Let's attempt this journaling thing again, shall we?

*blows dust off journal*

Yeah, it's been a while, hasn't it? (about a year and four months since my last post, but who's counting?)

*waves to anyone who is still following*

I've been actively reading here even if I have sucked at posting.

Let's see, a brief catch up on the last year and four months.


Work had been super stressful until I shifted positions in May from supervisor to afternoon baker (I work for a certain Canadian company known for double doubles and rolling up rims). The new position came with a regular shift Monday to Friday (no weekends!) and meant I no longer was working till 11 pm every night. And so much less stress -- I hadn't really realised exactly how much stress I had been under before actually. It felt like someone just lifted a heavy weight off me that I'd grown so used to I didn't even notice it anymore until it was gone.

omphalos and I around that time revisited our The Choice To Walk universe and finally were able to pick up where we had stalled out writing it... like ten? years before? Oh god, was it that long? We've been writing almost daily on it ever since (to this day), and enjoying the hell out of it. Also the plot has got more complicated, as is wont to happen to us. Complicated in this case means characters from Of Old Mystics (Rupert and Ethan) waltzing in and demanding to become a main part of the plot. Which I suppose in one way is only fair, since Ian (one of the main characters in TCTW) was originally a bit character in OOM that demanded to become a main part of the plot. The upshot of this is that Of Old Mystics and The Choice to Walk are now both part of the same universe in our heads (which we've dubbed Of Immortal Mystics) . As well as incorporating Ethan and Rupert (and other oom characters) into the current story we're writing, we have also been writing scenes and bits post OOM (but before the TCTW bits get involved) and it's been so much fun to revisit those characters and finally get to write out the things we'd talked about happening after the end of that story.

Not sure if there would be an audience for it and I don't know when, but I do hope to post all of this, or at the very least the post OOM bits.

Things were pretty good through to the fall. I turned 50 in September (oh my god I'm old), which was mostly marked by me attempting to get back into drawing and getting an ipad pro so I could try digital art. That hobby has stuck -- I'm still doing art both digital and traditional and not completely hating the results. I may post some of the things I've done here in a future post. (Providing I actually can keep up posting this time).

Then in the first week of November in a span of like 3 days, I ended up in the ER twice, was diagnosed with an ulcer in my groin, diabetes and blood pressure high enough to be in the stroke range. To say it was a bad week would be an understatement. And then a couple of weeks after that, my wallet went missing at work. So I had to deal with all that entailed, cancelling things and getting replacements and having no ID or health card while I suddenly had all these medical appointments at various places to go to. So not fun.

Things were getting better by January -- I'm now taking way more daily medication than I ever had before in my life, but both my blood sugar and my blood pressure seemed to be under control. And, changing my diet (and maybe some of the medication? IDK) has meant I've lost a significant amount of weight. I'm not sure exact numbers --I deliberately don't weigh myself to avoid getting obsessed over such things -- but I've gone from the second biggest hole on my belt to the smallest (which is the fifth) and even that is no longer tight. And I have to wear a belt with all my jeans as they're all far too loose otherwise. I had been meaning to go buy a bunch of new clothes with my tax refund, but.... Pandemic.

Ontario declared a state of emergency on the 17th and I took a voluntary layoff on the 20th. I would be considered high risk with my health issues, plus my parents live in the same house and they're over 80 it just didn't feel like a good risk to be taking.

I've been home for going on three weeks now and have only gone out twice -- once the first week to get groceries, and today to pick up my prescriptions. I don't foresee going out again any time soon as we've switched to delivery for groceries which would be really the only thing I'd need to go out for until next month.

I've been coping, more or less. I tend to spend too much time going down the rabbit hole of reading news sites and social media about everything that is happening and I've had to work on stepping away from that and finding things that aren't anxiety inducing to concentrate on for a bit.

I've been slowly working on decluttering and tidying things up, and helping with general household things and trying to get my parents set up to maybe do some things online that they usually go and do in person. I had a tablet I'd gotten for free when I upgraded my cell phone back in September (birthday gift to myself, I upgraded from an iphone 5 to an iphone 10) and I gave that to them and set up my dad with his very first email address. My mother is now asking about facebook which is the next thing to tackle and see if I can get set up for them and explain it enough that they can use it.

I've been working my way through things saved on my pvr and watching things here and there on netflix and such. Am currently making my way through Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries and finding it delightful.

I've also been listening to a lot of audiobooks as a distraction. (Mostly works by KJ Charles though currently I'm working my way through the Whybourne and Griffin series by Jordan L Hawk. I find adudiobooks particularly good to listen to when I'm trying to get asleep and I can't because I can't stop thinking about everything that's happening. The only downside is sometimes the story I'm listening to gets so good I end up staying up far later than I intended listening.

omphalos and I have been keeping each other sane. We've been writing a lot and even if we're not actively doing that, we're usually at least chatting in discord.

There's a lot more indepth I kinda want to go into on the above subjects (and maybe others), but this is probably long enough for now. I'll finish with something I did today purely because it made me happy.






 It's silly, but I take what little bits of happiness I can get right now.

Hope everyone is staying safe.