Mari Musings

Wow, it's almost Valentine's Day! Maybe it's silly, but Valentine's Day is my favorite holiday. It's low pressure, red and pink, and there are hearts and chocolate everywhere. I love taking time to tell my loved ones how much they mean to me, especially Dudu. I've been sick in bed for the last week with the flu, and he took such good care of me. I'm so grateful.

Speaking of being bed-bound... it sucked so much LOL. I have a low social battery, and I have trouble keeping in touch. And, simultaneously, dialetically, I'm an extrovert. My cup is filled by being around people, and when I'm isolated, as was the case as I recovered from the flu, I feel so sad. I'm okay with being by myself and enjoy my alone time. But days of being stuck in my house by myself really gets to me. It makes me so crazy that I start missing my cubicle and the mean old ladies I work with. Thankfully, I am finally feeling well enough to rejoin society after a week in bed. I'm sure the feelings of 'please on the love of everything, let me go home' will return after a day or so hahaha.

As for Valentine's Day... Dudu and I don't have any plans which is just the way we like it. I'm going to buy him some model paint for his Warhammer figures he bought last weekend. I'm sure he will want to paint together, so let's count that as a date. Regardless, I love sitting next to him while we work on hobbies. I will be sure to share photos of the finished figures — they are pretty cool!

Here’s something I drew in about May last year. A coworker gave me a weird, square sketchbook. This drawing is a little rough, but it’s so cozy… I just used regular old Crayola colored pencils and a pen.

Feeling: A bit anxious

Watching: Grey’s Anatomy season 3

Reading: What Lies Beyond the Veil by Harper L. Woods (previously dropped)

Listening: Candlemass

Happy New Year! Is it too late for that greeting...? I took several pictures over the past few weeks for this blog, but I’m too tired to update. Funny how that works, right? My strength and fortitude have been challenged in new ways by some personal matters. I won’t quit, though … even if I’ve kissed my limit for a couple of weeks. To take my mind off the horrors, even with no energy, I have played a lot of small, non-committal games, such as Suika, Block Blast, and Life Makeover. It’s helping, and today is a good day.

I bought a new phone last week for the first time in like 8 years, so I’m excited to play with the new camera. —And it will be nice to edit the pictures without worrying that my phone will blow up, LOL. I’ve also sewn several projects this last month! I have improved my basic skills with each project, and I’m pretty happy with everything I’ve stitched together.

I never finished those weird pants for my mom. I felt demoralized after realizing that they probably will not fit her (#skill issue), so they’re sitting in my closet, staring sadly at me. I will make something more practical for my mom out of that cool alien fabric I have left over. 👽 I just need to decide what she would use. I love practical gifts like AirPods cases or book covers, but my mom is an odd woman. Maybe I should make her something as weird as the flap-quilt-pants. I don’t think I’m as creative as her when it comes to out-of-the-box ideas…

I found most of my fabric and supplies at the second-hand craft store. The alien fabric is from Michael’s, though. I miss Joann’s.

I bought new pillows for the first time ever. It’s embarrassing. TMI, but I’ve always just used my crusty, amber, well-loved twin pillows (with clean sheets, I’m not THAT nasty!), never considering buying new ones… until my mom visited and commented on it. It got into my head. I felt so r/malelivingspace. I have no decorations on my bedroom walls... I have no headboard... I started to spiral. Living with a man for the past 6 years has infected me with a virus that only new queen pillows could cure. Thankfully, the post-Christmas sales had my back. Naturally, these pillows need pillowcases. I decided to be ✨extra ✨and design my own quilted pillow pattern. I really struggled to follow a normal pattern or tutorial with my alterations, so I gave up and went rogue. It came out OK! I did not have the pillows themselves when I was sewing, so I trusted the internet and my own measurements to ensure they fit. And my math worked out perfectly! The pillowcase fits snuggly, and this pillow supports my neck better anyway. PHEW! It worked out. P.S. I have not made one for Dudu yet because he’s a princess who wants high-thread-count linen fabric. I wish I had thought of that! I want to be a princess too!👸 I put together a few small projects in just an evening, such as this robin bag for my aunt. She doesn’t like carrying a full purse when just running out of the house… and inevitably forgets her phone, ID, etc. So I made her this phone purse. It’s a bit ugly, but I learned a lot while making it.

My favorite project I’ve made so far is this little travel pouch I made for my 3DS (on the left). The other pouch is a simple book cover that I sewed together a few months ago. Basically, I hate throwing naked items in my purse, especially delicate ones like my handhelds and books. One day, I will post a ‘what’s in my bag’ page so you can see my system. Everything has a pouch.

