Brain currently booting in Safe Mode

Usually, one reckons a week going from Sunday to Saturday, or even Monday to Sunday. Mine is going from Tuesday last week to today. And it's been a week, I tell you what.

On Tuesday, we all got double-jabbed for fluVID after the kiddo got home from school. Not unusual, but it's good that it's done and I can now relax a little bit regarding whatever respiratory silliness that's going around.

Wednesday morning started with a message from one of the jobs I had applied to, asking if was available to interview by phone the next day. Why yes, yes I was available, thanks for asking. That squared away, I took it easy for the rest of the day because my arm was aching like someone had used it for bare-knuckle boxing practice. I also decided that today was the day to make the switch from Windows to Linux for so many reasons. So many.

The phone interview on Thursday was... meh. It wasn't stellar, wasn't horrid, just there. There was a bit of an accent barrier, and Beans was chewing on my toes because he could. It was exceedingly distracting and I was certain that would be the end of that. (This is fine, because whilst I am looking, I'm also realistic enough to know that a sixteen year gap is a LOT for most companies to take the risk.)

Friday, a call came in from the company, asking me to come in on Monday for an in-person interview. I'm flummoxed, but agree as one of us needs to work if we want to continue our lifestyle of paying rent and eating food whilst living paycheque-to-paycheque.

At it as also Hallowe'en and D was uninterested in going out and scoring candy, I made cheeseburgers for dinner, and we had waffles and a thematically appropriate ice cream for dessert. We deemed Declan old enough and watched The Thing as we ate. When that was over, I showed them the Honest Trailer of the same. All-in-all, it was a good evening.

Saturday, I gamed with my D&D group. We were online due to circumstances outside of our control. This is where I discovered that while the switch between operating systems was fairly painless in most respects, Discord was being a little brat and needed a lot of finessing. We limped along with substandard play until after lunch. My kid, who had made the switch months ago, told me what he did to make Discord behave. I did the same during the lunch break and voila! Success without college. The rest of the game continued as it usual did.

Yesterday was quiet. The only thing of note was a fit-check on my good clothes, in case I needed to make an emergency purchase. I have not needed event appropriate clothes in over a decade, so I was delighted to discover that they fit well-enough to be serviceable. I also read a charming romance that made me cry. It even started with a meet-cute over body bags. It's lovely and warm with an animator and a mortician figuring out how they fit together for their HEA.

Today.

Today, for the first time in almost two decades, I had an honest-to-goodness grown-up job interview. Yes, I was nervous, but I don't think I made too much of an ass of myself. One of the interviewers was impressed that not only was "First Contact Resolution" on my resume, but I also know what it means. I think I made a good impression? I have a lot of tech experience/expertise, and I'm used to monotonous work, so who the fuck knows? I certainly do not. I lost the ability to tell if it went well forever ago. :P

Instead of stressing, I came home and baked a cake, which seemed a better use of my time.

This week has been a bit of a whirlwind and I'm tired. I'm going to go check on my dinner and get ready to eat, complete with gingerbread for dessert.

Yesterday, casting around for something to fill my time, my eyes rested upon the stack of various graphic novels and other comics that I had acquired over the years and not catalogued. My catalogue, an Access database, contained all of the work I had done ensuring that I had an accurate accounting of my collection.

Except.

When I said to myself, "yeah, that could use doing," I tried to load it up. And got nowhere. The database was considered corrupt, which was heart-stopping, since I have over 800 pieces and most of that is in storage at my mom's. The database is the only record I have where it's all in one place. And I did NOT want to entertain doing it again.

I had a few ideas, including hitting up the Googs, which seemed to get me absolutely fucking NOWHERE. Then I remembered that Google Drive has a whole host of tools for creating and editing and sharing documents. Maybe this could work?

I made a copy of the file (because I'm not an idiot), uploaded the copy into my drive, did some jiggery pokery, and... GOT ACCESS TO ACCESS. I downloaded it as as .csv, which seemed prudent given the givens, then loaded it into LibreOffice and there it was. It was a bit janky, but nothing that wasn't fixable. I saved it as an actual spreadsheet and did some cleaning up of the formatting. After that, adding in the comics-to-be-catalogued was a matter of moments.

So, at least now I know how to get into any Access database without needing Access OR losing any of the painstaking hours of work that went into the database in the first place. PHEW!

Some stuff that has happened:

- the last full week of January was full of appointments, including a trip to Sick Kids to meet with the Nephrology team and some testing for Declan to determine what's up with his kidneys and the cysts.

- when I went in to find out WTF was up with my knee (possible patellofemoral syndrome, which is only 'cured' by eight weeks of physio), got the results of my blood work. It came back normal. You should really see my surprise face on that one. *rolls eyes* The urine test did come back positive for protein (joy) but it's not enough to be worrying. At least it's an easy test to repeat.

- Declan had no protein in his urine and his blood work came back as normal. So there is that.

- having your knee x-rayed is weird. The positions you have to keep it in is very unnatural. The highlight of the entire process? Connecting with another mother who was there with her son. We both agreed that shame was something for other people, especially after you've had someone fondling your cervix with others watching. Yay, childbirth.

- tried to call my shiny new(ish) psychiatrist, since I'm running low on meds. Hahahahaha, no. Apparently, I had a consultancy appointment, and don't actually have a psychiatrist. Cue lots of swearing and gnashing of teeth. Fine, thinks I, it's back to the doc for my meds and make the appointment, which is for this Friday.

- my games continue to truck along. I am finding that Thorn's voice is nearly silent in my head, but Amy's has gotten very loud. You'll have your time to shine, darlin'. But it's not yet.

- I am currently bashing my head against getting a data recovery program to actually work. It's my fault that the information is lost, but it shouldn't be THIS hard to get it back. I am frustrated and about this close to pitching my computer off the roof.

- small victory: picked up Declan from school AND took out the recycling without falling on my ass. It's been raining since this afternoon and freezing, so not slipping and sliding is worth noting.

Fuckity Fuck Fuck Fuck Fuck.

Every year I tell myself that I'm not going to go nuts on my Hallowe'en costume and spend hours upon hours sewing the damned thing only to get a couple of hours use out of it, and every year, I seem to fall into that trap.

This year, I'm sorry to say, has been no exception. When I found the crinoline/slip at Value Village, I thought, great, I'll just add this with something else and I'll be done. No dice. It was waaaay too small, meaning I would have to build another half then attach it. Building it, so far, hasn't been heinous, just time consuming.

I found out, not ten minutes ago, that when I finally put in the diamond netting to make the new front half poof out as much as the back, the top won't fit right. I have neither time nor money to make a suitable top, so I'm kinda stuck. I now have to tear apart the new front from the back, take the outside panel and the inside panel apart, then sew the two panels together in a skirt like fashion and then finish it (hemming, elasticized waist). This means that the one I found at Value Village is only good for scraps, really (or, if I can sew the seams back together, someone else might get some use out of it).

But I can't work on my costume tonight, because my in-laws' computer doesn't work. Again.

Fuckles.