juliebarkley

On 11/15/2023 at 1:01 AM, Scaly Freak said:

Ooof. My sympathies on the cat situation. did you get the liquid gabapentin, or is it capsules?  I found the liquid was a lot easier with our Sidekick.

 

Hopefully the cat calms down as she gets used to the new situation, and you'll be able to get some sleep.

We have capsules. It stuck to the roof of her mouth repeatedly and then got sticky and even harder to make go down, before it finally broke and I had to get a new one. Liquid would have been much easier. It would also have been easier to adjust the dosage - with the hyperthyroidism covering a likely kidney condition, it would have been good to be able to try a half-dose.

 

She seems much more chill after the night I drugged her (which thankfully went well for sleep). She's even going into the crate, voluntarily, to sleep during the day. Despite it being right next to a litter box. Strange cat.

 

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Ongoing habits:

 

Exercise: Did exercise yesterday. Not today though.

 

Prayer: I'm pretty sure I skipped stuff I could have done yesterday. Today work just got in the way of every prayer call. It's what happens as the days get shorter.

 

NerdFitness: I read and responded to one. It's not much.

 

Purging: Again just really didn't feel like it. Need to get back in the swing on this one.

 

Tasks: Start: 709. End: 727. I did say.

 

 

New shiny things for this challenge:

 

New People: I have focused my Discord posting on one particular group that I think has the most promise, and I posted something in it both days. I'm not sure how I'm supposed to pick out individuals to engage with in such a big group though. I don't notice individuals at the moment, and I doubt they notice me either. I'm just throwing things into a collective stream of consciousness.

 

Read: This is going very well. I skim-read a bunch of books last night (as I had to return them), and I am also making progress on my regular book (it is about how the automobile negatively affected and continues to affect the way cities grew after WWII). I also got the next volume of Black Butler and so I am planning to read that over the weekend. And I have some other interesting items checked out as well. So much delightful reading to look forward to. ❤️

 

Long-Term: I really really very much need to get those work display/passive things in order.

 

Drugging the cat let me get a full night's sleep (well, at least as much as I ever do when there's an alarm involved). I think she may have meowed once. Last night I did not drug the cat and had only one episode with meowing and one with meowing and digging, and neither of those were terribly long. So I think there is a good pattern coming together here.

 

I have zero energy right now though, and I am going to settle down with my books for the night rather than try to do any challenge-related things. Tomorrow I will need to work on urgent work things at home (four program things in the next two weeks is a lot) and I am not going to be very happy about it. So I will treat myself well tonight and get lots of sleep so that I will be able to push myself to do it.

On 11/10/2023 at 5:37 PM, Epsilonte said:

I hope there are still people here who remember me.

How could we forget your sunny self? Welcome back!

 

On 11/14/2023 at 9:50 AM, Epsilonte said:

I came across a skirt I used to love very much... It's a wine red velvet skirt that is older than me (straight out of late 70ies or early 80ies I think), used to belong to my mom who wanted to get rid of it 15 years ago but I snatched it up and loved it some more for a few years. Haven't worn it in ages, but I just cannot bring myself to give it away. xD It's also this odd thing in between "too old to donate" and "not ratty enough to throw away". xD But it's also very big and heavy and takes a away a lot of space... Not sure yet what to do with it...

Maybe try wearing it for a day. It will give you an idea of whether you love how it looks on you and how it feels to move about in. Sometimes when you haven't worn something in a while, that will help you decide between "I feel beautiful in this - must wear it more!" and "it's beautiful but just not me - it would make someone else happier than it will ever make me".

Ongoing habits:

 

Exercise: When I got home, I did the next session of Elements. It wanted me to do the 3-point bridge TWICE, so I skipped the second one, but other than that it was fine. Pretty tiring today actually. Also went for a long walk with my son. Basically I spent half of my available time tonight exercising.

 

Prayer: I probably could have once, but I did not.

 

NerdFitness: I finally got around to at least looking briefly at the challenges of people who joined after me, though not actually reading them yet.

 

Purging: I was very short on time.

 

Tasks: Start: 709. End: 709. I brought home a bunch of picture books though, so there will be another big jump up. When I get to the end of the picture book lists, the big jumps will stop.

 

 

New shiny things for this challenge:

 

New People: I caught up on a couple of Discords and posted in one. There was a knitting club at the library that I have general plans to try out, but today was not the day. Sleep was needed.

 

Read: Doing well!

 

Long-Term: Not today.