(Not pictured) Finally, I made a couple of ‘purse pouches’ for Dudu. I hacked his PSP and loaded it with games for him as a Christmas gift. He wanted a soft cover for it so he could put it in his work bag. Ask, and he shall receive. I’m like the sewing fairy. 🧚 Mood: Sleepy

Listening to: Pantera

Watching: The Walking Dead S4

Playing: Cities Skylines (2014)

Hi, how are you? The holidays are coming up so fast, but I’m barely past Halloween emotionally. And before I know it, it will be 2026. Will I be past Thanksgiving by then? (⌒_⌒;)

Today, I learned that I can decorate my iPhone photos with my iMessage stickers natively in the Photos app. It lacks the functionality of a more robust editing app, but it does the job. It’s been fun to play with Picmix-style edits. Here is a photo diary of sorts! My coworker gave me this adorable sucker. It was heart-shaped and so sweet. ( ´ ∀ `)ノ～♡ My phone is basically a ticking time bomb at this point. It’s an iPhone XR, and it’s hard to believe it’s already 7 years old. I can’t use many apps due to performance issues, so I rely on the browser. Unfortunately, most sites are so bloated that my phone crashes after a few minutes. On the bright side, this keeps me off my phone lol.

Today, I bought fabric for a sewing project. My mom asked me to sew her a pair of ‘quilted pants with side blankets.’ Basically, she wants quilted pants, complete with batting, with blanket ‘flaps’ sewn onto the side to act like a blanket. …Why not just have me sew a matching quilt? I don’t know — she is an odd woman. But I am her daughter, so I will acquiesce to her request — sans the flaps.

I haven’t sewn a pair of pants in like 15 years, and I have no idea what I’m doing lol. I’m sure my mom won’t mind if they’re a bit funny looking… she literally wanted flaps! Like a manta ray! I can’t get over it, it’s so funny.

Upon returning from the fabric store, my neighbor texted me that she was looking for her cat. He had been missing since yesterday morning. I am good friends with both my neighbor and all of her cats, and especially close with Kakashi, the kitty she was looking for. He visits me every day, but I hadn’t seen him when I got home from work. I felt a bit worried because his shy kitty brother, Puck, came by looking for Kakashi. He’s done this before, but Puck was frantic today. He was meowing at the top of his little lungs despite normally being a gentle, quiet cat. It was definitely out of the ordinary.

My boyfriend told me not to go out looking because he was worried I would disturb the neighbors and that they would call the police. That’s a bit dramatic… but I understand where he’s coming from. He is naturally the kind of person who avoids troubling others, and he urged me to stay home. Despite that, I felt an overwhelming compulsion to take my flashlight and leave, so off I went.

After only a few minutes of searching, I passed by another neighbor warming up his truck. He noticed that I was shining my flashlight into the bushes and approached me, asking if I was looking for an adorable tuxedo cat. I was immediately relieved that Kakashi was safe, and I brought the man to my other neighbor’s house, where she was reunited with delightful Kakashi. He seems to have an issue with his stomach, so I’m still worried about him. (╯︵╰,)

I try to take time to be grateful every day for the life I have, and moments like these are some of my most cherished. I feel God’s hand on my shoulder guiding me, and I feel her love. If I had left my house mere minutes later, I would have completely missed the man who had Kakashi. I’m grateful that Kakashi was found by a kind man, as the weather has been awful here.

Kindness to animals is a most virtuous trait, and I’m grateful to have friendships with my neighbors and their cats. Really, I’m friends with my neighbors because their cats introduced us. That’s an animal’s power.

Animals show the purest form of love. They know no evil or hatred. Cats love us at our ugliest, without real judgment, and they love unconditionally. It’s an innocence worth protecting and cherishing. ヽ(♡‿♡)ノ

Last January, I started working on a painting of Clover using shojo illustrations as my inspiration. I studied and referenced several CLAMP paintings while working on it. After about a month of working on and off, I decided it was finished. I'm not sure what my thought process was in deciding I was done with it. I had finished the line work, the second pass of rendering, the background... Perhaps I was sick of looking at it and wanted to move onto something else. Either way, this is what it looked like in February when it was 'done.'

It's pretty, and I like it. But even at the time, I knew it could be better. I knew that I my painting skill could go beyond the 'finished' state, but I stopped pushing myself. I'm not sure why.

Several months, a couple paintings, and hundreds of sketches later, I started thinking about the techniques of the Renaissance master painters. I don't remember what lead to this train of thought, but it was a key point of discovery in my journey as an artist. The father of the Renaissance, Leonardo da Vinci, would work on his paintings over a number of years. There are several reasons for this such as the time consuming nature of sfumato, his work aside from painting, and da Vinci was a perfectionist. I notice in my own work that I dislike the idea of returning to a painting after starting something new. I have gigbytes of abandoned files with hours of work spent on them that I simply leave to digitally rot in my computer. When working on a piece, I push myself to 'finish' because I know, consciously or not, that if I move onto something else, the painting will never be done. After casually reading about da Vinci's work, I remembered that painting in January I was done with, though not quite satisfied with.

