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Week 15 Summary: Dreary, Rainy Season Is Here ☔

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It rained a LOT this week. It rained so much, in fact, that Broward County closed its schools for two days, and Ft. Lauderdale closed down its airport. Some areas experienced unprecedented levels of flooding: a historic volume of rain exceeding 2 feet. I read it described as “an event so intense the chance of it happening in any given year is just 0.1%”.

It felt like the rain would never stop, and while it did stop by the weekend, it’s the rainy season now. We may or may not get flooded areas again, and thankfully I saw no significant flooding where I live, but rain on an almost daily basis will become the norm for quite a while. Then it will be hurricane season. That’s Florida for ya!

The rain, which I normally enjoy, really brought me down this time around. My period wreaked havoc on my mood this month: I would call it, too, a rare event. My crankiness does not usually last this long nor is it this intense, and overall, it made the week unbearable for me and those around me.

There were good, bad, and boring sides to this week. Let’s get on with it!

🌈 Monday 🌈

It began to rain in earnest, but still we had sunny moments throughout the day and the humidity wasn’t too bad yet. It rained more and more as the day got long in the tooth. Anyhow, Monday was a busy day. I did loads of chores, went grocery shopping, played Diablo II with our partner, and completed this commission:

Our partner made a ham quiche for dinner. It was delicious!

🌈 Tuesday 🌈

Rain, rain and more rain. It seemed to drag everything down with it. I felt useless, sleepy and sluggish, with no energy whatsoever. Eventually, I forced myself to move, and slowly started doing things around the house, such as organizing the studio, and setting some stuff aside to put into storage or give away. I wanted to make more room for new toys, mostly dolls.

Something really odd happened on this day. Sarah mysteriously appeared among the bears!

She didn’t have her hat. I am not sure why she is here. Frankly it’s a little unsettling. I hope all is well between her and Buddy.

Something important happened on Tuesday:

At the time, I didn’t want to get my hopes up, but this was an important step in my mom’s paperwork being finalized once and for all. More developments would come later in the week.

Rosie was being a cutie and trying to get my attention while I had lunch:

So I played with her a bit:

🌈 Wednesday 🌈

On Wednesday I completed a commission and a new banner, which you already saw at the top of this entry, and a commission for Pilou that I’m really proud of:

I also had the usual Zoom call with my mom. You’ll notice I make no mention of work so far. That is because this week, I would only work on Saturday. Last week, I only had three days. Next week, I only have five hours again. I’m not the only person dealing with that, but I am not happy about it. From what I read online, it’s a common issue with this company: most people leave due to very limited hours. I hope I won’t have to do the same.

🌈 Thursday 🌈

To say that Thursday was momentous would be an understatement. As mentioned, on Tuesday, I’d received confirmation that my Form I-130, Petition For Alien Relative (for my mom) had been approved by USCIS. We have been waiting for years, just for this specific step. But, my mom still hadn’t been told that her Form I-485, Application To Register Permanent Residency, was approved. Though unlikely, it could still have been denied.

On Thursday, my mom’s application was also approved:

It’s hard to overstate the significance of this moment. I know my mom spent the day crying on and off. I still haven’t been able to process it, myself –though I did tear up a bit when the paralegal CC’d me on an email congratulating her. It felt more real then.

Some of you know how long and arduous the road to legalization has been, both for me and for my mom. I still lived with fear that the response would be a denial and my mom would be deported. Even though I myself have been sorted out for many years (and a citizen for two) nothing really felt done until I could truly stop fearing for my mom’s welfare.

I wasn’t even ten years old when I decided that someday, somehow, I would live in the USA. My mom worked for my dream and made it hers. We would eventually abandon all we had for a huge gamble and an unsure future in the United States, knowing the gamble could cost us everything.

We have been in the USA since 2001: this is the first time I truly breathe in complete relief for both of us. So many years later, it feels complete. I’m numb and not really having an emotional reaction yet because there were so many times I thought this would happen and it didn’t. It’s hard to believe it’s finally over. I am a citizen and my mom is a legal resident, forever. Hopefully someday she’ll be a citizen, too.

