[Ahyar Dreamspark]

A continuation of the last challenge. Again, I won't die IRL if I don't accomplish this, only my hopes and dreams and also the brand I'm tryin to get off the ground so that I can hopefully escape the 9-5 and work my own hours while doing something creative.

 

The last project/challenge was...about 10% completed? I was supposed to make 2 costumes for a photo shoot but ended up only being able to make 2 head pieces. They look cool but...I'm too slow. Way too slow. I have always been too slow and I'm worried that I will forever be too slow. Too. Slow. Ugh. Anyway, the photo shoot happened 2 days ago and was supposed to be for a costume showcase, but ended up focusing on the head pieces because that's all I had done, and much Photoshopping will be done by the photographer. The shoot went okay, but I feel like a fraud and I hope nobody asks me to make them anything for the next 2 months.

 

But it is over! I can breathe! Wait no. The next deadline is for things (6 pairs of shorts) that must arrive at their destination by January 19.  Oooop.

 

Anyway, the main goals for this challenge are:

- Get this next project done.

- Sweep the main floor every evening.

- Do 5 to 15 min on the Assault Air Bike every morning.

- No booze except for maaaaybe Saturdays.

 

Bonus goals are:

- Do a 30ish minute workout daily, just to build the habit of showing up (so no need to push and push for higher numbers).

- Negotiate a work schedule with more Work From Home days (I have a performance evaluation coming soon).

- Use the 2023 planner I bought, eh?

 

This is probably too much, but I'll adjust as we go along.

[Ahyar Dreamspark]

Ok. The challenge starts today I guess, because the past 2 days involved nothing but fucking off and doing nothing.

 

I've been experiencing abdominal pain since December 28 and, like an idiot, I decided to write "where does liver cancer hurt" into Google and it's in that exact same spot. An ulcer would be a more likely diagnosis, but WHAT IF IT'S CANCER? So I called my doctor's office and he doesn't get back from vacation until January 9, so I probably wouldn't be able to get an appointment until like mid to late  February. Oh how I love our broken health care system.

 

Anyway, hopefully it isn't cancer, because if it is it will probably be at stage 4 by the time I get any kind of test results back 🙄

 

Right. I should work out or do something useful or something.

[Ahyar Dreamspark]

On 1/1/2023 at 12:25 PM, Ahyar Dreamspark said:

This is probably too much, but I'll adjust as we go along.

 

YUP! It turns out that this is 90% too much 🙃 Zero workouts have happened so far. Also zero sweeping and zero air bike riding. (EDIT: the sweeping would sure be easier to do if I didn't have to maneuver the broom around so many obstacles and clutter, but alas.)

 

The only thing I did yesterday is trace and cut out pattern pieces onto paper so I can re-use them multiple times. Tonight I'll need to trace them onto actual fabric and see if I remember how to set up and use my sewing machine. Ideally I'd like to be done most of this shit by the end of this weekend so that I can actually focus on, y'know, working out more. At least I didn't have any alcohol last night, so that is also something positive.

 

In a perfect world, I'd figure out how to get the pattern pieces into files that can be used by the Silhouette Cameo 4 machine so it could cut them all out for me, but that will be a thing to do after this new project is done. Imagine how awesome it will be once I have some cutting machines working tirelessly in the background while I'm playing video games, or working out, or working on a different part of a project. G o a l s.

[pureleeawesome]

I have never heard of Silhouette Cameo 4 but now I want one.

 

Sorry to hear that it ended up being too much to do, any plans on cutting back to make it more manageable?

[Ahyar Dreamspark]

4 hours ago, pureleeawesome said:

I have never heard of Silhouette Cameo 4 but now I want one.

 

It's a wonderful and time-saving device! In theory. I've had mine since Boxing Day week but it's still sitting in the box due to there being too much clutter on all flat surfaces for me to be able to set it up 😕 Hopefully soon, though. I have a plan.

 

(There are other brands of machines that do the same thing, like Cricut and Siser machines, but those ones are more pricey.)

 

 

4 hours ago, pureleeawesome said:

Sorry to hear that it ended up being too much to do, any plans on cutting back to make it more manageable?

 

It's looking more like "finish the project and don't get drunk" at this point. Workouts may be added again as soon as the project is done.

[Ahyar Dreamspark]

Right. "The Plan" that I mentioned in the previous response, to get rid of clutter.

