Rae Roy's Blog

2025 – Week 41

Decluttering and Minimalism

I got rid of a small storage ottoman this week. I had originally intended to reupolster it, but it wasn’t worth the work given the shape it was in and that it was shedding vinyl all over my condo. I decided I would get a new one if I even needed it at all. I don’t think I do. It felt good to finally purge it from my life.

This weekend I decided it was time to clean and store my air conditioner. Between the drop in temperature and the allergens coming in, I needed to get this done. I didn’t get passed pulling it out of the window as I caught a bad cold.

I also did a social media cleanse. I detoxed my feed. The content I’m seeing now is more positive and aligned with my goals.

DIY and Projects

I was gung ho to get painting on Monday morning, but I couldn’t find a paintbrush! I decided to get one at Walmart before choir as I needed some other items. After moving some tools around, I found the brush I was sure I had purchased for this task, so I didn’t need to go buy one afterall. In retrospect, I’m not sure I could have done it in the hour before work anyway, so it was better to leave it until after choir if I had the energy still by then. I had been flip flopping on doing all the upper cabinets at the same time and I decided to just do the sink side. The sooner I got this side done completely, the sooner I would be able to get the entire kitchen done. It would also be easier to do that painting on the stove side when old stuff was gone. I originally planned it that way anyway.

I got one coat on the cupboards over lunch. The front were OK after one. The underside needed a touch more. I eventually plan to alter the undersides slightly to have better wood to screw into for lighting and such. but I decided to leave that for down the road, if at all. One cupboard would have some alterations before moving on because there are large gaps that let pests hide in and I want to stop that nonsense. I haven’t seen many since closing the hole in my floor. Thankfully.

And it wasn’t that stinky. The enamel paint I used is oil-enriched rather than oil-based, so the odour was akin to a light varnish and didn’t make my whole condo smell bad. But, I didn’t realize that it was like some Frankenstein of oil and acrylic, so I had to wait for my paint brush to thaw before I could do a second coat on Tuesday. Once the paint dried, I was able to gather the pieces for the small cabinet and assemble it.

And that’s where another obstacle popped up. The legs made the cabinet too high. My sink cabinet is lower and I can’t change that now. Thankfully, the butch in me found scrap wood to use that would correct this. I didn’t get far on it on Tuesday as I didn’t have the energy. I was feeling better enough to get one piece cut, but not all four.

I think the perfect time to work on the upper cupboard doors will be when I’m waiting for the countertop to come in. I want to pay off some previous kitchen debt before I order that. I finally decided it would be butcher block. It took forever to come to this decision.

Around 3:00 AM, I couldn’t sleep. It was too warm. So I quietly removed the hardware from my upper cabinet doors and stacked them all neatly.

Then I played some Destiny 2 in the hopes I’d be tuckered out.

On Wednesday, I began working on covering a gap in my cabinet underside where my fridge goes. It needs to be painted, but I will caulk the smaller gaps first. Then I’ll have to ensure the gaps are gone on the inside of the cupboards and it’ll be tickety boo.

On Thursday, after hitting the internet and chatting with friends, I decided the height difference didn’t matter. I would just put some caulk where the sink meets the cabinet and not worry about it. It took forever to get it the thing levelled to a reasonable amount over lunch.

Next up was figuring out a way to ensure it wasn’t going to be moving about. I used the same silicone sealant that glued the sink to its cabinet. My stepladder kept it in place for the adhesive caulk to do its magic.

I took another crack at the gap issue on Saturday as I hadn’t got the wood where I wanted it. That screwed it all up and I had to come up with a new plan. I left it for awhile as my stepladder would be needed to screw it in from the top and replace the other piece of wood that got all messed up in the endeavour. I realized I could do something better that would use one new piece of wood and not leave a giant 1.5 inch gap.

Also on Saturday, I had picked up plinth or toe kicker wood. BUT. These IKEA legs need special IKEA ones. I decided to keep it anyway for a future small shelf unit. I became fairly sure I would need to have the flooring go slightly under the cabinet given the spacing I was dealing with. Not sure enough to start installing my flooring, but I’d know completely by the time I got the toe kickers from IKEA. Do I need to mention that I was annoyed by this point? Not one thing in this project has been easy really and I don’t want to ever renovate again unless I have a helpful partner in a more regular home.

I got the toe kickers from IKEA early on in the day. I didn’t do anything beyond bringing them and some groceries home because of a head cold. At least I had them now.

Education and Spirituality

This week, I tried to take a full moon picture. It went terribly.

This month’s Fairy Oracle is the Fairy of Manifestation: Pure Intention.

Friends and Family

There’s something wonderful about seeing your best friends. It doesn’t matter what you’re doing together. The time spent in excellent company lifts spirits in a way nothing else does. It even calms a deregulated nervous system. I have a core group of women that I have known for a decade or so. I spent time with this weekend. I truly cherish them band I feel so fortunate to have them in my life. It’s a special thing when you have people who truly care about you, your boundaries, and your property. Unfortunately, they are rare and I more often find the opposite. Again, I’m so thankful for my real friends.

On Sunday, I called my dad and brothers to catch up and give them well wishes.

Gaming and Videos

I should really rename this category since I don’t do Twitch anymore. The two things should be separate. Eventually. I’ll add it to the never-ending to-do list.

Anyway, I began playing Destiny 2 this week and I’m in love. It’s like MMORPG meets FPS. My character is an Awoken warlock. I use guns, swords, and magic and it’s f’n awesome! There is a rich storyline in the game. I’m so glad it was worth the long install. Tuesday was a frustrating day until I began this game. I was so close to beating the third round of a boss, but I just didn’t quite make it. I took a walk after that loss.

I stayed up way late on Wednesday. It was happenstance because I didn’t know exactly where I was in Cyberpunk 2077 and I set of the whole hour and a halfish chain of events that brings Johnny Silverhand, played by Keanu Reeves, into V’s life. Oops. But also so worth it. I swear that some things were slightly different in this runthrough from the Nomad one. It’s entirely possible I’m misremembering though as I haven’t played it in so long because of space issues.

