December 2022

Resolutions (Goals) for 2023

Another year is almost done, and I’ve come up with a new list of things I want to work on for the next year. I don’t really consider these resolutions per say, everyone wants to be healthier and work on certain aspects of themselves, but my resolutions tend to be more like goals I schedule so that I actually make time for them. Last year I wanted to do more art, and I think I succeeded with that goal quite nicely. I didn’t hit the 52 pieces that I had in mind, but I came pretty close. Here’s my list for 2023.

  1. Learn Piano. For now I’ve got a small keyboard, I think it has 62 keys or something like that. It’s not great, but I plan on starting with it, and if I improve and get better and still enjoy it, at the end of the year I’d like to see about getting a full sized keyboard. Pricing them out the ‘good’ ones cost about $500-700 (and they go up from there) so it’s something I’d have to save / work towards and know for sure it’s an interest I want to pursue. In the meantime, the kids keyboard will do. I’m starting with a book called Adult Piano Adventures which is Faber, and highly recommended. I’m going to be aiming towards piano twice a week, two hours each time.
  2. Continue with my art. I did really great this year with my digital art, and I want to keep the momentum going. I’m so pleased with my progress. I plan on aiming on once a week for this one, which is the same amount of time I dedicated towards it this year. Some weeks I couldn’t (ipad broke, we moved across the country, I had an MS relapse, etc) but that’s the goal.
  3. Learn ASL. I’m not sure I can actually physically do this one due to my MS, but it has been a long time goal that I want to finally get around to. I plan on working on this goal once a week but it will really depend on how I’m feeling. A lot of the time my fingers and hands simply don’t want to work properly, or they’re in too much pain to work properly.

That’s it, my list of goals for 2023. There’s so much more I could add to that list, but I wanted this to be obtainable and realistic. That doesn’t mean I won’t do other things, I have plans on continuing with my ‘daily creative’ (except making it weekly, instead of daily), knitting, spinning, and of course my book goals. I want to be better about my blog (all of my blogs, actually) and update my book review site. These are little goals though that don’t really require a long term commitment so to speak.

I hope 2023 is a wonderful year, for everyone. We’ve had such a rough go of things for so long that I just want people to be able to relax a little bit, and not be in constant fight & flight mode. We’ll see how that works out.

Happy Holidays, everyone. See you in 2023.

An Early Year in Review

It sure has been a very full year – though my blog doesn’t exactly demonstrate that. I’m hoping for 2023 I’ll get back into the swing of posting more frequently, but that’s never something I promise or count on. This year it didn’t feel like I accomplished very much but then I remembered we drove across Canada and moved from the far North to the Atlantic Coast as a family of four, and we bought our first house, and none of that was small potatoes.

What am I up to these days besides simply trying to get by?

When it comes to video games you will usually find me in World of Warcraft enjoying the Dragonflight expansion (I write about my gold making adventures over on my web site dedicated to that), or in Dwarf Fortress which FINALLY released for steam. It is absolutely everything I hoped it would be, and more. I have dedicated an absurd amount of hours to this game already, and I don’t see that changing any time soon. I would ideally also like to try to fit some Wurm Online in there, but there are only so many hours in the day.

Art! I had set a goal of completing 52 pieces of art this year, and right now I stand at 39 – considering the year we had, I’m OK with that. Next year I hope to challenge myself in the same way, and I hope to blow that challenge out of the water. Unfortunately with AI art and moral issues concerning both DeviantART and ArtStation I have no idea where to post my works any more. I’m contemplating setting up a Patreon, where people could subscribe to see my art process and my works without giant obnoxious watermarks on them. I’d like to get some prints of my pieces made, so I could give them away or maybe even sell them. I haven’t decided on anything yet.

Knitting – I did manage to finally complete my cardigan, but that was all I completed besides some wash cloths I knit before we moved. I also did a lot of spinning on my new Daedalus Starling e-spinner, which I adore. Knitting went into the “I wish I had time” pile, but I still managed to get that big cardigan project done (I am now living in it for the remainder of winter) so I’m pleased. I have to keep reminding myself I cannot do all of the things.

Speaking of all of the things! I made my way through 23 books this year – raising my original goal of 15, twice. I’m two books short, and I think I might still be able to make it.

I had more MS relapses than I care to admit, and homeschooling my 6 year old was both rewarding and exhausting, but overall 2022 has been alright. I’m hoping to settle in for a rewarding 2023. I plan on doing another reading goal, along with my art challenge, and maybe I’ll set something up for knitting so it doesn’t get forgotten about.

I hope everyone had a great year – thank you for reading my posts and keeping me company all this time.

[Unpopular Opinion] FOMO is what motivates gold making

With the release of Dragonflight everyone is looking for ‘the next big thing’ to sell on the auction house to players – before it gets nerfed. Maybe you were doing seed farms – nerfed. Maybe you were working up that crafting faction – nerfed (and apparently some ban waves along with that one). What I’m seeing a lot of in the WoW Economy discord is one person mentioning an awesome thing they’ve found – and then some people jumping right on that where they can, and then it slowly grows until a large portion are doing it and then it becomes less valuable.

The FOMO (Fear of Missing Out) is VERY strong at the beginning of an expansion. How many people wanted to dive right into Darkmoon Decks, investing millions of gold right from the get-go. Apparently that one isn’t paying off quite the way people expected, but I imagine December 12th may tell a different tale.

I love watching the conversations that happen at the start of a new expansion. Everyone is excited, and everyone is branching off in a million different directions. Some pay off, some don’t. Some are temporary gains, some are long term. Whatever your decision, the FOMO seems to hang overhead, just slightly out of reach. When you see other people doing something to make gold, YOU want to do that thing too. It’s almost instinctive.

The community I belong to has been pretty open and honest about their gold making methods, and that’s just another reason I love it. There’s no animosity, and while there IS competition, it’s a more good natured flavour than anything else. I’m reminding myself to keep the FOMO at bay, I don’t play on a high pop server where these sales are happening, and I don’t have the time to dedicate to owning the market. Still, when you see the millions rolling in, it’s hard NOT to want to be a part of that.