artanis | Entries tagged with life

So, my 29th birthday was yesterday.

My fiance didn't have to work, so we started the day out by sleeping in until almost 11:00 AM. After we crawled out of bed, he told me he had to run to town to take care of something, so I spent some time online and just generally being lazy. He returned about 15 minutes later with a pretty little chocolate cake that he'd secretly ordered while we were running errands on Thursday. And nothing is better than cake for breakfast. :)

He also got me the Blu-ray versions of A Charlie Brown Christmas and A Christmas Story. We watched A Charlie Brown Christmas yesterday, and we'll be watching the other one today. It's kind of a tradition for us to watch A Christmas Story before bedtime on Christmas Eve, so that makes me happy. I don't care if it's the most overplayed or overhyped Christmas movie in the history of ever, I love it all the same.

My parents took us out to Olive Garden later that evening. Unfortunately, it started snowing on the way home, so we got back later than what I'd expected. I also had to make a dreaded trip to Walmart for a few last-minute things, which was completely not fun.

However, there is one gift I received yesterday that I'm not too pleased with. Life decided that I needed a cold for my birthday. My throat hurts, my sinuses hurt... I'm doing my best to nip this as fast as I can, but I think I'm losing. :(

Overall, I had a really good day yesterday. I got to be lazy, eat cake, have good food, and spend some time with my family. Next year should be entertaining.

Well, I'm definitely feeling better since my rant the other day. It just helps to let it all out sometimes.

I spent most of Sunday night and yesterday baking cookies for some gift boxes that were sent off this morning. I did double- or triple-batches of peanut butter, shortbread, sugar, vanilla almond, and no-bake cookies... of course I made a huge mess, but the place smelled awesome all day long.

As for today, I haven't done anything productive. I browsed the Steam sales a bit... tried a game demo or two, but I didn't find anything too interesting. I might pick up Costume Quest since it's only $3.74, though.

... I think I may go sneak a sugar cookie. Yum.

I'm happy to say that most of my Christmas shopping is done, and all that's left to do is to sit back and wait for it all to arrive. I only have to find Christmas gifts for both of my grandmothers and a birthday present for my niece; I may also try to find a pack of bubble solution to go along with my nephew's gift (we bought him a bubble mower... it comes with bubble solution, but a little extra never hurt anyone).

Good news: I was finally able to pick up my glasses last night. Yay! I can see!
Bad news: After arriving home, I noticed a scratch on the left lens, so it needs to be redone. The optometrist office was closed when we got home, so we had to go back today to take care of it. It should be done by next week, I hope. I still have my glasses though, so I guess it's not all bad.

The one productive thing I did today was sort through my Ravelry account. I had nearly 500 untagged patterns in my favorites, plus redundant tags, nothing in my project queue, and an outdated profile. All of my patterns are now tagged, projects are added to my queue, defunct groups have been removed, and parts of my profile have been updated. If I can muster up the energy, I'll add the books I own to my Ravelry library and (maybe) add the yarn from my stash (most of it's Red Heart, so... yeah).

Everything finally settled down enough for me to finally recommit to my Rivendell walk. I decided to just start over because it had been quite awhile since I had last walked, and I hadn't gone that far anyway. Rather than set another start date, I just went ahead and did the first mile this morning. No more medical stuff in my way, and no more excuses. I'm doing it this time, and that's that.

In other news, I finally have a small crafting space for myself to work on things. I've had to use random tables and counter tops, but now I've finally got a dedicated table set up in my fiance's computer room. I even have my own little crappy work chair, so yay. My only complaint is that it gets a bit cold in there in the evenings, but who cares? Because work space!

We also had our first snow of the season last week. I think it was Thursday or Friday evening, but I'm not sure. Either way, it's all gone now, but it'll be back soon. It's Michigan... snow never truly goes away.

Current Mood: accomplished

We've been moving furniture and de-cluttering the house the past few days. It's been slow going, but at least it's been steady; the treadmill has been moved out of temporary storage, the old couch and entertainment center are ready to be loaded up for Goodwill later this week, and everything else has been falling into place. With any luck, we'll be done by the weekend and I'll finally have some space to work on my craft projects.

Now that the treadmill's been moved, I've decided to restart my Walk to Rivendell challenge. I'm starting completely fresh and will only be counting the miles I put in on the treadmill; I want this to be separate from any other daily exercises. I don't have a specific goal date in mind... maybe I'll just see how long it takes me to do it first.

I've been thinking about opening up an Etsy store in the near future. I want to get some feedback from friends and family first, but I've been thinking a lot about it lately, and I really want to have my own business. I'm not looking to make huge amounts of money... maybe just enough to supplement my crafts, but still... it would give me something to do during the day, at least. I do understand that it's going to take a lot of work, but I'm okay with that.

I just hope I don't talk myself out of it.

