rowyn

Saturday, December 14

Managed to fall asleep around midnight instead of staying up to 12:30 or 1AM, yay. I woke around 6AM and struggled to get back to sleep. Lyric saw me struggling and came to snuggle me, which was sweet of her even if she was doing it because she wanted me to get up to feed her and/or let her outside. I did not get up (except to use the bathroom) and eventually fell back to sleep around 7:30AM.

When I next woke, it was 9:50AM. I lazed in bed playing Time Princess for a while, then got up. It was late enough that I decided to skip breakfast and go straight to making lunch. I gave Lyric her lunch, too, and then she went outside. Played Race for the Galaxy and posted Apothecaria while I was eating lunch and for a bit afterwards. Caught up on some Discord channels and fediverse.

Around 1PM, I dressed and went out for a walk, listing to Small Angry Planet some more. I didn't think I'd taken an unusually long walk but it was 2:30 before I got home. At home, I let Lyric inside, showered, and sat at my computer so Lyric could enjoy her dry cat food snack with human company. I'd been thinking about getting a Coke float and writing or drawing Apothecaria, but the walk left me Very Tired. I'd thought that after 9-ish hours of sleep last night, I wouldn't need a nap. And maybe I didn't need a nap. But I took one anyway.

I got out of bed at 4:45PM, so I could make hot chocolate before Coffee's stream. My hair was still wet from the shower and the rest of me was no longer warm from it, so I was cold and a hot drink sounded nice for a change. I heated it for longer this time; my candy thermometer said it was 146 degrees instead of 128. I thought that would still be fine because the last hot chocolate had felt warm and not hot to my tongue when I drank straight from the mug, and had cooled quickly even in an insulated mug. But 146 turns out to be hot enough to scald my tongue even after blowing on it in a spoon. I don't know why my tongue is so sensitive to heat.

I started a game of Race for the Galaxy because Coffee hadn't started yet, but they began stream a few minutes after 5PM. So I joined their multiplayer room, finished the RftG game, and started writing this.

I worked on The Secret Dragon for a bit, and then did the illustration for Sunday's Apothecaria. I went to bed on time but struggled to get to sleep, finally falling asleep around 2AM.

Sunday, December 15

Sleep-wise, very similar to Saturday: woke early, snuggled cat, fell back asleep until 10-ish, then took a nap in the early afternoon. Went to bed on time but didn't fall asleep until 1:30 or 2AM.

The weather was nice again, but I didn't really want to do the whole "get dressed and go outside" thing. Telnar called around 11:30AM, while he ws driving for half an hour to visit a friend.

Instead of walking, I worked on clearing out some junk from the sun porch. For 20 years, we've kept litterboxes on the sun porch, along with an assortment of random items Lut and I were not very attached to. Everything stored in that area is covered in a patina of litter dust. Most of it was garbage: files of paperwork from 20+ years ago that we hadn't cared about when we put it there and care about less now. I discovered a stack of photographs that I haven't tried peeling apart yet to see if any are salvagable. I suspect they're convention photos; a few people in the local con scene used to take thousands of photos every con, and they'd give prints of them to the people they photographed if you wanted. Very generous. <3 This became less popular as digital photography became common -- I knew a few people who'd email pictures, but now I don't even know anyone who emails. I think this is as much because I only go to one con with an aging attendee base as anything else. Might also be that I'm not young and sexy anymore. (Instead, I am old and sexy.)

Also some parts for paintball guns that Lut hadn't used in 30 years. And a small cache of sff books in a back corner. I checked to make sure none of them were signed or otherwise fancy, and then pitched them. Even books in good condition are hard to donate and I didn't want to try salvaging ones covered in 20 years of regular dust plus litter dust.

All of this was hidden behind a giant empty monitor box. Lut always insisted we keep the original packaging for monitor boxes, "in case we moved." I threw out some empty monitor boxes while he was in the hospital in 2017, but this one had survived the purge. Since I actually am planning to move soon, I had figured I'd keep it and was clearing stuff around it.

Then, after squirming behind it for half an hour to get to the stuff stored behind it, I took a good look at it. And realized it's not for any of my current monitors. It was for a dead monitor that was also sitting in the way in front of it.

*facepalm*

I pitched the styrofoam and plastic and cords inside of it, and folded up the box to stuff it in the giant recycling bin. It went out with the trash on Monday.

