Well, it’s at least “so long… for now”. You never know what the future may bring in a few years. Communities evolve, devolve, and change. I may decide to return. I hope I do, someday, feel comfortable enough to do so. But for now… it’s accounts deleted, commissions finished: I’m free!
Free from the discourse, free to write, free to draw, and it’s for me: no one else has to like or approve of it. Free from the queue, free from drawing topics that do nothing for me. Free from a page of disclaimers regarding community issues that I have to consistently tweak to please people who aren’t my friends and whose thoughts I do not even care about. Free from DNI lists that pop up in every social media space. Free from losing sleep regarding who I’m supposed to block or who blocked me. Free from any concern about the AUPs of other sites.
Now, around me, there is… silence… other than the chatter of my friendly little Telegram chat, and it is precious, at least for now.
It’s true that a lot less eyes are on me and my work… a LOT less. That is both good, and bad, but at least for a while, I think it’s very good.
With all the above said, I would like to clarify a couple of things. The first is that to me, fandom โ friends. Me leaving the fandom behind, and closing commissions, isn’t a rejection of my friends. I have said this over and over, but there are still people who took it this way.
I don’t entirely blame them for this, but to all my furry fandom friends, I say, we will only stop being friends if my belonging to the fandom is a requirement for said friendship, or if my drawing certain types of art is a requirement for friendship.
Another thing I want to be clear about is that the littlefur art I drew for twelve years brought me a lot of joy. I am so grateful for those many hours, months, days, years of great happiness. So, when I refer to being “free from drawing topics that do nothing for me” you have to take that joy into consideration. Drawing for the community made me very happy 95% of the time. However, you can’t deny that there is a certain… emptiness to always drawing the same cutesy scenes ad nauseaum for over ten years.
I like to draw cute characters, but it is far more rewarding to draw them as part of nuanced, engaging stories. I like dramatic scenes, scenes full of feeling; feelings which sometimes include fear, anger, and grief. These were rarely present in my commission work. I was (mostly) restricted to drawing the following feelings and expressions in my commission art:
Happiness
Embarrassment
Pouting / Grumpiness
Mischievousness
Sleepiness
Sadness (very rare)
Anger (very rare)
Unless a character was sleeping, closed eyes tended not to be an option. Ideally, I would be forced into giving a commissioner a full, 3/4 view body, even when I would love to try a different composition or angle, lest it be taken as me not giving their money’s worth.
For these reasons, no matter how happy I was with my commission work, I really do feel “freed”. But even so, I know I’ll do small commission work for close friends from time to time later this year. These friends know that I will reach out to them. It will never be a situation where I *need* to constantly do commissions again (I hope). So, those pieces will be a joy, since most of my time will be dedicated to art I am passionate about.
Free, But Also Lonely
Long ago, well before FA, before I even had a deviantART account, I had less “noise” and toxicity around me, it’s true. But I was also very lonely.
It’s easy to romanticize the way things used to be. As we say in my country of birth, “Todo tiempo pasado fue mejor”, or “Every time that has passed was better”. Nostalgia will do that to you. It’s easy to forget my desperate attempts at seeking connection –any kind of connection, with anyone who might remotely have something in common with me. Before things went so wrong, the Internet did give this to me. And now, in my attempt to get away from stuff that upsets me greatly, I am losing a lot of connections.
It’s been painful, but not entirely surprising, to see how tied some relationships I valued were to some websites. This was the truest of Twitter, but now, also of FA. People that expressed great affection for me basically forgot me when I left one or two sites. This is not a guilt-trip attempt; I could absolutely see myself doing the same, it is the nature of the game, but it still sucks.
And now I feel lost and lonely, and it isn’t something any one person can help me fix. I need to adjust and begin nurturing my closer friendships. Sometimes closer physically, and sometimes those that, while long-distance, were always very close emotionally but I didn’t give them as much time and attention as they deserved. I’m hoping I can do so, going forward.
Anyway –beyond this great rambling preamble and some minimally captioned photos, this will not be a very detailed entry. I was very busy for a lot of this week, as you will see below!
Thank you in advance to anyone who comments on this post! Though it may take me a little while to reply, your comments mean so much to me! ๐โจ๐
๐ Monday ๐
I had an afternoon snack with Mothball. He still needs to be cleaned up, but I’ve grown quite fond of him.
For dinner, I made toasted rice balls with edamame and some avocado from our neighbors’ tree which they gave to us. Sadly, the avocado was no good. I liked the rest, but the guys didn’t like the edamame so much.
๐ Tuesday ๐
Christopher needed to buy some stuff, so we went on a little IKEA outing! I brought Romaine along, and we had a nice lunch.
