yuuago | Entries tagged with home life

+ Washed my car. I really should do it more often. It doesn't take that much time to do, and honestly, even just spraying it down makes it come out pretty good. It's kind of a rustbucket, so I guess there is a part of me that thinks "Eh, what's the point?" when it comes to washing it, but... thee dirt was getting pretty ridiculous, and I should at least make sure the windows are clean. We've got a couple of muddy months to go.

+ Took some extra books to the nearest Little Library. Two of the books that I took there last time, over a month ago, are still there. Disappointing; it's much nicer when someone picks them up. Oh, well. Maybe once more of the snow is gone things will circulate more.

+ Took myself out for sushi because I was craving sushi. It's not something that I would want to make a habit of, but I'm glad I indulged it. I had wanted nigiri for some reason, even though it's not my usual choice, so I got one of their variety deals. Now I've probably had enough of it to satisfy myself for a while.

+ Worked on Norwegian a little. And by that I mean I tried to do some reading. It's... challenging, like walking through knee-high snow. I have this one novel in Norwegian, and I tried reading the first page. It was kind of challenging; I got the gist but there were a lot of words I don't know. I think I might start a project where I read through just a page, and write down the words that I don't know in a notebook. That might help.

+ There have been times when I thought that my interest in Norwegian was primarily fuelled by my fondness for the Hetalia character, but I think now I can safely say that this isn't the case. I just really like it. The sentence structure, the way the words sound. It's nice. It's really nice.

+ I spent some time today not feeling great. I think the depression is getting to me again. I'm just not feeling very good. Kind of listless and, like, it's hard to find motivation to do anything. All the things that I have to do still get done, but it's hard to find, like, joy. Spark. That kind of thing.

I put "make lunch for work" back on my daily to-do list.

Feels good, man.

+ My washing machine is fixed. We think. At the very least, it mostly seems to be working properly. Crossing my fingers! Doing my laundry at mom's house was kind of cramping my style.

+ Managed to get some writing done today. My creative energy has been at 0 for months, so it felt really good to do something. (I also haven't had a lot of time for this stuff, to be fair. But. Still.) Part of me wants to try to finish it before February is over, since it's femslash. But the realistic part of me knows that I likely won't get that done. Ehhhh we'll see. (It's that nyo RoBul one that I started working on last year.)

+ Tomorrow is a stat. I think I might try to rest and do something fun. Like geocaching! There are a few that I know about that should be relatively easy for me to access despite being in woods; it'd be nice to be able to give them a try without having to worry about bears or bugs. Gotta' take care of a few boring adult things first, tho', so we'll see how it goes... :V

My washing machine was having problems today. I went to wash my gi this morning, and it just... wouldn't fill up; no water coming out.

Dad came over and helped me troubleshoot. The dial for selecting the cycle and turning it on has worn out. We were able to order a replacement part online - not cheap, but significantly less expensive than buying a new washing machine.

It'll be a week or two before that comes in. In the meantime, I can take my washing to my parents' place, but ugh.

The appliances in this apartment are from the same time it was constructed - so, roughly 15 years old. Which explains why they're starting to develop problems (see also that issue I had a few months ago with my fridge dying). So, not great, but unsurprising.

Everything is exhausting! I should go to bed early tonight.

This past week was far too exhausting. After that whole drama with my refrigerator dying, I was running around like a chicken with its head cut off, taking care of purchasing a new one and arranging to get it delivered and so on. The new fridge is in place, and everything seems to be going fine with it, so... That's that! Definitely more fuss than I would have liked to deal with, but here we are.

Anyway. This weekend, I managed to get all my Christmas present wrapping done. If I'll be honest, I'm kind of Christmased out by now. And have been for almost a month. This season is so exhausting, man, and I can hardly wait for January.

...Despite being Christmased out, when I decided to take some downtime today, I ended up watching The Muppet Christmas Carol. It still holds up. "A Christmas Carol" has always been one of my favourite Dickens works, and the Muppet version is a really good adaptation (Muppets and all). And they didn't have to go as hard as they did with the costuming, but I totally appreciate it.

Also watched a little B5 this weekend. I've finished S1E12 now. The more I watch it, the more I think that - when I was much younger, I was really into space-y science fiction stuff, and I think kid!me might have enjoyed this. Though possibly I would have found it too serious at the time. Hard to say! Anyway, I'm very glad that I'm experiencing it now. Going to keep snailing along with it. So far I don't have any deep thoughts. I enjoy G'kar more as time goes on. Londo cracks me up. Talia would've been kid!me's favourite, at least from what I see so far.