 

Mom is always asking if I can work from home more, because if I work from home she seems to think that I am always available to be talked at and to be asked to do things. This is not very useful as far as getting work done goes. On the other hand, the extra hour of sleep and not having to RUSHRUSHRUSHRUSH to get the dog walked and to stuff breakfast in my face by 7:30 makes me way less stressed. I have a performance review coming up, where I will have the chance to ask for more work from home days.

 

HOWEVER, there is no space at home that is both a) quiet, and b) has a flat surface with no clutter on it. The basement would work perfectly, but it's full of clutter--all of it belonging to mom, so I may be able to actually get her to throw shit out if I insist that I NEED to have this space cleared out if she wants me to work from home more often. Win/win.

 

And then I can set up the Silhouette in the basement 😆

[Ahyar Dreamspark]

Well, last night sure was a train wreck.

 

It's been about 2 (maybe 3?) years since I've used the serger. The serger has been sitting on a flat surface, which meant it was surrounded by clutter. After an argument to get the clutter all moved (to other flat surfaces, unfortunately) I was able to start using it. The settings should still have been set to sew 4-way stretch fabric but...for some reason the seams wouldn't lie flat? I could have swore the seams laid flat the last time I used it. Or did I have lesser standards several years ago? Was I just out of practice? Probably.

 

60ish minutes of raging and using up my practice fabric later, the seams still wouldn't fucking lie flat 🙃 Comments from mom were certainly not helping:

 

"Just pay someone else to do it for you."

"How come you were able to do it before?"

"I KNEW this project would stress you out! You shouldn't have taken it on."

"I was never able to learn to use the serger, I bought it for you, and you were able to use it before!"

"This is too much, you should just give it up."

 

...I can't even??

 

I have no fucking clue how I managed to not have a drink last night, between the constant nagging and the TV BEING ON SUPER LOUD THE WHOLE TIME because "I need to be able to hear it from the kitchen!" which is on the other side of the house, while the dining room where I'm trying to work is directly in the path of the sound. And then she just complains about how there's never anything good on the TV. Then how about FUCKING TURNING IT OFF!?? Jfc 😡 

 

Tonight will be the exact same, and so will every bit of free time after that, until the project is complete. RIP to my fucking sanity.

[Ahyar Dreamspark]

Still alive. Progress is happening on the newer project but it remains to be seen if I'm progressing fast enough. Will update once it's all done because I really just need to get it out of the way before I can even think of anything else.

 

Design and sewing is fun, but now it feels like a second job that doesn't pay yet 😕 Hopefully in the future.

 

Performance eval at work tomorrow. Hoping for more work-from-home days.

 

Next post will probably be Friday or Saturday.

 

I have a theme in mind for the rest of the challenge after current project is done.

[pureleeawesome]

Fingers crossed for your eval!

[Ahyar Dreamspark]

The project is done. Many meltdowns and shouting matches were had, but the project is done.

 

I have...actually met the deadline? This is probably the first time in like 10 + years that I have successfully met a deadline without receiving an extension of some kind. This makes me happy because holy shit, there is hope that I can actually be a functional person? But on the other hand this also terrifies me because now the bar has been raised and what if this was only a fluke but now I have to continue operating at the extremely stressful level that I've been experiencing all of last week?

 

Anyway, some celebratory binge drinking and video game playing happened as I attempted to unwind, and now that abdominal soreness I was complaining about before has gotten worse again. Curses. I somehow managed to a) contact my doctor's office, and b) get an appointment about that 3 weeks from now. I know that 3 weeks sounds like forever, but it's actually a short time in this stupidly overburdened health care system 🙄 I'll probably just be told to stop drinking (I probably should, yeah) or to join AA (hell no) or be offered antidepressants (also no) and I feel that, because this problem is likely self-inflicted, I'm wasting limited health care resources that would be better used on someone who can actually use the medical help.

 

I need something to work on for the rest of this challenge. A new project that doesn't have a deadline and that will be more enjoyable because it won't be all RUSH RUSH RUSH STRESS STRESS. Hmm. I have a partially completed dragon head piece in my room that has been sitting there for...since 2016 I think? I should finish that. The Dragon Headpiece shall be completed by the end of this challenge! And then I'll post pics.

