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Comprehensive Life Update, and some books!
Oct. 4th, 2019 08:32 amBig Life Updates!
- Homeownership: We have successfully bought our condo! I have the deed and the new set of keys to prove it! I am rather pleased with the place, and we move into it in... less than ten days. :O
- Relocation: Prepping to move is a thing we have to do! Holy crap. We have a lot of boxes and packing tape and newspaper set up, so that's what this weekend will be. We're also planning to overnight in the new place this weekend, because there is construction going on overnight near us this weekend, and it will suck.
If I were the kind of person who posted on the regular, this is where I would apologize for an upcoming gap of posts and let you know that I have not died. But, since I am about as predictable a poster as a hen's tooth, I will just allow myself to flounce about my merry and useless way.
Things That Make Me Happy
- Ergonomics: While I was gone one day this week signing the docs, my new (to me) standing desk thing appeared! It is a castoff of a fellow employee who didn't like it, but frankly, it works because it also comes with a desk tray that lowers my keyboard to a point where it's not hurting my wrists. My office chair is still just slightly too high for me at the lowest point, but with a footrest I am doing okay. This is a great improvement over my last set up.
-Sewing - I have been watching a lot of Bernadette Banner's Youtube and as a result, I have felt the urge to pick up an needle. I got myself some slightly indulgent supplies, and embarked on some of my first sewing tasks as an adult that wasn't mending something commercially made: I made myself a leather thimble. Then I made some handkerchiefs, because I had bought some and I think they are wildly useful items to have in your pocket. They are, in fact, pretty easy to make! It's been satisfying to compare my stitching from my first example to my current ones, and to try different kinds of hems, and to work with pretty patterned fabric for no reason other than doing it myself. Making things is a pretty good way to relieve your own stress, honestly, and I highly recommend it. (I am seriously annoyed how fabric and sewing materials have gotten so much more expensive than buying cheaply made items of clothing - even in my childhood, making yourself something was cheaper than buying it new, and that's just ME, I'm barely even an Old by the cruel standards of Tumblr fandom.)
- Books: I have read and finished (and not finished, shame up on my head) several excellent books in the last little bit of time.
-Torn (The Unraveled Kingdom #1) by Rowenna Miller -
This is an excellent book, with a very thoughtful first person narrator, Sophie, who is trying to balance a life as a seamstress to the upper crust in a society veering towards revolution. The politics of the story are slightly simplified, for this volume, but nevertheless grounded in real issues: common people who are not permitted to own businesses without licenses from the nobles grow fearful and angry about the lack of stability in their lives, immigrants are pushed out of society even further but their presence in politics lends the cause ill feeling from locals, and the nobles think that they can control everything forever without an concessions or changes. It is also a book is a truly excellent grasp of sewing - Sophie is a believable seamstress, and the way her magic works is tied directly into her skills as a clothing designer and garment maker. It's a really good book, and I've already started the next one in the series.
-Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell -
This books is charming. It's just charming. The main character, Cath, is an anxious introverted fangirl who loves an in-universe Harry Potter equivalent called Simon Snow*, and is a renowned fanfic author. She enters her first year of college feeling abandoned and bereft of her twin sister, who opted not to room with her and appears to be pulling away from Cath and their shared love of the Simon Snow books. (We get some great excerpts from both the 'real' novels and Cath's fanfic. )This book really scratched my itch for a viewpoint character who had anxiety and a history of damage from her family (not abuse, but some mental illness and parental abandonment [refreshingly, not from the same parent!]), BUT, she's not punished for it. Cath is honestly loved in this book for herself- her family loves her, she makes friends who don't mind her been weird and antisocial, she gets a boyfriend who really likes her for who she is... it's just a great and sweet book with a well grounded cast of characters. No one's a villain without backstory, and the one character who acts objectively wrongly is punished for his actions fairly. The author describes writing this book for National Novel Writing Month and deciding to indulge herself, and this books feels like an indulgence to read.
