Rae Roy

Has it been a month since the year began? Oh, look, we're still in January. Arts & Crafts My first accomplishment of the week was ordering the yarns I didn't have for my next project. It will be a scarf for myself and I'm eager to have it. I am calling this project my PWHL Scarf as it uses all the colours of the inaugural teams.  Why more knitting? Why not? My favourite facts about knitting include that it was used effectively as a communications tool to send messages in WWI. I also like that knitters helped keep others alive during wars. Anyway, I'm getting together with friends soon for a crafty evening and I hope my yarns will be in for then. I tweaked the design to be an infinity scarf, so I was able to start the project. Lez Scarf is complete. I just need to give it a gentle wash and dry. It feels good to have finished a project, eventhough it has a bunch of mistakes in it. It has been a very long time since I last finished one. Decluttering & Minimalism Th...

I made a little more time for me this week. Decluttering & Minimalism On my way back from the dentist, I ran into one of my favourite neighbours. She also feels like her house is a disaster right now after the pest control adventure. Kitchens hold a lot of stuff and it's really hard having our things all over. At least I'm not alone in feeling this way in the building, but I do hope it will ultimately improve things. I still have a couple of items to put back in place in my kitchen and I'm still looking for a couple of things. I'm rewashing some items that may have gotten the spray on them. This is part of what is taking so long along with motivation. I have other things I want to be doing! I wanted to get back to piano many times this week, but I couldn't with my environment being upside down. I also didn't like where my keyboard was. I worked on my spaces after while thinking about my needs. I still have to get my ironing board installed on my wall, but th...

It's been two years since Mom left us so suddenly. I got more time with her than a lot of people do with theirs. She wasn't perfect, but she loved us. I still wish I never had to join this "club" that no one wants to be a member of. And there's not much to say that I haven't already about the loss. It still hurts and it probably always will. This year, I decided to search out some of my past Facebook posts related to my mom. They reminded me that Mom could be quite funny at times. Here are some of the gems: I have no idea what that one related to. I only know that I was living in Ottawa by then. I don't know if it was mom who came up with us hiding chocolate bunnies at easter time. I suspect so since Dad was often busy between shift work and helping people out. She knew nothing about computers and didn't want to, but she'd still check that I had what I needed. OK, I was still pretty into DVDs back in 2013. And I was in roller derby, so getting a co...

Arts & Crafts I'm making progress on Lez Scarf. I'll probably donate or sell it when it's done as I don't want it for myself. I just thought it was a neat project idea. I made progress on a fairy kit on the weekend on stream. Working with styrofoam was a messy endeavour, but I wanted to add levels to it rather than just do what is on the box. I'm also painting some of the objects as I want it to have a bit more character than mostly beige/grey and brown offers. The path won't be straight and boring either. Decluttering & Minimalism The first part of the week through to Wednesday was a lot of decluttering. I often long for a return to when I owned virtually nothing. Anyway, I brought another big bag to donation.  There was extra decluttering and cleaning as we had pest control treatments on Wednesday. I was annoyed at the whole thing because I was working on my declutter methodically and had to put all the things that are normally in my kitchen and bathro...

On the 30th of December, I started testing out my hypothesis about my food issues. Things I removed from my diet: - annatto (orange cheeses, some other cheeses, some butters/margarines) - yellow #5 & #6 (Sunny D, Nature Valley products, caramel colour [brown sodas, Brisk iced tea, most sodas, balsamic vinegar, vanilla extract, VH soy sauce, store bought bread, some chocolates, BBQ sauces, honey garlic sauce] - other colours (sports drinks, energy drinks, most candy) In the summer, I thought it was oats and milk. I've had intermittent reactions to milk for decades. The last one was while I was having lactose free products. I had been doing so without issue for a long time. Until I bought lactose free marble string cheese, which is coloured. What led me to figuring this out in part was my reactions to medication over the years. I was tested for some and the medication itself did not cause any kind of reaction. That said to me that my issues have to be caused by a non-medicinal i...

ADHD I'm still waiting to see my doctor about trying med number 3. Honestly, methylphenidate works well for me, but I'm allergic to the yellow dye in the Concerta. More on that in a separate post. My sleeping has been all over the place since stopping Concerta though. Perhaps it's also because I've been on vacation and haven't needed to have a specific routine. This made work extra hard this week. Arts & Crafts I've been working on Lez Scarf during meetings. I have several every week and spend quite a bit of time waiting to provide my updates. Knittiing lets me be ready and pay attention while giving me something for my hands to do. On Saturday I sanded a crate I've had around for years. I wanted to paint it while watching the game, but I had too much to do around the condo before they come to do pest control in all our units. I have two more to sand and paint eventually. Decluttering & Minimalism In the early part of the week, I did some light tidyi...

It was too daunting to find all my goal related posts to figure out if I was on target with anything. Another lesson learned. There are a lot of unfinished projects and there were some that I discovered weren't for me, but overall I completed a lot of hard things and I'm proud of myself. Towards the end of the year, I was feeling a lot like myself again and I could really start building the foundation for my future goals. I'm hoping to finish some of the projects below in 2024 and I'm looking forward to what the new year brings. I want to thank all the wonderful people in my life who've stuck by me despite all the moodiness the challenging times brought me this year. I also want to encourage anyone who feels like they didn't do much or like much in 2023 to take an inventory like I have below. I went into it thinking I didn't get much done and I learned that the opposite was true. Sure, a number of things weren't completed in full, but there was so much t...

Image by Tumisu from Pixabay. I spent New Year's Day on a marathon of the extended editions of Lord of The Rings . I had a lot of thoughts while watching it. Some are random and some are commentary on story and what elements make a good one that stands the test of time. My thoughts while watching  The Fellowship of the Ring :  - Gandalf truly had a blind spot when it came to Saruman. I wonder if he ignored the red flags in their relationship. I've definitely been there. - Why are there no, "Run Frodo Run," memes? I know it's not the line, but it's a lost opportunity in my opinion. - The heaviness of the ring was borrowed by the writer who shall not be named. There aren't any original stories, just original configurations of them. The mirror as well. - Somewhere along the way, someone decided it's bad form to have more than one character with similar names. Tolkien ignored this with Saruman and Sauron. There's an argument in the writing world that s...

This week began with travelling to see family and friends in North Bay. I was grateful to be off work, but I wasn't looking forward to the drive. This is partly due to overbooking myself all year. I need more time for my creative projects than I have been giving them. I also need more time for relaxing and maintaining. I'll be more selective on my outings in the new year. I'm not big on the winter anyway. I play a winter sport that is indoors and basically at a bar for a reason 😉 Anyway, something had me dizzy on Friday, so I had to miss my last event before traveling to see family and friends in my hometown. I suspect this was either my med, stress, or a combination. I hadn't eaten much either, so that was also a possible reason.  The drive was pretty smooth and fuel was reasonable. This fellow had to inspect the gifts after one brother added to the ones he inspected earlier that I brought. Later, I had dinner at JT Sushi with friends. Some of the sushi wa...