Plans & Goals 2021: Week 21

Holy hell you guys…it’s almost June! June! When did this happen?! Well, I suppose 2021 hasn’t exactly been going stupendously thus far, so I’m not particularly fussed about it disappearing so fast, but still… Craziness.

So, a few things before the goals…

Firstly, as per the current Covid protocols in Nova Scotia, I was required to get a test done last week because of my travel outside the province. The previous tests I’ve gotten were all the rapid one, which is just a light swab of the inside of your nostrils, but this time it was the full one with the swab that goes all the way up into your sinus cavities. And let me tell you guys…it wasn’t as bad as I was expecting, but *incomprehensible gross-out noises*. Gahhhh, SO UNCOMFORTABLE YOU GUYS. Seriously though, it doesn’t hurt, and I definitely wouldn’t encourage people to avoid the test or anything, but all the same, I was sniffing and snorting for hours afterwards. It feels a bit like snorting salt water up your nose, and for some reason it makes your eyes water. It’s a little embarrassing, honestly, because it seems like you’re crying. XD

That said, I have to have another test this Friday before my last couple of days of isolation, so wish me luck. I’m not looking forward to doing it again, but at least now I know that it doesn’t actually hurt.

In other news, I feel into a common creator’s trap last week…cleaning for hours on end instead of getting anything productive done. I mean, okay, the cleaning in and of itself was productive, and it’s nice that our house smells good now, but definitely expect that lack-of-production bit to come up again.

In other other news, tonight is game 7 of the Toronto/Montreal first-round playoffs. I’m sure at least half of you couldn’t give less of a damn about that, but in the Tobin household we’re on pins and needles. It’s been an extremely frustrating series because, let’s be honest…based on the regular season Toronto should have creamed Montreal. But they keep fucking up. It’s been infuriating. Why must Leafs fans suffer so? ;-; DO SOMETHING RIGHT TONIGHT, BOYS!

Not a whole lot else happened last week – unsurprisingly, considering we’re still stuck in quarantine – so let’s go ahead and get to the goal portion of the post.

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Health

Last week was a bit of a mixed bag, mainly because I had things that I wanted to get done before June began. As a result, I didn’t do any ‘proper’ exercise throughout the week, but that’s not to say that I was completely sedentary the whole time. As previously mentioned, I did a ton of cleaning; like, literally, days worth of it. There was vacuuming, scrubbing, windows, laundry, dusting, moving furniture, moving furniture back, organizing, and plenty of other annoyances. By the end of the first day I was genuinely tired and sore, so I’m going to go on record as saying that it was a pretty decent exercise program for those few days.

On the food side of things, I won’t claim to have tried very hard to eat well during the past week, but there’s actually a method to my madness. Or, I suppose, an excuse would make more sense. Since we’re all in isolation, there’s no way to get groceries (other than bothering a friend, which I’ve deemed entirely unnecessary, given there’s plenty to eat in the house), so we’ve had to eat what is available. And what’s available does not include a wide variety of things like fruits and veggies, because hubby didn’t buy many when I was coming home, knowing that they’d go bad if we didn’t find ways to use them (which almost always involves taking runs out to the store for missing ingredients). Thus, we’ve basically been throwing together what we have in whatever ways we can manage. Plus, okay, we’ve been snacking a lot during the hockey games. Sue me.

Anyway…

Moving away from the past week, I’m going to offer a bit of a forecast for the coming week, because today was my ‘Fresh Start’ day. I reset my tracking app, took my weight and measurements, and restarted the ‘Morning Meltdown 100’ program, only on the fast-track schedule this time (2 exercise vids per day, for 60 days). This morning I did the first two vids, drank a bunch of water, staved myself off with coffee until dinner (which was quite heavy and filling) and dessert (because fuck you, I’m not completely giving up my sweets), and now the plan is to survive the rest of the night and this evening’s hockey game without snacking. Mind you, yes, I’ll have something to eat if I get genuinely hungry, but that’s the key… I’m trying to train myself to recognize actual hunger again, rather than ’emotional hunger’ or ‘boredom hunger’. Then, if I can just repeat that daily routine for the next two months, maybe I’ll actually get somewhere. @_@ Wish me luck!

