🌻 It was so nice to have a long weekend! I did a small spring cleaning in my wardrobe and donated a couple of pieces that didn’t fit me well anymore.
📖I finished reading two books! Another one of the Vorkosigan Saga: The Borders of Infinity by Lois McMaster Bujold and a non-fiction: The PLAN by Kendra Adachi.
🎧 I am listening to a fiction audio book! It’s something I haven’t done in years, but I saw this book available at my Public Library on Libby, and I decided to try it. It’s “A Wizard’s Guide to Defensive Baking” by T. Kingfisher and I really like the narrator’s voice and style.
🧹I cleaned and put away my sturdy pair of winter boots. Now winter is officially over! 😆
🚗 My partner switched the cars winter tires this weekend. I was there just to give him some moral support, since he likes doing it all by himself.
❎ We voted for the federal election!
🧩 We framed the Zelda’s Breath of the Wild puzzle! It was an excuse to go have lunch at IKEA and get the frame. I forgot to take a picture.
☑️ I did a deep cleaning on my tasks lists and projects in Nirvana. I let go of a bunch of actions that I honestly would never get to finalizing.
📺I’ve been enjoying watching videos about fashion history and Victorian clothing shenanigans. Mainly Bernadette Banner and Abby Cox videos (these are You Tube links, but I actually watch them on Nebula):
🎈 I’m having a bit of a conflict on how I capture ideas for blog posts. For a while I kept a list in Standard Notes but for some reason, I stopped doing that, and then I started to add some of them to Nirvana, but it doesn’t feel right. I also realized that I jot down ideas while journaling, and these were not being capture anywhere else. I dusted off my Standard Notes list, updated it, and I will get back to using it again. There is so much there!
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Post 82/100 of 100DaysToOffload challenge (Round 2)!
🙌 I'm feeling much better now, no nausea anymore and my energy is slowly getting back. Got some blood work results, and my ferritin levels actually went up, so that's really good news!
💊I started taking probiotics and some supplements to help me restore my gut flora and I've been feeling less bloated with minor acid reflux.
👟 This Sunday we went for our first outdoor run of the year! It was sunny, a nice 16C and we ran 6km with a pace of 6:55min/km (we rested for 1min in the middle). It was nice to get the fresh air, but my low back complained a little afterwards, which is normal after spending the last 6 months only running on the treadmill for 30min max. Spring is here!!
📕 I had fun at my local book club meetup discussing the book “The Raven Tower” by Ann Leckie. I didn't love the book, but it has a few interesting topics to dive into. The second-person narrative felt strange to me, but I can understand why it’s widely praised. For me, though, the story just felt kind of cold. I didn’t connect with the characters or care about what happened to them, probably because the story’s told from an ancient god’s perspective, so we’re just watching the characters instead of really getting into their heads.
✅ It's been usually quiet at work these days and I thought about switching to MS To Do (I almost did!) but I decided not to. There are some downsides I'm not ready to face right now. I'm still using Nirvana. But because I was having such calm days at work, I stopped Time Blocking. I'm going with the flow, just following my calendar and my next actions lists.
🎧 There is this new podcast with two of my favourite’s authors: Emma Newman and Adrian Tchaikovsky. It's called “Starship Alexandria” and I still have to listen to the first episode, but it seems excellent! I saw the news here: Come aboard, the starship's lovely!
🧘♀️ My yoga corner has been my little sanctuary lately. It’s where I start my day, unwind, reconnect with myself, and shake off the day’s stress.
🧩We finished the Legend of Zelda's Breath of the Wild puzzle! 🥳
🏒 I attended an office team event to go watch a hockey game at the Canadian Tire Center. It was fun but also exhausting because I wasn’t feeling a 100% this past week (see below).
💊 I finished the quadruple therapy for my stomach H. Pylori infection. It was 2 miserable weeks. I felt nauseous all the time, fatigued, bloated, and tired. I had to take anti-nausea medication which made me anxious and jittery. It was not fun, and I was counting the days to finish the treatment. Now I’m taking probiotics to rebuild my gut flora after this onslaught.
☁️ During the treatment above my brain was barely functioning during the day. It was difficult to organize anything, I couldn’t focus, so I tried to be less demanding of myself. I didn’t do my weekly review, and I was feeling bad about it. Today I did an emergency weekly review just to get things back on track, but I still don’t have my full energy back. So, I’ll wait for the weekend to do a throughout review of my system.
🥔 For some reason I developed a craving for Miss Vickie’s original flavor potato chips. And at the same time, I couldn't stand eating dark chocolate anymore, it tasted metallic and weird. I’m still not back to my normal appetite but at least I don’t need the anti-nausea medication anymore.
