Category Archives: My Hug

Week 10 Summary: Christopher’s Birthday! ๐ŸŽ‚

This was a week with some painful lows but still some happy moments. I went to see my mom, we had family visit, we celebrated Christopher’s birthday, my mom’s immigration process finally had movement, and I completed my first race (well, it was a walk) since restarting my daily strolls. I also took Kotoko to the vet, some tests were done, and the results were not good.

Because of those test results, I want to warn you that this post will discuss pet illness and impending (though not immediate) loss. Because it’ll come right away, under the Monday summary, there is no cut: if you keep reading, it’ll be after the “soot” photo. So please be aware of that. Anyway, let’s get on with the summary.

๐ŸŒˆ Monday ๐ŸŒˆ

Let’s start Monday with something utterly delightful. Remember the soots from last week? The blue soot at this employee’s desk has been graced with a tiny hat!

I love the idea of someone possibly purposely bringing this hat to work for this soot. It’s so cute.

๐Ÿ’ž Pet Illness/Loss CW Starts Here ๐Ÿ’ž

Now, with much regret, I must move on to a more somber topic. You might recall I mentioned on my last post that I planned to take Kotoko to the vet on Monday. Her projectile vomiting is somewhat controlled by occasional Cerenia, but with no specific cause, I wanted to try the vet near our house and see if anything else had developed that our usual, beloved and trusted vet, Dr. Pisano, had not seen at the time. It was also time for a new blood test.

Kotoko was quite noisy as everything was done to her –check-up, x-rays, blood work. She was in discomfort, her tummy tense, and the x-rays would show other motives too. Here she is attentively listening to the vet talk about her:

After the x-rays were done, the vet took me to the back to show them to me. In this first one, if you know what you are looking at, you will catch a few things: the first being the spacing between her last few vertebrae, where an irreversible degeneration is occurring. This is painful for Kotoko, and probably made the x-rays more uncomfortable too.

The more important one is the thickening, or potential mass, in her stomach:

Because of her long-standing other symptoms, there isn’t exactly a multitude of possibilities here. It is almost certainly IBS or lymphoma, or IBS that became lymphoma. Kotoko’s blood tests also came back, and they showed the first stage of kidney failure. So as you can see, she is dealing with a lot.

The prognosis is not good. Kidney situation aside, this is a fast-acting disease, and Kotoko is 15 years old. We could do an ultrasound, and possibly need a biopsy to boot ($1,300 at a minimum if both are needed) but all this would tell us is how little time we have left. The course of action would not change.

We have decided to not subject her to any more diagnostics. Instead, we will use our funds for the best prescription foods, for daily medications that will substantially improve her comfort, and in paying for the service that will allow us to say a comfortable goodbye at home when the time does come (this is very expensive, hundreds of dollars).

And really, it could be fast. It could be two months. We could get unlucky, and it could be less, or we could get lucky, and it could be longer. We are going to do all we can to enjoy whatever time is left with her. We might just get lucky in how much time that is. Why not think positive? But even if we don’t, I know I’ll take a lot of comfort in the fact that, at 15, Kotoko has had such a long and happy life. She could have hardly had more loving or dedicated pet parents, if I do say so myself. She also had kitty friends, and many human friends to boot.

You might have seen me mention something very vague on Mastodon. It was about this. I didn’t want to go into detail, because even someone who understands pet loss may not realize why this loss will be so major to us. We’ve experienced severe heartbreak over pet loss before –this will be of a different magnitude. We will be okay. But because this isn’t a normal pet loss situation (I don’t think I could properly explain why) it will be a while until we are.

But I also want to concentrate in the here and now: with daily Cerenia, Kotoko already is showing a big improvement. No more vomiting, much bigger appetite. She just looks more lively. She’s a sturdy cat, and as long as she is here, we will love her and be grateful for her. Later we will have time to grieve. Before that time comes, I am also doing some things like a cute little cast of her paw, and a stamped imprint of it as well. I might do more things if I can think of them.

Something interesting that you can see in this other x-ray is that Kotoko has an extra rib, like some people or animals have an extra toe:

Let me close this part with a little more positivity. I really liked this vet, which is walking distance from us. They also have some chill office cats, three of them. Here’s a photo of one of them:

๐Ÿ’ž Pet Illness/Loss CW Ends Here ๐Ÿ’ž

Monday evening I completed the Snoopy Run, 13.1 miles! I walked it, though.

My medal should be here by the weekend.

๐ŸŒˆ Tuesday ๐ŸŒˆ

The most significant event that happened on this day is that my mom’s immigration case entered the last stage on USCIS. She should have her residence soon… I hope!

A funny thing happened too. Tomoyo has a tendency to fling her toys high in the air when she plays. Well, while I was having lunch, this landed on my plate:

It actually landed ON my food (gross) but I moved it off right away. Meanwhile, she was just innocently waiting for me to return it to her:

Here’s a random photo of our sweet old lady:

In the evening I got dropped off at my mom’s. She gave Christopher his birthday present before he and our partner left. Then we had snacks, and wine, played Generala, and talked about a million things.

