Rae Roy's Blog, page 72

Thoughtful Thursday – Social Media Break

I’m taking a break from social media in December. This is for a couple of reasons.

1. I need a break after all the election stuff and from the constant stream of mostly depressing stories people share.

2. I have things to do around my home like figure out how to pull up peel and stick tiles that have partially pulled up, but are sticky enough that they don’t want to fully pull up. Also organize my closet. Also figure out how to move my appliances out of my way for cleaning and flooring.

3. Christmas parties and shopping for loved ones.

4. I need to finish the edits on The Page & The Magician.

5. I need to finish writing The Blood Waitress Club.

6. I need to figure out distribution for my books.

7. I must determine my next step with regards to publishing The Page & The Magician.

8. December just feels like a good month to focus on friends and family too. So my closest friends, the ones that don’t put drama in my life, will probably see the odd like or comment.

I’ll try to keep posting to the blog, but it may fall behind. Sorry in advance.

Ciao,

R~

Merry Monday – Nerves

What happens when you let your nerves get the best of you? 

My weekend didn’t go the way I had hoped. I choked like a Maple Leaf during the playoffs and failed my grading. Considering that I felt like I did my worst example of iaido, I agree that I shouldn’t have passed. That doesn’t mean I’m not upset. I’m pretty damn sad about it.

What happened?

Leading up to grading I:

I caught my big toe on a computer cable, which tripped me and hurt my toe.
Weeks of fighting with acne as if I’m a damn teenager.
I dropped a plate into my sink, which broke itself and a bowl.
I cut my finger with a steak knife.
I got very little sleep the day before travelling.
I had car troubles.
I forgot to put my chicken bacon in the fridge at my friend’s place, so breakfast was different than planned.
I got lost in the building more than once. I should’ve read the signs better.

Pre-Grading Seminar

On nearly every kata they gave us corrections and I felt overwhelmed.
I was super tense.

Grading

While in line, my feet began to fall asleep. Also, I really had to go to the washroom, despite having gone several times before.
I was also crampy, because Mother Nature always loves to time her visits around iaido events for me. TMI, I know.
My big toe was quite sore.
My mind became jumbled up due to the corrections I received and I felt confused and unsure of myself. I couldn’t do basic things properly anymore and kata 1 looked like hell as a result.
I had pants issues on the second kata.
It also looks like I rushed through the rest.

After Grading

I was pretty sure I had failed. I didn’t feel like I had done my best.
As I searched for my number, I was initially confused when I didn’t see it because I didn’t really want to believe I had failed. Who does?
There were tears.
Lots of hugs from friends, some of who disagreed with the result, were helpful. I love you guys for having my back! Sorry for the above jab at your hockey team

Fortifying Friday – Calluses

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I first started learning guitar in grade 12. We had a course we could take and get credit for as part of our high school diploma. My then boyfriend was also taking it and class was slightly uncomfortable once we broke up, but I enjoyed it regardless. I had a blast performing with the class. I was supposed to sing too, but singing performances and I are like that Buffy episode “Nightmares” where Willow ends up singing with Pavarotti and can’t utter a word only weird screechy noises… Yeah. Put me in a car with friends and I’m fine. Shower? You betcha. In a musical or band performing in front of people. Nope. Unless I’m just one of the choir and not alone. I did make it through an O’ Canada performance with only two other people one time in high school, though. All our strongest choir members were at another performance and the football team needed singers. Us three thought there would be more, but nope. I’m off on a tangent again, aren’t I? The point I was trying to get to was that my learning of guitar was put on hold, not because of the failed relationship, but because it hurt my fingers too damned much to play the thing.

I hadn’t built calluses yet.

Calluses are a pain in the ass. There’s no way around it. You have to play until it hurts and play a little bit passed that, but not so far passed it that your fingers bleed. Bloody fingertips mean cut fingers and downtime from playing while they heal. We don’t want downtime because we need to build our calluses.

I’m to the point now where I can play for a whole hour before it hurts. My calluses are coming along. Those fingertips feel almost like leather.

