The sidequests for this week were a strange cross between simple and hard. One was to pause and take 10 deep breaths, the other was to write down 3 things I like about myself, and the last was to do a brain dump by making a list, journaling, or mind-mapping.

Okay. 10 deep breaths is simple enough. Done. But I always find it weird to do 10 – it’s an unreasonable amount if you need a short pause to re-orient your mind, especially if you are really focusing on the inhale and exhale. It feels like you may as well sit down and start a meditation session and let it lead from there. Although maybe some people need a little more time to re-set their brain if they’re really stressed.

The brain dump one is also pretty simple – I already keep a journal! I’ve written in it a few times this week. I’ve actually kept a journal sporadically since I was a teenager. Originally I wrote in a notebook to a friend I rode the bus with, and we would pass it back and forth, but at one point I decided to just do the same process in private for myself. That friend’s name was Melissa, so my journal entries used to start with “Dear Missa” because that’s what she wanted to be called for short.

…I haven’t honestly thought of her in years, until just now recalling that. I can’t remember anything else about her. It was maybe about 6th grade? Anyway, I kept journals in tiny notebooks for the next few years, writing nearly daily about all the little trivial concerns and dramas that middle school girls experience. When I moved to Oklahoma, I continued to write, but had a period of depression. I remember we had a computer for the first time, and I had initially worked to type out my old journal entries, then thought that the stupid trivial thoughts of a teenager were pointless, and I threw away all of my journals. I considered it, in part, a way to let go of the past.

Sometimes I regret it a little, but also… kind of not? I’ve done similar purges over the years. When livejournal and the deardiary website were things, I kept extensive diaries online, but then deleted and purged all of those as well. Those were likely more interesting than my middle school ones, because they took me through my older teen/young adult years when I did a lot of base philosophizing and really ironed out my personality and personal ideologies.

After that, there were a lot of false starts. I would start to keep a paper journal, but maybe only get three pages in and then wouldn’t write again in forever, so those pages got ripped out. I would use software like Advanced Diary to write for awhile here and there too. Did finally get back into the habit of journaling, and actually do keep it in smaller notebooks again. But as an adult, it’s less drama and philosophy and more of a rambling on tasks I need to complete in the next week and the occasional rant when I do need to vent. I also keep a weekly planner and try to write one sentence about each day on it.

I don’t know if at some point I will decide to toss or destroy or delete any of these current records as well. We’ll see. Sometimes I hang on to things longer than I should, but I usually do hit a point where I decide to let go.

(All of that was a little like journaling, no? So second task – done!)

The hardest one thought! I do like writing, but writing three things I like about myself is a bit hard. What do I like about myself? Let’s see…

1. (Proceeds to sit for 10 minutes staring at the screen and contemplating what I like about myself)
2. (Fuck)
3. (Man like, seriously though. FUCK.)

I feel like anything I could list is too inconsistent. I think of myself as a hard worker, but I also know how lazy and apathetic I get about a lot of things. I think I’m funny, but I’m kind of an asshole to achieve that. I’m not completely ugly? But I’m only like… average? I’m smart, but it’s the kind of above-average-below-notice that a lot of people fall into smart, nothing impressive. I don’t dislike myself, but it’s hard to think of something that I can positively say where I can’t immediately guiltily think of all of the “buts” to it.

Fuck! Let’s try again.

1. I like my imagination. I feel like I’ve used it to perhaps indulge in escapism too much most of the time, but it’s still been a lot of fun.
2. I like the fact that I can be comfortable being alone. I feel like too many people aren’t comfortable enough being by themselves and in their own head.
3. I like that I rarely feel anxious. It makes it easier to deal with certain situations.

Does that kind of work? I guess. We’ll call it works.

This week’s sidequests included putting the phone away and spending an hour with no internet, getting a houseplant, and organizing the kitchen.

There is a houseplant card for each deck, so this is the first one I’ll be getting this year. I don’t expect it to live long – they never do with me. Which is too bad, because I love hydrangeas.

Either the cat will knock it over or it will just die, despite any care I give it. We’ll see what happens first.

Spending an hour with no internet was easy – I have been reading more after all, so like all the similar challenges of that sort, I sat down and read for awhile today.

Organizing the kitchen was a little harder because I’m not a super disorganized person except for my storage areas. So the kitchen itself looks fine at a glance – until you open the cupboards. My problem areas are tupperware (but let’s face it, no one tames that) and the pots and pans and baking sheets.

This is the before picture. The thing that always bugged me a bit was that choosing a frying pan is a bit hard because they’re stacked on top of each other. The baking sheets are also kind of cluster-fucky.

