Another Skein Done
stargrace 
Another skein completed! It just needs a bath to set the twist. No idea what I’ll make with this yet, but I’m happy to have freed up two bobbins.
August 2020
Organization
Much like real life, in game, I also like to organize things. I like spreadsheets and documents and a semblance of order to the chaos that is gaming. Lately I’ve felt very little of this because let’s face it, my entire life is run by two toddlers and a police enforcement husband. I don’t sleep when I want to sleep, I don’t eat when I want to eat, my life is controlled by schedules that are not my own and that can get very frustrating.
I also have a lot of hobbies, so if I don’t have that organization then some of those hobbies tend to fall by the wayside. I like to hand knit, I like to use my circular sock knitting machine, and I’m trying to teach myself to use my flatbed knitting machine. I love to spin yarn, which is a whole process into itself with preparation and completion of yarn. I love to read, not that you’d ever know it. I have also been known to do a cross stitch or two in my day – and I also love to draw, though that talent is one I have barely touched in the last 20 years. I had dreams of re-learning it and I even bought a beautiful tablet to do so but I’ve made zero progress.
You can’t get better at things if you don’t dedicate time towards it. You can’t improve without practice. Unfortunately we’re also limited by the time we have available and with all of these hobbies I enjoy – plus gaming – I’m finding it even harder to find a little ‘me’ time wedged in there. The point? I don’t know if I really have one except to say that the more organized I am in my day to day life, the happier I am. I just wish sometimes it were easier.
What Am I Doing With All That Gold?
I bought my auction house mount back in January (or so records show) and since then I’ve purchased a second one for my husband and I’m back up to 9 million gold after purchasing some TCG pets for my personal collection – so what do I DO with all that gold?
These days I’ve been using it to shuffle characters around through the battlenet store. Anything digital that you can purchase there can use bnet balance (I wish the physical store also employed this, but that is not the case) so I’ve been moving my horde characters that were on Hyjal (some, not all) over to my main server of Argent Dawn. Over on AD I have my collection of alliance character, and I’m trying to build up my stable of horde characters. Ideally, I want 1 of every class as each faction.
Honestly, I wish Blizzard would just do away with these factions all together and let us mingle, but since I doubt that will be happening any time soon, this is my method to make sure I don’t miss out. I bought over a million gold worth of tokens this week and moved 5 of my characters. I like to have everyone together for crafting / harvesting purposes, so it feels good to have them all gathered again.
What about you, if you’re making gold what are you spending it on these days?
Where Did I Leave Off.. (again)
A few friends have been playing GW2 and of course I got the itch, too. It wasn’t as simple as just jumping into game for me though, first I had to patch and with my 5mb/s internet (0.5mb/s upload) this takes some time. Especially since if anyone else is using the internet, things lag. We don’t have cable, so that means a lot of downloads are done overnight while the family is asleep.
Anyway, I patched up, and then was told about an addon called Tac0 that adds map overlays to your UI. This can help with a number of things, like quest objectives, harvest nodes, and paths to get places. Jumping puzzles, all that good stuff. I’ve never seen addons for GW2 before, let alone installed one, so I took some time to set that up. I honestly haven’t made use of it yet, but at least I have it.
Once again I was left looking at my screen thinking “so now what” – I have no idea what I was working on, what I was doing. I don’t have the faintest clue what the parts in my bags go to. It’s such a mess of confusion any time I go back to a game that I haven’t played in some time. I really wish there was a better way for games to handle this. Maybe letting me know when I first enter the game what these bits go to, what the last 5 zones I was in was, or what I completed last so I know what to work on. Some sort of direction besides just having the story quest chain to follow.
I’m sure I’ll figure it out, but it will take some time. As always, happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself!
It’s Here!
I recently acquired a Brother KH-930 electronic knitting machine from EBay, that was in really good condition, owned by an older lady who very obviously loved it. It has all of the components for it (and then some) and also came with an 850 ribber (which I will learn to use one of these days).
I’ve been waiting for parts for it for a few months, mail is incredibly slow with covid and who knows when things will get here. The first thing I ordered was a USB to port cord so I can plug it into my laptop. This means I can use patterns that I design in programs like GIMP and then knit them up. I’m INCREDIBLY excited about this.
I’ve also ordered a new sponge bar, but that hasn’t arrived yet. It’s an important part that needs replacing with use and time. The ones that came in the box are absolutely disintegrated. It won’t ruin the needles if I don’t replace it – but knitting is much more difficult, and stitches tend to fall off the needles.
Since I’ve been waiting for these things I haven’t done anything more than a test knit. That, and I’m still trying to make my way through the phone book sized manuals that have come with the machine. It’s quite a learning curve, but I’m pretty excited about the whole process!