neekabe

The holidays felt like a marathon this year and I'm only now just feeling like I have a chance to stop and breathe. Not bad at all, but I just never had that moment of recharge.

It was a good holiday. Friends got married then we spent a week with my family. Then home for New Years and a little bit of time to chill before back to work. I got the waterfall dress finished well in time for the wedding and was very happy with it. It fit in nicely with the vibe and was very comfortable!

I'm very slowly cutting out my next sewing project - a jumper in black and gray plaid flannel.

Monday was back to work and I took advantage of the boss till being away to catch up on a whack of scanning and filing, and putting away all the items that have ended up at my place to be used as gifts. What was going to be my decorative office shelf now looks like a mini game store XD I'd be more annoyed but I'm getting a home office allowance, so technically they're paying my rent for the room.

Boss was back today and it was nice to get some idea of a rhythm again.


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We watched the first three episodes of Heated Rivalry before the Holidays break. My government funded hockey yaoi ^_^ (I do somewhat twitch at the use of the word yaoi, as to me that means anime, but I acknowledge that if you start calling it hockey slash there is some ambiguity XD )

We came back after the holidays to finish the last three episodes. It was lovely. I see why everyone is so ridiculous about it. I then spent a bunch of time watching straight-dude youtube channels do reviews and they were lovely. There were tears. It was really positive and encouraging and it's fun to feel shiny new fannish about something that is shiny new for everyone (I'm having shiny new moments with DC, but that's not a shiny new fandom in any way).

In the way that faandom exists to fill in the gaps, I find I'm not looking for the smutty fics there, but rather the post-show found family fics, and the team moments. And stuff that actually focuses on the hockey :D

The Gentleman Caller also got me a "Stupid Canadian Wolf Bird" shirt XD

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On the DC front I'm enjoying my comics and went to the shop to pick up this week's comics before we went off to dinner to celebrate the Gentleman Caller's birthday. One of the things I was looking for wasn't on the shelf, and it turns out it had an unexpected number of people in for it so they had sold out. BUT! the owner had a stash and let me have one from there. He said when he sees something selling quick, he'll put some aside so good customers who aren't able to show up immediately still have a chance. I was perfectly willing to wait until they could order me in a copy but it was nice. I got a good grade in buying comics, which is normal to want and possible to achieve XD
(I feel like it's a bit of a reward for the time when I impulsively bought a comic for a kid clearly trying to decide on which comics in his box to buy and which ones would have to wait for his next allowance)


Dinner was at a restored art deco department store restaurant, from back when high end department stores had fancy dining options. It was a lovely meal and excellent atmosphere.


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And now the Gentleman Caller is cooking dinner and I'm finally getting groceries ordered and have high hopes of actually doing the December HouseHold Math tonight. And then maybe I'll feel ready for the new year :D

I tried to get my covid and flu shot today. I'd found a place that's not far from the fabric store and was going to make a morning of it.

But I booked through the provincial system and apparently that's not communicating well with some of the pharmacy systems as they didn't actually get the notice of it so they didn't have any of the covid vaccine available. But I got my flu shot and booked the covid shot for next weekend where I can bring the fella and get his too (he had one booked for last week, but then threw out his back and didn't leave the house for a few days).

His is covered under provincial because he has asthma, but I'm not because the province is being cheap. But it is covered under the private insurance so I'll only need to pay about $30 which isn't bad.

I then went and spent all the money i didn't have to pay for the vaccine at the fabric store. But everything was half off!

The rest of the day will be trying to get some chores done before I start the sewing projects. I have a wedding coming up and wanted to make a Waterfall Dress for that. Found a neat viney floral that gives vaguely vintage vibes that I hope should work.

And I need to sit down and Plan for holiday shopping. I have a bunch of stuff and need to start writing lists.

We've been on the edge of seasonal allergies or maybe a cold or maybe just reactions to the cooling weather in this household. For the fella it seems to have settled into a cold. I might have just picked up his cold. Might just be having some blahs.

