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Week 13 Summary: Adjusting 💀

April 2, 2023 Marina (Squelfland) Leave a comment

Before I begin: I’m trying really hard to get used to a completely hectic schedule that changes all the time, while still completing my commission queue and taking care of my pets and most of the housework as before. I know I’ve neglected a lot of DMs from friends. I am SO SO SORRY. I’ll get to it, I promise, right now I’m just trying to succeed at existing.

I’ve been kinda taken aback by the sudden Patreon support now that I closed commissions. Since the tiers are limited, I think I’ll be ok and not overwhelmed though… hopefully.

🌈 Monday 🌈

On Monday I was up at 6:30am getting all my chores done before my new job orientation. I was able to get mostly everything done, and orientation went very well. My first actual day would be Wednesday.

After I got home, I did more chores, worked on my book, and made dinner for the three of us. I was exhausted by the time I crawled into bed with Rosie and my Switch. She was being very affectionate, so I took some pics:

I also got this commission finished and posted right before bed:

🌈 Tuesday 🌈

Tuesday I had my nose down to my iPad all day. I have an average of 30 commissions to finish now that I’ve closed permanently. I’m trying to get one down a day, more or less, and I managed it on this day. I completed this commission:

Afterwards I did all my chores and then made dinner. Then we all went for a walk together. It was raining, and I got to see froggy friends and snail friends. Here’s some snails.

🌈 Wednesday 🌈

Wednesday morning I was up SUPER early –I showered and then spent the entire morning doing chores without stopping. I also worked on commissions and Patreon rewards a little bit. There was really zero time to relax. It was soon time to go to work for the first time! Monday was only orientation, Wednesday I’d actually work.

I took a selfie before heading out:

The first day went really well. The store is not very busy. Everyone is very pleasant, but I am worried about having to deal with answering phones, paging, on top of upselling a rewards program to every customer at the register, which, as I found later in the week, I can get reprimanded for not pushing hard enough (though, that hasn’t happened yet). That stresses me out. I’d much rather to heavy physical labor that doesn’t involve this –or a desk job.

After work, I went to Publix to get stuff for our partner to make dinner Thursday night. I’d be working late the next few nights and wouldn’t be able to make dinner.

At Publix, I saw these two. Just two good little guys. I had to take a photo.

🌈 Thursday 🌈

I started Thursday in a pretty bad frame of mind. I knew it would happen, really, as soon as I started any job, and probably you will say that is a self-fulfilling prophecy, but it’s just how it is. It doesn’t matter if I like the job or not. What matters is that I am not drawing while I am there. But this time, because the schedule is always changing, and because I must be available always –all weekends and holidays too, just in case– it was additionally aggravating.

For starters, the fair outing with my mom was cancelled. The usual visit to her was also cancelled (these two kinda go together) and because asking for time off is kind of an involved process at my new job (it seems to be something you need to do like a month in advance) it’s looking like regular visits to my mom (the only interaction she gets outside of work) are slowing down very, very significantly, and I’m not sure what to do about that. Then, we couldn’t do our Zoom call yesterday, either.

Beyond that, the treasured weekend visits to family may also be a thing of the past that needs to be carefully scheduled so it can happen at all.

Our date night this week is cancelled because of my schedule. And now, if I have a day off that we can do that on, I may honestly just fret while trying to do our usual date night activities because I have things to do, whether housework or personal stuff, that I can no longer do during the week. Same goes for the old project nights. My schedule will change constantly, so nothing can really be planned without a full month of foresight as per my job policies.

And look. I know how it sounds. Everyone works –I had really bad and long jobs that left me basically with no time to have a life, and this is only part-time. But after doing commissions for so many years and overall enjoying it so much (until recently) it’s a miserable change. And you have to keep in mind that my first day was great. A wonderful experience. And still, I felt this way in the morning.

I just don’t want my life to change. I want to keep seeing my mom and visiting my family. And I know I would have zero pity if I saw someone else writing this. This feeling of lacking autonomy over my schedule is hard to accept right away. Hopefully with time, I will.

