Nayu's Craft Time #285 Update on technology issues

Not my picture!

I couldn't think of a better title, sorry! Been wading through emails, including what seems like a zillion GDPR or whatever the initals to the newest data protection thingy is, and I simply couldn't come up with a good title. It's accurate, just not very exciting. 

Twitter woes & shameless plug to follow me @Nayuleska

I prefer to do not so good news first so here is an update on a current issue: I'm still having problems getting my blog posts to auto-update on Twitter. It is looking possible I will have to do Tweet all posts manually, but I'm awaiting confirmation on that from the amazing Hootsuite team. 

I'm  not sponsered by them, I use their services & they are awesome at customer care! Especially if you don't have a clue what you are doing.

 I still have a backlog of tweets up to March to post up, I hope to do this over the next few weeks. I will not being doing it all in one day in case I get into trouble with Twitter - I'm not sure on how many tweets I can put up in a day without annoying everyone. I'm aiming for 3-5. Please bear with me on this. 

Yet another shameless plug - come check out my shop on Etsy!

The good news about technology is that I may be getting my specially designed NCD logo back as a background! Some of you may have noticed there has been something down the sides of this blog. I noticed this myself last week - yes I'm really unobservant. I played around for a few minutes with the Blogger template, and for whatever reason my picture, which isn't even in my account but my designer's has been reinstated. The margins are completely wrong at the moment which is why I've still got the white background, but at some point over the next few weeks I will fiddle some more and see what I can come up with. As far as I know this shouldn't be happening because Photobucket made it very clear they would charge for users to keep using what had been a free service (at least I think that's what happened). I mentioned it briefly on this blog here, and in more depth on my other blog, Nayu's Reading corner. I'll be very happy if it is back for good! 

Most played game at the moment!

Other news - been busy resting and doing lots of cross stitch - will give a project progress post very soon. Family had a cold, I didn't get one exactly but I was unwell, hence the lack of blog posts. Then there was the thunderstorm which almost always gives me a headache, but I managed to prevent a migraine which is a miracle. I've happily been gaming which is always fun - I had forgotten both how funny and how grim Final Fantasy IX can be. Find out more on Nayu's Reading Corner 

It's another one!

Nayu's Craft Time #284 Ramadan 2018

I'm over the mega strong meds effects (yay) and any subsequent just not feeling great days. Ramadan is here-yay! It started Tuesday night (depending on which authority you go by). It's the annual month where Muslims abstain from food and try to be good in a variety of areas from dawn until dusk. It is encouraged to read The Holy Quran during Ramadan, or as much of it as you can. Due to my health issues I'm forbidden to fast because it makes me ill - those who are pregnant/breast-feeding/elderly/ill are exempt from fasting, with a small donation given in the absence of abstaining from food. 

Disclaimer: This isn't a bragging post, merely a pointing out what I'm choosing to abstain from during Ramadan, that it is possible to still game and taken part in online game events if you share a similar view to me. If you don't that's fine too, and while I know I could just game/watch certain anime or shows them at night, in reality I have little time before sunrise/after sunset for anything so simply don't watch/play said games/shows for the entire month. 

Love this Muslim Pokemon player picture! I still game a lot in my rest time during Ramadan!

It is still the most blessed month of the year and I really love it! Yes I do miss refraining from playing Hatsune Miku games (I really love them but I love God more), or reading romance books (I read for the story not the romance), or playing not entirely appropriate games (which thanks to innuendo is a fair amount of games I play including Hyperdimension Neptunia and the Atelier series), which I do mostly not play until the month is over so I don't keep thinking about them. Since I am cross-posting this over on Nayu's Reading Corner (albeit a day later) I'm including more about gaming in this post, so you know what I am playing.

I love this Muslim inspired fanart for a Miku game - if only there were appropriate songs! I do play the Project Mirai games without sound, as they are chibi characters and the art is entirely different from the Playstation games (some songs are ok, some are not for the dance routines, although I'm focusing more on which buttons to press than what's going on in the background)

It's fun to focus on other games, notably this year Animal Crossing Pocket Camp which involves doing good deeds for real people by helping water/pollinate their plants or giving them bonus points (any good deed no matter how small is amplified an unknown amount by God during Ramadan), Pokemon Sun which is taking care of creatures, albeit digital ones, World of Final Fantasy which so far isn't a romance but does including favourite FF characters, replay Final Fantasy 9 whose romance-y parts I definitely won't reach before the end of Ramadan, 

I am still playing some rhythm games like Deresute, LLSIF, Puchiguru Love LIve and Bandori - but I'm not listening to the music (just listen to audiobooks), I've turned off the 3D options so I don't get any of the pictures onscreen when skills are activated (I'm aware that may mean absolutely nothing to you), and I'm not spending minutes browsing through the cards I have.

