spritechan: (Default)

Today we put the final $3600 needed to pay off ALL of our credit card debt.


We went from around $8200 in credit card debt as of like, September or October 2021 to zero at the end of January 2022.


Simply wild. To think we carried thousands in debt for YEARS for no reason other than disorganization and needless overspending (primarily on my part). Never again!


Proud of us!!


Next up: student loans.

spritechan: (Default)

Yesterday Steve and I walked to Walgreens for a few things, and then up to Caribou for coffees. The weather was FINE, but it's still way too cool for my liking. Warm up, dammit!


On the way home we got to talking about TMNT (Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles), and he told me he'd never seen Secret of the Ooze. I was like "BUDDY! How have we made it 12 years into this relationship and you have not seen it EVER?!"


We own it on Amazon (I made some of my students watch it, haha), and on Blu-Ray (we own very few movies but Steve found it at a garage sale). I started it right when we got home. We had SUCH a good time marveling at how late 80's/early 90's it was — in dress, in music, in camera shots, in sound mixing. Every moment of that movie is amazing. 


The soundtrack is a BANGER. Oh my god. And it's just a really funny, wholesome movie. David/Sancho said that the first TMNT got a ton of backlash from Mom groups for its violence, so the second movie doesn't even have the turtles directly use their weapons (instead there's a bunch of entertaining martial arts that is more distraction than violence). I love how the movie takes its time with scenes and absolutely doesn't take itself too seriously. 


After it ended Steve was like "OMG I LOVED that. Wow. So good." 


We realized we had momentum, so we decided to just make an evening of movies. We are NOT movie people, generally. It's so much effort to get going! But we did it! 


Read more... )

Busy day

Mar. 9th, 2021 03:44 pm
spritechan: (Default)

After the protest, Bethany and I got Cossetta's takeout (I ordered a mastaccioli for me and Steve and then a slice of pizza for Steve; Bethany ordered two slices of cheese and we laughed about how big they were) and went back to my house. We talked about a ton of her vaccine fears and even though I wasn't trying to convince her either way, just questioned, she said she had gone for a 10% vaccinating her kids on Friday at their appt to 40%. Her biggest issues, other than the horror stories she reads in her Mom groups, is that Clyde get very sick every time he has vaccinations and she swears his anger issues developed within 2 weeks of one of his vaccine doses. I obviously can't argue with her on her experiences. I don't know what's best. She says she wishes that vaccines were not combined (ex. MMR) and she would feel much more comfortable if they were individual.


Read more... )
spritechan: (Clannad - Okazaki Tomoya Hamburger?)
Today we woke up a little late, and were both frisky right away in the morning so we decided to take advantage of that!

Then we relaxed with coffee before needing to head out to lunch with Steve’s parents and grandpa, who just turned 92. We planned to get to Roseville a little early so we could stop at Half Priced Books. Today was a bust for me, no cheap SK hardcovers, no Murakami I don’t have, no manga that seemed interesting and no humor books that caught my eye. I was feeling flirty with Steve though so I made my trip interesting that way. He ended up finding a DS game he wanted and a manual for a Castlevania game he was missing. Score for Steve! Then we needed to go over to Baker’s Square.

When we first started doing lunches with his grandpa, it was at an Applebee’s, and that sucked. Now we go next door to Baker’s Square, which still sucks, but at least the pie is good. The food itself is bland and mushy. I opted for the in-season peach pecan pie, which is like a cheesecake with peach preserves on it. It was pretty yummy. The conversation was fun this time, everyone appeared to be in good moods and we planned for Steve and maybe me to go up north the weekend of the 19th for four-wheeling. Steve’s parents talked about plans for an RV so they can drive around the country during the cold months. I knit on my second Totoro sock, woo.

Next on our agenda was MilkJam. We had planned to go there since we wouldn’t be far from Minneapolis, but the drive ended up being like 25 minutes anyway. The weather was good and the being with Steve was awesome so I didn’t mind. I parked us a few blocks away, and we were surprised to find that there was like no line... score! We each got waffle cones, me with Cereal Killer and Steve with the mango sticky rice. I loved mine, but also I wanted the mango. I’ll probably get that next time. We walked and ate our cones, and just enjoyed each other’s company.



Finally we headed home. I had thought maybe I’d play ITG, but I was not feeling it at all by the time we got home. Too much sugar for the day, so sleepy and lazy. So I knit on my sock and Steve played his game (which he eventually beat) and we watched The Office. Soon after, Ben started streaming, so we watched him try some Fantastic Beats songs and then some officials. It was a great time. Steph was in the Twitch chat and Dave was chatting with her a bit and maybe I got protective of our Officialz group when she was making comments about officials songs (we all usually communicate via the fb group vs in twitch. I’m working on it, but it’s obvious that Ben is also protective of the four of us (him, Dave, Steve and myself) and our work on Officials. So.

After he finished playing, Steve and I went back to a show and I finally went to bleach my hair so I can dye it lavender for Bethany’s wedding. Steve beat his game and we watched a few more episodes of Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee. We realized Netflix started us on the last season. I really enjoyed the Dana Carvey episode, and the Kate McKinnon episode even though she was so intense.

We ended the night continuing to watch Seinfeld while I iced my arms. Before that though we talked about the nuances of yoga and did a few postures. I’m super excited for Monday yoga, can’t wait to get back to the stuff I crave.
spritechan: (Yoga tree pose)
Even though I was super tired and sore from ITG last night, I needed to go to yoga for sure today. So I got up and headed to yoga at 9:30. I was super crabby, as I usually am when my body is still exhausted/not recovered from the day before. There were two older ladies (like, 60s for sure) who were super good at everything. This class was with a teacher I’m not familiar with, Becka, and I think it’s the kind of class that Haley loves - constant movement and like a thousand chaturangas. I would not stop dripping waterfalls of sweat and I appeared to be the only one lol. I wasn’t the only one getting tired by any means, but god do I sweat so much. During the lame ab work that I can’t do anyway because of my spine curve, I just swayed my legs back and forth. I did appreciate the challenging poses Becka made us try, such as 8-angle pose (astavakrasana).

After yoga I went home and showered quick before heading out to meet Steve for lunch. I was super hungry from not having eaten plus the yoga, so when we got to Jamba Juice, I decided to order a smoothie bowl for more substance. While we were eating/drinking, we sat in this random courtyard at the U of MN and did a couple raids in Pokémon Go and chatting about Steve’s day. And of course, because the world is weird and small, we ran into my old coworker Janice from Nokomis, the speech pathologist. She was apparently there with her daughter. We talked awkwardly for a minute and then she sat by herself and we sat across the courtyard. lol. I was there to hang out with Steve!!!!

When Steve went back to work and I went home, I was just waiting for him to come home. I ended up napping for a couple hours until he got back, and he was self-proclaimed crabby and I was worried about him! I tried to make him feel better with low to mixed success, and he decided to play a bit of ITG while I knitted and watched Parks and Rec. He had an okay day... at the very least he got some exercise in, which was good.

Nick came over soon after he finished playing and showering, and we went to pick up Naf Naf. I had eaten my leftovers from Olive Garden so I didn’t get anything. I spent the rest of the night finishing my sock #1 with the Totoro colorway, and I’m so excited to get started on the second one. It fits perfectly and looks so cute! Pics when I finish the second one. During that time, Steve finished Yakuza Kiwami and it was amazing. A+ game. The second one comes out at the end of the month, and Steve will def get it right away.

