Busy Busy Busy

Well life is very hectic at the moment!! I am getting my kids ready for going on holiday with their dad and also planning my own trip to India :) Quite a lot to manage for most people but a wee bit harder for me. I also was in hospital at the start of the week which hasn't helped either. But am feeling better now and just trying to get things ready as best I can

My trip plans are coming along fine. I am booking tours to see both the Taj Mahal and The Golden Temple which am really looking forward to. I cant wait to enjoy the food also. A week today I will be a day into my trip :):) I cant wait

Anyways am not sure if I will have much time to write anything before I go but I am sure I will have plenty to tell you when I come back. See you later xx

My new bath lift

I got a bath lift fitted today :) This is going to make a huge difference to my life. Up till now my 17 year old son was lifting me in and out the bath which you can understand was not ideal. Back in March I also got a stair lift fitted which opened my life up so much cos instead of being stuck upstairs for days on end I could go down and make a coffee anytime I wanted lol. The bath lift was given to me by the Occupational Therapy dept at the local council but I had to buy the stair lift myself. I took a major fall, from the top stair, which resulted in hospitalisation and my kids were scared to go to school and leave me alone so the stair lift was a must. Best £250 I ever spent. So I really feel I have my Independence back and it feels good. I am really lucky where I live with the services that are available. I have a community alarm which allows me to press a buzzer and get help if I fall. I have the bath lift, raised toilet seat with handles, a special stool for using in the kitchen and a few other bits and pieces. I count myself lucky that I live in a country where the council's supply that kind of thing :)

Dreaming of running

I had a dream last night that I was running. I could feel the shocks going through my legs as my feet hit the pavement and the exhilaration of it all. The wind was in my hair, my breathing was deep and heavy and most of all the freedom of it all was out of this world. It felt amazing. This maybe sounds like nothing to you but after my spinal injury I struggle to walk and will never run, dance, skip or excercise again. It's the summer here and the nights are lovely and I would give half the world to be able to go for a walk. I used to go out and take the kids for a walk round our local resevoir and feed the ducks and swans. I am putting a lot of consideration into getting a wheel chair but it's a double edged sword. On one hand it would give me the freedom to go for walks (as long as someone is there to push me) but on the other hand it feels like I am giving up. I went for a medical recently and found out that what happened to me only happens to 5 or 6 people a year in this country and mostly to men. I think that makes me pretty unusual. The name for what I have is Cauda Equina Synrome which is a pretty unheard of condition but it is something that everyone suffering from sciatica should be made aware of. As the disks start to prolapse they crush the nerves of the spinal cord. The red flag signs are difficulty peeing, numbness of the legs, bottom and genital area. If it's treated quickly then there is a 95% recovery rate but in my case the hospital screwed up and I was left untreated for 2 days so I have no chance of recovery. I have been left numb from my mid bottom down to my feet. I am unable to lift my toes on my right foot and need to wear a splint to stop me tripping over them. I no longer know I need to pee and have to pee by the clock lol and so many more invisible problems that are difficult to deal with. It's changed my life in so many ways and please if I can tell you one thing it's to make the most of every day cos you never know when something will change. I went from a healthy, happy woman to suddenly finding myself disabled for the rest of my life. That's a big change. So take it from me make the most of life and dont leave your running to your dreams

Meet Fudge

This is Fudge my friend's pet hamster we have been looking after all week while she was on holiday. I had gerbils and hamsters when I was young but I dont remember them being this much fun :). The kids have adored her and played with her for hours. It's only July but a hamster is already on my daughters Christmas list lol. The cages she is in is like an activity gym. Much better than the wire bar cages my gerbil and hamsters were in.

The Weekend

It's the weekend :) kids are away to their dad's overnight and while the cat's away the mice will play lol. I love just the freedom when they are away like that, although I do love my kids. So tonight will be a night with friends, a few drinks and a mega chill out. What better for the weekend?

