dailyrandomwriter

[dailyrandomwriter]

Day 839

I’m still slowly trying to put myself back into gear. I’ve been told by another friend who also has ADHD that falling out of routine very easily and having difficulty getting back in is pretty normal. It doesn’t remove the frustration that sometimes comes with that experience.

It’s also very easy to fall out of any gains you make physically it seems as well when you lose that routine. While I haven’t lost weight, nor look any fitter than I did before starting to take exercising as a personal goal of mine, I did end up feeling the change.

As time went on, I could do certain exercises like dancing for longer periods without a break, I would be less sore afterwards and less tired. While I hadn’t lost everything, I do find trying to do dance routines for 20 minutes in one go kind of difficult, which is sad because I hadn’t previously. 

Well, all I can do is keep trying, and catch up on the things that I haven’t been doing.

[dailyrandomwriter]

Day 838

Today has been the first time in a long time that I felt like I just kept going at work instead of the starting and stopping that had been happening while I was sick.

Everything else though is taking time.

The problem with being sick is that you allow certain things to lax, and that included the journal checking I did to make sure I did the things I wanted to get done. There was also the issue of not having done certain things for so long that sometimes that was all I craved to do.

Like, I hadn’t written a self indulgent story in a really long time. The kind of story that is just between me and Were-Ah. These types of stories I write to just please me, but I like sharing with Were-Ah because she understands where I’m coming from when I write them. So it was nice to just write something like that tonight.

Which is why this entry will be short, I’m all written out.

[dailyrandomwriter]

Day 837

Despite the fact that I have worked my job for well over a decade now, and have for a variety of reasons trained/taught people bits and pieces about my job, the database and the software programs I use, I’m still surprised when people come to me with questions.

Perhaps because I keep forgetting exactly how long I’ve worked at the organization. 

As more and more of my older and more experienced coworkers retire or move onto other jobs, I become more and more one of the ‘senior’ workers at this place. However, that’s not the only reason why people come to me with questions.

The other reason… is my age.

Let me explain.

I was born in the 80s, and grew up in the 90s and saw the rise of the personal computer in the 2000s. By the time I had gotten into high school, for a middle class family, it was the norm to own at least two personal computers. I know this, because I had done a school project on computer ownership in high school.

As a result, I became part of the generation that was considered the most computer savvy. We were the reason why a lot of schools stopped teaching things like typing and web searches. By the time I got into university, it was assumed all of this would be common knowledge, because it was just part of our daily lives… and then the smartphone happened. 

When the iPhone first came to market I was in my last year of university, and by the time I graduated, the adoption of the iPhone was so fast that universities were concerned their bandwidth for wireless Internet could not keep up. The hunger for a smartphone became so large that cell phone providers were using the promise of a phone for free to lock people into five year phone contracts. A tactic that is now standard in the industry, and more importantly this ability to own a phone by locking yourself into a phone contract made owning a smartphone the norm.

But it also meant that owning a computer in your personal life, became less and less of a need. After all, you can search the internet, write an email, listen to music and even play games on a phone without a computer. Coupled with the increasing cost of living, owning a computer wasn’t a priority anymore, and a generation grew up without the computer.

Which was probably just as well, because many of the basic office programs I use for work, programs that used to be for free, now cost a subscription to use. If you’re from the generation younger than me, I want you to know, Microsoft Office programs, especially the basic Word, Excel and Powerpoint, used to be for free. 

And even when Microsoft first started requiring subscriptions to those programs, instead of locking you out completely, they used to offer a bare basic version of those programs to use… for free.

As a result, outside of our IT department, I probably have the most experience in using a lot of the software that is standard on an office computer. I even know where to look for that information if I don’t know off the top of my head. In rare cases, I can make leaps of logic from experience to know how to use certain programs. 

Which is how I occasionally end up teaching people tips and tricks on the computer.

