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What did you do this week?
As part of a weekly series, these topics are a place for users to casually discuss the things they did — or didn't do — during their week. Did you accomplish any goals? Suffer a failure? Do nothing at all? Tell us about it!
Went to see a few apartments, shopping for my buy at the end of the year. Found a very promising one which I think I will follow up on 😃
And also had my first proper nap in months. Feels wonderful.
I'm back home after five weeks of taking care of my mom. I'm glad I went, but it was a bad time for me me leave because spring is a busy time of year for my yard. I returned Tuesday night, and my heart sank as I walked through the gate into a totally overgrown yard. Wednesday I did a complete walk through and realized there is no way I can get on top of it by myself so I made some calls to get estimates.
The inside of my house is a disaster which isn't helped by the fact that we have hoarding tendencies. I called our disposal company and they are dropping off a 40 yard dumpster in three weeks. I spent most of yesterday slating things for the dump. I have boxes of crap that have been boxed for almost 20 years that I am not even going to open, I just took them to the garage to get thrown in the dumpster when the time comes. Everyone in the house is enthusiastic. My son filled four boxes and five large garbage bags, and it looks like my husbands office actually has a floor. He's having the roughest time of it, but he has so much obsolete hardware, cables, technical books, and OMG paper everywhere that he has no room to add anything new (though he does) or room to walk (which he needs because he's a pacer). This an exciting project for me because I want to learn to live with less things.
Not the most exciting, but probably the most important thing I did this week is switch medical centers and set an appointment to get the ball rolling on some medical issues I neglected through the pandemic. I'm supposed to have yearly MRIs since the radiosurgery I had eight years ago on one of my brain tumors. I've been having symptoms again and really haven't wanted to think about it. It's time. I didn't want to change clinics because I liked my team, but it looks like many of them have left anyway, and my medical center was bought out by a religious health group earlier this year. They were the last medical center in my county not owned by a religious affiliated health group. I'm luckier than some other places around the state that will now have no easy access to a secular hospital or medical center as I can just hop on a boat to get care elsewhere.
I'm really glad to be back home!
Good on you for getting on top of the house cleaning! My mother was/is a hoarder, and we went through cycles when I was a kid. It took me a long time to break free from that cycle myself as an adult, but now I try to think more mindfully when I have something in my hand, if something is given to me, or if I want to buy something. Instead of setting it down on any old surface, I try to imagine myself using it in the next week/month/year and asking myself if I’ll actually use it. It’s hard to change that mindset!
My mom was the opposite. We lived sparsely, probably because we moved a lot. At least once a year and sometimes multiple times a year we got in the care and moved somewhere else. When we moved she would just throw or give all my stuff away. Then I spent a lot of time in foster care and group homes, moving around a lot usually only being able to take a garbage bag of things with me. When I became an adult I lived much the same way,and it was a good thing because I didn't have an attachment to things so when my life turned to shit, or I was in an abusive relationship, I could just leave with a backpack and get out. Sometime in my late 20s I started accumulating things, and it felt good, it felt stable. Then I bought a house in my 30s and felt like I finally had a home. Then we had a total house fire and we lost everything that except what we hadn't taken out of storage yet. After we rebuilt, I just started filling it with things. I can barely throw anything away, but it's become a huge burden, and I just can't deal with it anymore. The worst part is that I've created this "don't throw crap away" culture in my family. I like your way of deciding whether to buy something or keep something. I don't often think about whether or not I have room for said thing, or how often I will use it, or even what need it serves. Mindfulness going forward will go a long way towards living clutter free.
I think the hardest thing to let go of, and the largest bulk of what I own, is my sci-fi book collection. Years ago I helped a sci-writer/editor move. As part of their move they were downsizing and they gifted me an entire attic of old sci-fi books and magazines. I've read some of them, but I don't really read anymore. I've thought about donating them, but the idea of loading them and offloading them just seems like too big of a job. And OMG what if I start reading again and I don't have them anymore? I also thought about putting them on Craigslist, but I'm certain the person who gifted them to me would see that, and they were so adamant that they were given to me and not sold because I would appreciate them. But they have to go. I've never thrown a book away in my life, but I'm wondering if I should do it. It would free up so much space.
