This and that
Mostly boring stuff:
Now that I am at home on maternity leave, one should think that I have more time to coax my wayward muses into cooperation (especially since little fliewatuet won't leave me much time to pursue such hobbies). However, many things that need my attention have piled upon my desk, especially since the last weeks of work were quite hectic. Then there were the Christmas holidays we spent visiting relatives and friends, the end of the year with my sister and family coming over for a visit, paperwork to deal with, and some work-related issues to deal with.
We still have to prepare our flat for the arrival of little fliewatuet. Unfortunately, this implies clearing our "office" and moving all our books, the desks, and the computer equipment into the room that serves as our guestroom at the moment, so that said room can both still serve as a guestroom if needed and as an office. Given the sheer number of books and the usual mess that is our office, that is no easy task. And it is not made easier by the fact that we require some new shelves for our book shelf (the trusty old ivar, which won't be available before the middle of February. So we are kind of stuck with moving our office.
Moreover, we finally decided to buy a new armoire for our bedroom, a combination of a commode and two armoires to the left and right; the left one with a single door, the right one with a double door. Unfortunately (again), not all the necessary parts are available at the moment (though they should have been available by the end of last week *grr*). We have the single door armoire but no shelves that fit into it, and while we have the shelves, clothes rail and doors for the double door armoire, the armoire itself was not available ... So at the moment our clothes are scattered in various boxes or simply left on the clothes horse ... So no progress there either.
Then the apartment needs some major cleaning but I somehow do lack the proper motivation to do it. Just a little here and there. But my parents are coming for a visit on Thursday, so have to do some cleaning, otherwise I will never hear the end of it. On the other hand, they come to help with setting up everything for little fliewatuet, so I should not complain. Only that there won't be much to do if the furniture does not arrive by then ...
At least last week's storm provided me with an excuse for doing absolutely nothing, except wracking my brain over some Slither Link puzzles (highly addictive) and listening to the radio). We had a power outage that affected the better part of the city and that lasted for more than four hours. I was really glad that we had enough spare batteries at home to power our little radio in the kitchen and that I had not stored away all the christmas candles, especially since I was alone. It was an eerie atmosphere: the howling wind (one of the disadvantages of living on the top floor, the advantage of living on the top floor being that most trees do not reach that high) and the darkness (no street lights, no flickering TV screens in the other windows, just the faint glow of candle light). At one point all the clouds were gone and we had a truly magnificent view of the night sky. But I was really glad when the power returned, especially since no power means also no heating, and the wind lessened around midnight. Fortunately, we suffered no damage, no leaks in the roof, nothing blown away from our terrace. The storm only spoiled my intentions on finally watching the LotR extended edition DVDs again on Friday night, because I had to pick up my poor Significant Other who was stranded somewhere on the way home, because public transportation still had to deal with the aftermath of the storm.
And finally I have decided that I need a new laptop computer. First my linux installation refused to boot properly. I was not overly worried, since the laptop still worked under Windows, but since all my data is kept on the linux part of the hard drive, this did not help much. It turned out that the problem was a full hard drive. The linux partition is simply full so that I cannot even install necessary software updates. Not good.
A few days after I finally could again use my favourite operating system, the poor computer simply fell apart. It has been showing signs of extensive use for quite some time now - the casing is cracked in several places, some screws are missing - but I could still open and close the lid and adjust the display to my liking. Alas, that is no longer possible. On Saturday night the hinges of the display simply gave up. There is not only a crack in the plastic casing but also in the metal to which one of the hinges is attached, and the hinge itself has become so tight that the metal turned hot (not only warm) when my personal computer expert tried to work it loose. Moreover, with the broken plastic casing and the stiff hinges, the power cord would come loose every time I tried to move the display. The interim solution is that the Significant Other removed the display completely and the laptop computer is now attached to an external display. It has the advantage that the display is more than twice the size of my old one, but now I can no longer use my own desk, nor the couch for my internet activities but have to use the SO's desk, which is an even greater mess than my own. And I have to decide on a new laptop to buy ... which won't be an easy task.