And for those who have heard many times my little story regarding An American Tail (which I’ll retell at some point soon) yeah, my mom and I are getting together to watch it. Finally after 15 years I will allow myself to watch it again.

Christopher had the Apple IIe out and functioning on Thursday night. It looked so cool.

Here’s a little lady I have coming to me. She’s a Pat Secrist doll. I’ve been learning about these dolls recently, their high quality and (if you’re patient on eBay) incredible affordability. She’s a big one, too. I don’t have many blonde dolls, I’m looking forward to playing with her. Her dress is so lovely, too! I’m going to call her Nellie. She reminds me of a schoolmate I had in elementary school, who had that name.

For date night we played LEGO. I finished Emma’s Art School!

🌈 Friday 🌈

The sun came out again!! Finally! ✨🌞✨ But, now it’s very, very, VERY hot. That aside –Friday was extremely productive! I finished three Patreon rewards:

Then I did a few chores, before setting everything up for some fun!

🌈 Fun With Pony Beads 🌈

I’ve been putting off making new toy necklaces. This is pretty bad because I don’t really enjoy a new toy until, at a minimum, it has been christened and given its necklace, but ideally until they have an outfit that I’ve put together myself rather than the original one (this mostly applies to dolls), or a bandana, or just something to make it look like it’s my own, and loved.

Between Friday and Sunday I decided to dedicate time to the toy name backlog. I started by setting everything out, surrounding myself with toy friends, and putting one of my kiddy playlists on!

Sometime in between making necklaces, I played some more Diablo II with our partner.

🌈 Saturday 🌈

In the morning, I played with Reddit’s avatar maker thingy today, that was fun and also dumb. This day was finally a workday! I worked from 4:00pm to 9:00pm after getting all my chores done.

Things were tense at work. Because of the rain, sales were very low the entire week so everyone’s hours were cut. As a result, there were less people available to finish a project that has been stressing all the managers out for weeks now. I was put to work on the floor, pricing and placing merch, and even though it was only five hours, it left me completely exhausted.

An upside (or downside??) of the day is that I kinda got called out in front of everyone else for doing better than anyone else in my first week (second only to my training manager) in getting new emails from customers. They really, REALLY care about employees doing this. I’m pretty shy, so it takes a lot out of me, but I do ask and engage with everyone, and most people do sign up.

Apparently, other employees don’t really try, so when they released the numbers of my first week, the manager wrote a note underneath calling me out by name as an example and saying how I’m not doing anything unusual, only what I am supposed to do, and how others are failing to do so. 😬💧

There was an undertone of “It’s unacceptable that this brand new employee is doing better than everyone else, so, get it together” to the other employees, and another manager said to the first that I did that “because I’m an overachiever” which kinda sounded like “you can’t expect everyone else to do that”. Haha… I don’t know. It was nice but also very awkward for me.

Back when I used to hold jobs like this one, I struggled a lot, and was definitely the sort of person to get reprimanded for mistakes, shyness or sluggishness. I’ve changed a bit, I can do things better and push through better. So I won’t lie, all the praise I’ve received since I started feels really good, but at the same time, isn’t a call-out like that the sort of thing that makes coworkers resent you? 😅

Anyway, I only got to help two people at the register on this day, which bummed me out because I don’t want to forget everything I learned, but working on the floor I learned many new things, so there’s that.

At some point today I noted that Sarah’s hat had somehow materialized upon Toklo’s head, while Sarah herself had disappeared. 😳❓❓❓

I keep worrying that this is Sarah trying to send S.O.S. messages that I’m failing to interpret correctly. I hope she’s okay…!

Normally, after getting up at 7:00am, a day full of chores and then going to work, getting comfy and having dinner, I would just want to stay in. But I want to start making a habit of going out with our partner more on Friday or Saturday nights. For one, Christopher really treasures time truly to himself, and doesn’t get much of it. And I want to make sure our partner is having fun since he’s much more outgoing.

Lately, I’m trying to think of different things I can do with him and with Christopher (as well as for them) to make them feel loved and appreciated –as in, individual things, one-on-one. Soon I’ll be able to play visual novels with Christopher again, and with our partner, I’ve been playing Diablo II. I want to start going out for the odd lunch or dinner date with Christopher, and watch at least a couple of movies a month with him, maybe cuddled in the game room couch.

