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The last few days (read: month) I’ve been watching a lot of Jenna and Julien videos. Jenna does Jenna stuff, and Julien has been doing a lot of cooking videos. I’m not vegan, and I don’t need to eat gluten-free, but dang some of those recipes look mighty tasty.

That got me thinking: next time I go to the store I should actually meal prep and shop accordingly.

Cookbooks

A few years ago I got that “Cooking Comically” book from some friends. Love it. Right amount of humor, love the illustrations, and I’ve made a few things from it. Couldn’t find it, thought I put it in the pantry, because Past Joe thought that would be a good idea, but it wasn’t there. Need to find it. Thinking about that jambalaya recipe.

After I bought my Crock Pot, I got another cookbook with a bunch of slow-cooker recipes and cook-ahead. Since I live alone, I figured I’d use it a lot. Not really.

A few months ago I got back into the home-cooking game and got a tried and true Betty Crocker book.

I also have a book from my high school’s culinary class, but we don’t talk about that book.

The Planning

Since I’ve been watching a lot of Julien’s videos, my first stop was ones that he’s done recently. Some great ideas. Like the tamales? I would LOVE to make those at home. But the country store doesn’t have the widest selection, so I highly doubt I’d be able to get the supplies. I’ll check, but that recipe may have to wait until social distancing is lifted.

Yes, I can go to the big stores that have better selection, but until we have a vaccine or at the very least a better treatment they give me too big an anxiety attack. I’ll be fine with my small store and limited products. Actually, the store at the north end of town has different selections. I needed soba noodles for something and they actually had it. It’s also not as busy, I may check that one, too.

Anyway, since Wednesday seems to be my shopping day, I figured I’d start planning for at least the next week’s worth of meals. Given that my appetite has been pretty low, making things that can be stored for a while was pretty important.

Based on the cookbooks I could find and Julien’s recipes, I settled on chili, bangers and mash, and pozole rojo.

Now the recipe I have for chili serves 8, so I can immediately freeze half of that. Bangers and mash, I can make a big thing of onion gravy and fridge/freeze a lot of it; mashed potatoes are easy, just have to cook the sausages. Pozole rojo, however, is going to be the toughy. I’m pretty sure I can get the main ingredients (I don’t want to do pork shoulder, I’d probably do sausage or something), but finding the ingredients for the adobo sauce is going to be difficult out here.

If I can find my Cooking Comically book, going to add jambalaya to the rota. That’ll also keep in the freezer.

So yeah, that was the biggest thing that happened today: I decided what I was going to cook for the next week, and figured out what could keep in the freezer for later. Since it’s only me. And I’m eating like crap.

Daily Reflections

Yeah, the cookbooks were pretty much the highlight of today.

Woke up at a decent hour, stayed in bed until like noon because Athena was giving me snuggles.

Played my find-the-thing game for way too long. Addictive.

Defrosted and cooked a cube steak I had in the freezer. Friend texted me so we played a couple rounds of Apex. Did pretty well! Top 10 the first two times, 2nd place the last. Not a bad night. Mashed a potato and reheated the steak. It was as terribly freezer-burnt as you’d expect. Next time maybe no foil just get all the air out of the bag.

It’s hard to believe that it’s been a month since I was last at work. These last few weeks have been a blur. When I make my weekly trip to the store, I drive through and it’s just so eerie how empty everything is. It’s just so weird for the hospitality industry to see things empty.

But, things will settle, we’ll eventually get back to normal and I can’t wait to see guests again.

Okay, time to go to bed. Night.

Let’s talk about masks!

I spent a lot of money on masks today

Today I spent about $70 on masks. I bought a total of 4 from two different companies, both of which are donating a mask for every one sold. One company is based in Texas, more on them later, and the other right here in Central Oregon.

The Central OR company didn’t offer any sort of choice, they’re making them out of leftover scraps. Whatever, support local business. Chose one “male color” so we’ll see when it arrives what the pattern is.

The Texas company had some great designs. I’m legitimately excited for these to come in.

While I would love to save the suspense for two or three weeks from now when I get them in and can upload pictures, here’s the product images for the ones I bought!

As a child of the 90’s I am excited for the first one that is the pattern of the cups from school.

As an IT professional, I can’t wait for the other two. When I go to help someone with their computer over the next few months, I can’t wait to be instantly labeled as the IT guy. There will be no guessing who I am or what I’m there for.