We were supposed to go to a party yesterday but cancelled due to probably contagious. Had a quiet day instead. I made mac and cheese which the fella wasn't too excited about, but then had seconds and raved about it again this morning. I suspect he just hasn't had much actual mac and cheese because it was pretty basic XD

Eyes weren't cooperating well last night. Was up a couple of times with some pain, but not the terrible stabbing pain from before, so it still a win. I suspect I'm going to be extra sensitive to the seasons.

Watching the F1 this morning, might make cinnamon buns this afternoon. Might just have a nap. It'll be exciting :D

Had a lovely afternoon today.

There's work stuff where I needed restaurants and a 'semi private' room needed clarification, plus I needed some cheques signed. So that was my excuse to head downtown on a friday afternoon.

Which was good, because at restaurant 2 'semi private' was actually a table set apart from all the other tables in a corner, and the restaurant 1 'semi private' was just... a table along the wall on the edge of the dining room.
Which I guess is more private that the tables in the middle of the dining room? but ti's still only a couple feet to another table.


So I saw the first restaurant, had a call in a park and got an issue sorted out, then walked up to visit the boss, got somewhat lost on the way (and was killing a bit of time) and found a gelato place. Got the cheques signed and stopped by restaurant 2 who's dining room wasn't open yet, so I killed time in a cafe where they unexpectedly had the delicious GLuten Free cakes.

Went to Restaurant 2 who's place was perfect. So I got that booked and finished getting all the restaurant reservations for work stuff done.

Then went to the mall which was the whole point of scheduling all this running around for a friday afternoon.

I have a very bad habit of owing the bare minimum of coats. And especially since the pandemic and outside was a thing that happened less? I have a couple winter coats, because they're important (one practical, one dressy) and they're also sized so growing out of them is less of a thing. But all my spring coats now fit awkwardly on me, so I was shopping with a goal.

So now I have 1. Proper Raincoat, 2. A wool blazer and 3. A casual coat that is like wearing a teddy bear. And thus I have a few more choices to be Intentional Decisions about Presentation. Rather than 'this is my coat'.

I was very tempted by a third coat, but I needed he raincoat and liked the other ones better. But maybe I'll keep an eye on it and see if it goes on sale.
And 2 new hairclips to replace the one's I've broken.

Updates

- Tooth repair was straightforward and didn't require any extra unpleasant needles.

- I got my latest keybaord! I'd been staring at the Ink Noir keycap set for a while, and Glorious got had a sale on, so I decided to bite the bullet. I think I might have finally found a switch set that's too heavy, but I'm waiting on it. I can always switch out the switches. I am quite an aggressive typer apparently. I'm also wondering how much of the excess in typos is because I haven't yet built the feet into the keyboard to make it a flat keyboard, instead of the weird illogical default angle that's supposed to be 'ergonomic'.

- We went on a family vacation at a rental cottage which was a lovely time around family. Good visits, good time just to hang out. I did pick up a bug from on the trip so I came home with something like strep. Then I got on penicillin and my eye really flared up to the point where I couldn't open my eyes (my left eye because it was painful, my right eye because I opening that eye meant my left eye moved).

It started improving when I stopped the meds. I got on something else and everything seems to be resolved now, both the throat and the eye. Still not quite sure what happened, I've never had problems with penicillin before.

Appointment for the eye is in two weeks so we'll see if that has any more information.

The summer went by quickly, but I'm looking forward to my schedule settling out again in the fall.

We watched the Car-Go-Fast: The Movie today (F1 movie) and it was fun.

As a note to future self, bigger theater the front row of the back section is too far forward, and at the smaller theater the back row of the back section is too far back.

I appreciate how much they did as practical. They just had used the existing races and plugged in a fake team for a season. They worked out moments where they could get their cars on track in the inbetweens, and sometimes they had teeny little cameras on cars on the track so they could pretend that was their driver and just CGI the livery.

It was interesting to watch them blend movie with reality. Because they used existing races I had seen those races! Also because all the other drivers were real drivers it led to weird moments of wanting to cheer on the actual F1 driver I knew over this new person, or running into actual F1 driver knowledge vs Hollywood script. I kinda want to go back and watch the races to see which shots they used and who they 'took over' for some of the other shots (Pretty sure they called George Russel's car Lewis Hamilton's in the final race, for example)

It did have the annoying woman has to sleep with male lead, but was otherwise entertaining. Will probably rewatch when it comes out on streaming.