 

Last night was a disaster sleepwise. The cat made like I had tricked her when I shut the door of the crate behind her, and proceeded to vigorously try to break out, alternating this with meowing in an "I think there has been some mistake hoomin" kind of way, for about an hour. Then started it up again several times throughout the night. I did not have to get up early yesterday so I could put up with some stuff, but tomorrow I do, so I drugged the cat with the gabapentin (an ordeal in itself) and we are just at the two-hour mark now. There was brief meowing and alarm when I transferred her into the carrier 15 minutes ago (she was half-asleep in my lap), but she ate a whole bunch of food and is now curled up in a sleeplike position, so I have hopes that we will both get some sleep tonight.

 

It is going to be a long two weeks.

Ongoing habits:

 

Exercise: No, nothing.

 

Prayer: Also no. Could have, but didn't.

 

NerdFitness: I did a little.

 

Purging: I completely forgot about this.

 

Tasks: Start: 715. End: 709.

 

 

New shiny things for this challenge:

 

New People: I posted a thing to one of my Discord groups. Most of the stuff in town is shut on Mondays.

 

Read: I am about half done the book I am reading.

 

Long-Term: A wee bit of planning, figuring out how to structure the thing I want to make. But no actual doing.

 

My cat is home. We have had some very nice cuddle time, but I have to keep preventing her from jumping up. I am about to shut her in the crate so I can sleep, so we will see how that goes.

 

The situation for which I have been providing emotional support seems to be turning in a positive direction, which is good for all involved.

 

I have been feeling mentally tossed about for the past few days. Probably a combination of the end of the big project of a few days ago, the need to be the strong party for someone else, and concern about the cat and having to reject her constantly. It has been hard to concentrate on things for more than a few minutes at a time, so I will read two pages, then go watch a video, then play a game for two minutes, etc. etc. Or I just can't think of anything at all that I want to do and feel restless, like I should be doing something that I'm not. And a little bit of creeping work stress in there too over one particular upcoming event. I really hope that this calms down soon. Probably the exercise that I've not been doing would be a big help.

Ongoing habits:

 

I did some walking today, after a couple of days of nothing. I did manage to get in some prayers both today and on previous days, which is good news. I got rid of some things that were not (yet) in the pile of things, so it was preventative getting-rid I suppose, but didn't really help the backlog of stuff.

 

I read one NF Challenge today and had planned to read more, but I wasn't in the right headspace for this it turned out.

 

Tasks: Start: 683. End: 715. This is mostly a result of the huge project I was working on. I actually did remove some things from the list, and not all of them small things either.

 

 

New shiny things for this challenge:

 

I continued to support the person that needed support today, which took both time and a certain amount of mental energy. I simply did not want to deal with people outside of that today, which I think is also why I just couldn't make myself read any more on NF. I did do some reading. The long-term thinking was also thrown for a loop today in the same way that social things were. Big Project of the last few days didn't help either. Easy, light, fast, and fun was the way forward for today.

 

My cat comes home tomorrow! It is going to take some experimenting to figure out how to manage her while giving her as much freedom as possible, but it will be nice to see her again.

On 11/11/2023 at 1:59 AM, Harriet said:

But yes, if you specifically want to eat grain based stuff, or the premixed/processed stuff, but just a GF replacement, then it's for sure more expensive. And tastes worse. I say this because I really struggled with the gluten free diet when I expected to eat like I did before, but with GF replacements. It was hard and also sucked. It was much easier when I started viewing protein and vegetables as what a meal should look like.

This is exactly how I feel about vegetarian food. If you try to remake a meat dish with weird processed vegetarian ingredients, you'll end up with a disappointing result that is also really expensive and makes you feel deprived if you are giving up meat altogether. But if you take inspiration from places where meatlessness (or low-meat) is normal and expected, there are WORLDS of tasty and cheap foods out there, and they are really good and often quite easy too.

 

Gluten-free might work the same way. In a lot of the world, the traditional source of carbohydrate isn't wheat, but corn, rice, plantains, etc. She would have to be willing to experiment a bit with new flavours, but it could be a fun activity to try a new recipe once a week too.

I have spent all of my time in the last three days working on a big project (I didn't realize it was as big as it was, but then didn't want to leave it partially done), and much of this evening supporting someone through a really rough time. Not much else to report, I'm afraid.

On 11/8/2023 at 3:42 AM, Jarric said:

Congratulations on winning the quiz! Sounds like a really good night.

 

Not too hard I hope 😬

It really was! Regardless of whether I stay in touch with anyone there, I now have a new event to look forward to, and some experience that people will like me for myself to use when my brain tells me otherwise.

 

Nah. It's a panelled ceiling and I was jumping with arms extended over my head (but with wrists bent back, because otherwise I would hit it every jump). It makes a loud noise, but the tile just shifts upwards. No pain, no damage.

 

16 hours ago, spiralpoet said:

This sounds So. Hard. Impressed! For however long you kept it going!

