Feb

27

putting my packing prowess into practice

Filed Under expat, regular, tout le fromage | 3 Comments

Yes that’s right boys and girls— might be moving. This time it looks far less daunting than the last time I moved (I’m an expat, remember), so this should be a piece of cake comparatively. We’re looking to stay in the same town as it’s nice, convenient to London (or anywhere else by rail or motorway), and has virtually everything we need within walking distance.

The reason we’re moving is that our landlord is selling the property. This isn’t coming as a surprise to us but it was a surprise that he’s offered us the first refusal on buying the flat. Neil was looking at the possibility of getting a mortgage but I think I’ve dissuaded him. We’re actually in the enviable position of being completely neutral on the ‘property ladder.’ We have no mortgage which means we can up and move to wherever we like without worrying about some complex chain of buyers and sellers.

Renting is often thought of as a lower class option to owning your own home, but in reality, some people choose to rent to stay out of the mess of mortgages. We’ve both owned our own homes in the past but I’ve moved so many times that I don’t believe it’s always the best option. Hell, before I moved away to attend art school my mother and I had lived in five different places, most of which were owned and had mortgages. On my own, I’ve lived in a dorm and then three apartments before buying a house. If my counting and memory are serving me well this afternoon, that means I’ve lived in ten places between three states (Indiana, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin) and am now on my eleventh abode here in Berkshire. I’m not exactly new to this stuff. ;)
Neil, on the other hand, is much less experienced than me at moving house, so I can understand if his first thought was to look at buying this place. My first thought however is to go look at loads of exciting new flat and house listings. I think my experience with moving and adventurous nature are going to be relied on pretty heavily in the next month or so. I’ve already found nine potential properties to see. Neil’s last email already shows a bit of relief at my handling of the situation.

Looks like I’ve got some calls to make, flats to see, and maybe even a bit of pre-move weeding through junk to do around the flat. Exciting times!

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Feb

26

stuff about backup and then a slightly less boring weekend recap

Filed Under regular, tout le fromage | 1 Comment

I’ve been pretty quiet over the weekend due to a necessary maintenance project: system backup for my ageing and increasingly fussy old desktop machine. (I’m writing this on an old Powerbook.)

I’ve backed up my critical bits onto external drives before, but we recently got great price on a mammoth network drive and I’ve been backing up through a gizmo by Linksys called a NSLU2. This process has not been without its hiccups, but I’m getting the task done. And I should be— the stupid thing has been constantly writing to the drive for over two days straight. (I’m backing up over 100GB in one go.)
I suffered a kernel panic about twelve hours into the backup. That was pretty uncool. Also, in the excitement of configuration, choosing a backup application with the right features, and getting things going, I failed to consider the data speed. I’m doing this crap over an Airport wireless network. That is, not Airport Extreme, so my file transfer speed isn’t really at what I’d call ‘its full potential.’ I should be doing this backup over ethernet, but in my hasty quest to get this project off my to-do list, I didn’t think at all about where I could have been saving myself significant time. I’m pretty sure we’ve got a cable long enough to string between the two rooms (the router and network drive are not in the office), but that is now for another project, another time. I’m nearly through with the massive backup and only another kernel panic would get me to stop this thing now. (Feel free to knock on some wood for me.)

So, this weekend I felt pretty smart for configuring the NSLU2 in a (unsupported) Mac environment, testing several backup applications before choosing the one for the job, and recovering progress after the dreaded kernel panic. I do not feel particularly smart for doing this over the slowest and flakiest network connection configuration in the house. Duh. Argh. * sigh * Sometimes I’m a really dumb smart kid.

Anyway, the rest of the weekend was good. Saw “Hot Fuzz” at the cinema. Very entertaining. If you like the guys behind “Shaun of the Dead” you’ll love “Hot Fuzz.”
I also cooked and took some food porn photos that I’ll be sharing soon. And I started sketching out my next painting on a canvas. I’ve been really low on energy over the past few days, but hoping that it passes. Looks like I avoided the cold that everyone at work had, but I still feel a bit drained. I think it’s more of a mild depression rather than some sort of cold anyway. Trying to write, read, paint, and cook my way through it. It’s not easy when all you want to do is sleep, but I’m giving it my best effort and enjoying some really tasty food in the process.

If my backup finishes tonight — and it should — then I’ll probably get the food pictures up tomorrow. It’s been mostly food and sketches on my flickr page recently but I haven’t been out and about with my camera in awhile. As spring seems to be unfolding early here, I plan on going for some camera-toting walks soon. The daffodils are already up— it’s been a very mild winter.

