Last Holiday

Don’t be fooled by the title, I didn’t switch houses with someone in a foreign country today like in the film of the same name. Rather I followed what has quickly become my vaction routine. I overslept, this time until after eight. I suppose I needed the extra waft of sleep I gained off that. I followed up that by lounging in bed for over an hour. That time was spent primarily doing my French lessons on Duolingo. Today is the last day of the week and I started it with a healthy lead and wanted to maintain things. My lead after that hour was over twelve hundred points but one can never guess how the day will unfold. With that done and my podcast episode winding down I got myself cleaned and dressed for the day. Rather than head down for breakfast I broke things up by jumping into the MSC challenges first. I did stream it on Twitch again and then updated Musings. I am really liking that flow and might try to incorporate it into my everyday going ahead.

Before sleep last night I’d been watching some outtake videos of The IT Crowd, the first ever show I watched on Netflix and when I opened YouTube they were all over my recommendations. I ended up watching another show that one of them (Richard Ayoade) does called Travel Man. I suppose I enjoy that smug British humour because I watched that for the next hour or so. It was getting up to noon and I realized that I hadn’t had a meal yet so finally descended and made a plate of chicken bites and dip. Another move to throw off the rhthym. I futher augmented the day but pouring myself some Crown Royal and Fever Tree Ginger Ale over some ice. These were gifts from GRP and KJMH. Naturally I free poured the drink and as such I caught quite a nice little buzz off it, empty stomach and all. My buzz and I grabbed my book and sprawled in a chair to read my twenty percent for the day. I think I ended up reading more like forty percent today, it got interesting. Once my buzz wore off I went outside and shovelled out the driveway again and again thoroughly cleaned the truck off while listening to Rhthym of War. This time I checked the forecast to make sure there wasn’t going to be steady stream of precipitation that would render my efforts moot. (not mute).

When I came back inside I cleaned a bit and then continued in that previously reported forty percent and added some more XP to my Duolingo. I ended up over two thousand XP for the week and with a healthy lead over the number two person (741 XP) I felt like I could cruise to the win, with frequent monitoring. At half four I returned to the kitchen to prepare my second meal of the day. I decided to get the Instant Pot out and cook up a package of chicken. Maybe it’s meal prep at its most introductory but I have an idea to make burritos with two breasts and the use the other two for a soup. I did season them pretty wildly for a soup but I guess we’ll see. And since we’re talking about soup, that’s what I made for dinner (technically lunch). I got an easy to make soup in my stocking from Soup Girl. This year I got Mexican Amaranth Soup, last year it was Smokey Split Pea. It’s an easy recipe because you just combine water and the contents of the jar in a pot, get it boiling then turn the heat way down. This soup featured some split peas and lentils as the “meat” of this vegan dish. It takes about an hour to fully cook and it took me quite a while to eat also. I had one bowl and put the rest of the pot in the fridge. Because one small bowl is not likely to feed a beast like me I also cooked up four sausages in the air fryer and ate one. I also had a bit of my smoked gouda cheese to make sure the meal wouldn’t be considered vegan at all. I included a photo of my new kitchen knife I bought at Black Friday sales cause I used it for one of the first times on the cheese, it’s hella sharp and looks cool, plus is wildly comfortable. As for the meal, the sausage and cheese were my favourite parts of it. The soup wasn’t bad, it was just okay. The ease of preparation means I’d do it again.

After washing a huge mountain of dishes from all the appliances I used I found my way to the basement. That part of the tradition didn’t differ. I played some NHL20 to keep the ball rolling on Rhthym of War which I’d been listening to for the hours it took to make a huge mess in the kitchen. My season is getting to be mature and I think I’ll finish it up before I start to play NHL21, which I’ve got on the shelf currently. While I was playing I had to take frequent breaks to check on my Duolingo. As I mentioned, I’m in the top league and sitting in first place. The week flips over at half seven local time so I was all over it. As you’ll see below I was successful in my bid. I crushed it, opening such a lead that nobody wanted to try and catch me, it is only a couple hundred XP some ambitious punk will track you down last minute, I made sure it was over one thousand. Not much moved after the afternoon round of lessons. I finished with 2004 XP and second place was 741 XP. I got my Legendary achievement of finishing first in the Diamond League and also my first ever first place finish, another achievement. I got quite a few rewards for those two things on top of the prize I am showing below. I did this on my 942 consecutive day of training. I had a 48 day streak before this one that disappeared unexplicably, leading to this steak starting the next morning. I felt pretty damn good about it.

To celebrate this monumentous achievement I decided to get back on Bike Club. Cheese sent his photo so I knew we were both back after it. I got good and sweaty doing that and then trudged up two flights of stairs and vigourously brushed my teeth and flossed for an added boost to myself. Work starts tomorrow but I had a pretty rewarding end to my last day of holiday.