que la force soit avec toi

On Monday. I did some rearranging in the living room, so that now I have a table to work on. This is great in theory. In practice, however, it's not so great. The table is to the side of my chair, not in front of it (I get up quite a lot, so it would be inconvenient). There is not a lot of space for me to sit sideways on my chair, and it's badly upholstered, so the edge of the arms stick into my legs and back, and that is not fun.

I am going to have to rethink this.

I wouldn't have done it at all, I don't think, but that I was thinking about digital art, and how I don't use my tablet much any more (I've had it five years and barely touched it in the last four. In fact, the last time I really did any digital art was last summer!)

One solution is to get an exercise ball to sit on, so I can sit round the other side of the table. They are very cheap (there are ones available for under £10!), and apparently it's really good for you, because it helps stabilise your core muscles, among other things. This is good, because I have been wanting to work on my abdomnials, but I wasn't sure how to go about it (me and most types of exercise are unmixy things). So this could be a good thing! Also it will probably help the problems I have with my hips somewhat, which would be nice because, although they've not been so bad recently, it would be nice for them to not hurt much at all.

The other solution is rearranging the entire living room, and that's a no-no, even if I am feeling slightly more energetic right now.

I did a bit of digital art over the weekend and knackered my right wrist temporarily (I did three days' worth of sewing with no breaks a couple of months ago and made my wrist hurt A Lot. It's not been right since).

Anyway, so far I'm mad at myself because I can't figure out how to get the part where it doesn't look like trash. I'll get there, eventually. (I remember having this feeling with everything else, soooo, hopefully I will learn one day! *crosses fingers*)

~

Which. I'm actually going to go right ahead and say this, because it is somewhat related, but I thought it deserved its own section :)

I don't know how many of you know of Loish, who is an amazing artist (it doesn't matter if you don't). I was looking at her blog on Monday, and I read a post she'd written about when she injured her arm. A lot of artists (and crafters) get carpal tunnel because I don't know about you, but I'm really bad at taking breaks. So is Loish. Anyway, she didn't get carpal tunnel, she got tennis elbow, but the point is that she hurt her dominant arm so badly she couldn't use it.

She recommends using this program called Workrave, which forces you to take breaks from your computer. It makes you break every handful of minutes, and then every 45 minutes, you take a longer break. I've had it on since yesterday (because it works on Linux as well as Windows \o/ ), and it drives me mad but I appreciate it doing its thing.

For ages now I've needed something to make me take breaks on the computer, because I get too absorbed in what I'm doing, and end up feeling crappy because of it. I never thought about a program to nag me to GTFO the computer, but hey here we are.

~

Wordery has all three German versions of the Raven Cycle books (I assume The Raven King will be along eventually), and I think the German titles are much nicer (sorry, Maggie).

The Raven Boys is Wen der Rabe ruft, then we have Was die Spiegel wissen, and Wer der Lilie träumt.

One day I might have to spring for them all, but maybe not new copies. We'll see.