Hi everyone! My days still aren’t great recently… I don’t feel well… maybe long COVID? My period is way out of whack. It was really weird during COVID and now it came almost ten days early. Overall I just feel tired and even depressed in spite of so many good and fun things happening.
But, I enjoyed decorating the house recently. It’s made simple things, even just having lunch, more fun.
Speaking of decorating, I saw two things I would love to have. If I wasn’t trying to get funds to pay Christopher right now, I’m sure I would be looking to trade art for these fellas… they are SO very cute:
Anyway that’s all I have for now. I’m sorry that my posts have been short and lame… I just haven’t really been feeling it recently but I don’t want to abandon the blog. Hope everyone is doing alright!
Hi, everyone! I had about a week’s break between the cruise and this long-awaited Orlando trip. It was pretty awesome! I got right to blogging about it, although, just like with the cruise post, I didn’t decorate the photos. I just don’t have time at the moment.
This was my first time going to Halloween Horror Nights and Mickey’s Not-So-Scary Halloween Party. I especially loved our time at Universal, with all of the Chucky stuff and the Jurassic Park 30th Anniversary special things. Let me tell you about it!
๐๐ฟ Dropping Kotoko Off ๐ฟ๐
Up until now, I’ve never been very concerned about leaving our cats to fend for themselves for a few days –three days is my max without someone dropping by. They have each other for company, I have cameras all over the house, litter boxes are plentiful, and I leave enough food and water available that it never runs out before we return.
But Kotoko is old now and needs multiple medications per day, as well as extra encouragement to eat. So, for the first time, we dropped her off at Christopher’s mom’s house on our way to Orlando (this was on Saturday morning). It’s about two hours to get there, and Kotoko pooped in the crate within the first ten minutes. Joy! Thankfully we were fairly well-prepared, though we did have to stop to clean up and buy some wipes (the one thing I forgot to pack).
Now that we have the Hyundai IONIQ, we have to stop for charges more often than we did for gas (but it’s cheaper and we’ve never loved a car more. It is so comfortable!) We had to do this once on the way, and we stopped to let Kotoko out for a stroll since she wouldn’t run away. Even if something were to startle her, she is far too old and stiff. But there was no one around, anyway. And we watched the skies just in case of a hawk or something.
Here are some photos of her stretching her ol’ creaky leggies:
We dropped Kotoko off shortly afterwards, and after some breakfast, arrived in Orlando just before noon.
๐ธ๐ Our Hotel ๐๐ธ
Our partner booked us a stay at the Loews Royal Pacific Resort. This is one of Universal’s own resorts which means you get extra park perks, including admission to Chucky’s Twisted Playground. It’s also a four-star hotel. I’m not sure if I’ve ever stayed in one before; I certainly can’t remember ever being in such a very luxurious hotel before.
Granted, luxury isn’t everything. I’ll never forget staying at Disney’s Art of Animation Resort with Christopher. It may not have been four stars, but it was unforgettable too.
My favorite thing was the fountain with the elephants in the middle:
The grounds were unbelievably beautiful. Turtles could be spotted sunning themselves among multitudes of lily pads.
Cute frogs lined the walkway that led to the lobby:
While these are all the photos I took, our room was gorgeous too. The beds were queen-sized, but that meant I got more cuddles. ๐
๐ฆ First Day At Universal ๐ฆ
I would go on (and regret) a single coaster on this trip, as you may know, I cannot stand them. I am not afraid for my life. I just hate the feeling of high speed and drops, no matter how small. I hate them in kiddy coasters, even. I hate it so much that if our partner lifts me up in his arms and spins me around, I can start crying very quickly from the mild stomach-drop feeling that even such a spin gives me.
For me, it’s one of the worst feelings in the world, but I always end up getting pressured anyway. I didn’t give in to the famous (or infamous, depending on who you talk to) Jurassic World VelociCoaster. But I loved getting to see some of the queue and statues:
Here’s a little video:
After some time in the park and a wonderful lunch at a very nicely themed restaurant, we went back to our hotel to freshen up. Then we returned to the park for Halloween Horror Nights.
