Tag Archives: Sunflowers

Week 9 Summary: Soots And Other Fun Things ๐Ÿ‘พ

March is here! It came so fast. March brings Christopher’s 39th birthday, Mwako’s visit, and the usual visit to the Miami-Dade County Fair and Exposition with my mom. Anyway, let’s get on with the summary!

๐ŸŒˆ Monday ๐ŸŒˆ

Let’s begin Monday with a photo of Rosie chilling by my work area:

You might remember the little “soots” that took over our house quite some time ago. The following isn’t something that happened specifically on this day, I’m just picking this part of the summary to share it.

They now appear to be multiplying at Christopher’s workplace, with some help from him (though almost no one knows this for a fact, since he is very sneaky about it).

The colorful little soots have made their way all over the factory –even the CFO’s office! Christopher sends me photos sometimes, so here’s a few:

For the most part no one has removed them, though some HAVE moved a little. They seem to be amusing a lot of people, it’s pretty great! ๐Ÿ˜

You might also remember me mentioning that on Valentine’s Day, our partner got me a pair of headphones, but they turned out to be the wrong ones. So we returned them and I got to pick out a new pair. I picked the Razer Kraken x Doraemon 50th Anniversary Limited Edition gaming headset, which was only ever released in China as an exclusive promotion. They’ve finally arrived!

They are lovely. I adore this color scheme SO MUCH! Very kidcore-y vibes.

I would like to get some of the matching add-ons too, if only the mouse, because it’s actually my favorite mouse model, and it’s been discontinued.

๐ŸŒˆ Tuesday ๐ŸŒˆ

On this day I was able to snap a pretty cute photo of Rosie and Tomoyo chilling out together:

Before grocery shopping, our partner and I went to get some wines. It was a nice little outing together, and he bought me a raptor wine stopper! It’s so cool.

I’m surprised to still come across brand new Jurassic World versions of these Good 2 Grow bottle caps/toppers/whatever they are. I found a pyroraptor one to add to my collection!

I forgot to post this on the day it happened, but a few days ago, the guys went to the grocery store and brought me flowers (the sunflowers, not the black roses, lol).

Sunflowers are my most favorite flower ever. They fill me with happiness. I wish I could always have some on my table, I’d never get tired of seeing them. It was such a nice surprise.

๐ŸŒˆ Wednesday ๐ŸŒˆ

Elliot has been enjoying the outdoor “hammock” a lot since I moved it to the sun, but in an unexpected way:

Oh well… at least it’s getting some use!

In a moment of weakness, after being informed that Dollar General can be a surprise treasure trove for dinosaur toys, I went and took a look. To my delight, I found a large stegosaurus of the same fashion as my large foam dinos (Mojito, Churrasco and Fuit Gummi) so I brought him home:

I also found some totally bizarre and hilarious tiny dinos that are very clearly meant to be Gon ripoffs:

You probably don’t know Gon, unless you’re a big comic and/or dinosaur fan, but it is a true underlooked gem in manga. I only own this one volume, it’s very short, and one of my treasures:

Drawn by Masashi Tanaka, Gon has no dialogue and no onomatopeias. Every frame looks like it would have taken a full day to painstakingly render–I say this as someone who has similarly spent pleasant hours absorbed in crosshatching a scene with pen and ink. This is to say nothing of the absolutely BONKERS full-page spreads:

Gon is some sort of vague Carnosaurs, with a more t. Rex-like head, although I’ve also seen him described as a Giganotosaurus. This is possible, since Gon was first published one year after the discovery of Giganotosaurus.

Somehow, Gon lives in a more modern world. He’s escaped extinction in some way. The manga follows his interactions with these modern species, which are never quite prepared for the force to be reckoned with that is Gon.

While often humorous, scenes of death (very sad scenes, really) can be crushing and sudden, only adding to the emotional intensity that this wordless manga provides.

Below are two examples from this particular volume –in one, a wolf-pup is completely crushed by a tiger’s gigantic paw. This comes immediately after the same tiger killed the pups’ mother:

In this other example, a bird steals a baby penguin and very cheerfully flies away to eat it. The contrast between the bird’s happy face, the terror of the chick, and the shared grief so eloquently depicted by Tanaka in the frame that follows, are impressively drawn and brimming with emotion:

There is an animated, CGI version of Gon. It is, in my opinion, a terrible adaptation in which all of the nuance and charm is lost. I mean… here’s a couple of GIFs from it…

You know what, maybe farts are in the manga too, I haven’t read all of it, it seems out of character for the manga though. I watched some of the anime and it was SO lame. Worst of ALL, the animals talk! Ugh.

I should point out that Gon also made an appearance as a playable character in the game Tekken 3:

He does have a fart attack in Tekken, so who knows, maybe it’s a thing. ๐Ÿ™„ In any case, it was very amusing to find this little toy set that basically shows Gon as a bunch of different species –including a parasaurolophus!

As a funny side note, when looking for Gon gifs I came an account on Tenor that clearly has a “special interest“:

So yeah, that was odd. Aaaanyway… on to Thursday!