I was a bucket of nerves, but I went to my appointment this morning. The doctor was pretty nice and talked me through some of the things that could be causing my issues. He said that there's a chance I could be anemic, but I had to get blood drawn for testing. I also have to go back next week to get a pelvic ultrasound (which I'm not looking forward to), with another appointment to go over all of my results on the 14th of October. Whew.

Because of all this going on, as well as other things, I've had to put my Walk to Rivendell challenge on hold; it's disappointing, but I'm hoping I can pick it up again in the next week or two. I could just "cheat" and count my normal walking, but I'd like to keep this as a separate exercise.

On a somewhat better note, I bought more craft supplies online the other day. I ended up getting more perler beads from one store, and a bunch of random supplies that were on sale from Joann's site. I also got free shipping on my Joann order, so that was awesome. The day after I ordered, I got a coupon in my e-mail for free shipping on another order, so I may have to find something to use that on. So many things to play with~

I had myself all set to do some crafting last night only to discover that my iron no longer works. I'll have to settle for crochet or something until I can get a new one.

We have plans to clean out and organize my fiance's "office" this weekend. We'll be putting the treadmill in there so it can finally be used again (the weather's getting a little too cold for early morning walks). I'd also like to get rid of the fold-out couch that's in there; it's old, uncomfortable, and desperately needs some cosmetic repairs, which I'm not willing to do.

Maybe all of this organizing will motivate me to start my Christmas crafting early this year...

I spent nearly the whole day playing Borderlands with my fiance and his friend. We spent some time trying out some DLC and looking for new weapons/shields. I ended up with a pretty decent sniper rifle and SMG for my Siren, so yay for that.

We ended up having dinner with my family over at a local restaurant tonight. Afterward, we came home and made popcorn with our new air popper. Everything tasted awesome, but I'm definitely going to have to buy some white cheddar flavoring the next time we go to the store.

Yesterday, we were finally able to track down a doctor that's accepting new patients. We were told that he's new, but we're not sure if that means "new doctor" or just "new to the area." Either way, I'm glad. I have an appointment on the 27th, so hopefully I can get these issues taken care of, or at least get a referral to someone who can help.

I think tomorrow is going to be a crafty day for me. I feel like making something.

I finally convinced myself that I need to see a doctor. I've been dealing with so many problems over the past four years or so, and it's honestly sounding a lot like PCOS. I don't know if I have it (and I don't want to self-diagnose via the Internet), but I do want to make sure.

Now I can't find a doctor in the area that will see me before November.

I'm not feeling good feelings at the moment.

Yesterday's birthday party went well. There were cupcakes, (icky) pizza, and plenty of fun to be had by all. I don't normally play the games at Chuck E. Cheese, but my fiance convinced me to join him for a few arcade shooters. We also spent some time playing with the pinball machine. We didn't do too bad considering neither of us had been in an arcade in years.

Today's been a bit of a lazy day. My fiance and I slept in until noon, had a late lunch, and then played Borderlands until 5:00. We each took a shower, had a lazy nostalgia dinner (macaroni and cheese with cut-up hotdogs), and then did our own things online for awhile.

See? Lazy. :)

I woke up to no power today due to a thunderstorm early this morning. The power came back around 11:00 AM, though I'm hearing that other parts of the county still don't have power yet.

I spent some time browsing Dreamwidth communities today. I'm a little disappointed that most of them are pretty inactive aside of the fanfic/fandom communities. There are a few exceptions, but it's still a bit sad to see. I suppose that's one advantage of LiveJournal - large, active communities. I may try posting to one or two of the Dreamwidth communities though, just to see if anyone's out there. Maybe.

Oh! I finished watching The Tudors on Netflix last night. The last two seasons seemed to go by really quickly; I suppose it was relatively quick historically, but I still wish it would have been drawn out a bit more. Overall, the series wasn't bad and it fed my interest in Tudor England, but I probably won't watch it again.

I love when it rains. It just poured down all during the night, which put me right to sleep. It was still raining when I woke up this morning and, as a result, I really didn't want to get out of bed. But here I am.

I did have plans to start cleaning the carpets today, but I think I may wait until Sunday. I'm just not feeling it today. Maybe it was the storm.

My nephew's first birthday party is tomorrow. My sister decided to have it at Chuck E. Cheese, which I'm not looking forward to. The closest one is 30 minutes away and incredibly small. It also boasts the worst tasting pizza I've ever had. I don't mind going for the sake of the kids, but still, I'm not going to enjoy it.

My fiance and I bought my nephew a little truck for his birthday. I know that it's plenty for him, but, at the same time, I also feel like I should give him something else. I've been tossing around the idea of making him a quick crochet hat or something, but I haven't found a pattern that I like. I could probably modify one, but I've never been good at improvising. I'll have to take a look at Ravelry again.

Maybe I'll go for a walk in a bit. I kind of feel like getting out of the house.