A little while after Telnar's call, I finished up on the sun porch, having filled about a trash bag and a half plus some recycling. There was still more on the sun porch, but I figured I'd get to that when Telnar called again later that evening, for the drive back.

After cleaning myself up and resting for a bit, I decided to take a nap. I got up from the nap in late afternoon, and considered doing more work on the sun porch. Instead, I went into the kitchen and started cleaning out the pantry.

When Telnar called, he observed that "cleaning out the pantry" seemed like more of a short-term task than one associated with "thinking of moving in 3-4 months."

Which is fair. But a) cleaning out the pantry was a thing I should do at some point before moving, b) "I might buy more food that expires and also will need to be thrown out" does not mean the expired food currently in there doesn't need to be thrown out, and c) cleaning out the pantry is not only something I should do before moving but also benefits me right now. The clutter in the basement of doom is largely invisible to me on a daily basis. I barely notice it even when I go down there to do laundry, and laundry is about the only reason I go to the basement. The sun porch clutter is a little more noticeable but not that bad. Whereas the lack of free space in my pantry annoys me every time I get groceries, and makes the whole kitchen more cluttered because stuff I could put in the pantry if there was room is instead on the counters.

I had almost finished with the pantry when Telnar got off the phone, and it was almost time for CoffeeQuills. I decided to finish with the pantry before sitting down for CoffeeQuills, so it was 7:15PM when I finally hopped into the stream. They'd started multiplayer already, so I futzed about for an hour and then thought "oh no, I must have missed Coffee saying it was time for the next monster." And then realized that they were fighting a Sunserk (a 2000 word monster) so it would be A While. I worked on an illustration. They finished the Sunserk at 8:35PM and I hopped into multiplayer for ice ponies at 8:45PM. I spent the rest of the stream finishing the illustration. I keep doing multiple-character illustrations even though they take forever.

Monday/Tuesday, December 16-17

I don't remember much in the way of specifics from these two days. I went for a walk at the midtown park on at least one of those days, possibly both. I kind of think just one, though. I reinstalled Google FIt several weeks ago, so I can check that. Okay, it says I walked on Monday and did some pacing on Tuesday. So I went to the park and did three laps on Monday, then got a Thai bubble tea afterwards. I successfully resisted the urge to go to Cinnabon, though.

Tuesday, I called my parents as a reminder that I'd be flying in on Saturday. I also ordered groceries for Wednesday, because I had to bake cookies on Wednesday. I checked what I had on hand against my cookie recipes, and ordered everything I was out of or didn't have enough of.

Eliyahu messaged me that they thought the hostel might have been infested with something and that, despite their precautions, a bug of some kind might've gotten into their luggage. I ordered some giant plastic ziploc bags for next-day delivery (reinstating my cancelled Amazon Prime when they offered me a week for $2, which was cheaper than next-day shipping for one order).

Wednesday, December 18

I was just about out of time to bake cookies and get them mailed out in a timely fashion, despite having basically no other distractions in my life. I got the grocery order in early afternoon, and realized right after the delivery person left that I hadn't gotten cream cheese. I checked my grocery order, and yes, I had ordered it, and Walmart had charged me for it. It just hadn't arrived. I reported it only and got a refund because there isn't a "no I really need it" option. Walmart gives In-Home customers one free express delivery in December, as a kind of holiday gift/enticement to shop. I double-checked my recipes (again) to make sure I didn't need anything other than cream cheese for cookies, then put together an order of shelf-stable goods plus cream cheese and asked for it express. It arrived an hour later.

I started baking snickerdoodles while I waited for the cream cheese to arrive, and then made sugar cookies afterwards. While baking sugar cookies, I realized that while, yes, I had everything I needed for the cookie recipes, I always ice the sugar cookies and I hadn't checked for icing ingredients.

...

I placed a third Walmart order, this time a regular one for the morning. And then thought "this is ridiculous and I want to get the cookies iced tonight, before Eliyahu gets back in the morning." So I went to the little Hispanic supermarket that's 3/4ths of a mile away and got powdered sugar, then came home, canceled the Walmart order, and iced the cookies.

I chatted a bit with Eliyahu while baking.

After I finished baking, I packed a bag with clothes and 25-gallon sealable storage bags for Eliyahu's arrival.