On Friday, I met up with friends to play a game called Little Hope. It’s a choose-your-own-adventure style horror game. We got about half way through and need to finish it sometime in the next month or so.

On Sunday, my one friend group hooked me on Sun Haven. It’s like Stardew Valley, but better. There’s more to do. Energy isn’t a bottleneck to playing or advancing. It’s more visually appealing and the days are longer, so you can get a lot more done in one session.

Health and Fitness

On Tuesday, I really struggled on the food front. Nothing was appealing. The only thing I could think of eating was Shawarma. I’m so tired of my screwed up body. I just want to lose weight, get in shape, and be healthy, but there’s always something preventing my progress. I can’t get healthy by not eating anything!

The Skip driver picked up my food, went in the opposite direction, and parked his car for 20 minutes. I had to get support to tell him to do his job. Ugh. I think I’ll only order pickup from there in the future and save the BS from Skip. Or I’ll find a better place to order from. I did advise the restaurant of what happened.

I made up a new schedule for myself and went for a walk after work on Wednesday. It was a tad chilly with just a hoodie, but I thoroughly enjoyed the fresh air. Autumn is my favourite season!

I had to cut someone out of my life. Keeping them in it was making me mentally, emotionally, and physically ill. They didn’t respect me, my boundaries, or my property and were frequently using me. This is part of what has made it so hard to get anything done in recent months. I dreaded this. One can only tell someone so many times that things are not acceptable and when there isn’t a change in behaviour, there’s only one course of action left. If you’re dealing with such a person, you deserve better and I hope you find the courage to do the same.

It’s been a long time since I felt that disregulated. Thankfully, despite the cold I’ve been working through, I can feel my nervous system slowly calming down. A weekend full of gaming and good friends helped tremendously.

That’s a word I often don’t use because the dude running things across the border has in the past. I feel like I have to take back a lot of language from that one and it makes me sad as a writer.

Movies and Television

I started watching Invasion this week. It’s a sci-fi horror show about an alien invasion. The characters include a lesbian Japanese women who works at JASA (Japanese NASA), a black soldier who is on a mission in the Middle East to find a previous crew that went missing suddenly, a female Indian woman who gave up her career in medicine to raise a family, and a teen boy from a British private school. I’m continually wondering if all of them will eventually team up though they are started in different places across the globe.

Music and Songwriting

The practice journal I got for practising bass is The Bass Guitar Practice Journal by Dan Hawkins. It has a 30-line Goals List, a Repertoire List with room for 60 song titles, Tips and Maxims, a Practice Checklist, many pages for writing down what you worked on, how long you worked on it, and how it went, and it has room to write chords down both in the log pages and in a dedicated chords section. There are even some lines for tabs. I think it will be helpful as I learn as writing things down often helps get things into my head better.

I like the way How to Play Bass Guitar in 14 Days is structured. It’s tab based, but also shows the rhythms in a proper format. So it passively provides some theory elements, which makes it easier to jump into more traditional sheet music later. The 50 first songs book does this also. In the 90s, I recall guitar tabs that just had the numbers on the lines and you had to figure out the rhythm yourself. Even then, I was trying to learn tabs for the bass elements in a song. I wish I had recognized that back then. Imagine where I could be now!

Choir practice went well this week. We practised a couple of songs and had break time with the other choir. It’s a little tough not feeling sleepy in the dimly lit church and I hope I’m not annoying anyone with my yawning!

Reading and Writing

I so wish I had more time for both right now. When things are slow at work, I’ve started reading to pass the time and it’s improving my mood substantially. I’m still working through The Tapestry of Time by Kate Heartfield.

If you’re looking for a quick and humourous read, I highly recommend this blog post by Marie Bilodeau about her adventures with a camel. Marie is one of the first humans I met in Ottawa and I’m so thankful I had the courage to go to the event I met her at back in 2013.

Catch you on the flip side,

Rae

2025 – Week 40

Decluttering and Minimalism

In the coming weeks, this will be a big focus for me when I’m not working on the kitchen. I’m very close to being able to move some things into their proper places. Once the first cabinet is in place, I can relocate my reading chair. Once there is some flooring in the kitchen, I can relocate my fridge. These two things will be huge improvements in my day-to-day living space.

DIY and Projects

By Wednesday, I hadn’t achieved much on the kitchen project. My system was all messed up from drinking at the softball banquet. By Sunday, the most I had gotten done was to tape in preparation to paint the upper cupboards. I was feeling a lot better at least.

I want the kitchen done before year end. As long as the countertop comes in on a reasonable timeline, that should be doable. I think I need one piece to cover the two cupboards. I haven’t ordered it as I can’t properly measure until the two lower cupboards are in their places.

Education and Spirituality

This month’s Music Oracle is Johnny Cash. I guess I’ll be walking a line or taking a highway trip this month? Actually, yes on the highway as I had an event out of town on Saturday.

I thought I might be gambling, but that’s Kenny Rogers. I should know better as I once got to hand Kenny Rogers a guitar on stage in my hometown. Goth me wasn’t happy to be at a country concert, but I was being paid at least. Then I faded back into stage tech obscurity. I didn’t last in that job. I wasn’t physically strong enough to move meat racks (what we called racks of lights back in the 90s). Combine that with being under five feet tall and I was limited in what I could do. It wasn’t a good fit for me.

Gaming and Videos

I’m thoroughly enjoying Neverwinter. I installed a few more games I own just because I could. Maybe I’ll try again with Subnautica. I had such hopes for it, but couldn’t get to shore and just kept dying. I’ve also been playing Satisfactory. It’s pretty chill and every now and then, the computer says something messed up. It was like, “You have earned a break. (Pause). I hope that was refreshing.”

I’ve left my gaming group. I just can’t afford the 5 hours a week on something I don’t enjoy enough. Turn-based combat drives me nuts. Perhaps it’s the martial artist in me. Part of my goal in joining was that there are many writers who feel that it’s an important thing to do for writing. I disagree. I would be a lot further ahead if I had just spent the five hours every week on my writing projects.

