9 Things That Made My Life Better This Quarter (Oct.-Dec. 2018)

Hooray! It’s the end of the year! I’ve survived on caffeine and physical activity (and, okay, some help from my family, my spouse, my friends, and other people I love). I’m grateful and humbled to have so many Big Life Things squared away…

… but I’m still gonna have a bit of fun talking about the Tiny Trivial Things that gave the latte of these last three months a cinnamon sprinkle of bonus goodness.

1. Using a working keyboard

It would be nice to have an ergonomic mechanical keyboard that also consistently recorded every keystroke. Unfortunately, that wasn’t to be. Finally, I got fed up enough to steal my husband’s old wireless keyboard which I can feel aggravating my wrists but is still way easier on my hands and working life than not being able to rely on using Os or Ss at first type.

2. Sticking to my budget for a month

Surprising no one more than myself, I’ve actually been pretty decent at not spending money than I planned for (for at least one month, anyway). Although I calculated that actually, my budget is far stricter than it needs to be, because I haven’t been accounting for cost-of-living raises at work, I still feel better eating at home even more and not buying random stuff that I don’t end up using. Using special budgets for special events (e.g. gifts for others, hosting get-togethers) also helps.

3. Champfleury cheese

I took a chance on this Canadian product because I wanted a soft Brie-like cheese, and this one was on sale. As it turns out, it’s fantastic, nice and soft and bloomy and creamy and mild.

4. HUE Smart Light Bulbs

Husband bought these to play around with, and it turns out they help me a lot. I can dim the lights to help prepare myself to go to sleep. I can turn the lights on and off from anywhere in the apartment or set a faint nightlight in our room so I can sneak into bed when Husband goes to sleep before me. Most helpfully, on rainy or cloudy days, I can flood the apartment with simulated “daylight” (regular light with a bluish tint) that actually makes me feel a ton better.

5. DuckTales! (woo-oo!)

Although re-makes of old stuff I was vaguely interested in are my jam, I am generally resistant to re-makes of things I loved when I was a kid, like the new Ninja Turtles cartoon. Maybe it helps that I was never a fan of the DuckTales show (we had only two episodes on VHS that we watched over and over again), but, thanks to my dad, I was into the Uncle Scrooge comics. More on this show later, but suffice it to say that its updates won me over.

6. Online collections of video-game themes

I turn them to very, very quiet so I don’t get distracted, but they’re a great way to tune out the world and focus on my work. Grading can get kind of repetitive and dull (who would’ve thought???) but I owe it to my students to be as attentive to the last assignment I mark as I am to the first. Video game themes are familiar enough that I enjoy listening to them but not so much that I start to pay more attention to what I’m hearing than what I’m reading..

7. Wild Thing (podcast produced by Foxtopus, created and hosted by Laura Krantz)

As a trained historian/philosopher of science, I find a lot to love in this podcast: a skeptical journalist investigates the evidence for belief in Bigfoot. Yeah, yeah, this is silly and a waste of time because you’re super scientific and rational and don’t believe in Bigfoot–but can you clearly articulate why not? How do you know when to trust scientific consensus? How do you do so in the context of Western scientists ignoring Indigenous knowledge (say, about the great apes) over and over again? Although I’m not swayed on the question of whether Bigfoot exists (yet?), I’m definitely convinced that for most laypeople, believing in it isn’t inherently less rational than not believing.

8. Not drinking alcohol during the winter

I don’t want to make it sound like there’s something wrong with drinking alcohol. I like it, and whether you do or not is up to you. But as the days start to get shorter and darker, my temperament starts to do the same. And even though a typical drink for me is, like, a bottle of beer once a week, which is too small an amount for me to be physically hungover, I’ve noticed that any amount of alcohol has a very negative effect on my mood the next day. Does it make me a little sad not to have a beer if I feel like one or am eating something that goes well with beer? Yeah. But a lot less sad than I’d feel the next day if I did have that beer, and at least I know why I’m feeling sad instead of “whoops, guess my body chemicals hate me today.”

9. These armrest pads

I work a lot at my computer. I also use it for leisure activities such as “refreshing Facebook several times even though I no longer follow anyone because I wanted to stop getting distracted by Facebook.” This state of affairs exacerbates the nerve pain I get in my right arm. So although these memory-foam pads look dorky, they are part of my life now, and I don’t even care. They make it much easier to use my mouse with or without the elbow brace I can wear for only short periods of time before it starts to hurt other parts of my arm. If you have arm pain, a desk chair with armrests, and also about $30, I highly recommend giving them a try.