Tag Archives: Bluey

Week 4 Summary: Old Friends ๐Ÿฅฐ

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

๐ŸŒˆ Monday ๐ŸŒˆ

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

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

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

๐ŸŒˆ Tuesday ๐ŸŒˆ

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

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

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

๐ŸŒˆ Wednesday ๐ŸŒˆ

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

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

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

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

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

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

๐ŸŒˆ Thursday ๐ŸŒˆ

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

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

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

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

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

๐ŸŒˆ Friday ๐ŸŒˆ

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

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

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

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

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

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

He even helped stick some of them in place:

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

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

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

๐ŸŒˆ Saturday ๐ŸŒˆ

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

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

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

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

At bedtime, Rosie was waiting for me:

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

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

๐ŸŒˆ Sunday ๐ŸŒˆ

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

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

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

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

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

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

Christmas โ€™22 ๐ŸŽ„โœจย ย [Advent Day 18]

This morning Buddy and Sarah were creeping from one of the beds. It was a little unsettling.

Today’s Jurassic World Advent Calendar surprise was another Velociraptor. They could at least paint its eye…

The LEGO City Advent Calendar had two tiny toys for the tree! A rocket and a rocking-horse.

This evening was fun. We continued watching Christmas movies (I wore my Pikachu Christmas pajamas again) and building our Home Alone set.

I also had Marzi and Molly nearby. Marzi wore the beautiful handmade ribbon that Shelly gave me as a present!

I didn’t make as many mistakes this time, and had more fun. We take turns with the bags and pass the trays and book around.

Molly tried to help but it was a little overwhelming for her.

Side note, I’ve been reading the Molly books, and she really is a lot like me, which makes me both like her and dislike her more (lol) but mostly like her more. I also looked a lot like her when I was little. There’s probably a photo of me somewhere, pigtails, glasses, bangs and all (but I rarely wore pigtails, I just know it happened at some point).

While the guys built their bags I finally had some fun with my Bluey Christmas activity book:

Here’s some details we built this evening:

Christopher made me mac and cheese for dinner. After watching Home Alone, I’d been craving it. It’s a detail that is even included in the set!

One more sitting, I think, and the set will be done!

A Very Happy Thanksgiving ๐Ÿฆƒ๐ŸŒˆ

Happy Thanksgiving weekend, everyone! I gotta say, other than feeling suuuper queasy on Friday morning for an hour or so, this Thanksgiving was one of my favorites in recent memory. I hope yours was nice, too! Let me tell you all about mine below.

โœจ๐ŸŽ„ Thursday ๐ŸŽ„โœจ

We were off around 9:00am. My companion for this trip was Othello, though I also brought Bluey for sleeping. First things first, we went to McDonald’s. I needed to eat something so I could take my painkillers (I was on my period during this weekend).

Christopher was out at some point…

Getting to my mom-in-law’s house felt really magical. There was a tree this year, and it had lots of presents underneath! Othello was really excited and had fun exploring it:

I sat underneath for a while, looking and wondering at the presents, and playing Pokรฉmon on my Switch. I felt really small and happy.

Pretty soon it was time for dinner. I’m usually not big on Thanksgiving dinner but it was at my mom-in-law’s house this time around, and so delicious! I wish we always had this holiday (and all holidays actually) here.

There were many pies… pumpkin, chocolate pudding, shoofly… I tried a bit of everything.

After dinner, Pan cuddled with me…

We went to bed early, since we’d be up at 3:45am for Black Friday.

โœจ๐ŸŽ„ Friday and Saturday ๐ŸŽ„โœจ

On Friday we did a little local Black Friday shopping (mainly Funko Pops for sis-in-law) and then went to Orlando to drop her off at the airport. After that we had breakfast at Keke’s (a little lackluster compared to the last time we were here) and after a little more shopping, we went back home to my mom-in-law’s house.

Christopher and I did soooo much napping and relaxing. I drew and played Pokรฉmon Violet –kept trying to find a Goomy to no avail. Mom-in-law and partner stayed busy, washing the car, running errands and shopping for groceries. They made a wonderful chicken salad for dinner, and afterwards, we played UNO Flip! and then watched a movie, “Luck”. It was cute.

On Saturday we went to a big local flea market that our partner had never been to with us. It’s always fun to look at all the kitschy knick-knacks. Usually I go off on my own a lot, but I stuck closer to family this time. I found a dolly I liked a lot before we left, and Christopher bought it for me. I’ll blog about her on a separate post. She’s a Horsman dolly from 1973.