I was very apprehensive about the scare zones, and we had to go through one to get to our first haunted house. But thankfully, the first scare zone was funny and honestly cute. It was called “Vamp โ69 Summer of Blood” and was all hippie zombies. I am glad we got there early because this was a very colorful zone, much better in the daytime. I loved it and wished I’d dared take a photo with one of the performers. But I was so busy enjoying myself that I didn’t take any pictures of this area.
Once past this zone, we did our first haunted house, Chucky’s Ultimate Kill Count!
Between hiding my face because of strobes and being terrified, I think I saw 60-70% of it. But I really enjoyed it. Unfortunately, I hurt Christopher in my fear. I grabbed his arm so tightly that he had severe bruising on it even after the weekend. I even bit him once, somehow… I guess his arm was too close to my face when I screamed. I felt really bad.
This photo spot was at what I thought was the end but wasn’t. It was maybe the middle?
After this, we went to do the YETI: Campground Kills house. This would be my last house. I was so overwhelmed by the flashing, the intense screaming, and not being able to keep my face against Christopher’s arm (we had to move faster) that I was crying when I came out.
Since I refused to do any more houses, the boys convinced me to try the Revenge of the Mummy ride. After watching some videos, I really thought it might be okay. Even with the first few, unpleasant scary/fast/going-backward elements, right up to when the real coaster part kicked in, I thought I would be okay. But I really wasn’t.
It’s such a pity because even though I didn’t love it at first, I felt safer than on any other coaster I’ve been on until now, and as it slowly progressed I felt more and more hopeful. But when it shot up in speed and the drops and curves began… I didn’t panic, but I felt so BAD. It’s not queasiness, but I think it’s the worst physical feeling I could ever have, that isn’t actual pain.
I never want anyone to feel what I feel on a coaster, but I’m sure anyone who did would never ask me to ride one again. It is just the worst. By the time the ride was over before we were fully stopped, I was full-on sobbing. I think part of the reason for that was that I was so upset that I couldn’t take it. I really wanted to make them proud, but I couldn’t force myself to enjoy something my body hates so very much.
So… that was the end of rides for me since they only did coasters that day.
We met up with our friends later in the evening and walked around the park drinking together. We also saw a wonderful show, Nightmare Fuel Revenge Dream, which I really enjoyed. Our friend Ana had a Chucky-related surprise for me which I’ll show you later in this post.
We got back to the hotel past 2:00 a.m. and were more tired than we would be on any other day. Our feet hurt so much, and Christopher’s back was killing him. But it was a very fun day.
๐ Mickey’s Not-So-Scary Halloween Party ๐
For some context on just how utterly exhausted we were, we didn’t even wake up until like, 1:00 p.m. on this day (Sunday). After a shower and a scarfed-down sushi lunch, we were on our way to Magic Kingdom.
So hot. So much queueing, so much rushing and waiting. I saw this Woody just chilling in a girl’s backpack. It made me giggle.
In fact, I saw many adults with toys at the park (I mean adults without visible children or strollers). Usually, the toy was cheerfully peeking out of a bag, just like that. It always made me smile. And no, I didn’t have a stuffie friend with me at any point, even though I brought Beta and E.T. on the trip. It really was too hot to carry them.
๐น Dining At Be Our Guest ๐น
This was one of the nicest experiences we had this weekend and a highly anticipated one at that. Our partner worked so very hard to get us reservations months in advance. Here’s the three of us at the entrance:
And waiting to be called in the Beast’s sitting room:
I took a photo of our just-married friends, Jessie and Ana, too:
This place is basically a Beauty and The Beast fan’s wet dream. I’ll let the photos speak for themselves.
The Beast wasn’t going table to table, but I was able to get some photos of him:
We got so lucky to be placed in the coolest room within this restaurant, with all the ripped drapes and the enchanted rose! Christopher loved it.
This happened a few times per hour:
I really tried not to overeat so I could enjoy the desserts but was still pretty full and couldn’t finish them all. They were delicious and so pretty!
We took photos next to the rose. I got some video, too! A petal fell every once in a while.
Now for the pics. Christopher and I…
With our partner…
And Jessie and Ana:
I was able to get a better picture of the beautiful entrance with our partner:
And I took a photo of Jessie and Ana by Cinderella’s Wishing Well:
I’m always happy to see Huey, Louie, and Dewey around!