I did the full three minutes, but after the first minute there were breaks for sure.

 

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I felt quite dizzy when I got home from work, which I chalked up to either not enough food or too much screens. So I skipped exercise and my task list and just read for a while. My peopling time was with people I already know, but I did have some at least.

 

For my long-term task, I made a decision (though I haven't started to work on it yet). So, ever since starting this job, I have been so very grateful to Past Me for planning out templates for storytimes. Even though I always tweak the template in some way, I know that I can run with it completely as written if I need to, and so one I have two or three good books storytime planning is DONE. It's a huge mental relief that makes me able to plan more creative stuff (because I know I don't NEED to). So I am better at my job, because I am happier and less stressed from not always being just a day or two short of a hard deadline. Just wins all around.

 

I want to have the same for passive activities for teens and children, and for displays. These things forever slip my mind, and then don't get done. Or rather, my coworker does them, which does not seem fair even if she does enjoy them. This is going to be a fair bit of work, but I'm already going through all sorts of files that would qualify (things like scavenger hunts, photo backdrops, things to put on my giant dice, etc.). For now, I just need to get the very basics covered, maybe one of each for the next couple of months that I am doing, then keep an eye out for things that would work. One per month for the displays, and working up to one per week for the passives perhaps. I KNOW that Future Me would be very happy to have that to draw on, even if she decides to go with some other idea that she's come up with.

 

So now I have a work-based long-term plan to work on, in addition to my personal meal-planning plan that I haven't started. 😅

Ongoing habits:

 

Exercise: I think I did Vitamin today. It was all jumping. My basement ceiling is low, so I hit it a few times.

 

Prayer: Timing was again quite terrible.

 

NerdFitness: Just a touch.

 

Purging: Nope.

 

Tasks: Start: 679. End: 683. I added like twelve things to the list, so I feel pretty good about that actually.

 

 

New shiny things for this challenge:

 

New People: I emailed one of the people from the trivia night. Kind of a dead end though I think.

 

Read: Started a new book and read the intro.

 

Long-Term: I did actually do something, and now I can't remember what it was.

 

2 hours ago, Kalitraz said:

I hate confrontation and don't want to have to fight with my mom, but I need to prove to my wife that she's more important to me. I just hate that it might very well mean losing what remains of the relationship with my mom. Ugh.

Sympathies for your family troubles.

 

I don't know the ins and outs of the situation, so ignore this if irrelevant and unwanted advice, but I got little pings of alarm when I read that you "need to prove" that your wife is "more important" by cutting someone out of your life when you don't want to do that, and I am concerned. There should be healthy boundaries if there are issues where your mother is in some way harming your relationship with your wife of course (and the other way around too), but there should be room for both in your life if you want there to be, and (barring true toxicity) no one should ever force you to cut someone out. You are caught in the middle of something and care about all of the people involved, and that's a very hard thing. It really does sound like talking about this with a neutral third party would help you figure out the best way forward and give you the confidence to pursue it.

Ongoing habits:

 

Exercise: I did a session of Literal Immortality today, plus a walk. I swear the Literal Immortality program has some of the hardest exercises in the whole set. Elbow plank to straight arm plank and back and forth for three minutes broke me.

 

Prayer: The alarms were all at really awkward times today.

 

NerdFitness: A little. Need to do this more.

 

Purging: I did not. I just didn't feel like it.

 

Tasks: Start: 683. End: 679.

 

 

New shiny things for this challenge:

 

New People: I took a package to the post office, and did a middling job of interacting. Then I decided to stop into the library to "see if my card needs renewing", and had a brief chat with the person working there. Bonus item: I had been waiting for a radon detector I had on hold, but apparently my email address was entered into the wrong field and I was never notified. But there was one on the shelf today, so we have started monitoring our basement area for radon.

 

Read: Finished A National Crime. This book has left me very curious about how we were different from the experience of similar boarding schools in the US. Their system started earlier and had similar goals and trajectory, with similar results of abuse and cultural devastation, but the little I've read makes the American experience with boarding schools sound better than ours was. Abusive and destructive yes, but less so. I rarely hear mention of the intergenerational trauma effects of neglect, abuse, and lack of access to loving parenting. What I would really like to know is if those schools really were better than ours, or if they were just as bad but our society has just been more willing to talk about what happened there, so more stories have come out and people are more aware. Perhaps the dealing with the institution of slavery just overshadowed this other dark period of their national history. Or perhaps I just don't hear the conversations they do have. I don't know. Anyone know any good resources on American Indian Boarding Schools?

 

Long-Term: Didn't look at this today, either.

 

I really can't think of anything else interesting to say about today. 🤷‍♀️

On Saturday, I did some knitting and ate some food before heading out to trivia, then home for an online ttrpg game, then I had a splitting headache from all the socializing and ended up in bed a bit early. More about this later. Proper report for today.

