CW 4 – In Review

Books

Completed the Arc of a Scythe ending with The Toll. Most of the time, dys/utopian novels have an ending that feels a bit … unearned. Like “okay, where did that come from?” Thankfully, Shusterman did an excellent job of building it in so the reader can go “yes, that tracks based on information presented before that felt right within the world.”

I was going to jump into Parable of the Sower but I haven’t had daytime availablity for reading, and if I read at night, I will forget key points, so that’s on hold for the time being. Instead, I went back to…

The Murderbot Diaries, specifically Network Effect. I love Sec-Unit/Murderbot so much. I don’t know if it’s the fact that it’s a snarky rule-breaking bot or if it’s just has so many relatable moments… “I needed to have an emotion in private.” Same, Murderbot. Same.

Movies

Once a week, I watch a movie with a friend overseas. This week was his pick and he chose Six String Samurai because I gave him the remit of “pick something weird.” And… Okay, it’s not good, and I think 1998 is a little too soon for “we’re gonna die because of nukes” nostalgia so soon after glastnost. And it’s not long enough along that we’re here and there’s an irony in nuclear armageddon. And everything (and I mean everything) hung hard on the title card giving us exposition.

Not one I’d recommend unless you’re a massive fan of the Red Elvises.

I’m not even sure if it would qualify for my “this should be remade”rule¹. 1/5

Next week is my pick and I’ve selected Stranger Than Fiction. I might also sneak in a Star Trek Section 31 because even if it’s bad, I’m that kind of nerd. Oh no. The first thing I saw was this from BleedingCool:

Television

Severance is back! Severance is back! Severance is back!

But first…

I started watching Delicious in Dungeon (food anime is one of my favourite genres). Even better if I can’t convince myself that I should try to make it). I’ve just gotten to episode 13 of season 1 and whooboy, I have questions.

We’ve also just crossed the threshold into Season 2 of The Expanse. There was a great exchange where Miller says to Amos “The way I see it, you’re a trigger-happy whackjob” and I looked at Augs and said “I love that people fail to realise that Amos is just telling what’s going to happen.” I don’t really think that Amos takes a huge amount of pleasure in taking someone out (exceptions exist – IYKYK), I think that it’s a situation where Amos is so emotionally compartmentalised that it’s the same thing as working on an Excel spreadsheet.

But most importantly… BOBBIE IS HERE! I love the character development of Bobbie Draper. Where she starts and where she ends is a glorious character arc (and honestly, the books are better at showing this, but there’s no budget constraints when writing).

Now, to Severance. It’s so good to see our old friends! That’s all I’ll say because almost anything could be a spoiler. But that ep 2 new intro! I’m going to have to watch that in slow motion to catch everything. After finishing the second ep, Augs commented “I have more questions and zero answers.” Honestly, that was me after that intro. What the actual happened there? I can tell I’m going to be obsessively rewatching each ep until the next one comes out.

Knitting

No real knitting to speak of this week. My downstairs project is the Scraptacular blanket that I’ll be making as a lap blanket to keep me warm at work. The Fireweed sweater is still in almost-done progress. I need to wash and block it.

But there’s this article in The Guardian about young people knitting, which reminded me of when Ravelry was new and all the think pieces on it were “Oh my god, it’s not just for grannies anymore!” Unfortunately, it’s been 20 years and we’re no longer the young hotness in the crafting world. It’s time for the next generation of handcrafters to be ogled like they’re some anomaly. Sorry and you’re welcome, I guess?

I did order a salad spinner for knitwear only in order to get water out of the sweaters for the wash and block process without distorting them too badly or having to stomp on towels (which we don’t have enough of if I do a big sweater washing day). I’m not against the towel method, but it works best if you are washing one or two projects. I tend to do a big mend/finish/wash/block at the end of the month.

Sewing

I made the Encore Skirt out of black corduroy that has a vertical stretch to it. Did I know it had vertical stretch? No. Did I pay any attention to the nap of the fabric when I was cutting out pieces? Also no. Do I particularly care with regards to this project? Also no. If anyone is close enough to notice and kick up a fuss, they’re close enough to kiss my ass over it.

I’m waiting on the zipper and the hook and eye for it to have it completely finished, but I’m really pleased with it. The drape is a little heavy, but I’m reserving judgment until it’s all finished. I will likely make at least one or two more in different fabrics.

For the lining fabric, a friend sent me some of her cotton offcuts and it was just enough to use for part of the pocket and the waistband lining, so it’s got a bit of panda bear whimsy to make me giggle.