I took this photo of Main Street as we were walking towards our spot to watch Mickey’s Boo to You Halloween Parade. It looked so pretty:
Even more sparkly in video!
We had reservations for Disney’s Not-So-Spooky Spectacular Dessert Party for after the parade. It was a much nicer way to enjoy the fireworks show!
๐ Last Day At Universal ๐
We checked out pretty early so we could have one last enjoyable morning at the parks. Here’s Christopher as we waited for our partner to bring the car around.
Once at the parks, I got Christopher’s photo with his beloved DeLorean time machine:
๐ E.T. Adventure ๐
I was so happy to finally be able to go on the E.T. Adventure ride. Iโm not actually 100% sure if I went on it maybe some 19 years ago, or if I saw a video of it. It felt slightly familiar. In any case, I loved it. Our partner treated me to this photo souvenir after we rode it:
The photographer allowed me to take photos of the other display which was also an option that one could do instead of the bike:
๐ฆ Jurassic Park 30th Anniversary Tribute Store ๐ฆ
For Jurassic Park’s 30th anniversary, Universal had a special store with many wonderful photo-op displays and memorabilia. I had a limited amount of time to spend here, but here’s an article that goes into a lot of detail about this incredible place.
This is what greeted you as you walked in:
The maquettes on display were very cool:
Raptor selfie!
Other cool odds-and-ends:
A very neat display of old merch:
I hope I get another chance to go here before they close it. There was so much more I didn’t get to see!
๐ Hello Kitty Store ๐
They had a very cute Hello Kitty store! I was a bit taken aback by the merch… some of it was downright bizarre, but very unique and cool!
๐ช๐ฉธ Chucky’s Twisted Playground ๐ฉธ๐ช
We did this at the very end, before getting on the road. How glad I was not to miss it! First, we had a LONG walk to the hotel where this attraction had been tucked in. It was hot, but it was such a beautiful day:
Christopher somehow was a trooper throughout, even though he was so worn out.
Finally, we made it. It was a series of photo-ops, basically. I loved it!
I was able to get a bunch of cool photos. After all, that’s why we were there. This first batch is all the photos we’re in (well, mostly me):
And here’s the rest. I loved this place and was so happy I didn’t miss out on seeing it. The dolls definitely struck me more as movie-Chucky than TV show-Chucky, though. His pupils were really small, making him more scary and less cute (but I love Chucky in any form!).
๐๐บ Heading Home With Kotoko ๐บ๐
While Kotoko ruled the cats-and-dog roost that is my mom-in-lawโs house, she spent the weekend looking for us and missed us terribly. As soon as I opened the door she began meow-screaming in joy. It broke my heart, but also made me happy to see her affection. I picked her up and held her and she kept rubbing her face all over mine, and her purr sounded like a motorcycle. She is a deeply loving and affectionate old cat.
Once in the car, she kept purring all the way home on Christopherโs lap. If I turned around and said her name, she kneaded the air and squinted happily.
We had another charging stop, where Kotoko got to enjoy walking around one more time.
โจ๐ Goodies! ๐โจ
I am so happy with the souvenirs I got. My favorite one is this baby Dronkey from Shrek! I couldnโt believe I found one. Our partner got it for me.
As I mentioned earlier, our friend Ana surprised me with a lovely gift of a Chucky fan. I love it so much I could hardly bear to use it. Iโm going to put it somewhere in my studio, or maybe in the movie room.
I also got a Chucky bucket hat! Itโs reversible. I love it so much!
I got three E.T. souvenirs. Our partner got me the lanyard and lanyard pocket which I used throughout the weekend:
And I got this E.T. glass and plush keychain:
This was a wonderful trip. Of all the times I’ve been to Universal, this time I enjoyed myself the most of all by far… even if I cried twice. ๐ I would go again next weekend if I could. I loved it so much!
But we are done traveling for a while, and I can certainly use the break. Maybe I’ll become a little more active on my blog again. We will see! For now, I thank you very much for reading.
