November 10, 2024 7:43 PM
I'm in my granny phase
On February 25, I went into a Half Priced Books store with my sister, and I impulsively bought the Unofficial Make Your Own Harry Styles crochet kit. I looked at it thinking, this would be a great white elephant gift! And it was half off! I had never crocheted before, but by the time we walked out of the store I had decided that I was going to make Harry Styles. My sister had been going through a tough time, so I told her "If you're ever feeling sad, just remember, Harry Styles is waiting for you".
When I finally opened the box, I realized that this crochet kit was absolutely NOT for beginners. It was like reading a whole different language. Everything is abbreviated! sc, dc2tog, blo, right side, wrong side, magic circle??? But I had already made the silly decision to buy a crochet kit, so I was going to learn how to crochet. I knew about this thing called The Woobles because my aunt had done it, so I looked it up, and I ordered the absolute easiest wooble possible: Kiki the chick. It was $35, which is more than twice the amount I paid for soon-to-be-Harry Styles.
The label on the Woobles bag said that this was estimated to take 3-8 hours to crochet. It took me weeks. Crocheting is all about counting. If you lose count, you end up with the wrong number of stitches and your amigurumi ends up looking real wonky. So I would try to stitch one row of stitches, and I would check my work and realize I counted wrong, and then I would start all over, and I would do this over and over. But I did it, and Kiki did not turn out too bad at all. Kiki is the easiest wooble to make though, so I figured I would try something a little harder and I ordered a shark kit along with some accessories.
Somewhere along in this process, things just clicked and I was really enjoying myself. I ended up buying even more woobles! I must have spent like $200 on these Woobles! But I needed to graduate from buying really expensive crochet kits. I wanted to take the next step in my crocheting journey, and I bought my own yarn. I paid like, $2 for the cheapest skein of yarn that I could get at Michael's. And then I made an octopus from it. Turns out this crocheting hobby is actually pretty affordable if you buy your own yarn. I also made a strawberry and a uterus, which was a special request from my sister!
I was finally at the point where I had learned a few different crochet techniques and I could read patterns on my own. So a few weeks ago, I finally opened the Harry Styles box. Harry Styles was definitely much harder than all the other things I crocheted. And the yarn that came in this kit was pretty terrible and the colors didn't match the picture. I didn't have very high hopes for myself, especially after looking at other peoples' attempts at this on Tiktok.
But I just took this one piece at a time. First the arms, then the legs, then stitching the legs together, then the torso...it was coming along! I would sit on the couch and crochet Harry Styles while also listening to Harry Styles. And I did it! Yeah, I messed up a few times. One of the shoes is coming loose and the top of the pants is a little janky and the butterfly tattoo is...not great. But I'm pretty freaking proud of myself. I thought this was going to be this huge project that I would slog over for months, but I actually just made steady progress over the course of a few weeks.
And now that I'm finally done with Harry Styles, I don't want to stop crocheting. I've got lots of ideas in my head for more things I want to try and make (from patterns. I don't know how to create my own patterns, but maybe one day). I didn't expect to have such a life changing moment from going into a Half Priced Books store, but I'm so glad for Harry Styles and so excited about my new hobby.
December 30, 2021 5:07 PM
I want to make a mobile app: 4
I think this finally does enough
October 23, 2021 9:18 PM
10 miles
I probably gained about 20 pounds over the course of the pandemic. Maybe only 5 lbs or so during 2020, but once travel started opening back up again, and I was visiting home, I just ballooned really quickly. I gained about 15 lbs between February and June this year, and it was enough to make my doctor ask me about it.
You weigh 140? Is that right? You were 126 earlier this year.
Uhhh, yep, that's right. I told her it was due to stress.
So I had to do something about it. Stop eating so much fried chicken. Stop drinking soda. Start cooking again. Oh, and exercise.
But I felt like a blob. I could feel the tightness in my clothes and the heaviness all over my body. But I've been there before. If I can recover from a freshman 30, I can revert this quarantine 15.
So I did what I did eight years ago when I was overweight and terribly out of shape. I started running. And man, was it a struggle. How the hell did I manage to do 5 mile runs no problem pre-pandemic? For months I was barely able to run 2 miles non-stop. And I was running slow. 11 minute mile pace.
