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Dear Diary

A 3797-post collection

URGH

You ever have one of those days where everything and everyone seems to be conspiring against you to make sure every last one of your plans fucks up? Even the very elements of nature seem to be against you.

That's been my entire week.

The beads I thought were fine - aren't. If I want to pump out earrings at any speed, I have to delay by making my own pins out of the aforementioned scary thin wire. Which means I have to delay even more by building my own rig to make pins a little bit quicker.

And Chaos has taken to playing with my shit whenever she eats in my work zone. A place I have told both my little darlings is a NO FOOD ZONE. She's turned one of my guide pieces into a pretzel and continously runs off with my beads reference.

I've read both darlings the riot act, and I sincerely hope it sticks, this time, but GOD DAMN...

And in-between all of this extra work I have to do, there's also de-lousing the entire family, because we've managed to find a species of head lice that defies usual methods of evicting the little bastards. I have a set of chemicals that are "one dose, once" for the whole family. Allegedly.

I also need to start manufacturing the cards for the finished product.

Lots of pre-work before I get down to the actual work. Fun times.

AND I still have to firkin edit KFZ before I can go trawling for agents. UGH.

So much to do... and so damn few spoons to do it with.

SNAFU^2

Turns out that a shockingly large number of my seed beads don't fit on a standard pin. This is something of a major flaw in beads, generally. If they don't fit onto the findings - what the fuck are you supposed to do?

It would cost me more to send them back, so my plan is - use what I can and get beads from a different mob when I run out of useful ones.

Also - find a profitable use for

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::inchoate groan::

There is not enough coffee in my house to help me deal with today. There may not be enough coffee in the shops to help me deal with today. The world... might have enough coffee to help me deal with today.

Why?

Because I firkin woke up at midnight and had spotty sleep thereafter. Which does not do a damn thing to assist in my feelings towards peace, love, or your average mung bean.

That on top of the trip there and

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No business today

Chaos is due to seek help in Maroochydore again. And it's one heck of a long-ass trip there and back. The sooner that the nearer clinic has help for her, the better.

The metallic sharpies have a nib width that's too wide for legible printing, so Beloved and I went on an emergency run to Officeworks by way of Spotlight for something a little narrower. So now we won a double brace of metallic gel pens that are, quite frankly, made of

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The struggle continues...

It takes longer to twist a piece of wire into being a pin than it does to measure the firkin thing. I have proof.

[Shown here: two rectangular takeout boxes, one with bits of cut wire in it, and the other with wires bent to serve as pins]

That's three hours' work. With extra swearing at the pliers I have because the spring is firkin dodgy. I have to press it back into place between pins or suffer the consequences.

The first

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Fears Allaid!

I was worried that the gold wire I have would be too weak to support the usual wear and tear on earrings. As it turns out, even though it's scary thin and scary flexible, it's also scary strong. It's not going to bend, warp or mutilate those beads off of itself in a hurry.

I am going to have to warn my customers that the strands may bend easily, and give them instructions on how to fix that if they're bothered.

Turning

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SNAFU

My plans have, once again, gang aft agley. The bronze pins are too thick for some of my seed beads, so unless I want to slow down and find the wide-bore ones, I'm going to have to make my own from the wire I have. Turns out the holes are too small for any kind of pin.

Good news: I don't have to go trawling for findings again.
Bad news: A majority of my time, today, is going to be spent on

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So close...

I really want to be able to start making earrings on Monday. I have a plausible workspace set up. I just need to sort all my beads, findings, and whatnot before tomorrow.

If I can put in a minimum of two hours' work a day on designs, then that means stock in abundance. I know that if I put in too many hours at jewellery, my body pays for it.

I'm in the last stretch of bead sorting. Which means that I've

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Beloved bought me Factorio!

So you know where the rest of my weekend is going. Lol.

But first, my usual nonse and a call to MeMum. Because family is important and all that.

And in the unlikely event that I get bored with Factorio (more likely to be waiting for my machines to accomplish a thing) I have beads to sort. Small beads. Which means that I finally busted out my Aldi's magnifying lamp. Huzzah.

Good stuff: No assembly required.

Bad stuff: I need the right

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Intense, repetative, and thankless

All efforts to translate Adapting into Markup by automated means have failed abominably. Which means that I am left with copy-pasting text and then editing in the italics.

And when I've had enough of doing that, I go to my unsorted beads and frelling sort some of those shits out.

The lovely spouted bowl MeMum found for me is not that great with small, faceted beads. Those little shits tend to clump, so pouring large volumes of them into wee baggies is

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Knuckle down, buckle down...

I'm doing my first edit on Adapting today. I might even convince myself to transfer the entire text into Markup, so that Beloved will have an easier time making it dance for me. The more work I do beforehand, the less time it takes for Beloved to have it ready for any beta readers.

I'm thinking of sending out a new appeal. I can rely on MeMum and a single Friendo, and if I am lucky and can get Beloved to get

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Beads, glorious beads!

I've got loads of the fuckers, and I'm planning to get some more. Turns out the local post office has a jewellery stand with some interesting pieces I could definitely use. Alas, I have to wait for next payday.

So if I am still going there to collect parcels, I might grab me some nice looking beads to fluff out my already huge collection of interesting shiny things.

MeMum managed to secure a good two kilos or so from her own sources.

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::Zombie Chewbacca noises::

Woke up at roughly 1:30 AM. Spotty, intermittent sleep until 5AM when my braid decided that, yes, going into slumber was a great idea.

And then, half an hour later, Rabbit started saying 'good morning' to everyone. 5:30 Am, after a rough night like that one, is the time that I least appreciate Steam Powered Giraffe. But I get over it quickly enough.

My gaseous plans to fetch batteries or shop around for cabochons on the cheap are currently shelved.

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Miss Chaos is 11 today!

Eleven years ago, my life was made infinitely more interesting by the arrival of a slightly strange little girl.

Yesterday, she got as much purple and sparkle as we could mutually supply. Sometimes in the same thing.

And she also got to run around like a mad thing at Calamvale district park for a majority of the day. Good news - I can do moderately stable braid crowns by doing additive braids all the way around and then weaving the ends through

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Party time!

I've done my math on the matter and I reckon we should take off for our party at the park long about 9. That gives us enough time to get there, fetch MeMum, and do any other setting up before everyone else gets there.

It's just immediate family. We had no time to invite friends. And it's probably for the best because Chaos gets overstimulated just thinking about parties. Having a host of folks, food, and presents there might make her vibrate

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