Rae Roy's Blog, page 23

On Losing a Parent

Losing a parent feels like an attack on your own mortality. It is utterly destabilizing. 
It can unite your family or destroy it. I've seen families fight over cutlery. Thankfully, mine was mostly united when I went back home to help out with cleaning up the house. And cleaning with my one brother was helpful for me in pushing through a large chunk of my own clutter when I returned home.

You might not realize some of the parts of you that came from them until they are gone. I long thought that my dad was the musical one in the family, but discovered that my mom was learning guitar at one point in her life. I also learned my grandmother and great uncle used to write each other letters with song lyrics in them.
You might find odd things and wonder if they got them for you to have eventually. There were a number of skater style clothes in my mom's abundance of clothing that were in black. They weren't her style at all. Her style was floral print tops and bottoms often in pink palettes. They weren't her style; they were mine.
Conflicting feelings will emerge because there is a void left in the wake of this loss and that void leaves room for new possibilities as you search for catharsis. These won't replace your loved one, but may create space to allow you to find yourself in ways that weren't possible before. They may also create space for new loves. But you may feel guilty for the happy moments you find in the days, weeks, and months after.
Things that used to annoy you about them may bring a smile. During the clean-up, we boxed up a lot of things. One of the items she collected a vast amount of was Harlequin romance books. We kept finding more just when we thought we got them all, which turned from frustration to a small reminder of mom by the end of the cleaning.
Mom would've been 79 today. I'm choosing to mark her birthday by spending much of it reading. It seems like a good way to remember her.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------For updates on my goals, please see my Trello board here: https://trello.com/b/RM8yD3eq/rae-roy-general

Decluttering Update

One good thing about going to my hometown and cleaning up my mother's things was that working with my brother helped me figure out how to tackle some of the challenging clutter at my own home.

This week, I did a ton of paper decluttering. And because I've reduced how many things I receive in a paper format, I was able to get rid of my filing cabinet and downsize to a box. This box is handy because it now lives under my desk and can stop my footrest from moving to unreachable places. I have a bit more to shred, but I'm through the bulk of the outdated paperwork that is no longer needed. Another side benefit of all this paper cleanup is that I think I may have what I need to fix a gap in the couch I made. I won't know that for a bit, but I'm looking forward to finding out.

So my next step is to swap some shelves out of my office as I'm building a better shelving system using IKEA Kallax. This is a slow moving project, due to supply issues, but I can swap out the middle section right now and then I'll be waiting on the other end piece. I just need to figure out where to put the items that are currently on the old shelving as space is a difficult thing when you live in a tiny condo. I'll be putting the old shelving in the storage area of my bedroom in the short-term. 

With all these changes, my printer no longer has to live in the living room. That was bugging me for quite some time. 

Well, I believe a meal is in order before I work on the rest of this clutter. I'm aiming to get as much as possibly done today. I have a new piece of exercise equipment to help me get back in shape, which will also help me do better at skating.

The plan for the week is largely about chores and writing, but my overarching goal is to get to a place where I can have people come over. I also need to have a good amount of floor space ready soon for the installers to finish my bathroom.

As always, my goals tracker can be found at: https://trello.com/b/RM8yD3eq/rae-roy-general

Under Siege

My city is under attack. I wish I was being facetious. 
The so-called "freedom" convoy is here and so far this is what has transpired:
1. They parked on the war memorial. These people who call themselves patriots. This is where the Unknown Soldier rests. This is where Corporal Nathan Cirullo lost his life in October of 2014. The cars were towed, but who knows what actual repercussions they will face.

2. Later, when asked to move away from memorial, one stood and jumped on the tomb itself while others cheered. 
3. Despite having port-a-potties provided for by the mayor, they've been defecating on Parliament Hill, in snowbanks, and on streets nearby. 
4. Flags being flown include the Confederate flag of the United States, Trump flags, the Quebec equivalent to the Confederate flag, upside down Canada flags, regular Canada flags, Fuck Trudeau flags, libertarian flags, and ones adorned with swastikas. Yeah, this is totally about freedom rather than racism, white supremacy, and hate. Meanwhile, many of the organizers are from alt-right groups.
5. None are wearing masks. Why? Well many seem to be in denial that Covid is a threat or even real.
6. They dressed up the statute of Terry Fox like some sick mascot. Twice. Terry Fox believed in science so strongly, he ran a marathon across Canada to raise money for Cancer research. 

7. Rideau Centre had to close down because they were accosting employees. Some even tried to forcibly remove the masks from those employees because they want to free everyone from masks.


8. They've been leaving their empty vehicles idling for far longer than legally allowed. They obviously don't care about the environment. This I saw myself during a Zoom meeting.
9. They harassed the soup kitchen. 

