9 Things Making My Life Better So Far This Year (Oct. – Dec. 2020)

We’re in the home stretch of 2020! As with my previous entries this year, I’ve tried to focus on things that are available to anyone, not people or circumstances I’m lucky to have in my life. Hope you’re all hanging in there too!

This quarter, I’ve enjoyed:

1. routine

At the start of this quarter, in October, marking season set in. I had a whole ton of work to do every weekday, but it came with a silver lining: it forced me to adhere much more carefully to my routine. I woke up at roughly the same time each day and planned my schedule more rigidly in order to finish everything at a reasonable time.

This helped me keep an even keel during a stressful time, and I’ve tried to stick with it even when I don’t have hundreds of papers to mark.

2. my undergrad rugby shirt (aka altering my casual clothing)

At Queens University, where I did my undergrad degree, it was pretty much the law that you had to buy one of the ubiquitous university rugby shirts. Everybody wore them, and who was I not to follow the lead of The Cool? So I bought the only size with sleeves long enough for me: a men’s large. (Insert your own fitting in/fitting pithy observation about life here.)

It hung on me like a poncho, so I never wore it after undergrad. But I love the look of long-sleeve rugby shirts, and I’ve been wanting to try tailoring one for a while. “Hey!” I remembered. “I have this one shirt I never wear and therefore don’t really care whether I screw up.” So I tailored it on Thanksgiving.

Long story short, it’s my favourite shirt now. It’s so cozy and warm, it fits me like a glove, and it’s just the right level of prep. I’m buying more rugby shirts, sweatshirts, and other long-sleeved casual menswear upon which to work my (/Stylish D‘s) tailoring wiles.

3. sweatpants

OK, I’ve been working from home since the start of the pandemic, but, yes, I only now started to choose sweatpants as my daily wear. Why?

Well, I like dressing to put myself in the attitude I want to have for the work day. If that means wearing a collar and tie even though I’m the only one who will see it (Husband doesn’t count; he just thinks it’s weird to wear a tie when no one is forcing you to), I’ll do it.

But then my joint pain started to poke its head in the room just to see what I was up to, and my doctor pointed out that maybe it would be a good idea to take stretch breaks every once in a while. So, yeah, sweat pants are comfy, but, more importantly, they let me stand up, do physio for 5-10 minutes, and return to work without having to change.

(I tailored them too!)

4. unique and helpful Etsy purchases

I’ve been trying to avoid purchases from larger companies and especially from Amazon in order to focus on small businesses (in my local community, when possible). I had a negative experience on Etsy before (a seller who sent the wrong thing and never fixed it), so I was dubious about trusting every store I come across, but so far, my newer, great experiences have strongly outweighed that memory.

I love seeing all the creative products people have put together or made (or both). There are so many interesting and unique kits, gifts, and creations that I have a lot of fun simply searching cool things and putting together a wish list, never mind actually buying stuff.

So far, my favourite purchases include this set of online games, these soda syrups, these boomerang pillowcases (literally the only ones that fit the old elbow pillow I “inherited” from my parents’ house) and, uh, a bunch of things I bought to give as gifts so I can’t share them here.

5. Making cheese

My sister and SIL got me one of these cheese-making kits as a thank-you gift for helping out with their Zoom wedding, and I’m slowly getting hooked. It turns out that making cheeses such as ricotta and queso fresco is easy, and that figuring out more complicated cheeses like mozzarella just takes a little experience and trial and error.

Not gonna lie, the instructions for making cheese curds still seem like rocket science, but: to dreaaaaam the impossible dreaaaaam…

6.  the Wahl Peanut

Toronto lockdown means it’s time for at-home haircuts again!

Last lockdown, I hesitated over buying a new, professional-quality (albeit lower-end professional-quality) set of clippers. Was the expense really worth it? Wouldn’t hairdressers and barbers open again soon? Would better equipment really make a difference when paired with my total lack of skill?

Um, the Peanut was totally worth it. No, I can’t really “blend” the different lengths of hair, and I certainly don’t know what I’m doing compared to my barber, but having real clippers intended for this purpose makes a huge difference. Husband is better able to clip his hair in approximately a quarter of the time it used to take him with his beard clippers. I’m able to actually proto-fade my hair in half the time it took me just to shave the back and sides.

And when my haircut grows out a little, the sedimentary-rock-layer look mellows into something actually OK.

7.  jian bing (and other crepe-style dishes)

Well, as close as I can get to jian bing. I hadn’t had these until last winter, when I visited my cousin Katie in New York City. Then, mid-pandemic, I found a make-at-home recipe. Naturally, we had a long-distance video brunch-slash-cooking show, in which we both wound up successfully making breakfast.

I didn’t really remember exactly how the jian bing we’d had tasted (other than delicious), but Katie has them more often and said that our version (well, her version) was pretty much the same as the “real thing.” And they were good enough that, without consulting each other, we both made the recipe again the next morning. Great minds!

These also inspired me to try making French-style crepes as well, and it turns out they’re relatively easy too!

8. holiday treats

Husband and I have the bonus of two sets of holiday traditions, plus I like to bake. We made homemade sufganiyot for Chanukah and then built gingerbread houses for Christmas.

9. a new non-stick pan

“I think some parts of this are… not non-stick anymore,” Husband pointed out, holding up the frying pan we’d had since at least before we moved in together.

Luckily, he made this observation a couple days before Black Friday, so it was easy to find a cheaper-than-usual new pan. I did spend an hour or so looking at wildly differing “best brands” lists before deciding that it probably wasn’t worth my cash to buy a really expensive one, given my propensity for accidentally breaking/scratching kitchenware, and it definitely wasn’t worth my time to keep researching the minor differences between mid-range brands. So I got a T-Fal model that’s been working great for eggs and turkey bacon and crepes (see above). It’s kind of nice to be able to cook the stuff I make literally every day without annoying sticking.