Sunset Photos

A couple of recent photos I've taken with the new camera that I haven't had a chance to share. These are from a Sunset that looks out toward our City.

A few days behind ...

Saturday’s Thankful for: Found a great book series and have almost devoured this trilogy. I love books like this that complete suck me in. Spent most of Saturday reading book too and then finishing it that night. Thankful for the comfort of my brother Danny’s home and how open he always keeps it for us.

Sunday’s Thankful for: Time spent with family (Sunday Dinners = <3). My beautiful Niece and her smiles/laughter on Sunday. My family. My friends. Laughter and good food.

Monday’s Thankful for: The day flew. I finally got a full and uninterrupted night of sleep and it was amazing.

Tuesday’s Thankful for: I wrote TWO chapters in this book I’m drafting up. I finished book #5 of the year and started on #6.

QoTD: “Anger cannot be dishonest.” – Marcus Aurelius

As someone who often struggles with random moments of anger, I have to disagree with this. Sometimes my anger is not at all justified and therefore, dishonest. Sometimes, jealousy is at the core of my anger, jealousy so strong I see red. Sometimes impatience leads to my anger, again, not justified. But TRUE anger… yeah. True anger cannot be dishonest.

Soooo I have a valid reason for not posting the last two days.. I swear! I’ve mentioned a few times I’ve been drafting a book idea, and between Monday and Tuesday I got the itch to start writing while stuff is fresh in my mind so I did and managed to get two whole chapters done so YAY.

I’ve also been a reading machine! I finished the third book in this amazing series, A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas series. I am so in love with these characters. The world is well built, intricate and dangerous. She’s made some great villains and some truly amazing heroes… and those who are a little of both like our lead couple in the books. I really thought this story was going one way after the first book but so glad it went in a completely different way … truly wonderful reading. I think there’s one more after this and the series is done. I’d start one of her other ones, but I want to wait for more books to be out before I dive in. I hate waiting lol.

Started book #6 of the year last night. It’s a short read (290 pages, compared to the above book’s 699 pages)…but it probably will take me the same amount of time to read it (twoish days) because I’m actually itching to write, which is a shocker. 
So yeah, that is the delay in my posts! I was going to back and post one for each day, but eh. That is time I can spend writing chapters :D

Oh, I also spent a chunk of Sunday night play SIMS4. Finally started my Legacy SIM and uploaded roughly 100 screen shots lol … I’ll definitely have to whittle that down a bit before I post them/story of them. I realized that I cannot decide exactly how many days they get at each segment of age (Toddler, teen, young adult, adult etc), like I could in SIMS 3 and that really irks me, but I’ll make it work. It just means I have to jam pack her life a little more fully per day than I normally like.

Good news is, they leave just enough $$ in the legacy rules for her to afford four walls and a single bed … in a very tight room LOL. But, thankfully most jobs pay half decent in the game so hopefully she’ll be building add-ons to her shack in no time! 

Otherwise, things are good. I have excitement in my heart again for writing. The weekend was gorgeous, with temps in the mid-60’s which is so unlike this time of year, but we’ll take it … and seeing my niece/goddaughter… pure joy… WHO btw, is finally crawling! Bro and sis-in-law sent us a video last night. It’s not a full crawl yet, but she’s definitely crawl-liking a lot more than before. I give it another couple days before no one can keep up with her. We’re all in damn trouble now LOL

I haven’t had much of a chance to truly test out my new camera lately, but hopefully this weekend. I did take some silly photos yesterday of things on my desk (below). I had really hoped to be able to take some photos of the WOLF Moon (Friday), but of course it was cloudy AF here that night and couldn't get any shots. Other that all that… things are good :P
 The random stuff I took at work ... the finger-puppet thing was actually left behind from my friend at work when she used to sit where I sit lol.She didn't want it back so I've kept it (:









And the fog photos were from this morning. It was super foggy, but the closer I got to work (when I finally decided to snap some pics), it got a bit more clear. But can still see it in these, which impressed me.







And lastly, from tonight. Was sitting at the train crossing when I heard all these birds. This was snapped out my passenger window, so not the best pic, but again impressed by the quality considering all that/and night. Plus I was starting to move so might have some blur.

New Worlds To Visit

Yesterday's Thankful for: I finally slept. I feel like it's been over a week since I've had  a good night of sleep. Had a good hour nap (which isn't a nap at that point, but I'm calling it that), when I got home from work...and then went to bed around 1am and slept soundly. It was great and so thankful for that cuz I needed it bad.