There are upsides. The atmosphere at the job is great, and I can walk to it. These are all good things. The customers are very nice and calm. My coworkers and managers are great. Maybe getting weekends off once in a while won’t be so hard.

Anyway, it’s a bit of a rough period. I’m trying to adjust. Let me break up this particular day’s whining with a photo of Rosie and Tomoyo:

Tomoyo had gotten in Rosie’s space and both were pretty pissy with one another but eventually settled. I took that photo as I was working on this Patreon reward, which I finished before leaving for work but wasn’t able to post until later in the evening, after dinner:

Anyway, Thursday was quite long at work. I left late. Christopher picked me up, and when we got home our partner was making a wonderful dinner. Plus, he (our partner) surprised me with my favorite flowers and a delicious wine. He knew I’d been very grumpy. Later he massaged my legs a little too, which are super sore with all the extra hours of standing. It helped me to end the day on a much better note.

🌈 Friday 🌈

I started Friday by knocking out another commission:

Then I did all my chores, and it was off to work. Unfortunately my new shoes didn’t make it before I left, so I would have to deal with the old shoes one more day. The workday was alright –I was at the register by myself more, and had more responsibilities overall. My managers seem to really like me, but I do worry about taking far too long to learn the minutiae of my duties. There is SO much to learn.

Christopher picked me up, and we got home to the wonderful smell of smoked salmon. I started helping our partner with dinner. There were some hiccups, so we didn’t eat until 10:30pm. Very late. But dinner was incredible:

That’s all salmon that had been smoking for hours and hours (AFTER hours of marinating) as well as quinoa, peas, arugula, avocado, and toasted walnuts. It was pretty great! And to top off the night, our partner got me the little alien doll I wanted. I didn’t expect I’d have another doll so soon, I can’t wait for her to arrive:

Not sure what I’m gonna call her. I actually had a hard time falling asleep because I was so excited thinking about this. 😅

🌈 Saturday 🌈

Today was a calm, overcast day, and the last day before a real chance to rest. My mom in law and Christopher’s Grandma dropped by and we went to breakfast together. Our partner had some severe indigestion unfortunately and couldn’t join us. Breakfast was alright.

After we got back, I completed and posted this Patreon reward:

So far, I’ve been staying pretty on top of my overdue artwork. I chip at it and get something else done every day. After I got this done, it was time to go to work. My family dropped me off and at some point sneaked a picture of me at the register:

🌈 Sunday 🌈

I had a lot planned for today –this kept me going when I felt upset about not being able to do things during the week. No sleeping in late for me…. too much to do! In the end, I wasn’t able to do it all, but I did some chores and scrapbooked, and read, and watched a VHS tape.

I brought Kalamata downstairs because I noticed that Tomoyo bit two of her fingers so, she needed some TLC. I gave her a little book to hold, but eventually I took it back from her to cut it for scraps. 😅

These are the tapes I’m working on watching at the moment:

I started with The Little Polar Bear:

Here’s a cool LeapFrog ad that appeared before the main feature:

I worked on two scrapbook pages that had photos of Dante from the Alaska trip:

Afterward our partner and I went to Starbucks for a snack and then sat down to play some Diablo II together:

Then we went grocery shopping for the week and our partner made AMAZING turkey burgers. Overall it was a good week, but very tiring. Tomorrow I have jury duty for the first time in my life, and hopefully I’ll get to see my mom during the week. Hope you all had a nice weekend!

Art For Me, Cats, Date Night, 🐿️ My Life 🐿️, LEGO, My Avatar, My Dinos, My Hug, Scrapbooking And Journaling, Weekly Summary

Week 6 Summary: Kind Of A “Blah” One 🤷‍♀️

February 12, 2023 Marina (Squelfland) Leave a comment

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?

🌈 Monday 🌈

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:

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

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

🌈 Tuesday 🌈

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:

🌈 Wednesday 🌈

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:

🌈 Thursday 🌈

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.

