Quirky Fantastic

I just realized that the last time I posted about goals was back in February. I was going to figure out a March goal, and then allergies struck.  I didn't wind up setting a secondary goal for March, although I did complete my primary goal of tracking my food on My Fitness Pal. I actually found it so useful that I've kept going with it into this month. I think that I'll keep going. I'm not necessarily losing weight, but it does help me look at my macronutrient and calorie intake and analyze correlations to mood and energy levels. This month, my main goal was to ditch the snooze button. I've been mostly successful. However, I did use a work-around of completely turning off and resetting my alarm a few times, adhering to the letter of the goal but not the spirit. I'm not proud of that, but it was mostly during Spring Break.  Overall, I do feel better when I don't snooze for ages, which is what I tend to do when left to my own devices. I think that th...

It's taken me longer than I thought to get back to this post series. First, I was feeling under the weather. When my new allergy med routine finally kicked in, it was Spring Break and I was off to Austin. When I got back, I had the best of intentions. I had planned to paint my living room...Well, that didn't happen. It turns out that I'm not a fast painter. I'd already painted the trim in my hallway, and it took me a day to finish painting the rest of the trim in my living room plus this closet. I'd been wanting to try something visually interesting to make my condo seem more at home to me. I'd managed to damage my closet door when I was experimenting with taking it down, and now it won't close properly. With the other repairs I'm doing, getting a new door is a low priority to me, so I decided to paint the bottom half of my closet blue. I mostly decided to make it two-toned like this because I don't have a step stool and I didn't feel lik...

Main Bag: Deuter Airlite 26L SL As I mentioned in my review post for this bag, I'm planning on walking along Hadrian's Wall Path this summer. I'm using this trip to Austin as a way to test how this backpack works for airplane travel. I don't think that we'll be walking long distances with it, but I'd like to see if I can fit my packing list in without it feeling too cramped.  Inside the main bag, I'll be packing: Tops Athleta magenta tech T-shirt Honolua Wahine cotton T-shirt x 3 (wear one in transit) Old Navy black long-sleeved shirt (wear in transit) Since this is a shorter trip, I'm fine with bringing along cotton shirts. I usually wear them more than once without washing them, but I can always give them a quick sink wash to freshen them up. Honolua Wahine is my favorite Hawaiian surfwear brand, and their shirts are super soft and thin without being too sheer. I may buy a new shirt as a souvenir as well. Bottoms/Dresses Tail polye...

As a teacher, my vacation schedule is set by the school. I have some personal and sick days available, but the bulk of my vacation time happens when the students are also on break. I have a lengthy (but not as lengthy as many people think) summer vacation as well as shorter breaks in December/January, February, and April. Since my breaks often fall when most families in the Pacific Northwest are also on vacation, flights can be more expensive. That means that I try to think outside the box when choosing vacation locations that aren't determined by family obligations. I usually consider four main things: budget, desired trip length, weather, and trip type (relaxation, learning, adventure, connection, or combo). For example, for my upcoming Spring Break trip, I put in my desired vacation days into Google Flights and saw which places had the least expensive round trip prices. Then, I started narrowing locations down based on other criteria. I love using Google Flights for this, b...

For the past couple of weeks, I've been battling what seems to be a combination of bad seasonal allergies and a possible cold. I had to go into the doctor since I was having trouble sleeping due to coughing and congestion at night. I did get prescribed an anti-cough medicine at bedtime, but otherwise I was left to my own devices to rest and recover. Things that help my allergies the most are: 1. Neti pot. I use non-iodized table salt and boiling water in my neti pot, purchased from a local co-op. It takes a while to learn how to use the neti pot effectively, but it does feel great to run warm water through my sinuses to clear them out.  2. Luden's cough drops. I buy the small boxes of both the cherry and honey lemon flavors, since they use less packaging. They're about $1 at most drugstores and are compact enough to easily fit in my purse. They taste good while actually helping with my cough.  3. Doubling up on pillows. This doesn't always make my back fee...

