[Manarelle]

Despite the title, this is not a New Year's reconfigure. Life took a sudden, hard (but welcome) turn in 2021 when I reached a 13-year goal and suddenly a lot of things I'd structured around that goal either no longer had a base for continuing or were no longer as strictly important.  As is my usual, I limped along for a while anyway, propping them up because I wasn't ready to completely overhaul things yet. A conversation with a friend last night made me realize how silly that is, though, and I think I'm ready. 

 

For a long time in life, I tried to be a jack of all trades and flitted between hobbies and interests so often that I wasn't really good at any of them. It was fun but not really fulfilling, and often expensive as I geared up for a new something. When I was doing my Master's degree, I realized that wasn't working with the very limited free time I had, so I forced myself to pick four hobbies and only do those. They drifted a bit over time, but were generally exercise, sewing/cosplay stuff, gardening, and language/ learning. That was a good setup when I had a driving goal and not much free time, but now I have sometimes shocking amounts of time, and I've been chafing on those restrictions a bit. 

 

Languages have felt off for a while, and I had a hard time figuring out why. Finally realized last night that I'd been coming at them from a current events/ political/ 'how can this help me understand what's happening right now' point of view; what got me interested in languages when I was younger, though, was the idea of learning new cultures, ways of viewing the world, and folklore. With that in mind, I restarted a game I've been playing for a while and set it to Russian: it felt like a fun pastime instead of a "god, I have to practice language now?" moment. It was very cool to recapture the fun and wonder of it instead of slog of responsibility that isn't even mandatory in my life. 

 

All that to say, I'm not clear on what format I'm after, but here's a rough draft of what I'd like to do this winter/ spring:

 

• Exercise: Stick with the 4-day split workout, add cardio in as a healing foot allows.
• Cosplay/ Sewing: Remake the Thor sabatons so that costume can be worn again. 
• Language: Enjoy Russian learning, practice a new one with a friend.
• Gaming: Have fun.
• Gardening: Order a fruit tree and give it a real pot/ dirt when it comes. 
• Read: Find at least 1 book a month to enjoy and read it (use the library, Einstein).

 

I know those aren't really measurable goals, so there probably won't be a lot of updates, but I'm still feeling out my priorities in the post-life-goal mindset. Thirteen years is a long habit to remake. 

 

[Pyralis]

Hello you, 

best of luck with the challenge. What game was it you set to Russian? 

4 hobbies already sound like so many, I used to feel bad for 3, but after this quote and your take on it, I think it's perfectly fine. It's the grudge of today's society wanting to monetize everything and somehow "making it" and "win", just as the quote says, as if there's a means to an end.  

 

What fruit tree will you get? I bought a small peach tree this last (how time flies) year and my bf overwatered it, the soil already smelled terrible and I was scared it was gone for good, but replanting it with new fresh soil seems to have saved it, after worrying it is dead my boyfriend pointed out it's now sprouting tiny sprouts on top of its branches. Can't wait for it to blossom in spring. We also have a lot of vegetable seeds for this year. It's weirdly rewarding to take care of plants.

[Tanktimus the Encourager]

I love that Vonnegut quote. I agree with the sentiment, and living it out can be a challenge sometimes.

[Manarelle]

22 hours ago, Pyralis said:

Hello you, 

best of luck with the challenge. What game was it you set to Russian? 

4 hobbies already sound like so many, I used to feel bad for 3, but after this quote and your take on it, I think it's perfectly fine. It's the grudge of today's society wanting to monetize everything and somehow "making it" and "win", just as the quote says, as if there's a means to an end.  

 

What fruit tree will you get? I bought a small peach tree this last (how time flies) year and my bf overwatered it, the soil already smelled terrible and I was scared it was gone for good, but replanting it with new fresh soil seems to have saved it, after worrying it is dead my boyfriend pointed out it's now sprouting tiny sprouts on top of its branches. Can't wait for it to blossom in spring. We also have a lot of vegetable seeds for this year. It's weirdly rewarding to take care of plants.

 

Hello you.  The game is Stardew Valley. I'd gotten far enough in it that continuing felt like a grind to get achievements rather than exploration or fun, so I'm not super worried. I'm at day 5 and already feeling happy with language progress. 

