Woof

So life.

Doing a thing.

Listening to stuff (mostly the Witcher 3 soundtrack at this point).

Playing the games. But also petting the chibi boys (because I already collected everything in Neko Atsume).

Homeschooling the monsters. Drinking the coffee.

Have gone vegan. Still haven't done anything medical about my insomnia, depression, anxiety, headaches, or backaches. Because reasons.

Also. Trying to get to a point where I no longer hate looking at myself.
(Yes. I wear cat ears. On days that are not Halloween. Deal.)



Have also developed an addiction to tea.


That is all. Time to make dinner.

August the First

Yesterday was July the Last. The last day of "summer vacation." We celebrated (I guess) with a Pokemon catching trip to the park and lots of video games at home later.

Today. Today is the first day of school. The first day ever (officially) for the Beast. The first day of high school for the Elf.

And I'm not ready. Oh, the lessons have all been organized. But nothing is ready.

The Imp is up and my coffee is consumed. In ten minutes I wake up the other two monsters. I figure that gives me less than an hour to get my head (and everything else) together.

Bandwagon

So yeah. I downloaded Pokemon Go. I joined the herd.

And I left the house. Three times. When I normally wouldn't have. I've walked more in the last 24 hours than I have in more than a month. I talked to strangers at a park who were obviously also playing Pokemon Go.

Yeah. So that's a thing.

Apparently I have to walk 17.5 miles to hatch all my pokemon eggs, too. Uhm...

Hyperx Cloud II

Someone got a shiny new toy!



They're so comfy. And so fancy. I love them!
(I can't speak for the microphone quality/capability as I haven't used it. But the sound quality is super.)

Geeking

Working on these:


(Sam just doesn't have a body yet, no worries. Also, yeah, they'll get arms soon.)

Listening to this:



And this (always, always this).
(Though apparently you need to have an account to listen to Spotify even for free *sadface*)
(That said, I have Premium Spotify. Because I love it. And listen to it almost every waking minute. I have issues.)


Playing this.

Going to make this for a friend's soon-to-be-baby.

But right this moment, the Beast demands servitude (because the world will end unless peanut butter pretzels materialize in front of him Very Soon).

SadFace

WTB friends

WTB gaming friends

(that like the same type of games I do. And aren't pretentious. And won't yell at me when I make a mistake. And games to play with them. And.. oh forget it.)

More projects

Wrote a pattern for this guy:



No one cared (okay, Jaime did. Jaime is awesome), but it's Professor Layton from.. some video game or other that I've never played. I'll maybe try remaking him and polish the pattern later. Some rows in this one will be gone from that one and others will be added. If I ever get around to it.

In between headaches and removing a tick from an unfortunate location on my five year old I managed to also finish Danger Mouse.


notes here.

What's she building in there.

Newest project. Writing the pattern as I go.



Headless, armless. Yes, and funny looking. The final pattern will remove some rows from the top of the pants and knees. Here's the funny thing: this is a character from a game I've never played. Yeah. Why am I making this?

... no clue. It was a whim. Can you guess who it's going to be? (I'll give you that the top looks like breasts in this picture, it's not. It's blocky shoulders - I'm hoping arms will help.)

Recent projects

Had a request from my sister to make Abby Sciuto from.. NCIS.. NCSI.. something. A television show that just about everyone knows but me.



More images and vague pattern notes here.

Tried to make another character from a television show for a friend. It turned out.. badly.. through no fault of the pattern. It's entirely my fault that Dean from Supernatural has gorilla arms and monkey ears.



Details here.

A new floor

This weekend we ripped up our old carpet and put down carpet tiles. B did most of the work. The Elf helped a lot, too. Mostly I was in charge of sorting the stripes into patterns and cutting the tiles that needed adjusting. Cutting carpet tiles is rough work. My arms, back, and legs are killing me. Who knew you used so many muscles in your legs to cut things? I can only imagine how much pain B is in.



Today B bought us some new tables to put our computers on. That mess in the corner to the left is his new office chair. In pieces. They're assembling it as I type. Five year old style help is so much less than helpful when you've had a stressful, work-filled weekend.

All of this is an attempt to make our house more livable for us. We considered buying a new house but the logistics just aren't in our favor (nine cats and no savings to speak of will do that to you). So for now the plan is to use our space here better. This fall I'll be homeschooling all three boys. The table I was using for my computer is also where we eat. Yeah. And do school work. Not ideal. This weekend we've managed to free the table up for better use. In the future B is going to try and make me some shelves to store homeschool stuff (he made a stool for the Elf's computer table this weekend, too).

Lots of doing. Too much, really. But I guess it all needs to be done.

