Rae Roy's Blog, page 11

2024 - Week 5

It was still January for most of this week, a.k.a. The Neverending Month.

Then it became February! 

Each month, I do pull a card from my Music Oracles deck. Last month was Bob Marley. February's card is Nina Simone. A piano playing rebel & multiple genre legend will hopefully make for a phenomenal month ahead.

I still haven't done a goals post for 2024. January was a lot. My goals for this year are:

- Complete Sparker and query agents.

- Complete The Curse of... and submit it to a screenplay contest.

- Complete the declutter of Tiny Condo.

- Blog at least once per week.

- Cross train for curling and softball.

- Learn piano.

- Self-care with crafts, reading, gaming, and sports.

I've tweaked my schedule to make this happen.

I'd also like a partner, but I feel weird about setting it as a goal.

Arts & Crafts

Saturday was a day of crafting. First on stream and then with friends in the evening. I had to make a lot of yarn cakes in advance of it because my yarn arrived in time! The reason to make yarn cakes is to avoid the knot that is almost always somewhere in the skein of yarn from the store. It's much easier to fix it before it's on the needles.

I completed the Fairy Garden on stream.

With the PWHL Scarf, I am trying to prevent the issues I can now see in Lez Scarf. What are those? Well, the wrong (back) sides aren't all on the same sides. I feel like that's a pretty rookie mistake, but I haven't knitted a lengthy project in a while* and seed stitch seems worse for it. I had such an annoying time with seed stitch in this project, that I am making every major square a different pattern. I've spent far too much time redoing the navy blue one and I'm just not having it anymore! Ironically, that was my original plan, but I thought it would be easier to only have two different stitches going on. Apparently not! This way, I get to try new patterns without committing to a large project.

Decluttering & Minimalism

Ok, it might be weird, but I've been moving rugs around my condo to different locations. This is to make some areas cozier and others more functional. I had an epiphany on the weekend of exactly what I needed to do in each area of my condo and began making it happen.

I've moved my piano behind me. Now it will be easy to move my laptop as needed to practice with Playground Sessions.

A lot of my clutter... shocker... is paper-based. I used to do a lot of my writing on lined paper or post-it notes and the like, so that is going to take a bit to clean up. I began shredding what I can this week. It's good prep before tax season, I suppose. 

Fitness & Budo

I got some walking in outside of the only curling I had this week at GSL. My team at Rainbow was not in the bonspiel and I didn't get to spare. I made up for it with work around the condo.

At GSL this week, I made some nice shots once I was warmed up. In the last end, I was skipping and I split the house. Then I did a draw style takeout. The trainer said that he called the sweeping to end like 3 seconds too soon. We had no points on the board yet and they had 3. My shot would've scored 4 points had it just nudged their rock a slight bit further! Unfortunately, that's life sometimes.

Gaming & Streaming

In Diablo IV this week, I died harshly to Duriel, so it's time to side quest for a bit to level up and get some stronger potions and the ability to carry more. I figured I would need to at some point before dealing with Lilith and Mephisto anyway. My character feels weaker at 50 for some reason. Perhaps Hammer of the Ancients isn't the best end game build.

I also played some Stardew Valley. It has elements from Minecraft and Animal Crossing with a relateable story, so I'm really digging it. And by digging it, I mean I'm completely addicted to it.

Health & Wellness

Med #3 seems to be better for me so far. I'm less dehydrated, not seeing things that aren't there, and I'm not having rashes. I am having some normal Canadian winter blues due to the lack of sun, which is thankfully returning more each day. The sun I mean, not the blues. I've found it OK to take a day off once a week to prevent dehydration.

Some friends have asked how I figured out that I'm allergic to yellow dyes. The answer is 11 years of elimination diets and tracking my reactions to foods and medications. I will be testing the other dyes at some point.

My myofunctional assessment was this week. That's for the tongue tie thing that I mentioned back in Week 1. It was a strange appointment where I did things like push my tongue against a tongue depresser. Anyway, my tongue tie is pretty severe, so I'm absolutely a candidate for release. I'll have therapy first to strengthen my tongue. This helps ensure that the release will go well. There will be more therapy after to correct the compensations I've done all my life and to get used to far more function. Unfortunately, the therapy appointments are not covered by my insurance. Hopefully the surgery will be. Between that, my car, and the outstanding amount on my bathroom reno, it will be an expensive year.

Music

Whenever I'm having trouble getting motivated at work, the answer is to put music on. 

I did some noodling on the weekend playing around with sounds in Ableton and different keyboard settings.

PWHL

It was a lighter week for PWHL with only the 3-on-3 NHL Showcase on Thursday and one game on Saturday. It was Minnesota vs Toronto. And Toronto beat Minnesota hard. I never thought I'd see that. They were at the bottom and just beat the top team and now I feel unmoored in a pleasant way. These women are all so amazing that it's truly anyone's game when they play.

Writing

*Brief grammar rant here. I've struggled for far too long on the distinction between a while and awhile. It's been bothering me for ages. And the definitions of the two did not help discern when to use one or the other. So I did some deeper research and this is what I found:

- awhile is an adverb, so it's usually following a verb, also known as an action word.

ie. She stopped to rest awhile.

- a while is a noun phrase and seems to often follow a FANBOY (for, and, nor, but, or, yet) or a preposition (in, on, under, etc). A list of prepositions can be found here because it's quite lengthy.

ie. She hadn't seen them in a while.

