A Case of the Mondays on 29 Apr 2013

Posted on April 29, 2013 by Suzanne Schultz Pick

It’s so nice today, so I’m eager to get our plans underway.

  • Monday (today) I had a dentist’s appointment. Everything is a-okay, and I just needed my front bottom teeth cleaned up a bit (I blame the Starbucks coffee.) I also have to update my bookblogarama. I also have Sims 3 to play, because that’s a huge necessity, of course.
  • Tuesday and Wednesday I’m free to take on any supply teaching jobs that may come my way. If not, on Tuesday I can go swimming finally for the first time this year, and Wednesday evening I have a chiropractor’s appointment.
  • Thursday is driving. Friday is hair appointment.
  • Saturday we’re probably going to look into getting a washer/dryer (I didn’t know such wonderful contraptions existed) and a bike for Steve.
  • Over the May Day holiday, we’re taking a trip to see Steve’s family. I love going on the train. I know it’s over-priced and a pain when you can’t sit down, but it’s just something that I really find interesting. Plus, I get to see sights. I could see sights with a car, you know, whenever I get one. Anyway, I’ll take pictures and video and post it here later on. Fun stuff.

So, Happy Monday to you all. Enjoy your next Monday off!

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Video games, books, and cars

Posted on April 25, 2013 by Suzanne Schultz Pick

Ah, it’s a nice, rainy day in England. I’m still wondering when a full attack of Spring will be upon us. I’ve been turning on the oscillating fan in the living room on at night, so I guess it’s getting a bit less like winter. Still chilly and windy so I need some sort of coat when I leave the house. After living in Florida for all those years, even if I wasn’t an outdoorsy beach person, it’s hard to live in a place that doesn’t have an inviting kind of day that makes you want to go outside.

Anyway, I’ve been playing The Sims 3 a lot lately. This has been my go-to obsessive game for years. When The Sims first came out, my poor PC couldn’t even handle it and I had to reboot it over and over. But the game was amazing fun, so it was worth it. There’s no skill involved in playing The Sims either; you just mess around in a little pretend world and screw up characters’ lives. Fun. Plus there are so many expansion packs, I’d work a couple of days just to buy them all. (No, I’m not kidding.)

Actually, I screwed up my back initially when I started playing The Sims again in March. I sat here at the computer desk for hours, leaning forward, then when I was on the coach watching The Hunger Games, I realized it was a bit sore. By the next week I was out for the count. Sims are fun, but not worth all that.

Also, I moved my book reviews and weekly reading memes to a new site: bookblogarama. I needed a fresh start because I see so many really well done book sites and I wanted one too. So I’ve started adding things to the Tumblr site too. Projects are nice to have, especially when they give you something to look forward to every day, and reasons to investigate things.

I went to City Library on Tuesday to investigate World Book Night. I wrote on my netbook in the cafe over my £2 Americano while I listened to the music in the atrium. I found no free book giving though (unless you could the books that you can borrow for free anyway.) I did check out Me Before You from the World Book Night display by the cafe so my mission was complete. I had to meet up with Steve so I didn’t stay for the Murder Mystery event they were having afterwards – that seemed fun.

And I’m still not test-ready because stopping on hills in a manual-shift car is just not an easy thing to do. So I keep practicing until I have this down pat, or I throw in the towel and opt for an automatic (which, in most cases, is considered a mobility vehicle in the UK.) But in order to keep my options open, I’m sticking to the stick shift and the steep banks. Incidentally, I found an article on USA Today called 10 cheapest cars: Why (almost) nobody buys them. that are supposedly they cheapest. They claim that, “the bottom-price model has a manual transmission. Few can or will drive a stick-shift nowadays.” Just the opposite goes for us in England. Also, USA Today sites issues with insurance that is different here too. Insurance is based on size of the car and its engine, so like a Fiat 500 is in the lowest price bracket.

