Mermaids? House Boats? Scuba Diving? Yes Please

Okay, so I have managed to support my Sims habit during this little blogger interlude and I’ve gotten more and more into the game with every expansion, as is expected. The last one was University Life and it’s kind of amazing. That was my favorite expansion in the Sims 2.

But now they’re coming out with this:

Say whaaaaaaat?

I’m so freaking excited. I love the Sims. Always have, always will. And this will definitely add to the game. I have to say that one of the parts about this trailer that makes me the MOST excited, is seeing the little baby play in the water. Tee hee!

Anyway, on that note, the hubs and I have done two Sims University Life video’s on his YouTube channel, if you want to check them out. He also does a ton of Minecraft, Starcraft, Bioshock Infinite, and some other game Let’s Play series’. I have to say I don’t fully understand them all, but people seem to like them. I like his “Hammer and Sickle” series, where he shows off one of his many personalities; Meliosh the Russian Adventurer.

Yeah. I’ve lived with him for YEARS.

Anyway, moral of the story, I’m excited.

Woot!

What’s your Type?

I took this personality test WAAY back when I was in college that asked you some questions and then defined your personality using four of eight letters. There were 16 possible combinations and I remembered mine being really accurate.

Fast forward seven years and I’m suddenly faced with interviewing people to work with me. Just me. So I thought back to this test and thought, what better way to know if I’ll be compatible with whoever I hire? At least enough to give me a glimpse into how they operate.

So I looked it up again, and lo and behold I found a website where you can take the test for free and see the results! I took it again out of curiosity and I’m still the same personality type: INFJ.

It says in my description that the INFJ type is thought to be the most rare. Let me just say, I think they’re wrong because almost everyone I interviewed was also an INFJ. Apparently my personality type is really drawn to becoming an Interior Designer. Who knew?

Anyway, I though it was interesting, so I thought I would share. This has nothing to do with design or gaming or writing, but at the same time it has EVERYTHING to do with EVERYTHING.

So what type are you? I’m interested to know. Did you feel like your explanation fell in line with how you feel about yourself?

Happy Tuesday!

Once Upon A Time…

There was this time when this girl thought she should start a blog and write about all the things she loves!

Then this girl’s life went INSANE! She had a baby, got a promotion, her husband graduated college, and she all but stopped doing most of the things she loved.

So she had nothing to blog about, so her blog went the way of all the interwebs.

She thought about closing it. She thought about deleting it.

But this girl couldn’t give it up. Once upon a time she had put a lot of work into it. And she met some really cool people through it.

So she took a deep breath, tried to schedule her time better, regained some mental energy and decided to write one more blog post, just to remember how it felt.

It felt good. She had missed it.

She decided to try again. And while she wasn’t sure she’d be doing three posts a week like she used to, she thought maybe, just maybe she could do two? Definitely one! And she was okay with that.

She hoped her friends were still around, and that they’d be okay with that too.

She had lots of new ideas…

If At First You Don’t Succeed, Pretend it Never Happened.

That’s my philosophy. NaNo? Success? Pshh. I don’t know what you’re talking about. I wasn’t going to do that. Oh my last post? I was OBVIOUSLY sleep deprived when I wrote that. Pay no attention to that.

It’s sad but true. Lately, I feel like a quitter. I’ve never had so many pulls on my mental energy at the same time. I have to prioritize. Some things fall.

I hate that.

So I pretend I wasn’t trying to juggle them in the first place. Is that not healthy? Oh well. It’s how I cope. AND it’s kind of how I feel about my blog. I used to be really good at it. Now it just gets left alone, gathering proverbial dust whilst I go about my days. The thing is, I LOVE reading other people’s blogs, but rarely do I have the time to go through them all, comment, and make my own post!

So can we pretend I never sucked at it? Can we go back to the glory days, when I posted three times a week? At least in our heads?

I can! Woot! I’m the best blogger ever!

oh and HAPPY DECEMBER!

How long does Writer’s Block usually last?

Over a year? Is that normal?

Crayap.

I haven’t written, edited, or even looked at one of my manuscripts since last year’s JUNOWRIMO!

Is that horrible? Yes. This is why I’m not published. I stopped trying. I just up and stopped. To be honest, I have a lot of reasons / excuses / life-changing events that have put me off from writing, but I know if I made it a priority I’d have something more to show for it.

Well NO MORE! I’ve promised myself to complete NaNoWriMo this year. Even if whatever I write is utter garbage. I miss it. I miss the process of weaving a story. I miss feeling creative and challenged. So I have a speck of an idea that’s going to turn into 50,000 words if it kills me.

What about you? Anyone else out there planning on NaNo-ing? How long do you stay stuck when you get stuck? And most important, how do you get out of it?? Advice welcome!

Happy Thursday!

