Whoa, August 2018 was a heckuva month. And now that I’m all caught up on the June and July recaps, it’s time to dive in to what happened last month! But first, your monthly Mac photo.
- Edited a TON this month. Finally got my various versions of Divide wrangled together into a coherent file, which was an incredible workload and waaaaayyyy more difficult that I even imagined. But I made huge progress, getting my Scrivener files in order and into one Word doc. I tried to love Scrivener, but I’ve slunk back to Word yet again.
- Wrote 36,000 words!
- Drove to Dundee for a charity derby event and ate some mega-fancy food. This one ended up being quite a pivotal moment in my month because it gave me the time away to think about how my year was going and make some changes for the better.
- Started a 5-mins-a-day meditation habit. It’s been nice! I use the Headspace app/website for daily themed 5-min meditations.
- Painted our conservatory (sunroom, for American readers). It’s looking so good!
- Celebrated my 11th anniversary with Dave. We had pizza. :)
- Joined a new gym! It was super overwhelming and terrifying but I did it! I also attended a ‘ladies who lift’ class. Had a lot of fun and managed not to get too disheartened when I failed to bench press the Olympic bar. It’s okay, I’ll get stronger!
- Took some time away from roller derby. This was a sad one but I’m not giving up skating and hoping to get back to it soon.
- Since I’m taking a skating break, I got back into running! Resumed my Couch 2 5K program (I’m using the BBC app because having Sarah Millican as a coach is neat) and got from week 6 to week 8.
- Prepped to return to skating with increased strength training
- Took part in the ‘#NoWrongPath’ hashtag which is a local Moray initiative to help teens who’re getting their exam results recognise that results aren’t the be-all-and-end-all to a career, and there are multiple paths into the workforce.
- Switched from audiobooks to podcast to shake things up a bit. Current favourites: The Adventure Zone, Strange Animals Podcast, Archive 81 (Season 3 is SO good), Welcome to Night Vale.
- I’m also doing a writing course in podcast form—the wonderfully-named Couch to 80k by Tim Clare. Really enjoying it so far, just finished Week 1. It’s fairly low effort with 10-mins-a-day writing exercises and a really positive, upbeat approach.
When you change the things you notice, the things you notice change.
Tim Clare, paraphrasing Dr Wayne Dwyer
- Read: The Adventure Zone comic (an amazing adaptation), and uh, that was it. Not a good reading month.
- Helped a few lost tourists, including the lost French couple who were 8 miles away from where they should be and the lovely South Carolina couple who wanted to see the local golf course.
- Dave visited Skye! I did not get to go and was mega jealous.
- Watched the Orkney Viqueens vs Inverness City roller derby game! It was Orkney’s first game and they did amazing.
- LEARNED THINGS! I finished the Coursera ‘Learning How to Learn‘ course and really loved it. It’s a free course that helps people learn more effectively and tackle procrastination habits. It’s really helped me a lot with keeping writing and artistic focus.
- Started the Mindshift course by the same people, which is aimed at helping people shift into learning difficult or unfamiliar-to-them subjects.
- Tried to get a fancy haircut, ended up walking out because the stylist was mid-transphobic-rant and it only got worse as I sat there. August was definitely an ‘all out of fucks to give’ month, especially towards the end.
- But it’s okay because the haircut I got from someone else was AMAZING. Look at these heckin’ cute curls!
- Played SO MUCH DND. SO MUCH. It’s the best. My wereshark fighter became the apprentice of a grumpy soap-making hardarse old lady, and my traumatised Tiefling had a VERY BAD DAY on a boat.
- Watched a bit of anime, finishing Samurai Champloo and watching a bit of Digimon Tri.
- Watched a ton of TV, including: Luke Cage S2, Critical Role, Talks Machina, Voltron: Legendary Defender S7.
- Didn’t do much art, but watch this space because I’ve got some new gadgets that should REALLY change that next month. I’ll sign off for today with my first sketch on my new gadget.
Wishing you all an awesomely spooky September.
Love,
Emma