But when I get my license, I’ll try plenty of them out. Now that both Steve and I have hurt our backs, I’m thinking a little car that sits low to the ground may not be the best choice. Sorry, Mini. Cute, fun, little Mini.

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A Case of the Mondays on 22 Apr 2013

Posted on April 22, 2013 by Suzanne Schultz Pick

I’m going to start a new label for my posts on Monday, just to keep myself focused on starting the week right. It’s so easy to slack off when you don’t have anything planned, or the written proof of that plan.

The following are my aims for this week:

  • Monday and Friday – driving lessons
  • Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday – available to do any supply teaching work that comes up. (The teaching agency told me they’d been quite busy, so chances are they’ll call me. Problem is they call in the morning when I have no clue what bus and where exactly I’m to be by 8:30. (Hence my need for the driving lessons.)
  • Wednesday night – I could go to one of the meetings through Northumbria University to look into EYPS training. Since I am not doing very well at full time teaching work as is, maybe having some training in England will help. However, Early Years includes nursery schools and changing nappies (diapers); something I’ve not done before when I was training to read, write, compare, catalogue, and shelve books all day.
  • Sometime during the week I’m going to have to go swimming, go to the gym, get some writing done at the cafe and such various other tasks that are standard for each week of my life.
  • I will end up playing Sims 3 as usual too which I see as a stress relief mechanism rather than a time wasting activity.

Happy Monday!

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Taking care of a bad back

Posted on April 21, 2013 by Suzanne Schultz Pick

In the past month, Steve and I have both been suffering from back trouble. I threw mine out in March when I was working at a Primary School (trying to put things in very short cupboards and sitting in very short chairs is a good way to do that.) But last Thursday, Steve had a whopper of an attack.

Steve had stayed home the week before last with body aches, plus the back feeling as if it was going to flare up. He rested and then went back to work without much trouble (taking the taxi to work, taking it easy, etc.) Thursday afternoon came around, and I was scheduled to go to the chiropractor at lunchtime. Steve called me up and said he’d hosed his back up really badly and I was going to have to come and rescue him.

I dashed down the hill, got some money and a taxi and headed to his workplace. When we got there his co-worker was helping him just get out of the building, so I knew he was bad off. When we tried to get him into the taxi, Steve couldn’t even sit, so I made the executive decision to call the ambulance. I figured if the cops want me to call 999 if a drunken man is shouting at me in a bus station, then calling them to come and rescue someone who is totally immobile isn’t out of order. I knew he was going to have to see a doctor, and I knew how bad off he had been before when he threw his back out last Spring, so I made my first emergency call in England.

After the dispatcher asked Steve a bunch of questions, his ride arrived. Two nice gentlemen in green uniforms helped him into the ambulance and gave him laughing gas to “keep his mind off the pain.” Then we proceeded to take our first ever British ambulance ride through Newcastle. I even joked that Steve knew how to show a lady a good time and it wasn’t even the weekend.

We arrived at the hospital, and the paramedic told Steve to take a couple of good hits off the laughing gas pipe before trying to get back down the ambulance steps and into a wheelchair. After I got us checked in, we waited in the A&E waiting room for a good while. The paramedic told us that for bad backs, the hospital usually just gives you a bunch of pain killers, but in his condition it was just fine by us, if he wasn’t having to sit at home in agony.

We waited for a total of 3 hours, and I had to eventually get Steve up onto one of the hospital beds while we waited in one of the rooms for the doctor to come by. Since I’ve been going to the chiropractor, I know a handful of tricks that alleviate some of the pain – lying instead of sitting is one of them. When the doctor finally came in, he wanted to see how well Steve could move around, and even had him get out of that bed by himself, which was agony for me to see and not be able to help him.

