[[0051]] Day 28 of Self-Isolation

And it's taken four weeks... and my house is nearly presentable!!! Not much longer to gooooooo!!!

Day 28 (Week 4 is ending, week 5 will soon begin!)

Heyyyyy!!! 

The end is in sight for my cleaning escapades, can you believe it? Because I can't. When I started, I never thought I would see the end but... it's actually getting there. A couple more bits to put up in the office, then some hoovering throughout and a couple of extra bits and pieces and boom, it's done, I will be a respectable adult for once in my life.

I am really happy with the office though, like, so happy! It is my mission today to get it finished because I have my special new arty laptop arriving tomorrow and I cannot wait!!!

But first, here are a couple of sections I have finished in the office today, I hope you like it as much as I do!!! 

I'm really sad and I kept my uni final presentation dissertation poster as well as my text books and I even bought the mortarboard hat thingy too because I am a sad sap like that and memories haha! Before, my text books were all stacked in front of my desk and the poster was rolled up and the rest of my uni stuff was in bags, but I have been able to get all my old uni notes into a drawer and I have put the books out on show as well. I even stuck up the award certificates I got for my college course and my Masters! I will get frames for them one day, I just wanna be able to look at them. The picture next to the bottom certificate was one my Grandma printed and had stuck in her office from when I graduated college, it has the date on it and says "I'm so proud of you Keita" and it's honestly the sweetest thing. I stuck my dissertation poster up for the sheer fact I loved my self-designed diss project and got to work with art and science... my two loves all rolled in to one!!! But yes, that be now my intelligent space, because sometimes I need reminding that I have brain cells and have actually done well for myself.

I have also started sticking other bits and pieces up around my office as well, starting with my now art desk. I found all the bits and pieces I had stuck up before, some of my own work and a few from artists I used to know or still know and poof, pretty art display to keep me inspired! #

I have loads of bits stuck up here and I am going to stick some Doctor Strange and Sherlock shizzle up there as well at some point, but these are the most important pieces I had to put up. There's a couple of the A3 pieces I've done and other bits and bobs, as well as my Kamijo drawn by the lovely Misa, a few pieces from my friend Luna and Gyarados by Chu as well as some of my characters drawn by the awesome Boo! Pride of place will always and forever be my characters drawn by the amazing Marit, who I have not seen or heard from in years. I managed to get to know her after being a big fan of her artwork on DeviantART but I think she may have disappeared off the face of the Earth, alas, I still love her and her work, so I'll always have it up where I can see it! Either way, art space is awesome.

My bookshelves are done as well but I haven't brought the armchair down yet and moved the table so that may be a tomorrow jobby. I also managed to get the other clothes rack made up for the music room today and was able to hang up all the rest of the music merch, so bar stuff to stick on the walls, the music room is also shaping up nicely too. I still need to put all the clothes away in our room and hoover everywhere, and re-spruce the living room and kitchen but... it is actually getting there, my house is actually looking nice.

But I must admit, my head space is in a much better place then it was a couple of weeks ago and it kind of is true what they say, the whole tidy house, tidy mind shizzle. Like, I am more than geared up to do the old things I used to love before I got bogged down with life. Putting all the books away and organising them has made me excited about reading again, and having my desk set up for art is making me excited for arting again too. Might even do some art trades... who knows. Get commissions going again, do some art for myself too maybe, who knows?

You saw me mention about a shiny new pretty I have arriving tomorrow. Well, you may have seen my favourite laptop is dead and there be nothing in the office for me to use for my art and writing needs but, after talking to some friends about options and possibilities, I signed up to PC World for finance and am getting a pretty decent artist laptop which is arriving tomorrow. It even comes with a Wacom pen so the potential to do digital art is now an option as well... although need to investigate what programs peeps have been using and stuff first cos, free is friend lmao! It's also a 2-in-1 laptop so I can flip it over and use it as a tablet and a drawing pad kinda thing. It's proper cool.

I have been proper anxious about the whole thing mind you though. I hate the idea of credit, but, I technically did a 2 year plan to pay off my phone with O2 and it is pretty much the same deal so I feel a bit calmer about that at least. But it's such a large amount of money but I know I can just treat it like another monthly bill. I could have just used the Lenovo we got for gaming and streaming, but I wanted something that I could solely use for art and writing and potentially for uni if I manage to get a PhD or do a creative writing and publishing masters. I probably could have just survived without but... I need something to art with, and if the other half is streaming, or the Lenovo is set up for me to stream the switch, I don't wanna be faffing carrying the Lenovo around the house and what have you, especially with my falling over tendencies.

