Real Life

A Rough Go of Things

stargrace September 3, 2024 No Comments

This summer has been difficult, both in game and out. I don’t make friends easily and a few years back there ended up being an incident that cost me almost all of mine – I’m awkward, blunt, and argumentative. Not conductive to keeping long term friends, really. So for the past few years I’ve been quite isolated, but still trying to do the best I can for my family.

Then I started falling out of love with the game that I had played for years. I couldn’t decide if it was because I didn’t have a community, or because the games were changing, or because I just wasn’t into it the way I used to. Maybe some combination of things. It’s easy to get caught up in the doom and gloom that seems to be life, but I also actively tried to get out of that mindset, but it just wasn’t working.

I am just not interested in playing World of Warcraft right now, despite the release of a brand new expansion. I haven’t even logged in. I removed everything off of the auction house and tucked it away. I’m debating leaving all of the Warcraft discords I belong to – and I started playing some GW2 but even that can’t seem to hold my attention. The one game I’m still playing with any sort of desire to log in, is EVE and Wurm Online. I’ve been spending more time doing art, both traditional and digital. I’ve been active on mastodon & bluesky after the disaster that is twitter / X. I just don’t want to support people like Musk. They certainly don’t deserve it.

Everyone is wrapped up in their own stuff, which is expected and reasonable. I’m not even sure why I’m rambling this here except that I needed to get the words out. I frequently (even at this age) think that people would just be better off if I wasn’t here, wasn’t creating issues, wasn’t being all emotional. Anyway. It has been a difficult summer. I’m hoping the cooler weather and the beginning of fall brings some relief, but I also homeschool so there is no real ‘break’ from everything. Guess we’ll see.

Gaming Real Life

Streaming? Streaming! (Again)

stargrace October 24, 2023 No Comments

It has been a few years since I actually sat down and streamed with any regularity (hmm, have I ever?) – and I keep wanting to change that, so I’m making another (another) attempt. My schedule will be all over the place, since my partner is a first responder on shift work, but I plan on streaming from 9-11pm Atlantic, which means 8-10pm Eastern. I’m sticking with what I know, for now that means World of Warcraft and I tossed some RimWorld in there as well. I’d eventually also like to expand that to a few hobbies, like drawing and fiber arts. Maybe some knitting or spinning. We’ll see how it goes!

Why? Well, when the other half is on nights, I find it difficult to feel motivated and I tend to want to go to bed at 8pm. That’s a bit early, even for me. This way I get a little social interaction and can plan some things to do. I’m excited about it! Will it take off? I have no idea. We’ll just have to see.

If you’re interested in seeing this crazy Canuck fumble her way through some games, you can check me out on twitch this Wednesday!

As always, happy gaming – no matter where you find yourself.

DailyCreative Real Life

Calico Critter Remodel (2)

stargrace September 4, 2023 1 Comment

The house is coming along! I don’t get a lot of time to work on it, so it’s going quite slow but that’s OK. I have 1.5 out of 3 walls completed (the back being open means I don’t need to remodel that section, shew). For anyone who didn’t hear, I’m going to remodel the plastic house to look like stone. I’m using mod podge and egg cartons, then I’m going to paint the entire thing, add shadows and highlights with pastels, then paint the windows, add some stained wood trim, and eventually add some moss between the bricks, too.

I can’t wait to see how it turns out!

Real Life

The end of Blaugust

stargrace August 31, 2023 2 Comments

Today marks the last day of August, and thus the last day of Blaugust – and it might not be apparent that I’ve even been doing Blaugust since I don’t follow the provided layout but I want to say a few things about that.

First, the event in essence is to get people blogging – and it absolutely succeeds in doing this. A wonderful community has formed because of it, and this year marked the greatest participation numbers ever seen. I think that’s wonderful. I started off wanting to be more involved in the community but quickly realized that real life had other plans, and that I cannot be in all of the places, as much as I would like to.

That’s OK.

I started the month wanting to write every day, to loosely at least, follow the suggested topics, and provide insightful commentary that people would enjoy. This also did not happen.

That’s OK.

How and when you choose to blog is completely up to you. The subject matter, again, up to you. I cannot stress enough that you should try to first and foremost WRITE FOR YOURSELF. If an audience forms because of it, that’s wonderful, but if you try to write expecting an audience and one never forms, it can cause more harm than good. I’ve added some wonderful RSS feeds to feedly this round, and I did my best, and I’m satisfied with that. I did manage to create a post for each day, even if it wasn’t posted on that exact day (I tend to backtrack when I have spare spoons, and push out a bunch of posts all at once). I hope everyone had a great time, maybe made some new friends, and realized that blogging doesn’t HAVE to be a dead medium. There’s still some of us around, just writing.

As always, happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself!

DailyCreative Real Life

Calico Critter Starter Home Remodel (1)

stargrace August 30, 2023 No Comments

I’ve been planning out what I want to do with this Calico Critter starter house ever since I learned you could remodel them. The first thing I did was fall down the rabbit hole of miniatures. I watched a lot of YouTube videos and I joined a lot of facebook groups. There are some insanely creative people out there! One technique I learned (fairly popular) is to take an egg carton, rip it into little pieces, use some mod podge, and vola, you have stonework! I decided that is what I would do with my house.

The general idea is to cover the entire outside in ‘stones’ then paint over it with a neutral stone-like colour. Then take some pastels, and bring out the shadows / highlights. Once that is done, I want to add stained trim to the house using thin stir sticks, and then I want to also add some moss in sections to give it a bit of ‘life’. I’m also contemplating adding a window box with some flowers, but for storage reasons I don’t know that I want to (I still have the box for this house, and I’d like it to still fit inside of that box even once modified).

In the meantime I’m also contemplating how I want to decorate the inside. Originally I was going to have a ‘typical’ house. The kitchen and living room on the main floor, and the bathroom and a bedroom upstairs. Now I’m not so certain I want a ‘typical’ house. I’m thinking a library and small kitchen nook might be better suited. I also need to figure out how to build a front door since this house is missing the one that came with it. A ladder to get upstairs would also be nice (it came with one, which is of course missing).

For now, it’s a neat little relaxing project to work on here and there. I don’t expect progress to move too fast, I already know I’ll have to order more mod podge and a glue gun (and some glue) as well. I did purchase miter shears so that I can cut things (hopefully not myself), I’d like to make real wood floors and picture frames. All of those little details are things I’ll have to work up to, for now it’s just one step at a time.

A Rough Go of Things

Streaming? Streaming! (Again)

Calico Critter Remodel (2)

The end of Blaugust

Calico Critter Starter Home Remodel (1)

You Missed

Leveling Up With Timewalking

The Construction of Quail Landing

Making Gold – One Sale at a Time

Timewalking, Gets me Every Time