A #Sale Reminder, Weather, Smart Devices, #Braille Displays, and #Tatting

Just a quick reminder: the Smashwords 2022 Summer/Winter sale is still going on, and my children's stories and poetry books are enrolled at 50% off, making them all $2.50 or less, and in some cases completely free.

 

To grab your copies - regardless of which of my titles you may be interested in - simply click here to go to my Smashwords author profile, add your chosen books to the cart, and go through the checkout process.

 

But hurry, because the sale only runs through July 31st!

 

*~*

 

The weather’s been remaining warm here, though thankfully the traditional Welsh weather (rain) has been a frequent enough visitor to stop it getting quite as bad where I am as it has been in many parts of the UK.  I’m definitely glad of that, let me tell you.  Me and hot weather to not get on.

 

I did get a new, and more powerful, fan to help me deal with the heat though.

 

Actually, if I'm totally honest, it was meant to have been for Kelly, originally, since the one he was using wasn’t working very well and had to be replaced.  But he said I could have this one since I was especially struggling to cope with the heat, and swapped the new more powerful fan with one of the ones I was using.

 

It’s great… At one point I was actually feeling almost cold!

 

*~*

 

There have been other new purchases recently too.

 

 When I moved my computer in to what was the craft room and is now my office, I was out of range of the two Alexa devices we had.  One is downstairs where it can be heard from both the living room and kitchen, and the other is in our bedroom.  I suppose, officially, this wasn’t a big deal.  But – despite my initial reluctance to even get one – I’ve gotten used to having one within earshot when I’m doing most things, and was missing that.  So, when I spotted that the fourth generation Amazon Echo was on sale, I grabbed one.

 

I moved them around a bit though.  I have a second generation I was given, a third generation my Mam brought me for Christmas a couple of years ago, and now a fourth generation.  The second generation has been in our bedroom since Mam gave it to me, and the third generation was downstairs.  But I decided to move the third generation to my office instead of putting the new one in there because the fourth generation looks fancier, and there’s more chance visitors will see the downstairs one.  I mean, other than appearance there’s not much difference between them anyhow.  Yes, there are some devices with extra features and such, but mine are just different versions of the Alexa speaker, so their appearance is the only real difference from what I can tell.

 

*~*

 

The extra Alexa isn’t the only new device I have though.

 

I’ve known for ages they were working on Braille displays (Braille e readers, which can also connect to other devices to work as ways to read what’s on your screen in Braille) but only learned a few months ago via conversations on the ACB (American Council of the Blind) calls that some places were offering them free to visually impaired people via their libraries.

 

Initially I thought it wasn’t being done over here, but then I learned more recently that it was, but only for a limited time during the second half of last year, and - since I knew nothing about it - I’d missed the window to sign up.  They were now offering financial assistance to get them, but you had to get hold of certain documents I’d struggle to get hold of, so I couldn’t qualify for it in my current circumstances.  And, with the ones I’d seen listed on the RNIB (Royal National Institute for the Blind)’s website being in the four figure sums as regards prices, I figured I wasn’t getting one any time soon.

 

I reached out to a few places, both over here and in the US, in a desperate attempt to get my hands on one, but still kept hitting the same hurdles: I either didn’t qualify, or the price tag was too high.

 

Then, on Monday, I was ordering a Braille book from the RNIB (which I’ll tell you about in a minute) and when the sales clerk asked if she could help me with anything else, I jokingly said she could give me a free Braille display if she wanted.  She said she couldn’t, but would put me through to the grants team to see if they could help me, or direct me to someone who could.  I didn’t hold out much hope, since I’d looked in to that already, but I figured it didn’t hurt to talk to them, so I let her do it.  I mean, maybe I’d missed something on their website, right?

 

The conversation with the grants team went pretty much how I expected, with the exception of one thing: a comment by the guy who was telling me about it where he mentioned the grant was for a much lower sum than I’d seen their Braille displays listed for, and – when I questioned that – informed me that one of them - the Orbit 20 - was, in fact, a price that was just about in my price range (though only just).

