This week, like the last, was eventful and busy, but there was time to breathe too. Overall, it was pretty good! The nice thing about writing these posts and looking back on them is realizing how full of fun things my weeks usually are and how different the days can be. Life is always full of surprises and fun experiences!
๐ Monday ๐
On Monday we had our belated Valentine’s Day cooking class! I got a beautiful sunset shot on the way there…
And some funny photos during the class itself:
Even though it wasn’t my favorite type of cuisine, the meal was pretty yummy, and the custard we had for dessert, in particular, was delicious! I also got to have a little drink.
I’m sure we will do this again, it was a lot of fun!
๐ Tuesday ๐
On Tuesday we went on our (again, belated) Valentine’s Day dinner. We ended up doing everything on different days. This was a promising French restaurant, and the drinks were wonderful:
The guys liked their food a lot, but I found it all very bland, though the presentation was very nice:
In fact I would say this was my least favorite fancy restaurant experience so far. The only place I wouldn’t care to go back other than the drinks. But it’s still fun to try new places!
๐ Wednesday ๐
I made a new type of salad for Wednesday’s lunch, a variation of the previous salad. This one had a baby spinach base. I think I liked it even better!
Later, after struggling a lot to decide how to handle this drawing, I printed it out into two different 8.5″ x 11″ pages and now I am tracing it onto a large piece of watercolor paper:
I really wish I had a bigger printed to print out my sketches onto directly in non-photo blue or other light color. Maybe later this year. I’ve been doing research on it, and I have one picked out.
This was tank cleaning day. Here’s some happy snails enjoying fresh foods and a clean cage!
๐ Thursday ๐
I feel like I post too many photos of Tomoyo laying on my bed, but she is so cute…
Recently, during grocery shopping, I came upon a wonderful find. I’d first spotted this guy well over year ago in the same section of our Publix:
I’ll get him later, I told myself. I think I went the day after, or two days later. No dice. I waited for weeks, then months, for a restock. I found out it was scalped all to heck online. Such a bummer! This is a cheap little dino from the cheap toy section at the grocery store. But official JP babies are uncommon (I’ve yet to see that nasutoceratops IRL… ๐).
Anyway, this week, lo and behold there he was again, and somehow he had not suffered from inflation. The price was the same as the first time I saw him. So this little guy came home with me, and now sits between the sturdy legs of mama brachio!
I don’t want to keep finding excuses to fail on my resolution, but it sucks when this was something I missed out on before and it happened to show up, finally. Sigh… ๐ฉ
๐ Friday ๐
I’ve been drawing a little almost every day. On Friday, I worked on another badge!
Here’s Tomoyo laying on the laundry I’m trying to put away. She can be terribly cute sometimes.
Before bedtime, I got a good amount of writing done. Well over a thousand words. So that was good.
๐ Saturday & Sunday ๐
The weekend was really nice! Our partner bought these red ceramic knobs for our kitchen cabinets that he knew I’d been wanting, and we installed them together. Objectively, I can say (I know) they look bad. ๐ But also, red is the accent color all over our kitchen. So, subjectively, I love it. Christopher was about as horrified as we expected he would be.
We had pizza for dinner on Saturday, and I also did our taxes on this day. It was nice to get that off my back.
After a few missed Project Nights, I did a little bit of scrapbooking on Sunday afternoon, and completed two new pages, a Jurassic World one (themed after my new Pyroraptor friend) and a Sesame Street one. Here they are in progress…
And all finished!
On Sunday morning I finally finished reading Stephen King’s “It”. This was a big deal to me, because “It” is the longest book I have ever read (that wasn’t a compilation of multiple books). It never, ever bored me for a minute. I’m going to read a comic collection next, before tackling another “real” book.
I’ll end this post with this GIF of Rosie hiding in the Kallax:
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.
Today we finally sat down, hot chocolate and all, to build our Home Alone LEGO set!
While watching Home Alone, of course. We watched the first and second films.
Molly helped!
We will continue tomorrow (I expect it’ll take two more sittings to complete it). The plan for tomorrow is to watch Jingle All The Way and National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation!
Lordy this place was loud. Service was also abysmally slow, and we got a ton of apologies, but no discount, not even some extra chips. Anyway I could deal with the slowness, but it was so loud, that I could barely hear Christopher sitting next to me.