In need of a good home

I have some handknit shawl(ette)s (they're likely too small to be considered real shawls), a scarf, some shorties (like longies, but.. shorts..), and handspun yarn. Oh. And a bright orange cowl.. thing. Anyone want these things? I can take pictures. You can want them for you, your favorite charity. I don't really care. I just have this stuff and it needs a new home. Please don't make me throw it away/give it to Goodwill.

reading lists

Okay. I'm trying to put together a reading list for my two youngest who will be in first and second grade this fall. Neither can read on their own so there will be a lot of me reading to them. That will be our "literature" or what-have-you. Okay, it's not the only thing we'll be doing.. oh. Whatever. I have plans, but I need ideas for read aloud books. Sheesh. Why do I over complicate these things?

Here's what I have so far. I want chapters. Something that will last more than one sitting. It can't be gross (they wouldn't sit through the Roald Dahl book with the grandmother who talks about eating bugs). It can't be scary (the Beast didn't like the witches in the Prydain series and wouldn't let us get through The Black Cauldron). Yeah.

(I have no idea how age appropriate some of these are - I haven't read them all myself)

James and the Giant Peach - Roald Dahl (though I'm not sure about this one. because gross)
Pippi Longstocking - Astrid Lindgren
Bunnicula - James Howe
The Chocolate Touch - Patrick Catling
The Bee-man of Orn - Frank Stockton
The Little Prince - Antoine de Saint-Exupery
Jackalope - Janet Stevens and Susan Crumel
The Sleeper and the Spindle - Neil Gaiman
Catwings - Ursula le Guin
The Tale of Despereaux - Kate DiCamillo
The Chronicles of Narnia - C.S. Lewis
Peter Pan - J.M. Barrie
Redwall - Brian Jacques
The Graveyard Book - Neil Gaiman
The Last of the Really Great Whangdoodles - Julie Edwards

Ideas? Additions? I wanted to add The Borrowers. I need to look that up to find the author...

Edited to add:

The Borrowers - Mary Norton
The Wizard of Oz - L. Frank Baum
The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
Tintin - Herge
The Mouse and the Motorcycle - Beverly Cleary

High school is even more terrifying at 35

Okay. So. This fall, I will have a high schooler that I'm responsible for educating. Yeah. Enter terror here. I've been making myself absolutely bat-shit insane for the last week trying to plot and plan. Curriculum for high school is often extremely expensive and/or religious. I wanted to cobble something together - bits from this, bits from that. But it seems to be a package deal situation in more cases.

Enter me writing an entire ninth grade curriculum from the bottom up. For as little money as possible (in addition to having a high schooler this fall, I will also have a brand new first grader. yes. all three boys will finally be officially in school. gods help me).

So!

Algebra 1 - got it covered. Free online textbook, a $3 textbook from the library's used book store, and I already have 121 days of lessons planned out. No sweat. One of my worst subjects when I was in school (math in general) and somehow I've planned it with nary a bump.

Earth/Space Science (which isn't a thing outside of middle and high school - don't get me started) - This has caused me so much trouble. I've subjected both B and (my good friend) R to so much complaining this past week. Today I settled on a text book. Lessons aren't exactly planned yet, but I've got the bones of this mess figured out.

Programming - Okay, it's not really programming. The Elf will be using GameMaker: Studio (which I always type as "GameMaker: Stupid" if that tells you how much my brain is hating this past week) to learn to create video games. He will also be using RPGMaker..Ace? MV? something. It has a free version. That's what he'd going to use. Got those lessons all planned out.

Art - Drawing. Yeah. Something I don't really have to do anything for. It's a miracle!

Japanese - We're going to use a combination of Genki I and Japanese from Zero. I have high hopes for this. No exact lessons planned. It's going to depend on how we progress, I'm thinking.

History - following the timeline we've been using. We're almost done with the American Revolutionary War. Next "big thing" will be the French Revolution. Working on all those plans in the next few days.

Literature - I'm lost. Seriously. I'm hung up on "but he needs to read all the things!"

This leads me to a plea for help. Homeschoolers, parents, book lovers, opinionated people: help! Do I segregate out literature (America, British, Ancient, etc). Do we just have a "Literature" course in which I (we - sort of) pick whatever the hell I (we - sort of) deem appropriate? I just don't know! And it's stopping me from finishing all this planning!

Also! Ideas for an eighth "credit" for ninth grade? Something not too strenuous as I think it's going to take us both a year to get in the swing of this slightly more serious schooling thing. He may want to graduate a year early, so I want to be prepared for that possibility.

Right. And now I must go play Go Fish with the Beast.

An excellent birthday

B is the best husband ever. I love blind boxes and subscription boxes and rng boxes. He doesn't feel the same pull. He understands why I like them, but doesn't share the love of surprise. So for my birthday he ordered random things from Asian Food Grocer and made an "rng" box for me. It was such a fun surprise.

The swag:


The kids desperately want me to open everything but I've managed to stall them thus far.

Derpy Professor Genki

This was supposed to be my birthday gift to myself. I hate it. I did a horrible job. Ugh. So B is taking it to work and I hope to never see it again. Stupid bulbous eyes. Stupid me for not being able to wing the details with a basic pattern. Grr.

This morning.


