winding down and revving up

9/1/2026

happy new year everyone!! i wanted to have this post up before 2025 ended but the holiday season kept me a lot busier than i expected... early january is good enough, i think!

but i’ll get more into that later!! first things first:

a very belated halloween

one of the biggest reasons i missed the opportunity to talk about halloween in a timely fashion is that i didn't have a ton to say! i still really want to show off my costume though so we're going to zip through it real quick. i went as a clown! i sewed up my jumpsuit using the pattern 8773 by simplicity, and it came out really nice!! there are a few things i'd change if i was going to remake it in the future, but pre-made patterns always have some kind of nonsense to sort through so i'd say it worked well enough! i wore it to my friends house, where she was hosting a halloween party complete with a costume competition. i was way more interested in going as a clown than actually competing, but decided i'd learn how to make balloon animals to give me a bit of an edge. and i got a few votes!!

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balloon animal making was actually a lot easier than i thought it would be! funnily enough, i was really worried about it because i have a life-long fear of balloons. my friends all know this about me and were really surprised when i busted out them out!! i'm not as bad as i used to be by any means, but as a child i was really sensitive to loud noises and the idea that they might suddenly pop resulted in quite a few panic attacks growing up ;; in this instance i was actually more worried about the whiplash of the balloon hurting when it hit my skin or something though.

and i did end up popping a couple! i was fine and doing a good job until i got intoxicated. then tying the balloons felt like disarming a bomb LOL. but the popping didn't hurt and i was only mildly surprised!!! being under the influence probably helped keep me chill a bit but i'm taking this as a win regardless (≧◡≦)

christmas!

christmas was a lot of fun this year!!! the monday before i went out with some friends to an arcade and bowling. it was really fun, but the vibe of the arcade we went to was so weird! the music was too loud and there was only one worker that kept running back and forth. the whole thing it kind of felt like being in an ai generation in real life. but it was still fun!! i hit the jackpot on one of the games so i got to get a bunch of fun junk prizes >:)

for christmas eve, my dads family has a tradition of getting together. my dad dresses up as santa and passes out gifts to the young kids in the family and then we do a big white elephant gift exchange. there weren't many young kids this year because a lot of my cousins were with their spouses families so my dad passed some out to some older cousins too and i got a cute little calico critter set!! my aunts made fun of me for wanting it at my big age but my cousins little girls were jealous LMAO

it took me a while to really get into the christmas spirit this year but once i did it came in a big way! when i went to bed on christmas eve, i spent the whole night unable to sleep cause i was just so excited... being a festivcel is so hard... it was especially bad because we were waking up at like, 7am to go watch my nephew open his gifts. but well worth it because he was so cute playing with his new toys (´꒳`)♡

i got some nice stuff myself too! months back i saw a post snifflebear made talking about her anbernic rg cube and became infatuated with it. it had been on my mind ever since. so my boyfriend got me one for christmas!!! i'm so obsessed. this is a bit embarrassing but i ended up getting the same kind of decorations that snifflebear has too... the way she decorated it enchanted me, what can i say!!!

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it was so fun to set up! i downloaded like, over 400 roms, and i'm so excited to finally dip into some game series i've wanting to play for years. as you can see from the photo, i also downloaded nu: carnival uncensored LOL. starting over from bliss is a little annoying, especially cause i pulled some good cards, but i never got very far into it anyway. i was always so sad about having to play the censored version to make much progress, so i'm not too fussed about having to start over for such a worthy cause.

before dipping into any of the big game series, i'm starting slow by just enjoying some cozy girly games and it's been a lot of fun!! i'm hoping to write up an entry about it in the future ( ˶ˆᗜˆ˵ )

i didn't end up getting to actually celebrate christmas with my friends until a few days into the new year, but i had so much fun with them too... ♡ we did three (three!!!) different gift exchanges - two white elephants (a free version from stuff we already owned and a blind box version) and small, $5-10 gifts for everyone. we also did a couple of activities! i brought bingo again and then my friend also organized a friendship jeopardy for us...! she put so much work into it and it was such a good time. she also made us little 2025 friendship magazines with a bunch of jokes and memories from the year??? so so sweet. i'm obsessed with it.

winding down

and that pretty much wraps up the year!! the end of the year always makes me really introspective about who i am and who i want to be. i know some people think it's silly and that the changing of the year effectively means nothing, but i think there's something about taking the time to refresh and start over... it's a nice chance to check in!

it's hard to say if 2025 was a good year for me. there were a lot of ups and downs to be sure...! i led off on a particularly low note, saying goodbye to my precious dog and going through a rough patch mentally. but things picked up overall as the months went by! i think in general i spent this year a lot happier and more positive than other recent years even if i still had my moments! ☆

i'm really proud of how much more writing i did on the site this year. i managed a diary entry every month, sometimes multiple, and i'm really really happy about that!!! in my first entry i wrote that "maybe one day i'll have the flourishing blog of my dreams." at the time i didn't expect that to become true for a long time, but i somehow managed after all... and it was really fun! there were actually a lot more posts i had half-written and abandoned, but even they might see the light of day sometime (￣▽￣)ゞ

i ended the year feeling pretty hopeful and energized for the future overall. i wrote before that i think this was my last year of "stalling" and i think that's really true... even if it takes me time to find a job in my field, i can finally get the gears in motion and start moving forward with my life for real... and on that note!

revving up

the end of the year introspection gave me a lot of changes i’d like to make. resolutions, if you will. i’m taking a pretty slow and gentle approach to them this year! i think being strict and forcing some kind of change overnight would do more damage than good... the only thing i’ve been trying to actively practice daily is a kind of mindfulness about the choices i make and how i live my life. thoughts like, when i make these choices, are they bringing me closer to the person i actually want to be?

i’m always weary to voice out loud the types of changes i want to make lest i face any embarrassment if i fail. which is maybe antithetical to what i’ve been saying so far... but I do think in six months time i’d rather have something positive to report and be like “look at all this stuff i did!” instead of reporting back with a dreary post like “look at all the stuff i didn’t do.” so while i’m gonna keep them close to my heart for now, i’m feeling super optimistic and jazzed about the changes i'm integrating!

and that’s pretty much it! pheww, a long one from me this time. i hope the new year brings you all happiness and peace of mind ♡

vacation - the go-go's