Wednesday, June 11th, 2025 08:29 am
A slightly late birthday wish

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[personal profile] goddess47, I hope your day was fantastic. 🎂
Tuesday, June 10th, 2025 11:45 pm
1. A lot of times when Carla goes back to visit her folks, she doesn't get time to hang out with her cousins aside from specific family gatherings where they're just hanging out at the house, but this time she went into Chicago today with one cousin and they went to a museum and got lunch, and yesterday she went with both cousins to a record store.

2. Work was kind of stressful today (just when I think the drama and issues at this one store are finally dealt with, I have three more issues pop up today) but I had a nice evening at Disneyland to make up for it.

3. Chloe and Gemma and Ikea Shark are having a party and you're not invited.

Tuesday, June 10th, 2025 11:17 pm
Took an after work trip to Disneyland for dinner. Traffic was not bad at all getting down there (and even better getting home) and as of this week both the lower level pass holders are blocked out, so the crowds are lighter. Nice weather, too!

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Monday, June 9th, 2025 10:54 pm
1. A few months ago I started having problems with itunes where every time I tried to add a song to a playlist it froze. I tried a few solutions I found online and nothing worked, so I just stopped listening to music at my desk and basically only listened to it in the car through Apple Music. Finally the other day I just gave up and uninstalled itunes and reinstalled it again, and at first I was really regretting my decision because even after logging in, it wasn't showing any of the music I'd downloaded over the past few years from Apple Music, only my library on my HD, but then I logged out and logged in again and everything showed up, and adding songs to playlists seems to work again, so maybe now I'll actually get back to listening to music at home.

2. There is DLC for Sea of Stars, a whole new quest that I've seen a few reviews say is about eight hours or so of gameplay. I started it the other day and am enjoying it so far. Sea of Stars is definitely one of my favorite games from the past year or so, so I'm excited to be able to play more of it. (In between Mario Kart World, of course.)

3. Our Little Tokyo store is right next to city hall, so things have been kind of rough down there the past couple days with the protests. Both yesterday and today the store had to close early so employees could get home safe. This morning there was a ton of graffiti (all varities of "fuck ICE") along the windows of one side of the building, but thankfully no actual damage to the store and the property manager was able to get it cleaned up easily.

4. Chloe also says "fuck ICE"!

Monday, June 9th, 2025 06:26 pm
I know it's a long shot considering Amazon is Amazon, but would anyone be interested in buying an Echo Show (2nd Gen) 10" in black charcoal? Or know anyone who might want one?

It's used, but it still works perfectly fine. It's been in my storage unit in the hope I'd be in a position to use it again, as it was really useful for cooking purposes (among other things) when I was living in an apartment with a full-sized kitchen, but it's become increasingly clear that I'm not moving out of the hotel anytime soon so I really have no need for it.

I'd be willing to accept any reasonable offer. There's no listings on Amazon since it's an older model, but there are some available on eBay for comparison. I could have it in the mail either this weekend or early next week at the latest.

For payment, I have CashApp ($Settiai), PayPal, Venmo, or Zelle (nancy.lynn.foster@gmail.com).

If you know anyone who might be interested, please point them my way. I'm still around $100 shy of being able to cover all of my upcoming bills, and it would help a lot if I could find someone interested in taking this off my hands.
Monday, June 9th, 2025 01:27 pm
smaller plot bunny banner


Music, background noise, complete quiet. Something else? What works for you?

I thought AMSR keyboard typing sounds would work for me. They didn't. (When listening to it, I can feel my hair trying to crawl up my scalp.)

But something like this does:

Monday, June 9th, 2025 03:36 pm
OMG I did a crude tutorial for my MS Paint art (On Desktop! With Mouse!), not because I think that shit is so great but because the method I use is so much fun! And I want to share!
That should be also possible with better programs (if not they aren't better :P), but I only know how to do this in Paint.
Disclaimer: I did not find the input sequence to drag a selection for the smear effect. That was my chess friend with his differently configured disabled keyboard. But I sure as hell improved on his trick since.

And because this is about Paint I made sure the tutorial looks the part! Forgive me! It ended up slightly less user-friendly than intended.


Behold my 3 steps tutorial! )
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Sunday, June 8th, 2025 08:41 pm
1. I had another quiet day at home, though I did go out for two nice walks, including a longer one in which I stopped for ice cream to cool off. (It wasn't that hot today but it was late afternoon and quite sunny and muggy.)