I don't spend as much time focusing on grammar compared to other writers that I know. Some friends love it. I have never fallen deeply in love with it. A lot of it I have intuited via reading quality books or I learned via the grammar courses they had us take during college. But, I do get stuck in my writing sometimes when I can't figure out which is the correct option, so I'm glad I've finally found the answer I needed to put this one to bed.

Anyway, I did get a bit done on my novel this weekend. Another chapter has been edited. For the bulk of this month, I will be turning my attention to a screenplay because there is a contest with an early bird deadline of February 29th. With screenplay contests, one can enter later, but it becomes more expensive at each stage.

2024 - Week 4

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

This week was about finishing my kitchen reset, and getting my streaming space cleaned up. I also intended to get my piano into the right location and to move my out-of-season sporting equipment and power tools put into my storage area. That was the goal I began before that whole pest control derailment was to have only what I regularly need in my main living areas whereever possible. It's hard to accomplish in a tiny condo. My storage area is partly triangular, so that doesn't help. 

I needed a break, so some things will hopefully be done next week. 

The plan after that is to purge and organize everything else that's left. I'm looking forward to when I can tackle just one drawer or something equally small on a weekend and have it not involve most of my living space. There's a lot of paper to deal with before then. I used to write on paper. A lot. Ugh.

Fitness & Budo

At RR curling, my team won! It was our first against a team that showed up. It felt good to get a win.

Team Homan won their 15th championship. I was scared for them because they had made a couple of mistakes and those almost cost them the win. They're really awesome to watch. The focus in their eyes as they throw their stones, the way they plan out their shots together, and the way they rise to the occasion despite how hard a shot is. It's phenomenal. They're all beautiful too, but that's just a bonus.

I skipped out on GSL curling this week because Ottawa PWHL had a home game on that night against Toronto. It was an excellent game!

This week was the week of the Over the Rainbow bonspiel. It was my first bonspiel (curling tournament) and I had signed up to spare. I wasn't needed on day one and given that there were many other spares with a lot more experience than I have, I opted to stay home for the rest. There was a stream for some of the games, so I could watch some of it from home. Despite not getting to play, I enjoyed getting to know a couple of people better.

Gaming & Streaming

I really enjoyed Diablo IV this week though we've still not gotten to Lilith yet. Mephisto's weakened wolf self did pay us a visit, but we weren't having what he was selling. We went back to our allies and pushed forward. We seemed to have reconnected with two allies. One seems a little sus to me in her motivations, but we'll see how that plays out.

I put myself in vacation mode on Twitch during the bonspiel weekend as I wouldn't be available for my crafting stream. I was a bit sad about that because I'm enjoying them a lot. It's been really good for me to be doing more crafting on the regular.

This weekend I got into playing Stardew Valley. It's very addictive. And I don't know about you, but I think it's "odd" that the mayor's missing shorts are in Maru's bedroom. I haven't recovered them yet because she and I aren't that good of friends yet.

PWHL

I realized something between watching curling and PWHL on the weekend. Every sporting event has a story to the evening. A particular athlete has a really good night and scores multiple times. The thing is that when commercials happen, the game keeps going, so you always miss a little bit of the story.

I have a problem. I'm falling in love with all of the teams. Like, it's getting harder to decide who to root for in a game. Ottawa is my team, but all the women are so amazing that I can't help but appreciate when another team scores as it's often so well executed. These women are so skilled and wonderful to watch.

There were two home games this week. Tuesday was Ottawa vs Toronto. A nice Ontario-based rivalry. Toronto has a couple of players who are originally from Ottawa. The game was intense. My seat is near the goalie, so I spent a lot of time on tenterhooks. But Emerance Maschmeyer is magnificent and stopped 30/31 shots on goal. Near the end, Toronto pulled their goalie and Ottawa got an empty net goal that rolled in. The crowd erupted in cheering. What a night!

Wednesday was Ottawa vs Boston. This is the team I know the least about. They wear the colours of my high school's teams. I chose to stay home for this one as the weather was bad and the transit trip is long from my area of Ottawa. I had hit my knee when I tripped the night before and I also really needed to get other things prepped for the weekend. I wish I lived closer to TD Place!

Boston won the game. Sandra Abstreiter had started in goal for Ottawa, but got injured early on. I'm hoping she's OK. It sucks to finally get put on and get hurt.

Speaking of high school, we had this regular hockey event called East West and everyone would go to the arena where the OHL team plays for a hockey tournament. The schools were split up into East or West. When I was there, we were West, which made sense given that the school has West in its name. Anyway, the West often won. Yes, there were enough schools with hockey teams for this to be a big thing in our part of the north.

I'm enjoying The Founding 4 Podcast at Black Rosie Media and their takes on the PWHL.

2024 - Week 3

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 the rest of it is set up. Yeah, maybe it's weird to have an ironing board, a ukulele, and art all on the same wall, but it's exactly what I need in my streaming/office space.

Oh, and I DID find the rest of my kitchen items. I'm glad that is settled. I have a couple of items left, but it's coming along.

Fitness & Budo

I was quite sore for RR curling since we had played the day before. I thought I would have a sore butt from a fall the day before, but it was my quad where it connects to the hip flexor on the other side that was complaining. A reminder for me that I am an office monkey. Lots of stretching was done.

