Category: Uncategorized

Teddy bear C2C crochet baby blanket

On By Michel McDonaldIn Uncategorized5 Comments

My previous post was about a Betty Boop blanket I crocheted for my aunt, this it’s a baby blanket I made for My cousins son who is 5 years old. I honestly didn’t think he would use it for anything but like sleeping, so My mind wasn’t anywhere like a Linus blanket.

So he opened it on Christmas and he said “Oh, it’s a blanket.”  My aunt warned me that he’s 5 and he already has a blanket that he carries everywhere and nothing will ever replace it. That’s not what I was hoping for. I just wanted to make him a blanket, that’s all.

So later that night he was playing with his new video game in his parents room and I brought his blanket to him and he paused the game and said “I like your blanket, but I already have a mommy blanket that I use so I will probably use your blanket when I sleep in bed.”

LMAO I looked at him like hey no problem. My intention wasn’t to give him a Linus blanket, I just wanted to make him a blanket. How he uses it is really up to him, and it was cute and funny how he explained to me that he was basically going to use, but only on his terms.

I think he’s the cutest little thing and I hope to be able to watch him grow up, which it’s nearly impossible since I live so far away, but I’ll try.

Betty Boop C2C crochet blanket

On By Michel McDonaldIn Uncategorized18 Comments

In September and October I was crocheting a blanket made out of squares with many colors each with a black background. I was making this for my aunt for Christmas.

I was watching a video on YouTube and came across one from The Crochet Crowd that was teaching how to make C2C crochet, which stands for corner to corner. I thought it seemed interesting because you could make a blanket with pictures. I then thought hmmm… I wonder if they have a Betty Boop pattern, and I found one from http://www.TwoMagicPixels.com.

I started making this blanket right away. I had some white, but not enough, then found out the new yarn isn’t the same shade of white or texture, and I had trouble finding the right shade of skin for Betty, so I made a piece up to a certain point, then when I bought white I just started over fresh, and it took me a month to make this blanket.

I had to buy different brands because one brand didn’t have the same color for the skin, so the skin and the black, white and red are all different textures.

My Aunt loved it. I was hoping to make her a couch blanket because she takes a daily nap on the couch, like a ritual, but it’s way too big and heavy for a couch nap lol. It would probably be way too warm and she’s probably have to take it off after 5 minutes lol. Her bed is king size, the blanket is queen size, so that’s not good, but hey, I tried right?

Anyway, so yeah I learned a new pattern and gave an awesome gift.

Here is an example of how it’s crocheted along with the pattern next to it. It’s literally worked from corner to corner.

I’m baaaaaaack

On By Michel McDonaldIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

So I’ve been gone lol. I stopped blogging because I started vlogging on YouTube. I thought I would vlog daily, or weekly at the very least, but it didn’t work out to be as often as I had hoped because my partner of going on 23 years walked in on me looking at me like he was about to call the men in white coats with a new wardrobe for me that consisted of nothing but pajamas, a robe and a straight jacket.

I bought a few things for vlogging, a light, 2 packs of mini DVD-r’s and a Mic because my camcorder’s Mic sucked and I had to yell to be heard. I bought a green screen so I could put a pretty background in, but the lighting was never enough for it to work in the new software I bought. Eventually I just switched over to my cell phone with a selfie stick.

It turned out that not a lot of people really cared about me talking so much as they liked my videos about crocheting. I guess if you don’t have something to teach, no one really cares what you have to say.

Ok so that’s enough for this post, I have a few more things to talk about, and I’ll need to put them in their own posts, so stay tuned.

YouTube

On By Michel McDonaldIn Uncategorized, VideosLeave a comment

So… have you been watching my YouTube videos? What? You didn’t know I was on YouTube? Well, better late than never, eh? Check me out. http://www.YouTube.com/DiaryofaGayNerd.  I’m a sensation! Ok, so I’m not a YouTube sensation, but I’m working on it lol.