Health and Fitness

I didn’t make it to karate this week. My iron was too low to be doing that level of exercise, so I just focused on getting it back to normal. At least I figured out what was causing me issues. Unfortunately, it can take a long time to fully resolve this kind of thing. I took a walk instead.

Given how prone I am to this, I think it’s best I either quit drinking entirely or just have a very occasional drink of something on special days like Christmas. I’d rather be healthy. There are tons of yummy mocktails anyway.

The long awaited schedule for the 2025-2026 PWHL Season dropped on Wednesday! The first game isn’t until November 21st, but at least we can plan around it now. We as in myself and many of my friends.

Movies and Television

I finished Slow Horses this week. It grew on me. It was quite a change from The Morning Show when I began it. Next up is Surface. Basically, this woman has lost all of her long term memory after falling off of a ferry. There have been a lot of enjoyable plot twists.

Music and Songwriting

I got myself some other materials including a practise logbook for bass. One is a 14-day bass book. I wanted to have a book of exercises to help guide me early on. I also got a 50 First Songs You Should Play on Bass book.

Choir began this week. The first practise was a mix of singing and just getting to know people as some newbies had their vocal range checked to know which part they should be singing. Given the somewhat dim lighting and the low iron, the church environment made me feel a bit sleepy.

2025 – Week 39

DIY and Projects

Other than the paycheque limitation on getting materials, which I hope to be on the other side of after a new range hood and countertops, time and health have been bottlenecks. Energy as well as I have been working two jobs for the past couple of weeks. One week left on that exhausting piece.

But I’m also in perimenopause and that has been complicating things. Have you ever felt like vomiting, passing out, and spontaneously combusting all at once? Well, that’s how hot flashes feel for me. I’m having to go slower than I’d like because the only thing that helps once I’m in one is pausing what I’m doing, having some water, and just letting my body have time to cool down. Interestingly, the hot flashes don’t actually raise my body temperature like a fever does. My thermometer reads in the normal range while I’m having one.

Currently, all the doors are off the upper cupboards and I have some minimal stuff to do to prep them for painting.

The crud near the hinge holes is from pest control. I need to clean that up before I paint. These will be white still. The trim will be black. I need to get that paint yet. I also have some minor work on this side as I don’t like how the cupboards above the fridge are connected inside to the rest. Also, there are a lot of open spots on the underside that let pests hide in or escape through. I will be putting an end to that nonsense.

Aside from that, on the other side of the kitchen, there is a spider who loves hanging out in the corner. It rarely moves. I have told it that it will eventually be having a bad time when I get to doing the stove area. It’s almost the last area to do. I will be installing a stainless steel piece behind the stove before I do the rest of the backsplash.

Gaming and Videos

My Nintendo Switch has been missing for months. I was really frustrated and mystified about it. I have been playing it at my dad’s house over the Christmas break, but I knew I had brought it back to Ottawa. This weekend, I found it inside the box for my Ring Fit device. Why did I look in there? It was the last place to look. Why did I put it in there is an even better question. Sometimes my brain is wonderful and othertimes it is a detriment to myself. Maybe I thought it was a good hiding spot for it while I had to go out of town? Who knows. At least I can finally use it again. I was truly enjoying Detective Pikachu.

Also in gaming this week, I got an external SSD in the hopes that I could put a couple of large games on it that wouldn’t fit on my laptop. It took forever to install them, but they actually run better on it than they even did on my main drive.

General and Miscellaneous

I have been reducing how many hobbies I am involved in. I don’t have the time to do them all and I need time for bass, choir, karate, and writing. Also for finishing the kitchen renovation.

Health and Fitness

I told myself I would totally get onto the stinky paint on Monday, but I felt like I needed time after figuring out that I was experiencing some lingering stuff from the past. At least I figured it out and sometimes just realizing a thing like this is really helpful in taking the power out of it. I read about ways to get through it and reducing cortisol is key for these things. Exercise, good nutrition, sleep hygiene, and such are in the list of activities that help reduce the stress hormone.

Karate kicked my butt good this week. It was great to be back at it. It’s helping strengthen my tricep, which is what I suspect is the cause of the missing bit of range in my arm at this point. I injured it twice when I hurt my rotator cuff muscles last year. I did a bit of research and I think I found a couple of other exercises to help it out some more.

Finding my Switch was important for my fitness goals. Ring Fit is part of the picture for cardio, especially once winter arrives. I relocated my blu ray player to my bedroom for fitness reasons and also because popping a movie on while I do things like fold and put away laundry is helpful for my ADHD. It also gives me a space to retreat to while the renovation is still ongoing.

I am regularly having sore, stiff muscles. Perhaps I’m low in some nutrient like potassium. This happens to me now and again and I pretty much just cycle various electrolytes until it goes away. Perhaps someday I’ll have a doctor again and can actually have a targetted approach to it rather than trying everything.

Movies and Television

This week, I watched the Blade trilogy. I didn’t remember much of Blade: Trinity, but I enjoyed the Dracula lore. Incidentally, a friend is in Transylvania touring everything she can related to Vlad the Impaler, the supposed inspiration for Bram Stoker. I also had the Twilight series on while cleaning. It’s a comfort watch that has a great soundtrack.

In television, I finished The Morning Show. Well, I caught up to where it is in the release schedule, actually, so I eagerly await new episodes each week. I’ve been watching Slow Horses since. It’s quite a vibe change, but interesting. Basically, it’s about the MI5 rejects that get parked in crap jobs when they make mistakes. Some end up there for having sex with the wrong people. Others because they made the kind of error that would result in mass casualties.

2025 – Week 38

DIY and Projects

A plumber wasn’t an expense I wanted. It can be hard to find a good one that doesn’t charge a ridiculous amount. I had a good experience with Roch at Tipi Plumbing though. A lot of plumbers in Ottawa won’t do actual residential needs. Some only do new build homes.

34 weeks later, I finally have a functioning kitchen sink! Yeah, it’s taken a lot of the year, but the rot was hard work to fix. My brother’s heart surgery had me not super functional from the stress. And I had to travel after it to help out. I also changed portfolios at work. And there were things between choir, karate, and softball. Plus, have you tried to get things done while in perimenopause in the summer? Hot flashes suck!