After the flea market, we went to The Wagon Wheel for a delicious pizza lunch. Then it was time to go home! If it wasn’t for my worry about Rosie, I would have wanted to stay an extra night… we had so much fun.

โœจ๐ŸŽ„ Buddy And Sarah Return! ๐ŸŽ„โœจ

A big, unexpected surprise when I walked through the door was that already, Buddy and Sarah were back! Maybe I misremembered but I really thought they’d be back December 1st, not today. It really felt like a magical moment as I did not expect it at all!

The two of them were busy opening the present I left them. Maybe they’ll write me back sometime during the month. I think it’d be fun to exchange a couple of letters while they are here.

On a different note, I came home with a new Little People toy! I saw this at Walmart while picking up a toy for my friend Snow. I already have a Little People red-haired guy who looks so much like Christopher. But this one does even more! And he comes with a cat! So he bought it for me.

Speaking of toys, I had a couple of new ones to put under the tree when we got back! Unwrapped, since I’m not gonna wrap my own presents and it’s pointless for our partner to wrap something I’ve already seen. When we went to Target, he got me this Sesame Street figure set I had on my wish list:

And also this Bluey watch! It has games and you can hear Bluey and Bingo’s voice. It’s so cute!

That’s all for my Thanksgiving weekend. It was really wonderful and passed too quickly. The next exciting holiday event will be Zoo Lights on Friday, and since now I have a really good phone, I’ll be able to take nice night time photos of all the Christmas lights at the zoo! I can’t wait to share.

Home Alone ๐ŸŽ„โœจ

Happy Monday, everyone! I didn’t mention this anywhere because I didn’t want to broadcast to the world that I would be alone in this massive house for three nights and days, but that is what happened. My husband and our partner went to visit Christopher’s sister (my sis-in-law) along with Christopher’s mom way up in the Florida panhandle.

I decided to stay behind for a number of reasons. One of them was that I had a massive mountain of presents to wrap, a lot of accumulated chores, and I didn’t want to stress out the animals by leaving them alone for so long right before the Thanksgiving holidays.

I was also looking forward to it. I can be a little bit naughty and eat tons of junk food, order takeout, watch cartoons, play video games, blast any music I like throughout the house… it’s a dream!

On the other hand, at night it is very lonely and scary. This house is very big, so I sleep with one eye open. But I had a good time. Now my guys are back! And I can tell you all about my weekend home alone.

๐ŸŽ„ Friday Night ๐ŸŽ„

As soon as everyone was gone I sat down to relax with a little reading:

Kotoko kept me company nearbyโ€ฆ

I really adore stories about toys, from the toys’ POV, so I am loving this book. I even have my own Raggedy Ann and Andy:

After some stories and a Christmas cake, I began to work on a vast backlog of housework, some of it delayed by weeks. I wasnโ€™t done until 8:00pm. I made the house all merry to enjoy the evening…

Then I placed my order with Wahbi Sabi and jumped in the shower. I saved my brand new Pikachu Christmas pajamas to wear this weekend!

I finally got to get cozy in them while I waited for my food to get there…

…then had my coveted Spam sushi and corn cheese on a Christmas bowl and cup. Of course, I had my Coke on my Bluey Christmas cup, while watching some Bluey Christmas shorts, as well as Verandah Santa and Christmas Swim on the CRT!

You can’t tell in these photos, but my cutlery was Bluey themed too. Also, the placemat!

The food was delicious, a cheap but huge treat from my favorite Korean restaurant:

For dessert I had a Christmas cake and some almond milk!

Then with the dishwasher going, it was gift-wrapping time! I watched the original How The Grinch Stole Christmas cartoon since I’d never seen it before, and then watched the movie, which I’ve seen a thousand times and utterly love.

I wrapped presents until I felt just tired enough to go to bed with the cats and with Pokemon Violet on my Switch. My bed looked so cozy all lit up!

And Rosie was already waiting for me…

I didn’t play too long, I was so tired. I set up my character and then cuddled up with Rosie and was out like a log.

