Currently... Vol. 3

Howdy folks! Hope everybody's Tuesday is treating them well 😀 I know it's election day in the US right now, and I can imagine how tense everyone must be feeling. Doing something relaxing to get your mind off things might be just what the doctor ordered - maybe put on your favourite movie or TV show, curl up with your hot beverage of choice, and throw on some fuzzy socks, even if you live in the middle of the desert 😆

Thought it was about time to catch all of you up on what I've been up to lately! Most of these things relate to the past month, but there are a couple items from earlier in the year on this list as well.

"I want to be with someone who thinks I'm the one thing he can't live without. Plain and simple." 💖

Currently Feeling...

... Lonely. Maybe this seems like a weird thing to start off with, but I might as well get it out of the way. The gist of it is, my boyfriend of nearly 5 years broke up with me. I'm not going to go into detail about it or anything, but it's been quite the struggle. It's been close to 6 months since it happened, and I'm still adjusting to not having him in my life as much as he was before - we still have a weekly Pathfinder game together, so I talk to him over Discord at least once a week. Things are amicable, but it's still a big change, especially after 5 years. I've grown a lot through the process of this break-up, and I've learned that when I'm ready to get back out there again that my end goal is to be with someone who sees me as the one thing in their life they can't live without 😍 Here's hoping that's not an impossible goal XD

Currently Playing...

... World of Warcraft. Even before we received the huge pre-patch update, in preparation for the upcoming expansion, I've been hard at work in WoW, whether it's been trying to grind certain reputations while we had a 100% bonus on rep gains, or doing transmog runs with one of my best friends and my main WoW buddy. I'm planning on having 2 main characters once Shadowlands goes live - two Horde, which I already have at max level, and two Alliance characters that I'm in the process of levelling since the level squish went live. One for each Shadowlands covenant! 😈

... The Survivalists. This game had its official release early this month, but it's one that I've been looking forward to since I first heard about it. Made by the same team behind The Escapists and The Escapists 2, this game has you playing as some bloke stranded on a deserted island - well, not entirely deserted. Not only are there a bunch of angry orcs running around and a whole whack of animated skeletons within the island's ruins and labyrinths, but there are also monkeys! And once you either free or feed these monkeys, they become your indentured servants, helping you to build and craft and fight and do all of the heavy lifting you'd rather not bother yourself with. It's been incredibly fun, and I've already sunken

... Pikmin 3 Deluxe. Been looking forward to this ported game since the announcement trailer - which was perfectly timed btw, because just the day before I was talking to my friend about how we needed a Pikmin game on the Nintendo Switch. I'd only ever played the first Pikmin game, so the story of Pikmin 3 was entirely new to me. I also knew there would be additional pikmin outside of the original 3, but I didn't know exactly what they would be like until I unlocked them in the game. I had fun on the lowest difficulty level, and found the bosses to be challenging enough that it sometimes took me a couple attempts, but not so challenging that it discouraged me from playing. There's also a bunch of timed side missions you can play through, and each one is a little different to give the player some variety. I might try the next difficulty level up on my next playthrough.

... The Sims 4. There's a new expansion coming out the 2nd week of November, and I'm beyond excited! It will be introducing some bigger game updates such as Lifestyles and Sentiments that I'm looking forward to playing around with 😁 I've also gone back to dabbling with some of the challenges I was playing back in the day that I was posting and writing stories with on my Tumblr - mostly my Not So Berry challenge. With a lot of the new expansions that have come out since this challenge was originally created, there are a lot of fun new ways to play around within the parameters of the rules for each generation. I'm still on the Grey generation, just at the start technically (although Greyson has already nearly completed the athletic aspiration), but I get the feeling with all the failed relationships I need to check off the list, this gen is going to be a long one XD

Currently Reading...

... Pathfinder Tales: Lord of Runes by Dave Gross. Just finished this audiobook yesterday, and I absolutely loved it. This audiobook was a gift from one of my best friends and a member of my 1 ongoing weekly Pathfinder campaign, and I wasn't expecting to enjoy the story very much. But as soon as I read in the synopsis that the two main characters of this story, Count Varian & Radovan, were like the Pathfinder equivalent to Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson, I was rarin' to go! 😝 The story was compelling, the characters made me laugh, and it was a great story to take in - especially as an audio book - as a fellow Pathfinder player. Plus it gave me a chance to learn a bit more about a few notable locations in Golarion (the world where Pathfinder is primarily set) as well as some NPC's from various Adventure Paths.