I bought four so that when I get back to work I can wear one a day. Hang it up on a hook so I can take it off at my desk and then safely put it back on when I need to leave the building. Not sure how we’re going to operate until a vaccine is found, I’m going to guess one person in the office per week to prevent contamination. We’ll see. Only 26 days to find out, right? Right.

Plus, these were all advertised as washable, so with these four I can wash them and reuse within a couple days.

The other masks I bought

I bought some face covers (10 pack) a while ago on Amazon. I wore three of them on Tuesday (or Wednesday? I can’t be bothered to look at past posts). Yesterday I figured I’d wash them all, so I threw them into the washer on hot. Hot water + lots of soap = clean and sanitary, yes?!

Well, these coverings are single-layer jersey tee material. Single. Layer. Tee-shirt. Material.

If you’re better at laundry than me, you know where this is headed. They turned into little tee-shirt rolls. And when I tried one on today, turns out they all shrunk.

Long story short, that was a waste of $20.

I don’t have an iron, so I need to find a way to get them flattened out again. Open to suggestions. Since they’re only one layer, I’m thinking about cutting up half of them and hand-sewing two together. They’ll be better than nothing. Maybe I can get an iron on Amazon? I need to go to the store in the next couple days, so I need to figure something out with what I have right now. Don’t want to go back to the handkerchief.

Thoughts on masks in the US

The US is so weird. Like, Asian countries for whatever reason I can associate wearing masks in public. To me, that’s a social norm. In the US, I can’t see that becoming the norm. I think it needs to be the norm until a vaccine is found for the bug, but it’s just weird to think that we’ll have to mask it up.

I’m not opposed, especially since I can still flaunt my nerdiness and I’m all about prevention. It’s just weird. I’m going to protect myself and others as much as I can. From what I’ve read, this isn’t something I want for myself and definitely not others.

I’m going to wear a mask when in public, and I hope that the majority of people will, too. Even if it seems superfluous, if it helps at all then it’s worth it.

Reflections

I slept in until like 1pm. Went to bed last night at midnight, today was to catch up on sleep and just check-out in general.

Lots of YouTube videos, started with JennaMarbles and then somehow moved onto Julien and then JennaJulien. Considering getting some tofu, because some of the videos Julien posted looked amazing and I’m not opposed at all to vegan and gluten-free.

Two slices of pizza for food all day, no chili dogs like I planned.

Played a bunch of Killing Floor 2, I love me some zombie shooters. Then some Apex. We didn’t do very well, but we had fun and that’s all that matters.

Bought a domain for my sister, and am now starting to get that set up so she can blog. I’ll promo her site once it’s all set up.

Okay, it’s late, I have a lot of work to do still even thought I’ve been up for less than 12 hours, and I want to go to bed.

Stay safe, y’all.

I had a great idea for today’s first post of the second half of this venture, but it’s been an emotional day so instead have a nerdy post while I process some stuff.

The Nerd Strikes Again – Part 1

I go to an online-only university to get a degree in IT. I’ve been working on getting any sort of degree for almost 10 years now; I’ve been enrolled at this university for almost 4 years. Did the community college thing for a while, took some time off, did a different online university that absolutely BLEW, and now I’m with this one that works more at my speed. When I signed up my degree was in network administration, because for whatever reason networking is my passion. After a couple terms, I was informed they were no longer offering my degree. I could stay with it and get the verbiage I wanted, or move to a different program. I decided to move to the replacement program: cloud and systems administration. This was also in line with what I’m doing at work, so it seemed okay. Not ideal, just okay. A few weeks before Thanksgiving I realized that with work and projects I was just getting burned out. Doing a full 8 hours, plus time for work projects, plus cooking and normal stuff, plus school, it was just too much. Talked with my advisor, and she agreed to move me to the basic BS of IT degree.

Honestly, at this point I don’t care that it won’t have the verbiage I want, it’s been 10 years. TEN. YEARS. I just want to be done with a Bachelors. I’ve spent so much money, and for a degree that I already work in. I just want the piece of paper so I can say I did it, and just keep on my merry way.

Regardless of my degree situation, my focus has always really been networking. I just love it when I can get things to talk. My job is more systems admin and user support, and my title is net analyst, but I’m really the net admin. When routers/switches/things need configured, I’m the one that the team turns to. Which is nice.

The boss also calls me his net admin. Not in title, just in practice.

