This week was been stressful, but I managed to get some things off of my to-do list. It was also the official start of holiday event season for me. My first event was a paint nite with friends. We gifted each other a painting. Below is the one I painted. It was gifted to my friend Cat. Yes, the bunnies are shaped like snowmen. They're aliens pretending to fit in on Earth during the holiday season, but don't quite have things right. The red balls were added after this.
The one I took home was painted by my friend Jennifer and it's metal AF.
Truthfully, I'm not much for the holiday season at all. If it were up to me, I would've stopped the whole gift thing many years ago. My brothers and I are all adults. I'm the youngest. None of us have children currently. Neither brother plans to. With the right person, I'm open to it.
I care more about spending quality time together and having tasty food than I do about getting gifts. I wish we could all just buy ourselves something(s) and skip the added stress at an already stressful time of year. Or perhaps just one gift each like in a Secret Santa would be a good middle ground.
This paint nite exchange was a wonderful idea and I think it was my friend Erika who mentioned it. She often has great ideas. Another one of hers was the recent spooky trip to Kingston.
The next evening was my work holiday party and I and some friends left by 10:00 PM. The music wasn't my kind of music and it was so loud that my throat was getting sore from trying to have conversations. It was even like that during dinner. But it was nice to chat with some colleagues anyway and get to know them a little better. One asked me a writerly question I'll make a separate post about soon. Perhaps I'll even try to get it placed somewhere.
ADHD Update
I definitely think we're on the right track with my current med, but I am getting the, "crash," as it reduces, which feels a bit stressful. It could be that I need a lighter pill later on in the day, but I'm trying meditation, exercise, and CBD for it. I generally feel like I need a break from things and people while it's happening to recalibrate myself. Oh, and I'm quite thirsty while playing sports, but I have a small camelback I may start wearing to handle that. I suspected this would happen given that I have Sjogren's plus the medication that is dehydrating.
Otherwise, I've been able to do a lot of normally very hard-for-me tasks this week. More on that in the new monthly goals section.
I feel like I'm almost used to my med. A friend takes a day or two off on the weekend with hers, but Concerta doesn't stay in my system in the way that hers does, so it doesn't work for me to do that.
Stress certainly makes me feel extra awful with it. Before, I could let a lot of things not get to me. Some things always did, but for others it was as if I walked about in an apathetic fog. I think I understand others a bit more because of this.
Curling
At GSL I learned I play better without my glasses. They're never in the right place for me to see things and they just distract me. Curling strategies have my head spinning. I really don't prefer to be a third or skip. They're more stressful for me. I quite like second, actually. I don't hate third, but the closer to the end of an end, the higher the stakes.
There was no Rainbow Rockers for me this week as our team has a bye. We have a number of days in a row coming up in January though, so it's good to have time for cross-training and catching up on other things. I was available to spare, but only if I was further ahead on my condo cleaning. I wasn't, and I really needed a break from all the stress I've had lately between work and my car.
I gladly had physio this week as I needed a specific exercise to help with the last bit of pain that happens during the overhead triceps and shoulder stretch and when I slide a rock around another. They are 40 lbs and even on ice, they can be pretty heavy. There's another spot by my ribs too that is lingering. We figured I probably hurt my tricep at the same time, but the rotator muscle was a bigger problem earlier on. I'll be doing a new exercise for the rock arranging strengthening and using a tennis ball or another piece of rolling equipment to help fix both sore spots. I'm looking forward to getting beyond this.
Decluttering
I got rid of a well-used shelving unit I had no space for. My neighbour happily took it off my hands, which saved me from having to take it farther than the hallway. I moved several pieces of furniture around in my bedroom and put together this small shelf unit that is also a laundry hamper. Oddly perfect for my needs of a small bookshelf by my reading chair in my bedroom and lets me do more in the same space.
One of my storage items was moved into my music room where I had the purged bookshelf. It's perfectly sized to where I moved it and I can't believe I didn't think of it before. Prior to my bedroom, I had it in my living room, but I didn't like it in there. But my main desk would have been in the way for it to be there now that I think of it. I need to go through all the cloth bins and likely purge some of what is in them, but I will do that later on.
