Content Creator Challenge Day 25: Life on a Rest Day

If you thought that my typical days were boring, my rest days are almost as if I am dead. 

Especially now that I have moved out of my parents' place, I usually get just one rest day a week and even then it isn't completely a rest day. My Sundays are my mostly do-nothing days. I sleep in late, I lay in bed watching shows most of the day and maybe elect to put away my laundry from the day before (but not always) and then I will do some meal prep in the evening so that I have lunches for work for the week. There are even some weeks that I am too lazy to make meals and just stay in bed all day watching shows with my boyfriend.

My rest days are definitely more so death days lol

Content Creator Challenge Day 6: Day in Your Life

My life is very boring. The first thing I do in the mornings is wake up and say good morning to my boyfriend who let me fall asleep on a call with him for the millionth time. I get up and get ready for work, sometimes it's quick and simple, and I can just throw everything into my bag and head out the door because I already have my lunch prepped from earlier in the week but sometimes like today, I will have to whip up a quick sandwich beforehand. Then I start my drive in to work, sometimes it is also quick and easy and I get to sit in the work parking lot eating a muffin and chatting with my boyfriend, other times I have to sit in traffic and then walk right into work because there were three accidents along the way. I spend my day at work and then I get to leave and immediately hop right back onto the phone with my boyfriend. Please don't try telling me that is toxic or manipulative. We mutually acknowledge that our lives are boring and do not do much of anything so we spend our nothing much of anything with each other, doing nothing with somebody usually feels better than doing nothing by yourself. Then once I am home I will start prepping dinner and will chill online playing games or watching shows until it is time for me to go to bed and repeat the entire process again the next day. Some days I have extra chores I get done like taking out the trash or making new content for my posts. Some days I take a shower or a bath. Some days I will do my makeup to make myself feel pretty. But otherwise, it is just the same routine every day and I mostly like it that way.

The only thing I would change is maybe having my boyfriend live with me instead of needing to sit on Discord all the time, I could just bug him in person.

Love you babe <3

Thank God For Ethernet Cables

I've been streaming and playing games online with friends for a while now, the entire time it has been through my gaming consoles and my laptop though, none of which have ever been hard-lined in. I tend to rely very heavily on my WiFi connections to get all of my work done. This, for obvious reasons, is not always ideal. Sometimes it can cause you to miss deadlines with homework assignments. Other times you may be in a match and you suddenly disconnect. Maybe you're in a call with friends watching a movie together and you start to buffer because a storm is passing through. 

Disruptions in your connection could be for several reasons. Maybe you just do not have a good plan to begin with, maybe you should upgrade from that 400 Mbps to the 800 Mbps. Or, possibly, you have a storm passing through your area and you just can't get a good connection to the tower. Do you have a lot of people trying to connect to the WiFi at once? It could be that there are too many devices on and the router doe not know who to prioritize the connection too. 

I have always had at least one of these issues at any given point in time, especially the too many devices online at once. But now that I am in my own apartment and it is really just me using the internet at any given time, you would think I should have a pretty good connection right? Wrong. Even with a 1000 Mbps plan, I still struggle to get half of that on my laptop at times. This can be very problematic when you are trying to not only game with your friends but to also stream that gameplay online for others to see.

There very obvious solution is to just connect my device with a hardline. Yes, many people have suggested this to me. Yes, I know they are right. But I have never been able to implement that solution until now.

I finally spent the money and got a Cat 8 ethernet cable to run from my bedroom to the streaming room and boy howdy did that help! Unfortunately, a good internet connection doesn't help when your gaming software doesn't want to function properly and so you are left scrambling to find an alternative for that!

But that is a whole different issue.

Homemade Food

I have been in my own place for a little over 4 months at this point and I am very much still crunching pennies. I am going to be crunching pennies for a little while as I very much still have furniture to buy and bills to pay so that's a thing. But that is fine, I have accepted that and I have always been relatively savvy with my money so I can still occasionally buy myself a little gift for doing a job well done on surviving to this point. 

One of the things I do to save on money is looking for coupons or sales, but also, if you pay attention to the expirations on some foods, they will get clearanced out when the stores are getting close to their "Best By" date. Now, I am sure that some people will disagree with me in that not all foods have to be eaten by their best-by dates, there are certainly going to be some people who complain that just because you put it into a freezer does not mean it will last forever. And you are mostly right. But, it does not become poison once that date has hit and freezer burn does not set in overnight. You have time. And let's not forget, you can cook it up right then and there, extend that ticking time of expiration just a little longer, and have food to eat!

I found a ham over the weekend, yes, a whole ham, well a whole butt anyway but it was a good like 6 or 7-pound ham guys. Like the kind you make for Easter dinner. It was on sale for half off! Because it had two days left on its best-by date. So I scooped up that ham, paid a whole $8 for it. Combined with a bunch of stuff I already had at my apartment, I have prepared food that should last me the whole week! I had a giant hunk of ham steak with some over-easy eggs the first day when I prepped the ham to go in the oven. Made instant mash and green beans to be put into 6 Tupperware containers for lunches. Boiled up the ham bone and made homemade ham and potato soup that will be good for a couple nights' worth of dinner. And there's still a big ol' Tupperware of cubed ham in my fridge for me to make into other food!

If you're in my discord, you likely see me post my dinners every so often. They usually don't turn out half bad! But yesterday when I was making the ham and potato soup from scratch, somebody told me I'm a chef with all the foods I make. Maybe I do know a bit more about cooking than the normal folks my age do, but that by no means makes me a chef. I just know how to survive. I know how to fend for myself. I know how to make sure that I am getting my daily nutrients and that nothing is wasted.

Making sure that I ingest those foods and daily requirements is a whole different ball game though!

It isn't hard to learn things. It is not necessarily rocket science to be able to save money. You just need to put a little bit more time and effort into it than just buying yourself a burger at McDonalds. And honestly, homemade food is often better flavor-wise than the restaurants any how! You don't even need to do it from complete scratch and make your own butter or such (not that I would expect you to anyway!) just get the pieces of the whole item at the store and put it all together. You'll find that you can usually make 4 or 5 servings of a meal for the same price as buying a single entree someplace else.

What Constitutes A Healthy Breakfast?

One of the things I tend to struggle with is making sure I get a balanced intake of all the food groups. Now this is not to say that I eat a horrible diet and that I am morbidly obese and can never manage to get up and move, rather it is just that sometimes there are healthier options that I could be taking into consideration and am not.

Today for instance, I had a strawberry poptart. This was neither technically filling nor healthy. I could have made an egg for breakfast and had a banana with a glass of milk. Gotten in my first dose of protein and some fruits and my dairy. 

But I didn't. And that is on me.

But my dietary choices don't end there. There are many points throughout the day that I could be choosing to be healthy, and generally speaking, the choices made are not the best.

If we look at the cause of this though, it goes back to my shopping habits and the economical prices of eating healthy. I already try my best to save money by not eating out but when you take into consideration that I can buy a box of mac 'n' cheese for 89 cents and have food for at least 2 meals possibly 3, but a single apple can cost that same amount and will only be a single snack; the choice to be made is simple, get the most bang for my buck. 

I could of course try to balance out what I eat by doing more physical activity but then you run into the issue of having time for such a task, having the means to do it whether by going to a gym or having a safe neighborhood to walk around in. Not to mention the biggest hurdle of needing the motivation and dedication to stick with it. 

And so we end up in the predicament that you currently see me in, questioning my choice to have a poptart for breakfast and trying to figure out what I could be doing better or doing differently.

Stood Up

 Being stood up is never fun, and I am sure that nobody enjoys it. Not the first date that you pulled a prank on. Not the doctor who thought you were coming in for your check-up. Not the little kid performing in their first show that thought their family was going to show. Not the musician having their first big concert that thought their fans would actually pay to come. And certainly not the recently new apartment dweller who thought they were finally going to get a decent dresser for cheap to store their clothes in that drove the hour to meet up at the specified time and at the specified location just to sit around for an hour and have their messages ignored.

I am not saying that you need to keep every appointment that you set up. I am however saying that you should be kind and inform people when you are not going to stick to dates you have set. Stop wasting not only their time but your own time playing with these people.

That is all.

Thank you for coming to my TED Talk.

They Don't Make 'Em Like They Used To

 There are a lot of things that I could be talking about when I say the phrase "they don't make 'em like they used to". I could be discussing cars, houses, general appliances, superheroes, movies, jobs, people, food, etc. The list goes on. In this specific case though I am thinking of furniture, even more specifically, dressers and drawers of any form. 

If you, like me; have recently moved or are redecorating and need to replace some rather essential items, then you have probably noticed that furniture has gotten made into a cheaper, lighter, and more fragile state of existence. And while you may say that this also makes it cheaper that is not always necessarily the case. More so it is just that the older versions, the more durable ones, are more expensive now and so an alternative had to be made to replace that item at its purchasing value.

I've been looking for a few months now, for a sturdy wooden dresser for my bedroom. And while yes I would prefer to find one with the number of drawers I desire and the right color; I quickly came to terms with the fact that it was hard enough finding a completely wooden dresser let alone one that matched my exact desires. So I have been trying to just find a solid wood dresser at all and any that I find are asking for a minimum of $300, AND THAT IS JUST FOR A SMALL 3 DRAWER ONE. At this point, I may have to consider just building my own.

Before you say to check Amazon and get a cheap one there, almost none of those dressers listed online are solid wood. They may look it, but they aren't. And the ones that you see the weight of and say that it must be solid wood, the frame is but then the drawer inserts themselves are made up of those foldable, lightweight, cardboard insert things that you can purchase at the dollar tree. That is not what I want. I want something solid that will last a lifetime so I do not have to worry about replacing it for several years.

Yes, I have checked Facebook Marketplace. Yes, I go to the thrift stores regularly. No, I will not be checking out Bob's Furniture or any of those big-name stores because they want to sell you stuff in sets or jack up the price higher. I will instead continue to wait for the one that is just right for me.

But why do we have to resort to making things so cheaply? Why are the days gone when you could buy something and have it last you well over a decade? Corporate greed, that's why. I hate it.

What I Eat

What I choose to eat should be the business of nobody but myself. 

If I choose to eat chicken four nights out of the week, that is my business. If I choose to eat steak once a week to get my red meat in, that is my business. If I choose to eat fish more than once a week, that is my business. If I decide to have a bigger serving than normal because I haven't eaten all day, that is my choice.

It does not negatively impact you or your life. It is not causing you financial strain because you are not the one who paid for it. It is not causing you dietary restrictions or discomfort because you are not the one eating it.

Why do others decide to make every little decision you make, their concern? Just because I sent you a Snapchat of my dinner plate does not mean that you need to start up a debate on what I am eating. You want to make a quick comment, sure. You don't think it looks very appetizing, fine. You would have paired it with something else, thank you for the suggestion.

But please, mind your own business and do not try to criticize everything I do that is different from what you would do. We do not need to be the same person or have the same taste or eat the same things. Nobody does. Being different is good. It is how we ended up with so many different cultures.

Adulting, is it for everyone?

Why is it that so many people find it to be a struggle to "Adult"? Why can we spend our days aimlessly as kids and spend all the money in the world doing things in our fleeting moments as we grow up but then as we age we struggle to find time for ourselves and we never have any money to do the things we wish we could, even the cheapest things like going out for a burger at McDonald's?

Now this isn't necessarily true for everyone. Some people are set up for "success" early on, in the sense that they spend most of their childhood acting as adults in their own lives. Some people learned how to cook and clean after themselves early on, others have not bothered doing their own laundry to this day and they even went away to college. Some people received a penny as their allowance and learned how to budget that income so that maybe by the end of the year they could buy themselves a new doll at the dollar tree, others received a card from somebody in their family and never had to worry about running out of money, they just continued to spend and the money would refill itself.

There are ways you can learn these life skills later on but not everyone wants to take the time to. Some people may think that they are trying their best but their mindset is still in that demeanor of wanting to buy everything in the moment as they decide they want it and therefore do not actually learn from any new tactics they try to learn. 

Maybe adulting is not for everyone, and that is okay. But everyone needs to learn how to continue to progress and be better because otherwise, you are going to end up spending every day of your life relying on others to get you through. You are going to run yourself into debt and homelessness. You are going to make yourself smelly and undesirable. 

Not everyone is dealt a bad hand but what you do with your hand is going to say even more about you in the long run.

How have you faired in your adulting journey?

Collectors

 

Being a collector means spending a lot of your money on things that others may find silly or stupid. But being a collector also means knowing exactly where your money is going. Being a collector means loving what you own. Being a collector means being contempt with yourself and knowing that you are living your life how you want to live it.

Sometimes being a collector can be dangerous, in my case, being a collector means healing your inner child and getting to enjoy life again. It all just depends on what you're collecting.

When I was younger, I collected things that I definitely still have lying around my place. And who knows, maybe someday they will be worth some money to somebody but really I just collect them for the sentimental value that they have to me.

I have an old cigar box that I filled with my pencil collection. Yes, pencils. Any time I would take a field trip with my school or travel around the state with my family, we would not be allowed to get souvenirs because we just did not have the money for them; but pencils are usually very cheap so I could easily convince a teacher to get me one or save up some spare coins to be able to use a few times a year. That and my pressed penny collection. My parents have most of the ones from when I was younger but you best bet I have at least a dozen pennies from every place I could find a crank at. In fact, when I went to Disney last year, I spent upwards of 300 USD getting myself pressed pennies, sure that may seem ridiculous at first but when you think of how I have probably 1000 little memories from that trip now, I couldn't really ask for too much else. (Other than being a billionaire and being able to buy everything I laid my eyes on of course.) 

One of the other things I collected growing up was bracelets. Another thing that we could not get often but I somehow managed to find a way to get them and start a collection. I have the sillybandz that became popular around 2010 with all their fun shapes. But I also have tons of the jelly bands bracelets and the wider silicon bracelets that had sayings on them. Those I keep in an old shoe box and occasionally bring out to stop them from cracking and deteriorating.

That is something else people do not realize about collections. They take a decent bit of work, not only to assemble the collection but also to care for it/maintain it and clean it. You need to make sure things are staying dry that need to be, things that need moisture are getting that oily skin contact, and things that can get cluttered with dust or fade from sun exposure are getting protected and treated. It can take up a lot of precious time that you may otherwise be using to take care of yourself.

It is worth it though. Especially when you think of the alternative, you could be using your money to buy something illegal. Instead, you are buying more plushies to cover your bed in. 

Could You Survive Without Internet?

Digital technology has changed a lot over the past millennia, more than you probably realize. Sure, most people can acknowledge that we get updates to things every year. New phones, new gaming consoles, new PC parts, new TVs, new everything essentially. But do you realize that computers and the internet have only really existed for about six to eight decades? And the smaller more modernized computers as we know them have been around even shorter of a period, your WiFi? Mere seconds in comparison to how long the Earth has existed.

Technology was at one point, something only the government had access to. Although this was likely mostly because of the price, I mean could you afford a $7,000,000 computer setup? That is what it would have taken to build the 1945 version of a computer if it had the same currency value that we have today. It was estimated to take $150,000 to complete the original PC build, but it ended up taking $400,000. And that was for a computer the size of a room! I would love to have that much money to spend on a computer. I'm sure my boyfriend would too! He loves going onto PC building sites and adding new features to his dream builds. He even has setups that would probably put NASA's flight simulators to shame. (He loves his space games and wants to make his own cockpit essentially for when he goes flying his ships.)

Along the same basic principle, internet access and online databases were something created for the government. They needed to be able to access things other scientists were working on from far distances within minutes of one another rather than waiting for the horse and buggy to deliver schematics. In 1983, they eventually opened up the sourcing and made it so that others had access to the internet. WiFi didn't come into the picture until 1997. That makes most of my friends older than WiFi! I don't quite make that bar but I can still say that I am older than Google, which was started up in September of '98. 

The world has come to very much rely on modern technology and the internet. Parents have started giving their kids technology to hold their attention as young as two and three years old! When I was getting out of elementary school, there were kindergarteners that had smartphones and I didn't even have a flip phone yet at that point! My house didn't get internet access until I needed it to complete school work my junior and senior years of high school!

And now, sure, I could survive without the internet. I would probably go back to reading physical books more, spending more time doing things with my hands and crafting or drawing, trying new recipes, etc. But would I want to? Not really. At least not all the time. I enjoy being able to message people through Discord and have video chats with my boyfriend. I enjoy being able to play games with friends online from the comforts of our own homes. Having the ability to listen to music on Spotify? Golden. Looking up answers to random questions I have? Phenomenal. Being able to post and share with my growing community? A dream that many wish they could get the gusto to do. 

Could you do it? Even just for a day? If somebody offered you a thousand dollars to give it up for 24 hours? What if the sun flares became so bad they cut off technology for a month? Would you start to go insane? I am confident that we would all start to mellow out eventually and revert to old tendencies but what about those who do not have old tendencies to fall back on? What about the generation that is being raised on nothing but technology and the internet? Do you think they could entertain themselves?

Water Pressure

 There are many things in our first-world country that we take for granted, things that our third-world country counterparts are literally dying to have. Things like ensuring security and peace of mind, having a stable roof over your head, knowing that you will have fresh water, not worrying about getting sick from spoiled food, having food to begin with, etc. Frankly, some of these things are not even a given in our first-world country and some people continue to struggle to achieve them. 

Regardless, you catch just a minor glimpse of what these people struggle through even just going from living at home with your parents, even in a lower-middle-class scenario, and beginning your own journey of renting an apartment and saving your money. Some start to learn for the first time, just how expensive it is to exist and they start to get a little downtrodden because they can not afford the extra luxuries they were able to get when they did not have to foot part of the bill for their parents. Others start to realize that cooking and keeping food fresh can be problematic for them. How about keeping your car running? I bet your dad probably did most of that work for you huh? And you absent-mindedly just drove it around, not realizing you needed to fill the window wash fluid or get your oil changed. My own downfall has mostly been how much I miss having water pressure in my shower. Now I am relatively used to LOW water pressure, it goes into effect with most apartment-type scenarios including college dorms. However, I have had next to no water pressure in my new apartment since moving in. After about three minutes the water from the shower head starts coming out as just a trickle instead of, well, a shower. So instead I resort to filling the tub and taking a bath that way. Which gets the job done for the most part but I am sure we can all agree that showers are better for the environment because they generally use less water, as well as, who really likes sitting in a pool of their own filth? Not me, that's for sure.

And yes, I know it is very much a first-world problem; that is why I addressed the larger world issues at the start. However, for me, this is my world, and this is my issue. So thank you for listening.

Rambo out!