I still have plans to make the Salida skirt, but I don’t know what fabric I want to use. I have plenty of choices. I also have my eyes on some snake and butterfly print for a summer dress. But after the Encore skirt is done, I’ll be sewing up a few Tidal dresses as house dresses so I don’t just hang out in my pyjamas all day. And somewhere in there, I’ll make some more funderwear – long legged shorts for under skirts made in jersey prints.

Lego

The acquisition of bricks for the Winter Village display continues. I might be able to start putting together one of them to see how it will look.

Home Automation

I have two Rodret remotes because of a package deal with some smart plugs from last year. While they’re supposed to be used as dimmers, putting them in to Zigbee2MQTT means I can use them like smart buttons or whatever suits my whim. (I also have some smart buttons that are going to be used for an “I’m leaving the house”/”I’ve arrived home” setup but that’s in the future.) The current use is to have as a trigger for a script that sets up my office in the morning on one button and sets up the bedroom for watching movies or shows on the other.

I am going to also pick up some Aqara Water Sensors and one of the things I want to check is how long it takes them to dry out in a shower situation. Because the idea would be to kick the heating up when it’s wet due to shower, but drop the heating when the shower is done/the sensor dries off. Sure, yeah, there’s also the entire “let me know if there’s a leak in a place I don’t want there to be one” aspect that we’ll be using under the dishwasher (when I can get the old one uninstalled, that’s turned into a massive project) and in the basement in the boiler area where the water lines come in and out. But look, if I can step in the shower and have the heating turn on and go off when I’m sorted and done? My main goal of home automation is to basically make it so the stuff I would forget to do…? It’s done.

There’s a saying “if you want to have something done in the most efficient way, get the laziest comptent person to do it.” It me! I’m lazy and competent! I will spend many hours learning javascript to do home automation so I can never touch something again.

Unfortunately, we also suffered a whole house surge, I think… It happened in the wee hours of the morning so some of our smart home things were affected, including the IKEA TRÅDFRI lights in the landing and the smallway. After testing them in other sockets, it appears they are dead. I bought them less than a year ago, and IKEA has a fantastic return policy, so they’ll be going back. I’m not sure if I want to replace them with different bulbs or if I want to replace the switches with smart switches. But for now, they’re back to being dumb lights.

I have all the pieces for my next smart home project now. I’ll be putting up some outdoor globe lights in the carport so I can get some light in there when I’m out walking Basti in the evening or when I come home in the dark from a day out in the city for doctor’s appointments. It’ll be set up with a solar panel with battery backup/additional supply.

Routines

Still working on finding the ‘right’ day to do the grocery shop and similar errands. One of the other things I’m trying to get accustomed to is eating at fixed times. Between the ADHD and the T1D², I think that creating a stable meal and snack time will be better for me overall. Will it be easy? Bwahahahahahah. No. No. Never. Will I be utilising pre-made stuff while I get it dialed in? Yes. I’m one of those people that can eat the same food for weeks and weeks with no issue (and then I’m suddenly off it. See: ADHD).

I’m also going to work on getting myself set up for hydration success by doing a water jug refill the night before. I picked up an ice form for the Stanley mug/knockoffs because I am still an American and I love cold as a witch’s tit drinks unless it’s supposed to be hot.

I’m still using my planner but not as extensively as I’d like. I need to get back in the habit of doing a 15-minute review and plan for the next day before bed.

Purchases

(I’m sure I was supposed to title this “influencer” or something.)

Remember those sleep earbuds? Still getting them dialed in. I think the sizing takes a bit of time. I do appreciate that sleepingRyn puts them on the nightstand when she takes them out. If she didn’t, then there’s a great setting where you can have it give an alert sound… DO NOT DO THIS WITH THEM IN. But as a winding down before bed to listen to audiobooks or meditation, they’re good. I think part of the problem is that I’m a hard side sleeper and I’m debating on picking up a bunch of pillows to make it so I’m an elevated back sleeper? I think it might help with the joint disorder and the POTS. We’ll see. I don’t want to be like “Hey, darling spouse of mine, I am going to create a fortress in the evenings so I can sleep like a cradled corpse” but at the same time, I kinda want to be able to sleep like a cradled corpse.

Whew! That was a long one – that’s it for this week! Thanks for coming along with me on the recap and I hope you have an amazing week 5! The rest of my Sunday will be going over the grocery circulars and planning out my to-dos for the rest of the week while we have this warm weather forecast.

Notes:

¹ “This should be remade” rule: We need to stop having Hollywood remake movies that were good to start with. Movies that are ripe for remakes are the ones that had good bones but failed because of studio interference, eight script rewrites, bad luck with actors, or just general Murphy showed up.
² T1D = Type 1 Diabetes. This is the autoimmune one that cannot be put into remission.