It’s officially planner season! All the planner companies are rolling out their 2026 editions as if 2025 is ancient history. If you didn’t get organized this year—don’t worry—2026 is coming. Meanwhile, I’m still writing “2024” on things and am supposed to start planning for a year that barely feels real. At this rate, “2030 Planners” with space travel stickers wouldn’t surprise me.
But in all seriousness, I probably should think about getting a 2026 planner soon. October or November feels reasonable, though September seems way too early. Still, I always get the Hobonichi Weeks, and their 2026 release is September 1 in Japan (which means August 31 for me). And yes—before you ask—we already have a 2026 calendar. We picked it up at Stirling Castle’s gift shop. Apparently, I’m living three years ahead of myself while still catching up to today.
I’m rambling about planners because there’s not much else on my mind. I feel a little lost, but not in a dramatic way—just that restless “what am I forgetting?” sense. I know I need to do coding and laundry, and I’m doing them, but it still feels like I’m missing something. Multitasking has never been my strength.
On the home front, I need to wake up Karissa soon. Today’s the first day of school, and she has to feed the animals before logging into her classes. I plan to sit with her a bit while she gets settled, just to get a feel for what this year will bring. I’m both nervous and excited for her.
As for me, I have therapy tomorrow, and then Friday is doctor day. My ear infection does feel better, but part of me thinks I should still keep the appointment just to be safe. I also have a stop at the Costco Hearing Aid Center because my right hearing aid completely gave out. It was working fine in London, then went glitchy on the cruise, and now it’s just… silent. I’ve cleaned it, swapped the wax traps multiple times, but no luck. Thankfully, my left hearing aid is holding strong, though I’ve had to crank it up to make up for the missing one. My luck with hearing aids is questionable at best.
On the tech side, my Switch is acting up, but Tommy said I could use his. I’m not sure if I can transfer my games over since they’re in his name. Do I need to initialize the console? Or can I just sign in? I’ll have to play around with it and see.
And now—something exciting—the second volume of the Final Fantasy XIV cookbook is up for preorder! I already have the first one, and the cookies I tried from it were really good. They had coffee in them, which really brought out the chocolate flavor. Strange, but it worked. I know, probably not that exciting for some. But I’m looking forward to it.
I took a peek at Karissa’s classes today. Alexis mentioned something interesting—that some online classes actually require you to log in at a specific time, almost like a live lecture. Luckily, none of Karissa’s classes has that restriction. Thanks to Tommy, she was also able to snag her textbooks for way less than the Amazon prices, which is always a win. One of her courses hasn’t opened yet, but overall, her lineup looks really interesting—especially the Social Media class.
Time slipped away from me, and suddenly it was lunchtime. I wasn’t sure what I wanted, but I knew I needed something besides my usual lazy choice of toast. I finally settled on eggs and toast. At least this time, I added a little protein to make it a proper lunch.
The power glitched just now, and my UPS (Uninterrupted Power Supply) decided to shut off—taking my computer down with it. It was the weirdest thing. When I tried to turn my computer back on, it refused to cooperate. After repeatedly pressing the power button, it finally sprang back to life.
I have a few guesses about what’s going on—maybe the motherboard, maybe the case’s power button, or maybe something else entirely. Once it’s running, everything works fine, but it’s definitely not acting right.
On top of that, I found out last night that my computer can’t upgrade to Windows 11 without a new CPU. Luckily, Tommy is using this as the perfect excuse to upgrade his own CPU—and I get his old one. Works for me!
But then it happened again. Another power glitch, another UPS shutdown, and another round of struggling to get my computer to boot back up. We are currently in the midst of a thunderstorm, so that explains the power outages. I think I’d better post this before the lights go out again!
