04/30/2021

Today was a bonkers first half of the day working from home. I was busy till around 11:30am, and then it tapered off. I had a chance to try a recipe for lunch that I kept putting off for dinner this week. It was ok, the sort of thing I didn't really need a recipe for. I got rid of some more stuff in the fridge, which was nice.

During the afternoon, I cleaned the apartment. I filled and ran the dishwasher, did the by-hand dishes. Swept all the hardwood floors, dusted, and vacuumed. I cleaned my bathroom. I put the slippers lying around on my bedroom floor into the closet. And I even got my receipts caught up for the month. My sister will doing a lot of work in her room tomorrow and my parents are coming over to help. I hope I can keep the place clean.

After logging out, I went out for a walk. It was so nice out, but I came back with an ocular migraine, I think from the light change. I was going to read after my shower but had to lie down with my eyes covered for a while instead.

My sister brought home sandwiches for us for dinner and we ate and watched the latest Mighty Ducks episode and tried out the Hot Shot show with John Stamos. It's really good. We're just settling in for the Hallmark Christmas movie at 8pm. 

Not many plans for the weekend, outside of the Falcon and the Winter Soldier binge rewatch. Good times!

04/29/2021

Today was another full day at the office. I stayed very busy, which was good. I was all alone at the office, but I turn on the radio and it's fine. I also answer the phones so I get to talk too. There weren't as many transcripts today but I had plenty of other stuff to do. Everybody wanted to pay their bills because it's the end of the month. I had to change the paper in the credit card machine because it ran out. I also shredded some paper and worked on no-changes. And then there was a mix up with some of the transcripts at the end of the day that wasn't our fault, but was up to us to sort it out. We mostly got it figured out but will finish it up tomorrow morning.

On my lunch hour today, I walked back down to the Amazon area and finally found the macaron bakery I had seen last year and wanted to try but never did. It survived the pandemic and I am now making my way through 10 macarons of different flavors and they are so good! I also picked up potstickers for lunch from the Tower Deli on the way back in too. How could I resist? It was hot and I was super sweaty by the time I got back to the office.

After leaving for the day I made good time getting to the bus and getting home. I am really noticing a huge difference in my back and body from switching back to the wheeling backpack. It has so much better for me.

Boring food for dinner. SPN reruns tonight. Just met Castiel again. JAG episode to finish the night. Working from home tomorrow.

04/28/2021

Busy day at the office. I had a lot of transcripts to deal with and had to leave some of the exhibits for tomorrow when I should have more time to work on them. It was a well-paced day and I took my lunch break as one hour and did a really long walk down to the Amazon spheres and back. I looked around for the macaron shop but couldn't find it. I either went in the wrong direction, or it did not survive the pandemic. A lot of places are doing really well there, though, so that's good. One of the restaurants in our building is preparing to reopen, so that's a great sign as well.

I was also able to work on some editing during the rest of my lunch break and my second break of the day. I finished a chapter. I'll try to do some more tomorrow too.

I made good time getting home tonight and cleaned out the sink and hand-washed the new electric skillet and lid. Leftover pork chops for dinner tonight. More SPN commentaries and specials tonight. I'll finish the evening with an episode of JAG. Hopefully my big walk today will help me sleep well tonight.

04/27/2021

Today was a strange work day. It was super slow, in the morning and had a little bit of flurry when I was eating lunch, but I ended up doing quite a bit of transcripts. It felt like nothing, though. I focused on cleaning the apartment after my sister had set up her new loveseat last night. I took three trips downstairs today to drop off garbage, recycling, and compost. I put away all the dvd cases and utilized some empty boxes to put stuff in that was just lying on the floor before. The living room looks amazing now! My sister came home and was shocked at how great it looks now.

I also sat on my verandah for a bit today and read. I finished a book, which is good. I also did the by-hand dishes, filled and ran the dishwasher. I finished The Witcher on Netflix and another episode of Shadow and Bone, and a few more episodes of Good Witch before the day ended. I also burned a Disney music cd from the library to my computer and listened to it. I miss Disneyland...

When I logged out at the end of the day, I prepared to go out for a bit of a walk and stopped when I heard the sound of a bagpipe coming out of the fire station. I stopped and listened for over 10 minutes while the piper practiced. Recorded it on my phone, though I don't know how to replay it, get it off the phone, or if it even recorded with sound. I heard it one other time but their doors were closed so you could only hear it when you walked by it, but this was loud enough for everybody to hear in a one block radius. It was really cool!

