since today, i got two new house mates.. they are cute, small (( for now... they will grow ))  have shells, and a still a bit empty new home. its that last part that i can use tips for.  what are good things to  use to make a nice home for two small waterturtles?

for now, i got the basics.. but only the basics (( new home, food, island for them to sit on, a special lamp, and dried food an d vitamin stuff from the pet shop.)) internet is confusing, one site says this, another contradicts it.  so yeah, any good and  care for turtles tips, and sites i can trust are welcome.

p.s.,: will post piccies later.

I really hate it when this happens.. and since i live in the netherlands, i do get to see it more then i like. sometimes it happens while following a link on a site, or a link posted by someone somewhere.. in this case, i followed a link on a website.

Day 1: no photo's. I did two walls, the one next to the door, and the one behind the bed. I also managed to get paint in my hair, in my clothes, and on one of my feet.

Day 2: See below: did a second lair on the wall behind the bed, and the wall with the window in it. that left me with one wall, the one between door and window. also added more paint to my clothes. i was smart enough to put on the same ones as the day before.


Day 3: see below: I did the last wall, checked the others for spots that i might have missed. luckily, i had not. i also put my son's toys back, and put up the decoration's he likes tmnt and spider-man, but since there is no shop that sells tmnt stuff here, i went with spider-man.



i myself am quite happy with the result. not bad for the first time painting walls.

My son's room has been needing its walls painted for a long time.. and i finally decided to give it a try, since i never have done that before myself. seen others do it, but have not done it myself.

bought the paint and other necessary things last week, and started today. managed to do two walls, and will hopefully finish the painting in one or two days, depending on how it goes. while painting the wall, i managed to get some paint on me, too. not much, but still.. and i have no idea how i got paint in my hair.

more news as i continue this little project of mine. o, and anyone here interested in photo's  of said project?

Today is movie day! my son is camping with the daycare he goes too (( for four days! he left yesterday, will come back on Thursday. I hope he has fun!)) and my teen and i decided to go and see the new harry potter movie today.

Already reserved the tickets, so its all set! Best not forget the paper with the reservation number on it! i will need it to get said tickets. My teen is exited, and looking forward to the movie. Until yesterday, i only said we where going to see a movie, not which one. 

Have to go now, time to get my rear in gear. have some things to do before i can pick up those tickets. just wish that cinema was closer to my home. i got to go there by train, since its not in the center of the town i live in, but outside town.

*watches several on friendslist post to do lists, and generally be nervous about going to the comic con. * i am so going to but all off you for piccies!! have fun, everyone that is going.  and keep posting about it, i like to read all the entries about it. dont think i willever be able to go, unless i win a lottery or something like that, but stories and piccies make up for a lot!

also good news on the saffa frond: i am re-programming the site, moving pages around, reformatting some, etc. its getting along nicely, and hopefully will be done soon. maybe i will give a sneak peek or two here soon... if anyone is interested,that is.

i had a nice vacation, even if the water decided to be rainy all week. there was enough to do there to be entertained even withthe rain. piccies can be found here: Link  ((thart is my mom's photobucket. thje photos where taken by her, me and some others. mixed together in that album. ))

one of the things i did was take a tour in a local beer factory (not sure if i translated that correct)0 despite b me not being a beer drinker, it was fun to see how its made.my daugther almost lived in the indoor pool, and my son was  on the playground a lot. we also went away a few times, driving around, shopping (( bougth a new ds game there)) and  we most days would go out to eat. i did not cook that week, and neither did my mom.

the only shade was the thirt family. ((my step-brother and his wife and two kids..)) they had a figth half-way troug the vacation, and after that basically just did what they wanted.. and not asking me, my mom or my step-dad if we wanted to participate. after that day, did not ask them if they wanted to participate in what i did, either. what also bugged me is the way they raise their kids.. basically, if the youngesty son said he wated to do something, like bowling,  they would do it.. seriusly, that  9-year-old basically decided what they where going to do daily, and if he punished him for something.. she would  pull him towards her, and cuddle him, basically canceling any punishment. ((dad saiys: go and sit in your bedroom.. mumsays,  you dont have too, poor kid.. arg.))  in short, it made me glad i am a single mom....at least i dont have figths with my partner.

i  am worried about my step-dad, atm.. he came to the conclusion that he cant go on vacation with his sonś family.. and it hurts him a bit. he has 6 kids. only one visits him, this one. and to have to draw that conclusion cant be easy on him. he sleeps badly, and is so lost in thougth that he forgets things.  me and my mom are keeping a eye on him, at the momend.

my son is still going to the daycare, even now inthe vacation, and will go camping withthem next week. i want to look for a sleeping bag today, so i don't have to loan one.  he is going away for four days.  in those four days, teen and i want to go and see a movie.. we are not sure wich one, thoug, althoug she keeps repeating harry potter... i can easy guess wich movie she wants to see.