Next theater movie is going to be Superman!

So about a month ago ago I slept with the window open and woke up with one eye all pink and irritated. It improved with allergy pills and warm compresses and was resolved within a day so I figured allergy season and something irritated it.

Also occasionally I wake up with pain like something is in my eye, but it always resolved quickly and I figured it was just like... eye crusties or something irritating in the morning. I occasionally used drops for dry eyes and just decided it was a body thing

But in the past two weeks I noticed a significant decline in my left eye and usually my eyes get worse at a nice slow predictable pace until I'm like 'I think I used to be able to see that?' and schedule an appointment. Or I hit my usual 2 year insurance cycle.

Right now time the right eye is still fine, but the left eye is blurry at all distances, so I took myself to the eye doctor who said 1. I have dry eyes and I should be using said drops more often than 'occasionally' and 2. There is some variation on the surface of the eye that's causing the fun new blurryness and increase in astigmatism. He's not worried about it but is going put in a referral for a specialist to make sure it's not early signs of something.

The fun bit is that the eye drops and possible treatment will likely improve my prescription from the one I got yesterday, though not resolve it entirely (he was hesitant to say it's permanent, but I am expecting my eyes to just slowly degrade over my life so it's not that terrible). But I can't actually focus with one eye now and I'm getting noticable astigmatism shadows, like someone has copied an image and shifted it an inch or so with fainter opacity. Which is annoying. So I'm debating getting a cheap online pair of glasses for like however long this is going to take and then paying proper funds for actual glasses once it settles? I'm not sure.

But last night I put in special thick nighttime eye drops and woke up without pain. So now I have another step to my nighttime routine to go along with the mouthguard for teeth grinding and moisturizer to keep my face and hands from drying up and falling off, and my bonnet to keep my curly hair in some reasonable condition... *sighs*

Successful day today, and I got 12,000 steps, which is a big improvement from my usual several hundred (working from home means minimal steps).

I got out to the mall to pick up some things (polident for my night guard, dry shampoo to see how well that works at my hair) and couldn't find a nice spring coat but that's okay.

I stopped by side-gig bosses place to do some in person stuff, then hit up a variety of treat places (comic shop, bulk barn, then the place with the Good deli counter for sandwiches stuff).

Now I'm home and tired XD

I have a sewing project, but I cut out the draft in scrap fabric and it's not the right size. Fortunately it's too big rather than too small so I can trim it down, so I need to figure out the best way to resolve that without messing up the bust cup. I'm going to need to draft down between sizes I think. Either way it became Complicated so I'm letting it think about it's sins.

I might try and get some writing done tonight? We'll see

I've been in an ongoing project to re-organize my home office a little, to make it more useful as a guest room.

In that process I wanted to mount shelves but had picky dimensions. Ended up at a lovely place that priced out options and very patiently waited while I figure out how to make best use of the sheet of MDF plywood that ended up being the easiest option. (I was buying an 8 by 10 foot sheet and initial plans only used up about 2/3 of it, so we got to get creative with the rest of it.)

He also explained to me exactly how add laminate to the edges, and finish the wood. So that's been the past weekend and it's very satisfying. The finish isn't perfect, but for a first try it's pretty solid. and it's book shelves, so not much is going to be visible anyway.

We also assembled two new filing cabinets. Just need to get rid of some old furniture and maybe get a new rug and I'm hoping to have everything finished for when my parents visit at the end of the month.

I cleaned out my sewing cupboard. I had like 4 different notions holders all with a somewhat random assortment of notions. So now one holds items for hobbies I no longer do (beading, embroidery), container of ribbons and zippers, little drawer set with everything I need for day to day (threads, needles, scissors etc) and one for other assorted sewing supplies.

I celebrated by buying some new notions, including an iron-able ruler so I no longer estimate my hems by eye, and an iron erasing pen to mark fabric which feels very fancy.

I still need to get some pinking shears, I've forgotten twice now.