Well this have been an eventful week. Or more like an eventful weekend.
New Zealand is just two days away from potentially dropping down to Level 2 of our COVID-19 Emergency Response Booklet and Plan, which means normal social activities may resume – such as haircuts and returning to the office. We will wait and see what Monday brings, but whatever may come, it comes with the dreaded feeling of life returning to normal. And for Simone and us normal tends to be too busy.
I suppose its dreaded for me as I enjoy working from home. I found myself more focused and productive (mainly), even with the painters busy sanding down our house. I enjoy wearing my Eluveitie t-shirt, and listening to Trvium, and drinking proper tea while I work away. Things that seem almost impossible in an office. But we will wait and see – I doubt the office will be open under Level 2 any ways. No use getting worked up about it now.
For some other really adult-type exciting news, this week the settlement went through for our second house. And we already have tenants lined up for it. Simone and I are now officially landlords and the enemy of r/NewZealand! Well, we’re not really landlords as we have handed that headache over to Robert’s Rentals, who have been fantastic to deal with! One more step towards my goal of being financially independent – and something I have written about before. I am so happy to have this really big step done, and I hope this becomes one-of-many. Sure, property is the easy, or lazy way, of financial independence, but its the default for a reason, you know. Plus, its not the only path I am utilizing.
And in some more exciting news, our current house is in the process of getting painted! Man, its all go on the Dunkerley House Front it seems… Simone and I moved into a green and purple house and we can’t wait to show off the new color scheme when its done. This painting job is going to take another few weeks before its done, but all good things come in time. In case you wanted to know, we’re using Basil’s Brushes, and I can’t recommend them enough.
Right, so that’s enough of the big exciting progress…
Personally, I have been on a bit of productivity kick. I get these every now and again. I don’t know what causes them or why, but if I could harness it, and put in a can, well, I’d be a millionaire… I think this is due to finishing the April Achievement Challenge that my podcast runs during April, and feeling like every spare second needs to be spent getting Gamerscore. After a month focusing on finishing games, coming out the other side makes me want to do something more. More than just play games, even though right now I’d much rather be playing games 😛
With this in mind, I have gotten serious about sorting out my photo collection – all 80,000 of them. Don’t worry, those are not all different photos. Some even have 4 copies! Four of the same photo! And for what? And how did I get into this mess?
Well, you see, my photos are backed up to iCloud and OneDrive. OneDrive went through a phase of storing all photos as .JPG instead of the iPhone format of .HEIC. Being someone who, for some reason, needs to be on the bleeding edge with certain things, this simply would not do. I need to keep all my HEIC photos, and all the JPG copies need to be gone. So of course, I mushed them all together, and now have a mess on my hands…But I have a method of sorting them. And I’ll just chip away slowly, a little bit every day. Oh, and do mass deletions of all duplicate photos. Last night alone I stayed up to 1 Am and deleted 500 or so photos. Progress was made!
On my health/weight/fitness front, I have spent this week treating it like a bit of a cheat day. And it caught up with me. I got down to 9.8% body fat and was pushing the lower ends of 57kg just a week or two ago. And now? Now, I am on the upper limits of 58, and back to 10.7% body fat. It may seem weird to say, but I can see and feel it, even though it might not seem like that much of a difference. From tomorrow, its strict keto, intermittent fasting, and back onto my YouTube workout videos every day. The next scheduled cheat day will be when Simone and I, along with Rebekah and Shannon, go to The Gin Trap for dinner to celebrate the end of lockdown.
This weekend, Simone and I spent most of our gaming time chasing one achievement in Halo, and I loved every minute of it. Having to work hard for an achievement is a great feeling, even though it doesn’t mean much – but getting to work together with her towards a goal, and with something we both enjoy and are good at, is an awesome way to spend time together. Gears 5 killed the enjoyment of couch co-op, but Halo has bought it back. Going into winter, I can’t wait to be sitting next to Simone, playing games, with a fire going. It really does make my heart happy.
Even though I had another 5 paragraphs planned, I will make this my last point. I have started up No Man’s Sky again, and I have some awesome pictures ready to go with my story. This is something I have been threatening to do for a while, and I really want to do it. I really want to take a game, make my way through it, and write a story out of it as a way to push my role-playing, to push my writing and because it will combine three things I enjoy immensely – gaming, photography and writing. I already teased a photo on Instagram and Twitter, so this is something I am finally doing.
I know, I could be using my time for something else, something more meaningful, or practical, like making our current house better, or sorting more photos, or reading more books. I could do, but I have to learn that there is only one of me, and I simply want to do too much. Now its No Man’s Sky‘s turn, and afterwards, it will be something else’s turn. This is something I need to learn to make peace with within myself.
Right, so that was a bit of a massive update. These posts are not supposed to be like a diary, or an update on what’s been happening. They are supposed to be more a way to get thoughts out, and freeing up mental energy. Almost like a rudder of a ship – looking at the past week and the week ahead. But maybe getting all this stuff out of my head is freeing up mental energy? Maybe this is helpful in a way?
I don’t really know. Do you?
