2023
12/30/2023 | Hello from the other side of my crazy moving week! Honestly, everything went about as well as I expected, though I took fewer breaks than I should have or even imagined I'd have taken in the first place. We did have a teensy emergency with my partner's car seriously leaking oil and me having to drive him to/from work for a couple days right after Christmas which... did not help with my stress levels this week at all! But thankfully it was a fairly minor repair compared to what we were expecting, and she's driving smoothly again, and I was still able to move most of what I had planned aside from maybe one last trip.
I'd say we're like, 90% moved aside from (1) cat stuff, (2) big furniture I couldn't move on my own or in my car, (3) stuff we use every day, and (4) our pantry/food stuff. We were planning to rent a truck for that this weekend because my partner and I both have extra shared days off, but the last couple of weeks finally caught up with my knee injury from April so we're taking today and probably tomorrow to just rest even though I want nothing more than to be desperately clawing my way to the finish line! But I also know that injuring myself to get there would do neither of us any favors in the long run.
In what little free time I have had, I started poking around Furcadia and Chicken Smoothie. I have absolutely zero idea what I am doing with either, and I don't really need any additional online things to do after I picked up Neopets again, but I was intrigued by the things I've seen other neocities users posting and sharing, and I figured even they end up like my poor Flight Rising account, why the heck not give it a shot? Which is maybe why I have too many hobbies in the first place, lmao.
I know there's still an adjustment period ahead of us, but I'm so ready to get back to my routines even if parts of them exhaust me sometimes. There's a certain comfort in knowing what to expect of your days, especially on my days off, and I'm ready to embrace that for a bit before the next round of changes and obstacles come my way. Happy new year, and wishing you all happiness and good health in the year ahead!
12/24/2023 | Merry Christmas, folks! Things are settling down here for the year, and I'm trying desperately to get into the Christmas spirit. With all the moving mayhem, my partner and I didn't get anything for one another, but we have a couple packages from my parents to open (and one from his mom that's still floating around in the postal nether somewhere). Christmas has always made me a little melancholy, but I'm feeling it extra hard this year. Maybe I'm just feeling more homesick than usual? Or maybe it's just my solstice timed seasonal depression kicking in a little more. Either way, my partner and I've just been playing games and enjoying our rare two days in a row off together. I'm making our denver omelette casserole for dinner tomorrow since we're still at the house, but I'm glad I'll be able to make something more than one pot pasta meals or frozen pizza for the occassion!
The good news is that pest control treated our apartment (albeit not when previously stated. there is clearly a heirarchy in who will take action on tasks in the apartment management), and I didn't see any live fleas while vacuuming the whole place yesterday. I retreated and will be thoroughly vacuuming again on Tuesday, and we will hopefully be able to move in the rest of our things this week. I feel bad for making such a ruckus to my new downstairs neighbors while doing all of this, but I'm taking no risks. Everyone has been very friendly though, and the complex has been pretty quiet every time I've been over which is a relief! The houses in our current community have the worst insulation, so not only do you hear everything outside (racing cars, random fireworks (maybe gunshots, idek), drunk people walking around sometimes even though we are surrounded by old farm land??), but all the sounds rattle and reverberate and echo between all of the houses. Truly, THE WORST, and honestly an affront the workmanship that should be put into home construction.
I will say, packing and unpacking has felt like a breath of fresh air. It feels really good to get rid of the excess and stuff we don't need or have upgraded, but it's also been disappointing to find the inevitable casualties. My poor cast iron kitchenware all have varying degrees of rust from living in a garage with poorly regulated humidity from water damage in the house on two separate occasions. My dutch oven probably just needs a little scrubbing and a touch up, but my favourite skillet looks awful. =( I know all the in depth ways to strip and reseason, but idk if it's feasible to do without setting off the smoke detectors. A few plastic things have melted in the heatwaves from the past couple of years too, and I'm having to wash everything because of the aforementioned water damages. I'm almost afraid to look at my cosplay and crafting stuff, let alone the books and comics that I didn't realize have been out there this whole time.