I tend to listen to the Holy Quran instead of reading it because it saves me a lot of energy. I'm not a native Arabic speaker, I can read it but I only understand a hanndful of words so I do need an English translation, which this recording gives me. I'm going to chat a bit more about this in a separate post. 

During Ramadan I tend to tweet a little less in general, but I still try for a tweet a day. I don't really watch anything on Youtube including the usually countless Hatsune Miku videos, but I still watch some anime and documentaries (& have a massive catch up once Ramadan ends). I always have goals but these are private, as is anything else I do during this blessed month. 

Here are some lovely links for previous Ramadan posts (no idea what happened in 2016)

Ramadan 2013 #1 What Ramadan is all about

Ramadan 2013 #2 Being flexible, some info on the Prophets

Ramadan 2013 #3 Why the last 10 days of Ramadan are so special, what I mean when I say tie your camel & be like a bird.

Ramadan 2013 #4 I chat about good deeds

Ramadan 2014 #1 My focus for Ramadan 2014

Ramadan 2014 #2 Nature, nurture & some rambling

 Ramadan 2015: Generic info

Ramadan 2017 Which anime I'm watching  

(there was only one post last year but this year I'm trying to do a few!)

I'd love to hear what you do during Ramadan if you celebrate it, and please feel free to ask questions which I'll do my best to answer, since I'm a firm believer of dispelling any weird perceptions about being a Muslim - pun genuinely not intended. 

I'm posting this right before it gets to 12pm!!!

Nayu's Craft Time #283 Techology isn't perfect

Maybe life is better from this view?

So today I'd planned to put up a few posts for this coming week, because I'm having my mega strong medicine tonight and will be off the grid for most of the week. I was going to schedule up the stack of book reviews that are waiting to be put on my other blog, Nayu's Reading Corner. 

I kind of underestimated how long other chores would take and had no clue that technology would play up. All my blog posts get automatically put on Twitter and Facebook by Hootsuite, saving me a lot of energy by not having to manually send the tweets. My blogs get published and you know about it on social media. Well, just on Facebook. I discover today that Twitter hasn't been putting up any tweets about my posts since mid March. 

See link to the side of this post to find me on Twitter.

Yikes. I'm so used to it working that I've got out of the habit of checking in from time to time to make sure it is posting the tweets as it should. I tried to resolve the issue myself, but kept going round in circles within the program. I rarely use it so have little idea of what could be wrong. I tweeted Hootsuite and they are now helping me resolve the issues. I do highy recommend it is a program to use, because it is invaluable to me.

I also have had some emails go missing recently, which have now been found and given belated replies. It is clearly one of those days, the ones where a couple of things don't go as you hope, mucking up your lovely schedule. Maybe it's a good thing that I'll be having a tech break for the next few days!

It is in the UK! Enjoy it if you've got some extra time off work.

I'd love to hear what you do when technology doesn't cooperate. Do you find it always happens when you have the least amount of free time to deal with it?

Apologies for now not posting until possibly next weekend, maybe a bit sooner if I'm lucky in the side effect department. I blame technology for eating up the time I had to create blog posts by trying to fix the frustrating issues. 

The sun is streaming into my room, we are having a mini heatwave here in England, and there is a fair bit of pink in my room (oh and I'm wearing pink clothes today, so everything is fine!).

Nayu's Craft Time #282 If in doubt uninstall then reinstall apps

 

Monday morning I was ready to schedule up some reviews for Nayu's Reading Corner but the problem I had for the last few days happened again. Whenever I went into Googlemail on my tablet there would be a blank screen. Nothing would load. I couldn't search anything - if I did then it would crash. Because I had a few days break recently I hadn't really needed to do anything, but today I'd sent myself a few emails using a few apps (pictures and text file) which hadn't arrived, so I knew I had to do something about the situation, especially because it including my latest sewing project photo. 

I checked to see if I could update the app, I couldn't but I could uninstall the latest updates and reinstall them. After that it worked perfectly! 

Technology is great when it works, frustrating when it doesn't.

My technology tip is that if an app doesn't work, try uninstalling then reinstalling, even if it is already fully updated. I don't know the reason behind why apps can throw a hissy fit, only that they do and it's annoying but not unsolvable. Please feel free to share your technology tips! 

