juliebarkley

The pain is less now than it was, thankfully! ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Physio exercises not yet done. They were done yesterday before bed, and I woke up much more achy than I have been, which means I may have pushed a bit overfar. I'm waiting for the chance to take more painkillers in a few minutes, then do today's. My experimental exercise was dumbbell rows. I think this one will be a miss. The first couple of lifts seemed okay, but the pain grew with each, and started lower in the lift. I think if I pushed through it, I would end up with a moment where I lost control, and that would be dangerous.

Flowerbeds are starting to look a little messy - sprawling in places, and in need of a little weeding. But slow progress is progress. Time to dance in the flowers. I have just had my first physio appointment for what I now know is a frozen shoulder. I have a series of exercises that I need to complete 2-3 times per day to speed up my recovery. I've also gotten the all-clear for any activity that doesn't put me above a 4 on the pain scale, doesn't still hurt an hour later, and doesn't hurt more the following day. Excellent! So I have two main focuses for this challenge. First, aim for two sessions of the therapy exercises daily, but at absolute minimum, at least one. No matter what, at least one. Second, find other exercises that I can do. I've held off from most exercise since November now. Anything uncontrolled in the arms could cause sudden and intense pain, and reaching over the head was also very difficult. That may not sound like it is very restrictive if one is not doing pullups or somesuch, but for example, a small arm movement to stay balanced on one foot made me collapse with pain. You don't realize how you use your arms till you can't any more. Now the pain is less, but mobility is far more restricted. So I would like to try a different activity every day to see whether or not I can do them from a pain and range-of-motion point of view. And I have purchased a variety of GMB programs, which should both give me movements to try and ease me back into fear-free motion again. Suggestions are welcome. Today's goal is to figure out a good recipe for habits for these two goals (so that I remember them and work them into my day), and to choose and set up a good space to do the exercises I have been assigned.

I remembered many times in school where I was held back by needing to keep pace with the class, so I read ahead into the parts of the textbook we never covered. It occurred to me even at the time that if I had been left to my own devices, I would have learned more in many of my subjects. So that experience probably sparked the idea. My most important reason for ultimately homeschooling though was that I wanted my child to love learning for its own sake, and I observed that for far too many children, school drove the natural love that they had going in right out of them. Learning becomes transformed into something you do because you were told to by someone else, who also decides what you learn and when you start and stop, is only to be done in the specific institution designed for it, and is geared towards passing tests rather than retention, curiosity, or true understanding (and indeed may purposely squelch these due to time restraints). Nurturing extrinsic rather than intrinsic motivation for learning, and destroying one's confidence in the ability to learn and teach oneself along with the desire to do so. And unfortunately, many people never break this pattern as adults. I have run into university English grads who never read again for pleasure. It's sad, and I didn't want this for my child.

I truly hope that this is what is going on. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ I got rid of quite a big chunk of paper today. That's pretty nice to see in the recycling bin. And I got my Werewolf game all set up and balanced (hopefully) with some roles I came up with while out on a walk, with about two minutes to spare. Cut this one very close, but I'm excited to see how the roles work out. I see that the new challenge has started and is already up to two pages. Guess it's time to think about that again! But that's a tomorrow job.

The tiredness is not going away, unfortunately. It could be related to my now being dosed up with painkillers 24/7, or it could be from the pain that's being (marginally) masked. That's my running theory anyway. Hopefully it's a thing one adjusts to. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- My one-time improvement today was playing with ChatGPT and finding ways that I can use it for work. I think it's going to be very helpful for coming up with display ideas and titles, something that normally takes me quite a bit of time. (I often have trouble being creative on demand.) Might even be able to recommend book titles or authors sometimes. If I can find an AI that can marry a picture with a title, I'll be all set. That'll be it though. Time to dose myself with painkillers again and head to bed.

My TTRPG was cancelled today and I can't say I'm all that sorry. By the time I hit 8 hours of wakefulness, I was starting to feel it, and I'm barely keeping awake now. It's not even been twelve hours, or an especially busy workday. I will transfer some money (almost done!) and do a task that lets me get rid of one piece of paper. All I've got for now.

For sure!

Today has been a healthcare-focused day. I finally got my shoulder looked at (doctor suspects the same as I did - frozen shoulder), picked up medication, and started the preliminaries towards getting an ultrasounds, xray, and physio. These all definitely count as actions to make my life better. And barring unexpected results on the ultrasound/xray, it sounds like they want me to move my shoulder as much as I can (with painkillers to help the process) and it's unlikely to damage anything, I'm going to think about what exercises I can bring back into my life right now.

I completely wasted my after-work time today. No accomplishments.

