Song of the day: SMTOWN - Snow Dream

So yesterday (today as I'm starting this, but I'm going to write one paragraph and then watch an episode of The Golden Girls before going to bed) was a really long, weird day. My father had left to go help work on some fence at the family farm, and was up long before I was awake, so for a good while I was really paranoid something terrible had happened (the connection is too emotional to explain here), and my mother went to a rummage sale in a neighbouring town, where I found a cute purple handbag and a pink beanie/cap combo.

Then we went to pick some stuff up at the auction place, which, it turned out, was two horse-shaped glass bookends/paperweights! And we stopped at the antique mall/flea market/whatever you want to call it next door, and my mother found some more model horses. I found some clothes that looked cute, although invariably each article didn't fit me or the fabric looked bad or something else, so I didn't get any. I also didn't get a sign for my Grandpapa's favourite tractor company, although my Grannie says he doesn't have that one, so we may go back and get it for him for Christmas. But although I didn't get those things, what I did get was... a black MacBook! They were the top of the line of Apple's consumer laptops back in the mid-00s, and you may have seen Bella using one in Twilight. Anyways, I got mine for only $5!!!!!!! HOW?!?!?!?!? Take a look at it below.

Okay, yeah, maybe now I can get why it was $5. But still, the black MacBooks seem to be pretty rare, so I think it's really cool that I have one! I think with this and my G3 iMac, one just might be able to say that I'm a veritable Mac collector. (8-year-old me would be even more excited!) But considering I'm considering switching to Windows, that is just a tad ironic. But hey, what can I say, Macs and their OS just used to be higher quality! But that was about to get me into a rant about the recent state of Mac OS, so I digress.

My mother and I went to Subway for lunch to use up some coupons we'd gotten in the mail, and one of the Subway counter guys was really cute. My food was delicious, and so was the blueberry açai pomegranate drink I decided to try!

And then my mother and I went home and did a little cleaning as part of The Great Clean-Up (but not enough to make this post TGCU Part IV) and, after texting a little with my dad, my fears of a catastrophe were quieted. And then it got cloudy and the wind started blowing up a storm (get it? har har) out of nowhere and it started raining like crazy! The power even went out for a while, of course right when I was trying to take that photo of the MacBook. (I wish I had a grumble emoticon.) But ah well.

And then I went driving with my mother to pick up pizza for dinner, and I think I really am too conservative with speed, because it's only when I step on it in intersections that I don't kill the engine in a manual, and I killed it a lot last night, including in the middle of my very first stoplight ever. (Okay, my second, but it was about five minutes after the same one was my first ever.) And my mother's car, which she knows well since she's had it since before I was born, was lurching and she didn't know why. So that was a harrowing, slightly humiliating (everyone around me probably thought I was a deranged pizza lady) experience, and a great way to end off the day!

But all jokes aside, I had some yogourt and watched The Golden Girls to treat myself after a weird freaking day. I'll talk to y'all later, hopefully having had a less harrowing time!

Published on Sunday, July 30, 2023, at 3:00 PM.

Song of the day: S.E.S. - Oh, My Love

So after sitting around on my behind for a week or two, recently I had the realization that there's less than a month left of summer, so I had better get to work on cleaning! I finally went through the other big bookshelf in my room, and found a medium stack to get rid of, and a stack to put in the basement. (I also came to the realization that since visitors probably won't go into the basement, it doesn't need to be all pretty and can still be filled with crap.) Speaking of the basement, the other day I noticed that there are a lot of boxes in the entrance to the house, and so I decided to empty them out and consolidate contents, and then break them down and put them down in the basement. And that's how I ended up with this pile of boxes (pictured to the right) at the bottom of the stairs, featuring some bags of bubble wrap that were also there for some reason. (And yes, I know this pile might not look big from the top of the stairs, but some had fallen past the landing, and it seemed a whole lot bigger when I was sitting, breaking them down.)

But that was some good progress, and actually went rather quickly! And then yesterday, I decided to try and make a dent in the piles of books lying around the house by boxing some up to put in the basement! Later today, I'll put the two boxes I made yesterday into the computer so we know which ones are where, and hopefully get a good few more boxed up. I also need to look at rugs for my room, since I'm almost done redecorating it!

But I've been making some pretty good progress, methinks. Also, in other news, I found out that one of my old favourite sites (that even introduced me to H.O.T., along with Verivery's dance cover of We Are The Future) didn't actually go down, it just changed its name! So I recommend y'all to go to Nostaljake---it's a really cool site! But that's it for today. I'll talk to all y'all later!