I think as with anything, my personality is shy in the beginning, then I start coming out of my candy coated shell until eventually I’m singing and dancing with a lampshade on my head. I haven’t gotten to that point yet, but I’m much more comfortable on camera, and I’m not even editing anymore. When I say editing, I mean editing out the parts where I start whining how I can’t do this and how I can’t think straight. Now I can literally talk for 20 minutes until I realize OMG I’ve been talking nonstop for 20 minutes! My first few dozen videos were about 10 minutes or less, now I’m like crap it’s going too long lol.

So check me out when you get the chance and see my personality in action. No, really, I need the views, likes and subs lol. PLEASE check me out lol.

Going back to Planet Fitness

On By Michel McDonaldIn Exercise, gym, UncategorizedLeave a comment

planet fitness

We had to stop going to the gym last month because both of us got really sick. When I say we or us, I am referring to myself and my partner. I was diagnosed with HIV in 1991 and then upgraded to AIDS in 1994, so when I get sick, I’m not just sick with a 24 to 48 hour bug, when I get sick, I’m down for a month or longer. I literally have no immune system. My viral load has been undetectable for years and my t-cells have been pretty high in the 900’s for awhile now, but I still suffer when I get sick.

The virus from my cold is long gone, but I’m still coughing. I was coughing up and blowing mucus out of my nose even though I had no nasal or chest congestion at all. That first couple of days when we first got sick last month we just so happened to have a doctor’s appointment and the doctor checked my lungs by listening to my back while making me breathe in and out, in and out, in and out… He didn’t hear anything, so he told me I would be fine. I asked him for antibiotics or at least cough syrup, and he refused to give me anything. He didn’t want to give me medicine for something I don’t have. Well, that’s fine and dandy if I was only going to be sick for a couple days, but I was literally sick for a month.

So we could have gone back to the gym a couple of weeks ago, but we wanted to wait until it was fully out of my system. I would hate to give anyone else my germs and then get them sick.

Going back to the gym after being absent for a month is basically like starting over from scratch. Whatever exercises we did today will probably hurt in the morning and for the next couple of days. I mean, I don’t feel anything now, but then again we just came home from the gym about an hour ago, so who knows what may happen later tonight or when I wake up tomorrow. We’ll see.

The surgeon who operated on my broken leg in December told me to do leg exercises at the gym, and of course take my time and not try to force myself to bend my leg on the leg machines and then hurt myself. My leg is in agony, so I will have to be very careful when I do the leg exercises. I haven’t spoken to a trainer, but I already know which machines I want to start using… all of them! LOL No, but seriously, I will have to make an appointment so she can write down our day 3 exercises for leg day. She gave us 2 days for our upper body, and my partner only wants to go 3 days a week, so legs will all have to be done on the last day of the week.

I’m not expecting to lose any weight, I just want to exercise to feel healthy. You see, I have a feeling it’s when you stop trying is when you will actually lose weight. I say that because just about every time I try to lose weight, I end up gaining weight. So I’m using reverse psychology… on myself lol. Hey, whatever works right?

Xbox One Controller for Minecraft PC

On By Michel McDonaldIn Games, UncategorizedLeave a comment

Minecraft PC.png

I was feeling good about this Xbox One controller to play games on my Windows 10 PC. I was able to play Terraria with no problem, I played Lego World’s, both from Steam, and I was even able to play Minecraft Windows 10 Edition Beta with no problem. Well, I was having one problem, the problem was getting Minecraft Windows 10 Edition Beta to load. The darn game just wouldn’t load properly.