I've been trying to pack lightly for trips for the past several years, ever since I traveled in Europe for a month with just a Tom Bihn Aeronaut back when there was still just one size. It's a lot easier to not need to worry about dealing with the baggage claims. I usually travel with my Tom Bihn Aeronaut or Synapse 19, but I have a work trip this week that requires walking 8-10 miles a day while carrying a first aid kit, food, a bunch of papers, and other goods. My Synapse can definitely handle this amount of items, but I wasn't sure how my back would feel after a day of walking since the Synapse doesn't have the most robust waist belt. I love the Synapse as an EDC pack and travel bag, but I thought I might need something different for this trip. I've been thinking about trying out some longer hikes, so I decided that this would be a great time to purchase a new pack that had a suspension system. My goal was to find a pack that I could use when walking H...

Each month in 2017, I'm choosing at least one goal to focus on. That main goal is for another project that I'm working on, but I'm thinking about adding a secondary goal and maybe even some smaller goals to track here. Since this year is my year of Transformation, setting clear goals for myself seems like a good way to achieve that. I'm thinking about a few possible secondary goals for March: Making progress on a Couch25K program. I used to jog more frequently than I do now. My main form of exercise is kung fu, but I think that adding in more conditioning might be helpful in my training. I don't really enjoy jogging, although it's tolerable if I listen to podcasts. Still,   Ditching the snooze button. I always hit snooze multiple times, and I'm not sure that makes for the best mornings for me. Ideally, I'd wake up without an alarm. More realistically, I'd like to roll out of bed the first time my ocean waves alarm goes off.  Writing snail ...

My condo and I have had a bit of a bumpy start since I moved in late last summer. The purchase process had a lot of hiccups, although I really like my realtor. Overall, it wasn't terrible. It was just that a lot of what could go wrong, did. I enjoy living alone for the most part, but I had a hard time adjusting to the move. My condo meets all of my requirements: top floor, great location, parking and storage included. I just haven't really adjusted to the idea of living here longer term. Embarrassingly enough, I haven't even fully unpacked, much less started doing many home improvement projects. I'd like to change that. One thing that I did do after moving in was hire a second inspector, Suzanne from Sound Advice Home Inspection , to create a home maintenance plan. She was fantastic, giving me a crash course in construction in addition to writing up a lengthy report with different items and their relative importance. I have a much better idea of what I need to do ...

Each year for the past several years, I've chosen a word of the year. In 2013, my word was Peace.  In 2014, my word was Growth.  In 2015, my word was Vibrant. In 2016, my word was Nurture. This year, my fifth choosing a word to guide me, I chose the word Transformation. 2016 was a year that was full of transitions, some that I chose and some that just happened. I usually have a difficult time with change, and this previous year was no exception. My word Nurture was a great support as I progressed through 2016, but as I considered a word for this year, I went in a different direction. I decided to choose a word that encourages me to consider my life and purposefully make long-term, lasting changes. Hence, Transformation. I also chose two supporting words, Shift and Ease. Shift is to remind me that transformation can happen from within and can be spurred by something as simple as a change in mindset. Ease, which I haven't fully explored yet, is something that I hope for...

As people close to me know, I'm an avid reader. My tastes run the gamut from journalistic non-fiction to LGBTQ romance to apocalyptic YA to religious memoirs. I'll try most books, although I tend to go through phases. I also have a hard time with anything that I perceive as a "classic" or "required reading," which is probably a throwback from my middle school days. I track my reading on Goodreads so that I have a record of what I've read and can see what other readers enjoy. Last year, I read 83 books, down from a high of 119 books a few years back. My goal is 52 books for the year, or the equivalent of a book a week. I try to read at least a few minutes each day, but I do tend to read in spurts that roughly correspond to school breaks.  In 2017, there are a few additional goals that I'd like to focus on in terms of my reading. 1. Focus on quality, not quantity. I read quickly, but I can read so quickly that I don't fully process what...

Today during my snow day, I decided to go through my list of dreams, which is like a bucket list but more dynamic. I’m making pretty good progress on the list, but I’ve been neglecting my dreams related to writing. I realized that this might be a good time to recommit to writing a blog regularly, so I searched out the info from this old blog and decided to bring it back to life. I still love the name, Quirky Fantastic. I debated leaving up the posts from my previous attempt at blogging back in 2013-4, but I decided to revert them to draft form. That way I can still view them, but others can’t. That’s mostly because I look back at the posts, and it’s hard to recognize who I was then. In just the past few years, I’ve grown immensely as a person, but it’s like the tone of my life has changed. Back then, I was fresh out of a work situation that took a huge toll on my mentally and physically, I was just getting more involved with social justice organizations, my family was in good health....