An Abundance Of Good Things
It's been a string of really good and fun events in my life lately. There's also been quite a bit of bad and concerning things, but I've been able to manage them a lot better than I would have just a month ago. This new mindset I'm gaining after the move has allowed me to focus more on my life and what I'm doing, which has been both enjoyable and exhausting. :) Someone with a low social and outgoing battery like myself struggles to really get out of the house and enjoy life. But the move has really enabled me to try to change.
My ideas for projects never changes, however. Now I have more things I want to do than I ever considered. Once again, making time for everything is my ultimate problem. :P
Here are some of the highlights of all the fun stuff I've been up to over the last few weeks.
Exercise
I've started using this app called Hevy. I am using the paid subscription to have it make workouts for me. Combining this app with the gym the apartment building has available, I've had an easy time getting myself to workout regularly again. The app seems trustworthy from what I could read about it, and my body has felt great. I'm strength training 3 times a week with a focus on upperbody, and although I feel sore I never feel so sore that I can't workout after a rest day. Okay except for one day just this week but I blame my lack of sleep more than anything!!
I'm avoiding tracking my gains until a month from now. I don't want to get myself discouraged from lack of progress when I already see regularly going to the gym as a huge victory. And I've had multiple increases in the weights I'm using already.
I think the thing that has made Hevy the best for me is that on the paid plan you can set all the gym equipment you have available and it will make a workout routine with just the exercises you can do with that equipment. It also provides slow gifs for all the exercises. This has really allowed me to learn and use new equipment I had never touched before, like the cable machines. They're so much fun?? The gym feels more like a playground than ever.
I can't wait to have actual muscular arms for once... I've never built up any kind of arm strength except for when I was a teenager doing TaeKwonDo. And even then I didn't have any biceps to show off. I'm ready for a better upperbody.
Sidenote, I have fallen off from stretching. But I'll add that back to a regular schedule soon. It's hard adapting to new schedules even when the things you want to do take so little time, lol.
Work
The project has been going super smoothly. My boss and I worked together on the plan, made it an official OKR project with the CEO, got a timeline going that was split up into 5 Phases, and we're already done with Phase 1. It bothers me that my boss used Claude to make the timeline as I'm against outsourcing work to AI, especially with how often I hear people complain about how bad AI can be at making this sort of stuff, but I have to admit the timeline was a big help. We're not following it to the letter, but this has helped me learn that even if I make a bad plan or timeline myself, working with a bad timeline is better than working without one at all. It's helped me organize how I approach my work a lot better than I usually am. And it makes work feel more engaging to see myself meeting deadlines and having expectations for the work that comes next. I want to think more about creating timelines for myself in other ways. It feels like an RPG progress track that motivates me all on its own.
Although Phase 1 is completed, and ahead of schedule, it also involved completing stuff in Phase 2 since, as I mentioned, the timeline was made by an AI so there's no way it would have been accurate in how it set everything to be done. I made a presentation and held a meeting to show everyone on the team what we had accomplished during the Phase 1 audit phase, and to kickoff Phase 2 which starts next week. I already started some of the work on that, though. I'm trying to remain as "ahead of schedule" on all the work for this project as I can incase our small group gets derailed from the work by a huge bug or what-have-you. Since this project involves rewriting our support articles AND moving them all to a new website, there isn't a way to have "too much time" is what I'm thinking. The earlier we can start each phase and have it all figured out, the better we'll be. I just hope we do get to finish it. The finish line is for Giving Tuesday, so still too far off of a date to worry about that. But I love to worry, lmao.
Chess
The boyfriend and I haven't played much because we've been deep into board games, which I'll talk about next. But we have played a game using a timer and it's added a new level of fun, I think. I don't try and rush my decisions, but I do end up picking decisions sooner, and it helps me to see how long each of our turns take. The boyfriend brought up using the timer for our boardgames and Magic the Gathering games, too, since he struggles with taking long turns. And honestly we might try that, lol!
Board Games
This past weekend was the boyfriend's birthday. With it being a long weekend we celebrated by doing something every day since Friday. We went to our local transwoman owned boardgame store and played a bunch of Magic while I'll talk about next. But I also bought the boyfriend two boardgames. He's been wanting to get into painting minis, and the both of us are huge X-Men fans, so buying these two was a no brainer. What I didn't expect was how fun Marvel United would be. I think I want to make this a regular game I play with friends and get more people into it. It's so accessible and quick for a board game, and strangely addictive. Although I feel it's kind of "kickstarter slop" with how often it relases expansions, the minis they provide are great quality and worthwhile on their own. The chibi style was strange at first, but I came to like it very quickly. It makes all the characters a little more cartoony in a fun, less serious way. And doesn't distract from the game itself. I just think the game would benefit a lot from a strong community with more in-depth defined rules. It makes me want to start a wiki, lol...
Nothing to say about the Bloodborne game as we haven't done a game yet, but the minis are GORGEOUS. Hope to talk about it more.
Magic The Gathering
WOTC is still on my shit list for all the bad decision making they've done with the game, and how they have treated their trans employees. But I'm happy to hear the union has formed. I hope it leads to a healthier, better company and game going forward. And that workers are treated with the respect they deserve, and the pay they deserve.
That being said, Magic is now kind of a big part of my gaming life. And having done my first Release event with draft, I'd say I'm more into the game than ever. I don't really care about the Marvel cards, but playing the game in a 40 card deck with strangers is oddly fun and engaging!! Especially at the board game store we go to. Everyone is really friendly and open to talking. It's helped me a lot with my social anxiety already.
I did get two of the cards I actually wanted from this whole set. One of them being the (very cool) Coming of Galactus card that I put a screenshot of above. And also the Storm card because it looks super strong. I want a reason to use her soon. I also bought the boyfriend and I a couple of deck boxes for our Magic decks. I have neatly arranged all of my decks in these boxes and it makes me so happy to look at. :3
Cooking
My mentality around cooking is getting to a healthier place. A funny thing for me to write considering being a home cook was something I built my identity around. It started as a thing I did just because I love food, and now it's a thing my friends associate me with being good at. This pushed me into wanting to be an "expert" and "super knowledgeable" about cooking at home. But that expectation has only caused me stress over the years. I'm deciding that now I just want to have a rotation of dishes that I can make regularly and taste really good, and refine some of those recipes as a "specialty" of mine that I can feel comfortable serving to guests and friends and feel confident that they're eating food I know how to make well.
One of those specialty recipes is Moro de Guandules, specifically the Dominican version. I grew up with this dish and came to love it more than most other rice dishes I've had. So I want to be able to make it for friends and have them understand just why it is I can't get enough of this dish. I've successfully made it perfect 3 times now so I can say I'm comfortable making it. Now I have to adjust the seasonings a little and it can be even more perfect.
Other specialties I want under my hat are bagels and pizzas. I can make bagels just fine but I want to get them a little bit better than they have been. And pizzas kind of feel like a lot of work, but honestly are going to be so worthwhile when I can nail the process down. They're fun to make and can feed a lot of people. Being able to make great homemade pizzas for a party or potluck would make me feel great.
Fighting Games
At this point I think it would be easier to stop the blog here and make a new section just to talk about fighting games. I have so much to say about Tekken alone. And with me also getting back into Strive, and Avatar and Marvel Tokon coming out not too far in the future, I can't keep it all as one section of a post. So I gotta talk about this elsewhere, lol.
Dates I'm Looking Forward To
- July 2nd - Avatar fighting game release!! & Hosting friends for AC
- August 6th - Marvel Tokkon release!