For dinner we had a baked potato:

๐ŸŒˆ Wednesday ๐ŸŒˆ

Wednesday was a calm day. Here’s Sweeney being very cute:

In the afternoon my mom made really delicious egg bites, and we watched TV together.

Later I lay down a while and played more Legends: Arceus.

Not long after, our partner picked me up. Once we got back home, I made the guys dinner, then tea, and just did my best to keep Christopher cheerful. Between the bad news this week and his back hurting so much without a break, it’s been really rough for him.

๐ŸŒˆ Thursday ๐ŸŒˆ

Thursday was Christopher’s birthday. I prepared his presents on his desk before he woke up:

I also hid one in his book bag so he’d have something to open at work. He liked most of them. ๐Ÿ˜Š In the evening, we had dinner at Blue Ginger to celebrate. It was really good!

On this day I finished reading another book. Though it was comics, it was really long, as it was an omnibus of all the Muppet Babies comics, plus the comic in which they first appear (The Muppets Take Manhattan). That marks the seventh book I’ve read this year. With it being March already, this may not sound like much, but “It” was well over 1,100 pages… so that took a while.

The Muppet Babies Omnibus was delightful. Some frames made me do a double take! ๐Ÿ˜ณ

Baby Rowlf was adorable…

There were a lot of funny fourth wall breaking moments. This one was particularly amusing!

Next, I’m going to finish The Last Days of the Dinosaurs by Riley Black.

I decided to move one of the cat stairs to the porch to make it easier for Kotoko to access the chairs, particularly in light of her spine degeneration. She uses it, but right now, mostly sleeps on the bigger step rather than the chair, I guess because it became “new” again. Elliot sleeps on the chair.

It’s been so much fun to feed the birds and squirrels at the front of the house. Here’s a photo I took on this day:

Down the road, I would like to buy a bench and a birdbath, so I can enjoy seeing them up close while I’m outside reading a book.

๐ŸŒˆ Friday ๐ŸŒˆ

Let’s start Friday off with this photo of Tomoyo lounging on my chest. Really, she’s just waiting to be fed.

It was cage cleaning day, so here’s a couple of photos of a cutie:

๐ŸŒˆ Saturday ๐ŸŒˆ

Saturday morning we went to look at garage sales, a favorite activity when family visits. You never know what you’ll find!

For lunch we went to Chili’s. I had Palmito in my backpack so I took photos of him on this day:

You very likely have never seen Palmito, Robito or Rosemary (the skunk, not the cat). These little plushies were the first I ever took places with me back in the heyday of Toyvoyagers.

Though the website is still accessible on the date of me making this post, and the odd Travelog still updates, Toyvoyagers are sadly very much defunct. The idea was that you bought a little metal tag with a unique number for your toy, and left it places, and hoped someone would update its Travelog. It did happen! Alternatively, you could send your toy to one person elsewhere in the world, and then they would come back. Or you could have it join a “round robin” of locations.

All of my Toyvoyagers went places and brought me back souvenirs. It’s nice to be taking them out again.

When we got back from lunch, I found my latest medal in the mailbox. It’s really pretty!

I also have the t-shirt (though I won’t make a habit of ordering those) and the race bib with my number, which I’ll probably use for a scrapbooking page.

Christopher gave me $5 and I got some goodies while out garage saling:

This book is for dungeon masters but really cool and inspiring nonetheless!

And I couldn’t leave this little guy behind:

I’ve washed and disinfected him, so he’s ready for cuddling!

For Christopher’s birthday dinner, we went to Buca Di Beppo. We had chicken parmigiana, stuffed shells, meatballs, and garlic bread. We had a coupon for a free dessert for Christopher that was big enough for the five of us!

It’s really nice to be taking Palmito out for photos again. It’s been many years.

After we got home, we hung out at the house watching Christopher play GTA 5 (always fun) and then our friend Jessie came over, so we watched the two of them and our partner play the Stick Fight game on Steam. It was a really nice and chill evening.

๐ŸŒˆ Sunday ๐ŸŒˆ

I went on my usual five mile walk, and stopped by Target. I hadn’t been to Target all year. They had a new version of their Sesame Street figures that was really cute:

Christopher made a really good pasta with zucchini for dinner. It looked far too healthy to be so delicious, I was pleasantly surprised. Can’t wait to have it again.

I usually only sleep with Grover, but on this night I wanted to cuddle my new triceratops friend too. Grover didn’t mind sharing!

Before we know it, March will be over… the rainy season will come, with it the humid and oppressive heat, and then hurricane season. Time is flying, but I’m trying to make the best of it, and I hope you all are too. Let’s make this coming week a wonderful one!