Published on Wednesday, July 26, 2023, at 10:33 AM.

Song of the day: Fifty Fifty - Cupid

First, I'll fill y'all in on Friday, when I went down to see my family for the day, like I ahve been doing, since my mum is helping clean my Grannie and Grandpapa's house, and I also sometimes help. Anyways, when we got there my Grannie was gone at some lunch with friends, for a birthday party, and so it was just my aunt and the kids. I played Nintendo with #4 for a bit, but then played Minecraft with #2 and #3, and #4 joined in. But then he got very cranky very suddenly when I wouldn't let him have mac and cheese when the spaghetti we were having for lunch was maybe ten minutes from being done.

Anyways, I tried to split my afternoon between my cousins, and learned that five-year-olds don't have good concepts of time when #4 got jealous of my playing hide and seek with his sister, claiming I had only played with him for "one minute". (I had played Minesweeper, Inkball and Chess with him on the computer for about forty-five minutes earlier in the afternoon, so I don't really know how that transforms into one minute. But I guess he's just five. And side note, but he was about as good at chess as me, though I did let him "win" somewhat---we were both in a stalemate.) Anyways, I played some hide and seek (and my cousins nearly trapped me in a cattle trailer) with #3 and went on a fourwheeler ride with #2, and went pretty fast through the fields. I was cautious, of course, but I feel a little nervous now looking back so I'll tone it down next time.

And my aunt French braided my hair! I thought it was pretty nice, though I don't like showing my forehead so I probably shan't really do it again. (Speaking of, I need to finally figure out what kind of bangs I might like!) And my Grannie got home, having enjoyed her lunch, and my uncle arrived with a minivan that he and his clan are renting right now to drive to Kentucky and Ohio on vacation. And my aunt, the kids and I went to a nearby town to get some ice cream, and #4 got ice cream whilst the rest of us got milkshakes. It was really good! Although there was some fighting amongst the children about who would get to sit next to me, and when we got onto the gravel road (where my aunt lets the kids unbuckle their seatbelts) #4 got up and started dancing around and wouldn't sit down at all, even after his aunt and I both told him to a lot, and he screeched when I tried to pull him to get him to sit down because we were going through a hilly area. But ah well.

Anyways, today I drove on paved roads for the first time! I drove for about an hour with my dad and I think I did pretty well! I drove through this neighbourhood and another, and even drove on a slightly main road! Although apparently I'm a bit timid when it comes to speed sometimes. But that's why I'm still learning! And so that's today: pretty cool. But since yesterday, Dongheon's now on hiatus from Verivery since he's going to enlist soon! Which is really sad, but I still believe that we'll see them again as 7 someday! But it's going to rain soon, so I'm going to go take a little walk. Toodles!

Published on July 23, 2023, at 6:02 PM.

Song of the day: Verivery - Raincoat

So when I sat down to blog about my day today, my original thought process was "major bummer". I've spent a good part of my afternoon pretty bummed out, because I just had one of those times when you suddenly feel like you or your life is or has been lacking in some major aspect. For me, today, originally it was that I haven't really been on a proper out-of-state vacation that I can remember ever (going to visit my aunt across the family doesn't count because I was a toddler), and haven't been on any overnight trip whatsoever not counting school trips for ages. But then I realized that same aunt still lives pretty far away (although most of the way on the other side of the country) and we could just go visit her.

But then a bummer train got started, because I also ended up getting bummed out about my lack of a "dream job" that's at all attainable (I doubt "k-pop idol with a good sleep schedule is attainable at all, let alone for a white trans girl who barely knows how to form a sentence in Korean; and not counting my ill-advised e-dating phase I've never even had a boyfriend, so housewife is out of reach for now too ), but then I realized (helped by the Net) that most people aren't crazy about their jobs anyways, despite what YouTube lifestyle vloggers say, so as long as I can tolerate it! Which I think is the point of a job anyways: doing something you tolerate so you can buy k-pop albums! Here concludes today's episode of Economics with Lizzie.

And I also got bummed about the fact that I've really fallen off my schedule a lot of the time, in that I still do things I put in my schedule but I put them off by a while. But that probably means that my schedule isn't working perfectly and I should tweak it! And I also got bummed that I don't have some super innate talent, but then remembered that even k-pop idols have to train for ages! And talents are learned, too. And so here ended my bummer train.