We also went to Goodwill and I found a few neat used books.
In the late afternoon, I finished my very last commission, for Cosu. It took an entire week to complete, but I am proud of the results!
In the evening, our friends Ana and Jessie came over and we had a Fourth of July BBQ! I asked Christopher to really burn my hot dog ’cause that’s how I like it best. ๐ญ๐ฅ I used all of my Bluey stuff for dinner.
Then we sat outside waiting for our across-the-street neighbors’ fireworks to start. They hadn’t done fireworks in a few years. These are the same neighbors who gave us the avocados. A very nice family. I am glad that they are our neighbors. They even gave us some headbands and glowsticks! ๐
Here’s some video I took of the fireworks around the neighborhood:
One more:
๐ Wednesday ๐
On Wednesday I did a little scrapbooking! It has been a while since I was last able to find the time to do so. Super Mario was the theme!
I wasn’t able to get as good a scan, so I want to share both a scan and a photo. Here’s the photo, first:
And the scan:
This is the ninth scrapbooking page so far this year. I’ll do one more Mario page before moving on to another topic.
On Wednesday evening I decided to make a Threads account, but I’m unsure if anything will come from it. ๐คทโโ๏ธ
๐ Thursday ๐
Went for a walk with our partner in the evening. A little snail was sliming about!
An ant was walking over him, but I don’t think he was bothered by it.
Rosie cuddled with me at bedtime…
๐ Friday ๐
I don’t have anything to share on this day because I began my studio revamp, which I talked about extensively in this post published on Thursday. It was an extremely busy day. The new drawing board arrived, too.
๐ Saturday ๐
By Saturday afternoon, a great deal of progress had been made. The drawing board was put together by our partner, though I am still missing a stool:
I also decided just what I wanted to do with the wall. Ultimately, that entire side of the room is being dedicated to traditional art going forward. Everything touching that wall (furniture or not) is either supplies to create traditional art, or places to display it (though perhaps I’ll display any OC pieces on the wall, digital or traditional, especially since I mix the two a lot anyway).
We tried to go for a walk in the afternoon but it began to rain, quite hard too. The umbrella our partner brought wasn’t cooperating at all.
In the end, Christopher picked us up.
๐ Sunday ๐
As of today I am about 90% done with the studio revamp, and very, very, very exhausted. Many bins worth of stuff still need to go into storage. But it looks right –very inviting. I can’t wait to create in this new space!
I also mowed the lawn. It was a very tiring day/week. I expect to continue to be busy with final odds and ends until late next week.
I’m sorry I don’t have anything else very interesting to say. I’m so tired! But also very excited.
I don’t have a big preamble this time around. The rainy and stormy season goes on and on… and on. All of this week I worked on commissions. I also visited my mom, and later in the week, we went to see my mom-in-law! It was a VERY busy one, but I also found time to game and spend time with my toys. Let’s get on with the summary!
Thank you in advance to anyone who comments on this post! Though it may take me a little while to reply, your comments mean so much to me! ๐โจ๐
๐ Monday ๐
You might recall that last weekend, Kotoko wasn’t doing so well, though she got better later on Sunday. By Monday morning, she was all better, with a strong appetite and bright eyes!
Here’s a little snack I had in the afternoon. I didn’t eat the whole bunny, just a piece.
I saw Bluey yogurt at Publix! I didn’t want it but I took a picture:
In the late afternoon, I made time for WoW and some wine! ๐ท๐ฎ
I took a few snaps of Stromboli because I love him so much.
Slimy man. Best man.
At some point, I noticed that one of the soots decided to perch upon Ribbon’s head. It was so cute.
After Monday night dinner, Kotoko lounged on our partner’s leg. That was unusual; she usually picks Christopher. But it was adorable.
๐ Tuesday ๐
My pair of Raikes beavers that Christopher so sweetly bought for me arrived on Tuesday! Christopher can usually tell when I am legitimately losing my mind over a certain toy, even if I just came across it. This was one of those cases, and when they arrived, I loved them even more than I thought I would! I’ve named the girl Russet and the boy Yukon because they are just two huge potatoes (and these are actual names; Russet is unisex, while Yukon is a boy’s name):
Their outfits are a little stained from storage and old age, but that’s okay. While I love the look of their outfits, I have to re-dress them anyway as that is a big part of my putting my own touch as I create their personalities.
Here’s Rosie already getting cozy with them:
Speaking of Rosie, here is a perfectly cut scream.
By Tuesday afternoon I’d finished two more commissions:
With this, there was just ONE left! Then I left to visit with mom.