The Nerd Strikes Again – Part 2: Electric Boogaloo

So what does a net admin do when he can’t net admin? Set up his own network monitor so he can monitor his home network, that’s what.

One of the last classes I could take before got switched to the basic degree was my capstone. This is the final paper that culminates your experience. So I did my capstone in December, with a full term remaining. Whatever, let’s get it out of the way. Because my initial focus was networking, and my function at work is a lot of networking stuff, I wrote my paper on how I implemented a network monitor on the work networks.

Figured last night, but mostly today, why not do the same thing at home? I’ve got a lot of things that connect to the wifi, I like collecting data, this is the perfect idea!

Last night I installed the monitoring software, and today I’ve been poking at it to get all my things recognized. Thought if I left it overnight it’d find everything, but I messed up somehow and had to manually add everything today. Whatever, not like I have much else to do.

Now I get to figure out how to get my thermostat, PlayStation, and washer to report useful data besides just connected or not. Especially the thermostat, it’d be cool to be able to see data by minute instead of every 15 minutes like they offer by default. Data. It’s what I do.

So that’s something fun for me but not for anyone else that I can do for the next few weeks.

Daily Reflections

Woke up with a little bit of a puke feeling, only had two glasses of wine last night but apparently not enough water.

Set up the network monitor, some more Jenna and Julien videos, some water, all associate call, more videos. Drank my last Pepsi. I was mildly upset, but then I remembered that before all this I haven’t bought a pack of Pepsi in a very long time. Side note, I used to be addicted to Pepsi. Like, 3L a day addicted. I was able to bring that back to like 2 a week when going out to places. So while I may be out of Pepsi, it’s really not a big deal. I think I’m more addicted to caffeine than Pepsi itself. Another side note, work has a corporate health app that gives us money for healthy behavior, I have over $100 saved up, I might use that to get an espresso machine. I’ve lost 10 pounds since staying home, and I’m convinced it’s because I haven’t gotten a daily latte. Time for that to change. I’ll get some sugar-free syrup, maybe I’ll keep that weight off.

It was 65 today, so I opened the windows. Saw a bumblebee on the back deck when I was washing my hands, shouted “HEY BUMBLE!!!” so now I’m convinced the entire neighborhood knows I’m batshit.

Realized at like 7, after playing some of that new COD game with the guys, that I hadn’t eaten all day. Made some mashed potatoes and buffalo chicken strips.

Finished up my day so far with some more Jenna videos. Might round out the day with some zombie shooter action.

Be well, y’all.

We are now officially halfway through my work’s closure! We did it! The weather tomorrow is going to be very nice, and the next few days 65F! It’s also 3 weeks until my birthday, pretty stoked to have mowed the lawn some time around then. I had a couple really cool dreams last night, so I’ll talk about them, but dreams are boring unless they’re your own so this is a post in three parts.

Since last night

Warning, this section turned into a stream of consciousness. Not to be confused with my normal Reflections section.

Last night’s post went up at what, 11:50? Something like that. Fed the Turnip Monster, moved my plates to the kitchen because the Turnip Monster eats paper towels and pizza crusts. Read a chapter of a book, went to bed. Dreams in the next bit.

Slept pretty well, woke up briefly around 8 to turn off my alarm clock, felt a little crappy still, went back to sleep until 11. Got up, fed the Turnip Monster, contemplated making coffee because by this point it’s noon, decided against, sat down and turned on some JennaMarbles. I’m in a better place mentally today, and I don’t know why but she just keeps me calm. This is the first one I watched, instant calm. By accident it happened to be her video for the week.

DAMN. Oregon’s “Stay Home. Save Lives.” commercial is pretty hard-hitting. It opens with “Did you accidentally kill someone today?” and continues on with the number that you could be responsible for killing (3, 9, 27, etc. because I don’t want to math right now). Damn, Oregon, way to drive the point home.

And then I got an ad for Insight, like I don’t already use them for a lot of stuff at work. C’mon, Al Gore Rhythm… get it together…

Finished writing the dream section around 3, still watching JennaMarbles videos, still haven’t eaten anything at all. I’m thinking pizza because I still have half a pizza left. Maybe for dinner… chili dogs? I have like 4 hot dogs left and a whole bunch of chili. I think I’ll just eat the random crap until I have to go to the store again. I really should figure out some meal plans. I could make my own chili. You know how hamburger goes bad a few days after you buy it if you leave it in the fridge? I kind of want to try that Beyond Meat stuff, maybe start messing around with tofu. I think they’d stay good in the fridge longer. Or I need to not be afraid to put meat in the freezer. I think I’m afraid it’s not going to defrost right and either be damaged or not taste good. Personal problem, I guess.

