coffee spills

It's the end of the month, so time for some wrap-up and reflections. I'm really pleased with this year. I wrote a total of 19 posts and over 6800 words! I messaged some cool people and some cool people signed my guestbook. I got a whole new feed of blogs to look through and I really enjoy seeing what other people are posting about. It got me back to blogging regularly too. I think that's what I hope for out of blaugust. I'm hoping to keep up the momentum, in both posting, reading, and reaching…

I thought I'd do a bit of show-and-tell about my various tarot decks, in order of when I got them. The Dark Wood Tarot was my first tarot deck. I got it almost exactly 5 years ago. I was drawn to tarot and interested to learn more about it as a divination practice/ritual, but the other big driving factor was I was finding more solo TTRPGs that used tarot cards and I wanted a deck to use for those. I was drawn to this deck for its artwork. I remember wandering around a store that had a lot of…

I finished my crochet project! I am very happy with how it turned out. I'm debating whether or not to add a border, but the single crochet foundation around the unfinished edges was giving me some trouble so I decided to leave it for now. I still have time. I finished this in 3 weeks! That's so much faster than I expected. Here's the pattern I used if you're curious. I've also still got a lot of extra yarn, so I made a little baby hat to match. This worked up really fast. Pattern here. I made…

Vancouver has a reputation for being a very rainy city. I would expect that if you only vaguely know of Vancouver, your main impression would be that it rains a lot. When I was preparing to move here, that was all I heard. Everyone warned me about all the rain. "Prepare yourself, you're going to be sick of all that rain!" I really wasn't bothered. Rain was a novelty for me and I was excited to move to Vancouver. Having a few more opportunities to look out the window and listen to The National…

Inspired by noisydeadlines, here are 5 albums that shaped me. Trying not to over think it. Absolution - Muse (2003) A Fever You Can't Sweat Out - Panic! At The Disco (2005) Infinity on High - Fall Out Boy (2007) High Violet - The National (2010) Kinetik - Phutureprimitive (2011) reply by email

What ever happened to self-service gas stations? I find myself wondering this most times I go to get gas. It felt like ever since covid, all the gas stations seem to be offering a full service option. I figured maybe this is a no-contact sort of thing, stay in your car, don't need to touch the pump. But society seems to have moved away from a lot of covid measures, and yet the gas thing stays. Why? It seems bizarre to me. Back in Alberta, full service gas stations have basically been completely…

I missed the midway point of the month where I'd originally intended to do a blaugust check-in post. Honestly, where has the month gone?? I can't believe we're in the home stretch, the final week. I really did have high hopes of posting every day. The truth about my strong start is that I had a lot of drafts started with post topics already in mind, which is how I was able to keep up momentum. I didn't keep up with that, life came at me sideways, and I've been trying to find my footing since…

It was Michael's birthday the other day (happy belated birthday!). Inspired by their birthday wish, today's blog post is about an obscure game that is very dear to me: Heretic II. Heretic II is a "wicked 3D action fantasy" that came out in 1998 developed by Raven Software. You might be thinking it's a sequel based on that "2" in the name, it's actually the fourth game in the Hexen/Heretic series, following the previous Serpent Riders trilogy games (Hexen, Hexen 2, and Heretic). I've only played…

For most of my life, I thought the sound effect of crickets playing was just that - a sound effect. Something that they put in movies and tv shows to cue awkward silence. Not something that really occurred in real life. Living in a more northern climate, crickets weren't something I'd ever encountered. One summer in my late 20s, I visited Utah. In the evening, the sound of the crickets would fill the air. And not just one cricket, like the sound effects. A whole chorus of sound that filled the…

my current project is making a baby blanket for my brother and sister-in-law. I'm going to be an aunt! how exciting. it's coming together nicely so far :) 10/100 reply by email

This is often how I feel about discord servers or other online communities. Are we having a conversation with each other or is everyone just stating their own thoughts without reading or considering what the person before them sent? I think I feel this most when one message is sent, no one responds, then someone comes in with a new topic and it sparks up a conversation. Am I supposed to say "Hi, I am sending this message because I want to engage you in what I'm thinking about, please respond to…

I planted my garden this spring from seeds. I've got a nice big garden space in raised boxes that gets lots of sun. I decided to try to grow some zucchini. I'm a bit of a hands-off gardener. I try to water regularly, but I also forget, or wait for the rain. I weed, sort of, but sometimes the weeds reach a certain point that it's a bit overwhelming and then I just.. don't (that's this year right now haha). So I planted a few zucchini plants, figuring that they wouldn't all take and that way I'd…

When life gives you lemons, don’t make lemonade. Make life take the lemons back! Get mad! I don’t want your damn lemons, what the hell am I supposed to do with these? Demand to see life’s manager! Make life rue the day it thought it could give Cave Johnson lemons! Do you know who I am? I’m the man who’s gonna burn your house down! With the lemons! I’m gonna get my engineers to invent a combustible lemon that burns your house down! Got some news Friday that's put me in a rough place and threw me…

I've spent today reading through a blaugust 2026 RSS feed that I imported courtesy of 82MHz. Thank you! It's been really nice to have all the blogs in one place in my RSS reader and has pushed me to make a point of reading even more of folk's blog posts. Very fun. I'm also trying to make a point to email people more this month. It makes my day when someone emails me about my blog posts (you mean people read these?) so I hope to make someone else's day in the same way. I've spent the rest of the…

i hate typing on my phone. it's so slow. it takes forever to get my thoughts out. and i'm still very prone to typos which only adds to the time it takes. (yes, i am typing this blog post on my phone) i don't have a keyboard with autocorrect anymore. ever since i swapped over to grapheneos, i started looking at keyboard alternatives. I used to really like typing with the swipe option. It was really fast! but i would also prefer to not give microsoft or google my data. i didn't like the stock…

I've used a few different recipe apps and websites in my lifetime. They were never quite right, but they did the job. I purchased my previous favourite app (I think for 5-8$ at the time? This was probably 7 or 8 years ago) for its pro features and ad-free use. But of course, as with so many things these days, it started to get worse. They eventually switched to a subscription model (thankfully my previous purchase was grandfathered in so I wasn't forced into a subscription). But it was the…

I find myself creating this false dichotomy when it comes to where to post - should I put this on my blog or on my website? For example, yesterday's coffee post. I could make that a blog post. But I also sort of want to make a page on my website all about coffee, because I love it so much and that sounds fun. Also, eventually that blog post will become buried and I like when I'm visiting other people's websites and they've got different pages showcasing things that they like. Well, why not…

I love coffee! I'm not sure if I'd call myself a coffee snob but I'm sure other people might haha. I recently stumbled on this coffee questionnaire via James Zhan and Syl's Blog and I can't resist a questionnaire! How many cups of coffee per day?Usually two cups per day (500ml/~16oz). This question got me into a tangent/rabbit hole about the measurement of coffee as technically I brew 1 pot of a 4-cup coffee maker... but those are pretty small mugs of coffee (it is NOT 1L of coffee). It is kind…

happy blaugust everyone! I am excited for this month. I have high hopes of coming back to blogging again. I'm also realistic in that I know that I might well just fall off the blogging wagon again, but I'm hoping that a challenge/event will make things a little bit different. It seems silly - I've been sitting here looking forward to Blaugust, excited for all the blog posts I'm going to write, writing down titles and ideas... but why wait until August for that? Why not just post? I suppose my…

today a ladybug landed on my phone screen oh! and my first instinct was to pull out my phone take a picture which I of course couldn't do because it was walking on said phone its tiny legs exploring the black glass my first thought was to save this moment and share it for later but instead I watched the little ladybug wander over the speakers, the charging port will this little bug come with me onto the train? go somewhere so far from where it came from? little bug, how long will you stay? and…

Breakfast time! And when Aunt Carlie is around, that means grilled cheese! Aaron, Bitsy, Rose (Carlisle's second child) and Carlie all enjoy a meal together. Later that night, Carlie goes into labour. It's giving Count Calvin quite the fright. I've also done some renovations on the house, and apparently I forgot to paint the upstairs hallway. Don't mind the drywall. Welcome to the world, little Dimitri! Count Calvin got a job in the entertainment career and it is cracking me up having him stalk…

It's at this point I've discovered default replacements. What have I been doing!! I didn't understand the terminology of default replacements when I was installing CC so it took me this long. Wow I am so excited. I've got new eyes and skintones now but eventually replace more and more things (hair, clothes). Now everyone is looking so good!! Carlie invites Count Calvin over for a date. They are enjoying some romantic time by the fireplace. Uhh... Calvin... I don't think this is the time of day…