🌈 Friday 🌈

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. 🍿🤷‍♀️

🌈 Saturday & Sunday 🌈

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. 😊

Cats, Date Night, 🐿️ My Life 🐿️, JRPG, LEGO, My Dinos, Project Night, Scrapbooking And Journaling, Snails, Trips And Outings, Weekly Summary, WIPs

Week 5 Summary: Working On Myself 🐣

February 5, 2023 Marina (Squelfland) Leave a comment

CONTENT WARNING: There will be some minor references to struggles with food and eating in this post. It will be from Friday onward and will have a reminder content warning so it won't surprise you. This stuff will diminish with time, right now it is a big thing in my life, so I apologize if it is annoying.

Happy Sunday, everyone! Firstly, let me address something you may have noticed (perhaps with relief) if you’re a daily subscriber: the 2023 Goal Tracker post notifications are no longer being sent out.

This is because I was apprehensive about flooding people’s inboxes with something that interested only me (I mean, more than the rest of a lot of this blog’s content, even). Sharing the posts imbued me with a definite sense of accountability, but it wasn’t worth causing people to unsubscribe. So I still publish them, but now they are all private, for my eyes only, and so, no one gets notifications for them. You can still keep track of my progress on my 2023 resolutions page if you are so inclined. 😊

Overall, this was a positive week. Let’s get on with the summary!

🌈 Monday 🌈

Christopher has been a little low, so I baked cookies to cheer him up! And well, I also wanted cookies. They were great! We still have a package left, I’ll probably make it next week.

It was tank cleaning day, so have some photos. Excuse the poop. They’re literally always pooping.

🌈 Tuesday 🌈

I worked on art lots on this day, getting this piece almost to completion –here’s a WIP:

And here’s a random photo I took of Kotoko on this day. She was being extra adorable.

Being Tuesday, Project Night was next! Grogu kept me company as I worked on a Mandalorian Valentine page.

It was especially fun, and I’m glad I grabbed the card while grocery shopping to do this. 😊 Even if its message seems oddly threatening…

🌈 Wednesday 🌈

Christopher stayed home on this day, as he wasn’t doing so well. I did my best to look after him. I also finished the art I shared a WIP of for the day before. Other than that, it was a normal day of doing my best to stick to all my resolutions.

One of those has been riding my stationary bike almost every day, and playing Legends: Arceus at the same time. I found that it was easier to go from Violet to Arceus, than it was on my first attempt when I went from Sword to Arceus for a bit. Violet got me a little more used to the whole open world business.

I’m also glad I finished Violet before going back to Arceus because otherwise the graphics in Violet would have bothered me so much more. Arceus does have glitches and frame rate issues as well, but I still find it utterly beautiful.

The utter disappointment in Mai’s Munchlax face after losing the battle was SO cute. He looked so crestfallen! I felt kinda bad…

WAIT –Bambi’s dad!?

Nevermind it’s just Wyrdeer.

I can’t be the only one who thought “Old Prince” when I saw him in that pose, though!

CONTENT WARNING: Going forward for the rest of the post, there will be occasional discussion of disordered eating, fitness, and weight loss. It will be in a mostly positive note, but please don't continue reading the post if this topic is triggering for you. 🙏

🌈 Thursday 🌈

On this day, you may recall that I made this post. It was a self-reflection that was very long overdue. I’d mostly ignored a lot of the issues presented there, because I am neither worryingly skinny nor morbidly obese, nor does my weight fluctuate wildly, nor am I engaged in seriously physically harmful practices in relation to food.

But I could tell that my relationship with food was becoming problematic, obsessive, and distressing on an everyday basis. I started to feel that if I continued to ignore it, it could verge into actually dangerous territory. So, I made changes to my everyday life that began on this day.

The primary change, really, is simply a drastic reduction in my snacking. I have lunch, a snack, and dinner. Because I’d been so obsessive with eating a small snack whenever I felt like I could, I’d forgotten how to read hunger cues (indeed, I had not had them for a very long time). You could say I am really bad at hearing my body’s signals. So, for me, limiting my snacking to very set times is very important, as is planning everything I will eat that day on the day before.

I am flexible: generally, I simply have mate for breakfast (it’s like tea, no calories, so it doesn’t break my intermittent fast) but on this week there were been two mornings where I had a handful of Raisin Bran because I am trying very hard to increase fiber in my diet and every extra bit helps. One night, after a full dinner, I was still so hungry that I had a banana, and that was okay. I listened to my body and gave it something good.