Either way, I got a pretty, it comes tomorrow and I am more excited than anxious now, thank God! But I am still a bit anxious cos BIG commitment. 

Anyway, I will end today's post with the lovely opening of door number 7 of my mental health advent calendar!!!

Today was a cute little Christmas magnet, which I am still gonna put on the fridge even though it is not currently Christmas. What is life without a bit of whimsy?

That is it for tonight's blog though, I hope you're looking forward to tomorrows and more exciting pics of things I have done to my house!!!

Stay safe friends, don't kill each other.

Over and out, mes amigos. 

[[0020]] Week 8 Overview - I'm still a piece of garbage

Ha... ha... ha. This weekly overview post is bought to you by Fortnite, proving to the world, inadvertently, that I am indeed, in fact, a piece of garbage! You're welcome!!!

Seriously though, I joke a lot that I am trash and my friends joke that they are also trash so all-in-all, we are all garbage, just Fortnite just had to take it to another level and prove it to everyone that when I joke that I am a piece of trash, I am, in fact, really trash lmao! If you check out our gaming shizzle on (Facebook, Twitter and Instagram), you can see the video proof of the piece of garbage that I am, as I get stuck in a dumpster on Fortnite and get slaughtered by some... brute things.

On a serious note, I don't think I am really a piece of garbage, but there are times when I honestly do feel like trash and I guess I joke about it because it gets ya through it or something? This week has three quarters been a bit of a garbage week, and even if now I only consider a quarter of the week to be less garbage, on the outside it looks like the week has been better but on the inside there are some icky gross thoughts and I'm still diabetically burnt out if that is a thing... so on with the diabetes part of the week I guess!!!

So as you can see, I have not posted a blood test chart again. This is because I am honestly embarrassed and annoyed at myself that I haven't blood tested as much as I should just because I have reached that annoying point I have reached so many times before, which is that I am afraid to see what the metre is going to show me. I am hoping, like last week, that next week is a better week for me but we shall see. I cannot predict the future after all. 

The one thing I can say is that I think I have found the right amount of Toujeo long acting insulin to do, which is 26 units. My bloods have been okay when I wake up in the morning, which is amazing... and also really conflictingly confusing because I wake up every morning with the worst dry mouth of my life. But I guess that might be my new neuro meds combined with being back on my old antidepressants, but who knows? (I certainly don't...)

I guess you are wondering why things have been so bad? Well, I guess its my bad for trying to get on with life with the new changes and thinking that that will be enough for not and then BOOM, I get more bad news to do with my health, and it shatters everything, ya know? Long story short, found out a week or two ago I had CKD (I speak about it in this post) and now I have serious damage to my eyes due to type 1 diabetes. If you haven't read my previous blog post about this, you can check it out over HERE! So yeah, if it is not one thing, then its another and it's making things very difficult for me at the moment. 

I think the only other bad things are the fact I had major anxiety at work over a bloody telephone (I've worked there long enough, I thought I would be over it by now) and that one of the jobs I do a lot is changing to include more work and I am a little bit worried that is going to stress me out and up my blood sugars again and I am not too sure I am mentally prepared for that... alas, we will deal with that in exactly 10 hours I guess, haha!!!

Alas, all things aside mental health and diabetic-burnout wise... I've been thinking a lot about my future and what I want to do with it again. One thing I have decided, just not sure when I will do it (maybe after this blog post now I have reminded myself), is that I definitely do want to take the MA Creative Writing and Publishing degree at my local uni. I studied my BSc in Biomedical Science there as well as my integrated masters course MBio Biomedical Science and I honestly miss being in the learning environment and I also miss writing; I also want to complete one of my dreams in writing creatively and professionally before I am too sick to do so. It's morbid, I know... but, I want to do all of these things sooner rather than later. Yes, uni did stress me out a lot but... being in an academic environment helped my mental health a lot and I want to do every little thing I can to help my mental health and happiness. At this point, I have no idea if I will be able to do another Masters let alone if I can fund it (I guess GoFundMe is an option for that one just in case...) but... there is no harm in at least going to an open day... so maybe watch this space for some happier future times maybe? 