 

Naturally, the first thing I did when I got off the phone with him was to look for it on their website to verify this.

 

It was true.

 

Why I hadn’t found it when I was looking for the other Braille displays, I have no idea.  But there it was.

 

So, I told Kelly about it.  He told me to get myself one, which I did.

 

I ordered it on Monday.  Even though it was being couriered, I hadn’t expected to get it until today – maybe even next week.  But, nope.  I got it Tuesday.  And I’m loving it!

 

As an added bonus: the RNIB sends them with a bunch of books already loaded on to their SD cards, and among them were some amazing books, including the entire seven book set of the Harry Potter books! Yeah… Guess what the first thing I’m reading with my Orbit 20 braille display is? Because, you know, I haven’t read those books enough times yet. LOL!

 

And I have a piece of software called     BrailleBlaster (click on its name to go to the website it comes from) which is officially designed to enable students to convert textbooks to Braille for their devices.  But there’s no rule that says you have to be using it for that, and it will convert any document (assuming it’s in one of the supported file formats to start with) so I can use it when I get given digital copies of books to review to have the choice of whether I want to read it on my computer, Kindle, or Orbit.

 

*~*

As for the Braille book I mentioned ordering… Well, that’s not actually here yet, since it’s coming with regular articles for the blind post, and that can take quite a while sometimes.  But I’ll tell you what I ordered anyhow.

 

So, among the things I inherited from my Nan when I got her craft supplies was her set of tatting shuttles.

 

Nan started teaching me how to do tatting when I was in my late teens, but I accidentally left the stuff at their house when I left to go to Canada and forgot about it.  By the time I had another chance, I’d forgotten what she showed me, and never got around to having her try again to teach me how to do it.

 

I know Nan would willingly try again to teach me if she was still here to do it, but – since she isn’t – and I want to try and make use of those tatting shuttles ,I ordered a Braille book on learning tatting, in hopes I can figure out how to do it by myself.  Wish me luck.  LOL!

 

 *~*

 

OK.  Well, that's the news from my part of the world.  So, tell me, what's new with you?

#Snow + A Happy #Westie Wiggle Dance + #Grogu+ A #Teapot + #Selfcare + Inheriting #Crafting Supplies

Look what we woke up to Sunday morning:

 

 

The dogs and I had to go out and play in it, of course...

Apparently my dogs love the snow as much as I do.  This is their first time seeing this much snow at once, and they were thrilled.  They were also as reluctant as me to stay indoors, and as eager as me to keep going out to play in it, which - since they were enthusiastic about the idea, and it gave me an excuse to do so - we did on and off most of the day.

To my delight - since yes, I was delighted, even after a day playing in it - it snowed more in the afternoon, after a bit of the earlier stuff had melted, and we'd trampled a lot of it.  So, since we caught it snowing this time (we'd been asleep when the earlier snow fell, so it was a nice surprise for me to wake up to) we got a bit of a video of the snow falling:

 

 

 Later that same day it snowed some more...

So, of course, I took the dogs out to play in it yet again...

(OK, so I took them so I could go out there again myself, but whatever... They still got to go outside again, which they were happy about).

I know this isn't much to some of you, and it will likely all be gone before this goes live, but... We got around five inches in total in our area that day, with a lot of it (what hadn’t melted or frozen overnight) still on the ground the next day, which is a big snowfall here in Wales.  It's rare to get more than an inch or so in one snowfall.  It's been a great Winter for snow this year, and Winter's not even over yet!