I had a lovely chat with an 81-year-old who is having a bit of trouble with curling just this year probably from the loss of activity we all experienced during the pandemic. Her doctor refused to refer her to physio and I let her know most insurance companies don't require a referral from a family doctor for physiotherapy and physiotherapists usually don't either. Anyway, she has a friend who is 93 who is still curling!

It was nice hanging around to watch friends play with other friends this week. I truly love the sporty queer community in Ottawa. It's full of wonderful people who are great company.

I enjoyed watching the Red Deer Canadian Open. Some of the shots the pros make are ridiculous. They make take out shots look so easy with their double runbacks.

Health & Wellness

I met with my doctor and I've started ADHD med number 3. It's a methylphenidate capsule (Biphentin) that I have to add the contents to applesauce to avoid the dyes. So far, I do notice a bit of the dryness effect, but I don't feel dizzy or itchy. I expect the dryness will be enough extra to manage for me. Hopefully, the rest of the side effects can be avoided.

I had some fillings done. I'm always anxious for dental work, so I was out of sorts on Monday between that and thinking about mom. I also had a tension headache that didn't help the experience. It was pretty great despite being there for fillings. The dentist and hygienist were really funny and it was fun joking around with them.

I learned that Blue Monday isn't actually real. It's just capitalist propaganda that fuels harmful stereotypes about mental health. I've been down this week because of mom's death anniversary. In a lot of ways, I feel like I was a bit numb about it before this. Not that I didn't break down at times, but it's like it hurts more this year. I suppose that's just part of the grieving process, which feels different when losing a parent. I've lost many people over the years since dad is from a French Catholic family and he had 15 siblings. Mom's family was smaller than that, but still bigger than many others I know. From about age 6 or so, we lost someone nearly every year. I suppose this is part of why I chase my dreams. I've been confronted with mortality a lot.

Gaming & Streaming

I had no expectations about finishing the campaign in Diable IV as I went into stream on Monday. Every time I thought I was close, I wasn't and there was still about a quarter of the map hidden. That held true after stream. I fought with Elias numerous times, but he's been dabbling in some kind of necromancy and isn't currently killable. We dealt with Andarial. I believe next week we'll be attempting to get to Mephisto before Lilith does.

I have gotten myself into a tough spot with Minecraft Origins. I keep dying to a skeleton/zombie duo. Not fair! They usually attack each other rather than ganging up on me. I may have to  "phone a friend."

Music

I've decided that music is the only other language I want to learn for now. I want a year with more of the things I love most in it. I'm going to get back to ukulele while I learn piano because it's a fun little instrument. With my tenor easily accessible, I'm looking forward to playing it more.

PWHL

This week, I spent some time catching up on games I had missed due to life, curling, and them being scheduled in the same time slot as an Ottawa game.

After seeing Minnesota lose to New York, I have no idea what the playoffs will look like if they happen. I had thought it would be Montreal and Minnesota, but now I'm unsure.

On the way to Wednesday's home game, I had several sad moments, so I was glad that I ran into friends. I sat with one near centre ice. It was a nice change of scenary and I actually saw a goal happen. I'm good at looking away just before and needing the replays.

Ottawa played Minnesota and as I expected it was a really tough game. Minnesota is a hard team, but all of the teams are so stacked with skill that it will be interesting to see how the season goes. Sadly, Ottawa lost in OT, but it was a fight the whole time.

Afterwards, friends and I were in the line to exit the garage and this woman, who had no official authority, was walking around angrily telling people they shouldn't be in line to leave with their cars if they haven't already paid for their parking, but all the signs said it was fine to pay at the exit. It was hellacious to get into the line to exit, so there was no way we were getting out to go pay and then trying to re-enter it. Like they should've from the beginning, there was staff helping people get through the gates quicker by the time we got there. There's only a 15-minute time limit from when you pay and the line wasn't moving fast enough to meet that.

Hopefully, my black, PWHL Ottawa hoodie will arrive soon. I'm debating adding my favourite player to the back of it. It's an excuse to do more embroidery patches too. I've not used my sewing machine for this, but it is supposed to be able to do some embroidery.

Montreal's loss to Toronto came after OT and a 6th round of shoot out. It was another game that kept me on edge.

Writing

I got a bit of work done on Sparker this week. I figure I'll need to read through the whole thing again once I'm done to be sure I've made all the edits I plan to before querying an agent. I've probably read my own book more than any other, but I've also changed it many times, so it's been a different read in some areas.

Year Two

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 copy of Whip It was awesome!

Mom's pronunciation of words could be really sus at times.

She often used the wrong words for things.

Mom also loved to help others. She was a social worker in Toronto before my eldest brother was born. She told me that when I was studying social work. Later, she told me that she knew I wouldn't enjoy that line of work.
I don't know if she ever told my brothers that. Being from the silent generation, mom would often let little things out like that, but only to one of us and only when it was relevant. As a result, there's so much we probably don't know about her.

She fostered some children before I was born, so I have these pseudo siblings I see very rarely, but they kept in touch with her after returning to their families.
And she'd help out other teens when she could. Sometimes all it amounted to was a hot meal and a place to sleep while they figured out what to do about a situation they were in, but it helped.
She was great at finding things while thrifting or yard saling. Somehow, she'd  always remember one of us needed something like a lid for a pot.
She hated having her picture taken, so there aren't a lot with her in them. I guess that makes the ones we do have all the more special.
Anyway, I just wanted to share a little more about the woman who raised me.

The Void

On Losing a Parent

Mother's Day 2022

More on Losing a Parent

One Year

2024 - Week 2

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 bathroom anywhere else in a short amount of time.

