Full time babysitter, pet-sitter, and job-seeker. And yet, also a full time writer. Frequent fantasy writer, occasional scifi writer, would-be Doctor Who writer. And now a published writer!
Goal One: Get working on the YouTube backlog. Two videos per week (one per day off). These videos are already recorded and just need editing and uploading, and that’s two videos from any one of three different channels so I shouldn’t be spamming anyone any more than when I was focusing on the gaming channel.
(Edit to add: There’s also a catch to this goal. See, I’ve already got a folder on my computer with edited videos that are just waiting for my serial procrastinating self to upload. We’ll say there are ten videos in that folder for sake of argument. The catch is that there must always be at least ten–I can increase the number of videos in that folder if I edit multiple videos at a time, but I don’t allow myself to decrease the number–not until the backlog’s finished off. So right now there’s the ten, if I edit two videos in one day that means that folder has to always have eleven in it, and so on; I’m not allowed to just upload a video from that folder and decide I’m done for the day without editing another one to add to it.)
Goal Two: Lose weight/inches. No specific number here, though I’d really like my next purchase of work pants to be a result of losing a size instead of wearing holes in my pockets again. You’d think something as expensive as Duluth’s Firehose Flex would be durable enough to withstand damage from my wallet poking into it… it does last longer than anything else I bought but I’m still on the lookout for cargo jeans to see if they do a better job.
Goal Three: Working in conjunction with the above, get my room decluttered again! I can do Beat Saber in there but I’m not as confident about some of the bodyweight workouts in Zombies Run. And of course there is the need for a clearer space to refocus on the fitness games for my channel.
My non scale victories? Well, I have one victory and one related goal besides those listed above:
The victory is noticing that, after working an on-my-feet-all-day job for over eight years (after previously being an on-my-butt-on-my-pc sedentary college graduate), I can actually crouch down–and stand back up again from that crouch–without needing to grab something to brace myself. Actually the standing is easier as I’m more likely to grab something on the way down just to make sure gravity doesn’t have too much influence on where I end up. I don’t know when I started being able to do this, I just noticed it a few months ago. Still can’t do it for long because balance issues and I’m pretty sure our joints aren’t made to endure the position, but the fact that I can do it at all is still a victory.
And a related goal? Well, if you’ve ever seen those tests that correlate your ability to stand from a seated position without using your hands (or anything else in the more advanced varieties–I guarantee I’d fail every one that docked points for losing your balance) with your longevity, I’m kinda debating on if it would be worth adding a monthly short of me attempting the maneuver to my YouTube channel in the same way I’d been doing the before and after photos here to (hopefully) showcase any change in body shape.
Mentioned on a decluttering forum on Reddit that I finally Marie Kondo’d most of my book collection, thought I’d figure out what I had for photos and post about it here as well.
To be clear, I don’t have any objections to owning books… I just don’t have any particular attachment to them. The part that “sparks joy” is the reading, with only a few print copies I want to keep for souvenirs (personally autographed copies) or reference (mostly themed stuff I can’t easily get condensed into one relevant collection online, like story-universe-based cookbooks).
But it isn’t just the print books that needed decluttering. Before I started the process I had well over a thousand “personal documents” in my Kindle account, plenty for reading for sake of reading, but also far too many duplicates or reference books full of information I could easily find online (I mean, back in the day there was certainly value in keeping dictionaries and encyclopedias and how-tos near at hand, but with most ebook-capable devices also being internet-capable devices, any of these books that don’t also add entertainment value–Tough Guide to Fantasyland comes to mind–just feel like more clutter). Those had to go as well.
So… we go from sometime in the very early this century of having wall-to-wall shelves and still having so many books I had boxes of them under (and eventually behind) my bed
(This is not even close to a “before” picture as I wasn’t taking photos of the mess back then. 😉 Should still demonstrate what I had to work with though.)
To getting rid of series I’d completed, or decided I’d never continue, both to make cleaning around the bed easier and to make room for newer books.
To my first-ever ebook purchase in 2010 (Ur by Stephen King) and slowly replacing some of my print books with digital (mostly aimed at replacing copies that were falling apart rather than actually “decluttering” at this point)
To needing room for collectibles which went through their own cycle of buy/admire/donate-to-clear-space.
(That’s the cleanest my dresser’s been in years!)
