1183 Days - #148 - Own a fitbit (or similar)

My sister actually got me this Sony Smartband! Similar to a fitbit, and I just wanted something like it anyway, so yay! :) Got this on September 11th, 2016!

Having a lot of fun with it, the app has a bunch of extra things to track other than steps, amusing seeing how much time I spend on Facebook for example, heh.

1183 Days Progress!

So it's been a while since I've made any post, let alone one about 1183 Days! I'm going to make full posts for each item (and probably tag it here!) but for now, these are the things I've managed to make happen! (And the dates, if I remember them off the top of my head, lol.)

002 - Finish a colouring page! - Done today! July 30th, while at work! :) It's just a colouring page I got from the library, but it's not bad.

006 - Make a painting freestyle (not in class) - Did this in May, for our new house. :) Actually did two paintings, one of a lake for our living room, and one for Ollie's room!007 - Get our own place! (Apartment?) - Officially got the keys on June 4th! Moved in a couple weeks later, since I had to get furniture and stuff heh.

017 - Get a fancy purse - Did this in mid-May... I think the 18th? After my work interview (and job offer that I accepted!) I went to the thrift store across the street. I found a Vera Bradley bag (of which I've wanted one for years!) for $7 I believe. It's usually 10x that, so as you can imagine, I was thrilled. It was essentially brand new. Good enough for me. :)

020 - Get a kitty! - We actually adopted her at the end of June, but she had to get fixed, and then caught an upper respiratory thing that they offered to treat at the humane society, so we got her officially a couple weeks later. Her full name is Miss Yuki Mao Mao. LOL. Yuki for short... which means snow. She's a black cat. My sense of humour is something else.

028 - Bake cake/cupcakes/muffins from scratch! - Did this sometime in June, made my grandma's banana muffin recipe. SO GOOD. I need to make them again, now that I think about it...

060 - Plant a REAL garden (NOT POTTED) - Did this a few weeks after moving in, but all my plants died, LOL. It's too hot here. :( I'll try again, but I am so counting this time. TOO BAD.

073 - Get a real GOOD cellphone - Did this on July 17th! Got an LG X Power, once I found out I had a credit available through my mobile phone company. Now the husband wants one too, lol. Lucky for him, I have more of a credit that I have no use for, heh. :)

081 - Go to another con - Went to Mini-Mini Con in San Antonio sometime in May. Entered a tournament while there, so crossed off another item on my list!

090 - Own a couple of NICE PJ sets - Got myself a couple of cute and comfy sets of PJs in May, while shopping for work clothes. Makes as much sense as anything else, no?

093 - Get a nice pair of shoes - Okay, they're not super fancy, but they're SO COMFY. Got them sometime in June.

132 - Have a 4 slice toaster again - Got this in May, for our house! :)

134 - Enter (+ probably lose) a game tournament - Did this at the start of May with the husband, a Guilty Gear tournament at a Mini Con in San Antonio. I sucked, but I had fun. :)

165 - Own a fancy water bottle - Okay, it's not extra fancy, but I fiddled around with a dozen or so of them, and decided on one I liked, even though it's kind of boring. It's 48oz though, so that helps me get all my water intake in every day. :) Good stuff!

Still here!

I know, it's been over a month since I've made a post here, yikes!

In that time though, I've moved us back to Canada (yay!), gotten us a nice house (I love it here) AND gotten a job that I'm really enjoying. Not to mention, I've plowed through close to a dozen of my to-do list items, which I'll be making into posts during today, since it's my day off. Four day weekends are great ha! :)

If my thinking is right, I'm almost caught up to where I should be, in regards to completed tasks. Not bad!

Camp NaNoWriMo and other things!

I did it! Over 57,000 words, one cross-country road trip, one horrible still undiagnosed illness (that keeps knocking me off my feet and makes me feel like garbage all the time), one toddler teething and hating to sleep, and so many other things that could have stopped me but DIDN'T!

Otter is FAR from over. I have a lot of editing to do. Technically, we're on vacation, I guess. We're trying to figure out what to do with our little lives, and our little family, up around Niagara Falls (the Canadian side, the pretty side, haha!)

