A lot accomplished this week. Preparing for the yard sale. Working on my new contract. Almost caught up with the laundry! Two loads and some rags left and it's all done! Never again. I've been keeping up with the kitchen all right but t need some work right now. All the floors need done. I might do some of that tomorrow after the sale. I'll run the sweeper in here today if it turns out my brother is coming over. I really need to get back to posting content here that is t the occasional housekeeping update. How boring. 

Tara

Counters cleaned and organized. Washed the kettle. 

Quack Quack

Lining my ducks up all in a row. Where they will lead me, I just don't know. Look at them line up, feather butts wagging. Not a single one forgotten, left out, or lagging. Decisions must be made and guns must be stuck to. Stay in the egg and the mongoose will get you. 

Misplaced Elipses

I've always been the kind of person who doesn't get overly attached to people. I guess, I was just always looking for that one person to really attach to, above all others, and everyone else was always going to be, to some degree, expendable. So, I found someone to attach myself to and I did, wholly and thoroughly. I patted myself on the back. Well done, you. 

The Buddha teaches about impermanence and the joy and value in loving without attachment. I like to think I'm a soul evolving. I like to think I'm moving toward getting it right somehow. But then... the one person in life who I decide to attach to, just isn't as attached to me. They live for the moment and at this moment they honestly can't tell me that the the next moment won't lead them away and I feel... crushed. I am betrayed by the very evolution I am striving to embrace? I understand how and why love without attachment and loving someone for who they are unconditionally and why those are good things but... damnit... this wasn't supposed to be that and I am angry and bitter and just utterly fucking broken by whatever it's trying to become because I resent being forced to evolve to fit the demands of this situation when I chose this situation to give me something permenant in the first place. It's not fair and no, I don't know what my basis for comparison is, Goblin King. Leave me alone. 

New stationary bike is together. Put in three miles on it and it felt nice. It's the perfect size and putting it together was a lot of fun. I enjoy that kind of thing. I've been watching Sims Let's Plays in the background all morning. I might put some time in on that this evening but I have to get some things done first. I am trying to get my shit together... I can not exist in limbo any longer. 

Bike should come today. Hoping that will help boost motivation. Want to be healthy in order to move forward. To lure myself out from whatever shadow it is I'm hiding in. 

Today's Intention

Today's intention is living with purpose. Today's goal is to get the living room to a better place. I think to live with purpose is more a long term goal, really. I looked over and there was 1:11 left in the session I was listening to on buddify while writing this then I looked over again while texting a friend about it and there were 11 seconds. Once the numbers get hold of you, they don't let go. I really need to write more on that. Some people call them Angel Numbers. I know they're just another way the universe reaches out to tell us things. Apparently, living with purpose is something it's important for me to think about. I am not at all surprised. 

Intention

I have a few goals today, all domestically oriented. I need to wash up and prepare the spouse's outfit for Friday first and foremost and put chicken in the crockpot for tonight. I just listened to a kind of peptalk on buddify that has me feeling pretty good despite the fact I let myself sleep in again. I really need to figure out sleep now that the spouse is sleeping downstairs for his back. We'll figure it out. Definitely need to get back into the habit of setting my daily goal/intention and holding myself to writing here once a day. I think I'm in a good place to pick that up again.  Excited for my new semi-recumbent bike that's headed this way via UPS right now. Gotta get the body healthy to get the mind healthy. I'm tired of hating myself physically as well as mentally. It's time to be the me I want to be and not the me that just happens when I don't pay attention. That me isn't very happy. 

Is there an app for that?

I lost my mind a little tonight. The self loathing spiral started and I have a very hard time breaking free of it on my own. I have feeling it has a lot to do with being so ungrounded all the time but by the time the spiral starts I can't pull myself out of the tailspin alone. My spouse and I are slowly learning what it takes, but it's hard to articulate so it's definitely a process. I think we made some good progress tonight toward figuring out how to minimize it. 

I don't really know why I'm writing this here. There are other places that might be better suited but this is where I came. Maybe, just because there's an app and I'm already in bed. 

Yesterday's goals accomplished. Today's goal is cleaning the bathroom. May work on the bedroom some, too. I've been having my spouse help me set my goals for the day and mention them throughout the day to make sure I haven't gotten sidetracked and forgotten something. Having them onboard is useful. Having a hard time convincing myself not to crawl back in bed for a bit this morning. It just sounds so inviting. 

Which reminds me of a project I'd like to move forward with soon involving self-care and blanket forts. Perhaps, I'll work on that some today, too. 

Goals today are getting the kitchen well in hand and at least two loads of laundry completely through the process. I'd also like to check out of the inn on HabitRPG. Personal goal is to stop dwelling on the negative and being so hard on myself and everyone else.  Monthly goal is to write here with renewed regularity starting right now. 

Better than Nothing

I've been neglecting this place something fierce and I apologize. Life has been throwing me a lot of emotional curve balls lately and it's proven a little harder to stay focused than usual. I did check out of the inn on Habit today, though, and I've gotten some things accomplished that I've been also neglecting for days. I decided after the fact that today's goal was laundry for the spousey-face. That's in the dryer now. I'm making banana bread for the second week in a row. Hoping this recipe turns out a little better. I tried a new one last week and it was a little more dry than I care for. It wasn't bad, though. 

I'm trying to figure out what to eat. I haven't done that yet today. At this rate I might as well just wait for the bread to finish and cool. I'll probably have a headache by then, though. I am just rambljng here. It's a thing that I do sometimes. I'm just glad that I'm writing here at all. 

I'm not keeping up with my goal of writing here every day. Days are strange. I'm writing here now. 

Not Even 100 Characters

Floors and then I'm free. Just do the floors!

And... We're Back!