After that, I did my walk, dropped off the book with the little library around the corner, walked in a loop and ended at the real library to drop off the cd. I came home and make a pork chop dinner. We settled in for SPN season 1 commentaries and specials. Finishing the evening with an episode of JAG. Did a twitter catch up tonight and am thinking it's definitely a better balance for me to go in once a day rather than all day long. The next two days are office days so I will only have the evening to catch up anyway.

4/26/2021

Today was a pretty good day. It was bonkers in the morning, working from home. I also had to run downstairs to give my mom her share of the babka, and then later I had to run down to get one of my sister's packages in the office. Then in the afternoon, the maintenance guy came by to work on stuff and fixed the caulking in our tubs and got the ball rolling for us to get a new hot water heater since he said it's about 20 years old, which is well beyond its normal lifespan. It'll probably take a while though because I think one has to be ordered and then delivered. We had a bit of an afternoon rush with work too, but it was slow in between those two times.

I didn't have a lot of time to do much stuff in between all of the stuff from today, but I got a small amount of reading done and I did momentarily catch up the kitchen sink. I wiped down the stove and the hood, too. 

After logging out for the day I ran a couple of errands, including mailing a package to a friend in Philadelphia and picking up my prescription. My sister was setting up a new love seat that arrived today too, and after I got back, neither of us felt like cooking, so we ran out and grabbed take out. We're settled in for new tv tonight.

Today I avoided most social media and did take some time this evening to catch up on twitter. I removed a bunch of people from my lists to make it faster to get through. I can always seek out individual twitter pages if I want to. I think this will be a better balance for me, as I didn't really miss it that much during the day. I see now that it has been mostly filler and something to concentrate on during the pandemic. I think I can find a better balance now that I see I need it.

Another day at home tomorrow. Tired tonight, hopefully a good night's sleep is in store for me!

04/25/2021

The day started with more reading and then a trip to the grocery store. When we got home, we settled in for a SPN marathon, which included a Christmas episode, which was nice because it's the 25th of the month and we try to watch something Christmassy on the 25th of each month to celebrate being one month closer to Christmas.

I also ran two loads of laundry and discovered that sometimes we have brown water when it's running, probably because the hot water tank is being emptied and agitated. I sent out a maintenance request to have it checked out, because that's definitely not ideal. I also took out the recycling and will take out the rest tomorrow after work.

I made my blog meal for dinner tonight, but it was really bland. I decided that instead of taking time time to blog about recipes that don't work, I'm just going to save my time and not. I think that's a better way to do things from now on.

A good friend on twitter reached out to me tonight and bravely pointed out that she has noticed some changes in my behavior and thinks that I might be doing too much online. She suggested I take a social media break or at least cut back my time online, and it didn't take too much soul searching to see that she was right. I am worn thin. Work is hectic, the pandemic has me living online and online is a hellscape. Selfcare is important for all people, myself included, apparently. I am going to try to take an break for a bit and then come back with limited time each day. I want to really work on editing my book and that will require time. Sacrificing most of my social media time might do the trick. I need to realize that I can't solve all the world's problems, as much as I would like to. It's time to go outside more, practice my breathing, and sit and read in the sun. It's time for me.

Working from home tomorrow and Tuesday. My new pillow continues to do better than the other one. Hopefully that will continue!

04/24/2021

Today was a nice day. I did not leave the apartment. My new pillow seemed to do pretty well but it'll take a few more days to tell for sure. It's much firmer than the other pillow so I think it supports my neck better. When I got up I read in my chair in my bedroom and finished the book and picked out the next one to start.

My sister went out shopping with my mom for a bit because they're both vaxxed, so I was home alone and started a batch of babka to use up the syrup in the fridge for it. I wanted to try out different fillings and we only have another month or so until it'll be too hot to use the oven. It was freezing and raining all day so it was perfect baking weather.

While the dough rose, I watched an episode of Shadow and Bone on Netflix and I think I'll keep watching it. My sister came home so I exited out after that episode and we watched The Incredible Hulk in our MCU watch. I worked on the bread during the movie. It turned out really good! I have already frozen most of it to give away to my parents and two of my coworkers.

After the movie ended, we switched to SPN and have been watching that ever since. I made a new recipe for dinner tonight that we both liked. It's pretty easy, so I'll probably make it again. We're going to finish out SPN for the night after this current episode so we can watch the Hallmark movie of the week.

More cooking and chores tomorrow. We might do a Falcon and the Winter Soldier binge watch. Grocery shopping for the week. I made the next two weeks' menus so we're set for that.