Showing posts with label christmas. Show all posts
Showing posts with label christmas. Show all posts
It's now mid December and this post is late. December is always a crazy month for content creators, I've always had trouble juggling blogmas, vlogmas, reading, reviewing and trying new eats. Add in being a parent to very active kiddos and running several businesses... yeah it can be a lot lol. But I love what I do, which is why I've been doing it for over 20 years now, happily.
November wasn't as cozy as it could had been, but it was full of things that caught me by surprise and brought joys through out the month.
I finally got to upgrade my gaming pc with a cute white one that fits on my desk -- the baby just loves to turn off my pc because the power button lights up while I'm gaming, streaming or working so I figured I needed to get something she can't freely reach. Plus it fits the theme I'm aiming for. It currently has a bunch of matching holiday decor on top that makes it feel just that much more cozy. I love this thing, it can run Infinity Nikki and has so much more storage than my previous gaming pc.
I also treated myself to a Switch 2 even though I said I wouldn't until the update for Animal Crossing comes out in January but the chance came up to grab one so I did, I deserve it! Working on your shit pays off, and the ability to get myself these two upgrades makes me feel so much more accomplished lol.
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It's been a productive month of blind boxes.
I found some Sanrio ones I was searching for in Plano and had to get them all. Or rather, two or three of each. The Tamagotchi Sanrio one on the top right I had to buy another 3 of because my kiddos stole my other haul of them. These are so cute they light up and they make really cute bag charms. I definitely need to get more! The Pochacco on the bottom right had to be straight up hidden because they would fight over him. So he's hiding on my bookshelf in my room right now lol. I haven't opened the others yet, I'm debating if I want to do unboxing blind box reels.
I blame working at Disney World and at D-Street when blind box Vinylmations was a huge thing. Ah, I miss those days and I miss working there. It was so much fun!
I do love my girls share the excitement and love of blind boxes and aren't sore losers about getting doubles. I just wish they wouldn't lose them lol!
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November was full of Wicked stuff naturally.
Ironically my 6yo was the one who was trying to convince me to go watch it. Act II isn't my favorite. I only like the first part with No Good Deed but everything else having to do with The Wizard I could care less for. Oh, and I want to see the slap happen.
It did hit a point where I was like how much Wicked stuff is TOO MUCH Wicked stuff? The 6yo picked up Wicked bath bombs and all the Glinda bubble bar from LUSH since it doubles as a bubble wand which is pretty cool. I picked up the skincare stuff which smells amazing. I hate how most of these collections at LUSH are super limited edition. I still have the Elphaba glitter broom bath bomb from the collection last year sitting on my shelf and I refuse to use it.
Compartes would do a Wicked collab. They even have an advent calendar on their website. I found these chocolate bars at World Market. There were several others but these were the flavors I was most drawn to. I'll probably put up reviews or a taste test reel up on my foodie blog.
I haven't had an urge to get on social media all year and tbh, my nervous system has been just a bit more settled since. As someone who's been on social media and doing social media since 1999 and been on Instagram since it was iOS only in 2011, I am burnt out ya'll lol. I love sharing photos and things but on Instagram isn't it anymore for me. Plus with the rise of them just randomly deleting accounts? Yeah, nah. I'm not putting all that time and energy into something I can't control anymore. I've debated on going old school and getting back on Flickr lol. There's Behance but it's only for those with an Adobe Creative Cloud membership -- which isn't such a bad idea at this point. I have always hated the idea of TikTok, I don't know why. Maybe because I'm a Vine-er forever and TikTok is just a bootleg version of Vine lol.
I did find that studies show that being on TikTok does throw your nervous system, if I find the article again I'll come back and link it here.
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Like I mentioned, my gaming pc can now run Infinity Nikki.
I have so many thoughts about this game. I mean, it's a gatcha game so I mean, what could go wrong? My bank account says a lot lol. The fact you have to gatcha 2-3 of each outfit in order to upgrade it is nuts but so so addicting. And tbh I've been overly obsessed with gatcha games since the days of Neopets and GoGaia. Which weren't even games exactly, they were just websites that took your money lmao!
This game is beautiful and the game play itself is wonderfully done. There's SO much to do for a game that is focused on fashion quests and style off's. It's perfect for people like me who love to gather, craft and hunt for resources. The downside is that you cap your insights daily and they're time gated. So something takes weeks to get sometimes. Patience isn't my thing lmao.
I enjoyed the whole story line with Giovanni and completing the Itzland quests. That whole section was really heartwarming.
