Tag Archives: Squeak

Week 4 Summary: Old Friends ๐Ÿฅฐ

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

๐ŸŒˆ Monday ๐ŸŒˆ

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

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

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

๐ŸŒˆ Tuesday ๐ŸŒˆ

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

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

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

๐ŸŒˆ Wednesday ๐ŸŒˆ

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

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

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

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

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

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

๐ŸŒˆ Thursday ๐ŸŒˆ

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

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

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

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

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

๐ŸŒˆ Friday ๐ŸŒˆ

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

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

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

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

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

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

He even helped stick some of them in place:

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

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

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

๐ŸŒˆ Saturday ๐ŸŒˆ

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

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

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

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

At bedtime, Rosie was waiting for me:

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

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

๐ŸŒˆ Sunday ๐ŸŒˆ

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

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

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

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

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

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

LEGO Store!! ๐ŸŒˆ

Today my friend Mwako and I went to the LEGO store! We got there very early and the store was empty except for this member of the armed forces completely engrossed in the โ€œbuild your ownโ€ minifigs bin:

I guess we are all kids on the inside in the end. Warmed my heart. Maybe he was shopping for his kids but he was so utterly absorbed that I like to think it was for himself.

Christopher asked me to take photos of all the sets I thought he would like. Ultimately I took pics of those and also of sets we could both do together.

The freight train is the one we got!

This one was simply amazing, SUPER high on my list!

These are more up my alley than his. So adorable!

Loved the Christmas setsโ€ฆ I know Iโ€™d build the Home Alone one every year!

Here’s a fantastic Star Wars display!

We are VIP members now!

Then it was time to eat! Here are our stuffie friends waiting for lunch with usโ€ฆ ๐ŸŒˆ๐Ÿ˜‹๐ŸŠ๐Ÿถ

Thai milk tea is here!

Lunch was bao buns. Very delicious! ๐ŸฅŸโœจ

Now it is time for a nap and some chores. Hope everyone is having a lovely day!

Rainy Day Outing! ๐ŸŒˆโ˜”

Hello, everyone! I had a really lovely outing today. It was raining hard (a tropical storm is passing by this weekend) so Christopher dropped me off at Dollar Tree before work, and I took a car back. It felt so nice out with the rain. It was early, too, and I’d gotten up at 6:00am so most of my chores were done when we left the house shortly past 8:30am. I felt very happy and light.

This was my outfit for this rainy day! ๐Ÿธโ˜”๏ธ I didnโ€™t actually take my Build-A-Bear bearlien with me, but I held them for the photo because I love them so much.

I was rocking a bit of subtle pride with my new Pride month kandi necklace and pan socks. ๐ŸŒˆโœจ๐Ÿ’•

I only went to Five Below and Dollar Tree, but I found SO so many things, I was so very happy!

On a weird random note, I saw this at Five Below. Youโ€™re welcome. ๐Ÿง€

(I really wanted to know if they tasted like cheese, but not for $4.00.)

After shopping there and at Dollar Tree, I went inside Publix for a small lunch and ate it outside watching the absolute downpour and reading Twitter. ๐Ÿ—๐Ÿฅค

Then I came home with the groceries and all my treasures, which I’d like to share with you now. First in my haul is this whole bunch of Arthur stuff! Itโ€™s all from Dollar Tree.

I intend to paint the suncatcher with Poscas, and probably the canvas too. Some stuff is for relaxing, one of the books is for my library, while the other two are for scrapbooking. Might use the Colorforms for that as well.

Next, and one of my favorite things, is this massive variety of playing cards and flash cards:

Cards such as these are one of my favorite scrapbooking/collage tools! Thereโ€™s Disney, Fisher Price/Little People, Dr. Seuss, Crayola, animals, dinosaurs, nature, and more!

Next, here’s some Arthur and Berenstain Bears puzzles!

Believe it or not I use this for scrapbooking as well. ๐Ÿ˜

More scrapbooking supplies โ€”a few cute greeting cards; rainbow, snail and space squirrel cutouts (can you imagine my luck?!) and a little book with very nice pages for making my collages:

These next ones were very interesting and I had never seen them before. Fantasy, dinosaur and space felt scenes by Crayola! ๐ŸŒˆโœจ Will probably be used for scrapbooking as well.

Here’s some cute stickers โœจ๐Ÿ’•

Next is this dry-erase pocket. I wanted it to hold my daily to-do list!

Which, by the way; looks like this:

And nowโ€ฆ for the real treasuresโ€ฆ the Jurassic World Dominion goodies!!

Finally, FINALLY found some!! ๐Ÿ˜ญ๐Ÿ’•๐Ÿ’•๐Ÿ’• The photo speaks for itself! There’s a mini dry-erase board, a velvet art poster, figurines, a towel, Captivz eggs, and stickers! Here is a close-up of one of my favorite finds:

And of the Kinder Joy “egg”:

The figure in the Kinder Joy egg was honestly a real disappointment but I was still so excited to find it anyway. A much better prize are these coins from the much bigger eggs I shared recently, which come with some really good gummies too!

The coins are just like the Mario Wonder Ball ones (same company). Heavy, real metal. Beautiful!

I’ll end this photo set with a final pic of Squeak, the candy warden! ๐ŸŠ๐ŸŒˆโœจ

I hope you enjoyed this post and that you have a very lovely evening and weekend!

Bandanas And Necklaces ๐ŸŒˆ๐Ÿงธ

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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