I didn’t have work today, and it was a Hobby Day.

First: I woke up to an alarm half an hour later than usual, which was already nice, and then I lounged in bed for an additional half hour playing on my phone—which is my number-one top-choice way to wake up in the morning. What I do is: I get up when the alarm goes off; pee; use my freshly-washed-still-wet hands to scrub the sleep from my eyes; spritz my face with some sort of nice restorative toning/freshening/moisturizing/vitalizing spritz (I only do this on mornings I’m going back to bed); take my usual omeprazole plus a bonus partial caffeine tablet (only on back-to-bed mornings); open the curtains to let the light in; and go back to bed to wake up slowly while I mess around with Pokemon Go and Pikmin Bloom on my phone. LUXURIOUS.

Half an hour later the caffeine has kicked in and I am able to force myself to get out of bed and go on a walk, which is something I am trying to do each morning I don’t have to go to work. Changing from pajamas into exercise clothes is the worst part somehow. Then I have to set up my two phones (YOU HEARD ME: TWO PHONES) to: tether (only one phone is connected to service; the other is for secondary accounts, so has to be tethered to the first phone in order to work away from the house); start planting flowers (Pikmin Bloom); set up a party (Pokemon Go); start a playlist (Spotify). I walk to the start of the nearest Pokemon Go route to get credit for the walk. It takes a lot of props and incentives to motivate me to exercise.

Anyway, I did my little walk. Did a couple of raids (Pokemon Go). Planted a lot of flowers (Pikmin Bloom). I came home and organized my phone-game plunder while stretching. I took a shower. Got dressed. Made coffee.

THEN! Today is WORLD POSTCARD DAY! I have not done Postcrossing for awhile, but my account was still there waiting for me, and in these trying times we grab desperately at any dim spark of interest. A few months ago Postcrossing gave information on printing their annual World Postcard Day postcard, and I found that motivating enough that I: (1) actually went to a local shop and got it printed, (2) reactivated my account and sent a bunch of cards so that I would be able to RECEIVE World Postcard Day cards (you only receive a postcard after someone has received one from you, and I hadn’t sent any in AGES), and (3) then temporarily suspended my account so I wouldn’t receive a bunch of cards BEFORE World Postcard Day. I did not fully understand the algorithm, so I did not do this as well as I could have—but, BYGONES, and I do hope I will receive ONE OR MORE postcards mailed today from elsewhere. And I will know better for next year.

Another thing I did not realize: each Postcrosser can only send TEN postcards on World Postcard Day, to make sure there are enough addresses for everyone. This makes total sense! And the shop I went to, which prints postcard orders in batches of 100 or more, had already agreed to print “only” 50! And also, I’d sent 15 of the 50 in a packet to Elizabeth, who also does Postcrossing. …Still, I have ended up with extra cards. Which is fine! It’s fine! Next year if I do this I might find a different way to print them! Or might offer to send packets of 10 to other Postcrossers!

So this morning I spent a pleasant hour and a half addressing and writing my ten cards. Two of the recipients collect stamps, which is fun for me because I have A LOT of stamps, including lots and lots of the little 1-cent, 2-cent, 3-cent etc. ones. I have ones from years ago, ones that are no longer available. Ones from before “Forever” stamps, so they still have numbers on them! It’s fun when someone says they like penguins and polar bears and Star Trek, and I have (1) a penguin stamp and (2) a polar bear stamp and (3) a Star Trek stamp.

On my way to the grocery store, I stopped at the post office to mail the cards; my hope is that this means they will definitely have today’s postmark. I don’t fully know how postmarks work. Is it GUARANTEED that if you mail something on a particular day, it will have that day’s postmark? I have ASSUMED so, but I don’t KNOW so.

Then, also on the way to the grocery store, a stop at the garden/pet store for the cats’ special Hills Science Diet Oral Care kibbies, which we mix into their regular kibble to help clean their teeth. Out of stock again. I am trying to shop less on Amazon, but it is frustrating when Shopping Local requires not only spending more money but also making multiple attempts/stops. NEVER MIND IT’S FINE.

Then groceries! Taking over a gym in the parking lot before going in (Pokemon Go), even though I know it will be grabbed back before I’ve even left the store. Planting flowers the whole time, up and down all the aisles (Pikmin Bloom). Buying various seasonal/pumpkin things for college care packages: pumpkin spice granola bars; packets of mini pumpkin muffins; jack-o’-lantern-frosted brownies; pumpkin spice hot chocolate packets.

Came home and read the new Jess Kidd book (Murder at Gulls Nest) for hours, with multiple breaks to check in with phone games and eat snacks. (I am cutting in here to say if you try a Jess Kidd book and like her writing as much as I do and so you start going through her other books: her book Himself has such an upsetting dog death in it that years later I am still sorry I read it, even though the rest of the book was great. It was too much. IT WAS TOO MUCH.)

With dinner we watched another episode of The Queen’s Gambit, which I am enjoying as much as everyone else did when they watched it five years ago. We’d delayed mostly because we’d heard it wasn’t appropriate to watch with children? Which I’d assumed meant the same thing as why Bridgerton is not appropriate to watch with children: because neither parents nor children want to be in the same room with each other while some hot guy slams some hot chick into a staircase (YIKES OUCH) / against a wall / to the ground, heatedly/repeatedly, and then causes her to scream after ten to fifteen seconds of rapid vigorous action. But so far in The Queen’s Gambit it’s only been an issue of casual and potentially problematic drug and alcohol use. And our own resident child is 24, not 12, so truly the bigger concern is embarrassment. (I do feel the smoldering potential for embarrassment to happen in later episodes.)