To taking an interest in Virtual Reality in 2019 (the original Oculus Quest–just acquired the Meta Quest 3 last month!) and turning the need to declutter up to high gear. While I’ll never have the room for some of the really big games without picking another room to play in (nice thing about a standalone system, that), just being able to play Beat Saber without tripping or Paper Beast without having to hop in place on my bed to turn around is a plus.
And with that, my print collection is finally condensed to two fairly small bookshelves:
A small two-shelf “nightstand” that fits nicely under the table my VR gear currently sits on (DormCo/College Cube brand, wouldn’t mind getting another if floorspace allows but they seem to have discontinued the color I own), containing a couple of Doctor Who boxed sets and assorted Goodreads giveaways and crowdfunding titles stacked two deep, and a significantly larger one of a similar style (linked is one of a similar size to mine as the actual product appears to be out of stock or discontinued) containing the autographed books and themed cookbooks. Plus two other books, one I’m currently reading at home and one on my lunch break at work.
The eventual plan is to condense the books down to one unit, preferably the smaller one for reasons of floorspace though I haven’t checked the height of the cookbooks and might have to keep the larger instead.
Prior to this point I’d addressed my decluttering needs by listing nearly all of my remaining books on Goodreads and have been reading whichever titles the site identifies as the shortest–no series here so no worries about reading things out of order–as a means to get through them as quickly as possible. Now that I’ve condensed my collection this far I’m shifting focus to incorporate the need to digitally declutter. See, a lot of the ones from Goodreads giveaways are ones I’d recorded unboxing videos for and never got around to editing/uploading. While I want to finish off the ones that I know for a fact I don’t have videos for, my next step is to go through my backlog of unedited videos and start getting them onto my YouTube channel… starting with the oldest video, and if and when I come across one from Goodreads that should be the next book for me to read.
And as it happens, Faerie Ring has been uploaded to my channel for some time now.
Yup, as you might see from that coincidental thumbnail, I’m decluttering autographed copies as well. If I didn’t get it signed in person–found it in a thrift store or acquired it online that way–it doesn’t have the sentimental attachment and I just want my space too much to hold on to these “in case they’re worth money some day.” And I really can’t think of any other reason why I’d need to hold onto them any more than an unsigned copy.
With that, I also discovered I already have digital copies of some of the books that were shoved to the back of that nightstand. I won’t get rid of them yet… just until I’ve gotten far enough in my digital decluttering to make sure I don’t need to add a photo of the cover before uploading the respective video to YouTube.
After excising the duplicates and the “I can find this online” reference materials my personal document list dropped down to 670… and that’s assuming I haven’t missed any. There are still some on my computer that I didn’t send to my Kindle (yet) due to conversion requirements but I think now that I don’t have near as many to sort through I can delete the ones I don’t want before transferring instead of making them portable first.
Of course there is another shelf unit that needs decluttering, and that’s the one all the “to-be-donated” books are being relocated to. But as I’ve been dropping off a couple of books a week at a local outdoor library (once per day off since running errands takes me right past just such a place), emptying that is just a matter of time spent without acquiring more books to add to my collection. Well, without acquiring them too quickly 😉 as I don’t plan to quit the bargain bins or Goodreads giveaways or the like any time soon.
As I’ve mentioned multiple times on this site, some time in the last few years I managed to kill my appetite so effectively that I’ve resorted to packing protein packs and/or granola bars in my lunch when I go to work, just to make sure I’m eating something. (And yet I’m consuming enough calories/burning few enough comparatively, that I’m still not noticeably losing weight from it. Ugh. And still hungry an hour later when I no longer have the opportunity to eat because all I could eat when I had that chance was a dang protein pack.)
That, combined, with the age-old advice to “save money by not going out to eat,” inclines me to think this is moderately better than going out to Burger King on a weekly basis, even if the Whopper JRs are the perfect size (when I actually have the appetite to eat a whole burger) to pack in my lunches.
But just recently I realized, thanks to their $5 JR Duo deal, Burger King would actually be cheaper than my preferred “lunch kit”
Not even joking, this plus maybe a piece of fruit is “lunch” for me.
Not a huge difference, dollar per dollar–around here we’re talking about $5 for two lunches versus approaching $6 for two (not counting sales tax in either case)–but factoring that I always get the bacon and cheese Whopper JR because the duo deal is the only way I can get these extras without paying out the nose for them, and suddenly there’s a much bigger savings.