But I guess, that's the beauty of all of this and being separated from some of these things. Some of them I've desperately missed, like my jewelry and earring collection! But other things, like several half-finished cosplay projects that I definitely won't fit into anymore, it'll be a relief to let them go and move on to other things.
What a time of year for it, too.
Usually I've already prepped my journal for the new year by now, but I've barely had time to reflect on my 2023 goals! I think I'm honstly just going to move most of them on to 2024 because sometimes you gotta reprioritize through the year, and that's what happened with a lot of them. Fell to the wayside while navigating new employment and this housing thing, and just growing as a person. Next year is the big 3-0 for me, and I don't want to put a bunch of pressure on myself to do something big or intense, but I do want to make sure that I'm actually building the life that I want to live. That I'm setting down a good foundation for the future while still remembering to enjoy my life in the here and now.
This advice colum that was linked via a blog post in one of the newsletters I read has been rattling around in my head for a few months now, not because my partner and I are thinking of kids (we are decidedly in the camp of being childless and being the cool alt uncle and aunt to all of our friends' kids), but because oh too often my anxiety about making the wrong choice or having a bad experiences or just getting too overwhelmed with the world of possibilities holds me hostage and I stagnate without letting me live my life. And as I move into the next decade of my life, I think I'd like live my life decision making more from the "will I regret missing out on this?" camp than letting the well-meaning anxiety horse that lives in my brain keep me from everything, good, bad, and even the mediocre and mundane.
That's all I got in the thinkpan tonight folks! I'll probs be around doing some more site stuff when I need some down time from moving in the next week, but happy holidays to all of you, and I hope y'all know that you are loved and can remind the people in your live of the same.
12/17/2023 | Happy weekend everyone! I know I mentioned on my neocities profile that we got the apartment that we wanted and that updates were going to be on hold until Christmas, but the great apartment move is in... holding pattern, which I am mega bummed about. I was taking a break from moving boxes on Saturday and a flea jumped on me from the carpet. =') I immediately vacuumed the whole place, and thankfully the complex manager said pest control was already going to be out on Monday, but like I am super disappointed. Fleas are AWFUL and the last thing I want is to move our cat in and have her get them. =(((
I am trying to stay optimistic because what's one more thing? What's one more bug issue when I've been dealing with ants, clothing moths, and black mold off and on for three years? And after working at the vet, I have a pretty good idea how to continue treating the apartment after pest control as well as getting our cat started on meds. (Which I'm not super excited about. Getting her rabies vaccine was already stressful enough for her, and she's more resilient than my anxiety gives her credit for, but I don't want to make a bajillion changes for her all at once.)
In short, I guess this is a reminder for all of us renters that we should clean and vacuum when we move in places and before we give in to the siren song of sitting on the carpet. (I missed having carpet in my living space so much, and I will still very much enjoy it once the fleas are gone.)
In the mean time, I'm taking today to distract myself, keep my spirits up, and then I'll just focus on boxing up everything that's not packed yet until I am confident I can start moving stuff in again. I just wanna nest so badly, y'all. And I knew we weren't going to be finished moving by Christmas, but I was AT LEAST hoping for new years, and I don't even think we'll be done by then. =( SO, fun website updates, fun playing pokemon, silly Christmas sweaters to wear to work this week. I'm not gonna let this keep me down! And maybe once we're more settled I can share some cozy nest pics~
09/14/2023 | HELLO JOURNAL, MY BELOVED. It has been three months since my last entry, and nothing super crazy has happened, which I am immensely happy about. Sometimes you just need nothing to happen in your life so that you can spend some time growing in other ways and processing all the weird stuff that has already happened, lol.
My job is still going well, and my partner started at his new job a couple weeks ago so we're finally more seriously looking to move out of his brother's house. (I don't remember how much I've talked about our living situation, and while it's not unliveable, we are ready to have our own space to manage and love because this house is more neglected than I ever want to treat a house of my own.) We visited my family in Idaho for Fourth of July again, which was (mostly) nice, and my brother came back to Seattle to visit for a while too! I hope he can come up more in the future, I really miss getting to see him and we're both not super great about long distance contact, and I'm just a rly proud older sibling about him.
