Hello, my friends! I missed a Monday or two already for 2024, because I got hit with a nice long cold/flu situation to start the year. This week, I’m finally feeling almost entirely human again, so I’m back with some updates!
We had two massive wind storms back to back here in PA and it’s been a bit of an adventure. When the wind comes from a certain direction, it’s quite loud as it whistles through our wooden house. On top of that, the storm on Tuesday knocked a small tree across our driveway that my husband had to clear out.
Then, Friday’s wind storm threw us a much larger tree over the driveway and Andy was dubious if he’d be able to clear it away at all. Thankfully, neither tree caused any damage and we were able to get them cleared away without incident. This is the pitfall of having your own personal forest, I suppose.
I’ve been easing back into the flow of work after the holidays / being sick and have been reading and doing yoga a good bit as well. In all, not a bad start to the year, even if I’d have preferred the full speed ahead approach.
What I’ve Been Up To
Work/Writing
The epilogue for the latest Pokemon Scarlet & Violet expansion came out last week, so I got to play through that and do a bit of writing on it. Since it was so short and straightforward, there wasn’t much to guide, but I did cover the top 5 best moments.
I also managed to write something not for work for the first time in a bit, as I explored just why I loved Pokemon Concierge quite so much. As an anxious gal with chronic migraine, the cute little stop-motion series really hit the spot.
Shortly after I watched, I got this cute little headache sleep Psyduck in Pokemon Sleep, and I just had to grab a screenshot.
General Life Updates
Major hibernation mode with the colder weather and being sick. Trying to get back in the swing of joyful movement every day and doing okay so far. That’s about it as of now.
Current Obsessions
Video Games
January is a bit of a new release lull in the video game world, so I’ve been poking about and prepping up for upcoming releases. Mainly, I’ve been playing Final Fantasy VII Remake in preparation for the upcoming release of Final Fantasy VII Rebirth. I never played the original Final Fantasy VII as a kid because I didn’t discover the franchise until X-2 and then didn’t want to go back to a game about some guy with a big sword.
Turns out, kid me kind of had a point. I know this game is massively popular and that I’m playing a remake, not an original, but Cloud is just… not an interesting character so far. Like, at all. It has been fascinating to play the game, though. I grew up with a general awareness of the characters through the internet and their appearances in Kingdom Hearts, but I’m surprised by just how much I didn’t know. That has made it interesting enough, and there are some fun side characters.
TV
Obviously I loved Pokemon Concierge and I’ve already watched it twice (made my husband revisit it with me).
I also decided to finally go back to Paramount+ long enough to watch the final season of the iCarly reboot. Maybe I’m just in the right mood, but it feels like the writing is a bit better this season. At any rate I’ve always shipped a certain couple that becomes canon in this season, so that’s been fun.
Food
I’m trying to get more fruits and veggies in my diet this year and watch my saturated fat, so I’ve been exploring a lot of new recipes, especially for lunch. I found this tuna salad recipe that’s got miso paste in it, which you pair with seaweed snacks, and it is amazing.
Unfortunately, enjoying some good plant-forward recipe content on Instagram reels has pretty quickly led me down the path to some fun, problematic New Year’s weight loss content that I did not sign up for. The algorithm really doesn’t understand the difference between gentle nutrition and full-on diet culture, which is annoying and also pretty concerning.
Words on the Web
In addition to the stuff I linked above, I completed a massive list ranking all of the Pokemon rivals, of all time. It took me ages, especially since I had to do some research since I didn't remember much about early rivals and missed out on some of the games that came out during college when I didn’t have any Nintendo gaming systems. If anyone has a Nintendo 3DS they don’t want/need anymore, let a girl know, because now I really want to go back for Black & White.
Anyway, that’s about it for me this week! Let me know how your January has been so far!