Sleep was difficult again, tossing and turning for hours, super anxious.
spritechan: (I Wanted the Opposite of This)
The day started out fine, I had a decent amount of plans to continue organizing and cleaning and I got started in that... and then I crashed into a deep depression I’m blaming on getting my period on Monday (it was only 37 days from my last cycle, am I leveling out finally??). I’ve been really emotional and weepy, which is super unlike me. I spent the day laying on the couch feeling sad and anxious and worthless and scared, and then when my iPad battery got too low, I moved into the bedroom to continue my moping and so Steve came home to find me in fetal position and leaking tears.

He snuggled me and reassured me and we talked about reading more of the book we’d been reading. I know we both want to keep reading it, but it’s hard to go to such a heavy place when we’re really enjoying each other so much lately. I’ve been wondering if I should go to counseling once I get the school’s insurance (since it’s supposedly so good, though not sure yet about its therapy options)... like obviously there’s significant underlying issues to why I behaved the way I did, which was clear from my one session alone with Kelly. It was so annoying to be aware of my childhood and teenage years and to feel like I’m making excuses or minimizing because we only had an hour and I didn’t want to spend the whole time talking about my past when this issue was more pressing. But who we were affects who we are and clearly there’s more there that I should probably work through. If I can get a good counselor I think it could be helpful.

In the meantime, I cried a little bit and Steve and I napped for a bit until it was time for yoga, which Steve was sure would be helpful. He started ITG while I got ready, and it was a little chillier so I brought sweatpants and wore my shawl.

Yoga was interesting. I wore my Thinx workout shorts in case I leaked, and I LOVE them, but the leg material is really light and thin and rides up high when moving a lot, and I’m pretty sure my butt cheeks hang out. It was only me and 4 other women, all of whom are also “regulars” of Brandi. Normally I put my mat in the front row but because of being self-conscious about my junk hanging out I was in the back today, so only one woman was in front. She made a joke about how she ate a ton of vegetables right before class and maybe people shouldn’t be downwind of her. Brandi walked in in the middle and that sparked a silly discussion about farting in class (since everyone in the room was there on Monday with the other incident). I’m always simultaneously thrilled with being a part of things and tense because I struggle with getting close to people or relaxing into a situation.

I digress. The class was interesting because my hips were more tight than they’ve been in a long time, which I suspect was due to 1. My period and 2. All the traumatic, stressful, sad emotions I’ve been experiencing. In yoga, the hips are traditionally where we store sadness, anxiety, and trauma, so the theory is that you can get more emotional when doing exercises that release the hips.

So, I wasn’t very good at any of the hip openers, but we did something new, which was splits practice, so I got to learn how one starts to move into that that isn’t just standing splits. That was cool. Today in extended side angle I branched out and tried for a full bind instead of a half bind, and I got really close! I surprised myself and it really feels like I might get a full bind here soon. I did maybe pull one of my shoulders a little out of place trying to reach, but it shifted back during the next pose and I’ll be more careful next time.

My standing balancing wasn’t great because of my busy mind, so I held back a little in those poses. But! Brandi had us do a crescent twist with our knees on the ground, and THEN encouraged us to lift into full crescent (like being in the twist and then lifting our knee off the ground at the same time) and that balancing was awesome for me. Lifting yourself off the ground while in a twist is something I always feel like is impossible and then when I do it, I’m really surprised at my own body. Lol. I also did side plank today, which normally I do the modified pose of.

For the inversion, I wasn’t feeling dolphin again, but instead of crow I practiced wheel. I used to be able to do wheel all the time in the past, and now I can’t. I think it’s because I was doing it incorrectly before. I thought it was because my arms are weaker since stopping and starting yoga again but that can’t be true now. I really want to get back into that pose regularly. Instead of forcing my way into the pose I’m working on setting all of it up correctly, which makes it harder for me to push my arms in. So I did what amounted to a bridge headstand, which is a “bus stop,” as Brandi calls them, before full wheel.

Normally during legs up the wall I go into shoulder stand and then plow, but today I was really feeling legs up the wall. I marveled at how when I started yoga again back in June, I couldn’t straighten my legs beyond like 45*, and they’d get shaky and tired, and now my legs are perfectly straight and the pose is really relaxing. It’s my favorite restorative pose right now. Mmmmm.

In Brandi’s class, when we go into fetal before the end of class, she has us do a breathing routine, and today she talked about loving yourself and forgiving yourself, and in order to truly love others you need to love yourself, etc. And since I’ve been super depressed and emotional and NOT loving myself today, it hit me pretty hard and maybe I cried a little... but the class was dark so it didn’t matter.

When class was done, Stacy mentioned to me and Brandi that she got roofied at a local sports bar and luckily she was with a girl friend who got her home because she’d blacked out at like 9:30pm and remembered nothing. She said when she talked to the manager he said it happens depressingly often.

Then I got home, Steve was cute and heated us up our leftovers, we watched an episode of Parks and Rec, and then I snuggled him while he did more sidequesting - mostly Majima stuff - in Yakuza Kiwami. <3
spritechan: (ITG red arrow)
Score pics for posterity )

Today I played a lot of ITG. If I’m going to actually be a participant in Cupcake I need to get better at the 10s and 11s, so I eased myself in to the 10s by alternating with 9s. I think I did pretty well. The goal is to at least 96% each song to be a competitor, but for the first couple plays ever I think these are decent scores.

My hip muscles are killing me though. My iliopsoas muscle is insanely tight and ITG super aggravates it. I need that shit to GO! AWAY!!!

After I finished, Steve played some himself while I went to yoga. He had a super good day and I was really proud of him.

Yoga was great, we had a lot of new people along with the regulars for class. I had a good balance day and chose to do crow instead of dolphin as my inversion because I hate dolphin, it hurts my back so much and I feel useless in it. My shoulders are also super weak and it’s impossible for me to adequately push them out of my sockets!

There was one older gentleman in class who said it was his first time doing yoga ever, and it was super unfortunate then when we were going into one of the down dogs and he let rip a SUPER loud fart. Like, there was no doubt it was him and he was clearly super embarrassed, but Brandi didn’t miss a beat and no one acknowledged it or anything. I’m super sensitive to embarrassment and shame empathy, so I had to work my way out of feeling so embarrassed for him and THEN I had to force myself to stop creating scenarios in my head where I or someone else reassures him that it happens to everyone (because it does happen sometimes, though usually it’s just a little toot, not a loud honker) and to please not be put off yoga forever. After class though the people near him asked how he liked it and he said he def was coming back, phew!
spritechan: (4minute cute bright girls)
Last week I was really feeling like I wanted to do something with Steve on Saturday morning. I initially thought Minneapolis Farmer’s market, but we weren’t sure if there’d be time after he got back from garage sale-ing. Then on Thursday or Friday I got the notification that Saturday was the beginning of the East Side PEEP Shawl. PEEP is a thing where 6 of the east side (of the twin cities) shops hold 1 of 6 pieces of a shawl pattern and yarn, and you travel to each shop picking up the pieces. You even get 1/6 of a digital code if you don’t want 6 pieces of paper. Each shop also makes a sample of the shawl, and you can buy that particular color base if that’s the shawl you want to make. I’ve never actually participated, mostly because I’d miss it or wasn’t sure about the final shawl. I thought it was perfect timing for this year though. So instead of farmers market, shawl!

I started in the nearest town, and made a loop. The trip for me is 66 miles, and some people BIKE their route. Crazy!!



I’m so glad I went to my closest shop first, because they cheated and made TWO of the shawls, and their second version didn’t make it onto the picture of samples, and that one was my favorite, so I bought the base color from there. Then I went to Stillwater, which wasn’t that far but took a really long time due to construction, a wedding, and general idiocy of the people in town. Parking was a nightmare but I parallel’d my way in. I did get a great view of the St. Croix river and the weather was gorgeous.


This was cute.

One of the women said she thought my shawl “looks like a StevenBe original.” I told her the pattern was the local yarn shawl but that the yarn did in fact come from StevenBe!