Dreams

All right. Tie this post together. Dreams. I only remember vaguely three of my dreams, and even then not the whole thing. Hopefully if anybody is reading this is good at deciphering dreams they can give me some insight. Because I can’t figure out what they’re trying to say.

I know listening to other people talk about their dreams is really boring, so you have my absolute permission to skip this whole section.

Dream 1 – Athena Clone

I was living/working in a place similar to my dad’s first place, an apartment above a shop. Doesn’t really matter what my job was in the shop area, I think it was something space/science-themed, what’s important is that Athena was down there with me. So I go up to the apartment, and Athena is there. Cool, she made it there before me! And then Athena walks into the apartment and sits near Athena.

She then told me, in a man’s voice, that one of them was a clone. Somehow I was able to determine which was which, I think I had to make a mark on her leg so it wouldn’t show up on the clone? Not sure.

I actually woke up a little distressed and had to make sure that there was only one cat sleeping next to me.

Dream 2 – Subaru of the Future

So I pull into work, which is how you know this is a dream, and there’s a fancy Subaru in my boss’ spot. Like one of their taller SUV models? It looked sick. So the boss and I get in, and the interior is surprisingly roomy. But there’s no windshield? Just like a television and a screen that rolls down from the ceiling. Let’s be honest, it looked like the bridge of like the Defiant or the Enterprise but with only two seats and no stations on the side.

No steering wheel, when you sat in the “drivers” seat there were some switches and basic input. You didn’t face the forward screens, you were turned to the left to watch a screen over there.

Also where the turbolift door would be at the back-right of the bridge there was a door to a bathroom.

It was actually pretty cool. I’m putting this out in the universe right now, I may have had a prophetic dream of sorts of Subaru’s first fully self-driving car. Calling it right now. I’d buy it, it was sick.

Dream 3 – Music Competition

I had a dream a couple nights ago where I composed a song that had everyone go into a round with a really dissonant minor scale up and then down.

So in last night’s dream, I came into a large performance space where my old Music Theory professor was conducting for what can best be described as a regional band competition. There were little robots doing things, but mostly it was people with instruments waiting for their turn to play.

First up was a song written by someone I know from middle school (did I go to high school with her? Don’t think so…) and that song was AMAZING. I can’t remember anything about what it sounded like, but it was absolutely gorgeous and was moving. Even though I was in the competition I wanted her to win.

My song came up, and I was so proud of how it turned out that I tried recording it on my phone discreetly. My professor caught me but I kept recording. Then the little robot dudes started swarming near me and I had to get out of there, but not before I recorded that same discordant round from DAYS AGO.

Also I snuck a peek at both of our sheet music and they were all written in treble, no bass clef. That I’m going to chalk up to me not really knowing how to read bass notes. I mean, I do but all the instruments I played were all treble.

Regardless, I woke up feeling calm and at peace, thanks to the beautiful and at times discordant music I dreamed up.

Reflections

Would you be surprised if I said nothing happened after I finished writing the above? Well, nothing happened! More JennaMarbles, played my find-the-thing game until well after it got dark out so I was sitting in the dark on my iPad.

Had a couple pieces of pizza for lunch today, by the time I was thinking about dinner it was 9 and just not feeling making food. Plus, I want to make what I have last, so if I eat the last of the pizza before moving on to other stuff, I’ll be in good shape.

My brain has been shut off most of the day, what with the find-the-thing game, so no thoughts on anything for today. Jenna helped with that, also mostly staying off social media.

Might play some video games before going to bed at a somewhat respectable time (midnight, duh). Have an all-associates call with the GM tomorrow, looking forward to that. I should also think about working on re-taking that test. Only have like 5 classes left and until the end of June to do them. I also need to find either my graphing calculator (if I can fix it) or my scientific calculator for this stupid math class.

Quick little post of the day that true to form ended up much longer than I thought it would.

Had a nice night’s sleep, woke up around 9. Don’t remember what I did for an hour, maybe it was Facebook and news? Normal morning stuff. Felt good.

Migrated to the living room so I could review for my test. Crap, I left ALL MY GROCERIES OUT overnight. I think the creamer will be fine, not sure about the bag salad and eggs. We’ll see. Reviewed stuff for the exam and played some games on my phone. For whatever reason when I’m focused on something I don’t breathe very deep, so around 11 when I needed to get up to do something, I was short of breath. And then I started coughing. I’m sure you can see where my mind went from there.

