⚒️It was a busy week at work. I went to 2 different construction sites for meetings and a site visit. I didn’t have much time to write this week. I focused on getting exercise and rest after work.
📚I skipped my local Bookclub meeting this week because I haven’t finished the book and, again, I was super tired so I decided to just go for a walk and go to bed early.
📖I finished reading this cozy fantasy “Bookshops and Bonedust”. I really enjoyed it. It helped me get out of a mini book slump this week.
🧩Lots of progress on our ancient world map puzzle this week. It’s my favorite type of puzzle! All borders are done, the 2 spheres borders are done, latitude lines done!
🏃♀️It got cold, and we had some snow in the middle of this week. But it cleared up over the weekend and I went for a 7km run outside. It was 15C, nice and sunny day.
❤️The post COVID headaches are still happening every other day. Sometimes I feel tiredness as well, it's a fatigue that seems to come out of nowhere. Anyway, I've prioritizing rest and sleep.
📅I finally planned and added to my Calendar all my vacation days for this year. I will use most of the days on our trip to Brazil at the end of the year, and the rest of the days are all spread out around holidays so that I can have longer weekends.
🎬I watched 2 out of 3 episodes of the miniseries “Rebuilding Notre Dame” on Curiosity Stream. High quality images (with the help of drones) and the details about the restoration.
📌Interesting Online Reads This Week
Goodbye Lenna: the story behind a scanned image that is being used to test the quality of image processing algorithms since the 70's. I never knew about this image, and this post got me into the Wikipedia entry. Interesting! I feel bad about the female model who didn't get any royalties of people using her image for decades.
⚕️ The post-COVID headaches are getting less and less frequent, so that's satisfactory progress!
🎮 I'm still having fun with Stardew Valley. I can play one or two in-game days at a time, no rush, no stress. It's been great as a rote activity that refreshes my brain a little bit.
📚 I got into a reading funk this week. Some books that I thought I was excited about were not grabbing me enough, so I finally decided to let them go. I wrote about one of them here. I started reading Bookshops and Bonedust by Travis Baldree because I loved the first book and because it is the definition of cozy fantasy.
👟 On the Good Friday holiday me and partner went out for a walk by the river, and we crossed a pedestrian walkway that was once an abandoned railroad bridge. It was recently rehabilitated as a muti-use walkway. It was sunny but very windy (windchill of -5C)! I was glad I got out with my puffer jacket, beannie and gloves.
🧩 We started a new Puzzle! This one is an antique world map with 2,000 pieces. Map puzzles are my favorite! The top border is done.
✅ I had a day this week when I wanted to try out Microsoft To Do again, just to realize I still love Nirvana (again!).
📌Interesting Online Reads This Week
The power of 15 minutes (and other ideas) – The Imperfectionist Newsletter by Oliver Burkeman: The idea of doing something for 15 minutes and then slowly increasing that time to work longer. It's useful in so many areas of life: reading, running, writing, cleaning the house, etc. He also mentions a book called “Deep Freewriting” by Stephen Lloyd Webber, which is a practice of free writing with a timer, similar to what Natalie Goldberg describes in her book “Writing Down the Bones”. Timers are so useful! I love using them. That's what works for me to journal every morning.
Librarian in the Wild shared their reflections on abandoning books and reading for pleasure in this post “In Addition To...”. I'm glad for the mutual inspiration and reflection. Thanks! ❤️
Why I write: another great post on reasons why to write online. It ends up being a self-discovery experience. I totally relate to his reflections here, great post!
These are some of the things that happened in my life lately:
😷After a week with COVID-19, I finally tested negative yesterday and I’m feeling much better. I still have the occasional dry cough and some headache, tho. I became super sensitive to bright screens, which triggered these horrible migraines.
💻I changed my blog’s theme to be adjusted according to the reader’s preference of light or dark modes. I’m currently using all dark themes on all my apps, but for some people the light mode is more accessible. Thanks to Joel for pointing me to this CSS option!
📺I finished watching this series on Curiosity Stream: The Story of Europe with historian Dr. Christopher Clark. It was a lot to cover in 6 episodes, but it was nice to have this overall view and be reminded of all the ups and downs. It is critical of all the horrific colonization endeavours in the Americas and Africa. It discusses the great wars and how much of the European culture was forced into other nations. But I found the overall tone of the documentary being positive, celebrating the achievement of the European Union institution as a way to foster peace among countries.
🎮I had this urge to play some puzzle or city-building type of game. I re-downloaded the game Banished on my computer. I remember it was a relaxing game to me, yet very engaging with the right amount of challenge. I’ve always liked resource management and building cities (ie. SimCity). I’ll spend some time playing Banished this weekend.
These are some of the things that happened in my life lately:
⛸️I’m feeling more comfortable skating backwards. I still do it slowly, and I started doing some backwards C-pushes on the circle: it’s very hard for me to do them with my left leg, tho! I have only one more ice skating lesson this season, but I’ll continue to go on the public skating sessions until they are available.
🩺I finally got an appointment with a Hematologist to discuss my chronic anemia. Since oral supplements aren’t doing much to raise my Ferritin levels, I will do an iron infusion next week. I used to have to do these infusions every 2 or 3 years back in Brazil, so I finally got a prescription to do them here in Canada. I hope this will help with my energy levels and overall mood. I’ve been feeling very tired lately.
👟I enrolled for my first running event of the year. I want to do 10K this year! During the winter I do some treadmill running at the gym, but I find it super boring. Temperatures are getting positive now so I will start running outside again! (and get to that 10K!).
📅Time Blocking (alongside GTD) continues to be my compass at work. Without it, I will get overwhelmed and lose focus. I've had some days when my attention was all scattered (usually on a Monday morning) and by noon I realized I haven’t planned my time blocks. I’m still using Cal Newport’s time block planner; I really like the spiral bound format.
🧩I spent a lot of my free time doing puzzles this week. Got the Dragon one almost done!
We started a new puzzle this week! This one is 1,000 pieces and it’s called the “Magician’s Study”. I love that I will be searching for candles, glass jars, a skull, a magician’s staff and lots of books.
This puzzle is not as hard as the previous one because it has fewer abstract images, which makes it easier to spot patterns. The pieces are oddly shaped and vary in size more than other puzzles I have done. I’m having fun with it 😃.
Day 01 Progress: we are still missing some border sneaky border pieces.
After 5 months, me and my partner finally finished the Dragon de Jade puzzle. It was definitely the hardest puzzle I've ever done! It is very dark, with imperceptible colour nuances in the pieces. Shades of blacks, greys, and blues, with hints of oranges/reds.
And it was the first time we had to redo the border pieces multiple times in a puzzle! Usually the border is the first thing we finish, and it kinda stays unchanged till the end. On this one the border was the last item to be finished! Some pieces seemed to go well together judging by their shape, but then other surrounding pieces wouldn't match. So we had to constantly rearrange these borders pieces.