๐ Wednesday ๐
As always, mom had surprises for me. The nicest one was this Mafalda mate gourd! I love it so much. I placed it with my other Mafalda collectibles. I really do want to use it, but I’m so afraid of breaking it.
She also gave me this cute little Ivysaur which I placed in the game room:
๐ Thursday ๐
On Thursday I got around to brushing and dressing Romaine. He looks a lot happier!
I felt pretty exhausted all day since my period was about to hit (and would, the next day). So I napped in the afternoon. Rosie came to lay with me. She was purring and looking into my eyes and seemed so happy.
After I got up, I did more chores and made dinner, and after that, tried to play LEGO with the guys, but couldn’t get very far with my set… I was just so tired. I got ready for bed and after anime, played WoW for a little while, mindlessly hunting for more dragon glyphs.
At one point, as I flew through some dark areas, I turned around and was surprised by a very beautiful spot, glowing and snowing, with a massive dragon flying about. Many of my favorite WoW memories are moments of sudden beauty such as these, at night, with no one else around in-game.
My server is a highly populated one, but few people can be found in some areas at such an hour. So I experience eerie, special moments like this one.
A good while into playing, the message I’d seen a couple of weeks ago popped up again!
It was a very random hour, like 1:15 am? I am not sure why it pops up. I must have turned on some setting at some point on my account, perhaps many years ago, but I can’t find anything about this. In particular, the all-caps and exclamation mark makes me think that it’s something that I myself wrote. Well, in any case, both times it popped up I went “Hmm, it IS late” and decided to stop for the night.
I found a cozy spot to land my dragon and fell asleep with Stromboli, Pippi and Snailio Iglesias keeping watch. Pippi is off camera though.
Right before bed, I took some photos of the freshly-cleaned snail tank. I hung some clover/shamrock lights on top, and it looked very pretty in the dark:
My little guys were just having a nice time, eating, drinking, and going for evening strolls:
๐ Friday ๐
Friday evening we left for Sebastian. I was so excited! I’d seen my mom-in-law when she visited us, but I hadn’t been able to visit her place for a good three months. I brought Raisin for company:
The sun began to set just as we arrived. It was very pretty.
Once we got there, we had chicken nachos while watching my mom-in-law and her friends play cards. I also cuddled and said hi to the cats, whom I hadn’t seen in ages:
We enjoyed each other’s company for the evening and played Blokus.
As usual, Pan got some cuddles from our partner.
We had many plans for Saturday, so we didn’t stay up too late.
๐ Saturday ๐
On Saturday we went to a bunch of really fun antique shops. Actually, the first one was really just a thrift store. I found a few cool books. One, in particular, was a super bizarre addition to my “material to indoctrinate children” collection:
I’ll just give you a few sample pages. It’s… interesting, to say the least. On the surface, it seems pretty harmless, and certainly is compared to other material I have on my shelves, but it’s pretty out there regardless.
With that said: I mean no disrespect if this sort of thing forms part of your spiritual comfort. I’ve generally made it known, however, that having been a Christian most of my life (now somewhere between Agnostic and Atheist) and indoctrinated into Catholicism from a very early age, I have strong feelings regarding indoctrinating children into any sort of religious belief. I think it’s confusing at best, and with some subsets of religion, actual child abuse at worst (Sky Daddy loves you very much, but if you don’t love him more than your own mom and dad, he’ll burn you in a fire forever! Wait, WHAT?)
This isn’t one of those cases, it’s just a little weird, but then again I haven’t read the whole book yet. Some things seem harmless on the surface (the placebo effect of believing you can heal yourself isn’t necessarily bad and can even help) but its wording appears to be setting the ground for believing in actual spiritual healers, which regularly scam people and sometimes keep them from seeking actual medical help. So… .๐คทโโ๏ธ
Anyway! I also got these two:
I’m super excited to read this one!
The second store had lots of interesting things, but it was the sort of place where the owner was very attached to his collection. So, his prices were somewhat unreasonable, in some cases he didn’t know the value of the items offhand, or I, being fairly knowledgeable about some toys, knew that they were massively overpriced. But it was still delightful to browse!
I happened to run into a porcelain doll I liked for the first time ever. Porcelain usually really turns me off as a material. Had she been more reasonably priced, I would have probably bought her. She looked so sweet and it would have been nice to make her pretty again.
The next store was mostly furniture, but the building used to be a bank! You could look inside the old vaults, which was really interesting. I also saw a couple of interesting animal figures. The little mouse perched upon a piece of Roquefort was my favorite.