With that said, the food was alright, and my strawberry Mojito was REALLY good. Someone kept sabotaging my photos, though…
Yesterday I found myself fooling around with the “Create Your Own” doll maker on the AG site. While these clothes options are closer to what I can “deal with” given what was available, as far as the doll herself I was really very pleased:
The price point for a custom doll is so high, though. When you’re over the $200 mark, at that point I feel like I would rather put that towards the anniversary Samantha before she gets completely out of my reach. Still, playing with the doll maker was fun!
I’ve moved things around a little to display Marzi and Molly together. I love how Molly can stand on her own. Marzi is a little taller, though:
Don’t mind Marzi’s Halloween dress. I have a Christmas surprise coming in the mail this Monday for my dollies, two brand new Christmas dresses. After that Marzi will go back to her sailor dress, and perhaps I’ll get a new everyday period dress for Molly.
Today was our holiday house party! To our delight/horror, Buddy decided to contribute:
You don’t have to look THAT thrilled at the show, Sarah…
Unfortunately none of our guests wanted to sample Buddy’s special lemonade. ๐
Today’s Jurassic World Advent Calendar friend was Dimetrodon! I kept telling everyone I showed this to earlier that it was Spinosaurus, I got confused. ๐
Today’s LEGO City Advent Calendar prize was a mailbox! I built it with my friend Shelly and it was really fun:
Now this kiddo has someplace to drop his letter to Santa!
The party was SO much fun. Shelly and I watched a movie before everyone got there: Samantha, An American Girl Holiday.
I’d seen this movie long ago and it was just as lovely as I remembered. It’s also a little bittersweet for me. When I watched it, I’d really, desperately wanted a Samantha doll. I’d eventually get one, on what was a deeply special occasion. She was precious to me. Even at the point I owned the most dolls, it was only three. But, when I did one of my toy purges, I worried that dolls were something I couldn’t really collect because so many people find them creepy. It seemed like one of the things I had to let go of, at the time.
People who visit may think I have a LOT of teddy bears but they still find them cute. Dolls really go off the creepy charts when you pass a certain number. I felt I couldn’t take them our or enjoy them as I enjoyed teddies, and while I now have my friend Shelly, back then I had no one who loved dolls as I did. So all my dollies were donated. It is one of the rare cases where I regret every one of those cases. I never regretted donating my horses for example, but I really miss my dolls.
Shelly loves her Samantha as much as I loved mine. I get to see her Samantha doll whenever she visits, and that makes me really happy! Besides, I have my Marzi, and when our partner asked what I wanted for Christmas, I asked for a new doll from Spain. So I’m going to have a new doll again. This time, I’ll try to just enjoy and not worry about what others think.
The doll is made by a brand called “Asรญ”. It’s a very beautiful child doll with vinyl head and limbs and a soft, cuddly body. She’s big, almost 23″ tall!
Because it’s coming all the way from Spain, it’s not 100% sure that it will arrive in time for Christmas, but I’m hoping with all my heart! I think I’ll name her Kalinka.
Anyway, ramble over –here’s the only picture I took for the night, of two of our friends being very cute together:
My favorite part was giving everyone their presents. I was so happy. And Shelly had a surprise for me too! She knows me so well now, and everything she picked showed it. There was a Grogu blanket, neck pillow and eye cover set that I LOVE:
Dinosaur-egg shaped Belgian chocolates:
And a little Boo!
It’s so nice to get a bunch of little surprises that show the friend who picked them for you really thought about and remembered everything you like. That was the best part.
Shelly even made this lovely little hairbow for me. I wanted to wear it right away so we could be matching, but in wearing my Santa hat, I forgot. So for now I am displaying it by the LEGO Advent Calendar because it’s so pretty:
As an aside, I took these photos of Rosie during the party. I think she’s feeling better.
Before bed I also snapped this photo of the lights in my studio, which I’ve changed to Christmas colors. I really love them.
I went to bed before everyone else and read a little bit more of Marcella: A Raggedy Ann Story. I’ve been really enjoying this book:
Stories from the POV of toys are among my favorites, and it reminds me that creating stories with my toys as the characters is something I really want to do. But I don’t want to start new projects, so whenever I get this urge, I work on my book some more. So I’ve been doing that a bit this last week.
Anyway that’s all I’ve got to share for this post. Tomorrow is my chore day so I’ll be busy! But next weekend we go to LEGOLand. I’m so excited!
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.