2. Molly is a super cutie.

Sunday, June 8th, 2025 03:16 pm
Anyone in the US interested in a used Switch? No original box, but I've got the dock, AC adapter, HDMI cable, two sets of joycons (black and red/blue), the holder thingy that turns the joycons into a regular controller, one set of wrist straps for the joycons, and a charging station. It also has a memory card already installed.

I'm looking for $100 including shipping.
Sunday, June 8th, 2025 12:14 pm
Quiet Moments (1825 words) by Settiai
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Dragon Age: Inquisition, Dragon Age - All Media Types
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Solas/Male Trevelyan (Dragon Age), background Cullen Rutherford/Male Trevelyan
Characters: Male Trevelyan (Dragon Age), Solas (Dragon Age)
Additional Tags: Arlathan Exchange (Dragon Age), Formerly Tranquil Inquisitor (Dragon Age), Hurt/Comfort, Lyrium Addiction, Lyrium Withdrawal, One Shot, Queerplatonic Relationships, Slice of Life, Trans Inquisitor (Dragon Age), Trans Male Inquisitor (Dragon Age)
Summary: Connor Trevelyan hadn't expected anyone to join him on the battlements in the middle of the night.
Sunday, June 8th, 2025 12:12 pm
A Study in Worth (1428 words) by Settiai
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Dragon Age II, Dragon Age - All Media Types
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Anders/Fenris (Dragon Age)
Characters: Anders (Dragon Age), Fenris (Dragon Age)
Additional Tags: Arlathan Exchange (Dragon Age), Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship, Mental Health Issues, One Shot, Post-Dragon Age II, Pre-Dragon Age: Inquisition
Summary: It was blatantly obvious that Anders was spiraling again.
Sunday, June 8th, 2025 01:14 pm
It was a nicely productive day on Thursday.

Started with an early trip to the tip to get rid of a huge bag of garden waste and a couple of bulky but broken electrical items, so it was good to do that bit of decluttering. Plus, the tip shop was closed for a delivery so no chance of buying more stuff to fill those new gaps*g*

From there we called in to see my in laws for a bit, then it was onto the hospital as James had a physio appointment. Unfortunately, his appointment was for 11am, which is a horrible time in terms of parking, and we had to circle the whole site for nearly 30 minutes before a lovely lady pointed to a free space in one of the car parks we'd already gone through three times.

Each time he goes to physio, I expect James to be discharged, but nope again. While his elbow break has healed beautifully, he's lost muscle in his shoulder and still can't bring his hand to his mouth without propping his arm on a surface, or bringing his mouth down to his hand. So, more exercises to do at home, and he's back in a month, and will apparently need to keep going until that muscle is back.

Left the hospital and headed into town as I had an eye exam booked for 12:30. I only wear my glasses when reading books, but had noticed recently things were getting a bit fuzzier reading without them, so figured I should go for a check-up.

Turns out my right eye has got worse, but the other is still the same. So, new reading glasses for me. But what you don't want while sitting with the optometrist is for her to say, 'well, this is rare and don't worry, but….' Turns out I have a very narrow drainage channel around the iris of my right eye, while increases the risk of Angle closure glaucoma. Everything is fine pressure wise right now, but she gave me a leaflet about symptoms, saying if I get any of those to go straight to the eye infirmary, and I'm now on annual eye checks, which I guess is a good thing.

Rosie finally sent the change of day survey, but along with those came some suggestions to express interest in other options, which sound great if they happen. Included in that, actual cooking demos, well-being walks and various other exercise options. I ticked an interest in all except for badminton, which just sounds like a disaster in the making for me if I tried it.

Then she emailed again yesterday to say the class Monday coming is also cancelled as she's off on annual leave. Which is a shame after also being cancelled this last Monday. But, it can't be helped and as she's getting married later this year, I suspect this is the time Rosie's booked for her hen do.

Yesterday was forecast for heavy rain showers all day, so we decided to go to the cinema. Saw The Salt Path on a 11am morning showing, and really enjoyed it. Left Odeon and went to Subway for dinner, then checked the cinema listings again and saw a screening of Karate Kid -- Legends, was about to start, so went to see that too. The film hasn't been getting good reviews, but I actually liked it, even more so as a load of young teen boys were watching too, and they all started applauding at the end, which made me smile. I also saw the full trailer for the new Downton Abbey film, and I'm looking forward to seeing that later in the year.

