On Wednesday, I was a mountain...

BG logging is so much more fun when you turn it into art ;)



And that, my dears, is a much more fun way of looking at blood sugars ;) I much prefer dinosaurs to mountains, don't you?

bowled for six

Lili tagged me for the 6 word meme. You've all seen the garb that goes with it so I wont bother with the rules, lets just get down to business!

I'm tossing up between these two:

Born. Smiled. Ate, Drank, Burped. Smiled.

To live, and love, that's life.

I had a good one going around in my head when I sat down to write this out. I only wish it was the first thing I wrote - because when I came to type it in my mind was blank. Gah!

I wont tag anyone, but anyone who wishes to do this can pretend I did tag them ;)

Thanks Lili - that was quite a challenge!

When kittens pee

You know my adorable little babies?
The little fluffballs of fun & love?
Those wonderful gentle little cute things?

Well today they aren't in my good books! One of them, no idea which one, decided not to use the kitty litter this morning. Instead, it looked like fun to go pee on my carpet next to the computer. Right where the power board sits. The power board where my computer, monitor and printer are plugged in. All this happens on the other side of the room to where little ol' me is snoozing away happily dreaming of Easter chocolate.

I was woken up with a loud buzzing noise. Heard a kitten scampering, saw my make-do keep-kittens-out-of-the wires fences knocked over . Then I heard a louder buzzing and saw flashes of orange light.

I Zooted out of bed (like that word? There is no suitable word in the English language for how fast I jumped up outta bed and across to the other side of the room, so I made one up). It fizzed and let out one giant POP as I reached over to flick the switches.

And then the smell. Ohhhh gawd the smell! I can still smell it now... horrible electrical burning fizzing smell mixed with the oh-so-lovely aroma of hot zapped kitty pee. Eu de gross.

So there I stood, with everything turned off and unplugged, and my lower jaw hanging in shock, ready to burst into tears if I found that my computer had suffered. Too scared to find out, I went outside and had a cup of tea on the back porch while I watched the little bundles of terror climb trees innocently, and I tried desperately to wake up properly.

Breathing deep to relieve my stress, trying to settle my heart and block out the images of zapped kitties, my house burning down, and other freaky nightmarish daydreams that went through my head, I made my way back to my room.

Fatalities: One power board, one cable, one patch of carpet that can be brought back to life with a little cleaning.

Survivors: Kittens. Everything that was plugged in to the power board. Me. Phew.

Can you hear my sigh of relief? It's almost as loud as the shriek I made when I saw the orange lightening coming up off my wet powerboard...

Well at least I'm awake now.

Wash my feathered mouth out with soap...

That is all.
:p

Match it for Pratchett

I know most people here are desperate to have a cure in sight for diabetes... but it's good to concentrate on something else for a while eh?

I bet a lot of us have been touched by Alzheimer's at some stage. Here's a great idea: a site hoping to match Terry Pratchett's £500,000 donation. Let's do it!

This post comes with a huge bunch of cyber flowers to PTerry himself for bringing so much attention to a deserving cause.

More info on Terry's Alzheimer's in this Sun article (did he say that Lara Croft’s buttocks have improved??)
The Alzheimer's Research Trust site
More info on how to donate

One person's rubbish is another's life saving treasure

What do you do with diabetes stuff that you don't use any more?

Gather up old insulins, spare meters, boxes of strips, insulin pens etc, and post them to Insulin for life who will then use them to help out people in the countries who don't have the support we have.

http://www.insulinforlife.org

Email them first, see if there's an agent in your country - saves a bit of bother with postage that way.

Even if your stuff is expensive, your doctor sucks, your D is fickle... we still have it pretty good really, don't we.

My cats nest

My cats find all sorts of cute places to snooze. Here's Noodle and Pumpkin in a pile of weeds outside that looks like a giant nest. I get the feeling they should be tweeting.
Noodle says tweet!


Nesting inside... but I think Toni looks a little uncomfortable!





And finally, Rigatoni and his box. What an odd way to sleep!

Looking for Mr Upstairs

The reason it took me so long to give my current boarder the boot is that I was avoiding having to find a new one. I remember the stress of doing that last time, and I'd be happy if I never had to do it again!

The current boarder, after 2 years of always paying on time and being a fairly responsible guy, started coming home drunk and making a racket. Some days he'd bring strangers home, also drunk, and they caused problems. When he started smoking in his bedroom - and smoking hard stuff too, that was the final straw. I'd already had this guy apologise many times for not helping out around the house - but still he never changed that and I felt like I had two kids to clean up after.

SO here I am again! Advertising and hoping like hell there's someone out there who's just a nice guy (yes, most likely male, I'm not sure I could live with another female) who I can trust to be in my home with my son and my cats, who will pay on time and give us our space.

So far I've had enquiries from:
A woman from overseas who doesn't speak English very well, who wants the room at least a week before it's available, and doesn't answer my questions. No go.