 

Oh right. I should also work on drinking less and working out more too I suppose. I was actually doing okay with not drinking on weekdays while working on the previous project, so I know I CAN do it, but the problem is that I usually don't WANT to do it because I'm constantly overstimulated and booze is the easiest way to dull my senses in a world that doesn't know how to shut the fuck up.

[Ahyar Dreamspark]

Ugh, fuck. I completely forgot that I have to have a website, a Facebook page, and an Instagram page for this side business thing.

 

Before Jan 20.

 

In two days.

 

I have absolutely no free time tonight and haven't made a website since the late 90s, so this will be interesting. I made an account on Wix.com several weeks ago but gave up because I couldn't figure out how the hell to use it, despite it supposedly being SO EASY.

 

And just like that, panic mode is back. Yay!

 

I hate both Facebook and Instagram and how it's practically necessary to use them in order to be able to make it anywhere.

[Ahyar Dreamspark]

Panic mode has been replaced with Give Zero Fucks mode, which is not great since my social media bullshit and website have to be in order by tomorrow. This is A Problem because I don't dare work on these things at work (because, y'know, work) and whenever I work on it at home, I constantly get interrupted by my mother and I can fucking guarantee she'll be looking over my shoulder and making critiquing comments the entire fucking time--and not the constructive kind of criticism. So this will likely have to be something that gets done after midnight after she's gone to bed but then OOOOP I'll be too tired to actually focus on anything. FML.

 

Oh wait, she may be going to Costco later today. This should give me a good 3 hours to get all of it done.

 

Also on the to-do list for tonight: update my cat rescue delivery log book, because I'm very much behind on this and it now feels like an Impossible Task.

 

[Ahyar Dreamspark]

The website stuff and the media of socials stuff is done. Well, except Instagram, because it crops pictures in a fucky way and I hate everything about it. I'll deal with that nonsense later.

 

The remainder of this challenge will be  nothing but one goal: don't drink any alcohol. All this stress and stress-drinking has made fatter and I Hate It. There's also that doctor appointment for the abdominal discomfort thing coming up in 2 weeks and I feel like I should at least show that I made some effort to help myself. That, and conventions are about to start picking up and I want to cosplay Lord Morpheus (from the Sandman) and he's ridiculously thin. I've dropped 10 lbs in 6 weeks for cosplay before and, god damnit, I'll fucking do it again. The whole "don't want to die from liver cancer" thing will just be extra motivation.

 

I might re-name this thread later since The Project has been completed (minus Instagram but fuck Instagram).

[Ahyar Dreamspark]

Glasses of alcohol had last night: 0.

 

Hooray, one day! And just like that, the abdominal discomfort is less bad today than it was yesterday. Damn it. If my doctor ends up telling me that I need to stay sober forever, I'm going to be so annoyed. Like, I'll do it because dying feels like it would be unpleasant, but I'll be angry about this the entire time. (Okay, it's not necessarily the dying part that would be unpleasant, it's more the thought of "shit, I haven't even lived yet" that would be plaguing me constantly until the very end. But actually living means that I need to learn to stand up for myself and stop doing things just to please everyone else. Ugh. Every time I've stood up for myself in the past has resulted in negative consequences and/or getting yelled at.)

 

On a completely unrelated note, something weird happened last night. I was having a difficult time falling asleep, and at one point my cat was messing around in a corner of the room poking a plastic bag and making noise. I eventually got her to stop by shining my cellphone flash light in her direction. Then about an hour later as I'm about to fall asleep, I hear the same noise. I turn slightly to pick up my phone again, and...my cat is sleeping next to me? o_O The noise continued for a few minutes and then stopped. Part of me wanted to shine a light towards the source of the noise out of curiosity, but I didn't because what if it was a rodent? 3 AM is NOT the time where I want to be dealing with rodent bullshit, so here's hoping the noise was either a ghost or an auditory hallucination.

 

I really hope it was not a rodent, because if there's one rodent then there are probably many more rodents and fuck everything about this thought.

[Ahyar Dreamspark]

Glasses of alcohol had last night: 0.

 

I'm not sure how I managed this. On Monday evening mom was congratulating me because she saw me drinking water throughout the evening and not alcohol. On Tuesday (yesterday) afternoon she gets home and immediately tells me "I got you a bottle of wine!" Like...what? I told her I didn't want to drink any alcohol before my appointment with the doctor. It's like she's intentionally trying to sabotage my efforts. Note: she bought me a bottle a few days ago also, and when I was pouring from it Sunday evening she snapped at me about how "OMG your drinking bothers me SO MUCH!!" and...????????????????