 

Four hobbies, it a bit of a misnomer; exercise and language practice are the only things that happen daily, everything else is on a very loose schedule. Unfortunately, after looking at fruit trees, I've decided that's going to have to wait until we get a house (years from now), so I'll just get a strawberry planter for now. The ceramic ones with lots of opening always intrigued me, and they don't require too much maintenance. Glad to hear you saved your peach tree, and yes, growing things is very therapeutic. 

[Kestrel Grey]

Congrats on achieving whatever you achieved to open up all this time!

 

That's an awesome way of learning languages for fun. Stardew Valley was great fun for the first month or two, then as you say felt like a grind.  It's somehow surprising that it comes in Russian. 

 

What are the other languages that you've studied played with?

[Manarelle]

16 hours ago, Kestrel Grey said:

Congrats on achieving whatever you achieved to open up all this time!

 

That's an awesome way of learning languages for fun. Stardew Valley was great fun for the first month or two, then as you say felt like a grind.  It's somehow surprising that it comes in Russian. 

 

What are the other languages that you've studied played with?

 

Thank you! There was a lot of studying, both official and not, that is no longer needed. And probably a fair amount of worrying, too, that things wouldn't work out, but we won't talk about that.

 

A lot of games on Steam come with a surprising number of languages. Most are too advanced for me, at the moment, but I figured Stardew was a good middle ground. And yeah, once I realized I was finding excuses to not log in and play, that's a sign.

 

I'm reasonably fluent in French, moderately ok in Russian, and I've tinkered with (and largely forgotten) Irish, Japanese, German, and sign language. 

[Manarelle]

Unexpected snow day today. After shoveling and cleaning up, I decided to get back to cosplay. My brain has been dragging it's feet (as it were) for no reason I can discern, so I overruled it and got to work on remaking the Thor boot armor:

 

 

 

Don't have the connectors added yet, but it looks like it should work out. After three hours over a heat gun, though, I had to call it to cool off and hydrate. 

 

Relatedly, a MASSIVE thank you to @Anim07734 for suggesting shop scissors. I cut out all of those pieces in less than 5 minutes and zero hand pain. So many thank yous. 

[DoubleTrouble]

How's your foot?

[Manarelle]

On 1/14/2022 at 11:06 PM, DoubleTrouble said:

How's your foot?

 

Much better, but for some reason both Achilles tendons tend to be tight and sore, and there's bump on the one tendon that isn't going away. Might have to hit up a doctor for that, but at least I have non-painful shoe options now.

 

Weeks 1 and 2:

• Exercise: Doing well, making progress. 
• Cosplay/ Sewing: [expletives]
• Language: Yup
• Gaming: Mostly. 
• Gardening: Definitely not spring weather yet. 
• Read: Finished reading Behind Putin's Curtain about traveling in Russia. Was interesting. Ordered another.

This has not been a productive weekend, despite the extra day off. Rant: 

 

Spoiler

I had planned to really work on the sabatons on Saturday, and I made good progress fitting the pieces of the first one together in the morning. A little bit before the gentleman was due to wake up, I discovered I'd cut the last piece out for the opposite foot, so I set everything down, intending to come back after lunch and grocery shopping. Havoc ensued, and we didn't complete those simple tasks until 3pm, on top of leaving me in a foul mood and 100% not in the right mindset to wrestle with Worbla of any temperature. Instead, I re-watched Encanto (highly recommend), something else I can't recall, and Kung Fu Panda 2, and spent the evening reflecting on childhood trauma and how to gracefully transition out of a bad mood - something I've never seen modeled in real life. Didn't come to any brilliant epiphanies, but it closed out the day. 

 

On Sunday, the gentleman requested that I make challah so we could make French toast on Monday. For some reason, I couldn't remember what recipe I've used dozens of times to make it, only that the last recipe I used produced a massive loaf and I was going to cut the recipe back a bit. After poking around, I found what I thought was the recipe, put all the ingredients together for a half-sized loaf and got:

 

 

That is.... not french-toast-able. Ok, weird. Maybe that wasn't the recipe. Tried another recipe it might have been, put everything in for a 3/4 loaf and got:

 

 