The plumbing was truly starting to affect my mental health. Severely. My marriage featured renovation for much of the time it existed. This particular project has had me triggered, which is good for healing old wounds, but not so good for motivation to renovate.

It wasn’t all on me though. One of the pieces was just extra stubborn and needed Teflon tape in an unusual spot to prevent leaking. Lesson learned that I will call a plumber much sooner in the future rather than embarking on a voyage into insanity. I don’t like giving up though, so it was hard to make the call. Even dirty, it’s beautiful!

Onto painting of my upper cupboards next. After that, I can get enough flooring installed to put my fridge back into the kitchen. Won’t that be a novel idea? Of course, then the stove will need to leave for a bit…

I’m not looking forward to the stinky paint part, but maybe it won’t need too many coats to make it good. I keep thinking up embellishments for finishing touches lately. As if I need the scope creep!

I didn’t get to clean up right away on Wednesday as I needed items from the store to do that. I was also tired from the stress and doing the work for two portfolios. A colleague is away in Europe and I’m covering him for 3 weeks. He’s pretty good about covering me when I’m away though and I usually don’t come back with my inbox full of things that were never done.

Food and Drink

Due to the ongoing tariff situation with the United States, I am still trying to find a replacement for my favourite wine, Apothic Dark. It was such an easy drinking red. There was no funky fermentation remnant taste. I have one bottle left, but I’m saving it. I don’t know for when. Perhaps when my kitchen is entirely done will be the time to crack it open.

So far, I’ve tried:

Bodacious Red: Might be OK if it was filtered more or something. Tastes very much like yeast. Something for someone less into wine.Henry of Pelham – Pinot Noir: Not bad. Drinkable, though not as smooth and tasty as Apothic Dark.Las Mulas – Cabernet Sauvignon Reserva 2024: On the acidic side for my taste, but still drinkable.

I celebrated having a sink with gluten-free, lactose free, pepperoni and black olive pizza on O’Dough’s flatbread along with a rum and coke made with Palm Breeze amber rum. I prefer the amber. It’s better than standard Bacardi and sometimes Kraken is too sweet for what I’m looking for. It pairs better with Diet Coke in my opinion for that reason.

On Thursday, I made Potato, Bacon, and Leak soup in my instant pot. I used extra thick bacon, soy milk, some celery and carrots, along with some salt, pepper, a boullian cube, and Italian spice blend. If I was a white wine drinker, I probably would have added some. I had some rosé at home, but I didn’t think that would be good in most food recipes.

Movies and Television

Monday was the 30th anniversary of Hackers (1995). I reheated and thickened the stew I made the day before and then watched the movie as part of an annual tradition. Not the stew, but I suppose it could become part of it. If I wanted to be movie authentic with food, it should probably be cereal and French fries.

I finished the second season of Severance. I hope the new season comes soon though it’s a bit odd that they’ve replaced the show runners. It makes me wonder if some drama happened.

As I also finished Blood Ties, I needed a new show to binge. Enter, The Morning Show, with Jennifer Aniston, Reese Witherspoon, and Steve Carell, to name a few. Alex Levy (Jennifer Aniston) and Mitch Kessler (Steve Carell) are the co-hosts of a morning show until Mitch gets fired for sexual misconduct a la #metoo. Bradley Jackson (Reese Witherspoon) is a reporter who goes viral for a passionate spiel about coal at a protest she is supposed to be covering. Chaos ensues, partly instigated by Alex, and Bradley ends up joining Alex as the new co-host for The Morning Show. The show is often dramatic and progressive without being overbearing.

Music and Songwriting

On the weekend, I put together a plan for my bass guitar practise sessions. Each day has specific skills and the number of drills and such are selected by using dice and my Scattergories card deck. In essence, I’ve gamified my practise. Modal Mondays, Tempo Tuesdays, Hammer-on Hump Days, Theory Thursdays, Fill Fridays, Slapping Saturdays, and Sliding Sundays. Mondays are about the different modes to play in like Ionian, Dorian, Mixolodian, etc. Tuesdays, I’m working on tempos because it’s a weak area for me. Wednesdays include working on the various scales and some riffs. Thursdays are theory plus grooves. Now, I don’t know much about grooves, so I’ll be starting with learning what they are and such. Friday has fills, but again, I don’t know much about those. I just know they are a bass thing. Saturdays are slap bass combined with arpeggios. Sundays are riffs as slides.

Writing (Admin & Marketing)

I need to figure out a better navigation option for this blog as I’m putting all of these tags on my posts, but it’s not easily searchable by them. It even took a bit for me to find when I began the kitchen project because of this. I’ll figure it out at some point.

2025 – Week 37

DIY and Projects

Monday had me without access at work, so I worked on my sink install during that time. I got everything connected and there was a leak in the worst spot to have it: hidden up behind the sink where there is no space to do anything. Spent, I left that for the following day to fix. I hoped I would be able to move the cabinet out enough to access the leaking spot without having to disconnect anything else. I was at the point of heavily considering scrapping the use of this particular unit and getting a cupboard, faucet, and sink from IKEA instead. I’d be out quite a bit of money, but I was so frustrated and done with the nonsense of it all.

After food and sleep, I had a good think about the issues and came to the conclusion that the faucet is designed in too many bad ways to keep it. I got a simple Moen faucet, the Torrance, and presto! I had a faucet that didn’t leak. It took longer to uninstall the old one than it did to install the new one. I was done in about 45 minutes for the two together.

I’m not shocked really. Sometimes when one buys things that all come together for a budget friendly price, there’s a weak link somewhere in the bundle of goods. There’s a reason why most plumbers go with Moen or Delta only.

Now, after all the trouble I had, I thought I saw it move in a way that wouldn’t be ideal. The next day, it worked fine, so I just left it and planned to do some dishes after re-levelling the cabinet. I did dishes. The drain leaked. Tightened things. Did another bit of dishes. The drain leaked worse. Ugh.