 

Anyway, there was a bottle of red wine tempting me all evening. And it will probably continue to do so until the first week of Feb. Eh, I suppose I could always just have it on Saturday where it won't fuck me over for work the next day. We'll see.

 

I like how it is supposedly well known that alcohol disrupts sleep, because I've been sober for over 48 hours and probably slept a total of 5 to 6 hours. This is due to anxiety about...nothing in particular now? And also BEEEP BEEEP BEEEP CLANG noises from snow removal vehicles, and my cat constantly wanting to go under and then out form under the blankets and/or knocking shit off the desk throughout the night. If I sleep on my back my legs twitch, if I sleep on my sides my shoulders hurt, and now if I sleep on my stomach my back hurts. I hate everything. So of course now I'm reading an article about how lack of sleep is terribly awful for one's health 🙄

 

Here's hoping that tonight's sleep is better, although I doubt it will be due to all of the aforementioned reasons.

[Elastigirl]

5 hours ago, Ahyar Dreamspark said:

So of course now I'm reading an article about how lack of sleep is terribly awful for one's health 🙄

 

I hate those articles! As if I'm not stressed already when I can't sleep, now you tell me all the ways it messes up my health! Hoping tonight you sleep better.

[Ahyar Dreamspark]

On 1/25/2023 at 4:14 PM, Elastigirl said:

I hate those articles! As if I'm not stressed already when I can't sleep, now you tell me all the ways it messes up my health! Hoping tonight you sleep better.

 

Right? Lol. I did sleep better on Wednesday night, but then said "fuck it" to literally everything on Thursday evening and cracked that bottle open.

 

Not drinking is easy when things go well. If I happen to have A Fucking Day, though, it gets a bit harder. 4 Fucking Days in a row and then it's all over. JFC I need my own place. Why is rent so fucking expensive literally everywhere.

 

[Ahyar Dreamspark]

This challenge is essentially over and the best thing I can do at this point is to start planning and preparing for the next challenge, which will most likely be entirely focused on sleep, and getting enough of it. How will I accomplish this? I have no fucking idea. Drinking too much affects sleep, but when I give myself a goal or a rule that sounds anything like "don't do _____" then all I want to do is _____. This makes setting goals inconvenient, if not downright impossible. So in an attempt to trick myself into not getting wasted on a regular basis, I'm going to focus on getting good sleep instead. One of the main reasons why I drink is to tune out the world, and what better way is there to tune out the world than sleeping? It's like a free trial version of being dead.

 

One of the functions of sleeping is to get rid of molecular/cellular garbage in one's brain, which means that my brain is probably 98% garbage after....16 or so years of chronic sleep deprivation? Hopefully with enough consecutive days of quality rest, my thoughts will also become less garbage.

 

EDIT: Possible goals are below. I'll keep editing this as I think of more goals, so the list will likely change multiple times.

 

- Sleep should lead to weight loss according to numerous studies (okay, according to the Internet, but it said studies were involved so let's just go with it).

- The Lord Morpheus cosplay I mentioned previously, because cosplay goals are necessary for me to actually give a shit.

- Some kind of routine? I should probably take those supplements I spent a stupid amount of money on, eh?

- Keeping a dream journal, because dreams tend to be right fucky and the recaps I would write might be hilarious.

- Some form of physical activity, but this will not be the main focus. If anything it'll just be a part of my routine.

 

A possible routine, also subject to change:

6:50 AM: wake up, walk the dog, TAKE SUPPLEMENTS, breakfast, all that bullshit.

7:30 AM: leave for work.

4:30: get home from work.

(Stuff in the evenings depends on what day of the week it is. Video games and/or crafting is usually involved when there's free time.)

8:30 PM: walk the dog.

More video games probably.

10:30 PM: get my ass to bed.

 

Hmm. This is almost exactly 8 hours, which is less than ideal in the event that I don't fall asleep instantly.

