It feels good to be validated for your efforts, doesn't it?

I've been watching "Chef Hua" -- part of what inspired my previous thoughts on cooking and everything like that.  It's not the most engaging (kinda trashy...), but they do a good job with their slow-motion / macro photography of all of the dishes and everything.  And if nothing else, it inspires me to not only think more about my cooking (and plating...), but also about expressing gratitude and excitement towards others.  Yeah, that... 

I got back from my trip and it was a good one.  I felt fulfilled, relaxed, mostly relieved, I guess, too.  It was a good balance of things, I felt accomplished yet also not like I had pushed myself too hard.  Various things went well...I went to the tea place once, but also brought my own tea with me.  I felt quite pleased with the cooking that I did -- made everything work out.  Got to see the same tuxedo meowmie and have him sit on my lap again.  Even had the good fortune of getting to see a shooting star.

JaSmix is this Saturday!  I'm busy tidying up the last of the logistics, but hopefully it will go well, or at least smoothly if nothing else.  It'll be a long day, but no longer than what the folks used to do back in the day (7 workshops, from 2PM all the way until 9:30!).  Since everything is just in one room, I won't be running around like last time, so once I'm done with my whirlwind of private lessons, I'll have a chance to just sit back and relax (and eat dinner), maybe I'll bring some postcards to work on or something.  If I'm feeling ambitious and energetic maybe I'll participate in the workshops, but eh, kicking back and just sitting and relaxing sounds good, too.

Finally made and found time to run an ALTTPR seed -- was kind of a doozy, with some challenging (yucky) decisions.  Made a pretty big mistake sequence breaking Ice Palace when I was missing somaria + flippers, I honestly am beginning to wonder if somarialess sequence broken ice palace is =ever= a good play.  You by definition have to already have the mitts to get entry into ice palace, and the flippers can't be there, so it's mainly stuff like the mirror that can help out if you get it there, but...waiting around for somaria to show up might just make more sense in general. 

Someone really close to me seems to be hurting, a bit.  I hope that they are okay.  Every moment of their company is precious to me.  They seem to be feeling alright, I just...yeah, I hope they are okay.  I love them a lot.

Speaking of which, the chickies got checked out (expensive....) and they are doing all ok!  I wasn't super worried, but it was a relief to get confirmation that they are doing healthy and that I'm doing alright taking care of them.

Made it out to Teance today and enjoyed some nice white tea while doing some work before doing groceries.  Tomorrow I'm going to be printing some stuff for JaSmix and giving my setlist another lookover, hopefully trying to catch up on Rhythm Quest, and drinking tea at home.  I already know I'm probably going to cook fish for lunch and then I'll be working on braised apple cider pork shoulder, but that probably won't be ready in time for dinner, so dinner will have to be something else, maybe eggplant or tofu or something.  Guess I won't have a ton of extra time to throw around given that I'll be doing a little more cooking than usual and I have OHC to take care of, but...yeah, I mean, I'll try to do some stuff.

Did some dancing, randomly, the other night.  Sometimes it's a little discouraging to be honest, to look at how sloppy my dancing is, but I mean, what should I expect given how relatively little I work on it?  It's...fine, really.  I've come a long way, I know, it's just...it's still hard.

Life overall is...I can't really say anything other than it's good, right?  Nothing has really been bad, aside from maybe the fact that I've been sleeping too late (as usual) and yeah, I could be a little more on top of some of my work, but honestly I'm not even mad about it given that I just got back from a trip.  The floor of my range is still relatively high-functioning, I mean the first things that I did when I got back were to unpack, do the laundry, vacuum the floor, and start using the carpet cleaner...and then what, after that I drafted out the JaSmix setlist, did some work, etc. etc.  It's really not bad. 

The winds of change continue to blow, for me, in my life.  But I don't let myself get swept away, they simply act as the wind beneath my sails.  I chart a course and I make my way toward my north stars, slowly and steadily.