[dailyrandomwriter]

Day 836

For the past two days, my pharmacy had been texting me to pick up some strips and lances from them. Despite the fact it is highly unnecessary for me to check my blood sugar levels at this stage in my life, I do so primarily to put my parents at ease.

And perhaps as a reminder to myself to eat well.

Since it was already half way through the week, and I survived yesterday doing on-site work, I decided to treat myself. Since I had to pick up the strips and lances, I thought to get sushi on the way for lunch and maybe a little sweet treat.

Just a little one.

The clouds were already gray and the outside looked gloomy by the time lunch rolled around, but I figured I could beat the pending rain or snow that was forecasted. By the time I bundled up and shuffled myself outside, it had already started to snow lightly. However, snow was better than rain, so I figured why not.

By the time I crossed the street the wind had picked up. It was at that moment I realized I miscalculated… It was icy snow, the kind of snow that stung horribly when it hits you at high speeds. The kind of snow that would normally drive people in doors.

Normally, if I hadn’t already made it across the street. At this point, I figured there was no point in turning around, I was already halfway there. 15 minutes later, the light snowfall had turned into a blizzard, but I had my strips, my lances and my order of maki. All I needed was the dessert, and for reasons I don’t know, the ice cream shop was where I decided to stop by, while heading home.

I wonder if the nice ice cream shop lady, who let me try the sea buckthorn sherbert, thought me a bit mad for wanting ice cream while the snow whipped past the window. It is apparently a type of golden orange berry that is very hardy and good as a sorbet. It was… certainly a flavour. In the end, I decided on a vanilla ice cream with chunks of oat matcha shortbread in it. The company dyes the ice cream blue and calls the ice cream Wide World, it’s gimmicky more than anything.

But… I like blue and I like matcha, so win-win for me.

By the time I make the last steps home the ground is covered in snow. The icy wet snow clings to my coat and to my hair. So much so that the heat of my home causes the ice clumps to slide down my head slowly. A bothersome feeling as cold ice slips bit by bit along my hair.

I shook my head like a dog.

This was a mistake.

A clump of ice and snow flies off and hits the stairs, and my entrance way looked like I took a bath in there. Worst yet, the shake did not remove all of the offending ice crystals. It took every bit of self control to not shake my head again as I ambled up the stairs to grab a towel to try off my hair instead.

The storm raged on while I had lunch, only to stop an hour later, because of course it did.

[dailyrandomwriter]

Day 835

Maybe it’s because the last dose of my heavy medication landed on the last day of the month, but I’m looking forward to getting back into normal routine. I haven’t written anything in a long while being in between recovery and medication. 

Despite the fact I still continued to do things.

Even though the second round was hard, the fact I only needed two doses per day made it much easier to cope. Though I still crashed out by the time Friday rolled around, to the point where I decided to take today off.

While I’ve given myself a lot of grace at work to be slow while on the medication you can only be so slow before you might as well just take the day off. Also I have meetings this week that actually require me to have a functioning brain. If there’s anything I can do to encourage brain function I’ll take it.

I’m also hoping to catch up on writing.

There’s so much writing…

[dailyrandomwriter]

Day 834

One of the things I learnt growing up was how to take joy in the small ridiculous things. It’s probably why I include any bit of food I get from my folks as something notable in my daily journal.

The bright spot in being on a second round of heavy medication is the fact Revelry Season has started in Infinity Nikki as of yesterday. Though the server update happened at 11 p.m. at night, and with the medication I decided I would just check through the menu changes lest I stay up later than I intended.

I stayed up slightly later than I intended.

Even though I didn’t get to see the season events in full swing, I was already impressed. This impression was due to the compendium update that also occurred. In a game that is so well designed as Infinity Nikki, I enjoy looking both at the written flavour text and any models of the in-game assets I can find. The compendium updated to include all the flora and fauna of the world that you’ve found so far. This included, what appears to be completely new models just for the compendium. I had a lot of fun turning the models around and looking at them up close with @wereah, as I was streaming on Discord.