This weekend tho!! My partner and I are heading to Portland to celebrate our fifth anniversary! Which feels really nice, but also a little overwhelming in that I've never dated someone this long before, and just wow!! I love him so much! I keep getting anxious that we're gonna have a bad time (as one with fussy anxiety does after you plan an entire trip with little input from the person you're going with) but the hotel upgraded our room because I asked for cups of all things, and we're just going for a low key vacation because we've never actually gotten to take a trip just the two of us. It's gonna be wonderful, and I'm (hopefully) going to stop overthinking everything soon because all I want is for him to know how much I love him and that I'm so grateful to have him by my side through the good and the bad.
Site updates will probs slow down a bit after today as I'm working through the kinks of my site redesign. I would love to have it done in time for my second anniversary on neocities, but the odds of that are looking pretty low! Maybe by the end of the year if I'm feeling really ambitious. I don't know how all of you have done yours, but holy shit it feels like sucha herculen feat! Maybe it's because my code isn't always super consistent, and I just kinda cobble things together sometimes (something that I'm hoping to improve with this update), but I'm plunking away at it bit by bit. I'm still not ready to commit to getting rid of the background I have right now. It's just too cozy and perfect! But I am keeping an eye out for options, as it would be nice to add some more variety.
I hope you're doing well or at least making little moments of space to let yourself breathe. You deserve a little peace amidst the craziness too.
06/08/2023 | I think we finally got things under control, and now I can just go back to!! Having time and energy to actually live my life??? Hahaha, what a weird concept to have to like, ease myself back into.
I started my new job as a dental receptionist last week, and it's such a wild shift after my last few jobs. The staff size seems actually reasonable for the amount of work, the clientele are super nice, it's within walking distance to a grocery store and a bunch of restaurants, my commute's only 15 minutes, everyone's been super supportive answering my questions and making sure I have resources to learn all the dental things I need to know. They're even having me go to a dental conference with the rest of the staff next week? (If you're also going to the dental conference in Seattle next week, hit me up, lol.) It feels too good to be true to find a workplace where the workflow doesn't feel desperate and panicked 80% of the time, but I'm hopeful even though there's a part of me staying skeptical as a poor defense mechanism.
In less professional news, my partner and went out a few times and had a blast! The pandemic kinda turned us into homebodies, so getting out locally has been a challenge, but my partner had some friends from out of state visiting so we went out for karaoke and bar hopping with them. I was DD so I stuck to water, but I forgot how much I love the novelty of mixed drinks. The same weekend we went out to my local fiber arts show, and while I admittedly got a little overwhelmed, I'm super excited to go again next year and maybe convince my partner to make some overnight trips to visit some of the others in our region. I need to update my ravelry with my purchases, but eventually I'll be getting my stash and progress pics up here on my craft page.
I hope you're doing well wherever you are and finding joy in the moments you can.
05/13/2023 | HECKIN WILD FUCKING WEEK I'VE HAD, Y'ALL. I am still very tired and still waiting on interview updates (which hopefully I will have by Tuesday), but my now former job continued to be WILD and DRAMATIC in new and unexpected ways! [some swearing and caps below because I have FEELINGS and also am still processing all of this, lmao]
The day after my last update, our owner publicly announced that the facility was closing but only to like, some of our clients via email? Like half of our regular clients I had to tell personally because she just!! Didn't include them in the email communication? So that began new shitshow number one, and then for those of you not in the PNW, we're having a little heatwave this weekend, but like I work outside with dogs, and we've been asking the owner since I was hired in March to get us like, hoses or at least SHADE for them because there's nowhere for them to cool off outside in our yards. So my single coworker texts her in the group chat (again) on Thursday asking if we can finally get this stuff for the weekend because HOT, and the owner takes offense to this because (and we did not know this) she is supposed to be TRAVELLING and she is perceiving attitude where there is none.