Danger Zone

I make it a point to never talk about Politics. Literally to the extent that if someone brings it up, I’ll zip my lips, wait until they’re done expressing their opinion, nod, and change the subject. I don’t know why, but it makes me very uncomfortable. Maybe because I’m not a full fledged member of either party, maybe because I don’t take the time to educate myself enough to feel like I’m entitled to an opinion. Or maybe just because it makes me uncomfortable.

But I was watching the debate last night (I missed the first half due to bedtime for the babies), but I couldn’t help feeling more and more unsure the more they said. I agree with some of BOTH of their ideas.

And then, as a daughter of my die-hard conspiracy theorist parents, I couldn’t help but think, how much of this is true? I was reminded of high school elections where the candidates make all these outrageous promises (think soda in the water fountains) which they’ll never deliver on.

(Then I remember that I was Vice President Junior and Senior year…ahem…moving on..)

But what I ended up thinking was, does it even matter? Does it matter what I think? I live in Utah. Our vote is decided regardless of what I do. Seriously. (Don’t get me started on the electoral college). So what difference does it make which man wins? What are THEY going to do to make MY life better?

Unless it’s a bigger tax return this year, (or student loan forgiveness… PLEASE????) the answer is, they’re not going to DIRECTLY impact my family life so much. And after all this contemplation, I had an epiphany of sorts. Which might seem obvious to some of you out there who are wiser than me, but to me it was a revelation.

I am the president that matters. I am president of my house. (Don’t worry, my husband would agree). I’m in charge of keeping my home a safe, prosperous environment. I have to manage our economy, and balance our budget. I’m in charge of educating my girls so they’re ready for a lifetime of success. I have to instill a moral compass in them that leads them to make the best decisions and provide them with every opportunity to succeed in the scary, scary world that is outside our sovereign territory.

Duh.

But still. It comforted me to an extent. I may not have power over who rules our country. I’ll never have any say in what America does to Iran, or how we look to the national community. But I CAN control my house. I CAN influence my children, my neighborhood, and my surrounding community. I can be an example of what’s right, and good, and fair. And hope and pray that America does the same.

So I still don’t know who I’m voting for. I’ll make a confession; I’m 28 and never voted. I suffer from a severe and unrelenting case of apathy. But I really want to vote this year. It’s not just about me anymore.  I just hope I can make up my mind before November.

(Now I know some of you will probably disagree with what I’ve said. And that’s fine. But I just thought I’d write this down. Mostly for my own sake. So if you feel the need to comment, I just ask that we keep it respectful. I know how politics make people. Hence the inherent need I have to avoid it. )

Happy Tuesday!

Where I’ve Been…

Is it bad to say “In the bathroom?” Well, not for the reason you’d think. We’ve gotten into remodeling again. It seems like it’ll never end. But we are one step closer to having gutted every room in the house. This one was a challenge. We weren’t planning on re-doing the bathroom. But then we discovered a leak from the bottom of the toilet. We thought, “okay, we’ll replace the wax ring and be done.”

I don’t think either of us really believed that.

Sure enough once we pulled up the toilet, we saw that not only was the wax ring disintegrating, the sub floor under the carpet (yes, carpet) was rotted to the touch.

Cue the stress. Suddenly this little job became HUGE. We could replace the floor and stop there, but if we’re going to take everything out, which we need to, why not fix the walls? If we’re going to fix the walls, we might as well get a new vanity, and chuck the old one. And so on, and so forth. Until at last, this:

 

turned into this:

and resulted in this:

Yes, I made the last picture bigger than the rest.

I’m kind of over the moon about it. I’ve never gone into designing a room without some sort of plan, or inspiration piece. Until this. I had to figure out SOMETHING to cover up those walls. I didn’t want tile again, and I couldn’t afford to re-drywall. So we went with beadboard. I absolutely love how it looks. We ended up running it vertically for the bottom 36” and horizontally for the top 16”. Why our bathroom was tiled up to 52 1/2” I will never know, But we found a way to fix it, and that’s what matters.

I won’t go into all the dirty details, but I’m so so happy to share the end results!

Those shadowboxes are the drawers from our old vanity. I painted them, cut down the glass shelf from our old medicine cabinet to fit inside, and backed it with the same fabric I used for the curtain. Which was, in fact a shower curtain that I cut down. I’m not a great seamstress, so I used the loops that were already done on the shower curtain for my rod. Then I just sewed weights into the bottom hem, and sewed up the side. The artwork are just some inexpensive frames from Wal-Mart and then scrapbook paper and letters I had.

I’m so glad it’s over. And now I won’t be embarrassed to let my guests use the restroom!

And one day, I will get on a regular blogging schedule again. Until then, thanks for hanging around and being patient with me. Congrats to all those writers out there who are getting good news too! Agents, and book deals, and cover reveals, oh my! You all are an inspiration.

I think I’m finally getting back to a place, mentally where I can write again. I’m even flirting with the idea of NaNo this year. I have another idea…

Hope all is well in the blogosphere! Happy Tuesday!