Planner's QotD: "Things are seldom what they seem." --W.S. Gilbert

Ain't that the truth. We try so hard, and more often than I think we did before, to present a version of ourselves that isn't quite real. We all do it, myself included. And the old adage is true now as it ever was ... there are always multiple sides to every story.

Anywho... today felt productive to me. I managed to draft up twelve chapters for this book idea, and it's getting me more and more excited. No spoilers yet, but I may begin to write before I finish drafting the outline because I want to get started LOL. If I do, I'll probably share a few excerpts.
Old boss was driving me nuts today with her constant need to want to blab all day. I was relatively busy today, but she ran a fucking hole in the carpet at work walking back and forth around my desk area to see when I might break/not be busy so she could throw herself at me and blubber for an hour. Sorry,  we're at damn WORK... not happy hour social... fuck. Drives me bonkers.

My new camera came in today! I cannot waiiiiit to take it for a spin. I thought it had enough battery to get me through tonight, so I brought it when mom and I went over to Nelson and Trisha's to visit with Amalia, but it didn't. Second I went to turn it on to take a pic of her, it was all "BATTERY DED" lol. Sad face. I have it on the charger now but it was completely dead so probably won't be fully charged until morning.

Ten of the twelve books I ordered from Barnes and Noble arrived today, and holy moly... I can't wait to dive into many of these. Some of these covers have me drooling :P

Header is all the lovely books I got... for now.

Welp...I'm gonna finish some things in Warcraft and then log off for the night to read. I'm on book #3 for the year *dance*.

And I'll leave ya with my lunch from today. I had shrimp Tad Phai and it was so damn good.  It's a new place that opened up near us, and I'd add them to my list, but Tad Phai isn't the healthiest lol

New Lens on Life

Yesterday’s Thankful for: Folks willing to give you a helping hand. Whether it’s online or IRL, I appreciate the people that are still about helping others and am very thankful for them. Without them, I’d have no hope for humanity. Yesterday I needed help a few times throughout the day, and folks were ready to jump in—and then online I needed help getting some gear on my monk and a couple of guildies took up the task to assist me (while many others have completely disappeared). So that was very nice of everyone. AND!!! It's getting lighter earlier ... this makes me so freakin' happy.

Planner’s QoTD: “I have the simplest tastes. I am always satisfied with the best.” – Oscar Wilde

To have simple taste, you’re 98.9% of the time happy with whatever you get, so of course, you’d always be satisfied with the best :P Ooooo Oscaaaaa! 

Anywho! I’m pretty content with how my photos came out last night… I am hoping as I start to get back into the grind, I’ll manage to slowly take better and better photos. Messing with settings is a big part of the dealio. I would try to do a photo a day, but whenever I set that down as something I want to do, I don’t do it… so I’ll just say this… if it happens, awesome, if not, no biggie.

The only gripe I have with the camera I'm using at the moment is the zoom on it is kind of poopy. It doesn’t focus at all half the time… so I did what I said I was not going to do and bought a new camera (shhhhhh, stop yelling… I know!). 

BUT it has some really amazing reviews, and the price already had me pretty sold, but then I went and looked through albums of photos people have taken using the camera and even clearly novice photographers… The pictures looked great! 

So yeah, I ended up buying the Olympus OM-D E-M10 Mark II (pictured here, not mine --yet).  

I'll see if I can stopover at the bros' house on Friday or Saturday and test out some photos on my niece/Goddaughter.  I mean I'll see them Sunday no matter what so there's then too.  Now time to plan some weekend trips to get some photos! Bwahahahaha.

Enough squeeing on that ... (sounds wrong but keeping it).

Writing
Today I've been working on a draft outline for a new book idea in between lulls of work. I am pretty excited about this idea, but I've been excited for many others in the past too and never completed a book, sooooo nothing to get excited about :P I'm an oxymoron (or just moron :D), I know. 

It has been about a year though since I've felt pumped about an idea for a book so I will see where this will take me. I'm hoping to actually get a good outline half done by the end of tonight but will see. If it becomes a more firm project, I'll definitely share details (and excerpts of whatever I may write). 

Reading
I have too many distractions when I get home so my reading of the second book of the year is slow going. I really hope to zone out tonight and finish it. It's also not exactly a super exciting, can't wait to get to the next chapter, type of book so that's probably why I'm not pushing aside other hobbies for this book (as I have for others). 