Things have been a little off. I won't actually say they're getting back to normal, now, because they aren't, but I am in a place where I have a lot of time to focus on myself and the things I need to get done, so here I am back at the old keyboard again, where I belong. Longest sentence, ever.

My goal today was a little vague, but it involved the kitchen and I got enough accomplished that I don't feel guilty calling it good. Tomorrow, I am stating now, I am going to finish the dishes and do the floor. I'll probably work some more in the bedroom, too, but anything beyond the kitchen floor and the dishes is just extra. Wednesday the focus shifts to laundry. The focus really should be on laundry more, but there is so much to catch up on everywhere that I don't want to burn myself out the first day. I should have all week to get everything squared away. You never know when circumstances will change, though, too.

I've been keeping myself sane and motivated by breaking for video games regularly. My Animal Crossing town didn't even know what to think about the fact I was back after misplacing the game for six months. I found Rune Factory 4 today, too, so I think that'll be tomorrow's distraction. Tonight's unwind activity will probably be the Sims. I'm playing on regular life span with the "self sim" I created and her adopted daughter just became a teen so there's plenty to do there. Throwing video games at myself between periods of serious productivity in other places seems to keep me from becoming a dull boy.

A Little Headspace.

I'm sure I've mentioned here at some point, a site I found called headspace.com. It's a site that offers guided meditations. The first ten are free and a kind of course on the basics of meditation presented in a way that builds upon itself for ten ten minute sessions designed to be completed over the course of ten days, one session a day. I completed the free ten sessions quite some time ago and the skills they taught me have proved invaluable. (This is in no way a paid endorsement of any kind. The folks at headspace.com do not know I'm writing this and I will see no profit from it whatsoever.) I've been just going back to that final session whenever I need a little headspace and that's worked out well enough. I've always been very curious, though, about what the rest of the site behind the pay wall had to offer. There are very few sites I would even consider paying to use, but the free portion of this site was just so useful to me, I couldn't help but wonder what more they might have to offer.

The other night I was talking to a dear friend of mine and he mentioned that he's taken to meditating every morning. I pointed him to headspace.com and told him how highly I thought of their free program and that I'd been thinking of subscribing the next time I had expendable income to expend on such things. Moments later an email dropped into my box with code for a gifted year of the service. He told me that he thought it was something I needed in my life more than anything right now: a little headspace.

Two days into the extended experience and I am not disappointed. The next section of sessions are five minutes longer and I find that I'm ready for that after the first ten. I find myself extremely collected after I finish the sessions and am able to channel stress out of the body in a much more positive manner than without taking the time to stop and really let my mind become as close to silent as it can possibly get (which isn't always that impressive, but always useful.) 

I love my friend for his generous gift. The thought behind it is what makes it so special. He knows that my life is in a place of chaos and upheaval at the moment and that the only thing that is going to bring peace is a peaceful mind and calm thoughts --the ability to move forward in this situation not stifled by the anxieties and insecurities of the mind. He is a true friend of the highest magnitude. 

I'll talk more in the future about what the site has to offer behind the pay wall, for those curious. So far, I am extremely happy with the experience. We'll see if it's worth the $8 a month. I am pretty optimistic and quite certain that it will be a tool I use often throughout the course of the year.

Gawtcha

Everyone's life reaches a turning point. How you evolve and develop when this turning point occurs is what makes the measure of a "man." It's hard when you are swept up in someone else's turning point so deeply that it is also your own. There are make or break moments in life and they are generally surrounded by harder circumstances than you think you can face. But, sometimes, life just needs to do what it has to do to open eyes and unlock hearts. Sometimes you can't see the forest, the trees, or even the sky above you because the world is so dark and your mind is so shrouded in fog. At these times, often, no words will break you from this dungeon, self-inflicted or not, so life has no choice but to shove you to the ground and knock the mud out of your head by force. You have to open your eyes because suddenly they burn too painfully when they are closed. There is a Faery in Brian Froud's oracle deck called Gawtcha. This is the role of Gawtcha in one's life. Gawtcha pulls the wool over your eyes and the rug out from under you in order to show you what you need to see. It's a jolt. It hurts. It feels like a cruel joke. But if you wait too long to help yourself, if you can't, Gawtcha knows it needs to happen. You need the "got ya" in order to see what you just couldn't see before. Sometimes what seems like someone else's Gawtcha, is your Gawtcha, too. Ok. You've got me. My eyes are opening. Eyes around me are opening. Let's move into the next phase with the veil of self-delusion lifted. Let's turn "got ya" into "got you."

Optimism

I don't know the exact moment it happened, or even if it happened all at once or over the course of days, weeks, months, years (a lifetime?) I just know that I used to be an optimist. It used to believe in the good in everything, even if I wasn't able to see it. I used to be believe everything happens for a reason. Was it some moment in time this positive outlook was destroyed or did it simply erode? Either way, it's had a detrimental effect on my psyche. Pessimism has become a self fulfilling prophecy. That is what pessimism is at its core. Pessimism does not allow you to succeed. Pessimism does not allow you to believe you can succeed. It's not preparing for the worst so the best is even better. I'm a worrier and a planner and that has nothing to do with pessimism. Being prepared for all outcomes is not pessimism. Being sure that the bad outcome is the one that you're going to get is not being prepared, it's engaging in self sabotage. Getting your hopes up and having them dashed is not optimism. Optimism is believing, even when they have been dashed, that failure is not an end but a beginning and that you fail so that you can succeed. This is the person that I used to be. This is the person whom I need to be again. Somewhere along the line I stopped believing. When you stop believing you feed that nasty energy in the world and it breeds around you like a Cancer. It circles me now, threatening to swallow me whole. But it's not going to do that. This is not how the story of m life goes. Even through the bad things that I can not change, my life is better than this. That it optimism. 