A single nearly 50 guy who loves his music, lives a buddhist lifestyle, and apparently lives by his own time regardless of others. He seems like a really nice guy - but his main worry is when he can listen to his music loud, and where he can keep his stuff in our house - even though I've repeated many times that the (huge) bedroom and cupboards are his space and the rest of the house is ours. This is not a house sharing arrangement - I'm looking for a boarder! This same guy didn't ring when he said he would, didn't turn up when he said he would, then when we arranged another time he turned up over an hour late and ordered a cup of tea as soon as he arrived!

This afternoon I'm seeing another guy - he's a married man with kids but he's left the family behind while he settles into his new job and saves to buy a house so that they can all move down. Although that makes him a temporary boarder, he's so far my best bet. Lets see if I say the same thing in a couple of hours when he's been in to have a look!
As much as I hate boarder-hunting, I don't hate it anywhere near as much as the idea of having to move out of my house - and we will have to do that if we can't find someone. And so I'll keep advertising, keep interviewing, and keep hoping for Mr Upstairs to turn up real soon. I can't bear the thought of losing this house :(

Edited to add:
Oohhh this afternoons visitor seems REALLY nice! Trouble is, he doesn't seem that interested and he thinks he might be allergic to cats. Doh!

Sorry about that...

Motigo webstats have been removed. I'll miss them! But I refuse to allow anything that gives my site pop-ups!

Thanks for those who left comments. Very helpful :)

I'm so glad you guys still visit even though I was apparently throwing crap advertising at you every time you did. Sorrrrrrry :(

I wonder how they made it so that you lot got popups and yet 99.9% of the time I didn't?? Some clever cookie use or something I think!

Motigo used to be a great little service - well, they were before they were bought out and became Motigo. Tis a shame when good things go bad. Anyone know of any other site stat tools? (Or a clever bugger who can write one for me... that'd be cool. I don't ask for much, just the world lol)

Let me know if you still get advertising here. Google tells me that Motigo is definitely worthy of the blame, but if anything else I have is doing it too I'll remove it straight away. I HATE sneaky advertising!!

On another note... Look how cute my kittens are! lol

A question for you all

Does anyone get popups from my site?

Many months ago someone said they did. I thought that was weird... checked and everything was fine, no one else was getting them, so I assumed it was her computer and not my site.

Just a few months ago *I* started getting a popup when I visited my own site, but I couldn't see a reason why. Again I blamed my computer, did a full clean up, took away my clever stats thing in case it was that, and moved on - I have more important things to complain about *puts nose in the air with that hoity toity look*

But now, darnit, I'm getting popups again. I don't think it's my motigo stats (which I since put back) - hope not, because it's a very cool little thing that I don't want to give up. So please people, tell me it's just me, tell me you've never seen a popup at my site (or noticed your browser blocking popups), and then I can carry on in my happy little world knowing that I'm sticking with my plans to forever be advert free on this blog (and dammit, if there ever are ads on this blog they'd better be paying me, not sneaking in without my permission. Hurumph.)

So..... what do you see?

BTW did anyone read the small print in my last post?
It said omfg I'm so scared!
I'm not good with change...

Changes

I can't read the word changes without getting David Bowie's Ch-ch-changes song stuck in my head!

So, I've reached one of THOSE points in life. Stuff is changing all around me. It's a good thing, because nothing has changed dramatically for some time, and to be honest, I was getting bored!

Recently a very good friend moved away to Auckland - seems like so far away, but it's great we can still catch up on the net and it's only half a days travel for us to visit each other. That's quite a big change for us, since we used to catch up almost every day of the week and often did meals and/or movie nights together. It was great to have another insulin junkie around too.

Last week the painter started preparing our house for a re-paint of the outside. HUGE job - this is a massive house! I'm impressed with his speed, especially as he's doing it alone. One side of the house is almost completed already. I'm not sure about the colour scheme, he scrunched his face up while he was telling me about the owner's choice of greys & blues, but I am relieved it's not the same colours she chose for another house - lime green with blue. EW.

Last night I gave my boarder the boot. Had enough of him sneaking home drunk and trying to cook his dinner at 2am (and then, on a few occasions, going to sleep and leaving the oven on. eeeek), and I suspected he was sneaking drugs in too. That was confirmed last night when the smell of marijuana came wafting down the stairs. So, being that I'm a 'be soft til the last minute then tip over with the final straw' sort of person, we had words - surprising polite and friendly ones - and he'll be out by the end of March. We both understand each other - it's just clashing lifestyles. We're a quiet family with a 'cat zoo' who want to get on with our simple family-oriented (boring?) lives, he's a musician and single young man who needs to spread his wings and go wild. All fine but not a good match in one house.

Think positively for me please everyone - I'd like Mr Perfect to be my next boarder! If we don't find anyone we have to move out and find some pokey little flat somewhere, and that would be such a downer :(

If you can't send me Mr Perfect, then please send the winning lotto numbers :D I'd be sooo happy to have this house to myself! The boarder gets a fantastic room upstairs, about the size of 2 if not 3 normal bedrooms, with a deck off the side and a gorgeous view of the ocean. I've always wanted that bedroom!

It will be interesting to see what other changes 2008 brings for us. Bring it on!