Week 7 Summary: Valentine’s Day And More ๐Ÿ’˜

Happy Sunday, friends! Here I am with another weekly summary. So far, I still haven’t been able to recover my determination for all my yearly resolutions. It’s very frustrating when life gets in the way of them, even if it’s fun things that get in the way, but I haven’t completely fallen of the wagon. Anyway, let me tell you about our Valentine’s week!

๐ŸŒˆ Monday & Tuesday ๐ŸŒˆ

Not much to say about Monday –I spent it getting everything ready for Valentine’s Day, which was Tuesday. Tuesday morning I gave Christopher his present. I wish I’d taken a picture of how I set it all up –the canvas all wrapped up, his bunny next to it, the card and the chocolates. It was there for him to find when he came down to breakfast. But, I can at least show you the drawing I printed on canvas for him:

Our partner ate his Valentine brigadeiros throughout the day. Around noon he took me to Best Buy to pick up some pretty Razer RGB headphones he bought me as a surprise, but they ended up being the wrong ones, so we returned them and ordered different ones later. We got lunch while we were out and it was still a really nice outing, especially since I’d still been feeling pretty low from the week before.

In the evening I went to see my mom, but before leaving, I left his card on his nightstand, and Christopher gave me mine. ๐Ÿฅฐ It was actually one of the nicest cards he ever gave me.

When I got there, my mom had a whole fondue spread prepared!

Then we played the new chutes and ladders game. It was really fun and reminded me of playing it with my grandma when I was little!

I gave my mom a card, some chocolates, and a little potted orchid. She had a card for me too!

This was actually a really fun evening. It cheered me up.

๐ŸŒˆ Wednesday ๐ŸŒˆ

On Wednesday morning, we had mate as usual. E.T. had some, too!

And Sweeney enjoyed some cat grinder time:

We found out that E.T. can cross his fingers! Doesn’t this snack spread look nice…

Also, man, it’s so weird but E.T. has always reminded me of my dad. Even when I was a toddler, he was really old and wrinkled. My child brain always thought they looked similar, and I know I even said so… poor dad. ๐Ÿ˜…

Also isn’t this Daniel Tiger juice cap super cute?

With Shampoo gone, Sweeney has gotten more and more affectionate with my mom…

Don’t mind his swishy tail at times, Sweeney is a bit of an oddball. He was really happy, purring intensely.

This was a really enjoyable visit. I was home with enough time to do a bunch of chores which is always good.

๐ŸŒˆ Thursday ๐ŸŒˆ

I was very busy most of this day, but here’s a photo of Christopher’s (slightly) late Valentine’s Day present!

Always thrilled to get Godiva, I’d be surprised if they last me a week, haha. The Santa chocolates were an extra sorta freebie. ๐ŸŽ…

๐ŸŒˆ Friday ๐ŸŒˆ

On this weekend, Christopher’s Grandma and my mom-in-law came to visit. They brought the little ceramics we painted on our last visit. I think they turned out adorable!

Friday night was really special. For no particular reason other than family visiting, we all went to a nice, fancy restaurant, “Jaya at the Setai”. It was a very glamorous place! There was a huge pool in the middle. Not a swimming pool, I mean a decorative pool:

Here’s Christopher and Grandma…

I had a Fig Old Fashioned. It was my first time drinking whiskey. I LOVED this thing! The cinnamon stick had been burned just a little. It smelled so good.

It had an odd menu –some Thai stuff, some Indian, some Japanese. At first glance, I struggled to find something I thought I’d enjoy. But everything I ate was an amazing experience, it didn’t feel like simply “eating dinner”. I think it might be my favorite fancy restaurant that I’ve ever eaten at!

There was a colorful gallery attached to the hotel/restaurant. While a lot of the stuff was cute (and I love anything with Harvey characters) the idea of rich-ass people buying stuff with these moneyed characters and even Bitcoin symbols is SO cringy to me, haha. ๐Ÿ˜… But it made for some fun photos:

When we got home, we saw this pretty beetle hanging on our door:

I’ve gotten to a point with my manuscript where I desperately need guidance of a sort that many, many Google searches have proven unhelpful with. I tried to use my old Nook e-reader to just get free e-book versions with my accumulated credits, but it was sticky and gross (the material that it is made of degraded horrible with age) so I bit the bullet and got some manuals. They are very useful and are being pivotal in preventing a block I can’t get past at a key moment in the book:

๐ŸŒˆ Saturday ๐ŸŒˆ

To start this day, here is a cute photo of Kotoko napping outside in the late morning…

We had Mod Pizza for lunch!

After that, everyone went inside JOANN to find a frame for the Asuka puzzle that was recently put together. I stayed in the car to avoid temptations, and our partner surprised me with a Blue lollipop holder when they came back!

Later, I spent some time drawing for myself and reading about mapmaking. I spent time outside with our partner doing these things. The weather was mild and it was a highlight of my weekend for sure. Kotoko even kept me company after he left:

Later in the day we went out to buy coals for our partner’s hookah, and he treated me to a geode which you could hammer open. I didn’t actually know what it would be like inside, so it was a magical experience for me. And it looks like a perfect little dinosaur egg!