Things I can't find after all this include my hammer and my cheese graters. I had a bin that I put things like my cheese graters in, but apparently not the actual cheese graters!

I thought I was getting somewhere, but now my home feels more disorganized than ever :(

DIY

Plumbing was added to my life this week when my p-trap's stopper piece partially disintegrated or something. It fell out of the pipe and was too rusted to put it back in. At least I got all my dishes caught up before this happened, I suppose. A new stopper was bought and luckily this didn't turn into an unplanned reno. After clearing some debris from the inner threads on the p-trap, I was able to put the new stopper in. Good thing I'm one of those handy lesbians.

Fitness & Budo

My arms were very sore after curling on Sunday. They were normal muscle sore, at least. There's only one position left that regularly causes me a bit of pain and it's only if I try to do the Y:

It's time to get back to strengthening. I planned to already get back to that, but I had to shift my timeline for the condo stuff. I'm going to start regularly using my rowing machine and doing Ring Fit on Switch since winter has actually arrived.

GSL curling was cancelled due to the winter storm. Given all the other stuff I had been doing, I was too sore for it anyway. I wasn't worried about missing out on curling because the weekend held two curling days in a row.

RR curling day one had us on Sheet 1 where the rocks have a habit of curling towards the outer wall, which makes things extra difficult. It's hard to get enough ice to actually hit the target as a beginner.

RR curling day two had my team on sheet 3. We lost, but fun was had. A number of shots were maddeningly close. A couple of us stuck around for trivia night and we came in third place for that. Trivia was more fun than I thought it would be. We were on a team of five and that increased the likelihood someone would have the answers.

Gaming & Streaming

I'm STILL working through Diablo IV. I thought I would be done the campaign by now. I probably would've been had I not gotten distracted with side quests. Alas, I did. I'd play more and just get it done, but I committed myself to doing the campaign on stream. 

I played some Dragon Age: Inquisition. It's nice to have some off stream games to play. I'm not too into it yet. It's not hooking me for some reason and I don't know why.

I did my first Makers & Crafting stream. I want to tweak my camera set up for sure. 

I also joined friends in Minecraft: Origins this weekend. It's a vanilla version of Minecraft that uses resource packs in creative ways to add blocks. There's an archaeology component that I'm looking forward to getting into once basic survival is less of a problem.

Health & Wellness

I talk about a breakthrough in my food issues in this post. TL/DR, I figured out it's added food colourings that has been making me ill. I'm happy to have pizza in my life again! I pretty much just go with companies who have excellent ingredients lists like Pizza Hut, Dominos, and Poppa John.

It's a mentally and emotionally hard time of the year for me. My parents were married in the 1960s on January 11th. We lost mom two years ago during the winter storm on January 17th. Add Blue Monday to that and January is not a favourite month of mine. I'm looking forward to it ending.

Language Learning

I quit Duolingo this week. They have decided to fire all of their translation staff and replace them with AI. I rather hated the app anyway. I hated spending entire weeks on learning the same sentence repeatedly. I also need to learn the foundation before being expected to know something. They would skip some things then expect me to know it because they changed the curriculum randomly. A friend said they add things to a lesson you've already done, but then don't go back and fill in that gap before testing you on it.

Anyway, I'm trying a few out before I decide what to do with this. And perhaps I'll take a break and renew my efforts in a couple of months. There has been a lot going on and I could use the time for other goals right now like writing, music, fitness, and decluttering.

Movies

On Sunday, after curling, I saw Big Shark with friends. That's the new film from Tommy Wiseau of The Room. Several of my friends enjoyed it. I found some parts funny, but it was painful at a lot of others. I'm more of a Nic Cage Willy's Wonderland level bad movie fan.

I think the interesting thing about Tommy's movies is that we get these glimpses into his worldview. How he sees how friendships happen with other men involves things like playing catch, basketball, and wrestling. How he sees romantic relationships is really dysfunctional. Every woman is terrible. They cheat, abuse, and use the men. It may be safe to say that Tommy is divorced. Not much is concretely known about him. Once in a while he says something somewhat profound like:

“If a lot of people love each other, the world would be a better place to live.”

— Tommy Wiseau

We got a group photo with Greg Sestero at Mayfair Theatre.

The older, bearded friend, absolutely hated it. As I said, I found some funny moments, but I'm not in a hurry to see it again. OK, maybe at least once only because the version we saw wasn't a final cut. Hopefully they make quite a few improvements. I could do with less of the cowboy song, fewer party scenes that have no plot relevance, and more music. Then it might be more of a normal b-movie level bad.
I also saw The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes. I enjoyed it. The story elements are solid, so are the acting, and the music. I can't recall if I ever actually read the books or if I've only seen the movies. I should remedy that at some point.

PWHLI was super sad that the Ottawa away game vs Boston was postponed due to the weather, but I get it. 
Given that I stream on Mondays now and all the extra work I had to do around my condo, it was kind of OK. 
I decided to watch some archived CWHL to catch up on some of the women's hockey I had missed out on all these years. I don't know why I never thought there had to be women's hockey happening somewhere outside of the Olympics, but I didn't. And it's not like anyone I know talked about it ever. Even people who have lately told me they love it. Everyone just talked about the NHL. Anyway, I watched the 2016-2017 All-Star Game. I wasn't surprised that the team that had Poulin on it won.
I enjoyed the New York vs Montreal game. Poulin scored and there were a number of good plays. I wish I had seen a bit more of the Toronto vs Minnesota game. I quite like seeing Minnesota play. I feel like I should love Toronto more because they have a lot of players who are originally from Ottawa. Anyway, it's currently the only game I haven't seen and it's only because I couldn't find the archived game.Reading

I'm still working on The Chatelaine by Kate Heartfield who is a local author. My copy is from the before Harper Collins days when she was first published by ChiZine, which was rocked by scandal. I'm so glad she got picked up by a serious publisher as her writing is top level.

