nothing to see here

I am ready for everything to be over now.

Like, I’m excited about Christmas and everything (I mean I guess I am?), but I am ready for everything to go back to normal. And it’s 4.5 days til the actual day.

I don’t know. I’m tired all the time, but that’s either the B12 deficiency or residuals from staying up late Wednesday night to see my brother and SIL when they dropped off their cat. (In short: they don’t have any close friends in CO to watch their cat, nor do they have the extra cash to board him for a week and a half, so they brought him, along with their dog. SIL’s dad is allergic to cats, so kitty stays with us while they visit her family.) It was nice to see them, however briefly, and I can’t wait to properly hang out when they get here on Monday.

But I’m ready for the Holidays to be over. Already. I feel like there’s too much going on and I can’t settle into a routine at all and it’s just frustrating as hell. I don’t know. I know Christmas will be here before I know it, but it feels so far away and so close at the same time. I need to figure out what I’m doing for Christmas dessert. I need the rest of my presents to family to get here so I can wrap them. (Most of them are coming today, but the last thing for my sister might not be here til Monday. Maybe.)

In other news:

I came up with a plan for accomplishing things in the new year that I am already trying to implement. Just a list of things to do every day, or on certain days, or whatever. It’s going... okay, at the moment? I guess? I’m not doing everything every day, but I am doing more than I was doing, so I guess that’s good.

My cat is still sick. (I don’t know if I posted about it here, but she peed on my bed right after Thanksgiving and then she did it again the other night, so.) I took her to the vet again and she probably has either a UTI or kidney problems, and since we can’t afford the blood tests for kidney issues right now, we’re treating the UTI with antibiotics. And hoping this solves the problem. I’m not sure how much it’s helping right now? But she’s only been 2 days on the antibiotics, so who knows. She’s still not eating her wet food in the morning (much to my chagrin), she’s still drinking way too much... I don’t know. I know she’s old—she turned 16 this year—but part of me isn’t ready to say goodbye yet. She’s been living in my room for like... four years now? Four and a half? And it was deeply deeply weird when she had to spend the night at the vet back in February for bowel issues. Just... not having her around. I don’t know. This year has been hard enough. I don’t need Yet Another Thing happening, I really don’t.

I finished page 2 of the Rivendell cross-stitch for my brother. I’m probably just going to do a little bit every day up til Christmas and maybe start working on it again in earnest in the new year. I should probably print out a picture of the full pattern so he knows what it’s supposed to look like when he opens it on Christmas.

.... at any rate. Hope you all are doing well, as always. If I don’t post again for a while, hope you all have a happy holiday, whatever you may celebrate.

Kitten update: he's still adorable. We gave him a bath yesterday, and he put up with it fairly well. He did try to get away a couple times, but other than that, there wasn't any crying or clawing, so that's a win in my book. He is exceptionally playful now, and he loves to get in the way when I'm trying to do something in here. But that's how it is with youngsters, so I don't begrudge him.

Other updates:

- I am slowly but surely making my way through the Good Omens TV show. I've watched the first two episodes, and half of the third (up to the opening credits). I would have watched the rest of ep3, but my internet decided to crap out and I couldn't get it to work again. That said, I am deeply enjoying the series. It reminds me a lot of Pushing Daisies, which I absolutely adore, so that's about a million points in its favor. And it's just... delightful. Can't wait to get to the end of it. And maybe reread the book at some point, too.

- After a week and a half of fits and starts, I'm writing again. On a random story idea I've had for a while, but that I wasn't planning to touch at all at any point this year. At this juncture I"m just writing whatever strikes my fancy, and so it's pretty plotless, but I don't care, so long as I'm getting words down. It's a werewolf story with a female lead, though I'm trying to avoid a lot of the female werewolf tropes I've seen before in fiction (mainly that female werewolves are... b*tches because being a werewolf means (for whatever dumb reason) that you can't have kids, and then also mean because they don't enter into the leadership of the pack and just dumb patriarchal stuff like that). So I'm playing with a lot of ideas and stuff, and just writing whatever works for me at the time.

But hey: it's words. That's all that matters.

- I need to start reading again. I finished the library book I'd been reading, The Radium Girls, which was an excellent if harrowing read. So I'd like to get back into Priory of the Orange Tree, but I just... haven't been reading? So maybe I need to whet my palate with something I've read before. I might pull a Pratchett or a McKinley off my shelf and read that, just to get back in the groove of it.

- Also need to get back into doing cross-stitch (which was on hold because I'd been doing at my desk in the spare bedroom, which is now a Bad Idea because Kitten) or crochet or knitting. Just. Making something with my hands. I've been playing too many video games, it seems like. Need to make something for a change.

- In the non-interior realm, Nintendo announced the Switch Lite yesterday. It's basically a handheld-only Switch, which after some reflection I don't have a problem with? I don't play a lot on my WiiU anymore; I'm mostly sticking with my 3DS. I don't want to get a full-on Switch and then let it gather dust because it's too many steps to turn it on (thanks, executive dysfunction). So I think this handheld unit will serve me just fine. (I will say, though, reading the comments on an article about it was both amusing and frustrating. As someone pointed out, if you're asking "who is this for", it's obviously not meant for you, so shut up.) That said, I wish we knew at this point whether or not Animal Crossing: New Horizons is going to have handheld mode. I'm guessing yes, given that it's probably going to be their flagship release for next spring, but... it'd be nice to know before I got one and found out I need to buy something else in order to play ACNH.

- Garden update: My squash plants (the zucchini and the pumpkin) fell victim to squash bugs YET AGAIN this year. We got several good sized zukes off the zucchini plant, though, and a couple of smallish pumpkins, so it's not a total pointless loss, but STILL. STILL. I was so upset when I found squash bug eggs on the pumpkin last week. And then on the zucchini. I'm not surprised about the pumpkin, given how its vines were going everywhere, but I'd really been hoping that, with the stilts for the planters my dad made, the zucchini could avoid that plague this year. But I guess not. At least the tomatoes are still doing okay. I've got enough off them to make tomato sauce this weekend.

...Can't think of much else going on. Hope you're all doing well, of course. Best wishes and all that.