2024: The New Year Begins

[Mr EliteL]

Happy New Year all! 

Hope 2024 is better in some ways as I know some people may have something going on that's not resolved yet or are not well, may you receive some positivity soon because life can be a-!

Anyway, doesn't feel like a fresh beginning but probably because I'm also ill again as I noticed I was this time last year, but can't tell how it compares, I was possibly a bit worse back then. I also had work, which was going to happen again but this time my store wants to save on money so I'm off today. I have holiday again so I should get paid still, plus still have like 70 hours to take, a bit less than last year, I was only meant to keep a week (25 hours contracted pay) for the first 3 months for the pay year end (1st April is new year), this keeps happening.  

Enough about that....I did catch colds and such more often this year as it's usually like 2 or 3 times if I'm unlucky but this year it was more than that and one instance was finally darn covid, so perhaps a sign of my body getting older or...whatever. Or maybe everyone else also caught illness more as well so the bugs were just all over the place last year and probably won't stop until weather gets better.

This year though I want to...ugh, back to this again, do art more, get back into weightlifting with my dumbbells as I feel like I've gotten weaker. Maybe a vacation as I haven't been on one since '19 but that was just to Isle of Wight so only a stone throw away from UK mainland.  Oh, and finally getting my bedroom fully sorted and..."decked out" if you will with my tiny space. Yay.

EDIT: Ho ho, geez it's not a good start to Japan, yikes. 

[queenzelda]

Happy New Year?  

2024 starts with our finally being done with cleaning out my father-in-laws estate so we can finally sell it. My dad is finally out of rehab and home with my mom. 

I feel very alone during a lot of this since I seem to be the only streamer in the group I'm in that seems to be dealing with aging parents or a loved one who's lost both. 

It's been hard seeing everyone else play together while I can't due to obligations. 😮‍💨 It's been pretty rough being the weird one out. I know it's supposed to be "odd one out", but I also know I'm the weirdest gamer in most any community. Heck, even when it comes to streaming, I still feel I'm odd/weird. 

[Mr EliteL]

Well that sounds good about the estate, and your father returning home after reading about it in your topic it was all taking some time.

Everyone of course has the loss of people in their family, just a bit unlucky getting many things at once so don't feel too bad. My 2021 was like that, plus my step-grandad was just recently put on dialysis and has expressed many times now how he just wants to hurry up and join my grandma, so just waiting on the inevitable however long his body will hold out. What that treatment is, just sounds so much to do personally I wouldn't go through with it.

[Moonface]

It's been hard seeing everyone else play together while I can't due to obligations. 😮‍💨 

I had this feeling a few years ago whenever Thanksgiving would come around when everyone at my job or college would be talking about going to visit their family whilst I wouldn't get that luxury (in the sense of seeing direct blood family, not family in general because I do of course see Shira's family) because my parents are in another country entirely, and the feeling would get worse with each passing year as I have yet to get to visit England/my parents since moving out of the country in 2017. Unfortunately I can't recall exactly how I stopped letting it get to me as much in the past couple of years (I know therapy was/is a huge help to managing my mental state and the tools I've learned from that are what have helped in this case, I just can't recall what specific things I would have used to avoid slipping into a depressed state from it) but I guess the point I wanted to make was more that I can sympathize with this feeling and hope that you're able to find what helps you get through it in the future like I was able to.


I haven't got a plan for my entire 2024 because I've not really thought about it to that extent nor care to make plans for an entire year, but I did want to start my year off with trying to get myself more organized when it comes to managing chores and other important tasks as I've yet to find a system that helps me consistently keep on top of all those things. I've started trying a few new things but with the year still being very young I can't say yet how effective they'll be in the long run but they do at least look promising.

[ShiraNoMai]

My main goal is to be less tired. There are many ways I can go about fixing that, including getting myself out of this life-draining job, fixing my habits, and cleaning up health-wise, so I can see the path: just gotta... do it.

[queenzelda]

@Mr EliteL I know we're all going through something in one way or another.  If it were an option, I would highly suggest a transplant if at all possible. But I don't know all the circumstances & will pray for him. :3

@Moonface I used to miss seeing my parents a lot too after I finally realized I can call them whenever I miss them. I think my issue is that I might need to help my dad get a cell phone that way if he goes back into the hospital, I can call him whenever I want.

@ShiraNoMai I am in the same boat, but idk if it's my diet making me tired all the time or the left-over effects from the chemo. I've been trying to eat cleaner and excursive more but its been rough because of how much my bursitis flairs up. 

Things could be worse at the end of the day, all in all. I think the new year will be fine as long as we focus on the positives. 💖

[ShiraNoMai]

Agreed, queen. Positives and keeping ourselves accountable for definite. We got this <3

[Moonface]

@Moonface I used to miss seeing my parents a lot too after I finally realized I can call them whenever I miss them. I think my issue is that I might need to help my dad get a cell phone that way if he goes back into the hospital, I can call him whenever I want.

Yeah, for me that's my only choice with my parents as a form of contact given that we're in different countries (I use Facebook Messenger to call them though, since it's free and the only platform my parents use that has internet calling). I'm surprised your dad lacks a cellphone but only because I'm so used to everyone having their own phones nowadays.


My 2024 hasn't started off as organized as I would like to still but I'm trying to not let it get to me (even though it did get to me a lot the past few days). We got ourselves an absolutely huge calendar to put on the wall that you can write stuff onto for each day which I've been managing to keep using daily so far to keep track of upcoming things, tasks to do, or recording tasks I've completed. I think having to actually write on it by hand makes it stick with me a lot more than just tapping boxes on an app or whatever, and it's impossible to ignore it when it's in the main hallway and as big as it is. I'll have to let @ShiraNoMai share the exact one we got since I don't know what one on Amazon it is.

[Mr EliteL]

Don't feel too bad Moony if the organisation side isn't fully realised yet, the year just begun so early days and soon I'd imagine you'll find more time to fit some more activities or what have you whenever you can. That calendar sounds very helpful and definitely bonus points on keeping up with it so far it seems.

I do need to manage my time better myself really, but not straight away as still my bedroom is not ready so I'm going about back and forth between to rooms at the moment. The room will be finalised soon-ish though definitely before Q2 begins, so I'll decide what I want to do then.

[Moonface]

Don't feel too bad Moony if the organisation side isn't fully realised yet, the year just begun so early days and soon I'd imagine you'll find more time to fit some more activities or what have you whenever you can. That calendar sounds very helpful and definitely bonus points on keeping up with it so far it seems.

I do need to manage my time better myself really, but not straight away as still my bedroom is not ready so I'm going about back and forth between to rooms at the moment. The room will be finalised soon-ish though definitely before Q2 begins, so I'll decide what I want to do then.

Yeah, I guess my issue is just fixating on what isn't done over what is done a lot of the time. The calendar has been somewhat helpful in tackling that because I've been writing on it whenever I do something productive involving the house, so hopefully that'll help me with changing my view on things.

No idea if it would help you, but a thing my therapist told me was to break things down into smaller tasks and just do a small thing whenever there's an empty ten minutes or so to kill. Like instead of taking down every Christmas decoration in one go, do a couple here and there over a few days so it doesn't feel like such a big task nor does it take up as much time in one go.

[ShiraNoMai]

This is the calendar we got, for the record. It's the one we use at my office, too, usually to write when folks will be off or working from home or such and such. For us, well as Moony pointed out, it's for just recording tasks done to keep track of things.

[zoldos]

2024? Holy crap. I'll be half a century old next year. :O