 

Ongoing habits:

 

Exercise: My exercising has been thin on the ground of late. Granted, mostly because I had to sub out my proper exercise time for sleep time, but still. Walks have not been happening much, because it's getting cold, and that's just not an acceptable excuse because this is CANADA.

 

Prayer: Yesterday I actually did. It may be the only thing on the list I did do. Today, I heard the alarm multiple times and did not. I was quite immersed in my podcast and knitting and I just didn't interrupt for that. Not my finest moment.

 

NerdFitness: I did do one. I still haven't checked the newer ones.

 

Purging: A handful of recipe cards. (Side note: anyone know if Chinese-style steamed buns can be frozen, either before or after cooking? It'll tell me whether I should keep those recipes.)

 

Tasks: Start: 683. End: 683. I haven't really started in on this yet. Just settling into it now.

 

 

New shiny things for this challenge:

 

New People: Today I did not. But I did see someone briefly in person when they dropped off the dog crate that my cat will be staying in after her treatment.

 

Read: More reading progress. Getting near the end!

 

Long-Term: Didn't even think to look at this today.

 

Saturday's big event was the trivia night. I was feeling pretty nervous before I went down, not helped by the fact that there was no one seating people or checking tickets, at the restaurant and no obvious way to figure out who was organizing or where I was supposed to go. After waiting for almost ten minutes, I hunted down some wait staff (they were very busy) and got pointed to the people in charge. I was the first person from my assigned team to arrive (despite being almost exactly on time at this point), but another team member arrived just moments later. He was a fun guy - told me how his usual team had two people at a funeral and the other was kicked in the head by a horse 😮 - and he was the source of much off-colour humour at our table.

 

Trivia went for five rounds of fifteen questions each. After the first round, we were tied for third. After the second, we were in second. After the third, we were in first. After the fourth, we were in first by six points. We had a pretty terrible fifth round, but I guess everyone else did too, because we won! Yay for Team Random! The prizes were a teeny Oscar statuette each and some taster packs from the local coffee roaster. I got invited to go out drinking afterwards by the fun guy on my team after the couple had gone home, but he knew that I had to get back home for my game so I don't know if that was just politeness/being nice to the new person. (Every person on my team also plays D&D. One plays Genesys too.) I didn't get his number, but I did get the number for the lady who organizes the thing, as it appears they are friends and there is some sort of Facebook messenger hangout thing that I was invited to. So really, as a throwing-myself-in-the-deep-end meeting-people experiment, it went really really well. The game also went well; there were some fun twists in the session that led to some interesting interparty moments.

 

Today I really just knit. I knit and knit and listened to Tale of the Manticore, and season 1 ended about half an hour before I would be done the knitting, which is pretty darn close. It was such a good story and made me care so much about the characters. Don't want to spoil the ending for anyone who listens, but in the last few episodes there were tears shed. So now I just have to sew in ends (easy) and block out the scarf (probably while the cat is away). Feels nice to have that project all done!

  

On 11/1/2023 at 5:56 AM, Jackdaw said:

Nice goals, but you're right, there are plenty of them! Isn't it to stressful to have so many things to do?

Not really. A lot of the stuff in the habit stuff is not automatic, but also not new. The new stuff helps give me direction to my free time and let me feel that I've accomplished something.

 

On 11/1/2023 at 5:56 AM, Jackdaw said:

What other languages than English do you read in? What kinds of books do you like?

Lately, mostly French. I can read Esperanto, but my experience with it is mostly oral, and literary written Esperanto is harder for me. Which means I need to practice it, of course.

 

I read very widely. I read an awful lot of non-fiction these days. My fiction reading tends to be on the lighter end - lots of manga, and then just whatever I come across that looks fun. I like a bit of humour. Dark humour in a horrorish novel is fine. So is a middle-grade adventure with wills from great-uncles and lots of puzzles. There are themes and subgenres I'm not a fan of, but wide genrewise I will read most anything.

 

On 11/1/2023 at 5:56 AM, Jackdaw said:

I like your goal of talking to new people everyday. It's my goal now here in Germany as well, but more for language purposes than social ones. And sometimes I need to push myself too, sometimes it feels a little scary to make that first move, right?

 

I also relate to that insecurity about meeting people through discord or similar platforms. I tried this one too (that time for social purposes), but chatting with people in the Internet never actually worked for me (except for nerd fitness). People are just so weird if you actually talk to them, they are so used to that indirect communication through comments or likes. But I wish you best of luck! Maybe in different groups in works better. 

 

Also, I am pretty open to making new friends. I can give you my messanger and we can chat sometimes if you'd like. Let me know

Um, yes, terrifying. Though the hardest part is not in the moment, it's motivating myself to get out to do it at all.

 

I think for me it is more that it is so easy to get lost in a large pool of people. You have to assert yourself more and force your voice to the front to be noticed at all. And you are always jumping into an existing conversation that didn't previously include you, without any idea of how that interruption will be received. So that part is weird and very opposite from in-person communication, more like what would be expected at a party than most of the rest of real life. But in more intimate online settings with fewer people, I actually find it much easier to get to know people than in person.

 

Feel free to send me a personal message through the NF messaging service and maybe we can sort something out.

 

On 11/1/2023 at 7:19 PM, Scaly Freak said:

Fair warning on the gabapentin... if you give too much of that to a cat, they become so comfortably sleepy that they can't be bothered to put in the effort it takes to get up and move over to a litter box. You get one guess how I know this.  😬

Note to self: put plastic under the dog crate you are borrowing.

 

On 11/1/2023 at 7:19 PM, Scaly Freak said:

Whoa there. 

 

You got out of bed earlier than you normally do, you took your cat to a specialist vet clinic that is a substantial distance away, for a visit filled with uncertainty (fear?), stress, information overload, and wide emotional swings back and forth. That definitely qualifies as "much". 

All right all right, conceded.

 

On 11/2/2023 at 8:40 PM, spiralpoet said:

I feel this too. Sometime during the pandemic, I started going for walks - and now I see the same people going for walks, at similar times. And their dogs. It hasn't led to any actual conversations, but we all recognize each other and wave in a friendly fashion. It's not a big thing, but it's nice. Are there small things that might feel like positive steps? 

I'm hoping I can have that kind of mutual recognition with some of the workers in local businesses. I mostly go on my walks late enough that there aren't really other people around. So honestly a small positive step is just to patronize small local shops, which is a good community-building thing anyway. It's only a 5000-person town, so just by getting out and about, I should see some familiar faces. I definitely recognize some of the folks at the farmer's market, for instance.

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I spent a decent chunk of Wednesday and Thursday either at work, exhausted, or asleep. So, catching up on updates.

 

Ongoing habits:

 

Exercise: I napped as soon as possible on both Wednesday and Thursday. There was absolutely no way that any exercise was going down. Not that today had any either, but the valid excuses are fewer.

 

Prayer: I did today, not on the previous days. Was at work or asleep.

 

NerdFitness: Did do today. Really really must look at the challenges that have shown up since my one and only check, because I KNOW that I am missing some of my good friends' challenges.

 

Purging: I did this both today AND yesterday! Paper both times. I found a little walking tour of a nearby town that I must have picked up at the library or the historical society, as well as laughably ancient lists and notes that are now in the recycling.

 

Tasks: Start: I don't remember and if I go back to check I'll lose this post. End: 683. This was the bulk of my day and I did quite a lot, regardless of what the numbers show (because I did add some tasks).

 

 

New shiny things for this challenge:

 

New People: I am going to look at the forums that I am targeting this challenge. Maybe. Probably. I really don't feel like peopling all that much just at the moment. But tomorrow I have a trivia night with strangers, so that should make up for any lapses today.

 

Read: Still picking away at A National Crime. It's not exactly light reading. And finished a volume of Barakamon, which is.

 

Long-Term: I learned how to create an email template in Apple Mail, so that I can have nice customizable messages for things like marketing, invoicing, and so on. Perhaps there will be more personal applications too that I haven't thought of yet.

 

Wednesday I was just so completely and utterly exhausted that I didn't know what to do with myself when I got home. I was afraid to nap because I had to get up even earlier the following day, so I mostly just watched videos in a half-awake haze. I think I did force myself to nap a bit because I just couldn't take it any more.

Thursday I had my work's employee forum, so I got to see some colleagues that I don't run into often, talk to the new hire at my location (I know her, but we have basically no overlap in our shifts, which is sad), and meet a few of the new people at the other branches in my cluster. Our guest speaker was a well-known local journalist, formerly of the CBC but now a professor at Carleton University School of Journalism, talking about misinformation and disinformation and the role mainstream journalism has played in both promoting and combating both. He talked about how commercial pressures play into this. For instance, Trump lies a lot, but any stories that feature him also bring in a lot of traffic, so it was estimated that he got over $5 billion in free advertising from the mainstream press and twice as much column space of any other candidate in 2016, which helped get his ideas out there. And he said he thinks some mainstream papers probably want Trump to stay relevant or even win despite hating him, because he keeps them in the black. Or how the rush to beat the competition can result in stories being published without proper fact-checking, especially if they hit the journalist's/editor's confirmation biases, like we saw with the hospital explosion in Gaza. It was all very interesting. Then we also got to hear about our library's community development projects, such as a partnership with Prezdential Basketball (which targets disadvantaged youth in priority neighbourhoods to empower them through basketball) where we gave out more than 150 copies of the youth version of Ibram X. Kendi's Stamped . The youth heard, repeatedly, from people they already trust and admire, that "readers become leaders" and how reading had mattered in their lives. That was awesome. And they fed us SO WELL. (This is unusual.)

