What Could Possibly Go Wrong?

As I was working with Claude.ai to fill in some of the missing backstory for the space serial, I realized that could really use a spot in the story background website to put in the plans of groups, which made me realize that I need to have a spot for factions. So, I got that started today. Yay! I'm really happy that I can work with the AI on this. I am the kind of person who comes up with ideas when discussing things, so it is way easier to come up with an answer if I type out my question. It is especially nice that I don't need to have everything in the question in order. I can put things in as I think of them, and the AI can make sense of it.

In other news, I have added chickpeas to my morning soup. In part, this is because it is much harder to get split peas here than it was in Russia. So, if I use half chickpeas and half split peas in the recipe, Joel has to spend less time hauling the peas from Lisbon. Previously when I ate them, I had terrible gas. However, I've taken a lot of digestive enzymes since then (in an effort to solve that problem). The other reason this change is nice is that it diversifies what I am eating. Since I eat the same thing every single day, it is important to make sure those same things contain a lot of different kinds of food. Happily, I've also been able to eat the mallow (which is basically a weed) that grows in the yard. I couldn't eat nettle, which is disappointing, but there is a lot of mallow around here, and supposedly it has anti-inflammatory properties, which is always helpful with my delicate digestive system.

I set aside Sunday as "clean-up day", and so today I focused on getting a bunch of database things done so I could take them off my to do list. These were all things for my story background database. Things like adding in a field about problems the character may be ignoring in their life, what they are looking for in friends, and how they make decisions. For the story, it was more like things the characters mistakenly assume and plot twists (this one is because I am really likely to just have the story continue in a logical way with the characters making no assumptions and everyone just moving forward as best they can, because they have no idea what is going on (because that is what I do)). I am so glad to have done this. I also put more questions in with other questions to help spark ideas, like putting "what secret could come back to haunt the character" in with the question about what secrets they have in general. I discovered this morning that I have pretty much zero information about the point of view character for the next scene in my space serial story, so I really need to start answering questions about him for the database.

On Saturday, I went into Lisbon, as usual, and it was great. I had forgotten that I was also going into Lisbon on Sunday for roleplaying, which was decidedly less great, as I was tired. However, the roleplaying was great. (For those who are interested, we killed a bunch of bad guys. Then, we found a room with bad guys talking, which we were unsure about engaging with. Instead, we continued exploring and found a barred door. We opened the door, and there was a really dangerous monster (an owlbear). We ran back to the room with the two bad guys talking and charged in. The owlbear took out a couple of bad guys for us, before we finally had to fight it. So much fun!) Today, I was finishing upgrading all my websites to a newer version of PHP, when I found that one site wasn't working. Very long story short, the first level of tech support wasn't helpful, but I think I have proof that it is the hosting provider's fault that the site doesn't work. It was a lot of frustration on top of being very tired.

In happier news, we finally have homeowner's insurance. Yay!!! And the stove was delivered today. Yay!!! And Joel got the replacement bolts for his bike, so now the quick-release wheels and some other bits are no longer quick-release (so it is harder to just pop bits off and steal them). This is one step to Joel being able to lock up the bike somewhere for a longer period of time. We still aren't sure if I'll be able to ride on the back any distance. However, we'll see. I also spent some time pulling weeds in the garden today, so now I have two bits that were full of nettles that are no longer full of nettles. I really look forward to getting these things all pulled out and the trees I don't want removed. We also need to prune everything. In happy garden news, ChatGPT just told me that one of the plants I want to put in (chayote) is grown by sticking the whole vegetable into the ground and waiting for it to grow (Wikipedia seems to agree). That sounds much easier than trying to find a place that will sell us a small plant. Probably, I should wait until I have finished tearing all the ivy out, as chayote is a pretty aggressive vine, it seems, and I'll need to have some place for it to grow and be ready to cut it back. Luckily, every part of it is edible, so I can eat everything that I prune. Other good news is that most of our big vitamin delivery has arrived. Yay!

Today went pretty well. I really think that my ability to walk is benefiting from the treadmill. It gets me to walk more quickly without support, which helps me build up those muscles. Of course, more calories probably helps too. I have started weighing myself again, and while I gained some weight during my cheese binging period before we went to the US, I'm not a whole lot heavier than before. Also, my weight is staying about the same, which means that I'm not eating too much or too little. Good!

I tried out FocusMate. It was nice, and I do think I got more done than I would have if I had just sat here by myself. (My task was to write notes on this article.) I'll definitely use it again.