But the other fascinating thing about the compendium is the bonus it gives to the players. The Pear Pal Compendium has, from its inception, always been another achievement goal for players to seek out. And achievements in Infinity Nikki have always rewarded players with diamonds, the coveted currency used in their gacha system when your resonance crystals have run out. 

You get rewards in the compendium in two ways, the first is by completing wearable sets, outfits or one off pieces of clothing in the wardrobe area of the compendium. This is important, because in that area of the compendium they have recently added the Eureka sets. Those shiny, animated add ons that you can add to your outfit for some extra glam. This adds roughly 1,480 more diamonds that a player can earn without having to spend money. It takes a lot of luck, but it is doable.

It also, interestingly enough, will affect player behaviour, because it gives an incentive for players to try and earn Eurekas to find all the ones to pad out their collection.

The second way you earn diamonds is that completing the compendium levels it up, which also rewards you with diamonds. Any part of the compendium you complete, whether that is lore, materials, outfits or cloaks will count towards it. This means that anyone playing the game for a while would have gotten a large boost in diamonds as their compendium updates by several levels.

So that is actually really nice, and really generous. It will also be very interesting to see what they will do with the compendium levels when new regions in the world open up. It’s unknown if that particular compendium is just for Wishfield and they’ll make a new one with new levels later on, or just add to it in some way.

There’s still a bit of checking I want to do in this compendium alone, because Infold clearly has listened to the players and revamped how everything is organized with the outfits. So I need to check if their search feature for their lore has improved at all.

And I haven’t even checked out the event itself yet.

[dailyrandomwriter]

Day 833

An advocating skill I’ve had to learn as I’ve gotten older is learning how to ask medical questions. Even if I think I know what is going on.

And the initial lack of this ability has nothing to do with having crappy health providers, in fact most of my healthcare providers, especially those I’ve in my high school years and later, have always been very good to me.

It’s just when you’ve been in and out of hospital a lot, and taken everything under the sun it feels like, you kind of forget that maybe you should ask questions.

I was reminded of this, because I am on medication again for an infection that apparently does not want to go away this time. It is a lot better than when I went on my first round of medication, but the danger signs (while lessened) were still there. So my doctor prescribed a different set of medications, instructed me to not take my preventative medication while on this medication.

Now, I was already familiar with one of the two medicines I’ve been given, but I wasn’t familiar with the second one. So, I took advantage of a service that has been part of pharmacy service for as long as I could remember. That is, I could ask my pharmacist for a recap on what to expect out of this medication. 

This is something I do for any medicine I am not familiar with, or I might not have taken for a long time. In which, I kind of forgot that the one medication I did know something about, I hadn’t taken in like four years. That’s because that medication I normally use when I get a bladder infection, and it’s been four years since the last one.

Well it turns out, the medication I didn’t know anything about wasn’t a big deal. It was, take twice a day, make sure you take it with food (which you should always do unless the bottle says otherwise because your stomach thank you for it). Other than maybe the metallic tasting side effect, and do not drink alcohol warning, it was pretty clear cut.

The first medication however, the one I did have experience with was a completely different kettle of fish. Apparently, I forgot a lot about how that medication works, in which the warning was, do not take calcium or iron supplements within six hours of taking the medication and put on sunblock if you’re going outside because it makes it more likely you’ll get sunburn.

Don’t know how that last side effect is a thing, but okay, I’m glad I asked.

So yes, even if you think you know the answer or you understand the assignment. Ask a question, or ask for a recap, you never know what you might miss.

[dailyrandomwriter]

Day 832

A truly excellent day of existence for me when it comes to wanting to do everything I would like is when I feel like I got something done and still have time to play an extra game and still have time to mess around for a bit.

Granted those days are also the days where I’m left to my own devices completely. In this case, I was able to get the skeleton of my journal set up done, and started making dinner at the proper time, which allowed me to play a bit of Crimson Manor.