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Creativity

So, I’m going to go ahead and start with writing, because for the second week in a row I didn’t hit my Pacemaker.press goal. In fact, I was absolutely murdered by it. Pacemaker wanted me to write 12,742 words, and I only managed to eek out 7968 words. The main explanation is that most of the writing I did do was by hand, like I mentioned last week. Most of the writing I’ve been getting done lately has been scribbling in a notebook in between hockey intermissions or while I’m waiting to move on to the next step of whatever I’m cooking. That’s going to have to change soon if I want to be able to keep ahead of new posts for ‘The Prince’s Consort’, however, so feel free to send me threatening messages throughout the week. XD

Moving on to the art side of things, I don’t really have much to show because I couldn’t seem to find a good time to sit and break out the tablet. I did, however, do a few more drawing challenges with the kid, so I can show you those.

I don’t actually know who either of these characters are, soooo…lol The rules of the challenge are that you choose each other’s image, and the kid has watched a lot of anime that I haven’t. I think I did a pretty decent job with both of them though. Here’s hoping that this week I’ll find some time to work on some actual digital art. I’d like to take on some more commissions as well, so if you have any thoughts, shoot me a message on my Ko-Fi at the link in the sidebar. ^_~

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Down-Time

Now, between all that cleaning and fussing around and trying to figure out how to throw together the food options we have, I did, in fact, carve out a bit of downtime.

Starting with reading…uh…look, don’t judge me… Instead of finishing ‘Warm Bodies’ or moving on to the second ‘Witcher’ book, I, uh…I started reading another novel-length fan-fiction. o_o I’m horrible, I know. But in my defence, it’s really good! Like, sweet and full of angst and drama…I’m genuinely loving it, so I refuse to feel bad for reading it. So nyah nyah nyah. 😛

Moving on to games, while I didn’t do a lot of gaming this week, I did do some! I got back into ‘Borderlands 3’ for a bit, and I played some old-school Kirby games with the kid, because how can you resist a kid born in the 2000’s who enjoys games from the 80’s and 90’s?

And finishing off with watching stuff, I already mentioned that we’ve been watching the NHL playoffs, so that definitely qualifies. I also watched ‘The Night Comes For Us’ because hubby recommended it for it’s over-the-top violence, and I can definitely inform you that I enjoyed the heck out of it. Over-the-top it absolutely is, and wonderfully so. That said, it’s violent in a horrifying way, not a particularly amusing way, so definitely take that into account if you’re thinking about checking it out.

We’ve also been watching ‘JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure’, though I’m a bit all over the place with that one because hubby was already watching it while I was away, so now I’m simultaneously watching from the start, and watching the third series episodes that hubby is on. Even though I’m all out of whack, though, I’m managing to enjoy the show. It’s so serious at points, but so dumb AF other times. It’s kinda hysterical, even when it’s not meant to be.

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Well, that about covers that for another week, and because I had a bunch of crap to do today I actually took several hours to finish this post, so if you don’t mind I’m gonna go watch that goddamn hockey game. If you hear some incoherent screaming from the general direction of Nova Scotia, you’ll know what’s happening. 😛

Feel free to let me know how your year is going so far! Do you have any big goals? Specific plans? Anything awesome on the horizon? Share what’s going on with you! ❤

“The Prince’s Consort” – Chapter 06 [A Good Omens AU]

Happy Monday, my lovelies! Welcome to your weekly injection of literary serotonin! ❤

This week Crowley learns a few things, gets treated much differently than he was expecting, feels things, and meets another new friend. How will he react to all these unexpected occurrence? 

Enjoy, darlings! ❤

Plans & Goals 2021: Week 20

Well, my dears…quite a bit has happened since my last post. Everything just kinda…went upside down all at once.

So, first of all, I switched back over from night shift to day shift, which was all good and fine, especially after how my body decided to react to the night shift. But then, two days back in to the day shift…I got laid off. That wasn’t a huge surprise in itself, considering how much work has been getting postponed on account of all the Covid outbreaks. What was surprising was that it happened right in the middle of a week. I would have expected to at least be allowed to finish out the week of work, but alas, my coworker and I were booted immediately.

That, in itself, wouldn’t even be a big deal, if not for the fact that the earliest I could get a flight (that allowed me to use my Aeroplan miles) was Sunday…and at this point it was Tuesday. I was allowed to stay in the camp that night, but that left four more nights before my flight. And because of the current lockdown protocols and the fact that her husband’s entire crew (pretty much) is currently in isolation protocols, I couldn’t stay with my cousin. So, four nights in a hotel it was. Luckily I had enough Air Miles to cover most of that, but it still made for a pretty brain-numbing four days, especially considering that almost the entire city is shut down right now.