The final stop was actually a bunch of vendors under one massive roof. It was the Wildwood Antique Mall. After we all went in, our partner was nowhere to be seen. It was because he’d found this massive moth outside and stayed back to take a picture:
Moths are so pretty. I really love them.
It was really interesting to come across a little pride booth. This isn’t really an area where I would feel safe setting up such a booth. This person, I felt, was brave.
Anyway, this place had so many cute things, I had to restrain myself all the while. I knew I could probably get one treat so I had to choose carefully. I took photos of many lovely or interesting things:
It was so cool to see a Maple Town lunch box! The dinosaur was a Universal Parks item, and very well made. I am eager to see what I may find when we go in September. The Thomas pillow was the one thing I truly hated to leave behind… but as I said, I felt it was best to choose just one item.
Eventually, I would find it in the form of the most scratched-up, dirtiest Raikes bear I ever came across. His clothes were filthy, and his face was in bad shape. Who knows how long he’d been there! So of course, my “need to rescue” gland immediately went into overdrive.
He was in a booth with the most haunted-looking dolls ever. You know I love dolls, even creepy dolls, but boy, these were something else!
As we were heading to pay my new Raikes bear’s “adoption fee”, we came across this cute doggy:
I named my new bear Mothball. He’ll need lots of TLC, but I am looking forward to freshening him up! ๐
We went to Heavenly Wings for lunch.
I’ve now made peace with the fact that I don’t like so-called “good” boneless wings. I like Buffalo Wild Wings, as terrible as everyone says they are. I guess I’ve also made peace with the fact that no one ever wants to eat there with me, ever. Sigh. ๐
Then we went to paint ceramics. I’d looked forward to this so much! I picked a penguin this time.
Our partner painted a zombie squirrel for me. Once he was finished, he was bored, so he also colored me a frog. I asked him to sign it and he pretended to, but in the end, he just wrote “frog”. ๐
In the photos above and below, my penguin is finished. He looks pale, but I used the closest colors I could find to the pan flag colors. We will see how bright he turns out after firing! Below you can see the back:
Here are all the figures together: zombie squirrel (our partner) toucan (mom-in-law) mouse with mushroom (Christopher) and my penguin:
In this photo, the figures are less visible but Christopher looks so cute:
Christopher has turned out to be really good at this, particularly at simple but expressive, well-painted eyes. It’s really easy to screw up the eyes.
Here’s a final photo of us holding our figures:
After this, we went home, had burgers, and watched the new Mario movie, which I very much feel was extremely stupid. It’s a bummer. I am exactly the audience for it, being a huge Mario franchise fan. But it was so bad. Oh well. At least it was visually beautiful, and I have the RPG to look forward to!
๐ Sunday ๐
On the long drive back after Sunday lunch, I took off all of Mothball’s dirty old clothes. He enjoyed the hot sun on his fur as he watched the cars go by:
We got home in the early afternoon. I unpacked and did all the chores before relaxing with some WoW.
Before bed, I undressed Russet and Yukon, cut off their tags and loose strings, brushed them, cleaned their faces, and dressed them in their brand-new outfits. I am immensely pleased with how they look!
Name necklaces are next, and possibly a tail ribbon for Russet. ๐ฅฐ
And that was it for this week. Next week, my last commission should be finished, and I will try to do a “reset” of my goals. I hope you all have a lovely week, and I’ll see you next time! ๐โโ๏ธ
WARNING: Short little video at the end of the Saturday summary, which shows a tiny, tiny snake that really looks just like an earthworm! But might still give some the heebie-jeebies.
Well, it is finally over. No more Christmas Tree Shop. I will miss it, sincerely… but now I am free to finish the last three commissions, to work on scrapbooking pages, to read, to game! ๐ To binge Prehistoric Planet and The Mandalorian, and to finish 3,000 Leagues In Search Of Mother. ๐ค For a while, free to kinda do anything –I won’t seek another job until after my Alaska and Orlando vacations. ๐ข๐
But for the rest of this week, I worked a lot, determined to give my last week at CTS my all. โ I must have cried like three times, twice on the last day. I wondered why at the time… I’ve only been there three months.
It’s true that I grew very fond of the team, above all, and the work was pleasant. But I think that I may still be reeling from the recent drastic actions to altogether remove myself from my online home and community of almost twelve years. ๐ CTS closing is a small ending in my life, but that other, far more significant ending is still in the background of my mind and my heart. Perhaps my brain connected the grief of both.
Anyhow, let me tell you all about this week. Hopefully, you’ll find it interesting!
