Dear Diary

A 3616-post collection

Big day ahead

I'm taking my little darlings off to Scenic Coominya for the first week of the holidays. Which is a big, long-arse drive for me.

With luck, I might get Beloved to drive, which will be a break.

But that's pretty much all I have planned for today. Y'know. Apart from the whole story thing that will be happening later.

If I'm really lucky, I'll get to clean and then listen to one of my rescue albums.

The kids are going to be good company for Mum-in-law. Hopefully Miss Chaos has a bit of tact about our recent loss. She's been... blunt... about familial death. On the other hand, she's easily distracted and may not be blunt during her holiday.

Fingers crossed.

Meanwhile, I've learned that Lindt has ceased funding the least charitable charity known to extant humankind - Autism doesn't Speaks. The organisation that calls my own slight social impairment a "burden" for the family, and sneakily endorses parents killing their autistic children as a form of mercy killing.

Autism Speaks doesn't raise money to help families with Autistes. It raises money to spread the word about Autism Speaks. And, until very recently, there were no Autistes anywhere on the board of directors. And it still holds up all its ableist bullshit.

So I'm very glad that my favourite chocolate makers are now no longer funding my least-favourite alleged "charity". It means I'm free to try that 90% cocoa dark chocolate that Lindt has in the local Coles. Huzzah.

I do have to attempt to clean the house before Chaos' birthday so we can host a party for her. Herculean effort. Unless I can somehow find someone willing to do the cleaning with me for cash.

You'd be shocked how hard that is.

Queensland! Beautiful one day...

...buggered up the butt by a cyclone, the next!

Doesn't quite fit the Australian Tourism Board's idea of advertising, but neither did The Scared Weird Little Guys' Come to Australia (You Might Accidentally Get Killed).

But this is definite proof that Earth is a Deathworld and Australia ups the overall rating.

As you might guess, we all weathered the storm. A bit of a blackout, but at least we all had hot food before the lights went out.

I did finally get

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A bit of wet

The drawback to not paying any attention to the mainstream media is missing out on news bulletins like Cyclone Debbie. The typical summer weather is a bit late, this year, with cyclone season commencing in autumn proper, instead of late summer. Blame climate change.

I'm located south enough that cyclone season just gets us wet, most of the time, and flooded pretty often enough to be annoying. I'd stock up on frozen veg, but it's a bit difficult to get the cheap

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I'm ba-ack

Just as mysteriously as it failed, the LAN server in our home woke from the dead its long slumber and returned to duty.

I celebrated by bingeing on Forensics Files and not arting.

I simply must make myself return to arting. Inertia does me no favours when I'm standing still. I can plausibly finish the second-level sketch of Hatchworth (he is so very hard to draw ;_;) whilst I'm waiting for a parcel to turn up.

Heck, I can even play that Chess

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The system is down

Our LAN server died of inexplicable causes. Some essential part of it just up and died without any warning. So now, I am doing all my work on my laptop, with my phone as a wifi hotspot.

You can easily guess that I'm not going to be around on the internet for much longer after I'm done with my work.

At least I have a good excuse to go back to the arting again. Once I've caught up on the stuff we've

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Welp...

I'm doing great at slacking off. For specific definitions of "slacking off". I've learned that there is such a thing as FLAC format, which is the high-definition digital whatsit that all true audiophiles should be saving their media in. I've learned that there are places that will sell you good storage solutions for your beloved vinyl. Including new dust covers in case your old ones got ruined by a certain audiophile store that doesn't give a shit about their cheaper vinyl.

There's

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Great start

I have plans. I have a time limit. And I'm spending some of that time watching David Bennett eat a sandwich(and make beautiful music) live on YouTube.

I just keep on winning.

On the plus side, Beloved and I did get to do some -ah- intense shopping. I got to see the place where my love got all the expensive sound gear and got a fuckton of equally expensive records.

I don't know if I like them as a vinyl shopping

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Slug time

There's another party to attend, tomorrow. And I did my usual thing of messing up my sleep cycle by conking out early. And then waking up early.

And then I spent an inordinate amount of time watching YouTube and playing Minecraft. Which I enjoy immensely. I haven't even taken any measurements beyond my weight, yet.

I won't be posting that nonse today. Not unless Beloved interrupts with a need to make me take them.

Which is not likely to be happening.

I'm

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Catching up

I've cleaned all my vinyl singles and it's looking like there was never a lot of dust in them to begin with. Doing the LP's is going to take longer, because I have to be more careful with them. I've given myself the goal of two per day, there.

I have read through the finished chapters of Rael so I don't have to plough through them en masse when the book is finally done.

I'm just not arting this week. Sorry.

I

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Moving on

I didn't get around to half the things I had to do, yesterday. Huge shock. I'm still a bit on the weary side, but I'm determined to wear down all the big projects. Nibble it to death like a mouse.

The problem is the three other people piling it up like a tip truck.

I just gotta keep going, though. Move forward and keep doing the things that matter.

The kids are doing well. They're organised enough to have play time in

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Can I skip today?

Monday wore me out. Tuesday, likewise. I am not built for extended travel. If I'm going long distances for extended periods of time, I need like 12 to 24 hours to recuperate after the travel, please.

Today, after two days of hither and yon, after going through the emotional wringer, after coming home after all that and still wringing a piece of coherent story out of my addled brain... I want nothing more than to retreat into a pillow-fort of solitude and

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Funeral, today.

I don't know when today's Instant will be published, but I'm doing my best to see that the flow of fiction remains largely uninterrupted.

I'm on support duty, today. Propping up those I love through their time of trial. And according to my brain, it means bringing along enough tissues. Which means all of the carry packs I have left, because I overcompensate.

Yes. I know. I'm mental. I can deal with that.

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Crowded Days Ahead

Chaos is seeing her shrink, today. We're all going to a funeral, tomorrow. I have no idea what Wednesday holds, but it's bound to include looking for more Beta-readers for Beauties, and possibly working on Chaos' very first book. I should have the time by then.

I need to figure out a way to make an iced coffee that I can tolerate, because there's no way I can drive as much as I'm driving, this week, without caffeine. One that will (a)

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New toys

Beloved bought me a vinyl turntable, yesterday. While I was out with Chaos and gently stewing in my own juices, Beloved was rearranging the front room to include surround sound, once more1. Beloved, who claims to be tone deaf, has turned into an audiophile overnight.

So now I own a record player that doesn't take twenty minutes to warm up2 and is compatible with most of the other technology in the house. Plus there's a chance I can bootleg save

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Social Obligations

Chaos is attending a party, today. This is a chance for me to network with other Parentals, and social interaction practice for a chronic introvert. No, not Chaos. Think again. Yep. Me.

Chaos is going to be fine. She'll just leap in while I'm still solving five-dimensional social conversation math. I'll wear my little SPG gear pin just in case there's a fellow Steampunk nerd there. I always have high hopes of making a new, nerdy friend.

And if someone asks... and

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