They’re frail, though. I have to play every night to ensure they get strong.

I’m not sure what the writing equivalent to calluses is in this digital age. Few people write by hand enough to get writer’s bump today. But I’m not talking about a physical callus. Could it be learning to accept rejection? We build up a tolerance to it and it hurts less each time we are told no. Perhaps it is learning to edit? We get better at killing our darlings as we collect experience. But that may only be some of us. I know I’ve begun asking myself what I’m aiming to accomplish with a sentence, paragraph, or chapter and I’m getting better at cutting when it isn’t accomplishing the objective.

Perhaps calluses are really just visible experience markers and as we write more, we can see the progress in the quality of the words on the page. In which case, we should challenge ourselves with stories that make us uncomfortable to write. Stories that push our own boundaries and force us to reach for something beyond our current skill level.

I know, at one point, I was playing guitar and it was all just noise. Now it sounds a lot more like the song I’m playing. I’m not playing with the recordings yet or at the right speed. I’m going to soon, though. In fact, my guitar teacher gave us special versions of the songs we wanted to play that used easier chords because we couldn’t play the advanced ones at the time. If I had the time and the cash, I’d take more lessons from her. She was pretty cool and skilled.

In writing, my work last year felt like a mess of scenes that didn’t necessarily link together. Now it’s got a flow and looks like a novel. There are things like foreshadowing. There are climaxes and there is setup, etc. There’s more to do to make it the best it can be but it’s coming along really well.

I’ve now been playing guitar for over a year. Lately, I play every day. Sometimes only a song or two. Other times I lose track of how long I’ve been playing and suddenly it’s bedtime. I used to have to stop after a short amount of time. Especially songs that used my ring and pinky fingers as those are often on the two thinnest strings. The strings that hurt the most. Now, those fingers have the thickest calluses. They have come farther than my other fingers.

In martial arts, I began barely able to hold the sword in the right direction. Which was the blade’s edge again? Swinging it straight down the center line was hard to do. Harder still was the horizontal cut. Sensei would say things that had deep meaning to someone who wasn’t me. I eventually got the basics to a level that we can now build on the physical skill as well as the mental understanding. Each class I learn something. Often Sensei told me about it last year or perhaps even the year before, but I am only able to understand it now.

Calluses are a mark of experience and while I have a long way to go before I can be called good, I’m moving in the right direction.

I’m targeting my fitness callus next. There will be extra challenges for me with food allergies, exercise-induced asthma, and tendon pain. I discovered I was already in the right weight range for my height and frame size, so my current goal is to tone. I made up my own HIIT routine to help focus on the areas that I use in martial arts. What I enjoy about HIIT is that it is scaleable and you always just do your best. Instead of counting the amount of pushups you did, you just give it everything you have for the duration. I never feel like I suck because I did 20 instead of 25 of something. However, my original goal of doing HIIT twice per week was ambitious because my fitness callus had not been built.

I’m also working on my French callus. Language learning works well a little bit each day. Too much and you overwhelm your brain. Besides, you didn’t learn your first language that way. You saw a thing you wanted and mom or dad told you the name of it. You gradually learned to then describe its appearance, texture, etc. Then you learned to speak full sentences instead of fragments. They were simple at first. “Clifford is a big, red dog.” It’s easy to put too much pressure on oneself to know something after a short amount of time. So I immerse myself a little at a time. I get a library book in French and work through it with a dictionary nearby. I don’t use translation app because that doesn’t force me to use my brain and map the neural connections that will build the callus.

And there’s the geocaching callus. Currently, I have a high DNF rate (Did Not Find) and it’s frustrating. I’ll keep trying, though. I know it’ll get easier at some point. I installed a GPS app on my phone to hopefully get a little closer to the caches than a 13-foot range. After that, it’s honing other skills. I have to train myself to see the single grain of white rice in the salt shaker.

Whatever you’re working on in life, you’ll face tough parts and you have to push through it to build those calluses. Challenges help us build calluses and prepare us for greater things ahead.

