon. So I carefully prodded them for a little while, and then took them out of the box and laid them on the bed…

Wrapped pressies

Oooooo, exciting! Then there was some more prodding, and eventually, I started opening them. *g* Of course, the Xandermog had to come and investigate.

Xander investigates the pressies

But there wasn’t anything edible for him, so he soon lost interest ;-) So, what did I get?

SP11 package 1

From the back: Thorntons fudge (omg yum: that didn’t last long!!). A wibbly-wobbly pen… because it has purple hair and therefore made Janey think of me! Thorntons strawberries and cream toffee (once again, yum!). Two balls of Debbie Bliss SoHo, because she’d noticed I haven’t yet tried any felting projects – and I do want to, so yay! A skein of gorgeous black and purple hand-painted sock yarn from Gemini Knits. A dinky little sheep notepad (cute!). A set of 2.5mm Brittany birch DPNS!!! An absolutely charming book of sheep pictures and verse. And last but certainly not least (except in size *g*), three of the cutest little sheep stitch markers in the WORLD. As you can see, they’re tiny – they’re for small needles too, so perfect for sock knitting. Yay! So here’s bigger pic of them. Look at their little faces!

Tiny wickle sheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeps!

Isn’t that awesome? I don’t know what I love the most… the yarn, the sweets, the stationary / sheepy things are all brilliant, and the sock yarn just couldn’t be better colours for me! But I think perhaps the adorable stitch markers, and the DPNs which were on my mental luxury wishlist (and which I admit, I’ve spent an awful lot of time just stroking!) have to come out on top. Just! Janey, you’re the best pal ever – THANK YOU!! :-D