Friday Five!

Ohhh... maybe you should stop the sudafed.  If you dry it out too much, that hurts, too.  Try the sleep aid antihistamine instead (Benadryl's active ingredient: diphenhydramine).  It reduces the production of mucus without drying you out.  But it will make you sleepy.

Yeah, I’d stop the Sudafed - if you take decongestants for more than 5 days in a row, you can get rebound congestion which then makes the cold worse and it takes longer to clear it. I made that mistake back in May and what would have been about a week-long cold ended lasting almost 3 weeks.


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Good luck Albatross! Liquid diets are awful when there are so many tasty things around you. I am unwillingly on one again, but at least it does include blended foods.

I hope your showing goes well KoD and the repairs to husband's car are covered by the tradesman's insurance in full with no hassle!

And I hope you feel better soon KFDancer. Colds are the worst I brought mucinex from the states cuz it's the only thing that helps mine, me and sudafed don't get along. I don't know if there's anything comparable with guaifenesin here.

1. How is it Friday again already? Time is flying. It's one year since my visa was approved, this time last year I was booking my flight to pick up my BRP!

2. I had to put forbearance requests in for all of my student loans while I job hunt. I feel so unemployable now. I've never had a person take my disability and throw it in my face like that company did. I'm scared I'll not be able to find a job at all now, as every recruiter I've talked to is only hiring roles with travel and on site client work w/ multiple clients at a time.

3. The coursera class I'm taking has been testing my brain power, so I'm glad to have signed up for it. It's been so long since I did any math beyond basic arithmetic and boolean logic. I've struggled a bit, but things are steadily making more sense. I'm the type of person who can't learn math for the sake of it, I have to apply it, so it sometimes takes me a bit longer to master things but once I do it's just there. When I was younger I was at risk of failing the trigonometry 9th or 10th grade math class. I put in a lot of extra work, and then ended up getting a 100 on the state test at the end of year when the average score was in the 70's.

4. My husband lost his wedding ring in London earlier this year, so we went and built a custom ring for him w/ one of the jewellers in town. It's much nicer than the original, and a full 2 sizes smaller, so hopefully it won't fall off! We can pick it up tomorrow so I'm excited to see it!

5. BBQ for a local expat on Sunday. I'm really looking forward to being social, and they only live a 15min walk away!

Thanks guys.  My op is not until 2/10.
Liquid diet until then -- no alcohol!!-- blended soups ok, as long as everything is as close to fat-free as poss.

Thanks guys.  My op is not until 2/10.
Liquid diet until then -- no alcohol!!-- blended soups ok, as long as everything is as close to fat-free as poss.

You've got this...  just stay away from the Food board. 

Thanks guys.  My op is not until 2/10.
Liquid diet until then -- no alcohol!!-- blended soups ok, as long as everything is as close to fat-free as poss.

Geez... will you really need the op after that?  Maybe that's their strategy.  The op does't actually do anything; they just starve you for a few weeks, then put you under, give you some stitches, wake you up and say "All done!"

Geez... will you really need the op after that?  Maybe that's their strategy.  The op does't actually do anything; they just starve you for a few weeks, then put you under, give you some stitches, wake you up and say "All done!"

It's pretty much to decrease your weight but more importantly to decrease the size of your liver. 

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to decrease the size of your liver. 

spot on, Tami.
Cos the liver is in the road of the other bits they need to access, they need it to be as small as poss.

Glad to hear your husband's new wedding band is almost ready Margo!

My Friday Five:

1. Only 11 days until I fly back to the UK

2. I’ve said it was cold here, but this week is extra cold... current temperature at 9am = 0 Celsius, with snow showers on and off all week (we have southerly winds which means all the air is coming straight up from Antarctica).

3. Haven’t been sleeping that well the last week or two. Two Fridays ago I didn’t sleep at all between my night shifts, only getting 4 hours of sleep between Thursday morning and Saturday morning, and I worked 27 hours in that time. I’ve spent the last week or so catching up, but I’m still really tired.

4. On top of the lack of sleep and the snow, I’ve also had to deal with arrogant pilots who think they know how to my job better than me . One of them even asked if we’d heard there was going to be snow that day, then proceeded to show us the app that told him that. Uh, yes, I have heard it’s going to snow, because I’m the one who wrote the forecast you’re looking at on your app!

5. And finally something not related to work or the weather: Kristen Bell just announced yesterday that Hulu are producing an 8-episode miniseries revival of Veronica Mars... not a remake but an actual revival with the original cast .


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My Friday Five:

1. Only 11 days until I fly back to the UK

2. I’ve said it was cold here, but this week is extra cold... current temperature at 9am = 0 Celsius, with snow showers on and off all week (we have southerly winds which means all the air is coming straight up from Antarctica).

