Found myself doing architectural design of an apartment complex with a retractable dome roof for year round usage, window treatments, hedges, ivy trellises and an inner courtyard with a volleyball court, hence the dome.

It's for people I connect with outside MTS and other groups.

I am a member of many exclusive groups. But otherwise, I took it upon my own volition to design it.

I have a life outside video games (obvious there, considering my misadventures) and I do work with making things more accessible to people in my groups

It's still in a planning phase, but I enjoy a good floor plan.

Today, I am getting the booster shot I put off because I freaked out from the side effects. (Both my parents got it and had no ill effects. I was a bit scared, but now I'm not scared.)

I'm going to get my booster today and I will be sure to rest today.

Update: Got my shot. Arm hurt the 15 minutes they made me wait for side effects (just pain in my arm).

I had received new toothpaste to try out in the mail and see what the fuss is about when it came to one of Australia's latest in what they at the company playfully dubbed "smilecare".

I am pretty much using my spare pocket money from chores for my purchases in between checks.

My mom did some grocery shopping, not to mention pick up my iron supplements, lemon juice, milk and essenced drinking water.

I owe her about $12 for the remainder of my groceries. I am currently working on my paycheck.

Today, since January 15, 2024...

I lost 18 pounds!

I remember screaming like a Charlie Brown character when I saw I weighed 320 at the endocrinology office then. (yes, I am currently practicing for voice acting for various types of characters.)

Tonight, before l bedded down for the night, I weighed myself and I was happy to see about a month later I lost 18 pounds

With major changes like essenced water (the brand hint™ is the first of its kind by being still water (like typical bottled water) and it doesn't contain sweeteners of any sort nor juice) and vegetables....

...learning to hold back on sweets and soda and sugar\fat in cooking by measuring and adjusting the recipes I have that contain with sugar or certain fats...

...eating the recommended portions on the packaged foods like on frozen foods and portioning out snack foods to prevent mindless eating...

...counting calories and nutrients if I have the ability to access the something packaged with the package or access to the brand website...

...not that I should forget the fact that I get my exercise done around the house by doing chores.

Down to 300 pounds for now. Only 172 to go to my goal. (Is 128 pounds for a 5'0" woman in her mid 30s a decent amount? Nevermind, I Googled and it's normal, slightly over, but should help with fluctuations)

Note: in previous attempts, I have lost weight very quickly during the first month. Remember, results WILL vary. Also, it slows down after a few weeks from the start.

Good for you! Good job!

It's not going to be easy losing weight. Curbing binge eating and eating healthy foods as well as substitutions like that whole "Eat This, Not That!" and the like, well...it's going to be a bumpy ride. I already have a progress report going.

Beyond my weekly performance reviews on Sunday afternoons and my morning weigh-ins, I am organized with life.

@PANDAQUEEN I find that the key is to not have anything unhealthy in the house, as I can never control myself (oh, I'll just have ONE chocolate, I never do- I eat the lot! ). I also have lots of healthy snacks or easy to prepare food in case I can't motivate myself to cook, and go for nibbles instead. At least they will be healthier nibbles! Very difficult but sounds like you are doing well!

Weight loss isn't a linear process for anybody.

Be careful with weighing in daily as the scale will mess with your head. Example: If you ate something salty one day, you could end up carrying around water retention the next day which will look like weight gain on the scale the following day. Using a tape measure once a week or going by how your clothes fit is a more gentle way to figure out what is really going on. Other ways to tell if you're headed in the right direction are things like sleeping better and feeling better over all.

If you're happy with the daily weigh in routine, continue doing them, just keep in mind the scale doesn't tell the whole story and the body changes daily. Falling into a numbers trap is never fun and can derail progress if not kept in check.

Finally below 300 lbs (136 kg). I am 298 lbs (135.1 kg) My key was replacement of sweet drinks with water. I also still have been working on grocery shopping and I will eventually have to pick up vegetables. Still making sure to not eat too much of anything junky.

Probably will start buying lettuce and avocado for a vegan wrap along with other veggies. I better check the avocado before buying though. Avocado and pear are the two most fickle of plant matter foods, either not yet ripe or too ripe.

It's like mating a panda, which the moment to conceive is a very limited window. I could go on about the fickle nature of planet Earth.

I spent today doing chores, replying to my mother's texts and sleeping in front of the TV downstairs.

Mostly got all of the chores done. Only need to clean Gemini's litter box and that's it for today...

I decided to let the cat into my room after her Robert Plant-styled yowling protests went on far enough. She's getting old and I really don't know how long she has left since she was diagnosed with terminal kidney disease.

