The Writing of Serious Stuff (by sarah)

I has been wanting to write about news events and serious things for a while but I am finding it hard, I used to write what ever I wanted and pop it on here but I become increasingly worried about offending people etc... It is really lame and very sad so I want to get back to writing what I feel needs to be written rather than worrying about what people want.

Part of the issue is that I have been told I sabotarge myself - by bringing up political stuff etc... but really I can't just ignore stuff. Sometimes I have not had the energy to tackle a subject, not had the time to research it as much as it needs to be etc... Part of the issue is that I am also bored of having/listening to the same arguments again and again. It's like philosophy - it got old at university and everyone just moves in circles and it drives me nuts!

Anyway I want to get back to writing my little ranty essays even though it means I will probably be going in an ever decreasing circle and be called Ozzel Um.

Having said that - there is now a Snobberlink Category on Wiggly Pets full of daft comics 🙂

Birthday Poem and Butterfly Cake and Dragon Mug! (by sarah)

My birthday was great in the end though as always there were last minute cancellation meaning that for the second time since I moved to Gloucestershire I'd organised a gaming birthday and had not a single person turn up. Everyone has organised to come and see me at other times. It is the horror of a January birthday people are tired, partied out and have no money or has work they forgot to do/didn't needed doing over the festive period. I am considering the suggestion to be a Queen and always do something in the summer that people can actually get too! (I have had to cancel two birthday outings due to snow).

But on the plus side my friend composed me a poem on Facebook and I had about 60 messages and a handful of cards 🙂

Happy Birthday to Sarah Snell-Pym,
The Purple Poet who's made of win,
She'll charm you with rhyme,
Of atoms, space and time,
So celebrate with cakepops and gin!

By Joy-Amy

Jean gave me herbal tea that is actually really nice unlike the stuff in the cupboard I've been making my way through! Mary had apparently selected lego men stickers for me 🙂 probably because they are shiny! They are already stuck in my diary. Al got me computer stuff to help with the RSI which is especially good as I am in the middle of a mild flare up. I also got the pens I needed from Ulrike and a few other bits 🙂

Over the weekend Al got me pizza and pfish food ice-cream and we made a butterfly cake out of cake pops 🙂 The butterflies arrived in the post from Al's cousins - I think they were a Christmas present but they arrived on my birthday and were edible butterflies 😀

Also knowing I was sad about my pocket dragon mug my friend Rachel turned up with a purple dragon mug which has been heavily used over the weekend. We watch Harry Potter Movies, Mysterious Cities of Gold and some classic scifi we had out on Lovefilm. I made things to sell on etsy, drew pictures and feel asleep on the setee lots. I decided against games in the end as I'm bored of a lot of the ones we can play with Jean and two people doesn't really cut it for some of the others. Sunday another friend called with fondant fancies and a wardrobe which is still sitting in the living room awaiting my dad to help Al get it up the stairs (maybe!). I also collected another two cloth badges on the Kinnect Adventures and had lots of snugs 🙂

A day of drilling (by alaric)

Last Thursday, I had my safety induction for using the laser cutter at Bristol Hackspace, and as my test piece I laser-cut a name tag for Jean. She likes that sort of thing.

However, she requested that it have a hole in the corner, so she can attach it to her school bag. So today we went down to the workshop and I helped her to drill it out.

But I had more drilling to do. A friend asked me on Facebook how she could drill holes through pebbles. It just so happens that Sarah owns a set of diamond core drills, so I borrowed them and had a go, so that I could offer some advice.

I set the bit up in the column drill:

The challenge was in how to hold the stone still while it was being drilled. Irregular shapes are tricky to hold. First off, I tried a simple clamp:

The drilling has to happen under water, to help cool it and to wash away the dust that the stone turns into. I put some scraps of cardboard underneath so that I drilled into that once I was through the stone, rather than the bottom of my box, which would lead to it leaking all over my cluttered workbench:

As soon as the drill cut in, dust whooshed out into the water and made it impenetrably murky, so after a short drilling session, I took the stone out of the water to see what was happening:

It looked good so I tried again, but this time the stone pivoted in the clamp. I tried to clamp it back again but it wouldn't go back at the same angle and kept shifting, so I tried a new approach - gluing it to a piece of wood that was large enough to not be able to rotate inside the box, so I just needed to hold the box steady while drilling:

That worked quite well, but the vibration shook the stone loose after a while, and I had trouble with the wood wanting to float and the stone wanting to sink causing it to flip over in the water. so I glued it more thoroughly (making sure glue came over the side of the stone so it was held in place rather than just stuck in place), and glued a bit of scrap metal to the bottom to stop it floating over:

That worked; now the stone was steady, it was easy to press on all the way. I had to drill a millimetre then back out (with the drill still spinning) to clear the dust out into the water, then press on again. Progress was slow but steady, taking a few seconds to do each millimetre:

Once I felt it go through the bottom of the stone, I had no trouble in peeling the rubbery hot-melt glue back with my fingernails to free the stone. Job done:

So, to conclude:

• Use a column drill.
• Use a diamond core bit.
• Hold the stone steadily in something that conforms to its shape. An ideal technique might be to use something like Plasticene to firmly secure it to the bottom of the box before pouring the water in.
• Drill slowly, backing off to clean the bit every millimetre or so.

When I came back, Sarah was asleep on the sofa:

Aww!

The End of the Festive Season (by sarah)

Today we had our last Christmas visitor, Barbara, so I put out the minced pies and cut up Christmas Cake and we apologised as we seem to have lost her tea towel with Mary's print on it that we were going to give her - so we gave her same homemade jam instead.

She gave Mary some lovely Hello Kitty wellies which is brilliant as it was starting to be a squeeze to get her into the ones she has and the previous bigger set she lost one of whilst we were out shopping one day. Jean got an art casse which she was excited about and Al got cheese which is always a hit with him. I got a pot of tulips which shall be going outside the front door.

Jean also tidied the front garden, litter picking the litter that blows in and sweeping up the leaves - mainly as she is whipping through her worst witch books and wants to earn money to buy the missing ones.

There would be photos of today but unfortunately Jean was taking photos yesterday and dropped it and today it has gone completely screwy 🙁 It was on it's way out anyway which is why I had saved up money to get a good one but I spent it on the TV so that we could use the X-Box, I do not regret this but I do now find myself with out a camera - right at the point where I am trying to launch myself back into things seriously - sigh.

On the other hand I do have a rather serious back log of photos to sort out anyway so maybe this will give me time to do that?

After Al's aunt left we started taking down all the decorations to general chagrin of the kids - Mary was walking about saying 'Oh! No!' whilst Jean was whining that the room was starting to look so bare which we felt too. Somehow Christmas went so fast this year.

It has been a fun one though.

Of course tomorrow I have one of my best friends from school visiting in a sort of post-Christmas/pre-birthday type of way which is going to be ace!

And last night I forgot to go to the pub with one of my local friends which I feel really bad about - It wasn't a good day medically for me but still...

Anyway the good thing about the decorations coming down is that I am in the mood for Spring Cleaning to be honest. We started today with putting hooks up to hang various house type things up, such as sun catchers and wall art butterflies and the broom and duster and carrier bag suasage.

Today also marks the constructed language Lojban's 25th Birthday - this is the language that Alaric has been learning for the past few years and that he has been teaching to Mary. So we have begun work on a little language comic type thing - we came up with the idea ages ago but haven't had the time to act upon it!

Apart from that we made bread in the bread maker and made our own sauce for the chickpea hodge podge we had for dinner - January is already a month of highs and lows but net effect seems to be positive at the moment.

Child Benifit 0.o (by sarah)

Thankyou government for giving me a mini mental break down tonight - the issue is not that our Child Benefit is being taken away, as we no longer need it for food (which we have in the past) but more the complete lack of notice and the only reason we knew was a random thing on the radio sending me into a panic.

So now I have completely mis-budgeted for the year, feel like a complete waste of space, had a worse panic attack that I would be done for fraud as I have no idea what my this and that numbers are and there is now not time to find out.

Another issue is that I now can't afford the child care (that is already arranged) that I need to launch me back into the work space. Poor Jean overheard things and came down to ask if she would still be able to do Ju Jistu and the answer is I don't know.

Alaric has had to calm me down and help me with the form and site as it was the classic dyslexic's nightmare. Now I am sitting here with my decaf coffee, sense of nonentitlement and pain from yet another balls up nhs palava - a cardboard box has been destroyed whilst a string of bad words such as 'I hate F..... Politicians and cr.. how are x, y and z going to manage - they need it for their rent'

I have never before declared that I hate a section of society and this makes me feel bad and worse. 2013 was going well but to be honest tonight I feel like I've just had the rug pulled out from underneath me.