Two Months: Video Games

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Starting after cleaning up Thanksgiving dinner, I’ve been putting in a few 8-12 hour days of video games. Steam had an unbelievable sale going on, and I had a backlog of computer games I haven’t been able to play in the last two and a half years since my PC broke, so I’ve been getting some play in on anything I can find that has a Mac version. This started with Evan playing a little Civ 4 on his new laptop, which I then got for myself. This destroyed Evan’s NaNo progress and my ability to go to bed at a decent hour. One thing lead to another, and we now both have Civ 5 as well (which I think I prefer, overall). I also ended up grabbing Papers, Please (a bureaucratic, detail-oriented thriller), Fez (bright and colorful!), Eldritch (MineLoveCraft), and finally got around to playing Amnesia: Dark Descent (super scary).

It is also (wonderfully so) Skyrim season here in Colorado…the sub-zero temperatures outside have made me thankful that I get to stay in. I definitely get a bit less stir-crazy every time I look outside and realize I want nothing to do with the snow. That said, in my decade plus of computer access, I’ve never spilled on my keyboard…I’ve probably spilled liquids on my bed, bedroom floor, or nightstand 3 or 4 times since I moved my Xbox into the room.

If anyone has awesome game recommendations (for 360, PS3, or Mac) let me know.

9 Things

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9 Things Every Happy Person Should Have

1. A go-to drink.

Sours. I like when they’ve got a little something extra going on for them like a flavored simple syrup or a unique base spirit (Canon has one with chamomile scotch). I love that Jeffrey Morgenthaler’s version has both amaretto and bourbon. I’ve still never had one with Pisco.

2. A go-to Karaoke song.

I have opted for the life-long oath to never sing karaoke again, or to be roped into going somewhere involving karaoke.

3. A uniform.

I’m still ironing this one out (get it?! Ironing?) I’m moving towards dark, tight pants tucked into boots, a tank top, and if I’m lucky, it’s a day that’s cool enough to wear a long-sleeved shirt or jacket. I need to work on accessories, and have been trying to hunt down the perfect black pants (and perfect purse).

My Clothes Pinboard

4. A hair stylist they love.

So, originally it was Jenny at Studio Be. She moved. I have a new hairstylist now…I can never remember her name, because it’s not Jenny (and probably because I only see her every two or three months). Luckily I called them earlier today to schedule an appointment, so I have it saved away for a few weeks…Kirsten.

For my last haircut, I cheated on Kirsten, and it was a nightmare (the girl I went to no longer works at the salon). I get to seek Kirsten in a couple of weeks, and I know she’ll make things all better.

5. An exercise routine.

I picked up the book Escape Your Shape (‘Smarter, Not Harder’ is pretty much my mantra) about 5 years ago after getting a little frustrated with an experience with a personal trainer. The exercises are easy to do without much (or any) extra equipment, there’s a little room for personal tastes (like how you want to attain your cardio) and none of the exercises hurt my back, doesn’t require an unreasonable amount of time for the workouts, and it’s really easy to find ways to increase the duration/intensity if exercises become too easy. It works unbelievably well when I bother to do it…but it’s been two or three months since I stopped doing the routine regularly. I’ve done it off and on often enough that I can do it in my sleep.

6. A hobby.

Gosh, where to start? I cook. I sew. I play video games. Sometimes I read books or watch tv. I like to do some graphic design/web design/programming outside of work-related projects. Every once in a while I do art.

7. A best friend.

I think I have a few. I hope.

8. A healthy sense of self.

Yes? Maybe?

9. A guilt-free indulgence.

Boxed mac and cheese. I prefer shapes, but you get less mac and cheese in those boxes, so it’s a bit of a trade-off. I recently made the switch from Kraft to Annie’s, and I couldn’t be happier.

Day Twenty-Eight: Messy

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A month has passed and I don’t feel like I’ve gotten much of anything done (other than gaining weight). It’s clear I’ve been spending more time at home from my things that have been strewn in every room, and I can plot a trail through the house of where I’ve been working on crafts, halfway unpacking and cleaning things, preparing food, leaving sweatshirts and socks…a path a need to retrace, wiping away my footprints. On top of that, I haven’t done any of the major cleaning projects I need to take care of…my office, the kitchen, and the basement are all still a disaster. It’s frustrating, not hearing any work back on the jobs I’m applying for, but also reasonable given the current state of my portfolio and resume. Getting them perfect is a massive undertaking, and everything is so different from the last time I was job hunting…my last job practically fell into my lap and the two jobs before that were in other fields entirely. The entire job-scape has changed immensely.

My goals for this week are to get an hour of administrative work in every day, to complete my resume so I can start applying for UX jobs, and to have wireframes for my site completed. I also need to clean out the fridge and make applesauce. I need to exercise at least 4 times.

