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2024 - Week 15

Arts & Crafts

I'm casually knitting toys. I should have the first one done soon. It's around bean bag size. I think I'll want to make bigger versions eventually, so they're more huggable. I'm also really gung ho to work on baskets. I acquired a bunch of patterns for a wide variety of them, which were mostly free.

I was in the mood to finish other projects this week, so I completed my donut coaster. One sprinkler is sus and so is the bread part of the donut, but the icing went fairly well, so my crochet is improving. I still don't love it. Maybe I'll just prefer the basic crochet rather than the fancy stitches that mean way too much counting for me.


I wove in the edges of my PWHL Scarf to make it ready for blocking. Maybe I should block the part of my coast that looks wonky.

Decluttering & Minimalism


This photo might not look like much, but I've been needing to reconfigure this cart for a couple of months, but I was too injured to do it. Among other things, this let me slide an IKEA bookshelf over to make better use of my space. 

When I joined my two metal IKEA PS cabinets together, I lost the space I had my small bar area on. This has let me have space for one again. I'm not a big drinker these days, but I'd rather my bottles have a spot that isn't on the bookshelves in my living room. My tea items are able to live there too.


I also never finished the one corner when I wallpapered in that room, so I was able to complete it. Yeah, I just kept the bit of wallpaper for it around all this time for *someday* when I had the energy and time to do it. But then it was still missing a tiny piece and I had to fake that one just to get it done. It's not a spot anyone is going to look at anyway. Now I need a tiny extension for my dishwasher. A really short appliance strength one. Ugh.

Gaming & Streaming

This week, Diablo IV worked out. I'm getting really bored of it though. I want to beat it and move on to something else.

In Stardew Valley, I finally made it to the bottom of the cave system. I guess I'll be moving to the place that matches the skull key. I need one iridium bar to finish repairing Willy's boat, which will open up another area to explore.

Lifestyle & Sports

Some friends that haven't known me very long have asked me what I will be doing once curling is over for the season. Have no fear, friends. I'm very good at filling a schedule up. I used to do that for a living. I'll be catching up on all the things that have been difficult while being in two curling leagues! That includes sleep since the Tuesday one began at 8:45 PM. I have no shortage of creative and home projects to do. This first Tuesday without it was filled with watching hockey, making instant pot French Onion Soup, and gaming.

I enjoyed the IIHF Women's World Championships. It was fun seeing a lot of the PWHL players on the ice competing for their countries. I did not like that Canada lost to the USA on their first meeting. The USA got an overtime goal, which made it 1-0.

Something that wasn't working for my particular injury was resistance bands, because they have the most resistance at exactly the wrong point for the location of my injury. I switched to light free weights and half body weight exercises like wall pushups and my shoulder and arm are finally getting better. Also helpful has been injury strength Rub A535 to get my muscles to relax. I wish I would've figured this out sooner! The mind likes to keep muscles rigid when there has been an injury in order to protect the injured area. In my case, it likes to do that longer than necessary and the more I tried to get it to release with deep tissue massages, the more rigid it became. Jerk.

I caught up with a friend this week and had a lovely dinner. When I got home, my hallway smelled like a campfire, but I couldn't find smoke or anything, so I called the building emergency line rather than pulling the fire alarm. No doors were hot and it was only our hallway. It turned out to be incense that smelled like burning birch trees. Why is this a thing that exists?! I later burned some lavendar incense in the hopes it would counteract the other stuff.

Update: I totally forgot that we also had the first meetup for softball. I got to catch up with so many friends and many hugs were involved! I'm looking forward to finding out what team I will be on and which friends I'll be playing with.

Writing

I didn't get much done in the way of writing, but I did add space for it in my schedule for the rest of the month and beyond. I have one more grouping of films from the library to finish watching as background research before I switch to watching ones readily available on my streaming services.
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Location: Ottawa, ON, Canada

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