In other good news, I got all the parts of my story website's character attribute generator working. It does simple things like give you a birth date for the character based on the setting date and the age of the character, calculate weight based on height, build, and racial background of the character, and give you an age based on the setting date and the birth date. Next, I just need to clean up a couple of things and the date part will be done. I can't wait!

Today, my brain said, "You aren't enjoying your life enough. You should be happier." I do enjoy my life a lot, but I have been pretty stressed recently. I have trouble balancing everything that I want and need to do. As everyone does. I have at least gotten the most important stuff done.

I also managed to get the historical date stuff partially working on my story website. Yay! There are a few (five, actually) more steps, but it is pretty close to being done. I need to make a few changes to where the dates are stored (it seems like with relational database design, I'm always realizing that I did something wrong), add in a field, take out a field, make the date look nicer (I'm storing dates that are BC (I prefer BCE, but anyway) as negative number, but I really want to have it written as a positive number with BCE after it, plus the month written out), and that kind of stuff. I don't think it will take too long, as I have all the functions and forms working correctly, so now I just need to clean stuff up and put in some code to link things in.

I have to laugh at myself. I was kind of worried, but it turns out that I really like the taste of ground flax seed, which I should have known, as I used to eat it all the time. It is kind of woody/grassy. Also, it is full of calories, so I'm hoping that eating 10g every day will make up for taking out the cheese without making me gain weight. Of course, I'm fine with eating less of it, so if I do start gaining weight, I can cut back. Of course, this means I need to get more organized and start weighing myself again, although honestly, it seems like if my blood sugar is over 5, then it means that I'm gaining weight. So, probably, I'm doing okay right now. Still, I should check. It would be easier if it wasn't so darn cold here. I'm not uncomfortably cold, but I'm also wearing a long sleeve shirt, a hand-me-down cashmere sweater, and my puffy bathrobe. And a scarf. Anyway, I don't think we have much more than a week left of this chilly weather. I hope. It is chilly, and the outside world smells like wood smoke at night.

In other news, Joel has my cold, so we're heading back to bed shortly. There is something I meant to add to my to do list, but I can't remember what it was, so it will have to wait. I did get a bunch of little things taken off it, though, which is nice. Of course, there are always other things that I need to work on. Hopefully, I'll manage to get some of those recurring things worked on tomorrow. If nothing else, I have gotten permission for a bunch of songs for my podcast, so I have several months of podcasts planned. I'm really hoping that I can get enough potential episodes organized that I will only have to ask for permission once a year (although, that would still mean sending out dozens and dozens of requests). I had planned to calculate how many requests I send out vs the number of positive responses that I get, but I haven't gotten around to it. Maybe I will at some point, since that would make it easier (maybe) to figure out approximately how many songs I need to request. I also wanted to calculate how much music I listen to and what percentage of those songs I think aren't something I want to hear again. However, that would require more organization. I wrote out instructions for dealing with my top 100 songs of the year list. Perhaps I should do that for each batch of songs I listen to. I could put all the songs into a dated directory, write down in the database how big the directory is (or how many files are in it? or both? or how many songs I put in the playlist of songs that I will listen to plus how much space they take up? Probably all of the above.), and then when I have finished with my weeding, I could write down the numbers again. It wouldn't be totally accurate, of course, since there are lots of files that come with an album of music that aren't music (although with the number of songs in the initial playlist, I would have a better idea). However, if I knew that I needed 13 GB of music to get approximately 250 requests, which would result in approximately 70 positive responses, which would let me make 12 podcasts of 5 songs each (plus a few that didn't go with the other songs and would be carried over to the following year), then I would know if I only have 9 GB that I needed to go download some more songs. Or if I had only 150 songs that I was planning on requesting, then I would need to work on finding more. These numbers are just random ones (although I do have about 13 GB of songs in each batch). Hmm... I really like the idea of having this be more organized. I'll have to work on it.

Progress was made once again on the hutch. I adjusted the upper doors a bit so that they line up a little better. They still aren't perfect. I still don't care. I got one of the lower doors put on, but the other one was then too long, so I had to modify it (as I did previously). It is just a centimeter shorter, so I don't think it will be noticeable. And, as with the upper doors, I don't care. I need to touch up the paint on a few spots (which I will absolutely not do tonight), and then I should be able to attach the door to the hinges. Joel managed to use the wire cutters to snip the ends of some short screws off, so I don't even need to use the hacksaw.

