There's been various things!  The stuff that I've been spending my time on is a little different now.  Not sure if that's just a temporary thing, but so be it either way...

The kitchen organization project is something that I'm continuing to tackle, at a slow and steady pace; trying to measure out things and figure out which containers are worth getting and which aren't.  It's great doing things incrementally in this way -- reminds me of how I moved into this house in the first place, which I felt very happy with.  Not that there isn't a certain satisfaction with spending a whole day getting a big project out of the way, but in general I think this style of working is something I'm more keen on.

There's been a lot of just plain "thinking" on my end about what to put where and what adjustments (small though they may be) to make.  It's actually been something I've been spending quite a lot of time on.  It feels good to be getting to it, though, it's something I've been wanting to start tackling for a while.  I've been referencing a lot of random images and "perfect pantries" online for inspirations, but I'm resisting the urge to just try and put every single thing in its own little container.  Maybe if I lived by myself, and knew exactly what supplies I would always stock on hand, but with four people in the household that's just an unattainable pipedream, I think.  But I think there are certain things that tend to become a lot more space-efficient or less unwieldy when put into containers or jars, and for everything that's not, it's still worth having some sort of system to optimize the space usage and try to enforce some order, otherwise everything just sort of spills everywhere.  Even if there is just a bin or two of "miscellaneous", it's still tucked away in a bin.

Like I said, the progress has been slow, but I'm optimistic at the few changes that I've started (not finished...) to make.  Just take it one step at a time, really -- there's a lot of different areas that I have ideas for, but they will come in time.  Most recently I just started thinking about how to tackle the fridge organization, which to be honest isn't terrible as is, but isn't super great either.  Our fridge space feels generally quite constrained, so I think it will be less a matter of dreaming up a system that works, and more a matter of trying to make small adjustments that still work within the limitations.

Over the past week I did quite a dive into Rhythm Quest -- specifically working on signal processing to do automatic beat detection.  This was kind of a silly undertaking as it really wasn't a priority for me to implement, but it was a fun little side detour for me to explore and really try to dive deep on.  Unfortunately I don't actually have much in the way of showing it off right now, but I'll have to integrate it properly and make some sort of (hopefully not too lengthy) write-up on that.

I've got a few other things that I've been putting off, unfortunately...letter-writing has fallen sort of by the wayside again, and I've got my monthly pixel art to do, and I've been meaning to get to some bite-sized educational content for ALTTPR.  All in due time, I guess; I've been quite busy just taking on housewife duties -- not only with the organization, but also ordering groceries, along with cooking two meals every day for the household.

Somehow my gaming time switched over from ALTTPR and SM (and some Baldur's Gate 3) over to playing...Gran Turismo 3??  After playing a racing game at an arcade I got inspired to fire it up again -- I had sunk some time into it back around the late 2000s, I think (that was around the same time that I was trying to practice a bunch of BtT and HRC strats in SSB Melee?).  It's been kind of fun learning how to drive in GT3 again (certainly a world apart from mario kart, be it SMK or otherwise), as well as get used to the cars.  I'm playing with save states to reduce the frustration of having to retry races after particularly egregious errors or spinouts, but that hasn't actually really diminished my enjoyment.  It's nice being able to fast-forward through some of the load times, and even some of the straightaways, too.

This time I'm playing with a bit of an adjustment in the fact that I'm disabling some of the automatic "assists" that the game turns on by default -- specifically, the Automatic Stability Management (ASM) and Traction Control System (TCS).  I'm playing with ASM disabled and minimal TCS, which does actually change the way that cornering behaves quite a bit.  With ASM if you throw yourself into a turn at high enough speeds you just sort of....stop turning and start skidding/losing speed.  For =some= cars (my favorite, the Toyota MR-S S Edition) this actually worked relatively OK, but a lot of the time I think it either makes it just difficult to turn enough, or alternatively makes it harder to really "figure out" the oversteer of the car.  Playing without these aids means if I go into a turn too hard then my rear just starts to fishtail and I start spinning out of control entirely, but I feel like that has been better than having the "unpredictability" of the ASM system kicking in mid-turn and sort of disrupting things.

Anyways, I've been having fun trying to earn credits, buy new cars, and compete in the various race series.  Cash is always at a premium though; I'm still waiting to get to the point where I can =actually= get a car that's tuned up well enough.  I've been just gunning on raw horsepower most of the time (and some tire grip / handling where I can), but I haven't had the money to throw around to unlock things like being able to customize the suspension and get lower to the ground and adjust all of the other crazy little things like the angle of the tires or whatever.  Maybe at some point I'll just throw all of the upgrades onto the dinky little MR-S and see how fun it is to drive.  I didn't actually use it much this playthrough, sadly (I opted to try the bigger brother, the MR2 GT-S), and its engine is rather lacking, so it probably isn't going to be able to win anything else for me that I haven't already done, but...I have a soft spot for the car since it was the first thing I drove way back when that felt like it handled nicely.  That experience really gave me a favorable impression of mid-engine cars!