So, I went for lonely walks, ate incredibly shitty food, watched Netflix and a few playoff hockey games, and did my best to convince myself to write and draw. I didn’t do a great job of that last one, since hotel rooms aren’t incredibly conducive to creativity, but I still got a little bit done.

Then, Sunday finally came, and I made my way steadily home over the course of three flights and one three-hour drive. The day wasn’t actually all too bad, especially since I didn’t have anyone sitting next to me on any of the flights. I wrote some more and watched ‘Moana’ (because I’d never seen it) and nibbled on some crappy snacks I’d taken along with me.

I also got into the province with no issue, because of my conditional pre-approval letter, but this is where I have to mention how bad I felt for the border control girl. In case you didn’t know, right now you have to be approved to be allowed to enter Nova Scotia. If you’re a permanent resident just returning home, this is pretty easy. If you’re a rotational worker who is coming home for just a little while before going back to work, it’s a little trickier. And if you’re just trying to visit, don’t even bother…you’re going to get turned away, pretty much guaranteed. All this is to say that, at the very least, you have to have an approval letter, which you get from filling out an online form explaining your reason for travel into the province. And that form can take a few days to get back to you. And when I showed up Sunday night there was a group of three guys who hadn’t filled out the form, barely spoke English, and had no idea what the border control girl was talking about. They were getting more and more agitated with every passing moment, until I eventually was leaving, and I doubt they were the first ones the border girl had dealt with that day.

I suppose the moral of the story is that the world is really fucked up right now, so you should probably look into any regulations that may be occurring at your point of travel on a regular basis. ._.

So anyway, I got home and I’m now doing my 14 days of quarantine. Fun times, that. Luckily, I’m pretty much a homebody anyway, so, you know…XD My only real concern, honestly, is that I have to get a Covid test today (another current regulation), and this will be the first time I’ve gotten the full test – the one where they go straight up into your bloody brain. I’m not looking forward to that. I’ve heard some people say it hurt like fuck, and other people say that it didn’t hurt but was super-uncomfortable. Myself, I’m not necessarily worried about it hurting or anything, as I’m certain I’ve survived much, much worse. It’s just the squeamishness of it. You know how some people freak out at giving blood because of the squitchy feeling of being poked in the inside of the elbow? Well shoving something up my nose and into my skull gives me that same feeling. I just have this sneaking suspicion that they’re going to need a couple of people to hold me down while it happens or I might freak the fuck out. *ahem*

Anyway, let’s distract me from that thought by getting into the actual post part of the post.

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Health

Okay, so, with everything I said about how hard it is to eat well in a work camp, you’re probably expecting to hear that getting laid off has actually helped out in this category. And, ultimately, it will…but remember how I said ‘four nights in a hotel plus one day flying’? Well that nonsense didn’t do me any favors. I mean, to give myself a little bit of credit, I did go for several walks while I was trapped in Fort McMurray. I did not, however, do any other kinds of exercise, and I ate like a poor frat boy. Given that I had five days of finding something to eat to deal with, and given that I had just been laid off and didn’t want to waste too much money, I ended up forgoing most food options and just picking up the cheapest, easiest crap I could find at places like Dollarama. Cue five days of instant cup-noodles, value-pack butter biscuits, off-brand chips, and gummy fruit snacks.

Don’t judge me.

Anyway, I’m home now, so that means I can eat what I want rather than what’s being provided to me, so things should start to get better again. Theoretically. I also restarted Core de Force yesterday, after deciding that it wasn’t worth the heart attack I’d probably have to jump back in where I’d left off a few weeks ago. Hopefully it will help! I’m pretty motivated, since I made the fool decision to jump on the scale yesterday and discovered that I’ve actually gained 7 lbs since I went out West for that job. FML, right?

Creativity

As with last week, let’s take a look at the art side of things first. I didn’t actually get much done, considering how much free time I had to myself last week, but the gears just weren’t turning at all. I still have two images to share though!

The first is a commission from one of my readers/fellow fanfic-writers/supporters. She asked for a female Crowley with long, loose hair, wearing a medieval-style dress and a floral crown. This is what came of the request:

I was quite pleased with the result, as was the lovely darling who commissioned it, so huzzah for that! This was also my first time drawing a female version of either of the Ineffables, so that was pretty interesting! I might be convinced to do some more!