๐ŸŽ„ Saturday ๐ŸŽ„

This was a very long day, and one on which an incredibly rare occurrence happened: I stayed in my pajamas all day. I normally hate this, even if I’m sick. But they are cute and comfy and I was so busy. To give you an idea of the job I had in my hands, even after hours and hours of gift wrapping last night, I wrapped pretty much non-stop from 9:30am to 8:00pm tonight. I stopped only to eat lunch. That is a lot of presents. I didn’t count them but there must have been over 50, maybe 60. Here’s some of the mess…

I’ve been buying presents for my family since August. They are all presents from me and also from Christopher, to all our family and friends, and then there are our partner’s presents to Christopher, and Christopher’s family, and I wrapped that, as well. It was a lot of work but I can’t wait to see happy faces when the surprises are revealed.

Here’s the results. The stockings are full too. There are a lot of small presents hidden everywhere so it’s really a lot more than you’d think at first glance.

Alas, a ribbon has already dropped. I reattached it.

For the entirety of the weekend (but most of all on this day), I had vintage and not-so-vintage Christmas and/or Thanksgiving cartoons playing, and it was lovely. Here is a collage of GIFs from some cartoons I watched throughout the weekend.

In the middle of my gift wrapping, Christopher surprised me with these photos…

I SCREAMED!! How to choose just one? But I had to. It was hard because I always wanted a Furby Buddy and this one is an obvious match to this Furby, surely they have always been together. But I wasn’t about to leave this little voiceless guy abandoned in a thrift shop! Christopher got him for me. I can’t wait to have his voicebox fixed.

After that, I had yummy snacks and drank wine while playing Pokรฉmon Violet. I made a separate post about my early experiences with the game, which you can read HERE.

๐ŸŽ„ Sunday๐ŸŽ„

With all the gift-wrapping fully out of the way, today was a more normal day. I did my chores, including taking care of the snailies, sent some Trellos, worked on holiday cards, and wrote my letters to Santa as well as to thank and welcome Buddy and Sarah:

I ordered takeout again, and had it while playing more Pokรฉmon Violet. It was really good!

The cats haven’t spent much time with me, but Tomoyo eventually did come to see me… here she is sitting on my lap:

With all commission information retrieved, and especially with multiple unsavory permabanned people having their Twitter accounts reinstated, I decided to officially delete my art accounts as well. I’m all gone from Twitter, again. It’s an amazing feeling!

And, I’ll be really active elsewhere! I’ll be active here, on Telegram, on Discord and on FA. So please don’t be a stranger! ๐Ÿ˜Š

Anyway, it was actually at the end of the day that I began all my chores. But before bed I managed to get the snail tank and litter boxes cleaned, the animals all fed and watered, dishes done and put away, and the laundry too. Trash taken out, showered. Before bed, I had one final little feast. Wine, a sandwich, and Elf sugar cookies:

It was a fruitful day. And fun too. I even had a Zoom call with my mom and made some art progress! Plus posted old art too.

And then it was bedtime again, my last night alone.

๐ŸŽ„ Monday ๐ŸŽ„

My guys FINALLY came home today! I feel like I’ve been all alone for forever. Anyway, today was a calm day of chores and prep. I prepared for my passport and doctor appointments that I have tomorrow. I also plan to drop by Target Optical and finally get my eyes checked. I’m really worried about some drop in my eyesight, and about intense pain in my breasts. I hope some of those worries can be set aside after tomorrow.

Another thing I did was prepare a seasonal outfit for Igloo, since she will be joining me in some upcoming travels:

I also shipped out a couple of badges, chose, scanned and printed some coloring pages from my collection to have fun with during the season, worked on art, and was able to make some more decisions regarding online stuff. As it turns out, every Discord server I checked out is pretty dead. Telegram is okay… I lurk on one busy community chat. I disabled automatic media downloads for groups, which helped with some issues I was having.

I also realized that Reddit is AMAZING at solving my FOMO issues: I can do a quick daily browse of the subreddits I follow, maybe post a little here and there, and all is good. And it feels FAR less toxic than Twitter. So I may delete Discord again, with intention to actually put effort in being active on the Telegram chat I’m in, and from time to time, I will check Reddit.

That aside, after a weekend of utter indulgence, I’m back on my fitness wagon, so you’ll see those posts begin to pop up again.

I dressed up nice to greet my guys…

I also made the house very merry and festive…

…and served a comforting, good meal –chicken curry on rice. So when they got home, everything looked beautiful, the house smelled amazing, there was Christmas music softly playing and everything was in tip top shape.

I really, really missed them so much. I felt bad for missing out on the family trip, but when I think of all that I got done, I simply have no idea how that would have been doable without this long weekend all to myself.