Words

I'm having trouble processing my life right now, as I'm sure anyone in my position would. Mind doesn't know exactly where to go with it and my body is a wreck trying to direct the tension in a thousand directions that all lead to the dead end of a closed circuit system. I find myself feeling more feelings of compassion and empathy than I've ever felt, but also a deeply unsettling abhoration for the act that has been committed. How does one reconcile a strong sense of hatred for an act with a strong sense of love and empathy for the one that committed the act. That is not a real question. There is no real answer. I am in no way sympathetic to the act or why it was committed because it simply should not ever be, but I feel a deeply resonating compassion toward the soul who must now bear the heavy consequences of the act, not because of the consequences, but because of their affect on an already mangled psyche. Sometimes, you're the one who puts that last straw into you own load. I don't want to see a soul broken but a soul rise from these ugly and disgusting ashes. I want to see change and healing and growth and reconciliation with the reality and the ideal. I want this to be the moment that marks the end of a long suffering not in darkness but in light. I want there to be light out of this. Brigid let there be light out of this.

Still Going

My friend Crystal made me a beautiful purse. She is so talented. That's all I've got for today.

I really need to get my head back in the game. 

Still Yesterday.

Little brother came to visit today. Sat around taking video games and watching YouTube videos. Always a good time. He's a great kid (he'll always be a kid to me.)

NB4

Spouse was home so only goal accomplished was knitting. Knitting... I never dreamed I'd be knitting again, let alone enjoying it, and certainly not a blanket!!

Woo.

No goals today. Too busy having a shitty day. Woo!!

Good Job, Me.

An important thing happened on this blog yesterday and I almost didn't notice. As of yesterday, this blog has officially surpassed, in one month, the amount entries it had in all of 2014. *Insert Grunt Birthday Party Hooray Noise* (Yes, I am a huge nerd. Is this a surprise?) So... yeah... That's pretty awesome. Unfortunately, I am tired and I don't feel like writing any more. I've been writing for the past three hours pretty much non-stop and I am le tired. Exeunt!

An MMORPG for ALL of us.

I have accomplished a lot today, including my daily aspiration, but that's not what I want to talk about. I want to talk about what I got in the mail today, how cute it is, and why an indie MMORPG from Kickstarter is vitally important in our current societal environment.

These adorable buttons were part of my thank you gift for backing Pumpkin Online's Kickstarter. Pumpkin Online is a Farm Sim MMORPG. It's going to be a long time before the game is available, but it will be worth the wait because Pumpkin Online is unique in a couple of important ways. To pull quotes directly from their website, this game is unique for the following reasons:

CHARACTER CREATION NOT RESTRICTED BY GENDER

We want there to be limitless character creation options. No longer will you be conformed to gender specific options, feel free to create non-binary characters and assign whatever gender you want to them. 

Marriage to NPCs or other players. 

You can form relationships and get married to NPCs. Same sex marriage is a option in the game to all NPCs depending on how you interact with them. Finally a game which acknowledges marriage equality. 

Those aren't the only things that are going to make this a unique experience, but they are the two reasons I felt strongly enough to donate to the cause. Identity Equality is important to me, whether it's with regard to gender, sexuality, or any other personal identification. There isn't a lot of space in this culture where it is ok to identify with anything but the binary genders of male and female. There isn't a lot of space in this culture, in video games or anywhere else, where same sex relationships are just part of the status quo. In this game people will be People, without boundaries, and that is hugely important to me as a consumer. I want to see more of this. I was this to BE the status quo. So, I put my money where my heart is and backed this game. It may not seem important, as a farm sim of all things, but its in the places like this that change starts, is nurtured, grows, and moves forward. If the games we play don't allow true self expression and we continue to support them, then we are supporting discrimination. We need to stop supporting discrimination and start funding projects like this; projects that get it right.

Pumpkin Online is an MMORPG for everyone, not just the cis, hetero, dominant paradigm that likes to pretend the rest of us just don't exist, and I can't wait to live in that world.

Tomayto Tomahto

After a few days battling a lack of motivation, I'm back on my game today. I had a goal of working on the laundry and went above and beyond in many other things. I did work on the laundry, but I don't think I'm going to be able to complete my goal for the week of being caught up, having fallen behind on the low motivation days. I'm just glad to have pulled myself out of that part of the cycle already, though. Usually, it lasts much longer. Perhaps, this journal is helping.

I wanted to share a technique I discovered yesterday and put into play today. It's called the Pomodoro Technique. It's a time management system where you work on your projects throughout the day in 25 minute increments with 3-5 minute breaks in between (after four complete Pomodoroes you take a longer break.) The Pomodoro Technique is so named for the tomato shaped timer the technique's originator used while developing it during college. I didn't follow the regime all day, but I did set the timer for a few different tasks I was doing and I found it useful and motivating. I actually exercised, in earnest, for the first time all year. I'd like to keep up with that, especially in light of the recent study finding that being sedentary is a higher death risk than being obese. Yeah. Need to MOVE a lot more. It'll be easier once Spring hits, but the method I used today should get me through until then. It's fun and fun is always motivating.

I did something else for the first time in a long time, today, and that is knit. Once upon a time I taught myself to knit. I enjoyed it, for the most part, but something about it just put me on edge. Instead of relaxing, I found it be stressful. I was more tense when I was knitting than when I wasn't knitting and I got easily frustrated with it. It took me two years to finish a scarf. I did a few other projects, all small ones, but eventually I just left it behind for a yarn craft that does actually relax me: crochet. I love to crochet. I crochet a bit... odd (I'm a thrower and not a picker and usually those are knit terms but that is how I crochet.) I am good at crochet. I enjoy it. I find it relaxing. Crocheting is to me everything knitting is to a lot of people. For me, though, it was always completely the opposite. So, today my dear spouse sends me a link on Facebook about a technique called arm knitting. I'd heard of it before but knitting, so I'd never tried it. With a little digging (a tiny bit) I found a video on arm crocheting. It was achieved exactly as I'd imagined it would be. I gave it shot. It's not hard but there are two factors that made it an absolute no go, at least not at his time. First of all, it hurt. It's winter and my skin is a little dry so passing yarn back and forth over my hand was far less than pleasant. Secondly, it was hideous. The finished stitches looked just awful no matter how much yarn I held together. I could see this technique working with some incredibly think homespun, but only as one strand (maybe two.) Worked with smaller strands held together it was just too loose and disheveled looking for my tastes. You might have better luck, but I just didn't care for it.