( Crochet piccies under here )


and now the rambling part:

easter was nice, spend the first day over at my momś place, together with other famly members, and went out with my parents and my kids on day two, to a local kinderboerdery ((sorry no idea what its called in english)) i made some photo's, from which i made a slideshow, which you can find here: Link

for the rest things are more and more falling into place.. my son changed schools, and seems to be settling in well, on his new school, and since last week, he finally got swimming lessons, too. my teen daughter is still being a teen, among things.. i will ramble about that in detail later.

Association Meme: Comment to this post and I will give you 5 subjects/things I associate you with. Then post this in your LJ and elaborate on the subjects given.

 

I got three sets of 5 subjects. I might get more, since I am seeing this meme more and more, but for now, I will post the 3 I already got. 
 

( Robina's 5 words ) ( Wanequelle's 5 words ) ( realitybreakgirl's 5 words )

since a bit over a week, i am using linux instead of windows, partly because theyre seems to be a bug in my vista that causes my computer to have at least one bsod.. every thursday.

i have tried to fix it, but nothing works. brought the computer to a computer shop a few weeks ago, and they could not find it ea iter, but they could tell me it was not a hardware error. memory, hard disk, etc.. everything is in working order.

last week, i had enough. i had gotten a linux disk with a computer magazine a few weeks back, and decided to give it a try. so, installed linux, and it worked, except the wireless network cart. a post on a dutch linux forum was ansered very fast, and the person answering posted a link to what solved that part too. so yues, all working perfectly fine now. and last thusday my computter did not do the chrashy thing, either.

so, for me, dropping windows and now using linux works. and i like using linux, found a html editor that has the options i need, can access my server easy.. and if i need windows for something i can always use the kids computers.. ((my son now has a computer too.. one that also serves as my backup. gift to him and me from my mom, who was no longer using her desktop computer after she bougth a laptop. ))

lets see.. what i have been up to as of late:

• forgetting a memo or two.. :will make up on that, promise!
• re-doing my website, to frames: been working on that for a while, finished last week, more or less. its now up. the only thing i need is to find some kind of graphic for above the menu.
• AFFA 2008 competition: we just closed the nominations, and now are working on getting the reading list ready, and the fics that need temporary hosting on the site. pages for that have been added, still need to add content on some.
• making art: working on a thing or two, and uploaded something to my deviantart a few days ago.
• real live..: we all know this one.. and that it can keep us busy a lot. may or may not post a journal about that later.. if i do, it will be friends-locked.
• fanfic: working on the resident evil/tmnt crossover, and finished a one shot.. wich, by the way, will be beta-ed, once my beta (reijiro) has time.. wich probably be after the affa. so fics are being written, in between.. posting ish on hold until there is time to beta and edit.

well, that is what i have been doing the past week or so, in a nutshell.

as for the memo's: here is one i got tagged with a while ago, by at least 3 people:

1. Post these rules.
2. Each tagged person must is asked to post 8 things about their self on their journal.
3. At the end, you have to may choose and tag 8 people. not doing the taggy thing.. if you have not done this yet, and want to, consider yourself tagged.
4. No tag-backs.
( 8 things under here.. )

well, seems  the re-intall i did yesterday did  solve the window not booting at all problem i had yesterday, but since that time, i got a few blue screens..

the first few went too fast for me to read, but after turning of that reboot on error thing from vista, i got a good look at the page, got the erroro code, and googled it, to find a solution.. and did not find one that was not confusing me at all. took bits  of solution of  a few pages, the ones i could do myself, that is, and for now, it seems to be running normal.. will  wait a few days before i declare the error gone, thoug..

and so i remember later what i did, i am listing it here.(( i also apologise to my flist, who have to read this... i just have to post it somewhere online, where i can acess it later, just in case.))