- Homeownership: We have successfully bought our condo! I have the deed and the new set of keys to prove it! I am rather pleased with the place, and we move into it in... less than ten days. :O
- Relocation: Prepping to move is a thing we have to do! Holy crap. We have a lot of boxes and packing tape and newspaper set up, so that's what this weekend will be. We're also planning to overnight in the new place this weekend, because there is construction going on overnight near us this weekend, and it will suck.
If I were the kind of person who posted on the regular, this is where I would apologize for an upcoming gap of posts and let you know that I have not died. But, since I am about as predictable a poster as a hen's tooth, I will just allow myself to flounce about my merry and useless way.
Things That Make Me Happy
- Ergonomics: While I was gone one day this week signing the docs, my new (to me) standing desk thing appeared! It is a castoff of a fellow employee who didn't like it, but frankly, it works because it also comes with a desk tray that lowers my keyboard to a point where it's not hurting my wrists. My office chair is still just slightly too high for me at the lowest point, but with a footrest I am doing okay. This is a great improvement over my last set up.
-Sewing - I have been watching a lot of Bernadette Banner's Youtube and as a result, I have felt the urge to pick up an needle. I got myself some slightly indulgent supplies, and embarked on some of my first sewing tasks as an adult that wasn't mending something commercially made: I made myself a leather thimble. Then I made some handkerchiefs, because I had bought some and I think they are wildly useful items to have in your pocket. They are, in fact, pretty easy to make! It's been satisfying to compare my stitching from my first example to my current ones, and to try different kinds of hems, and to work with pretty patterned fabric for no reason other than doing it myself. Making things is a pretty good way to relieve your own stress, honestly, and I highly recommend it. (I am seriously annoyed how fabric and sewing materials have gotten so much more expensive than buying cheaply made items of clothing - even in my childhood, making yourself something was cheaper than buying it new, and that's just ME, I'm barely even an Old by the cruel standards of Tumblr fandom.)
- Books: I have read and finished (and not finished, shame up on my head) several excellent books in the last little bit of time.
-Torn (The Unraveled Kingdom #1) by Rowenna Miller -
This is an excellent book, with a very thoughtful first person narrator, Sophie, who is trying to balance a life as a seamstress to the upper crust in a society veering towards revolution. The politics of the story are slightly simplified, for this volume, but nevertheless grounded in real issues: common people who are not permitted to own businesses without licenses from the nobles grow fearful and angry about the lack of stability in their lives, immigrants are pushed out of society even further but their presence in politics lends the cause ill feeling from locals, and the nobles think that they can control everything forever without an concessions or changes. It is also a book is a truly excellent grasp of sewing - Sophie is a believable seamstress, and the way her magic works is tied directly into her skills as a clothing designer and garment maker. It's a really good book, and I've already started the next one in the series.
-Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell -
This books is charming. It's just charming. The main character, Cath, is an anxious introverted fangirl who loves an in-universe Harry Potter equivalent called Simon Snow*, and is a renowned fanfic author. She enters her first year of college feeling abandoned and bereft of her twin sister, who opted not to room with her and appears to be pulling away from Cath and their shared love of the Simon Snow books. (We get some great excerpts from both the 'real' novels and Cath's fanfic. )This book really scratched my itch for a viewpoint character who had anxiety and a history of damage from her family (not abuse, but some mental illness and parental abandonment [refreshingly, not from the same parent!]), BUT, she's not punished for it. Cath is honestly loved in this book for herself- her family loves her, she makes friends who don't mind her been weird and antisocial, she gets a boyfriend who really likes her for who she is... it's just a great and sweet book with a well grounded cast of characters. No one's a villain without backstory, and the one character who acts objectively wrongly is punished for his actions fairly. The author describes writing this book for National Novel Writing Month and deciding to indulge herself, and this books feels like an indulgence to read.
*The Harry Potter series still exists, and the Simon Snow series somehow parallels it without causing any copyright issues. It's clearly not the same kind of story, but it's also so clearly a fanfic inspired by Harry Potter that wandered off in its own direction, fixing the issues that Harry Potter handled badly.... Anyhoo, these are also now being published as books in their own right, so reality is a puddle.