10. Some have advocated for civil war. For some, they want Trudeau to resign or the Covid mandates to end. The US is mandating that border crossers be vaccinated, so even if Canada changed that, they still wouldn't be able to cross.
11. Local neighborhoods are being terrorized by truck horns, drunken protestors looking for fights, and firecrackers being set off wherever they feel like it. Some have set their vehicles up to sound like ambulances. Oh, and someone was flying a helicopter around in a no fly zone. There are many of these accounts from people living in the area.
12. The area is gridlocked so badly that police have had to drive on the sidewalks. If any emergency happens, it'll be very bad. This I saw myself during a Zoom meeting.
13. A small number of counter protestors were met with some violence. One had their coat ripped. Another had their camera equipment broken.

14. Some people were shot with BB guns. This is the only event I haven't found a source for, but I've chosen to include it anyway.
This is all from Day One.
A major point that has been overlooked by them is that health mandates are largely provincial, not federal. They're protesting the wrong government for a lot of the items they list.
I want to take this time to thank the truckers who aren't in favour of this sham of a protest. The ones who continue to fix our supply chain issues. 
At this point, I'm already exhausted and will spend the day doing things I find more calming.
Sources:https://www.cbs17.com/news/thousands-protest-covid-mandates-and-restrictions-in-ottawa/https://ottawacitizen.com/news/local-news/trucker-convoy-more-trucks-expected-on-saturday-traffic-impacts-expected-to-worsenhttps://ottawacitizen.com/news/local-news/defence-chief-criticizes-protesters-for-dancing-on-national-war-memorialhttps://www.salon.com/2022/01/29/canadas-freedom-convoy-is-this-jan-6-for-the-great-north/https://www.ctvnews.ca/health/coronavirus/a-look-at-canada-s-vaccine-mandates-and-public-health-restrictions-1.5757218https://globalnews.ca/news/8543281/covid-trucker-convoy-organizers-hate/https://www.reddit.com/r/ontario/comments/se8sn7/jan_2022_truck_convoy_megathread/

The Void

I sit and stare at the empty page.

Or is it staring at me? 

The cursor blinks, beckoning me to type. 

But the words I place here won't fill the void in my heart.

Rest in peace, mom.

Joining a Household

Recently, a good friend asked if I'd like to join their household since I've been dealing with the pandemic alone. Living through this without much of a local support network has been mentally tough, so I gratefully accepted.
Tonight, we played a boardgame. The actual plan was for me to come over after dinner, but they had car trouble, so I gave one of them a ride home from work and we ate and had some drinks.
The game is an introduction to Dungeons and Dragons called Adventure Begins. It was pretty fun. There are 4 characters with a couple of options in how they can be played. There are several different situations like monsters to battle, some that need help, and opportunities to come together as a group. Also, fun fact that not many commonly known words rhyme with dragon. It was a a nice and short game, which was perfect to play with young children.

It's a lucky thing that I brought my booster device and had them plug it in to charge despite that a mechanic had come and changed their battery out because I needed it to get my own car to start when it came time to go home. I wasn't shocked given that my car was a bit grumpy about starting earlier and because we've had several days with extreme cold in the capital. It's also old enough that I might need a new one soon. I'll have to keep an eye on it and keep my booster pack ready.
My goals progress can be found on my Trello board at: https://trello.com/b/RM8yD3eq/rae-roy-general

Inching Forward

Sometimes I feel desperate to be anywhere than where I am. I have so many goals and it can be hard to realize that the journey is part of the magic.

I suspect I'm not alone in this feeling, especially since the pandemic.

I'm currently working through the second half of my office reno. The wall paint is done. I really want to be on the other side where it's how I want it to be.

I often feel the same way about skating, music, getting a pet, having a partner, and my first novel. Pretty much anything I undertake really.

Speaking of the novel, I'm on a brief pause while I finish my office as it's my workspace. Onto prepping for painting the trim Thursday and then hopefully hanging the wallpaper by Saturday. Once that's done, I can complete the reorg and spend the weekend editing. I had hoped to be a little further along, but when you live in a 520 sq ft condo and have to move things out of a part of it, it becomes rather like Tetris meets Jenga and it took a bit to figure out where to put things in the short-term.

It'll still be much faster than that other reno project has been.

This is something I'm aiming for on home projects going forward, which is smaller projects that can be done quicker. It improves my environment without disrupting my life for extended periods of time.

All right, "just" my writing reference books to move and then I can wipe the trim down, so it's ready for painting tomorrow.