• re-install windows (yesterday, afternoon)
• remove the test trail stuff that comes with my install.. ((its one of those boot sector things, most laptops have these days.. and the manufacturer always adds stuff they think is useful to it...  so, yeah, de-install allcrap i dont need, that is not a part of windows. or needed to run the computer, like a short traIl from office,  and some of those play one hour and then pay games)) (also yesterday)
• by then,  the blue screens started. 1 time during dinner, three times while i was chatting with some people. got a photo of the last one.
• get all windows neccesary updates ( part yesterday, part today)
• clean out fan. (not much dust there, but its clean now)
• do checkdisk (found a few errors, do not rember how much, all were restored.)
• de-installed norton three months trail, intalled my security suite (gdata) , did scans for viruses and other nasties, nothing.
• did memory check ( build into vista  one )  all good, no errors.
• got another window update, installed. (not sure why this one came after the rest. )
• tested the system, by running browser, and mediaplayer. no errors. no bluescreens.
• did a last checkdisk. no errors found.

now i am hoping it really is gone,  and that the bad sectors  that where restored where the actual error, or that the updates took care of it.   so, hopefully, i indeed am error-free. for now, at least

weelll.. i  had planned on spending the afternoon relaxing, playing a computer game,  and  looking over two one-shots i finished earlier this week, to get them ready for beta-ing..

 instead i spend  most of the oafternoon and part of the evening  re-installing vista,  and getting my computer back working at this momend, it luckily is.

i backup regulairly, so not much was lost... but some things where... i lost two fics i had finished after tthe last backup, for one. and some coding for the website. fortunately, ican get the coding part again easily enough, just have to rember where i edited it.


the fics.. i still have what i wrote in my head... just have to get it out of my head again. after i re-install word, that is... and photoshop... and at least two other programs i use often. i just hope its my last crash in quite a while.

First the update part:  i updated the affa yesterday, and my site today. main changes are that one of the pages is no longer empty, ( )   i put the gallery in an iframe, and added a second page with iframe for the fanfic links page.  so, all is best viewed from my site, but the fanfic links page is also accessible on its own, if you prefer that.

over the course of the next few days, i will be adding the fanfic links i have, and the ones recced to me so far.  extra recommendations are still welcome, and i want to thank the people who aklready did rec stories for that page! i am also looking into a guestbook for my sites, but so far have not found one i like yet.

i also decided to make more use of my deviantart account. so, what will be where: fanart, wallpapers, etc will be posted on my site.  photo's, scrapbooking pages and manips i make using non-fan chars will be on deviantart. here on lj, i will show something of both.

the birthday and gift part: tomorrow,. jan 11, i will become 35 years.  i already got the first gifts:  6 months lj and 6 months of 100 userpictures from my mom, and  my daugther made something in school for me. will take a pic and post it later! probabbly after tomorrow.

been adding some avvies already,  can still use a few nice ones, thoug!

the clip/movie i made from yesterday's events. no sound, since i could not find a fitting song (suggestions are welcome). also the first time i made something with movie maker.

kinda goes with a previous upload, blend with my daughter.  and  it will be framed and on my wall after i print it, and then being placed next to the other one.


blend: Johan by ~engelina-cartoonfan on deviantART

As the title says, i now have a payed LJ account, at least for the next  2 months. By then its my birthday, and thus i can ask my family and friends to give me money, so i can buy a year or so more.  Or else the $5 every two months is do-able for me too.

As for where i got the money for two months: i had put some money on my paypal, a month or so ago, and still had it, so used it for this.

I have been playing around a bit already, and plan on adding a few  more user icons too.  Already managed to get myself a custom mood theme. Well, technically i googled it.

a blend /manip  i made using a tutorial as base.


blend: angelique by ~engelina-cartoonfan on deviantART

i am quite happy with the result, and plan on printing it, so i can frame it and  stick it on the wall, in my living room.

been a while since i posted, and have some things to tell.

we have a pet here, a red kitten called charlie. he is cute, although also all over the place when he wants to and he seems to like knocking over my glass chess set. good thing it does not break easy.  at this momend, he is sleeping, and thus being cute.

real live is kinda busy at the moment. got quite some things going on. good thing i got the Internet to try and find a story  to read, ot just check out a few forums i frequent when i want to just relax.

still playing dragcave. using a site called yarolds to raise my dragons, and it helps me to raise them well. dont need to post them anywhere e,se mostly, unless i pick up an abandoned with not much time. talking about abandoned ones.. this little split can use a click, if you have one to spare.




i still am writing fanfic and making manips.. just have not been happy enough with some of the stories i wrote lately, and barely had time to write while my kids had vacation. since a few weeks they are back to school, and now i can try and get back into writing, manipulation, etc.

so, yeah, am around, have been busy, still some things that will keep me busy. and how are all of you?