farming, gaming, shopping, writing, reading
Today I went to volunteer orientation at Growing Power, which I had been meaning to do for ... a while. I kept telling people it was because we have reached the point of a Wisconsin winter where I start really hardcore fantasizing about having a garden (not really an option for an apartment-dweller who would rather spend disposable income on books and DVDs than grow-lights), which is true. But it also gets me a "human interaction" checkmark on my personal sticker chart.
I am working on making peace with the fact that I need a sticker chart to motivate myself through life. Possibly I could add that to my sticker chart.
I had a good time (I spent an hour helping to bleach sprout trays to try to eradicate a mold problem) but figured I hadn't actually done anything strenuous and shouldn't count it as exercise (another reason to go work on the farm). Then several hours later I noticed how much my legs and feet hurt, and, uh, apparently standing and doing some sort of hand-work for a couple of hours is more continuous physical activity than I normally do?
Anyway, after volunteering I went down to my local board gaming group's open gaming day, which was fantastically fun and, for me, pleasingly history-themed. (I played Rattus, which is about the Black Death; Ave Caesar, which is a Roman chariot race; and Condottiere, which is a game of war among the medieval Italian states.) I will definitely be going back for more. And probably dragging helaaspindakaas with me.
After that, since I was right there, I went to one of the soon-to-be-closed Milwaukee Borders stores and promptly scooped up an armload of paperbacks to buy. Then I called iuliamentis to check whether I was missing anything. She pointed out that I needed Among Others, but I couldn't find it (the shelves were already looking pretty picked over) so I settled for all of jimhines's Princess books, which I have been meaning to read forever, the complete works of seanan_mcguire (the three Toby books + Feed), Michael Flynn's Eifelheim, which I read and loved this fall and kept forgetting I didn't own (problem solved!), and The Hammer by K. J. Parker, which sounded interesting and yet does not appear to be on order at my local public library.
I should probably see if there's something I can do about that.
And, to cap the day off, I moved on from last night's minor meltdown (a not-especially-interesting variation on the "why the hell am I doing this anyway, writing is stupid" theme) mainly because Julie made some really sensible points about why I get so worked up about writing and how to defuse myself when I do. So tonight (after some procrastination and a few minutes of eyes-closed flailing dancing around the living room for psyching-up) I got back on the horse and knocked off the next scene of the novel-in-progress, ending a five- or six-month hiatus from forward progress. \o/
And something I didn't do today but which is perhaps of interest to people other than me: I really enjoyed An Owomoyela's Of Men and Wolves, posted this month in Fantasy Magazine. There's a complicated clash of religions and faith, and that is only the half of the really interesting things going on in this story.
I am working on making peace with the fact that I need a sticker chart to motivate myself through life. Possibly I could add that to my sticker chart.
I had a good time (I spent an hour helping to bleach sprout trays to try to eradicate a mold problem) but figured I hadn't actually done anything strenuous and shouldn't count it as exercise (another reason to go work on the farm). Then several hours later I noticed how much my legs and feet hurt, and, uh, apparently standing and doing some sort of hand-work for a couple of hours is more continuous physical activity than I normally do?
Anyway, after volunteering I went down to my local board gaming group's open gaming day, which was fantastically fun and, for me, pleasingly history-themed. (I played Rattus, which is about the Black Death; Ave Caesar, which is a Roman chariot race; and Condottiere, which is a game of war among the medieval Italian states.) I will definitely be going back for more. And probably dragging helaaspindakaas with me.
After that, since I was right there, I went to one of the soon-to-be-closed Milwaukee Borders stores and promptly scooped up an armload of paperbacks to buy. Then I called iuliamentis to check whether I was missing anything. She pointed out that I needed Among Others, but I couldn't find it (the shelves were already looking pretty picked over) so I settled for all of jimhines's Princess books, which I have been meaning to read forever, the complete works of seanan_mcguire (the three Toby books + Feed), Michael Flynn's Eifelheim, which I read and loved this fall and kept forgetting I didn't own (problem solved!), and The Hammer by K. J. Parker, which sounded interesting and yet does not appear to be on order at my local public library.
I should probably see if there's something I can do about that.
And, to cap the day off, I moved on from last night's minor meltdown (a not-especially-interesting variation on the "why the hell am I doing this anyway, writing is stupid" theme) mainly because Julie made some really sensible points about why I get so worked up about writing and how to defuse myself when I do. So tonight (after some procrastination and a few minutes of eyes-closed flailing dancing around the living room for psyching-up) I got back on the horse and knocked off the next scene of the novel-in-progress, ending a five- or six-month hiatus from forward progress. \o/
And something I didn't do today but which is perhaps of interest to people other than me: I really enjoyed An Owomoyela's Of Men and Wolves, posted this month in Fantasy Magazine. There's a complicated clash of religions and faith, and that is only the half of the really interesting things going on in this story.