I was lacking in both time and energy today, and just realized I haven't really eaten, so that's a bit of a priority. I will do something small. I will ... hmm ... I will take my pile of store loyalty cards and find an app I can enter them into. Then I will have them on the occasions they would come in handy without needing to remember to bring the card.

Thanks! I hate making phone calls, and I was pleased that one went so well. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Spent a decent chunk of the day researching charities, which is somehow both boring and interesting at the same time. Didn't finish up though, so no results to report.

Thanks! --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Today was the day my charity-donation habit is meant to kick in, and I have spent a bit of time thinking about why I always fall behind on this. And it essentially boils down to the fact that it's not easy enough. I have to remember, pick a charity from my list (while trying to remember who I donated to last time so as to distribute the aid a little), find their website (or in some cases, a partner that passes on the donation in order to make it tax-deductible), and find my credit card before I can do it. That's a lot of steps, and when I do think of it my brain often nopes out by thinking that I'll do it later (which I then don't). That's not good for me or for the people who could be benefitting from my zakat. So, I set about today to make that process easier and better. I have been learning how to use the Shortcuts app on my phone off and on over the last few weeks, and this seemed like a perfect application of that technology. I built a test menu with a couple of charities on it, with a link directly to their donation page. This means that now I just have to click the shortcut, pick the charity, and it takes me straight to the donation page. Easy. And it works! I just have to fill it out with the rest of them now (I already collected all of the donation links, so this part should be easy). I think I'm going to work on making it even easier by assigning the charities to specific months (so I don't have to think about who to give to) and maybe tweaking the app so that it can put my credit card number in the clipboard for easy copy/paste on the donation pages if that's not some kind of security risk. I also went through my list of charities by running them through Charity Intelligence and checking the recommended charities on a few effective altruism sites. I removed a few that didn't seem to be good value anymore, and now I'm looking to add a few more in the areas I care about. Knowing that the charities I donate to have a good impact, and that they will actually get the money because I'm making donating SO MUCH easier, makes me happy.

Just little things. A couple of papers to the recycle. Set up my new smart plug, which arrived today. Got my less-used devices connected to the internet. Oh, and on one, troubleshooted serious problems so I could use it for business again. That took almost three hours, so I guess it was a biggish thing that makes things permanently better. Well, there you go. That's my thing for the day. It sure did feel good (and was a relief!) to get it working again.

Yeah. I can understand someone making the opposite decision. I just know myself well enough to know I shouldn't. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- As mentioned yesterday, my one-time task was to make a phone call that I have been putting off for easily over a year now. It was not at all as bad as I had mentally made it out to be (of course). Didn't even spend any time on hold. And I was very pleased with the price of Skype international calling - 25 minutes on the phone cost me all of 87 cents. So that's the first step of that project done. I think I'll need to make another international call before I'm done, but that seems less scary now that I know how to do it. I was on a bit of a high after that, so I tackled the pile of papers again. Made decisions about some that had been around for more than 15 years, almost always to the recycling. Quite happy to see the last of some of them, as they weren't just filing or similar but things I had considered chasing up. It felt good to say no, let them go, and free up that little bit of brain space they filled with "someday I should".

Thanks. It's a sad situation on many levels and your description isn't a great match to its realities, but I appreciate the support and sentiment behind it. Seeking, or accepting, contact with this person would absolutely be the wrong choice for me. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I will be doing a bunch of small one-time tasks - getting rid of a a paper or two, reconnecting some devices to wifi, finishing up (hopefully!) the pouches I was making. (I don't sew much. This project has been like a weird bit of floppy origami.) And steeling myself up for my task tomorrow, where I have to make phone calls. Not looking forward to it, but I will be happy when it is over!

One-time task involved moving more money today. This is such a slow process when you have to work within the daily transfer limits and don't remember to do it every day. Still a few more to do, but the end is in sight. Otherwise, it was a weird up-and-down day. On the up, we got a delivery at work of a large red package that was approximately a four foot cube. We were expecting this package, but didn't know it would be so big and frankly, fabulous. Inside was a giant Dog Man costume just like this one: SO COOL. Scholastic really came through for us. So I got to dress up my coworker, and we both surprised my boss on her arrival. This was great fun. And I learned some cool history facts while making a Black History Month display too. So I was pretty happy when I left work. I left work into a freaking blizzard though. Took forever to get home, visibility was garbage. It was pretty scary. Then, as soon as I got home, I found out some news that made me sad, and angry, and frustrated, and other feels as I tried to make sense of it. I've never written a person off and purposely cut them out of any future contact or role in my life. I am struggling with this, but I feel like that's my only option now. So yeah. It's been a bit of a weird day.

