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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!
Last day at work was yesterday! My goal for today WAS to do some reading and cleaning, but I have an ear infection that is painful enough to be distracting... not REALLY terrible, but enough to make a dent in my ability to concentrate. So I'm considering it a 'sick day' and giving myself permission to take it easy.
I'm going to try to get into an after-hours clinic (I do have a doctor, but appointments are months out because my province is terrible).
Last week I worked so hard with so much stress that I ended up hurting my back. The weekend had me mostly in bed with depression. I still dealt with residual pain all this week. But I just finished submitting the final documentation needed for my honeymoon cruise in about two weeks. I swear if anything goes wrong with this I am going to have a nervous breakdown.
Months ago I talked about getting a dumpster and getting rid of most of my crap. I'm a procrastinator so it's taken this long for me to get it, but finally arrived on Monday! I was going to get a 40 yard dumpster and everyone was like, that's huge you don't need one that big, so I got a 30 yard. I should have got the 40. I have a lot of crap. It's so incredibly freeing chucking stuff away. I do feel some guilt about some of the stuff I'm tossing, but I'm okay living with that guilt since the burden of holding on to so many things has been a constant weight, and I'm just done with it.
About six months ago I binge watched Hoarders, and though I'm not anywhere near that packed up around here, I could see glimpses of myself in some of the people. I'm keeping two boxes of memories and one unfinished project. Every broken thing I was going to fix, every book I was going to reread, everything someone else might want or could be useful one day, every small kitchen appliance I used only once, the entire closet of crappy linens that don't even fit any of our beds (but could be good for the dog!), all the cottage cheese and hummus containers that make getting to my glass containers impossible, all the throw pillows I collected for the cats that they never use (but they might one day!), all the size 3 clothes I'd have to starve myself to fit again, the boxes of bank statements/paid bills going back decades (keeping the most current), and whatever else I can put my hands on, is going or already is in the dumpster. I found a box of kitchen utensils that I packed two moves ago, wtf.
That's what I've been doing this week.
We did the exact same thing at our house a few months ago. We ordered a full-sized construction site dumpster to be delivered to our driveway, and then I spent the next week loading it up with literally tonnes of junk from in and around the house.
Neither me or anyone in my family are necessarily hoarders either, but we had been gradually accumulating a ridiculous amount of stuff over the years, that we somehow kept finding ways to justify keeping rather than throwing out. But it was getting so bad that it was nearly impossible to get into our storage areas anymore, all the closets in the house were crammed full (even the guest bedrooms), and the garage storage shelves were all jammed packed too. Some of the stuff we had been holding on to had sentimental value, like a broken toy chest that my grandfather had made for me, but the truth is that most of it was just plain junk we were never realistically going to ever use again; old electronics (stereo equipment, VCRs, etc), a spare wood bedroom set, air mattresses, old sleeping bags, tents, lawn furniture, half-full paint cans, spare baseboards, trim, and hardwood flooring, etc. etc. etc. So in the end, we decided to toss pretty much all of it.
I also finally cleaned out all the piles of construction debris from under our deck too, which was left there by the last homeowners contractors after they did a bunch of renovations. Why they let their contractors just dump all that shit under there, I don't understand. But there was enough (now rotting) wood under there to practically build another deck, a dozen bags of unused concrete mix, dozens and dozens of broken patio pavers and bricks, etc. etc. etc. It was an absolute mess, and having to clear all of that out from under the deck while hunched over the entire time absolutely killed my back.
At the end of the week I was sorer than I have been in years, from having moved probably close to 3 tonnes of shit to the dumpster... but it was still well worth it, IMO. It was super satisfying to see the end results, and how much I/we managed to accomplish in that week. The garage, storage areas, and closets are now all properly organized and usable again, and we also don't have to worry about any critters making a home under our deck anymore either.
I have been stuck in bed all week due to strep throat which turned into acute bacterial bronchitis.
Today I’ve finally been well enough to catch up a bit on the passing week. Got some X-rays done and bought flower for the girlfriend. I think I found a new, much closer hair salon I like, too; my old salon lost my two choice barbers so I’m kind of meh about it now, especially since it takes 15 mins bike to go there.
Finally I also sold my Cloudflare stocks at 180. Planning to buy again some time in November.
A rather productive week for having spent most of it lying down.
Lots of stuff going on lately.
I've been going through some interview pipelines; if things go well, I could be switching jobs soon with a pretty substantial pay increase.
Lately, I've been teaching an artist friend of mine some basic programming skills, at her insistence. We've been working on a small text-based "game" reminiscent of RTS/RPG combat. My concern is that I have no experience teaching someone how to program from scratch, so I'm not sure if I'm doing it right, but it seems to be going well.
After my Nexus 4 "died" after 8 years of service, I got myself a Pixel 5a to replace it, along with some A-series Pixel Buds. I've been playing around with it a bit this past week, looking at all the modern stuff an Android phone has. Verdict: It's incredibly disappointing how much worse phone software has become. I'm seriously thinking of flashing it with Lineage or Graphene, but I'd have to do a bit more research first.