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

2018 was, um…

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.

Born to make history

aeon timeline :: yuri!!! on ice

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.

Rah! Rah! Ravenclaw!!!!

hogwarts running club :: ravenclaws :: universal orlando fun run :: 01-dec-2018

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!)

Run like there’s a hot guy in front of you and a creepy one behind you

paws for a cause 5k medals for all!

So… if you remember, I joined the Hogwarts Running Club and made 5K one of my three words.

It’s been slow going. Between the Hogwarts Running Club and it’s sister, the Whovian Running Club, I have quite a few miles to log. That’s not counting re-running the other virtual races I’ve done before.

Yeah. Re-running.

I decided when I joined HRC / WRC that I was going to EARN those medals.  There were three rules:

1) I couldn’t count steps I took during the course of a normal day
2) I had to log miles in consecutive days for them to count towards a medal
3) I couldn’t double up races - a 5K IRL doesn’t count towards a virtual race unless it’s not medaled. If there’s no bling, it counts.

So far, I have the Hell In High Heels 12K, Dumbledore’s Army 5K, and Forgotten 5K medals to earn. I’ve already earned the Handles 5K and Nargles 9K medals. I earned the Handles in March on a walk with a ridiculous dog who refused to go home. I just (finally) earned the Nargle this week.

And that’s JUST those two clubs. I still have 3 Zombies, Run VRs to complete (5K/10K) and a few ridiculous races from the Harry Potter Alliance. I think those are a marathon and two 50 milers. PLUS, I have the Disney Star Wars Half Marathon VR medal…

The clubs may be virtual, but the miles and bling are real.

I’ve been trying to find more IRL races and today we did a 5K to support a Doberman rescue group. Guinney came with us and was an absolute joy to walk with. I was shocked when they handed me three finisher’s medals. I mean, he’s a dog. They gave him a bandana… but after walking that final half mile in the pouring rain (thank you, Florida!), I figured he deserved it, too.

The dementors have been chasing me a lot lately. I mean it’s been bad since we moved, but it’s been REALLY bad lately. I’m loving the support I’m getting from my fellow ‘Claws and it’s made it easier this week to get out and get moving. Exercise is a hard patronus to cast, but it works…

Guinness and I logged 9 miles over four days. Not a lot of miles compared to others in my groups, but it’s more than I did last week.

I’m looking to do a bunch more IRL races (including some of the Disney races and one at Universal), and two huge challenges over the next few years, so I’ve got to get off my ass.

I’d like to do the Tough Ruck next year… and there’s also an utterly twisted part of me that wants to do the Dopey Challenge in 2020 or 2021.

Yes. THIS Dopey Challenge. 40+ miles of absolute hell.

I’m still thinking about doing a GORUCK Challenge, too, but I don’t know if I’ll ever be ready for it. These races? As long as I can walk them, I’m good.

OH SHIT! I forgot about pledging to do the 10 mile GORUCK Your Dog fundraiser, too.

It’s a damn good thing Guinness is an amazing walking partner.

Ohana

stitch jammies!

Pyjamas and pillows - practice makes perfect.

To date I’ve made a Doctor Who pillow, a Hogwarts crest pillow, those froot loops pjs from an earlier entry, and these. I’m already bored with pyjama pants, but woven cotton is supposedly easier to sew with and pjs are an easy pattern to cut and assemble. (Also, the character wovens available at JOANN? I’m in love with all of them.)

For me right now, it’s all about practice… and I need it. You do not want to see the fucking mess I made out of the Stitch pj waistband. Granted, it was a different pattern from the first pair of jammies but I was dying to use it because I didn’t have to try and force the elastic through the casing; it was sewn directly onto the pants.

Stretching elastic and sewing straight? Yeah… not as easy as the interwebs make it look. I’m going to need to make more pants… and I have some more awesome Doctor Who fabric to do it with.

I have been buying patterns and knit fabrics (think t-shirts) for my next project (or several) and I can’t wait.

I was able to find some Marauders’ Map knit fabric and I’m SO EXCITED to use it to make a shirt. I’m also terrified to cut into it. I see a bunch of shirts in the same style in my closet. All made long before I get the balls to use that fabric…

I’m finding that it’s almost better to buy PDF patterns online because people post SO many pictures of what they’ve made. I had a hard time finding store bought patterns that fit the ideas in my head and this seems to work. There’s a lot of feedback on how to tweak the PDF patterns and I’m loving it…

What I’m NOT loving is actually assembling the patterns. I ended up sending some of them to a local blueprint printer to have them printed, so I didn’t have to burn through an entire ream of paper and then tape all the sheets together. Of course, that couldn’t be as simple as it sounded. No. I wanted to pick them up so that I could make sure the pattern printed the correct size and I tried twice. They were closed both times. They finally ended up delivering them to me. I haven’t seen the charge on my card, so I’m pretty sure they were given to me.  I think the total cost was like $5, so they probably didn’t lose any money on the deal.

But then, I actually had to cut out the pattern and make the clothing. After the hell I went through to get the patterns printed, I decided to copy them onto a clear shower curtain liner. SLIPPERY! Even with bricks and taking my time, I still had problems tracing. And then, I cut away part of the Sharpie outline, so when I put the pattern on the fabric, I couldn’t quite find the cut line.

*sigh*

But.

I finally figured it out and I got those suckers sewn together. And. I. Am. In. Love.

These pants are so much more comfortable than the froot loop ones and I like the fabric better.

I can’t wait until I’m a little more confident and start making my own cosplay. Or at the very least, clothes I like in styles that actually fit me well.