Hey friends! On the weekend I was battling a head cold, which has since gone away, but I have a lingering sniffle as I drink copious amounts of echinacea and elderberry tea. I love tea, but I generally dislike herbal tea unless it’s lemongrass, and even then… 🤔 But yes, I spent a long time sleeping, resting, napping, and then doing that all over again. Listening to my body – it needs rest, it will rest, right?

We weren’t planning to go so soon, but on the weekend we went to IKEA as Nick had made a decision on the new bookshelf he wanted to buy for his home office/study. Our existing bookshelf made for a great general storage shelf in our old apartment, but since we both decluttered some books and have more ideal storage space in our current place, that bookshelf isn’t really needed anymore. It also doesn’t fit in Nick’s study and I don’t particularly have a use for it myself. We had some alcohol on top of the shelf since we didn’t have a lot of kitchen space (and were still going through all the alcohol), and just one shelf filled with actual books – the rest was just a catch-all for other shit. 😆

My book collection is extremely minimal; I own three poetry books, a copy of The Catcher in the Rye, and a couple of sentimental books. I had a few more before – because let me tell you, Catcher isn’t precisely my favourite classical novel — such as The Great Gatsby, but I gave them to my friend Lilian because she has a lot more space for books, collects them, and will certainly give my books more love than I will. Initially, I decided to keep all the books I might read again, but later I decided that many of those were easily obtainable through a digital format if I really did want to re-read them. In all honesty, I haven’t re-read anything… my embarrassment to my former bookworm self will prevail.

The shelving Nick got ended up looking quite good. It’s an open shelf, rather than an enclosed style bookshelf, and it will be great for when he starts building and displaying some of his newly owned LEGO sets (with some on the way). He put a lot of thought into what he was purchasing and what he wanted to display. He’s always said to me that maybe he doesn’t identify as a minimalist the way I do, but he definitely leans towards a neat lifestyle and one of intention. If anyone out there is a fan of LEGO, I guess you’re aware it can be a slippery slope.

Speaking of slippery slopes, I’ve definitely found myself on a slippery slope of my own since purchasing my peace lily and then going for a snake plant next. 😂 I had wanted a coffee table or a side table for my office, and an armchair, but I entertained the thought of getting just one or two smaller plants to pop on the table. My idea was to get something like a pothos or some kind of climbing plant that could really nicely drape down from a table, so I wanted a table with some height. I ended up getting a small brown round one from IKEA that could also hold some books and tabletop card games on display, as well as be a place to put a cup of tea or something similar.

I haven’t bought the armchair yet – I found one I liked at IKEA, but their selection isn’t super fantastic, and that one was out of stock. I looked at other places, but I honestly don’t want to spend a lot of money on just an armchair. I feel like my budget is around $500, but even then, that seems like a lot. The Koarp armchair from IKEA is about $300 and I think I am OK to spend that amount of money. I just do not have 100% certainty that I will use the armchair as much as I think I will. If I think about something costing $300, if I use the chair once a day for a year, that is less than a dollar per day spent on that chair. But will I use it every day? Will I sit in it? The idea for it was to have it as a comfortable chair to chill out in and even use my laptop in – a separate spot away from my desk. Our couch isn’t fantastic to sit in while using a laptop because it is too deep. So I guess I am being intentional with this purchase and thinking about how the chair will be used, not just buying some expensive pretty chair that is rock hard on your ass. Hahah.

Daylight savings ended on the weekend, so now when I get up at 7:00am or earlier, it is weirdly too bright already. Oh well. I am not complaining about the extra hour gained (which we will just lose again when daylight savings begins later in spring), since I probably needed it to rest up anyway.

I split my nail late last week. It sucks when I choose to grow my nails long and I know it will only be a matter of time that daily tasks will just cause one of them to split. I have definitely had nails snap clean off in the past. My nails are a bit stronger these days, but even small accidents can cause them to split. One of mine bent and split when – get this – I pressed a toilet flush button in a public toilet. You might think it’s funny, but it was one of those toilet flushes that you had to push in beyond the wall. You couldn’t just press it to the wall, you had to push it in. What kind of inaccessible bullshit is this?! So anyway, since it was not possible for me to push the button with my knuckle, I had to use my long fingernail because I couldn’t use the tip of my finger due to the minimal surface area. Of course, it needed way more pressure to press the button than I expected, so bam, I was in pain for a second and later realise my nail split. I tried to superglue it at the split, after reading that most nail glue had similar ingredients to superglue.

It went OK, and lasted maybe a few days, but I still had to baby the fuck out of my fingernail to make sure it wouldn’t split clean off. The superglue was strong, but it was probably not fit for purpose. 😛 Normally I would trim the nail where it split, then trim all my other nails… but I didn’t want to because I was enjoying the nail wraps I’d applied not too long prior. 😩 Today I gave up and I just trimmed all my nails down. It was then that I noticed that the nail had split pretty bad, almost injuring the delicate part under the nail. 😱 Farrrk.

We went to a Violent Soho concert on Thursday. It was the first “loud” concert I’d been to in a while (Violent Soho are a grunge rock band), and I honestly truly forget how much I enjoy watching that kind of loud, energetic music live. It felt almost surreal. It was a bit strange being around so many people, and a large amount of people still kept some amount of distance from the people around them. The crowd got a bit wild in some parts – can’t really blame them – but there were no crazy circle pits, and since we stood somewhere a little closer to the back or the edge of the room, we had some space around us. The support acts, Dear Seattle, and Teen Jesus and the Jean Teasers, were very good as well, and really warmed up the crowd. We have a few comedy shows queued up for the month ahead.

Another thing!!!! that I am excited about!!!! We have booked our flights to Greece – the trip we were supposed to take two years ago and meet my friend Pauline 🙏🏻 Hopefully it will all actually, actually happen this time. Still feeling very weird about sitting on a plane for 14 hours. It’s all very odd. I don’t know how to feel about travelling intentionally again because even though I have travelled to Europe a couple of times, I just – ahhh the whole thing feels so nerve-wracking!