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I still have my eyes on this Oregon Trail ornament because how freakin cute?! If you were a 90's kid and played this on those pc's that only operated in black and green, you know how this tugs at your memories lol! I played it for awhile on my Switch and as an adult, it's much more stressful lmao. But hey, no one's died yet.
Speaking of Switch, I'm so against buying Switch 2 games. I mean $70 a game? In this economy? Ya'll are trippin. I'm thankful that most Switch games come with a free Switch 2 upgrade. I was recently gifted Paper Mario and I'm so excited to play this one! I've wanted it since it was released.
My 6yo has the same habit as her dad when gaming: she looks at me in game when she's talking to me. I don't remember what we were talking about other than her demanding I get in the car in Roblox. Our Roblox game play is so random and chaotic lol. However she always comes up with the cutest looks and outfits.
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November was of course spent decorating for Christmas! This year I went full on glitter. Nutcrackers are a thing I collect and this gold glitter one from Target has been one of my favorite new decor item's I've picked up this year.
Picked up a few of my favorite holiday snacks: I do miss when the Linzer Raspberry cookies had powered sugar on top of them, wonder why they stopped doing that. The Holiday Cookie Collection has been one of my favs since I was a kid but it was the asian market version. Same thing lol! The cookie sprinkled with coconut shavings is my favvvvv... so good.
I introduced the girls to the Terry's chocolate orange and I regret it lmao. In the month of Nov I bought maybe 4 of these because they kept jacking mine and eating it all. Ugh lol. My dad introduced these to me as a kid. I thought the concept of smacking it was so funny and now my kids do the same.
Overall, November gave me a lot to be thankful for -- even if I didn't get to take my annual Disney World trip this year. I was surrounded by other little joys and things that helped calmed my nervous system as well as things I really needed to upgrade for the sake of my businesses so I can't really complain.
I'm lucky to be able to have and do the things I do, annually my kids take Disney World trips twice a year and that's way more than I got to take at their age, so I'm truly thankful to be able to gift my kids with those memories and experiences as they grow.
Now to work our way through December and all the challenges that come with the holidays, time management and everything else.
I hope you all are staying warm and cozy this season!
This year I decided to step outside of my “comfort zone” and get your typical green tree. As much as I wanted a white tree I couldn't find one that was at least 6" and affordable at the time we were looking for one. We got rid of our last one when we moved (no elevator here at the new place so a lot had to go).
This year's color theme was navy blue and bronze/burlap. I was heavy debating on navy blue and ice blue but most of the ice blue ornaments I found weren't icy enough. The only problem with this is that at night the navy blue ornaments kind of blend into the tree. But during the day it doesn't. Still, the tree itself came out really pretty. I really like how my husband uses ribbon, I suck at placing garland so the fact he uses ribbon gives it something extra without looking like a hot mess. Maybe next year I'll go around fairy-fy the tree lights.
I won't say that the tree is complete since it's missing some of my traditional ornaments; but also that I have no idea where they are. I know I have some in some of my vanity bins but I'll have to find them through the week so I can put them up before Christmas!
We usually pick a few special ornaments that match the theme of our tree, those we always keep. Here's a few from this year's theme.
Every Christmas Bubba always says, "this is gonna be, the BEST Christmas EVER!" and every year he tops the previous year lol.
He also has a habit of letting me open gifts early.
One of the first early gifts I got to open was my Too Faced Gingerbread palette and my Fenty lip/cheek combos. Only cause Bubba wanted his tablet early lol.
He has a sort of tradition of getting me Too Faced palettes every Christmas and this was one I was super excited about! It doesn't smell like Gingerbread in my opinion, but it sure is pretty!
OMG, that place is like... a Winter Wonderland heaven!
We originally had planned a Disney tree but then, as always, I fell in love with this set of pastel balls so we changed the theme. Bubba had me run around and pick out other little details besides just different balls styles.
Christmas time definitely has me a lot to be excited about --- there's just something so magical in the air during this time. All the lights, Peppermint and Gingerbread flavored everything, all the colors, all the cute holiday gift sets to view in the stores, all the decorations put up everywhere!
I was hoping to be a little bit more prepared for Vlog and Blogmas this year and yet I wasn't, I'm SLIGHTLY disappointed in myself but not by too much. I just don't really like scrambling to figure out content for THAT EXACT DAY. I use to be so much better/more organized when it came to blogging. Whatever did happen to those days?!