Something else I have been starting to realise of late is that I do want to eventually cut at least one more bank shift at work, maybe both. I don't know how I can do this, but going back to uni might be one way if I can get funding. But that won't be forever... and one thing I do know for certain, especially as neuropathy will eventually get worse and my legs pains get worse and we can't forget the kidney stuff too... I do want to earn some kind of pennies from doing some kind of work from home. So writing and my blog might help with that eventually but then we are gaming now too... and yes it is early days and we are a long long way away from earning anything decent from it, but it is the fact we have the basic equipment and we could eventually make something from doing something we love.

I've made some suggestions to the other half today which we have put in to motion! If you look above, we finally have a basic mock up for a logo! We are gonna change the colours and style each time the Fortnite Battle Pass changes, and this season, it's Spy themed so... here ya go! I also have been suggesting getting a twitter (I get way more interaction for gaming posts on Twitter then I do my own posts) as well as an Instagram and Facebook page (I linked these in the opening post, so please give them a look and follow!) so hopefully we can get a few more fans and followers over on mixer when we stream... and we will be one step closer! Next thing I am hoping we can do, is to pay for Mixer Pro, which should help with networking (thank you bestie Josh for that one!!!!) and last but not least... I am hoping that we can stream every time either or both of us turns on a console to game! I feel being super active might help but we shall see!!!

I got a new vape today by the way! I think I mentioned last week that I have decided to cut out drinking alcohol because the last couple of times that I have, I have ended up really sick which I think is due to my CKD. Next on my list is to try and quit smoking although this one I am going to find more difficult because it is my go to thing when I am not doing okay.

I have tried vaping before but they always make me cough worse than the CKD making me not breathe and the smoking... but the other half got a new vape that you can change the wattage on and turns out, that helped a lot!

I picked up this beast from 888 Vapour in my local town (also offers 20% discount for NHS workers too) and omg, I prefer it so much already! I can actually vape this how I actually smoke, the whole vape to lung instead of holding it in my mouth to cool and stuff, I can just vape it how I've needed to all along and omg, I feel so much better for it already. This one charges by USB C as well, which is a blood saviour cos they're the only cables I have, the battery is so much better as well as the battery life and I love that you can change the screen colour and see vape info and stuff as well. The kit I picked up is a brand I haven't used before, called Wismec R80 and we also got some V4 Nicotine Salt vape juice in melon ice, cherry ice and tropical mix. These are really high concentrations in nicotine which have genuinely helped people cut down... and at this point, I have a good feeling about this vape helping me. Let's see what the future holds!

LOOK GUYS I AM GETTING A BATH IN MY HOUSE OMG I HAVE WANTED A BATH FOR SO LONG, YOU HAVE NO IDEA I LOVE MY HOUSE AND I HAVE BEEN HERE FOR FIVE YEARS WITH JUST TWO SHOWERS AND JUST SOMETIMES YOU NEED A BATH AND LIKE I AM GETTING ONE AND MY DAD AND BROTHER ARE FITTING IT AND IT IS SO AWESOME AND EXCITING IT FEELS LIKE MY CHRISTMAS, BIRTHDAY AND HALLOWEEN ROLLED IN TO ONE HOLY CRAP!!!

Okay, so the left picture is after the tiles and wall were knocked down, lovingly known as the earthquake cos it kinda looks like an earthquake broke my bathroom and the brother. The builder who fitted the shower when we moved in was not good... didn't let the plaster dry, didn't use moisture board and long story short, I took a sit down shower and my shoulder went straight through the tiles... so, we needed a new one. BUT we are getting a bath and I am so happy I could cry. One of the main reasons I wanted one is that in a bath, I cannot feel the pain in my legs and the neuropathy in foot just disappears and it means for a solid half an hour, I can't feel anything in my right leg and it is the best feeling. The right is the work my dad and bro have done so far, and omg this time next week, I can have a bath and I cannot wait. My bath bomb from Lush is totally ready! We are planning on decorating as well... so we should be getting some nice grey lino for the floor and we have some nice blue bathmats that we will get some matching paint for... and honestly, I hope this inspires us to put some more love into our home and decorate it some more cos we be stuck here for a few more years yet until we can afford to buy (which I hope I can buy this one but who knows...)

And lastly... I have the greatest friends in the world. Josh and Bridie... thank you thank you thank you for always being there for me and restoring my faith in humanity and just being amazing. I love you guys and I cannot wait to see you in April (London and Wales trips in April are booked, and cannot wait!!!)

This weeks rating:⭐⭐⭐☆☆

Bye everyone!!!