These days, I'm more into reading queer books. I may read something by Ivan Coyote next as they are a very cool human. I've spent a lot of my life on heterocentric stories and feel like I missed out on books that actually represent me, so I'm catching up.

WritingIt took me a lot of time on Tuesday, but I got more organized on my writing projects and have a progress report now:

Perhaps I should add some colour to that next time.
Grim Ties was super messed up. But while I was organizing it, I thought more about what to do with it when I eventually want to get back to it. I tend to work on one novel and one screenplay at a time. I'll add notes or scenes to another project if they pop into my head, but seriously working on more than two isn't super productive for me.

The Food Thing

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 ingredient. I noticed that the medications I reacted to the worst were yellow.

The difficulty with this all has partly been that sometimes the dyes are hidden in the process. Like caramel colouring doesn't always have yellow dye in it, but sometimes it does. The same goes for some of the sugars like glucose-fructose.

I had Quaker chocolate chip chewy granola bars, a mushroom risotto with milk in it, ginger ale*, and white cheddar cheese on Day 1 of my test. 

I spent the rest of Day 1 just waiting to see if I would have symptoms. I tend to have issues a couple hours later. And it's usually a rash and/or breathing difficulty. No symptoms. I just felt good.

A second day with milk on cereal, pasta with white cheddar & mushrooms, and Smartfood popcorn white cheddar flavour also gave me no reactions.

Another day with a Quaker granola bar, a 1/2 cup of milk, 

Some natural flavours can be problematic too, but I figured I would focus on dyes first. I don't need my food to be coloured beyond its natural look. It doesn't actually make it better.

Anyway, I had an instant reduction in gut pain. 

*Canada Dry has some caramel colour in it, so I will be searching for one without. It has less than colas do at least.

As an athlete, I do need to replenish my electrolytes. Back when I did roller derby, I used to make my own electrolyte drink. I'll be going back to that. I can't remember the exact recipe, but it was orange juice, lemon juice, salt, water, and maple syrup. Coconut water also works well as an electrolyte drink though I get tired of the taste of it.

Fun fact that I learned, oranges often have their peels dyed to make them look better. Orange juice isn't allowed to be made from those oranges. They also add caramel colour to bread at times to make it look nicer.

Red dyes are sometimes added to sauces for pizza to make it redder too. It would be nice if they would stop screwing with the food supply. It's one thing to have it in candies, sodas, energy drinks, etc, and quite another to have it in products that are supposed to be healthier choices.

Other foods with dyes added can be found here.

Anyway, after a week or so, I occasionally get briefly itchy, but I'm no longer choking regularly on foods or drinks and I have more energy and focus. It's wonderful to get a lot of foods back that I was avoiding. It's still odd to not be struggling to swallow. My salivary glands are working a bit better too.

It's likely there's still something I'm occasionally getting irritated by from 7 UP or Sprite, but things are a lot better. I have lots of teas I can drink at home instead.

2024 - Week 1

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 tidying like putting away my little Yule tree. Mostly, I relaxed and recovered from 2023. 

Midweek, I began a big reorg I've been wanting to do. I had two sets of shelving to  relocate to my storage area for holding sports equipment and tools that I'm not actively using. My storage area kind of sucks as it is largely triangular, so it has been a pain to make use of it. It meant moving a cupboard back to my condo, so it was a lot of tetris/jenga type maneuvering. It was important to me, so that I could reclaim a lot of space in my condo for things I need far more regularly.

I ended up temporarily using the second shelf to store items from my kitchen cupboards. I'm quite annoyed as it seems everytime I'm getting somewhere, the condo corp needs me to do something that derails all my work. Our units are small and I'm pretty sure I'm far from the only person who doesn't have a dining room table to store things on. Especially in a post-pandemic world where a lot of us needed to set up offices at home.

I also made the leap I was probably always headed towards and donated all dresses, skirts, and purses. Well, I kept the plaid flannel ones because I can alter them into regular shirts. In total, I got rid of nine boxes and a bag of stuff that didn't spark joy or make me feel confident. And I felt unburdened far beyond just reclaiming space. I was holding onto a lot of things that other people and society thought I should want instead of the things I wanted.

Gaming & Streaming

For New Years Eve, I decided to use a gift card to get a new Switch game. It was Detective Pikachu Returns. After getting some Pilsbury biscuits the day before, I really wanted to make beef stew to have with them. Younger me would've laughed at the idea of making New Years Eve about solving crime and eating stew, but I've been wanting to stay in on New Years for a very long time. I didn't give myself enough rest and downtime in 2023 and this was the perfect way to slide into the new year.

The biscuits were quite meh and I plan to get back to baking my mom's recipe, which I'm sure is from the Five Roses cookbook.