For reasons that made sense at the time, but not so much now, I left my dog behind in Texas (she's okay!) but ugh, I miss her so much right now. It'll be nice to have that stinky pooch jumping all over me with her muddy (probably, she loves mud!) paws again.

But anyway, a pen name has been chosen (my husband doesn't think it sounds dumb, so I'll be using it, heh) and the pages for it will be made, and sometime this month, my first chapter of Otter will be released! SO exciting! I promise to have all of those links up and running soon. Hopefully sometime this week, even though later in the week, we'll be travelling once again!

On top of being super awesome for doing this, this also means I get to check off task #5 on my 1183 Days list! I have NEVER 'won' at NaNoWriMo before, so this was something I thought wouldn't happen at all. So an extra yay, for that!

Writing and 1183 Days task!

Technically, I'm a day ahead for Camp NaNoWriMo! I should be at 6666 words, but am over 7k already, whoo!

Completing any NaNoWriMo event is part of my "1183 Days" list (it's #5!) and so I have high hopes that I'll make it this time. To keep it "fair", I'm doing the usual 50k word count, since during camp, you can choose your own word count. I guess if I wanted to be sneaky, I could make it 8k words, and claim I win that way, but I don't like playing like that!

To help me on my way, I've accepted a secondary writing challenge, oddly enough at WritingChallenge.org! The goal there is to hit 500 words per day, but they aim at doing it all year round. They use Twitter to keep tallies, and to cheer each other on. It's actually a great atmosphere! You enter your word count on a Google document, it's on the honour system, but it's nice seeing how other people are doing alongside you! I love doing things with a group, it feels so much less lonely. Their word count to hit is low enough that it doesn't feel like a horrible chore, either. I usually manage to pump out that much in 10-15 minutes, honestly.

Especially while taking part in a word sprint! During NaNoWriMo months (April, July, and of course the main month, November!) @NaNoWordSprints comes alive on Twitter, and leads people in sprints and prompts, to help you work on your novel. Most sprints are between 10-20 minutes, but they often run 1k30 sprints, try to write 1,000 words in half an hour! The closest I've gotten this month, was 999 words. Seriously. Oh well, 27 more days to try!

(Camp) NaNoWriMo!

Whoa, it's almost April, which means a new monthly page for my Bullet Journal (it's so dull, unless you care about when my bills need to be paid, ha!), us hopefully finally going back home (yay!), and the first (second one is in July) Camp NaNoWriMo of 2016!


I have got to say, I have never "won" NaNoWriMo, in any of its forms. Super depressing, right?

There's always something that comes up. Last November, for example, I ended up so horribly sick, five days in, that I wound up in the hospital for a bit!

I am determined to NOT let that happen this time around! After all, "winning" a NaNoWriMo is on my to-do list. :)

I have a story half-planned out (so that I can still surprise myself), which is actually based off a dream I had a few weeks ago.

It's about a girl named Otter (that came from the dream, my dream is bad at naming things, much like I am, heh) who is stuck in a weird time loop, Monday to Friday. No weekends, just go to bed on Friday, suddenly it's Monday again. No days off of school for her!

Once she realizes she's not only stuck in the time loop, but also her neighbourhood (that would make anyone go nuts...) she starts to do horrible things, just because next week, none of it will matter.

Until the loop stops, of course. ;)

This will probably be a short story, but maybe I can stretch it to novella-length, and self-publish it for funsies. Why not, eh?

So wish me luck, you invisible beings, who I know look at this blog, but never comment! Don't be shy, I don't bite, promise. :)

To follow along with my word count, watch my twitter account @Cuddliest! I do a lot of word sprints and prompts on there too. :) My Camp NaNo (and regular NaNo) account is YayCupcake on the off chance you'd like to check me out on there too!

1183 Days - #82 - Finish ANY collection on Animal Crossing

Okay, so I've been playing Animal Crossing since it came out for the Gamecube. Long time!

I've NEVER finished a collection across the board, though.