I hope you found this post entertaining! I’ll update after tomorrow’s errands.

It Crimustiem!! ๐ŸŽ„โœจ

Have I told you guys I freaking LOVE Christmas!? I love decking the house out for it, planning, buying presents, wrapping them, writing cards and decorating them with stickers, having Christmas playdates where we watch Christmas cartoons and color Christmas coloring books and eat Christmas cookies. I love watching Christmas movies and listening to carols on repeat and hosting holiday parties. I. LOVE. IT.

I actually just kinda lump Thanksgiving together with it because Thanksgiving night marks the start of our evening Black Friday gallivanting, and everyone is on a Christmas mood by then: it’s Christmas sweaters, and Christmas music, everyone wishing everyone else Happy Holidays, and free hot chocolate and cookies here and there.

This year I am more excited than I have been in many years. So excited about surprises I can’t wait to give, and about some goodies I hope to get. About going to see Zoo Lights Miami during one of their ugly sweater nights and wearing this:

…and about hosting a holiday party with our friends, going to LEGOLAND when all their Christmas decor is set out, SeaWorld Orlando (same), and Mickey’s Very Merry Christmas Party –I can’t believe ALL of this is actually happening! AND —GET THIS!!— we get to stay in the official LEGOLAND Hotel, in one of the Kingdom themed rooms!!

โœจ๐Ÿฐ LOOK AT THIS THING!! ๐Ÿฐโœจ

I keep looking at it oh my god, are you serious, is this for real? I don’t care how tight a fit that child bed is for me, I am sleeping in it, and my toy companions on the top bunk. Fuck! I’m so excited!! Anyway…

๐ŸŽ„ The Christmasing ๐ŸŽ„

Where to begin? I guess I’ll just share random things. But first… a seasonal snack to stay pumped! I had this as I began the decorating…

For starters, here is the bird-and-squirrel feeder I keep by the front door. It’s been made merry as well and I intend to make a point of keeping it very full til year’s end.

I hung my Jurassic World Dominion advent calendar from the wall. I’m so excited to enjoy it!

My little ficus tree (I think it’s a weeping fig tree) has also been decorated, because I love it dearly:

The cats have their yearly cardboard Christmasy abode! Here is Tomoyo enjoying it. Surprisingly, she hasn’t chewed it yet.

I bought a new wreath and decorated it all by myself! Everything in the wreath was added by me. It has multicolored lights.

The old wreath, which has yellow lights, was also revamped and placed on the garage door:

Also, I worked on a special stocking for the special guy in our lives:

Here they are all together. Next year I’d like to make custom ones for Christopher and I as well:

Can’t forget my snabies! ๐ŸŒ

I made their entire area merry…

A lovely surprise I had when the first bulk of the decorating was done, is that Buddy and Sarah dropped by early to leave me an amazing early gift!! The LEGO City advent calendar that I wanted so much!

I set it up and it’s all ready for adventing. ๐Ÿ˜ I never had a toy advent calendar until now and I can’t believe I have TWO this year!

You guys won’t believe what Target had…

I love it especially because she is sitting on sand! It’s so perfect for Florida. She’s now hanging from our tree!

And speaking of the tree… here it is in the dining room. There’s more track underneath of it than usual because it is a LEGO train this year!

Gently moving…

Some pretty ornaments:

I try to add merry touches everywhere in the house. Here is the foyer…

This is the game room, where I’m going to be wrapping presents all weekend:

Even Dragonite is feeling festive!

The kitchen…

The guest bathroom!

And the movie room!

The neighborhood is starting to get festive, too:

But I think our house was first. I am so pleased with the outside of the house…

Here you can see it from the street at night:

Last night we went on a walk, and stopped by Publix to get some provisions for me for the weekend, and I got to see the Pines City Center tree! It was already up, and so pretty!

This weekend I’m gonna be in my Pikachu Christmas pajamas, wrapping presents, writing cards, eating Christmas tree shaped Little Debbie cakes, watching Christmas movies, listening to Christmas songs and drinking wine from my Bluey Christmas sippy cup. I am SO excited.

You know, if you couldn’t tell. Anyway, as of this post, I have:

  1. Posted all stuff from Twitter that I hadn’t gotten around to posting here yet.
  2. Officially no longer “synced” between both places because I’m going to be deleting all non-art accounts within the next 48 hours. Right now the main thing stopping me is being in the middle of a DM with Build-A-Bear. Once I resolve that I’ll delete that account and the others.