 

If I'm working from home then I can sleep in until 7:55 since all I need to do to get ready for work is roll out of bed and press the button on the Keurig machine and then the button on the work computer. Ez pz. When I'm not RUSHRUSHRUSHRUSHed in the morning, I usually end up having breakfast around 10 AM and walking the dog during my morning break. This is much less stressful. Maybe I could batch cook breakfast on Sunday or something, and bring it to work and also eat it around 10 AM on days where I'm at the office? And also prepare some salads for lunch so that the ONLY thing I need to do on mornings where I go to the office is put on clothes and walk the dog. This would allow me to push wake-up time to 7:00 or 7:10, assuming I didn't hit snooze. I'm hoping that getting enough rest will minimize the snoozing though.

 

But ugh, I also want to work out in the morning eventually (like a quick HIIT workout or w/e) and this will take additional time because then I'll need to shower, so bed time should really be pushed back to 10:00. Damn it.

 

I should probably schedule the rest of my week too, come to think of it, especially because I got myself a nice new planner last November and haven't touched it yet. By 'schedule the rest of my week" I mean to add the stupid basic things like "shaving" and "clip nails" and "laundry" and "clean litterbox" because these stupid basic things are never considered when I go to make a commitment to do something else and then before I know it HEY LOOK all the stupid basic tasks have accumulated and I look like a hobo but don't feel like addressing any of these stupid basic things because there are now too many of them and it's morphed into an Impossible Task. Maybe if I do laundry on a particular day constantly it will become automatic and I won't ever have to think about it again. Same with shaving. There is a possibility that I will just ignore this schedule, but we won't know this until I make an attempt.

 

And then I need to hide this planner from my mother lest she fills in the free time blocks time with misc. tasks once she knows wen my free time is.

[Ahyar Dreamspark]

I had less booze last night than I normally do, and also did a small workout. This is pretty much like 1/10 but that's better than 0/10 so I guess I'll take it.

 

...And then I got writing about my shitty morning (tl;dr version: the eggs fell out of my breakfast sandwich and I lost my shit) and then things went deep into the Shit Mental Health woods and I'll definitely be sending the text under the cut to my therapist before the next appointment. TBH I thought about deleting it, but left it there in case anyone has advice to offer (I'll delete it after this challenge is over).

 

EDIT: Nevermind. Deleted it because shame. It was basically a text wall of how I get SO ANGRY about trivial things and also that I probably have some kind of autism going on (I've googled autistic meltdowns in adults and that is pretty much me) and then there was a part about wanting to seek a formal diagnosis. But then I read an article about how there are more disadvantages than advantages to having a diagnosis and ugh. I'll still send the wall of text to my therapist though.

[Elastigirl]

On 2/1/2023 at 7:54 AM, Ahyar Dreamspark said:

ow will I accomplish this? I have no fucking idea. Drinking too much affects sleep, but when I give myself a goal or a rule that sounds anything like "don't do _____" then all I want to do is _____. This makes setting goals inconvenient, if not downright impossible. So in an attempt to trick myself into not getting wasted on a regular basis, I'm going to focus on getting good sleep instead. One of the main reasons why I drink is to tune out the world, and what better way is there to tune out the world than sleeping? It's like a free trial version of being dead.

 

I do this too sometimes with goals. Especially if it's changing a big habit. I think focusing on sleep is a good plan.

[fleaball]

On 2/2/2023 at 12:58 PM, Ahyar Dreamspark said:

I had less booze last night than I normally do, and also did a small workout. This is pretty much like 1/10 but that's better than 0/10 so I guess I'll take it.

 

...And then I got writing about my shitty morning (tl;dr version: the eggs fell out of my breakfast sandwich and I lost my shit) and then things went deep into the Shit Mental Health woods and I'll definitely be sending the text under the cut to my therapist before the next appointment. TBH I thought about deleting it, but left it there in case anyone has advice to offer (I'll delete it after this challenge is over).

 

EDIT: Nevermind. Deleted it because shame. It was basically a text wall of how I get SO ANGRY about trivial things and also that I probably have some kind of autism going on (I've googled autistic meltdowns in adults and that is pretty much me) and then there was a part about wanting to seek a formal diagnosis. But then I read an article about how there are more disadvantages than advantages to having a diagnosis and ugh. I'll still send the wall of text to my therapist though.

late to the party here and definitely not discounting your feelings on the topic. but also like, you're stretched super fucking thin in a highly stressful environment with a shitty person (people) and sometimes those trivial things aren't actually the cause of anger and are just the last straw on a given day.