Nicki Gets Distracted

I forgot I had this. I haven’t had the urge to write recently, I guess.

I’m working on projects and daily habits for the new year, and thinking about going back to YouTube, so we’ll see how all that pans out.

And I’m trying to figure out how to earn some extra money. So I suppose be prepared for that.

Happy end of 2022!

The Ridiculous Misadventures of a Single Girl, by Gabrielle Stone. I enjoyed Eat, Pray, #FML, but this one is a little harder to get into.

I have a giant Squishmallow in my office and it makes me happy. I will be taking her home to act as my pillow occasionally, and general spirit-lifter.

I am also in the market for a particularly cute Mimikyu, if you have a line on one of those. I’m thinking Etsy is going to be my best bet.

I had just been thinking about my policy of keeping lids on open drinks on my desk, especially bottles. I spilled one once, a little, and I never wanted to repeat the incident.

I tend to drink very sugary drinks (Mtn Dew), and spilling those creates sticky traps unless one is very prompt and very thorough about cleaning it up.

And today…all over the office phone, the desk, some over my notebook, under the USB tower, on some silverware, a bit on my keyboard. Blech.

I spilled.

So I am choosing to look at this as a sign. I wanted to give up soda anyway, so this will be my reason. I will never spill it again, because I will never have it on my desk again.

At least until I forget and decide I can “just have one, no big deal.”

Until then, dear friends.

…guess who just found that they can change the text and background of a block? 💖

Nope. Nothing.

I have four cats, 1,800 sf, and my house is not Pinterest perfect. So occasionally we “lose” cats. Generally it’s just that we haven’t seen one in a while, but occasionally it’s because they’re actually locked in a closet they shouldn’t have snuck into.

Tonight it was the former. I hadn’t seen the shy one for a few hours, which is unusual. We checked all the usual hiding spots (of which we have plenty, including nooks, crannies, designed hiding spots, and accidental ones), and then figured, meh. He’ll show up.

But then I hadn’t seen him after an hour while the other three were all in the living room. I went and did another, somewhat more thorough search of the house, and again came up with nothing.

Dang it. Was he stuck somewhere? Did he get out? (It’s important to note that none of our cats have ever snuck outside, despite being outdoor cats with plenty of practice hunting with mama when they came to our house.)

Finally I remembered.

Our cats like to watch TV. Cat TV, to be precise. The kind with birds and squirrels and nature sounds.

I turned on the TV. 15 seconds into the video, the lost cat appeared as if out of nowhere to join his siblings standing in front of the television, their necks cranked, fascinated.

I found the cat.

I’ve been watching a YouTube series about seasonal decluttering (Simplify Your Life Challenge 2.0). While I’m not able to follow along, exactly, I’m definitely drawing inspiration from it. Bits and pieces of other cleaning and decluttering influencers have stuck, too, and so in the past couple of days I have done Some Things.

I threw out everything in the door of my refrigerator that had expired. (Did you know soy sauce evaporates?)

I recycled (almost all of) the Starbucks Vanilla Frappuccino bottles I moved across the country with about 18 years ago that I had intended to be crafty with but hadn’t touched. (There’s a couple of stuck lids. I’m attacking them when my hand hurts less.)

I emptied a vodka bottle from a couple decades ago of all the soda can tabs it had collected in the past dozen years, threw away it’s cute hat-shaped lid, and recycled the bottle.

I cleaned bits of the downstairs toilet with new, fresh cleaning wipes. It’s up to my lowest standards of acceptability.

I wouldn’t say my house is disgusting, but I also wouldn’t say I’m happy with the level of cleanliness my house currently exists in. It is hard to not feel like a cluttered or dusty house is a moral failing. But thankfully I am starting to stop thinking like that (when I pay attention) thanks to some of the folks linked above.

And I had a good example growing up. My mom vacuumed and dusted weekly, and everything had a place, and things were put away when they were done being used, and equipment was taken care of. But somehow those lessons didn’t stick, and now at nearly 44 years old I am relearning how to make my house and space something that isn’t completely overwhelming.

So far, I’m really happy with the small progresses I’m making. The intent is to take care of things that get out of hand the most obviously (recycling, dishes) “immediately.” And when I have a few minutes, to get rid of things that are obviously trash, even if it’s not going to make a huge difference right away. (For example, the counter space that the glass I recycled tonight took up is still a dirty, dusty mess. But there’s less crap in the way now, and so cleaning is going to be easier when I’m ready to do it.)

Another thing I’m looking forward to doing is getting containers for the things I have entirely too much of, and trimming down those things to fit the containers. There are perfectly awesome notebooks, pens, books, and just Things that I have that I love, but have no reason to keep. I won’t use them, or I only love the idea of them, or the quantity of the type of Thing is overwhelming.

This is where I am, and I was excited to share. I would love to share more soon, but we’ll see what happens when I’m back to work next week.

I do laundry every week with my eldest child, hereby known as Elder Youth, and abbreviated EY. we were sorting laundry this week and he tossed a pair of socks in the heavy black load, but immediately regretted his decision.

Why? I asked. My toe socks don’t get dried, but regular socks can be.

Huh? This perplexed him. Why wouldn’t all socks just get dried then?

Because, I explained, for the same reason we don’t dry my bras. The dryer makes the elastic go wah wah.

EY blinked.

It’s a technical term, I elaborated.

What? I call you on your bullshit, Mother, he replied.

Ask Grandma, I told him. She knows.

So we did. We went to find my mom and we recounted the story. When I repeated that the dryer makes the elastic go wah wah, my mom didn’t hesitate.

Well, yeah!

To which EY put on an exaggerated pout, pointed out that what really drove home the truth of wah wah was that she hadn’t even hesitated before enthusiastically agreeing with my choice of term, and that was that.

I love my family. We’re so weird.

I’m watching Season 32 of Survivor and I’m having quite a bit of fun watching the faces of the guys with huge egos fall to pieces as they get voted out when they were certain they were on the top of the game.

Also, I hate to admit this, but I miss Facebook. I miss being able to put things like this out there where nearly anyone could see and comment or interact with it.

I have this, though. And I’m not going back to Facebook or Twitter. Not yet. (Never say never, you know?)

I went to Costco with someone who had a membership to purchase hamburgers and hot dogs.

While there, I found some mac and cheese in microwaveable containers. My youngest really loves mac and cheese, so I thought I’d get a new kind to try, despite the high price tag.

My youngest didn’t love this mac and cheese variety, though. That was fine, because I like that brand, so I figured I’d finish it.

My partner needed emergency care over the weekend, and as a result needed something soft to eat since it hurt to swallow. “Just a couple bites of something,” he requested.

I had microwaveable mac and cheese that my youngest didn’t like, so I made it for him.

It was perfect, and made taking his pills much easier.

Had I not gone to Costco and bought overpriced mac and cheese, I wouldn’t have easy food in the house for my partner, and these particular couple of days would have been much, much harder to handle.

Thank you for your attention.