✿ Blog ✿

August 13th, 2023

I went away on vacation for a month to a very small community by the sea and it is absolutely where I was meant to be. Regrettably, for now, I am back home and trying to keep myself occupied so as not to become too depressed about being stuck here once again. Starting tomorrow (because it's always easier to get back into things on a Monday for some reason) that will be accomplished by throwing myself into finishing off cosplay things for a convention coming up in a couple of weeks. After that, it'll be nice to settle back in here, finish up the plushie pages I've yet to complete, and photograph some other friends.

Currently have the website playlist going which is super nice and light, and probably just what I need for the moment.

If you're reading, I hope you've been doing well! <3

May 2nd, 2023

I began this blog with a post (now relegated to my diary archive) about trying to make milk tea, how unsuccessful it was, and how oat milk was Not It.

It is with great excitement that I return now to report that I have just made THE BEST milk tea I have EVER had or made, using whole notmilk and milk tea flavoured bubble tea powder from the Bubble Tea House Co.. Words cannot fully articulate the flavour, the creaminess, the sheer delight that I can have one of my most favourite drinks that will not make my tum sad later. :')

That's all! I hope you enjoy a favourite drink in the next little while! <3

Apr. 13th, 2023

Not to go on about spring, but as I was finishing up my treadmill exercise for the day I could hear screaming coming from outside. Turning to look, I discovered two teachers (or a teacher and TA, idk) had brought their class over to the jungle gym and swings on this unseasonably sunny and, dare I say, hot day. The sound of unfettered access to freedom was amply audible! The kids even managed to rope one teacher into a mini game of football!

It's little things like that that kids will remember. It made me recall a similar experience, when we'd gone as a class to do "field research" in a park for science and instead of bringing us directly back to the school, our teacher allowed us to spend the rest of the time playing on the swings and climbing frames instead. She could see the joy, the way we had all been eyeing the swings while we worked but didn't dare venture over, and she was smiling for the rest of our park visit, too.

There's no further point here, other than to document a brief moment of joy that I hope extends on to anyone reading, as well. <3

Apr. 11th, 2023

Spring feels like it's finally arrived! The weather has been so lovely of late. The basement where I can usually be found computing is still quite cold (which will be very nice in the middle of summer) but outside and through the rest of the house you can smell this special time of year in the air!

To me, this scent and feeling bring back so many memories. The way we would rush outside at recess or on the weekends without a coat on, even if it was still technically chilly coat weather. Bringing out the patio furniture and setting it up. Playing Barbies on the deck like they were on some kind of amazing outdoor vacation from the little nooks and corners that typically served as their houses indoors... That last one also reminds me of the Kelly Playland set. I loved that thing SO MUCH and I cannot explain why! It was fun indoors, of course, but just felt completely elevated when it was brought out onto the deck on a nice sunny day. I guess it went from a McDonald's PlayPlace to fully functioning outdoor park/jungle gym on those days.

As one sometimes does when facing turmoil in one's life, I've been looking a lot at old toys I used to own. The Hamtaro Ham-Ham House, the Kelly Playland, and a number of other things that I can't remember right now have been forefront in my mind. I would love to own them again, but it raises the question: What would I actually do with them? To sit and play Barbies or Ham-Hams now feels wrong somehow. Not in an embarrassing way, just in a "How do I do this?" sort of way. The concept of playtime is something I think adults still grasp (well, some of them do, anyway) but in a wholly different way: I'll watch an anime, or play a video game, or sew a cosplay. Might even clean up an area for funsies lol. In a world so fast-paced and productivity-oriented, stopping to hash out a melodrama for the Barbies nowadays seems wild, like there isn't time for it when there are so many other things that need to be done... Maybe we need some [insert toys of choice] time in our lives to remind us of what it is to slow down and relax.

One of my friends recently discovered her old Barbie collection and did a little show-and-tell. Maybe that's all we can do now: Go through our bins, fondly recall the simpler times, then put them away again and move on. [shrug emoji]

Speaking of Barbies, the Barbie movie is coming out around the same time as my birthday! I can't wait to see it, even though I know it'll be another long while until it comes to a streaming service. I didn't like movie theatres before, but with the pandemic and my OCD on top of that, even for such a fun movie there's no way I'll be seeing it before (probably) next year lol.