The real question, therefore, is that of its impact on my physical health. The JR is certainly a more substantial meal than the protein pack–again, when my appetite allows–and by ordering that instead of a full Whopper it’s easier to avoid the temptation to overeat, but there’s always the question of whether I need all of the bread that I simply cannot convince myself to remove and the pros and cons of any other ingredients.
Whatever, I might still keep doing this. At least once per week. Rack up those reward “Crowns” while I’m at it. (Vaguely related, I also just realized I should be due a freebie due to a “challenge” that was going on last month. I’ll have to remember to get that before it expires… and help my dad figure out how to use his freebie while it’s still valid if he hasn’t finally used it already. While I like the reward function I miss when we didn’t all need accounts for every little thing.)
I didn’t realize that my last post never went into the “habits” portion of that title. So much so that I forgot that the title even alluded to the plan. Whoops.
Anywho, once upon a time I ate oranges every day. One a day, usually, if it was something the size of a naval orange, two or three if it was more like a clementine. We’d get a bag of them from the fresh produce area and I’d have no trouble finishing them off while they were still good.
Now…? I don’t rightly remember if it was heartburn or if it’s one of many foods that suffered when I killed my appetite a few years ago and struggled to make myself eat much of anything, but I tend to forget to eat them. I can still go out and buy that bag–I prefer clementines and similar which are almost never available singly–but once they go in the fridge I kind of… forget I have them. I have two that have been rolling around for a week in the cooler I take to work, sometimes I remember to eat one or two at home, but I have to remind myself they’re an option so I can eat them before they go bad. Certainly doesn’t help when they get buried by whatever the rest of the household buys; out of sight, out of mind, yaknow?
The point being, while eating healthy has never really been the habit it should have been, it was a habit… and one I need work on reclaiming and improving. Fresh produce is better when I can get it but sealed fruits are convenient enough to pack in lunches as well; I’m especially partial to pineapple chunks.
And as always there’s the need to get back in the habit of exercising on a regular basis, whether it’s playing the likes of Beat Saber before bed or Zombies Run on my days off, or just hopping on the treadmill while watching TV.
But that’s not the only healthy habit I need to work on. I told my coworkers after a ton of stuff went down on clearance lately that if there was a god of splurging, that deity was laughing at me. None of my recent purchases were impulse, per se–unless one counts the impulse of “buy it now before it sells out so I’m not stuck paying full price elsewhere” overriding the desire to see if it drops lower–it was all stuff I needed, but it was also all a lot of spending in a short span of time.
Case in point, buying a new computer last month via the Walmart+ week (and buying one for my dad during the same sale–he paid me back but it’s still money on my credit card until the bill gets paid), followed by buying a 5 terabyte hard drive that went on clearance, and then, after deciding the same day I bought the hard drive that there were no other high-ticket items on clearance that I needed to buy… only after making that declaration did I notice that my store had also put the GoPro Hero 9 on clearance.
*headdesk* Yeah, habit is “stop spending money.” I have a couple of higher-interest savings in the form of both Paypal (4.3 percent) and ONE (5 percent) in addition to the credit union that serves as a local convenience, but regardless of location one of my goals is to get one of those balances up to about $5000 without carrying a balance on a single credit card.
And finally the perpetual habit that is decluttering:
I’d kept putting off turning in my Hero 5 for GoPro’s replacement policy due to a non-working charging port, but my biggest hang-up has always been that I’ll not only get another 5 in return but it’ll be a refurbished one… no guarantee I won’t have similar issues sooner rather than later.
A new 9, on the other hand, translates to a newer model–still no guarantee I won’t need to use the replacement plan down the line or that a refurbished one won’t have issues, but as it’s the same model as the one on my bike, there at least won’t be any accidentally plugging in the wrong battery pack overnight when my parents and I are going for a ride the next morning. Thank goodness for the Volta charger the last time I did that, I started the ride with a 26 percent internal battery and recorded for a couple of hours without it ever dropping.
With this purchase I can start getting rid of some of my extra stuff–like the Hero 5 battery pack–and better organize the accessories I can keep. I’ll also eventually want to start going through my memory cards and getting rid of the ones that are so small in capacity that I have no more use for them and/or replace some of the older ones… everything’s got a lifespan, after all.
