helen-louise's journal

I haven't been posting more than comments because it's been too hot to switch my computer on. My laptop is "built for extreme gaming" and therefore has two heavy-duty fans, one for the CPU and the other for the GPU. Unsurprisingly, it belches out A LOT of heat. Given that it's been over 30 degrees C during the day and even over 25 at night, I haven't had much desire to add to the house temperature. I've been playing Dragon Quest VII on my 3DS instead of Elder Scrolls Online on my computer, and just checking in with my Guild for 30-60 minutes at 3 am when it's as cool as it's going to get.

Tomorrow is my birthday. I shall be 41, which is quite shocking. I don't FEEL like I should be middle-aged yet - even if extended life expectancy means we now have "early" middle-age from 40 to 55 and "late" middle-age from 56 to 70 or 75, and you don't become "elderly" until you're properly decrepit. One of my birthday presents will be a visiting Grant, which means I am now attempting to do battle with entropy such that there will be enough space in the house for him to stay.

( To do... )

Merry Christmas to all who celebrate it, and Happy Tuesday/Bah Humbug to everyone who doesn't.

Today we went out for what is becoming the traditional Christmas lunch in this household - to the Riverside Vegetaria restaurant in Kingston with my parents. They didn't follow us back home because my mum is ill with a bad cold, and the house is far too messy for us to have space for them to sit here. Convenient, eh? ;) Of course, the house is messy because this is the first day off we've had for weeks and weeks. It wasn't actually deliberate.

So this evening, despite being very tired, I've done a couple of hours of tidying/recycling. I've sorted out all of the old bedding to go to the charity shop, plus several items of clothing that are unlikely to ever fit me again. We've also "archived" all my summer clothes in one of the new cupboards above the bed, so they're not taking up space in the drawers at the moment. (Richard wears the exact same clothes all year round, just with an extra layer in the winter. It must be nice to be homiothermic!). I've also recycled all of last year's and some of this year's Christmas wrapping paper for presents that we're giving. I love wrapped presents (and hate getting a present wrapped in the plastic bag it was brought back from the shop in) but hate the waste, so it's a good compromise.

We still have much more battling to do against entropy, but I'm running out of spare energy, so plan to collapse with my new Pokemon Battle Revolution game any minute now...

Today, Richard & I have mostly been doing battle with entropy. We sorted out & took four large bags of junk to the charity shops that were open on a Sunday (Oxfam and the Romanian Orphan shop), and have put an enormous bag of stuff outside for the Heart Foundation people to collect tomorrow; and have put tons of junk mail in the recycling and shredded three binbags-full of old paperwork. The house is still a freaking mess though :/

We have tons of stuff to Freecycle too. If you know anyone who'd like a load of Education in Science journals, secondary school teaching materials, many many Jiffy bags & other useful eBay-selling packaging materials, and, eventually, an Ikea wooden-framed single loft bed and matching wardrobe that fits underneath, point them in my direction. I also have a woman's framed Duke of Edinburgh's Award-style rucksack, which is either 50 or 60 litres - the woman's framing means it is designed for a shorter person and the straps are in slightly different places to account for a female-bodied centre of gravity. I think it cost something like £80 or £100 when I bought it 15 years ago for D of E, and I've used it maybe four times on my Bronze and Silver expeditions, and it's no good at all to me now with my back.

I think we're going to buy a new vacuum cleaner tomorrow. Woo. The excitement of my domestic life!