Category: To Occupy my Time

HabitRPG Back to School Tips #5

One final way you can use HabitRPG to improve your life.

Gear is fun.  Drops are fun.  Pets are fun.  Mounts are fun.  Badges are fun.

And the most fun of all?  You get all this stuff for accomplishing things. That’s me, up there on the left with a Base Dragon Mount and a Cotton Candy Blue Wolf  I’m a Healer at level 80 with 26 perfect days, badges for all manner of things including one for Annoying Friends.  I have hatched 119 pets and 57 mounts. I’m a Beastmaster.  I have all sorts of gear which I can switch out on my character’s avatar when I’m bored which is almost never.

It’s the small things in life that really make or break you.  I may have been annoyed by people at work for most of the day, but I come home, check off most of my dailies, knock out a few to-dos and finally, finally hatch that Zombie Flying Pig mount.  Guess what is a more memorable part of my day?

Habit makes not-so-interesting things much more fun.  It makes you a better you.  It’s free.  You can go on quests with other Habit users (Like me).  Habit will make your life better.  What are you waiting for?

Interested and intrigued?  Join HabitRPG today. It’s free.

HabitRPG Back to School Tips #4

Yet another way Habit can make your life easier.

Habit keeps your schedule for you.

Maybe it’s just me, but I have certain days I have to do certain things.  Wednesday and Saturday are laundry days, Sunday and Tuesday are double-cook nights.  On Saturday I vote in Flimspotting’s Poll and on Wednesday I renew library books.  Do you know how I remember to do all that?  Habit tells me.

I have my dailies set up so they only happen on the days they are supposed to happen.  Some of them are more “weeklies” or “biweeklies” than dailies, but Habit lets me roll with it.  It’s great to come home, log onto Habit and have it remind me what I need to do for the night. 

Interested and intrigued?  Join HabitRPG today. It’s free.

Jockey’s Slip Shorts.

In the quest to live life without chafing thighs, I purchased Jockey’s Slip Shorts.  They are light and breathable and not at all restrictive like Spanx and other girdle-type shorts are.  I loved how they fit, they were very comfortable.
Unfortunately, the “slip” turned out to be a verb and not a noun.  Those shorts would not stay in place.  Wearing them under my uniform dress, I had to hike them up roughly every six steps.  And that’s too much adjusting of underwear in public.   I tested to see just how far they would slip down by walking to the store without hiking them up.  I hadn’t gone a block when they had crawled down to my knees and I resorted to holding them up at knee level to keep them from ending up around my ankles.
There was no clear sense of sizing either.  In the dressing room I tried on LG, XL, XXL, XXXL in different colors and lengths and all seemed to fit exactly the same.  I went with the smallest size I tried on.  Maybe I should have gone smaller?  Or maybe this product needs to go back to the drawing board.

HabitRPG Back to School Tips #3

More ways that HabitRPG helps you to keep your life easy.

Do you need a nag? HabitRPG can be your nag.

Put anything you need to remember on the To-Do list.   Right now, sitting right at the top is my reminder to buy cat food.  Because I log into Habit at least once per day, that reminder to buy cat food is sitting right where I need it to be to keep it in the forefront of my mind.

As time passes, the the task changes color, ending in a very grumpy looking red.  However, when you finally complete your grumpy red task, you are rewarded with gold.  Gold that can buy gear.  And non-tangible rewards are quite fun.

Interested and intrigued?  Join HabitRPG today. It’s free.

HabitRPG Back to School Tips #2

Continuing with Back-to-school tips for Habit RPG.

Today’s tip is:

Why not get something for all the boring stuff that’s part of modern life.

So you have to empty the dishwasher every day.  Or deal with a bunch of emails so your inbox isn’t overflowing.  Or shower.  Or brush your teeth.  Or even go to work.  Why not make those tasks a daily or a habit, so you can have the satisfaction of checking off your task and getting the reward of gold or possibly an egg or potion drop. 

Sure, there’s satisfaction in getting the job done, but there’s also satisfaction in getting the job done, checking off the task and then using your gold to buy some limited edition gear.  We both know which one of these things is better.

Interested and intrigued?  Join HabitRPG today. It’s free.

Finding efficiencies in food.