But, I will be honest, the only reason why I managed to do this was because I sort of gave up on something else. It’s an annoying habit that is apparently common with folks with ADHD. If you think you have to do something, and for whatever reason can’t bring yourself to do it, then you end up just not doing anything.

At all…

For possibly hours if you’re very unlucky.

I wanted to get another movement break in before dinner but before I knew it, it was quarter past 7. At that point I had two choices, I could keep thinking about exercising or I could start dinner. Since I knew logically my routine tracker goal was to start cooking at 7 p.m. and 15 minutes past was still within acceptable range for me, I apparently figured I could at least claim this as a win.

It’s weird, that particular train of thought and logic process, but at least I managed to break out of it this time.

[dailyrandomwriter]

Day 831

Infinity Nikki has a very strange skill problem, born out of their very wide player demographic that I don’t think any previous developer had to ever deal with naturally.

A fact I was reminded of when watching other players try to navigate the Illusibloom dungeons as part of the Eerie Season event in Infinity Nikki. I feel kind of bad because a part of me wanted to scream at the screen and ask them why they were trying to bluntforce their way through the run. Even though logically, I know a lot of this comes down to experience.

If you’re a long time Nikki fan but never had a chance to play a game that is a puzzle platformer, or an action exploration game, until that moment, this game can be very difficult at times. On the other hand, if you are someone who has played Zelda, Mario, or even Elden Ring, and decided to give Infinity Nikki a try, you may find the game far too easy.

I’ve been very fortunate that I’ve been in the middle of that spectrum of experience. Even though I am not really a fan of puzzle platformers, I grew up with this genre. I played Mario and Banjo-Kazooie, and even tried Crash Bandicoot at one point. As a result, even though it’s been decades since I’ve played those games, I still carry experience from those games. So, I personally find Infinity Nikki satisfyingly challenging at times. In fact I would like to go back through the Illusibloom dungeons to see if I can beat my original times now that I’ve learned lost skills.

The developers are now trying to grapple with the fact they have an audience that are on two different ends of the experience spectrum for this game, and I know they are trying to find ways to satisfy both sides. Personally, I wonder if the game may benefit from dungeons or minigames that encourage the practice of particular skills.

Like I learned a lot doing the Balloon Hopper mini game on Firework Isles, because it forced me to practice cancelling out of the float ability in order to get a faster time on those games. In fact, even though I didn’t have an issue with the Illusibloom dungeons, I still learned from those. I don’t normally use the plunge attack because it wouldn’t occur to me during battle. It wasn’t second nature, but because I wanted a faster time, I had it forced me to practice that move, and now I use it a lot more when out in the open world.

No matter what the developers do, I think I’ll find it interesting either way, because this is a very unique problem to this game.

[dailyrandomwriter]

Day 830

In the… adventures of weird ways to tell that time is passing, apparently I can add reminders of the current Infinity Nikki season ending to that list.

Look, it’s been a hell of a month, what with me catching up from a round of medications from last month. And I still don’t know if I’m a 100% better as my logic battles my wish to just not be on medication again.

So, I’m part of the Infinity Nikki Discord, not that I do anything in the Discord server, because I find it very hard to keep up with any Discord server whatsoever. There’s just a bit too much going on, and I can’t tell if that’s my ADHD or my old woman brain, maybe a bit of both.

Anyhow, because the Discord server is really good for updated news, I have Discord alert me when things like game news is posted on the server. As it happens, today is the last week of Eerie Season, because the new seasons seem to start/end on the 25th of the month.

And because I haven’t heard any news about the new season (watch me eat those words in the next few days), I figured I still had a lot more time. Like, it is only the 18th technically speaking. The last I checked I was making good time on my journaling and work… well work is still a bit of a mess but that is to be expected.

As  a result, I was caught off guard to realize it is almost the end of the month.

Holy fuck where did the time go?

[dailyrandomwriter]

Day 829

I’ve mentioned, a long time ago when something of mine had to be rebooked, that being on both sides of the booking process really puts things into perspective. There are things I will do, because I book appointments for living, such as calling my family doctor right away after updating my health card.

