It’s the first Saturday of the year 2025, and quite a bit has happened! I’ve set some unwritten resolutions as well as some that I wrote about in an earlier post. So far, all systems are operating smoothly. I’ve missed my morning routine so far, have written 50k words in various projects, have a couple of upcoming posts to preview, am still job hunting, and am almost over this illness! I’m also going to talk about a few other nuances that occurred this week.
To start with, I’ve been sick since Christmas. Before, actually, but the fever didn’t happen until the 26th. It probably didn’t help anything that I chose to drink away Christmas after the party that was hyped up all month got cancelled that morning, resulting in me totally bombing a surprise reintroduction to family I’d not seen in ages (they didn’t care, they were tipsy too, and elated to see me), making a fool of myself on social, and further exasperating my symptoms. I had a 102 fever for the first four days, and somehow was still so full of energy and lacking the understanding of any body aches (because the fever had me delirious, maybe) that I cleaned my house and completed several blog posts. After that, the fever lowered to 101 for a few days, which is when the body aches really showed up, and now it’s been sitting at 99.9 for the past two days. All of this is with a fever reducer and prescription anti-viral medication.
Fun times.
I lost my sense of taste for anything savory, so coffee was borderline, and most teas were palpable, but most of my favorite foods weren’t. I ate mostly sweetened rice and bland eggs, as anything salted was absolutely rancid. Today, things smell normal again, and salted food seems fine. So I am hoping it’s almost finished, as it’s been ten days, and I’m tired of being stuck at home.
I’ve had to give myself some grace for not doing my amazing morning routine due to being sick. I’m craving it, though. It’s always been the perfect way to start my day and get my druthers about me. With credible news updates available in several places nowadays, I could technically do the routine regardless when I wake up. But the lack of desire to eat, and being so uncomfortable from being ill, I’ve not had the right mindset to just do it.
I did manage to get at least 50k words written in various projects. That’s the benefit of being sick and having to sit still all the time: you have plenty of time to write. It’s low impact and doesn’t require a lot of brain work (not for me, at least), so I found it relaxing accompanied with equally low-key instrumental music. One is a fiction piece that I’ve decided to share on the blog in the form of a weekly series as a sort of practice. That will begin tomorrow. Another is a fan fiction piece about my main character from Elder Scrolls Online, which already had 180k words on it, but I never shared it. This will be on AO3, and I’m not sure if I want to make it private (to those with accounts), or if I am going to share it publicly. I might decide to go with the latter, because yolo. A third is a review of a podcast episode that I found very helpful to me over the course of my shelter stay, and a fourth is another series of posts for the blog. All of these need editing, but they’re written, nonetheless.
Speaking of future posts, I’m really excited about my upcoming review of It Takes A Village’s second episode, in which Samantha Béart has a chat Kirsty Gillmore. The podcast is about community, collaboration, and friendship in the vast world that is the gaming industry, and I’ve found it incredibly interesting, since I study leadership as a hobby, and the series is chock full of key points that are easily translatable to the topic on both intra- and interpersonal levels. That episode specifically provided a lot of insight for being clear in my communication and adaptable to changes that I would go through during my time in the shelter. Those weren’t the only two points, however. Don’t worry, I have plans for all ten episodes, as well as some side thoughts on specific parts of the discussions. This is my favorite podcast on the Citadel, so I have a bag full of ideas that came from it.
My next blog series is about living a fearless life, and how to develop the courage and resilience needed to keep pressing forward. I’ve had some serious stumbles, the past two months, so it’s good timing for such a series.
That’s pretty much it. Looking forward to the week ahead! Stay healthy, everyone!