So I went out and got these. In retrospect, I probably should have just gotten custom cut wood from a hardware store, because pulling apart the wood was a bit annoying, and I did have to cut down one slat to fit in the space. But I was working off of a basic concept and didn’t even know if I’d like it, so we’ll consider this early test phase. The result looks something like this:

The little wire pan organizer was really easy to put together, and did a great job. It fits the larger pans fine – I might get a second one to organize the smaller pans as well.

The little wood panels also worked great as a concept. Some things I will consider when I make a nicer one eventually: better wood is a must, and perhaps glue the panels down first before securing tightly with nails to ensure more evenness. It’ll do the job for now though. I also have the other side with baking dishes that are all glass (casserole, pie, bread dishes) and the accursed plastic container hell that needs to be organized, but those might need more creativity.

My sidequests for this week were to read or listen to a book for 15 minutes, tidy up or get rid of any clutter that was disrupting my peace of mind, and to take a personality quiz to learn more about myself.

The clutter I took care of Saturday, and not at home but at work. There was some cleaning that hadn’t been done in awhile and a few things that had been given temporary fixes instead of actual fixes, and garbage that was sitting out that no one had tossed, and I got quite a bit of that taken care of.

Reading for 15 minutes is a cinch since I’ve been doing a lot more reading lately. I finished a book I was in the middle of and am halfway through a book about Van Gogh that I picked up when I visited the Van Gogh Experience.

For the personality quiz, I thought of perhaps retaking the Myers-Briggs for the hell of it, but I broadened the Google search to see if there was anything else interesting and came across the SAPA Project. It’s a longish test, and it gives measurements on a lot more things than Myers-Briggs. It’s also free, so if you’re bored it’s a way to kill some time.

If you want to see how much of an asshole I am, you can read my results! I’m not sure that I really learned much about myself, most of it wasn’t particularly surprising. I also waste a lot of time daydreaming for someone that supposedly doesn’t according to the test, and I’m not even sure I remember what questions might have related to that. And as usual with any IQ part of anything, slightly above average but below significant notice. A genius I am not.

For this week, my sidequests included telling a friend I was thankful for them, doing something to support my health or prosperity, and brewing a special drink.

I told a few friends that I was thankful for them, but mostly because I’m awful at being nice, I took a picture of the card and texted it to them. One of them just hearted the message, and the other resulted in this brief conversation:

The card conversations were specifically from BoredWalk’s Delve Deck. A few years prior to that I had also gone through The Shame of Life cards. I would text one every day to a handful of friends and we would have brief conversations giving our answers for the cards. I was a little inspired to go ahead and splurge on a new set. I wasn’t sure on the cards I had been considering so I did a search for conversation cards on Amazon and I’ll be trying the SO… cards next. It’s a shorter deck of 52 cards, but there’s a few different volumes/types, so as I reach the end of one I can buy the next, and take up at least half the year annoying my friends with random questions.

If it hasn’t become inherently obvious, I really love card prompts/games/challenges/extras. I’m not even sure why.

For the special drink! The weather in Oklahoma has been quite warm this week so it wasn’t quite the time for a brewed drink, but I had cream I needed to use and decided some legit cocoa was the way to go.

For cocoa, I’m a little loose on measurements and you can really probably proportion the ingredients however you want. Typically I use the cup I’m going to drink from to measure my cream and then add a tablespoon of cocoa and a tablespoon of sugar, but I wanted two cups so I used up my entire container of cream, and went ahead and did 3 tablespoons of cocoa, 3 tablespoons of sugar, and a tablespoon of instant espresso because why not? Put over medium to medium low heat and wisk constantly. Constantly!

It’s going to look like a hot mess at first that doesn’t seem like it will ever come together. Then it’s going to start to blend a bit better, but you’re going to think it still mostly looks like cream. Keep going. It will eventually darken and thin out, except for a light film that covers the top. It will quite legitimately look like cocoa. That’s when it’s ready. Also great with dehydrated marshmallows mixed in, but I didn’t have any more! Alas.

As for something to support my health or prospertiy, I figured it could be something small since these were supposed to be daily cards originally. I keep a habit tracker and try to do certain things most of the week, or at least a few times a week. I committed to choosing two of those habits and actually maintaining them the entire week. Specifically drinking at least 20 ounces of water daily and taking my allergy meds/supplements (calcium, vit d, fiber, collagen) daily. It’s not a huge thing, but I’ve been trying to not leave the stupid weekly pill tray full for weeks on end, and I did actually finish it out this time – it’s almost like an accomplishment?

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