So, my blog has been a bit abandoned… ๐๐๐ง Iโm so sorry about that. I also seem to be becoming more and more of a hermit. I am sorry about that, too.
Thereโs been a bunch of reasons. Iโve been reading a lot (and I do mean a LOT), been kind of busy deep inside my own head, perhaps having not exactly a mid-life crisis as much as a mid-life reassessment, plus preparing for upcoming trips, and then going on them.
Let’s start with the Alaska cruise: it was amazing. When it comes to the trip’s details, this time, unlike last time, Iโm making an effort to blog more about it.
To make it easier, I opted not to decorate my photos with purikura this time around, because I think that wanting to do that and not having time to do it was the main reason I didnโt properly blog about the Alaska trip last year. So, I apologize if things are a little less colorful on this post.
With that said, this will be a very long and extremely image-intensive post. So I’m posting it under a cut.
Tonight we had dinner at Fogo de Chรฃo! It’s a very fancy, all-you-can-eat-, buffet-style Brazilian steakhouse. This particular location is in South Beach and has amazing service and very good food. I had a Caramelized Pineapple Old Fashioned to drink, something I hadn’t tried before. It was delicious, I think I really like whiskey cocktails!
I call this a non-birthday dinner because I wasn’t supposed to get dinner for my 40th birthday. This is because all my Alaska excursions were paid for by Christopher as a big present. To top it off, there’s a massive trip coming up after Alaska too! But… my mom-in-law won’t be here for my birthday, my mom came and everything, and it felt like a very special occasion. ๐ฅฐ So I celebrated secretly on the inside.
I love buffets so freaking much. Especially fancy buffets. I can’t wait for seven days of this during the cruise!!
We took some silly selfies outside. Seeing my mom be part of the family makes me really happy.
When we got to my mom’s to drop her off, she gave us her old treadmill. Let’s see if it helps us all get in shape…! ๐โโ๏ธ
Today I discarded my idea of a glider bench and instead opted for using what I had to create an outdoor reading spot for myself. I’m really happy with the results!
Tomorrow I should have a little footrest to go with it, and by Wednesday a decorative pillow will arrive as well. ๐งธ
I got to have lunch at Nine Five Phแป today! It’s not every day I get to have one of my favorite places for lunch and then another favorite place for dinner.
I got to see some bunnies in an empty lot today!
I took some photos, too:
Apparently they are someone’s pets. I’m not sure letting *white* buns roam at night is so great… but it’s not like there was anything I could do. They did look very happy.
I’m kind of on a Kid Cuisine kick lately, buy boy is it the WORST. The levels of sodium and sugar are so completely off the charts I’m surprised they are allowed to market it to kids! Plus I don’t even understand why. None of these things, while unhealthy, need to be that bad. I mean ramen-level bad. Lol. Still… it’s very yummy.
Good evening, friendly folk! Yesterday and today I visited with mom. Very pleasant as usual –we checked out apartment listings, played Generala, and had a few meals together. I also started reading Bamboo Kingdom:
We watched RRR, a really cool (if somewhat problematic) Tollywood movie, and had chicken milanesas with mashed potatoes for dinner.
Art-wise, today was really productive, enough that I’ll talk about it in separate posts.
When I got home, my copy of Guts by Raina Telgemeier was there. I can’t wait to read it! With that said, I got cranky rather quickly. Doing chores and going up and down the stairs with the downstairs AC broken isn’t the greatest… but I got everything done, and played some WoW before bed.
Hope everyone had a nice hump day! ๐ช ๐ And that this heat wave is over soon… ๐ฅต
This will be the last Weekly Summary! Going forward, I am going back to a more or less daily format. So, let’s get right to it… what happened this week? Christopher was gone on a work-related trip, the studio revamp was completed, and I spent a lot of its aftermath in a perpetual “I’m drawing personal art any minute now. Oh boy! It’s gonna happen! It’s gonna… uuuh…”
Let’s just say it’s been a struggle.
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, Christopher left for Natia. Whenever he travels I tend to go a bit nuts and blow my bedtime. We went to Kimchi Mart and got a huge amount of snacks as well as wine at ABC. While I spent the day doing things around the house, in the late afternoon and evening I got drunk, stuffed my face and played WoW. It was fantastic. ๐
Then, in the evening, I slept with Kotoko and Rosie. But I wasn’t a good substitute for Christopher… Kotoko was not pleased.