And owner calls me suggesting she's not going to let coworker continue on for the last few weeks (which, talk about making problems for yourself out of nothing) and is asking if I can take on some extra shifts or responsibilities but I told her I only gave such a long notice period for my coworker and I wasn't gonna work my last shifts if she fired her because what the fuck is happening? LIke this coworker poured her heart into making this property not a complete biohazard and a decent place to work, and did a bunch of unpaid labor on top of her normal hours and training me, and now of all times she's going to talk about getting rid of her? This is all before I even get into work on Thursday!
AND YESTERDAY, I'm working the whole day by myself, and I get back from my lunch break, and there're cars in our driveway even though we're not open, and I suddenly get a text from our owner saying that there is a contractor and a locksmith replacing all of the house locks, and I ask her what the fuck is happening, and literally she tells me she's firing coworker BEFORE SHE HAS EVEN NOTIFIED MY COWORKER, and I am to work the rest of my shift and then I won't be needed either.
So, if nothing else, I have one more paycheck coming in, and I don't have to be outside in the heatwave, and I'll have a few weeks of free time to catch up on personal life things before a new job comes through, but also like, damn, that whole job really imploded in a way that I never could have guessed it would back in March. I'm relieved to have it be over, but I'm sad I didn't get to say goodbyes to some of our regular daycare dogs. I'm gonna miss the dogs and the clients, I knew I would, I just hadn't been completely prepared to let it go as I thought I had a couple more weeks.
05/07/2023 | Wow, another month of the year gone! Life has been happening! Allergies have been happening! Employment distress is up! Seasonal depression is down! I am trying to appreciate the little mercies, though I feel like they have been few and far betwen.
I am on the job hunt again, and at the very least, despite the usual mass of unresponsive employers, I have three interviews this week. I'm hoping I'll have something new lined up by June because I already gave my notice at my current job. I've been venting a bit on tumblr, but being asked to lie to clients about our services and operations; finding out we're not complying with our orders to stay in operation from the county; my sole coworker scheduling me for the maximum number of hours I agreed to and then guilting me about not staying late; and that the business owner keeps threatening/crying about the potential of having to close the business were just too much.
Wow listing it all like that makes me tired.
And there's more that I won't even bother getting into, but I'm ready to be done, and the only reason I haven't completely walked out is because I was trying to stay on to give my coworker some time off for a trip she has just before memorial day weekend. All of this and the terrors of job hunting have had me feeling pretty low and I haven't had a lot of time for any of my hobbies, including the site, which has definitely added to that.
I keep holding on hope that things will get better, that I will find the right job and the right living situation and that the work I put into things will pay off, but I'm trying to figure out what to do if... like if they don't pay off and come together. I'll have moved away from my home state to Washington six years ago this June, and aside from my romantic partner, I feel like my life moved backwards in a lot of ways. There've been other circumstances that impacted that (the pandemic of course, some unhealthy romantic and platonic relationships, trauma recovery), but I feel like it's taken all of me just to anchor myself down and hold it together, and I keep wondering when I'll actually get to stop having to do that all of the time. I'm trying to find moments now, but it's hard when it feels like the foundations holding you up weren't very good to begin with.
04/07/2023 | Happy Friday, neighbors! I've been working more at my new job and struggling with the influx of cold, gloomy weather after that first burst of sping out here, but keeping busy with fiber crafts and my physical journal and thinking up things to do over here even though I've mostly been lurking for the last couple weeks.
I had to work on my birthday, and we had to call off some of our plans due to the weather, but my grandma sent me some money for some fiber spinning goodies and my partner bought me some knitting needles and sock yarn. I've only kind of learned to knit like a decade ago, but I never moved forward because I don't like doing.... building block projects? when I'm learning a new craft. So I never kept learning! But I wanted to learn so I could learn sweaters and socks, and even though I am very aware it's not recommended, I'm learning to knit starting with socks now and it's going pretty okay! I think having a pretty stong background with crochet is helping, and it's informed some of the problems I'm having (my crochet tension is always too tight, and I'm having the same problem here for example) as well as the solutions to them and I'm excited to finally be making this happen. =3
I'm hoping once I get somewhere with the socks maybe I can use some of my handspun yarn to make something nice for myself, but that's a little ways off. I'm still working on the same 4 ounces of Shetland wool I started five months ago. I wanted to try spinning it thin enough that it'd be fingering weight once chain plied, and while I have succeeded, I am working with a drop spindle and thus I can't work super fast and the spinning/plying process is taking so long. ;u;
03/20/2023 | What a weirdly eventful month this continues to be. (Suicide mention in next paragraph!)
