It's odd how these colour stories come together. Week Three of the Hero Forge Advent Calendar took on a very brown and purple vibe. And we can mostly blame the Nautilus Spear for that one. Because, of course I was going to do purple tentacles. That was one of the items that was definitely better in the silhouette and/or my imagination... it's a little... clunky.
I will say that I quite like the axe, the corset top will probably see some use, but the folding fan! I've already redone my pain themed cleric, Whipmaster Demyan. Because as much as I liked the shield and whip combo, and he did in fact carry a whip in game, he also very much carried a fan. Because in one of the early games I played him in, the aircon at the gaming store was... questionable at best, so I brought a fan in with me for my own comfort, which then became my go-to Demyan prop.
But he'll probably be showing up as a Character Colouring Book in January.
Anyway...
This has felt like a very long week. Mostly because at the end of it (last night) was Friday Night D&D Board Game Christmas. And the final reveal of The Secret Project.
But I started off with a much better quiche for this week. My biggest hurdle right now is trying to cut the thing into 5 roughly even pieces.
On Tuesday I wrapped presents. And was very thankful that I'd completely incidentally watched a couple of videos about wrapping presents in the last week or so. Which meant, when I cut the wrapping paper too small for the giant box I had to wrap, I didn't freak out, I just turned the paper about 45 degrees and did probably a 7 out of 10 on the wrapping, because the sides were not even and the paper was a little loose in spots, but I got there. It looked reasonable. And when you mostly have a random pattern on the paper with no stripes or directional details, it definitely helps.
Wednesday I made Rocky Road. Only the one. But then, of course, it turned out that the container I used was almost the size of the two disposable foil trays I've used in the past. Or it took up about the same amount of space in the fridge.
Thursday was a new Christmas recipe... Christmas Crack from my favourite internet baker, B Dylan Hollis (other cracks are available). And, honestly, my most successful attempt at something from his cookbook (The #1 New York Times Bestselling Cookbook Baking Yesteryear) to date. It was wildly successful. And super easy.
Friday started out with trips to two different libraries, because I noticed one of the new books that I had on hold was just casually sitting on a shelf at the library near my old house. So I jumped in the car, headed down the road, snatched it up and came back to hit up my library for the second time this week (I'd run out of books on Thursday and things were waiting for me, but then something else came in on Friday, and given they'll be closed for part of next week, I headed off to get it.
I'll fully admit that I've spent all week in a state of... anticipation, I guess. Because, as I said, yesterday was FNDnDBGC, but I only really realised what I was feeling and why on Friday morning. Because giving people presents is part of my love language (along with Physical Touch... honestly, looking at the five love language options, are there any of those that aren't at least partially me... hmmm... maybe not Acts of Service) and it's been a hot minute since I've been able to actually have present people with... well, presents. And I was kind of riding that high especially on Thursday and Friday.
Also, any day I can emotionally torture Fluffy is a good day. Because I'm evil.
I also hid the giant box in the boot of the car so that he only saw it when we got to Mr and Mrs' place.
[evil grin]
And of course, I made sure I went last. Because DUR. I will mention it again later, but I'm very excited by the copy of The 99% Invisible City Fluffy got for me after I introduced him to the podcast this year. Or, rather, he finally paid attention to me after recommending it to him about five other times. It will definitely be one of my first reads of 2024.
But I finally got to reveal what was behind all those [clandestine reference to ongoing secret project] mentions. I learned to crochet and made Fluffy a big granny square blanket. There will be a whole post on it, probably in the week between Christmas and New Year, but soon anyway. And not to toot my own horn, but I did good. And I know that by the number of times he said "how dare you" to me when we left and were headed back to the car.
[does Snoopy Happy Dance for an extended period of time]
I also made a dice bag for Mrs, an Emotional Support Mind Flayer (basically an octopus, but he's planning on running a DnD adventure for us that has a lot of mind flayers in it, so it seemed appropriate), plus small things for the twins and also cat toys for the cats. Basically, many crocheted things.
[contented sigh]
And then what better to get us all in the mood for Christmas than a nice game of Mansions of Madness that was very "big snek energy" coded. Or, to use the appropriate Lovecraft reference, very "Yig". Which we absolutely should have won, but lost one turn before victory, even though we had all four idols, had prevented a bunch of folks from turning into big snek monsters. But sadly, we did not and now all our investigators are also snek monsters.
Pour one out for "Ashcan" Pete the Drifter, Ursula Downs the Explorer, Rita Young the Athlete and Diana Stanley the Redeemed Cultist.
Doubly so because we finished up at 1am. It was a good night though.
Anyway...
Fuck the supermarket on the Saturday before Christmas. Because we do this on Saturday every week... you're just taking up space and getting in everyone's way. And, for the record, deciding to go first thing when the supermarket opens is... the exact same idea that everybody else has had, so maybe stay home, go later.
Actually, it wasn't that bad. I mean, the deli counter and the fruit and veg section was a shitshow and there were people taking up space everywhere, but I think we managed to time it a little between People Who Showed Up When The Store Opened and People Who Showed Up Later To Avoid Those People.
We didn't do anything else, because, no, absolutely not. Y'all lose your tiny minds the weekend before Christmas, doubly so when Christmas is directly after that weekend. So, no shops for us.
That it.
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