But today also had some cool parts! My mother and I went to an estate sale this morning and I saw a few cool things: two cute little matching canvases, one that said something about praying and another that was some other little saying; and a CD of 1995 Grammy nominees including Mariah Carey and a lot of other good-looking songs! Although that turned out to be the right case, but with a CD of Handel inside somehow, and I searched through half the CDs there and didn't find it, so I gave up, and then when we had to leave the two canvases were gone. Although I really don't know where I would've put them anyways, so maybe it's for the best. But then we went to my absolute favourite Mexican place for lunch! It. was. amazing! And then this afternoon I watched a recording of Verivery's Dream Shop Concert! It was really good! And that's about it for today. I'll blog about yesterday tomorrow maybe, because this post is already way too long. Toodles!

Published on July 22, 2023, at 10:00 PM.

Song of the day: April - Tinkerbell

I've mostly quit using Reddit besides as a resource for when I look something up, so I was pretty surprised to find a new on-line forum today and see that everyone was talking about r/place coming back! For those of y'all who don't know, r/place is a canvas on Reddit where each user can place one pixel every minute or so, and people worked together to create logos for all different sorts of communities! It first happened in 2017 for about a week, and happened again last summer, which I participated in. I remember working on an iPod logo and something else last time, and failing to add a Super Junior logo as well.

Anyways, when it finished last summer I got the implication that it wouldn't be back for another good while, so this was a once-in-a-blue-moon opportunity. But now it's back, and I really think that if it's going to be an annual thing that makes it a lot less special. And apparently it's a thinly-veiled attempt to get more users before their initial public offering as well, and I saw their reference in the announcement post to their users being "more passionate than ever" or something. Yeah, ya think? But I might participate here and there this year, but I don't see myself being nearly as involved as last year unless Verrers decide to make a logo. We'll see.

Also, I've kind of looked back recently and realized that the Yesterweb is totally gone, or at least almost so. It's a little weird looking back because I started working on my site in January 2021, and a few months later when I started trying to properly get into the community the Yesterweb was just becoming popular, and I jumped on it really quickly. For a second it felt like it was basically the Neocities community hub, but then somewhere along the line it fell off. I remember in the early days when I was in their Discord server it was a nice, cozy place to chit-chat, but it quickly got too big and it didn't feel like nearly as much of a community anymore. Really, it's warned me against joining massive Discord servers because they barely ever have that community feeling and it feels a bit too much like social media in that you're talking to yourself in a room full of strangers.*

And the heart of the Yesterweb community---really basically the whole Yesterweb community itself---was in the Discord server and the forum. But at some point not only did the Discord server get scarily large, but the Yesterweb organizers themselves took the focus away from hobbyism and tried to make it too political for my tastes when, at least in my opinion, the focus on hobbyism was what made it a good community in the first place. I'm also against corporate takeover of the Web, but I don't think being "anti-corporatist" or against the corporate Web means being anti-capitalism necessarily, but that's an equivalency that the Yesterweb and its organizers really wanted to make and I think that and the overgrowth ended up being their downfall, since now the only real remnant is the manifesto on their site. (Side note: I remember a Melonland forum discussion about whether the Web Revival requires anti-capitalism, but the library Internet thinks Melonland is "spam" so that'll have to wait. )

And speaking of the old Net, I recently tried switching to SeaMonkey as my main browser. For those of y'all who don't know, the SeaMonkey Suite is the community continuation of the old Mozilla Suite, which was the open-source community continuation of the Netscape Communicator Suite, so SeaMonkey is basically modern-day Netscape. Anyways, I absolutely loved the interface, especially with the "modern" theme, which was already a plus, and the multiple functions make it really nice! There was, however, one thing which prevented my switching to it permanently as my primary browser: the stability. It would freeze and stop responding every couple of minutes, and after a while I just got too tired to stand it anymore! I think if they completely tore out the guts and replaced them with a modern, new engine and all but kept the interface exactly the same, that would be the ideal browser, e-mail client, etc. for old Net fans such as myself, but the stability/speed/glitchiness/etc. is just too much. And I had to make a profile after trying to install an ad blocker because something or other made it worse after that.

So I think I'll be sticking with Vivaldi. It's based on Chromium, so although I'd like to support something more open, Vivaldi gets rid of the weird Googly bits and it has an interface that doesn't look like it was made for an iPad and them slapped onto computers. (Even Firefox hasn't had a good interface in a long time. I wish we could still use XUL and I could have my Classic Theme Restorer! But oh well.)