This happened last year too at the beginning. I picked some rough few books so I didn't really get going until about March where I found those that excited me enough to read 3 and 4 a week. Hoping to come across more of those this year. *Fingers crossed*

Warcraft
As mentioned above, a couple guild members helped out last night and took me through a Mythic+. Of course, no actual gear dropped in it for me (did for all of them that they could use lol), but I'll still have a guaranteed item in my box on Tuesday. We may do more this weekend, but folks were tired last night when we finished around 10:30pm, and so we all bounced. 

Sleep Issues
Speaking of tired... I have been having the crappiest week for sleep. I think the first few nights were clearly 'new bed' stuff, but last night in my comfy bed I kept waking up every hour or two and it was just awful. Today I feel like I'm running on fumes, but I know the second I get home, I won't be able to sleep and the cycle will repeat. Ugh. 

The Witcher
(Almost) Last but not least, I will finally watch Witcher this weekend. I'm dying to see this show and have already heard so many great things about it. Shit part? It's only EIGHT episodes. 

What is this new crap trend?! I hate it. At least do the 13 ones (which I already hated with a passion but is way better than 8). I miss the days when shows actually ran freaking 22-24 episodes.  I get that the world is changing in television, but I don't see why more streaming means fewer episodes? It can still be 22?

How about giving people a FULL 22 episode season to truly fall in love with the characters, writing, plot, etc. You cannot expect people to fall head over heels in 2-3 episodes unless they are already super invested in the genre/show (like Witcher which still only has 8 episodes). This is why most of the time, I will no longer start a show unless it already has at least three seasons out. I refuse to get so invested only for it to be canceled after season one or a short season two (like Constantine...that show was so amazing, they barely promoted it, and so they canceled it after a few episodes and then people finally saw it down the line and were like WTF this is awesome, why cancel it?! yeah... No more!). NOPE. 

Learn to Say No
I really need to learn this. I always try to be accommodating at work or fear that if I say no to my friends, they won't ask me out again ... I just dont always want to go out or hang out with people and that is OKAY. I know it's okay and yet I continue to say yes, knowing I realllllly don't want to go and then end up either backing out or having a horrible time. So I should just save us all the headaches by saying NO. 

I actually just did it right now, and I feel pretty good about it. I did it politely of course, but I'm just not up for socializing for four hours straight (or more cuz people don't know when to disperse).  I didn't make excuses either, just said that my introvert-ness is at an all-time high at the moment and I can't make it...but TY for the invite.




 

Moon!

So as I mentioned in my earlier post, I finally dusted off a camera and decided to take it for a test run tonight by taking some shots of the moon. I'm happy with many of them and it was hard to select just a handful, but here we are! 

Plus a random one from last night of a lil dragon I bought off Etsy a few years back from one of my favorite authors, Julie Kagawa.

Long Post is Long

(Image is of my alt, the monk -- explained below)

Yesterday’s Thankful for: Yesterday was rough on my anxiety/nerves, but I’m thankful for the support of friends and family. All I have to do is turn to a bud online or my family, and they’re there for me. I am truly thankful for that.

Planner’s QotD: “He who dares not offend cannot be honest.” – Thomas Paine

I see what he means… sometimes the truth hurts. Sometimes we’d rather tell a lie to spare someone’s feelings, but in the end … the lies always come back to haunt us and that person usually gets hurt a LOT more in the process. I just don’t like the word ‘offend.’ To me it has the connotations of purposeful meanness and that I do not agree with.

I think this world is already so twisted up with so much hate, anger and fear. I wish I knew what it would take to heal the world, because I’d help do it in a heartbeat, but I dunno… Maybe time. We clearly never learn from our mistakes and continue to ‘solve’ problems through aggression, war, murder… I mean… when will we finally open our eyes and become a better species? We will never progress going down this path and I feel like we’re actually REGRESSING.

It’s just really a sad state of affairs and holy moly… that quote threw me down a rabbit hole…  

SIMS4

Anywho … I’m trying to plan my SIM 4 Legacy. Typically I just go nutso and take a billion screenshots and then pick out top 10 or 20 but I sort of want to actually tell a story this time. So, a lot like plotting an outline for a book, I’m hoping the same thing will work for this…haha. Which means my gameplay is on the backburner at the moment until I have at least episode one and maybe two ready. PLUS … I may actually stream this also on Twitch. Gotta think about that too.

I need a GOOD last name …. Ideas? lol

Warcraft

In Warcraft news, I’ve been trying to gear up my monk alt. At the moment, I main a hunter (hence my alter ego on twitter, tessdahunta) …but I am truly enjoying the way my monk plays and want to swap her to my main (the one I do raids, dungeons, pretty much the FULL content on).  