That’s it for now.
smooches~
jEN

Feb

23

in a moment of madness and bravery

Filed Under creative stuff, tout le fromage | Leave a Comment

shehadagorgeousbrain.jpg

I put three more of my recent pencil drawings up on flickr. I already see these in colour; perhaps they will become paintings.

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Feb

22

It looks different and it looks better.

Filed Under creative stuff, tout le fromage | 1 Comment

I took the liberty of hanging that painting I did last month. No longer is it squatting on the easel space, preventing me from painting something else. Nope, I evicted that thing and hung it in the living room. It is arresting on the margarine-coloured wall.

So strange to see it up there; I haven’t had my own work up in years. I used to hang most of my paintings — covering as much wall-space as I could like a patchwork of dirtied canvas — but that was long ago when I produced a lot and couldn’t afford posters from IKEA to hang instead…*

I sketched three new things in a little Moleskine tonight and placed a fresh, untouched canvas on the easel. I may paint this weekend. I may paint tomorrow. We’ll see, but at least I made the first step by getting the other one on the wall. I can see it from my desk all the way across the flat. I like seeing it up there. It is inspiring me.

*This is not strictly true. I could afford the posters— it was always the truck-full of other goodies that made my trips to IKEA so expensive.

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Feb

20

Love is: saving - at least part of yourself - for the one you love

Filed Under regular, tout le fromage | 5 Comments

I read this in one of my RSS feeds today and found it hilarious.
From Fleshbot: (if you don’t know what Fleshbot is, then understand that this quote is going to be dirty. Tune out now, any easily offended readers.)

“At 5′11″ (sans heels, Lucite or otherwise), Faith Leon is one of the tallest women in porn. She is married to Marcos Leon, also a performer … Finding a couple with its shit together in porn is often difficult. (It helps that her husband is the only person with whom she will perform anal scenes).”

Bwah ha ha ha ha!
Damn.
That’s love.

I’m still giggling.

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Feb

19

super-tasty and filling smoothie

Filed Under regular, tout le fromage | 1 Comment

It’s been far too long since I posted a smoothie recipe, so here you go!

reIMG_2051.jpg

This is a combination of fresh and canned ingredients because I like my smoothies simple to prepare.

1 Large Fuji Apple, peeled and in sections
1/2 Cup(ish) of Porridge Oats, uncooked
1 406g Tin of Strawberries in Juice (you’ll add the juice to the blender too)
1 Teaspoon of Honey
1  432g Tin of Pineapple Chunks (save the juice for another time)

Chuck it all in a blender, blend without mercy, pour into glasses and enjoy!

Makes around 1000 ml, give or take. If you want a more filling and oaty smoothie, try adding a bit more oats and honey, plus you may need a little of that saved pineapple juice to make sure it doesn’t get too thick.

Drink up!
smoothie smooches~
jEN

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Feb

18

Even in the midst of it all, there is happiness. And fading pop stars.

Filed Under regular, tout le fromage | 4 Comments

Where has all the post writing gone? Well, I could claim that I’ve been busy, but that would only be half the story. I promise it’s not burnout— no, I love this blog (and the others I contribute to/author as well), but ‘busy’ only accounts for the time that is easy to account for. The rest of it? I’ve been in a rather tiny boat on an unpredictable and churning sea of depression-versus-happiness due to my ADD/ADHD. The past few months haven’t been particularly easy, but I’m getting through and somewhere between the tears and cheers I’ve landed a part-time job as well as occasional freelance work. This week in particular has been quite busy as I’ve had both kinds of employment taking up loads of time. I stopped working at about 5 PM today and am chilling the hell out. I cooked some dinner, drank some wine, and am about to further chill with a book or two. Or maybe write. Or draw. I don’t know, but I’m chilling. Even a bubble bath is sounding quite nice…

Tomorrow’s big tasks include proving my identity to yet another governmental agency (being an expat sometimes seems like an almost never-ending calendar of appointments involving all of my official documentation, though in reality I know the appointments aren’t at all that frequent), and fixing the kitchen tap. I’m not looking forward to either chore, but hey, both are necessary.

I also intend to write, read, and get back into the swing of things. I do what I can and am a slave to my brain, but right now I seem to be on the positive side of this current wave and I should take advantage of the moment and ride it as far as I can. It will crash into the rocks, it’s inevitable, but I’m going to try to make more of my ‘up’ time whilst it’s happening.

Oh, and before I forget to ask, what the fuck is up with Britney Spears shaving her head? Whoa.

smooches~
jEN

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Feb

16

today’s doodle

Filed Under creative stuff, tout le fromage | 1 Comment

ifitwereonlythatsimple.jpg

Of course, in hindsight, maybe I should have drawn in a little piñata… ;)

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