However, it can still be a very novel experience to be on the other side of the booking screen, especially in a huge organization like a hospital.

My first appointment of the day was for my ultrasound, and while I was trying to keep myself busy with Sudoku, I could help but overhear the receptionist on the phone. Now, to be clear, people have all sorts of reasons to cancel their appointments, life happens. You could have gotten sick, ended up in hospital, had your car break down, a snow storm blow through… just to name a few scenarios. However, as someone who books appointments for a living, nothing is more frustrating than having someone cancel their appointment and then expect to be booked into the following week.

So listening to this unfortunate person having to explain to someone that they are booked out until September at least three times, was a mood that hit in my soul. I’ve never had to book out that far for an appointment, I certainly understand the feeling of trying to explain to someone that appointment slots are full and there isn’t anything that can be done.

A more fun experience was for my second appointment of the day when I showed up late (because the ultrasound ran late). Only for the receptionist there to know exactly who I am and know that the piece of paper I had were my ultrasound results. A fact that confused me because I only get to see them once a year, and I was 20 minutes late. 

It took me a minute too long to realize that they probably had a database similar to mine, where someone was checking the patient into and out of their appointment once it was done. This means that they would know that I was in ultrasound and when I left the department, because that is the kind of thing I would have checked within our own database.

Sometimes, it’s fun being the person who isn’t booking the appointments, but completely understanding what is happening.

[dailyrandomwriter]

Day 828

When I was still in school, if given the choice between going to a doctor’s appointment in another city and going to school, I’d rather be in school. And it wasn’t any hatred of the doctor’s office or trauma, it was just the fact I felt like I was rotting while I was at the doctor’s.

Or specifically the specialist. 

I don’t know what it’s like in other places, but specialists, especially specialists in hospitals, have a very long physical wait even when you have an appointment where I am. And while it does have a lot to do with funding issues, it’s not quite in the way you think.

See, the thing about public funded services is that if someone doesn’t show up for their appointment, that is money wasted and an appointment slot lost. In a publicly funded service, that is incredibly painful, especially if you have a waitlist. So organizations are motivated to prevent this as much as possible. One of the oldest ways to do this, is to simply double book the clinic. If you’re in the same boat as I am, and are wondering why you’re still waiting for an hour or two (or three) even though you have an appointment time, it’s because your appointment is double or tripled book. 

Especially for hospitals where they’re more likely to have people who are coming from further away, or have people with high needs, they’re more likely to have what are known as “no show” appointments. So for them it makes sense to just shove as many people as possible, knowing that a percentage will not show up.

There are, however, technological and administrative things that can be done to prevent these “no show” appointments without double booking. On the cheaper (but relatively new) side of things are automatic reminders. Depending on the database and permissions given by the patient, reminders can be done by telephone, email and text. Some more savvy programs can even continue to make a reminder until the patient confirms that they have received it. 

On the more expensive side is an administration change, there have been recent studies and pilot projects that shows that there is an ideal time to book a patient known as a “booking horizon”.  Ideally, when booking an appointment with a patient, you should only book two weeks out. Not only does this lower the chance of the patient forgetting about their appointment, but it also prevents the patient from double booking themselves, and there is less likely of a last minute cancellation due to weather, illness or any other unexpected crisis. 

In fact, my place of work piloted this and found that we were less likely to get last minute cancellations and ‘no shows’. However, logistically, it was impossible to upkeep, which is the reason why it never made it past the pilot stage. Some of the reasons had to do with how the service worked. Sometimes appointments were being booked in blocks of four or six appointments, which meant they would be booked out really far in advance by nature.

Now, this could have been solved by just booking in blocks of two, but then it ran into the problem of administrative cost, which is why I said this solution is expensive. It takes time to call someone and book an appointment with them, and to go from calling once every month and half to six times in that same time frame is very taxing on the administrator. 