In the evening, after dinner, we watched the work-in-progress version of Beauty And The Beast on Laserdisc.

It was a really fun experience!

๐ŸŒˆ Sunday ๐ŸŒˆ

Grandma and my mom-in-law went home on this day, but first we went to have breakfast together:

It was the first time I really didn’t like my food at The Village Tavern. The potatoes were undercooked, and the crab cakes were really fishy. But the little muffin was delicious.

Now I have to tell you about a definite conscious decision to make an exception to my no-new-toys rule –one I would and will do again if another release like this happens. Outside of the Colossal line, my most favorite Jurassic toy line is their Imaginext toys, and within them, the SUPER cheap, super sturdy, XL dinos.

These are released rarely. It’s been such a long time since the last one. Well, they decided to come out with a rainbow chicken I mean pyroraptor. I was not going to pass it up, especially not under $10! I finally opened the box after family left:

I love the art on these boxes and had to save it for future scrapbooking!

You can see next to my hand what a sizable boy it is, and so colorful and cute. I was over the moon when it came in. A colorful highlight to my week! Absolutely no regrets about this one.

I’m gonna call them Salsa, or maybe Fiesta. ๐Ÿค” I still haven’t decided.

Anyway, that’s all for this week! Also I want to say, if you are reading this on your email, MANY times I edit mistakes immediately after posting, but you’ll always see just the first version in your email, I think… sorry about that. You’re generally better off reading posts directly on the site.

Have a great week, everyone!

Week 6 Summary: Kind Of A “Blah” One ๐Ÿคทโ€โ™€๏ธ

So this week was very blah. Even though all the dates will be correct, I am, in fact, writing this entry almost three weeks late. I’ve been low, keeping my resolutions has been a struggle and I’ve failed often. But hey, it’s only February, every week brings little triumphs and stumbles. All I can do is keep going, right?

๐ŸŒˆ Monday ๐ŸŒˆ

This was an unproductive day. I was tired, in a low mood (as was Christopher) and I wasn’t able to get any writing done. But I got a new board game to play with my mom (a remake of the 70’s version of Chutes & Ladders) which arrived on this day.

I also added three new goals to my 2023 resolutions. I firmly believe all are achievable, in spite of less than ideal weeks like this one. A lot of this may be put on pause or adjusted if and when I find a full or part time job, but for now, I want to add them. They are as follows:

๐ŸŒˆ Watch One VHS Tape Per Month
๐ŸŒˆ Catalog All My Books Into LibraryThing
๐ŸŒˆ Play Every Unplayed Board Game In Our Shelves At Least Twice

After dinner, I baked some cookies to cheer us all up:

๐ŸŒˆ Tuesday ๐ŸŒˆ

On this day I went to Publix. I got Valentine’s cards and chocolates for everyone, as well as wrapping for Christopher’s Valentine’s Day present, and ingredients for the present I’m making for our partner (brigadeiros). I scanned the scrapbook pages I’ve made so far and added them to the Resolutions page, but you can see them here as well:

I’m going to make a cover page for my scrapbook next.

On this day I also received this lovely Halloween themed surprise from TheWanderingShepherd on FA! Thank you, Shep!

I watched more of 3000 Leagues In Search Of Mother while drawing the February Patreon rewards…

For lunch I had a turkey wrap and some veggie chips…

Later in the day, this guy came. He’s one of my favorite dinosaur plushies ever! Paralophosaurus are one of my favorite dinosaurs.

I’ve yet to think of a name… I got him with a gift card so I am not counting him against my goal for the year.

For dinner, we had handmade salmon burgers, they were great:

๐ŸŒˆ Wednesday ๐ŸŒˆ

It being Wednesday, I zoomed with my mom as usual. Christopher didn’t feel well, so he stayed home. I did chores all day, and for dinner, made a chicken salad:

๐ŸŒˆ Thursday ๐ŸŒˆ

On this day I decided to finally make a Mastodon account. So, if you want, you can follow me here. Following a friend’s advice I’ve decided not to limit myself so much on social media, for the sake of my livelihood. So, my art account is back on Instagram too, and I made a Retrospring to connect with my commissioners as well.

I had an egg, radish and cheese sandwich for lunch, on french bread. It was really good!

During date night, I built this little pirate ride:

For dinner, we had pizza!

After I made the bed, I took this photo of Grover because he’d ended up doing a floppy fall on top of the blanket that made him look really playful:

Grover has become my permanent sleep buddy so he always wears his PJs. He’s slept with me for well over a year now, longer than any other plushie.

