Massage was the best this week. I sorely needed it. She gave me tips for my hand issues and we chatted about things like my future fitness plans given everything that’s going on. I’m returning to iaido, which is the art of drawing and cutting with a sword. It doesn’t feature much in the sparring realm though there is some partner practise. I will be doing the modified standing version since grinding my knees and feet into the floor isn’t good for the joints. It always felt like amputation would be preferable for me and that makes me wonder how long I’ve been going about my life undiagnosed. I’ll be adding other activities later. A 1.5 hour shopping trip on Thursday had me quite sore, so I feel it’s best to work up to more.
What else? Likely jodo, since it is already covered by the fees I’ll pay for iaido. Definitely tap dance. It’s drop in, so I can have full liberty of how often I go. It was fun and didn’t hurt. And I think I’ll be getting back into geocaching. I did it for a short while over a decade ago. It was fun to find the caches and low intensity exercise. Walking, but with goals. I may also do some Pacer challenges. They have more story based walking challenges and the writer in me would prefer to collect these fun medals. I could even read some of the specific stories at the same time and be a huge geek about it. I also want to fit some golf in this summer. I haven’t done enough golf in all the years I’ve lived in Ottawa. I think it’s time that I check out the various courses and dust off my clubs.
The Kitchen Epic
On Monday evening, I painted the last coat on the shelf edges in my upper cabinets, so I could get on with the lower cabinet install this week. And I did get on with it on Wednesday. I put a significant portion of it together.
Somehow, I have extra cabinet sides in my stack of IKEA pieces. I’m not sure if I’ll return them or build something later with them, but I’m going to ignore them for now while I focus on putting the cabinet together.
The hell of counting with dyscalculia could begin on another day. I would need to count to figure out where the drawer goes and the door hinges and I wasn’t looking forward to it. I still had to fix a drawer on the other cabinet because of this, but I wasn’t in a hurry as I would have to take the drawers out when installing the countertops I didn’t yet have.
I began attaching the anti-tipping screws, but only one would bite into the cabinet. I decided that was a good place to stop for the day. I think part of it had to do with the front metal bar being in my way to reach properly.
But there is a lot of work left after it is installed anyway. The backsplash and flooring will be worked on while waiting for the countertop to arrive. And then I’ll have to cut it because one cabinet is tiny.
I bought the extra battery pack on Thursday and began charging it on Friday morning. On Friday, I ordered my butcher block countertop. Then I cancelled it because I decided to redo the order with delivery. Normally, I pick things up, but 25 inch by 74 inch in my little car with my current health reality, well, I decided to have it brought to me. It’ll be hard enough maneuvering it to cut it in my condo. I should have enough for my two cabinets with overhang and the leftover can be made into two cutting boards. With this on the way, I would soon be able to have much of my kitchen done with only the stove area left. I have a number of small appliances to use for keeping myself fed and will only need to buy a hot plate for boiling water.
The Ant Saga – Part Deux
I saw three ants in total on Monday evening. I sprayed them after trying to follow them seemed a futile effort as they didn’t seem to know where they were going. I also didn’t know where they came from, but perhaps they were just not home when I caulked the others in. I saw no others all day long.
None the rest of the week.
PWHL Playoffs
PWHL playoffs began on Thursday with the Ottawa Charge vs the Boston Fleet. Boston got a 5-minute major penalty in the first period with a game misconduct charge for a head hit on Gabbie Hughes. The Charge scored. Later in the period, the charge goalie Gwyneth Philips got a penalty for tripping a Boston player. Unfortunately, the Charge didn’t take enough shots and lost the first playoff game.
Despite Laura Stacey making an awesome hat-trick, Montreal lost to Minnesota in the first game of this first playoff round. This hurt extra because Montreal had the option of playing Ottawa instead and they chose the two-time champs to go up against. Notorious bad girl, Britta Curl-Salemme was ejected from the game for a head hit and just as the player in the first Ottawa game, she would be suspended for game. A fine was added and that may be due partly to her track record of dangerous hits. It will be interesting to see if she can play cleaner and stay in the rest of the playoff games.
Goal tender, Gwyneth Philips, held Boston at bay in the second playoff game for the Ottawa Charge and brought them a win. I like to think of her as Spider-Gwyn because it seems like she has extra limbs when she’s in net. The Fleet pulled their goalie at one point and that resulted in an extra Charge goal securing the win with insurance.
On Sunday, I went to iaido (pronounced like eee-eye-doh). I’m definitely rusty, but it was doable and it was so great to be active doing something that isn’t renovation related. I was very tired after, but I’m sure it will take a bit to get used to doing it on the regular again.
Apologies for the lateness. I lost some of the post in some kind of autosave mishap and had to remember what was supposed to be in it!
Catch you on the flip side,
Rae
The Write Buttons 