I’ve fought with fatigue this week. I wanted to be more productive, but part of me decided down time was in order after many months of stress.

I worked on the area needed for cutting my countertops. And I worked on my bathroom door situation. I was trying something unconventional, but I couldn’t figure out how to make it work, so I retrieved my previous door from storage and reinstalled it after tweaking it some.

On Wednesday, I was informed my school laptop would be arriving on Thursday. That was a weight off my shoulders. Later, that same day, I had my last appointment for RRSPs and received some of my school funding. After that, I got some needed items including the start of some planned snacks for school. It’s been awhile since I had an actual schedule. I do better with some forced structure in my life even if I simultaneously dislike it. Otherwise, my daily life becomes the embodiment of Parkinson’s Law.

As I awaited my laptop’s arrival, I cleared up my inbox quite a bit. This is something I couldn’t get the mental bandwidth to handle while I was still working. All the admin in my job was frying my brain. I was a bit annoyed with myself for not having as much done by this point as part of me wanted, but I was also recovering from the burnout office work did to me, so some relaxation was sorely needed before the school adventure began.

I spent several days fighting with the door for my bathroom. I got it back on its hinges, but two screws wouldn’t go in all the way. I started to wonder if it was the humidity since nothing else made sense. The other four screws went in easily enough. I put wax on one and that worked, but the other just wouldn’t go in all the way, so I decided I would need to drill to ensure the hole was deep enough. The door has been on before, so I had no idea why it wasn’t working.

My laptop for school arrived on Thursday and everything that could go wrong with setting it up did. Thankfully, I got help at the Apple Store and was able to get nearly everything working before bed. I hadn’t gotten into the whole Windows emulator part, but I did get my Scrivener license at a 36% discount for already owning it for Windows. I got my DropBox set up, and WordPress too. I typed half of this post on my new computer. Despite the early frustration and the learning curve, I really like writing with it, so I think it’s going to be an excellent device for life beyond school. One of the things I noticed right away is that when a window is maximized, it’s automatically put into a full screen mode, which is rather distraction free. There are other things I really like too, like that though I’m using WordPress.com for this blog, there is an app on the Mac side for it. It just feels better than doing everything through a browser window. And normally I hate that there are so many apps for everything now, but this one instance is good for me.

I was completely exhausted by the time I went to bed that evening.

The next day, I got Fade In installed. I just put the demo on for now as I’m not in a rush to work on any screenplays just yet. Scrivener has a digital binder set up for all my school courses, so it was important. I also installed UTM and eventually figured out how to download the Windows image to put into it. The Windows 11 image couldn’t install, so I hoped the Windows 10 one would work. In the meantime, I put some other fun applications on it for creating and installed the Kindle app as one textbook is a free ebook. That’s for anatomy class.

On Saturday, I did some things around the condo. I figured out how to rearrange some furniture to make better use of my space. I ordered a small bookshelf for my crafting books and began reorganizing the rest of my space beginning with uninstalling my air conditioner. I know there may still be a couple of warm days left, but I figured I could handle it with a fan as needed and save the floor space. I absolutely needed space to temporarily move things to. One piece, I held back on as I knew I had kendo the next day. I also needed a trip to IKEA to make the complete change. With the AC uninstalled, I had a place I could relocate my cart of many renovation supplies. Because where that was, was where I was moving a table to from the craft area in my bedroom to my office. The table would be an excellent place for my school books and my Tiefossi planner.

Kendo was a lot of fun on Sunday. It was the first class I’ve attended since sometime before the pandemic and it was very full. It’s a different, more social art than iaido is. I was told my big men (big strike to the head) was well done. Usually beginners have to learn how to do that, but we do big cuts in iaido, so it translated well. I was so confused at many times, so it was good to hear that I did something right. I have a lot to learn and I need to strengthen my ankles. I’m hoping that will reduce the pain I get in my Achilles. It was a really good workout, which is something I’ve been wanting. Hopefully, this will help in my fitness and weight loss goals.

Catch you on the flip side,

Rae