As much as I want to work on the artwork for the doors and drawers tomorrow, I'm still trying to get myself through all the stuff on my to do list. Today, I made an appointment for us to get covid boosters and flu shots when we get back to the US. I wanted to get the shingles vaccine too, but I've heard it is awful, so I'm going to wait. However, once our medical insurance is active and we are parked at home for a while, I am so going to get caught up on my vaccines (and doctors visits). Although, I would like to go to Morocco at some point. Hmm... I wonder if I need any additional vaccinations for that.

In other health-related news, I'm feeling slightly less sick, but my ear is kind of stuffed up. I still hate the nose steroids. I occasionally get some kind of guff from the right half of my face, which is related to the Bells palsy. My eyelid has been kind of saggy recently, although it feels like it is swollen. This morning, I had more thoughts on that, but now I've forgotten.

Speaking of getting stuff done, I managed to fix the problems with my budget website by using a function I already had written, so that was pretty convenient (or annoying if you think about how I had it and didn't use it previously). So, that's one less thing I have to do. I think when I finish the hutch, I'm going to focus on sewing for a little while, since there are some clothes that I would like to have for the trip (which may or may not get done in time for the trip). I'm going to focus mainly on getting everything ready for the trip and not start working on any new projects (beyond that bit of sewing) or restart old projects, unless I have absolutely nothing left to do, which seems unlikely. If nothing else, I can pick up the pace on the podcast, writing, and the other thing that flashed through my mind, but which I have now forgotten. Okay, I'll probably also work on seeing if any of the journaling games is fun.

And speaking of fun, I'm really not enjoying "Ready Player One". I'm going to start skipping stuff to see if I can get past the awkward teen romance part to get to the main plot. I may just end up taking a break from it for a while, but I would like to finish it. It isn't awful, but I don't find the romance compelling at all. It does seem kind of realistic, maybe, but watching him fuck around when he should be doing something else is painful for me. Luckily, there are plenty of other books to read.

I woke up this morning with a headache and decided with Joel that I should just rest. It was totally the right choice. So, I sat around and worked on my harrow card programming project. It is nearly done, except for a part that I'll add tomorrow (that we don't really like anyway). Here is the link for those who are interested: https://www.peaseblossom.net/rpg/harrow.php. The art isn't mine, so please don't share the link (not that it is exactly hidden here....).

Anyway, despite feeling weird, I was able to finish up two more drawers, pin two pairs of underwear, and get a few other things done around the house that I don't remember now. So, a good day over all. I'm going to head to bed soon and try to get some more sleep.

This afternoon, we went by the other branch of the fabric store that we visited last week, and they have a much better selection of what we were looking for. So, now we have a whole bunch of fabric for tablecloths and covers on various surfaces, plus we also got enough foam for both benches. The next step is probably going to be to zigzag the edges of all the new pieces and then wash them (since many are very ravel-y).

I spent like an hour fixing problems with the website for my podcast that is connected to the database that organizes song permissions for me. While the errors are due to the PHP upgrade, I had been totally dreading trying to upgrade the podcast database website to use my newer libraries. Since it was broken, I kind of had to. Now that I've got some of it fixed, which involved adding some tables and files, there is less that needs to be done to get everything else upgraded. Of course, that makes me want to write a bit of code to avoid having to copy code into each file. Hmmm....

Other than that, not too much else going on. Tomorrow, I'm going to go to check out the place where the tai chi class will be held. I'm a bit confused about the location, so I thought that it would be better to just go and look rather than freak out about it.

I've starting coming up with ideas for things I'd like to do, which is nice, as I've been kind of focused on just forging ahead recently. Yesterday, I wondered if I should try making a Minecraft mod to add some kind of plot to the game, which would add a bit more excitement (for me). There seems to be at least one mod to make quests, so probably I could use that (or maybe build on it?). If you string together quests with some reason why you go from one to the next, it can make plot. I'll have to see if I can make it work.

Today, I wondered if I could make a program to dynamically generate images of braided rugs based on parameters given by the user (like colors). I have come up with the way to make one section of a braid as an SVG image in HTML. Now, I just need to make one for the other side, make sure they fit, and work on generating a braid (using PHP to make the HTML). I'll probably make some effort to give the braid some shading to add 3D qualities to the image. Then, I'll form it into the proper shape (probably with math).