2023 going on 2024

[marsden_online]

Some people have had a much shittier year than I. But despite feeling really positive yesterday and having a generally good headspace for most of the year I now find myself entering 2024 in a poor mood. A lot of old negativities and feelings of isolation seem to have resurfaced over the past few weeks.


I am in a much better headspace around work than I was last year. A substantial pay rise helped a lot with lifting thr financial pressure at home. We're still on the brink of financial disaster, but it feels manageable. I have mostly given up trying to wrangle my body clock around to where I want it to be and am trying to work with it rather than against it, but I frequently find that the rest of the world doesn't want to co-operate with that.

Despite being tied mostly to albatross projects over the year I've come under little pressure from management and have been able to focus on writing good code, documented at least somewhat, and making things work comprehensively to start with.

The work end-of year-event was uncommonly good for me, as I wrote elsewhere at the time

Work end-of-year event today.

- We started with throwing axes at a variety of projected targets, and I managed to actually embed the axe in the wall slightly more times than not, and when it did I was pretty good at getting where I aimed.

- a mid-afternoon lunch at a Mexican restaurant

- Then some time at Dice and Slice to finish off, where I used my familiarity with original Splendor to teach some of my workmates Marvel Splendor, which has interesting mechanical additions but cards which are far to "busy" in design to visually scan over easily.
(D meanwhile taught the other half of the group Seven Wonders)

I'm also actually taking the Xmas shutdown off work this year. Over a week into it and I am starting to feel more positive and starting to work on some of my plans for giving strategic sections of the house their first proper clean in 2 1/3 years. I can tell that I am nevertheless going to fail to complete anywhere near as much as I had hoped, being as I anticipated being at this point in the list two days ago, and my mood has just taken a nose dive. No-one else in this house seems to get how much I hate living with layers of dust and grease and accumulated items which have just been put down on the nearest surface, or care that they are doing so.

Part of this clean out was letting go of a lot of the posters/canvas-printed art works which used to decorate Gladson Ave/The Lair in the years when I could be party host. Sometime in the next weeks I will deliver these to the Eco-drop or creative junk.

Somehow this cleaning feels like the first real thing that I have managed to achieve this /year/ for /me/ apart from time burnt on computer games, which I am well aware is mostly faux-achievement for dopamine sake. I'm sure there are other things, I just can't remember or find reference to them right now.

I have managed to help a few friends out a few times over the year, which feels good.

There have been more social events than 2022, of which I have attended fewer than I would have liked. For us these included board game nights with new friends aka E's now-boyfriend's parents (one of whom was in the now-abandoned Star Trek game).

We did our first big North Island road trip, which I now find my brain is still too fogged up to remember clearly without referring to my journal entry :( What else have I forgotten from this year? My social media presence has mostly been posting links and short conversations in the comments on other peoples posts, I have not had the time or energy to make day-to-day diary/event posts like I used to. This upsets me. Many things upset me but I don't have the time or energy to deal with them.

Scrolling back through my FB activity feed reminds me that we went to see a couple of good movies this year. (at least the D&D Movie and the Barbie movie).

I still haven't managed to write up that post about me and ADHD, but by knowing someone who known someone am in a queue for a private assessment.

Family doings:

D had more quilting successes, gained international exposure and a website.
D's mother's estate is still not processed, but we expect big steps forward in the new year.

E got an autism diagnosis and is navigating the social tribulations of their mixed-gender cohort maturing through teenagerhood. They haven't managed to get the peer-leadership positions they wanted, but have been reassured that there will be other opportunities. They did get awards at the end-of-year prizegiving, which D & I both attended.

Ellie cat has settled in and claimed us as hers. There are still personal-space issues between her and Gytha, but they will condescend to share a larger space and even sleep in the same general vicinity (i.e. on adjacent furniture).

Gytha's digestive issues (which have been on-and-off since we had to change up her food during lockdown) came to a head, but seem to have been resolved with a course of antibiotics and finally finding a "sensitive" food which agrees with her. Ellie is also on a "sensitive" food in case of bowl raiding, but a cheaper brand.

We had the boys for Xmas this year. L has returned north already but R is still with us until mid-January.

(My Xmas loot this year was the Pantheon expansion for the Seven Wonders: Duel boardgame, and the household also received a copy of Terraforming Mars.)