My goals progress can be found on my Trello board at: https://trello.com/b/RM8yD3eq/rae-roy-general

Home Sweat Home

I figure it's time to talk about the state of my home. It's not good. It hasn't been for awhile. I've been fighting to get it organized and for quite some time I just didn't know what to do. I've been decluttering for the entirety of the pandemic. There is less to get rid of now, but everything is a mess.

Up until recently, I didn't know what to do with any of it. Did I have too much furniture? It was unclear. 

I haven't been using what I have to its potential. Like I still have my old desk. I've been keeping it for crafting. But I've been keeping it in my bedroom. Do I craft in my bedroom? No. I craft in my office. Even when I wasn't attending craft nights on Zoom, I wasn't crafting in my bedroom. It was this fantasy I had.

So I thought about it more and realized that if I tweaked my office environment, my old desk would fit in it. And if I got clever about it, I wouldn't have to get rid of too many books. I may also come out of it with a better way to store some of my small appliances. 

Now I finally have the motivation I needed to finish the office reno. The idea of keeping everything the same wasn't motivating because how it was wasn't working for me. I've finished the first coat of paint. I think a second one will be enough.

I think I have quite a bit of blood, sweat, and tears ahead before I can say, "Home Sweet Home," and truly mean it.

As always, you can check out my goals progress here: https://trello.com/b/RM8yD3eq/rae-roy-general

Getting Fit in 2022

There was a bit of decluttering during my holidays that was promptly brought to donation as I wanted to get it done before I got my Covid booster shot in case it was hard on me. I barely felt it and only had a bit of a sore arm, but it was tame in comparison to the previous shots, which hurt so much I couldn't use my arm and felt nauseous from the pain.

The day after, I was able to make it to my appointment and retrieve my trial CPAP machine. The first night, I barely slept as the automatic pressure was so high that I felt like I was a balloon being blown up. I quickly figured out that the mask needed tightening. But then I had another problem. My mouth was terribly dry. Groggy, I found the setting for increasing the humidity as having a drink of water. But I still struggled the rest of that night as it would ramp up the pressure too quickly and startle me each time I was just falling asleep. Once I reached the minimum time I needed for the trial compliance, I slept without it. The following day was much better as the setting for the ramp up on the pressure was unlocked and I set it to 45 minutes instead of Auto. This gave me proper time to fall asleep. Despite all of that, I felt more rested than I have in awhile. I even think I'm grinding my teeth less. They're definitely less sensitive. And I think the dark circles under my eyes are less pronounced. 

Despite the holidays, I've lost 8 lbs! I'm aiming to get to around 120 or slightly less. I have 23 lbs to go currently. Think I can do it?

I started out with Noom, but I found it too much with the constant forced readings, committing to things that didn't apply to my situation, step-counting, and daily weigh-ins. Now I'm using My Fitness Pal. I think Noom is better for a complete newbie to the fitness journey. 

My energy levels are slowly increasing and I'm looking forward to skating as much as possible this year. I should look up elbow exercises though as I hurt my elbow a bit during one of my sessions and though it's not all that bad, it shouldn't still be sore. Also to figure out is why my index fingertip is hurting. I'm hoping if I find my compression gloves, it'll go away, but since it's the tip, who knows? It's winter though and I tend to get sore from the cold. And it's hard to turn the heat up enough with Sjogren's as it just increases dry eyes and mouth.
My beautiful recipe book has arrived. I want to organize the recipes I got from having a meal delivery service last year. It will also house family recipes and eventually allow me to reduce how many cookbooks I own. It's a handmade one from Makity on Etsy and came from the Ukraine. It even has my name on it. I think this will help me make mindful eating decisions.                                                                                                                                                                                                                     Many of my skating plans for fitness might be derailed due to indoor sports being reduced to 5 people as Omicron rips through the province of Ontario. I am gradually learning Tai Chi from DVD and will be doing off-skate exercises to up my fitness levels soon.
Mentally, it's feeling tough to be motivated to do the things I have to do, like chores, with so many of the things I was looking forward to being taken away again. Hopefully I'm wrong when I say that I doubt this is only in place until the 17th. I've been trying to help friends stay positive on this as it appears South Africa's bout with it lasted about a month and a half, but today I'm really feeling done with this whole thing.
My Trello board has been updated for 2022 and can be found at: https://trello.com/b/RM8yD3eq/rae-roy-general.

2021 Accomplishments

Before I get into the percentages, I just want to say that I'm content with what I accomplished and what I had to postpone. I also changed roles at work twice in 2021 and did a lot of self discovery. These things were integral for my mental, emotional, spiritual, and sexual health. And those are more important than anything else as they serve as a foundation for achieving anything I set my mind to.

How I Did

Bathroom Reno = 95%

There is only one thing left in my control to do, which is fixing how the door closes. I live alone and we're likely heading for another lockdown, so it's OK that it's going into 2022. The rest will be done by Bathfitter around February.

