Becca Jane St Clair

One of my closest friends, Miss M has a problem. A really, big problem.

She needs to have a hysterectomy at the age of 34 to remove her uterus and possibly an ovary. From her blog:

I have two fibroids in my uterus the size of baseballs (exact quote from doctor) and two cysts as large too. They are apparently at the point where you can feel them through the skin and they’re so big it’s causing blinding pain and need to be removed. Most likely on Wednesday I will have laproscopic surgery to remove my uterus.

In a later post, M explains that her uterus is the same size of a woman who is four months pregnant, only she’s well, not pregnant.

Here’s the bad news….

Finally had the doctor’s office call me back. She’s saying I can’t do the surgery tomorrow because they need to see me pre-op. No shit, that’s why I’ve been calling since I was discharged Monday. She says the office visit for the pre-op is $140. Fine, no problem. But then she says they need $2,000 UP FRONT for the surgery.

You see, M is like many other women in the US who do not have health insurance. She works part-time and does not get insurance from her company. Now, I could get up on my soap box and start talking to you about how horrible it is that the US doesn’t have universal healthcare — and it IS horrible. But that’s not going to help M out.

M designs beautiful jewellery over at Phoenix Fire Designs. Even though I myself make jewellery, I have many pieces made by M, including a tree of life, and most recently I purchased a custom bracelet for my mom for Mother’s day, and a bird’s nest necklace for my Mother-in-Law. Currently, I keep eyeing a bracelet and earring set on her site, too.

If you’re wary of purchasing items off a regular website, M also runs an Etsy shop. You might want to check with her before ordering a custom piece, as I’m not sure what she is doing right now as she waits to have her surgery.

You can also, if you so choose, make a donation directly to M via her paypal account. There is a donation link embedded in her most recent blog post.

Thanks for reading.

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Okay, I know about Kayak, but Kayak isn’t giving us anything reasonable….My mom wanted to come out this Summer, but late August is already up above US$1000 for PHL -> LHR. Then, she looked for September/October, and it’s still over US$800. I just checked December, and the cheapest I can find is US$850. Last December we found a flight for I think it was US$700something, and that was with US Air.

*sigh*

I’ve even checked BWI and IAD for departures and Birmingham and Manchester for arrivals. This sucks.

Anyone know any other sites I should be checking or ways we can get a super good deal?

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[the contents of this post, including images are @copy; Rebecca J Lockley and Tim Lockley and should not be reproduced without permission.]

A brief post today and then I will try to get back to my regular posting…I just haven’t been in a good enough mood to sit down and write happy things this past week while I’m still crying if I see a grey tabby cat on the telly.

On Saturday, my chorus held a workshop followed by a short performance for the attendees to invite their family and friends to. Tim tagged along to take pictures and video for us, and we were chatting in the car…

Me: It’s such a shame we were both stuck inside on this beautiful day.
Tim: The day isn’t over yet.
Me: I know. We should have gone to the seaside today or something.
Tim: Want to?
Me: Err…serious?
Tim: Serious.
Me: Yes!

So we did. We stopped off at home briefly to put tea in flasks, grab some jumpers and a blanket and we were off! Living close to the North Sea coast has it’s benefits for sure.

We stopped off in Sutton-on-Sea to pick up some fish and chips, and by a happy accident, followed a turned sign for parking completely bypassing the shore. Instead, we wound up in Sandilands, which I kept referring to as “Candyland”. It was gorgeous and empty, save for one fisherman and the occasional dog walker.

We spent a pleasant hour or two sitting on the beach, walking, and collecting some seashells before we decided to head home. As we turned a corner, I spotted a closed down hotel with a broken sign reading “We are”. I shouted “Penn State” and then I had to explain the cheer to Tim. He said “do you want to get a picture of it?” Erm, yes please! So we turned around and got some shots of Tim holding up my Penn State stadium blanket under the sign.

[If you click on the photo once, it will take you to that photo’s page. If you click on the photo again, you will be able to view it full size. I have no idea why WordPress made it so complicated! Apologies to LiveJournal Users. If you do not see the gallery below, please visit my website via the link at the top of the entry to view the gallery.]

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The contents of this post, including images are © Rebecca J Lockley and Tim Lockley unless otherwise stated and should not be reproduced without permission. If you are not reading this on http://blog.beccajanestclair.com, my facebook page, or the RSS feed(s), please notify me.

My mom texted Tim last night to have him tell me she was taking my beloved kitty, Will, to the vet. They thought he had a urine infection possibly.

From what I know, his bladder was swollen so badly it caused him to have a heart attack right on the vet’s table. Mom was with him.