*To contrast, with this site I feel like I'm talking somewhat to myself, yes, but also to my friends on the Internet. I know I have some on-line friends who periodically pop on here are read my blog, and then tell me so, plus the occasional "like" on my Neocities profile whenever I update the blog, both of which make me feel like at least someone is actually going out of their way to come read the blog, and not just scrolling past it in their "feed".

Published on July 21, 2023, at 9:13 AM.

Song of the day: Girls' Generation - Sailing (0805)

It's been a pretty eventful few days! So I wasn't able to blog for a while, since for three nights in a row I didn't get home until well after 8:30, and since the afternoon (and a bit after supper) is my prime blogging time, I was a little too occupied. Friday was a pretty typical day (although there was a bit of a storm, followed by a lovely rainbow---see to the side!) down at my Grannie and Grandpapa's, though #4 did manage to get his hands on a mostly-full litre bottle of Pepsi. All that caffeine did not, in fact, turn his afternoon no-nap crankiness (he's going into kindergarten in the fall, so he's stopped taking naps) into bouncy bubbliness (get it? because soda?) but instead turned it into bouncing-off-the-walls orneriness. But I suppose that with toddlers, they'll always be ornery no matter what.

And I think if he got played with more, he'd be less ornery, but staying at my grandparents' all day isn't the best way to do that, since he's a bouncing-off-the-walls type of kiddo and my grandparents probably can't keep up all that well, and anyways the second he gets a hold of my Grannie's cell phone he swipes it and plays with it for as long as he can, and if you try to get him to do something besides play on the cell phone games he'll protest.

(Sidebar: I realize that as an early iPad kid to some extent myself after I got an iPad for my 7th birthday, I probably was like that sometimes too, but that doesn't change the fact that looking on from afar, it's sad. And I think I still was a decent amount better than him, probably because in my day we didn't have that inane rubbish they're calling kids' content nowadays on the Net, and I was allowed full access to the Internet, which for me mostly meant YouTube. It wasn't the best for me to have unrestricted access at that age, but at least I tended to watch stuff that expanded the brain and wasn't flashing colours and the "finger family". At his age, instead of that crap, I was watching Word Girl, Sesame Street, Mr. Rogers, etc. I was still pretty much an iPad junkie at age seven or eight, but I could only really use it at home and sometimes at my grandparents' houses to play a little of one of the maybe four games I had installed, since neither set of grandparents has ever had fast Internet. Also, I read a lot, and even after I got the iPad I still did a good deal of reading, though I did have a short, unfortunate period where I was anti-reading. But I feel like this aside is a lot of me trying to say I was bad but not that bad. So yeah, my kids won't be getting iPads or whatever the trend is in fifteen years. But I was still too addicted, though I'm getting better, and I digress heavily.)

Anyways, we made it home before 9 (!) and I rested up for my next day's adventures. Saturday, I went with my dad out to my Nan's to work on some pies for a big family dinner yesterday. After trying a McDonald's cinnamon roll, that they're getting rid of for some reason, and hearing about some family drama (no deets here for obvious reasons, but it was apparently bubbling under for a long time and somebody's a narcissist) we baked two pie crusts! And one of those was mine, although I had never made a pie crust before, and it turned out decent, but not pretty, although I suppose this isn't Bake Off so an ugly crust is just as good. And then we made a three-bean salad, and had lunch once the guys came in from working on the fence. And then we took a break, and there was an excitement because some fellow from the fire department came due to a fire on the neighbour's farm, but then we peeled some strawberries and peaches and started making Jell-O for a glaze instead of having top crust. And then I fixed supper: I warmed some ham from the fridge, fixed two boxes of Kraft Dinner, got some Pork 'n' Beans out and got the three-bean salad, and we got home at about 9:00.

At the family dinner the next day, some of the cousins I normally fit in the best with were gone, so it was a little bit awkward, but not bad. And the peach pie, despite the peaches not being the best to the point that we only made one pie, was decent, but the Jell-O in the strawberry glaze didn't set! So we had two strawberry cobblers or whatever. Photo of one to the side. (One with the normal crust and one with graham cracker crust---I love graham cracker crusts!) But they were good, and it was a good evening. And that's what I've been up to these past few days! It took me a while to write this blog post somehow, so I'm going to go chillax now. I'll talk to all y'all later!

Published on July 17, 2023, at 4:18 PM.