Thank you in advance to anyone who comments on this post! Though it may take me a little while to reply, your comments mean so much to me! ๐โจ๐
๐ Monday ๐
On Monday I worked on commissions and housework for most of the day. I also played a little WoW. I finished the last official commission for Snow. Just three to go!
I’ve still been going back and forth in my mind regarding Instagram. I know it’s pointless to have it and yet do not feel quite ready to delete it. Maybe once I adjust to being without FA. I found myself trying to browse the site still (FurAffinity, I mean) so I blocked it on Cold Turkey Blocker.
๐ Tuesday ๐
This day started off badly. I overslept. Barely made it to work on time, and was cranky and tired. When I got to work, the discount was even lower:
This meant people behaved even worse. They always do when the price goes down, for some reason. The store was even more condensed and empty…
There’s not much of a store left at this point, really.
Lunch was the usual salad, but I had a Petit Pot for dessert, which felt special.
On this day I finally finished most of my leftover purchases. Here’s a cute rat card I got for scrapbooking:
๐ Wednesday ๐
Last workday before my day off –at least it was a short one! After I got back, I showered, changed into my deer kigurumi, and had Kid Cuisine for lunch. Can’t beat that!
I’d run out of coffee the day prior, so I had a caffeine-withdrawal headache until the late afternoon when Amazon delivered it. ๐ I coped by napping until it arrived.
We had pizza for dinner and in general, it was a nice relaxing evening. I went to bed excited about my day-off plans.
๐ Thursday ๐
This was a special, and very wonderful day. I recently got paid. While my prior paycheck went entirely to my mom’s fund, I had different plans for this one. Since I do not intend to work again until September, I needed to make sure all of my bills are covered until then. I paid the ones I could pre-pay and set money aside for all the others from now through December.
I also bought a couple of gifts, and set aside spending money for the cruise and for the Orlando trip. Finally, I had a “me” day, just a day in which I allowed myself to dress cute, go out, have breakfast, enjoy my own company, and spend a little money on myself without regrets or guilt. Ok, maybe just a little guilt. ๐
I took a selfie before heading out; I hadn’t done this in a while.
My first stop was Target, where I found (and bought) this amazing Smurf and Snail hoodie!
I have been wanting to change my pillowcases for a long time but never saw any I liked enough. But this time I found two!
They are a bit wrinkled, but here are my favorite sides. I threw them in the wash which should smooth the wrinkles out.
I also found Bluey bowls to match my plates, cutlery, placemat and cup!
This is something that I didn’t buy, but seeing it filled me with nostalgia:
When I was very little, this is what TMNT toys used to look like. I never really liked them; they looked angry and… veiny? Lol. I remember being upset because I liked the cartoon and wished they looked friendly like they did in the show.
A little boy in my neighborhood had some of these toys, and seeing it now I very vividly remember holding it in my hand, moving its limbs, and just how it felt against my skin; its weight, all of its sharp edges, the shell, etc. So it was nice seeing it again, and remember.
I took a photo of some bright, weedy grass because it had many different shades of yellow and green, and was so pretty. Wildflowers were popping out of it here and there.
Then I made it to the mall! I passed by the quirky dino rider thingies. This time I took photos of different ones. One looked kinda like an axolotl but also somewhat like Toothless… only pink. My favorite was the parasaurolophus, hands down!
Then I went to “Cutie”, a store that is very fun to browse but I almost never buy anything there. They sell toys that were sold on close-out at other stores in the mall, only super overpriced, and a LOT of Aliexpress junk as well as fake Sanrio stuff sold for the price of the real thing. With that said, it’s a super cool store to just have fun in, and they have this giant raptor statue!
This guy looked so friendly:
I took a photo of this particular toy because it looks so much like the sort of weird, made-in-China hodgepodge I would get at markets when I was a little girl. Just look it over carefully and keep reading; it gets consistently more hilarious.
Finally, it was time to go to Build-A-Bear! This guy was greeting (er… guarding?) the entrance. I get that he’s supposed to be waving, but he also kinda looks like he’s gonna deck you one…
I really scored with my BAB finds this time! Put together three whole outfits:
Freckles was the main reason I went to Build-A-Bear. He needed clothes, and now he has a proper outfit! Although I think he needs a hat, still:
He doesn’t look very happy, but that’s okay. Freckles is hard to please. Hard, get it. Because he has a wooden face.
Moving on…
Cool dress at Hot Topic!
Loungefly backpacks are a work of art. So unaffordable though… I only own one (and a tiny bag). It’s rare I even take photos of them but I love this one:
Here’s a decoration at a Toys “R” Us display:
Looks like a Christmas decoration that got left behind, but it’s still cute.