To me, that's a bit depressing! I don't collect many things in real life (the little bit of collections I have had, are long gone, long story) and due to my little collections being gone, I figured, a safe place to try and collect something would be in the latest Animal Crossing game!

To be honest, in the generation prior to this one, my DS reset all its data, and I lost everything I had collected. (Plus all of my game data for any game I'd ever played on it!) So trying again was a challenge itself, it actually really upset me!

My lovely husband bought me Animal Crossing: New Leaf (for Nintendo 3DS) back in July, as a "wedding present" (does this show what kind of couple we are? heh) but I only seriously started to collect things in about October.

After only four months, I finished the dinosaur fossils collection, without any outside help OR time travel OR cheats. Go me!

1183 Days - #68 - Apply to Jeopardy again

I last entered to try and be on Jeopardy about four years ago.

I got an email to do a secondary test, but that was the end of that trail.

I decided it was time to try again!

The testing period for 2016 was limited to three days, January 26-28! I did mine on the last day.

My computer lagged, the internet acted up, my computer fully froze up at the very end, but in the end, I completed the test!

Now I'm hearing that Canadians aren't allowed on the show... I used the Texas address I'm at presently, because I didn't see the Canadian options. Now I'm wondering what will happen to my entry!

If I even get a return reply, anyway.

Here's hoping! :)

1183 Days - #166 - Have and use a journal

Boy did I ever throw myself into this one.

I actually found a journal in my husband's old room, which he said I could have. It sat on my bedside table for a month nearly, when I came across the concept of Bullet Journals on Pinterest.

I was hooked.

I'll probably never post content here (it's boring, mostly about health issues I'm having, to show my doctor) but it was exists, and is great! Once the baby is in daycare and then school, and we have our business up and running, I have a feeling I'll have a more interesting version that I will post pictures with pride. :)

Unless someone reading this really wants to see how often I have headaches and nausea.

Ew. :P

1183 Days - #13 - Win ANYTHING (lottery?)

So right now we're down in Texas. I honestly don't think I ever had bought a lottery ticket in America before, but the jackpot was at around $1billion! I know the chances are slim, but why not, eh?

So I bought the numbers I usually buy back home when I drop some cash on a ticket (rarely, lol) and picked 13 for my Powerball across the board.

Lucky me, 13 came in as the Powerball!! Hahaha!!

I won $26, my first ever American lottery win.

I bought more tickets (didn't win!) and some chocolate. Good choice. ;)

1183 Days - #25 - Finish ANY book

As a mom, I don't really read a lot these days. Less now that my Kobo (ereader) has vanished, since the baby has a habit of tearing pages from books...

Luckily, I've learned the art of reading during naps or after bedtime.

My first book read fully during this self-imposed challenge was The Ocean at the end of the Lane by Neil Gaiman and I really enjoyed it! I recommend it to anyone who wants a nice easy book to fall into. It's typical Neil Gaiman, mature fairy tale style. I recommended it to my husband, who rarely reads anything but comics, and he ate it up in two days. Yay!

To be sadly honest, before reading this book, I could NOT recall the last book I'd finished. Either I lose interest, or lose track of the book itself and find it hard to pick back up after being lost however long.

Trying to read 12 books for 2016, and doing fairly well, if you check my Goodreads account considering everything going on in my life! :)

1183 Days - #114 - Properly celebrate something

Okay, so I don't really *do* holidays. Stupid reasons.

 

A big part is that I am very shy and introverted. A worse part is that I'm often sick these days, and doing too much wears me down fast.

I didn't let this keep me down on New Year's this year though!

December 31 2015/January 1 2016, we (my husband and I, baby stayed home with Grandma) did fireworks, played a multiple hour long game of Cards Against Humanity, had some good BBQ, and just an all out good time.

While driving to/from the party, we got to see multiple fireworks parties around San Antonio, which was an amazing thing in and of itself.

Oddly, this was actually our second New Year's in San Antonio! Maybe we'll try to go for a three-for in 2017! Heh. :)

1183 Days - #19 - Get a nice haircut

So a few years ago, I chopped off most of my hair. It's very thick and naturally curly, so this is kind of a requirement in my life at times.