As I sat with the yarn all unwound wishing I had a way to make a quick blankie for my poor long suffering spouse, I remembered that I had a set of 22mm knitting needles. After only an initial failed attempt, I was able to easily teach myself the process again. I had decided if it was still stressful I wasn't going to do it, but as I got going I found that being such an avid crocheter for so long had actually honed my knitting skills as well, even though I wasn't knitting. I found I understood the stitches and the movements of the needles better. I made some mistakes, but working with such large needles is very forgiving and the spousey face won't care as long as it's a blankie.

Today was a good day. I'm glad to be back amongst the land of the truly living again. It's hard when I just can't seem to get myself going, day after day. Here's hoping this motivated period lasts a good long while.

Back on the Horse

I thought about posting several times yesterday but I never actually did it when I was thinking about it, so it didn't get done. That's ok. It was a good streak and missing one day doesn't mean this whole project is a failure. 

This week has been a low motivation week for me. It's weeks like this that this project was conceived to combat. It's helping some, but it's a hard road. I'm not 100%, physically, for a couple of reasons and that certainly isn't helping any. 

I have been reaching my microgoals, though, even if reaching beyond them is proving difficult. Today's is laundry. I set the goal during my high productivity time last week of being caught up by this Friday. I'm not entirely sure that's still possible at this point but I'm going to throw myself at it today and see where I get. 

Yep.

I had goals today but nothing to write home (or here) about. 

Just a day...

No clear goal today, but every once in a while that's ok --especially, on a Sunday. 

The Cake is a Trap.

One of my goals today was to write a more substantial post than I have consistently been skating by with since not long after this blog's rebirth. Sitting down in front of a real (non-touchscreen) keyboard is a definite step in the right direction. Tapping an entry out before I fall asleep every night or before rollover in the morning is fine. I'm not dedicated to interesting and engaging content every single day with this venture, but I would like there be some content from time to time.

I've been playing the Sims 4 quite a bit, as you might have guessed. I have actually uploaded a few rooms and a couple of Sims to the gallery and one of my rooms has been downloaded 20 times. I know that's nothing compared to the numbers some people are getting, but I just think it's fun that people are actually playing with my designs in their games. I'm even more tickled by the concept of other people playing with my Sims! Almost as soon as I uploaded the Sim I created for the Rags to Riches challenge, run by that fellow who makes those videos I linked last time, someone snagged her up! I like to think they used her for the challenge and I would love to see how that went. I've completed the challenge myself and it was a hoot. (This entry is just chalk full of antiquated lingo.) I'm still playing the family, though not within the rules of the challenge as it's completed. I'm just attached to them! I think I'll do something of a Legacy (though not THE Legacy --I still haven't decided if I'm going to give that a go or not.) If you have no idea what I'm talking about that's perfectly reasonable. I'd spam this post with links, but I'm tired and lazy (and I could be simming.) I will go ahead and link to the search string for my creations, though, in case you want to check them out. I'm not sure if you'll have to log in to Origin or not to see the page. Hopefully, you'll be able to find me here. If that doesn't work, I'm not sure there's a work around. I don't seem to have a profile I can link to outside of the in game version of the Gallery. You can search ResidualChaos if you're that curious and all else fails.

Alright, I've obviously got much better things to do with my time like clean the kitchen, so remember, kids, don't forget to feed your cowplant and never never take the cake (it's a trap.)

Limbo

Many things accomplished today. I'm not even sure I had just one goal. I completed everything I intended. I set some new weekly goals, too.

Having some trouble on a more personal level. I stated to write all about it, but I just don't know what to say. My emotional stability is pretty precarious, right now. It doesn't take much to touch off the spiral of self-loathing and that can get dangerous. People keep suggesting solutions but I don't know how to move. I feel paralyzed.

Enough about that,  the spiral is threatening to unfurl just thinking about it. I live my life in distractions. It's the only way I stay alive.

Ganbatte!

Extremely productive day. If I can train myself to get up before the sun every day, I can only imagine what I could do.

Mom came over and I taught her how to crochet. It's funny how Mom is so ruled by the opposite side of her brain, but she got the hang of it. We had a nice visit. 

I started crocheting the snowflake I picked for the January Challenge I'm doing on Habit and OMG it is fiddly. I love little fiddly patterns but WOW. Grammar out the window... This is the tiniest and the fiddliest and my wrist hurts but OMG it's going to be incredible when it's done. 

Definitely feeling being up so long but all missions accomplished satisfactorily for today. 

Peace. 

In B4

I have habitrpg set to roll over at six so this counts for yesterday. Yesterday sucked but I did some dishes and survived so I'm counting it a win and moving on. 

Moving on. 

Sushi and Fried Ice Cream

Went out for sushi today with my friend Liz (her fiance' and my dear friend, Jon, joined from work, too) at my favourite restaurant. It's a Japanese place that opened in my little city this past summer and the sushi there is the best I've had. I love the guy who makes it, too. Everyone there is just wonderful. I told them Liz and I were having lunch for my birthday today and at the end of the meal they came out banging a drum with a plate of fried ice cream for me. I didn't expect that. It was a wonderful surprise. That place makes me so happy.