 

Today I mostly just worked through my task list, interrupted by short bits of other things. But mostly the task list.

 

The cat is being even more clingy than normal. I think she knows something's going on.

You're doing so much; it's so interesting to read about. Keep doing it! You're doing great! Just don't burn yourself out with all the things.

7 hours ago, Mistr said:

I am glad your cat is able to get radiation treatment and that she is getting the UTI treated too. Switching to special food can help a lot with kidney health.

 

You have been very productive and had to deal with a lot of extra things over the last several days. No surprise that you are tired and need a break.

Me too! I was quite worried about the "candidacy" thing, but it turns out it was not a big deal. Whew! The kidney thing they said is something you just manage, but can't be cured, so we will get more info on that once the treatment is done. Hyperthyroidism masks kidney disease, so it isn't until after that's been treated for a bit that we'll get a good picture of where we are at with the kidney disease.

 

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I'm not going to bother with a proper report today. Before I went to work, I took care of some last-minute Halloweeny stuff and pootled a bit on the internet. Afterward, I had supper and then went on a walk with my son, and I will be in bed shortly. I worked the whole of trick-or-treat time, and we didn't get any kids in the library (not a surprise), so I used the unusual quietness to get some rocks painted for my kindness rocks program next week and did a little weeding. It was all very chill.

CONGRATULATIONS! 🎉

On 10/30/2023 at 1:32 AM, Scaly Freak said:

Good luck and positive thoughts to your cat! I hope she is a candidate, and that the shot helps.

Thanks! It all went well today.

 

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Ongoing habits:

 

Exercise: Just a walk.

 

Prayer: I totally heard the ones I wasn't home for, but missed the ones when I was at home. I think I may have been asleep.

 

NerdFitness: I'm pretty sure I did, but I wouldn't swear to it.

 

Purging: A few recipe cards.

 

Tasks: Start: 685. End: 683.

 

 

New shiny things for this challenge:

 

New People: Not unless you count the vet.

 

Read: I read a wee bit, and will read more.

 

Long-Term: I didn't actually do anything beyond brainstorming ideas (and ways to come up with ideas).

 

The vet trip went well. My cat has hyperthyroidism, which means that she has a (probably) benign tumour growing on her thyroid gland. The cure is a small dose of radioactive iodine, which kills the tumour cells and should leave the healthy tissue untouched. In 94% of cats, it is a cure. (In 3%, it lowers the thyroid numbers but not enough, and a second treatment can bring a cure. In 3%, the healthy tissue is damaged - or perhaps had already been destroyed - and they are left hypothyroid.) Those are pretty good odds! The main condition for being a good candidate for the treatment is that they can be left safely for most of the day, as staff only check in on them twice. Since that's not a problem, she's now booked in for the treatment in a week.

 

This means that I will have a radioactive cat to deal with a few days after that. The treatment leaves the cats radioactive; that's why the staff only check in on them twice a day, during which time they also measure the cats with a Geiger counter to see if they are safe to be released yet. They have to keep them in a little bunker room with thick concrete walls and a lead door too; it's pretty cool. They're still a bit radioactive when released, so we had to sign a sheet that said we would follow the instructions of the Nuclear Safety Commission for two weeks after she gets home (wouldn't want to get thyroid cancer!). Contact with the cat is supposed to be no more than 30 minutes per day, and no sleeping with people, and this is going to be a problem. This cat cannot be shut in a room for even seconds without her freaking out and meowing non-stop for release. This can go on for hours. She also spends a decent chunk of her day in my lap or right next to me or sleeping at my feet - she's sweet and loyal, but also very needy. So I am trying to borrow a big dog crate off of someone local so that I can set up a kitty playpen of sorts in my room. Then she can be in her familiar safe place for sleeping and such, but is also not able to be on top of me all the time. And we got a drug (gabapentin) to make her sleepy. Between the two, hopefully we will survive this time.

 

We also learned that she has a UTI (now being treated) and early-stage kidney disease. We deal with that later.

 

This was all a LONG vet visit with a lot of information, and the special clinic that does these treatments was rather far away, so I had to get up earlier than I would have liked and then was tired for a while before deciding to throw in the towel and nap. I feel like I didn't get much done, but I did get some things done too. Meh.

Ongoing habits:

 

Exercise: Yes! More bent-arm bear and such.

