2023 - Week 52

This week began with travelling to see family and friends in North Bay. I was grateful to be off work, but I wasn't looking forward to the drive. This is partly due to overbooking myself all year. I need more time for my creative projects than I have been giving them. I also need more time for relaxing and maintaining. I'll be more selective on my outings in the new year. I'm not big on the winter anyway. I play a winter sport that is indoors and basically at a bar for a reason 😉

Anyway, something had me dizzy on Friday, so I had to miss my last event before traveling to see family and friends in my hometown. I suspect this was either my med, stress, or a combination. I hadn't eaten much either, so that was also a possible reason. 

The drive was pretty smooth and fuel was reasonable. This fellow had to inspect the gifts after one brother added to the ones he inspected earlier that I brought.

Later, I had dinner at JT Sushi with friends. Some of the sushi was served by cat robots, which was neat. They sing Happy Birthday while delivering cake too. I enjoyed seeing them, but I enjoyed my friends more. It was nice catching up with them. I also enjoyed the sushi. I hadn't had it in a while as it was a disappointment during the pandemic when I ordered it for takeout. All you can eat was just what I needed while on a med break as the appetite loss has been a problem. The first item in the meme below is basically what happens to me. I won't even remember what my favourite foods are and it's as if things don't taste as good as they used to.

During dinner, I lost Whamageddon. The evening of the 23rd is a pretty good run though!

I spent my downtime doodling, watching Bob's Burgers/true crime/spooky stuff, reading, and writing. 

On Christmas morning, this one was eager to open gifts. Blurry pictures are far more common with him as he's often on the go.

I did manage to get another where he is still.

One of the things I got was this cute little tea cup:

I also got some cherry brandy, which is a favourite little reward for writing progress. I briefly tried to use Writer's Tears for this, but it felt like I was torturing myself, so I gave the nearly full bottle to a writer friend who is fond of whisky. Writing can be torture enough some days 😂

Another gift I'm excited about is a tool kit for doing dioramas. I plan to do some miniature kits in the new year and hope to eventually make my own from scratch one day. I'll be building those on my Twitch stream along with some other crafts like a quilt and sewing catch up.

Before dinner we relaxed and had some drinks. Attempt two on the carrots had the smoke detector upset, which led to consoling a trembling pup. We all forgot to add water to the instant pot, so attempt three actually cooked them. What's Christmas dinner without something going awry?

On Boxing Day, I caught up with a friend I hadn't seen in a very long time. Dinner was tasty and the conversation was stimulating. We were on student's council together back in high school and it had been about a decade since we last hung out.

I spent my last day relaxing with Dad before watching a movie with my bro. 

Though I always manage to enjoy my visits with some of the people who are still there, my hometown isn't my home and I was excited to get back to Ottawa where I could do the things I needed to be ready to hit my goals hard in 2024.

I didn't get to them on the first day back as I needed downtime to catch up with Ottawa-area friends, play some Minecraft, and try out some TV shows I hadn't seen yet. The social part of this week ended with a mini putt outing and some really great conversations. 

I bought some experimental groceries as I think I may have figured out what has really been problematic in my diet. I've thought that many times, so I'm not getting my hopes up. Groceries were followed by a 3-hour nap. I had no reactions from any of the experimental foods.