DIY and Projects
This week, I cleaned up the grout haze. After I finished sealing, I touched up the wall. Later, I cut the two pieces of baseboard needed for the fridge area. The baseboard needed a light coat of paint. At the end of the weekend, I handled the toe kicker. But I had gap issues. The first one was where the baseboard and tile met, or rather, didn’t meet. I got up Sunday morning and added a bit of grout in the gap to close it. I don’t know why I didn’t notice it before the baseboard was in place, but c’est la vie.
Apologies for the blurry mess of a photo, but you get the idea. It was too big of a gap for caulk to fill and it was easiest to just grab the pre-mixed grout and make it look like it was on purpose.
The next gap? It was where the toe kicker, or plinth if you prefer, meets the floor. I used quarter round as it was around the same size of gap. I’m honestly not impressed thus far on this IKEA cabinet system. From technical documentation that is often inaccurate or unhelpful to toe kickers that aren’t the right height despite the floor going under the cabinets, I’m annoyed at this point. It doesn’t even sit well where it meets the cabinet. And plastic? Environmentally and structurally unsound. Anyway, I present the area that just needed caulk once the glue dried on the quarter round molding.
Before I let it set completely, I pulled up the piece of quarter round. Why? I realized that I hadn’t factored the other toe kicker piece into the length of it. Insert F-bomb here.
At the long ago suggestion from a friend, I taped most of the areas to prepare for caulking. She made the suggestion because I had mentioned that I’m horrible at it. I hoped this part would go better than the bathroom did.
Gaming and Puzzles
I spent some time on Cyberpunk 2077 on Tuesday. It was a much needed break from all the stress lately. I was surprised I could leave Dogtown so easily after everything that went down there. But I was glad about it. The game keeps trying to get me to do a quest that is a point of no return. I wish it wouldn’t continue to automatically add it into my tracking. I need to do everything else before I do that quest. This is the “Meet Hanako at Embers” quest. You can turn off the tracking, but as soon as you finish another quest, it automatically tracks it again. I’m not a fan of a lot of automatic things like this. You don’t know what I need, computer! I want to finish every quest in the game rather than just skip ahead to the final ones.
I don’t enjoy driving most vehicles that aren’t motorcycles in this game. I’m a road menace with anything else. I invested some skill points in being able to exit combat more easily because of it.
Health and Fitness
Sometimes, the thing one needs most is a healthy comfort meal. On Tuesday, I made Shepherd’s Pie. It had been a long time since I last had any. I used some of the potato water to help make a gravy for the meat along with some gluten free flour and some corn starch, veggie bouillon, pepper, and gluten free soy sauce. For the potatoes, I just mashed them with vegan butter. Added a can of corn in between like mom did and put some smoked paprika on the top of it. Mom didn’t make a gravy for the meat or leave the skins in, but I felt like that was how I could make it my own. I cooked it in the oven for 35 minutes at 375. Then I put it on broil for a short time to crisp the top slightly.
I looked forward to more meals like this one in the future as I have had to eat a lot of processed meals to get through the renovation.
Movies and Television
Lately, I’ve been watching The Rookie as I got a month’s worth of TSN with Crave. I got that to watch the Rivalry Series. Unfortunately, Canada lost terribly this week on their third game of the series. At least it wasn’t such a blow out on game four, but I really hope they do better at the Olympics.
Anyway, Nathan Fillion stars as John Nolan, a 40-year-old rookie cop in LA. One of the recent episodes had Alan Tudyk in a couple of episodes and my geek heart loved seeing them on screen together again despite how brief it was. This reminds me that I should rewatch Firefly and Serenity soon.
I also watched The Nightmare Before Christmas this weekend and it was the exact thing I needed to watch. I’m not a fan of Christmas. It’s too commercial. Gifts have never been my love language, so a holiday where everyone spends a bunch of time and money questing for gifts we could all just buy ourselves isn’t fun. The coming together to have a meal and enjoy spending time together is the part I like. Also the seeing friends when possible. But I largely love staying inside during the winter anyway. Yule is better. Just focusing on the light returning is hopeful.
Music and Song-Writing
Monday’s choir practise went really well. We already almost have the new song down pat. We received the translation for our French song and it’s so beautiful. Actually, I love a lot of the songs we’re singing.
I spent part of Tuesday making a playlist of inspirational songs. And then I had to remake a lot of it because some sort of glitch happened and they didn’t save. That wasn’t ideal. At least I had them in my history to easily find the albums again and correct the problem.
Reading and Writing
I’ve been thinking a lot about the edits that are needed for my one novel. I think I’ve needed to grow and change in order to be able to truly finish the book. It’s why I’ve seemed stuck. Also, there are so many choices to make as an author and decision fatigue when one’s executive function is already taxed is a lot to deal with. I have realized I need to rewrite some parts entirely to improve it.
The Write Buttons 