Shoshiplatypus

What’s On Your Workdesk this Wednesday?

A bit of a mixed bag this week! I have managed to do a bit of tidying in my studio. I’ve been doing some more experimenting with the bleaching of the teabags, sewn some more teabags, and made further progress on my slippers. I’ve had some problems with WordPress, done some cooking but not so much as usual, had Ruby throwing up after her supper, been to a movie and been to a craft show! I’ve also got a new assessment date for my benefit application. Where shall I start?

On my workdesk this Wednesday

A tidier desk

Teabag bleaching

I found a website where they suggested making a sort of stamp pad for the bleach, by putting a wad of kitchen paper in a plastic tray and soaking it in bleach, and then using this with your stamps. I’ve tried it, and got slightly better results.

At the craft show (more later) I also picked someone’s brains and they suggested using thin bleach rather than the branded thick bleach which has a lot of extra stuff added. The only thin bleach I could find had a lower percentage of the active bleach ingredient than the thick, but since it was dirt cheap (40p for 2 litres!) I thought I’d buy some and try. The person did suggest I thicken it, but trying it on the “ink pad” I didn’t bother. I stamped them first thing this morning.

So far, the results are not encouraging. However, I have found if I leave them at least 24 hours, they do improve, so I shall wait a bit longer and see.

I have also ordered a bleach pen from Ebay, which should come in a couple of days, and I shall try that.

Slippers

I’ve finished the embroidery on the main part of the first slipper, adding some trailing stems to link some of the flowers and tie everything together.

I’ve made a start on slipper #2. Once I’ve got that one to the same stage as #1, I shall think about embellishing the points on the ankles. Progress is slow, but steady! Nice to be doing it again.

Both slippers with progress so far.

Craft Show

My hubby dropped me off at the craft show last Thursday nice and early, so I could have the whole day there. Half an hour later (or so it seemed!) there he was to pick me up again at tea time! What a wonderful day I had. I’ve done a (very long!) post about it here.

For Margaret (Glitterandglue) there are quite a few photos of the Pergamano stand, which I visited at her special request – although the ladies didn’t know anything about the lady with the birthday, and I’d forgotten her name and didn’t have the details in Margaret’s email with me… Ah well, I did me best! I was very impressed with the work, though. So intricate and delicate.

For Shaz (Silverwolf) there was one stand, Inventors’ Asylum, which I think would be of interest – I think she’d like the style!

There was some absolutely fantastic work on show, in particular the display of contemporary quilts, and the Madeira embroidery competition on the theme of royalty. I was positively drooling!

New stash from the show

I said to my hubby when he dropped me off, “I don’t think I shall buy much today.” Famous last words. What are we like? Let us loose in such a place, and craft stuff proves itself a worse addiction than crack cocaine. We just can’t help ourselves… My excuse is, it’s only once or twice a year! Plenty of time for the old bank balance to recover.

More details on the post about the craft show.

I also bought myself a new top from an Italian clothes stand – something else I couldn’t resist! It’s got cats all over it… I’ll have to get my hubby to take a photo of me in it.

I did have fun.

Cooking

Because we’ve been out a bit this week, and busy, I haven’t done as much cooking as usual. Also, the freezer is full to bursting and I’ve got quite a few prepared meals in there so we’ve been eating those. Got to make room for the glut of apples from our tree, too! I had my usual grocery delivery yesterday morning but I overslept and only woke up 15 mins before my delivery slot was due to begin, so I had to dash around and be ready to answer the door.

Then there were other jobs to do, and lunch to get ready because we were going out. Out all afternoon at the movies, then getting a quick supper on because my hubby was off out again. While he was out, I sorted the chaos in the kitchen and did the smaller amount of veg prep that was necessary, and then onto the computer. I’ve been chasing my tail all day…

Recipe of the week – Vegan Cheese!

https://cookingwithplants.com/recipe/vegan-paprika-cheese-without-nuts-soy/

I’ve downloaded several cheese-substitute recipes but this week I discovered one which is genuinely fat-free! It has quite a lot of ingredients and you have to thicken up some agar-agar on the stove for it, but after that it’s just a question of blitzing all the ingredients together, pouring it into plastic containers to act as moulds, and leave it to set. With the addition of smoked paprika (miraculous spice!) it tastes like smoked cheese. Nutritional yeast always adds a cheesy flavour to things too. This is a good “cheese” because it can be grated and sliced. In one of the comments on the site, someone said if you didn’t add the agar-agar, you could use it as a cheese sauce, which I think I might try too.

I’m always on the lookout for things to use instead of cheese, which is about 70 percent saturated fat, and addictive too. It also tends to concentrate any nasties such as hormones and antibiotics that are often present in milk.