Last week I ran a +9 Mythic with some guild members and we were all on alts. It was painful lol. Mostly, it was due to us all being pretty low ilvl for a +9, so we died quite a bit… but in the end it was really worth it. I ended up getting a super nice cloak in this week’s chest (after you do any Mythic+, your highest key awards you an additional piece of gear on reset day—Tuesday’s). This thing has the BEST stats for the monk plus it came with a socket (which is huge, as it adds more of whatever stat I may need most).

See, so purty!

But then I tweeted it and someone ruined my joyyyyyyy lmao. Basically next week a new patch comes out (8.3) and with it a ‘Legendary’ cloak. Which is pretty much the only cloak we’ll need going forward until this expansion ends (sometime at the end of this year).  Which means, this lovely, wonderful epic cloak I just received will be utterly worthless next week *cries* LOL. I was like DOOD… couldn’t you have just let me live in bliss a little longer? GOSH! 

But YAH… I’m trying to get her ilvl up to at least 430 because the new raid drops 445. I could sneak by with 425 because the guildies are cool, but I like to pull my own weight and am trying hard to get her to that 430 mark. Right now she’s 420 but hopefully we’ll run a few more mythic +’s this week. The main post image is actually of her <3

One of my Pet Peeves

When someone says, “I never received that…” and you know you sent it, so you go to your SENT email and lookie here… sent like 3 weeks ago. CHECK YOUR EMAIL before you respond or ask for crap again, people. Just makes you look lazy. It takes literally 2 seconds to search for my name and see all the emails I’ve sent you and I always title them so there’s no confusion about what you’re getting. Arghhhh.

Photography

So I finally dug out one of my many cameras last night, charged it up, and took a few test photos. I’m so rusty at this hobby, that I figure I can start easy with just auto mode and a few tweaks here and there that I remember, to get back into the groove.  I hope to get back into this, and especially use it to catalog a lot of my niece/Goddaughter’s life. It’s weird to me because she’s now my Goddaughter, but I also still want to call her my niece lol… so I need a word that covers both like … NiecGdaughter :P 

Speaking of her … Here’s one of my most favorite photos of her that I took over the holiday break.

Mom and I were asked to watch her on Christmas Eve. She’d just gotten up from a nap, and I was making faces at her while my mom just stared down at her with a smile and caught this mid-laugh … I just happened to snap at the perfect moment and it came out great (and this was a phone shot, then instagrammed lol).

Another Day, Another Dollar

(One of my actual SIMS that I've played ...lol)

Yesterday’s Thankful for: Finally felt better. Still not 100%, but muuuuuch better. All the games and books I was able to buy really cheered me up too, so thank you family and friends for gift cards <3!  

QotD:  "Success is not final; failure is not fatal: It is the courage to continue that counts." -- Winston S. Churchill 

I forgot my planner today (fail on my part), so I searched ‘random quotes’ and selected the first one that popped up. I actually agree with this. Failure really is NOT fatal, and yet I allow my fear of failure to control my life.  It’s why I never finish actually writing a book (okay I finished ONCE … but never got it looked at, etc.). Fear of rejection or negativity holds me back so much. I don’t know how to find that courage to continue … really wish I did know where to find it or how to gain it.  

I’m thinking I need a stand up desk for work (or home). I spend way too much time sitting and my ass is starting to pay for it. It just feels sore. I do get up a lot through the day to walk around or stretch, but apparently it’s not enough (and some days so swamped to get up as much as I should). Typically at home, I work out quickly for 30 minutes and then sit for another 6-8 hours … still do the occasional get up, but it’s clearly not enough.  

I’m going to look into prices, but I know they’re pretty damn expensive. Anyone know of a good site for cheap-ish ones?  

Pretty excited to get out of here and play my new SIMS 4 expansions. I am trying to decide how I want to do this legacy and how much to actually screen cap, share, etc. I definitely will do a different journal though since the couple of people I have on here aren’t really into video games (and I’ll link it just in case).  

I’m also looking into blogger for this. Or word press. I have a couple of people who write on blogger and have been trying to get me to move there, but I dunno if I’d like it. Has anyone ever used it? Pros? Cons? I’d definitely still post here (it would literally just be a copy/paste over there if I did this).  I kind of actually want to do a post in add me, but I want to be sure I actually post for a good month before I do something like that. I don’t want to be that person that says ADD ME then stops writing completely for months on end (as I have in the past!).  

Today has been one clusterfuck of problem people after the other… I am already ready for another vacation lol.  