 

Prayer: I didn't hear it at all today? I was out for some of the times, but not all. Time to check the app again.

 

NerdFitness: Yup!

 

Purging: Oh shoot.

 

Tasks: Start: 691. End: 685.

 

 

New shiny things for this challenge:

 

New People: Went out to the local game store and talked to the owner (they are going to see if the thing I want can be ordered, or indeed even exists). Also went to the last regular farmer's market, where the mother of my DM hugged me - twice - and loaded up my bag with free vegetables because she enjoys my presence. Or something like that. I left with a large amount of radishes and some beets and garlic, anyway.

 

Read: Have read a little.

 

Long-Term: I did a bunch of research that proved fruitless, and also was going to send in my DRIP forms, but found that they had already been done for all accounts. 🤷‍♀️

 

My cat is going to the vet tomorrow to find out if she is a candidate for a radiation shot. I really hope she is, because her medicine is very expensive, and I'm hearing murmurings about the house that the alternative is likely to be a rather final solution. Wish her luck.

On 10/28/2023 at 2:07 PM, Jackdaw said:

I really like talking to people and I can build the connection instantly, but I think I can lose my cool if I don't know how to help them or if they curse me.

Most of customer service is wanting to help people, listening with empathy, and figuring out the path forward. You're good at all of those things, it sounds like.

 

If you don't know how to help them, you will have other people to refer them to. And they are no worse off than they were when they started.

 

If they get upset, they are almost always upset at the situation (or because of a bad day), NOT at you. Even if you are the target of the yelling. It really helps to remember that. If you stay calm and show that you are listening, they generally calm down and sometimes even apologize. You can lead them to a good place a lot of the time. And if there is an incident, your coworkers will be there to support you, because they have probably been through it too.

 

You actually sound like a great match for customer service. And the prep you're doing for this interview will help you with future ones in this line even if you don't get it, so none of it is a waste.

 

You can do this.

Ongoing habits:

 

Exercise: Nope. Our guest was still using my exercise space as living space.

 

Prayer: Timing again, but man, that's a lot of missed days.

 

NerdFitness: Yup!

 

Purging: Some bits of paper from one of the document boxes. I found a swimming report card from when I was a child. (I was not a good swimmer.)

 

Tasks: Start: 682. End: 691. Yes, work happened here.

 

 

New shiny things for this challenge:

 

New People: I posted a teensy bit on a forum, and got emails back from people I emailed while doing research. So now I have a couple of recurring library events to try out.

 

Read: This is once again my evening plan.

 

Long-Term: I knew there was something I didn't do. Let's make this tomorrow's priority task.

 

I feel like I got a lot done at work, while also just keeping up with the programs I have coming up. I'm going to have to work on these at home too if I want to get myself ahead, I think. Sigh.

 

At home, we had some board game time and flitted between a few different things. Feeling quite decent and oddly energetic. Perhaps it is the Halloween spirit.

On 10/17/2023 at 3:20 PM, Cheetah said:

Last challenge I wanted to take walks most days at home.  That didn't work because I don't have time.  However, partway through I realized that I can take short walks during lunch at work.  So now I'm doing that, and my whole challenge this time is to keep it up.

That's awesome! I use my work breaks to get language practice in, and it's the most consistent reading time I get.

 

Looks like this is working out really well for you, and now you have lifting too.

11 hours ago, Kalitraz said:

This is a great observation. Honestly just walking daily and starting to recognize people (and their dogs ), seeing them and being seen has helped to refill my social meter a bit. I certainly need more work towards being a community member and finding more friends, but having those be separate goals is valuable and I think that one will certainly make the other easier lol. I've got my plate sorta full for the rest of the year, but in the spring I think this is gonna be something I really work towards. I appreciate you sharing your efforts towards that end and I'm over here taking notes.

I don't know that I'm the greatest example, but I hope you can pull something from my experiences that is useful for you!

 

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Ongoing habits:

 

Exercise: I didn't do anything.

 

Prayer: Timing again. Not actually neglect.

 

NerdFitness: I did a little.

 

Purging: More recipes. And I'm now using the box I liberated from the old pile to hold the recipes I have already gone through, so I can see my progress.

 

Tasks: Start: ???. End: 682. I decided to split out the many many links I added (it was indeed an obscene number). They are significantly lower priority than the other things on the list and they would drown the other things that need doing more. So I just added a "one item from the link list" task, and I'll let that list grow. I can always search it if I am looking for something specific, but it's really just ideas for the future. If any links are for things I have active plans for, they are in the main list. That feels like a good way to introduce some researching of new ideas without overwhelming the things that need to be done sooner.