Ok, seriously? I very rarely have cooking fails, and usually when I do, it's with a brand new recipe. These were basic bread recipes, wtf is happening? By then, it was bedtime, so I chucked the failed loaves into bags (they're tasty for other things, just not french toast), and went to bed. I usually wake up in plenty of time to start bread before noon, when the gentleman stirs, but somehow I managed to sleep in this morning, of course, so by the time I got up, the earliest bread could be done was 1:15pm. Seriously debated saying eff it, we'll do French toast next weekend, but I, ah, don't tend to accept failure well. And besides, the gentleman rarely requests things, I want to do nice things for him. Went downstairs, tested my yeast, which turned out to be fine, and ended up venting at a baking friend. She mentioned her loaves this week all turned out very flat, which led me down a baking research rabbit hole. Combined with my body's newfound ability to get weird itchy bumps when it's dry, I discovered that yeast doesn't proof (rise) well when it's below a certain humidity level, and our state has been freakishly dry this week. It had slushed overnight, though, so I took a chance and tried again, this time with a full recipe because eff it, I'm tired of everything. Checked it after the first rising: no significant shape change. Checked it after the second rising: it had filled maybe 3/4 of the pan. I was super tempted to just chuck the whole thing out the door, but decided to give it one last chance. Checked it after the third rising, as the baking cycle had begun, and of course, it's overflowing the pan like someone trying on pants 3 sizes too small.... While I'm grateful to finally have successful bread, that did not particularly help my mood. 

 

And what a mood it is, ladies and gents! While the bread saga was ongoing, the worbla part of these [expletive] sabatons was too! On Sunday, I cut out two remaining pieces and discovered that, titanium blades or no, my shop scissors had already developed a nick in the blades! Still easier than cutting with an exacto blade, so I kept going. Spent two more hours with the heat gun making noise and drying things out and got all but ones of the pieces shaped to the boot.  The stupid itchy bumps were surfacing again, so the gentleman lotioned me up (sounds way more exciting than it is), and I spent the rest of the evening cutting out fabric to re-create a winter shirt. This morning, while the bread was whatevering, I went down to try to finish the bloody things. After two more hours of dryness, heat, and noise, I determined that one part was somehow a half an inch short and no, I couldn't "make it work," so everything I had accomplished today would have to be re-done after I make the new part. I've been kind of slackerly lately, and left all the worbla bits strewn across the work table instead of cleaning up each time, because I keep thinking I'm so close to being done with this part..... I think it's time to pack everything up, set it aside, and work on the sewing for a little. 

 

TL;DR - not as productive a weekend as I'd like, but overall, I'm okay. I'm still enjoying the 4-day workout. Language studies feel like they're on a sustainable level that's keeping my interest. Haven't gamed much, but I know it's there waiting for me. Ordered more books from the library this week, so I have that to look forward to, too. Here's to a better next week. 

[Manarelle]

Weeks 1 and 2:

• Exercise: Yup
• Cosplay/ Sewing: Yup (see below)
• Language: Yup
• Gaming: Yup
• Gardening: Definitely not spring weather yet. 
• Read: Re-started Transmetropolitan, read 2 Asterix et Obelix comics in French for shiggles. 

Was a decent week. Some mildly interesting stuff happened, but nothing huge. After last week's Worbla letdown, I just wanted an even keel week. Got the urge to finish off a non-cosplay project: recreating a winter shirt style that I love, but that has always been a little too short in the sleeves and waist. One of the store-bought shirts finally got a stain, so I took it apart and cut out the pieces with slight modifications. I fortuitously had some pretty closely matching thread in my sewing box, so I spent 5 2/3 hours reverse engineering it, and I'm actually extremely happy with the results:

 

 

 

 

The fabric is just knit stuff, so it was a little tricky to do in tight areas, but also means I can just order more from the local fabric store, no need to drive up to PA or take a risk on internet unknowns. I fully intend to make like 60 more and never have to go winter shirt shopping again. The best part is that if I throw a cardigan on over it so the sleeves are covered, it passes as a work shirt, too. Nice little win, even with a couple mistakes here and there. 

[Manarelle]

Yikes, this dropped off my radar hard. 

Wrap up:

• Exercise: Very happy with this. 
• Cosplay/ Sewing: Got the shirt done, cosplay no. 
• Language: Yes. 
• Gaming: No. 
• Gardening: Still winter. 
• Read: Yes.

Overall, I... got stuff done? Not what I was expecting, but still done. Life is fine, but I'm struggling with having achieved goals and trying to overhaul thinking and attitude on life. I'm going to step away from NF (and most of the internet) for a bit and see if I can settle all of that before setting more goals. Good luck to you in the meantime!