The doctor was so nice though, and he told us that a chiropractor was fine if we wanted to go, but to always find one who was officially licensed because anyone can call themselves a chiropractor without any credentials (I should have looked into that career before I started taking out loans for my college education.) Anyway, the doctor was sympathetic and said that muscle relaxants work really well but they don’t like to give them out because kids in Bigg Market love to take those as a party drug. (Something I never understood – wouldn’t you just want to sleep instead of go clubbing?)

Once Steve was up, he couldn’t sit again, and the doctor said he was going to give him some painkillers and suggested he get himself moving again, even if he starts taking up biking to get himself moving. He was in horrible pain after getting out of that bed on his own, but a nurse finally showed up with a little cup full of pills that I had to help him take because without holding on to his back, it would spasm. His whole body was contorted as well from the muscle contractions, so I knew he was worse off than he’d ever been. But after he took his medicine, we took a walk past Newcastle University and back into town. 30 minutes later, Steve was ready to stop at Starbucks and Krispy Kreme before heading back home (standing up on the bus worked well.)

Since then we’ve been hanging out here at home. I went to my rescheduled chiropractor appointment (he had credentials, by the way) and did more of my preventative measures so I don’t get myself in a bad situation as well. (Two of us being immobilized is just not going to work.) Now that both of us have had bad backs, we’re going to take the necessary steps to prevent the same problems in the future. Here’s what we’ve learned so far:

  • Lying is better than sitting. Lie back on a couch when watching TV.
  • Use cold packs at 10 minute intervals.
  • Take ibuprofen and/or paracetamol with codeine (I can’t take codeine because it gives me terrible stomach aches.) Some doctors won’t give muscle relaxants but even if they give you one to take the initial edge off, it’s worth seeing a GP (or even the doctor in A&E as was in our case.)
  • Don’t lift, carry, or bend over. Leaning forward in a chair is probably what caused the problem in the first place.
  • Sit back in your chair. Use a pillow behind your back, and even use a foot rest if if helps when you’re at a desk.
  • Bend with your legs. Put your hands on your thighs when getting back up.
  • Moving helps the muscles. Swimming strengthens the back. Biking is good as well (get a Dutch style city bike first.)
  • Don’t be a hero. If you can’t move quick enough to grab something, or can’t get up, that’s fine. Crawl if you need to. Ask for help.
  • Don’t try to do anything too strenuous too soon. Slow and steady wins the race. You can easily hurt yourself all over again by getting in and out of the tub, or getting up too quickly out of a chair.
  • Do back exercises that stretch your gluteus. Lying down means the gravity is going through your belly-button, not down your spine like some yoga moves that have your twisting in a sitting position (I have a friend in Florida who injured herself that way.)
  • If you see a chiropractor, make sure they have credentials as some chiropractors are just there to take your money.
  • Beds get blamed for the problem, but mostly the stiffness in the morning is from being stationary for 8 hours.

I hope no one has to deal with what we have, but if you do, I hope some of these things we’ve learned can help you. In these kinds of situations, being ignorant like we were, is not bliss.

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My first UK car–which should I choose?

Posted on April 15, 2013 by Suzanne Schultz Pick

From my last post, I mentioned that I have driven in Florida since I was 16. Now that I’ve been carless for 2 years and 4 months, I’m almost ready to take on the British road system. This means I can’t just go grab a car that I like off the lot, I have to take a lot into consideration. Size, price, reliability, gas mileage, number of doors, insurance price, tax price, and whether or not I can actually drive the silly thing.

Steve and I have a theory about Vauxhall Corsas – driving instructors must choose the hardest car to drive, so that you can drive anything one you pass your test. I’m suspecting the car I first learned on was a diesel. You couldn’t do anything in second gear, heck you couldn’t even change the gears. (My first instructor had two of them, both made audible clunking sounds and I had to hold the gear stick just right, otherwise it would not go into 3rd for anything.) You also have to dance your feet all around, constantly just to keep the car still with the clutch control. Even the turn signals were rubbish and you had to constantly mess around with those to keep them on (one click full down to turn it on, one half click down to turn it off or something stupid like that.) The set up for the headlights were all over the dash too, not just on the windshield wiper and turn signal levers at the steering wheel like every other car. Even Jeremy Clarkson said, “Vauxhall has never made anything decent.” Now that I drive in a better car (with a better instructor) I’d never consider buying a Corsa.