On that note, the primary reason for my intermittent fast is to have a set time for dinner and not go to bed too soon after (a healthy practice) and to actually be hungry for lunch. So, it is not a diet practice as much as a lifestyle change that I want to keep for every day.

Anyway, on to more fun things, this was date night! We went to Tijuana Flats for a treat, and I snuck Toro inside my backpack. 😊

He enjoyed some tortilla chips!

Once we got back home, we played with LEGO, and I completed my first set of the year!

123 Sesame Street is full of adorable details and it has to be my favorite set I’ve put together yet, along with the LEGO Friends Friendship Tree House.

Later that night, I happened to spot our littlest possum visitor through the dining room window. He was so cute! I went to the door (without opening it) so I could get some photos and video from the narrow window on the side.

I’ve been making an effort to clean this area before night to discourage the guys from visiting, much as I love them. They get really close to the house and I wouldn’t want them to get aggressive. They come after the bird seed that the birds dropped during the day, but admittedly there is never much that is edible. They mostly sniff around for a few minutes and leave.

After our nightly anime watching, I went to write for a while. It wasn’t until the clock showed well past 2:00am and Christopher came into the room to make me go to bed and turned on the lights that I saw that the Boba Fett plushie I longed for had been hidden among other green friends! It was there all the time, for hours, and I hadn’t seen it!

This was such a lovely surprise from Christopher, and I can’t wait to make him a bandana and kandi necklace like the rest of my toys. I’ll show close-ups of him in and out of the box a little later in this post. Needless to say, I went to bed very happy!

🌈 Friday 🌈

To start this day, here is Tomoyo laying on my chest while we hung out on the couch in the morning:

On this day I started to watch 3000 Leagues in Search of Mother (母をたずねて三千里, Haha o Tazunete Sanzenri) a Japanese animated television series directed by Isao Takahata that aired in 1976. You may recall me mentioning this anime when I was reading Corazón: Diario De Un Niño by Edmondo De Amicis earlier this year. The GIF that started this day’s summary is from that anime.

Corazón is the daily diary of an Italian schoolboy growing up in the late 1800’s. Included in the novel are twelve stories that Enrique has to copy for school, which the teacher provides to the students. The stories all have morals about family or patriotism, or the like. The anime is loosely based on one of these stories, “De Los Apeninos A Los Andes” (From the Apennines to the Andes).

While this short story is the longest in the novel, it’s still but a few pages long. The anime greatly expands upon it, turning it into a 52-episode epic that had me crying with just the first one! It is full of heart, and definitely a drama. Not something you’d see being made for kids nowadays, I’m sure. It would be considered traumatizing.

Very sad, given that stories like these recognize the real pain, loss and fear children experience daily all over the world throughout history and across all generations, regardless of whether adults today like to think about it. Anyway, I’m looking forward to binging it over the next few weeks.

I didn’t have time to free poor Boba from his bindings this day, but I took a close-up photo of him:

I went grocery shopping on this day. Before doing so, I’d trashed a lot of my unhealthy snacks. I did keep some, and I put them out of my easy reach. But sometimes I pick one to have the next day and leave it where I can get it. Believe it or not, I have the rest under lock and key, and I give the key to Christopher during the day. I guess perhaps a detail such as this might make it more clear why I feel my lack of self control is such a problem (the key was my idea, mind you).

It took me longer to shop for groceries because I was much more careful with my choices. I came home with a lot of healthy foods, non-processed stuff, fruits, veggies. I very much enjoyed my meals the rest of this week and surprised myself with how delicious I could still make meals without smothering everything in cheese, or frying stuff.

I made tilapia with potatoes for this night. Normally I’d have made a second side. But we were all full without one. That was a good choice too.

Afterwards, I enjoyed playing more Legends: Arceus and riding my stationary bike. Once I finish, I always lay on the couch with Tomoyo for a bit, who by now is eager to get fed, but tolerates some love anyway…

What a face!