The next day, I took the whole drain system apart. I got rid of the plumbers putty. I followed a different guide and put the rubber washer there instead. I put plumbers tape on all threads. I used my hand sander to slightly shorten the one pipe piece. Then I put it all back together and prayed to the plumbing goddess, Cloacina. It still leaked, so I posted on Facebook that I was looking for a plumber. I just can’t deal with this piece anymore. I can’t get it to work properly and there’s obviously something I’m missing somewhere with it because I can’t get it any tighter and it leaks in several places.

I thought it may be time for a professional, but then I thought, what if a Moen basket assembly and sink strainer would fix my woes for $40. I had no time to install it, but I will be giving it a go in Week 38. At least it looks nice?

Gaming and Videos

I continued to make my way through My Time at Portia. It was helping me escape all the renovation and life frustrations that were plaguing me. It’s dystopian, but very cute. I maxed out the level of my worktable and spent a lot of time mining to try and get some valves for items people needed. I really wanted to be able to cook, but I didn’t have the design for the Cooking Set yet. I got a Blender at least to make some items with Stamina to get more done each day.

I had a date in game with Merlin. It was kind of awkward. We went to the Haunted Cave. We hardly talked. Merlin wanted the date before they would give me their camera for the newspaper office to use. I guess we need more dates before she will give me the camera. I also had a date with Dr. Xu. Neither are really what I’m looking for.

My game seemed to get bugged. I couldn’t get back into the desert caves to fight a boss. I tried to verify the integrity of the game files and hope that will work, but I had no time to go further.

Health and Fitness

This weekend was playoffs in softball. My team’s first game was on Friday at 6PM. We lost our first game, so the next was Saturday at noon. We lost that one too and were able to spend the rest of playoffs just watching. On Sunday, I stayed home until part way through the semi-final game. The same team won as last year, but they played 5 games on Sunday alone, so I suppose they deserved to.

Movies and Television

I finished the second half of season 2 of Wednesday this week. I enjoyed it. I don’t get all the fuss about having to wait. Tim Burton puts more care into what he puts out into the world than a lot of other directors and I felt the quality was there. I’ve seen some wild comments though. Someone said they didn’t want that satanic POS Lady Gaga involved. I feel like this person hasn’t been paying attention to any portion of The Addams Family. They are not Christians. She was amazing, as usual, and I hope to see her character much more in season 3. Really, I just wish there were more episodes.

In movies this week, I watched Hollow Lake. It was OK. Not sure if it actually follows the Wendigo stories properly at all, but it does refer to the Algonquin people. There were a lot of fade to black scenes. I figure that was more about budget than actually using it strategically more often than not. It didn’t turn up the scare factor for me anyway. Basic plot was that there were 20 somethings that went to a cabin in the woods for a weekend away and there were Indigenous ghosts (referred to as Native Americans, ugh) and you can probably guess the rest.

2025 – Week 36

2SLGBTQI+

It’s Bisexual Visibility Month! For awhile I identified as a Late Bloomer Lesbian, but it’s never felt quite right to me. It felt like I was diminishing the previous relationships I had with men and well some parts weren’t ideal, other parts were enjoyable. I haven’t had any interest in men in a long time, so these days I refer to myself as a Female Exclusive Bisexual. I feel that fits me best and it’s 1000% preferable to labeling myself a bi-lesbian like some people are out there doing.

Image by wage212 from Pixabay.

It’s worth mentioning that some lesbians won’t date bisexual women. They’ve been hurt by one or can’t deal with anyone who could ever sexually be with a man. Some even fear being left for a man, when bisexual people just fall for whoever regardless of the gender. It’s sad that these ideas are still around in 2025.

While life is still full of difficulties, I recently realized that I’m much happier not dating men. My interest level in them was always lukewarm compared to how I feel about women anyway.

DIY and Projects

Tuesday brought me plumbing woes when I couldn’t remove a SharkBite fitting. It just wouldn’t let go. It was the wrong one and I even went to the hardware store and a young man showed me and allowed me to remove one from a pipe in the store. I got home and I still couldn’t do it. I had the correct fittings and could at least put that one on the other pipe on Wednesday when I had the plumbing access scheduled for, but I didn’t know what I was going to do if I couldn’t get the other one off. I’d come too far to get stuck here!

Thankfully, after dinner, on my approximately 8th try, I was able to get the fitting off using both hands and put the correct one on. Thank you so much, Miguel from Home Depot on Cyrville!!! Seriously. I was freaking out with the stress of it and I don’t know if he could tell that at all, but the time he took with me to show me how it should go plus letting me do it in the store helped me have the confidence to do it at home.

I was still a bit worried about the height of the shut offs, but I decided that I could use some scrap wood to make my sink unit slightly higher if I had to. I hoped I wouldn’t because that would mean I likely have to do the same with the cupboard and then adjust all the things. Plus, the backsplash was put up with some tiles already lower than the surface and did I mention I actually f’n HATE renovating? Seriously. In the future, I plan on doing as little as possible. Peel & stick tiles, wallpaper, minimal painting, and no plumbing. Probably some electrical, but far less and only because there are a couple of things that were on my inspection to take care of like a proper GFCI in the kitchen near the sink. That’s a given that it should be like that. These were never things I wanted in my life, but most professionals won’t do small jobs like installing a sink. Argh!

Wednesday plumbing wasn’t going well at all. My fitting was leaking! I spent some time even trying the old fitting and it leaked too. Whoever plumbed the kitchen sink in the first place left a ton of soldering mess behind and it caused the leaks because both kinds of fittings need a tight seal to the pipe to work correctly. I had to go get bigger files than I had at home to carefully take it off the copper pipe and allow a proper fit. I was still having issues with the old fitting. I did some more filing and the SharkBite one went on with no leaks. I was still waiting for access to my shut off for pipe two and was pretty spent after the first one. I truly hoped that once I got to the second one it would go smoothly as it didn’t have any soldering remanent to deal with, just a bit of paint.

It felt like it took forever to cut through the second pipe, but otherwise it went well.