I am calling my goal for today accomplished but I would have liked to have gotten more of it done if I'm honest with myself. I did most of the dishes and cleared the counters. I'll have a little to finish up tomorrow but as long as I actually do it, that's fine.

Tomorrow I am going to focus on the living room and maybe (probably) laundry.

Turning 34 has not been the most fun in the world, just because the trolls in my brain have decided that the shift from "early 30s to mid 30s" is not ok with them. I apparently haven't accomplished nearly enough with my life and am not in the place I am supposed to be, according to them. Last night was a little rough but things are evening out. I am moving forward right now, albeit slowly, but I am moving. I'm not entirely stagnant and I need to give myself credit for that. The trolls in my head do, too.

I made it past the 33rd floor. Does that mean I'm on the roof, now, then? Maybe. So where do I go from here. Looks like the question of the year from last year might be this year's question after all...

I think my goal was to enjoy the day but there were too many brain trolls for it to be fully accomplished. Not a bad day and I have wonderful friends but mission is just not fully accomplished today. I won't dwell on it. I made it to 34. That's something. Now to try not to kill myself with cupcakes. Tomorrow sushi with Liz. Woo!

Better late.

If I post this now, I can still check it off on HabitRPG before it rolls over. I have mine set to 6AM so I can check anything I've forgotten when my spouse gets up for work. 

Sunday's goal was to work on a personal project I'd been meaning to work on for some time and I spent the entire day doing just that. It's not finished but it's much closer. I'm very happy with the progress. 

The spouse is staying home from work for my birthday so I'm not sure what today's task will be. It might just be more work on that project. We shall see. More later. :)

Woo!

Mission accomplished. I may be too inebriated to write more...

Well done.

Decided on a snowflake pattern for the January Challenge on the Knitting and Crocheting board on HabitRPG. 

Didn't slam my head repeatedly into a brick wall. 

One a goal. The other a plus. 

Unrelated. 

A Case of the Not So Non Sequiturs.

It was subzero most of the morning. As I sit down in the "office" to type this, I'm thinking about opening the window to cool it off some. My cat and my spouse hate me because I keep the house so cold, as it is. If the thermostat is set higher than 68° I get sick. I have to have a fan blowing straight on my face at night or I get sick.Temperature and my body have a strange relationship. I generally hate winter because of snow, not because it's cold.  I'd prefer it chilly to hot, any day. Unfortunately, I have the balance of two legged table, which is to say none at all. I am just not able to get my footing on slick terrain. I could be wearing spikes and still not be able to get any traction. When it snows I stay inside so I don't fall down. It has little to do with the temperature, though no one likes it when air hurts their face. It probably doesn't help temperature regulation, though, that when it's cold I tend to dress for it even when I'll be spending the whole day inside. Today, for instance, I'm wearing a sweater over a long sleeve shirt and wondering why I have the urge to open the window and let in the 12° air.

I wish I hadn't made these kale chips too salty or they'd be delicious. I'm not sure I'm going to be able to eat any more of them. They're starting to burn my mouth. Whoops.

Today's task was deal with the overflowing trash pile in the kitchen and clean out the fridge and cupboards. Mission Accomplished, but as it's 12°, I haven't made it outside to the bin. I may have if it wasn't for the snow. Would you look at that, I opened this post with a ramble that is actually relevant to the content of the rest of the post. We'll pretend that was absolutely on purpose.

Someone please move these kale chips away from me so I won't continue to try to eat them. They are too salty for human consumption and I just keep reaching over and picking one up then remembering that fact and putting it back down. The anticipation of yummy food and then the let down of realizing not-so-much is disheartening to the tastes buds and to the tummy. Oh look, the remnenants of a Ghirardelli Sea-Salt Soiree. That makes it all better. Taste buds and tummy are appeased.

One of my goals this year is to be more aware of what I'm putting in my body and to put less things into it that are really just pretty poisons that comes in yummy flavours. My body is imploring me to do so and I really need to start paying attention before it kills me. I'm just shy of 34. I'd like to have this body in a stable state for many years to come and atrocious eating habits are a serious hindrance to that reality. I enjoy food very much so I should make an effort to eat more of it that is real. The real stuff really is amazing. Why do we need all this poison to cover it up? We don't. I don't want to put it in my body any more. I'll talk on that more as I move forward, I'm sure, just rambling about it now because of the kale chip failure. Next time they will be better.

I think I'll make poor choices for fake people for a while and give myself a break. I'm coming, my Simmies!

Babies!

Mission Accomplished. TV and Crochet (for a baby) all day. Micropost. Exuent. 

More to say... Someday.

I have a lot to say, but today is not the day.

Today I will say, simply, that my goal to clean up the bedroom and the closet was completed to a satisfactory level. Tomorrow my goal will be to take it easy so I don't over-exert myself and burn myself out. I want to be able to maintain this kind of motivation and I've learned from past experience that I will be able to for about a week straight then everything will fall apart for the next three or four before it comes again. By that time everything in my house will be cluttered and disorganized again. I am hoping that by breaking it up I can trick my brain out of that wicked cycle. That would be glorious for my mental health. A friend of mine shared an article the other day about there being a correlation between mental well-being and a cluttered environment and I didn't even read it because I know it all too well, first hand. One of the main goals with these... uh, goals, is to bring my life into better balance and bing-productiveness is not balance.

I should have much more time to write tomorrow and there are several topics I'd like to hit so we'll see which one flies off my fingers first.

Imagine what I'd do with a baby...

I took a nap instead of writing today, but it was time well spent because it put me in a better mood for the evening. My goal today was to clean the bathroom and I got that knocked out pretty early. I also managed to lock the cat in the linen closet for hours. That was pretty upsetting. He doesn't seem to be holding a grudge but I feel like a terrible mommy. I made it up to him with extra squishy food. 