I should update you on my daughter too. She doesn't need any surgery on her face for the moment. The Dr's are happy enough to let it heal on it's own for the moment and correct any damage later if it heals badly or her face looks asymmetrical. So that's great. We can all go ahead with our holiday plans. While the kids go away for a fortnight with their dad I'm off to India for a sight seeing trip. Plan on seeing the Golden Temple and the Taj Mahal hopefully and this little temple my friend has visited where miracles happen and you can make a wish for the future. I cant wait. I have applied for my visa and will book my flights next week.

Seperating audio from video

Ok i have done a wee bit looking around and I have found a fairly decent programme to seperate audio from video that ties up to the Youtube downloader I mentioned a few days back. As I was wanting this programme to convert video to audio for my son to put on his phone I have had to convert the file twice to achieve what I wanted. You might not need to do this if you only want to play the tracks on your PC/laptop

Click on the title of this blog to download a free programme called FormatFactory. I read a few reviews and this programme got the thumbs up as a good all round converter. If you want to check it out and a few other options here is the link to the review page I looked at Gizmo's Freeware. Once you have installed it open the programme and follow these instructions. Click on VIDEO on the left hand side and then select ALL TO AVI. Click ADD FILE to select the video from wherever you have it stored on your computer and click OPEN. Highlight your selected file on the next screen and click OPTION to select where you want the track to start and stop from. For a normal music track click 0.00 for START TIME and slide the bar along to the end of the track and click END TIME. It's a wee bit fiddly but you just need to be quick to start the track at 0.00. Now click OK. On the next screen click OK again. On the next screen highlight the track you want to convert and click START. I have found it takes just under a minute to convert a track. Now open OUTPUT FOLDER to view the track you just converted. The track is now converted to only audio but I found it wouldn't play in my son's phone so I had to convert it again to MP3. If you need to do this then first copy the track you converted to your desktop from the OUTPUT FOLDER and go back to the FormatFactory screen. This time click AUDIO and select ALL TO MP3. Again click ADD FILE and select the converted track from your desktop. This time click SELECT RANGE to set the start and stop times then click OK. On the next screen click OK again. Highlight the track you want to convert to MP3 and click START. Once done this track is now able to be put on phones or MP3 players.

It might sound a bit complicated but once you have done it a couple of times it takes only a few minutes to do the whole process. I got my 10 year old daughter to do it and she managed fine. Good luck!!

I Love My Geek

I saw this T-shirt and loved it. They have some great knickers too ;)

Maybe I need to set up a more adult blog to blog the knicker activity lol. Watch this space ;)

Easy Youtube Downloader

I'm gonna cheat slightly on this one cos I read about this on my friend's blog but having installed it on my own laptop and the 3 pc's for the kids and it's so good am also gonna share it with you.

About 4 years ago I used to spend a lot of time on Limewire but I got so sick fed up that almost every track contained a virus of some sort that I gave up. Nowadays I listen to music on Youtube if I dont have on disk or my laptop but it means keeping a web page open for Youtube. Now I can download the videos from Youtube without any software and then play them using VLC. It only works on Firefox and Google Chrome though not IE

It's this easy. Open your bookmark dropdown list and right click on it. Select New Bookmark. Call it whatever you want. I called mine Youtube Downloader and paste this URL in the location field

javascript:window.location.href="http://youtube.com/get_video?video_id=" + swfArgs['video_id']+ "&l=" + swfArgs['l'] + "&sk=" + swfArgs['sk'] + '&fmt_map' + swfArgs['fmt_map'] + '&t=' + swfArgs['t'];

then click add. Now open the Youtube video you want to watch, open your bookmarks and click on the link you just created. It should download the video and you can play it on VLC. I've noticed though it just calls the video ''Video'' so remember to press F2 and rename the video so you can find it at a later date.

Update: My son is now nagging me for a programme to seperate the sound from the video so he can put the music on his phone. Gonna do some research and hopefully find a good free programme to do this and I will get back to you when I have found something. If anyone know's one feel free to tell me :)