Skip navigation

Tag Archives: Real Life

Wait, What?

Okay. It’s somehow been a month since my last post on here, and even longer since the last one that wasn’t a book review. Sorry, y’all. It’s been… The last three months have been chaotic, and rarely in good ways. We have been dealing with the aftermath of an unexpected death, a resultant shift to full time custody of my stepchildren, and a loss of some of the concomitant financial support. This is, of course, on top of handling the associated emotional strain. I’ve not been saying a lot online, but it’s definitely made this year harder than we had wanted it to be.

We’re still here, though. V and the kids and I are still here.

So, what’s been good? Work continues, and I’m loving the job that I do. I’m frustrated by so much of my employer’s leadership structure struggling to be a microcosm of the current US presidential administration, but I’m happily pushing forward as VP of our employee union and trying to make things better for my coworkers and patrons alike.

I’ve been playing a lot (arguably too much) Magic: the Gathering, participating in my first pre-release events/tournaments ever with Lorwyn Eclipsed and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles already. I did the tournament for Secrets of Strixhaven at my LGS this past weekend, too. I’ve dropped off a bit from Minecraft time with the kids, with some single-player stuff like Halo: The Master Chief Collection taking up a lot of my PC hours. I’m hoping to correct that a bit, but my work schedule changed at the beginning of January, and I’m doing more evening shifts than before. It’s good to get to be teaching more classes for patrons, but I do miss having an hour of just dorking around in Minecraft with V and #MediumChild most evenings. I have been diving back in to a lot of comfort reads, including a full re-read of Bleach earlier this year and re-starting One Piece a few weeks ago.

The school year is somehow nearly over already, and that means that it’ll be Ren Faire season again before I know it. It’s a lot of work as always, but it’s also a lot of fun, and an opportunity to see a lot of folks that I only see once a year.

Other things I’m looking forward to:

Playing more D&D with the spouse and family. New Murderbot Diaries book. #TinyChild finishing kindergarten and #TiniestChild starting school in the fall. Potentially attending my 20-year high school reunion. My own birthday in a few weeks. The inevitable fall of US fascists from power (sooner rather than later would be my preference, but hey…).

Anyway.

Let’s just take it all one day at a time.

I’ll see you tomorrow, yeah?

Unpacking

So, we moved.

Sold our old house and bought a new one across town (and it took a minute, too, because the housing market here is fucking ridiculous). Got more room for me, V, and the kids. Commutes are still well within workable times/distances. We’re in the process of unpacking, and it’s probably going to be a bit, but that’s okay. We’re planning to stay put for a while now.

It’s a little weird, honestly. I have a tendency to be very much a stereotypical Taurus and get very set in a place or a set of behaviors, and in the last couple of months I’ve been upending a lot of that. Now that I’m not in the same house I was in for the last five years, a lot is starting to change for the better. Granted, I’ve been doing new things in old ways, so there’s that. Old habits, etc. But I’ve been trying to get myself into some new rhythms. A new work schedule, more time at home with the kids. Time to get some yard work and other home improvement tasks done on the weekends.

Right now, it’s a lot of figuring out what goes where, and with my and V’s combined book collection, that takes quite a bit of doing. Not going to lie, this was the worst move I’ve gone through in the last fifteen years. This was mostly because we had two weeks of limbo between vacating the old house and getting access to the new house. I couldn’t just load one box of books, move it, unload it, and then reuse it. Stuff had to get moved into storage, then out again later in the month. It was a lot more logistically difficult, and quite frankly, I burned myself out really hard by doing 90% of the lifting/hauling by myself (my many thanks to my father-in-law and my friends who helped with some of the boxing of stuff and the lifting of my desk). V and the kids helped as much as possible too, but the timing made it difficult for V to take off of work when I was able to. I’m done doing the self-moving, though. Next time, whenever that may be, I’m hiring pros. Insisting on doing as much as I can by myself is another one of those habits I need to kick.

But hey, the house is coming together really well, and we’re all feeling much better about the whole thing. I’m getting some more reading and writing done, and looking forward to the years we have to come. It’s going to take some time to get decorations and whatnot in place, but it’s great to be building a new home for me and my family.