forestofglory

I mentioned in my last post that I have been able to do more things with my wrist. I'm still very happy to be able to do more things! I though would talk about a few of the things I've been doing recently.

*I went to the fabric story with my mom and got things to turn one of my finished baby quilt tops into an actual quilt! This will absolutely not be finished by the baby shower next week, but there's a good chance I can get it done before the kid turns one. I also let the kid pick out fabric for me to make her a dress, which should be a fun project

*R backed a game called Flamecraft on kickstarter and his copy arrived the other day. It's supper cute game featuring adorable dragons! R called in a "medium weight worker placement game" Anyways ways we played it the other day and it was fun and adorable! There is art of small dragons carrying large cakes, and making fancy coffee drinks. There's a bakery called Critical Rolls! We are planning to play again soon.

*I got a lovely brush fountain pen for my birthday but I wasn't able to use it due to my wrist. But now that things are a little better and my OT advised using larger writing implements I've started using it to practice writing a hanzi. I mostly just write the same characters over and over but it's nice. between the long break in practice and getting used to my new pen my handwriting is not very good, but it's improving

Bits and bobs is my "many things make a post" series where I talk briefly about several unrelated things.

*I finished lesson 10 in A New Practical Primer of Literary Chinese by Paul Router so once I finish the review section I'm working on now I will be done with the 1st unit! I'm currently in a frustrating place where I want have better vocabulary so I can read more but one of the best ways to grow your vocabulary is to read. I generally love that my text books have used actual historical works for the readings. However I am starting to wish that graded readers existed as thing in Classical Chinese. If I had the equivalent vocabulary in Mandarin there would be a lot more reading material for me, so I am considering taking a break for classical to do some Mandarin. But I haven't decided yet.

*I recently got some spring 2022 tea in the mail! Not a huge amount just a bit of Biluochun and bit of Longjing. (and also some pu'erh which not this years tea) I have become so into tea over the last couple of years. But its nice to have tasty hot beverages and pretty ceramics to drink them out of.

* The weather here has been more weather like then normal. We had mini heat wave and then right after some cold rainy days. I'm sure this is normal elsewhere, but I'm not used to such rapid changes.

*This Saturday my group watch is going to watch the last two episodes of Nirvana in Fire. It's been really lovely rewatching the show with a group.

Bits an bobs is my many short unrelated things make a post category. Comments on any topic welcome, no need to comment on all of them.

*Our neighbor got some yeast form her daughter's restaurant and shared it with us! R made some yummy sandwich bread and I the kid and I made challah. We also got some bread and pastry for a local bakery. There was mix up and our order was ready to pick up on Friday instead of today, so for bit we where worried we would have too much bread! But we gave my mom a loaf of the challah an where able to freeze some of the other bread so none of it should go to waste.

*We have been taking the kid on some walks and such to try and get some of her energy out. Last Wednesday for Earth Day we went on a longer walk with some signs telling us about the native plants. It was nice, but the trail was super narrow it was hard to pass people.

*The weather here has been pretty nice. It was so rainy last month that everything is still very green! But except for the last few days which have been a bit too hot it has been pleasantly warm outside, which makes for especially lovely walks.

*I have gotten slightly further with the dress I'm sewing that uses a new pattern. I have printed out and taped together all the pieces! Meanwhile I have also cut out all the pieces for yet another quilt top -- yes I know I have three unfinished quilt tops, and I shouldn't really start another one. But I like making them so much. Sadly I don't like making the rest of the quilt as much as I like piece the tops, but I am making small amounts of progress towards finishing the others in that I have ordered fabric for backing, and batting. My local fabric store is doing curbside pick up!

*Yesterday was my mother's annual tea party. She has one every year to celebrate the anniversary of her cancer diagnosis. 23 years this year! We have whole menu that we do most years, scones, and ginger pound cake, and little sandwiches. Of course we couldn't do that this year. But I made some scones and my brother took some across town so he and my parents could have some. And we had Zoom call with lots of my mother's friends. It was nice that some far away people could join us, who normally wouldn't make it, but I still wished that I could feed everyone scones!

Bits an bobs is my many short unrelated things make a post category. Comments on any topic welcome, no need to comment on all of them.

*It has been raining since Thanksgiving, and everyone in my household expect me has been sick with a bad cold. The kid stayed home on Monday (which is a work day for me) but was well enough to go to preschool yesterday and today. However this morning she slept in almost and hour and was late to school.

