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magyar_saman @ 11:58 pm: A Rather Good Day After All
Well, it started out kinda hinky.

I got a hold of my psychiatrist only to find out that the one that was covering his cases during his vacation had not, in fact, ordered me a prescription refill. She recorded the telephone convo as an "appointment" but failed to send me any antidepressants. He not only ordered a refill for me, but called in a 14-day prescription to the local pharmacy (which we would have to pay for).

I called to verify that they'd received the prescription and to find out when it would be ready. While I had the pharmacist on the phone, I told them I'd be paying for this out of my own pocket and asked if I could receive a discount. They said they had a store discount card they could run for the prescription.

We were both groaning, picturing a bill of at least 80 bucks, so when they told me I owed them 10 and change, I nearly collapsed in a faint. I paid the bill and practically ran out of there; I was convinced that they'd made a mistake. When we got back in the trucklette I loudly thanked Goddess for my incredible luck.

To celebrate, we treated ourselves to some discount fast food and I felt lots better after we got home, ate, and I took my meds. I knew the "immediate relief" was psychosomatic and yet in a couple of hours, I could feel my brain chemistry starting to settle down.

I am also happy to report that I've seen a slight upsurge in the accounts at CommieJournal, though I'd like to see more. I noticed that we still have our detractors over here but that doesn't really bother me much.

For one thing, thanks to the ever-generous swisscelt we don't have to worry about the hosting bill, even if most of our users are free accounts. I would like to see an increase in paid accounts, but it's ok if we don't, because we have the hosting covered.

For another, the server we're using is so good that I am not seeing the kind of problem I'm having reaching InsaneJournal right now; e.g., I can't reach their main page, it just keeps spinning and spinning. In fact, since we moved things a few months ago, we've had pretty much 99% uptime. Even when we got the influx from GreatestJournal, the site handled the extra traffic like a pro.

If anyone has any questions about CJ, they are welcome to ask them here, or over on CJ in the news community. If you don't currently have an account on CJ, you can use your livejournal sign-on with OpenID over there (you'd go to make a comment, then choose OpenID - your OpenID is: username.livejournal.com - where "username" is your LJ username). Anon and OpenID comments are screened for the sake of controlling spam.

Getting back to mundane business...we spent the evening watching news and Law&Order episodes. I chose to work on another dishcloth, rather than the Obama piece or the doll dress, because it's the easiest for me to do while watching TV (I could work an afghan or something similar; I have to figure out what to do with my left-over dark red, dark green, and off-white yarn anywho). I don't have to wear my magnifiers to see my work and it's easier on my hands.

Speaking of my hands, I am beginning to wonder if I'm getting the beginnings of arthritis. It takes a little while for my hands to limber up when I start working. Until they're limber, they will cramp, especially around the "ham" of the hand (below the thumb), and hurt just a hint in the joints.

I've got all but one bill paid (their site's down overnight for routine maintenance) and I think we'll actually make it this month without giving the bank reason to piss us off. YaY! It made a BIG difference changing around the landline/internet and dropping a cell phone/converting to an individual plan. Saved us a good 20-30 bucks this month. I wish I'd not had to drop my cell phone but right now we just can't afford it.

It's also made a difference that gas prices backed way off. They've risen a little (those damned companies will use ANY excuse to raise the price, demmit!) but it's forecast to drop back again. According to T. Boone Pickens in an article in the Huffington Post, oil prices will continue to tank probably through 2010. I think he's right. First, you have all the folks who either gave up using their cars for public transportation, or started carpooling or switched to using a vehicle with a higher mph. Now (and then, too) there is an increasing pool of unemployed workers who won't be driving around all that much - especially since yet another percentage has lost their home and quite possibly their car to payments they couldn't make.

I'd like to see the cost of gasoline go below a dollar a gallon. There's really no justifiable reason for it to be above a dollar in the first place. The companies make plenty of money regardless. Their stockholders might like record profits, but the average American just wants a reasonable price.

Well I'm done rambling for now. I'm up later than I likely should be (can't miss that "murder death kill" on TV LOL) and my brain just went blank.

Tags: general

magyar_saman @ 04:30 pm: What is your word?

Your Word is "Peace"

You see life as precious, and you wish everyone was safe, happy, and taken care of. Social justice, human rights, and peace for all nations are all important to you. While you can't stop war, you try to be as calm and compassionate as possible in your everyday life. You promote harmony and cooperation. You're always willing to meet someone a little more than halfway.

What's Your Word?

Tags: memes

magyar_saman, posting in news @ 02:41 pm: We need YOU!
Hi, I'm the gal who actually runs this site. My name is Leesa, and sometimes, I am known as Serena.

Again, I am posting to recruit new folks.

It is possible that we may be getting an influx of former LJ users, soon, so I need the following people:

1. Folks who can create journal styles
   
2. Folks who can code, know Perl, and would be interested in helping to update our codebase
   
3. Folks who can make mood themes
   

As far as #2 goes - I have not updated our codebase from the old SixApart/SUP tree for awhile and I don't plan on doing so, because the last time I tried, it really messed up the site. This led me to believe that perhaps they weren't properly updating the "public" tree and/or deliberately messing it up to make it harder on clone sites. No matter what it is, I don't trust the source codebase any longer.

