Category — Uncategorized

I found a lifehack list that is actually full of helpful advice. So many of these lists are full of statements vs. concrete things you can try to improve life. But this list contains helpful steps to take or ideological shifts that actually may make life… better.

Things I loved:

“If you want to get better at anything, do it for ​30 minutes per day for 30 straight days​. It’s easy to over-engineer progress—a bit of dedicated effort each day is all you need.”

So true — it’s better to do something daily for a short period of time than try to carve out large blocks of time in your week. That usually only works for a week or two before you stop doing the task.

“Make a rule to never think twice about investments in yourself. Books, quality food, fitness, and personal development all fit into this bucket. These investments pay dividends for a long time.”

Again, it was just an ideological shift, but I was thinking about how you won’t regret taking the time to cook a healthy meal because you know that investment helps you in the long run.

“In the short run, it is much harder to be exceptional than it is to be reliable, and in the long run, being consistently reliable makes you exceptional.”

What did you find on the list that spoke to you?

Beorn seemed to be getting better, but when I went to clean his cage on Sunday night, I realized that the bedding was dry and there were very few poops. At the same time, he looked healthy and had stopped Blair Witching it in the corner of the cage.

I gave him a bath, hoping the fresh bedding and clean fur would reset him, but he still refused to eat hay or pellets or drink water. He would nibble on vegetables and was happy to consume the Critical Care. Again, he looked happy and healthy despite the lack of food.

I kept Googling, and I decided that he was impacted. This meant that I would need to clear his intestines. (I’m aware that probably everyone just threw up in their mouth. I wanted to throw up in the moment, and I had nightmares about it all night.) I watched a YouTube video to learn how to do it — A YOUTUBE VIDEO (seriously, what is the world coming to?) — and played amateur vet. It was revolting, but I thought I had solved the problem and would wake up to a cage full of poop and an empty hay bowl.

That isn’t what happened. I woke up to him pretty much exactly the same. Happy, healthy-looking, and not eating.

Redditors told me to fill a paper bag with hay and let him play in it because he’ll eat some of it, too. He may have, but you wouldn’t know. Mostly, he hopped around inside the bag, loving the crinkling sound, and finally flopped down and took a nap.

So we are still on Critical Care and still trying to find a solution to his totally weird behaviour.

The good news: There is likely nothing seriously wrong with Beorn. The vet checked everything he could check without resorting to equipment like an MRI and said everything checked out fine.

It is likely an infection. The vet prescribed antibiotics (which Beorn loves because it’s in sugar syrup), eye drops (which Beorn hated when the vet put them in but silently endures it when I do), and Critical Care (which is an enormous mess — he likes to dribbled it out of his mouth). I wrestle with him three times per day to get him to take everything, and then give him slices of apple because I feel guilty.

He is still Blair-Witching it, where he goes into the corner of his cage and stares at the wall. If I call his name, he’ll half turn around, glare at me, and then turn back to looking at the wall.

But hopefully at the end of this upcoming week, he will be back to his normal self. And I can stop obsessing about his weird behaviour.

A week or two ago, Josh came in from taking out the trash and informed me that you really could see all of the planets in the sky. Did I want to see them? Not really, except now that he asked, I would be filled with regret that I had a chance to walk outside and see them and skipped it.

So we walked outside, but I didn’t have my glasses. Josh ran back in twice — one time returning with an empty case and the other time returning with the glasses I left next to my bed.

I put them on and stared at the sky. “That’s one,” he said. “And those three in a row are three planets.”

“No, they’re not,” I told him. “Those are part of Orion.”

Undeterred, he pointed to a bunch of other stars, declared them planets, and then admitted that he had no clue what he was talking about.

And that’s how we unknowingly saw the planets.

At the end of February, Amazon removed the ability to backup your Kindle books to your computer. To be completely honest, I had never backed up my books. I don’t own many Kindle books, and the ones I do are tracked in a spreadsheet with the receipt date listed. That isn’t really a backup plan, but I felt like I had a good sense of what was there and would know if one disappeared.

But my cousin was backing up her book, so suddenly, I wanted to back up my books. I scrolled down the list, clicking each one to back up to the computer until I started hitting books that I didn’t really care about. I mean, it’s one thing for me to decide to get rid of a physical book. That’s my choice. So I didn’t want the choice taken away from me by Kindle, but I also would never have kept these books if they were made of paper. They were part of a moment of time.

It’s funny that I’ve never looked at my physical bookshelves in the same way. I’ve gotten rid of physical books before because I didn’t need them anymore and wanted the space, but if I had infinite space (or, at the very least, more space than I have), I wouldn’t get rid of any of my books.

And here I was, willing to let go of some digital books.

In the end, I reopened my laptop and backed them up, too. I will probably never look at them again. I’m not sure I even needed to do the backup. But… the idea of not being able to do the backup or the choice being made for me felt wrong, too. They’re mine not to look at if I choose.