Category: irl: belongings: recluttering

weeknotes (sept. 28-oct. 4, 2025)

Life Updates

Another week gone by, and now it’s a new month! The end of the year is racing towards me and it’s very annoying(/stressful) to think about, so I’m trying not to.

Another overall mellow week where I mostly stayed home and read/wrote, but I did go to a clothing sale this weekend and got two pairs of shoes for $8: one pair suede booties, one pair corduroy sneakers.

I’m not entirely sure they actually go with my current wardrobe, which is very summer-focused. These shoes are definitely more fall/winter.

I think I can make it work if I get one new pair of dark-colored medium-weight pants (or skirt), so I’m going to keep my eyes open at the thrift stores. On the plus side, if they don’t work out, I spent so little on them I won’t feel bad for donating them if I have to.

🐈‍⬛ I still haven’t done the cat info post for this sit (apologies) BUT rest assured these cats are adorable and friendly and want to me near me without being annoying about it. Their food must have some kind of anti-hairball thing in it because I haven’t found one yet, despite one cat being long-haired.

Media Consumption

📺 Got a Peacock promo subscription for a month (for free) and while I haven’t started watching these YET, I do have them on my watchlist and am looking forward to watching them at some point:

  • Poker Face (TV)
  • The Paper (TV)
  • The Phoenician Scheme (movie)
  • Drive Away Dolls (movie)
  • Honey, Don’t (movie)

📖 Still deep into the Star Wars fanfics and ignoring everything else. ;D

Beloved recent fanfics: Why Not’s and How To’s by Trixree; And Back We Go by miyaji_08; The Force of My Love by Quarra; Second ‘Verse by LauraBWrites; Your Smile In Stone by ecarian

🎮 Started playing Legend of Zelda: Link Between Worlds on my 3DS, which I’ve played at least once before AND completed! It’s one of the easier Zelda games, I think, but the mechanic is really fun (you flatten out onto walls and go through cracks into another reality) so I’m enjoying it. It IS a little strange to go back to the simpler style Zelda games compared to, like, Breath of the Wild, but it’s still got a good story/gameplay.

Food & Dining

Tried a new-to-me brand of soy milk and it’s horrible, curdles weirdly in my coffee and has a sweetness to it that makes my mashed potatoes taste weird. Bleh.

Web Updates

Gave up on completing the change-over in a timely fashion and put the Docuwiki version of my site back up for now. I think the bots are still attacking, but I have it set up on Cloudflare and I blocked Brazil (where most of the bots were coming from apparently) so that should help.

Looking Forward

I’m currently working on a) setting up various emails tied to various personal domains and b) swapping over everything I want swapped from my Gmail to those new emails.

Some things are harder to change emails for than others AND one of my domains refuses to update its DNS records for some reason, so it’s annoying on both ends. However, I’m hoping to mostly have everything forwarding into my Fastmail account by the end of the week. And perhaps I can even close some of my lesser-used Gmail accounts!

📝 weeknotes (august 10-16, 2025)

Life Updates

I’ve been so enjoying my time in Ann Arbor– or at least in this part of A2 in particular.

Every morning I wake up around 6, make a cup of coffee and go out to sit in the garden for an hour or two. Then, after feeding the cats, I go walk around the neighborhood for as long as I want, usually 40 minutes, come back and shower and then get to work! I sit at a high desk and watch the garden out the window, and I see all sorts of animals: groundhogs, rabbits, squirrels (three kinds), chipmunks, stray cats, and once even a deer!

The week has fairly raced by! I did make it into town once this week, to check out the farmer’s market and a few shops. I stopped at a used bookstore called Digger’s, where you literally dig around for media (books, DVDs, games, CDs), and managed to find four books for $0.75/each. Now I’m REALLY in trouble, between those and the ones I got from the Little Free Libraries earlier– and did I mention I found an UNLICENSED LFL on a walk the other day? Of course I got a book from there, so now I’m up to (I think) 10 books still waiting to be read.

Continue reading “📝 weeknotes (august 10-16, 2025)”

📚 lfl visit log (2)

Went on a re-visiting circuit of Little Free Libraries from the first log, and found a new library! Plus some more good books.

Was a really nice walk, too, though I was sweating by the end because it was like 80F by 8am yeesh.

On another day, I went into the main downtown part of Ann Arbor and visited two LFLs that’re near the Farmer’s Market, though I didn’t find any books to take with me.

New LFL visited:

  1. LFL #167052 – Jones Community Garden Library – Ann Arbor, MI
  2. LFL #189363 – Ann Arbor, MI (not listed on the map somehow)
  3. LFL #198908 – Detroit Street Filling Station – Ann Arbor, MI

Dropped off Moby-Duck, Seasons of the Wild and Climate Resilience!