3. Haven’t been sleeping that well the last week or two. Two Fridays ago I didn’t sleep at all between my night shifts, only getting 4 hours of sleep between Thursday morning and Saturday morning, and I worked 27 hours in that time. I’ve spent the last week or so catching up, but I’m still really tired.

4. On top of the lack of sleep and the snow, I’ve also had to deal with arrogant pilots who think they know how to my job better than me . One of them even asked if we’d heard there was going to be snow that day, then proceeded to show us the app that told him that. Uh, yes, I have heard it’s going to snow, because I’m the one who wrote the forecast you’re looking at on your app!

5. And finally something not related to work or the weather: Kristen Bell just announced yesterday that Hulu are producing an 8-episode miniseries revival of Veronica Mars... not a remake but an actual revival with the original cast .


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You seriously have the coolest job ever.

4. On top of the lack of sleep and the snow, I’ve also had to deal with arrogant pilots who think they know how to my job better than me . One of them even asked if we’d heard there was going to be snow that day, then proceeded to show us the app that told him that. Uh, yes, I have heard it’s going to snow, because I’m the one who wrote the forecast you’re looking at on your app!

Tell me you told him that!!!!!  Ugh, I don't like arrogance.

Tell me you told him that!!!!!  Ugh, I don't like arrogance.

I would have, but I’d just finished a 13.5-hour night shift, and I was struggling to keep my eyes open and wasn’t thinking straight.... so I didn’t trust what I might say!

I was also annoyed with him already because he’d called me 4 times on Monday, trying to tell me how to do my job and implying I wasn’t doing it properly. He basically said he wanted me staring at the sky for every single minute that his planes were in the air and to inform him of every little change... never mind that I have a ton of work to do (writing products, drawing surface charts, radio broadcasts etc.), plus he is only one of dozens of customers, and also, it’s not actually my job to monitor the sky, because that’s my colleague’s job - there are two of us in the office: one monitors the weather outside the window 24/7, and one writes the forecast and updates/amends it as necessary... and my job is the latter.


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I would have, but I’d just finished a 13.5-hour night shift, and I was struggling to keep my eyes open and wasn’t thinking straight.... so I didn’t trust what I might say!

I was also annoyed with him already because he’d called me 4 times on Monday, trying to tell me how to do my job and implying I wasn’t doing it properly. He basically said he wanted me staring at the sky for every single minute that his planes were in the air and to inform him of every little change... never mind that I have a ton of work to do (writing products, drawing surface charts, radio broadcasts etc.), plus he is only one of dozens of customers, and also, it’s not actually my job to monitor the sky, because that’s my colleague’s job - there are two of us in the office: one monitors the weather outside the window 24/7, and one writes the forecast and updates/amends it as necessary... and my job is the latter.

I would've just said "that's not my job" and referred him to your colleague.

Thanks, KoD and  Jf.

The application should have gone in a year ago. Everything that could have gone wrong to block it did so, including the flaking of one of the references who said they'd re-sign the "new version" of the form that came in just as we were about to send the last version in. (Had to find another reference at the last minute. We kept waiting for them to sign, and it was delay after delay. And so we ran out of time and got someone else to sign. Any longer and we'd have to do everything all over for a FOURTH time. The freaking JP in Paisley knows us on sight.) But it's in now. One of the prime character references is very ill and may not be around long enough to vouch for her. The Daughter doesn't have the necessary residence time in the RoI, although there's a back-door in that the Minister of Justice has the authority to waive the requirement. If he wants to. The damned bank draft from Ulster Bank via RBS says it's payable to "Secretary General of th" instead of "Secretary General, Department of Justice and Equality."  (sigh)

We put in a notarized copy of her UK EU residence card, the most recent council tax bill that shows her living with me, a letter from her University, a letter from me explaining that because her father disappeared when she was a baby custody law wouldn't let me do diddly to get her citizenship (we had joint legal custody), and that I had a job lined up in Donegal but couldn't get a passport for the same reason for her or take her out of the country without his signing a document authorizing it. The RoI law regarding citizenship by descent changed 9 days prior to her birth. If she had been born 9 days earlier, we could have applied for citizenship by descent for her. Etc., etc., etc.

It's going to depend on the screener. If they are feeling generous, and if the file makes it past the "instant reject" stage, there's a chance. If not, we did everything we could. The only other option would be to move there now, and for her to not be able to work or go to school for three years, while living with me.  If she was 20 that might be an option, but at her age that's like asking her to sit out of the work force for 10 years. Plus, she needs to finish her education.  So we'll see. We'll be  burning the "good juju" candle every night until we hear something.

You seriously have the coolest job ever.

She does, doesn't she!  I am SO envious.