(I wish I had more free time so I could watch more. And catch up to Tik. Who is very far ahead of me and has been having Thoughts but has been kindly cutting them so I won't be spoiled for this decades-old show. Dude's a real class act. <3 )

I hope you all had a great weekend.

Feeling stressed out and tired. But everything's put back into the fridge now, at least.

I'm going to be paranoid for the next couple of weeks, probably, with anxiety over "What if it wasn't installed properly, what if they didn't put the door on properly (because they had to remove it in order to get it into the space), what if the door isn't sealed properly" etc. My mom told me about a relative who had a problem like that once; on the one hand, I wish she hadn't mentioned it, because I won't be able to stop thinking about it for a while. On the other, at least I'm aware of a potential problem to look out for.

[/puts face in hands]

Ugh, I'm so exhausted. This has been way too much to deal with. But at least it's done now.

My fridge is dying. SO, today I went out to pick out a new one.

Ordering something would take several weeks, so I was in luck that there was a floor model I could purchase. Much better than when my bro needed to get one - there wasn't a single store in town that had anything on the floor, so he had to drive down to Lac La Biche to get something. (That's like, 300km away.)

Anyway. Fridge purchased. Getting delivered on Tuesday. I can't help but worrying that like, maybe I was wrong, maybe it's fine, maybe I made a very expensive mistake. I keep reminding myself of all the issues that led me to this decision, buuuut it's proobably normal to have some anxiety about big purchases like this.

Definitely not the kind of weekend I'd hoped for! Really looking forward to getting this thing delivered and set up so that I can be done with it. All of this has been absolutely exhausting. :V

I hope you all had a much better Sunday than I did, haaa.

Repotted my pepperomia today.

It was having issues with yellow leaves. Stuff like that can be hard to troubleshoot, but since the planter it was in didn't have any drainage, I was worried it might be an overwatering issue, or maybe even root rot.

Turns out that's probably not it. Soil was dry, and the roots looked okay. Maybe it was an underwatering issue? But it's kind of hard to underwater a pepperomia - they aren't succulents, but they do prefer dryer soil than some houseplants out there.

Anyway, I stuffed it in a slightly larger planter with very good drainage, and hopefully that'll solve the problem. It's grown significantly since I brought it home a year or two ago, so maybe it just wanted more room. (And better drainage.) (Always with the drainage.)

And I cleaned up my patio too! Washed everything down, tidied it up, and now I could sit out there in the sun if I wanted. Hooray. Not quite done with it, since I haven't put anything in my planter, but that'll have to wait - up here, you can't really plant anything until after Victoria Day, or maybe the weekend after that, because we still get the occasional night where it hovers just above 0C. People try to put in flowers anyway, and then have so many regrets. I'd rather wait. ;p

☆ I've been listening to an audiobook of The Lives of Bees by Thomas D. Seeley. It's about how honey bees live in the wild. Really interesting stuff! I'm learning so many new things. (I didn't know that honey bees don't hibernate. ?!) I've never seen a honeybee in my life, but by the sound of it, the area I'm in isn't very hospitable for them, so that would explain it....

☆ It's been so hot lately. And so bright. The light even seeps in through the edges of the blackout curtains. Terrible. (But much, much better than what I was dealing with before, so there is that.) Given the option of extreme cold and heat warnings, I'll take the cold, thanks. At least when it's a question of "Can I sleep in this?".

☆ I keep acquiring houseplants! Or rather, people keep buying me houseplants. Somehow, I am now responsible for a little African Violet. It's looking very shabby, but it was purchased at the grocery store, so... who knows how long it's been like that. Hopefully I'll be able to troubleshoot it and get it healthy soon.

☆ Signups for

iddyiddybangbang start July 10th. Is anybody thinking of doing it this year? I'm considering it, but between commitments and a creative slump, I really don't know. ...On the other hand, I have a nearly-finished WIP draft that is so damn id-tastic that I'm kind of embarrassed by it, so maybe it'd be a good opportunity to finally complete it and get it out the door.

+ I have a new quilt for my bed! It's actually the correct size for the bed, unlike the one I was borrowing from my parents. Hooray. It's very bright and fresh-looking; blue and white checks. It feels really satisfying to have everything come together.