Obtained Into the Wild, Granta issue 138, The Forest Unseen, Sweet Days of Discipline

Continue reading “📚 lfl visit log (2)”

📚 lfl visit log (1)

Went for what turned out to be an hour-long walk around the neighborhood and visited five Little Free Libraries– and found some great books!

The majority were full of kids books, which makes sense I suppose as people tend to load up on those at thrift stores and whatnot, so they’re easy to pass along.

My favorite LFL was #119554, not least because I found two books which look really good! It also had the best design, with one box for adult books and one for children’s books, a separate dog treat library and even a water bowl. Super cute!

As far as I can tell, all these libraries are the pre-built ones from the LFL website.

LFL Visited

  1. LFL #89560 “Elm Tree Little Library” – Ann Arbor, MI – Took Square Foot Gardening.
  2. LFL #119554 – Ann Arbor, MI – Took Climate Resilience and Seasons of the Wild.
  3. LFL #135682 “Barking Dog Library” – Ann Arbor, MI – Took Moby-Duck.
  4. LFL #177207 – Ann Arbor, MI.
  5. LFL #178758 – Ann Arbor, MI – Took Paradise Rot.
Continue reading “📚 lfl visit log (1)”

🗨️ thrifting in the midwest

This past week has been very busy and very fun. I spent the weekend between catsits in Milwaukee and Chicago, mostly just wandering around looking at interesting buildings…and thrifting!!

Milwaukee (and Chicago) have AMAZING thrift stores! Even the Goodwills have great stuff for decent prices– compared to California Goodwill prices, anyway. And the selection is really good! I did quite a bit of shopping.

I’m currently working on building up a wardrobe of mostly-natural fibers (linen, silk, merino wool, a little cotton) because I find them most comfortable to travel in. I’m also determined to not buy any new things this year (except for stuff like toothpaste), so I really wanted to find thrifted items.

Unfortunately, most of the stores I’ve been to this year have been sparse on either fabric, size, or style choices, but in Milwaukee and Chicago I somehow hit the jackpot. I didn’t particularly look for name brands, but I’m familiar with the ones that do linen/silk/whatever so that’s what I ended up with more of. I made sure to stick with either 100% natural fabric, or blend with other natural fabric (so like linen/cotton and not linen/modal).

images in above graphic stolen from various online listings so I don’t have to drag my camera out, etc.

My haul:

  • Cashmere/silk blend pashmina
  • 3 sleeveless linen tops (Karen Kane, Jones & Co., J. Crew)
  • Pure J. Jill linen vest
  • Eileen Fisher silk top (with a weird collar that I don’t like, so I’ll be selling this)
  • Sanctuary linen t-shirt
  • Soft Surroundings cotton t-shirt (I thought I put this one back lmao)
  • Eileen Fisher silk long-sleeve shirt
  • Banana Republic merino wool cardigan
  • Eileen Fisher linen long cardigan
  • Christian Siriano linen/cotton blend trousers
  • Columbia windbreaker/raincoat
  • Coldwater Creek “denim” blazer (feels way lighter and foldable/packable than regular denim)
  • Keds sneakers (white)

I also got a book (travel memoir set in India) for $2!

Total cost: roughly $100. If I’d bought these things new I’d definitely have spent closer to $500-700, if not more! Yay, thrifting!

As a bonus, linen and silk pack down very small, so I think I’ll be able to fit more clothes into my suitcase than I currently have with my mostly-cotton/polyester clothes. And they’re lighter than cotton, too, so maybe I’ll ease up on some luggage weight as well!

I’m not 100% sure I’ll be bringing everything with me on my next leg, but I’m going to be wearing and testing these things this month to see how I like them. I may also be dying a few pieces as I don’t like the original color and luckily natural fibers dye well.

In other clothing news: I finally ditched the trail runners I’ve been struggling to wear comfortably for 2 years. I think they were meant more for actual running, and not just walking around a city for 5 hours. They constantly make my feet/legs hurt and I hated to wear them.

I’m currently just going around in my Teva sandals (super comfy) and once it hits winter temps again I’m tempted to just put on a pair of wool socks and call it good.

The new-thrifted shoes (white Keds) are fine for short walks but I got them mostly for style/photos– the trail runners make me look like I was going hiking up a mountain every day and tbh I’m just not that outdoorsy. The new shoes, plus the new clothes, should move my “look” closer to an urban setting, which is where I mostly travel anyway. I figure if and when I need actual hiking shoes, I can borrow some.