Coeur de Loup

Hello good people, it has been forever since I posted here. As it turns out, when you move, you basically do nothing but move. It consumes your entire personality. There is no more Ren, there is only BOXES.

But the moving is mostly done and the unpacking is mostly done, with a few exceptions. All that's left is the few stray boxes and tidying up the house. All told, we will have spent a full two months and some change dedicated to this. I do not want to do it again in the near future.

However, in order to escape the tedium of unboxing things, we've been doing a little bit of crochet. Or learning, anyway. We're still working on the amigurumi kit we have, but we had a cake of yarn, free time after work and an unoccupied hook, so we made a scarf. It's not really pretty; it's just single crochets, but we learned a lot while making it, even if we don't use it as a garment. (The yarn was 100% acrylic and it's too tight and stiff to be very comfortable.) Behold!



Also, we finished our lucet cord project/practice! It was to make a cord for a necklace charm that came with an atrocious short chain. Sadly, the mobile browser is being fussy and I don't want to grab the laptop so I can't put the image in right now, but I will later. It was an interesting experiment, and I'm going to get more crochet floss in different colors so I can make more--it's a really meditative thing, would highly recommend.

I'm also busy painting a pre-print which will hopefully get done before my local SCA kingdom crowns their new heirs. We've had enough false starts.

So the past few months I've been working on a piece for the Big Ressurection Event for the The Locked Tomb fandom. My illustration is getting posted tomorrow along with my fic partner's work, and I'll be posting that here.

I've actually been making progress on my novel, and even have an idea for another writing project. Yay! My imagination has returned from the war! I'm thinking that once my novel's draft has gotten a third pass I'll try to preview the first chapter or two on here just for funsies.

I'm still tired and dealing with a lot of very not fun adulting stuff. Sorry for being so absent here. I hope that with the return of my imagination I can start drawing more consistently again, too.

Nothing much has happened since my last post. I did get a new laptop explicitly for writing and coding purposes, so that's a little exciting. I got to use some of my saved up stickers from various kickstarters on it. The machine isn't exactly the most robust thing in the world, and it's positively tiny (at least in comparison to my massive 2 27-inch monitor setup on my main computer) but it'll be nice for when I want to go write on the couch or laying down. That's been the biggest barrier to me actually finishing the damn thing. I sit at a desk all day and it's very rare that I want to sit at a desk after I come home from work too. Also, in theory, I could go to coffee shops. God. remember coffee shops? I do. Anyway.

This week I will hopefully be writing and painting. This weekend or next weekend, I think, is when the Locked Tomb big bang claiming starts--I signed up for fan art even though I've never actually drawn locked tomb fan art, god help me if I need to draw bones.

Today is chores and errands day. I just need to find the wherewithal to do it.

It's been a hot minute. I fell into a Harrow the Ninth shaped hole, and have been very tired recently trying to finish up things. Boy howdy I'm struggling with getting the last of the goddamn comms done.

But anyway. There's an SCA event this weekend and I want to finish these two pre-prints I've been working on, so I'm probably going to be working on those all week. Ideally I'd like to finish comms too and maybe start Nona the Ninth, but we'll see. 

Fitness habits need to get rearranged, too. I've been doing pretty well playing stepmania pretty often, but I should probably work on doing my strength training too. 

Am I procrastinating at work? Yes. But to be fair there are people procrastinating on getting back to me so I can do work I need to do. Also, the brain sloth cometh.

New ffxiv patch was good--I feel like since finishing endwalker I haven't been able to be as invested in the story. Still, it was nice to see the twins. (I could swear they keep getting taller.) Also I still love Zero, she's great. 

Had a convo at the SCA baronial meeting last night about blank borders (ie the stuff you make that people can make into preprint scrolls) and I'd really like to try to get involved and make them. I need to really clear off my art desk so I can do that. I do wish it was bigger and I had a huge desk I could combine my computer and art stuff on, but I don't have the space. Maybe wherever we live next I can have an office/art space that isn't my bedroom.

Title: Ancient Dreams in a Modern Land, chapter two: Y'shtola
Fandom: Final Fantasy XIV
Relationships: WoL/G'raha (not present in this chapter)
Content notes: Spoilers for Endwalker.
Summary: Pandora heads to Dravania to assist Matoya and Y'shtola.
Ao3 Link

( Read more... )

Yes I'm doing a round up with only 2 pieces. Sue me

Fiction:
Dark Comes Still (Merlin fanfiction)

Art:
Intoxicating Spark

I'm really hopeful that I'm going to have literally any time to write this week, lol. As someone who doesn't like. 'officially' celebrate Christmas for the most part, my own house was pretty low pressure, but now that it's the week leading up to new year's, I have to actually start thinking about new year's prep. I decided I'd only make a few Osechi dishes, and soba again on the 31st, but that means at some point this week I need to find the wherewithal to go to the asian market and see if I can find ingredients. I'm also probably going to do extra cooking ahead, especially on the 31st since (thank god) that's a Saturday. The rest of the week, I'm going to be cleaning up a lot,  and trying to stick to my goddamn exercise routine and still cook regular meals. So it's uhhh. Going to be a lot. But goddammit, I still want to finish a few things before the year is out.

I managed to do a whole bunch of new year's cards though. I'm probably missing people, but I have a pile, and I'm going to have to send out the pile by mail probably on Thursday. I'm giving some to my coworkers, but I really hope it's not going to be a whole Thing that I'm giving them to some and not others. Personally, I don't want to have to explain that it's a Japanese cultural tradition and why I'm celebrating said tradition to people who I know support the republican party, so.

...oh shit, I just realized I didn't get dragged to church this year. It's a miracle!

I have a bunch of Christmas shopping to do against my own will, but I'm excited for the solstice. I don't think I actually can do anything that day because I want to to to an SCA meeting and I have to work, but I'm going to be stupid obnoxious about it. It ain't Christmas on Wednesday yall.

Also, Hanukkah Sameach to those who celebrate!

....I may have been too distracted to fill that Friday prompt last week. My bad. This week should be less busy.

Okay, goals. By Wednesday I want to be done with the big commission I've been working on and start some other smaller ones I can do concurrently and maybe finish by the end of next week; I also want to be done with that one scroll I'm doing for the SCA by Wednesday. I may need to take my paint and brushes to meeting, actually, but that's something I can work on while I'm there.

Speaking of scadian things, fun stuff: I got a (small) loom that I can learn how to weave on and a lucet on Saturday. I've been practicing with the lucet today because the 18 hour day yesterday has me paying in a flare-up and pain today and I'm not really up for much else. I didn't get like. A lot of sleep last night either so I should really rest for today as much as I'd like to go to my favorite bakery/Boba tea place and get some treats.