+ Came across somebody randomly reccing one of my fics today. Felt really good to see that! :D

+ Ahh, the chokeherry trees are in blossom! Things are finally starting to look alive around here. We had a bit of rain and it really helped. <3

+ I started writing again! Just a little bit of drawerfic so far, but it's a good start. The creative well has been so dry lately that I'm excited when I manage to do literally anything, haha.

+ WELL. The weather on Victoria Day was craptastic, as usual, so the lunch picnic in the park that I'd planned did not happen. ALAS. When will the weather in Fort Mac stop being garbage? Only time will tell. ;V

+ I'm still working through that book I started reading a few month ago about the Baltic states during Soviet rule. The library is closed on Sundays now, which means I can only go down there to pick things up on Saturdays, and since I've been working Saturdays... well. Let's just not. But I have plenty of books at home that I haven't read yet, and some of them I've been carting around since undergrad, so it's not like I don't have anything to read. (Just the age-old feeling of "I want to read something. ...No, not that.")

+ I have a table and chairs for my patio now! Hooray! Bought it second-hand, and for a really good price. I'm pretty pleased. Now, if only the weather would start cooperating....

Ordered a sidetable. It arrived yesterday. Yay!

Settled in this evening to put it together. Put the coffee on, turned on some mood music, opened the package, and... it's missing the legs??

I was able to put in a request for replacement parts, so hopefully that'll all get itself sorted, but damn, did this evening not go how I had planned. :P

☆ Martha Wells' Murderbot Diaries series got nominated for the 'Best Series' Hugo. Nice! I hope it wins. (Of course I say this on the strength of reading only two of the novels, but you know, I liked those a lot and plan to read the rest, so... there is that.) Speaking of Murderbot, I should put the third book on hold....

☆ Work continues to be absolutely crazypants. I've been trying to train somebody, but we haven't received all of the resources that we're supposed to get, so it's been kind of slow going. Meanwhile, I have double the volume of work that I might at other times, due to the season. Fun. ;P

☆ My houseplants are enjoying how bright it's been outside lately. I have a peperomia amigo and a zygo cactus by my front window; they seem to be easy enough plants, though who knows. I'm usually not... very good with plants, really - I mean, I'm excellent at taking care of them in industrial conditions (I worked in a garden centre for a while, and apparently the place has never looked so good as it did when I worked there!) but small-scale "taking care of one plant in a pot in my apartment" is another thing entirely.

☆ Webcomic rec: The Witch Door. About two neighbours who meet by chance. Once of them is a witch! A witch whose balcony door is actually a portal to other locations both mundane and supernatural. (The prologue starts in a supernatural place, but most of the story takes place in the regular world.) Not super long at this point - I read through it in a handful of hours - but there's enough to sink your teeth into, and the art is nice, and I'm enjoying some of the characters quite a bit. Ended up adding the feed so I can keep up with it, because its posting schedule is such that I wouldn't remember to check.
[*Note - one of the characters is experiencing biphobic bullying at work, so that subject does come up - I feel it's worked into her story well but it hits close to home in some ways, ouch, wouldn't want anybody to be blindsided by it]

☆ Very brief thoughts on MAG 140-143 ( Under the cut )

I made it through November more-or-less in one piece! However, since I still have auction fics outstanding, the semi-hiatus will continue until those are complete. In the meantime:

☆ Received the furniture I ordered months ago. Also put up various framed artwork. This apartment finally looks like a real actual person lives here. ;V Amazing.

☆ I have made an ass of myself more times this month than I would like. Not going to go into details, but I figure I should get down the fact of my asshatery for the sake of record keeping. Good gods, am I ever an ass.

☆ Have been enjoying cooking experiments, reading, and having peace and quiet. Though I will admit the dark is getting to me (I miss jogging outside, gdi. The visibility is too crap to do it outside now.)

☆ Observing Supernatural fandom over the past month has been a trip. I was never deep into the canon - when I gave a try at watching it, there were only a few seasons, and I made it through maybe one and a half of them before losing interest. But not going to lie, it does have a weird and very specific nostalgic place in my heart. So seeing reactions to the final episodes has been... interesting?