On this day, I finally began using my food diary. I decided to use a Google Sheets document rather than a written book after all. I find this more useful, I am more likely to enter the data, and I can add up calories and subtract exercise.

🌈 Saturday 🌈

As the week went by, my feelings towards food and eating improved more and more. I began to eat much more mindfully, not snacking became easier, and food was tastier as a result. I felt more satisfied and happy, and a lot of my feelings of guilt began to go away. This week I had salad for every lunch. I’ll switch once the salad mix is out, but I know I’ll make it again soon because it was so delicious!

It has krab (which I seasoned with salt, pepper and Old Bay seasoning) boiled egg, some crunchy topping, a cracked black pepper ranch dressing, and a base of iceberg lettuce, romaine lettuce, carrots, red cabbage and radishes.

I’ve been trying to use meditation techniques to control some of the obsessive snacking thoughts. I acknowledge the thought, and let it pass, or try to. I do not guilt myself over the thought. It’s just something that crosses my mind, and I remind myself it doesn’t actually have the power over me that I think it does. It was hard at first but it’s been helping a lot, too.

On the afternoon, I finally found time to free Boba Fett. He is so flippin’ cute! I love his little fists. I’m not sure he should trust the rocket launcher, though. It’s not the most reliable. I also cut up the box for more scrapbooking materials!

For dinner, I made turkey burgers with avocado. 🍔🥑🍟

Random snail photo of the day:

During the night we received a rarer visitor: one of the local raccoons! He was just passing by.

🌈 Sunday 🌈

It was a rainy weekend, and a lazy, relaxing Sunday. I had my usual breakfast early in the morning as the sun was coming up, and read a little more, too.

Afterwards I took a little nap and Tomoyo napped on me too:

I had an unexpected gift card later in the day. I was really happy that I could buy a simple board game to play with my mom the next time I visit her!

Since I had enough left, I got something off of my wish list… I’m gonna say this doesn’t count against my resolution since it was a gift card. I’ve been wanting this little guy sooo much!

Afternoon snack was rich in fiber. Did more reading, and Blue kept me company this time!

Having worked on Patreon rewards all throughout the weekend, I decided it was ok to take some “me” time to scrapbook. I really wanted to make a couple of Child’s Play / Chucky themed pages.

Here’s the “Good Guys” page before everything is pasted in!

And here it is all finished:

This was the more “gory” page. Here it is underway…

…and all done!

I had a lot of fun! Dinner was grilled chicken, mashed potatoes, some avocado slices and kale salad. Pretty small portions, so on this night, after exercising, I had a banana, too.

I finished the week with much more positive feelings than it started with. I hope I can carry them on into the next, and have fun things to share with you all! Have a great week, guys!

Cats, Date Night, 🐿️ My Life 🐿️, LEGO, My Dinos, My Hug, Novels, Other Toys, Project Night, Scrapbooking And Journaling, Snails, Trips And Outings, Weekly Summary, WIPs

Week 4 Summary: Old Friends 🥰

January 29, 2023 Marina (Squelfland) Leave a comment

This was, for sure, a much better week! It’s been a bit of a battle, but slowly I’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 hadn’t seen them in forever. Let me tell you about that, and about the rest of my week, below!

🌈 Monday 🌈

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 wasn’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 don’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 Pokémon that I decided to take a photo to remember that pleasant feeling. 🥰

🌈 Tuesday 🌈

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 wasn’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.

🌈 Wednesday 🌈

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 Phở 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.

🌈 Thursday 🌈

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.

🌈 Friday 🌈

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 Pokémon 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.

🌈 Saturday 🌈

This was a very busy day! I did lots of chores, and exercised + gamed a ton. I finished Pokémon 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. 😏

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…

🌈 Sunday 🌈

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.

Art For Me, Cats, Date Night, 🐣 Toys And Special Interests 🐣, 🐿️ My Life 🐿️, LEGO, My Avatar, My Dinos, My Dolls, My Furbys, Project Night, Scrapbooking And Journaling, Selfies, Snails, Trips And Outings, Weekly Summary

Week 3 Summary: Not Always Easy ⛈️

January 22, 2023 Marina (Squelfland) Leave a comment

Ups-and-downs are normal to have, but it’s rare to have such a good week be followed by such a bad one. No major catastrophes took place, and a lot of what made it so hard to handle the smaller difficulties was my period, which for some reason was very unusually long and harsh on my body. It, combined with other stuff, managed to sink me into a days-long depression. Most of my goals fell by the wayside.