Song of the day: Taeyeon of Girls' Generation - Fine

Hello, friends on the Internet! I have heard... a lot about Twilight over the years, and I thought I'd finally see what it's like for myself, once and for all. I bought a DVD copy of the first movie recently at a garage sale, and I'm hoping that, by either being really good or really bad, it won't be a waste of a whopping two dollars. Anyways, I'll have a list below of all my thoughts that I have as the movie happens, written, in true rewatch podcast form, on a little sheet of paper and then transcribed. And this is an experiment, so bear with me, y'all! But now I suppose all that's left to do is slide the DVD into my computer and gulp down this feeling of dread, anticipation or maybe wanting to either laugh or cry; I have no clue what it is.

1. Opening quote - Katniss Everdeen?
2. Is the deer on crack?
3. Why would you miss the Arizona heat??
4. The house and really all of Forks look really nice!
5. Jacob looks handsome-ish, though not totally my type?
6. Eric has a really nice smile! (I also like the 2007 hair, unironically.)
7. I think I'd probably be really good friends with Jess!
8. I think I'd probably like Eric!
9. Is this a k-pop video?
10. Bella doesn't like the rain? She has no taste!
11. At this point, Edward is nice but not exceptional. And seriously, what's with the staring?
12. Dr. Cullen looks ghostly and palid---I don't know if I'd trust such a pale, ill-looking man as a doctor.
13. What crawled up Edward's exhaust pipe and made a nest?
14. Eric is really cute, especially with his dress shirt and tie!
15. The New Zealand flag is so inaccurate. Firstly, it's using the version of the Union Flag without St. Patrick's Saltire that hasn't been used since 1800, and the stars are also way too big. Also, is that the North Korean flag in the background? And the super old royal banner of Scotland. What kind of alternate universe is this?!?
16. If he was saying he was a bad guy, I'd steer clear!
17. I feel like I'd be totally off Edward by now.
18. Ooh, an old black MacBook! (For those who don't know, these were pretty premium at the time.)
19. Edward's redemption?? And mushroom ravioli?? (The only right way to eat ravioli is toasted ravioli.)
20. What's with the rest of the Cullens? The mother's the only normal-seeming one.
21. Also, hello?? What's up with these three other people?
22. Why is she saying he talks like he's from another time? I don't think I've heard Edward say anything even remotely old-timey.
23. Why did she have to be so rude to her dad?? That freaking broke my heart, y'all.
24. What? What? What? (This is an exact transcription of my note.)
25. I love Edward and Bella's prom outfits!
26. Not the biggest fan of Jacob's hair, but oh well.

So there you have it: my thoughts on Twilight. What do y'all think? E-mail me to discuss it, because I want to know what y'all think! Toodles!

Published on July 13, 2023, at 9:40 PM.

Song of the day: Girls' Generation - Into The New World

Today has, like the day before, been pretty boring and I spent most of it putzing around on the computer. But it had one ray of sunshine: rain! It's been forecast to rain for a good few days now, and was even upgraded to a THUNDERSTORM! So I was very excited, but all day it was pretty sunny, and mostly cloudy at most (and not rainclouds) so I kind of lost my hope.

But then I was sitting on the couch, reading this book To The Lighthouse for school (which, by the by, has interesting prose choices and all, but isn't really very interesting as a story, at least not yet---but I plan to do a proper review later on my Goodreads page and I digress) when I noticed that outside it was getting properly cloudy. And then the clouds got darker, and darker, and the wind started blowing somewhat, and I. Was. So excited! I even started remembering what is potentially my favourite rainstorm ever, two years ago during the summer when I was sitting in the living room with the lights off in the afternoon, watching The Facts of Life on the TV and working on my site on my laptop. (I might've even blogged then---I'll have to go searching now!)

And the wind got a tiny bit stronger, and I could see a few little leaves blowing around out there, and I heard some distant rolls of thunder, heralding an oncoming onslaught. And then I heard a couple of raindrops. It was finally raining!!! I literally was yelling out my thanks to God, I was so excited. And then it rained for literally maybe two seconds. And then the clouds got a little less raincloud-y. And it rained for about five minutes later in the evening. And apparently it's supposed to thunderstorm tonight---with the dry weather we've been having, I sure hope it does! And it's still kind of ironic that today, when it feels like walking into a room with a warm, steamy shower on when you walk out the door, it rained for approximately five minutes max. But I literally just heard a faint roll of thunder---let's hope it's rain!

Published on July 12, 2023, at 10:08 PM.