~

I’ve been mentioning Lilie’s happy wiggle dance since she was a tiny puppy, and trying to get a video of it for almost as long.  But, no matter how hard we tried, we just couldn’t get it on video, even though it’s her regular form of greeting.  Now though, with her almost four years old, I can finally show you it, since my Mam got a video for me when I took the dogs outside to greet her when she came to drop off a couple of things she’d picked up for me from Tescos that we didn’t get in our food box, and couldn’t get at the corner shop.  So, though I’m afraid you’ll have to put up with an excited Logan getting in the way from time to time (he was pleased to see Nana too) here, at long last, is a clip of Lilie doing her happy wiggle dance:

 

 

As you can see, my dogs love visitors – especially Lilie.  Even Logan is learning to be enthusiastic about people other than me and Kelly.  Just wait until we stop being in lockdown so Mam and Dad’s visits don’t have to be restricted to them only seeing us briefly for essential errands*.  Lilie’s going to be over-the-moon.  LOL!

 

*We could technically have one of them visit more.  However, to do that we’d have to prevent the other coming, and since both of them are doing different things to help us, we all agreed it made more sense for us to just restrict visits from both to short ones just while essential errands/tasks are dealt with, and keep other contact to phone calls.

 

~

 

Though we still have plenty of things we actually need to get to sort things in the new house, when we learned that Build-A-Bear did a Grogu (Baby Yoda) plushy, I really wanted one, so Kelly told me to get myself one, and count it as paying myself back some of the money I should have been having presents from anyhow (in other words, the money I’d gotten for my birthday and Christmas, which I’d been prioritizing paying for moving and household costs out of, and not spending on myself like I was meant to).  So, I got a Grogu plushy, and here he is:

 

 

He has a sound chip in each of his little paws.  One plays the “Mandelorian” theme tune, and the other plays the various cute little baby sounds you hear him making throughout the show.  I could have had him with just one or the other, or with neither, but I decided to splurge for the whole package.  I mean, if I was paying out for the plushy – which was the bigger part of the cost – I might as well just pay an extra few £s for the sounds too, right?

 

~

 

 I also brought myself a teapot.  It’s a little ceramic one that’s perfect for just a couple of cups of tea, so ideal for when it’s only me having some tea, which is the case more often than not even without lockdown making visitors few and far between.  Anyway, here’s my new teapot:

 

 

Though I’m told it’s not easy to tell from the photo, it’s actually purple.  Well, when I saw they had them in purple, I had to, didn’t I? I mean, purple has always been my favourite colour.

 

I had a teapot before – that one was purple too – which was bigger.  But it was a bit big for me to be using on my own, and I gave it to someone a few years back.  I’ve wanted to get a new one ever since, but wanted just a little one this time.  Well, now I have one, and even managed to make it a purple one again.

 

~

 

In the interests of practicing better self care, adding proper “me time” to my routine is something I’m working on making a priority this year.  I even have a plan.  In fact, I’ve got a list of some things I want to do every day, and a list for stuff I’d like to do at least once a week, which I’m setting days for. My plan is to do the daily things for at least a few minutes every day, and each of the weekly things for at least an hour each per week.

 

Every day I want to:

•         Enjoy a quiet cup of tea while listening to some music

•         Meditate

•         Read

•         Write

 

My weekly self care activities list though is:

•         Have a bubble bath (scented candles optional)

•         Have a movie/TV show night where I just curl up somewhere and watch a DVD or something on a streaming service

•         Work on crafts (I even re-activated a craft box subscription service I used to get to encourage this... You may remember me mentioning the Makerly Crafts subscription box in the past?)

 

My tentative plan for the weekly thing is a bubble bath on Friday night, a Saturday movie night, and a Sunday afternoon crafting session.  That way I get the whole weekend to recharge.

 

~

 

I won’t be doing a review of this every month, but I figured I’d do a check-in this time, since I’m only now getting around to telling you about my plan.  So, how did the first month – well, about four weeks - of doing this go?

 

I’ve been managing to sit and relax while listening to music for at least a few minutes each day, even if sometimes it’s with a cold drink rather than a cup of tea.  The point is the quiet time just relaxing while listening to the music though, so I’m not complaining.  I've listened to a variety of music, including panpipes, country, 80s, 90s, and classical.  I tend to do this in the morning, when the dogs aren't quite ready to start racing around and cause chaos, Artemis hasn't yet crawled out of her bed, and Mollie is sleepily waiting to see what I'll be offering her for breakfast before she goes for her daytime sleep.  It's a nice relaxing way to start my day.