I’m fairly certain my mother’s upbringing and lifestyle was a lot like yours (constantly moving and not having many possessions). If you wanted to be rid of the books without tossing them, you could do a curb alert! We do that with lots of stuff that seems not worth selling, but seems too nice to go to the trash. I know some HOAs won’t allow that though.
Two things - mow and get a new water heater installed. You can see the yard and the before/after for the water heater if you like. Next project will be pumping the sewer tank (ugh) and repairing a leak in the leech field distribution system.
Got straight Bs in my classes! Some were higher than others, but the lowest was an 85, the highest was an 87 curved to an 89. I'm happy it's over, and look forward to the next one.
I've been playing too much Skyrim: I wrapped up the main quest, then also cleared Dawnguard, and am shifting to a bunch of vanilla side stuff, like guilds and whatnot.
I started practicing my bass playing semi-seriously on my fretless bass uke, cracked a couple of basslines, one of which I puzzled out on my own (War Pigs by Black Sabbath, which also leaves a lot of room for jamming) and one I had to lean on a tab for (Waiting Room by Fugazi). It's been a lot of fun. I oddly find the uke more fun to play than my brother's Squier Affinity Jazz bass, and it's acoustic (but not particularly loud) so setup is easy: Grab it, check the tuning, and hammer away.
My schedule finally freed up and I've been tinkering a lot with M4L devices in Ableton to add randomness to my music production. I'm working on a few remixes of tracks that I think have interesting vocals and oddly enough, sleep deprivation helps with getting down ideas! I feel like it's shutting down my internal quality control or stifling my inner critic, which is great!
What's that saying again -- "Write drunk, edit sober"?
Well, I can't drink, so sleep deprivation is what I do now!
I hope everyone else here had a lovely week too.
Busy week for me!
It's kind of hard to have a cute dog! My dog is a red/working line golden retriever, a bit smaller than a normal golden and very friendly-looking and approachable. She LOVES humans* and although she is nearly two, she still has trouble regulating her jumping when she gets excited. She knows what to do, it's just that her impulse control just goes out the window sometimes. It's improving but it's a process.
When I pull her back from when she is clearly about to jump on someone I get the "oh, I don't mind!" and it's like, OK, but I do! She's not that big, but she could definitely knock someone over if she got them just right.
* (unless they are on scooters, in which case she HATES them)
Yep! Training people is the hardest part. I tell them they can per her if she will sit first, but the cute is just too much a lot of the time. She’s right around 10 lbs with an underbite, so… I totally get it. :P
I would love to see a pic of your golden! Do you do any sports/work with her? (Apologies if I’ve already asked you this. It’s my favorite question to ask about dogs.)
Here is a pic of her, with the same expression she has about 90% of the time. Her name is Josie, after Josie and the Pussycats, since we also have three cats.
Unfortunately I don't do any sport with her - although I did used to do agility with boxers I had in my teens. My stepmother at the time had two dogs and I trained one of them while she trained the other. The one I trained, named Tonka, was actually completely deaf from birth and only had vision in one eye. We didn't really compete, just sort of goofed around.
Josie does know your standard array of tricks though (spin, shake, wave, sit pretty, etc) and she has decent manners when she's not overstimulated! She might make a good therapy dog in a couple years too, she is especially fond of seniors for some reason.
Would you care to share about your dogs? How long have you been doing canine agility? :)
She’s got that classic golden smile! 💛
Tricks are definitely work, and a good basis for lots of other sports and work.
I also got into agility in my teens with a family dog (Australian Cattle Dog) who eventually became fully mine. Right now I’m setting up to compete with my Australian Shepherd who has been training for agility basically his whole life with me; he’s now eight years old, but we took a few years off after I fractured my pelvis. We did one trial a few months before that happened, and I had a lot going on at the time, so agility got put on the back burner for a long time.
We got back into it early this year with some fun classes and started training for competition again about a month ago. I’m curious to see if he gets ring zoomies like he did at our last trial. He’s much more mature now, so I’m hoping for the best. Even if he does, I’m not in it for the win, haha. I do think earning some recognition would be nice. I’ve never had a dog earn a title, and I think he could do it! He only needs a few qualifying scores to get that.
The puppy is too young to train on most of the obstacles, but she already loves the tunnel and dog walk. She’s also way smaller than any other dog I’ve had (~10lbs!), so I’m interested to see how that changes my handling in the ring.