Speaking of lifespans, that 5 terabyte drive is more a work in progress. It did not come with its own software for auto-updates, the app that came with my Seagate doesn’t acknowledge its existence (not unexpected since the new one is Western Digital, but still disappointing), and I’m not keen on the idea of software with a limited license that doesn’t even last as long as the drive does. So I’m on the lookout for software that will automatically back things up for me versus having to do it manually.
In the meantime, there’s also the matter of reorganizing the contents of each drive. I eventually want the new 5 to hold the daily backups, the older 4 to contain whatever social media content I’ve finished editing and uploading (barring the hypothetical possibility of losing accounts, I’ve yet to have any need to repurpose old photos and videos so even this merely functions as a backup)… and the unedited stuff to all stay on my computer where it will be caught up in the “daily backup” sweep. The problem is that my unedited GoPro videos alone are over a full terabyte… and the computer’s hard drive is only a single terabyte….
So final (for now) habit to reclaim…? Stop procrastinating and start editing and uploading.
The worst thing I’m finding about decluttering right now is that it seems like the easiest things to decide to get rid of are the smallest things. Like I’m still working on the “clear off spare desk/clear out floor space” objective and what I just found to donate…? A pile of bookmarks and the mug I was keeping them in. I mean, it helps, but kind of a drop in the bucket there.
That being said, sometimes I really only have the small things ready to go. And I don’t always want to wait to fill a big cardboard box to donate those (and sometimes, depending on the box, things can literally slip through the cracks, like how the banana boxes my parents occasionally get when they visit the food truck would never contain something the size of a bookmark). So I began looking for cheap plastic totes–clearance items, or marked down for damage, such like that–with the expectation that, just like the big cardboard boxes I receive every month via my Amazon drink subscription, I’d donate the tote along with its contents once it’s full. A bit more expensive than waiting to fill a cardboard box but less stuff piled on the floor if I don’t already have a box handy. I don’t plan to have a lot of them at any given time, just to something to put my donatables in at any given time.
In any case, I finally upgraded to a gaming laptop for the primary benefit of fewer cords to contend with (and the ability to carry it to another room to continue to work on assorted projects while watching TV) with the somewhat lesser benefit of taking up less desk space. With that, I was able to shuffle my VR stand to sit nearby (until such time as I’m forced to replace it due to whatever changes in design exist between the Quest 1 and the 3, case in point the rings on the controllers), with an Anker brand USB charging hub taking up one of the spots on my surge protector and set up a laptop storage stand for my considerably older 10 inch writing tablet and my Steam Deck over on my filing cabinet.
I still have to find somewhere to keep my old mini PC–among other things, dig through my closet and see if I still have the carry case that I bought for it and never used–until I’ve had the laptop long enough to be reasonably confident it works right, after which point I’ll try to sell the mini to recoup some of the costs of the laptop. This, too, means taking up unwanted space for a temporary period, but I think the main change I need right now is to increase the height of my external monitor for ergonomic reasons (I’d increased the height of my chair to make my thighs slope downwards to help fight against sciatica, but this means sitting higher in relation to the screen) and figure out where I want to set up my external speakers.
With the change in computers I’ve also made another attempt at the digital decluttering, particularly by transferring the contents of the mini over to the laptop, and then, in the process of installing programs/reorganizing due to the difference in folder structure (no built-in D drive, for instance), identifying functionally duplicate files or things that I no longer have a use for and deleting them. Case in point, I’ve watched and deleted nearly all of the various for-entertainment videos I’ve downloaded at some point and never got around to watching, with only a few weeks’ worth of Unus Annus to go and a handful of random clips that require me to download some other codec due to file type, and I still need to tackle my Zombies Run playlist so I can add daily walks back to my list of habits to maintain.
I also, in spite of continuing to tell myself to stop spending money, got my hands on a small desk that was marked down due to being a former display model. I’m currently using it for Vine packages formerly piled up on my floor with a few boxes stacked underneath (given its position under my window and directly over my register “underneath” is a limited amount of usable space) but the reason I wanted it was to start grabbing whatever knickknacks I’m fine with appearing on-camera–or even wanted on-camera all along like my Soul Gem USB light–and setting up there so they’re not all crammed together on my desk or dresser where I can’t even use them. Perhaps once my room is reorganized to my liking I’ll even move my smaller Aerogarden to that spot.