With the shutoffs lowered, I could work on the last two tasks to get the sink functioning fully. First up on Saturday was the opening of the side of my sink cabinet. It’s metal, so this was a bit annoying. And super hard to do quietly. I have a metal grinding saw tool, but it was so loud and I don’t like to be an a-hole neighbour. I tried some flatter snips than I had, but they were a no go. My next best option was to use the grinding tool on my balcony outside, but I was a bit worried the weather would turn given the sky.

Still, it was all I had as an option. I put the battery back on the charger while eating breakfast. I got through about half when the battery needed to be recharged. But at least I was making progress! There was quite a view later that night.

The other task was to cut off the old drain pipe as it had to be shortened to fit the conversion piece on. I got a very large pipe cutter tool for it. There would be some brief need of a hacksaw at the end to finish because of how close together the drain was to one of the water pipes. I ran out of time on the weekend for this piece though. I also needed a break from all the physical labour. I’m an office worker!

Education and Spirituality

This month’s Music Oracle is Maria Callas:

I really don’t agree with the first item. Perfection is often the enemy of progress. It’s best to strike a balance in most cases. I’m not sure if the second one is suggesting I should befriend my inner demon. Perhaps I’ll need to look into all the qualities of a serpent. The last one is pretty clear.

For the second week in a row, I have pulled the Hanged Man. The meaning? “Life is on hold and you are in a state of temporary suspension as you await new insight and clarity. Step back and look at life from a different perspective.” I’m annoyed at this point. Good thing I take these things with a grain of salt. At least I’m not stuck at the bottom of the ocean while sharks circle a cage I’m stuck in that goes up for a bit only to plummet down once more. Those poor women whose plight kept degrading to further levels of bad. See Movies & Television if you’re confused.

Gaming and Videos

I’ve become hooked on My Time at Portia. It’s a very cozy style game and it’s so cute. I like the task component combined with the open world nature of it. There’s so much I have yet to discover as I’m only level 32.

Movies and Television

The small win with my shutoffs made watching a movie much more enjoyable. As it’s September, I’ve decided to spend time on a long lead up to Hallowe’en with as many horror films I can fit in. I began the two-month horror marathon with 47 Metres Down. I feel it important to note that I have a less than 0% urge to swim with sharks despite how cool I find them. It is entirely my luck that I would cut myself on something and become a very brief snack for one. My favourite shark is endangered because of shark fin soup. It is a small shark that has a long tail it uses to stun fish. It is called the thresher shark.

By Thomas Alexander – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=50280277

I do really need to go to Toronto and visit the sharks at Ripley’s though. That’s as close as I want to be to them.

Writing (Admin & Marketing)

I spent much of the extra day off on Monday fixing parts of my webpage that weren’t displaying correctly. All of my main links in the header section go to pages rather than posts now, which are easier for me to find and update. They were posts because Blogger didn’t allow as many pages. It was a workaround I won’t allow in the future if I ever change again. I also had to reset the template to a degree and redo the navigation menu entirely to get rid of this prompt that claimed I had premium styling that required a upgrade.

2025 – Week 35

Well, the tarot card I pulled for this week was The Hanged Man, which suggested not a lot of progress was to be made. That I was just stuck and should just accept it. I decided to keep working at things regardless of that. It is just a piece of cardboard after all. One that happened to state how I was feeling about a lot of areas in my life, but still. It only had the power I allowed it to.

I continued my reorganization of my main living space on Monday.

The evening was to be spent at Paranormal Cirque IV, but I found it strange. They didn’t give me my ticket upon payment. It was a, “Your ticket will be available 1-hour before the show,” thing. Weird. Part of me wondered if that was just a gimmick to add to the paranormal experience I was to have. If I hadn’t known friends who had gone, I would’ve been more annoyed about this seemingly shady business practice.

It was such a fun time. The experience was just the thing for getting out of my own head. It began with a walk reminiscent of Saunders Farm.

Eventually, we made it to our seats. The dimly lit tent set an otherworldly atmosphere.

The last picture I was able to take before cameras were forbidden was the beginning scene of a mother and a baby carriage. Inside was her own mother’s head.

During the show, industrial music, twisted acrobatic performances, and some well-timed comedic moments delighted my senses. The female aerialists were a fantastic level of fit I could only dream of. The plot ever thickened, pulling the audience into a blood-soaked rabbit hole. Or perhaps that’s an over-exaggeration. Perhaps.

On Wednesday, I spent time with a dear friend. I picked up a new guitar stand for my bass and got three classic novels for $10. I’m slowly collecting the classics. This time, I focused on mainly the horror themed ones that I didn’t have, Sleepy Hollow and Sweeney Todd. I got The Picture of Dorian Gray to get the discount.

I spent some time cleaning up the condo this week. There is still so much of that to do, but my craft desk is now set up to hold my small appliances as I prepare for the second half of the kitchen work, which will mean moving my stove out. I’m hoping this side won’t take nearly as long for obvious reasons.

On Saturday, I completed coat three on the sink side of my kitchen. Though I wanted to get the plumbing done, I needed to wait for the property management team to provide me access to my water shut off in the hallway for this. I could lower one of the sink shut offs without that, but not the other, so I was stuck on this item for the time being. But paint coat three seems to have resulted in the coverage I want.

I was supposed to be filming a short film, but since it involved the beach, it needed sun. We had to postpone until Sunday. We started out with some technical difficulties at the first location, a train station, and had to leave it. Location two, the director’s home, went well. The bulk of the day was spent at Location three, the beach. I got so much sun that my eyes were red. Good thing I always have eye drops at home. After many hours at the beach, we went back to the train station. Things worked out this time and we got it all wrapped up just after 5PM.

Thankfully, I live quite close to the last location we filmed at, so I was able to hop in the shower soon after. Eager to rest my feet after eight hours of filming, I quickly got dinner out of the way and watched Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street. It had been awhile since I last watched it and I forgot how many awesome actors were in it! What I learned earlier in the week was that there is a related book called Sweeney Todd: The String of Pearls. It was a serial from the 1800s that marked the debut of the demon barber. I stumbled across it at Indigo and got it as part of the three classic books I got for ten bucks. The film is adapted from a 1979 play that I suppose was inspired by the serial novel.

After a pretty full week, I looked forward to an extra day off.