Also, if you’re waiting for a Trello from me, it is being sent today. Thank you for your patience with me. That’s all for now!

My Friend Bluey [Art By Nazz]

Patreon reward from  NazzNikoNanuke!

PLEASE DO NOT EDIT OR COLOR!

๐Ÿ„ Characters are the property of Marina Neira unless otherwise specified. Artwork is ยฉ 2023 by the artist who created it, as noted above. You may NOT copy, color, reference, repost or use this artwork in any way or claim it as your own. The artist has given me explicit permission to repost my commission/gift/their half of a trade, with appropriate credit.

New Coloring Books! ๐ŸŒˆ๐Ÿ“š

I’m trying to catch up on posts regarding new goodies I’ve gotten. I can’t really post everything as my blog was really neglected for a long time (though, you wouldn’t be able to tell since I post a lot when I catch up and it’s all properly post-dated). Anyway! Today’s post is about coloring books.

Even though I’ve been collecting coloring books for the better part of five years, I don’t think I’ve actually ever voiced that. I don’t use them: I keep them for scanning and then printing into Bristol board, my favorite method for coloring. This also allows me to keep certain irreplaceable books pristine, such as the NIB collection I got on eBay of Muppet Babies coloring books (from the original show) or the set of Moomin coloring books, all in Swedish, that I found brand new at Goodwill of all places.

One of my newest finds is this Mandalorian coloring book. I love it!

This might be one of the few that are more for collectible purposes only rather than ever printing and coloring, but I never know if a friend I happen to have over might like to color them.

Ok, this was a HECK of a find! If you know me well, you’ll know that I love, LOVE Hercules. It’s one of my favorite Disney movies. Herc merch isn’t that easy to find, but a coloring book?? In 2022?? What? I jumped on it. It even has holographic stickers!

Here’s one of the inside pages…

So, the Bluey one I’ve had for a few months. But I don’t think I’ve showed it yet. Since I’m showing the Berenstain Bears one, I figure I might show this one also. I’m so excited for the season, so I can use these!

The Berenstain Bears one is AMAZING. It is SO thick, and the scenes are my most favorite sort of thing to color. I can’t wait!

The Bluey one is actually an activity book for the most part. But I’m really excited about it too!

Also, I’ll probably use this letter… ๐Ÿ˜

That’s it for now!

Bandanas And Necklaces ๐ŸŒˆ๐Ÿงธ

Squeak helped me make some bandanas today! ๐ŸŠ๐ŸŒˆโœจ

Very pretty fabricโ€ฆ โ˜„๏ธ๐Ÿš€โœจ๐ŸŒˆโญ๏ธ

E.T. and Bluey both have bandanas now, but E.T. still needs his necklace.

Jello, Cookie and Dusty have their bandanas too! ๐ŸŒˆโญ๏ธ They just need to be decorated maybe with a pin or such. ๐Ÿค”

Of course, Squeak has one now too! He helped, after all.

Yoshi, too, finally has a bandana too. A lot of my stuffies have been waiting a while.

A little later, I also made necklaces for Bowser, my new Giga (Cilantro) and the T. rex I showed off during Mwako’s visit (Curry) and my little purple Trike that I’ve had for over half a year (Grape Jelly). And I did make one for E. T. too. It makes me really happy to make these accessories for my toys, once in a while. ๐Ÿ˜Š

You see… I’m very lucky to have friends now, but when I was a kid, I was truly all alone in that regard for almost my entire childhood. My toys were my friends, to an unhealthy degree. I know I would have put myself in physical danger to protect my toy “friends” when I was a little girl.

They were all I had. As tangible stand-ins for imaginary friends, those toys were the way my young brain coped with deep ostracizing (the lovely result of neurodivergence) and the resulting years of solitude, at least when it came to my peers. That, and books.

These days, while I still have an unhealthy *amount* of toy friends, they thankfully are no longer a replacement for real, human ones. But they are still friends and they still make me so happy. I know it may seem cringy and dumb, but I’m grateful that I never outgrew this.

And, that I have partners and family who don’t care at all if I carry a toy around. Someday I’m going to die, and in the grand scheme of things, eventually over the course of time I’ll be completely forgotten. As will we all. So I will be myself, and be happy, while I’m here, and keep sharing my silly toy stuff with you. It’s more than a bit cringe but I hope it makes you smile.