This journal is pretty dismal overall, though it picks up in tone near the end of the week. I apologize that it’s not as cheerful as usual. It was just a really hard week for me. 😥

💔 CW: pet loss discussion in this blog post. 💔

🌈 Monday 🌈

Right from the start, Monday was not an easy day. Physically, I was still feeling down from the day before. I had been unable to stay on top of my goals for days for a variety of reasons. In addition, it was very cold, and the guys wanted to sleep with the windows open. This made for some truly miserable nights and mornings for me. And bad mornings tend to throw my entire day off track. I just felt unhappy, unmotivated, and like everything was a struggle.

I pushed myself and cleaned the snail tank this day, so my little guys didn’t suffer from my lack of motivation:

The cats stayed in cozy corners all day. Even Elliot spent time indoors. Here’s Kotoko hiding in one of the cat condo nooks:

Speaking of Kotoko, in the evening I decided to give her a bath in spite of the cold because she was just so dirty. She’s old and can’t groom herself very well anymore. As I was drying her, she peed, on my Jurassic Park rug no less. So that was great. I was upset about the rug, but above all because it felt like I put Kotoko through hell for nothing. 😟

🌈 Tuesday 🌈

This was another cold morning. At least Kotoko had forgiven me… I think the cold might have helped with that.

This day I went to visit my mom. From early on, I felt very depressed. I’d been down since the day before and just continued feeling increasingly worse. I wanted to take her to the movies this week, to cheer her up (she’s still not doing okay after Shampoo’s passing) and there is rarely enough money in the family finances for that sort of thing.

I was really down about that, but ultimately managed to sell a commission to take my mom to dinner and a movie the following Saturday. Thank you, Snow, for that.

Throughout the day, before I went to her place, I did my best to do my chores, work on art, finish another book chapter, take care of the pets. I did whatever I could to get through the motions, but it was hard. I hadn’t had to push through feeling so bad in a long time.

Once at my mom’s, whatever good cheer I’d managed to bring up hit the hard wall of Shampoo’s absence.

Seeing all of her special spots without her in them was terrible. Seeing her pretty little urn, while not hearing her usual loud meows… it was all very hard.

I managed to keep that pain to myself for my mom’s sake. But truly, more than my heartache over Shampoo’s passing, the fear and grief that an event like this brings is always mostly about Kotoko. I’m not afraid that I won’t be able to handle her loss when it happens. It’ll hurt, but eventually I’ll be okay. But I am very afraid for my husband’s sake. And I fear that the man he is now will sort of die when Kotoko dies, and whoever he will be after that, I don’t know, but I am very afraid that he will never be the same again, and I will never have this version of him again.

I don’t know what to do with that fear, and every passing year it becomes worse. Sometimes I feel like our beloved old cat is a ticking bomb of grief. This event has redoubled that, especially because I think he is in some deep denial about her advanced age and the limited time she may have left. This literally keeps me up at night.

Anyway… as usual, my mom had a little snack spread ready when I got there:

Then we had baked potatoes for dinner:

And seeing Sweeney was nice, but I couldn’t help thinking that he is the age Stimpy was when he passed, and Stimpy seemed pretty okay until near the end too. I guess I am full of grim thoughts right now.

For some reason, during this visit a lot of old fears and worries hit me very hard. Though I appeared cheerful to my mom, and I know she thought I was okay, I ended Tuesday feeling the most depressed I have been in a very, very long time. It was an overall feeling of hopelessness for the future, that I’m sure (I hope) I can shake off.

But it’s a hard feeling to carry for any length of time. I know what it’s trying to say. It’s whispering in my ear, cruelly, insidiously, “things aren’t going to be okay, but no one really cares”. It is a lonely feeling to carry.