 

I’ve also generally managed to get at least a small amount of reading time in each day, even if some days it’s only been maybe 20 minutes or so.  And I managed to read five books in January, even with two of them being long-ish books, and mostly doing shorter reading sessions.

 

I’ve had less success with the meditation and writing.  I’ve done some writing since the start of the year, but not as much as I’d hoped, and definitely not every day.  We won’t talk about the meditation part.  Yes, I did that badly with it.  With the writing it was a conscious choice, since I chose to use my writing time to work on unpacking boxes, but the meditation thing just didn’t end up happening... I'll make it a habit again eventually.

 

Also, despite having resubscribed to the Makerly Crafts box again, and gotten my first kit since doing so (January’s kit was a Valentine's themed cardmaking kit, if you're wondering) I’ve not done anything worth mentioning in the way of crafting yet either, since that’s another time slot I gave up to unpacking boxes.  In this case it was essential I did so though, since I needed to unpack and organize the craft supplies I owned, as well as ones I inherited from my Nan (the one who died last August) – which my Dad has slowly been dropping off here for me whenever he’s been here to do an essential errand – as well as make a space to work, before any crafting could actually happen.

 

Plus, my relaxing bath nights have been a bit hit and miss, and the couple of baths I have had didn’t include scented candles, even if they were still relaxing.  Baths are on my self care list because I mostly just have a shower, but a nice relaxing bath is something I enjoy having sometimes.  However, it’s a bit more special if I don’t have one all the time anyhow, so I don’t mind if this one doesn’t happen every week.  I mean, I kind of would like it to happen every week, since it would be a nice way to kick off my weekend.  But I’d still call this one a success even if I only did it once a month.

 

I’ve had better luck with TV show/movie nights.  I watched more episodes of “The Simpsons” as well as a couple of movies.  The movies were the live action version of “Mulan” as well as “Soul” – both movies were on Disney+.  “Mulan” was really good – very different to the animated version I’m familiar with, but still good, even if I did enjoy the animated one more.  “Soul” was fantastic though... An absolutely wonderful movie with a lovely message.  I’d give “Mulan” four out of five stars, and “Soul” five out of five stars.

 

All in all, I don’t think the first month went too badly, especially since I was making unpacking and organizing stuff the main priority intentionally, and we actually have most of that done now, with mainly just stuff we need to buy extra shelves or other storage solutions for still in boxes at this point.  Although, more organization will need to happen with the craft supplies, especially with Dad still slowly dropping off more.  But at least I can now make use of the craft room and supplies when I want to, as well as claim back my writing time.

 

~

 

And there are so many supplies!

 

Nan was a big crafter, who dabbled in a lot of different crafts, and kept anything potentially useful for future craft projects, and I'm inheriting the lot, some of the tools for which she's had longer than I've been alive.  Dad’s dropped off a load, and there’s still loads at his place yet to come over here (since he has to do it in bits, since he can only drop stuff off when he’s coming this way for other reasons, because of needing to restrict his visits due to lockdown, plus there really is a LOT of stuff).

 

There are supplies for crafts I do a lot already, like sewing.  Supplies for crafts I’ve tried in the past and want to do more of, like quilling.  Supplies for crafts I haven’t done since I lost my sight, but would kind of like to try again to see if I can do them – despite my initial reaction on thinking about it being that it would be impossible – like cross stitching.  Supplies for things I’d like to get back in to that I haven’t done much of for a while, like cardmaking.  Supplies for things I’ve never learned to do, but wouldn’t mind learning, like crochet.  And supplies for things Nan was going to teach me, but we never got around to more than a first lesson I don’t remember very well, like tatting.  Let's just say my craft room will be very well stocked by the time it all makes it over here. Oh, I’m going to have so much crafty fun!

I just have to decide what to play with first...