Song of the day: Verivery - Love Line

Howdy all y'all! Last night I realized that my AP exam scores are finally available, and I was in a YouTubey kind of mood, so I figured I'd tape myself opening my AP scores on camera (thanks to the help of a handy little add-on called AP Score Hider) so I could broadcast my reaction to the whole world. So y'all can see that video that I embedded here. Enjoy, I guess...? (And side note, apparently I have 300 YouTube subscribers now. I can't imagine why three hundred human beings would want to watch my video blog posts, but I reckon there's seven billion (eight billion?!?) people in the world, so somebody's probably bound to like them. But three hundred people's pretty nifty.)

Published on July 11, 2023, at 12:34 PM.

Song of the day: Verivery - Raincoat

Dear Kellog's,

Someone needs to change the shape of raisin bran flakes or something, because the other morning I poured what I thought was my blueberry Special K and was instead greeted with the lovely taste of raisin bran. I probably should've been clued off in the first place that my nearly full bag of Special K suddenly transformed into a nearly empty bag overnight, with about one bowl left, but alas, it was about 8:00 AM or so and I was totally oblivious. So much so, in fact, that even when I tasted raisins, it didn't for a second cross my mind that they might not be blueberries, and maybe they were just shrivelled and weird because they needed another minute or so to soak up the milk. *facepalm*

It took me about a quarter of the bowl, and ten minutes of eating it slowly because raisin bran is just plain sad, for me to realize that they probably wouldn't soak up any more milk. I almost thought it had somehow totally gone off in a span of maybe thirty-six hours since buying it, but then I had some sort of Jessica Fletcher epiphany in my head, and, going back to the pantry, dug around and came across my blueberry Special K! And so I ate as much of the raisin bran as I could, and then poured in some Special K so I didn't feel quite so cheated. (Is this my version of the oatmeal raisin vs. chocolate chip debate?) And of course, I also had to tell my mum that i had accidentally eaten her raisin bran, and we both had a good laugh about it. But Kellog's, I beseech you: do something to fix this!!

Love,
Lizzie

Published on July 9, 2023, at 11:15 AM.

Song of the day: Younha - Password 486

If you recall, in The Great Clean-Up, Part I, I mentioned that books are going to be a big area for cleaning up for me, and they're also an important area for the whole family. If you know me and my family, you know that we all love reading, especially my mother. Seriously, because of her, the house is chock full with books, which is normally a good thing, but the books are piling a little high these days and they're the main source of clutter in our house, it seems. And so we're trying to go through and see which ones we don't want to keep, etc., and give some away, and so far this is the core of The Great Clean-Up.

This brings me to some news, both good and bad. The good news is that last week, my mother gave away three bags of books and only came home with one book! Not one bag of books, but one book. I was really rather proud of her for that. But then the bad news came this morning, which, by the way, was a nice, cloudy morning! There was an estate sale nearby, in a really beautiful little neighbourhood, solely dedicated to books, DVDs, CDs, etc. There were some pretty cool finds, including a Bible from 1898!! (That's the freaking Victorian Era!!!!! And the Bible's inscription is pictured to the right.) But then, in the end, we came home with about three bags of books. Three steps forward, three steps back.

And so we're pretty much back where we started, although my mum says a lot of the books we bought today are going to be "temporary" books that she'll resell eventually, which I suppose I can live with. And i think we can get rid of some books pretty easily, because of the coffee table books that I mentioned in the first post about this clean-up, as well as the fact that one of the small bookcases is basically half books from the Scholastic Book Fair that I'm not going to read. I could also stand to get rid of most of my Sarah Dessens. I also probably just need to come to terms with the fact that I probably won't ever read half the biographies I own, and I probably need to limit myself to one or two biographies for the most part. It'd also be helpful space-wise to start using my Kindle more often compared to always buying physical books. I barely use the thing now, so I ought to start reading books first on my Kindle and buying the ones I like physically if I want to.

Also, in the past week, I've been working on cleaning out my downstairs desk! The workspace and upper shelves are still rather messy (or "a bit informal" if you're Mary Berry), but the cabinet, drawer and bottom-right cubby have officially all been cleaned out and organized! The left cabinet, pictured here, is now just the same but cleaner, serving as my space to put product boxes, old technology and office supplies; the cubby has a photo album, a keepsake book, and a couple more similar things; and the drawer has the overflow of my CD collection (I also finally fit the main collection onto one CD rack) and some random office supplies. (I should probably keep the office supplies all in one place, but that's a future me organizational problem.)