My dream Cranky keeps taunting me everywhere I go… ๐ I want him so badly. There are a bunch of Cranky models, I only want the one that comes in this very specific box. It is the “Brendham Docks” model by Fisher-Price and has a woodgrain band to the right of the box. This one, specifically.
Unfortunately, he’s really expensive and I can never bring myself to blow an entire special day’s budget on him. I’ve had him on my wishlist for so long now, updating it as different versions of him come out. He never goes on sale, at least not this new version. Someday…!
See, the problem with other Crankys is that either they aren’t compatible with regular track, or their faces are wrong. Cranky HAS to look cranky. It’s Cranky after all! And this line has made the best facial expressions by far.
Anyway, here are a couple of cute plushies I saw:
One of my favorite finds of this outing was this Child’s Play shirt and lounge pants. They were sold separately, I just really loved the pants so I looked for a shirt that would be a good set:
I think it’s a pretty perfect match!
In the afternoon, I repotted my Norfolk Island pine. It’s in a massive pot now. Here’s hoping it shoots up nice and strong!
I also managed to make time to install my new lights: purple lights over the bookcases, shamrock lights in the bed, and heart lights by the window:
I was SO delighted with my Chucky loungewear!!
Then it was time for wine and WoW. I kinda wasted my time since I tried a couple of dungeons but it is obvious I cannot solo them yet. Oh well.
An otherwise happy and relaxing evening for all of us took a bit of a downturn as Kotoko, who hadn’t been quite right since the morning, refused to eat and acted more and more unlike herself, clearly uncomfortable and not purring at all the way she usually does. We are hoping it’s a blip… she’s been doing so well. But we also know that she could go at any point, given her condition.
๐ Friday ๐
In the morning, Kotoko came to look out the window which meant climbing from the floor onto my lap and then the table. I also heard her open her food bowl but I’m unsure if she ate very much. She wasn’t interested in fresh wet food, but she did take some treats from me and actually purr while eating them.
Throughout the week, my relief at deleting FA has only increased. I did, however, notice that not every old friend wants to stay in touch with me, even though I haven’t had anyone explicitly come out and say it, in a couple of cases it was pretty obvious. I’m not gonna lie, it does sting a little, but the reasons are precisely the same reasons why I am leaving the community as a whole. There is a certain attitude towards certain things that I personally find toxic and preposterous, and this puts me at odds with a lot of people.
But it is each person’s prerogative to stay in touch or not. They probably feel the same way about me. On the one hand, it reinforces my decision: I read the room accurately when I chose to leave. On the other hand, it feels sucky to be right.
I know this is pretty rambly, so I will quote what someone else said elsewhere: come the day that FA’s grace period regarding their updated AUP ends, a lot of people are in for a painful wake-up call. This includes many people that consider their work to be “totally SFW and non-k!nk”.
Don’t get me wrong. I don’t exactly want to see people upset. But I’m not gonna shed tears when they, too, begin getting takedowns and bans. We warned them, after all. ยฏ\_(ใ)_/ยฏ
Here’s a Random Raikes bunny I ordered. Couldn’t resist his “I’m trippin’ balls” face. I’ll name him Romaine.
That’s the eBay photo; I’ll show him off again once I’ve dressed him in a proper outfit and all that.
The workday was good. Kotoko appeared to be feeling a little better when I got home. I gave her more meds, had lunch, and then, a snack:
Then it was time for housework… lots and lots of housework. When I was done, I sat down to work on art until bedtime, with a break for dinner.
I switched my pillowcases with the new clean ones. They’re still a bit wrinkly, but I love them! It’s only two but I do love both sides of the Jurassic World one:
๐ Saturday ๐
For most intents and purposes, this was the last day at CTS. We told all customers today was the last day, and it was the last day on which I would see several coworkers.
This photo is of how the store looked when I came in. If you compare it with a photo taken just about four hours later, the difference is quite stark.
I got this unexpected message when I logged in to my register…
A silly joke by a customer:
For lunch I had an egg salad sandwich and one of the jelly donut holes I found in the break room.
I shared it with Bargain:
Bargain and I partook in some “strong apple juice”. It’s just something that happened throughout the day on the down-low, though “strong apple juice” wasn’t everyone’s comfort drink. We didn’t go nuts of course, but it was a nice little thrill on this last difficult day…
Here’s a pupper photoset. This guy was a bit shy, which you can tell in the photos, but also friendly, and did little jumps at me and licked my hands all over. He wanted to be friends, but was also somewhat reserved. His name was Loki.