I've got some spiritual things to talk about and a whole post about personal evolution swirling in my head. More on that when I feel a little better. My organy bits all are achy and burny today. I'm hoping they'll feel much better after a good night's rest. 

Fly me to the Moon

My micro goal (as I'm calling them today) for this particular day is writing this post. This post has been percolating in my head since yesterday evening. It's important and it needs to be seen to fruition. This post is about the Sims 4.


When the Sims 4 was announced I was, quite honestly, pretty scared. The whole SimCity debacle was fresh in my brain and I couldn't help but wonder if EA and Maxis could be trusted not to produce a similar train wreck of a game, sending a franchise even closer to my heart down into the sewers to join it. SimCity was a hard enough blow for me. It threw me for a loop because I really thought I loved it after I played the Beta. The Beta was the reason that I preordered the game. Unfortunately, on top of the whole online only quandry, the game turned out to only be fun in small doses. Because the Beta was time limited you only got to taste it in small doses so this didn't become apparent until you sat down and really tried to sink your teeth into it only to find out there was nothing for your teeth to sink into after all. My fears about the next generation of the Sims were only magnified when launch got closer and they began to release more details about the game. It wasn't just that there were no pools and no toddlers (I don't care about pools, personally, and the toddler stage, while adding lots of realism, was always kind of obnoxious to actually play,) it was the fact that it was looking more and more like the game was actually a step backwards. The simulation didn't seem to be as complex and it wasn't open world any more. Those two things alone were pretty huge to me. After reading the list of things that wouldn't be included in the game and certain things about the new engine I became downright terrified. 

Now, when Sims 3 came out I wasn't the happiest Simmer on the planet, either. In fact, there are still things I think Sims 2 did better and I have always missed in the Sims 3, like likes and dislikes with regards to attractions and relationships (and the whole relationship system as solidified in the Nightlife expansion as a whole, as a matter of fact.) I was unhappy at first and it took me a while to warm up but Sims 3 was just so big and there was so much to it that it was hard to stay mad for long, especially after Ambitions released. That was a game changer for me because the game was truly interesting again. The point is, I view every new game with a healthy serving of skepticism and no game has satisfied me right out of the box (see the note about Nightlife for 2.) 

So, I watched some videos. At first all I was finding was people who didn't seem to know a whole lot about the Sims playing the Sims 4 and missing out on or overlooking things that seemed obvious to me. I needed a seasoned player of the franchise who was as familiar with the features of the first three games as I've become over the years so I could see how the game really held up. Watching new players or extremely casual players was fun, but I needed someone who had spent the same time in the mechanics as I had or at least had more knowledge than just the basics. There are long time Simmers who doesn't delve all that deeply into the game. That's not what I needed to see. I finally came close enough to my own play-style and knowledge base to get a decent feel for the game when I found the YouTube channel TheSimsSupply and more to the point the Rags to Riches playlist. Watching James play the game gave me a much better feel for what the game really was and I started to see things about the mechanics and the new interface that I actually liked and wanted to play with myself. A week or so later, I happened to walk into Gamestop on just the right day to find it on sale for $40. I wasn't about to give full price for it, still, but it was worth forty bucks to me just get my own hands on it and feel it out for myself. I picked it up.

Meet Cierran Sylvan -- Nerd Extraordinaire

I'm just going to go ahead and get right to the point without a lot of talk of pros and cons and likes and dislikes of the game and say this: The Sims 4 is the most fun I've had with a Sims title straight out of the box... ever. I never played the first game without expansion packs so I can't speak to that but I can speak to the fact that the next two didn't really do it for me until after they had a pack or two under their belts. This game is more fun straight out of the box (a few months after release, mind you,) than the past two games were. I was hugely skeptical. I was sure I was going to hate it. I mean... Loading Screens? Really? But I get it. I get what Maxis was trying to do in bringing the scope of the game down some and breaking it up a little. It's not the same engine. It's mechanics are the same in a lot of ways but there is so much more depth and nuance to the gaemplay itself in this title that I find myself a little awe-struck sometimes, while I'm playing, at how much more enjoyable it is and how much smarter and more intuitive my Sims respond to their world. This game is done right. I didn't expect to say that, by any stretch of the imagine, but they hit it out of the park. Seriously. I did not think I'd see myself type that

This game is engaging without being grindy, which is something previous Sims titles have never gotten right. The reward system for careers and aspirations and just going about your day is well implemented and well-balanced. For seasoned Simmers it's going to feel different and even I wasn't sure I liked the pacing at first, but with several gaming sessions under my belt I can say (with some hyperbole, granted) that this game is paced 1000% better than the previous games and is that much more fun to interact with, as well. I'm playing with the long lifespan on, which does feel a little like cheating, but even with that I am more than satisfied with the pacing of the game.

Smarter Sims? You hear this in all the trailers and it seems like a throw away line when they're so busy barking about the "new" emotion system. The thing is: it's really true. If you micromanage then you might not notice at first, but given enough time you will. You'll queue up something in a specific order and they'll go ahead and change it up in a way that makes more sense, like going to grab their tablet to play a game on the toilet when you didn't queue it up like that, or sleeping before they eat because they know that their sleep need is more important at the moment. Of course, you can God over them and make them do things anyway, but if you give them the chance they actually will show you how smart they are. The emotions system isn't as exciting as all those screaming heads made it out to be, of course, but it does add a layer to the game that enhances the experience if you pay attention and it let it do what it's trying to do.

