2024 - Week 3

I made a little more time for me this week.

Decluttering & Minimalism

On my way back from the dentist, I ran into one of my favourite neighbours. She also feels like her house is a disaster right now after the pest control adventure. Kitchens hold a lot of stuff and it's really hard having our things all over. At least I'm not alone in feeling this way in the building, but I do hope it will ultimately improve things. I still have a couple of items to put back in place in my kitchen and I'm still looking for a couple of things. I'm rewashing some items that may have gotten the spray on them. This is part of what is taking so long along with motivation. I have other things I want to be doing!

I wanted to get back to piano many times this week, but I couldn't with my environment being upside down. I also didn't like where my keyboard was. I worked on my spaces after while thinking about my needs. I still have to get my ironing board installed on my wall, but the rest of it is set up. Yeah, maybe it's weird to have an ironing board, a ukulele, and art all on the same wall, but it's exactly what I need in my streaming/office space.

Oh, and I DID find the rest of my kitchen items. I'm glad that is settled. I have a couple of items left, but it's coming along.

Fitness & Budo

I was quite sore for RR curling since we had played the day before. I thought I would have a sore butt from a fall the day before, but it was my quad where it connects to the hip flexor on the other side that was complaining. A reminder for me that I am an office monkey. Lots of stretching was done.

I had a lovely chat with an 81-year-old who is having a bit of trouble with curling just this year probably from the loss of activity we all experienced during the pandemic. Her doctor refused to refer her to physio and I let her know most insurance companies don't require a referral from a family doctor for physiotherapy and physiotherapists usually don't either. Anyway, she has a friend who is 93 who is still curling!

It was nice hanging around to watch friends play with other friends this week. I truly love the sporty queer community in Ottawa. It's full of wonderful people who are great company.

I enjoyed watching the Red Deer Canadian Open. Some of the shots the pros make are ridiculous. They make take out shots look so easy with their double runbacks.

Health & Wellness

I met with my doctor and I've started ADHD med number 3. It's a methylphenidate capsule (Biphentin) that I have to add the contents to applesauce to avoid the dyes. So far, I do notice a bit of the dryness effect, but I don't feel dizzy or itchy. I expect the dryness will be enough extra to manage for me. Hopefully, the rest of the side effects can be avoided.

I had some fillings done. I'm always anxious for dental work, so I was out of sorts on Monday between that and thinking about mom. I also had a tension headache that didn't help the experience. It was pretty great despite being there for fillings. The dentist and hygienist were really funny and it was fun joking around with them.

I learned that Blue Monday isn't actually real. It's just capitalist propaganda that fuels harmful stereotypes about mental health. I've been down this week because of mom's death anniversary. In a lot of ways, I feel like I was a bit numb about it before this. Not that I didn't break down at times, but it's like it hurts more this year. I suppose that's just part of the grieving process, which feels different when losing a parent. I've lost many people over the years since dad is from a French Catholic family and he had 15 siblings. Mom's family was smaller than that, but still bigger than many others I know. From about age 6 or so, we lost someone nearly every year. I suppose this is part of why I chase my dreams. I've been confronted with mortality a lot.

Gaming & Streaming

I had no expectations about finishing the campaign in Diable IV as I went into stream on Monday. Every time I thought I was close, I wasn't and there was still about a quarter of the map hidden. That held true after stream. I fought with Elias numerous times, but he's been dabbling in some kind of necromancy and isn't currently killable. We dealt with Andarial. I believe next week we'll be attempting to get to Mephisto before Lilith does.

I have gotten myself into a tough spot with Minecraft Origins. I keep dying to a skeleton/zombie duo. Not fair! They usually attack each other rather than ganging up on me. I may have to  "phone a friend."

Music

I've decided that music is the only other language I want to learn for now. I want a year with more of the things I love most in it. I'm going to get back to ukulele while I learn piano because it's a fun little instrument. With my tenor easily accessible, I'm looking forward to playing it more.

PWHL

This week, I spent some time catching up on games I had missed due to life, curling, and them being scheduled in the same time slot as an Ottawa game.

After seeing Minnesota lose to New York, I have no idea what the playoffs will look like if they happen. I had thought it would be Montreal and Minnesota, but now I'm unsure.

On the way to Wednesday's home game, I had several sad moments, so I was glad that I ran into friends. I sat with one near centre ice. It was a nice change of scenary and I actually saw a goal happen. I'm good at looking away just before and needing the replays.

Ottawa played Minnesota and as I expected it was a really tough game. Minnesota is a hard team, but all of the teams are so stacked with skill that it will be interesting to see how the season goes. Sadly, Ottawa lost in OT, but it was a fight the whole time.

Afterwards, friends and I were in the line to exit the garage and this woman, who had no official authority, was walking around angrily telling people they shouldn't be in line to leave with their cars if they haven't already paid for their parking, but all the signs said it was fine to pay at the exit. It was hellacious to get into the line to exit, so there was no way we were getting out to go pay and then trying to re-enter it. Like they should've from the beginning, there was staff helping people get through the gates quicker by the time we got there. There's only a 15-minute time limit from when you pay and the line wasn't moving fast enough to meet that.

Hopefully, my black, PWHL Ottawa hoodie will arrive soon. I'm debating adding my favourite player to the back of it. It's an excuse to do more embroidery patches too. I've not used my sewing machine for this, but it is supposed to be able to do some embroidery.

Montreal's loss to Toronto came after OT and a 6th round of shoot out. It was another game that kept me on edge.

Writing

I got a bit of work done on Sparker this week. I figure I'll need to read through the whole thing again once I'm done to be sure I've made all the edits I plan to before querying an agent. I've probably read my own book more than any other, but I've also changed it many times, so it's been a different read in some areas.