☆ Still listening to The Magnus Archives. Still enjoying it. Finished Season 01 recently; partway into Season 02 now. I've been trying to take in only one episode or so per day - I hate waiting for eps to drop, and this series does have a fixed endpoint apparently, so eventually there won't be any more. I liked Season 01 a lot, which makes me slightly wary of what's to come later - the impression I get is that later parts get a bit different. Or rather, that people who love the later parts didn't like season 01 much. Something like that.

☆ Finished a fic - Contour Lines, Hetalia NL/RO, 18+

☆ Auction wip status: 1 drafted and pending edits, 1 in progress (but not as far in progress as it needs to be, YIKES)

☆ A singer I like released a new track recently. Mariel Buckley - No Surprise. Check it out if you like old-fashioned country 'n western. Come on, Mariel, when's the next album coming out?

☆ I swear I had more things that I wanted to say, but they all slipped my mind. Ahh, well. I hope you all will have a lovely December.

Over the last few days, I've been washing out some of my grandmother's old handmade house linens. Crochet tablecloths, table runners, that kind of thing. After she died, these were put in an old bin in our basement, because mom understandably didn't want to deal with it at the time.

We figured we might as well take care of it now. Upside: I'm going to get some gorgeous stuff out of this. Both my grandmother and my great grandmother did some very fine work. There's a tablecloth that's going to look great in my kitchen.

Downside: My gran had a pack-a-day smoke habit, and oh boy, can you ever tell.

With most of the things, I've been able to get the smoke out - the cotton stuff was dealt with through a sequence of soaks and scrubbing (gentle laundry soap soak, then Fels-Naptha bar scrub, then Eucalan soak, then vinegar soak, then once more with the laundry soap).

There was also a baby sweater in that bin, and that's proving more stubborn, though. A few rinses, and it still smells smoky. Bleh. It's wool, so obviously I'm not going to scrub it, but I do foresee more vinegar rinses in my future.

That said, does anybody have any suggestions for getting extremely heavy cigarette smoke out of wool, specifically? Aside from Eucalan and vinegar soaks, that is.

Various things from the past week:

+ Went for a two-hour walk/run last evening. Very refreshing! This morning I was so tired and sore that I really didn't want to get out of bed, haaa. (I'm fine though. Just have a few minor regrets. xD)

+ Received notice that my living room furniture won't be in until mid-November; I was originally told mid-October. Not a big deal, but it would be nice to have somewhere more comfortable to read than the kitchen table.

+ Made an attempt at Cooking An Elaborate Thing. It did not turn out quite right, but it was edible so whatever. Upside, it did give me some ideas for a more basic dish that uses similar ingredients in a less fussy way, and that will hopefully turn out better. :)b

+ My neighbour has a very cute dog! I saw it twice this past week. :D

+ My mom discovered a bunch more of my books in the basement. This necessitated buying another book case so that I'd have space to put them all. Whoops. At least I had the space for it. Now it's set up, and everything's on the shelves, and none of the shelves on the other cases are double-stacked, so what you see is what you get. Some of those books are probably going to go over to the Little Library once it opens again - but in the meantime they have a place.

+ I got my hair cut! Haven't had it cut since... last November? And it was driving me absolutely insane. Taking hours and hours to dry, too. No bueno. It looks SO much better, and the stylist didn't make a fuss about me wanting to take several inches off, which is a big plus. (I absolutely hate that "Are you SURE?" conversation. It's probably because they've had people get it chopped and then regret it, but... I don't mind. It's just hair, it'll grow back.) My head feels so light now. xD Must admit, it's always flattering, the way stylists gush over the colour - "People pay hundreds of dollars to have hair like this, you know!" Haaa.

+ I have lots of vacation time left! The pandemic had thrown a wrench into everything travel-related! So no Victoria for me this year, but I'm hoping to take some days off in the next month or two... depending on how things go with work. We're kind of slammed right now, and I don't want to check out when it's busy. Going to have to see what the estimated schedule is. :|a (Though, of course, things never ACTUALLY go according to schedule. And you never know when some part of the plant is going to fail and then need emergency maintenance, directing mountains of paperwork toward me.)

+ People are already starting to talk about Christmas shopping and what are you getting so-and-so and do you have a list yet and blah blah blah. Aughh! ...Then again, it's necessary, considering that everything needs to be ordered in and it can take a while even under normal circumstances. Still, I don't want to be thinking about winter yet!

So, that's about it. I hope you all had a wonderful weekend.

Heard some wacko yelling and banging on the door to my building. He kept at it for quite a while, too.