Anyway, my plan was to repeat the outing of last week with our partner, but somehow he convinced Christopher to come! This is a rarity given that it was late at night, and we were really happy about that. We took Christopher to Salt & Straw. I had the same black olive brittle and goat cheese ice cream as last time:

We also went for drinks at the exact same place…

…and had a mediterranean plate for a snack:

On the walk back, I took this photo of a neighborhood’s gate. It looked spooky:

🌈 Sunday 🌈

Sunday was a very nice and sunny day, even if the humid Florida heat is back in full, unbearable swing. My laurel fig continues to grow beautifully. It’s hard to believe it was once a little tiny branch that found refuge in a crevice of our roof!

Later in the day I went for a walk to get more beads. I saw a cute lizard on the way to the stores.

Though I really went out for beds I ended up coming home with this. What a find! Last one left, too.

After a pizza dinner, our partner and I played Diablo II some more. I really liked the Arcane Sanctuary area.

After that, I finished a few more necklaces and actually put them on toys. I’ve made a total of twenty one necklaces. I still have to make a few more, but those are for toys that I have yet to name.

Rosie decided to relax in the area normally occupied by my bead boxes:

She was being so loud, too!

My new doll, Nellie, should be coming by Wednesday, which has me really excited! Hopefully she has no funny smells, since she is a used doll after all. I have her necklace all ready to put on her. 🥰

Card & Board Games, Cats, Charlie Bears, Date Night, Dungeon Crawlers, 🐿️ My Life 🐿️, LEGO, My Dinos, My Dolls, My Hug, Novels, Other Toys, Selfies, Snails, Trips And Outings, Weekly Summary

Week 14 Summary: Jury Duty And Seeing Mom 🥰

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This was an eventful week! I had jury duty for the first time in my life, and finally got to visit mom again. I started playing a new video game with our partner, a new doll and book came in, got to have lunch with my old boss, finished a few more commissions, and was finally able to play LEGO for date night again. Let’s get to it!

🌈 Monday 🌈

On Monday I was up by 6:00am, because we had to leave by 7:00am so I could be at the courthouse on time for my first jury duty ever. Normally, I would be super excited. As a still kinda fresh citizen (just two years) I’ve long wanted to be called. But now that I have a new job, it really complicated everything.

For this week, I had to call out on Monday to be there, and even though I got enough days off to see my mom without even asking for them, if I was selected for a trial all that might not happen. Plus, if I couldn’t get rides for every day, Uber would add up a lot. So I was concerned.

Anyway, that didn’t completely remove my excitement. The waiting room was very large and comfortable, plus, there was a lounge for jurors. We were shown a video first explaining the process.

It was a “hurry up and wait” situation until you got called for a jury pool. Sometimes you also had to fill out a questionnaire if the judge requested it. I waited a couple of hours before I was called, and in the meantime had cookies, coffee and read a little more.

I was finally called, filled out a questionnaire, waited a little longer, and then we all walked a whoooole lot, took an elevator to the 16th floor, and lined up to wait outside of the courtroom.

I should mention that the building was huge and beautiful. The view from up there was honestly amazing.

It was a civil case, not a criminal case —a lawsuit between a couple of homeowners and Citizens Insurance. As soon as that name was said I knew I would be excused. We are insured by (and feel great antipathy towards) Citizens. So I definitely have heavy bias. It was a good thing too because the trial would have lasted until Thursday.

Everyone had to talk to the judge, and we passed a microphone down the line. That was a little nerve wracking; my heart was pounding out of my chest by the time it was my turn. But the judge was really nice and kept cracking jokes with everyone.

I told him how I’d been excited to be called. He pointed to the door and said there was mental health counseling available if I needed it, which made everyone laugh (people aren’t usually excited to be jurors). But later, privately, he thanked me for my enthusiasm.

Once I began to explain my feelings toward Citizens he had me stop because it would taint the rest of the jury pool. So when everyone went to lunch, the judge had a few people stay behind and called them one by one to the bench, where the lawyers also were.