DID finally finish reading Yellowrock #13 so w00t. I’m not onto other books. It would be great if I could finish at least two books this week since I sorta want to get ahead of the game instead of fall behind, but I also am not going to stress about it. I just miss reading books lol and I have to tell myself not to rush ahead to read all the books in a series. This definitely burnt me out at the end of the year and I have learned the lesson!

Monday Funday?

Yesterday's thankful for: Time spent with family. Enjoying lots 'me' time. Amalia's smile and laughter.

Planner's  QoTD: "Be bold, be bold, and everywhere be bold." --Edmund Spenser

This is something I wish I could do more easily... say 'no' more, stand up more for when people are abusing my kindness or hard work... be bolder in my approach to confrontation (something I hate with passion but seems to always creep into my life)... just in general, I wish I could be bolder.

Anywho... ended up staying home today since I felt like ass when I woke up. I also think the idea of staying home really appealed to me because I didn't fall asleep until 5a.m. Was super restless the whole night which was annoying AF. 

I slept until about 12:30p.m., had a quick lunch and then spent the rest of the day looking up books to buy with gift cards. I ended up getting about 12 from Barnes & Noble (had two gift cards there... and holy shit the books there are SO expensive compared to Amazon... why do people still use them?!). I browsed their sale racks and ended finding twelve bucks to cover the $70 total in gift cards and I paid the remaining $10 for taxes, etc.

Overall not too bad and some look really interesting. First I have to finish this damn Yellowrock book #13. Ive been reading this series since like August... I need a break. This will be the last book I read (which I have to cuz its the last one out so far lol).  Pretty excited to read some new characters and new worlds... I think that's also why I didn't hit 100 books... I'm stubborn and have to see a series to the end if I have the books.

I also used the two origin gift cards I got and ended up buying a bunch of SIMS 4 expansions and expansion pack stuff ... sooooo expect a bunch of SIMS 4 screenshots soonish. I may finally do a damn SIMS 4 legacy and make a DW account just for that, that I will then share over on twitter. MAYBE.  I did buy a lot of SIM stuff so definitely binging playing that for a while.  Pretty sure my computer is going to fill up hits 500GB SSD sooner than I want ha. May have to delete a couple steam games I don't play.

Now I'm completing some things in Warcraft while these expansions/stuff finish downloading. Then I'm going to finish this Yellowrock book tonight before I start something new. I have about 20% left and then I can finally put this series aside. *Big deep breath*

Weekend Recap

Yesterday's Thankful for: It was a great day to myself. I stayed in, in pjs, and just binged Warcraft and read a little. It was great. I felt relaxed and comfortable all day.

As written, yesterday was pretty much zone out, be in my own little bubble and just enjoy some of my favorite hobbies. I wasn't feeling so well on Friday for some odd reason so I hit the hay early and was up early so I spent most of the day back and forth between games and reading. Twas funnnnn.

Today much of the same except Amalia, sisinlaw and the bros came over. Had a yummy dinner, enjoyed some good chats... and bro installed our new alarm system. So yay for security! Our old one was on its last leg.

I'm still not feeling 100% so I may take tomorrow off. I'll see how I feel in the morning. I think I caught something cuz it hit me hard Friday night. I was shivering, and had horrible aches and pains. So yeah... bad.

Anywho... pretty boring weekend but that's how I like them. I feel like I haven't had a weekend to myself to do mostly nothing in some time, so YAY.

Easy Saturday

Yesterday's thankful for: The weather wasn't too cold for the 3rd day of January, which was pleasing. It was a lot lighter by 5pm anddddddd I just had a pretty good day. Plus it was Friday ... the final day of a two day work week :P

Planner's QoTD: "Our business in this world is not to succeed, but to continue to fail, in good spirits." - Robert Louis Stevenson

As a society, I do think we put way too much pressure on ourselves and each other to be the constant best. To constantly rise above your fellow man, no matter what it takes. I truly believe that's not a happy way to live. I think if you wake up, try your best, make the best out of your day to YOUR ability, it's a good life.

I think that's why Facebook drives me insane. Everyone always posts their most glorious shit, when deep down, we all know it's not raining rainbows 24/7. I'm not saying people should only post negative crap either... there has to be a healthy balance. I think it sets this high bar, that others may never reach and it causes unnecessary depression, anxiety and jealousy in others... unnecessary because 99% of the people I have on Facebook are NOT as successful as they like to make themselves seem and guess what... THAT'S PERFECTLY GREAT! Nothing wrong with that AT ALL. But I think social media has ruined realistic expectations for people.

Maybe it's just me though.

The above quote is for both today and tomorrow, so tomorrow I'll recap the weekend. Hope everyone's having a lovely Saturday!