I've been adjusting to the cold weather here in Texas; I've grown so use to 90* year round weather from living in Florida for the last years that adjusting to a cold winter again after that long is a pretty hard transition! It was snowing in Austin a few nights ago but so far no snow here in DFW! Sucks! I'm waiting on it! It snowed last year, the weekend AFTER I went home. Other than that the fact I've had a cold since October that seems to never be going away and just increasing and decreasing has been rather annoying. So I've been coughing my nights away and feeling drained during the day.
Still, I won't let it stop me from enjoying as much of a real winter and a real Christmas as much as I can!
I still have yet to decide to bake anything this holiday season and while I've filled up my Pinterest boards with loads of idea's I haven't still decided on one particular one to try out just yet. I mean I've decided on one, so hopefully next week I'll get to attempt it!
I've also got to do something about my kitchen set up because I still have the Halloween runner on the table and that's just gotta go! It's just getting all the bits and bobs off that table (that shouldn't even be there to begin with) that's part of the problem. Ugh.
I've decided go cut down on the things I have going into 2018 because it's just all starting to drive me nuts, then again I say this pretty much twice a year. So we'll see how that goes. But I'm really hoping to tidy up my place a lot more before Christmas and New Year's gets here! Having a dizzy cat who tacks cat litter everywhere certainly doesn't help but I need to see what I can find to help her keep that litter off her tiny little paws.
There's not very many adventures planned this month sadly like there was last year but it's okay, adjusting to this weather and to other things are a little bit more important to me at the moment and I'll make up for it next winter when I hope to be more prepared for 40* - 30* days! Thankfully my mom sent me some cute winter clothes she had found and Bubba got me some fleece pj's I had wanted from Target yesterday when he went to grab me some stuff. And he also got me this really cute Grumpy Care Bears fleece poncho with a hood! I'm pretty obsessed with it already! I just threw it in the wash so I don't have pictures.
Speaking of, I need to make it into a habit of taking more photos with my actual cameras and less with my phone (which I've also been saying for years...) just because the iPhone photo quality is starting to bother me a bit. Sometimes it's really nice and clear and other times it's blurry af. I don't know why that is but sometimes it just is. So yeah, I need to make it a point to start using my actual camera.
I'm 18 books behind on my goal of reading 36 books this month, whomp. I highly doubt I'll be able to catch that up by much but I could try. I borrowed some shorter Middle Grade books from the library from a series I wasn't aware was still being made and Bubba let me open one of the Middle Grade books he got me for Christmas called The Magic Misfits by Neil Patrick Harris so those are definitely going to go on my TBR pile for this month.
What are some of your plans this month?
Holy crap where did the YEAR GO?!
I can't believe it's already DECEMBER!
I also can't believe how long I've actually been away from blogging; I have no real excuse either. Same goes for why I haven't been gaming. I don't know to be completely honest. I feel like days just zip by.
I had plans to do vlogmas (as I do every year) and blogmas this year both of just... didn't really happen. I mean jumping in on the 6th day is better than just NOT jumping in... right?!
I had hoped to be more prepared for Christmasy and Winter videos and blog posts and I've come to realize... my productivity and my drive to be the awesome blogger I know I CAN be just isn't there anymore! I don't know how or why... I do know I had hoped to revamp my social media once I moved and I was so stressed out with how the thing with the movers (I still need to write about) and everything had turned out that I just felt so defeated.
I think that's the problem with anxiety and seasonal depression --- is fighting through that epic defeated feeling in order to get the things done that you want done. And some days can just feel so endless and dark. AND THAT'S OKAY. I'm not gonna beat myself up for it anymore. I didn't FAIL at anything this month, everything is still fine. There's still time.
Even if I am battling a cold and all I wanna do is sleep --- this weekend in particular is going to be devoted to catching up on blogging, taking product shots, vlogging as much of my boring life as I can to put up a video on Sunday and sleeping. Cause I mean, I need sleep.