The day after I posted last, my partner found out that one of his very closest friends committed suicide. It's not my place to go into the details, but it's been a hard week. His other friends and family have been checking in on each other and offering support and distractions, but I can feel the ache in all of them. =( It's not my first go with this process, but it doesn't necessarily lessen the blow either.
The death of Lance Reddick shortly after hasn't helped. Destiny is one of his favourite passtimes, so his own personal grief and that community grief has been a lot, and I hadn't mentioned it but my father had a health scare at the beginning of the month and his dad currently has covid (thankfully he's vaccinated) so we're doing our best to stay afloat together.
To regain some feeling of control (but mostly because I was two months overdue for it), I bleached my roots and redyed my hair. Even though I've been doing this since 2016, it's always such a relief once it's done. I feel more whole and put together with fresh color in my hair. My Dad every so often tries to gently remind me that I may have to give it up for professional reasons someday, but I don't think I will unless I suddenly pick up expertise in a very white collar or conservative industry, neither of which I have. So teal!Dryad is here to stay for a while longer yet.
03/12/2023 | Happy Sunday, friends. I hope you're nice and cozy and enjoying the slow turn of the season from winter to spring. I started seeing spring birds in February this year, so it's felt very slow in my area, but I'm tarting to see buds forming and early leaves growing and little sprouts bursting from the ground. Winter is a hard season for me, and it's hard for me to shake the cold from my bones some years, so I'm hoping this slower transition will be a little gentler.
I started a new job this past week, and gods am I sore! It's a nice feeling to actually feel physically tired instead of just mentally exhausted, but I forgot about entire muscle groups that could hurt, lmao. I'm cautiously optimistic that this'll be a good fit for me, and the pay's not awful for what it is so we won't be cutting into our savings quite as much and can hopefully start working on some other future goals.
My partner has been asking me what I want to do for my birthday at the end of the month, and I've been at a loss. ^^; We never ended up taking that trip last year with how miserable both of our jobs were at the time, and it probably won't be in the cards this year either with the new job. He suggested taking a day trip to a zoo that I've been wanting to visit since I moved up here, but part of me wants to do something closer to home. I might find a nice hike for us and maybe we can go out for lunch after. There's also a pottery studio close to us that does classes I've been wanting to check out, so maybe I'll suggest that? Idk, I'm so hesitant to make plans after the disappointment of repeatedly having to cancel things due to the pandemic. Don't get me wrong, it was the right thing to do, and I don't regret doing so, but I also don't need any more bad associations with my birthday than I already have.
03/02/2023 | Good evening friends new and old! How have things been? I am plunking away at my goals for the year over here and there's already been some reevaluating about what's keeping me from meeting them. Still working on committing to letting myself be bad at things so that I can improve, even just an inch at a time.
If you haven't seen via my neocities profile, I've been making lots of updates! Most of the website is mobile responsive with the exception of the the house, the aquarium, and the garden. Of those, the garden got a complete overhaul, and I added a host of new graphics to it, though I still have plans to expand it further. I also recently reorganized my blinkies onto racks like a madman, but I'm very pleased with the result. From here, I'm probably going to start updating content on some of my half-finished pages (looking at you, dragon age shrine) and providing content updates to others (animal crossing and pokemon shrines most notably) before I start making new stuff that I'm chomping at the bit to do.
(Only mildly related, but all the spring cleaning around here inspired me to update my tumblr theme as well! I did not personally code that layout as tumblr's code shenanigans are a lot to wrap my brain around, but it's nice to have a fresh coat of paint on it. Shout out to glenthemes.)