I’m learning on a 2010 Honda Civic now. Before, I was convinced that I’d never be able to drive anything larger, different, ect. than the Corsa but man, was I wrong. Even on the first lesson, I could hold that car still at a traffic light way, way easier than the Vauxhall. There’s a lot of ease to the pedals, and the gears too that make this car a contender for me whenever we start looking to buy. Granted, I would get a used one because the new ones are pricey. The 2010s aren’t bad, but the 2006s are a bit ugly. Plus, the back of the car has that spoiler in the middle of the window, so it’s kind of hard to see out of the back of it. I like the big side mirrors though (unless they come dangerously close to parked cars.) It’s also a bit too big I think but I don’t want anything too small like all the other hatchbacks around here are.

I know he’s the most popular car in the UK, and they’re really reliable, practical, etc. but the Ford Focus does not evoke any kind of emotion other than, “Bleck,” with me. They’re everywhere, and reviews say they’re cheap to service and maintain (a big plus) as well as being able to get a decent one for under £6000 (a huge plus.) But my parents owned a Ford Taurus once that died in a horrible way right after they bought it used. I kind of don’t trust Fords now (terribly unAmerican, I know) but I may have to get one of these if I drive it and like it. I still say it looks masculine and is a bit too big. (And ugly, don’t forget ugly.)

I love these little Minis, it’s true. I mean, how can you not love a little face on a car like that? (Very girlie, I know.) I know they’re rated high and, heck, made for the type of driving I’ll be doing. For under £6000 I could get a decent one but I’d need to make sure it had air conditioning and low mileage and that may be a bit tricky. I’m thinking of just having my first car for a few years, so this isn’t a bad option (is it?) I mean, there’s only 2 doors and the hatchback. It sits close to the road so I’m not sure how safe it is (but heck, I’ve been in one that drove on 1-4 in Orlando and that’s insanity waiting to happen.) I just don’t know if I should go the practical route or enjoy my first little car that can zip around British streets (if I can, in fact, get it to zip up hills with my driving learning impairment.)

Of course, I’ve considered just going back to my roots with the tried and true Toyota. The Auris would be the modern version of my Corolla if they still made them in the UK. Sadly, Whatcar doesn’t rate them very high but Parkers gives them 4/5 stars. I can get a decent one for the same price as the ones above. I’ve not driven a manual Toyota here, but my past Toyotas ran without giving me any problems, so I may play it safe with this one. The Yaris looks like it may be a bit too small for us, but I could always try him out too.

I don’t know why I can’t fall in love with this Fiat Panda. He’s cute, the right size, and prices right with good reviews but I’m just not sure. We sat in one when we first looked at cars. It’s got a really neat set up inside too, but I’m way more about practicality than how the interior looks. There’s a lot of stuff going on inside, and the handbrake is an odd, boxy shaped thing. I’m not opposed to test driving one, but I’m still semi leery about buying a Fiat since I hear it’s been called a Fix It Again, Tony for so long.

I’ve researched used car sales, new car sales, Top Gear reviews and consumer reviews. I’ve looked at these top contenders up here as well as:

Nissan Note – is it too narrow in the cabin?

Hyundai i20 – drove a Hyundai in Florida during last vacation, but read that the gears are clunky on the manuals here, plus I’m not sure if this is too small either

Volkswagen Polo – price is the issue, especially price to maintain, and size compared to the Golf

Kia Soul – it is so stinking cute, but I think it’s too big for over here because it was taller than me, plus bad reviews.

So what so you think I should get? Are any of these a definite Yes or No?

Read part one of my car journey: History of My Automobiles’ Past

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