Apr. 1st, 2023

Happy April! I spent some time today wandering around my island, enjoying the cherry blossoms and crafting the new picnic basket recipe that Isabelle sent out this morning. I loved to see it included some dango since Rilakkuma and Kaoru has been playing on something of a loop lately [sweatsmile emoji] and they're almost always eating dango.

I had a further idea for this entry early this afternoon but it left me before I had the chance to sit down and write lol. So for now, I hope anyone reading this is enjoying their day and that something nice happens. <3

Mar. 25th, 2023

Just a quick little post! I came across a picture of the very first Bratz doll I had: Jade from "The Strut It! Fashion Collection"! (Photo sourced from the web but the page it came from was broken so it's unlinked.)




I really regret donating so many of my childhood toys in a few days of "I have to get rid of everything!" madness, my Jade collection included. For some reason any time I got a Bratz doll it was ALWAYS Jade lol! I had the Winter Wonderland (I think that was the name?) version, which I somehow still have a whole outfit, some jackets, and boots from, and also Tokyo A-Go-Go... and of course the above Strut It! variant. I brought that doll with me everywhere for a while, so it was really neat to "see" her again after all these years. The top and skirt were still so vivid in my mind even though I haven't thought about them for so long. They have anniversary re-releases of Jade, and I'd really like to get just the basic one so I can dress her in the clothes I have left and display her somewhere.

It did remind me that I was lucky enough to have kept my My Scene dolls and they're now heading the brand new "Barbies" page in the misc. section! They were sort of like Mattel's knockoff/ripoff version of the Bratz dolls, but I think overall I actually preferred them. They could still wear regular Barbie clothes and shoes whereas the Bratz were a very specific size and could only wear the Bratz shoes.

Either way, I had a great time as a kid with both brands, and I'm eager to have photoshoots with all my other Barbies lol!

Mar. 18th, 2023

Today I added a music player to the navbar and I'm so excited about it! Back in the day I remember midi files playing automatically when you'd hop on somebody's page. If they were really fancy, they had a selection of midis in a little player somewhere for you to choose from... and then the really, really fancy pages had a real music player, playing actual songs instead of midi files. That was always like "Whoa!" so I've wanted to have one on this website for a while but just didn't know how to go about it.

This one is a Spotify player, which seemed the easiest route to go since they offered the option to embed and customize it a bit, and I already had the whole playlist on there. It's a collection of songs I've been compiling over the past couple of years, songs that I remember having on cassette tape or CD, hearing on the radio while at my parents' work, out and about in restaurants or malls, at school, on TV... wherever! They're songs I really enjoyed as a kid or that just stuck with me for all these years. I hope they bring you some joy and a nostalgic memory or two, and that you maybe find a few you'd forgotten about. :)

Feb. 26th, 2023

I come here fresh from playing an old game that used to occupy me for hours: Hello Kitty's Big Fun Deluxe. It was part of a series of games on one CD by Big Top Entertainment, the others being the Felix Cartoon Toolbox and Keroppi Day Hopper. As you can tell, it was Sanrio themed aside from Felix... I'm not quite sure why he was there lol. The Felix Cartoon Toolbox was a program you could use to make animations/movies featuring Felix the Cat (obviously) and, if I recall correctly, various backgrounds and other animated objects; this is one I'd like to try out again. The Keroppi Day Hopper was pretty useless as a kid unless you had a busy schedule, as it was a simple day planner. It may also have had a diary function, which I think I used more than I ever used the calendars. When I was a kid my mother usually kept track of my schedule for me, or I had little pencil-and-paper planners that came with a clear plastic outer sleeve and usually had cute animals or a funky design on the covers. It just wasn't convenient to boot up the ol' PC, put in the CD, and wait for Keroppi's Day Hopper to load.



The website I stumbled upon–Classic Reload—offers the chance to play this again either for the sake of nostalgia, or if you've never ever heard of this in your life. I'm looking forward to checking out some of the other games they have. It's so convenient to be able to load up the game right there in the browser as opposed to trying to find it for download somewhere and hoping that you can somehow make it compatible with 20+ years of technological advancement. It's a bit slow and laggy, but isn't unplayable by any means—in fact it's a great way to take your time and slow down in an otherwise fast-paced online world.

Feb. 21st, 2023

I'm putting it in writing on my blog page that I'm going to do my best to keep up a blog. :)