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.
My sidequests for this week included going to a farmer’s market, breaking a large overwhelming challenge into smaller tasks, and organizing the files on my computer.
The farmer’s market quest was mentioned last week. Several years ago, the town I live in started having a Farmer’s Market during certain times of the year on Saturdays. It was successful enough that they decided to put it in its own building and have it year round every Saturday. Despite that, I’ve never been to it, so I texted a friend to ask if she wanted to check it out since I was having lunch with her that day anyway. I picked her up and we browsed and bought several things we probably didn’t need. It was quite crowded, but a lot of fun. There were the food vendors that you would expect – people selling many varieties of jarred fruits and vegetables, fresh fruits and vegetables, and some of the unique things they make from their farms. There were also a lot of artisans selling crochet and knit art, wood carvings, jewelry, soap, candles, and other custom made products. Two different wineries had trucks present offering wine samples.
While there, I bought cookies, a crochet cat in my favorite color, cinnamon flavored spun honey, and some loose leaf lavender tea. We sampled some of the wines at one of the trucks, and they had a seasonal flavor made from coconut lime. As strange as that sounds for a wine flavor, it tasted delicious, so I bought a bottle. I also bought two necklaces and a farmer’s market bag. It was a lot of fun. I also heard a lot of the vendors say they weren’t always there, which makes me think that it can be a different experience every time if there were other vendors not present as well, so it seems like something worth checking out on a semi-regular basis.
Last year I organized quite a lot of the files on my computer, so they weren’t desperately out of order. The organization process was pretty short and mostly just involved going through the files in my downloads folder that hadn’t been shifted to their correct locations (or deleted if no longer needed). So I cleared out that folder, and that task was done.
The large overwhelming task is a card that I keep shuffling back because I can’t think of what task that might be. I have been piecemeal working on getting things ready for some personal life changes, and took care of some things related to that this week as well. So even though I’m not going into details about it, I’ll consider that finally done.
The sidequests for this week included writing down my favorite quote backwards and looking at it in the mirror, making a list of five important people in my life and what I love about them, and to do a random act of kindness.
I didn’t really plan out any of my acts of kindness, I’m mostly just attempting to harvest my memory for them from the past week. Sometimes it can get busy when you work in a customer service oriented job, and there’s not enough help and the lines get backed up, but I still do my best to take the time to help everyone, even with things not necessarily related to my job. I had a customer approach who was confused by the new back to school supplies lists because the place where I work has made them digital – you have to scan a QR code, which takes you to the app for our store chain, and from there do a search for the town and school. I took the time to go out and try to help her figure out how to do that on her phone – it turned out she didn’t have the app though. Instead, I pulled the info up on my phone to verify for her that the list wasn’t available for her grandson’s school.
It took a little extra time, but she didn’t have to struggle trying to find it later on her own, only to see that there was nothing for her to find.
Let’s see. The five important people in my life and what I love about them:
My childhood best friend: I love having the one person in my life that knows probably literally everything that goes on in it and shows a genuine interest.
My OK bestie: I love that we have so many common interests and get each other’s jokes (and torture).
My mom: I love that she is always willing to immediately offer help, even when I don’t really need it or ask for it.
My online bestie: I have always loved how easy he is to get along with. And torture.
My boyfriend: The relationship is still kind of new so I feel like this could age poorly if things go downhill. But so far, I love how comfortable he makes me feel.
Hmm. It was a little hard to list what I specifically loved about each of them in that way. It makes it sound like I use them and torture them to some extend. Maybe I should try a different way of listing things I appreciate about them? Though if I do, it honestly feels way more private and like less of something I would stick on a blog. So maybe I will elaborate the list in my journal tonight, and consider that sidequest done.
A favorite quote is hard to choose for me because there are very few things I’ve had lingering in my head verbatim. Favorites tend to come and go for me, and can change over time. There’s not really any quote that’s been so significant it ever felt like it changed my life. So what quote do I choose?
It’s a Simpson’s quote. It is strangely the only quote I have memorized verbatim since my childhood. It may not even be verbatim.