Speaking of the Aerogarden, I’m once again reminded that the benefit of this thing is that it reminds me to water my plants. Seems like the easiest way for me to kill a plant is to transplant it to a pot and continue growing it indoors.
This WAS a healthy spinach plant.
Granted, outdoors is no guarantee–bought a few lavender seedlings to plant outdoors in the hopes that they’d fare better than the seeds the squirrels kept feasting on
Can you even see it? Look close….
And the strawberries in hanging baskets (which I never took pictures of) seem like they just slowly died once I brought them home from the nursery.
But the transplanted cherry tomatoes seem to be doing well–better than the ones my dad planted outdoors from the get-go–and even taste better than the ones still in the Aerogarden (hard to say yet whether that’s breed or soil versus pure hydroponics), and some of my mint plants are filling out their outdoor planters. I might want to just invest in a raised garden bed next year and transplant whichever food items grow big enough so I can keep planting new things instead of trying for the “I can grow things even in the winter” approach I was hoping for.
Oh, and I finally finished watching American Gods and added that to the donate pile. Having already read the book I have a general idea of where the story’s going, but as they’ve made significant changes to some of the character’s arcs I’m a little disappointed they never finished it. For starters, I’d like to know how the literal god of technology can so easily be controlled… by technology. Like, shouldn’t that be the one way they can’t get power over him?
Suggested products in use:
VR Stand (holds Oculus Quest/2 and controllers, plus two traditional controllers–I have my Steam controller and a pair of JoyCons plus charging grip set up to charge–and Nintendo Switch)
raised garden bed with trellis/hanging roof (This one’s not actually “in use,” but rather is on my wishlist because I like the looks of it and think I may be buying it next year if I don’t find something I like better. Feel free to suggest alternatives!)
Courtesy of, I think, a Mother’s Day sale, I decided this year to get not one, but two Aerogardens in the hopes that growing my own salad fixings would soon be cheaper than buying them… especially given the tendency to take long enough to eat certain produce that half of it rots.
And I have on multiple occasions reminded myself just how much of a beginner I am.
Last year I’d bought a Sprout model based on it being both the smallest model due to lack of shelf space but also the cheapest… and proceeded to fill it with cherry tomatoes, plants that grew tall enough to push against the light panel.
Hindsight being 20/20, I can’t help but wonder if it quit working when it did because I’d unknowingly let it dry out and simply needed to add water, but at the time I’d operated under the assumption that the pressure from the plants had literally broken it, and I’d returned it for a refund.
This decision left me with several seed pods with nowhere to plant them. This year, we had more shelf space due to changes in furniture my parents had made and (presumably) learning my lesson I took advantage of the sale on the Harvest XL. (Honestly if we had the shelf space for it I’d buy a second one.)
There I proceeded to fill it–every spot–with those same leftover cherry tomato seed pods. Only afterwards did I learn that you’re only supposed to put two of them in there due to how big around they get so once the weather allowed we transplanted four of them outdoors.
Never thought to take pictures from last year but the plants from this year’s attempt are a decent size now! Just not… edible yet.
(Shown: Golden Harvest, left, and Mighty Mini, right. Look closely and you might be able to spot the blossoms on the Golden while actual tomatoes are obvious on the Mighty. Not shown: plugs for the empty holes to protect against bacteria… waiting for those to arrive.)
Not long afterwards I decided to buy another Sprout to grow spinach (courtesy of the “grow anything” seed pods) and mint… one for food and the other for the scent. In addition I bought an outdoor hydroponics garden for more spinach plants.
Here we have my attempts at seven different spinach plants (mint was in the middle of the Aerogarden before I transplanted it to the pot in front) of five different breeds: Odd, given that I’m reading that spinach is harder to grow indoors, that the only one that’s growing is one of the Aerogarden plants.
(Photos taken June 15, prior to harvesting the single spinach plant but after transplanting the mint became necessary due to the spinach blocking the light. Still looking for a good place in the kitchen to move that pot since the whole idea is using the scent for an ant repellent.)