Yeah, thought I had the virus. Cue panic attack. Hard.

Then I started feeling like I had to puke. Oh that’s right, I didn’t eat a lot of food yesterday and had way too much wine and almost no water. Dehydrated again!

Did some deep breaths to prove to myself that I wasn’t actually short of breath, even used my little breath thingy from my appendectomy where you inhale and try to keep this little thing between lines and it shows lung capacity.

I had to logically go through my actions over the past week. A week ago today I went to the store, I was wearing a mask. I wiped down all my things with a bleach mixture, I washed my hands, I sanitized my phone. I did everything right. I only leave my house to get groceries, and I try to keep it to once a week. I live alone and the cats are both indoors, so no chances there. No, I’m just dehydrated and panicking.

Got myself calmed down a little bit, decided to stay off social media and news for the day since that definitely wasn’t helping. Took a shower, that also helped a bit with the panic.

Took my test, got 73% but apparently that’s still failing? That’s a C! C = Competent. Whatever. Emailed the instructor for next steps and laid down.

Last time I was dehydrated like this (my last week at work ☹ ) I went home, took a nap, felt better. So I figured that was what I needed to do.

Downloaded a white noise app because I wasn’t feeling podcasts like I normally sleep to, and the stream noise I picked had a sound every few seconds that sounded like there was a mouse scratching under my sink. I eventually figured it out and could stop freaking out about that, but one of the dreams I had involved Turnip putting a small mouse on the blanket next to my face. That woke me up pretty quick, I had to check there wasn’t a mouse and that Turnip hadn’t somehow gotten in my room. Got back to sleep, it was about a very poorly managed theatre production but also in a space ship. It was kind of cool but also really damn frustrating.

Had a very nice nap. I felt great, and woke up around 4. Started playing a find-the-thing game I played a couple years ago on the iPad, SO MUCH EASIER. Did that for a couple hours in bed, then moved back out to the living room. Still feeling great. No coughing, don’t feel the need to puke, cool. Had a couple pieces of pizza and played that game until about 10:30.

Couldn’t figure out what I wanted to eat. Not feeling making anything, and I didn’t want to have pizza again. So more water, I’ll just sleep and have something in the morning. I had a bagel with cream cheese this morning, and two slices of pepperoni sausage pizza for lunner, that’s enough.

Okay back to bed. Night.

Today started of with anxiety, then calm, then serenity, then more anxiety, and then more calm.

Went to bed late, but not too late (1am) and since I slept pretty crappy yesterday (4hrs) I slept in today until about 10. Read a few chapters of a book and then decided I needed to get up and move a little to hopefully fight some of that atrophy. Got up, played a couple games on my phone for a while, and the rest of the day will be scattered in the 4 sections below.

Some of this might seem political but just know that I try to remain as apolitical as possible. Learned that from my Government teacher in high school: I have my own thoughts and opinions but I’m not going to tell you what they are. THANKS, HANSON! <3

Governor’s Address

Yesterday, the governors of OR, WA, and CA announced that they would work together to reopen the states safely. West Coast = Best Coast. Some NE states also did the same. A lot of news articles I’ve seen announce that the NE states did it first and then the west coast followed suit, usually almost at the bottom of the article, which is kinda BS but whatever there’s more people east of us so pander all you want we all know we did it first.

Today, Gov Brown announced her framework for reopening and it was streamed on YouTube. I was about 45 minutes late to the game, but I watched it. This time they had an ASL interpreter on the screen and I was slightly distracted by that. My ASL is extremely limited but I can kinda figure most things out with context. He was a full 30 seconds behind. Even for her opening speech, which like, give him a copy of the speech?! Then he can translate in real time?!!?! Some tech issues towards the end, which slightly annoyed the theatre tech in me, but they fixed it and of course I understand because as a theatre tech I know that shit just happens.

I’ll link the address here.

While I was watching this I was comforted by hearing from the top (like the call with my GM two weeks ago and again coming up this Friday), but mostly I felt anxious. They don’t know how long this is going to go on. Which I totally get, this isn’t something that we can control, we can only look at the data and respond accordingly. For the most part, I think Oregon has done extremely well with relatively so few deaths, and honestly not that bad of infections (outside Portland and Eugene).