📻 I listened to the whole album “Nevermind” by Nirvana on the Sunday Vinyl series at the radio station Chez106. It has become a tradition between me and my partner to turn on the radio on Sundays to listen to the Classic Rock Sundays that ends with playing a whole vinyl album each week. I think last week was Queen’s “Sheer Heart Attack” from 1974.
☑️ I had an idea to switch from Nirvana to Microsoft To Do. But that idea came while I was feeling the worst, and I didn’t have the energy to do anything about it. I still think about MS To Do because I work in a Microsoft environment, but every time I tried it didn’t really stick with me. So, I will let this idea go for now and revisit it when I’m feeling better.
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Post 79/100 of 100DaysToOffload challenge (Round 2)!
This is going to be another post covering multiple weeks. I realized I did write Week Notes on my private journal on the week of March 17 but I never published them here! So, this is going to be a 2-in-1 post!
Week Notes – Mar 07 to Mar 17 2025
🕑 Daylight saving time started here in my corner of the world and I always dread the transition. I felt sluggish and tired the first week, I always do. But my body is adapting to it, so it's okay now.
💻 I replaced my monitor stands for my home office and got an under the desk cable organizer. I wanted to have more free space on my desk and my old setup didn't allow me to push the keyboard out of the way, it was a bit tight because of the legs of 2 stands I was using. Now I have one long stand with no legs in between that get in the way. I can push things under it and have a nice free work area. And I put the power bar and laptop power brick in the organizing tray under the desk. I'm loving the new setup.
💰 We did our taxes! And it wasn’t that difficult this time. We are getting the hang of it now.
🩺 I’ve had a health-related procedure the first week of March and that got me a little bit under the weather while I adjusted to my new medication.
Week Notes – Mar 18 to Mar 29
📚 I got into a reading slump and then got out of it. I finished reading “The Vor Game” yesterday. It’s the kind of fun and predictable read only a beloved series can deliver.
🧑⚕️ In another heath related note, I had a follow-up appointment with my doctor to discuss my endoscopy results and it turns out I have that bacteria H. Pylori which are known to cause acid reflux (and more serious things like stomach ulcers). I started a 2-week antibiotic treatment that is making me feel (again) a bit sick (known side effects of the medication). I’m halfway through. It’s pretty intense with pills I have to take with food and without food plus anti-acid medication, so I set up a schedule on my calendar with reminders. And the doctor also wants to investigate if I have any unknown allergies, so I was referred to an allergist next.
🛡️ We had our third Dungeons & Dragons session in our “High Forest” campaign. And we are all Level 02! Now I must choose which style of fighting is going to be my specialty from now on. I haven’t decided yet. Our Dungeon Master finished painting all our character’s miniature figures, they are so cool! We like to stage all our battles in a physical grid, which is cool.
🧩 We started a new puzzle: The Legend of Zelda Breath of the Wild. It’s coming together, we finished the border and Link is almost complete.
📚 I saw this Humble Bundle with the Dragonlance books that I added to my TBR. I’ve been wanting to continue reading the Dragonlance: Chronicles series for a while now, so this was a good opportunity to get the classic trilogy by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman plus other oldies from this setting.
📖 I read the first chapter of my next local Book Club pick called “The Raven Tower” by Ann Lackie and I’m still processing how to read a book written in second person. I will try it out this weekend, but it’s very bizarre. The last time I’ve read a second person point view book was in the old days of “Choose your adventure” books, which is a completely different thing.
🍵 I have been feeling (more) introverted this winter. I’ve been enjoying quiet activities, such as reading, walking, yoga, meditation, some private journaling. That means I haven’t shared too much online as well. It’s probably the winter vibes when I usually get more introspective, and I search for extreme coziness.
🌼 Spring is getting closer and closer (not quite there yet, because I live in winter land, and winter might last up to April/May) but I hear some birds chirping here and there, while temperatures start getting above zero during the day (here and there).
📝 Even though I listed “Journaling” above, I’m not journaling as much as I wanted. I had this goal to do longer private journaling sessions once a week for a more in-depth brain dump. But I didn’t. It just didn’t work out for me. On the weekends I’ve been staying away from my computer as much as possible. I just wanted a break. And journaling by hand never appealed to me. I prefer typing.
💼 At work I’m still working on a temporary cubicle (while office renovations are ongoing), and I feel like the noisy environment is very distracting to me. Some days I handle it well, and I can put on my headphones with some music and be focused. Some days it feels cluttered and messy. The cubicles walls are super short, so I can see my neighbors monitor screens and vice versa. I find that very distracting. There are still 1-2 more months of renovations, and I’m doing the best I can to manage this work situation.