And frankly, the backend people are the last people to get a staffing increase whenever a funding increase happens. After all, you want to reduce your waitlists, which means you want more people seen.

So as much as I don’t like to be waiting for hours to see my specialist, I do understand why it happens, and I just have to resign myself to the wait.

[dailyrandomwriter]

Day 827

Now that the weather is finally warming up consistently… At least until the next snowstorm blows in, it was time to do a housekeeping task that often gets forgotten in the winter and not done enough in the summer.

And that was airing out my home.

While I love my living space to bits, there is something to be said about modern open concept interior design and architecture with too high ceilings, and that is impracticability. Now that I am in my 40s, I can say this with all the loving grace of someone who is nearly over the hill…

To any young people looking to live in their own space, whether that is an apartment, a condo, or a house, when you look at popular designs or home fads, ask yourself… can I 1) live in that space even if I become unwell, or worse handicapped, and 2) can I realistically look after the space as it is designed.

That being said, whoever designed my home, should be shot. There are at least 6 different light bulbs that are required to light my home. High ceilings may give my home a sense of space, and the ability to look over the railing to the living room below is really cool. My cat, in her youth, loved being able to travel between the living room and my bedroom with ease. However, the light fixture above my door entrance has not been changed in nearly two years because no one is fit or brave enough to climb up a ridiculously tall ladder to change it. While the ceiling fan, the only thing that allowed circulation of air, over the living room, short circuited and cannot be replaced without hiring someone and a lot of scaffolding. 

Hence, the need to make airing out my home a housekeeping task.

In fact, it’s such an important household task that in the days leading up to winter, I would open up the patio doors for as long as I can stand the cold. Fortunately, I happened to like the cold, so I am able to take the cold very well. Unfortunately, this also means, summer makes me miserable, so the only way my home gets aired out in the summer is if I get up early to open it in the morning. That’s assuming the morning isn’t already a write off. 

Still, I do love my place, because it is mine.

[dailyrandomwriter]

Day 826

Just a warning to anyone who regularly reads this (for some reason), if I continue to just talk about video games, or Infinity Nikki, it’s not just because I have a video game obsession.

I work in a job where privacy is required, and while I can tell stories as long as I leave out identifying factors, sometimes it’s just easier to not talk about it.

Especially if that talking is going to be me bitching. I assure you, it is not my co-workers. My co-workers are all angels and deserve a raise. My managers especially, for putting up with whatever bullshit they’re asked to do in order to better serve the community on not enough funding.

However, there are days I want to bitch, and sometimes, it is just better to gush about the latest thing I’ve discovered in Infinity Nikki.

[dailyrandomwriter]

Day 825

In the reading community there is a term called DNF, which is Did Not Finish. If you DNF-ed a book, it meant that you didn’t feel it was worth trying to finish and just didn’t finish it. It is a concept that I have been trying to learn how to embrace in video games more quickly.

I do have games I don’t finish, but often it takes me a really long while to accept that I won’t finish it, or if I game had a major update, won’t replay in some cases. It has nothing to do with the price, it more often has to do with my belief that once I get into the game I will enjoy it.

And this isn’t necessarily wrong.

However, I have to also recognize that games are by design (if done well) supposed to keep you engaged once you’re in the game. As a result, some of that engagement might just be tricks of the brain. Often, because the game has some sort of feedback loop that keeps me going.

That’s not necessarily a bad thing, but it does mean I will sit on a game and not play anything at all, instead of playing what I want to play. This is especially problematic if the reason I want to DNF a game is because I want to play a different genre.

This is where games tend to be unique compared to movies and books, when you switch complete gaming genres, you’re switching the way you think when you game, because a different genre requires a different skill set. Like a 3D exploration platformer like Infinity Nikki requires some spatial awareness that I don’t require in a 2D logic puzzle game.

In this case, I do not feel like playing a time management game like Magical Bakery, instead I have the sudden urge to play a point and click room escape game. Specifically I have the sudden urge to try my hand at Crimson Manor again. So I guess that is what I’ll be doing at some point.