I began the search for a new router as the one I've had for ages has been showing signs that it is failing. It quite regularly just stops and I have to reboot it several times a week. I reached out to a friend who knows more people who are knowledgeable about the current router market to see what I should look at for a  replacement. His friends are pro streamers, so I'll likely get a good recommendation.

Saturday was supposed to be my first craft streaming day. It's new content for my Twitch channel. It was also supposed to be my first stream of 2024. I wasn't ready for it. I'm deep in decluttering and have to provide access to my unit next week, so I decided it would be better to postpone and have a better launch.

Health & Wellness

I had a bloody nose on Tuesday morning. I used to get them all the time as a child, so I'm very prepared when it happens. That didn't make it any more welcome.

Later on, I had a dentist appointment that may be life altering. They've referred me to a specialist. Apparently, I have a little too much of the skin that attaches the tongue to the floor of the mouth and it may be at the root of many things I've been struggling with all my life. It's called a tongue tie. They told me that normally, as you grow, your tongue helps enlargen your mouth unless you have a tongue tie. A tongue tie causes a lot of issues, especially because it leads to breathing difficulties. Without proper oxygen going places, the body and mind can't function at their best. Anyway, I was booked to see the specialist by Friday. Fast, right? The first appointment is $200 just to assess whether or not I'm a candidate for the release or just therapy. I want the surgery if they'll let me get it. If I had been born at a different time, it would have been done already. It's a pretty minor one with local anesthetic. It's going to be expensive. Hopefully, my insurance covers most of it.

As I learned more and more about the tongue tie and all it's far reaching ramnifications, I heard Owen Wilson in my head:

via GIPHY

Kia HECU Recall Update

It's looking like my issues here will be resolved before winter ends. At least, that is what the complaints department said when I spoke with them. It's truly worth being a squeaky wheel at times.

Movies

On New Years Day, I did like some friends do and had an all day Lord of the Rings marathon. This was with the extended editions, of course. Naturally, I needed to take out my ring to properly undertake the journey. It's a replica from a bookmark I once had. It turned out to be one of the best New Year's Days I've had.

PWHL Ottawa

The day of the Home Opener game was packed. I had a hair appointment, which was sorely needed after not making it in before the holidays. Later, I had the dentist appointment mentioned above. The journey to the game was a bit less smooth than I would've preferred. I got to Blair station and a sign said I could catch a 451 straight there, but it didn't actually exist. A driver helped me find out how to get there. I was locked out of the train platform and had to use the video chat at the payment terminal. The customer service rep printed me out a day pass to let me have no more issues getting there.

Eventually, I got from Parliament to a bus that went to Lansdowne. I can just take the bus from my house to Parliament station in the future and avoid the whole train thing. Transit is free with a ticket to and from the games within 3 hours of them, so it should be a touch smoother.

I was looking forward to it and I was curious about the special gift for having put a deposit down. It was a toque.

The game started with the captains hugging. I suspect this may be odd to people who only watch men's sports. Comraderie outside of the actual game. It was the perfect beginning. 

Photo by PWHL

During a stoppage in the game, I looked around the room and just took in the momentousness of this piece of history for Ottawa, for women, for hockey, and for women in sports. One of the signs in the crowd read, "It's about damn time." Yes, it is.

My favourite player is currently Maschmeyer. Given my proximity to the net, I see a lot of Masch. I've always been more drawn to goalies. Carey Price is my favourite NHLer. I suspect my love for goalies was influenced by Julie "The Cat" Gaffney from The Mighty Ducks. I love that franchise. Julie should've been the starting goal tender. She was always better than Goldberg.

Pre-game huddle - Rae Roy

My thoughts on the home opener game are that there is one thing I think Ottawa can do better at and that is getting shots out faster. At times, they held the puck too long. It's a weak spot that made it easier for Montreal's goalie to predict what was coming. Montreal played dirtier and Ottawa may have to figure out a plan for shutting that down in future games like the upcoming January 8 away game.

There were some hard hits, but the women are all friends and don't get lost in the fighting. They also just enjoy playing the game so much that they'd rather get back to it than fight. It's one of the enjoyable things about women's hockey. More hockey than other stuff.

The Timbits players were adorable and I hope this league is still going strong when they come of age to enter it. I'm going to do my part to make that happen by getting merch, having season's tickets, and watching games from home whenever possible.

On the way home, I spoke with the driver as I didn't know where to go from the bus I was on to get to my station. We chatted about the game. He listened as best he could to the stream, but it killed his phone battery. I had a brief issue at the station getting back to the train because my day pass said it was already tapped and the doors wouldn't open. A stranger held it open as he went through and I thanked him.

It took awhile to fall asleep because I was still so energized. 

In the morning, I let the PWHL know that there are people who would really benefit from a radio broadcast of the games.

I also watched the PWHL Toronto vs New York game. I missed the January 1st one where Toronto lost 4-0. They came to play hockey on Friday and won by 1 point. We'll see if they do better than the Maple Leafs as the season progresses.

Saturday held the Montreal vs Minnesota game. Minnesota won in a shutout. All the goals were scored by Zumwinkle. She scored in their previous game as well, so she's someone to watch.

OK, it's time to wash up and head to bed.

2023 Wrap Up

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 to love about 2023 and it's easy to forget that at times because the negatives are often louder in my mind.

