/comfy/ - A place to relax

I work at an IT company and recently I've been allowed to work from home whenever possible. It's one of the best life changes I've had in recent years. Now there's way more time to get ready for work since I don't have to get dressed or drive anywhere, so I can fix a better breakfast than just cereal and coffee. Plus I get to chill in my pajamas all day, and I have a lot more choices for lunch now that I'm not limited to what I can pack in a lunchbox. We don't get tickets or calls too often either, so I can spend most of the workday playing games, reading, working on personal projects, and taking care of small chores around the house.

There's also a park in my town that I like to visit while on break. During that part of the day it's pretty empty and quiet, the perfect time to take a half-hour walk and see all the cats there. They don't let you get too close, but some will slow-blink back at you.

More important is that it's made my life less uncomfy. No more putting up with traffic, sitting in that trashy office, dealing with my manchild of a coworker, cleaning up his messes, and sometimes even doing his job for him because he'd rather sleep or blab on the phone with his friends. ...Or rather, there's not as much of it. I still have to go in if someone's computer needs repairs, my coworker needs time off, etc. Still, going in sometimes beats going in all the time.

Since I spend so much time at home now, I've been looking for ways to make it less monotonous. Improving the living room and making it worth being in sounds like a good first step. Right now it only has a futon, coffee table, shelf, and cat tree. I would get a TV, except I don't care much for TV or movies and the only good place to put one might make the neighbors hear it. Plus I can just watch stuff on my computer.

>>8510
Very nice, anon! Working from home is a definite major change that can result in a bunch of positives but also introduce some challenges. Props to you for not only making the most of what you can out of your opportunity, but also seeking to improve it even more.

For the monotony issue, personally, I do everything on a loose schedule as an attempt to prevent the feeling of being in a time loop. The things I do may not always be the exact same. It's almost as if I do things on a whim but not quite. It might also be my own mindset of me just being content with small, subtle changes. It's hard to explain concisely.

A small example is that I have an oil diffuser that I use daily, but I always put different scents in, and sometimes I may run it an extra time much later just because I felt like it. I have moments where I want a dark floral scent multiple days in a row. But if I did lavender yesterday, then maybe I'd do a blend of a little patchouli and rose geranium today. But of course, I have a wide variety of scents I can choose from that range from what I just mentioned, to citrusy, to baked sweets scents like vanilla, to even minty fresh scents. It helps each day feel more unique to me no matter how similar some scents can be, even though at the end of the day I'm just putting on my oil diffuser at roughly the same time almost every day.

In a similar vein as a suggestion, maybe you could plan out specific categories of meals that you'd be fine with? It could be helpful especially if you feel like having something multiple days in a row. Let's say you like having scrambled eggs for breakfast a lot. Maybe on the days you feel like having eggs, it can be a general "eggs" breakfast day where you can look forward to having something eggy. One day, you can have an omelette, and the next, you can make an egg-in-a-hole, and the next, an egg and cheese sandwich. The list goes on. That's of course, not taking into account of any other types of breakfast foods that you may enjoy so you can probably expand your horizons greatly. Don't forget you can be experimental and slightly alter your recipes too with toppings, spices, sweeteners, and sauces!

Either way, keep it up and do please keep me posted if you come up with something about your living room and the monotony thing! I'm still particularly jelly of your park experiences. It sounds so peaceful and relaxing. Having amicable relations with the local kitty gang is the cherry on top and sounds like quite the incredible privilege to have against rival uncomfy types. :)

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My approach to getting comfy has always been about the maintenance of a strict routine. I don't like having any uncomfy surprises or unnecessary hassle, especially in the morning, so I will eat the same thing and wear the same outfit nearly every day. I keep several of the same sets of clothing and keep a stocked fridge of nutritionally balanced but repetitive meals. A lot of people I know think its monotonous but I don't really see it that way. My life is random and varied enough despite these little rituals.

When I really want to dial in the comfy I'll arrange a fishing trip with some friends. Drive into some cute village with a lake running through and stay there into the evening reminiscing.

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I have a revolving set of comfy images for my work desktop.  There is a variety of food, architecture, scenery, everyday items, and people.  It makes the day a bit more comfy.  Most of them were pulled off Wikipedia or one board or another, but a few are mine this cocktail picture.  I love it dearly.

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>>8523
>My life is random and varied enough despite these little rituals.
Agreed. Couldn't have said it better, even though my routine isn't as strict as yours from the sounds of it. It's important to have some control of our routines.

>When I really want to dial in the comfy I'll arrange a fishing trip with some friends. Drive into some cute village with a lake running through and stay there into the evening reminiscing.
I'd like to get into fishing again. It's relaxing but at the same time it's a bit too distracting for me to relax doing. I need to get a better understanding of a mindset like yours for that. Nonetheless, I understand why you do it. There's something about the late hours being pretty comfy so I spend my time with nature in a different way. Three times a week every other day at night, I do some running. After I finish running, before I walk home, I sit at a secluded clearing deep in the woods to gaze upon the stars and the moon. It's my special spot. Occasionally I hear coyotes nearby and it can make me nervous, but it doesn't change the fact that it's worth it every time. The starscape, the ambient lighting, and sounds of nightlife always make for such a beautiful experience. There's a pond which adds to it and helps with self-reflection. Pun intended!

>>8527
Can relate. I'm very fond of cozy wallpapers. Particularly dark ones. Especially if they feel nostalgic and stir up good memories. At the moment, I have pic related. It stirs up some nostalgia for me regardless of it being photoshopped to look like it's nighttime. I'm considering changing it to something authentic though. Whether it's to something like macOS 10.5/10.6 or an original photo I'll take for myself, I don't know yet. I thought about taking a picture of the spot at the pond I mentioned above, but I think reserving it only for when I visit it in person makes it more special.

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Today, I gave the scented shower steamers a try. I still smell the lavender as I type this as a matter of fact, and it's so soothing. However, the experience wasn't what I expected. As pleasant as it was, I thought it would be vaguely similar to taking a bath. I could just take a bath, but I can't let go of showering because it makes shaving easier, and I believe it's cleaner than a bath. I'll still admit that I'm a little envious of people who aren't as fussy about baths as I am, but I can't really dwell on making showering super-duper comfy as baths are due to my post-shower routine. I shower at night before bed which means I can take my time brushing my teeth, water flossing, applying lotion, cleaning my glasses, and putting on perfume. Feeling warm, clean, and fuzzy inside after a shower is good just from a shower by itself, but having post-shower care be very involved is just fantastic for me. I'm always out like a light after all of that. The bed's probably the comfiest place for me to be after a shower.

So instead of focusing on the bathroom, I suspect that my bedroom might make better use of my time and effort. Come to think of it, the strongest source of my comfiness is my bedroom. My bedroom is like a super private den that I'm able to set up in the exact way I want. As a plus, I don't have to worry about what a stranger would think because I only allow people who are very close to me to see it. That's why it makes me feel so safe and cozy compared to any other room in my house. With all that in mind, I might as well add on to something already comfy, right? Right now, the only thing I'm displeased with is how warm it can get in my bedroom when I have my computer on playing games. I live in an older house innawoods that's kinda isolated on a mountain so I can't cough up money for proper ventilation for the entire house unless I want to go broke. Maybe it won't be too hard to rearrange some stuff. I could have my PC's exhaust fans face the door to blow heat out of my room. While I'm at it, I could see about finding a better placement for my desk fan since it's shoved away into a corner on the opposite side of my room. All of that will be on my todo list.

In the meantime, it's gonna sound silly but I've been bummed that my weather's too cold and rainy for outdoor exercises. Sure, that weather is lovely for staying inside to laze around and cook hot soups and stews, but I wish I could come up with an alternative indoor exercise to running. Running is something I find fun. On the contrary, running on a treadmill and doing a bunch of jumping jacks in one place just makes me feel like I'm grinding a tedious MMO. I already have a daily five-minute routine that is just exercising in place with nothing but music, so I'm reluctant to add another one unless it's fun and engaging. It's definitely an issue with my mindset. If anyone has any suggestions, it'd be much appreciated.

Stay comfy out there, anons! Your posts are cozy, delightful to read, and inspirational to me. Please keep them coming if possible.

>>8742
I know this will sound idiotic, and it probably is, but maybe you could use some sort of external heat absorption/retention for your pc like a big sheet of metal or perhaps some sort of heavy ceramics?  You might be able to temporarily capture some of the heat and cause it to warm air a bit more slowly and comfortably that way.

As for exercise suggestions, maybe just go run in the rain even though it's cold? I love rain. I love how it sounds, the smell of the wet plants and soil, and the way everything reflects light when it is wet. I thinks it's all rather beautiful. It might be kinda fun if you can stay reasonably comfortable and there isn't some sort of safety concern like ice.

Spending time offline, even if I'm at my computer.  I slow down, stop multitasking.  It's like meditating in how thoughts that would normally never occur start to come up.  It doesn't take long for the "I wonder what's happening on..." thoughts to desist.  Then it's just me and the bottomless stack of things I actually want to do with my time.

Working on convenience programs is also pretty nice.  I wrote a script last week that lets me raise a window by fuzzy-selecting its title, and bound it to a hotkey.  These personalized touches make things much comfier.  Especially the ones that save me from having to go digging through the filesystem to find a book or piece of sourcecode.

Another one lets me select archived videos by thumbnail.  

>>8742
>computer exhaust
I'm concerned about this, myself.  I have a nice, big machine that I bought a few months ago, and I'm not looking forward to when the outside temperature swings 50 degrees warmer.

I was thinking I'd put the tower in the basement and connect to it via SSH or VNC using my laptop.  Though I don't know if that'd be tenable for gaming; it'd add a few frames of lag, I should think.

>cardio
I recommend— though you probably won't like this— burpees.  The way the exercise alternately puts demands on your upper and lower body supposedly makes it excellent cardio, and doing more than 40 or 50 reps is fairly difficult.

I also recommend proper bodyweight progressions, like planches, handstands, etc.

Or maybe TV aerobics?  There's probably some of that on youtube.  I'm getting deja vu writing this; I hope I'm not repeating myself.

Thanks for your suggestions, anons. They're very much appreciated!

>>8745
>maybe you could use some sort of external heat absorption/retention for your pc
That's not a bad idea. Even though the main issue is the lack of airflow in my house, every possible way to address the heat helps. I'll see if I can explore some options to make it heat up more gradually at the least.

>As for exercise suggestions, maybe just go run in the rain even though it's cold?
I agree with everything you mentioned about rain: the white noise, the smell, and the hazy look that washes over everything. I have a soft spot for moody, peaceful atmospheres. The urge to stay inside and snuggle up is my Achilles heel but unfortunately, even if I didn't have that temptation, my main concern isn't about me, but rather, other people outside.

For starters, I run at night which limits visibility already, but rain will make it harder for drivers to see me. Due to the time of night and my community, I'm certain those drivers may be driving while high or drunk (usually the former), and the water may become icy. To top it off, my nearby roads don't have pavement. Also, there's mud and deeper pools of water that make driving a bit more hazardous, and I'll be drenched in filthy rainwater if someone decides to drive by me and not slow down. I just don't feel at ease running at night due to my worries about other people.

I could run during the day, but I'd like to keep it at night so I can shower right after and be ready for bed. Running during daylight might be a bit uncomfy because I don't want to have sweat on my skin for most of the day.

>>8747
>I was thinking I'd put the tower in the basement and connect to it via SSH or VNC using my laptop
Sounds ideal for turn-based games, digital tabletop games, and maybe singleplayer games too if they don't require much reaction time. Neat idea! Do let me know how it works out for you if you decide to go through with it.

>I recommend— though you probably won't like this— burpees.
Burpees were always fun to do. I avoided doing them for a while though because I've heard that they can actually be bad for you if your form isn't near-perfect, and I already have a bad knee from an injury I got from my childhood (I feel dull pain and inflammation if I jump from a squat a few times). But come to think of it, if I do it slowly and carefully, and since it'll only be an alternative exercise on the days I can't run, it should be fine. If worse comes to worst, I think I might give high-intensity yoga a try, since the movements involved look very cool and interesting, and there would be less impact on my knee.

>Spending time offline, even if I'm at my computer.  I slow down, stop multitasking.
Does it happen on its own, or do you purposefully hone your energy to accomplish that? Would you say it's like having increased focus or achieving tranquility? It seems like it'd be a very useful and mindful habit to adopt.

>convenience programs
That sounds so rad! I can relate, since I made personal mods for games to make them comfier for me to play. I find the process quite therapeutic. Do you mind elaborating on what you mean by having one that lets you select videos by thumbnail, though? Don't videos have thumbnails on most OSes in the file browser already?

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>Burpees were always fun to do.
Now that you mention it, I did have knee pain the first few times I did burpees.  I learned quickly that your knees have to be aligned with your ankles the same as in regular squats.  I can see why that would be a problem if you've had an injury.

>Does it happen on its own, or do you purposefully hone your energy to accomplish that?
There's a sense of richness that arises from engaging in the content that I've seen fit to archive.  Audiobooks, classical music and such.  To spend time like this is to spend it with the greatest minds of history, as they say.  To so immerse oneself in beautiful things for a week or more, uninterrupted by the inanities of modern life has a profound effect.

There's also the contagion of negativity, the awareness of which is easy to lose when online habitually.  It's not just people being overtly vicious, but also desperate, grasping.  Being on the internet seems to come with a whole ball of assumptions about life, and seeing how people behave after being offline for awhile is very strange.  Like they're hypnotized, acting out instructions rather than acting of their own will.

>Don't videos have thumbnails on most OSes in the file browser already?
Yeah, but I had technical reasons not to embed the thumbnails.  I also assume a file browser isn't as flexible as what a few lines of Bash can do, in terms of filtering.

I've started doing yoga once a week. The lady who teaches it is very nice, but the classes are brutal, I'm talking very active almost aerobic yoga, and she usually goes like 10 or 15 minutes over the timeslot, and it's usually very warm and kind of crowded. Despite all the uncomfortable features it becomes /comfy/ and that level of, I don't know, radical acceptance(?) makes everything in my life more comfy.

maybe it sounds very boring, but constantly cleaning my home makes me very comfy, even the mere act of cleaning can be very relaxing. the best part is when you finish the cleaning part and start relaxing making a warm drink and listening an album or just doing in the PC.

>>8924
Same here, I always keep my home clean and I really enjoy it. It's an important part that helps me keeping it cozy and feel good in my den.
Also taking care of my green plants :)

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I have a rule where I ban certain thoughts at night so I can allow myself to relax and unwind. Concerns about tomorrow and the future, things that anger me, un/comfy/ thought, ect. Unless I'm actually doing something about it that night, they are set aside and I say to myself "I can think and deal with this later". This practice to me is like mental PJ's.

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A few days ago, I tore down my grandparent's old eyesore of a shed in preparation for a new one which will be coming soon. It was a project that was long overdue, but it still felt great to actually get around to it. It stood up for 70-80 years, longer than anyone in my surviving family has been alive for. However, my grandparents never really maintained it, so it had a whole slew of problems. Its shingles were crumbling away on top of its already weak, leading to the roof bowing inward. Water leaked into it whenever there was rain, and since my grandpa used it as a place to store his tools (in a very haphazard fashion), mostly everything inside it became so rusty, I wouldn't doubt if you'd get tetanus from holding one for a few seconds. Oh, and it didn't have a door, so a thief could've stolen something from it if they really wanted to. That's if they were able to find what they wanted to steal within a sea of old rusty tools literally covering all the tables, shelves, and parts of the floor! Well, it doesn't matter now. I already went through some of his tools with my grandma, throwing away some that were absolutely no good, setting aside some that we weren't sure about, and keeping the ones that we know are useful and useable. I'm looking forward to putting up the new shed once it arrives. The new one is not only going to look a lot nicer, but also have a functional door with a lock. I'll just have to make sure my grandpa stays organized so the new shed doesn't suffer a similar fate!

Here's one revelation I had around the day I tore down the shed: holy cow, binoculars are dope. One night I managed to look at the moon through binoculars I used for birdwatching, and it felt surreal to see the moon's craters and smaller ditches that were harder to see with the naked eye. It made me consider getting a telescope, or at the very least, a monocular with much stronger optics and zoom than my binoculars for when I go running so I can stop and look at the night sky on a whim whenever I want as I'm walking home or something. Telescopes are a bit trickier because I don't really have space in my room to have one set up, and I'd like to incorporate looking at the night sky with my running. We'll see if anything comes of this. Nature is gorgeous, but space is gorgeous too.

In other news, I'm looking to change up my diet a little bit. I'm a big fan of yogurt (especially if there's strawberry in it), ice cream, and peanut butter in general. They're my favorites but having finger foods that are great to snack on at the computer effortlessly would be very convenient for me. Most of my snacks have a lot of silverware involved, and they usually require two hands (one for the silverware, one to hold the bowl/container in place). I'm thinking that maybe I could start eating celery with peanut butter, and I could also use celery with salad dressing to change things up a little. It feels like there's a lot of potential there, in terms of convenient and tasty snacks that are clean and don't take much hassle to set up. Are there any anons that have a particular snack of choice? What's the consensus here on snacks that might be a little messy/take a lot of your attention to eat vs. snacks that are light and almost quick to eat?

>>8881
I can relate, sort of. I think that "feelgood"/comfy feeling has something to do with knowing that you are making positive progress, even if it's unpleasant. Some people feel a lot happier when they exercise because they know that they did it and they won't have to go through the feeling of regretting not doing it. The feeling of victory is not only sweet, but comfy!

>>8924
>>8927
Massive +1 to that. I also love organizing and deleting temporary files on my devices. It's surprising how many files are left over from uninstalling games and whatnot. It's pretty much a ritual I do often. Not only that, but I go through the settings and change some things to give it a makeover, like colors, fonts, etc. I do the same with my social media too, updating and changing some things in some "About Me" or changing my profile picture. It's like a digital version of tidying up and updating what has changed.

>>8936
That sounds great! I really ought to practice mindfulness and meditation again. I assume that's basically what you're doing. The only issue for me is that my brain is a bit paradoxical. It's hard for me to realize that something is wrong, but also, it's hard for me to not feel anxious or troubled. It's like my mind is perpetually in this "in-between" state. Or maybe it's anxiety. It's difficult for me to concentrate. Maybe I should look at meditation in a different light. Maybe being able to meditate properly and consistently (like every night, in your case) isn't necessarily doing nothing, but rather, taking control of your thoughts instead of letting them run rogue. What I wouldn't give for my brain to actually put worrisome thoughts for tomorrow... One day!

>>9503
Sometimes I'm just going about my night while banning the thoughts (I wish it was as simple as flipping a switch, but at times it requires consistent effort) and sometimes it is full-on meditation. For me, meditation is generally devoting your full attention to your thoughts and feelings for a time (I say "for me" because the term 'meditation' has a vague definition these days). It creates an opening to eliminate confusion of what I'm thinking and feeling, just by getting in touch with what I'm thinking and feeling. When I can finally see what I'm thinking and feeling, I can instigate the causes, and question if my thoughts and feelings actually have any truth to them.

This meditation is a process of creating a window into your mind to see what's going on, as a means to take control, as you say. I hope you do find some peace of mind.

>>9503
I mostly do low effort snacks.  I like meat snacks like jerky or salami. Salami can be a bit oily but toothpicks ore something could help keep your fingers clean.

I also like instant soup packets you mix into water.  Miso ones are generaly my favorite.