April wrap-up

Been a while. What’s been going on? A bit, and I don’t feel like going into details, so I’ll summarize.

After over 140 hours of game play, I finally beat The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. While I don’t anticipate wanting to play it again anytime soon, I dare say it beats out Ocarina of Time as my favourite Zelda game. It was an absolute joy in so many ways and terribly addicting.Editing on book three of the Sisters of Chaos trilogy progresses, if not quite as quickly as I had wanted. Had a bit of writer’s (editor’s?) block in the past two months, but I’m finally starting to get some momentum again. I am close to the end of the first character’s scenes.I’ve been completely absorbed in reading middle grade books, and as a result I have now read 26 books of my 2021 goal of 30. My belief has also been proven that they are my favourite type of book to read.I played and recorded music. After many years of following Dwelling of Duels, a monthly themed video game cover competition, as well as s l o w l y learning guitar, I finally talked myself into submitting to April’s Free Month contest. It turned out to be one of the biggest and highest quality entry months in DoD’s history, and I got third from last place, which was honestly better than I expected. The encouraging comments from the community have also inspired me to work harder at music, and my pattern of the last few days has been alternating days of practice on guitar and piano.Japanese lessons have been a little less productive, in a way. As I drew near to level 5 on Duolingo, I found myself increasingly frustrated that I haven’t seemed to be retaining anything for quite some time. So I went back to the beginning of level 3 and have been re-taking lessons to try to actually learn the words being taught, rather than just get it good enough to pass Duolingo’s multiple choice method and moving on. It hasn’t been easy, as I often find I max out the levels in a lesson before I fully retain everything it taught me. It’s also slow going, as I go back to previous finished lessons every few days to ensure I still remember everything. However, it feels better knowing that I am learning these words now. It’ll just be a while before I actually progress with my knowledge.Planting has begun. The tomatoes I started have taken off very quickly and need to be transplanted into their final home; bell peppers have sprouted nicely; and I started broccoli seeds, though they haven’t been doing quite as well and I’m still not sure if I should restart them. I picked up other seeds from the grocery store and after the frost we got yesterday morning, I’m hoping we’re in the clear enough to start planting the outdoor garden. Also, the tulips I planted out front last autumn are coming up and that makes me happy.Art? What’s that?

I think that’s pretty much my last two months in a nutshell. That and waiting, Disney princess-style, for my COVID-19 vaccine to come…