Writing work emails - the struggle

A couple months ago I saw a post about writing work emails that I could relate to so much lol

The person has sent an email to a client, and the client sent an email back complaining about emails written by AI being impersonal. The employee wrote back they're not an AI, they're autistic 🤣 

I'm not diagnosed with Autism, but there are so many things I relate to.

It takes me forever to write emails because after I write I have to rewrite it with emotion, but then rewrite with less emotion, and keep doing this until I find a balance that seems appropriate to the situation. All so I don't come off wrong 😩

And then I get told I'm overthinking. 

I was just writing an email for work and that internet post popped into my head. 

At least with my coworkers I've learned I can unmask and write my emails with bullet points like I like. 

Bullet points ... That's very AI-ish 🫠

I saw a speech by Temple Graden online where she talked about the first time she used Google and the image search feature and it blew her mind, because for the first time she saw a physical representation of how her brain worked. An image search 💯

Sentimentality and Digital Clutter

Over the years I've created multiple accounts on different platforms and most of them I don't even log into anymore.

But the idea of just deleting them is hard for me to do. 

When I log in there are memories, there's information that I don't want to lose, and pretty images that I'm still drawn to. There's still a sense of community that I don't want to lose access to. But that sense of community is an illusion.

Again, I don't maintain these accounts anymore. One of my blogs hadn't had an update since December 2019. That was easy to delete; the posts where only my own and only one year's worth; it was easy to copy everything to Blogger and then delete the blog. But I have another that has over 800 posts. Most of them are shared posts from other people's blogs, with information that I still want to hold onto. It doesn't make sense to copy those onto this blog, they're irrelevant to what I'm doing here, but I still don't want to loose access to the collection. Some of them I've started copying onto my computer, with links to the original posts. (Some of the blogs don't even exist anymore.)

As websites and services age, the companies are beginning to purge unused accounts. Facebook and  Yahoo deletes accounts if they haven't been logged into for a certain number of years. Google has started doing it, Photobucket and OneDrive are doing it ... it makes sense because server space is finite. Xanga doesn't exist, MySpace completely revamped and purged the content of the existing accounts. So eventually, these unused blogs and social media accounts of mine are going to get deleted. Some of them already have; in that case I've been using the Wayback Machine to get some of the content.

Here's to scrapbooking my digital life!

Stardew Valley - Year 4

Originally posted by angelhides

My Gameplay Style

I’m not good at following quest lines or progressing through games. I like open world because they allow to me wander around, and that’s what I do. I wonder the map, doing random things and collecting items to sell.

Stardew Gameplay

I’ve been playing Stardew Valley on and off for over a year. My character is now four years into living on her late grandfather’s farm, and not much has been done with it. She’s the reclusive weirdo who rarely leaves her tree farm, and except to forage in the wild or rummage through people’s trash.

Reclusive, nature, and enough money to keep it going: I’m living my ideal life.

Originally posted by moviequotiq

At this point I realize I need to start progressing through the game. I’ve learned there’s other areas of the map, and how to socialize and romance the villagers. Year 4 is going differently!

I’ve started romancing Harvey and Leah. Harvey is kind, and likes to keep to himself; he seems like a sensible choice. But her heart prefers Leah and her luv for foraging and nature.

My character wants to make her grandfather proud! Spring just started and I’m really expanding the farm. I’ve planted some maple trees on the side that will be for syrup, I’m trying my hand at a proper garden, and the rows of trees were planted on the first day. I also bough a few more cherry trees and made a row of those.

Originally posted by thelambliesdown1974

Wish me luck!!

Closing Old Chapters to Open New Ones

 A lot has happened since my last post, so I wanted catch you up before there’s more to add.

Back in May I had started fostering this five year old southern gentleman. I’ve never had a dog who wasn’t used to the snow before; its been fun watching him grow from being terrified of it to easily leaping through piles as he refuses to go back in the house.

He’s not doing snow angles yet, but he’ll gladly sit outside for what feels like forever and watch for squirrels (that don’t exist because its winter).

Another big thing is last month I pulled the trigger on selling my house. This week I started packing, which is both stressful and calming.

