meridian_rose

Hi everyone!

It's been a bit of an odd several weeks. And so this is a bit of a random update!


The internet is still working when it feels like it and we finally got some good weather so I 've been able to do some reading outside which is a favourite part of summer time.
With the school holidays, my sister and her husband took the boys away for a week and I stayed at their house looking after Lyra (dogs went with them, cat stays home!). The next week the boys wanted to do camping in our garden a throwback from visits when they were in Wales, so up went the tent and out came the paddling pool!
Also we did the Bear Hunt in Birmingham recently (that's another post) which was something a bit different.

Birthday - thanks for the best wishes! - and I'm still not happy because I think expectations are so much different than your forties, though everyone at church kept being amazed and/or saying I look younger which is always nice to hear. We had a meal at a pub we'd not tried before which was nice, and then tea and cake and cuddles with sister's puppy Rufus, and watched a movie.

Last year I'd been saving up for a new - refurbished- pc and couldn't find anything that met the spec I wanted. In addition to the internet woes the pc (also a refurb that's been amazing for several years) has been getting slower for a while and sometimes 'grinds' away trying to deal with software using a lot of memory or in hot weather. So brother in law had a browse found an ebayer specialising in refurbished pcs and looks like I'm getting a new-to-me one soon. It has a lot more memory and much faster processor so should be a decent upgrade. It's cheaper than I'd expected too, a good thing because my finances won't be so great going forward - see next paragraph. I'll probably have to spend some time testing it out before unplugging this one for good, and install everything I need.

Work...I'm supposed to have a meeting in September with someone from the MAT (multi-academy trust) in September to discuss how my role will change (mostly downgrading) now the MAT is in charge of the school. I'm still concerned for my future employment but as present they're still going to have to keep paying me monthly. I just won't get the sort of extra hours I've worked the last couple of years as my duties expanded. It's a very part time position that suits me. Things are still in flux.

I've done a tiny bit of crafting to share when finished, and got a felt your own capybara gift for my birthday.
And of course I am very behind on reading here at Dreamwidth, I will try to catch up a little bit and go through my inbox.
I'm still behind on get your words out. While my writing is suffering a bit that's not the internet's fault. The next round of Small Fandom Bang opens soon but I don't have the energy or inspiration, though I am thinking about Yuletide as nominations will open in September.
I managed to participate in all the lands of magic challenges to some extent though perhaps not as well as I'd have liked ( I did get third place for overall points scored though!). Round up post to follow at some point. Good news is we're getting a round 14 which was in doubt for a while.
I haven't felt too sad about not being online loads because of having other things to do. I've been playing a hidden object/match 3 game that plays offline when internet is down and managed to do a few things, and I'm ok with only occasional visits to social media which is probably a good thing.

I hope everyone's doing okay.