Today we've driven to a jumble sale as Cat Lady Kay from Consett Cats had a fund-raising table there, and we wanted to support her. I only bought a book, but left a donation, so it was worth the drive.

This afternoon I intend to catch up here, and feed the tomato plants. Then, more binge-watching of Mobland later. What a show that is, it's got me gripped.
Sunday, June 8th, 2025 12:30 am
I'm still not feeling particularly great, but my brain has at least stopped spiraling quite as badly. So that's something at least. I'm still definitely worried about covering upcoming bills, but it doesn't feel as completely impossible as it did when I made my last post.

If you reached out, thank you very much, and I want you to know that it really did help a lot. 💕

I'm not quite at a point brain-wise where I think that I can send out replies to people without being completely overwhelmed, and - while I'm not going to disable comments on this post like I did earlier - I probably won't be replying to any of them at least for the time being. I'm at a point where human interaction is definitely difficult right now, especially since I need to save up any spoons I can for work on Monday as I'm in the office that day.

After I made my post this afternoon, I got offline for several hours. I forced myself to clean the hotel room before buzzing my hair, taking a shower, bleaching my roots, and putting some dye in my hair to re-up the orange. Honestly, it wasn't much in the grand scheme of things, but it at least helped some.

And then I tried to go to bed early, although that clearly didn't work out very well considering it's a little after midnight and I've given up and am back on the computer. As is often the case when I go to bed too early, my body decided it was intended to be a nap rather than proper sleep, so I'm wide awake again and probably will remain so until at least 3am now.

Still, my spoons continue to be very much in the negative, but I at least feel more like a human being than I did earlier. One step at a time, I suppose?
Saturday, June 7th, 2025 08:53 pm
1. Had a pretty chill day at home. Didn't go anywhere other than the farmers market and library.

2. Jasper is suuuuuuuper snuggly with Carla gone. He's come and cuddled on my lap three times today.

3. I got the Switch 2 set up! I don't know why the downloads are so slow today but it's taking ages to download Mario Kart World and the updated versions of Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom, but Mario Kart did finally finish so I got to try that out and it's so good!

4. After saying that about Tuxie the other day now he's been here every day for the past week, so maybe he's decided he likes it better here than wherever else he was going after all.

Saturday, June 7th, 2025 04:43 pm
Currently Reading
Murder in Season
33%. Most recent in the Lady of Letters series. Still enjoying this series, but compared to other recent historical mystery series that I'm also following, this one is very noticeably lacking queer and non-white characters. I also don't love the style of writing (everyone's eyes are always changing color with their emotions and the love interest is a former sailor so the MC is always describing his scent with ocean-y words but he literally has not been out to sea in ages so it makes no sense), but the mysteries are fun.

Riding the Rails
20%.

How Jesus Became God: The Exaltation of a Jewish Preacher from Galilee
37%.

Red Hail
57%.

Architectural Follies in America
73%.

Recently Finished
Murder in Masquerade

Falls to Pieces
Thriller about a woman and her daughter who are on the run from her abusive ex-husband and have been living under new names for the past two years. But then her fiance goes missing, and then her daughter, and she's convinced her ex is behind it. This had some interesting reveals, but mostly it just felt like too many, where each new reveal was like, and now THIS guy can't be trusted and THIS guy is acting shady, etc. It was fine, but I won't be rushing out to read more from this author.

I Hate This Place vol. 1-2
Two volume graphic novel series about a lesbian couple who moves to an isolated farm that one of them has inherited. Farm turns out to be mega haunted and they can never leave the premises again. I liked this quite a lot.

Rock wa Lady no Tashinami Deshite vol. 1
Manga about a girl whose mom remarries into a wealthy family and she's sent to a fancy all-girls school where all the students are super sheltered. In order to become the perfect young lady and make her new family proud, she's determined to leave behind her love of rock instilled in her by her musician father, but then she meets another girl who secretly plays the drums and they decide to form a band. Sounded like a fun plot but the setting was too ridiculous. I don't think I'll be continuing with it.

Bokura no Hentai vol. 1-4
I stumbled across this on an Amazon Japan sale (first volume was free and the rest are all 55 yen each). Reminds me of Hourou Musuko. This focuses on three middle schoolers who meet on a crossdressing forum and then decide to meet up offline. One crossdresses because the boy he likes is only into girls, one because his mom kind of lost it after his sister died and insists that he's his sister so he wears her clothes at home, and one who is trans. (Another character is introduced later who wears a girls' uniform at school just because he prefers it.) I'm really enjoying this one a lot.