I opened the file again and examined my work with fresh eyes. Of course, with distance, it's much easier to see areas of improvement objectively. My first 'finished' version of that painting is pretty, but it lacks contrast. It needs better lighting to show the viewer where they need to look. The clouds are aimlessly placed, lacking direction and composition. The lace trim I hastily placed last-minute cheapen the painting, and it's easily the weakest point. It's just distracting. This isn't self flagellation – it's honest self critique of a painting that I was proud of. Everyone has room for improvement.

Sometime in October, I started fiddling around with the painting again, and about a month ago, I 'finished' it again.

Much better.

I'm pleased with my improvements. If I were to go back and change anything, I would blur the edges of her wings and the back layer of her hair to allow for more depth. I could also probably push the contrast a bit more.

Overall, I'm happy to have identified this habit I have in my art, and I'm think I'm a better artist by challenging it. Plus, it's fun to take my work to the next level, even if the changes are subtle. ♥

Hello, everyone! I'm FINALLY blogging again... so crazy. I've wanted to change my blogging system for some time now, and I've experimented with a few different things. Previously I used Zonelets for blogging, which is great for beginner web developers, especially those who don't have access to server side languages and databases like PHP and MySQL. However, I found Zonelets to be tedious to update alongside my RSS feed which was also manual at the time. While never going live, I ported all of my posts to a fork of Zonelets called Zonelots which has a few more features than Zonelets. However, I ran into the same issue – it's so damn tedious to update a static site blog like that.

Of course, that isn't the only barrier I've had to blogging, but my hope is that my shiny new bloggin CMS will encourage me to use it more. I looked at forks of WordPress such as ClassicPress, but I ultimately decided that it's a little more involved than I'd like. This is just a simple blog, and I want to be casual with it. I played around with the idea of building my own rudimentary frontend, too. After doing some research, I think that is a bit too far above my skill level for now. I have only just started flirting with PHP and server side shenanigans.

I looked through my friends' and peers' sites for inspiration. I love Mala's diary, and she has seemingly upgraded it recently. I'm not sure if she built her own framework or not, but I love how it's set up. My favorite part about her entries is how she documents her real life adventures. For some reason, reading her entries gives me a certain sense of melancholy I can't put my finger on.

I like Lapin's simple approach. I think both her microblog and diary are just one page each, where she adds a new div for each entry. Of course, her web design is fantastic and I love reading her entries. I'm also a nerdy, OC-obsessed, ""boring"" office lady living with my not-husband. I find her really entries relatable.

I finally found one what I was looking for after rereading Krish's blog posts. I love how thought-out and deeply, existentially personal Krish's blog entries are. They are also one of the most resourceful people I know on the small web. If I ever need something, Krish always has just the answer. Their blog is how I found Chyrp Lite, my current CMS.

My only complaint about Chyrp Lite so far is that it's difficult to customize. Thankfully, it comes with several nice default themes, but making my own has been a challenge. My current theme as of writing this is really just a re-skin of the Blossom theme. I've managed to change the colors and borders; however, after hours of trying yesterday, I wasn't able to add any other images or links to my sidebar... yet. The draw of hosting a website and building/editing code and systems on my own is learning something new. It gives me a sense of accomplishment and confidence in myself that's valuable in all areas of my life. It may take me some time, but I can and will learn how Chyrp works – just like how I figured out Zonelets three years ago.

Regarding the future of my blog, I'm inspired by the way darling Aid runs her microblog. For awhile, she was posting little snippets of what was going on in her life. They weren't grand essays with citations and worldly implications... (most of the time). The beauty of Aid's blog is that it's so casual and personal, showing her interests and fleeting, unfinished projects. I simply love reading it! I also love that she uses it as a 'feed' of sorts for her new art. I always felt like putting my new drawings in my gallery was a bit unceremonious. I miss the days of deviantArt where it was expected to have a lot to say about my art, and a blog is the perfect place for it. I had never considered or even seen anyone use it like that before. Cheers to Aid! (And Sylvie and Rock Grandpa ♥).

I want to figure out how to have different 'types' of images in this blog, like different CSS classes. So far, all my images are aligned in the center which is what I want most of the time... But I like to use 'emoji' images as well, which is to say small images that do not break the line. If anyone has any advice on how to do this in Chyrp flavored markdown/the CSS, I am all ears.

Time to go eat some ham, it's Thanksgiving here in the states. ♥

Currently

Mood: Calm

Listening to: My boyfriend play Arc Raiders

Reading: What Lies Beyond the Veil - Harper L. Woods

Watching: the gronch (2000)

Playing: Skyrim (2011)