I’m taking the opportunity to declutter as I pack. Its something I’ve been doing for a while in preparation to moving out, but at that time there was no urgency; it was just the idea that I wanted to move in the near future. But now its not a hypothetical, its a reality.

If you’re wondering about the knobs in my kitchen that I posted about last time: I’ve taken them off so I can bring them with. I did the same with the shelves that I wanted to put up in my office space.

I guess the rule of thumb is that when you show the house, if its attached it goes with the house. I’m currently glad I dragged my feet with mounting my chandelier and replacing the bathroom mirror.

I always knew it would come to this, I just had to fully accept it.

A New Winter Means a New Beginning

 This week has felt freeing, and for the first time in a long time I’m not feeling stuck. I’ve been taking steps towards the life I want for myself and in the process gaining the skin I need to keep going despite obstacles.

I imagine in the not so far future I’ll be at a fork in the road, but I’m trying to not look too far and worry about it. That fork involves the house I’m living in and the fact my future with it has felt so uncertain for so long has kept me from taking the steps to make it feel like home.

This year I’ve been trying to get out of that mindset and have begun doing/buying things to improve the house and how I feel in it. Yesterday that involved buying the drawer knobs below.

When ever I picture my ideal kitchen, it has colorful cabinets with mix-and-match door knobs. Well yesterday while I was shopping with a friend I found a pile of random drawer nobs in the clearance section, and immediately started digging. The picture only shows 1 of each style, so these aren’t all of them.

At 11pm at night I was trying them out. They fit perfectly on the drawers, but I need shorter screwed for the cabinet doors. I’m sure I have the right size around here so I’ll be going through my inventory this weekend.

New Bullet Journal Setup

 

I started bullet journaling before I knew what #bulletjournal was. My dad keeps a pocket journal to write lists and reminders, and in college he encouraged me to do the same.

I’d always failed at using an agenda but as a young adult I needed some way to stay organized; I took his method and made it my own. Instead of using a small pocket journal I chose A5 as my preferred size. Instead of filling it with only lists and reminders, I included memories, doodles, and taped in scraps.

A couple years later I stumbled across a friend’s blog post about her “bullet journal”. It was much more artistic, but still resembled what I had been doing. I’d never seen anyone else use a notebook as a planner, but after searching the term I was face to screen with a whole community! I jumped into the rabbit hole - I watched all the videos, tried different styles, modified some and discarded others.

That was 8 years ago. Now in my 30’s I’m pretty secure in my style of journaling, but I still like to try new things. That means this month I’m trying a health tracker. I’ve learned that monthly layouts don’t work for me, so I’ve planned it out as weekly. Lets see how long I can keep this up … {Update: One week if I don’t draw them all out ahead of time.}

Happy Journaling!!

My Basement Workshop

 

When I was in high school I enjoyed taking shop classes and being on stage crew, and have missed it since graduating. When I saw the workbenches in this basement I swooned.

I’ve been collecting tools for years in the name of “incase I need this”, but never had anywhere to keep them accessible. Then I’d lose something and buy another, and before I knew it I’d have multiples of many things.

Fast-forward 4 years and I’ve yet to use my workshop; but I have a project coming up. Everything had gotten packed up when I had my drain tiles were replaced, but now they’re all out again and waiting to be used!

All the things have memories attached. This house is filled with my mom, and the tools and storage drawers bring memories of my grandfather. And still all of it reminds me of the hours spent at the hardware store with my dad - one of my favorite places to wonder around and dream.

Journal

I always feel better after a shower, but I don’t like starting with a shower because I don’t want time to go on. I want to hide and pretend that the past three years have not happened. That people are alive, that my relationship still has hope, and the world is still my oyster.

But they aren’t, and its hollow, and its not.

Journal

Finished my first appointment with a nutritionist. We came up with a meal plan for an elimination diet which I’ll start in January. In the mean time I’m going to play with the suggestions so I can try out meals and hopefully not feel overwhelmed when I actually do it.

I’ll be meeting with her the first week of January to go over things when I start the diet, and then the last week of the month to start reintroducing foods.

