Skip to main content

Merry Monday: This Relaxation Thang

[caption id="attachment_4711" align="alignright" width="300"]Image created using Bit Strips. Image created using Bit Strips.[/caption]

It's weird "relaxing". I'm interspersing it with getting things done around the house.

I've hung a bunch of things on my walls such as art, medals, and diplomas. I've learned not to trust any "damage less" hanging things. Everything I've hung up lately in that way fell off the walls on Saturday. It was really annoying. I felt like everything I had worked on had been pointless, but I switched to nails to fix it for good. Really, nails don't make large holes anyway. I've done almost all of my laundry and I'm working through the dishes.  I've planted peas, lettuce, spinach, strawberries, scallions, flowers, kale, dill, and basil. I've organized my guitar sheet music.

I've played hard too. I watched the Martian and thoroughly enjoyed it. In fact, it was the first new movie in a very long time that I wished hadn't ended. Conversely, I also watched the new Captain America and was bored and disappointed by what has been done to the character. I'm catching up on Bates Motel. Norman has finally cracked and I'm wondering when the next season will come to Netflix Canada. I've also been playing a variety of video games. The list includes Borderlands 2 (Xbox 360), Uncharted: Drake's Fortune (PS3), and Final Fantasy X HD Remaster (PS3). I've enjoyed playing Uncharted the most. I'm not generally a first person shooter gamer. Indeed, I often prefer games like Mario, Lego Harry Potter, Little Big Planet, etc. Uncharted has a good amount of non-shooting play time and a great story that has me coming back to it. Confession: I actually like shooting games; I'm just terrible at aiming with a thumbstick. Take me back to the days of Duck Hunt and Virtua Cop where it was a gun pointed at the screen.

I've played guitar nearly every day. I'm going to start playing along with videos to ensure I can play what's already in my repertoire at the proper speed. I want to get an amp for my guitar and a case. The case I need before winter, so I can store it properly with a humidifier to prevent neck twist. I'm getting better at techniques like pull-ons and hammer-ons. They're fun.

I'm also working on my French learning again. I will speak that language. I'm more stubborn than it is difficult! I have too many French family members to give up. I've told myself that I need to remember I wasn't born speaking English fluently either.

On Sunday, my sensei pulled off a delicious BBQ despite the nobs melting off his BBQ. We cut mats (tameshigiri) with live bladed swords. I will remember to take my socks off in the future as they didn't provide me with the best footing on hardwood floors. That sword was either much lighter than those used in previous years, or I'm stronger than I used to be. I hit the floor once with it. I need to get better at stopping the blade.

I learned that while I seem to be able to eat most gluten-free foods OK now, cider is not my friend. I'm still ridding myself of a headache that drinking it brought on. Oh well, I'll just stick to vodka.

I'm already feeling the pull to work on my other novels. This relaxation thing seems to be hard for me. I'm spending a lot of time knocking other things off my to-do list. I suppose it's because I'm my father's daughter.

31 days to go.

Ciao,
R~

Popular posts from this blog

2020 Vision

Mostly, I’ve been planning for the new year, but I discovered I know Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. It was a recollection under the influence that brought this to light. I also discovered I still suck at drawing, but I’m okay with that. I used to think I had to be good at everything, and I’ve realized that’s just not so. Some friends and I recently hit up a local board game pub. It was a pretty fun night. The first game was Balderdash and I was terrible at it. Because I was the writer in the group, some of my friends thought I should be more embarrassed about it and hide the fact that I don’t spend all my free time learning advanced vocabulary. But I’m not upset about it. Why? Two reasons: 1. I now know what I don’t know. 2. If one takes a close look at the top selling novels on the market, the level of the language used is not the level of many of the words in Balderdash. Not that I’m comparing my own work to those, but audience is what matters in writing. To me, it is far better to e...

Warrior Wednesday - Cross-training

[caption id="attachment_11040" align="alignright" width="300"] Image created using Bitmoji[/caption] Martial arts are a great workout, but it can be easy to forget that we need to do other exercises to ensure total body fitness. That being said, it doesn't have to take a lot of time or be a miserable experience. One of my Iaido mentors, 8th Dan Hatekenaka Sensei, does hot yoga when she isn't practicing Iaido. She practices Iaido every day whether there is class or not. Now Iaido is great for many things. Swinging a sword about takes *some* strength, so it works the upper body. It's important to mention that we try to get a sword that is a reasonable weight. Many are only a couple of pounds because they are a giant razor and don't need to be heavy in order to cut things. Also, a light sword should be able to be swung as thought it were heavy and a heavy one as though it were light. It also is helpful to prevent repetitive strain injuries. W...

2024 - Week 9

The week felt really long.  Arts & Crafts My calendar was looking quite packed, so I wasn't sure if I would get the time to reclaim my crafting space or not. Luckily, I had Friday afternoon off because I have some vacation I need to use up. I've got time off every Friday in March and I'm looking forward to it. I began reclaiming it on Thursday, so I could relax more on Friday as I had that earmarked for reading and relaxing. On stream, I began sticker bombing the doors of my media cabinet. One has dinosaurs. Another has games and music. Door three has neon stickers. The final door will have pride stickers on it. I didn't get started on it. I also ran out of stickers, and had to wait for more to arrive. I'll be working on it more during the week and I will likely not finish it on stream as I'd like to get my doors back onto my cabinet as soon as possible. The craft is a mix of fun and frustration. Decluttering & Minimalism I took it somewhat easily this w...