What we'd like to do is modify the codebase so we can:

• Change from Apache 1.x/mod_perl to Apache 2.x/mod_perl/php,
  
• Consider adding a photo storing feature (FotoBilder is a mess worse than the LJ code itself)
  
• Consider porting the entire app from being Perl-based to being based on something like PHP or another language more easily modified.
  

I need folks that CAN do these things - not folks that "think they'd like to try". Sorry for being so harsh.

For the time being I'd be happy if we got a few folks that can code journal styles and mood themes. I know that most code geeks are up to their eyeballs in doing code for a living.

If you know you can do some of these things and can help, please send an email to personnel at commiejournal dot com.

If you are accepted, you will receive a permanent account. In order to keep that account, you must be willing to turn out some work - not just say you will, then do nothing. Again, sorry for being harsh.

Thanks!

Tags: need new folks

magyar_saman @ 02:11 pm: Save Small Business From the CPSIA


Some of the things I crochet are for children and especially babies. I was just thinking of working up a baby set (afghan, outfit, booties). If this law is allowed to go into effect the way it is, it will kill every single cottage industry alive that hand-makes gifts meant for children under the age of 12.

Please take time to vote for this so it gets on the list of 10 things given to Obama for consideration. A lot of hand-made artists will thank you for it, including me.

Tags: obama, stupid laws

cj_news, posting in news @ 11:45 am: LJ going down?
As some of you already know, SUP/Fabrik, the owner of LiveJournal, has laid of a significant number of their American-based workers.

People are panicking that LiveJournal will fold soon. With that in mind, it might be a good time to let your friends know about CommieJournal. At the very least, they can back their journals up to an account here using LJ Sec.

We aren't going anywhere!

magyar_saman @ 09:07 pm: Hangin' in there
Hmmm.

Due to my forgetfulness, I was running out of Prozac without a refill. A call last Monday to the VA resulted in finding out my shrink was on vacation till today but that his case load was being covered by another shrink. So, I called the other shrink and left a message about my needing a refill. She called me back, talked to me a few minutes, then said she'd refill it and it should be mailed to me.

Normally I get mailed prescriptions within a week, since I'm less than a hundred miles from the facility. Well, I didn't get it last week and chalked that up to the holiday.

It also wasn't in the mailbox today. I went to check the VA site to see if they listed when it got mailed. It's not even showing up under MyHealth-e-Vet, which makes me wonder if she ordered the refill at all. I got up too late to call my regular shrink today but I'm going to make sure to get up early enough to call him tomorrow.

Thanks to Prince M (he really IS a prince sometimes) I went to Rite-Aid and got some St. John's Wort. The bottle says take up to 3 a day, but considering that I've been taking a reduced dose of Prozac (stretching it out) and I had NONE for today, I took four.

I was also happy to find that they just happen to stock the fiber pills I order from Vitacost and had run out of, so I snapped them up.

While we were waiting to check out, we noticed three individuals who definitely looked shady. Now I'm not the kind to "profile" people, but the aura I caught off these three really made me wonder. One of them had gotten a shirt off a rack in the corner and was waiting to change into it till the bathroom was free; I wondered quietly if he'd even paid for it. The clothing he was wearing was extremely dirty, which also had me wondering if he even had a home. The other two were with a girl getting a prescription. All three made me wonder if a robbery was about to take place. It just 'felt' like it.

I took a break from the Obama filet crochet piece I'm making, to return to a project I'd started awhile back: It's a Barbie dress I'm making which could be sold, with or without, the doll. I ended up having to re-make the bodice because it's too small to overlap properly in the back. I've gotten the sleeves done and attached them, and have added a string of pearlized beads to the neckline. I still have to do the skirt portion and finish adding the bead accents. All in all it's turning out rather nice.

I have also become rather fond of Lily Sugar'n Cream cotton yarn. Previously, I made a dishcloth trio that I have for sale at my Etsy store. I had a small ball of Fiesta Ombre left, and there was just enough to turn out a washcloth/hot pad size piece in a pattern reminiscent of woven wicker. I'd like to do more, and I found an Ebay store that carries the yarn in 1lb cones, but that'll have to wait till we have more money. I'm toying with making a baby afghan and/or set out of it.

Speaking of Etsy *sigh* none of my Xmas pieces sold. I guess I'll have to put them on sale or something, now that we're past the holidays.

I still have my Yule tree up and I don't care what anyone thinks. It's pretty and it lifts both our spirits up.

M may have to make an emergency room visit to get a refill on his antidepressants. The first place he was sent to no longer takes MediCal so he's trying to get with someone at the second number he was given. They were horribly rushed today and didn't get back to him.

The weather isn't helping either of us out. The second of two weak systems are coming through and it caused me to wake up with a sore back and sinuses that were doing the rhumba and giving me quite the headache. Medication took care of most of that. I know my pain is up because I'm out of antidepressants as well.

M turned me on to this series that can only be found on the Internet, called "The Fringe". If you like shows like CSI and Eleventh Hour, you'll like The Fringe. You can find the episodes here. Sign-up is free, as is watching. They also have other series as well as some movies.

Tags: general

sapphoq @ 11:53 am: MEET THE NEW YEAR 1/2/09

same as the old year? I hope not.
This is the year that I will get unstuck.

2008 already seems far away, a distant memory. Like a receding shoreline pounded by the waves or a receding hairline.

2008 was the year that the brilliant VESID personnel demanded a return-to-work order after a routine vertigo "attack." Again, I ask, WHAT WORK? Since I don't wish to beat that particular dead horse anymore, I shall leave that one dangling.


2008 was also the year that my dad moved three times. He moved from his home with his almost ex-wife #3 to a pullman apartment to our home in the middle of nowhere and then back to his home with his almost ex-wife #3.

I learned a lot of things when my dad was living here for a couple months. Some of those
things I didn't wish to learn and some I did.

My dad succeeded where no one else had since my accident-- I learned how to maintain a
simple house-cleaning schedule. Now I wish I could have had him visit after my accident.
Earlier after my accident rather. At any rate, the house is slowly rising from the plague of
the dust bunnies.

The other things I learned are more of a private nature and thus I will not record them here.


2008 was the year that I discovered Second Life (tm to Linden Labs). Second Life is total eye candy to someone like me who loves visual effects and animations. Over there I've been learning a bit of simple scripting and some 3D building. That is the part that makes Second Life different from blogging.


My goals for 2009:
to remain abstinent as defined in the program of Narcotics Anonymous.
to complete my book and submit it.
to remain married and faithful.
to increase our financial stability as a couple and mine as me.
to continue to monitor my health proactively.
to blog on any of the blogger blogs twice a week and on the journal blogs once a week.
to address the things that I allow to keep me stuck.

I hope for everyone a well new year. And if not a well one, then at least a weller one.

sapphoq healing tbi

Labels: goals, Peter Kahrmann, t.b.i., tbi, traumatic+brain+injury, vertigo, VESID, VESID sucks

Tags: reflections

magyar_saman @ 02:32 pm: Chocolate, Sunshine, and Cats with Thumbs
Earlier today, we took our cans in for recycling. It's an especially pretty day, with blue skies and warm sunshine. We managed to get a half gallon of milk, some half&half, and some butter withour spoils.

I am amazed sometimes at how M can "hold court" in virtually any social situation. It didn't take him long to do so while waiting in line to cash in our cans. Various subjects were debated, including the evil of banks, Obama, and the oligarchy. At some point a couple of ladies brought in Christian religion; M managed to scare one half to death by pointing out that Allah is Arabic for "The Lord", showing that Muslims follow the same god as do Christians and Jews.

One guy seemed miffed about M stealing the thunder, and kept bringing up Obama's birth certificate and how some people still question whether he was a natural born American. M put an end to the argument, not once but twice, by telling him that nobody gets into the Oval Office without the oligarchy approving them. The guy was still muttering a little bit as he left after cashing in his cans.

I sat in the truck, people-watching, and soaking up the sunshine. I've since been out on the porch several times, doing the same thing. I also availed myself of some 70% cacao dark chocolate, which definitely improved my mood. Lastly, my littlest and youngest cat, Isis, has graced my desktop with her killer-cute little thumbs. She's washed my face, purred up a storm, and generally did her magic on my mood.

M has felt himself "drawn" to occasionally massage my shoulders and neck; unfortunately, I have a lot of pain stored there, so he can't do it for long before his hands start absorbing it. He then has to go wash them to "wash off" the pain.

All in all, I found some things today to be truly grateful for. I have a home. While our selection is limited, I have food. I have M. I have my furbabies. I have my friends, near and far. I have a vehicle that is in good shape. Physically, I am at a minimum of pain, and I have some energy.

Today is a good day, even if everything isn't totally "right" with the world.

Tags: gratitude

magyar_saman @ 05:35 pm: UGH!
I am in such a foul mood right now; I don't think I've been in this foul a mood in a very long while. Part of it is hormonal, but most of it is thanks to the stupid bank. It also doesn't make me feel any better to have LiveJournal responding like its routers are mired in fucking molasses....

( Cut so you can skip all this if you want )

Tags: general, kill kill kill, menstrual homocidal feelings

cj_news, posting in news @ 04:53 pm: CJ Account Features
Here are the features for the different types of accounts.

Basic account:

Maximum friends: 500
User pics: 100
To-do list
Can search
Friends/Friends page view
Links list
Can use S2 styles

Paid account - all of the above, plus:

Maximum friends: 1000
User pics: 500
CJ email address (only for year-long and subscription accounts; not available for monthly paid)
Text messaging via cell
Can create mood themes
Can create polls
Can be tracked on weblogs.com
Can create S2 styles, maximum of 25 with 55 layers
Can create syndicated feeds

Permanent account - all of the above, plus:

Maximum friends: 20000
User pics: 600
Can create S2 styles with a maximum of 50 with 100 layers

The CommieJournal Store

Tags: account features

magyar_saman @ 07:02 am: These things are never right


Tags: memes