[dailyrandomwriter]

Day 824

After over two years writing this blog, I don’t know if I mentioned it at all, but I owe @wereah for now my default character, Kara, looks now. 

Kara Winters, later renamed into Kara Wong, has been my default original character since high school. She is the poor soul who gets isakaied (reincarnated) into whatever indulgent story, role play or video game I happen to be into. But, as you may have noticed by her renaming, she wasn’t always Chinese.

And it wasn’t because I was against my own ethnicity, it was just that it didn’t occur to me growing up it was a choice I had. Which is interesting, because I grew up during the era where the line between toys and children shows were very, very thin. When I was a kid, it was not unusual for a toy company to make a tv show with the sole purpose of selling toys to children.

As a result, there were a lot of children's cartoons where the cast of main characters were often a group of friends/heroes/warriors/etc that represented both genders and the most common ethnic demographics at the time. This was an attempt to cash in on the widest range of children, and ironically it was probably some of the most forward thinking writing at the time. 

Like Sky Dancers (if anyone remembers that show) was about a group of magical teenage heroes who were dancers in their off time, to have two of them be male dancers is actually kind of amazing. Especially since this was the mid 90s.

However, there is no removing the fact that in those cartoons the leader was often blond and caucasian. Nor did it remove that other than their ethnic looks, you didn’t learn anything about the backgrounds of those characters in relation to their ethnicity, So, maybe it wasn’t really a surprise that when I first created Kara for a roleplay, that she became caucasian. Though, at least she had short brown hair, and green eyes instead of the very stereotypical long blond hair and blue eyes.

It was Were-Ah who re-drew Kara to be Chinese, and one of the reasons why it stuck was because she really, really cared. Drawing Chinese characters in a stylized art style has been one of Were-Ah’s constant battles over the years. This is because she actually makes the distinction between Chinese, Korean and Japanese physical traits. It bothers the ever living fuck out of her when Kara (or any Chinese coded character she draws) ends up looking like a different Asian person, or worse a generic Asian character. (Ask her about Cael, she’ll bitch about him not being on model for at least 30 minutes.)

And maybe that’s what I really needed up until that point, someone showing me that representing me is important. To this day, my favourite version of Kara that she had drawn was of Kara with an ankle foot orthotic like the one I have in real life.

[dailyrandomwriter]

Day 823

As I kept a close eye on the weather, my brain wondered if the reason why self-help and self-care advice often gets put to the side is because it’s all overwhelming and a bit much at times.

This thought was born out of my wish to add another wellness task to my already growing list of tasks.

I’ve often written about the many things I try to upkeep in an on-going attempt to live a happy and healthy life. Not out of any moralistic reason, or belief that it’ll make me successful, it’s just I was born with a lot of chronic health problems and I would like to not make it worse. I also would like to get through my 40s without officially being given the title of type-2 diabetic, assigned another medication to my existing roster while still being mentally and emotionally well.

A tall order between my already existing health conditions and family medical history.

Which is why, one of the things I want to do on occasion is sit in nature and do nothing for at least five minutes. Kind of hard to do during Canadian winter, hence, me keeping a close eye on the weather. 

And this is already on top of my goal of trying to hit 40 minutes of exercise on the days I work from home, continuing to write, continuing weekly socialization, upkeeping my journals, upkeeping my home, and so forth all while fighting against my ADHD.

Which brings the question of… why? It’s amazing I do as much as I do with the ADHD, and the medication very much helps, but that’s the thing, it helps, but there are still days. The last two housekeeping weekends were very hard to do for example.

I’ve heard, allowing yourself to sit in nature, just chilling, not listening to anything, not doing anything, not having any other stimuli helps retrain the brain. I’m well aware that solid quiet these days bother me, that I always have to do something, or daydream heavily. Anything I can do to help give myself better days is useful. 

So I want to give it a go, even if I can’t do it everyday, I would like to give myself the chance to at least try and quiet my mind a bit more.