I think I've had like 12 different songs stuck in my head today which, like how???! They don't even have anything to do with each other, so its not one is similar enough to another that I'd have that also suck in my head. Obviously I've had to listen to them all day cos no other songs have been satisfying. Its better than just listening to one or two songs on repeat though so I got that going for me

I read in the tech sector news that they made a physical optical disc that can hold 220,000 hours of video footage in the Chinese region. In the terms used, a petabyte of space.

From my educated guess, this is a Taiwanese thing. The Taiwanese tech sector is well known for mind-blowing innovations that rival Japan's technology.

I was in awe. Imagine the very idea of storing so much on one disc?

Imagine the very idea of losing that much data because of a scratch on the disc that rendered it unreadable...

Yeah, my father discussed that consequence with me along with a faulty pressing\burning error.

My father and I get a thrill from tech talk, but when I discuss it with my mom, who didn't have access to STEAM career equipment growing up, it sounds like "carnival music" when me and my father talk.

My mom knows how to use Google, YouTube and Amazon and other sites that are similar. She says that's all she really needs. (Then again, she said "You're dragging me kicking and screaming into the 21st Century...")

I'm starting to detest Sunday more than Monday.

Even though it sounds weird, I am doing better than yesterday. Even though the day is young, I still feel better.

I even had a chance to figure out my spending next month.

Although the new month starts on Friday, I still have a long way to go with my chores.

Shopping day. I plan on making Jelly Kinders and Gummy Worms for Easter. I am still working on watching through the Golden Age of The Simpsons. I bought my favorite bottled water. I bought HBC items.

Either way, I am still working on cooking and baking.

Easter this year will be interesting 🧐.

Tomorrow is Mail Bag Day and that includes many packages of gummy candy mix for my spring project, the molds and equipment for the Jelly Kinders, the HBC items, a minimalist wallet, and essenced bottled water that I, once again, may make the postman want to cancel Christmas if it keeps up into winter at the end of the year.

I dealt with an unhelpful AI who couldn't answer a simple "yes" or "no" question because it would give me a spiel on selling points. AI customer service sucks. Especially when you are dealing with humans who don't have time to waste.

Update: the company I contacted about their AI said their AI was recently implemented and said I can work with what I had.

Second company I asked was different. I have yet to hear out because I have just submitted my questions on substitutions on ingredients.

I admit that I make gummies without anything weird in them just as much as brownies. The secret for my sweets is timing.

No weird plants, medicine or anything else, just follow the instructions as much as possible and the timing is key.

2024 feels like it is going to be a year of living in the Twilight Zone.

Yesterday The Boy and I did some grocery shopping. There was a older gentlemen standing in the middle of the aisle which wouldn't have been a problem except I couldn't get around him as his cart was taking up most of the aisle. I said "Excuse me", he moved, then his wife yelled at me about running him over.

When we had the generator installed last year, it was proverbially pounded into my brain that yearly maintenance was important and that if it wasn't done, it would void the warranty. This yearly maintenance has been pre-paid for 10 years.

I had a appointment to have this maintenance done last week. I sat around and waited for the dude to show up, nothing. I called the generator company after lunch. I was told they moved my appointment, but didn't know why. When asked why they never bothered to contact me via phone or email, they didn't have a answer for that either. Unlike the crazy lady at the grocery store, I didn't spare the generator company my WTF lecture. The WTF being that they spent literally over a month yapping about the yearly maintenance thing, then ghosted me for some mysterious reason that nobody knows.

Health insurance company: Their math isn't mathing.

Insurance company told Dingus the other day that he only had another $400.00 to spend before he met his deductible. The amount spent out of pocket thus so far this year is just over $300, his deductible is $1200.00. 1200- 300= 900.

There has only been two doctors appointments thus so far this year. I don't know where the mysterious bill of $500.00 went or what it for as I can only find the 2 claims in the insurance companies website.

A person much wiser than I has said the following: When something happens, it's whatever. The second time something strange happens it is a coincidence, the third time, there is something to it. In proper context she means when three 'odd' things happen with one person there is something to be looked into / thought about / whatever, but I've expanded to beyond one person as things have been this way since before the new year started. Everything feels off kilter...

Aside from my "pissing off the delivery driver with a heavy package" most of the stuff I bought two days ago came today.

Right now, I have to add special instructions to put the water on the porch like last time.

Also, I am awaiting more ingredients for my Jelly Kinder project.

So far, I went grocery shopping and medication pickup with my mom. I found they are slowly but surely stocking up on my fancy health foods at the ShopRite.

My mom is currently resting, watching foreign crime dramas.

I bought my vegetables for integration into my carbohydrate dense diet. I also bought ingredients for pizza (or pie as we New Jerseyans called it. I am going for a vegetable dense pizza.)

I got a couple things through Amazon that were cheaper.

Tomorrow, I plan to get cheaper dry\shelf stable goods.

