It's been a while since I've posted an update, hasn't it? Well, as it turns out, spending roughly three hours everyday on the Interstate is rather zapping when it comes to motivation to accomplish things. I just concluded a contracted full time job, which required me to commute about fifty miles each way every day. Of course this was during peak rush hour times, which meant that what should have been a fifty minute drive was usually an hour and a half.
Still, it's over now, which means I don't have to drive much at all for the foreseeable future. That's one of the benefits of working from home, though I still don't know for sure if I'm going to be working only from home from now on or if I'll be looking for another position. In any case, that job is over, as is my heinous commute. So, what else has been happening?
I spent a lot of my summer working, but I also have been trying to flesh out the time I'm not working to include activities I don't spend as much time doing as I'd like. For example, I've been doing a lot of reading this summer. One of the advantages of a three hour commute is that it allows you to burn through audiobooks fairly quickly. I recently re-read Ransom Riggs' YA novel Miss Peregrine's Home For Peculiar Children, which I hadn't read since its release five years ago. I enjoyed it just as much the second time, although re-reading it did instill me with some concern for the accuracy of the film adaption about to come out. Still, I'm hopeful.
In addition to reading, I started colouring. My closest friend locally gave me two colouring books for my birthday, Doctor Who and Sherlock. I then went out and acquired a third shortly thereafter, and I've been fairly proud of my ability to colour within the lines and with some knowledge of how to create depth and perspective with coloured pencils and crayons. I've never been artistic in that way, so it was rather enjoyable to discover that I do have some small amount of talent when provided with a colouring page.
Last weekend, I was grateful to be invited along to join two friends of mine on a trip to Vancouver, BC in Canada. I hadn't been to Vancouver since 2010, and remembered almost nothing about the city. It was a fun weekend full of lots of walking, though I still didn't manage to beat out my father for steps for the week. Competing against your parents for the top of the FitBit leaderboard is always interesting. In any case, we went to some beautiful parks in Vancouver, an art museum, my favourite restaurant from England, one or two filming locations I was excited to see, and Vancouver's first liquid nitrogen ice cream shop. We even did an escape room, working together to try and get out of a sinking defunct Soviet submarine. We finished off the weekend with a visit to Steveston, the town used as the backdrop for the television show Once Upon A Time. While I've grown increasingly disillusioned with the writing of the show, there are still characters I care about, and getting to walk around Storybrooke in real life is a lot of fun, not to mention a little trippy.
Now my family is going to have a revolving door of company for a few weeks, which will occupy a decent chunk of the summer we have remaining. I'll be working and counting down to the end of July, when I'll get to fly to Heathrow airport for the first time in four years. My best friend from when I lived in England is getting married, and I'm extremely grateful to get to attend the wedding. I'm taking full advantage of the trip, which for me means a few entertainment experiences, seeing some shows, and going to the grocery store. It's the big thing this year that I'm most looking forward to, and also the source of Christmas presents for just about everyone I know most likely.
That's the update on what's been happening! I do hope to be far more consistent when it comes to managing this blog now that I'm not doing as much driving. It's amazing when you can get done when you aren't stuck in traffic!