Crafting, Drawing, and Painting

- began learning Procreate
- made progress on my fairy cross-stitch
- made progress on Lez Scarf
- began a new quilt

Decluttering & Minimalism

- got rid of many unneeded things after I figured out what was most important to me
- realized that I don't have to get rid of everything I enjoy to have a reasonably comfortable home
- repurposed a number of items and pieces of furniture for future goals

Financial & Legal

- renewed my mortgage
- cleared debts
- got a new passport
- got help when I needed it

Fitness

- completed my first seasons of curling and softball
- tried kung fu
- marched in Capital Pride
- went on a number of haunted walks, tours, and hikes
- started my second season of curling and saw improvement

Gaming & Streaming

- reached 132 followers this year
- marked my first anniversary as an Affiliate
- received my first Twitch payout
- did my first crafting stream
- played some tabletop and board games
- played a variety of games (Steam wrap up)

Happy Memories Jar 2023

I don't think I ever said anything about this, but late in the year, I decided to start a jar of happy memories. Here are the notes I put into it:

- Thrifting at Rebuilt was really fun.
- Getting my living room better set up, so I could craft, do music, and bring more variety to my Twitch stream.
- Hitting the button at curling.
- I got a hole in one!
- Caffeine.
- My softball team has been such a wonderfully positive and encouraging group of people.
- When I caught that ball on that rainy day in right field.
- Danielle Allard singing Invader. Especially at Live on Elgin.
- Accepting myself.

Health

- did the hard things I needed to for my mental health to improve- got caught up on shots

Music & Media

- got back to going to concerts, plays, and musicals
- had fun playing some ukulele, some keytar, and some melodica alone and with friends
- started over with piano
- saw many excellent films
- explored a lot of music in many genres

Hayley Kiyoko in Montreal.

Reading & Relaxing

- read five books completely and parts of many others
- OK relaxing is really hard and I'm working on it ;)

Social

- made some new friends and got to know several others better
- took chances
- stood up for myself and others when needed
- learned to say no when needed
- met many wonderful dogs

Work

- changed roles and learned a lot
- executed my first Master Services Agreement and several contract amendments
- got to know some colleagues better

Writing

- learned how to better use my writing software
- began and quit a newsletter
- began to seriously get my first novel in shape for future publication
- made progress on two screenplays
- started a short story anthology
- started writing several songs
- attended Can-Con 2023
- attended the Ottawa Writers Festival discussion with Giller Prize Finalists

Lord of The Rings: Marathon 2024

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 says you can break any rule if you are established or know them well enough. He had a couple of books out, but wasn't any more established at the time than several of my writer friends currently are. At the same time, it's not inaccurate in life. I once had four boys with the same first name in my class. Yes, that was a confusing year for the teacher. At least their names were spelled differently and they had different last names that began with different letters.

- A love of food can be deadly. The hobbits nearly die on Weathertop. There's room to debate whether or not crispy bacon is worth it.

- Uruk-hai reproduction doesn't look fun. I'd be angry living in a world without intimacy too.

- Arwen is a phenomenal female. Why do I not have her Funko POP? Oh, because it seems to only come with Aragorn and that's B.S. It also seems to be many hundreds of dollars for the set these days.

- The music as they leave Rivendell makes me want to sob. It's so beautiful, yet has a sadness to it. It truly conveys that they are setting out on an epic journey full of peril. The composer, Howard Shore, happens to be Canadian, which is a wonderful thing that I just learned.

- The bird scene isn't that scary compared to The Birds. I should put the book on my reading list. Apologies for this ADHD moment. I should read many of the books that Hitchcock made films for as he apparently deviated from the original works by a lot. I was sad to learn that he had a disdain for books and saw them as doorstops. I see stories as wonderful no matter the medium they are in and the medium only dictates some of the characteristics.

- Gimli was terrible at keeping in touch with his family. I wonder if that's common among dwarfs.

- For short hominids, dwarfs make ridiculously high ceilings. I'm under 5 feet tall, so I feel like I can make this critique. Such wasted space. They could have had many more floors instead and maybe that's also the influence of living in 520 square feet that makes me extra sensitive to this waste.

- Frodo really could've used some battle training before they set out on the journey. Not that there was time for a proper amount of it, but the hobbits are all under skilled with fighting. Even learning to use their lower centre of gravity (or mavity for the Whovians) would have been helpful. This helps hook people as most humans don't have training or time to prep for things that are thrust upon us in life.

- The Balrog is immensely cool, but has a slight cuteness to it. 

- Galadriel is beautiful even when she's scary.  She's in tune with the situation in a way that she gives just enough help. This character foreshadows much of the events that come with the gifts she bestows upon them. She is an excellent and under appreciated character in my opinion.

- Boromir's death is incredibly sad, but Frodo was probably better off in the end without him. Yeah, he fought his damnedest in the end, but that was partly out of guilt. I have complicated feelings about this. Perhaps that stems from my own upbringing.

- Sam's bravery and loyalty are something worth aspiring to. It's rare to find that level of friendship no matter how long one has known someone.

My thoughts while watching The Two Towers:

- There are a lot of times that evil characters are shown as phyically ugly. This is necessarily not true to life. I suppose that's why characters like Homelander in The Boys resonates with people. LotR came at a time where it was more common to create characters in this way.  It was a time where it was acceptable to berate those on the fringe though it never should've been. 

- Aragorn is such a skilled and important character, but plenty of other characters get time to shine along the way.

- The return of Gandalf is done at such an unexpected time.

- Frodo often seems like he's on a bad drug trip. In the past, I felt like Frodo was a bit of a pathetic character, but he's been through things that are hard to conceive of as they are beyond what is known. While it could be boiled down to magic, it's not done in a way that is a surface level excuse and is instead deeply relatable to anyone who has had to endure hardship and illness.