Ciao,

R~

Oh, here’s my 7.5-minute HIIT workout in case you’re interested. I just modified one that I found online so it was more martial arts focused. Change the time as needed to scale it to you:

30s Jumping Jacks

30s Push Ups

30s Lunges

30s Punches (alternating left and right)

30s Jumping Jacks

30s Side Kicks (alternating left and right)

30s Front Kicks (alternating left and right)

30s Lunges

30s Push Ups

30s Crunches

60s Obliques (30s each side)

30s Squats

30s Leg Raises

30s Stretches (or as long as it takes you to stretch things out)

Thoughtful Thursday – Renos

I thought I already posted this, but apparently not. I started a kitchen reno. Just a little bit at a time. It was instigated by my peel and stick floor starting to let go.

My cabinets are solid wood, so with a little ingenuity I can make them look nice. I think I’ll do what these people did to give them dimension: http://www.beautifulmatters.com/2013/02/diy-inexpensive-cabinet-updates/

I need to fix the drawer bottoms and one piece of the drawers. The very back and bottoms are not wood, so guess where the moisture has collected over the years. I literally needed one piece of wood to fix the top three drawers and I can probably leave the very bottom one. For bottoms? I was going with plexiglass because it’s waterproof and I had enough for 2 of the 3 until one didn’t work out and when I looked at the price of plexiglass, I said holy crap! So onto thin wood bottoms instead.

Then I’ll paint them a dark chocolate on the bottom doors I think, or maybe the top too. I was thinking of leaving those white. I figure it’s best to paint before changing the floor. There is old flooring underneath the peel and stick tiles that are coming unglued. I’m going to uncover that first. Speaking of the floor, I can get the flooring I want for $18 because my kitchen is ultra tiny. I’ll actually have some of the roll leftover. I’m planning a flagstone look fiber floor. It’s easy to maintain, resists mold, and no more individual tile issues.

Eventually, I’ll do a backsplash. I think I need help on the counters though, so those won’t be for a while unless I can get them cheap too. But that entails more because plumbing. I do have a water shutoff on my kitchen sink at least.

Anyway,  I have some things left to do before leaving town for the weekend. After that I can worry about how to get the rest of the floor up and how to move my major appliances. I need to clean behind those anyway.

Ciao,

R~

Merry Monday – Crunch Week

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I’m heading into crunch week, which started with my first time teaching martial arts and continues with my library writing group, my French oral exam, the last iaido practice before grading, anime club*, a bunch of laundry/ironing/packing, travel, grading, and then my French written exam. And all I feel like doing is relaxing.

*I might not make anime club given the rest of the week.

Iaido

I taught my first martial arts class yesterday. It went OK. It was a good thing I had the book to refer to. I found it helpful when they had questions or specific things to fix. It’s really hard to practice at the same time as teaching. I can’t focus on both at once, otherwise I do both crappy. Since the other classes were cancelled, I got extra practice time in with the other student that is grading next weekend. We have one more class before the big day. Hopefully, the weather isn’t too bad for driving from the GOGA to the GTA.

I can’t wait to see all my iaido buddies!

French

My oral French exam is tonight. Ten minutes to carry on a conversation. In English, this would be easy. In French, there’s still a hell of a lot of words that I don’t know. Also, my dictation skills have gotten worse as I’ve learned more words because I know several that sound similar or the same. At least the classes are less than $50 if I should happen to need to repeat a level.

Writing

I’ve added 6,000 words to my current WIP, The Blood Waitress Club. I feel like I might want to hash out a sticky note plot to be sure I have a clue of what my book is about. With packing and such, I doubt I’ll get a ton done on it this week. My NaNoWriMo attempt will be bleeding into December. At least I’m making progress with the story.

I need to finish the edits on The Page and The Magician and then I think I might search for an agent that represents erotica.

Renos

My drawers are stalled. Hopefully, I’ll be able to get them fixed soon.

I got a space saver thing for my bathroom to get my junk off of the counter. My toilet is extra tall (not my choice, obviously), so I need to raise the cabinet off of the floor to make it work. Stalled again.