And the same spinach again post-harvest, alongside of another mint (planning to transplant this one outside my bedroom window because the scent is also useful for migraines) and my last lavender seed pod (also for ant-repelling reasons–tried planting some directly in the dirt outdoors but the squirrels helped themselves instead) Both herbs are sprouting but the lavender is so much newer that it was hard to get a good angle to show it.
(Photos taken July 3.)
The spinach I grew wasn’t bad overall but some of the odder-textured leaves also had an odd taste to them; makes me feel like I might’ve waited too long to harvest given what I’m reading about the stuff “bolting” and how that affects pre-existing leaves. Still, I consider it enough of a success that my next experiment is simply to see how well it grows back. And at some point next year I may invest in a raised garden bed that uses actual soil instead of relying on the hydroponics thing, just so it’s easier to refill when the growing medium inevitably needs replacing.
Going back to the “I wish I had more shelf space for another Harvest,” I’d like to look into growing yet more spinach options so I can harvest it sooner, like when it’s actually small enough to be baby spinach, without taking out an entire plant. I can add bought greens to the stuff I’m growing but I don’t want to….
My strawberries, however… are very sad….
And of course it’s too late in the year to easily buy more seedlings. Plenty of flowers to be found but very few to none of the foodstuffs that I actually want.
In my case the whole benefit of an Aerogarden isn’t space–it’s actually easier in that sense to grow everything outdoors because we have a decent-sized yard in a rural area and don’t have a lot of shelf space for these devices. No, it’s simply the amount of work to be done. Certainly I have to take into account the need for pollinating those cherry tomatoes at some point, and I have to add water and the plant food instead of relying on Mother Nature to do that part for me… but there’s no weeding, a lot less exposure to bugs and critters (hello squirrels!), and it’s all kept in as controlled an environment as the inside of my house can be.
Oh, and I can (in theory) get the fresh produce I want grown locally at any time of the year, and not be too limited to the whims of the weather. Especially nice when I live in a winter wonderland.
So my days off have been pretty occupied for assorted reasons since my first-in-a-while Zombies Run update, but I finally got my room decluttered enough to get back to playing the likes of Beat Saber after work….
Just in time for a sciatica flare-up. After a few days of that I finally stopped having (frequent) spasms shooting down my legs every time I tried to take a step, but my butt muscles were tense enough that it still made me walk funny, which threw off my stride, which caused one side of one leg to cramp up, which was painful enough to make me walk funny….
Ugh. After a week of that, and seeing the number on the scale creep ever closer to 200 (realizing just how close I am to changing the hundreds digit is so much more of an “oof!” than going from 189 to 190 ever was), I finally decided I needed to at least attempt some of the more “gentle stretch” esque songs.. on easy mode of course.
Managed to go a few days in a row after that without all of that pain but today my back and tailbone are crying for a heating pad again.
I wish there was a way to reset my progress in the game though. In Beat Saber and in others. Not a way that requires reinstalling, not with the risk of losing access to the game until I’ve replaced my headset. No, there should just be an option that says “delete save” somewhere on, like, every game I have.
Why? Because I use the scoring system to see if I’ve done well enough at a particular difficulty level to try moving on to the next level, and it has been about a year since I’ve played…. I mean, I suppose I could watch my heart rate instead since I’m playing this for fitness reasons instead of competitive ones, it’s just that the score in the game is right there in front of me.
After dithering for a while about spending the money for an IP rating more suited to dirt roads and downpours, I finally got my hands on a new set of bone conduction headphones. (My old Aftershokz Trekz still work but I’d need a new pair sooner or later so when a different brand appeared in my list on Amazon Vine…. *shrug* It was cheap enough even if I’d bought it outright that the “you must pay income taxes” implication of getting it through Vine made it worth trying.)
Also on the subject of “I’d need a new one anyway,” I finally caved and bought myself a new cell phone, so there’s waiting for that to arrive. Unlike the headphones, I’ve started having problems with the old one, ranging from simple compatibility issues with regular apps due to it being past the end of its life span for OS updates to actual hardware issues due to the number of times it’s been connected to a charger over the last five years and change (cords have started randomly falling out, which is always “fun” to discover on the drive to work when I’m trying to start my shift on a full charge).
But in the meantime I decided it was high time to make an effort at restarting my exercise routine. And since my room still needs decluttering and my current phone still technically works, that meant starting up Season 2 of Zombies Run.