Since I haven't dyed my hair in ages though, I've been able to donate it twice now! This being one of those times.

My hair goes to wigs for kids who are great people, who give wigs to kids that need them for FREE.

Free is the best price ever. :)

I think maybe it wasn't the best styling I've ever gotten after hacking most of my hair off, but it was for a good reason, so no complaints here!

Will likely be doing this again in a few years, once my hair's grown out again! Probably will wait until summer next time though. Good thing we were in Texas this time around, as I did this cut on December 16th, 2015!

1183 Days - #26 - Sort Ollie's clothes to sell/giveaway

My baby is growing up so fast!!

As such, he needs new clothes every two minutes, or so it seems.

We routinely buy him new clothes, well... New to us. Most of what he owns, or has owned, has come from Once Upon a Child. I love the place, and you can get "almost new" stuff for a tiny fraction of the new price. One time I got super lucky during a clearance sale, and bought him loads of things for 50¢ each!

As he outgrows stuff, I try to tuck it out of the way, since nothing is worse than an angry baby flailing as you try to yank a too-small shirt over his head!

I finally got around to a point where I decided to gather it all to take to a OUAC, to trade in to get him some new things.

We continue to do that now, about once a month.

He might seem a bit spoiled, but when you're almost always using store credit, it's hard to feel guilty, heh. :)

1183 Days - #3 - Number this book

I felt like adding page numbers, so when I write entries about my tasks, I can find them again. Makes sense, no? :)

Did it on December 3, 2015!

1183 Days - #159 - Make a blog for 1183 Days

Okay, I actually did this on December 3rd, 2015, but realized I didn't really need to have fifteen blogs. I have trouble just running one! Lol. So it's gone (not deleted, just... Sitting there) while I use this to show off all the things I enjoy. Much better to be all in one place. :)

1183 Days - #59 - Make an Amazon Wishlist

Okay, so maybe this is a bit sneaky of me.

I made an Amazon wishlist (click it, if you want to!) full of things that would help me complete certain things on my 1183 Days list.

Things like a TX Waffle Iron (I saw one at a hotel once, have wanted one since, lol), or silly string (I swear, it helps something on my list) and a billion pretty purses (I have "own a nice purse" on my list...) because I can't just decide on one.

I really don't have high hopes of anything from it being bought, but it does help me to see everything that is a help to me for fulfilling this list. And, if I come across something I like more (I also have "own a tiara" on my list...) than one thing I originally put, I can just toss both on, and pretend like I'm going to own both.

So yeah. If you feel like making my day/week/month/year, then feel free to drop $10 on something silly from my list. Like washi tape or stickers to make my journal pretty...

Ahem. Doesn't hurt to have out there, anyway. :)

And as you can see, being #59, this wasn't some last-thought thing I added to my list! I realized it might be helpful. So there.

1183 Days - #96 - Take a painting class

Getting this entry done was out of no where actually.

I'd just started to look into Painting with a Twist and so added their local location on Facebook. They happened to be offering a free class, to teach a new teacher how to teach a class!

I was on top of that post so fast... Lol.

I really didn't know what to expect. There was about a dozen easels and canvases set up, with paint and paintbrushes all ready to go.

We listened what to do, how to layer things, how to flick paint to get certain details, etc etc.

I hadn't painted in YEARS up until then, and had the time of my life. Even though I didn't know a single person, it was actually a very relaxed type of place.

I did deviate from the intended design a bit, but I think that made it more fun.

Right now the painting is sitting around in our bedroom. Not a masterpiece, but sometimes painting for fun and not for profit, can be a good thing. :)

1183 Days - #1 - Finish this list!

So I finished writing my 169 tasks (169 weeks between September 24th, 2015, and December 19th, 2018, at one task per week, seems doable!) as of October 4th, 2015.

Oddly had trouble coming up with that many tasks, but looking at my list now, there's so many things I wish I'd included! Hence why soon I'm going to start an ongoing to-do list! To put all the things I want to do in life, that didn't make this list :)