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2024 - Week 24

Arts & Crafts

The problem with my Perler bead crafting may be that I have been using Hama beads. They melt differently than the Perler ones do.

Due to an event at the location, there was no craft group this week. I decided a good alternative was to clean up the beads and put them away for now because I'm not having enough fun with them for the amount of mess they cause.

Concerts & Plays

Saturday held an adventure as I needed to pick up a special pin at Arts Court before seeing a play that a friend was performing in at La Nouvelle Scène. It wouldn't be all that far from where I parked at City Hall if not for the absolutely wrong shoes to wear. My feet were quite sore by the time I got there. I debated taking a bus to my car after. I walked and stopped in at Steve's Music. More on that below.

The play was Murder She Read and it was quite a silly spin on a murder mystery. An avid reader of mystery novels attempts to solve the crime with a "spirited" butler often getting in the way.

Decluttering & Minimalism

I got two outdoor chairs for free. They aren't the best. A future project will be to improve them. They will live on my balcony.


One was washed, but looked about the same when it dried. I'm not sure what I should try instead. They feel almost as if sanding could be a good idea. I'm thinking of painting them a light blue. Lighter colours tend to do better in the sun and burn skin less.

Gaming & Streaming

Sunday's game of Pathfinder had me spend a hero point to reroll only to get the same number. Here is how I felt about that:


But I did have some other moments that were cool like when I warp stepped behind a kobold and smashed him in the face with my gauntlet. Soon enough, I won't need one to punch hard and that will give me more options.

Lifestyle & Sports

Monday featured the PWHL Draft, so I wasn't too upset about craft night being cancelled. This meant I didn't have to rush home and miss things. For most teams, the draft went pretty well. Minnesota's draft was full of questionable choices. The pick of Britta Curl, who may be a talented player, but a problematic person for the 2SLGBTQIA+ community, BIPOCs, and actual facts, happened. They chose Curl instead of Abby Boreen who had repeatedly demonstrated that she could impact their ability to score positively. Abby was scooped up by Montreal and I truly hope she can enjoy the change despite the shock of it all. Montreal is a city filled with culture, the weather shouldn't be that different from Minnesota, and we have many schools that would love to have her as she finishes her pharmacy degree. It also has to be better being somewhere you're wanted. Ottawa got several good players including a goalie who has been touted as being a wall like Aerin Frankel of PWHL Boston. I like goalies the best, so I'm excited about Gwyneth Philips the most. I do plan to look into all the new potential players. I guess New York will become my favourite American team. I'm not sure where they are located, but they might actually be in a reasonable travel distance.

I think the worst part for me is knowing how easy it is to do research on people. Years ago, when I was a young and dumb 20-something, I worked at a police station. We always checked social media and the Internet on anyone who would be joining the staff. That has been a common thing to do for more than 20 years now. No one was quiet about Curl. There are snap shots all over of these tweets. There are so many articles on her anti-social views. It's really disheartening as a lesbian who plays sports.

On that, my arm is really starting to feel better. I've gotten back to regularly doing my physio exercises. I can do the motion of throwing a ball without my arm getting stuck. Hopefully, there won't be anything too serious found on the ultrasound next week and I can return to softball soon!

I think all of my stitches are gone as well. I have a check up for that next Tuesday followed by a consult with an orthodontist.

After about a year of constantly screwing up my orders, I've deleted my Doordash account. On this particular occasion, they sent me Swiss Chalet when I ordered Harvey's. One might argue that's an unintentional upgrade, but it's not what I wanted at all. I know they are techically owned by the same company, but they are separate. Was it the restaurant that screwed up? Perhaps. But given that I never had issues like this with Skip the Dishes, I think Doordash miscommunicates in some way to the restaurant. It was the last straw. I couldn't even eat half of what was sent, so what a waste that was.

Music & Songwriting

My starter violin came. After some difficult moments, I was able to tune it. It's quite different than a guitar in that the pegs need to be pushed in after turning to keep them in place. And I read that it's best to leave some of the tuning for the fine tuners on each string or you're more likely to break strings. And since violin strings can be quite pricey, it's not something one wants to be replacing more often than necessary.

It's interesting to me that violinists need a knife with them to scratch the rosin for their bows. Anyway, that was the next challenge to learn about. I was able to make noise.

I start my lessons next week and I'm super excited about it. The woman I'm going to be studying with has a cover of Linkin Park's Numb on her YouTube channel and that is absolutely perfect for me.

After the play on Saturday, I picked up some dark rosin for my violin from Steve's Music on Rideau since I noticed it was so close. They lock the door all day there. It's unfortunately necessary in that area. Pirastro Oliv is the one I went with. It's almost black.

Reading & Writing

I'm 8 chapters away from finishing Stone Butch Blues. This particular read has been quite a journey. There is a lot of tough content in it including sexual assault. While I'm generally not one for reading those types of scenes in any books or seeing them in film, it is absolutely integral to the character development in this instance. When other people have done this for character development, they execute it hamfistedly and at such a shallow level that it's really more of a gimick. This is not the case in Feinberg's book. I'm sure some might read it and dismiss it as insanity because they are unable to handle the truths in the book that many gay women, whether butch or femme, have experienced. It's a powerful read.

I was quite exhausted this week, but have some small changes I will be making to my book in the next week.

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