An afternoon at the movies

The other day my hubby suggested we went to see the new “Downton Abbey” film so off we went yesterday afternoon to the cinema in Paignton. The film was fantastic – if you haven’t seen it, you really should! We both thoroughly enjoyed it. Wonderful settings and costumes, and the usual brilliant acerbic remarks from Maggie Smith, and shenanigans below stairs when the King and Queen came to stay and brought all their awful servants with them!!! Highly recommended.

Computer woes

A couple of times recently my computer has been very reluctant to boot, and it has been running very slowly. My hubby’s had the same problem a few weeks ago and eventually wouldn’t boot at all. I found that this is a problem with Acer laptops and found the remedy – remove the battery and then replace it. Sounds simple enough, but on our laptops this means removing masses of screws in order to take off the back of the computer, and then more screws to remove on the inside, before the battery can be accessed. Not a great design! With our old laptops, you just opened part of the back case and out would come the battery. I think I’m going to have to give my laptop the same treatment if this continues but it’s a time-consuming chore. It seems to be running OK again now.

WordPress log-in problems

Last night after my stint in the kitchen I tried to get onto my WordPress blog and failed. Bluehost has altered a whole lot of stuff, presenting me with a new, “clean” interface. I clicked on the link for my WordPress blog and it told me I didn’t have any sites!! I was getting quite desperate – I could bring up my blog by typing in the URL, but I couldn’t log onto the site and access my dashboard.

Eventually I went into my browser history and found the URL for the last time I’d managed to log in successfully. This long, complicated URL is now a pinned tab on my browser, and saved as a link in a Word document on my desktop and so far, so good – if I click on it, it takes me straight in. Unlike with my old Blogger blog, which just kept me logged in permanently unless I logged out myself, on the WordPress one I have to keep logging in regularly – usually about once a day. I tried it again this afternoon and it seems to work.

At the beginning I had loads of problems not being able to log into WordPress, and could only do it using our neighbour’s internet connection! She was very happy for me to do this but I didn’t want to keep doing it. In those early days I spent hours on Bluehost’s chat page trying this and that, and eventually they told me to log into Bluehost first, and then into WordPress because going to WordPress direct wasn’t working. It was definitely a problem at this end but it was never identified what it was. Anyway I have been managing with this 2-step approach up till now.

Has anyone else had any problems of this kind with Bluehost or WordPress?

Health update

PIP application update

I’ve now got a date for the assessment to be done again – Tuesday 15th October. I got the letter a few days ago and all they said was that my assessment had been “rescheduled” for that date. Standard letter. No apology, of course. And the dire warnings about only being able to reschedule it once. Goodness knows what will happen if I can’t make it on 15th. It’s not as if it is my fault that I’ve got to go again… Useless people. I am just hoping they have taken my insistence on having the same assessor seriously because I don’t want to have to start from scratch with someone else – she will probably remember me because my appointment was apparently the longest one they’d ever had! At least I’m not feeling quite so stressed about the assessment as I was the first time because I know what to expect now.

Headaches

On the same day as my original assessment I saw my GP about my headaches and he prescribed a low dose of amitriptyline as a prophylactic. He told me not to start taking them right away because the headache I had on that particular day was probably due to stress caused by my assessment. I started taking them a week later, and on his recommendation, taking them at night because they make you sleepy. I have had to use a bit of trial and error on that score, because if I take them too late at night, I can’t wake up in the morning – probably what caused me to oversleep so massively yesterday. He said they should help with my sleep problems too, although I can’t say I’ve noticed much difference there. It’s a very low dose. Anyway, I haven’t had a headache lately so I’m hoping they are doing the trick, although my headaches do tend to come in clusters every few weeks. We shall just have to see.

Hernia

Still nothing from the hospital in Exeter. I think their waiting lists are far worse than at Torbay. I had to wait 4 months for my CT scan, and now I’m waiting week after week for another appointment with the surgeon. I realise that my case isn’t exactly urgent, but it’s all taking far too long. There’s no point phoning because they can never tell you anything about how soon you are likely to be seen.

Kitties

Over the past couple of days Ruby has been sick immediately after eating her supper. We are not sure what is causing this. She’s OK after breakfast. We’ve decided to give her her evening food in two separate helpings because we think it may be because she is bolting it all down too fast! She is very greedy. She doesn’t seem to be unwell and is definitely hungry. I said to my hubby that if she isn’t better in a day or two we ought to take her to the vet. It may be that she picked up some sort of a bug – who knows what they eat when they go in the garden! Lily seems to be fine.

Here they are – identikits again, this time in mirror-image format.

Whose tail is that?

It’s Ruby’s!

Lily doing her stuff as usual, exposing everything, the shameless hussy.

Now the weather is getting colder, they both want to be on my lap on the recliner, and together, they weigh quite a lot! They keep me nice and warm, though.

Have a great creative week, everybody.