Monthly Review, December 2022

End of the month, end of the year, let’s see how it went!

Homestead

Not much to report here—it was very cold (for Texas) for a bit, then unseasonably warm (for December, even in Texas). Christmas to New Year’s averaged around 70ºF, which was welcome after a few days in the teens, but worrying in the long term. Note to self: move outta Texas before the whole thing just catches fire.

I’m figuring on taking the next few months to get some much-needed cleanup and setup going on outside while the weather isn’t terrible, which includes moving a bunch of compostables to the new compost bin/area, cleaning up the whole back, and maybe even tackling my large mulch/branch pile out front. No promises, though.

Chickens are doing fine—I’ve been sprouting some barley and wheat grass for them to snack on, which they absolutely love. Didi has been wheezing for a few days, so we need to see to that one way or another. Find a chicken vet, or try some OTC chicken antibiotics, I guess. They weathered the cold snap totally fine—I put up some tarp around the coop so they didn’t get the frigid wind blowing through on them on the worst days, but they insisted on hanging out there instead of going to the relative warmth of the upstairs, so, you do you, girls.

And despite paying “professionals” to come out and take care of our critter problems, we were blessed with a christmas rat in the house. I don’t know where he got in—everything still seems to be relatively secure—but the house is old and creaky, so it’s no surprise there’s a crack somewhere. I caught him digging up the barley and wheat sprouting tray, and coming in and out from underneath the dishwasher. I set up some traps and eventually managed to stun him a bit while I was there, so I trapped him under a plastic container just before midnight on the 31st. He’s still there, and he’s determined to find a way out, so as soon as I’m able, he’s going out to the woods far away from here.

Health

Had some issues early on in the month—I’ve been having some random pains which don’t seem to be anything specific, just getting old and falling apart here and there. I think I managed to get myself a little UTI or something going on downstairs that was causing a fair bit of discomfort, but I glugged a few gallons of cranberry juice and it seems to have cleared up. Nothing lumpy or acute, so I reckon it’s just one of those things.

I had a pretty terrible sleep “schedule” starting off this month, some all-day days, and some 14-hour sleeps. Some rotten brain stuff that wasn’t helping, but I think I managed to get that under control fairly well, and ran on a pretty good midnight-8am sleep cycle for a while. Fell off again near the end of the month, but I figure I’m just gonna have to manage the usual crappy sleep forever—it was a nice break, though.

I’ve also been slacking on exercise this month—cold doesn’t help much there, either, but I got in a few good walks, and some VR to fill in the other days. My blood sugar was under control for a good bit, but shot up some around the holidays (go figure), but it’s coming back down, so no problem there, I don’t think.

Games

The RPGS:

• After some scheduling hoo-ha, still running headlong to the finale of our campaign of The Between with Heath, Nic, and Peter. Good times in the Fragrant Void, and maybe a last-minute heel turn from our golden retriever Undeniable? And then there’s the whole pesky Theodora Brathwaite mastermind thing to take care of in the next session or two. We’ll see how it goes!
• Did some more Wizard’s Grimoire with Heath and Peter on an off-week, unlocked some more magic stuff, and got into some fun trouble.
• Played in a game of Cairn with Shane running us (me, Blake, and Brandon) through Demon Driven to the Maw, which was gross over-the-top good times.
• Played a bit of Dungeon World, grabbed a late session (13 out of 14) with someone running a group through Hot Springs Island on StartPlaying.games. It was fine, but there’s definitely a style of GMing that’s popular with the Kids These Days that doesn’t really work for me. I’m glad that some folks like it, but I have notes. 😄 (Catch me outside for the juicy details.)
• Played a game of Santacide Squad with some folks over on PlusOne Exp, which was a ton of silly fun. I’m looking forward to playing with those folks a bunch more in the coming year!
• Played a session of Bump in the Dark on the Gauntlet—again, coming in late to an ongoing campaign, but we did the thing and thwarted the evil and I got to blow my fanatic up real good in the process.
• Finally managed to find a good group to play Blood on the Clocktower with! Played through three sessions in a night, and man, that game is amazing. It’s like werewolf/mafia, only it doesn’t suck. 😜 Again, looking forward to more!
• And I only finished about half of the (unlinked) Viper’s Elegy hexcrawl advent calendar I started this month. The map is good, the overall thing is fleshed out, the app I wrote to display everything works fine, but I sputtered out a bit more halfway through writing up hex details. I don’t think this is a great format for me—I tend to like things a bit more well-connected than I can manage writing a bit at a time every day—but I’m looking forward to putting it all together in a proper pdf or something sometime.
• Speaking of doing a little bit every day, I’ve fallen victim to the Dungeon23 thing that’s going around, so I’m going to try to write a room a day of a cyberpunk corporate arcology in the coming year. I don’t see sticking through the entire year, but I’m game.