A few people were excused due to biases; one woman due to poor English language skills. When I explained my own bias, the judge asked me if I would ignore the law because of my bias if it was clear that Citizens wasn’t in the wrong. I said that I wouldn’t, but that I couldn’t say the same if it came down to a grey area, which is very true. That was enough for him and both sets of lawyers and I was excused for that trial.

I thought I might get picked for another pool, but when I got back to the selection room, they sent me home. So now I am done for at least a year. Even though I wasn’t selected it was still an interesting experience.

After that I went for a walk. Christopher let me have some spending money so I went to Dollar Tree and had lunch at Panera. I saw this cool theater on the way:

Here’s another nice photo I took during the walk:

I got quite the haul at Dollar Tree: a Bluey sandwich box, a Grogu cup, a Crayola coloring page and stickers, a few packs of cards for scrapbooking, dinosaur stickers, a tiny parasaurolophus friend, and a blind bag toy. Oh, and a snail greeting card.

The blind bag has this wee white tiger cub:

After I got home and took a shower I played more Diablo II with our partner. I had a drink and some chips and brought Churrasco downstairs because his “gotcha” day would be Tuesday (2021) and I felt like he needed some attention.

For dinner, we had fajitas. I don’t normally like them because of the onions, but Christopher took them all out so it was pretty good.

🌈 Tuesday 🌈

Tuesday was a pretty good day, even though I began to get my monthly irritables (PMS) and felt quite irate at times for literally no reason. One good feeling I had throughout the day though, is excitement to go back to work on Friday. Maybe I do like the job after all.

Anyhow, Tuesday was a day of chores and of working on art, but I still made time to play Diablo II with our partner. Playing this together is our little “thing” and I really do enjoy it a lot. My character is called Squirrelman. I wanted to play a Druid and it’s been pretty fun having ravens and a wolf and this vine thing with us. And some sort of spirit.

Our partner plays a necromancer so we have a bunch of little skeleton men follow us, plus two hired hands. We’ve got quite the band.

It reminds me of similarly setting an hour aside to play visual novels with Christopher, something I miss very much. I’ll have to see if I can convince him to do that with me again.

I’ve been catastrophically failing at not buying any toys or books this year. Honestly, I’m not exactly upset about it. It’s still helped: I’ve skipped out on a lot of video games and scrapbooking supplies. But I do not regret any toys I’ve gotten this year at all.

I think I may adjust my goal for the year, and, when it comes to toys and books, setting up a rule of getting rid of something before I get something new. That may be more manageable, because honestly I love new toys far too much.

After our partner ordered the little alien doll for me, I began to look at baby dolls, something I’ve never really been into. Babies are just not really my thing, not even as dolls. But I did see two that I liked a LOT, enough to add them to my wishlist and perhaps get one next month. One is another little alien, but two are more conventional babies.

I really like Crabby Cakes and her pouty expression. It’s very funny and unique. She’s more of a toddler doll. The other one is Honey Bunny and more of a simple, sweet baby boy doll. Both look very huggable with their soft bodies. I’d like to get them this year, but I definitely need to make some room first. If I can decide on something to donate/sell, I’ll probably get Crabby Cakes in May.

I should mention that not a single penny of my new job earnings are going towards toys. Instead, I reserve my modest Patreon earnings for my frivolous spending, which otherwise would be zero. Thanks to Patreon I’ve been able to get things like an ice-cream at work, lunch when I went to jury duty, the dinosaur book I saw at Barnes & Noble, some canned coffee and snacks for the month, etc. It makes me really happy to know that the art I still draw is for stuff like this. So, I am really grateful to everyone who is supporting me there.

In the evening my guys took me to my mom’s. I brought her birthday presents with me:

As soon as I got to my mom’s I saw a big slug. I was immediately excited of course. It was a big little guy and rather speedy for a slug.

Here’s some video:

I brought this little carnotaurus friend on this visit. He doesn’t have a name yet.

We were set to play Jumanji this evening but in the end we had too much to catch up on.

My mom always has a lovely snack spread set out, usually by the time I get there, and it’s one of the things I look forward to the most when I visit her.

This time she also surprised me with empanadas!