Surprisingly, I don’t seem to have lost much progress in terms of my pace given that I went most of a year not doing any of my workouts. Contrast that 17 minutes and 4 seconds (13 seconds according to the Zombielink site) to the last time I did a GPS-enabled workout in April last year, and when I started trying to do this on the regular in January 2021:
My inexpert eye tells me I’ve made quite a bit of progress over the course of that year and change… and managed to keep it during my unintentional hiatus of about another year. I mean, a professional athlete might see this as a loss… but a professional athlete is probably also going to have a much faster pace anyway; it’s all about the percentages at this point.
Now if only my weight agreed with the kept progress. Still wearing a US men’s waist of 33 but they’re a bit snug at the worst of times, and my weight’s been fluctuating between 195 and 198. Well, until this morning… pretty sure the scale quit working on me because as much as I like the number it gave me I highly doubt I lost 30 pounds in one day! (Note, the scale was moved so the bathroom could be vacuumed and mopped. It may just need another attempt at reconfiguring as a result of that move or it may actually need replacing. If the second, I do have another digital scale via Vine lying around.)
While I don’t do night walks (unless you count “the sun went down before I got back home”), my willingness to walk during downpours means I still need something for added visibility even on my side road with very little traffic. To that end, I have a reflective vest (bought), a chest/back light (Vine), and now a pair of slap-bracelet style lights (Vine). Debating on getting another pair of the bracelet lights so I’ve got one for each limb though the trick is deciding what color will be most effective. This, too, makes decluttering a necessity as this gives me three (eventually five) items that will need to be kept charged in preparation for my outdoor walks, meaning I’ll need a convenient spot to set up a USB charging hub to keep all of them together.
Oh, and sort of tech-related… I now have two Aerogardens and an outdoor hydroponics garden. Let’s see if I can actually grow my own salad ingredients for (eventually) cheaper than buying them…. And keep looking for a shelf that fits over my sink for an herb garden. Not for cooking ingredients though I wouldn’t mind trying, but for the scent… I like peppermint and the pests don’t.
Finally downsized the pile of Vine orders to a single small-ish shipping box… and a nearly empty one at that. (Well, in terms of floor space; still got assorted bottles occupying my dresser.) In fact, the only reason I still have the shipping box is to keep the assorted products within from spilling over and making a bigger mess until I’ve finished sorting through them.
With that in mind, maybe I can finally get back to playing my fitness games again soon (especially since I’m starting to gain weight again)… just in time to find out that Oculus has removed support from even more games, including ones I already own. Does this simply mean I can’t buy any more DLC in the likes of Beat Saber until I have the money to drop on a new Quest, or will it mean I can accidentally screw myself out of games I’ve already paid for until said new Quest is bought? Only time will tell, but thankfully the Q3 inches ever closer so hopefully I’ll be able to make the purchase before getting an answer that is drastically out of my favor.
And as always, I’m still trying to read through my read-and-redonate pile to declutter that. When I’m not distracted by social media, of course.
The plan remains to empty off the l-desk enough to simply get rid of it for floorspace, then rotate the remaining furniture in my room for easier access to outlets, then set the BHG cube organizer from my closet (replacing the single with two narrower ones to sit on either end and serve the purpose I bought the first one for–keeping the closet floor clear of clutter and the hanging bar clear of clothes I only need for special occasions) by my remaining desk to better spread out my gaming and recording equipment instead of trying to cram everything together.
But there is another form of decluttering going on… the entire household decluttering and downsizing to have less stuff taking up space and collecting cobwebs. In addition to my parents going through their own book collection to see what physical copies they have no particular attachment to, there are also movies that were either bought cheap with the expectation they might be worth buying “even if we only watch them once” and others that none of us plan on rewatching enough to bother keeping. (One of my hypothetical goals is to condense this media enough to get rid of at least one of the shelf units I’ve loaned to my parents for the job. Whether we all want to get rid of enough stuff to make this happen, hard to say, but at least it’s a more concrete goal than “have less stuff.”)
Case in point, aside from binge watching in preparation for the new movie, we have no pressing need to hang on to our John Wick collection.