And the vidya games:

• Our weekly VR “golf” group tried out a new Bocce game, which is way more fun than it has any right to be.
• Also played through the new Demeo level a couple of times—got totally wiped out the first time through, rocked that evil Elf King the second. And now… we wait for the next one, I guess. It’s really good.
• Blazed through Inscryption, which was creepy and surprising.
• Tried to find an old tactics game that I loved (WeeWar) that’s been shut down for a long time, and found a reasonable facsimile. Played a few games against the bots, and it was fine.
• Tried out Neptune’s Pride, another space strategy 4X type of game, which is slow, but that’s good for my speed right now. Still ongoing, I’m doing fine, but I’m gonna get creamed real soon.
• Spent the last few days sunk into Unexplored, a great little roguelike. I came to it through a rabbit hole starting at dungeon inspiration and resources for Dungeon23, then through some cyclic generation coding stuff that the game uses, and it’s super interesting to my coder brain.

Media

A light month for watching stuff:

• Went to see Water by the Spoonful which… was a play.
• Went to the Drafthouse to see The Menu, which was pretty much what I expected, but great fun.
• Watched Bodies Bodies Bodies, also great anxious fun.
• Finally sat down to watch Glass Onion (the second Knives Out movie) on Netflix, which was perfect. *grabby hands give me more.gif*

Work

Ramping back up for work, finishing up walking through the new python curriculum, which is fine. Sounds like I’m finally going to get the three week break after this cohort (that’s been promised for like a year and a half now…), and then it sounds like Central Lecture is a thing of the past starting next month, so I reckon I’m going to be lecturing again come February. That’s exciting from a teaching standpoint, but now I need to actually teach python, which… I have opinions about. We’ll see how that goes.

Very much enjoyed our week off for holiday break, though.

Other

I was feeling so stressed out by the thing that I said I was going to work on that I didn’t work on, and didn’t really let myself take advantage of the time I wasn’t doing that, not even to watch stuff or play games. So, I’m just gonna let that go, and try to not be so driven to pump stuff out by myself this year. It’s impossible to stop completely, and I have a ton of projects to pick at, but I need to take it easier on my dang brain.

Went to the Trail of Lights with Nic and Pai on some free neighborhood tickets. There were, indeed, lights. But NO FOOD so I missed out on getting my nasty funnel cakes and carnival food. Next time.

Been baking a bit more — made a few loaves of gingerbread, made some butter and used the buttermilk for biscuits, made my favorite cake in the whole world for Pai’s birthday, some milk bread rolls, and the best goddamn cinnamon rolls I’ve ever had in my life. I’m afraid to make a second batch, they might not be as good, and I’ll be crushed.

Oh yeah, Pai is sixteen now. CRAZY. I got her a new drawing tablet and the Affinity suite to play with for her birthday, and after some setup woes, she’s on it like a pro. It was nice to just hang out and co-work with her — she’s absolutely killing it with the drawing and whatnot.

Got Nic a sweet little science divination deck and book for xmas, and got some socks with one of our chickens (Lucky) on them, which are super rad.

Christmas day we kind of overbooked, and only made it to two of three plans. Had brunch-time with Ginger Snaps and friends at her house, came home for a short nap, then went to Shannon and Gus’s for ornament making and lots of treats and storytime, which was super sweet. Lots of social for one day, so had some good rest after. Super chill holidays.

And then, the car stopped working a few days after. Cranks, but won’t turn over—it sounds like maybe it’s not the starter (which I thought) but something wrong with the ignition electronics with the key fob or something? So… it’s at the shop right now, and we’ll see how much that all sets me back, that and whatever else they find. Yay, cars.

And… yeah, stayed home for New Year’s and just had a quiet night. (Except for the terrible neighbors shooting off massive fireworks with their screaming kids.) Yup, nice and quiet.

Plans

So, instead of New Year’s resolutions, which never work, I’m trying out a thing where I do four three month “seasons” with themes that I’d like to work on. The end of 2022 was the Fall of Embark, which for me meant that I tried to default to accepting invitations instead of staying home like a slug, and going out and doing more stuff than I normally would. I think it worked pretty well! Only had to flake twice, i think, but otherwise, good times.

So the new Season started on the 21st (I’m gonna line them up with the solstices/equinoxes) and this is the Winter of Foundation. Like I said above, I think that means that I’m going to stress less about Getting Things Done, and allowing myself some slack time to work on things that better set me up to do the stuff I want to do later. In practice, for starters, that means getting my office cleaned and organized, setting up some more creative spaces in the house, and getting the yard (“yard”) cleaned up and straightened out for planting and building in the spring. Again, no promises, but it’s a start.

Happy New Year!