My crafting desk is beside my main desk now, which makes the space flow much better. My curtain wall is behind both, separating my living room from my streaming space when I want to do that for work or Twitch.
Gaming
Diablo IV had me a bit freaked out this week. I thought I was already going to be battling Lilith. I'm only level 40. There are so many levels to go and a lot of the map to uncover yet. But I did complete the campaign for Act I, so I'll be doing a lot of side quests for a while. I do some of those off-stream or I'll never complete the game.
I've been making progress in Trove. There is a lot I still don't understand. Like it seems very difficult to get a Soul Tangle for the martial arts questing line.
In January, my gaming stream will change to Mondays. I'll also be adding a Saturday crafting stream. This change is partly due to my having season tickets for PWHL.
Kia Recall Saga Update
The week started with part I of the car recall saga. By the end of it, I had permission to park in visitors until further notice though I was waiting to find out if the board was going to sign off on this for the length of the wait to receive letter number two and have the work performed.
That answer was no.
My condo has directed me to park on the street until the repairs are done. This is causing me difficulties. I've sent a lot of emails and I can only hope that something good comes of one of them. This whole situation is stressful and there are at least 10 other Kia vehicles in our parking lot that shouldn't be parking in it if I can't be. I've made sure they know that I found ten with the lot half empty.
I won't be surprised if my car doesn't last the winter. Hell, I won't be surprised if it doesn't get me to my hometown at this point. I better be prepared in case I end up stuck there and need to work from there. That will piss me off though as I have things I want to get done before the new year. I may just be freaking out here. The horn isn't working currently. That could be a simple fix. It still doesn't sound like I'd like it to. It's a lot better, but not quite right. My dad will probably know what's up just from the sound of it and be able to help me do what is needed to make it healthier. I did read that Kia cars often don't last a decade, so I've been lucky in some ways with it.
Monthly Goals
I set goals regularly as part of Danielle Allard's Dino Community. I often lose track of them after I add them to the Accountability Squad spreadsheet, so I decided I would add this to my blog post in the hopes that I will keep track of it better. Like many other folks, December is a hectic month for me. Anyway, we try for one work related goal, one fitness one, and one relaxation one to keep it simple and less overwhelming. Here are mine:
1. Complete condo reorg and do my filing/paperwork.
2. Add core exercises 2-3 times per week and walks on non-curling days. Drink more water.
3. Make time for reading fiction every day for at least 30 minutes.
I'm aiming to get a lot of the condo stuff done before Tuesday the 12th as they will be testing my smoke detector that day. Yeah, that's tomorrow. I've moved the filing behind my curtain wall as there is no hope to get done in time for the smoke detector check. The rest involves my bedroom and my smoke detector is just inside the front door, so they don't need to go into my whole tiny condo unit.
Completed:
- removal of unneeded bookshelf
- relocation of small storage unit
- installation of new bookshelf/hamper combo unit
Outstanding
- filing
- sporting equipment to my storage area
- laundry catch up
- ab bench relocation
- install hanging light for reading area in bedroom
Of course, me being me, it's also December, which means I've been setting up all the things for a new schedule.
Things will change again once softball starts, but I have a lot of the first half of 2024 planned. Some of this begins this week because I want to start setting a habit of doing many of these things at specific times of the day when my day isn't overloaded with other life things. Also, I think distracting myself with something I enjoy like piano will help with the whole stressful car situation.
Writing
I've done a little bit of my novel restructure and edits this week. It was more of a side effect of trying to figure out where I had left things in order to plan for the year to come, but it was still a bit of progress.
I also got a bit further on one of my screenplays. It's a horror comedy and I am quite enamoured by the concept, but damn is it hard to write a whole feature having been away from it so long. Things are generally supposed to happen at certain points during a film and one might think that would make it easier, but it really doesn't seem to help me. I suppose actually plotting it out might though.
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