When I feel this way, holding strong to my “do not buy toys” resolution is incredibly hard. I would love a small toy from my wishlist right now to distract me even for a moment from feeling the way I do, no matter how fleeting that relief is.

On the upside, earlier in the week a kindly commissioner sent me a set of colorful drawers where I will be able to sort all of my scrapbooking supplies for Project Night, which is set to arrive on Thursday. I’m thinking about that, to feel happier and excited about something to do.

🌈 Wednesday 🌈

After a Tuesday night full of nightmares and unusually strong cramps that lasted into the morning, Wednesday began.

It was a beautiful sunny morning, and I felt a bit less depressed, but now I was in a lot of pain instead (continued from the night). Maybe rather than feeling less depressed, I just felt like I was settling into my depression, I guess? Getting used to it? Maybe I’ll feel this way for some time.

We had mate for breakfast, but because I was in pain the whole time, I didn’t want any. Anyway, have some Sweeney toebeans:

I was slow, achy and tired for a lot of this day. Whenever I’m at my mom’s feeling really low, it’s hard, because I want attention from my husband and our partner, but I feel too low to even tell them I’m not okay or try to reach out for that affection. And if I do attempt to convey that, and don’t get a response, my frame of mind makes me read that as neglect and it can be very painful when I’m feeling deeply vulnerable already.

So it was really nice that at one point our partner did send me a random sweet little message, I don’t usually hear from him when I’m at my mom’s. Almost like he knew. That helped a lot, though I didn’t tell him I wasn’t okay, only that I was in a bit of pain. But it meant so much to get that message from him just out of the blue.

Still, mostly I just lay on the couch miserably for hours, though I did play more Pokémon Violet here and there and work on a couple of commissions. I did also read a little (still working on “It”) and since my mom was interested, we began to watch the original movies.

For dinner, we had these little mac ‘n cheese balls and fries:

And for dessert we had strawberries and cream! 🍓

Sweeney was very affectionate towards my mom all the time that I was at her place. I think for years, he’s been relegated to the background in all kinds of ways. Shampoo took most of my mom’s time, affection, and even vet-related finances. It could hardly be helped when it felt for years as though every day might be her last. Now Sweeney has my mom all to himself and will hardly leave her lap.

It is sweet, but also a little sad. He must have felt neglected all this time. My mom took him for a check-up today because he hasn’t had one in a very long time for the reasons I just stated. Hopefully all the labs come back with normal, reassuring results.

My mom and I got almost halfway to the second part of “It” (the 1990 version) when the guys came to pick me up. I would find later find out that Christopher, like me, had a pretty terrible day. But once we were all home together, things started to feel better, and I think he felt more cheerful too, though we both continued to feel physically miserable.

Something to note that has happened this week every time I slept (weather at night or a nap) is lots and lots of nightmares, or, at best, really bizarre dreams, usually connected to people or events present very recently in my life rather than those important or consequential to me. I’ve even had people I’ve never spoken to from one group chat I’m in appear in these bad dreams, multiple times. The topics are as varied as they are ridiculous.

Usually, but not always, the dreams are distressing, upsetting, or at best very annoying, so I’d categorize them as nightmares, but they aren’t the sort you wake up upset from. Just the sort that makes you go “huh” when you wake up. It’s as though my brain were going through some clean-up or organizing of thoughts at this time. It’s just bizarre.

🌈 Thursday 🌈

Although on Thursday morning I woke up still in a lot of pain and sort of weakened by my way-too-long period, my mood was a little lifted.

I’m not sure why. I had a lot to do, and didn’t feel great yet. I suppose partly was just being with the guys. Just hearing their voices and seeing their faces, sometimes, lifts me up and is all I need.

All throughout this week, I struggled with, and mostly did not meet, my goals. I decided to call this week a wash. My body really, really conspired against me in the worst way.

We did play LEGO for date night, though Christopher was unwell and our partner had to work, so he couldn’t join us… but we did have LEGO and that was still fun.

Later, Christopher and I cuddled and watched TV. Rosie joined us too; here she is, blepping beautifully:

Unfortunately our partner continued working. He was concentrating hard on his coding and didn’t want to stop. He worked until past 5:00am.