That’s not a slam on Portland or Eugene, those are two of our largest cities so of course there’s going to be more spread. Oregon is pretty spread out which doesn’t not work in our favor. I’d be interested in seeing per-capita-by-state numbers if someone can help with that.

But we don’t know how this is all going to go down, and I just want to be able to go back to work (can’t remotely work, I’m furloughed/laid-off) and maybe eat at a restaurant again because I am SO TIRED OF COOKING FOR ONLY MYSELF. Keep this in mind, I’m going to keep some sort of timeline with this post. It did sound like mid-May was a goal (unofficially) which would be AWESOME because that’s the latest my PTO can handle. UI will give me half my income, but who knows when that first check would come and how I’d be able to pay my bills and stuff. Anxiety.

Jenna Marbles

After watching the Governor’s address, I needed to calm down so I went to my suggested videos.
The first one was a Vlogbrothers video. I love Hank. More on him at a later date. But then I embarked upon a Jenna Marbles and Julien streak. (earliest at the bottom, ofc)

I can’t remember if I’ve talked about this, but I’ve been watching Jenna’s vids almost since the beginning. Back then I still had dial-up so I would load one of her vids and just wait for it to buffer enough to watch uninterrupted. Back then she was crazy and angry and yelling and that just resonated with me. I’ll be honest, for a few years I hadn’t watched anything of hers, but maybe a year or two ago I started watching again. It wasn’t routinely at the beginning, but now I can’t wait for Wednesday/Thursday to see her again. Her latest videos in the last couple years are much more chill and much more aligned to me as a person. I used to love her crazy/weird/yelling videos back in the day, but now I’m totally fine with her doing whatever the hell she wants because that’s where I am in my life.

Jenna and Julien have a huge following, as they should, called the Dink Fam. I haven’t ever figured out the YouTube community so for both Jenna/Julien and the Vlogbrothers I’m happy to lurk on the community elsewhere like Reddit. So I’m happy to lurk when I run into the community on YouTube/Switch/elsewhere.

This is a long way to say that watching her videos calms me down and I love it. Drunk Joe also emailed them to offer my F&F discount at work and was like “hey if you want to golf I’ll hook you up, I’d love to play with you but you don’t have to no pressure at all.” Because thanks to their videos I consider them friends and I’m almost positive I wouldn’t have a normal celebrity freakout, it’d just be like meeting up with some old friends after a while apart.

The point was Jenna’s vids calm me down, which I needed after some uncertain news. I don’t know where it went, but that was the point. Absolutely guarantee more to come on J&J.

Return to “Normal”

I texted Megan (hey, girl!) earlier tonight looking for some ideas for today and she brought up the “return to ‘normal'” and thoughts from the day since they’re not what I actually do through the day, they still happen and can change.

So after I finished watching the governor’s address, between videos and games and stuff, I kept thinking about what the return to normal would look like. Initially, I kept thinking even though there is going to be a staged re-opening, I’d go to a different restaurant every day to show my support.

Due to events that I’m going to cover in the next section, I ended up driving to the village and got to thinking again about this return to normal. I’d probably wear a mask in the office for a while and in public, I’d probably cook my own food for lunch, and I wouldn’t go to any mass gatherings (Fest Fest) for a while.

While that would help keep me protected until an immunization was created, I can’t help but think what would happen if everyone did the same thing. If everyone did the same as me, we would definitely run into a similar situation as the 2008 recession. Having not been a full adult during the recession, I’m not sure what that woudl ook like, but I hope that we as a society have learned better since then.

My hope, as slightly naive as I am, would be that we’ve learned our lesson in that patronizing businesses promotes the economy and would help to prevent another depression. I’m most likely going to decrease the number of businesses I frequent to prevent a second surge, but I’m going to do my best to promote business because I want everyone to succeed. I don’t eat from national chains very much, so I know I’ll mostly be able to benefit local business.

Daily Reflections

I’ve been writing the top bits for like two hours and have lost my focus. Pardon grammar and spelling, I stopped caring a little while ago.

I ordered those masks off Amazon on Saturday, they were supposed to be delivered Thursday, they got delivered today. I took the car to get the mail for the first time in a week, but since the mailboxes are .15 miles from my house I needed to drive for a while. Because it’s not good for your car to sit for more than a week, and also to drive it less than a mile. So I decided to drive to the village to get a few more miles and make the whole venture worth it. When you get to the village there’s a roundabout. I went around and there weren’t that many people at the store. I needed wine and creamer.

Since I was feeling pretty great just getting out of the house, I drove around the resort twice. It was amazing. I got out of the house but wasn’t around anyone so I didn’t feel too guilty. Parked at the store and called the local pizza joint. When I said I was tired of cooking for myself, I wasn’t joking. A medium pizza will last me at least 3 days. Ordered my pizza, opened my fresh pack of masks, and went in. Wine, creamer, eggs, and salad. The salad I was going to eat with my pizza; didn’t happen. I don’t like these masks.

Finished shopping, went to pick up the pizza. Took off my first mask, decided to wear two into the pizza joint for science. Still don’t like these masks. One mask shows my mouth and is just in general too thin. Two masks, I feel like I’m mumbling. Maybe I can tweak these to act like I want, maybe I keep them solely as emergency face covers.

Got home, had a couple slices, watched some more Jenna videos, and the anxiety of being in public melted away.

Been a chill yet rough day. Hope y’all had a better one.

Until tomorrow.

Today was another boring day stuck at home, alone. Almost a month into this, and I’m starting to regret these daily posts. I’m not really that interesting. YouTube and Hulu day again.

The neighbors have yet again resumed their wood-chopping competition. At 10:30pm.

I have one more test for this MySQL class and it’s scheduled for Wednesday. On a whim I looked to see if I could reschedule it for today, and I could! Well, the times were showing as available. Posted on Facebook to get opinions if I should reschedule and get this class done with or take a nap. The naps won.

I didn’t take a nap. I can’t nap unless I’m sick. When my head hits the pillow I’m out for a minimum of 4 hours, no exceptions. I don’t know what I did today, really, just that 4:30pm rolled around and I knew I needed to take a shower before hopping on to play a game with the guys at 5. I did try to reschedule the test to like 7:30 or some time later, but it kept failing. I think they put restrictions in place for people who weren’t supposed to graduate at the end of last month can’t schedule until Wednesday to let their 14-day extension take effect.

I actually low-key look forward to taking a shower now, it’s the only time I really have to listen to music. Before, I could be guaranteed at least an hour of music-time. 15 minutes in the bathroom, 20 minutes in the car to/from work, and then another like 20 going from Starbucks to the office to the Lodge to lunch. Plus when both coworkers are out for lunch I crank that shit and rock out. When I’m at home, for whatever reason I just don’t listen to music. It’s sad. Podcasts and TV shows galore, but very rarely do I just let Spotify do its thing.

Anyway, we downloaded that COD: Warzone beta and played that since it’s cross-platform. We were all in my Discord server which was nice, playing cross-platform sucks because you’re usually limited to whoever is on the same system as you for chatting. Since the three of us mostly play Apex together it was really hard to not hear Lifeline let us know we were in the next ring. So I created my own voice prompts. Team player.

To tie this rambling mess to the title, for the last couple years I’ve made it a habit to hop on the scale before I shower (beginning of the day, when I work it’s also as I’m changing into my pajamas) so I can establish just a general overview of what’s going on. I used to write everything down in a notebook, but almost a year ago I got a scale that connects to my phone. It graphs everything for me, which is great. ANYWAY, shared a meme on Facebook and commented that I’ve lost weight during this pandemic even though I’m not getting more than 1k steps a day.

My friend, MM, who’s a nurse, said it was because of muscular atrophy. Not going to argue that for several reasons. While that’s definitely a portion of it, it’s definitely not all of it. I’m eating a lot less than normal (just not feeling more than 1.5 meals). In the last month-ish, I’ve lost 10-ish pounds, and according to my scale which should not be used in place of medical advice I’ve only lost about 3-ish pounds of muscle mass. So that’s something I need to figure out how to combat until the weather gets better. I have my resistance bands, I should use them. And when the weather gets better I can go outside (Friday’s lookin’ good!) and do stuff.

No GIFs again today, I’m meme’d out. That’s what I did today: Facebook and Reddit. So. Many. Memes.
Usually I’m a font of collected memes and references, but I meme’d myself out. I don’t want to look at another meme until tomorrow morning.

So yeah, keep moving otherwise your muscles gonna atrophy and it’s gonna suck when you go to do stuff in a month or two when we can get out again.

Okay so yesterday you know how I was like “I had two hot dogs for lunch, not really feeling dinner?” Yeah, I never ate dinner. Around 10 I was thought about making dinner, and then forgot to.

SEE, MEGAN? IT WAS BOTH.

Because I’m weak, I stayed up until 3 watching YouTube videos. I was looking for a specific version of a song. Didn’t find it.

So I slept in until like noon.

Started watching a show that I am a little embarrassed to admit right now, saving that for a podcast. Know when to hold ’em, folks. For a while I was like, “Oh, cool! Netflix turned off the still watching prompt! Because they KNOW!” And the next episode was disappointed.

Sat down on the bed for a second to spend some time with Athena and promptly became a bed.

I’m craving Chinese food something fierce. There aren’t any restaurants out here, and I can’t really justify a trip all the way to town. My last trip to Fred Meyer was absolutely panic-inducing so I’ve been relegated to shopping at the small store out here. Yeah it’s more expensive (resort pricing) but it’s better for my sanity. To be honest, probably my health, too. Less people going through, less chance of infection.

I had a thought, and my one brain cell decided to forget it and watch three more episodes of this show. It was going to be deep, and probably was about food. And how much I miss eating dishes that I DIDN’T HAVE TO MAKE. I swear, as soon as distancing ends I’m going to eat at different restaurants every day for a month.

Unrelated, I was thinking about my next trip to the store. I made some dishes that should be able to hold in the fridge for a while longer, so I’d really just be going to get wine. FUN FACT: I was able to find a website I could order from. More expensive than Fred Meyer, less expensive than the country store, but might equal out with shipping. I could buy like 4 at a time to make it more cost effective. Then I wouldn’t need to leave the house for a lot longer, I have enough frozen food to last a while!

No, I think I should go to store once a week. I need to get out of the house.
I also need the weather to change so I can putter around outside. 50F is fine, but I gotta be comfortable. 65F is gonna get me out from under my blanket.

I gave you real-life cat pictures, so no GIFs today. Also the Giphy search function in WordPress really sucks.

I’m a nerd.
Unabashedly.
Unashamedly.
I. Am. A. Nerd.

Today has nothing deep or meaningful, I did Jack Shit today. No tests, no studying, didn’t even clean. Zero anything.

But, today’s theme is SPACE.

Started the day by playing some No Man’s Sky. Still haven’t found Artemis’ ship, but still loving this planet. Maybe I’ll create a stockpile of hyperdrive fuel so if I ever do decide to leave this system and actually play the game. Couple interesting encounters with the Sentinels when I picked up graviton balls (THEY JUST APPEARED), died, but adjusted my strategy and was able to pick up four of them.

Watched some DS9. SPACE.

Played Apex, it’s based in, wait for it… SPACE.

Finished DS9. SPACE. Debated redoing my Star Trek marathon, but I did that a few months ago, it’s still too soon. I hear Enterprise’s theme song and have PTSD.

Coworker emailed me for an interview of sorts for a paper they’re doing for school. How does this tie into today’s theme?! I write a lot! Using the SPACE bar!

Shut up, that was clever.

Now that my DS9 marathon has completed, resumed my SG:U consuming. It takes place. In. SPACE.

I’m still not a fan of SG:U. Maybe that’ll change. Doubt it.

And here we are.

Daily Reflections

I mean, for the most part it’s all above.

Ate two hot dogs for lunch, wasn’t really feeling dinner.

Hit both my weight and body fat goals, kinda surprising since I’ve done nothing this past month but sit and not do anything. I think it’s because I haven’t had a Starbucks in as long. Once this is over, maybe I’ll go sugar-free. I really just want my iced latte.

God, I can’t wait to be able to exercise again. Hate it while I’m doing it, but damn do I feel better.

Last night I bought some cotton face masks, those should be here by Wednesday. Obviously, they won’t do much, but it’ll be nice to have something pre-made I can use when I need to go to the store. Optimistically, if the resort opens back up as planned, this 10-pack will be beneficial. After a day of use, I can hang them in the sun room for 5 days (paper bags and tagged with use date) and then throw in the washer. Hang again for another couple days, and then they can be reused. Five days should be more than enough time for the virus to die on its own, and then washing in hot water should rid it of the fabric, and then another 3-5 days just in case it gets activated again. I’m not a doctor, but given what I’ve seen this should be a good tactic.

We’ll see on Wednesday. Doing good on supplies, should be good until then. Haven’t had coffee in like three days, so if I wake up tomorrow and want coffee then this will all change. Needs mah creamer.

Sorry for not being more interesting, today was boring and I tried not to think too much.