🖥️ My left cubicle neighbor always has a small window with YouTube videos playing while she works. And it’s fine, I mean, she uses it as background noise I guess, but I always wonder how she can get anything done. Sometimes I feel that little screen bothers me. There is no rational reason for it to bother me: she uses headphones, so it’s quiet, it’s small (she keeps it in a small window between her 2 monitors) but when I look left to glance at the window on the far end of the room, I see that screen in the vicinity of my field of vision and I get overwhelmed/distracted by proxy. It’s weird, it shouldn’t affect me at all, but I can’t help it some days.
⛸️ Me and my partner went ice skating on an outdoor trail! It’s a place called River Oak Skating Trails. I was excited to try it out, but I wasn't ready for the ups and downs and twists and turns. The trail is not flat (like the Rideau Canal) and I’ve never ice skated uphill or downhill. It’s not super sloped but sloped enough to make me completely lose control before a bend to the left, where I tried to snowplow-style slow down and fell spectacularly. I bumped my head on the ice, and I think I passed out for a couple of seconds, because I remember waking up sideways with my partner talking to me and I wondered where I was. Anyway, I got a tender spot at the back of my head for a couple of days, and a bruised right hand palm, but nothing else. It hurt my pride most of all.
⛸️ There is only one more ice-skating class left in this season for me. I made a lot of progress! I can do forward crossovers both ways and I got better at using the blades for tight turns and stops (as long as they are not in a sloped terrain – see above).
🧩 We finished the “Tiamat Queen of Dragons” puzzle! 🥳
📖 I was feeling a bit tired on the weekends, so I didn’t do much expect for reading (and the usual regular house chores, etc). I didn’t even want to watch anything because screens were causing me headaches most of the time. No video games either. I’m reading Ali Hazelwood’s “Deep End” romance because I just need a comfort read right now.
🧘♀️ I got a peg board for my yoga space to organize some of the accessories I use daily.
📫 I let my Inbox become messy, I skipped several weekly reviews, and that only made me feel more tired and scattered. But this week I managed to process my digital inboxes, update my work notes, revise my projects and next actions and get some clarity.
✅ One of the things I realized about my projects and next actions lists in Nirvana is that I have a bunch of stale items in there. I plan to do a much more in-depth review of my system in the coming days. Delete old stuff, move things to someday-maybe, delete items I no longer want to act on, clean up my someday-maybe lists.
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Post 75/100 of 100DaysToOffload challenge (Round 2)!
❄️ We got lots of snow this week. There were two snowstorms of 30-40 cm each. And it was a long weekend, so it was nice to just cozy up inside and read a book. We thought about going for a hike at the trail, but it was snowing most of the time and when the snow stopped it was awfully windy (and cold!).
🧩 We did some more progress on the Tiamat Dragon puzzle. It’s time to reclassify the remaining pieces by color and shape. I think we’ve done most of the colorful shapes and patterns, and now it’s going to be more uniform-colored areas left.
🛋️We installed some shelves on the wall behind our sofa. We have a plan to add some shelves to other side of the room as well, by the dining table.
📖 I am really enjoying “Paladin’s Strength” by T. Kingfisher. I love the writing style, the characters, and the sense of humor on this book.
🎧I listened to one episode of this podcast called “D&D Legends and Lore”. I learned a bit about the Legend of Zariel. I liked the podcast quality; it’s storytelling with cool sound effects and background music. Apparently there is a YouTube channel as well, but I’ve only listened to the podcast so far.
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Post 73/100 of 100DaysToOffload challenge (Round 2)!
⛸️ This weekend was great to go skating at the Canal again. Perfect -4C with very good ice. I’m still impressed with my pair of skates that are comfortable and cozy. This time we skated around 10km, and I rewarded myself with a classic Beaver Tail and hot chocolate.
🧩 We’ve made some progress on our Tiamat dragon puzzle. Slow but steady progress.
🤖 We got our first robot vacuum for our house. I’ve never had one before and it does a decent job of maintenance cleaning. The main reason I got one is that every time I vacuum with my old standard one, my low back hurts. So, I want to minimize the time I spend cleaning the house, and the robot helps a lot!
🎧 I wanted to find a podcast with a Dungeons and Dragon campaign in which the DM was a woman, and I found one. It’s called Spell Check. It’s not new and I’m going through the archives (it stopped being updated in 2021!). The players are all Young Adult authors, and they are fun. I am enjoying it because it’s simple and unpretentious.
🩺 I did another upperendoscopy last week to investigate my acid reflux/stomach issues. This time I finally got an appointment with a gastro specialist, so now we are waiting for biopsies results to confirm the doctor’s suspicions. This time the doctor told me to suspend my stomach medication for a week before the exam, and those were tough days, because symptoms exacerbated a little. But all is good now, back with medication.