Pay attention to the little things and the micro goals coming up all the time with regard to your Sim's aspirations and job and such and you will start to see where this game really shines. Let it engage you and it will engage you more strongly than any of the games have in the past. You have to let it be what it wants to be, but I promise when you do that, you won't be disappointed at exactly what that is and that is a much more fast, intuitive, and immersive game and experience than any past incarnation. Enjoy the fact the game loads up so fast you don't feel daunted to stop playing just because it took so long to boot up in the first place. Recognize that the loading screens allow you to dig a little deeper into the particular screen you're experiencing because the engine isn't bogged down simulating the whole world at one time. Notice how much more complex and intricate the interactions are instead of just flying by them and you will see the game that the developers intended and that I find myself more in love with every time that I play.

Yes, there are complexities that are missing and they are some of the same things that made the Sims 3 really shine, like being able to make anything any colour or pattern under the sun and that vast evolving open world. The colour thing especially gets frustrating sometimes. The things that are fun about this game, though, far outweigh the things that I miss and that shocks the hell out of me. I can't wait to see what they come up with next. If you know me, I'm just as surprised to see those words as you are.

Now, excuse me while I go rebuild my rocketship. It seems to have had a bit of a rocky re-entry last time out. Just as soon as Cierran has a nice run and finishes her Rom-Com, we'll get right on that. ;)

Live from the Internet

I don't know what I would do without podcasts. I don't know how I ever got anything done before I discovered them. The Nerdist Channel is the reason my kitchen ever gets cleaned once it's fallen over the edge into the land of the lost (as it does more often than I at all comfortable with.) Today's aspiration was to bring it back from the abyss and thanks to Rob Paulsen and Chris Hardwick (among others) that has been achieved.

The Nerdist Podcast is what introduced me to the world of interview style podcasts (and podcasting in general) and it is still my go to for noise in my ears when I need to actually be accomplishing something physical (I can't write with anything I have to actively listen to so the 8 hours of channel on YouTube is my go to when I'm writing because it's background noise. 8 hours of City Sounds and a Sleeping Bunny is the best thing that's ever happened to me but that's for another post.) The soothing voice of my long time nerd-crush Chris Hardwick in my ears when I'm trying to slog through a mindless and not entirely pleasant task is good in itself, but what makes it a truly noteworthy experience each and every time is hearing the guests that he has talk about things ranging from the hilarious to the profound. Chris is a naturally curious, humble, and genuinely awe-struck individual when it comes to these people and he also comes from a place where he is looking for answers in his own life and is always interested in whatever tidbits of insight he can glean from his guests. He has a way of making people feel comfortable and probing their brains in such a genuinely curious and at the same time fun and open manner that, I think, it enables him to access parts of people that we don't ordinarily get to see. I started listening to his channel because I think he's cute and funny and I kept listening because he has a great interview style that just really delivers wonderful content consistantly. I have never been disappointed and almost always walk away with a deeper understanding of people I admire and also myself. It's like that.

I discovered Rob Paulsen has a podcast via John DiMaggio's wonderful documentary about voice actors titled "I Know That Voice." If you don't know who John DiMaggio is it's not that you have never heard any of his work, it's that you just don't know the name behind the voice. I've never been a rabid Futurama fan and I think Bender is more obnoxious than funny but I'm a fan of a lot of his other work and I'm always picking him out in things, but I am truly digressing. He's hilarious. We'll leave it there for now. I learned Rob Paulsen (Yakko, Pinky, originally Raphael and now Donatello --the list goes on ad nauseum) has a podcast via DiMaggio's documentary so I looked it up the other day and listened to an episode. It's called Talkin' Toons with Rob Paulsen and I recommend it to anyone who loves animation and or voice acting or just nostalgia with the caveat it can get, not surprisingly, pretty dirty pretty quick, but that's true with Chris' show sometimes, too. Anyway, I noticed that he had Chris on the show at one point, so when I woke up this morning I looked up that one and that led me down a rabbit hole of hilarity that I have yet to crawl out of even now (my iphone is paused so I can write this.)


My playlist for the day went as follows:

• Episode 102: Chris Hardwick on Talkin' Toons
  
  On this episode of Rob's show they mention an old episode of Chris' show featuring Rob and his cohort in crime Maurice Lamarche (aka the Brain) that sounded like a must hear. When this episode ended I immediately scrolled down a few years in the Nerdist feed to find that one.
  
• Episode 187: Nerdist Podcast w/ Rob Paulsen and Maurice Marche
  
  Hilarious as promised. Filthy in parts, but those were some of the funniest. I mean what adult doesn't love their favourite childhood toons getting a little filthy? So funny. At this point I took a break from voice actors because I had scrolled past one of my favourite people and had to go back and listen to it.
   
• Episode 212: Nerdist Podcast w/ Brent Spiner
  
  Completely off topic, I know, but I can't recommend it enough. I might be biased because Brent Spiner is one of my favourite people on the planet every time I hear him or see him talking to someone in any media outlet whatsoever. His brand of humour is just gold to me for reasons I can't entirely explain. After I listened to this, I recalled Chris mentioning in his talk with Rob that he'd had John DeMaggio and Billy West on together at one point. Like I said, I'm not a huge Furtuama fan, but that's not the only time these two have worked together and they are both just really funny guys, so that's where I am now.
   
• Episode 226: Nerdist Podcast w/ Billy West and John DiMaggio
  
  I only paused this because I wanted to get this post out before it got much later and I have no idea how much deeper this rabbit hole might go...

So... that's my day. I got the dishes done and the surfaces cleaned and some laundry squared away and I'm good with that. I crocheted some in between. I finished the Tunisian Goblin Stitch dishcloth I started yesterday and then used another scrap of cotton to improvise a little scrubby to slip over the ends of my fingers. I love just messing around with bits of cotton yarn and making new things to use in the kitchen or the bathroom or wherever. I'm the same way when I'm making amigurumi sometimes. I like to just play around and build things with yarn. I think that's one reason I like crochet so much more than knitting. It's a lot easier for me to improvise. ANYWAY... That's been my day. These are the things that have gotten me through and I just thought I'd share them with you. I leave you with a chubby bunny sleeping on a balcony in the city. It's not for another post, after all. Enjoy.