Also, in my room, I have a couple shelves on my bookcases full of just tchotchkes, many of which I'm either going to box up and put in storage or get rid of. (To make room for more storage, I'm going to try and get rid of old stuff that's currently in storage that I don't care about anymore.) And I still need to go through my closet.

Also, a side note about the iPad (click here for a hyperlink to the video blog where I first mentioned it) is that we still haven't e-mailed the owner, but will soon. And anyways, that's it for The Great Clean-Up, Part II. Now I need to go sort through some stuff!

Published on July 8, 2023, at 3:31 PM.

Song of the day: EXO - 365

So today as I'm starting to write this, I finally finished watching through the Office, and of course, shed an absolute tonne of tears. But I just want to give my thoughts. Expect this to be rambly. BEWARE OF SPOILERS AHEAD!!!!!!!!!!

...

...

Okay, I think we've lost the people who don't want spoilers. Anyways, here are my thoughts!

1. I am SO glad Jim and Pam were able to work everything out and have a happy ending. According to somewhere on the Net (I think TV Tropes) they almost had them split up, but John Krasinski was against it, and so I'm really glad he was! I like that it shows that fights don't always end in breaking up, and shows a strong marriage. Also, if Jim and Pam had broken up, would romance even exist anymore?
2. I really like Angela and Oscar's friendship! Their phone call to the (State) Senator was really funny to me, and I'm glad that they finally put aside their differences because I think they make really good friends. And Oscar being Philip's godfather was the cherry on top!
3. Dwight and Angela finally got back together!!! Really, in general, it's so amazing to see Angela finally happy. I feel like they really developed her into a real character into the last season and I was always sympathetic to her, so I was really glad to see this.
4. Erin's one of my favourite characters, and I feel like she and I would be good friends if I worked at Dunder Mifflin (yes, considering who I'd be friends with on a TV show is what I do with my free time, alright?) and so I was also really glad to see her find her bio parents!
5. Darryl doing an individual dance with each of the coworkers was a really nice touch.
6. I'm so glad everyone got their happy endings!
7. MICHAEL!!!!!!!!!!!!! I knew it was coming, because I came across spoilers on-line, and yet I still cried like a baby when he appeared! Really, for probably at least half of the last few episodes I was crying or close to it. But I'm really glad he and Holly are happy and that he's finally a father! I think we've seen in his interactions with Erin a tender, caring side that we'd never seen before, and especially the element of paternity in his actions with Erin hinted all the time that he really would be a great father. I do wish Michael had stayed on the show in general longer, though, so his and Erin's friendship could be explored more, because I think they have a really adorable friendship and I wish that had been explored more.
8. This is such an amazing finale. For such a great show, I think this is exactly the kind of finale we needed. Although I still wonder, why was the camera crew still filming when the documentary was premiering? I get the year-later thing for the DVD, but if the documentary is starting to air, shouldn't the final episodes already be in editing?

But in conclusion, I thought that this was a really nice finale for a really great show, and wrapped everything up nicely, although I was a little sad at the whole "new beginnings for everyone" thing. It was a bittersweet sadness, though, so I think it all went off very well, and I liked that they didn't put Steve Carrell in the opening credits (and apparently, the writers vehemently denied his involvement in the lead-up to this episode) so (unless, like me, you got spoiled by the good ol' Internet) Michael's appearance would be a total surprise! Which I think is beautiful.

P.S. After I wrote this in the car and got home, I saw John Krasinski on some TV programme my dad was watching as a CIA assassin or something and it just seemed... wrong. He is Jim to me.

Published on July 7, 2023, at 9:01 PM.

Song of the day: Axelle Red - Sensualité

(Long post alert! Be warned,)

Cleaning's in the air! To my memory, we didn't really do any spring cleaning this year, but I suppose we're just a little behind the times (no duh; I use an iPod) because we've recently gotten the cleaning bug! Every Friday for a while now, my mother's been going to my Grannie's house to help around the house, which often includes cleaning. The women in my family going back a couple of generations, for whatever reason have had a bit of a... stuff problem, and I'm no different myself. (And of course, I'm not mocking or anything.)

Anyways, so far, "we" (mostly my mother, with help from a few family members and occasionally myself) have worked on the kitchen, the living room and my hippie aunt's childhood bedroom. And they've made some good progress! They found an insane amount of Philosophy bath products (very pretty, might I add) and some other stuff that my Grannie bought to give as gifts, and we found out that their old computer in my aunt's room still turns on! It has a CRT monitor and Windows Vista! If they end up getting rid of it, which my mum is lobbying for since it hasn't seen use in years (we don't know if my Grannie even remembers the password---we'll have to get her to test it out, I suppose.) I may just try and nab that CRT! CRT monitors have so much more character than flatscreens. But I digress.