I did pretty good but fucked up one of the s’s. Alas. Helps that half the letters I use look the same no matter which way I write it. (t’s, i’s, l’s, o’s)
Anyhow, with that we’re finishing out week 31! These are getting a little harder to do because there have been so many distractions lately, and so a little more shifting around has occurred. Of course, there is a pretty major reason I shifted one card a week later from this week – as a spoiler, I pulled a card saying to visit a Farmer’s Market. The local Farmer’s Market is only open on Saturdays year round, and I happened to work this Saturday, so initially shifted it because of that.
But then I found out afterwards that this week (8/3 to 8/10) is Farmer’s Market week! So it’s a perfect opportunity to visit one if you never have.
The sidequests for this week were to pick out my best pair of socks and wear them, to write a story for 5 minutes, and to have my favorite meal.
I decided to use a foot mask at the beginning of this week, and while the skin is peeling afterwards, it’s usually a good idea to wear socks. That way you don’t leave large flakes of dead skin everywhere you walk. It’s super disgusting, but the process does leave your feet very smooth! So I pretty much went through all of my socks this entire week. In fairness, I don’t own a lot – I own some nice cushiony cotton socks for work, and I have some kitty ankle socks I had received as a gift, so I wore those to bed.
I also filled the week with quite a few of my favorite meals. I had pizza, and chicken, and made cinnamon rolls. Then to finish out, I made a soup I enjoy a lot. It makes a lot, so I’ll be able to eat it for dinner through half of next week.
The story that I wrote yesterday was the result of writing for 5 minutes. In truth, the entire story took me closer to 15 to write and post, so I exceeded the 5 minute mark, although I did do it fairly last minute (Sunday.) Sometimes these cards get put off for the weekend though.
This week’s sidequests included a few that got shifted around. One was supposed to be next week’s, but the perfect opportunity for it arose this week. The other was supposed to be a few weeks ago but kept getting shuffled back because my schedule kept interfering with it. The sidequests included fixing something broken in my home (or if nothing is broken, learn a life hack to make a task easier), to go to a restaurant I’ve never tried but always wanted to, and to write down the things I want to accomplish.
The broken item one was moved up because… quite conveniently (inconveniently?)… my oven broke this past week. I recently started dating a guy who noticed that the oven light was out and decided he wanted to fix that for me. When he went to pull the bulb out, it zapped him and caused a power surge that made the oven’s control panel die. The stove appeared to work fine at least. He felt really bad about it and offered to buy a brand new stove/oven similar to what I have, but in researching it, it looked like the oven control panel just needed to be replaced. I reassured him I could probably hire an appliance repair person.
When he mentioned it to a friend of his, his friend noted that it was an easy thing to switch out and he could probably do it himself if we got the part. With a little bit of research, I found that the part had been discontinued, but was still being sold used on eBay for roughly about $50. I ordered it and when it arrived he took care of fixing it, noting that it was so easy I probably could have done it myself. The new control panel didn’t come with the faceplate, so we used the old one, but it got a little damaged pulling it off. I’ve ordered a new one and will fix it myself next week from what I learned watching my boyfriend fix the oven.
We also got the oven light replaced, so everything works now.
The next task that I had been putting off involved going to a restaurant I’ve heard of but never tried. There’s a local German restaurant that’s tucked away off the main boulevards but I’ve always heard it was good. I’ve never tried going though. I mentioned it to a friend, but because of some trips she was going on and my work schedule and the times the place is open, we couldn’t work anything out. We did finally work out something for this weekend though, and went to Mutti’s German Restaurant. They seem to specialize in pork schnitzel, which I’d never had before. It was delicious. They also had an array of cakes to choose from that all looked so good that we each left with slices from two different cakes. We’re definitely going to go back at some point.
The last one is to write down the things I want to accomplish. I’ve never been great at setting goals or following through with them, or New Years Resolutions or anything of that sort. But I do have 3 major goals for this year:
Finish the rewrites and edits and publish my book.
Lose weight! (isn’t that everyone’s goal though?)
Try to update the blog more regularly with a short story, a poem, and a painting. (I have done awful at this. I make no apologies.)
Maybe I can at least accomplish one by next year? We’ll see.
mehryment 