Allergies

There are more GF options almost everyday and I get so excited when I discover them! Somehow, I missed when VH sauces went GF. This is HUGE! I loved the cherry sauce with chicken balls

Fortifying Friday – A Tiny Bit of Breathing Room

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French

If you asked me last week, I would have said it was doubtful I would finish my online French hours in time. I finished my last two hours tonight! The oral exam is this Monday. The written exam is next Monday.

Iaido

Now I can focus on grading Nidan for iaido. I need to reduce how long it’s taking me to do etiquette. It needs to be crisper too. And I need to run through my kata several times, perhaps by picking out numbers from a hat. I don’t know what kata they are going to give me. I’m worried I’ll forget the numbers and then do the wrong ones and fail.

Writing

I can finally work on The Blood Waitress Club. This story now features witch/vampire/insect demons that play roller derby. I’m collecting ideas for who they may play against. Some of my research includes rewatching Buffy the Vampire Slayer as I’m looking for different kinds of demons. I want a ragtag bunch of misfits. I haven’t decided who should win, only what the stakes (or steaks, depending on whose perspective) are. I haven’t quite decided if this will be erotica, though I’m leaning toward it. I think I’ll let the story take me where it will

Thoughtful Thursday -Restless

I’m feeling restless lately. I’ve been so busy with French and iaido that I’ve had very little time to work on my writing. I just want to get the words into the page. And my place is a mess, but that’s not unusual for November.

Animé club has been keeping me sane. 

Other things are bothering me too, but I’d rather not go into them.

I think it’ll be better once I’ve finished the online portion of my French class. There are about 5 hours left to do. Then, I can just focus on iaido and writing.

I also need to see Fantastic Beasts, but that won’t be for a few days yet. 

Well, back to it.

Ciao,

R~

Merry Monday – Busy Times

I had a pretty full weekend. On Friday, I got some errands done. On Saturday, I cut a pumpkin with a sword and threw some axes and spears at a target. On, Sunday, I woke up thinking it was Monday and became very happy when it dawned on me that I had another day off!

Kitchen Reno

Well, I’m still trying to just fix my drawers. I thought it would be easy. I’m just changing out the bottoms and the backs for real wood that will be sturdier and not shed bits of itself into the drawers below. My plan was initially just the bottoms, but then I noticed the backs were particle board and had some water damage. So, I was going to use fiberglass for the bottoms. They’d last forever and have no water issues. Well, fiberglass sheets are hugely expensive, so I scrapped that part of the plan. I tried a thinner acrylic and it was too flimsy and broke easy. Now I’m doing wood, but it’s slightly too thick, so I have to scrape the edges a little with my hand planer. 

Wood, as I learned, dries slightly smaller than the size it’s listed as. So a 1″ x 3″ board is closer to 3/4″ x 2 3/4″ or so. Unfortunately for me, it’s not close enough to 3/4″ to fit the slots in my drawers for my drawer backs. Luckily, I have a friend who has offered to help me power plane those pieces of wood. 

I can’t wait until I decide to change out my floor… What fun that will likely be.

French

I’m doing OK in French except for the part where I’m struggling to complete the online learning hours. The exercises don’t take long enough, so I end up not accumulating enough hours. I’m not ready to move up to the next level work yet as I am having trouble with passé composé vs l’imparfait. I did succeed at reading a French children’s book this week. Onto one that is slightly harder.

After doing the practice exam, I’m not sure why we need 3 hours to do it… 

Iaido

I’ve been working hard at iaido. I am trying to fix some bad habits. I was given compliments on my technique while slicing up a pumpkin with a katana. Totally unrelated to recent events, of course.

Still, I know my troublesome areas.

My posture is always an issue and I have a bad habit of cutting small, so I’m trying to improve those as well as ensure my hips are square.

I also have lots of leg and core work ahead in the years to come as I think working those areas will help tremendously. I want to be able to explode forward and backward from tatehiza. Tatehiza is my nemesis currently. 

