Wednesday, December 26, 2018

I’m going to need a Chocolate Frog over here…

My obligatory blog post outlining my three (five?) words is here. I bet you’ve been waiting for it.

1) FIGHT - there’s a lot of stuff going on because of an unexpected, rather large, change to our lives.

The resolution of these items is going to take time. I know this, but I also know me. I’m not patient enough to see these things through.

I’m at that point right now where I want to get this stuff over with NOW and move on with my life. I thought about walking away from having to deal with these things, but fighting is the right thing to do.

This is the first time I’ve ever needed to fight so hard, so… yeah.

2) COMFORT ZONE - I’m still working on the baby blanket from hell. I’m still sewing like a mad woman. I’m still writing HP fan fiction.

But. All of those things are comfortable.

I need to work on harder craft projects.

Knit projects with cables, for example. I can do them, but I prefer not to… so. KNIT ALL THE CABLES!

Sewing is a bit different. I love the Summit Peak Hoodie pattern. I’ve made 6 shirts out of that pattern. There are other shirt patterns I want to sew - an oxford for example because ready-to-wear doesn’t fit me right. AND! I’ve started buying dress patterns because of the way they look. I DON’T WEAR DRESSES. (Do you see where this is headed? Yup. Two different comfort zones. One sewing machine sized stone.)

I need to get out of the Harry Potter sandbox and visit my other fandoms… or at least write about different characters in my fan fic. There’s so many over done tropes and so many fics for the main several ships that I’m just tired of it all. I don’t even want to read HP fan fic anymore.

3) SELF-CARE - 2018 was a doozy of a year. Like, it fucking sucked HARD.

I was struggling and it, it was bad. Very bad.

The bipolar flared to a level I haven’t experienced since my father died and I was… unprepared.

There wasn’t one clear trigger. I have a feeling that it was a bunch of little things adding up, which of course, made everything worse because I couldn’t see the whole picture.

After fighting being told to go to therapy for YEARS - because, honestly, I never saw a benefit from talking about my “underlying issues” to a complete stranger - I’ve finally sucked it up and will try it again.

I have an appointment on Jan 7th. Wish me luck. I have a feeling I’m going to need it.

Sunday, December 09, 2018

Born to make history

So. Totally. Addicted.

For Christmas, I’m asking Santa for the first season of Yuri!!! on Ice.

You know it’s bad when I’ve already watched the episodes three times.

And wasted an entire Sunday trying to create a canon-ish timeline. (Tumblr is both my friend and my enemy when it comes to fan fiction.)

There are big changes on the horizon. Changes I didn’t want to make. Changes I don’t want to think about.

So I’m distracting myself by playing in a new sandbox. With new toys.

And blogging about it. Apparently.

Tuesday, December 04, 2018

Rah! Rah! Ravenclaw!!!!

So. A lot has happened since September, but succeeding at my three words is the one thing I’m most proud of.

My three words for this year were 5K, fandom, and language. It’s only the beginning of December, but I have crushed those.

1) 5K - let’s see… this year, I’ve done three IRL 5Ks. I’ve logged a ton of miles since joining the HRC (79.64 to be exact). That doesn’t count the hundreds of miles I’ve walked around Universal. (Yes. HUNDREDS.)

Between the Hogwarts Running Club and the Whovian Running Club, I’ve earned 7 medals. I’m impressed with myself - that’s a total of 35 miles. Which means, if you’re doing the math, that I logged 44 miles more than I gave myself credit for. My rule is that I have to walk the miles in consecutive days (if it’s a longer race) to earn the medal and unfortunately, the dog’s walking route is only 2 miles, so there’s a lot of days that don’t count because I can’t always take him for a walk on consecutive days no matter how much I want to.

Doesn’t matter because 80 miles is 80 miles more than I would have done without the HRC.

Crushed it.

2) Fandom - hmmm… well. That photo up there? Those are the Ravenclaws. From the Hogwarts Running Club. (Harry Potter fans until the very end.) I didn’t meet many of them in person - damn anxiety- but I recognise the faces from their FB profile pics. I also friended one of them on FB, which is huge for me. I don’t friend just anyone, but I completely love Alexander. He’s good people. Too bad he’s in Belgium because I would totally adopt him.

I’m still writing fan fiction. Still mostly Harry Potter because Drarry is my thing, but I branched out to Teen Wolf again and I’ll be starting a Yuri!!! on Ice one soon. (Holy shit, dude. WHY was it only 12 episodes?!?! I am obsessed with that damn anime. Do you hear me? OBSESSED.)  Plus, I’m hanging out more in a FB Harry Potter fan fiction group. No friends there, yet, but there’s potential.

I cosplayed several times as a Ravenclaw student… And, and, and I’m learning how to sew for more cosplay options. Not to mention, I have a whole crap ton of Harry Potter themed fabric that is making its way into my closet in one form or another.

Crushed it.

3) Language - this one was hard. I didn’t meet my goals, because reasons. BUT in the last two months, I’ve picked up my Ukrainian studies with a vengeance. I’m currently addicted to learning cursive which is a nice way to mix things up. I’ve gotten in this terrible habit of writing down vocab words in cursive and then looking them up later. Hoo-boy, is it a struggle some times to read what I wrote. Cyrillic cursive looks like a drunk 5 year old writing prescriptions, but my handwriting is getting better because I have to focus so hard on the letter forms.

I’m also fighting my way through the first chapter of Harry Potter for the third (fourth?) time. I’m remembering more words and am getting better at deciphering entire sentences without constantly looking up vocab. I will say this much - character names look very different in Cyrillic than they do in English.

I’m thinking about skipping forward to see how “I am Lord Voldemort / Tom Marvolo Riddle” works out. The French translation is different (Tom Elvis Jedusor) and there’s a lot of people out there who say it should have been “Mr. Tom, a dildo lover”. So, yeah. Curious as to how the Ukrainian translation handles it.

Late to the game, but I’m giving myself the win because lately, I’m kicking some serious ass.

Crushed it.

(HA HA HA!!!!! I spelt “drive” wrong - it’s прівіт-драйв, not прівіт-дdайв (because that is decidedly not a Ukrainian letter!)