Now that I am at home on maternity leave, one should think that I have more time to coax my wayward muses into cooperation (especially since little fliewatuet won't leave me much time to pursue such hobbies). However, many things that need my attention have piled upon my desk, especially since the last weeks of work were quite hectic. Then there were the Christmas holidays we spent visiting relatives and friends, the end of the year with my sister and family coming over for a visit, paperwork to deal with, and some work-related issues to deal with.
We still have to prepare our flat for the arrival of little fliewatuet. Unfortunately, this implies clearing our "office" and moving all our books, the desks, and the computer equipment into the room that serves as our guestroom at the moment, so that said room can both still serve as a guestroom if needed and as an office. Given the sheer number of books and the usual mess that is our office, that is no easy task. And it is not made easier by the fact that we require some new shelves for our book shelf (the trusty old ivar, which won't be available before the middle of February. So we are kind of stuck with moving our office.
Moreover, we finally decided to buy a new armoire for our bedroom, a combination of a commode and two armoires to the left and right; the left one with a single door, the right one with a double door. Unfortunately (again), not all the necessary parts are available at the moment (though they should have been available by the end of last week *grr*). We have the single door armoire but no shelves that fit into it, and while we have the shelves, clothes rail and doors for the double door armoire, the armoire itself was not available ... So at the moment our clothes are scattered in various boxes or simply left on the clothes horse ... So no progress there either.
Then the apartment needs some major cleaning but I somehow do lack the proper motivation to do it. Just a little here and there. But my parents are coming for a visit on Thursday, so have to do some cleaning, otherwise I will never hear the end of it. On the other hand, they come to help with setting up everything for little fliewatuet, so I should not complain. Only that there won't be much to do if the furniture does not arrive by then ...
At least last week's storm provided me with an excuse for doing absolutely nothing, except wracking my brain over some Slither Link puzzles (highly addictive) and listening to the radio). We had a power outage that affected the better part of the city and that lasted for more than four hours. I was really glad that we had enough spare batteries at home to power our little radio in the kitchen and that I had not stored away all the christmas candles, especially since I was alone. It was an eerie atmosphere: the howling wind (one of the disadvantages of living on the top floor, the advantage of living on the top floor being that most trees do not reach that high) and the darkness (no street lights, no flickering TV screens in the other windows, just the faint glow of candle light). At one point all the clouds were gone and we had a truly magnificent view of the night sky. But I was really glad when the power returned, especially since no power means also no heating, and the wind lessened around midnight. Fortunately, we suffered no damage, no leaks in the roof, nothing blown away from our terrace. The storm only spoiled my intentions on finally watching the LotR extended edition DVDs again on Friday night, because I had to pick up my poor Significant Other who was stranded somewhere on the way home, because public transportation still had to deal with the aftermath of the storm.
And finally I have decided that I need a new laptop computer. First my linux installation refused to boot properly. I was not overly worried, since the laptop still worked under Windows, but since all my data is kept on the linux part of the hard drive, this did not help much. It turned out that the problem was a full hard drive. The linux partition is simply full so that I cannot even install necessary software updates. Not good.
A few days after I finally could again use my favourite operating system, the poor computer simply fell apart. It has been showing signs of extensive use for quite some time now - the casing is cracked in several places, some screws are missing - but I could still open and close the lid and adjust the display to my liking. Alas, that is no longer possible. On Saturday night the hinges of the display simply gave up. There is not only a crack in the plastic casing but also in the metal to which one of the hinges is attached, and the hinge itself has become so tight that the metal turned hot (not only warm) when my personal computer expert tried to work it loose. Moreover, with the broken plastic casing and the stiff hinges, the power cord would come loose every time I tried to move the display. The interim solution is that the Significant Other removed the display completely and the laptop computer is now attached to an external display. It has the advantage that the display is more than twice the size of my old one, but now I can no longer use my own desk, nor the couch for my internet activities but have to use the SO's desk, which is an even greater mess than my own. And I have to decide on a new laptop to buy ... which won't be an easy task.