*Many of my internet pals have offered to send holiday cards and I have signed up for a lot of them. I'm excited that I will be getting mail, though I feel a little bad that I'm not sending anyone anything. I am however pleased that I realized I can used some of the space I created by getting rid of books that I'm not friends with to display all my holiday cards. I now have a nice empty shelf waiting.

*I have stared reading Winnie-the-Pooh to my kid! As you might have gathered form my icons, I'm very fond of Winnie-the-Pooh, and its lovely to share something something I love with my kid. Also rereading the stories again, I'm charmed once again by the characters and the the prose.

*I have been meaning to upgrade to a paid account for ages, and I finally did it yesterday since the sale announcement reminded me. I'm not sure if I will actually use any of the paid features, but I'm happy to give DW some money. Maybe I will go upload some more icons? I have been remembering to use different icons for posts and comments slightly more recently and it might be nice to have a few more. Anyone have recommendations for places to find icons?

*N came down with stomach bug Tuesday night before dinner. Poor little mite was very sick, and we where up all night changing the bedding again and again. After having a sick day on Wednesday she seemed back to normal. However this early this morning (like 4 am) R came down with it. So my last couple of days have involved a lot of vomit and taking care of people, and not a lot of focus or writing anything longer than a tweet.

*PG&E called last night to tell us that they might shut of the power again tomorrow. Or they might not. Who knows? The weather is very hot and windy so I hope the state remains mostly not on fire and the air quality stays ok. Hopefully the rains will start soon and we will get out of this fire season before anything awful happens.

*I'm not taking part Yuletide, the annual rare fandoms exchange that comes out on Dec 25, but I sure am enjoying all my friends being excited for it! Guardian and Gideon the Ninth tied for most nominated fandom and it it feels like everyone I know is excited for at least one of those two things if not both, which is just lovely.

*Today is the Midautumn Festival and twitter is making me want mooncakes

*I'm still getting used to the new routine of N having pre-school five days a week. It's mostly been good. But mornings have been a bit stressful. There has been a certain amount of disagreement about getting dressed. I'm still not quite sure what day of the week it is some days. Last week I almost forgot to to go to the library on Tuesday! It doesn't help that the last two Mondays have been off -- first it was Labor day and then I was sick.

*On the subject of the library I have very little self control when putting books on hold. I keep saying to myself "I'll just check and see if the library has it, but I won't put a hold on it yet" and then putting a hold on it. I suppose that a pretty harmless problem. Also it library news there's now an official date for Link+ the statewide (and awesome) ILL system to to be back. It Oct 31! I've missed Link+ so much -- its been down since May.

*I've decided that brainstorming five workable ideas is not actually very actionable. I can't decide what ideas are workable or not. So I've just got a piece of paper and I'm writing stuff down on and I will pick at least one idea form there to try at the end of the month.

*Today is the last day this year for the California legislature to pass new laws. I've been trying to keep up with the flurry of new bills this week, but I haven't really manged. Still several good housing laws, including just cause eviction and a limit to rent increases have passed.

Bits an bobs is my many short unrelated things make a post category. Feel free to comment any of the points without commenting on all of them

*I had a pretty good birthday. Thanks everyone who took part in the rec party, it was fun. (comments are still open if you'd like) I had yummy Korean food with my parents and one of my oldest friends. Also cake. And I got given books and chocolate.

*So I generally have a cup of herbal tea in the evenings as part of my winding down routine. Last night I wasn't paying attention and grabbed a bag of green tea instead. It was supper fruity blend so I didn't notice until I'd drank half the cup. Even though half a cup of green tea is not a lot of caffeine I couldn't fall asleep for most of the night. So now I am very tried. I guess this makes me realize that my sleep hygine stuff is working though, because I haven't had a really bad night like that in a long time.

*R got home form Gencon last night! Yay! He had really good time and I'm very glad to have him back again.

*A thing I am learning about music is that sometimes it a good way to block out other sounds. I bet a lot of people know this but hey my auditory processing stuff is so different I sometimes have to discover stuff for myself. I tend to think that quiter is better. But noise I can control myself is better than three people talking in the background when I can't quite hear what anyone is saying. So anyways I've been listening to stuff when I'm working in the kitchen and I don't want to hear other people on the same floor and that's been good.