📗 I finished a book that deep inside I wished I had abandoned it about halfway through, but I don’t regret finishing it (if that makes sense). It usually happens when the beginning of the book is great, but then it starts to drag. And because the beginning intrigued me, I want to keep on reading because maybe it will get better, right? Sometimes that is not true. But anyway, now I know. It was a series that I had on my radar for a couple of years, and now I know I don’t want to continue reading.
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Post 72/100 of 100DaysToOffload challenge (Round 2)!
📖 After finishing reading “Barrayar” by Lois McMaster Bujold I went straight to the third book in the series “Warrior's Apprentice” which starts with young Miles Vorkosigan doing 17-year-old shenanigans in space. It's super fun, fast paced with the most absurd heist situations. I couldn't help but love Mile's “in control” attitude but also internally panicking about the situations he put himself into.
⛸️ I've been progressing with my ice-skating crossovers. The counterclockwise is still tricky, but the clockwise direction is getting smoother. It's also a bit easier for me to skate backwards but still challenging if I do it it for too long (at some point I get tired, and my balance just gets all off). And I was Finally skating again on the Rideau Canal Skateway!
📚 I've been thinking about the books I want to read, and I decided that this year I will focus on continuing some series that I love. I don't want to explore too much. It will a be the year of series.
🛡️ We had our first official Dungeons & Dragons campaign session! I didn't expect we would fight 3 bad guys in the first session, but we did. I had lots of fun!
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Post 70/100 of 100DaysToOffload challenge (Round 2)!
I got back from Brazil feeling super tired because of the long trip. The total travel time was 24 hours, with 4 flights, 1 bus ride and lots of time waiting in airports. I started feeling my throat itch 2 days later.
So, I was sick the whole week: some type of respiratory virus that was not COVID. The worse is gone, but I'm left with a cough, and I still haven't recovered my full lung capacity. I tried to run today, and I couldn't keep it up for more than 10 minutes. So, I'm still recovering. The doctor gave me a puffer to help with clearing the lungs.
I'm also left with some headaches which I think is related to an occasional sinus congestion. It's getting better little by little.
I had lots of planning I wanted to do this week, but because I was sick, I let it all on pause. I could take some time to read, in between naps. But I also worked a bit from home once I got a little better mid-week.
I finished reading “Barrayar” by Lois McMaster Bujold and it was great! This book is unique because it's a fast-paced science fiction novel about motherhood. All kinds of motherhood: in utero, in vitro, in an artificial womb. It's part of a big series called Vorkosigan Saga, and this series is known as a feminist sci-fi ahead of its time (it started being written in the late 80's).
I finished writing about my Dungeons and Dragons character background, her appearance and decided on a name: Astrid Silverhammer (very dwarvish and righteous).
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Post 68/100 of 100DaysToOffload challenge (Round 2)!
🌞 I am still in Brazil at my mom's place in my hometown. It's hot (20°C to 32°C everyday) with occasional rain. It's definitely dryer and it took me a day or so to get used to the heat. The main difference here is that everyplace seems smaller, the streets are narrower, the cars are smaller, there is more people, it feels noisier. I spend most of my time hanging out with my mom, helping her with errands, fixing little things around the house, reading, walking, relaxing.
I helped my mom create some Spotify playlists in her account.
I helped my mom organize some books, get rid of some old electronics and free up some space in the apartment.
I helped my mom solve an issue she was having with the Android Auto in her car. It was an easy fix, but she was struggling with the issue for weeks.
💪 I temporarily enrolled at my mom's gym to get some weight training done. It was the first time that I went to the gym with my mom, so that was fun!
My sister arrived last week so I'm catching up with her as well.
Me and my partner met a bunch of old friends: from childhood, from elementary school, from high school, from university. It was nice to catch up!
I also met my brother-in-law and her wife for a nice coffee with chocolate afternoon. It was a wonderful chat; I needed this time to be with them to catch up. They live in a different city, so they were in town for a couple of days.
🥳 We went to my mother-in-law 80th birthday! It was a small gathering with the typical Brazilian “churrasco” (grilled meat in a barbecue).
We had the typical “meat/chicken sfiha” (which is a triangular shaped pastry here, traditionally brought to Brazil by middle eastern immigrants). I am not sure this is the original recipe or if this is a Brazilian adaptation, but it's quite common here.
📖 I finished reading “The Way of Kings” and “Shards of Honor”! I didn't read as much this month, and that's okay. I thought I would read more during the flight to Brazil, but I was super tired.
👟 Me and my partner went for walks around Igapó lake which is the nicest place in my hometown. We had fresh coconut water from a real coconut (something that I never saw in Ottawa).
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Post 62/100 of 100DaysToOffload challenge (Round 2)!
