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My coworker came back from his medical leave in the middle of last week. So, after discussing with him, I decided to take the whole of this week off, to make up for my cancelled vacation.

It's not quite the same as what I had originally planned. Different vibe, and different stuff going on. But that's okay. I'm going to try to focus on fun things, at the very least (rather than focus on doing extra chores or other things that I "should" do. Though there will be some of that).

I spent most of today trying out a new recipe for a fancy lemon cake. Two layers, decorated with glaze and candied lemons; the remaining lemon-flavoured syrup from making the candied lemons is also used to soak the cake layers before adding the glaze. My parents thought it was great, but I'm unsure - I didn't think the taste was proportional to the amount of work/time/cleanup that went into it. If I'm going to spend all day on a cake, it had better damn well be a fucking awesome cake. Could be that I was just tired from making it and having a hard time being objective, though. (Will share the recipe later, anyway.)

I wanna' go back to bed.

I had a stat on this upcoming Monday, but it's NOT COMING FAST ENOUGH I want a day off noowwwwww....

Honestly I really want to take a whole week off, but with the vacation I have planned at the end of the month, there's just no convenient time for it. I would feel awkward taking off a whole week in September or October when I'm already booked for something that partially spans both months.

I guess the best time to do it, if I were going to, would be next week. But taking the whole week off when my coworker is meant to come back from medical leave today is... hmm. It doesn't sit right with me? Though I guess maybe I should see how he's feeling.

Another possibility would be for me to just take one or two days. That would be more doable I think.

Today I attended an Educational Nature Walk event. We went through the forest walking trails with a Cree elder and she told us about the various plants native to the area and what they can be used for. Even though we're heading toward the end of the season, there were still a lot of plants available to look through.

It was very interesting! I was aware that some local plants are edible, but I wasn't aware of the scope of uses. Obviously I'm not about to go making teas out of spruce needles, but it was still very interesting to learn about.

From what I remember, she mentioned that they do these walks at other times of year as well, so I might see if there are some next year that happen earlier in the season.

I'm very glad I went! Though it was a three-hour walk, so I ended up quite tired, haa.

Spent yesterday afternoon crying over Dolly Parton. I wasn't a super huge fan, though she sure did have some great tunes, but she did so much philanthropic stuff and genuinely tried to do her best to improve people's lives, so it sucks that the world has lost someone like that.

I think the stress in my life was trying to find an outlet, and maybe it was that. To be honest, I ain't doing so hot, and it's not because work has been busy.

On an unrelated (?) note, I keep feeling the urge to try new hobbies. Which I don't really have the time for of course. Internally I've been joking that it's a midlife crisis, but then again, maybe it is. Who knows. If I do decide to take up the ukulele, watch out.

- Had planned to do painting this weekend. Did not.
- Did get all the chores done though, and finished the rough draft to send to beta, so I'll call it a win.
- Also managed to get a little bit of writing done on something I'm writing just for fun, so that's great.
- Coworker is coming back on September 02
- Been super sore lately. Wonder if I've been exercising too much. Problem is I've been enjoying the exercise. Hmm.

I was having a rough day recently, so I did what any reasonable person would do (cough) and ordered myself some more watercolour paints.

The Beam paints I already had are great, but the colours were kind of limited, so I decided to add to the set. Previously had two greens, two yellows, one red and one blue; I now have a full split primary palette plus a few extras (white, black, and purple - I have such a hard time making a good purple, it made sense at the time to pick up a convenience colour).

Eventually I'd like to add a few browns and maybe an orange and pink, but so far I've been able to make do by mixing what I have together. So. Not going to lie, I do like working with limited colours, and in a way I was kind of unsure about adding more, but I reaaaally needed a warm red and a cold blue, so. Here we are.

I'm so looking forward to using these. I've taped down some small square papers and sketched out a few things with watercolour pencils; will hopefully get around to working with the new paints some time this weekend if I manage my time right. These sheets are very small, only 3.5x3.5 inches, so I'll be able to work through them quickly.

I also bought the teeniest tiniest travel brush. #2 size. IT'S SO SMALL. When it's collapsed for travel, it fits inside a mint tin. So cute. So tiny. Not sure how often I'll use it, but it'll probably be great for doing details on the tiny sheets.

Kind of second-guessing my decision to buy the black and white; normally I avoid those. But I have been very curious about doing some monochromatic b&w studies, so they ended up in the order. I guess I'll just have to try them out and see how they behave. Could be interesting.

That's enough paints for now, probably. I've also been kind of curious about Rosa watercolours, but if I ever reach for those it will likely be an actual palette, and I don't see any call for that at the moment. I do find that I prefer stuff in pans. Tubes do perform pretty great, but they feel so... messy in comparison.

Yesterday I went to the Pride beach day out in Anzac. I had a great time, but I am still very very tired.

Judo tomorrow. We didn't have any last week because the instructor was on vacation.

I've been thinking about learning a new instrument, maybe the ukelele because it seems relatively approachable for beginners. But. I haven't played my harmonica in ages, I should pick that back up before trying something new. And also I really don't need any new hobbies right now.