- Gandalf's resurrection story has a ripple effect in other stories. I'm thinking of Supernatural and it's repeated resurrections of Sam and Dean. Supernatural takes it to a ridiculous level, but it has a similar fight against evil.

- There is no Chosen One. There is a chosen many in LotR. Gandalf is chosen by the universe to play his partin justice. Aragorn is chosen to redeem his bloodline and aid humanity in creating a better future. Frodo is chosen as the bearer of the heaviest burden. Sam is chosen to support Frodo, protect him, and ensure the success of the mission. Legolas is chosen to represent the best of the elves, their wisdom and cool-headedness. Gimli is chosen to represent the dwarfs and imperfection. 

- Theodin's posession by Saruman is rather allegorical for how parents can fail their children at times while they pursue other things in life. It could stand for addiction, which could be a substance or something like working too much. It could also be rather like dealing with a condition like dementia. Lucky for the story, it was a curable affliction.

- Sam has a wonderful ability to appreciate seeing an elephant despite all the death and destruction he's witnessed. He's ever hopeful that good will triumph. Their journey is hard but worth it.

- There are a lot battles in the second film. Writing those is an art form on its own.

- Merry convincing the Ents to get involved was a critical part of the story and it's nice to see that he finally gets a moment to shine.

My thoughts watching The Return of the King:

- Sam talking about how he's rationed the bread to ensure they get home made me weepy. Ever so full of light in the face of such darkness.

- Saruman's death was always going to happen, but it comes slightly too soon to make the journey a bit more troublesome. Characters need to be tortured.

- The dynamics between Gimli and Legolas and the antics of Merry and Pippin are critical to lighten the mood occasionally.

- I guess it was fortunate that Smeagol found the ring so very long ago. Someone else could've found it and brought Sauron back sooner. Given that the ring was always trying to find its way back to Sauron, that is likely what would've happened.

- Elrond wasn't all that invested until it affected Arwen. The idea that the elves are morally superior is suspect. Maybe they have a bit more in common with humans than they admit.

- It sure took a lot of deaths before people stopped going through the mountains. Or maybe they never actually stopped judging by the sheer amount of skulls. How many people have to disappear before it's evident that something isn't right?

- It's thoroughly satisfying to see Gandalf knock Denethor out and take control of the battle. 

- Did Eowyn actually kill the Nazgul dude, or just temporarily dispatch him? I feel like it's really unlikely he was dead, but more likely that he didn't have time to reform.

- The moment the ring begins to melt and Sauron begins having a fit of epic proportions is a favourite of mine.

- I wonder if Sam wrote about how Frodo actually failed. Frodo got all the credit, but Sam got the girl and a full life, so I'm betting he let the truth slide.

I can see why my friends start the year with a marathon. It's a wonderful way to begin a new year. It's also a fantastic reminder of what makes great stories.

2023 - Week 52

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 was served by cat robots, which was neat. They sing Happy Birthday while delivering cake too. I enjoyed seeing them, but I enjoyed my friends more. It was nice catching up with them. I also enjoyed the sushi. I hadn't had it in a while as it was a disappointment during the pandemic when I ordered it for takeout. All you can eat was just what I needed while on a med break as the appetite loss has been a problem. The first item in the meme below is basically what happens to me. I won't even remember what my favourite foods are and it's as if things don't taste as good as they used to.

During dinner, I lost Whamageddon. The evening of the 23rd is a pretty good run though!

I spent my downtime doodling, watching Bob's Burgers/true crime/spooky stuff, reading, and writing. 

On Christmas morning, this one was eager to open gifts. Blurry pictures are far more common with him as he's often on the go.

I did manage to get another where he is still.

One of the things I got was this cute little tea cup:

I also got some cherry brandy, which is a favourite little reward for writing progress. I briefly tried to use Writer's Tears for this, but it felt like I was torturing myself, so I gave the nearly full bottle to a writer friend who is fond of whisky. Writing can be torture enough some days 😂

Another gift I'm excited about is a tool kit for doing dioramas. I plan to do some miniature kits in the new year and hope to eventually make my own from scratch one day. I'll be building those on my Twitch stream along with some other crafts like a quilt and sewing catch up.

Before dinner we relaxed and had some drinks. Attempt two on the carrots had the smoke detector upset, which led to consoling a trembling pup. We all forgot to add water to the instant pot, so attempt three actually cooked them. What's Christmas dinner without something going awry?

On Boxing Day, I caught up with a friend I hadn't seen in a very long time. Dinner was tasty and the conversation was stimulating. We were on student's council together back in high school and it had been about a decade since we last hung out.

I spent my last day relaxing with Dad before watching a movie with my bro. 

Though I always manage to enjoy my visits with some of the people who are still there, my hometown isn't my home and I was excited to get back to Ottawa where I could do the things I needed to be ready to hit my goals hard in 2024.

I didn't get to them on the first day back as I needed downtime to catch up with Ottawa-area friends, play some Minecraft, and try out some TV shows I hadn't seen yet. The social part of this week ended with a mini putt outing and some really great conversations. 

I bought some experimental groceries as I think I may have figured out what has really been problematic in my diet. I've thought that many times, so I'm not getting my hopes up. Groceries were followed by a 3-hour nap. I had no reactions from any of the experimental foods.