Life etc

[stephbg]

It's quite a while since I've posted actual life updatery here, so I'll see what comes of a ramble.



Pet report

Fishies doing well, although haven't seen the babies for a quite a while. Not too concerned as the duckweed has come back and there are even more places to hide.

Cally is an old cat and acts appropriately. Her anxious yowling is starting to sound like language. I'll not be attempting to capture it for YouTube; when she makes that noise I want to be as far away from her as possible.

Princess has developed new bald patches on her flanks from stress grooming, by the look of it. I need to give her another pill today. No-one is looking forward to that.

Pumpkin is pumpkiny. Several weeks ago I became concerned as his fur was getting quite matted, but the vet suggested that this was due to a disrupted grow/shed schedule brought on by the weather. I groomed him daily, collecting enough for another spare kitten, but eventually it all settled down and now we're back to our usual schedule.


Health

Meh. Seem to be picking up a bit now after the compulsory post-Swancon bug. Plan to see the physio RSN to talk about doing some hydrotherapy. Also intend to dig up the old exercise rubber bands for a bit of resistance training. Hopefully it won't be useless.


Shopping

Ordered a new mattress yesterday, after waking up in agony and realising that the sagging mattress was now doing more harm than good. It was a good one, but it's probably 10 years old by now, and given that it gets more use than standard, it's not too surprising that it's time to replace it. New one is being made to order so should get it by the end of next week.

In other shopping news have bought some funky tights on eBay to chop up and convert to arm warmers. Have figured out that when I feel cold in this mid-season weather it's enough to add a single layer to the affected area. Putting on a coat or jacket just to warm my arms overheats the rest of me, so I'm hoping to fine tune the process.


Swancon

I'm sorry I haven't managed a proper Swancon report, but spoons have been in short supply. I had a *great* time. The art went down well which was a wonderful boost to confidence. I did one panel with Bevan McGuiness "Apocalyptically Bad Science (in movies)" and it was a hoot, as was Mr McGuiness himself. It was on the Friday afternoon so the room was overflowing and there was a great atmosphere. Some of that atmosphere was in inappropriate places, as was gravity.

Didn't make it to very many panels, but had some great conversations with people. Very much appreciated the venue, particularly the sound control and comfy chairs in the hallway. It's so much less tiring when you're not in a constant roar of sound. The room was not exactly 5 star and there was a bit of a snafu about payment, but nothing too impossible. The PanPac provided a microwave, which I thought was a minor miracle. Be very pleased to go back there.

Bought many books. Many many books. Didn't masquerade up this year, with the exception of head-butting the purple chicken (you had to be there) and my statement that by the end of the universe everyone would finally be wearing comfortble footwear. I really liked delicious_irony's evil tooth fairy costume, especially the wings made from dental x-rays. The handful of teeth and sundry implements of dental torture were perfect accessories. Bravo.


Rocks and rock pictures

Have a wonderful new batch of rocks I'm working my way through at the moment with test pictures, so it will be exciting to go back and refine those and see what I can do with them. Not every one is a star, but that's part of the fun. Had success with getting better images out of some rocks using microscope slide covers (thank you eBay), so that's another tool in hand.

Biggest development is that I've started a redbubble account and have been researching image requirements, looking at tags so they've a chance to be found, and joining groups to submit pictures to in the hope of being featured and thus seen. Nothing's uploaded yet - I want to get a good selection of images up before making any announcements. Will probably upload a batch of individual microscope images that are suitable for postcards and greeting cards, just to get started, and maybe a couple of the posters I did for the art show. Some of them need to be re-rendered to make them more print-friendly.

I've gone into spoon arrest so will stop here.

Comments

[alias_sqbr]

You should link your redbubble account from your lj, that way we can all check it out and maybe buy stuff! I was checking mine the other day, in the four years I've had it I've made NEARLY A HUNDRED DOLLARS (more each year, too). Here's to you doing even better :)

[transcendancing.livejournal.com]

*loves* Just a general thinking of you message and that it's nice to see the update, even if I don't have much that is useful to contribute right this second :)