So I thought ok, what now? I mean, I do have Minecraft PS4 and Minecraft PS Vita, and I even have Minecraft Pocket Edition on my Nook HD+. Now I have Minecraft Windows 10 edition, which is basically a mobile version of Minecraft, but I couldn’t play it, so I thought screw it, I wanted to buy the PC edition anyway, so I bought it and wouldn’t you know the Xbox One game controller wouldn’t work. How frustrating is that?

joy to keyI went to Google and asked how I can play Minecraft PC with a Xbox One controller and the first couple things that came up were videos. One said to install the Xbox One drivers, which I don’t need to do since my computer recognizes the controller immediately. I have yet to feel a rumble, so perhaps I will need to install that anyway. Next they said to downloaded JoyToKey and the guy had all the commands in the description for his video. It didn’t have every key correct though, so I was able to find the keyboard/mouse command so I could fix that problem. Now the Xbox controller works perfectly, except for the inventory. I can go into the inventory, I just have to use the mouse to craft with, but that’s fine. My only concern was that I was able to use the game controller to play the game.

Now, the only other problem is how slow this game is on my computer. Minecraft Windows 10 Edition Beta is much faster to load and gameplay is a fast as on my PS4 and PS Vita. I’ve already adjusted some of the settings so some of the graphics aren’t too high of a quality, but it’s still slow as hell. Perhaps one of these days I will reformat my computer (ugh) so I can reinstall games again so my computer will be faster. One of these days…

UPDATE: Ok so installing the Xbox One driver was an extremely bad idea. I think the driver is specifically for people who want to use bluetooth. The Xbox One logo on the controller is normally lit, but after I installed the driver, that light turned off. It’s a button, so I pressed the button and the light would blink on and off for probably a minute, then it would shut off. I loaded Terraria and the controller was non-responsive. I went into the Device Manager and uninstalled the driver, then rebooted my computer, and waited with anticipation for that light to come on. I actually started to panic when it didn’t come on because I thought great, now I have to reformat this thing, but then the light came on and I played Terraria and it was fine. WHEW!

Planet Fitness Trainer

On By Michel McDonaldIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

planet fitnessI signed up at Planet Fitness last year in September because they sent me a postcard in the mail with their sign up special. I wanted to exercise at a gym because I knew that I would lose more weight if I had a place to go to exercise.

I broke my leg in December, froze my membership in February, then unfroze it last Friday. When I unfroze my membership, it occurred to me that when I signed up, I never made an attempt to see one of their trainers to get help or advice on what machines I should use to help me lose weight, so while we were unfreezing my membership, I decided to sign the paper for an appointment.

My appointment was on Monday, and I told her about my leg problem and she didn’t give me any exercises for lower body, just upper body. Normally they would give me a 4 day plan, so like day 1 I do these 4 specific machines for upper body and day 2 4 more. Since I can’t do legs, she only gave me 2 days worth of exercises.

When she gave me my exercises, she moved on to the next client and I got started. I hopped on the Elliptical machine for 20 minutes, but my right leg was giving up on me after 6 minutes. I tried so hard to keep going, but at 8 minutes I had to start the cool down. I was on the Elliptical for a grand total of 10 minutes and 28 seconds lol. She told me to either do the Elliptical or the bike, and I chose wrong. After that I went to the muscle machines and I could only do 2 of them. I was in a massive amount of pain, and I really couldn’t find the other 2 machines. I went to the counter and asked her to show me where they were so I would remember the next time I came in.

I was in so much pain from doing 3 sets on 2 machines, I literally couldn’t lift the carton of Silk Almond milk from the fridge door to pour in my Raisin Bran the next morning. I was going to take 1 day off, then go back on Wednesday, but I needed an extra day to rest, and I was still in agony up until I went to bed. I woke up on Thursday morning and was feeling great. I told my partner I wanted to go back whether I was still in pain or not, and I was quite surprised to see him holding a sweat towel for himself on the way out the door. He never wants to exercise with me. He did 2 machines, then disappeared to the seat at the front of the gym and waited for me to finish. He’s actually in pain from the little amount of sets that he did. I told him not to do too much because he literally has no muscles, so he just did 1 set of the 2 machines.