One of my goals this summer is to find efficiencies in food.  As such, I have been tracking how much it costs to produce the food I eat.  I’ve discovered that in general, my daily food costs between $7.00 and $11.00 in ingredients.  This is interesting to know and lets me know that there is no way in hell I can keep eating the way I do and reasonably have a monthly food budget of $150.00.  Which I knew, but I didn’t really know, know, if you know what I mean.
So far, the best efficiency I have discovered (which again, I knew, knew, but this really brought it home) is to break down your own chicken. It’s so much cheaper!  Do you want to pay $2.52 per chicken breast* rather than $5.99 per pound?  Buy the whole chicken, divide it up and package.  Voila!  Much cheaper.  
Here’s what I do.  I line the toaster oven roasting pan with aluminum foil and oil that.  I set out a plate, a plastic bag from the produce section, a cutting board and a container for the freezer.  I also make sure the dishwasher is empty and hope the cats are fast asleep.
The plastic bag is for holding the bag that the chicken comes in and the pad that is with the chicken to absorb moisture.
I pop the legs off first and separate the drumstick from the thighbone.  I sort of knew how to do this anyway, but I watched a few YouTube videos to refresh my memory. Drumsticks go into the roasting pan, Thighs go on the plate.  You can debone, but I leave bone in.
I cut off the wings (still a bit tricky) and put them on the roasting pan.  Then I slice into the breast and pull out the wishbone (which is incredibly fun, my favorite part) and cut down the back which gives me the breasts still joined.  The back goes into the container for making stock.  
I cut the breasts down the middle and sometimes debone them, sometimes not.  They go on the plate too.
Then  rinse off the cutting board (and usually shoo away the cats who are bugging me) put it in the dishwasher. I wash my hands and doing my best not to get chicken juice anywhere, wrap the pieces on the plate.  Those go into a plastic bag in the freezer and the plate gets rinsed and put in the dishwasher.
The container with the back goes into the freezer too.  
The drumsticks and wings I cook right away using this recipe.  Most chicken recipes in my world are for thighs or breasts, not drumsticks.  Matt gets the wings (which he loves and I don’t) and I get the drumsticks.  
This is a pretty sweaty process the first few times you do it, but becomes automated after about the third time.  I also enjoy it because I remember watching my mother do this when I was a child and being totally grossed out.  She told me it was cheaper than buying the parts and I remember thinking I would just buy the parts when I grew up.  I’m happy to master the technique instead.
*Just to be clear, I buy meat at New Seasons.  So it’s more expensive than standard supermarket prices. 

HabitRPG Back to School Tips #1

Remember me talking about Habit RPG?  I’m still using it and it’s still helping me accomplish a lot.  Here are five days of “Back to School” tips for how Habit can make your life easier.

Today’s tip is:

Habit helps you automate regular tasks, especially ones that only happen on certain days.

I do my best to keep up with my banking, because keeping track of what I spend helps me not spend money.  But I’ve always been good at putting off this task.  Until I used Habit’s ability to specify dailies (which are daily tasks) on only certain days.

Instead of failing at building the habit of updating my banking every day (because who wants to do that?) I changed my habit to a daily of “banking no more than three days out” and designated the days the task needs to be done as Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday.  This means that not only do I have some leeway (if it’s Thursday and I updated on Tuesday, I can successfully check off the task) but that the task is done often enough it doesn’t become overwhelming, but not so often I never do it.

Interested and intrigued?  Join HabitRPG today. It’s free.

Farmers Market and Buffalo Bill Days.

Buffalo Bill days had many things, including an outhouse race.
This gentleman in the hot dog costume wanted us to buy fresh made donuts.  He did what any teenager enthusiastically overselling things will do:  cartwheels. I bought a twist and man, was that a good donut.  It rivaled Blue Star Donuts and that is saying a lot.
The teenager sitting in the window noticed me and waved before I could take the picture.
I tried out these chairs, which were so incredibly comfortable, I wished to pack one up and carry it back to Portland with me.
E with her donut sample.
They had Civil War reenactors.
E examines walking sticks that are also flutes.
L sat with me on the comfortable chair.
Patrick, after nearly getting hit by one of the walking sticks, helps E choose one to try out.
I was fascinated by the family and took many surreptitious photos of them.
This youngster told us all about the cannon.

He had great cheekbones.
E got to hold one of the cannon balls. (Cue the Breeders)
I enjoy a good label and am happy to know this is where the windshield washer fluid is kept.
Not a warning you will see on a civilian vehicle.
Big truck.
Patrick looking into a humvee.
There were pony rides!  E and L meet one of the ponies.

Also on this trip I learned that when you are around small children, you tend to acquire things.
An excellent juxtaposition of customer t-shirt and vendor sign.
These guns were really great.  I bought one.
Patrick takes a shot.
Headed for the pony rides.

They were still getting the ponies saddled.

Hipster cowboy.
The cheerful owner.
These girls were interested, but ultimately, only one of them rode.
E and Patrick.
L and Heather.

Riding.

Working teenagers.

When we walked back through, there was another outhouse ready to be pushed in the contest.
So ended a great trip.  Thanks to Heather, Patrick and the girls for funding and hosting me.  It was so wonderful to see them and their slice of army life.