I got Will in January 2004. I just decided that I really wanted to have a cat of my own, and so we went off to the humane society in Lancaster, PA. They had two kittens in their kitten room. One was a white girl kitten who was skittish and hid from me in the play room, and the other was Will. He craweled all over me and perched on my shoulder, and I just knew he was the right kitten for me. The vet estimated he was only about 4 or 5 weeks old, so that puts his birthday somewhere around the end of November 2003/beginning of December. I always said that January 3 was his birthday :).

Will originally got his name from Will of Will & Grace….and he would actually watch Will & Grace with me and anytime someone said “Will”, he would look up. He also gained nicknames, like William Shakespeare (espcially after I heard the Arrogant Worms Song “William Shakespeare’s in my Cat”), and even Prince William on occasion.

He was a special kitty. I still remember when he was a kitten and I couldn’t find him anywhere in my apartment…..and then I opened the fridge. He had managed to climb into the fridge while I had been preparing my dinner!

He was a curious and friendly cat. Will expected everyone who walked through the door to greet him and rub his tummy. If you didn’t, he would make sure to rub up against your legs and bother you until you did. He worked better than a doorbell for alerting us to people! He needed to know what you were doing, watching, reading, or eating…he even drank green tea on a few occasions — but no other “people food”. He never begged for food from the table, he just wanted to see what you were eating.

He knew when I was upset and would come and lay down next to me as if to say “it’ll be alright”. When I missed Tim and would be crying, Will was there. If Mom and I were on video chat with each other and Will heard my voice, he came over to “see” me and would try to lick the webcam.

I was looking forward to the day when we could finally move Will over to the UK so he could join us here. I’m going to miss him a lot….that crazy little furball meant the world to me.

Rest in Peace, my brave kitty.

Will
3 Jan 2004 – 13 May 2011

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This past weekend, Lincoln Sounds travelled to Birmingham to participate in this year’s Quartet of Nation’s annual convention/competition.

We didn’t do so good.

Last year, we came home with a bronze medal. This year, we came home all feeling a bit dejected and ho-hum about our score, which I won’t be posting to my blog, it hurts too much.

The only thing we can do is remain positive, and consider that next year, we could win “most improved chorus” 😀

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*sigh* I bought a buy-it-now on another one of those Soap & Glory Big Pink totes because I worked it out as being a very cheap option for getting all the S&G items I love using, and I can turn around and re-auction off the items I don’t like/can’t use.

Problem! The set is missing an item. I double checked the auction listing, and the missing item was listed as being included. What can I do other than a polite message to the seller? I can’t really dispute it with PayPal since I have most of the item, and I really don’t want to deal with trying to send this back, as it’s a large package and it looks like the seller uses drop shipping for their auctions.

They have LOADS of these sets on offer on eBay, so I’m thinking the missing item might not even be their fault – it might not have been in the original since when we bought the first big pink, I had to check through a few boxes before I found one that hadn’t had an item stolen from it as they are not sealed in the store. Either way though, they promised me that item was included, so shouldn’t they do something about it? Either send me the missing item (which I’m not overly fussed about, to be honest. It smells nice, but I don’t absolutely NEED it) or send me a partial refund?

How long should I wait before doing anything other than emailing the seller and what are my options other than leaving negative feedback? This seller also NEVER once contacted me, even to say “your item has been shipped”, so I’m not super impressed either way, and was planning on noting the lack of communication on the feedback.

For my own record keeping: Seller contacted through eBay’s “contact the seller” on Sunday, 8 May.

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The contents of this post, including images are © Rebecca J Lockley and Tim Lockley unless otherwise stated and should not be reproduced without permission. If you are not reading this on http://blog.beccajanestclair.com, my facebook page, or the RSS feed(s), please notify me.
For my own records: First message sent via ebay’s “contact the seller” on Sunday 8 May 5PMish.

Apparently my Olympus Mμ 3000 takes video in Mp4 mode (aka Apple format) and though Windows Movie Maker let me drag the Mp4s in and let me edit things, it wouldn’t publish the final video. This was frustrating me to no end yesterday as I tried about three times to edit the footage together, only to have it stall all three times at 20%, 46%, and 24%. I gave up and decided I would try again tomorrow, not realizing the video format issue.

I discovered the issue today, when I was looking at the files and noticed they had the Quicktime symbol on them….ooops. I converted the Mp4s down to wmv files thanks to a free program called Prism, and finally got it edited and up on YouTube*. So, here it is. My video from Friday!

Link if the embedded video doesn’t show up: http://youtu.be/F1TDnVX42B8

*I’m sure there are easier ways to do this, but what can I say? I like doing things the hard way!

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The contents of this post, including images are © Rebecca J Lockley and Tim Lockley unless otherwise stated and should not be reproduced without permission. If you are not reading this on http://blog.beccajanestclair.com, my facebook page, or the RSS feed(s), please notify me.