Update for 3/13/2016, part 3

This is the last part of an initial weekly update on my site, my projects, and my life. Part 1 is here, and part 2 is here. Future updates will usually only take up one post.

Life updates

• Drawing Nearer – In January and February I attended a seven-week class at church on spiritual formation. It revolved around practicing disciplines of our choice from Adele Calhoun’s Spiritual Disciplines Handbook. Largely because of this freedom, it was the best class of this kind I’ve taken. I’m still practicing the discipline of fixed-hour prayer I managed to do consistently, and I’m still motivated to work out how to get myself to do the others I had in mind.
• Humira – In December I started taking this medication for my ulcerative colitis, since none of the other eight or so medications I’d tried have completely worked. This one hasn’t either, though we doubled the dose a few weeks ago, and last week things seemed to be improving. I don’t know if that was the Humira or the low-carb diet, which I hear is supposed to reduce inflammation. Fortunately I haven’t had any side effects, not even itching at the injection sites.
• Birthday games – Monday of last week was my birthday (I’m 38 now), and the day before I met up with some friends to play board games, mostly from my box. It was rather rude of them to beat the birthday boy every single time. Heather won most of them. But I didn’t mind. When I’m playing games, my main goal is not to come in last, or at least not to lose by too much.
• Worship team brunch – All the worship teams at our church had a potluck brunch on Saturday. I had a really nice time there, though I learned that one of my favorite families at the church is moving out of the area this summer. I’d hoped I could get to know them better, so that was disappointing. But they’ll be living near my sister, and that makes them feel not so far away. This gathering was one in a clump of socializing. Sunday night our Drawing Nearer class had a get together, and I’ve had lunch with friends three days in the past week, which is unusual for me. Normally I eat lunch alone in my car, except on most Fridays when I play with our lunch gaming group.
• Video games – After a long break, I’m getting back into playing video games a little, other than the virtual board games I was already playing. In that category I’ve played a lot of Splendor since the lunch group introduced me to it a few weeks ago. Since joining Steam, games have become like books for me–I’ve bought way more than I’ve used. Since I don’t want to spend all my time on them, I’ve decided not to worry about getting the most out of each game, and I’m trying out juggling several games at any one time, cycling through a little bit of each whenever I feel I can spare time for gaming. Lately it’s been Stardew Valley, The Sims 4, The Talos Principle, and soon to be Minecraft. I’m looking forward to getting back into Minecraft. I’ve been a little nostalgic for it lately.
• Freelancing – I do some freelance work occasionally, and a job might be coming up soon, which will delay some of my projects. But it’ll hopefully give me a chance to explore an XML format called DITA that I’ve wanted to get into for years.