*I've been thinking about tropes a bunch lately. I'm not super trope focused reader. I'm not sure if that's because I tend to be more drawn to fiction that explores certain issues rather than situations or because a lot of troupes that are popular in fandom are nice but not things that get me very excited. Like I enjoy tropy rom con stuff but not because of any specif trope. There are tropes I really love but they tend not to be the focus on fandom squee as much. Like Alien Baffled by a Cat, or feeding people to show affection. I don't know. I will probably be mulling over this for a while.

*I finished the quilting on the baby quilt!

*On the subject of goals I think the solution to both my Guardain rewatch problems is the same: watch the last couple of episodes in smaller chunks. Then the angst will be less immersive, and it I'll be able to fit it to some of the smaller gaps in my schedule where I couldn't watch a whole episode.

Bits an bobs is my many short unrelated things make a post category. Feel free to comment on just some of the points

*My local library has new online catalogue. I'm not quite sure what I think about it. It's different and I'm still getting used to it. It seems to do everything that old system did anyways. But I find it slightly harder to tell which holds are ready to be picked up in the new interface. I hope the new system is helpful to the library staff. ILL has been down for a couple of months while the got the new system running, and I hope it comes back soon.

*Several people on my reading page are doing the sunshine_challenge and the current prompt is about fanish identity. I'm currently having a lot of feelings about my fanish identify because its been changing recently. At first I felt like I shouldn't be having these feelings because a lot of my friends live in the intersection of con-going, Hugo voting, book fandom, and transformative works fandom and they aren't failing around being confused all the time. But they I decided that its normal to be off balance when something about your identity shifts. And my fandom has always been an important part of my identity since I was kid who read a lot. I'm also having to tell myself very firmly that people aren't going to be annoyed at me for writing about different things. Heck a lot of the people who subscribed because I was regularly recing short SFF are transformative fans too. And if people do get board they can unsubscribe and that's ok too. Ugh, feelings are hard sometimes.

*I have new sofa in my work room, or what ever you call it -- the room with my computer and sewing machine, and also lots of our books and board games. The sofa is replacing and armchair so now there's squishy seating for for than one person which I think will be nice. Anyways we took a trip to IKEA and sat on a bunch of sofas and then yesterday while I was at work R went a got this one and we set it up when I got home. The one problem is that they only had white covers and I know I won't be able to keep it clean. Meanwhile the new sofa is highlighting how grungy and untidy it is in here.

*Yesterday was a no good very bad day for listening to podcasts on my commute. It the morning I forgot to grab my ear buds. Luckily I had a book -- but I have trouble focusing on reading on the bus. So I bought cheap pair of earbuds for the way home. And then my phones volume control decided to go haywire and keep randomly muting itself. I think the problem may be a sticky button-- it done this before but less badly-- and it seems to only happen on the bus. Anyways it made it impossible to listen to my podcast which was frustrating. I'm going to try to go for a walk latter today and listen to the rest of it. Hopefully everything will work then.

*The other day on my commute I listened to the Antimatter Pod episode on Motherhood in Star Trek. Its great! Now that I've caught up with Discovery I can check out their back catalog!

*Other the weekend I bashed my right knee into the bathroom counter and it really hurts! Its still brusied today, but I took I walk anyways because after a very gloomy May we are have a mini heat wave and I wanted to be outside. I ice the knee afterwards so hopefully that will be ok.

*Today I baked a milk chocolate cheesecake for R's up coming birthday. I've been using this recipe for his birthday cake for a few years now and its really good.

*Also this afternoon my niece, who is about 11 came over. She spent most of her time playing Mario. I never really got to play video games as kid -- one the perils of being a girl I guess. Now I'm very bad at the hand-eye stuff needed to play a lot of games, so I'm happy to give my niece a place to try out those kind of skills. The rest of my family doesn't really approve.

*My kid brought home a stomach bug and we were all sick over the weekend. I'm still not feeling fully recovered.

* A lot of people I know are into found family in SFF. And I like it too but it struck me today that a lot of SFF media is bad at family of origin. Like there's my whole thing about moms. But also SFF is not great at siblings, or cousins or aunts and doesn't do a lot of large complex families.

*kinda relatedly I think the reason I'm so interested in fiction about mentorship is that I really want to be someone's mentor someday. Too bad that I'm not really an expert at anything and am thus not sure what I could mentor someone in.

*I really hate it when I have hold on something at library and the person who has checked out the book doesn't return it on time. Please, other person who I've never met I want my turn to read the books.