Blogging = 31/52 or 60%

Given that I only started this part way through the year, I think I did pretty well.

Office Reno Part 1 - 88%

I started this partly because I wanted to be working in a nicer space and partly because I needed to do something while waiting on my condo to deal with my previously moldy bathroom wall. I'm OK with having the last bit tacked onto the second half of the project.

Paper Declutter = 19%

I'm OK with this. I still had a lot of non-paper clutter to deal with. Also, I don't think the method I was using to track this works. I spent too much time counting rather than doing. Going forward, I will track this like I do with my blog posts. I won't know exactly how many pieces of paper I decluttered, but it's less work to just get it done.

Reading = 15/16 94%

This would be 100%, but I kept misplacing The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari. In my Goodreads challenge, I had actually listed 24 for my plan and got 14 read. One of the books I read wasn't listed, so I couldn't track it in Goodreads. There were several years where I only read about 8 books, so I'm really good with this. This is the largest amount of books I've read since I was a child. 

Sparker = 7/26 or 26%

It took me awhile to find my groove, figure out what I want to be writing as an author, and adjust my novel accordingly. Now that I have, I'm hoping to complete the edits promptly.

Ukulele = About 50%

- Level 1 100% complete

- Level 2 100% complete

- Level 3 58% complete

What Was Too Much

I had to park drawing, French, and Twitch. I hope to pick at least one back up in Q2. 

To check out my 2022 goals list, please see my Trello board:  https://trello.com/b/RM8yD3eq/rae-roy-general

What's Coming in 2022 Part 1

They're a little bit messy, but here are my current plans for the first quarter of 2022. I've been wanting to get into using my Rocketbook instead of paper planners, but I had barely used the planner I had and didn't want to waste it. Well, I think being at least halfway through it is more than reasonable at this point. Eventually, I'll digitize my old planners to clear that clutter, but there isn't a rush on that as I'm more concerned with the loose sheets of paper elsewhere. I need to do about 7 chapters a month to get the edits done on Sparker. This is possibly too ambitious, but I'm going to try my best. It's important. I want to spend the rest of the year deciding on publishing. I was originally going to try querying, but Jenna Moreci's last video has so many excellent points on what made her decide to self-publish, so I think I've finally learned what I needed to make that decision. I intend to go with either Friesen or Tellwell.

Hopefully, my ice skating class doesn't get cancelled because of Omicron. I'm really looking forward to it! It's an intermediate level class. Here is the description:

Emphasis placed on increased technical skills (e.g. backwards crosscuts and one foot turns.

Also, hopefully my plans for aggressive inline won't be interrupted. If the skatepark has to close down for a bit, it is what it is. I actually hate that platitude because usually there is a way around obstacles, but a pandemic is a whole different challenge. My new USD skate boots came and I'm excited to get skating with them. For now, I've been putting them on to get used to the weight of them and I'm wearing them while doing leg raises. One of the skaters I enjoy following is Fabiola da Silva and the other day she posted a video on Instagram showing some of the off-skate exercises she does and I'm going to work toward those as I need to strengthen my legs.

A lot of my plans currently shouldn't be impacted by this latest Covid scare. Because all the Tai Chi places are still shuttered, I've acquired DVDs and books to work on Tai Chi myself. I've been wanting to do it for a long time, but the classes used to be during lunch hours on the other end of the city. Now they have evening courses on the schedules at several places, but none are teaching. Well, I'm making it happen anyway! I'm sure I'll need refinements later, but at least I'll be moving forward. I've been trying to get fitness in and Covid has been a continual issue. I've chosen the Yang style for now as it is the most commonly practised style in Ottawa. I'm annoyed that the bathroom is still a thing in 2022, but I can't do anything to speed things up. They have to manufacture the tub liner and wall system and the installer has to be available. Due to the bathroom taking so long, I had started two other projects that I want to finish early on in the year. After that, there is a small reno I want to do to my entrance. I have flooring left over from the kitchen and I will be taking up some of the parquet in the entrance and replacing the parquet with a waterproof floor that is easy to maintain. It just makes much more sense. The only thing I'll need to buy is the transition strip because I have leftover flooring from the kitchen. I need the transition strips for the kitchen anyway. Not only will this be better with winter boots, but it will hopefully help keep the sand in the entrance instead of it getting everywhere else. The joys of the open concept home.Some of my continued goals aren't listed there. For example, I intend to continue blogging at least once weekly, but instead of just listing off my goals, I want to talk about what excites me and why. Expect to see more posts on skating, music, gaming, and writing. As always, you can check my progress on my publicly accessible Trello board: https://trello.com/b/RM8yD3eq/rae-roy-general