My partner won’t allow me to ride my new tricycle to the gym anymore because he’s afraid I’ll have another accident and break another bone. I understand his apprehension because I’ve broken 2 bones in the last 2 years on my old bike. So I get it. I mean, I’m 45, I have a mind of my own and if I decided that I wanted to ride my new tricycle to the gym, that’s exactly what I will do, but I have the same apprehension which is why I haven’t done that yet. I’m freaked out about breaking another bone. I mean, I’ve lived my entire life without ever breaking a bone. I’m a clumsy person by nature, and I’ve been very lucky to have never broken a bone until I was in my 40’s, and I’ve had many tumbles off the bike. At this point I think I’m getting too old to walk away from a bike accident. I’m not saying I’m old, but I worry I might break a hip next. Seriously though lol.

Anyway, I’m happy he’s driving me to the gym because he’s actually taking advantage of my guest privileges, and hopefully he benefits from this as much as I do. And I hope these exercises she gave me will work. Next month we are going to start eating Weight Watchers again, so hopefully that will help. The trainer told me that this will only work if we are also eating healthy. I lost 70lbs in 6 months in 2013 from eating Weight Watchers alone, so imagine how much weight I might lose if I ate Weight Watchers and exercised at the same time. I can only imagine, and I’m really trying to picture myself skinny again. Boy oh boy am I really trying.

Wish me luck! Wait, no, it might jinx it lol.

My New Tricycle

On By Michel McDonaldIn Bike, UncategorizedLeave a comment

Me on tricycle

My Schwinn Meridian 3-wheel tricycle came today. YAY! It took me about an hour to put it together in the kitchen. You would think that it would be difficult to put a big thing like this together when you have a broken leg that is still healing, but I didn’t have too much problem. Well, except for a couple of issues.

Assembling my new tricycle was pretty much a cake walk with the exception of the fenders. The front fender went on without a problem, but the instructions said to install the fender first, then install the front wheel while the tricycle was upside down. Ok, no problem. But when I installed the front wheel I found a problem. The front of the fender was raised 3 inches above the wheel, but the back of the fender which is next to the frame is sitting right on the wheel, which means it would always rub against the wheel. I don’t know what the fix is, so I just turned it around so it’s on backwards, and it works.

The back fenders on the other hand are both installed correctly and they also rub the tires. The box that it came in was really damaged. I honestly don’t know if it was damaged from Amazon or UPS. When the driver dropped it off, he banged on the wood (we have wood paneling outside lol) then he rang the bell and ran to his truck and literally drove away before we could even open the door. Why do they do that? They used to wait for you to come to the door, then have you sign something, now they don’t even wait for you to come to the door. For all I know they could drop it off and someone could steal it before I even get to the door. Not that they could since it was a 71lb box lol.

schwinn box 1
schwinn box 2
schwinn box 3

Anyway, getting back to the tricycle lol.

So after I put it together, I went out on a little test ride in front of the house. I got on and tried to use my good leg to get me going, but for some reason I couldn’t. I’m so used to using my right leg, so I used my right leg, which isn’t a very good thing because it took a lot of force to get me going. But it didn’t hurt, so that’s a good thing. It was really difficult to turn right because the street slopes. The middle of the street is a higher elevation than it is at the gutter, so when I tried to turn right, I had a bit of trouble. I wasn’t sure if it was the handlebars that wasn’t aligned with the front wheel, so I adjusted it and I still had problems. I’m sure when I can start walking again I will have all the kinks worked out and turning won’t be that big of an issue.

My partner was freaking out about me getting through the doors because this bike is so wide. It’s got a badonkadonk lol. The back of it was really difficult to get through the door because of the caps on the axle on each side. I got it out of the kitchen and out the front door, although it took some doin’ to get it outside. When I was finished with my test ride I went to put it in our patio and I noticed that I had more of an issue getting it in the patio than I had getting it out of the front door. I honestly don’t know what I’m going to do if getting it in and out of the patio is going to cause problems for me. But I don’t know what else I’m supposed to do. It has to go in our patio, there’s no question. So I guess I’m just going to have to suck it up buttercup and deal with it.