Otherwise, things have been pretty quiet around here since we got back from visiting my partner's family which I'm relieved about! The trip was a lot of fun with much good food and celebrating of the superbowl and some thrifting and divine homemade jams from his grandma, but it was very go go go for most of the week, and I was so oversocialized by the time we got home. ^^; I miss getting to travel more, and we have another trip planned to jump down to Portland next month as well as figuring out when we'll be visiting my family, so this won't be the end of trips for the year!
02/08/2023 | Happy early out of touch Thursday, lol. This is your irregularly scheduled, totally-not-procrastinating-before-travel Dryad checking in. Not much new has happened since we got back from Ireland aside from a friend's birthday party, my getting glasses for the first time, and a job interview that I haven't heard back about. The party was fun, the glasses are an adjustment (I've never heard of people having like, dizziness while adjusting but apparently it's a thing, and I'm frustrated no one warned me =((( ), and I guess at this point I'm just resigned to not hear back from potential employers (but I'm still kinda hopeful, the commute would literally be 10 minutes!).
We're heading to visit my partner's family tomorrow and then driving to meet some of his other family. It'll be some intense days of travel! But I'll get to see Oklahoma and Texas for the first time outside of literally just the airport which I'm kinda excited for even though everyone's told me not to expect much. =P I just like roadtrips! And what a treat to neither have to drive nor navigate! So I'll just get to stare out the window until my travel sickness meds kick in or sleep or play on my switch or whatever.
When we get back, I'm hoping to do some big updates to the site, it just may take a bit til they visibly go live. A lot of my code is haphazardly built and not mobile optimized and while certain pages will probably never be optimized, I'd still like to clean up the ones that I can so that future me has less work to do. I think I also wanna make some graphics for myself. I'm not a great artist (traditionally or digitally), but I'll never improve if I never try, right?
01/19/2023 | Have a warm beverage and a treat, friends~ Have you rested today? Celebrated your successes? Make sure you're not focusing on work and the somedays too much to enjoy right now. I'm very guilty of forgetting this like... very often, but I can see the progress! I've gotten better, and we can be here for each other.
My partner and I just got back from visiting my dad in Dublin, which was really lovely. We live in different states to begin with, but he's going to be out there for work for some not-quite-determined amount of time, so I'm really grateful that we were able to go since I don't know when I'll be able to see him next. =C We went to a number of museums though (my partner very lovingly humored my excitement at the archaeology museum) and a few great restaurants and the zoo and did so much walking! It made me really long to live somewhere where walking felt like an option and not a great hurdle of last resort. Otherwise, jetlag is a curse, and I am ready to not be tired, lol.
While we've been recovering, we finished Mass Effect 3 (his first rodeo, but decidedly not mine), and I'm finding myself caught in this feeling of unsatisfaction and wanting more. I was there Gandalf when ME3 came out and the whole debacle-fiasco-whatever you'd like to call the reaction to the end of the game happened, and I'd hoped that distance of a decade would help it land a little better but alskdfj;askdjf;a. =T I think having such an unsatisfying ending for the third installment in the trilogy is made all the worse by how much I like the conclusions to the other two games? Big shrug emoji, it's still one of my favourite video game series and it saw me through some of the worst years of my life, so I have a soft spot for them (much like Dragon Age, which has its own share of issues). Maybe this'll actually get me to make my Mass Effect shrine!
01/04/2023 | Happy belated new year, all! I hope life is treating you kindly, and if not, I hope you can at least find some kindness for yourself.
I'm doing my best! I'm feeling weirdly optimistic about this year, and while my natural inclination is to temper those feelings (especially considering the last time I felt like this was the beginning of 2020...), I'm trying to just let myself enjoy the excitement for now. I put my goals for the year up on my noteboard (except for some personal ones that I don't need to discuss with the void of the internet) and am planning to keep notes on when they get done.
Speaking of noteboards! Grim (Bisuko) made his own and I absolutely love it and you should all go see it. =3