I took a few selfies with some of my favorite coworkers (mind you this is not all of them):
In the first photo is Sandra, whom I originally spoke to the day on the day I first applied to work at CTS. She was the first one I ever met. Sandra is no-nonsense but very kind and very hardworking; you can tell she doesn’t suffer fools gladly, yet she still was very patient with me all the time that I was there.
In the second photo is Carolina, or just Caro. She is a very sweet person with a warm and caring demeanor, who has an incredibly contagious and loud laugh, which you could hear from the other end of the store, even over loud music. Invariably it would cause customers I’d be ringing up at the register to raise amused eyebrows and to comment that “it sounds like someone is having fun over there”. Hearing her laugh was always a highlight, and on the first few days after we found out about the store closing, it would make me tear up thinking I’d no longer get to hear it every day.
In the last photo is Lucy. Lucy is kind of the “star manager” of the store, the one customers always ask for, and whom everyone else (other employees as well as other managers) invariably speak highly of. She trained me, and thanks to her, I gained a lot of self-confidence in areas that ended up bettering my life outside of work. I learned a lot from her and I really will miss her terribly.
There are other people I like a lot with whom I didn’t get to take photos (yet)… I either didn’t have a chance or felt too shy to ask. Some I would have a chance later in the week –my boss, Lazaro, being one of them. He is one of the best bosses I ever had, with a very strong but caring, honest and hardworking personality. I always really wanted to please him, but I also annoyed him a lot. ๐
Here’s the other photo I was talking about. It’s less than four hours later, yet you can see how much emptier the store appears. You can see Caro and Sandra posing for me in the middle (this photo, like the other one, was taken from the upstairs office):
In the last few days at the store, even this TV gave up…
A photo from my register when it was close to my time to leave, around 6:30 pm. Hardly anything left by this point.
Christopher came into the store a few minutes before 7:00 pm and chit-chatted with my coworkers as I said my goodbyes to those I wouldn’t see again. I was really glad about this, so he could meet the people I’d come to care a lot about, if only for a little while.
I took a photo of this punch-out, because even though I’d punch in and out on Sunday, this day felt really momentous and I didn’t want to risk my Sunday schedule perhaps being changed or canceled and then I didn’t take one last photo. After all, this was still the “last” day (technically) so this punch-out felt more significant.
Christopher took me to The Pub for dinner:
Our partner was with our other friends on this afternoon, discussing arrangements for their wedding, and going out and having some fun with them, so Christopher and I had a rare night out by ourselves. ๐ฅฐ It felt special. We also walked around Target a little just for fun, holding hands, and he showed me that he’d bought me these ugly but adorable Raikes beavers from eBay that I really wanted. He’s been spoiling me a LOT lately.
Actually, both he and our partner have been spoiling me so much. Since March and until now, I have been extremely difficult to be around as I try to adjust to schedule changes that simply do not work for me and my delicate-ass psyche. At times I even inferred extremely hyperbolic stuff like basically not wanting to be alive (and at the time, it felt like I meant it) because I was basically in an extended mental breakdown.
To be honest, I hardly know how they dealt with it. Particularly as it’s reaching the end, I realize that the last few months were, for them, a constant battle to accommodate to my desires, whether by ordering what I wanted to eat, giving me attention/petting me when I demanded it and then leaving me alone when I wanted that instead, taking me out to eat, buying me stuff to cheer me up, giving me rides to and from work, listening to SO much bitching and crying, being on the brunt of random explosive fits of rage, and more.
I know most of all for them, my next job *has* to be something I can handle better, without falling apart. I cannot do this to them again and I am lucky that it didn’t damage two of the most important relationships in my life. Here’s hoping I’ve learned a thing or two and can do better next time.
WARNING REMINDER: Short video below which shows the tiniest snake!
In the evening Christopher and I found a tiny wee earthworm-like snake in the movie room. Well, Rosie did. It turned out to be a Brahminy Blindsnake, also known as a Flowerpot Snake. They are non-native, but very common to Florida, and completely harmless.
Some fun facts I learned:
“During the hot summer months in Florida, we receive numerous reports from people finding small, shiny black, thread-like snakes on the floors inside their houses, especially the bathrooms.”
“Blindsnakes eat termites and the eggs and pupae of ants. Therefore, if you are seeing several of these snakes inside, it is possible that you have ants or termites living in or near your house as well.”
Indeed, we have plenty of ants and termites. Our tenting should occur within the month. We placed the little lady safely outside.
Another fun fact about these snakes is that all are female, and a genetic clone of their mothers.