And I gotta tell you, these movies are actually pissing me off. Not in a “bad acting etc” kind of way, but in the sense that I can see why Wick himself is pissed off at the people he works for. And not just random moments, either, which can be expected, but the entire plot. I mean, it’s clear that this organization’s rules don’t exist to instill any concept of honor; there’s evidence enough of that in the second movie with Mr. “I want you to kill my sister, but what kind of brother would I be if I don’t avenge her when you’re done.” Dude, an honorable man, to whatever extent one exists in this organization, would avenge her by going after the person who put out the contract on her… oh, but wait, that’s you.
Same problem with consequences for their actions… they exist for the peons, even the legendary ones you’d be stupid to mess with aka Wick, but not for the higher-ups. Just consider how many times the characters go on and on about how Wick killed so many people over “a dog and a car” as if that automatically makes his actions any less rational than any other reason these people operate. One: the dog was an innocent and didn’t deserve what happened. Two: there’s what the dog represented to Wick. Three, and even the memes keep missing this one: if the dog and the car were so worthless as far as judging Wick’s actions are concerned, then you take them out of the equation… and you’re still left with a group of thugs breaking into Wick’s home, beating him to within an inch of his life–over something the organization judged as not worth such actions–and finally, daddy sending killers after Wick before Wick took action against any them.
Oh, and you know the concept of the frequency bias? I’ve watched a bit less than half of American Gods (another one on the “bought cheap” list–not a fan of how gory some it gets so I originally planned to just watch until House on the Rock and then donate the copies I’d gotten for Black Friday one year, but later on I found the entire box set for cheap and decided it was short enough that I might as well finish the series) and now it seems like Ian McShane just keeps popping up in things before and after.
Case in point, in addition to John Wick, I’ve also recently watched a preview of Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides (which, courtesy of my American Gods remark, came out when I wouldn’t have known who he was anyway) and was surprised to find out that he was Blackbeard. Plus random other shows where I recognize him in an episode here and there.
Not because my Quest One has quit working, though given how long it’s been gathering dust as I attempt to declutter and recover floorspace yet again it’s a little hard to say. But rather because, as per the post title, support for it is disappearing. More and more games that simply aren’t designed to work on the older model (Resident Evil 4 was, apparently, only the first), features I’ve been waiting for since they were announced that are available on the Two but never made it to the One (Guardian Space Sense, finding out the new Wireless Bridge only lists the Two as compatible, etc), and now finding out that games that used to be compatible with the One are now no longer (found this one out when I tried to buy Les Mills when I had a 30 percent off coupon).
I can still use the Quest One… for now. And budget being what it is I don’t anticipate replacing it until the Three comes out–worst case scenario this would at least let me compare specs before deciding which model is best for me. But thanks to these discoveries there’s now the underlying paranoia that at some point games I’ve already bought may quit working due to updates, and more to the point, quit working before I can afford to buy a new headset. While they are tied to my account and would presumably be accessible as soon as I can manage such an upgrade, such a change would still mean temporarily losing access to content I’ve paid for due to changes on FaceBook’s end rather than due to, say, my lack of floorspace; thank goodness none of these involve pay-for subscriptions.
In other news I’ve heard that Sony has finally announced a timeframe for their new VR system. I keep saying “budget being what it is” I don’t expect to get a PS5 (assuming availability) until that’s released, but the expected date of February next year is so soon, before tax refunds come in, that I don’t know that I’ll even be trying to get it then… especially not since the VR system alone costs almost as much as the console. We’ll see. Maybe I’ll get lucky and they’ll release a bundle of console + VR that’s slightly cheaper than buying the two separately. (Did they ever do that for the 4? I don’t remember.)
Drop what I owe on my student loan to below $22,500.
Drop what I owe on my car loan to below $15,000.
Save at least $4000 in my checking account.
Convert said checking account from a Kasasa Tunes account (up to $10 cash back per month for purchases on Amazon, iTunes, etc) to a Kasasa Cash account (an interest-bearing account with no upper limit on my rewards). Based on the rates at my local credit union, I’ve calculated that the account must have shy of $4,000 at minimum for the interest to exceed the $10 monthly reward on the Tunes account, thus the previous goal.
Switch all of my monthly subscriptions over to the card used to earn Kasasa rewards (so as to meet the requirements for the previous goal without going out of my way to make extra purchases for the purpose) and start contributing to the people I follow on sites like Patreon.
Side Quest Publications 