Nayu's Project Progress #37 Girl Power!

I've been chillin'!

Morning all! Apologies for the slightly long lapse in posts - life got busy, plus family got a cold and my body threw a wobbly, then I simply had a few days R&R to myself. All recharaged (minus stupid cold weather spell that body is hating) and back blogging! Here's what I've started this week, a cute mobile phone case using cross stitch embroidery. 

The title is because girls are cool and I love being a girl! Plus this is a cute girl ^u^

 I got it from a friend ages ago, and it's actually the perfect size for my non-smart non-touchscreen phone. I didn't tweet about it because I'm not 100% sure how well I can replicate the backstitch which will make the girl look like a cute anime girl, but I'll do my best! What do you think? I'd love to hear if you're working on a sewing project at the moment! It's very engrossing, great to do when catching up with TV. 

Creativity has endless possibilities, it's not just sewing!

Nayu's Craft Time #281 Mermaids and gaming

Sloths have the right attitude to life-take it slowly, it's not a race.

This is a catch up post on what I've been up to recently. The answer is not a lot, just lots of rest as I've had something that my body's been battling against. My family currently have a cold so it's probably a cold virus, but my body tends to react weirdly, make me feel not right for ages. I've played a lot of games, especially Pokemon: finished Pokemon Alpha Sapphire and now on Pokemon Sun (the normal one, not Ultra Sun). Due to the new game start I've been reading up on Pokemon Sun too.

Currently trying to level up the adorable Buneary! So cute and fluffy!

Disney's Stitch has great taste!

I've had my cat sleep by me while I game, I've also read a bit and even done some crochet - nothing significant enough to show you yet. I've watched a lot of BBC dramas and dvds, my favourite fluffy teen series featuring mermaids in Australia, H2O Just Add Water - the girls transform whenever they touch water, making more than just taking a bath or having a swim problematic.  I bet you didn't know that if you dye a hair in mermaid form then your natural hair colour will return when you change back to a human! 

From the left are the original mermaids Rikki, Emma (not her natural hair colour) and Cleo. 

As soon as I've shaken off this whatever my body is making a fuss about, I will be continuing my Tsum Tsum jigsaw puzzle which is cute, so will be able to show you some progress pictures. I'm having to reschedule my week's activities around how I feel, but that's entirely normal for me, if a little frustrating. I hope you are staying well during germ season - drink lots of hot lemon and honey! I like cold lemon with water, which I guess is fine too. 

Everyone needs mermaids and unicorns in their life!

Nayu's Craft Time #280 Caring for Hair scrunchies

What colours do you have?

I've previously mentioned that hair scrunchies will be a topic on a post and today's that day! No, it's not how to make hair scrunchies - never made any but hope to one day - you can find that info online with a simple Google search (or whatever search engine you prefer, but in my view there's only Google!). 

It's hair time! Super cute Minnie hair brush I wish was mine.

Hair scrunchies are perfect whatever your age to gather hair up into cute styles. I mostly use a ponytail because it's the quickest type to do, but I like plaits too. Choosing a cute scrunchie is easy, if you have several colours (and don't have to worry about matching a school uniform which does look cute) you can pick one based on how you feel, or you can choose it to highlight a colour from your clothes. I'm not hear to talk about those things (even though I did briefly). 

They can be school-matching hair scrunchies or just a normal one if you happen to like checked patterns like I do! This isn't mine.

I'm here to talk about something which may not have occurred to you, as it  hadn't to me until I thought. It's time to...

...wash those scrunchies! 

Forgive me for being indelicate but this washing machine is puking a rainbow! How cool! (& it will not happen to yours).

Yes wash. It makes sense really - they go in our hair, so gets bits of dead skin/dandruff (or are they one and the same?), they pick up the grease and sweat from our hair, so it's obvious that they get dirty, isn't it? It wasn't to me, and I was surprised by the colour change when I shoved a scrunchie in the wash with the rest of my clothes. I suppose you can hand wash them if you want, but mine didn't ruin from being in a washing machine and came out looking far newer than it went in. I don't have before/after photos - test it out for yourself!

 I'm now washing mine more regularly than I was. Read instructions about the scrunchie when you buy it regarding washing, as I am not responsible if it goes wrong. I shoved mine in on a 40C wash with a flying saucer detergent, fabric conditioner, and an extra anti-germ liquid for lower temperture washes which I use all the time now. If you are willing to risk it shove it in, if you are at all concerned about the end result then maybe handwash it, although I can't guarantee the same results that way. 

Super shiny end of post picture!!