Anyways, the cleaning bug has infected my mother already---these past few days she's already had me help her a couple times with going through a bunch of children's books in the basement to get rid of some, and we've managed a decent amount, though it's more of a thinning out than a grand chucking---and now I've started as well! I'd say this is probably the third summer in recent years when I've wanted to have some grand sweeping re-do of some sort of my room. Firstly, a few years ago, we went in and got rid of almost all of my old Disney wall decals and all that (though I kept a couple small Toy Story aliens because they're so cute!), and put up a card table and folding chair as a makeshift "desk", and then last summer I feel like I did some sort of cleaning of my room, but I'm not sure.

Anyways, I started with posters! had about five or so Verivery posters that I'd gotten over the years with albums and season's greetings, and they had been sitting around and accumulating for over a year and a half, and I've finally started putting them up! Like I mentioned with the paperclip method and the other methods I mentioned left month. (I set on a sticky-note method---putting sticky notes on the back and putting tape on the stick notes, to try and avoid damaging the poster. Though be warned, it works best with a lot of sticky notes, especially if it's a big poster! Otherwise it'll probably fall off. Also, if you use normal tape and make little rolls instead of using double-sided sticky tape, make the rolls as flat as possible---that'll keep it on better. But I digress.) So far, I've put up all but two! I also put up an image of the Sacred Heart that my late Grandad gave me for Christmas this past year. So so far, the walls are looking pretty good! Although I might put a few more things up.

The other big thing is the trinkets. What desk is complete without a few trinkets? But of course, I'm basically Michael Scott when it comes to desk trinkets. So I've tried to curate a selection of trinkets for my upstairs desk so that it feel "lived-in" or "maximalist", but not cluttered. In my book, maximalism is when you have a lot of stuff, but it's all pretty organized and doesn't feel claustrophobic just looking at it; when a space starts to break one or both of those rules, it's cluttered. My main desk downstairs, with my main desktop (my "new" iMac, as in the one that's a more recent model---the 2017 one---and not the G3, which is the one that I got most recently) tends to trend towards "cluttered", but I'm going to try and clean it up as well, and if I can help it, the upstairs "desk" won't suffer the same fate!

I think I've done well enough with the upstairs desk (side note: an advantage of CRTs is that you can put trinkets on top of them, as showed below!), and the downstairs desk I'll leave until after I've finished with my room, but I think the real challenge is with my shelves. Some of the shelves on my bookshelves in my room are just trinkets. So trying to thin them out will be pretty hard. I probably won't get rid of most of the trinkets I take off the shelves, though; I'll just put them in a box and forget about them. Which I need to stop doing, because that's how clutter piles up! I need to have the courage to actually get rid of stuff (or, as my mother and I say euphemistically due to our declutterophobia, "share it with someone else") and not just let it sit around and pile up. But I think I'll make a small exception for a few trinkets.

Books, though, are an area where I need to crack down, because some of my upstairs shelves are a bit cluttered. A lot of the books up there are stuff I haven't read in years, anyways, so getting rid of them or at least putting them in the basement to maybe give to my kids one day is a more stomachable option. I also need to get rid of some of the "coffee table books" and such that my mother's given me, because she has a bad habit of buying me anything related to the UK that she sees due to my Anglophilia, which has resulted in me having a pileup of coffee table books, most of which I'll never read, and a good deal of biographies, too, which I may also never read, unless I (hopefully) go on some historical biography binge. Come to think of it, my downstairs bookshelf could do with a little editing down as well, but that's a problem for later. (That's also some cleaning that I've done in recent months.)

And besides that, I need to look through my closet and get rid of a) clothes I don't need or want and b) old toys that I put in there for some reason that I'm okay with getting rid of, which may be another hard part. I've recently noticed that I have a bad habit of seeing a book or something that I haven't touched since my childhood and don't even remember and forming a sudden attachment to it and refusing to get rid of it, but I'll keep working on that.

Anyways, here concludes my blog post (probably the first in a series on this topic) about The Great Clean-Up of 2023! Here's to hoping we can all make our spaces look presentable once more!

Published on July 2, 2023, at 8:58 PM.

Finally, Rain!; Or, Children Are Easily Entertained

<-- Newer posts -- Older posts -->