๐ŸŒˆ Friday ๐ŸŒˆ

This was another very blah day. I can’t remember what happened on this day, I’m sorry. But I did discover that popcorn is a really nice low-calorie snack. ๐Ÿฟ๐Ÿคทโ€โ™€๏ธ

๐ŸŒˆ Saturday & Sunday ๐ŸŒˆ

We didn’t do anything special this weekend but it was a busy one. Saturday morning, while our partner still slept, Christopher and I hung out together and watched Kotoko walk all over his desk, very rare for this old lady to do. He thought it was hilarious when we showed him the pictures.

Throughout the weekend, we worked hard to clean the porch, mow the lawn, and just tidy things up. As a little reward for working hard, our partner took me out to dinner to Five Guys, and then to have frozen yogurt at Menchie’s. Both were such wonderful treats!

I badly wished Christopher had joined us but he was neither hungry nor did he feel up to going out. But I sent him this picture of Asuka that I saw on the doodle board at the restaurant:

And that’s it for this week. Definitely not as exciting as others and I apologize for my mood not being so great throughout. But at least I blogged it still. That’s gotta count for something. ๐Ÿ˜Š

Week 4 Summary: Old Friends ๐Ÿฅฐ

This was, for sure, a much better week! Itโ€™s been a bit of a battle, but slowly Iโ€™ve been clawing my way back to more successful days, with more goals accomplished. This week we got to have dinner and hang out a little with our beloved friends Kitty (whom you might know as Blankit) and her husband Dan. That was a huge treat, as we hadnโ€™t seen them in forever. Let me tell you about that, and about the rest of my week, below!

๐ŸŒˆ Monday ๐ŸŒˆ

The week started off a little rough. Work has been deeply stressful for poor Christopher and it was having the worst effect on his mental health at the end of the weekend and start of this week (you might recall me mentioning last week that he wasnโ€™t doing so well). So that was on my mind a lot on Monday.

I did a lot of laundry and worked a lot on my fantasy novel on this day, to catch up on what I couldn’t do the previous day. I wrote a total of 1,540 words which was really satisfying. Other than that, I donโ€™t have much else to share about this day beyond this photo I took at bedtime:

I was feeling so cozy in my little corner playing Pokรฉmon that I decided to take a photo to remember that pleasant feeling. ๐Ÿฅฐ

๐ŸŒˆ Tuesday ๐ŸŒˆ

Another day on which I missed writing, but since I caught up so much on Tuesday, I was still good for my weekly goal. I also exercised and gamed a decent amount.

Tuesday I made the decision to set up a cohost account, finally. It wasnโ€™t as hard as I thought, and I was very pleased with the result:

I think it looks pretty nice! I also got cohost Plus! to help support the site. Staff activated me for posting the same day, and I have been enjoying interacting with people over there since.

๐ŸŒˆ Wednesday ๐ŸŒˆ

This was a special day –and a very busy one! As usual, it started with breakfast on the couch, reading a book, having mate and enjoying Elliot’s company:

Afterwards, I spent a few hours doing chores and straightening up the house. This included cleaning the snail tank:

At noon, I had the usual Zoom call with my mom. I worked on commissions and did more chores before hopping in the shower. Soon after I got out, Kitty and Dan arrived! We showed off the house to them and then left to go to Nine Five PhแปŸ together for a nice little dinner.

Kitty and I talked a lot about all sorts of things, including many recent fandom debacles. It was really nice to discuss these things in person with someone. We also caught up on each other’s lives, and got a couple of photos together…

Afterwards we went back to our house, where we had snacks and played the Fronks game on the Wii U. Then we switched to the latest Mario Party. I performed horribly as per usual, but Dan really gave Christopher a run for his money the entire game. It was close at times, but eventually Dan won!

After the game, it was time to say goodbye. We hadn’t seen one another since Megaplex 2019… I didn’t realize it had been so long. Truly, COVID warped my sense of time. I haven’t been to any conventions since. I was starting to think I never would again, honestly, but seeing Kitty and Dan put an ache back in my heart for memories of those days. Then again, can those days be recaptured? I’m not sure… but I feel maybe I should return to the con scene, and to old friends.

๐ŸŒˆ Thursday ๐ŸŒˆ

I worked hard all day to have all my chores done and still have time to watch TV. I wanted to finish binging through The Book of Boba Fett, and finish an overdue commission for Kiba. But first, here’s a photo of Elliot and Tomoyo doing their usual morning window watching, while touching butts:

I feel regret about sleeping on Boba Fett all this time. I hadn’t realized it was pretty much a continuation of The Mandalorian. I enjoyed it immensely, the ending was so awesome and adorable, honestly to a fanservicey degree, lol. I just loved it.

I finished Kiba’s commission and then left to do the grocery shopping so that the timing would be just right for Christopher to pick me up on his way home from work. Once home, I put the groceries away and he started cooking. He made this really weird chicken chili soupy thing with tortillas that was extremely comforting to eat and I can’t wait to have again.

Then it was LEGO time! It was date night, after all. I got some nice progress in on my Sesame Street set:

The guys worked some more on their lighthouse. Then we cuddled and watched anime together.

๐ŸŒˆ Friday ๐ŸŒˆ

This day I felt very accomplished. Not only did I get over 700 words written on my novel, but also exercised for over an hour and burned over 600 calories. It felt like a very successful day! I also got more gaming done, and reading too:

I really thought I’d have to read a few other books alongside Stephen King’s “It”, because it is over a thousand pages long and seemed so overwhelming, but it’s been so utterly engrossing, I just can’t put it down to read anything else! I’m making good progress on it, too.

On another topic, you know those fuzzy caterpillars everyone here calls woolly bears? In Argentina, people called those “gatas peludas” meaning “furry cats” (specifically, female cats, for some reason). When I was looking at the misshapen lump that was Rosie on the cat tree, it made me remember that… she might as well be a giant fuzzy caterpillar for all you’d know:

After getting all my chores done, I made dinner (salmon croquettes) for me and the guys. We watched Chucky again (the TV show –we’re on season 2). It was a very wacky episode. Just like with the movies, I both love and hate the show. It truly is exactly like the movies in feel. If you dare take it seriously/get attached to anything or anyone, or expect it to make sense, it’ll slap you on the face, give you the finger, and laugh.

I was unable to have Project Day on Tuesday as is normally scheduled. Didn’t plan my day out properly and also just wasn’t feeling it. So, I did it on this night instead, right after dinner. Since all of my scrapbooking stuff was now organized, I figured I’d give it a go and finish a new page for my Squelf-Book:

And, to add another tick to my “enjoy my toys” resolution, I brought Clicky down for company. I really love my little clicking dino, but I’ve not played with or enjoyed him at all, so it was about time. Clicky helped me pick scraps and cut-outs to decorate the page with!

He even helped stick some of them in place:

When it was all done, we were both pleased with the results!

By this time next week, I’ll be on to my next video game. I truly loved Pokรฉmon Mystery Dungeon: Rescue Team DX, it’s a game that will remain in my heart forever, so I wanted to do this page to commemorate my playthrough.

After this, it was time for anime and cuddling. We are watching the original Trigun. We were going to watch the recent remake, but not only were Christopher and I slightly put off by it –we also found out that our partner has never seen the original Trigun, and this situation must clearly be remedied.

๐ŸŒˆ Saturday ๐ŸŒˆ

This was a very busy day! I did lots of chores, and exercised + gamed a ton. I finished Pokรฉmon Mystery Dungeon: Rescue Team DX! It was such a lovely game that I’ll always remember fondly. Tomorrow, I’d pick up Legends: Arceus where I left off.

I also did lots of outlining for my novel, and worked lots of commissions, catching up on the changing table badges:

I got a little video to show you that I took on Saturday. This is how snails groom their shells so the edge doesn’t hurt them:

Not unlike a cat grooming, snails do this daily. Usually, they do it after they wake up and before starting their daily roam for food, water and, er, companionship. ๐Ÿ˜

At bedtime, Rosie was waiting for me:

I took my Switch to bed and after about an hour, I’d beat the game:

I took one last picture of Rosie cuddling next to me and purring up a storm before we both fell asleep…

๐ŸŒˆ Sunday ๐ŸŒˆ

Sunday was utterly exhausting. It was time to make a proper dent on commissions, so I practically did nothing else and finished eight by the end of the day. No exercise, no writing, no chores… just art until my eyes bled. In spite of the progress, I ended the day a bit unhappy because being able to exercise and write are the two things that make me feel the most accomplished.

And yet –in spite of this, I beat the writing goal this week, with 3,611 words. When you consider all the outlining done as well, it’s a huge success. And I beat a video game and finished a scrapbook page!

A nice thing that happened on this day is that our partner finished adding a different band to the Bluey watch he got me for Christmas. The band that came with this watch is total garbage, the watch would come right off a kid or adult’s wrist. It was unusable. But the watch is very cute. It took a lot of work to make the 20mm rainbow band I bought for it fit, but he did it, and it looks great!

Sometimes, if they are sleepy enough, these two get along…

Lately Rosie has been super cuddly, every night… she’s always purring, stretching her little paws to touch me, getting up and then letting herself fall heavily against me. She is so sweet, I adore this little cat.

I played a little of Arceus at bedtime. Still can’t quite get into this game, and I find it a bit difficult, but we’ll see how the coming week goes with it.

Week 2 Summary: A Happier Life ๐ŸŽˆ

Another week down! This one went really fast. I’ve continued to write, read, and play video games, as well as make commission progress. Slowly, the small things that make my life worth living are taking more and more of my time.

Podcasts and music instead of YouTube. More gaming and reading instead of mindless doom-scrolling. Getting acquainted with my characters again. My stress levels decrease, and certain parts of my brain, like rusty machinery that’s been freshly oiled, shed more and more gunk and move more smoothly and fast with every passing day.

Every day I do fail in one of my resolutions in some small way. Most often, weight goals and hydration goals. But the failures don’t discourage me at all, because every day I still do what makes me really happy. I wish I hadn’t put simple pleasures off for so long… anyway, I’m trying to make up for it now.

๐ŸŒˆ Monday ๐ŸŒˆ

On this day I received the curtain rod I’d ordered, and was able to hang the Grogu curtains I got for Christmas! I love how they complete my studio’s look:

My studio looks a bit like a “hidden picture” puzzle image. ๐Ÿ˜… There is a lot going on. But I love it.

Today was a bit of a lazy day, but I did all my chores and worked on art. I took time to game and relax with Kalamata in the afternoon.

๐ŸŒˆ Tuesday ๐ŸŒˆ

Tuesday means Project Night! But before that, I had to go to the gynecologist to get my pap. This time, it didn’t hurt at all. I really like this doctor, I was so relieved when it was over, though.

Normally, I would walk back, and get myself a nice treat (stickers, a small toy and maybe a snack) after an appointment I had been dreading so much. But I was determined to stay good to my resolution, so I called an Uber to go home.

My driver was friendly and funny, and gave lots of colorful conversation during the ride. He told me about his dog, and said he’d show her to me. I assumed he had a photo or something, and he’d pull it out when we got to my house –but instead, he picked up the doggy (named Chica) right from the front seat!

She was so quiet, curled up in her little bed, I never even knew she was there! It really surprised me. She was very cute, but seemed rather suspicious of me.

After I got home, I cleaned the snail tank. Here are two of my snabies, soaking happily…

For his project night, Christopher worked on his Asuka puzzle that my mom got him many Christmases ago. It’s a REALLY hard 1,000 piece puzzle!

My project night consisted of a continuation of last week’s coloring. This was my setup! I listened to 90’s Disney music while coloring.

It’s worth noting that this is not an activity I did as a child. Any creative endeavor, and even a lot of my play, had to involve some sort of way of gaining inspiration towards my “serious” projects like my book, which I was working on as early as age 12. Coloring cartoon characters with crayons is something kid me would have seen as a frivolous waste of valuable time. So, allowing myself to enjoy an activity such as this today, is important to me.

This time, I had Scout as a companion! And I had a chocolate soy milk for my snack.

I finished my Christmas coloring of Sister Bear! Here it is underway…

…and finished + laminated! Still needs the last stage of decorating with stickers. But that’s the first page of the year down –one out of twelve to complete my resolution!

…and I’m already working on the next one!

At bedtime, I took a picture of my sleeping pal, Grover, with the book I am currently reading. But for some reason, Grover seems to have a creepy, bedroom-eyes demeanor in the picture… ๐Ÿ˜…

On that note, this book (Corazรณn) is way more depressing and guilt-trippy than I remembered. Patriotic to a gagging degree (such as a father telling his son “if you wouldn’t die for our country I couldn’t love you) and, I don’t know, every time the child narrator slightly screws up he has his father/mother/sister leave letters in his diary in which, though they profess their love for him, they basically scold him to the ground. The book feels a big wagging, scolding finger at times.

If you know me, you know I am less liable to put today’s morals upon a long-ago creation. But even so, I was a bit put off by the descriptions of native people (some of my original country of birth in the “From The Apennines To The Andes” short story) and most of all by the high degree of ableism by today’s standards.

But I try to remember that, in fact, this book went a long way to try to bring attention to the suffering of disabled people, to the point that it takes many pages and scenes throughout the book, and points out many kinds of disabilities in detail –something unusual for a children’s book written in the 1800’s. Unfortunately, this is done by encouraging an extreme degree of pity towards differently-abled folk, and to value them based on how they can be still incorporated into society to “contribute in the same way as others” so to speak. ๐Ÿ™„

So yeah, that felt a bit icky to read, but context and time period is of great importance. It is very obvious the writer’s heart was in a good place and he felt a painful degree of sympathy and compassion for disabled people he saw all around him –above all, children. It’s interesting how something written with the best of intentions then, would surely get this man “canceled” now.

This is still a work of literature worth remaining in print and allowing children to read, with proper guidance. But I imagine as our society “progresses”, works like this will be further banned or modified to fit current societal standards. This is part of why I collect antique and vintage children’s books.

๐ŸŒˆ Wednesday ๐ŸŒˆ

This was a pretty normal Wednesday! Though, I could already feel PMS doing its usual number on me. Hopefully it won’t be too bad this month.

I cleaned the snail tank early in the day. They got a special treat today:

One more photo –enjoying some cuttlebone:

Partner and I went to Tree Tops Park on this day, and I’ve got pics and video to share! But first, sleepy snail conga line:

The weather was cool and mild, a rare treat in Florida. We got to see a few critters on this outing. First there was this big raccoon VERY high up a large tree, digging fiercely in a clump of one of those parasitic air plants. Every once in a while, it would stare at us intently, but it was clearly very focused on whatever it was doing.

We also saw tortoises. People feed them (something you shouldn’t do) so they readily come when they hear someone.

Seeing the little heads pop out of the water and stare at us, I’m overcome with emotion. It reminded me of the bear staring into my eyes at the zoo, which had me actually crying. There is something about the connection when an animal notices you, stares deep into you –the reason (even as simple as “do you have food or are you food?”) doesn’t matter– that is so primordial, holy even, if I still believed in such things. I can’t explain it very well, but it gives me a rush of intense joy tinged with sadness, and it can easily bring me to tears. I love animals so very much.

Another little burst of joy was coming across a burrowing owl.

It gave me a squint.

I’d snuck Bangers into my backpack, and our partner, who usually doesn’t have patience for this sort of nonsense, waited while I took some pics. Bangers stood out really nicely among the greenery, and even found some berries!

๐ŸŒˆ Thursday ๐ŸŒˆ

I was really excited for today, both to resume working on my current LEGO set, and to have ice cream and pizza for dinner. But date night was sort of canceled. Christopher had been unwell for days (his usual back pain) and working on his puzzle for a few days exacerbated it. So, today, he couldn’t play LEGO, but his puzzle looks amazing. I wish I’d taken a photo, because it’s over halfway done now.

I spent a lot of the day working on art and binging The Book Of Boba Fett, and after the promised pizza and ice cream, our partner went back to some important due work and I hung out with Christopher while leveling my Pokรฉmon Violet team. I reached pretty close to end-game!

๐ŸŒˆ Friday ๐ŸŒˆ

Christopher stayed home today. He still didn’t feel great. Our partner worked late, into the early hours of the morning. I spent all day doing housework and packing to leave for my mom-in-law’s in the evening.

Earlier in the day, I had Christopher download an anime from the 70s for me, by the same studio that did Heidi. It is called “3000 Leagues In Search Of Mother”, and is an extended adaptation of the short story “From The Apennines To The Andes” that appears in the old children’s novel I’m currently reading (Corazรณn: Diario de un Niรฑo). In the original book, this story is one of the monthly stories that Enrique reads in school. It is, however, the longest short story in the book. I’m looking forward to watching the anime as soon as I finish The Book Of Boba Fett.

In the early evening we were off to Sebastian! When we got there, we had nachos for dinner. Then Grandma brought out some chocolate cupcakes she made.

They had Tom Kitten picks! Good ol’ Grandma. She knows what I like.

I slept in an inflatable mattress which is never very comfortable for me. I’d rather sleep with Christopher if he didn’t snore, especially because it was so cold, and it would have been nice to cuddle. The cool thing is that the mattress was put in the same room as our partner’s and it’s just so nice that it is such a non-issue for us to sleep together in the same room, since it was the most convenient. Even with Grandma there, no one bats an eye and is so accepting of the three of us and “our thing”.

Anyway! I still made it colorful and cozy:

I’d brought Beta with me, and “It” to read. Scary books aren’t scary when you’re sleeping with a raptor for comfort!

I even had my Jurassic World jammies so it was very much a mood.

๐ŸŒˆ Saturday ๐ŸŒˆ

On Saturday we went on a long car ride, to Okeechobee. My mom-in-law showed me some old haunts where she used to live with my sis-in-law (but, I think, not Christopher). It was very interesting and reminded me of some areas in Belรฉn de Escobar, the area of Argentina I last lived in before coming to the US.

For breakfast, we had really crispy bacon (my favorite) eggs, and spicy sausage gravy on biscuits.

At one point I couldn’t find my phone, then I realized our partner had hidden it from me. He took some funny pictures as I pounced on him to give it back…

Then we were off to Okeechobee!

๐ŸŒณ๐Ÿฎ Okeechobee ๐Ÿฎ๐ŸŒณ

On the way to Okeechobee, we saw all kinds of animals. Cows, horses, wild hogs, even ostriches in an ostrich farm! We went to a flea market, but there wasn’t much to see. It was also freezing cold!

Finally, we made it to my mom-in-law’s old “homestead” house. They put so much effort into this house and raised dozens of animals. My mom-in-law showed us the very long fence she put up by hand, all by herself, still standing. They dug the pond themselves.

But the house now lays in ruin, abandoned after it was sold. It was honestly a heartbreaking sight.

It looked so spooky, and I really wanted to go into the house to explore. But you never know what you’ll find. I was scared that we even drove past the gate, because in this country, and in particular in this state, you just never know who’s gonna shoot you for trespassing into their property. ๐Ÿ™ƒ

We later went to another house where they’d lived, and my sis-in-law’s name, which she’s written into the country when she was just a little girl, was still there, which was very poignant.

Then, after a Wawa and Dunkin’ Donuts stop, we went back to my mom-in-law’s house in Sebastian. I complained a lot because my legs really hurt and it was such a long ride. But eventually we were in Sebastian again. Overall, I had a lot of fun.