This afternoon (when I realized that I'd called it "done" and had forgotten the tail).


This evening. Complete with tail. Still looks terrible.


Used this pattern. It's a perfectly good pattern. I'm just not intelligent or creative enough to be able to tweak it for what I wanted. I added a wire skeleton in the head/body/legs. Worthless. Ugh ugh ugh. Tomorrow I'm working on a replacement self-made birthday gift. I will have a Professor Genki that doesn't make me want to cry.

On the up side, a great friend of mine sent me a gift in the mail. Unable to wait, as usual, I already opened it. It's a lovely fairy garden kit. The boys and I will be putting it all together on my actual birthday. We're all looking forward to it! (I still need to email her to thank her. I've spent the evening banging my head against this crochet project and finishing a video game. My priorities are... special.)

Sans is done

And surprise! I'm unhappy with the face! Self-adhesive felt 1) does not stick to yarn well 2) is weirdly dimensional 3) just wasn't the best option ever.

At any rate, it's done. It will be gifted with the offer of an attempt at a needle felted face if this one every falls off. *slump*



Now, in theory, I can move on to a project for me (the Beast has requested that I make him a dalek, though...). I did buy yarn to make a Professor Genki/Super Murder Cat. Yes. Now... to find the energy. (though it might also help if I stopped playing so much Risen 2.)

Faceless Sans

Progress. I just need to get over my anxiety and do the face.

Front:


Back:


Character from the game:


He should have a hoodie. But I failed so many times in trying to make one that sat right and was the proper size. So I gave up and just approximated the appearance. I'm also ignoring the shoes/slippers (there's a debate over what he's wearing). Whee!

Linking up with Ginny's Yarn Along again.

Update 2:56pm

I can't get the face right. I have less than four square inches of dark (almost black) felt. So I have to get this right before I make any real cuts. But.. no matter what I do it looks wrong. Help! Any suggestions? (here is a Google images search of what he's supposed to look like)



Update 3:23pm
Yeah. So panic = epiphany. Took a sprite I liked, enlarged the face to fit the actual size of the doll, traced.. yeah. I'm an idiot some times. Still not sure how I'm going to get this too look right in felt. But.. I'm better off than I was when I started at least.

Sans in progress

This is what I've been working on.



He's supposed to be Sans from the game Undertale. I saw this project and was hit by how perfect this would be for my niece. I'm having a wretched time with his clothes, though. Stupid clothes. Grr.

Big Daddy is done!

Done. It's not perfect. Okay, it's far from perfect. But. It's. Done.

Big Daddy

Starting almost four days ago I've worked on this from around 10am until 8pm every day. Yes, I eat, school my children, check Neko Atsume a gazillion times, etc. But mostly, I've been working on this guy.



I will give you that this likely doesn't look much different than my final update yesterday. But lots of nitpicky slip stitching and edging and things have been done. I'm not good at that. At all. But I'm pushing through. Sometimes literally.

Anyway. This is where my brain is these days. Well, it's also stuck in a pixel world of cat collecting.. because.. it's not like I have too many real cats already, right...?

3:33pm update



Fine! I'll sew the drill on!

Yarn Along? or just a mess?

Working on this. Reading the Fables comics on my swanky new phone.. that you can't see... because I was using it to take the picture.



So. Many. Pieces.

I can't tell you how nervous it makes me putting this together. I already messed up to the point where I can't use the wire skeleton I'd planned. Here's hoping this turns out okay. The pattern creator has been an amazing help. She puts up with all my questions and has great suggestions.

Adding this to the Yarn Along thing because.. hey, why not?

3:39pm update

Still a mess. But look - wire! I fit the wire into his legs, at least!
(and who knew you could needle felt "eco friendly" fiberfill? not I!)



Also! Tea! Mmmm.

5:22pm update

All I see are the flaws. Wugh.

Leia the Second

I ended up unable to think about anything other than improving the Slave Leia that I made for B. Yeah. So... I managed to get the wire frame into this one, figured out the "proper" way to do the base hair (three-quarters of the way through), tried something different with the gold accent bits.

But.. the hair is lopsided. That's all I can see. Lopsided hair.

I can look past the nose that still seems too big and the ears that never look right. All I see is the lopsided hair (which I framed in such a way as to not be terribly obvious in these photos - that's how much it's bothering me).







Monday should bring with it a package from KnitPicks. A gift for a friend can be started as well as the Super Murder Cat that has been plaguing my brain for weeks.

Last and first craft of the year.

Last finished thingy of 2015. 10th Doctor Whooves. Whee. No, no cutie mark yet because I'm lazy and dislike cutting felt. It's huge, though. HUGE.





First finished thingy of 2016. Slave Leia. It should have turned out better. But I failed. If there is ever a next time.. maybe bulky yarn, larger hook, and a wire frame. But there probably won't be a next time as I can't imagine B needing more than one Slave Leia doll for his office shelves (that are likely overcrowded with all the other crap I've made for him).







That is all.