Here’s a pic of grumpy old Sweeney:

I continued to read Raptor Red in bed. I had my little trike with me, he doesn’t have a name yet either. I really have to fix that.

🌈 Wednesday 🌈

I was up by 7:30am, working on art after my coffee. I took a shower and worked on the blog while waiting for my mom to wake up. It was a pleasant and quiet start to the morning.

Oh yeah, I was looking through the Ring camera on this morning and saw this funny black cat who was a bit suspicious of one of my decorations:

After my mom got up, we had mate and cheese bread!

While my mom did some housework, I had lunch (she had a big breakfast). I had a ham and cheese empanada and read Raptor Red some more.

Then I worked on art some more. I worked on a commission for Nero, on a YCH, and on a badge for Willy Joe.

We went to walk around Target and PetSmart and we had a little snack at Starbucks. On the way there, I saw this weird clock on a building:

Target had this super cool Super Mario basket!! 🍄🌈

At Starbucks I had a pink drink and a banana walnut loaf:

There was a super cute little gremlin of a dog at the Starbucks line:

During the car ride home, I found a ladybug on my clothes! It started flying around, so I caught it and held a finger out of the window until it flew away.

I came home with a nice haul. First, I got these super cute decorations for the snail tank:

Then I got these outfits, the two small ones are for my little alien doll, the snail one doesn’t have a designated stuffie or doll yet, but it was on sale AND it had snails! I was not going to pass it up.

Finally, I got a little Aggretsuko blind box because it came with a dangler and I wanted a new one for my work lanyard but… it is a little wonky, especially for the price…

We had pizza for dinner and watched YouTube, and I cuddled Sweeney, but he wasn’t very thrilled about it… 😅

With PMS and all I was extraordinarily irritable in the evening, but was able to get some chores done and ready for the next day.

🌈 Thursday 🌈

It’s date night again! It was also Rudyard’s birthday. Not his “gotcha” day, but the day he was made at the factory, back in 2020. So Rudy is now three years old. His “gotcha” day, when I first got to hold him, was September 27th of the same year.

Also, I got to have lunch with my old boss, Al, today. We had SO much to catch up on! We went to Cracker Barrel. I tend to only eat there with him, so it had been a very long time since I last was there.

In the afternoon I cleaned the snail tank and put in some new decorations…

Later I accompanied our partner on some errands and then we went shopping for groceries for dinner. At the supermarket he bought me my favorite flowers again –these are the biggest sunflowers I’ve ever had!

I still haven’t named my new little dino gang, but here is my stegosaurus with one of the flowers:

We played LEGO for the first time in many weeks. I finally started working on Emma’s Art School:

Dinner was incredible! Our partner made quesadillas. He put so much effort in them, no shortcuts taken.

🌈 Friday 🌈

Friday was a busy day. It went by quickly. Chores all morning, some commission work too, but I did set some time aside to check out my new dinosaur book:

I do not normally record video of books, but I did in this case because I wanted you guys to see just how beautiful it is. I’ve amassed a respectable collection of paleontology, natural history and dinosauria related books now, but this one blows them ALL out of the water. I got the book on sale, but had it been twice the price, I would have still felt it was a bargain for what you get:

Then I was driven to work, and worked until 8:00pm. Work was very busy and enjoyable. I found out that I and a few other workers have only one day next week due to budget cuts from above, but hopefully the week after that will be better for everyone. I intend to use the time well, and work on commissions all week long.

(On that note, you’ve probably noticed that ever since I got the job, a lot if not all of my goals have been temporarily paused. I decided that this was a better course of action than trying to juggle a million things at once. I need to, above all, to finish the final commissions. Once they are done, using my free time from work to work on hobbies and personal art won’t be stressful.)

Anyway, I got picked up around 8:00pm by our partner and got home to Christopher serving a wonderful meal.

We relaxed together for a while after dinner and then they went for a walk while I got ready for bed.

🌈 Saturday 🌈

Friday I only worked four hours in the morning and early afternoon. But, I got up at 6:30am and, after a shower, finished these three commissions!

Then I went to work. It was only four hours, but being a Saturday, it was quite busy! As always I was a little early, so I doodled a snail for one of my coworkers, who did most of my training. I left it on a post-it note on her mouse. When I went back upstairs to clock out, I noticed that she had stuck it in the place where she keeps all her post-its, haha.