I love the color, and I’m going to have to find a matching nail polish because there are already scratches on the paint from the shipping. It doesn’t bother me much, but it bothered my partner. He wanted me to send it back. Screw that noise! It’s going to get more scratches along the way, so who cares. But, I’d still like to find a matching color just so I can fix it if it gets crazy scratched up.

Riding this tricycle is awkward for me, but perhaps it’s because I’m not used to riding a tricycle. I’m sure it will get easier and I look forward to more practice.

Schwinn Meridian Single Speed Adult Tricycle

On By Michel McDonaldIn Bike, UncategorizedLeave a comment

Schwinn Cherry Meridian

I finally ordered my new Schwinn Meridian Single Speed Adult Tricycle. I’m very excited because I’ve wanted one of these for years. They’ve always been way out of my price range because I never have that much money and I can never successfully save that much money. The only way I would be able to buy something this expensive is if I won a sweepstakes, which I actually did, hence why I was finally able to buy it.

The sweepstakes in case you are wondering is from the National Consumer Panel. I buy groceries, then scan the groceries with my cell phone, then send them the information and I get points for every week I am active in the program. I also have the opportunity to get 150 points or put 50 points towards monthly sweepstakes by doing surveys. They send me lots of surveys, and they don’t really take that long.

After I broke my leg, I think I waited a couple of weeks, but I emailed them to tell them that I broke my leg and I won’t be able to scan groceries for awhile, and they put that note in my account, and a week later I got an email telling me that I won the monthly sweepstakes of $500. I got another email a few days later telling me it was a mistake, that it was only $250, but they were still going to send me the $500 anyway. Well, I received the first $250 last week and the second $250 came today, so that’s how I was able to buy the tricycle.

The tricycle will help me rehab my leg and it will also get me back to the gym. It will also be a bigger help buying groceries with the bigger basket in the back. My old bike had a basket that I built that was smaller, and this one actually looks so much safer lol.

So thank you to the National Consumer Panel for making a typo and sending me more than I should have gotten, but you helped me buy my tricycle and you also helped me buy groceries. We were running out of money this month because my bills are killing me. Oh and I will get back to scanning soon because I can start putting pressure on my leg in the next month to month and a half.

2 Months

On By Michel McDonaldIn Doctor, Health, UncategorizedLeave a comment
Leg scar
leg scar

It has been 2 months since I broke my leg and had surgery. The picture on the left was taken last month  on 1/20/2016 and the one on the right was just taken on 2/18/2016. I wanted to show how it’s healing.

My leg still hurts from time to time if I twist my leg at the knee, but that’s about it. My partner was giving them to me every 4 hours like clockwork for the first month because he didn’t want me to be in any pain, which I appreciate. After so much time had passed, I guess he just forgot to give me the pills unless I asked for one. But that’s a good thing because I should only be taking them when I actually need them. They are so expensive that I’d rather only take them when I actually need them.

I go to Physical Therapy 3 days a week and that has helped a lot. I went to Physical Therapy at a place only a block away on the same street a couple of years ago for my back when I found out that I had scoliosis, and I didn’t like going there. I’m HIV+ and they didn’t want me to be in the open room with the rest of their clients, so they put me in a room by myself, which was very awkward because I had to ring a bell when I was done with my exercises and wait for the guy to come give me the tool for the next exercise. I didn’t tell this place that I am HIV+ because it’s not relevant. I’m not going to bleed or ejaculate on anything, so there’s no reason for them to fear me. That other place told me that they want to put me in a room by myself because they don’t want me to catch a cold from one of the other clients, but I’ve been going to PT at this new place for at least a month and I haven’t gotten since yet, and yes, there have been clients who were sick and I never caught their cold.

My doctor told me that I can put pressure on it in between the middle of March until the beginning of April. I wonder if I will replace the crutches with a cane by then. I sure do hope so. I am so sick of crutches. I will blog about that when that time comes.