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?
My sidequests for this week were pretty simple ones. I was to take a virtual tour of the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum, learn out to say hello in a different language, and take 5 minutes to visualize a positive future for myself.
I had to Google the Smithsonian one, as that wasn’t something I was aware existed. Apparently there are several available to choose from. I browsed the exhibit about the Wright brothers. It’s interesting, and the image quality is high enough that you can read most of the text through the exhibit with the exceptions of really small text set further away from the designated “standing spots” or the occasional area where there is glare from lighting. It’s a fun idea that gives a broad strokes feel for the exhibits on display, but a poor substitute for actually going. For one, I like to get close and look at things, and read everything. There are also screens that looked like they had video displays for the exhibits, and seeing a picture of something from a few different angles is not quite the same as looking at it in person.
Also, I’m the sort of nerd that loves going to museums. If you really like those particular subjects and lack the funds to go, it’s a suitable substitute, though, and worth checking out.
For learning to say hello in another language, I used Google again. (Google has all the answers, right?) They’ve got their list of languages you can translate, and I kind of browsed some of the options to look at them. I found that there were some that I already knew but had never really thought about. Most interesting to me was Italian. Apparently, similar to Hawaiian “aloha,” “ciao” can mean both hello and goodbye. I had only ever understood it to be a goodbye, so that caught me a little by surprise.
While I technically already knew the word, I did manage to recontextualize it properly, and understand it more in line with its actual meaning.
The last one is the hardest for me. Not because I have a hard time being positive, but more because I have a hard time being specific. Most of my life I’ve had a very lax attitude about my personal direction. I’ve always felt: if it happens, it happens. Great! If it doesn’t happen, it doesn’t happen. Also great! I don’t mind the idea of falling in love – but if I don’t find a lover, I’m not going to rush and settle just to have ticked marriage off the box. Similar with having kids – I don’t mind the idea of having kids, but I’m not going to get into a tizzy and go get knocked up because I feel I have to.
They’re nice futures to have, but not necessary ones. And those are just the two major examples that people are likely to wonder on most, but I have a similar attitude towards most things in life. So trying to specify what I want in a “positive future” is hard to pin down, because as long as I’m enjoying myself I don’t care.
Things that would be nice and positive: a windfall of money, which would help anyone. How many people would ever turn down an extra cash windfall? Although this also ties into the recent writing prompt that wordpress posted for Bloganuary!
A fun daydream that everyone has. What would you do if you won the lottery? I would likely be too nervous to initially spend it. I would sit on it until I understood how it affected things tax wise. It also depends on how much you won. If the take home was roughly $1 million dollars, I could live on that quite comfortably for 20 years, but any big expenses will cut into that semi-retired life quite dramatically. Buy a new car? Have a new house built or pay off my current home and make improvements to it? Or any number of big money splurges that cuts into that take home will result in less time that I can go without working.
Of course, if you got someone to help you manage your financials and invested properly, and refrained from blowing it all at once, you could live quite comfortably without having to work again.
So, without work, what would I do with my time? I’ve heard plenty of people gripe about their retirement when they felt useless, but I’ve never had that problem. I would love having more time to take classes on interesting things and visit places I haven’t been. I love working on art and writing projects. I love sleeping in, and reading and playing games, and watching movies and shows. I could go to the gym in the middle of the night when it’s dead quiet, and spend time learning new recipes without having to worry about how long cooking and clean up will take, because I have to wake at a specific time to be at a specific place for a specific set of hours in a day.
As for more attainable positive things – I would like to try to vegetate less and work on my projects more within the next year. And lose weight. And finish my story I started last year and begin the editing process so I can maybe slap it on self publishing on Amazon near the end of the year and accomplish a life long goal of mine to publish some bullshit. Those are also all positive things.
….I took several more minutes than 5 to visualize all that. But it works!
For this week, my sidequests were to Visit an aquarium or pet store (or watch relaxing fish videos), to learn a new word and use it in a sentence (another new word! grr), and to make something with my hands.
I deliberated on what to do about making something with my hands at first. I initially thought I should do something creative or artsy, but wasn’t really feeling it this week. So in the end, I made cinnamon rolls. I had a cinnamon roll recipe I used to use as a kid, but it was made from a biscuit recipe, so it made something heavy and crumbly which was good but not quite what I want in a cinnamon roll. So late last year, I decided to finally look up a recipe that was a little more yeasty and fluffy and I made proper cinnamon rolls for Christmas. Since the yeast packets were sold in threes, I decided to use another to make more cinnamon rolls for myself this week.
The recipe that I use for the dough can be found here at Sally’s Baking Addiction. Like most recipe sites of the sort, there’s a lot of preamble. I don’t get it either. But it’s a simple recipe and yields a nice dough.
For the filling, I use a different recipe. Specifically the one I found here. I had looked for it separately earlier last year, and now mostly just stick to it.
And for the cream cheese frosting, I mostly improvised my own thing. It’s basically just one part sugar and butter to two parts cream cheese, softened and stirred until smooth. (I think I usually use 1/4 c sugar, 1/4 c butter, and 1/2 cup cream cheese).
I made them early on in the week and had them for dinner. (Hey, I even made a post about how that was successful adulting!) I did not take a picture though. I do intend to make at least one more batch though… I have one last yeast packet to use up, after all.
The next sidequest was to learn another new word. This was a little easier, using the Merriam Webster word of the day again.
This time I didn’t even have to wait as long to find one as I did with oneiric. On the one hand, the word sounds familiar enough, and I know I’ve used “bunk” to refer to an idea in the same way, which likely has its basis in this word or a similar origin. But I’m uncertain that I’ve ever heard bunkum itself. As for using it in a sentence… “She dismissed his entire story as bunkum and interrupted him immediately, demanding the truth.”
Does that suffice? I think it does.
And then the last bit! I could see how the alternative of watching fish videos or visiting a pet store is nice for the sidequests, because it’s not always easy to get out to an aquarium. But I was visiting a friend in Tulsa this week, and she loves visitng her local aquarium near there, so it was a great excuse to go. I also bought her the Sidequest Deck, and she decided she would start doing one card on her days off from work. By a hilarious coincidence, she pulled the same aquarium card as well. “I guess we were fated to go.”
So we visited an aquarium.
It’s not a massive aquarium, but the Oklahoma Aquarium in Jenks is still a fun spot to visit. They’ve got an indoor carousel, a gift shop, and several interactive displays where you get a chance to touch or feed some of the animals. A significant portion of the exhibits are dedicated to local aquatic wildlife, such as catfish, bass, gar, snakes, frogs and the like. They also have a few beavers, a few otters, and some less local and oceanic wildlife, including piranha, a massive sea turtle, and a shark enclosure that you can walk through. It’s very kid friendly as well.
We didn’t spend as much time there as we did the first time they took me, mostly because we were a little pressed for time. After the aquarium, we went to the Van Gogh Immersive experience, which is an exhibit that discusses Van Gogh’s life and works and influences. Afterwards, you can go into a large room where a 30 minute video is looped across all the walls and floor that plays images of his work and quotations of things he had written in letters, set against music, sound effects, and the occasional reading of those quotes. They had a VR thing just outside the room (it cost extra and we were too hungry to stay too long), a coloring station, and a few other things that we didn’t explore fully. It was quiet in the exhibit, likely because it has been running there since last year and we decided to go shortly before it shut down, specifically to avoid crowds.
….That doesn’t have anything to do with the Sidequests, but it was neat, damn it!
mehryment 