February 11: Painting Miniatures, Plumbing, and Cooking

 Wow, February's just been zooming by. Like, I knew it was zooming by and yet somehow I was still not prepared for it to be the 11th already.

I have done a little bit of editing so far this month, but mostly I've been working on lower-priority projects. I've been trying to get ahead of the curve on Apothecaria again. My problem here is that there's the "game" part of Apothecaria, where I draw cards and write to prompts and it's very easy, and the "writing a romance" part, where I do not draw cards and have to think about how I want events to unfold, and this is both more interesting to me personally and also way more work. o_o;;; The last sixteen entries have all been romance-focused and it's been a struggle to stay on top of it. A few times I thought I was finally gonna break my entry-a-day streak. (Note: I have accidentally broken this streak a few times already on two places I post, Mastodon and Flickr, by forgetting to post there. I'm a few days behind on Flickr right now, in fact. The Discord server has gotten one every day, though, because it's both the easiest place to post and the one with the most readers. I'm pretty sure Flickr doesn't have any watchers at all -- I keep it as an archive for people who read elsewhere but might want to re-read or look for a specific entry or whatever.) 

Anyway, I'm almost out of the romance woods and back to writing from prompts so hopefully that'll make it easier for a while and I can rebuild my depleted buffer. 

Yesterday, Lut said that I could spend some time painting miniatures in lieu of playing our usual Saturday Kill Team game, so I spent 3.5 hours painting and actually finished a few pieces of terrain, yay. I did some more painting this morning, but took a scattershot approach and didn't finish anything. The problem with just focusing on one piece until it's done is that painting works better if you give it time to dry between coats. So it makes more sense to apply, eg, one coat of one color on several different pieces and then go back and apply the second coat. I've been wanting to do more painting and thinking I should just spend an hour or so on it a day. Make it a part of my routine, like exercise. 

I've done okay on exercise this month. Been on three walks so far. Actual walking outdoors, instead of pacing around my house for an hour while on the phone. I haven't done much outside exercise since I quit Pokemon GO back in 2020 or 2021, so that was nice. Takes much longer than the 10 minute aerobics video, though. I should do some aerobics core exercises again, though, they're supposed to be good for my back.

Lut and I also picked up a new toilet yesterday, though it's still in the car. The hardware store people unboxed it and loaded it into the car for me (we did not even try fitting the box in the car). It's a single piece and the weight on the box was 95 pounds. That included the cardboard and packaging and various added bits, so the actual toilet is probably 80-90 pounds. I feel like I ought to be able to manage it by myself but I'm not really keen to try. o_o;;; So Lut and I will attempt it together and we'll see how it goes. I am a little tempted to go to the basement and pick up some free weights to see how much I'm overestimating my strength by. 

Okay, I went into the basement, where i have a collection of dumbbells from 5 to 35lbs. I picked up the two 35lb dumbbells with some effort but no reason to think I was gonna hurt myself. I tried to balance two 35lb and one 25lb weight in my arms to stand, but the arrangement was not secure enough to make me confident I wasn't gonna drop one, possibly on my foot. I'm pretty sure I could stand with a single 95lb weight but not entirely confident I could do so without hurting myself. My biggest concern with Lut helping is that he usually walks with a cane when outside, and in particular on steps he use both handrail and cane. So while he's plenty strong enough to hold his half of a 80-95lb object, I'm not sure his balance is up to it. Maybe we'll have him wait at the base of the steps (we've got 3 steps down and 4 steps up to get from driveway to house) and just steady the toilet while I carry it, instead of carrying it together. Guess we'll see how it goes. For now, he's napping and I am content to wait. 

Normally I call a professional to do any kind of installation or repair, but the cost of toilet installation seems ridiculously disproportionate to how difficult toilet installation is. So I will attempt it myself. (I have seen toilet installation done and was going to do it myself once before, and only stopped when I realized that my current toilet was not resting on a floor and that I kind of wanted the toilet to be on one.) At least this time I know I've got a floor under the toilet. Maybe it will work out all right! If not, pretty sure I can still put the old toilet back on after pulling it and call a plumber. 

I made sausage gravy & biscuits for breakfast today, for the first time in ages. Many years ago, Anne Howington made sausage gravy & biscuits for breakfast while I was visiting her and her husband, and I was surprised to discover I liked it. I'm not usually a gravy fan and I always thought it sounded like a weird combination. It's a good thing this was the first time I'd tried it, because I only like it the way she made it. Every time I've tried it at restaurant, it's been terrible disappointing: the gravy is bland and doesn't have much if any sausage, and the biscuits are crusty. We went to a new breakfast place today and while the gravy wasn't bland (it used chorizo), it wasn't great. But it reminded me I hadn't had proper biscuits & sausage gravy in a long time. So I made it, and thought about Anne and her husband, both of them long since passed away.

 Edit: Lut and I have successfully brought the toilet inside! I carried it from the car to the first set of steps, then Lut braced it/held it with me while I came down the steps. After that, I carried it to the foot of the next  set of steps, took a breather, then picked it up, braced it on the first step, rest, repeat until the top, with one more step to clear to enter the house. And then a last step from the extension to the kitchen. In the kitchen, I just scooted it along the floor since I didn't have to worry about the linoleum scraping it up. It's in a corner of the kitchen now. I have a new concern about installing it, which is that while I clearly can carry it, it's less clear that I can pick it up and then put it back down exactly aligned with the pipe in the floor. I will probably get Lut to help line it up when we get to that point. But I'm gonna wait until tomorrow to attempt it because I want to be fresh and well-rested for this adventure, and I wasn't all that well-rested for today's part. (Didn't sleep well last night.) For now: nap time.