Skip to main content

2024 - Week 31

Arts & Crafts

OK, it's really time to get moving on my cape. I'm away for one weekend and have events most weekends. It and the shorts shouldn't take long. I just need to sit down and do them. And I'm struggling to do that. Fours days in a row of stuff to attend distracted me from the cape. Right now, I feel like I just need to finish something to get that motivation to finish other things.

Decluttering & Minimalism 

I'm starting a digital declutter because Google keeps complaining about the space I don't have. I'm going through old notes and trimming them. I'm also changing their file types to further reduce the space they consume. I don't want to pay for storage.

Gaming & Streaming 

On Thursday, I decided to replace my keyboard with a more expensive 60% keyboard that was on sale at Canada Computers. It's also really quiet. The cheap one I got from Amazon constantly added extra letters and it got very annoying. The new one is also rainbow backlit. It's by Corsair and has buttons I've been missing like the print screen one. 

If I return to streaming in the fall, I'll only do weekend mornings. I find weeknights too much with work and life. Before noon on weekends I'm often just gaming anyway.

My Minecraft base is coming along. I have a waterfront and a place for my lighthouse to be moved to. I've carved out the bay a bit and I plan to add a harbour of some sort. I found river pieces and connected them all. 

Goal Setting & Tracking 

Arts & Crafts: Complete the cape. (0%)
Decluttering & Minimalism: Chip away at digital files. Do the door. (50%)
Gaming & Streaming: Get a new keyboard. (100%)
Lifestyle & Sports: Attend the Highland Games. Get my car keys fixed. (50%)
Music & Songwriting: Do recorder maintenance and practice. (0%)
Reading & Writing: Work on the screenplay. (15%)

Lifestyle & Sports 

This month's oracle card is Leonard Cohen.


I have twice attempted to get my keys fixed. There was no business at the first location and the second wasn't open despite Google having hours for them. I guess it will be a next week task. They are overdue as one was broken early on in the life of the car and the other's silicone has disintegrated:



The Glengarry Highland Games were held in Maxville on the weekend. I took in some dancing, marched in the parade, and sampled the foods. I was happy to see that there are Black people in my clan. There is such a small percentage of Black Scottish people in Scotland. It was lovely to see them accepted because, unfortunately, it's not always the case. Of course, there were a lot of brunettes and gingers at the games. So many gingers in the Highland Dancing Championships. I watched quite a bit of that as the arena was the coolest place to be in the extreme summer heat. I was going to stay longer, but when I attempted to go back to my car to just place a few things inside, well, it took me so long that I decided going home to a shower and air conditioning was the better plan. I think they should have some misting stations set up next year if it is hot like it was.

I regularly play sports with trans women and I'm so tired of all the ridiculous crap said about them. They are some of the kindest and coolest women I know. They're also way girlier than I am. I'm beyond tired of a certain writer I once looked up to. She spreads so much hate instead of seeking out the healing she can afford multiple times over. I hope the boxer sues her, but I have a feeling she won't. Her strength isn't just physical, but her character is also Olympian.

Music & Songwriting 

I have so much that I want to learn and I love so many different genres that I struggle to focus on one instrument, one course, or one goal. I need to acquire some sweet almond oil for my recorder before I can do maintenance on it. I honestly thought it would be easier to find sweet almond oil for this, but it looks like it will be an Amazon thing. There always seems to be something. It might be back to ukulele for a bit.

Reading & Writing

I made progress on a horror screenplay that I'm hoping to enter into a contest later this summer or in the fall. It feels like it is going so slow despite my love of the story. It's been so long since I wrote a feature film screenplay and I guess I need to knock some rust off. I love my new keyboard though and it is so much better. I was having to do too much extra work to type anything and it was exhausting.

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...

Fortifying Friday - Rejection

Yesterday, I received my first rejection from an agent. It stung. It wasn't that it was bad. It was worded in a way that it may have even been personally written. Regardless, rejection never feels good unless you were secretly hoping to stay home and do nothing when a friend made plans with you. Then it feels great! I might be an introvert ;) Anyway, it hurts a bit extra when you have other things going on. Between the worries of the state of the world and being unemployed, it felt much like being kicked while I was already down. The agent said she couldn't connect with my book though she really wanted to. She also said not to take her rejection as any kind of sign that I should give up. It was nice as far as rejections go. So, I lay there for a bit. Then I let my friends know via social media. Several said that I had hit a milestone and I should try to collect as many as possible this year. Rejections, they said, were a badge of honour awarded for putting myself out there. See...

Thoughtful Thursday - Dental Access

I haven't made use of it yet as I discovered it only this week, but there are free dental screenings in Ottawa for people who have a low income. I'm not sure what happens at these things, but I imagine they're rather like the once or twice yearly visits we had in grade school from the health unit where they checked our teeth. Anyway, I thought I'd mention that in case anyone is in need. There is a schedule with the locations listed and I'm guessing it's hard to get there early enough to get seen, but I'll check it out soon. I've been using dental products that are supposed to repair and whiten. I'm unsure they are working, but I figured they were worth a try. Also, I hear if you add activated charcoal to your toothbrush before the toothpaste, it helps whiten too. It makes a hell of a mess, but I tried it. I think it might take a while to whiten, but my teeth are definitely cleaner, so I think it really does help with plaque. Activated charcoal is als...