2025 – Week 34

Monday. Again. But it was back to work this week. In a new portfolio. This is a change that has been coming since mid-March, so I was happy it had finally arrived. I had new buildings and teams to work with.

The heat wave finally broke on the weekend and I hoped that would hold true for awhile. As we approach fall, my schedule is falling into place. I’ll have choir and karate in the beginning of the weeks though choir doesn’t start until the end of September. Then it’s just the weekly game nights. I may spare on the odd Thursday for Fall Ball, but otherwise I can just finish the renovation then clean and organize my home to get back to all my other goals. I’m looking forward to a quieter period of time and for cozy weather with hoodies, hot drinks, and spooky fun times. Autumn is my favourite time of year.

The evening was taken up by the Condo Annual General Meeting. There was enough people to have a meeting, but not enough to vote on a bylaw I suspect will be voted down.

I’m super excited about this bass adventure. There’s so much to this instrument. In part, it feels like a tall order right now as I’m learning the basics, but I feel like I’m going to be able to do things I’ve wanted with music for so long. I found this thread on Reddit that is full of interesting examples about the freedom in bass playing: “Can someone who knows a bit of music theory explain to me how bass lines work? : r/Bass“

I’m actually engaged in playing scales. On other instruments, they always felt like a drag. Like with guitar, why am I doing this if I’m just going to be playing chords? But with bass, they feel like a more critical piece of the whole endeavor. I’m actually cool with playing the same thing over and again until I get it down pat. I actually care enough to play with a metronome rather than half-assing it. And both hands need to be quite active, so it feels different. Sometimes I wonder if I have enough coordination and focus for it all, but I’m enjoying it.

An evening was spent with a dear friend this week. We haven’t seen each other nearly enough in recent years. Hopefully, we can see each other more often in the future.

I didn’t get to most activities this week. I planned out the plumbing stage of the kitchen and got most of the parts on Thursday. I opted to do that instead of karate given my toe and my need to have a functioning sink. The sink tail piece was outstanding as the place I got the rest of my plumbing parts didn’t have one as far as I could tell. But I was able to check out the rangehoods and I think I found a nice black one that isn’t too expensive. The big change I want to see there is one that isn’t wide open underneath because it’s harder to clean those!

Lately, I’ve also been pondering a furniture rearrangement. I don’t love where my desk is. I used to have it in another spot and I think it was a pretty good place for it. I’m thinking that my keyboard may be best where it is. And perhaps my other table will go to the dining room for crafting. Or maybe I’ll have my crafting table where my desk is and have my keyboard in my dining room. We’ll see. A long weekend is coming up and I plan to spend a lot of it painting the kitchen, but the evenings during the week may involve these moves.

It’s the time of year where my soul itches for the change in schedule as we approach the months that are quieter for me. I prefer staying home whenever possible. Except for spooky outings and comfort things like movies. I’m really not much for bars of any sort these days.

Friday’s softball game was a win. I was soooo close to catching a second foul tick! Our weekly team shot was a homemade margarita. It’s going to be hard to follow those up!

Saturday brought the annual softball fundraiser for Bruce House.

The calm before the storm.

It went well! I helped with set up then mostly fought through lack of sleep as I had gotten about 2 hours only. That was rough. After the tear down, I showered and slept pretty much for about 12 hours.

On Sunday, I tried to get the last parts I needed for my sink, but Rona+ didn’t have it. I can see how they are trying to compete with Home Depot, but while I was there, there was hardly any staff in the actual departments. Between not having what I needed and people taking forever to come to the paint desk, it took an hour and a half to get two small cans of paint and a bit of sealant. I’m not saying I won’t shop there, but I won’t go there for anything that requires service. Lightbulbs, sure. I won’t get my countertop there and I doubt I’ll get my rangehood there. I don’t have time to go to a place where the inventory isn’t accurate and there’s no one around to help me.

In the evening I began my furniture reorganization, had a yummy dinner with some red wine, and watched the movie Salt. It was an action movie about a female spy named Evelyn Salt played by Angelina Jolie. It ended with much room for a sequel, but there has not been one made.

2025 – Week 33

Monday came and I had more plans with my brother. We visited mom’s grave before exploring the mall. I found a movie I’ve wanted on DVD, Elvira: Mistress of the Dark, for $13! I hung out with dad for the rest of the day when he wasn’t puttering about on his SUV. I watched my new movie that night.

I was eager to get going on Tuesday and hit the road before 10AM. In Deep River, I spotted a demolition derby car.

I made it back to Ottawa around 1:30 PM and had a little delay due to some lane closures on the 417. After getting most of my car unloaded, I needed to retreat inside because the humidex was up at 42 Celsius. Ridiculous! I downed a bottle of water to rehydrate.

This trip brought me a used TV and I’m so thankful for it! I’ve had my TV since 2011. It’s a great little TV and I’m going to be using it for exercise and some binge watching in my bedroom, but this new-to-me one is bigger and will be so nice to watch movies and women’s hockey on. I’m so excited for this change as I’ve wanted the ability to watch exercise videos in the area I actually have space to follow them in. Well, once I get it all organized.

The first thing I watched on the new TV was Scream 2. I forgot Sarah-Michelle Gellar-Prinze was in it. Briefly. And Jerry O’Connell.

Since I was still on vacation, I planned to split the rest of the time this week between the renovation and cleaning up my living space. I was tired of living in a construction zone. Things to do included putting movies away as I had gotten a bunch at a thrift store awhile back, so it was long past due. I also had a bunch of books to deal with that I didn’t get to. I made a plan that included moving my one chair to my bedroom and my bicycle into the living room after that because the chair would be living in my bedroom anyway for the future. I plan to use my old dining room as my craft area someday.

Well, I thought that is what I would do on Wednesday, but while relocating my Nintendo Switch, I sliced my leg open on a plastic bin I broke when I tripped the other day. What was inside the bin? My missing drain and the instructions. I had digital instructions sent to me, but this was an excellent discovery. I could get back to the renovation and finish the sink side per my original plans.