NaNoWriMo

I’m doing NaNoWriMo, but I’m not very far along. Still, I like what’s happening in my story. My brain has all sorts of ideas. If only I could write as fast as I can think…

B-Movie Club

My B-movie club met last night to watch Megaforce. I chose the movie because the theme I drew was futuristic. I thought something soldier related was a good idea given how close it was too Remembrance Day. My food was themed as rations. I considered getting actual rations, but those are quite expensive. Thus ramen, chips, juice boxes, a little chocolate, and Popeye’s cigarettes (err candy sticks)… Yeah, I’m old enough to remember when they had red on the end of them. Actually, I’m old enough to remember chocolate cigarettes that were actually packaged in real cigarette papers with filters. Anyway, it was a good night.

I got to spend time with my toddler buddy and the cheeky little monkey decided that I was to read him the longest story book they had. Before that, we had a ball playing balloon soccer. I need to bottle some of that joy he has!

Writing Business

I’m enjoying meeting with folks at the library to get some writing in and to learn techniques for plotting that I hadn’t used before. I’m also excited to work with some other writers who happen to be friends.

Well, I’m going to take a walk then get back to work.

Ciao,

R~

Thoughtful Thursday – What Next?

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Like many others, it was hard to function yesterday. I’m still upset, but I’ve had more sleep and I’ve read a lot. I’ve also seen a lot on social media, some of which includes things that have yet to be corroborated or have been debunked by sites like Snopes, but I digress.

There will be many challenges ahead. You must have courage to face them. When things seem hopeless, I find what is in my realm of control and do something about those things. This is what keeps me going.

Yesterday, I felt awful. We don’t know yet the full consequences and won’t for some time. What do we know?

We still have to eat, do laundry, and care for loved ones. We still have jobs and bills. The sun still rises.

Your goals may be harder to achieve in some ways. I find breaking goals down into smaller pieces helps me. As an example, my martial arts grading is happening at the end of this month. There are things that can’t be improved before then. I’m just not advanced enough or I’ve picked up some bad habits that I can’t break in time. That’s okay. 

What can I control? I can ensure my sword tip is in the right place by practicing putting my body under it as I move and by keeping the meaning of the kata at the forefront of my mind. I can also show confidence during my grading. I can practice my etiquette repeatedly. I can practice with a timer. I can practice all the kata as much as possible. So I don’t have to worry as much about my outfit looking right, I sewed my juban into my gi:

I can’t control what the future will bring. No matter how much I prepare, the judges are completely within their rights to fail me for just about any reason they can find.

I can control whether I put positivity or negativity out on my blog. 

I can also practice self care by taking myself out of situations that I find too stressful and by eating properly, exercising, learning new things, making new friends, decompressing with a movie, etc.

The world isn’t over. Take one day at a time. 

And when you’re ready, take reasonable actions that make a difference. Attacking the other side just increases hatred and violence. The revolutionaries of the past didn’t make change happen by vandalizing things. They stood up on a bus and said no. 

From QuotationOf.com

Being positive doesn’t mean ignoring reality. Self defense classes may be good for learning to protect yourself and loved ones while helping you deal with the stress of the future.

Art is another good outlet. Writing, painting, drawing, music, leatherwork, jewellery, pottery, rope making, knitting, crocheting, beading, smithing, photography, etc.

Read. Read things to escape. Read things to learn. Read things to figure out how to make it better.

Find others with whom to fight in a way that isn’t filled with arson, violence, and hatred. If someone damaged my car, I wouldn’t think their claims of not being an asshole were valid. The way you do things matters almost as much as the thing you are doing.

And if it gets too bad, seriously consider moving. Think about going to a swing state where you can make a difference in the future. If you do decide that Canada is the place to go, go to a smaller city and open a business. We have job shortages too. Read about places in Canada that need help. If you love snow and can do physical labour, there is an island in the East called Cape Breton that needs people. 

I will leave you with a nice video about things said by an amazing woman named Maya. 

Ciao,

R~

Weathering the unexpected.

I woke up this morning to a prepper’s nightmare, or a dystopian writer’s wet dream. I’m not sure which part of me is dominant right now. But both parts are shocked that Trump won!…

Source: Weathering the unexpected.