 

 

New shiny things for this challenge:

 

New People: I did not directly interact with new people. But I set myself up to do so in future. I put my name in to volunteer at the local Santa Claus parade (ie. manning a street blockade for an hour and a half). I also signed up for the very last ticket for a trivia competition. The post said they would assign me to a team of four, so I will for sure be meeting at least three people (and hopefully helping them win at trivia). 😂

 

Read: After this post, this is my evening plan.

 

Long-Term: I finally emailed one of my councillors about the lack of sidewalks on my street. We get more traffic than the surrounding streets due to the the layout of the town, and all of those other street have a sidewalk (as does ours, farther up; it just stops for no good reason). There are a bunch of roadworks scheduled for a main road nearby and I am afraid that once that begins, we will get significantly more traffic and it will get downright dangerous here without one. The council is showing every sign of being right-thinking about this kind of thing even in the face of minor local pushback and grumbling, so I am hopeful that good things may come of this.

 

I feel like I did a good job staying on top of things today and made progress towards my goals. It's a good feeling.

16 hours ago, Mistr said:

Yay for successful storytime! And for recovering your books before they walked out the door.

 

Meeting new people is challenging as an adult. I am making notes on your approach. Those all sound like good ideas.

Yeah, that was a close call!

 

It really is. I had some thoughts on it that I will talk about below.

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Ongoing habits:

 

Exercise: I went for a walk. I also grated a bunch of cheese, which had better count as exercise, because it was exhausting.

 

Prayer: No.

 

NerdFitness: I think I did not.

 

Purging: Several papers from my paper pile. I also found that one of my boxes of games was empty enough that I could consolidate it with another pile, so that is one fewer container again. Progress!

 

Tasks: Start: 684. End: ???. My last task today ended up adding a VERY large number of links to my task list. I am afraid to check the number on the list, because it's going to be huge.

 

 

New shiny things for this challenge:

 

New People: I interacted with some of the people at the grocery store, and posted about Esperanto D&D because someone happened to ask about it. I didn't make my list, but I shall tomorrow. Given how hard it is to even get out the door and the fact that I work a lot of evenings and weekends, I'm going to have to figure out what's out there that looks interesting, what fits into my schedule, and then essentially make appointments with myself to do things if they are going to happen. Like, on Tuesday at 2pm I am going to xxx cafe and I will try to talk to the person who works there briefly.

 

I talked with someone about it today about this goal, and they pointed out that I have confounded a few things together. I have sort of mixed up "making friends", "being part of the community", and meeting people" all into one thing, but they are different stages of thing with different levels of effort. In my head, the goal is to set myself up with places where I could meet people that I could potentially connect with. She reminded me that just being known and recognized in and as part of the community, building weak ties, is also a worthy goal and not a cop-out in any way. So, maybe that will make it a little easier?

 

Read: A little.

 

Long-Term: My thoughtful effort went towards the New People goal today.

 

My researching plans kind of got derailed by life today. We had a visitor that I didn't know about until fairly late, and whom I had to work into the supper plan. Said supper plan was also delayed due to a message that there was heavy traffic, but then they showed up on time unexpectedly after I delayed my cooking start time. And then the supper that was supposed to take 30 minutes took almost two hours, with every ingredient having an unforeseen problem of some kind. It was a disastrous waste of time. We did all have food to eat in the end, but I did not actually research either of the things that I was planning to research.

Ongoing habits:

 

Exercise: I did the next set in the Resilience program. This one was legs and ankles. This meant walking on tippy toes (easy; I do this often), cossack squats (easy to the right, not so much on the left), and this sort of fake swimming thing where you tense your muscles while making breaststroke motions, which was harder than it sounds.

 

Prayer: Timing was not my friend today.

 

NerdFitness: I did!

 

Purging: I did some recipe cards. Back on the wagon.

 

Tasks: Start: 676. End: 684. I did do a task, I swear.

 

 

New shiny things for this challenge:

 

New People: I did not. I think what I am going to do tomorrow is make a list of places I could visit, events I'm interested in, things I could maybe volunteer for, and suchlike. And also perhaps a list of interests, so that I could put a post up on the local community group along the lines of "any good knitting groups out there?" or "anyone want to get together to work on cosplay before ComicCon?"

 

Read: Still chugging along.

 

Long-Term: Still haven't thought on this one. 😅Definitely recipes for planning purposes, but there have to be other things.

 

Evening storytime yesterday was fantastic. Reminded me how much FUN storytime can be when you have kids older than two in the crowd. Today I did some of the simpler books for a second daytime Halloween storytime. A grandmother asked if she could borrow my books, and I said yes and almost let her walk away with them before I realized I had to do that storytime again on Saturday. Hastily flagged her down and recovered my books!

Thinking of you, and hoping you are doing all right.