What a ridiculous journey this has been. I’m seriously wondering how much more blood I need to put into this project. I suppose if I needed to get anything out of my blood, it’s covering that. I should call this the summer of the weekly blood sacrifices because that sounds cooler than the summer I renovated my kitchen against my will.

I was struggling with a problem as my tiles had grooves that ended up getting some grout in them. I tried everything I could think of and that I found on the internet. Nothing worked. Finally, I took a dark green craft paint and a tooth pick and worked that into the grooves over the blindingly bright white and now they just blend into the tile colours. It took several goes as my arms got tired from the angle and height I had to work at. But it worked beautifully!

Hot flashes and these ridiculous heat waves have not helped me finish this DIY project. I don’t always sweat and I’ll just feel ill when I have a hot flash. On the bright side, with my bathroom and kitchen being recently renovated, once I’m finished the kitchen, other projects will be much smaller and way less expensive. I’m looking forward to those days.

There are a lot of fun mods in the Minecraft world we’ve got going. Right now, I’m learning about wine making. I got pretty far before I had to hit YouTube to find out what pieces were missing in order to turn fruits into wine. There’s even a wooden bin you have to jump into to smoosh grapes with your feet!

I thought I was ready to do the plumbing despite still having some painting left to do. I figured it would be easier to finish that with a functioning sink. But I wanted to be able to be home for the time after I did the plumbing to be sure it was holding well. That meant leaving it until next week to deal with. Annoyingly, we had several days with water issues in the building and it may have been a good time to do the plumbing, but I was having brain fog, fatigue, and wasn’t quite ready to do it!

I was super sleepy on Friday and softball didn’t start until 8PM. That kind of time is hard on an ADHD’er. A lot of us go into a wait mode and don’t know what to do in the time leading up to the thing. It’s a coping mechanism to ensure we’ll be on time. I look forward to the season ending. As much as I love softball, it’s a lot when I’ve had so much else going on. We broke a 6-game losing streak and are hoping that brings more wins.

Saturday brought roller derby and a return to bass practice. I skipped ahead to the practice tracks. The course is organized in a way that doesn’t work for me with a ton of theory before you get near the instrument. Let me play the thing! I already know a lot of the theory anyway.

I was pretty allergic all day on Sunday. I don’t know what the cause was, but allergy medicine wasn’t helping. I’m guessing I ate something I shouldn’t. I’m fairly sure it was a couple of Lindt chocolates to blame. I love chocolate and it’s so hard to find safe options.

Sunday night held the usual Pathfinder game night. We helped a dufus out with his house fairy problem before heading out to a graveyard. To be continued.

2025 – Week 32

At the beginning of this week, there was too much to do. First up was more work on cleaning the backsplash. I got the mess of grout all off of it on Monday, except for a bit that had gotten into the groves on the tiles. I needed to find something very small and pointy to deal with that. I hoped one of my sewing needles would do the trick, but my arms needed a break after all the scrubbing I did that day.

Minecraft has been a thing in my life lately. My friends put together a new server awhile ago and I’m playing catch up. I had some performance issues that were bothering me, so I spent some time fixing them. I removed Cyberpunk 2077 since I haven’t been playing it. I was also able to clear some things off my drive. Between removing the game and clearing my trash bin, I reclaimed 101 GB of space, which was about a quarter of my drive. This helped a decent amount. I could really use a new computer someday, but that’s a far off dream with the renovation.

Bass is going OK. I wish I was further along, but this week was hard to make a lot of progress because I was busy preparing for a trip to see my family. Included in the prep was a visit to Dominion City Brewing Co. for my brother’s birthday gift.

I spent much of the week overtired. I didn’t sleep well last week at all.

Tuesday was a hectic day at work. In the evening I tripped and broke the nail on my big toe to the point that it was bleeding. I slapped some antibiotic ointment on it, put a big bandaid on it, and managed to get my old rims into my car anyway. Well, after I stopped feeling nauseas from the injury, that is. I let one of my softball captains know there would be no running for me this week and that I wasn’t sure about playing at all. And I was pissed about it. I’ve tried so hard to get things done around my condo and I really didn’t need this extra problem.

I got into doing the natural notes on the low E string this week. It’s very basic, but important to learn where the notes are on the fretboard. Right now, it feels like it’s going to take a long time to do it with any kind of speed, but slow is best at the start. It’s better to be slow and accurate.

With my toe messed up, I was forced to take it easy, so I continued my watch of Continuum. It’s on Tubi right now and I’m enjoying it immensely. Kiera Cameron, portrayed by Rachel Nichols, is a police officer who goes back in time along with a bunch of fugitives from her time that are part of an extremist activist group. The audience experiences a reality that is enhanced by technology in ways far beyond today and there are many morally questionable moments. The future rarely has crime, but how much did it cost to get there? Was it worth it?

I did some errands on Wednesday. My toes were not happy, but I had to get things done. Yeah, plural. Because I cut my other toe on some glass. I was quite annoyed at this point. At least, I got a lot of packing done.

On Thursday, I prepped for some changes coming for me at work. I felt it was important to be as organized as possible. After work, I got gifts for both brothers and finished packing before relaxing with some Continuum. I didn’t like how it ended.

I wondered what the PWHL would be unveiling on Friday because they posted there was something to come. Friday came and I was looking forward to seeing my family and some friends on the weekend. The PWHL thing was about Barbies, but they don’t have team jerseys, just league ones. A lot of people were excited, but I’m not a doll collector.

Saturday morning I headed to my hometown. There was a 30 minute delay on the 417 West as it had a large two-lane wide area of massive construction going on. I feel like they started the lane reductions much sooner than they actually needed to. I get it needs to happen before the construction zone, but it was quite awhile before it, which made traffic a nightmare.

Eventually, I made it and my visit with the family began.

On Sunday, I met up with some friends before dinner. I had a tasty Montreal Smoked Meat sandwich at Twiggs.

After dinner, my brother and I went to the theatre and watched Weapons. It was an original horror about 17 children that suddenly go missing at the same time one night. It kept me guessing for much of it. The ratings are well deserved.

After that, I watched Venom: The Last Dance. So sad how that one ended.