But something changed a few weeks ago. I don't know what it was. I felt lighter? I started being able to run 5Ks again. I ran 5 miles with my partner and I felt...fine. And then last week, I went out for a run on my own, with no real expectations. I ran three miles, and it felt so comfortable, so I kept going. I was at five miles, six miles, seven miles. I started running faster. I thought, "I think I can hit 10 miles". So I kept going. My feet started hurting, but I was determined. And suddenly, there it was.
I really thought I was going to have a few more #in-progress posts before getting to this point, but I guess I just unlocked something within me.
May 28, 2021 6:32 PM
Elite Beat Agents
Because one silly rhythm game quarantine goal wasn't enough, I decided that I would turn on my Nintendo DS for the first time in years and play some Elite Beat Agents. And the battery on that thing is amazing. I hadn't charged it in over 5 years and it still turned on and had plenty of battery left.
I've heard the gameplay is similar to osu! but what makes it unique is that each song you can play has a story. Each one has a similar structure: the main character has some sort of ordeal they need to get through, and they call for help from the agents, and the agents dance their way to success. How well you do on the rhythm game determines the outcome of the story.
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I first played this game...14 years ago? I remembered it being a lot of fun, but once I got to the Hard Rock! level I struggled a lot, and I was never able to beat the whole game. But this time, I was determined to finish it. And because I like to make things harder for myself, I also decided to try and get a full combo on every single song on all 4 levels.
Yeah, I don't know why I insist on full combo-ing everything. That definitely made this take way longer than I wanted it to, and I think I hate the song Survivor now.
But I did it! And I only had to charge my DS twice this whole time! This is a fun game. I definitely recommend, but I don't think I'll ever play this again in my life.
December 13, 2020 2:38 PM
Guardian's Crusade
When I was a little kid, I played a lot of Playstation. My family had a PS1, and we also had a decent collection of games. One of my favorite video games was Guardian's Crusade.
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Now even though I loved this game, I was never able to beat it as a kid. This was partly because I was (and still am) just terrible at video games. But I was also never able to beat it because I didn't have a slot on my memory card to save my progress. Crazy, right? I would just keep playing this game from the start over and over.
Yeah...I had a memory card, but it was full. If I was smarter, I would have just freed up space on that memory card. But for some crazy reason 10 year old me wasn't able to figure out that.
Anyway, this is a cute little JRPG where you take in a little pink creature thing who helps you to save the world. I happened to see this game in a used game store maybe 7 years ago? I had to get it for the nostalgia. I started playing it again, and the game is way longer than I expected it to be. (Though, you can apparently speedrun it in about 3 and half hours.)
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At some point, you actually lose your pink companion and have to fight a boss by yourself. I cannot tell you how many times this took me. I kept losing and I kept fighting more monsters to gain more XP just to try the boss again and still lose. Turns out I just had a terrible strategy. But I ended up overpowering myself so much that once I beat this boss, the rest of the bosses were WAY easy.
The navigation in this game is also interesting. They hide chests in hard to find places, so you have to keep reorienting the camera so you don't miss anything. And of course when I do that I end up getting lost and forgetting which way I entered the cave. Before you get to the final battle, trying to get from one town to another is a pain in the butt. You eventually get this "water spider" that allows you to cross the ocean but it moves. so. slow. Eventually the pink thing learns how to fly and you can use that instead, but I don't think it moves any faster.
But one really interesting part of the game is that you get to collect special items called Living Toys. They're like Pokemon, and you gotta catch em all. You even need to collect a certain Living Toy just to get access to the World Map. They also make battle really interesting.
Anyway, many years after I first played this game, and still many years after I re-picked it up later in life, I finally beat it! (Beat as in finished the story. I did not find all the Living Toys) And I did it without consulting an online guide! Afterwards I did check an online guide, and I realized I was playing this in the most inefficient way possible.
Overall, about 24 hours actually spent playing this game, so it's really a pretty short RPG. I had fun, and I'm glad that I can finally cross this off my list!
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