๐ Tuesday ๐
On Tuesday I finally put all the bins into storage and then took care of Mothball. I dusted him, surface-washed him with gentle soap, rinsed him off, disinfected him with Clorox mist, and dried him in the hot Florida sun for hours. Then I cut off the loose threads that he had and the leftover bit of glue in his paw, and fixed the scratches on his face and feet with furniture markers. Finally, he got brushed and dressed up!
I think he looks a lot happier now, wouldn’t you agree?
I moved most of the stuff that was displayed on the corkboard above my computer to the one in the bunk-bed. This is where my traditional badges used to be, but I decided to put all my badges away.
With the writing desk against the bed, the entire area is darker and the lights look even prettier. I don’t often sleep in this bed, but when I do, I love reading or gaming in it before I sleep, with all the pretty lights on.
A little more WoW before bed on this day. It’s been bringing me a lot of joy.
I slept on my own bed for a couple of nights this week. Rosie was so happy about it.
๐ Wednesday ๐
On Wednesday I zoomed with my mom and did a bit of digital art. I was still doing odds and ends around the house and sort of mentally resetting. But I got this cute video of some birds interacting. A woodpecker even happened to come to the feeder as I was recording!
๐ Thursday ๐
This print of Horus came in the mail on Thursday! The drawing was made by Cody, AKA Pukopop. Cody is an amazing artist. I set to choose one drawing to make into a print and display after the studio change, and it was this one. It came out so good!
This is where I put it. It’s a 12 x 12 print:
As of Thursday I was still been bits of housework as I waited for my stool to arrive. Cleaned one bathroom, organized stuff in the kitchen, played a little WoW. I finally fixed my Furby, Sour Cream, whose ears needed to be sewn back into place, and went through old sketchbooks and did more book formatting.
I came to realize that I need to set new solid goals. It can’t merely be “I’m going to work on my stuff now” or even “I’m going to work on finish these chapters of Meganeea soon”. It has to be as strict as my commissions were, such as “I’m going to finish, illustrate and post two chapters per month”. Without goals, there is no progress.
Anyway, on this night Christopher finally came home! I missed him very, very much.
๐ Friday ๐
โจ The Studio Is Finished!! โจ
When I woke up on Friday I knew it was time to set new goals or I would just keep doing housework, drinking wine and playing WoW and that…. well, isn’t ideal. I set myself a few book and art related goals as well as goals for chores of that day, and, after breakfast and a shower, set right to work as soon as the stool was delivered, which happened in the morning.
So here’s the new look of the studio, viewed from my digital art work area! You can see that a bookcase was removed, and this entire wall is dedicated to my personal art. Already, a brand new piece is on the corkboard, and my side table is there from the inking I’d been doing a while prior.
My dinosaur books have been moved to a shelf in this room for easy access while I work on my parasaurolophus novel, Fern’s Path:
Here’s my drawing board with the first two pieces I am set on finishing:
Here’s the left corner (behind the writing desk) and the right corner (with art supplies)…
…and the door, which serves as yet another display for art:
The top of the writing desk has all of these decorations as well as all my writing-related reference books, and you can see how my writing computer is set up also, with Scrivener on the screen:
A close-up of one of my favorite canvas prints. I hope I can do colored pencil work like this again.
I added this little ceramic pencil to my digital art area:
And that’s it! I think it’s pretty perfect now. I can actually “think” here.
๐ Saturday ๐
On Saturday I played WoW for a while. Tomoyo was feeling very cuddly.
She’s so cute and empty-brained. I love her.
๐ Sunday ๐
I made chicken curry for Saturday night dinner. I hadn’t made curry in a while, it turned out pretty good. Because the AC is still broken downstairs, we didn’t watch TV, and instead ate at our respective comfy spots.
That’s kind of it… I put off writing this post, which means I forgot a bunch of what happened. ๐คทโโ๏ธ Oops. I hope you all had a wonderful week, and going forward, I’ll see you all regularly in this space throughout the next!
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