Author: Mary

Things and such.

Sidequest Week 36

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Sidequests for this week included visiting a local attraction, hanging an inspirational poster or picture where I will see it often, and researching my name’s meaning.

This weekened I visited a Buc-ee’s gas station for the first time. Those tend to be treated more like a tourist attraction for Texas, and I have friends that love to go and buy lots of the merch and snacks. I primarily went for the snacks. The nearest one to me is the one in Denton, TX, which was still a good couple of hours away, but it was a fun experience at least.

The inspirational poster one was a bit hard for me. I ended up buying one, but gifting it to a friend.

She loves unicorns. It was actually something I had bought at Buc-ee’s. I know the goal was the hang something where I could see it, but I do have things that kind of count near my computer anyway. I have a cut out from a daily calendar of quotes that I was rather fond of and cut out to tape to the base of my computer monitor. It says, “Fear not for the future, weep not for the past.” – Percy Byshe Shelley.

I think most people have looked up their name’s meaning before so that was a fairly easy one for me. There are many different name meanings for Mary, depending on what you consider the root word to be, but the associations with “the sea” and “bitterness” are the most commonly found ones. It’s typically associated as a Biblical name. But also depending on the root, can mean “rebellious” or “beloved” or “wished for child” which are not meanings I had seen before.

These ones weren’t too bad. I’m thinking perhaps this next week I will try to do double to make up for the missed week. We’ll see – it depends on how chaotic things get for me.

Sidequests… oops!

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I didn’t complete any sidequests this past week for once! Which means I will be running a little into the new year instead of evenly finishing out this year, or I will have to double up on sidequests for one week. I’ll decide how I want to handle that at a later point.

I’ve been ridiculously sick and mostly in bed through the latter half of last week though, so I feel like that is a decent’ish excuse?

Sidequests Week 35

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The sidequests for this week included getting a new plant, deleting the apps on my phone that don’t bring me joy, and a writing prompt to narrate my day as excitedely as possible with exaggerations welcome.

The plant one was a little difficult because this isn’t really a season when normal stores sell an abundance of plants. And the ones they do have aren’t ones I really want. I didn’t want to make a special trip to a particular store or nursery to complete this one either. After some thought, I figured my best bet was to go to a pet store and get some cat grass – then it would definitely be something pet friendly. As it turned out, they were also selling live catnip plants, so I opted for that instead. Typically I’m a black thumb so I would say the thing is doomed, but my boyfriend says he’ll keep it alive, so we’ll see.

The app deletion is a lot easier. Usually I keep my phone pretty clear of apps I no longer use, or don’t plan to use again. There were a few that I hadn’t made a lot of use of recently (about 3) so I went ahead and cleared them. I suspect I will redownload one in the future though (specifically the fitbit app, if I decide to get myself a new fitbit).

The writing prompt is actually kind of hard for me because enthusiasm and excitement is not my forte. But here goes:

This morning I woke, looking at the clock. An alarming thought crossed my mind – had I dreamed his alarm clock going off earlier, or had it gone off and he was now late for work? I said his name, and looked over to see him wide awake in an instant. “What time do you go to work?” He was not late, and I hadn’t dreamed it – he’d accidentally set his alarm for the wrong time.

Later I got to work less late than usual. In fact, I was almost on time for once! It was a mostly quiet day owing to the holiday. Because my fellows have failed to train our work-child on it for another month in a row, I was forced by my boss to complete a most arduous task – the return of expired products!

At one point early in the day, the younger pharmacist (who was working at another store) challenged our elder to a competition to see who would complete the most immunizations this day. Though she did turn out the higher numbers, we had a surprise guest. A customer that none had ever seen, but all had heard from multiple times on the phone. She appeared before us in person for the first time ever in order to obtain her shots. And so our boss declared herself the winner, despite her poorer showing, because this one patient incited the younger pharmacist’s jealousy.

I also enacted a most evil plot – when a coworker said that she desperately needed to visit the bathroom, I sent her to train one of the work-children on a task that took place right next to running water! She was most displeased.

And now I am home, listening to my lover die of the man-flu!

I mean, it was a work day, and Labor Day, so not very exciting. Outdate returns aren’t that hard to complete at all, but they do keep forgetting to train one of our newbies on it every month. Also, I didn’t send my coworker to stand next to running water while she had to pee on purpose. I honestly didn’t even think about it, then she asked me afterwards if I had done it on purpose. “Oh! Oh no… but that would have been great! I wish I could say I did it on purpose!” I said.

And so that one sidequest is kind of last minute-y, but I usually forget most of my days pretty quickly and there was literally nothing to report for Sunday other than I slept and kind of cleaned, and then ate food, and then slept again.

Sidequests Week 34

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My sidequests for this week admittedly underwent a little shifting. What I ended up with included taking a long shower or bath, drawing or painting a picture, and having some tea or a warm drink.

I find long showers very relaxing, so that wasn’t very hard to do, and that sidequest was knocked out quite early in the week. All it takes is a very long day of work to motivate me to do something like this one though.

I have been working on a drawing off and on for the past month or so, but haven’t spent a lot of time on it. I honestly did not spend a lot of time on it this week either, but instead of starting something new, I forced myself to sit with it and make some corrections. I may have made it worse instead. Hrm. It feels a little like cheating to make that how I meet this sidequest, but I haven’t felt very artfully motivated for awhile now. Of course, that’s all the more reason to force myself to work on something – you really shouldn’t just do things only when you feel like it.

It’s been really hot where I am – the weather is very regularly in the triple digits. So having tea is probably the last thing I would normally want to do. But when I had gone to the farmer’s market before, I had bought some loose leaf lavender chai tea. So I decided to have that. I have a sweet tooth, so I dropped about 8 cubes of sugar into the cup. The spice blend was quite potent. I like it quite a lot, and might have to remember to buy a full size bag the next time I visit their booth.

Sidequests Week 33

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The sidequests for this week included relaxing my shoulders, unclenching my jaw, and taking a deep breath; taking a quick nap with my feet up; and rearranging a room.

I cheated a bit as far as rearranging a room goes. I didn’t fully rearrange a room, since I had recently rearranged the entire house. But I did rearrange the closet again because I had more stuff that needed to be stored better than it had been, and I think that counts.

I don’t usually nap with my feet up, but I am no stranger to naps. Naps are wonderful, after all. I used a pillow to elevate my feet and took a nap that way. I didn’t really notice it being any significantly different than a normal nap though.

There were a few stressful moments this week, so I did use the de-tensing sidequest a few times. Each time I glanced at the card and remembered it was something I needed to do, and especially when I was stressed. So it turned out to be a nice reminder to stop carrying tension in my body.

All in all, a simple week of sidequests.