... Dash & Lily's Book of Dares by Rachel Cohn & David Levithan. Yes, the annual re-reading of my all-time favourite book has officially begun! I actually began reading through the book before Nov 1st this year after the news of the upcoming Netflix series, Dash & Lily, which I'm still nervous about but simultaneously looking forward to all the same. I'm hoping I'll have time to both finish this book and finish reading its sequel before New Year's Eve; That's my goal, at least.

Currently Watching...

... The Marvellous Mrs. Maisel. My mother and I recently got ourselves a trial for Amazon Prime, and we have been taking full advantage of all the movies and TV available to us through Prime Video. One of the first things I put on was an immediate rewatching of all 3 seasons of Mrs. Maisel, which I could watch over and over again without pause. I've been trying to get my mother to watch it, because I know this show would be right up her alley.

... Golden Girls. The second thing I immediately put on Prime Video was to start watching Golden Girls right from season 1. This show has always made me laugh out loud, and it's fun to watch a show from the 80's and see all of the stuff that they could get away with airing on basic cable back then that they could never get away with having in TV nowadays.

... Hamilton. Over & over again! My girlfriends joined the Hamilton bandwagon back when the play first hit Broadway and was all anybody could talk about. I came to become a fan much later, when they released the full stage production on Disney+. Ever since then I've been obsessed with the story, characters, and of course all of the songs! Any time I have it playing in my room I can't help but sing along to it. Whenever I nail one of the more difficult songs I actually pump my fist in the air too! 😅

Currently Remembering...

... My Grandma. On April 9th of this year, we lost my grandma to coronavirus. My cousin had called her extended care home 1-2 days beforehand, and they told us that she hadn't contracted the virus, so this happened incredibly quickly. Her loss was very unexpected and it also happened very quickly - I got a call around 11AM at work from my boyfriend, telling me my grandma was sick and that he was coming to pick me up. Sometime after 12 or 1, I found out over the phone that she had passed. Because I wasn't able to visit her in the hospital to say goodbye, it didn't sink in and feel real for a really, really long time afterwards. This will be our first Christmas without my grandma around, and she always loved this time of year, so I already know this holiday season will be hard on me and my mom.

Currently Celebrating...

... My Best Friend's Wedding! Admittedly this happened back at the very beginning of October, but I'd be remiss if I didn't mention one of my best friends getting married! And yes, I got to be a bridesmaid 😊

COVID made things hard for them with regards to hosting the wedding - first things were delayed indefinitely, and once they finally started to make plans again, local legislation changed regarding the amount of people allowed in a public gathering, and so the couple needed to cut their guest list in half 😓 I can't imagine how stressful a time that must've been for them, but now they've been married for an entire month and it seems like every little struggle was completely worth it 💕

... Halloween! While I will take any excuse imaginable to dress up for an occasion, I didn't actually wear a costume this Halloween 😞 That being said, I still got to have fun taking my nephews trick-or-treating around their neighbourhood. Elliott was dressed up as an adorable green dragon, while Charlie went out for Halloween as famed ninja turtle Leonardo (& yes, I did have to look up the exact name XD It's been a long time since I watched anything related to TMNT, so give me a break! 😂). He was even running like a ninja turtle from house to house, it was adorable!

Their neighbourhood was something of a ghost town this year, even by Halloween standards - by that I mean not many houses had their porch lights on indicating that they were open for business from local trick-or-treaters. There were a lot of houses that came up with unique, COVID-friendly solutions in order to make this Halloween special for as many kids as possible - Many people had set out tables outside their doors, asking kids to help themselves, others handed out chips or chocolates using a pair of tongs, and there was one house with treats taped to their garage door in the style of a big spider web. My favourite house had fashioned a small slide/chute where they would pop in the candy and it would slide down and fall into a child's bag - talk about clever!

That about sums up everything that I've been up to over the past couple of months! Let's keep in touch - post in the comments or send me a tweet to let me know what sorts of things you've been up to lately! 😁

Keep Me Posted! 📮💟