๐ŸŒˆ Thursday ๐ŸŒˆ

Thursday evening the three of us went for a walk together. When we passed the local pond/lake/whatever you call it, the bullfrogs were LOUD. Our partner walked closer to the reeds and grasses by the water to find one of them for me. It was enormous.

๐ŸŒˆ Friday ๐ŸŒˆ

Friday was tank cleaning day, so I have a lot of photos to share. I also have some really cute lettuce-rasping action caught in video:

I ended up ordering a tree hide like the one the rats used to have. It looks really nice in the tank, and the snails seem to like hanging out inside it.

๐ŸŒˆ Saturday ๐ŸŒˆ

I continued to walk as much as I could, 4-5 miles every day. The weather is still mild compared to what will soon come. I snapped this pretty photo of a flower.

In the afternoon, I relaxed with more Legends: Arceus and a little snack. Then I had a nap.

๐ŸŒˆ Sunday ๐ŸŒˆ

Sunday evening I went on a walk with our partner and we hadn’t gotten far from the house when we saw this little (fake) LEGO table set out for bulk trash:

I don’t really have space for it indoors, so I put it on the porch with a pillow for the cats. It’s colorful and cute, I didn’t really want to just leave it out to be trashed.

Anyway, that’s it for this week. Next week is Christopher’s birthday, and tomorrow I’ll be taking Kotoko to the vet right by our house to do some more looking-into her vomiting that won’t go away and see if she’s actually lost weight or it’s all in my head. I’ll update you all next Sunday. Until then, I hope you have a happy week!

Blissed Out ๐Ÿ˜ด

This may or may not have been me earlier.

Christmas Eve was wonderful… just wonderful; I havenโ€™t had a Christmas Eve that was just my mom and me in many years. And we havenโ€™t had time to ourselves at all in so long. In spite of wearing masks and being careful it was still a happy time. It was a precious time.

We had lots of snacks. We drank a lot (didnโ€™t get like, drunk, but we still drank two bottles so now Iโ€™m drinking a lot of water.) SO many good things to eat, oh my god. Then I baked her my frozen humita empanadas and they were perfect, she ate a lot. I was really proud.

While we snacked, we watched A Christmas Story. My mom had never seen this movie before, one of my favorites. No one ever wants to watch it with me willingly, and it was really nice to have her enjoy it. We also watched A Muppet Christmas Carol.

In between movies we each opened a present. I gave my mom a little perfume she wanted and she was so happy she looked like she might cry. It was only like a $30 perfume from her wishlist but I guess she never felt like she could justify it… I think I need to stalk her list a little during the year and surprise her from time to time.

I chose to open Buddy and Sarah (and Santaโ€™s) letter rather than a gift. It was a really funny card, I loved it!

As you can see, the card said I would find a present behind the grandfather clock (itโ€™s actually a grandmother clock but I guess they didnโ€™t know that), however, I couldnโ€™t open anything else, so Iโ€™ll have to wait until tomorrow. I wonder what it could be! ๐Ÿ™Š

Anyway, I have a headache and Iโ€™m so exhausted and sleepy that I can hardly think straight enough to type, but I wanted to share a few kitty photos I took today before I end this post. The first couple were taken when I was waiting for my mom to get here, and the cats were chilling on the porch:

Afterwards when we were relaxing in the living room Tomoyo was super affectionate. In this photo she is laying on my stomach, she was kneading and purring so much:

I guess thatโ€™s it, Iโ€™ll have to proofread this tomorrow… I wish once again a happy Christmas Eve to all my friends and followers!

Happy Sunday! ๐ŸŒˆ๐Ÿ’•

This post is a little test. Just wanted to see how easy it is to post to my blog from my phone. ๐Ÿ˜„

Today was pretty chill. I finished setting up the blog, did some chores around the house, began sketching something for Nazz, and worked on the porch.

I know it sounds a little ridiculous but my day really did feel extremely different without Twitter and Instagram. I did unconsciously attempt to go to these sites all day long. ๐Ÿ™ƒ Ultimately it still feels like a huge relief. You have to understand, social media has been a very big part of my life these past few years. Silly as it may seem this is a significant change in my life.

Anyway, here are some photos of the work I did on the porch today. Earlier this year I planted a bunch of things. Some things were more fun to grow than others. Some died, some are doing well. I decided to keep the things that are thriving and that Iโ€™m enjoying caring for, and replacing the rest with artificial plants since I like those just as much.

Trying To Make Things Brighter And Happier ๐ŸŒป๐Ÿšฒ

Iโ€™ve started prettying up my bike!

Itโ€™s real sad hours out there and when Iโ€™m out on my bike I want it to look colorful and silly and make people smile.

So Iโ€™m going to make it super pink, put sunflowers everywhere, funny bells and horns, Iโ€™ll take one of my bears on my basket, I donโ€™t care as long as people smile. ๐ŸŒป ๐Ÿšฒ ๐ŸŒˆโœจ๐Ÿ’–