Life is a Role Playing Game.

“Where you stumble and fall, there you will find gold.”
- Joseph Campbell

Today's goal was to reorganize and redistribute my HabitRPG habits, tasks, and dailies so they are in-line with how I want to move forward over the next year and my lists aren't cluttered up with things I don't really care about so much at the moment. HabitRPG is something I've talked about here in the past. If you're not familiar, it's a website for tracking habits you wish to encourage or curb and tasks and goals you'd like to achieve daily, scheduled, or just eventually. It's structured in the style of an old school 8-bit RPG. Because I grew up with a controller in my hand, the most motivating thing in the world to me is collecting fake gold coins (or stars or rings or anything that makes a chingy sound and adds a number to a score of some sort) so this format works for me on a level that other sites I've tried simply haven't. I used another site for a long time, but earning coins and leveling up just triggers my pleasure center is a much more useful way so this is the only site I turn to, now, to keep me on track.

It's extremely useful but as a game, I'm not very good at it. I had to leave the party I was in because I died too much and the other people in the party were being punished for it. I'm very serious about using this as a tool to keep myself on track and in line so I can't always focus on making sure I'm not letting my dailies hit me and drain my health. In fact, I need them to hit me. I need to be penalized for missing them so that I'm inspired to work a little harder to get those coins or I feel the hit when I die. And, oh, do I feel it. Sometimes, I die a lot. Sometimes, I manage this by checking myself at the inn when I know I won't have time to get things done that will ding me if I don't do them. Sometimes, I forget to rest in the in when I should and I die. Sometimes, I forget to log in and check off my dailies before the site rolls over and I die even when I shouldn't. This happens less because I have my rollover set to 6AM so I have a chance to remember to do it when I wake up when the spouse goes to work at 4AM. Sometimes, though, I forget that, too. The highest level I can remember being is 36, and I'm not even entirely sure I'm right about that. Right now I'm level 33. The penalty for death is losing a level, all your gold, and a piece of equipment you've spent your coins on. Sometimes... I die. And that's ok. It's useful. Dying is useful. There is probably something profound about that. Maybe.

Mission accomplished for the day. Achievement Unlocked: Day Two, Check! I think the thing I actually miss about having gifted away my XBox 360 and only having Sony consoles in the house now is Achievements. Trophies just aren't he same. If I check off just a few more things today I'll level up and the spouse is down with his dad and brother at the cabin for a day or two, so I should have plenty of time to do it. Awesome. Gotta keep reaching for that last piece of the Triforce. (That's assuming I have two already, which might be a stretch.)

 (I don't know who made the Triforce. If you do, let me know and I'll gladly credit it.)

Daily Aspirations... Go.

"If you do follow your bliss you put yourself on a kind of track that has been there all the while, waiting for you, and the life that you ought to be living is the one you are living. Follow your bliss and don't be afraid, and doors will open where you didn't know they were going to be." - Joseph Campbell

I started this journal on December 31st of 2013 with the goal to write 300 entries over the course of the next year. Those entries were to entail the steps I was taking and progress I was making toward living more in line with, well, myself, really. I wanted to find and follow my own personal bliss and this was supposed to be the chronicle of that. Twenty-some entries later, we all know that didn't happen entirely as planned --or at all. 2014 was a rough year. There was very little bliss-seeking involved as I struggled to break free of the morass it felt was enveloping me from all sides.  There were points of light to the past year, my trip to NYC being a game changer, but on the whole it was just awful and there was more personal defeat than growth. What growth happened, though, was important, and it's with that in mind that I move forward with a new goal for this space in the new year.

Days to Bliss will now be updated daily. I realize that was part of the goal last year, with some wiggle room put in for sake of sanity, but there was no focus beyond just that. This year I am going to start each day with a new aspiration: a (sometimes tiny) goal to be completed by the end of the day. Each day's aspiration will be chosen with the mindset that my life with be better in some way for having achieved this thing. That doesn't mean that the goal has to be anything exciting, spiritual, or important. Some days, and probably many days, the goals will be mundane daily choirs such as "make sure all the dishes are done." Other days they will be self-care ranging from "meditate for ten minutes" to "spend a little time playing that game you've been wanting to but haven't allowed yourself time to." There will be days that the goals will be more ethereal like "meditate for ten minutes" or "do a reading with the Faeries Oracle" or more personal growth based such as "make someone smile" or "create a gift for someone." There will be days when the goals are much bigger, too. I'm not putting any stipulations on this except that it will be daily and that whatever it is I will be better for having done it.

Whether I blog with the goal at the beginning of the day before it's accomplished, or later after it's achieved, will be depend on the day, the goal, and any other variable under the sun. Sometimes, I'll talk a lot about whatever the aspiration of the day is and other times I'll simply mention it and move on to write about something else. The scope of this blog won't be limited to simply logging daily goals. I'm allowing myself the freedom to talk about whatever I want here, from day to day, with the obligation to log my goals acting as the motivational crux rather than a discouraging restriction.

Today's aspiration was to move forward with this, get it set up, and write this entry. It took more work than I anticipated as I am trying to migrate my online identity to use my pen name and personal alias rather than my legal name. The process of separating the two while maintaining creative and professional integrity is tricky, but ultimately worth it. It meant that I had to spend time not only here on Blogger today, making changes, but also on Ravelry to bring the patterns I store here in line with this endeavor. It's done and I do feel better for it. It's a goal well achieved. Day one down. On into the future.

"We're not on our journey to save the world but to save ourselves. But in doing that you save the world. The influence of a vital person vitalizes.” - Joseph Campbell