๐ Sunday ๐
The week comes to an end… and so does my time at CTS. I started this day doing all the chores I could. I wanted to come home to relax and draw when the workday was done. After doing all I could, I went to work. I wasn’t sure what to expect in terms of what we would be doing, but when I got there at noon, the store was still serving customers:
I said hello and went upstairs to put my lunch away. I noticed no one was hiding the comfort drinks anymore…
We no longer had the official store music going on, everyone was playing whatever they wanted, sitting on the desks at the registers, no one cared much about anything, but we were still unfailingly serviceable to any customer that came in.
Customers were very few. After all, there was very little left at the store…
While we waited for stuff to sell and some of my coworkers did some cleaning here and there, I took another picture and a bit of video of the empty store:
It was super eerie and echoey (though I removed the sound, as it was loud and annoying):
Ultimately, while we had a few customers buy something here and there, a single couple would buy all that was left, to resell it. They came with a cute doggy friend:
And with that, we were done. Closed forever. All the stores across the country that are also closing were supposed to close today. We managed to be the first store to do so. My coworkers then began to take all the signs down. They shut the doors. And well, I finally kind of lost it a little, and did some proper “ugly crying”.
But then, food arrived! For lunch, we all pitched in for pizza (Christopher pitched in for my part). Normally I take my photos of Bargain on the down-low, but today I really didn’t care:
We had a very pleasant meal all of us together. Afterwards, I took some more pics as we disassembled stuff…
That last pic is where the carts used to be stored.
Then we went upstairs to continue the clean-up and I got to take a selfie with another favorite coworker of mine, Letti:
Letti bought a bunch of these cute St. Patrick’s Day decorations and gave one to each of us. She wrote a very sweet note and her contact info on the back of mine. Letti and I both grew on each other while I worked there, even though we both have strong personalities. I’m really happy that I met her.
The calendar from the upstairs office…
Before I left, we all took a picture together. Well, some people left before this could be arranged, but as it turned out, I still managed to get all of my most favorite people in there –at least, the ones that worked today, and that I worked with the most. There are definitely people I still wish had been in the photo, though:
We actually got two really good shots. They are different, so I wanted to share them both –and, appropriately, this is my last CTS-related photo ever:
I am so, so glad I got to work here. In spite of me not dealing well with the closer-to-full-time hours near the end, it’s still a really happy memory that I won’t forget. I hope you enjoyed my sharing of the experience with you on the blog.
Once we were home, Christopher asked me to go check the closet. I did, and he’d hidden a surprise for me there!
He’d bought it secretly after dropping me off! I was really touched, it was such a sweet and unexpected gesture. ๐ฅฐ
I did lots of chores, and then sat down to dinner:
At some point in the evening, I found that Rosie had gotten cozy with Chucky. I’m not sure that’s such a great idea. He doesn’t have the best track record with cats.
At the very end, people called dibs on store stuff that was being thrown away or not being sent back. The Ty display would be trashed, so I removed this plastic heart logo from it, as a memento, and later stuck it to my bed:
And that is it for this week! Next week I hope to finish all the due commissions. Not sure if I’ll make it –they are all complicated pieces. But once I do, then I am actually going to resume my for-fun endeavors and my book progress.
I hope everyone has a wonderful week! As a reminder, if you haven’t yet –you’re welcome to join my Telegram chat. I am quite active there! Just read the rules before participating. See ya there!
This was, for sure, a much better week! Itโs been a bit of a battle, but slowly Iโve 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 hadnโt seen them in forever. Let me tell you about that, and about the rest of my week, below!
๐ Monday ๐
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 wasnโt 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 donโt 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. ๐ฅฐ
๐ Tuesday ๐
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 wasnโt 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.
๐ Wednesday ๐
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 Phแป 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.
๐ Thursday ๐
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.
๐ Friday ๐
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.
๐ Saturday ๐
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. ๐
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…
๐ Sunday ๐
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.
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!
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.
โจ๐ Thursday ๐โจ
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.
โจ๐ Friday and Saturday ๐โจ
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.
โจ๐ Buddy And Sarah Return! ๐โจ
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.
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.
๐ Friday Night ๐
As soon as everyone was gone I sat down to relax with a little reading:
Kotoko kept me company nearbyโฆ
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 wasnโt 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.
๐ Saturday ๐
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.
๐ Sunday๐
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 Discordand on FA. So please don’t be a stranger! ๐
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.
๐ Monday ๐
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.
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!!
โจ๐ฐ LOOK AT THIS THING!! ๐ฐโจ
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…
๐ The Christmasing ๐
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! ๐
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. ๐ 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:
Posted all stuff from Twitter that I hadn’t gotten around to posting here yet.
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!
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