I don't have very many goals for myself this month and I DON'T WANT goals for myself this month really but I do have a few things I want to make sure is done before this year is over ---
- Figure out a direction for my blog and social media
- Come up with my [ onelittleword ] for 2018
- Come up with a SHORT list of SPECIFIC additional resolutions for 2018
- Research remote control jobs
- GO TO THE DAMN DOCTOR
- Upgrade my glasses (or early next year)
- Get back into meditation
- Get back into night time routine yoga
- Get back into Duolingo
- Get back into making healthier eating choices
- (Basically get back into the mentally healthy plan on things I fell off on)
- TIDY THE APARTMENT
- PUT THE SHIT AWAY
- Go into 2018 a little more ORGANIZED and TIDY
- Read as many books as you can
- Take holiday photos
- Figure out what to bake for Christmas Eve
That kinda seems like a lot but some of them can be clumped together/are things I do together. My anxiety and OCD have been nagging the hell outta me for weeks and it's getting hard to cope with. Things are a little stressful right now but nothing too bad if I'm being honest with myself so I'm confused as to why my anxiety and OCD have been acting up. I've been skipping bubble baths as well in hopes to get to bed earlier/giving myself time to read but I've just been so unmotivated which stinks cause it's December! I feel like I should be inspired like crazy!
Sigh, I guess you can't have everything.
One step and one day at a time.
What are some of your goals this month or goals before the year ends?
MERRY CHRISTMAS EVE!
I was waiting for Bubz to get home from work but he ended up caught up in family stuff so... no dailies and no movie tonight /shrug. Haha long distance probs! It's all good though, I'll stay up to open gifts still. Just, three more hours!
I'll probably craft some on FFXIV and run my crafting dailies. I need to make that gil yo.
I ordered Chinese take out too.
I realized I don't really have any Christmas Eve/Day food traditions or any Christmas Eve/Day traditions at all really. Like I said before, I never was really into the idea of actual Christmas. So this is kinda, new. Surprisingly. I do tend to eat Chinese though, but I also crave it on Christmas. It's just a little harder when you don't have family or anything with you. Even if it has been 3 years in a row, it doesn't really get any easier.
It's totally fine though.
Peace and quiet is nice too.
I haven't watched any of my Christmas/Winter movies yet which kinda sucks. I kinda forgot about them and I didn't read Dash and Lily's Book of Dares this year either.
But like I also mentioned, this year has been kinda rough. So I can't really expect myself to dabble in the same usual things and that's fine. There's always next year. Hell, I celebrate Christmas up until the first week of January, there's still time!
I'm really looking forward to Spring colors and Valentines Day and Spring scents now lol. But that will come soon enough.
For tonight I'll do some FFXIV stuff, read a little and maybe watch Serendipity while I wait for midnight to roll by.
What are your plans for tonight?
Happy Holidays!
I know I'm slacking hardcore in the blog updating department but that doesn't mean I haven't been planning! And now with my brand new camera, I feel like I can take on the world! No, seriously. I know right? Must be some serious stuff a camera can influence like that!
I hope you are all having an amazing day filled with loved ones, laughter, and really good food. As for me I'm alone today and I was planning a date with Netflix and pizza but I skipped on the Netflix because I was enjoying the quiet too much. I still plan on binge watching a few movies before they take them off though! Also binge reading a few books I'll be listing on Readarella later that I hope to finish before the year ends.... it's looking questionable though haha.
So it's Christmas. And it's Thursday so... I thought I'd throw it back to 1997.
Can you find me? I was... 12 when we did this routine. I could probably still do it in my sleep if I thought hard enough. But this was the very first color guard performance I ever did. I miss being in guard and in band so much, it was like being part of a family, literally. We'd yell at each other but come back and say sorry later. It was nothing but love. I loved being on stage, it was like pretending to be someone else. Someone more confident than the shy little girl I was back then.
I still can't do a horizontal. I mean I can, with gift wrap but not with a flag. Saber, yes. Rifle, yes. Flag, hell to the no. I have no idea why. I always think it's going to hit me or something... I can't explain it. Though I felt that way with a Saber but I do just fine. It's actually more terrifying with a Saber. A Rifle isn't so bad because it's weighted.
I hope you all enjoy my throwback, because I've watched it about 5 times now. It's so crazy to find this on YouTube and realize THATS YOU haha.
Hello!
Here are the questions!
The people I tag!
Yana over at TimeWithYana tagged me to do the Christmas Tag. I did something similar last year on my old channel, if you want to check that out you can here. Though they are a bit of the same questions.
Here are the questions!
What is your favorite Christmas movie?
Do you open your presents on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day?
Do you have a favorite Christmas memory?
Favorite Christmas gift?
Favorite Christmas scent?
Do you have any Christmas Eve traditions?
What tops your tree?
As a kid, what was one crazy gift you asked for but never received?
What the best part of Christmas for you?
The people I tag!
Kristine V.
Darrell S.
Sean H.
Becky
Jer M.
And you! If you want to do this tag as well! You can either make a blog post or a video and link it back to me, I'd love to see your answers!
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