Day Twenty-Two: Busy

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Things have been a bit crazy here at home. Between trying to get the house in shape, trying to get the work I’m still getting completed, looking for jobs, working on updating my resume and portfolio, redesigning my website, coming up with other side projects I could make to show off some of my skills, design reading and research, making costumes and doing all the other usual chores; it’s been hard to find time to write or do many relaxing things.

I really need to get back to exercising. Part of me feels like it’s a little selfish to be worrying about how I look at a time like this, part of me doesn’t really care how I look, and my mind ignores the idea for the most part because I have so much to get done. “Luckily” I’m forgetting to eat as much as I normally would, so my weight hasn’t been ballooning out of control, but with the holiday season upon us and having purchased my first of what will be many cartons of eggnog, I really should get back into the habit.

 

Day Fifteen: Food Round-up

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I’ve been cooking like a fiend over the last two weeks since I have so much extra time to dedicate to it. I figured I’d put together a list of recipes for reference.

This isn’t counting my non-recipe foods, plain ol’ boiled mussels, a tomato-anchovy-garlic pasta, loads of carefully doctored boxes of Annie’s, a big batch of breakfast burritos, a few loaves of bread, delivery pizza, and I’m sure a handful of other things I forget eating.

Alien Fruit

Day Twelve: Work

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Today I essentially worked all day: on emails, on branding, on looking for job leads, on fixing my network issues, on unemployment legalities, and getting my desk from the office and setting things up. I made a quick dinner and Evan and I played some Elder Sign and chatted over some tasty drinks he made, and then we watched a bit of Star Trek.

I’m finally able to reformat my computer, so that’s what Saturday schedule holds, also I have a number of Day of the Dead photos to edit and hopefully will get those posted soon too.

I also set up a little fundraiser so I can replace some equipment that I no longer have access to and pay for a few of my business expenses so I can freelance better in my spare time. Any small amount helps me get better.

Day Eleven: Monotony

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Overall I feel out of touch; is my email being received? Is my phone not accepting incoming calls? Are my files actually uploading or are they just pretending to transfer? Is anything being accomplished?

I had lots to work on today. Paying work. Of course, none of it was complete and it took forever to get responses, and it’s all due on the same day. Turns out that at my current rate, the most I can work in a week is 4.5 hours without it subtracting from my unemployment. Luckily one of the clients has been delivering email files weeks in advance, so I’m able to space my work appropriately. Things get a bit hectic for email at the end of the month.

Evan was super helpful today. I didn’t want to move or do anything at all today, and he cooked breakfast and bought pizza for dinner, and made me smile a few times. Otherwise the rest of the day was a blur of slowly working on emails and trying to shuffle files around on the worst internet connection I’ve experienced in years.

Internet speeds got so slow today that I contacted tech support…they have no idea what’s wrong (though were convinced it was my computer’s fault and not the network). Turns out after going through their steps, it’s NOT my devices. Sadly this means I wasn’t able to edit a big batch of pictures I was planning on posting, so hopefully I’ll have that taken care of today or tomorrow (both the network speed and the photo editing).

Day Ten: Stress

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Onions I spent most of the day tersely backing up files for the upcoming computer reformat. Turns out even with a decent sized USB drive, plus all the empty space on my Google Drive and Amazon Cloud, I still don’t have quite enough space to back everything up. It was very slow and tedious trying to squeeze anything where it might possibly fit, hoping I’m grabbing everything and that I won’t lose anything, or that everything will open alright once the reformat is over. I didn’t realize the upload to my cloud space was going to take as long as it is, and I won’t be able to reformat today (or quite possibly tomorrow) because of how slow the upload is. The hope was to have everything fixed before tomorrow, so I could start working on emails using Photoshop, but now I have to resort to slightly more elaborate and messy methods to get these emails ready.

The rest of the day was spent cooking…I made a grilled shrimp and grapefruit salad for lunch and then mussels and French onion soup for dinner. Cutting all the onions for the soup was an experience unlike any other. If I ever cut off my finger, it’ll be from chopping onions with my eyes closed.

Day Eight: One Week

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Today has largely been spent gobbling up my bandwidth…my mom’s website is a beast which I had to download, then upload elsewhere, while also uploading archives of all of my old work files to their server. I’ve been working with the slowest upload speeds imaginable. Eight hours in and I’m mostly done uploading my mom’s site, and about halfway through uploading the archives. Twitter finally got around to restoring my access.

Getting the mail today was exciting. I got an issue of Bon Appétit (Thanksgiving food, YAY!), issue 8 of Lucky Peach (which never arrive the first time around, they just resent it last week), my free Julep order (it pained me to have to cancel the subscription right away), as well as the debit card for my unemployment money. Sadly, I have to wait until the 27th before I can ask for money, but hopefully they’ll give it to me quickly.

I feel like I haven’t gotten much of anything done this week, partly due to fixing my webserver, trying to get my computer into a workable state, and getting a little overwhelmed at the sheer volume of things that need to get done. I’ve barely made a dent in anything else.