Thanks! It's the first half of the inscription on the One Ring: "One Ring to rule them all; One Ring to find them". I saw one (non-illusion) scarf with the entire verse, but it was done in fingering weight yarn and was still like seven feet long (and double-knit too!), and that was just way more commitment than I was willing to take on to get all of the verses. Thanks! They need to die. But I keep adding things to them. I added a couple of folders out of my file box when I was searching through it, when I realized I didn't need easy access to those files and might not need them at all. I'm hoping the trend is in the right direction though. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I did not do a one-time task today. Instead, I reconnected with my volunteer organization. I had two conversations with lovely people who mostly just needed someone to listen to them and believe them. I'm so glad that I was able to provide that for them. I literally still have tears in my eyes. It was absolutely worth it.

I was woken up much earlier than I wanted to be by phone calls from the public health unit. My son had been turned away from his school vaccinations because the new township we live in didn't have the necessary records. Since he was homeschooled, he had gotten all of his immunizations done at the doctor's, and they were never automatically entered into the system. If they gave me little papers as a record, I lost them long ago. I had tried to get the records from the doctor before the clinic came to the school, but the receptionist was dismissive and pawned me off to a website with no info (the receptionists at my doctor are consistently rude). However, this phone call was much more productive - the doctor had faxed her a record of the shots within a day or two of her request, and she just needed to know why there were no records from before he was five. Since that was while we were living abroad and I actually had those records, I promised to take a picture of them and email them back. And I did. Eventually. The book they were recorded in was not where I had expected, and I went through all of my piles of paper in an effort to find it. In fact, I went through most of my piles, and my filed items, twice or more. And this reinforced how frickin' much paper I have in useless piles, how I do not want these piles, and how I will have these piles forever unless I do something about them. So I spent a couple of hours sorting. Sent a little pile off to the recycling, filed some, and set a few as things to check tomorrow. It's a dent, anyway. And since this is a task I hate doing, so my brain will try to convince me on every single paper that thinking about this is too hard and I should do this some other time, I'm trying to celebrate what I did rather than look at what's left to do.

It was my birthday today, so I was lazy and mostly just played games all day. I did attempt to get my backup system working with my borrowed USB hub, but alas. I think I will need to purchase a new Airport-Extreme equivalent thing and hope that that will work. I also did some small unsubscribe things, and those small unsubscribe things I've been doing on the less exciting days are now noticeably adding up. Need to get back on the short story wagon. The last author needed file transfers, and because I had left the drive they were on near the cursed backup system, I had avoided going into that area, noticing it, and being reminded. I have it now, so back to reading!

What did you choose for your flexibility program and devotional pattern?

Oof, and just as the rest of you were getting over it too! I'm glad that the heart pain is a normal, non-dangerous(?) symptom. I'm sorry to hear that your release from the bunker keeps getting delayed.

I think the recipient thought so too. It's working really well. Definitely recommend if you have cats that don't let you close doors. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- My one-time action today was to order some smart plugs. I have a little indoor fountain that I got for Christmas (to help out with a habit, actually), and I keep forgetting to plug it in when I wake up, or unplug it when I go to bed. I would like to pass this remembering off to an electronic pet plug. We have a lamp downstairs that often gets left on too, and I'm sure there will be other use cases, so I got four. Below the spoiler I complain about my shoulder.

Not a lot accomplished today. I may try to knock out something small, fast, and easy. But I do have kind of a funny story. My son dropped by to pick me up from work today. He came into the library very briefly, about two minutes before closing - right about when we try to hide our "get OUT!" faces from customers. He poked around a bit, left right at closing, and I joined him outside once the closing procedures were done. It was snowing a bit and he's a new driver, so I tried not to distract him as we left. A few minutes into the trip, we heard a chirp/squeaking noise. At first I thought it was my phone (I have an alarm that sounds like a bird chirping), but it kept coming back. It was hard to hear clearly over the music, but we figured there had to be a mouse in the car, probably in the glove compartment. I prepared not to flinch should the mouse run over my feet at this point. I pull out my phone and try to turn on the flashlight but fail. (We had a "flashlight" talk when we got home. 😅) He started telling me to open the glove compartment, and I argue back that if I can't see into it there's no point, it'll let the mouse get out into the main car, and anyway we should be on the side of the road to shoo it out if that's what we're doing ... when he realizes. The squeak. He can control it. It is from his wet shoe on the gas pedal. 😄

Unsubbed some more things, set up a weekly work schedule (don't want to count that as my one-time thing because it might not take, but I hope it does), and now I'm going to sit down and sew some bags to hold small items - a project that is very boring but much needed.

It's been a crappy day and I'm just plain worn out. Moved money. It's all I had the energy for.