The guys picked me up at two, and we had Mod Pizza for lunch!

When we got home, my new little alien was waiting for me at the door. I opened her right away. She turned out to be even more wonderful than I was expecting! I’ve named her Tritium:

Even though I bought a couple of outfits for her in newborn size, they are still too baggy… I’ll have to figure out something else.

After a shower, our partner and I played Diablo II some more while Christopher napped.

For dinner, I had a potato and a rice cracker with cream cheese:

In the evening we went for a walk together. I took my little triceratops just in case I got a good idea for a picture somewhere. Eventually I did take a photo of it with a baby mango.

Our partner convinced me to go out for the evening which I did though I had a lot of housework to do. Gotta live a little. We went to Salt and Straw in Coconut Grove and I had a black olive and goat cheese waffle cone (as in, ice cream) and even though it tasted just like it sounds, it was truly delicious.

Then we stopped by a little cafe/restaurant and had some drinks and fries before heading home.

We got home very late, around 12:30am. Still, I did as many chores as I could. I was in bed by 2:00am.

🌈 Sunday 🌈

Sunday I worked a little on commissions in the morning and then went out for a stroll. I needed someplace to go to encourage me to walk, because I’ve been feeling very unmotivated and tired. So I decided to see if I could find a better outfit for Tritium, but being Easter, everywhere was closed.

I walked into buybuy BABY, a place I never go into. A store full of baby stuff felt kind of bizarre to walk through. I saw some very cute toys, including this floppy puppy, and I finally ran into a Benny Phant in the wild! I came so close to caving and getting one!

Some cute dinosaur puzzle toys…

I liked these bandana bibs for my stuffed animals, but not at that price!

I came home with what I really wanted, which was a better outfit for Tritium. I’ll make her a bandana myself.

Once back home, it was time for lunch and more Diablo II with our partner. We had açaí bowls!

Diablo II has some effed up imagery… 😳 That aside, Squirrelman has acquired a crowd of critters. He now has five wolves, five ravens, a spirit, and one of those thorny plant viney things.

Have an Eastery picture since it’s Easter:

In the evening we ordered Chinese food and watched Legend!

I’d always wanted to watch this movie. Plot-wise, it is as flat as a board and incredibly dull. The acting is overly theatrical, but that aspect has some charm. What really sells this movie is its unbelievably detailed sets, costuming, and makeup. It was wonderfully trippy, and had I watched it as a child, I’m sure that it would have had a tremendous effect in my young psyche.

Anyway… that’s all I’ve got to share for this week. It was long, busy, eventful, for sure! I wonder what next week will bring…

Cats, Date Night, 🐿️ My Life 🐿️, LEGO, My Dinos, My Hug, Selfies, Snails, Weekly Summary

Week 11 Summary: Chucky’s Finally Here! 🔪💕

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This was a pretty pleasant week! It started off slow, but got pretty fun. My Good Guy doll arrived (a gift from our partner), Mwako’s visit began, and Christopher and I got to have some alone time since our partner had to travel for work. It’s been a week of little progress in regards to my goals, but I expected that for this week and the next too.

I’ve also been really lax in some things that I shouldn’t have gone astray on (mainly regarding books and toys) but even though it may not seem like it, it is still less than before. After Mwako’s visit is done I intend to buckle down again on it all. Anyway, on with the summary!

🌈 Monday 🌈

I don’t have much to share for this day, but I took a couple of fun photos in the studio. Here is Sweet Potato looking cozy in my bed:

I really love how my setup is looking at night right now…

Here’s some video of the wallpaper:

🌈 Tuesday 🌈

On Tuesday I took this photo of Elliot lounging inside the cooler:

This snailboi was looking around rather strangely…

Here’s some video:

In the evening, the Ring door camera detected a “person”…

Well, he certainly is a fine little guy.

🌈 Wednesday 🌈

For Wednesday, have some of my yard friends.

Squirrely video:

Little fluffballs…

In the afternoon I took a walk; here’s a pretty flower I saw:

The cooler-turned-hut continues to be a popular spot, but Kotoko has basically claimed it completely at this point.

