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Oct. 28th, 2022 05:27 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
onepageatatimeThis week has really put me out of routine… in both good and bad ways. But… I've been trying to get myself less rigid about the routine (with the day out of town to help shift my mind a bit)… which is one reason that the answer hasn't been "getting back into routine." Trying to do more of the figuring out what I want/need to do, rather than "what I always do next" when I have time for it.
It is good to get the pen thing "solved." This morning, I did the "write out my daily calendar" thing, but with "the pen I (used to) hate." With the same ink that was in my other pen, it glides nicely. I no longer hate the pen: I'm currently blaming that ink.
My pen/ink order arrived just before H got home from work, so I have opened it, but not used any of it yet. I'm slightly disappointed by my set of ink samples. They don't allow any special requests for their random sample set (which is understandable, since they are offered at a discount from the price of buying the same number of individual ink samples (which they also sell). But that meant that three of my eight are of a brand that I am unwilling to put into pens (partially because of issues with consistency, reports of some of their inks behaving badly to the point of damaging pens, and that the brand comes from one person who appears to push politics I disagree with, including with his ink business). So… nearly half of them are never going to be used.
That said, there's a lot of good in the order, too: there are three full-size ink bottles in colors I'm looking forward to using. There's a pen which I kind of like: for a cheap pen, it has a pleasing weight to it. I'm going to put my favorite ink in it, on the basis that… after my last bad new-pen experience, I want to fill new pens with either their included cartridge (rarely: ink cartridges and me don't seem to get along and I'm always worried I will damage the pen or the cartridge (or myself) when I attempt to puncture the cartridge to install it. I think the last one I got, I needed H's help to get it on) or, more usually, fill new pens with an ink I know already. Right now, there are only two inks in that category. And there's no sense having my two stub-nibbed pens with the same color.
*****
This morning, I got back to the crossword puzzle I'd been working on. A couple of other guesses came to me and seemed to work out… but I still had an area with a lot unknown and a lot of guesses. So I finally started looking things up. And… in the end, I think it came down to one wrong letter I'd put in the grid that was causing me multiple problems. Even more annoying? It was an assumption. But it was fun to see how quickly, with that mistake out of the way, how quickly the rest fell into place.
H tried her hand (or her computer) at yesterday's NYT puzzle while she was out. It was neat to see how far she got, though she got frustrated by some of the "theme" stuff it had, with multiple letters in some squares. She was good, though, making sure I wouldn't be annoyed if she shared a screenshot of how much she'd done. Fortunately, not an issue. Really, the only issue I can imagine is if I was trying to work it… but I'm still going through my book and not trying current puzzles… and it's a long time before I expect I'd be ready to try a Thursday. (The tricks I've seen seem like they would be aggravating and frustrating to me at this point… but I can see enjoying them when my solving abilities rise to that level.)
I guess the other thing is… my goal doesn't have to be the same every time… and maybe some of those are more able to be puzzles I treat with a goal of learning instead of puzzles where my goal is to solve them successfully. You know… like I might expose myself to it, even admitting that I don't know everything (gasp!)
Anyway… my first "goal" is to get through this book of 50 puzzles. And I've finished 6. After that… I'll do some re-evaluating of where I am and what I want/need to do next.
So… I guess that's all for now. (Been a while since I wrote this much here)
It is good to get the pen thing "solved." This morning, I did the "write out my daily calendar" thing, but with "the pen I (used to) hate." With the same ink that was in my other pen, it glides nicely. I no longer hate the pen: I'm currently blaming that ink.
My pen/ink order arrived just before H got home from work, so I have opened it, but not used any of it yet. I'm slightly disappointed by my set of ink samples. They don't allow any special requests for their random sample set (which is understandable, since they are offered at a discount from the price of buying the same number of individual ink samples (which they also sell). But that meant that three of my eight are of a brand that I am unwilling to put into pens (partially because of issues with consistency, reports of some of their inks behaving badly to the point of damaging pens, and that the brand comes from one person who appears to push politics I disagree with, including with his ink business). So… nearly half of them are never going to be used.
That said, there's a lot of good in the order, too: there are three full-size ink bottles in colors I'm looking forward to using. There's a pen which I kind of like: for a cheap pen, it has a pleasing weight to it. I'm going to put my favorite ink in it, on the basis that… after my last bad new-pen experience, I want to fill new pens with either their included cartridge (rarely: ink cartridges and me don't seem to get along and I'm always worried I will damage the pen or the cartridge (or myself) when I attempt to puncture the cartridge to install it. I think the last one I got, I needed H's help to get it on) or, more usually, fill new pens with an ink I know already. Right now, there are only two inks in that category. And there's no sense having my two stub-nibbed pens with the same color.
*****
This morning, I got back to the crossword puzzle I'd been working on. A couple of other guesses came to me and seemed to work out… but I still had an area with a lot unknown and a lot of guesses. So I finally started looking things up. And… in the end, I think it came down to one wrong letter I'd put in the grid that was causing me multiple problems. Even more annoying? It was an assumption. But it was fun to see how quickly, with that mistake out of the way, how quickly the rest fell into place.
H tried her hand (or her computer) at yesterday's NYT puzzle while she was out. It was neat to see how far she got, though she got frustrated by some of the "theme" stuff it had, with multiple letters in some squares. She was good, though, making sure I wouldn't be annoyed if she shared a screenshot of how much she'd done. Fortunately, not an issue. Really, the only issue I can imagine is if I was trying to work it… but I'm still going through my book and not trying current puzzles… and it's a long time before I expect I'd be ready to try a Thursday. (The tricks I've seen seem like they would be aggravating and frustrating to me at this point… but I can see enjoying them when my solving abilities rise to that level.)
I guess the other thing is… my goal doesn't have to be the same every time… and maybe some of those are more able to be puzzles I treat with a goal of learning instead of puzzles where my goal is to solve them successfully. You know… like I might expose myself to it, even admitting that I don't know everything (gasp!)
Anyway… my first "goal" is to get through this book of 50 puzzles. And I've finished 6. After that… I'll do some re-evaluating of where I am and what I want/need to do next.
So… I guess that's all for now. (Been a while since I wrote this much here)