For now, I am working on an arts and crafts project that recycles my pill bottles after the meds have ran out and metal findings like on a charm bracelet.

I made my pizza tonight and it was my best for my second solo attempt.

I'm experiencing a feeling I can't really pinpoint. I think it's close to wonder mixed with curiosity. (Is there a German or Japanese for both of these combined?)
Anyway, in the past year I have considered getting a bible.

It may sound silly, but it's a fairly serious topic to me, morally, because my grandparents (Mother's side) were religious, and my half-sister found Jesus/God when she was clinically depressed. My father's side (half-sister included in there) of the family has always been a little religious anyway with a cross in some rooms and visiting churches on certain holidays.
Due to ignorance I've considered myself an Atheist for years, but realized I'm rather Agnostic a few years ago, becoming more accepting and understanding of religion and the importance of the community around it.

I do think that there's some truth in the teachings of every religion, and I'm open to learn. I don't know who I am anyway.

Yeah not really related to how I felt today, but rather a 'I have been thinking' kind of thing. I just had to write it down somewhere.

I'm Agnostic myself and to this day, wonder how I survived numerous mishaps that otherwise would have killed me. It's more like "Anyone Up There? The Joke's Over..."

But I know that feeling of needing to positively sound off feelings of "where to go forward to next?", especially during the otherwise publicized Easter season.

Grocery shopped again.

I picked up more goods including my own milk. (My parents enjoy cereal when they aren't in the mood to cook.)

I also received ingredients for my crunchy frogs.

Evening Update: I went downstairs to take my evening medicine (these ones were like horse pills) and I found a package on the table. It was addressed to me and contained The Simpsons Season 9.

In the episode "Trash of the Titans" (The 200th episode) my parents and I took a few things away from the broadcast like the rule "He who tops it off, drops it off" (in spite of the fact there are more women in the house, cat included) and set up precautions to prevent "garbage water" like draining drinks and ice in the sink.

I inspected the discs because I can never tell, especially since Goodwill has a reputation of never checking the discs before thrifting, so it sets a bad precedent for other secondhand shops, which is why I usually shop anywhere but Goodwill.

Blu-Rays may have scratch-resistant coating, but DVD are more delicate like smartphones. As for the petabyte disc, I hope, for a 100 layered disc, that they have a scratch-proof coating or such a investment would be a waste.

As for watching the discs, I probably will watch it after getting through seasons 7 and 8. I did get all the way up to the first half of "Who Shot Mr. Burns?" (yes I got through the show over the course of a couple weeks.)

Hi again!

It has been some time since I have written here. So I will tell a little of everything that has happened to me for some time:

Finally, the elections were held on Sunday 18 of Feb as expected, and without any problems. The same people who have been winning uninterruptedly since 2009 won again, it's not the better but also not the worst. That's in the regional scene. However, in the national one, in the last few days a big corruption scheme in our government has been uncovered, which obviously makes me very angry.

It is very random, a minister hired as a advisor the bouncer of a brothel (yes, of a brothel, you read that right), and then the guy (the advisor) became a millionaire during the pandemic selling fake masks to the government. The problem is that the government knew the masks were fake and bought them anyway. The story is much longer, this would be a summary.

In other matters, I had pneumonia, and I am still recovering. I'm pretty well now, but for some strange reason I don't know, now I can't drink milk, it makes me sick. It's the first time that I have that issue.

Also during this time I bought the PS5. I'm enjoying it a lot. So far my most positive surprise in this aspect has been Astro's Playroom, I didn't expect a free pre-installed game to be so much fun. I installed Fortnite, and I'm going all pro, lol. Expect to see me in the big international championships in 1 or 2 years (no, don't expect me there, just kidding).

For the future I am most interested in "Semana Santa" ("holy week"), I do not practice any religion but it is still a week of vacation and it is fun. This year I would love to have a capirote, and in fact I think I will make one. Probably, if I do, it will be red or purple. I really like the white ones, they are very neat, but some people associate them with the KKKKlan and I don't feel like arguing with people who don't know how to differentiate one thing from the other.

And this is all for the moment. Have a good day!

(Red Capirote)

Today, I went to the podiatrist and he checked out my foot and literally gave me "the boot" (those foam and plastic boots for foot issues that I have to wear for a couple of weeks) and check back to see the progress and then a check up in May.

Good things today, I received some things in the mail, including label cassettes for my electronic label maker.

So far, I am not having a good start. My parents did my dishwashing job WHILE I WAS ON BREAK!

I found I had some money for ramen and a Slurpee. Hard part was finding out they still haven't fixed the frozen Coca Cola option.

Right now, waiting on a couple packages.

Was able to not only clean up the house, but also take in packages and put a giant plushie of Sonic the Hedgehog in the donations area of the garage. The donation pile keeps getting bigger.