After Stillwater was White Bear Lake. This shop turned out to be near Andy’s old tattoo studio, so parking was easy, though it was Dog Days so still busy, with the added bonus of puppies everywhere. The shop was not a shop I’d ever go to again, with grouchy signs about cell phones (Steve called me while I was in there and I started sweating) and a grouchy old lady running the place.

I talked to Steve while I headed to the next place, an area of Mahtomedi (mah-toe-meed-eye) I’d never been to before and super close to my house. Beautiful backwoods drive. Got lucky with parking. Enjoyed the shop, will go there again. Lots of compliments on the shawl, friendly people, good snack and drink selection (though I didn’t take any, I made a note for the future).

Ben and Sean had been in contact with us about possible hangouts, and after I stopped at home they confirmed they wanted to hang because they were in town for the weekend. I mentioned dragging them to two yarn shops and they were in favor of the detours.

After they picked us up, to Grand ave in St Paul we went! Got my yarn, bantered about the best color on the wall (Steve and I chose the same color - a teal - though I didn’t know his choice prior), and Sean argued the case of a burnt sienna and Ben voted for a navy blue. We determined there was hunger and walked over to Brasa. I’d only been there once before for my grandma’s birthday several years ago but it left a bad taste in my mouth because there are no vegan options and my mom complained about the lack of even vegetarian options (the logo IS a rooster, to be fair). Knowing that I could probably find something to eat as a vegetarian vs vegan, I wasn’t concerned. I chose the one vegetarian sandwich and the group got a bunch of sides in addition. I got the seasonal mango lemonade to drink, and I don’t even like lemonade but this was delicious. I was only able to consume half my sandwich, some plantains and chips, and I was bursting full.

Last yarn stop, 3 Kittens in Mendota. Another cute shop, signed up as interested in a shawl class by an intense old lady who was incredibly interested in a lot about me. She wrote down the name of my shawl and talked to me about the shop expanding. It was another good shop I’d like to take more time in. Sean and I walked around commenting on the yarn before the group headed to our actual destination: Mall of America of course.

For some reason, 5 star raids on the weekends always start later in the afternoon, but during the week they’re ready to go promptly at 8am. So weird. We got to the mall around 3pm, and after everyone went to the bathroom there was a raid ready to go right by us! We were all able to catch crappy Registeel, and then we sat at a table chatting and Pokémon Go-ing for like an hour. I was talking to Bethany and Haley about wedding stuff and to my cousin Morrigan about food stuff (he wants to lose weight but doesn’t want to try hard at all, mostly it was me confirming that NO KETO and giving suggestions). Eventually we got coffee (and Ben went and got Sean some Very Bad Tea because they screwed up her order) and wandered around the mall. We did stop into Air Traffic for awhile and Ben tried some of the juggling bags and we looked at the various silly puzzles. Soon after, I was feeling soooo tired and suggested we get moseying. I wasn’t trying to end hangouts by any means, but I wasn’t wearing the best walking shoes (converse) and my pinky toes were hurting. Steve reminded me that I needed to pick up my bridesmaid dress, and the lady made me try it on. It fits so much better with the strap shortened by like 2 inches and the hem brought up like 6 inches. The Asian lady said she loved the lace on my waist and said it made my curves look good, Steve and Sean approved, and Ben said it “is a very purple dress”. Hahaha.

When we got to the van, Sean mentioned something about wanting shelving from Ikea, and I was like, “well IKEA just so happens to be RIGHT THERE, wanna go??” And after some discussion about whether Ben’s friend/coworker Dustin was still playing in a magic: the gathering tournament, Ikea it was.

We wandered slowly around the living room and bed section, trying like every single couch and bed and chatting. Steve and Ben apparently talked about ITG and friend stuff (like that Ben wants to stream to ONLY US and why he doesn’t like other people, even other friends, to view the stream), and Sean and I talked a lot about housing desires, locations for living, future plans, and of course, The Compound*.

We cut the IKEA trip short when Dustin announced he was ready for dinner, and Ben drove us to Minneapolis to a place called WSK (World Street Kitchen), another place with basically one thing on the menu I could eat and yet sounded amazing (a crispy tofu dish). I was still somehow incredibly full from earlier even though it was like 9pm, but I suspected it was in part due to the fact that Steve ordered me a large coffee and I drank all of it. We met Dustin and Stacy, who were kind of geeky and maybe not the kind of couple Steve and I generally hang out with, but they grew on me over time for the most part. Mostly it was that Stacy made a few lame comments indicating her disdain and boredom while Dustin played in his tournament, and Steve and I are not the kind of people who participate in disparaging each other’s hobbies and interests and don’t like when people in couples do that. Be with someone you can support!!!! Otherwise, though, the conversation was good.

After we ate, it was noted that we were DEFINITELY getting ice cream, and the place to get ice cream was attached to WSK. It’s called MilkJam. And it is top tier ice cream. They have rotating flavors of amazingness, and the line was out the door. Ben said that the line was pretty short, less than 50 people, probably because it had just finished raining. Because we couldn’t each just try one flavor, Steve and I opted for the “flight of 4” which were smaller scoops to sample. You COULD order a scoop of all the flavors (like 12) for $58. We agreed on all the flavors to try, and in order of favorites: Cereal Killer, Mango Sticky Rice, Thai Tea and Uma Thurman. The cereal one surprised me at how good it was. It was a lightly orangey/milk flavored ice cream with crunchy (NOT stale or soggy) fruity pebbles in it, and I was brought back to my childhood so hard. The mango sticky rice was exactly like it sounded but the rice was firm and delicious. The Uma Thurman was a tart passionfruit something, and it was good, but it wasn’t my favorite. Now. The ice cream was suuuper creamy and yet not so rich it would give you a belly ache, and I definitely wanted SO much more immediately. Sean got the “dark” which was a decadent dark chocolate that tasted like the most perfect brownies you’ve ever eaten (again, smooth and creamy and yet not bellyache creating). I can’t believe I’d never been there or heard of it!!

Finally it was time to go, and Ben and Sean dropped us off. We weren’t ready to give up on the day though, so I worked on my current sock (using the Mei/Satsuki from Totoro colorway by Canon Hand Dyes) and he played some more Yakuza Kiwami. He’s made a lot of progress and is definitely getting close to the end. We finally called it around 12:30 and hit the hay.

*The Compound is a gigantic homestead that the four of us invented for our Ideal Housing Needs. It’s small enough that we live in the same area and can hang out all we want, but big enough where we can have our individual privacy and aren’t expected to spend all our time together. The idea is that with four of us, we can afford exactly what we want without breaking the budget, and because we’ve already tested (several times) smaller living together scenarios and they’ve been successes, we think we could actually be viable housemates.
spritechan: (Pooh wtf)
My wrist has been bothering me so much this week, feeling like a tendonitis flare-up, so I didn’t write entries for the last few days and wore a brace to give my wrist some rest.

Click the pics for HQ.

My Thursday )
spritechan: (Yoga tree pose)
Still not good at the whole getting up and being motivated thing, but I did manage to get up and have coffee with Steve this morning and that was really good.

After he left, the comfort of sleep took over on the couch, until Haley called me and asked if she could come over to apply to for jobs. She also did a phone interview while over. As usual, I felt like I couldn’t do anything but sit with her while she was here. All I managed to get done during the day was make lunch (miso soup, rice and noro) and realize I’d gotten “off” on which color was which for the shawl I’m working on. I posted a picture of my lunch to Snapchat, and Hser, one of my students, replied to it incredulously saying she “didn’t know white people eat white rice” as a thing XD at first I thought it was ridiculous, and I told her the good news is, you can eat whatever you want as an adult, rice included. She said she was very glad she’s not white because she needs rice in her life. When I was talking about it with Steve and Nick later, we discussed that rice is in Asian, Mexican, Indian and African food, but is actually NOT staple of “American” cuisine. And when I thought more about Hser’s experience, it makes sense that she doesn’t know white people who eat rice regularly, because the students who attend St. Paul schools who are white have a diet that is often made up of fast food or foods like macaroni and cheese/spaghetti and sandwiches. Families are struggling to make ends meet and guardians have busy jobs with long hours (or multiple jobs). It would be out of place to have a rice cooker or even the time to make rice on the stove - though if the average white American considered how many calories are in white rice and how much you can get for the cost, I bet many more would use it to fill their bellies.

/thought train

I fell asleep watching Eloise while waiting for Steve to get home. Eloise is a Chinese Hearthstone streamer who, lately, has been doing a lot of IRL streams, of her cleaning her terribly messy apartment, walking around Shanghai with her mom, and attending music lessons. She also gives insight into a country far more open about the ways in which it controls media, monitors its citizens, and disseminates propaganda and other information, which is really fascinating. I fell asleep to a 2-hour stream of her practicing that giant Chinese instrument with all those strings, her plucking out simple melodies but it still sounding so soothing.

Once Steve got home and I was awake, we picked up Nick and headed out. When we were on the highway I teased him about forgetting our coffee ritual, so we passed our normal exit in order to get off on a street with a Starbucks. The line wasn’t long but for some reason the drinks for the people in front of us took like 10 minutes. Steve is always concerned about time because in order for me to make it to yoga, I need to be home by 7:30, and Catrina’s closes at 8 on Mondays. Because of this, by the time we got our order, neither of us pointed out that 1. I ordered an iced drink, not hot, and 2. Steve’s Americano was supposed to have cream. Whateverrr. It was very warm out so I was disappointed at first, but I gotta be honest, the matcha drink IS better hot. So I was fine.

When we got to Level Up, Nick was telling a story as we were walking in. There has been a complete overhaul of the parking lot, and one of the concrete medians had yet to be filled with dirt/plants/rocks or whatever, and so has a 2-foot drop in-between the curbs, and Nick biffed it HARD by stepping into that pit. He tried super hard to catch himself and ended up kind of running sideways before ultimately slamming into the ground on his left side and rolling a bit. It’s weird how much more jarring it is to fall as an adult, and especially so if you fall spectacularly. He was quite embarrassed, so Steve and I talked about recent times that we fell like doofuses. After the moment had passed he mentioned that he could feel that he has scrapes on his legs, hand and arms :/ suuuuck.

Steve got me home at 7:30 on the dot, and I headed to yoga. I was surprised to see Brittany there instead of Brandi, but I guess Brandi hurt her arm and is out for a week or so. When Brittany subs for a class, she turns into a more careful teacher, which I love. She spent a good amount of time talking us through the proper form of the poses, and chaturanga, warrior 2, and extended side-angle. She always looks so impressive in chaturanga, her tiny gymnast body moving super sharp and controlled through it. In keeping my arms glued into my ribs for lowering halfway down, it is super awkward to shift to upward-facing dog because my arms get snagged on the sides of my boobs! I even was wearing TWO sports bras today and that didn’t like, push them in more or anything.

Today was the kind of day I felt strong, and even though I was super sweaty, I didn’t feel overwhelmed or overtired in the postures. She asked me to stay after to talk to her because I told her I couldn’t do the core work she suggested, because it was too painful and impossible on my back no matter how hard I pressed into the ground. We had a really good discussion after I showed her where my back curves, and where my spine hurts to be in a position. Bending my body into an L-shape, no matter how my body is oriented in space (sitting, standing, laying, upside-down) is very difficult and painful for me to hold, as a result of my Lordosis (commonly confused with swayback but is in fact basically the opposite of it). I always feel stupid and like a baby when I appear to skip the core work in class, but because the core work is almost exclusively using some part of your body in a 90* bend OR while laying on the back, I just can’t. Even showing Brittany what I mean gave me a super sore back. Chair pose is also painful and bad. And I know it shouldn’t matter but I feel judged in class too because people probably think I’m just copping out.

After yoga I went home, ate my Catrina’s and watched some Parks and Rec with Steve. It was great. When he went to bed I wasn’t tired since I’d had a nap, so I played some Hearthstone. I did terribly in constructed so I decided to tackle the first boss of the Lich King solo adventure, and that was fun.
spritechan: (Hate bitches at the coffee shop - Hyperb)
I just want to start off by commenting that I love the picture in picture feature on the iPad - that I can watch a stream/VOD/whatever while I type or do other things, instead of trying to play something on my phone (which is far more inconvenient).

Today waking up at a reasonable-ish time was so difficult, having went to bed so late the night before. I think the time we woke up was a good compromise. We took our time getting ready, but we needed to be at the mall in time for 1pm, in order to participate in the Squirtle catching. Mall of America opens a bit later on Sunday, so it was not as packed and parking was easy. We were hungry, and the plan had been to eat at Wahlburger (to see what the fuss was about), but they seem to only go off of reservations. Being hungry right NOW, I suggested trying this cute little waffle place. But first I needed to drop off my bridesmaids dress to get altered. I hadn’t so much as touched the dress since it arrived a month and a half ago, for fear of damaging it or getting cat hair on it. I only took it out of the package and hung it up like, last week. Needless to say, I hadn’t tried it on at all.

I still haven’t bought my shoes for the wedding yet, but she had me wear 2.5-inch heels and I asked her to trim it to a half inch off the ground, because I will probably not be wearing super high heels? I legit haven’t thought about it but it sounds like a nightmare to wear tall shoes, even if they’re kind of like wedges. Whatever, I’ll figure it out. The dress looks cute on me, and she’s just trimming the hem several inches and shortening the strap by like 2 inches (I have no shoulders, lol). It cost $80, exactly the amount I thought it would be, and I was happy to bring it to a small alteration shop run by a Hmong woman, than take it to David’s Bridal, which gave me a bad impression about their care and service.

Then! Waffles. I said something like, “Ooh, the such-and-such waffle sounds good!” And like 4 seconds later Steve goes, “Oh man, the [same waffle] sounds tasty” and I was like I LITERALLY JUST SAID THAT XD The waffle in question was a waffle with cream cheese and a fancy jam (there were a few flavors). As I was asking for that one, the guy running the shop started grimacing and I was like “oh no, are you out?” And he was like, “well... I’m waiting for a shipment of the jams, and the only one I have isn’t on the menu and I don’t know if people will like it” when I asked what it was he said it was a mango lime. Steve and I both eagerly said we’d try it and report back. We ordered coffee to sip while he made our waffles, and then took them to the main food court area overlooking the theme park. The jam was indeed very good, with a strong mango flavor and light lime underneath. As we started walking we made sure to pass by him and give him the good news.

The rest of the afternoon was spent playing Pokémon Go. It was really fun to walk around the mall with Steve being cute, and halfway through the Squirtle event, Mike showed up out of nowhere (of course) and we invited him along with us for the rest of the time, and to lunch at Wahlburger. Steve put the reservation in my name, and I noticed that the guy wrote “Leia” instead of Leah. This is a fairly common occurrence, and I wouldn’t have minded if my parents had actually decided to call me that. My dad was more of a Star Trek guy so it was unlikely to happen though.

We were seated in the “patio,” which is kind of in the mall hallway, which I like. Get to people watch and enjoy the sunlight (the mall has a glass roof)! As expected, the food was fine. They serve the Impossible burger as well, but they do have a good spiced tomato. The fries, as I feared, are very generic compared to Burger Burger. I’d say I definitely prefer Burger Burger: better service, faster turnaround, and lightyears better fries. It was good to experience once though!

We had to leave the mall by 5 because we needed to drive down to Rochester, which is an hour and a half away. Gin Blossoms was doing a free show in the park? I’ve never been to Rochester, as in my opinion it’s a nothing-city that happens to house one of the best medical clinics in the country (world?) - the Mayo. Steve drove and I knitted and we listened to Name of the Wind. It was a really cute drive!

We got to Rochester at 6:30, found parking in the neighborhood with mild trouble, and were able to secure a spot facing the stage. I considered buying a shirt, but it was cash only, and finding an atm was prohibitive. The first band was... a band. We passed the time playing a logic puzzle on my phone and gossiping about the other people there. Gin Blossoms came on after like an hour, and they were awesome, as usual. There were people who sat behind us who talked loudly and didn’t know the band very well, and it was incredibly difficult for me not to shush them. Otherwise it was such a fun time, and it was the first time Steve saw them live. I feel very grateful to have been able to see them twice, because they’re such an old band. They did just come out with a new album that has some of their old sound and some of their newer sound.

They played most of their best-known hits, and they sounded really good even in the open park with bad sound mixing. We did leave right before the encore, because we wanted to beat the rush, and the sound was still clear all the way to the car. We picked up Taco Bell on the way back and listened to more NotW. It was fantastic. But by the time we got home, we were both so so tired (it was past 11:30). Steve had to package up something for EBay, and so I fed the hungry cats and got the coffee ready, and then we crashed into bed.
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spritechan: (Avatar - Katara Aang Love)
I’ve been getting into more of a gaming mood lately. Steve gave me a stern lecture the other day about how I’m just wasting my summer doing nothing, and he’s right. It’s like I get so paralyzed worrying about wasting it that I just... waste it. Ugh, it’s the worst, I’m the worst sometimes.

So I started a bunch of laundry and played Hearthstone. Hearthstone is great, but it’s not finite. You can’t “beat” it. I felt like I should choose a game I can beat. I decided I wanted to keep playing Persona 5, as it was just getting good and I had beaten the second dungeon, but I was surprised to find that my save data wasn’t on my profile. I thought it was because we upgraded to a PS4 Pro and my data just wasn’t downloaded yet. I figured I’d wait until Steve got home to figure that out, and looked at other games instead. I seriously considered playing Bloodborne, but I was in the mood for a pretty, ambient game. I settled for A Girl and Her Robot because it looked like a pastel-y version of Ico.

I played a decent amount of it, and Steve got home right as the game switched from being a gentle, quiet game of exploration and puzzles to an impossible action game. After getting literally nowhere with the boss, I looked it up, and someone wrote my exact fears out. The game ruins itself by becoming focused more on battles and talks about how the boss fights are insanely difficult for no reason (not fun and challenging but because of bad and clunky controls and the way in which you have to start over). I quickly decided that was as far as I’d want to go in that game.

I asked Steve about my save file and...he discovered that WHOOPS. He only copied HIS save data over. Uh ohhh. I got some decent autism because I just cannot imagine starting all of that over again. My lost social links and, to a lesser extent, personas. And the beginning of the game is SO TEDIOUS with the handholding. I really need to mourn and process, and Steve does not handle guilt very well, so he needed tending to at the same time I was trying to wrangle in my grief. So he kind of melted down, frantically putting the game in and saying he was going to play up to where I was (lol I was definitely over 20 hours in, probably even over 30). I kept telling him it wasn’t the same and wouldn’t be the same, but I appreciated his willingness.

Eventually I talked him down enough from the ledge not to kill himself while I was at yoga, but not THAT far from the ledge. It’s just a game, I’m sure I’ll get enough steam to start it over eventually. But I had two hours of yoga planned for tonight and I needed to leave. I called Steve on my way there to check in, make sure he didn’t nope off into the sunset like he was at high risk of doing.

First up was Brittany’s Hatha class. It ended up being just me and one other, who is another instructor there. It’s nice to be comfortable with the teacher, because on days like this when no one shows up, I can get targeted attention. Brittany really pressed me to push out of my shoulder sockets and worked my arms so hard in various poses while in plank. We also did a ton of half-moon/Warrior 3/standing splits stuff. Brittany is a gymnast and obsessed with handstand, so everything we do with her really works towards that. Which is fine for me because even though I’m terrified of handstand, the stuff I do with her is really challenging and makes me feel like I’m trying for something.

Right after that was Hannah’s tune-up class. Thank god it wasn’t demanding because I could barely hold myself up on all fours - my shoulders and arms were just DEAD from Brittany’s class. It was a good way to spend the hour. Prior to class I talked with that other instructor, whose name is Brandi, and she is a special ed teacher in SPPS, at one of the high schools. So we have a lot we can talk about. That was cool.

After yoga, I went home and immediately needed food, so I whipped up some (yep) fried egg sammies and simple fruit smoothies, and Steve showed me his new trick in Mario 3. He and Noah are trying to learn to speed run that game, and Steve wanted to start by learning the fastest, silliest way as a means to get acquainted with the game. He is hilariously bad at the general game, but he’s decent at the wrong warp (look it up, it’s very entertaining and takes only a couple minutes). I asked if I could try the first part, and omg the controller he was using was weird! It wasn’t an originally controller and it felt like the inputs were slightly off. He gave me a regular controller and the B button basically did not work at all. Ugh. Come ON controllers!! But it was really cute and I was curled up in his lap while we played.

After that we spent the rest of the night enjoying Super Monkey Ball speedruns. So fun, so good. After all that yoga and late-night eating though, my processing and memory were SUPER off. It was really silly. I kept asking questions about the runs that they literally had just talked about, and I kept forgetting or mishearing what Steve was saying (in a funny way). At one point Steve spluttered, “What is the MATTER with you?? You’re like, Flowers for Algernon!! Get it together!!” Which caused me to laugh for like 5 minutes straight, and laugh about every time I thought about it for the rest of the night. And when we were getting into bed, I took out my hair, which had been in a bun. Steve took one look at it and notified my that I looked like Solid Snake. Which elicited another huge burst of laughter because I knew EXACTLY what he meant. God I love him. :D
spritechan: (TTGL - Yoko - you wanna mess with me)
My morning was spent much the same as yesterday morning, so I’ll skip over that, but I did need to wait for the new TV to arrive and sign for it and direct the guys to where to put it. That went off without a hitch, and then I asked Steve if he wanted me to come out for some Jamba lunch and walking, and he of course agreed enthusiastically. Before that, I RACED to the park to catch a random wild Lickitung, mwahahaha.

I started to leave, then when I was trying to take a Pokémon gym I realized it was colder than I anticipated and was threatening rain, so I went back home to get my windbreaker, and then I stopped for gas and tried to do a 3-star raid but was unsuccessful solo (I got really close though). Then! Onwards to the University. We got Jamba and I stopped to pee because I learned my lesson from last week and didn’t want to ruin my own day.

After that we started wandering around campus, and Steve asked me my plans and I told him I planned to grocery shop. He then made a comment to me about not spending a lot of money and that I purposely buy the more expensive of a product because I think money equals quality, and I interpreted the tone as attacking, so we got into a tiff about it. This looked mostly like tense silent with brief word exchanges, and after like 10 minutes of me seething in my autism and his own feelings on the matter, we were able to discuss our points - Steve doesn’t want me to spend a million dollars shopping and reminded me that we had developed a weekly budget several months ago (which I obviously forgot about). Since I do all the shopping and cooking, it’s very upsetting to feel like he genuinely believes I buy the most expensive thing on purpose, when in all honesty I don’t look at price basically ever and go off of what I want - whether that is ingredient list or the item of produce or whatever. A specific example of this is wanting 100% buckwheat soba and not flour/buckwheat soba. In the end I agreed to stick to the original budget, now that I was reminded and remember it, and he expressed his appreciating of the fact that I want us to eat good food and do the making of the things. The rest of our walk was back to normal, good and fun.

After he had to go back to work (boooo) I headed to the Wedge. I was able to find most of the things on the list that I wanted, but still needed a few things from Whole Foods. I drove to Woodbury and got the last few items I needed before heading home.

Once back home, I set about making lunches for the rest of the week, which didn’t take long as I was using a Rawvana recipes. I love her recipes because they are delicious and usually 5 ingredients or less. The food always has a lot of flavor and strikes home the beauty of using only a few ingredients. The problem I have with her recipes is that she expects you to consume 200-300 calories for a meal, which is ridiculously unhealthy. I think she tries to balance this out with salads and fruit as snacks, but it still works out to like 1100-1300 calories per day, which does not work for me and certainly doesn’t work for Steve. So I usually end up either doubling the recipe, or taking a recipe that says it serves 4 and making it serve 2. That sort of thing.

After the food was done and dinner was had (if you guessed fried egg Sammies and rice, you’d be right!), I played Hearthstone all night, finally beating the Witchwood solo adventure and playing some constructed. Steve okayed Shadow of the Colossus and Nick was playing Demon’s Souls. A good night.
spritechan: (Thousands of Tears Later)
Uh oh, have fallen behind on these again. You’d think with all the time I’ve spent in the bathroom as a result of my urethral issues that I’d be able to get entries written easily. Unfortunately this isn’t the case, for a couple reasons. One, I have nothing to write when all I’m doing is sitting on the toilet with a hot pad in my abdomen, and two, it’s hard to focus when I’m begging the universe for some relief from the pressure in my bladder and knives in my urethra.

So, most of the day was spent in this fashion, sitting for up to two hours at a time, leaving for a few minutes to a half hour, rinse and repeat. I often start worse in the morning and then slowly improve or go up and down as the day wears on. I started the day at like an 8/10 in the pain scale, and was like 4.5 by the time Steve and Tyler got home. Steve arrived and offered to drive me to get Jamba Juice, as I had not been able to eat all day. We got back home just as Tyler was pulling up. We haven’t seen Tyler in weeks! He’s been busy with his stepdaughter’s various sports and dance-related engagements (I think she’s like 8) so he’s been canceling on us for more than he’s been coming along. He also just bought a house and has been moving into it, but I think now they’re solidly moved in. He actually lives very close to one of the game shops we go to, which to him (and maybe Steve?) means that with the alternating on who’s driving, that we should mix it up, store-wise, depending on whose turn it is, to prevent too much driving back and forth between the game stores, Catrina’s, and home. I feel like that sentence makes literally no sense but I’m gonna roll with it.

Aaaanyway. Tyler picked us up and we headed to hi score, which we haven’t gone to in awhile. On the way there, Bre texted me back about a question I’d asked her on Haley’s behalf (I don’t know if I mentioned it here, but Haley got fired from her job after working for them for 5 years, and she’s afraid she’ll never get another job again). She answered my question and we quickly got on alternating topics of my constant pain (she’s an RN) and on her very positive experience with medication (she swears by it and attritubutes her not being dead to it) and finally, FINALLY, Haley is interested enough in getting relief from her incurable mental illness to hear about it (Bethany had a bad experience on medication and is loud about her dislike of medications). As a result of these discussions and the extreme discomfort I was feeling, I admittedly wasn’t very present for the actual game shopping.

After Hi score we went to Catrina’s (per the new schedule we will only visit one game store instead of two each week). I got my food to go, because I learned from last week that eating even an hour and a half before yoga results in heartburn and a physical nightmare. Even with the pain I was adamant about going to yoga, because I made a new friend last week and I feel like it’s important to keep that social link up. And also I wanted to go to yoga dammit!

Yoga is at 8, and Brandi (the teacher) checked in with me about how I was doing. She did this when she met me last week, which is common with a new teacher, but I was surprised that she was very, “Anything I need to know about you this week?” So I told her, and she encouraged me to modify or pass on some of the hip opening poses if they were too much pressure or too painful. I happily did just that, opting for different poses when I felt like it was too much. Thankfully I didn’t need to run out to pee, which has happened before. When I got in, my friend waved me over and I was so flattered. It’s really not fair that I look so unique, because everyone remembers me, but so many people look the same to me in the beginning. She looks like every other blonde, thin suburban mom so I was glad she took the initiative in getting my attention. :)

I felt so good after yoga, but I was excited to get home to Steve. He bought us a 65” TCL TV recently but it wasn’t up to his standards (there was quite a bit of “dirty screen effect”), so he’s opting to try a Sony instead. This means he had to pack up an absurdly large TV into an even larger, more absurd box.

The rest of the evening was spent relaxing with Games Done Quick VODs of the Spyro and Mario Bros. 3 variety!
spritechan: (Happy Koffing)
Ben and Sean asked if we wanted to go with them to Mall of America to do some raids and walk around, and that they had Mike in tow as well, and of course we agreed happily. I wanted to spend the day walking around the mall with Steve today anyway! I gave Sean the weaving supplies back, showed her my scarves, and we talked about how amazing the colors ended up working together. We tried to do a legendary raid by ourselves, but we just barely couldn’t do it. If we had one more person it would have been perfect. Oh well! We decided to wait until the mall to try again. It was raining pretty hard, but we must have driven out of the rain cloud when we actually got to the mall.

Since it’s still a weekend, of course the mall was packed. Sooo many people. The good about this is more likelihood of people to do raids with. The bad part is always needing to be distinguished others. Lol. First thing: food. I was quite hungry by the time we got to the mall, and suggested BurgerBurger. It’s like our go-to place now for food at the mall. It’s just so good and meets the requirements for both Steve and myself. Sean got food at Chipotle and brought it back. I ordered an impossible burger with onions and a side of fries. It was so delicious. The fries in particular were amazing. I ate slightly too much, but I didn’t completely overdo it. As a result though I was full for quite awhile after.

We did a ton of walking around, spun lots of stops, dealt with issues of too many items, complained about the trading system, and did two raids. I only was able to catch one Regice, and it’s not very good, but at least I got one. Roselia’s are also more likely to be shiny, and I caught three. Eventually everyone had at least one, yay!

When we decided to leave, I realized I was super tired. Like, the food and the walking and the excitement really tuckered me out! So when Steve and I got home I requested a nap watching GDQ VODs. And it was a gooood nap. I slept so well. After I woke up, Steve suggested we watch some of the runs we missed that we wanted to catch. I suggested the Mario block, and that ended up being really good. It also made me want to run Super Mario World again, and Steve mentioned that Noah wanted to try to learn co-op Mario Bros. 3 together. We ordered a pizza and that was tasty. We also finished the Pokémon Blue/Yellow run.

I noticed that this year, there were a lot of runs that weren’t “official” - for example, the run failed or the rules were violated, and everyone was so gracious about it. Like they’re not taking them as super serious as years past. Which I love. Like, a marathon run is NOT supposed to be a world-record run. It’s cool if it happens, but it’s supposed to be more of an opportunity to talk about and show off all the hard work these runners put in. For example, on the finale, Puwexil forgot to grab a character in Final Fantasy 6, thereby nullifying the 100% run. Or in the race between mitchflower and grandpoobear, if they had different attitudes, the run would have been an awkward disaster instead of a cute display of comraderie and enjoyment. But because they were able to think on their feet and Mitch knew that Poobear didn’t fuck up his game on purpose (twice), they were able to find a way to make the race fun. Like, it’s okay to make mistakes and no one’s gonna hate you for it. It really made this year feel like the best event yet. Plus, the room was packed. A lot of people were there consistently, and the hype in the room was infectious. :D

When it got too late, we came upstairs to fall asleep finishing the Mario Kart 8 Deluxe 48 tracks run (which was amazing, by the way. She is really good at Mario Kart). It was such an ideal night.
spritechan: (Konata gaming)
This week is SGDQ, Summer Games Done Quick. GDQ does two charity 24/7 marathons per year, where people speed run games to earn money for Prevent Cancer Foundation (January) and Doctors Without Borders (June). SGDQ typically raises about $1 million USD, and AGDQ raises up to $2 million USD. This year they’re also going to do another one in the fall, but I haven’t researched it yet so I’m not sure what that’s for. Steve and I stared watching Games Done Quick in January 2013, and we’ve made it tradition to watch them all since.

Beginning with probably the last month of school, our house began to experience an increasing decline in its upkeep. I go through cycles of organization and slobbery, and it usually slowly builds up until it basically looks like Steve and I live in a state of squalor. Clothes end up everywhere, laundry doesnt get done, and when it DOES get done, it sits in baskets gaining wrinkles and soon it becomes impossible to remember which clothes are clean and which are dirty. Dishes begin to pile up, both in the sink and around the house (particularly our coffee and tea mugs)... my shoes end up all over the house, because usually I feel like I can’t stop on the landing, and instead wear my shoes to whichever room of the house I’m going to sit down in. It’s a terrible habit that I should fix. Mail ends up all over the place, yarn and projects are in randomly spots, cat food all over the floor........ you get the idea.

To combat this, I usually take a room at a time. When I decided to clean and organize, I CLEAN and ORGANIZE. Having grown up in Paul’s Cleaning Bootcamp TM, I tend to approach cleaning in a militant kind of way. I think this also helps explain why I avoid cleaning: when I clean, I am compelled to do it extremely thoroughly. I can’t half-ass it, or it’s not even clean and I wasted my time. So. I started with the kitchen, because a messy kitchen keeps me out of it. I deep cleaned both the coffee maker and the teapot, and now both run so smoothly. I reorganized the counters - they now have a lot of space. I moved the tea bag holders around and found new locations for the cooking utensils and noodles. I swept the kitchen, took out the trash, and did all the dishes. There honestly weren’t too many dishes, as we have a dishwasher, but many dishes failed to get clean because the wait to rinse them was too long. So I washed everything by hand and put it away. I also made some food, yay!

Noah and I have kept in touch about our food and exercise habits, as he experienced a rough week last week emotionally, which caused him to hate on himself a lot and try to sabotage, but he continues to lose weight, and has stayed under 300 pounds. I’m supporting him as best I can at jumping back on the wagon, and managing myself as well. Because of excuses and reasons, I didn’t do yoga for 2 weeks. In order to get that discount in the fall I need to attend 7 classes per month this summer, which means... I need to get in 5 classes this week. Perfect, honestly. Even though I’m cutting it down to the wire, I like the motivation to HAVE to go. To add in a layer of accountability, I signed up for classes for the first time since joining my studio. I have avoided booking classes and instead preferring to just show up, just in case I get lazy or something comes up. I’m the kind of person who typically does worse when people are watching, because the anxiety of letting people down becomes too great and I self-sabotage to the highest degree. If I outright fail people it will feel less bad than if I try and fail right???

Today’s class was Twilight flow, which is different depending on the instructor. Brandi is a woman I’ve emailed with, but never had a class with. I like Twilight class on Monday because that means I can go game shopping, and then go to class at 8pm. Steve, Nick and I went (haven’t seen Tyler in like a month, too busy being Stepdad of the Year) to LevelUp, but no games of note. We ate before we went, to hopefully allow me to digest before yoga. That was unsuccessful, and I spent the entire class feeling like my quesadilla was in my throat.

I loved Brandi’s class. She has a good energy, had really good words for us, and wasn’t as woo-woo as the other instructors. She’s still relatively new to the studio, so she was more hands-on and took the time to give little massages on our backs halfway through, and on our faces and shoulders at the end of class. Hannah used to do that, but then she stopped.

Since this is a class I’ve never been to, the people in there were all new to me. This means that I got several compliments on my hair and tattoos, both of which I am unaware of during yoga. Yoga is the only time in my life that I can tune everything else out and focus solely on my breathing and postures, so it’s really funny to remember that not only am I seeing other people, but they see me too. When I was walking out, a Mom commented on my hair and mentioned that her 10-year-old daughter asked for highlights and she was really nervous but bought her a semi-permanent dye. She relaxed into the conversation considerably when I told her I teach middle school, and I gave her some suggestions and tips (she surprisingly didn’t know that you can dye hair with kool-aid, which is the most common way I’ve seen younger kids get color in their hair), and she freaked out a little about her son turning 13 - I assured her 7th and 8th grade are so the best. So I guess I have a new Monday friend. Yay!

When I got home, Steve and Nick were watching SGDQ, and I played Hearthstone and talked to Ben Holland. Hopefully he’s coming over this weekend! I beat all of the bosses of the current solo adventure except 1, and I think I keep getting bad card choices because she is like everyone’s fave. Steve said something about how so many of our friends can’t get past early bosses, so I should be kinder to myself because I’m actually pretty decent at Hearthstone. Lol.
spritechan: (Avatar - Iroh o-tea-p)
I get into these moods where I’m obsessed with certain cultural foods for weeks or months at a time, and I go back and forth most often between Japanese, Mexican, and Indian (though Naf Naf is Middle Eastern, and they have the best hummus and falafel, I don’t make that at home). I love very specific things about each of the basic flavors, but I feel like I can’t be focusing in both at the same time because they are just *so* different.

For the last couple months before school got out, I was on a Mexican kick. Black beans, avocado, tomatoes and cumin were my main staples. Now I’m back to wanting rice and noodles, seaweed, light soups and *gasp* eggs. I haven’t eaten eggs since I was traumatized watching “What the Health?” I live mostly a vegan lifestyle anyway, so to stop eating eggs wasn’t that big of a leap when I wasn’t consuming them that often. I’ve noticed that I don’t really miss anything anymore after I stop eating it.

The thing I consume that makes me not vegan is cheese - usually sheep or goat but occasionally cow, especially if I’m eating out. I used to be obsessed with cheese; living just a 10-minute drive from Wisconsin, I have access to a lot of high-quality cheese. However, once I stopped eating it regularly, the cravings for it diminished after a few months. Even now when I eat it am I rarely dying for it. It adds a nice texture or flavor to certain dishes, but otherwise I prefer it plain, like a snack. Dairy is in most foods if you’re eating at a restaurant, and I go out enough that it makes sense to just call me vegetarian vs vegan.

I digress.

I spent the day reading through a book I have with Japanese recipes, “Japanese Women Don’t Get Old or Fat,” just because I enjoy the book, and gathering ideas for recipes I wanted to make. Of course I skipped the recipes with meat and fish, and found a vegetarian Dashi recipe online (though when I eat at any Asian restaurant I assume the soup base has fish stock and that’s okay with me).

Then I spent the entire afternoon meandering through grocery stores - Whole Foods, my local co-op, and a local Asian market (“Ha Tien”) that I’ve never actually been in. Most of the food there was Vietnamese or Laotian, but there were sections for Japanese and Korean foods too (though mostly junk food). I finally was able to get enoki mushrooms, which are often out of stock at the co-ops, whole daikon, a cute soup bowl, some various seaweed types, dragon fruit, and decent rice. Ha Tien also had a surprisingly robust selection of “vegan seafood” in the frozen section. I couldn’t read any of the ingredients so I don’t actually know what any of them were comprised of. Having never developed a taste for seafood, I wasn’t willing to try any out, but that was pretty fascinating.

Shopping took forever because in the Asian market I had to move very slowly to determine each section’s wares and look closely at the labels, and I was constantly in the way of a man trying to vacuum the floor. Literally wherever I set my cart, he would mysteriously appear. Maybe he was following me, lol. All the cashiers could have been students of mine, but I didn’t see anyone I knew - I would guess most of my Hmong families shop at Hmong village (a huge indoor market with homemade clothing stalls, beauty supplies, various electronics services and hot food stands) because it has a much much larger selection of fresh produce, but I don’t think it has much in the way of noodles, spices and meat.

Things I wanted but did not find:
-shiso
-Kiriboshi

My Japanese-food (or Korean or other Asian food) consuming friends, some questions out of curiosity:
1. What are your Japanese food go-tos? What do you make most often at home? What is your daily food routine?
2. How do you make your tea?I drink a lot of tea, and I use a metal electric kettle, but I have very hard water so mineral build-up happens quickly. I’m curious how others deal with these annoyances. Also, what IS your favorite tea (anyone answer! I’m curious)?
3. For how long do you store rice, and how do you keep it from getting hard (or how do you rehydrate it)? In the book, the woman adds green tea to her leftover rice. I’m curious if that’s common or not.
4. What are your favorite noodles and why?
5. What are your favorite spices or accoutrements that you add to your cooking to make it flavorful?
6. There’s that Japanese trope of eating toast while in the go, what kind of bread do you consume?
I don’t eat that much bread, but when I do it’s a sprouted kind with nuts and it’s amazing.
7. Do you cook rice on the stove or in a rice cooker? If you have a rice cooker, what kind? Do you rinse your rice even when the directions say you don’t have to? Do you soak your rice? I currently use a Zojirushi 3-cup simple rice cooker, but I’ve always been really interested in the more expensive, high-tech rice cookers. I almost always rinse my rice no matter what, so the starches don’t get everywhere. I only soak specific short-grain rice, overnight.

I got home pretty late, and Steve just had a new TV delivered for us. We bought a 47” back in like 2010, which we used for quite some time. Eventually it broke, and we used a hand-me-down plain tv of similar size for the next several years. Steve’s gotten to the point of wanting to play his state-of-the-art games on a state-of-the-art tv, and I don’t blame him. He did a lot of research because we haven’t owned a new TV in almost a decade, and he settled on a TCL 65” that is considered the best value for its quality and size. The TV is really nice, about $750USD, and it’s of course huge. The picture is beautiful, but we noticed like... dark patches, when you pan side to side. Steve did some research, and it turns out this is called “dirty screen” phenomenon, and is very common on these TVs. Most people don’t care because it’s not a huge issue, but it’s very noticeable once you see it. Steve and I debated the merits of using the warranty to get a replacement or get it fixed, but at this point I think we’re actually going to trade it out for a more expensive Sony that’s the same size and is more reliable, albeit more expensive.
spritechan: (Lost - Jack idk my bff Ben?)
Seeing as I didn’t get much sleep this weekend, I was due for a ton of sleep for today. This was not my plan, however. I had intended to get up and start making this place look presentable again. I’m not the kind of person who thinks/needs my house to be immaculate, but I do start to get increasingly stressed out as clutter builds on all surfaces and more clothes get dirty and clean ones don’t get put away and everything builds out of control until I can’t find ANYTHING. It doesn’t help that when we have events or go out of town, our stuff doesn’t get dealt with right away and instead gets left on the living room floor for several days, usually in the middle of walking areas because we are trash and not actually real adults.

Did I actually get to cleaning like I wanted? Nope, sure didn’t. I got up around 10, wandered around the house for awhile, scrolled on social media, texted Steve, and basically sat around doing nothing. The cats were being super needy, and I legit kind of just sat around in different spots of the house with a cat or two on my lap at all times. I did cut up a watermelon and cantaloupe and heat up some coffee, but other than starting one load of laundry, I did nothing. I thought maybe listening to something interesting would encourage me to move, but since I had such comfy kitties I ended up just listening to Mindy Kaling’s Why Not Me? While laying on the couch with both cats.

The second Steve got home though, I was motivated to at least do a LITTLE picking up. So we started tidying up the most egregious affronts, like dishes that had no business being all over the place and random papers and whatnot. I have a missing Thinx shipment and he has a wedding invitation that’s missing. So far no luck on either front but the upstairs looks marginally better.

Steve was laying on the bed while I cut up the rest of the melons and put them away, and I curled up on him for long enough that a nap was decided. We laid there for an hour, Steve falling asleep shockingly fast for a nap. I fell asleep for a little bit, but not super long. Mostly I watched Hearthstone.

At 7 was plans to meet my dad, Tammy and Jack for dinner at Catrina’s. I didn’t see that they were running late, so we got there a bit early and played Pokémon Go and chatted. Dinner itself was good, I mixed it up and got a quesadilla. Yum. It’s always nice to spend time with them, and I wish I had remembered to remind Jack to hang out. I did notice that he was wearing the Hylian shield necklace I gave him for Christmas or something. He was probably wearing it at the grad party too. It’s a nice necklace!

One we got home, I knitted for a bit and Steve worked on finishing up Moss, a really neat looking VR game that is also played with a controller (as opposed to super active). Then Ben and Sean called us to talk about plans for Universal in August. It appears that they will be there for about a week and a half, will take our luggage down using Southwest (while we fly crazy cheap with nothing with us on Spirit), will provide hotel accommodations for us, and help us have the most fun while we’re there. So we’re apparently just responsible for food, flight and tickets??? Insane. That cuts so much money off our costs. I think we're planning on being there for 5 days, with two of those being flight days and three days dedicated to the two Universal parks. Neither of us have been there and are super looking forward to it.
spritechan: (HxH Killua peace tongue)
After sleeping for only 4 and a half hours, I had to get up and start getting ready. I decided not to make homemade baked beans but instead buy them. The chocolate cake thing I made ended up lo9ing delicious, but I was worried it would be too bitter.

As usual I was running Kate somehow, I can’t even remember why. I might have been writing an entry? I got up at 9:30 and yet we didn’t get there until after 1. Oh! I was trying to finish my Mom's gloves that I never gave her for mother’s day, but I still didn’t finish, whoops.

When Steve and I arrived they had all finished eating, even though they’d texted me 7 minutes before we got there stating they were gonna eat. I guess they were hungry, lol. We listened to Name of the Wind, and again I started to get tearful. It’s just too good. I die.

The food was good, beyond beef burgers and chips and baked beans. After food we went outside and tried not to melt in the heat. Steve, August, mom and Paul played cornhole for awhile while Bethany, Jake and I talked. Then Bethany and I got thirsty so we went inside to get drinks, and we discovered they’d bought a two-person sauna?? Lollll. Apparently my mom’s doctor thinks she needs to sweat or something, so instead of going to the gym like a normal person, she shelled out over 3 grand on a personal sauna. So weird.

I joined in for a few games of cornhole, and Steve and I were beaten by Paul and August and then Bethany and Jake. We’re not good, lol. I don’t have depth perception!!!


It was SOOO hot so we all would stand in Clyde’s kiddie pool.

Steve, my parents and I think Bethany all loved the pie. August and Jake hated it, and Clyde actually thought it was good! He hasn’t had a lot of sugar so it wasn't too bitter for him. :)



We hung around until 5 or so, at which point it was definitely time to go. So tired.

Somehow even though we were both ridiculously exhausted, we ended up having our own fun for quite some time after we got home, until we were both extra completely worn out. What a good day.

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