Overall the appointment was informative. It was two hours long; we went over my history with eating, my medical in regards to digestion, and my goals for doing this. We went over foods, why certain foods may be setting me off versus others. I showed her my suspected eczema - which primarily covers my torso. Her eyes widened when she saw it. It will be interesting to see if it diminishes during the elimination diet or not.

Journal

My body is so annoying. We’ve had the foster for only a week and I’m already crashing so hard. I know it’s from the stress of having two dogs and it makes me so sad.

I’m also frustrated with PG because of her barking. Its always been an issue but since getting the foster it’s gotten worse. She does it when she’s excited, when jealous, when he does something wrong/gets scolded (it looks like she’s tattling on him or defending him), she’ll bark because he barked but unlike him she continues and eventually he starts again (which prolongs her barking).

The rough housing I can deal with, but her high pitched barking grinds on my nerves. And she gets herself so worked up, forget about giving her a command. She makes it hard to give the foster commands because she distracts him to play or distracts me because of barking.

I have no clue how to tell her to stay, tell him to come and not have her follow. When I correct her she gets annoyed and barks at me - like always.

Journal

My body is crashing. Thankfully my sinuses held together for the night, because the previous two I had to sleep part of the night without my vent.

There’s things I want to do today but I’m not sure if I’m leaving the house. Not this morning at least …

Journal

 Wanted to give an update about my application to foster dogs.

I was approved and we picked up our first dog on Tuesday. He’s a sweetheart who immediately took well to our dog; I’ll call her PG for “pretty girl.”

PG was a little confused when she realized he was staying overnight, but because of changes we made to our routine we haven’t had an issue since the second day. They’ve really taken to each other which makes my heart melt. Tonight they were practically cuddling! She let the foster lay so close he could lick her face.

She’s going to miss him when he leaves. She enjoys having a play buddy immensely, and this is the first time I haven’t worried about her not getting walked enough because playing with him tires her out so much. Today I was gone for most of the day so he was in his crate, and when I got home she was waiting for me to let him out.

Journal

So I took a big step towards something that I’ve wanted to do for a couple years. If everything pans out our dog will have a furry foster brother next week.

Journal

Went for my monthly massage and afterwords talked to him about these patches of dry skin I have. He said to try eliminating processed foods, milk, and meat.

I’ve already eliminated processed foods, the only time I drink milk is with cereal or oatmeal - so maybe a cup a day? I rarely eat meat because of my stomach.

I went to an urgent care place a couple weeks ago about them and they said it was eczema, which my masseuse agreed.

I wonder if the reduction in stomach acid could have changed how my body reacts to food? Or it could be the medication, though I can’t find anything online contacting it to eczema.

I have appointments with my GP amd gastroenterologist in a couple months, so till then I’m keeping an eye on things.

Journal

I was so good yesterday with food! I had a small bowl of cereal for breakfast, two pieces of peanut butter toast for lunch and a small bowl of rice noodles and seasoned shrimp.

Alkjdfafffffff

Yes, that is the title of this entry. Because that’s how I feel.

It’s been a long while since my boyfriend and I went on an adventure, so we talked about going on a trip this year since we both have vacation time. But freaking stuff keeps coming up!!

Our plans to visit family fell through. Decide to visit a town we’ve always wanted to see, I finally get him to agree on dates because he already took the time off but I apparently have something on my calendar that can’t be rescheduled. F*cking hell! 

Journal

I’m home and my brain is fried. Also felt like someone took my batteries out two hours ago and my body is all … “your home - goodbye”

Journal

 Haven’t taken my meds since Saturday, so not doing well on that front.

For the first time in a long time I had gas related stomach pains. We had pizza for dinner and my stomach got hard as a rock, then after an hour or so I had this throbbing pain on the sides of my stomach.

Pizza’s one of things I shouldn’t eat anymore, but I suck at this whole “changing my diet” thing.

Journal

So since my stomach is messed up again (it was finally not messed up yesterday…) I’ve decided to postpone my three hour road trip to tomorrow.

 Almost choked on steak that I burped up.

It didn’t taste good the second time.