Had intended to go out for a long walk this evening, but uh... yeah, no. Man, this is something I don't miss about living in apartment buildings near major transit stations. Though it's still nothing like when I was living in Saskatoon, so there is that.

I hate that it's getting so dark out at such an early hour. I don't mind going around in the dark in general, but people who are not me can be a problem. (Also, cars.)

Luckily for me, my building has a gym, and it tends to be deadsville in the evenings. Totally not as nice as going for a good long walk, though.

Or maybe I should start doing this stuff after work instead? Going to have to think about how to juggle that kind of scheduling. I suppose it depends on what I'm planning for supper. Man, is that ever going to be a pain in the ass. Definitely going to put more effort into learning how to cook simple, healthy, fast meals...

I've accepted the fact that my eating is disordered. I say "my eating is disordered" because it's not like I've been diagnosed with anything, and I haven't sought that out, so what the hell do I know. But I do realize that my relationship with food is incredibly fucked for various reasons that I'd rather not get into. But it is a problem, and I fully intend to work on fixing this problem.

So! Yes. Learning how to cook, having a healthy balanced diet, and getting on an even keel with this is definitely a goal. Hopefully at some point I'll stop resenting the entire concept of eating.

I'm in my apartment. Hooray!

The movers were supposed to come at 9, but didn't get to my house until 2PM. Lovely. HOWEVER, it's fine. All my stuff is set up (though with all the boxes around, it's a little disorganized). Things are in roughly the place that they're supposed to be. I don't have living room furniture, but my dad did put my kitchen table together.

And obviously, I have internet. Very important. ;) Setting it up myself was kind of a pain in the ass, but at least it's done.

Now... to sleep! In my new bed! YAY.

Man, if I never hear someone say "You need to-" again, it'll be too soon. I'm so sick of people telling me what to do! Especially when I know that these are things I need to do! And I have plans to do them, and have plotted out when and how, it's just that I haven't told those plans to anyone else, because they're not the one who needs to do these things!

Yes, yes, I need to finish packing, and I need to buy groceries (and a coffee maker), and I need to make a decision about which living room furniture to order. This isn't rocket science!

On a positive note: The painter finished my apartment, and it looks great. Damn, I wish I knew somebody in the area who's looking to get their walls painted, because I'd recommend this guy without question. Anyway, the new walls are a very clean sky blue colour, with crisp white trim. Much better than the coffee-coloured walls that were there before. Dude, why. And in a north-facing apartment? At this latitude? Double why!

The movers are coming for my bedroom furniture + boxes and bins on the 15th! I'm moving in on that day!

I'm also theoretically getting my internet installed that day. Except, uh, I... have to do it myself? Like, the Shaw guy comes around with a kit, and then I set it up on my own. I don't know. Something tells me there is a chance that this is a Project that will not be finished on the afternoon of the 15th. At least, if my effort to install my mom's cable box is any indication. (Yes, yes, DIY internet installation != DIY cable box setup. And to be fair it actually turned out that there was something wrong with that cable box, which is why nothing worked when I tried to set it up. But, still. It's fiddling around with unfamiliar electronic equipment and ugh I don't wanna.)

I'm too busy to get excited about all this. I'll have time to get excited about it when everything is done!

Stuff accomplished over the last few days:

+ Went on some very long walks
+ Took a few boxes of stuff over to my apartment
+ Packed up a few other boxes
+ Handed over my apartment keys to the painters so they can do their work
+ Various chores etc
+ Finished reading The Law of Lines by Hye-Young Pyun. Good novel! Check it out if you like thrillers/mysteries. (Though I will note that the mystery doesn't exactly get solved in the end. In some ways it's more of a drama, I guess.)
+ Ran all over downtown, accomplishing nothing. See, I'm going to need to buy some living room furniture, but two of the places that sell this stuff are closed because they aren't finished rebuilding from the flood, and the place that's still open doesn't really have anything for their floor stock. Now I'm back to square one, and will probably have to order something sight-unseen. Bummer. :V
+ Worked on some FTH stuff. Now that my fic for

iddyiddybangbang is complete, I'm going to direct 100% of my creative energy to the auction fics I owe. ;V

Overall, I did manage to do more than I expected, and actually got to relax a bit, surprisingly. But I'm going to be very happy when all of this moving stuff is over with. Still need to call the cable company to arrange to get internet installed... sigh.

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Yuu. Fic writer & book lover. M/Canada.
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