The other piece I have to share was just a fun little thing that came as the result of a drawing challenge between my daughter and I. We do a thing where we scour Pinterest for pretty art, pick a drawing for each other, and then try to draw it in our own styles. She challenged me to do a pic of ‘Senpai’ from the ‘Friday Night Funkin’ game, and this was the result:

It was a fun little challenge. It’s one of my favorite activities to do with my daughter, in fact, so I’ll probably be sharing a few more of these at this time next week. 🙂

On the writing side of things, I unfortunately did not quite meet my Pacemaker.pres goal for the week, but that’s not to say that I didn’t get a bunch of writing done. Pacemaker was looking for a total of 13,411 words, which is the highest that it had asked me for in ages. In the end I finished off the week with 12,811 words, which isn’t too far off and definitely still quite worth being proud of. I probably would have actually done much better, but I’ve been having one of those phases that pops up with me every so often, during which I can’t seem to think if I’m looking at a computer screen, so I write by hand instead, which is much, much slower. I genuinely enjoy writing by hand, but it can definitely slow down the whole process (especially considering that it then has to be transcribed, later on), so I hope to get back into the groove of typing my thoughts sometime this week.

As to what I’ve been writing… Mainly it’s been ‘The Prince’s Consort’ because I want to keep ahead of the updates, but I’ve also been scribbling out thoughts for YET ANOTHER ‘Good Omens’ AU that occurred to me recently, and yeah, I know. You know what? Judge me. Just go ahead and judge me. I can take it. 😛

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Down-Time

Now, if there’s something I had a lot of last week, it was down-time, so certainly I should have something to put here, right? Well, less than you might think, actually. *ahem*

In the ‘reading’ category, we have…pretty much nothing. I mean, I read a few new chapters that were posted to fanfics I’m currently subscribed to, but sitting down with an actual book? Nope, there was none of that last week.

What about games? Well, unless you count a bit of ‘Pokemon GO’ while I was roaming around town trying to stretch my legs… That’s another nope here.

Now ‘watching’, yes, I can definitely say I watched a few things. Two of those things were hockey games, because the playoffs are in full swing and the first round has Toronto playing Montreal, so I couldn’t miss those games.

Another thing was the aforementioned ‘Moana’, which I watched during one of the flights home. I’ve always been a Disney kid and I’d never actually watched that one, so when I saw it on the in-flight entertainment options I decided it was time to fix the discrepancy. Cute flick. The newer Disney movies don’t tickle me the way the older ones always did, but it was still definitely a cute flick. Do recommend for Disney fans.

Then there was the big one… The fourth season of ‘Castlevania’ recently launched on Netflix, and that was a definite must-watch. However, it had been a while since the previous season…so I watched the entire thing right from the beginning. For the record, that’s roughly 16 hours worth of watch-time right there. So suffice it to say that my eyes were crossed by the time I got through it all, but it was well worth it. There were several important things that I’d forgotten about that would have made the final season confusing, and the final season itself was fan-freakin’-tastic. Two big thumbs up for the entire series. Loved the animation, loved the characters, adored the voice actors who brought them to life, and it was just overall a great, fun, violent story. Even if you’re not a fan of the games, if you like monsters and animated stories aimed at adults, you might want to consider giving ‘Castlevania’ a chance. It’s well worth it.

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So there we have another week – a rather wonky one – down and done. I’m hoping for things to return a bit more to normal in the coming week, but given how determined the world seems to be to fall apart, I won’t hold my breath. Let’s all just keep doing our best to move forward one day at a time, keeping safe and staying strong, okay? Okay. Let’s.

Feel free to let me know how your year is going so far! Do you have any big goals? Specific plans? Anything awesome on the horizon? Share what’s going on with you! ❤

“The Prince’s Consort” – Chapter 05 [A Good Omens AU]

Here we are, my loves! I know you’ve all been losing your minds waiting for the meet to happen, and here it finally is! Yes, yes, even I’m amazed that it took this long. XD

Our boys are finally together! But how are things going to go from here? You’ll have to keep reading to find out! *evil grin*

Enjoy, my loves!

“A Little While Longer” – a ‘Good Omens’ NSFW Short

It occurred to me, you see, that I had never written a ‘virgins in the Garden‘ style of story. And I decided that this just couldn’t be allowed. So here we find ourselves, with roughly 4k words of ‘These two absolutely adored each other from the beginning and totally experimented on one another’s bodies the first chance they got’. XD

Enjoy! ❤