Week Ending 5/28

 I've been overdoing it again.

I mean, I look at my little charts and numbers for the week, and I'm surprised at how "good" they look... given that I've been feeling absolutely horrible. Seems like every day this week I've been lost in a fog of pain and confusion, unable to do the things I want to do. Then I realized, I've been pushing myself too hard. I've got things I want to do and I keep trying to force myself to keep going and do them. The result is not good. So, I'm going to try to stop doing that. 

I feel better today than I have all week.

In other entertainment news, one of my email accounts got hacked. They set up 2-step authentication on it to try to stop me from changing the password, then they hacked my Facebook account, added a credit card to it, made a post on Facebook Marketplace, removed the credit card and wandered off. Luckily, I got bombarded with email notifications about every step on their weird road. I was able to get control of my email account back (and set up my own 2-step authentication to hopefully prevent this mess in the future) and cleaned up my Facebook. That was way too much excitement for one day.

So, the 2-step authentication thing... I'd really encourage you to do that yourself. 

All in all, a long week... but like I said, I'm feeling really good today.

Onward

Week Ending 5/21

 Let's see... what interesting happened last week?

Well, my new laptop arrived. My old one had been making uncomfortable grinding noises for a while and Juno agreed that a laptop was an essential tool for me. It is, after all, my window into the world these days. So we ordered me a new one... which had to be built and eventually shipped. 

It was kind of exciting because, according to FedEx tracking, this little machine was started out on Chongqing, China (the largest city in the world, on a technicality, apparently). For what Google shows me, it looks like Chongqing has some neat tourist-y things to visit... a cool museum, etc. After leaving Chongqing, my laptop eventually arrived in Shanghai, where FedEx announced it was in an "Operational Delay." I'm guessing that means Customs.

On Wednesday morning, it was still in Operational Delay in Shanghai according to FedEx. On Wednesday afternoon, it was in my hands... leading me to suspect the tracking information wasn't 100% accurate. 

I'd like to say getting my new laptop was as fun as watching it's journey across the world. Unfortunately, it wasn't. Let me just say, I hate Windows 11 and I hate OneDrive. I don't want to store my files on the Cloud and my WiFi really isn't robust enough for that anyway. It took days, lots of swearing and calls to HP Customer Service, Microsoft Customer Service (which doesn't exist btw) and EA Customer Service (they're the game company that makes the Sims) before I got it in some semblance of working order. Needless to say, that really wore me out and I'm still recovering. 

Still, new laptop and which is more well traveled than I am and which I'm still figuring out. Should be fun.

Onward

Week Ending 5/14

 I'm getting a little bored saying how rough the past week was... but yeah, still going through a rough patch. Two things came out of this week... 

First, I have reach a point, after something like six or seven months, where I miss interacting with other people. Yeah, I spent time with my wife and kid. I talk to my mom weekly. So, that's nice but I find myself missing talking (or really just chatting online) with other people. I miss my work-friends and having someone to talk to about things other than how rotten I feel. 

On the plus side, I posted about this on Facebook earlier in the week and immediately received a chat request from a work-friend. So, that's nice. Thanks Becca.

Second, I need to rearrange my office into a den. See, Juno got me a nice recliner from a thrift store and we set up a TV and a laptop tray in my old work-from-home office. So, that's where I've been hanging out most days. Unfortunately, I've been feeling stressed out and frustrated at my inability to Do Things. I realized the other day that enough of my old office is still, well, an office that it's putting me in a Work frame of mind. So, in her considerable (read nonexistent) free time, Juno is going to help me rearrange the furniture and turn my office into a real den. Maybe that will help. If nothing else, it will be a nice change. Thanks Juno.

Well, that's it for this week.

Onward

Warhammer: Age of Sigmar Miniatures

 So, one of my hobbies is painting miniatures... I want to share some of my more recent projects. These are minis for the Warhammer: Age of Sigmar game - a fantasy themed tabletop war game.

I've named this fellow Gurn Crackhorn. He is the "Beastlord" (commander) of my Beasts of Chaos army. I've done a little customizing on him and I'm pleased with how he came out.

This is called a Cleansing Aqualith, a piece of scenery for the game. I am especially pleased with the way the waterfalls came out.

Another view of the Aqualith, with some trees in the background. I painted those trees a year or so back and I had a lot of fun with them too.

I've got quite a few minis still to paint. I haven't felt up to much painting lately but it's one of the things I like to carve out time for. I'll post more pictures when I can.

Week Ending 5/7

 OK, late update because I was pretty wiped out yesterday but at least I'm not missing another week. :)

Empirically, looking at my diary and charts, last week was pretty rough but it had some good days too. I managed to get two chapters of Wyrd Girls written and laid the groundwork for a couple more which is a big accomplishment for me after the last couple of weeks.

So, while my energy has been low, my spirits are up from the weeks before. I call that progress.

Onward.

Weeks Ending 4/23 and 4/30

 OK, so I missed last weeks update. Sorry about that. 

The week ending 4/23 was a little intense. I had my regular doctor's appointment on Monday and more medical testing assigned by the SSA on Friday. You may recall how my visit to the eye doctor turned out and imagine that two medical visits in one week would leave me pretty worn out. You'd be right and wrong at the same time. Neither visit broke me quite as badly as the eye doctor's did... my doctor is pretty easy to deal with, and less walking was involved and the medical testing... well, Juno insisted on getting me a wheelchair to get around the hospital. 

Still and all, I was worn on last Sunday and told myself I'd post an update on Monday. I didn't. I was stressed out and distracted all week. It wasn't until Thursday that someone pointed out that I hadn't posted an update and by that point, I figured I'd just wait until today.

So, yeah, still having a hard time of it... but for all that, I'm still having good days too. 

I think part of my problem is I've been getting frustrated with myself. I have things I want to do. I've let them become goals instead of ambitions. (You may recall, many moons ago, I decided it was better to have ambitions than goals... because if you miss a goal, you feel like you've failed, but ambitions don't need to have deadlines.) Recognizing where I've gone off my path helps me see how to get back on it. I'm working on it.

In other news, my mother pointed me to a very interesting video from Second Opinion with Joan Lundon about Post Acute COVID-19 Syndrome. The fellow they have on who has it uses some of the exact same language I do to describe it. If you have 25 minutes and are interested, I highly recommend it (link below).

I'm going to try out a couple of things suggested in the video (treatment stuff starts around 18:30 on the video if you want to skip ahead).... though the tepid showers ideas, I don't know. :)

https://youtu.be/fNkYt9tcfkk

Onwards

Week Ending 4/16

 So, the astute - which is to say awake - reader may have noticed that I haven't been doing very well the past couple of weeks. Honestly, I think I lost my balance somewhere (and I can pretty easily guess where) and was having a hard time finding it again.

I think I might finally be starting to find that balance again... thanks to, of all things, Chopped.

Digression - Juno and I are big fans of certain cooking shows, especially Cutthroat Kitchen. Alton Brown torturing chefs foolish enough to set into that kitchen game show is one of our go-to things to watch on otherwise quiet evenings over dinner. I'm not a big fan of Chopped. Overall, I find it negative and oddly cruel in a way that Cutthroat Kitchen - which ought to be - isn't. Maybe because Cutthroat Kitchen plays it fun and Chopped plays it serious. Still, having watched every available episode of CtK multiple times and needing something to fill the silence when it's just me, I've started watching/listening to Chopped.

The last episode of Chopped I had on featured a chef who, through all the trash talking and mayhem, kept his cool and stayed positive. He didn't let it get to him. He didn't get dragged down and, in the end, that won him the episode. His attitude struck a cord in me. 

Sure, I've had a lot of bad days lately, but I've had good days too. I've been letting the frustration about the things I can't do get to me, instead of embracing the things I can do. 

Yesterday, energy-wise, it wasn't a great day. I wouldn't have been able to write this yesterday, because I was too tired to string together this many sentences. That's been really bothering me. Instead, I set it aside. I embraced what I could do. I lay down and I read a book. I even went and sat outside in the sun and read my book (and it's been ages, maybe literally years, since I did that).

It was a good day... because I didn't let it get to me. Because I remembered to take to the win. 

I can do this.

Onward.