Saturday snippets

{pondering} getting back to blogging. Partly for me, partly for reasons, partly to see if I can make a living out of if, but should that be here and if not where and round and round in circles I go…

{playing} State of Survival, a zombie game on my phone. With people all round the world. I use discord now. It’s been an odd year.

{feeling} more pain in more places than I care to think about, but can’t stop thinking about, because that’s kind of how pain works. The latest new area to get in on the action is my left foot, which feels oddly bruised in much the way my hands do, and makes getting up and getting going in the morning even more unpleasant than it was before. I don’t know if that’s still indicative of generalised osteoarthritis, it feels very much as though the NHS has ducked out of this whole conversation, and I don’t really know how to pick it up and where to take it from here.

{also feeling} dissatisfied and out of place and slightly frantic about the whole no job situation. My brain is going 19 to the dozen with plans and schemes and I can’t settle on anything. Which is partly why I’ve decided starting blogging again might help. It’s kind of like journalling, but easier on my hands, and I’d rather save hand activity for art stuff if you see what I mean.

{reading} at bedtime, Forest Born by Shannon Hale. It’s the 4th in the Books of Bayern, which we’ve been reading for a while now, because they are so so good. This one has sparked of lots of discussion about right and wrong, and parenting, and personal responsibility, and relationships and all sorts. I highly recommend them, and might write up a separate post on the series. Weirdly only one of them is available on bookshop, so here’s your handy affiliate link.

I’ve looked for them in bookshops too, and haven’t found them, I really don’t know why they aren’t well known. So happy I came across the first in a charity shop though!

{bookpost} this morning I got A different sort of Normal by Abigail Balfe in the post. It looks utterly fascinating. Don’t believe me? Here you go….

That’s the first page. How could I resist? I was gifted it by a stranger on twitter, as a result of BigGreenBookshop #BuyAStrangerABookDay

I know I’m going to write a full post on this. I’ve a few books that deserve their own posts in fact, so that might be most of what I write about for a little while. Affiliate link for this book

{plans} I need to start scheduling myself. I’m going to try out a digital download planner I’ve been gifted by EGMDigital on Etsy – I’ll share pictures tomorrow, but here’s your affiliate link if you’d care to explore EGM Digital

{decluttering} currently having some success by playing #MinsGame, though it will surprise no one to hear that I’m not completely following the rules. I haven’t taken a picture every day, and some days I’ve got rid of a lot more than the items suggested for that day, and other days it’s been maybe a little less. But I’m sure I’m on track for the total for the month, which is 1+2+3 and so on, increasing by one each day, through to the end of the month. I’ve been chucking out, recycling, charity shop donating, using Ziffit, Ebay, FB marketplace… so there’s a little money coming in as well as a lot of stuff going out.

{exercising} trying to build a habit of doing a minimal workout, using the interval training concept as discussed in The one minute workout, another charity shop bargain. Today’s workout was actually via the 7 minute workout app, and it offends me greatly that the workout takes 8 minutes something. (Why did you call it a 7 minute workout then??) I found the app again (I’d installed it a little while ago) from this article about the concept, although it also offended me that the workout described in the article isn’t in the app. Or if it is, I didn’t find it. But anyway, I did a workout, go me.

And now I’m aware I’m waffling rather, so I think it’s time to wrap this up.

Snapshots
We have a Big mostly home from university for the summer, although she’s actually away this weekend. It’s been rather lovely having her back. (NotSo)SmallTeen is waiting for results, and seeking employment, Smallest is focussing mainly on art, and Tigerboy is focusing mainly on computers, with the occasional foray into educational resources he is finding as I’m reorganising. And so the days go by.

{remembering} on this day, 21 years ago, I became a parent for the first time. Today is the first birthday with that offspring not here, but we zoomed together to make cinnamon buns, and had breakfast with her sitting on a screen at the table.

{playing} my zombie game. I play one of these settlement building team games on my phone, and have for a long time now. And tonight we had one of the team events, and I tried out my new headset and joined voice chat, and we lost horribly, but it was still fun.

{thinking} about how to crochet a sphere. I think I’m going to follow this guide for the sphere for my first pokemon make, which will be Voltorb.

{eating} leftover cinnamon buns and chocolate. Oops.

{reading} The Midnight Guardians to the kids at bedtime, and not very much else (keep up with our bedtime readalouds via this #affiliate bookshop list). Not quite sure where my focus us. Probably off killing zombies.

{shopping} for an elderly neighbour and online for books for igcse. (Why is it that one of the very few books that I managed to get around to clearing out of the house is the book that next offspring needs? Honestly. I got rid of it as I assumed that if smaller children got around to this course that the syllabus would have changed!)

{wishing} I’d kept up these posts.

{keeping} a daily art practice up courtesy of 642 Tiny things to draw (found in a charity shop over a year ago) #affiliate bookshop button for more info (and to try out bookshop affiliate buttons)

{snapshots}

Big is now out in the big wide world at university, but visiting home regularly by video call. So while not being able to see her regularly is kind of difficult, at least we’re still in touch.

(NotSo)SmallTeen is remotely colleging a couple days a week, which is not ideal for a performance music course, but does at least give him some kind of structure.

Smallest is struggling slightly with lack of social activities, but that’s a common problem for many people right now I think, she has started auditing a GCSE course, and has branched out into digital art (you can find her (supervised) on insta here.

Tigerboy is at the needs to find a focus/ interest stage of development, and is keeping up a long running streak on duolingo, reading widely and learning to code.

I’m contemplating trying out some game development – I keep looking at this unity bundle for game development (#affiliate link) – but I would need to source a different machine, as you can’t code on a Chromebook. And then I wonder about getting an apple machine of some description, so that Smallest could try out Apple art, and NSST could do some of his music stuff on the DAWs they use in college, and then I run round in circles trying to determine what machine would be a good buy and buy nothing.

In other news, a very wonderful imaginary person sent me a rainbow tape whale. So that was good.