Skip to main content

2024 - Week 49

Arts & Crafts 

Having recovered from the hectic weeks, my goal was to get the shelf done. I completed a first coat on the top on Monday. In the evening, I worked on my Fairy Cross-Stitch project. With a need to get to the opposite end of the city right after work, it was unlikely that I would get any coats done on Tuesday. On Wednesday, over the lunch hour, I did a light sanding as a couple of spots were still rough. After work, I put on another coat of paint. I was fairly sure I just needed one more before I would be able to seal it, so it was possible that I would have the whole thing finished on the weekend and ready to install. I did coat three on Thursday afternoon and I hoped it would be the final coat.

Struck with the flu, I didn't get any further work done on the shelf this week. I'm highly annoyed about it. I want to complete it and install it. 

I made a lot of progress on Fairy Cross-Stitch due to having to take it easy and pretty much watch TV.

Decluttering & Minimalism 

With everything I've had going on lately, I haven't gotten as far as I want to on my decluttering efforts. My plan is to focus on my bedroom for a little bit. There is some stuff on the floor that I'd like to clear up to add space to my planned workout area. It's likely this won't happen until after I get the shelf done and have my living room back. I'm OK with this. That will result in having more of my condo cleaned up and usable.

The flue pushed me further behind on this as I'm now behind on my chores, but I'll conquer it.

Gaming & Streaming 

I had hoped to stream mid-week, but I didn't get the time to do so. I updated OBS, Stream Elements, and Windows on Wednesday. I would at least be ready for the weekend or perhaps Friday after work. I figured I could stream then for a bit and bring anyone, if there was anyone, into my friend's stream. I never got to it. Hopefully next week.

Goal Setting & Tracking 

This week I received my 2025 Planner. I'm going with a Leuchtterm Weekly that has a weekly page sectioned with individual days and a page each week for notes. Clean and simple. It's A5 and doesn't take up a lot of room, so it's easy to bring with me. It also has a Gantt chart that has space for tracking 5 projects at a time, which is a neat feature.

Arts & Crafts: Shelf (70%)
Decluttering & Minimalism: N/A
Gaming & Streaming: Stream Cyberpunk 2077 (0%)
Goal Setting & Tracking: Plan January 2025 (50%)
Lifestyle & Sports: PWHL (100%), Massage (100%) & Curling (100%)
Music & Songwriting: Uke Lesson (0%) & Choir Practise Tracks (0%)
Reading & Writing: Gideon the Ninth - chapter 15 (85%)

Health & Fitness 

I have renamed Lifestyle & Sports to Health & Fitness because even I didn't really know what I meant by Lifestyle.

Sleepiness plagued me at the beginning of the week. I just wanted to sleep through Monday. After painting the shelf, I had that hot bath with epsom salts. It didn't wake me up, but it also didn't make the sleepiness worse. I felt more energized the next day.

For curling, I decided the best thing to try was a stick delivery option. With my shin and knee unhappy, I was uncomfortable in the hack and getting no power to even get the stone across the hogline. Not wanting to lose the season, I figured this was a viable option and drove across town in rush hour traffic to reach the Goldline store before it closed at 6PM. I made it around 5:30. Then I hung out at the curling club until it was time for curling.

Curling went well. I didn't master the stick, but I did OK. It's easier to get it to go far and straight, but harder to get a nice arc. It'll definitely take some time to fine tune everything. I was really tired on Wednesday since I didn't get to bed until midnight. 

Thursday was a flex day that I took to handle some errands and work on the shelf. My goal was to begin my holiday gift shopping and visit the tire shop. I finished my holiday shopping except for the snacks. I got an appointment set up for the tires.

I didn't have choir this week, but the choir met up for karaoke at Ts Pub. I ran into an old friend who may want to join the next session. It was so good seeing him.

On Saturday, I had a massage on my legs. The student thinks my knee issue may be a weak ligament. We'll see if the results agree. That evening I began coughing a lot. I suspect I caught the flu at Ts. I tested for Covid and it was negative.

Sunday had me coughing a bit less, but I was more fevered and chilly.

Music & Songwriting 

On Saturday, the 14th of December, my choir will be performing before both Ottawa Pops concerts. Our choir portions are free, but the concerts are ticketed. The tickets come with charcuterie and a beverage. Here is the information: 

With all the coughing, I couldn't practise for choir.

Reading & Writing

I got some reading done at the club while waiting for curling to start. 

I made my first ever wikipedia edit. KateĹ™ina Mrázová's name was linked to a figure skater instead of her on a hockey article for the upcoming euro tour. 

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...

Change is in the Air

I've been making a lot of changes lately around my home and some of them might seem a little odd, but they're making me happy. One thing I've done is taken apart my dining table. I never eat in there or have people over to eat. It was just another horizontal surface that would collect things like receipts, odd screws from various projects, and countless piles of paper. I had been frustrated because of the clutter it encouraged, but also because I didn't have a space for my Yamaha keyboard. I had been trying to use my keyboard in the living room, but it felt too cluttered and it wasn't sitting at the right height. With it now in my dining room, I was able to relocate my storage bench, which happens to be the perfect height to sit at while playing my keyboard. I now have much more breathing room. There is still a lot of mess to handle here yet, but I'm making solid progress. A lot of people suggest the bedroom is the place to start when decluttering, but I haven...