Christopher and I had Wednesday evening to ourselves since our partner was on his business trip. We really missed him, even though it was just the one night. Our partner is VERY loud and always laughing and cracking jokes, so when he is gone, there is a massive emptiness in the air.

However, I’d also been forever since Christopher and I had an “us” date night, and even if all we did was sit and play LEGO as usual, it made me really happy.

Christopher had fun too, while building his “white whale”, LEGO 10194 Creator Emerald Night:

I built some of my Christmas presents, the LEGO City Wildlife Rescue ATV 60300 and LEGO City Chicken Henhouse 60344:

We ordered pizza and watched a totally bizarre 1986 movie about haunted dolls. It was called, simply and appropriately, Dolls.

It was, in my opinion, terrible, but in that cheesy and charming way an 80’s movie about haunted dolls would be. I freaking LOVED it.

🌈 Thursday 🌈

On Thursday I did a little shopping, alas! I broke my resolution, but I came home SO HAPPY. For starters, as it gets close to spring, the local craft store had new snails:

How could I resist them at 40% off, really? And this, well, this looked like too much fun:

But my favorite find of the day was quite random. I’ll start by telling you that I am expecting an Aliexpress order of like, six toy dinos. I decided to give it a shot because even though there were no reviews, the page showed video of the toys and everything, and they looked fantastic. I didn’t buy them all, though I wanted to. Well, imagine my surprise when I ran into one of them at T.J. Maxx! I recognized it instantly, even though mine have yet to arrive.

I was happy to see that the size and quality were fantastic, just like the photo showed, though the ones in the packaging are of more realistic colors, while the ones I will be receiving are very bright.

I can’t begin to tell you the love I have for dinosaur toys of this sort. And to have just happened to run into one of the two I didn’t order! It made my day.

🌈 Friday 🌈

Our partner came home Thursday night. Chucky arrived early on Thursday but I waited til the next day so I could open the box with him there, since he was the one who got me this lovely toy. You can’t imagine my delight. He is so big and perfect and creepy. I legitimately and unironically adore him!

Now he sits right next to me just looking like a creep.

If I sleep on my bed, he’ll be in the exact position to stare at me, I just realized… hah.

🌈 Saturday 🌈

Saturday was SO busy! I did chores all day long, but also something else. At some point this week I made the decision to stop taking commissions permanently and make a push to find a job again. So I’ve spent hours revamping all of my online presence. The taking of commissions was firmly intertwined with every bit of my online life. Removing that in a manner that was permanent and I couldn’t easily undo was a massive undertaking that is still underway.

That aside –have you heard of Hot Ones on YouTube by First We Feast? Here’s a playlist:

Basically, Hot Ones involves celebrities being interviewed over a platter of increasingly spicy chicken wings, and by spicy I do mean spicy. People cry. People throw the towel. The infamous “Last Dab XXX”, the last sauce in every set, has a Scoville rating of over 2,000,000 SHU. So of course our partner decided to order the box that covers a full season of sauces.

This means all the sauces being used in the episodes of the current season. And he and Christopher invited some friends of ours to suffer through this. Since Mwako arrived in the afternoon of this day, he joined in the “fun”. But I feel like I was the one having the most fun just staring at them all getting really red in the face and almost crying while I calmly ate my non-spicy popcorn chicken:

That photo was taken at Publix as triumphant proof that the coveted crispy treasure had been acquired, since it ended up being quite a feat and I was a pain in the ass to everyone until my popcorn chicken was secured.

Anyway, everyone suffered, except me, and only my two valiant gents managed to eat every wing with every sauce. I know it’s not a proof of manliness, but I was fuckin’ proud. 😁

Went to bed completely exhausted this night. Grover and Rosie were waiting…

🌈 Sunday 🌈

On Sunday Mwako and I went out for a little while. We got some new LEGO for the week, and Christopher indulged me by allowing me the treat of another Dino Scribble Scrubbie by Crayola. I can’t wait to play with it!

Tomorrow we will go to the zoo. I’m so excited!

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 🤷‍♀️

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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 🐣

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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. 😊