🌈 Friday 🌈

Even on Friday morning my body still had the odd cramp. Frankly, I was really impressed. It never lasts this long. But this was the last day. In the morning, I built the new set of drawers. Mercifully, in spite of the terrible quality (which I was aware of) nothing was broken in transit, and it came out pretty good:

I’d spend the next few days completely reorganizing my scrapbooking supplies into this new colorful piece of furniture.

🌈 Saturday 🌈

On this day we took my mom to the movies, the three of us (Christopher, our partner and I). I spent the earlier part of the day doing chores and then we were off! I had my Totodile with me, and Pokémon graham crackers. I’ve been in a big Pokémon mood recently.

After picking up my mom, we walked around Brickell City Centre, a really cool and upscale outdoor covered mall in Downtown Miami. Our partner bought me the fancy French candies he’d long promised, and was kind enough to get some for my mom too. We walked around and took this picture at one point:

Then we headed to the movie early, because it was CMX Cinébistro and we had to order our food. Right before the movie, I had a drink called Strawberry Fields. It was pretty good. I actually hadn’t had a drink in a while. I do not drink much by anyone’s standards, but by my own, I felt I was drinking a little too much, so I decided to cut back.

The movie, a “horror” comedy titled M3GHAN, was pretty silly, but hilarious. I’m not sure it was always trying to be funny, but it pretty much was the entire time.

After the movie, we got ice cream and walked around some more. Our partner bought a tiny but really fancy candle, and then we dropped my mom off before heading back to the house.

When we got home, I had two nice surprises. The loveliest was this drawing from YuriFairy, featuring both of our characters, and it’s one of my favorite depictions of my little squirrel avatar in a few years. It’s so beautiful:

A package from ODU with a sample of a new design by me also showed up:

It’s so exciting to see a product featuring my art again after a couple of years! Here’s another photo:

We went to bed shortly after. Our partner just went straight back to work though, and had another late night. Christopher and I cuddled for a while and then fell asleep.

🌈 Sunday 🌈

Between yesterday and today, I sat for several hours sorting all of my scrapbooking materials and labeling them, like so:

There are many, many of these rugged plastic envelopes. Every single drawer is full!

Unlike before, everything is sorted by topic, not material. This makes it infinitely easier to pick out the materials I need for the theme of the page I’m working on, and everything is sorted out alphabetically.

Outside of the drawers, I sorted all my playing cards (which I collect specifically for scrapbooking purposes) like this:

Then I labeled the front of the drawers, too. Now, everything is really easy to find.

An added bonus of borrowing the labeler and of sorting all my scrapbooking supplies was that I finally sorted a bit of a mess I had in the studio closet, which now looks nice and neat:

This guy has been with me for so many years…

I re-sorted all of my beads and kandi-making supplies, too. This is also where the Furbys live. It looks a lot better now.

During this process, I ran into some traditional art I hadn’t filed away…

Not just this, but so many sketches, and so many unfinished things. It made me tear up with this intense nostalgia for something I lost without even realizing it. I decided to move things around and create a new permanent area for traditional art, because somehow, I didn’t have one anymore. This is what it looks like:

And here is a close-up:

I hope I can make traditional art a part of my life again.

I had one shelf that was cleared of scrapbooking supplies that got sorted into the new drawers, so I moved the decorations that were on this desk to it:

Speaking of, I haven’t shared my little collections in a while, particularly since I displayed them after opening my Christmas presents. Here’s the shelves with some of the newer Jurassic World additions…

A close-up of my lovely little Parasaurolophus, I love him so much:

There are a lot of dinosaurs in my studio…

(But not too many. There is no such thing.)

I feel like every day I love dinosaurs and the Jurassic Park / World franchise more and more, like it’s almost becoming a part of my personality. That phrasing seems wrong… I guess I mean it feels less like something I’ll emotionally outgrow and more like a deep-seated, truly lifelong interest, that I don’t think can ever go away because at the core, it’s about dinosaurs and nature, and I’ll never not love those things.

Finally, here’s Kalinka and Natasha. I decided to display them side by side because they look a little like sisters: