dausy

[dausy]

Just like that we have a baby. This has so far been the longest and fastest times of my life.

I was supposed to be induced on the 20th but he came by himself on the 19th. I'm legit about to just like..tell my birth story and be one of those people because its happened to me and its so bizarre that I actually let it happen to me. Such an adulty womanly thing to do that I never felt I would be womanly or adulty to do so as evidenced by me having a kid at 37 for the first time.

I was actually still on the work schedule last thursday. I took myself off when I found out we were supposed to induce on thursday going into friday at midnight and I wanted one more day with my husband as just us. Maybe spend the day playing video games and banking my last few hours of sleep as I hear Ill never get sleep ever again.

I woke up around 3am to pee on thursday night with some cramp like sensations but went back to bed. Woke up again around 5 or 6am and was still crampy but was able to ignore it. They were kind of like menstrual cramps Id have as a teen. Uncomfortable but still functional. I managed to do work stuff on the computer, I managed to do chores, shower and while my cramps would eventually stop me in place while they were happening I didnt possibly think those could be labor pains. I couldnt be in labor. I legit just thought these were finally those practice contractions your body goes through because Id never had them before. My husband however was getting a little bit worried and was wanting to count them. He even asked me if I wanted to call the triage line and see if I needed to be seen. But I just knew Id go in and they'd check me and tell me it wasnt labor and to go home. I didnt want to go through that if I was supposed to be there at midnight for induction anyway.

But around 330 in the afternoon Id gotten up to use the bathroom and had the intention of returning to the couch for a nap. As I rolled onto my side on the couch, I felt, what felt like the entire babies body move in my stomach (which is normal) but followed but a huge balloon like POP and a gush..and I knew instantly that was my water breaking. That was so obviously my water breaking that it caught me off guard I screamed and jumped off the couch.

queue us frantically trying to get to the hospital. My husband had been sneaking our luggage down near the front door all day since he figured out Id been having bad cramps. Luckily we live 5 mins up the road from the hospital. So we got there around 4pm after calling and telling them we were on the way. I went straight to triage and came up 4cm dilated and 90% effaced? at this point, I think the contractions were still as strong as they were at home but it was a combination of "this is real" adrenaline and fluid gushing out with every contraction that it just made everything 10x worse.

everything happened so quickly. I was rushed to a room, got labs drawn and was being hunched over for an epidural. I thought Id have time to take a great nap before they were instructing me to push. Little guy was born at 7:01pm. Didnt need no induction. Cant believe I labored at home all day wtf me.

past couple days has been an emotional blur of lack of sleep and hormonal cry sessions. This is another adventure all together. Baby starting to stir now, typing is hard. Be back later.

[dausy]

Well we may end up getting induced next week. Which is kinda shocking because while I understand my due date is at the end of the month and that's technically not far from now...next week sounds too close and too real. End of the month sounded so far away.

Baby is just measuring on the small side and I have a mild case of IUGR (Intrauterine growth restriction). So essentially my placenta isn't feeding baby as it should be. It'll have to get sent off for testing afterwards. But I go for another ultrasound next week and we decide if we induce that Friday or if hes ok we can hold onto him a little longer.

I say this like I really want him to stay in but then like Im rolling around on the floor right now because I am so uncomfortable and in pain all over because theres just no room in my abdomen for anything.

I do feel a little jealous or jipped that I didnt get to experience obvious pregnant lady attention in public spaces. Like its really silly but I think part of the reason women like being pregnant is even if they are miserable and in pain, atleast they get some sort of attention for their efforts. It hasn't been but the past maybe 2 weeks where I had patients even respectfully ask if I was expecting because they couldn't tell T.T

I did take myself out to go do a classic pedicure prior to delivery. I didnt quite get the nails I wanted but the leg message felt really good. Maybe I should see if theres a walk in prenatal message somewhere in town?

My mom and siblings did throw me a little baby shower over the weekend which was overly nice of them because I wasnt expecting anything. My sister got quite a few paint palette inspired art baby toys which was very thoughtful given my artist platform. My MIL is flying out at the end of the month to come visit and has her tickets. And our lives are about to change drastically. Then we gotta figure out how to survive in a new world.

[dausy]

Im just disassociating from time flying by and the internet.

I'm avoiding the internet because I dont feel well enough to keep up with it and everybody I follow is apparently in bad mental health and I cant handle that either.

Im just letting life pass by with work until this next phase of life begins. Have no idea what life will look like next year. It'll look very strange next month.

Ive been avoiding all parenting social media too. I just dont want mommy influencers on my feed. Im going into parenthood blind. But my sister was nice enough to take maternity photos for us and yesterday our crib came in. Im aware social media yells at you for having anything in a crib. This is just to show off the baby blanket my MIL made and not cribs final location. We dont have a lot of space and it just is out of the way right now.

I was already asked where my lion king baby decor was. My MIL likes to sew and couldn't find lion king fabric so I told her bambi was fine too. Id collect Bambi merch if I were rich. I do have a few baby simba items but we dont have a ton of room and I asked for minimal nursery decor because there's nowhere to put it. My mother made baby her classic star trek quilted baby blanket. An aunt reached out and asked if she could hand make something for us too and I think that'll be space themed too. So baby has several themes at once here.

We also spent a ton of money on post partum stuff yesterday. My husband was super enthusiastic about me getting new comfy pajamas and other toiletries which was really sweet. Only thing my hospital bag needs is probably a last minute pair of shorts and shower stuff/tooth brush. He also built the crib and our stroller came in the other week and he enthusiastically put that together too.

Otherwise, I do my last on call shifts this weekend before I go on maternity. My whole body hurts pretty consistently and I still feel for all the pregnant women who had to work that came before me. It's hard. We've been trying to explore walking trails and parks on my days off.

Ive certainly thought about watercoloring something for baby but I just have zero energy outside work.

So again, just letting time pass by to do what it needs to.

Ciao internet

[dausy]

This year is going to be sparse on art stuff. I just can't manage.

For life update, husband got his first retirement and Disability checks post military. He went ahead and quit his first post military job because it honestly wasn't worth it and he'll have to play Mr Mom when baby gets here in June. I like having a stay at home spouse to be honest. I come home and he's cleaned the house and made dinner and packed me a lunch for the next day. That being said I'm exhausted 100% of the time. Whatever brief spirts of energy I do have, are extremely rare. I am usually bouncing off the walls at work type of person but I just can't manage to do anything at not a leisurely pace and I'm so blasé at work that I'm lucky if my heart rate reaches the 70s in a stressful moment. I feel like my new coworkers have got to be frustrated with me being like "hi, and also, I'm pregnant"

My patients are so sick too and they're well outside my wheelhouse. I should be internally panicking. But my baby is like the ultimate xanax. I really wanted to maintain activity during pregnancy and be like a fit active person and I now assume every influencer online are liars. Liar liar pants on fire. All yall. I still go to the gym on my days off but a lot of work outs I used to do are just too uncomfortable. Bench presses, squats, deadlifts...they all squish and hurt. Each step on a treadmill feels like my bladder is being squished too. I'm also on call a lot. I had one weekend where I worked 4 days during the week and then had to come in friday night and spent all day sat/sun at the hospital. I feel like I can't catch up at sleep.

let me be clear, I am not trying to complain. It is just my state of being. We are living like baby is a ticking clock and seeing where life takes us on maternity leave. I am definitely still planning on obtaining a different job after hopefully a decent paid maternity leave.

we are still struggling with feelings displaced and housing prices have us depressed. My husbands going through the post military motions.

weather has been getting warmer. We did spend a day at Gatlinburg all yesterday. I got a little sunburned. My other days off have been spent having one or both or our vehicles in and out of the shop or at appointments. I'd like to get maternity photos taken but I suck at planning and I saw myself in the window of a store yesterday and I felt I finally looked a bit pregnant. Like I feel like I just am not making a bump and that makes me wonder again if people are lying and drastically posing in maternity shoots.

We were trying to plan maybe a trip to Nashville or Washington DC (husband really wants to go), I have a 3 day weekend coming up. I just dont have a lot of free time for long trips like I used to because I'm banking PTO and working alot. I need to make a dental appointment before baby comes as we have dental insurance again. I'd also like to visit the hobbit village and the Biltmore in Asheville at some point. My husbands stressing I may not be able to walk long distances like in DC and he might be right..I honestly don't know..

I made a baby registry but I honestly don't think I get a baby shower and I'm just not good at organizing things or know anybody who'd be interested. My mother made me a baby quilt thats doing fabulous on social media so thats really nice. Right now I'm just eating, sleeping and working and pushing off anything else until the last moment.

I do know in the future my husband really wants a camper and he really wants to travel. So we gonna drag this child all over the country seeing stuff. I don't know about permanent residence though.

We just taking things day by day.

[dausy]

Hello internet,

atm, I just am not feeling the internet or anything. I try to filter my feeds so that I see things I enjoy but its just not staying that way. I log into the internet and its depressing, I log off the internet and its depressing. And I can only take so much.

some of it might be pregnancy related, weather related and then new job related. I'm officially off orientation and on my own and I just don't want to see or look at or read or do anything thats depressing. Nothing right now is bringing me a ton of joy. I don't feel comfortable in my own skin. I can't get comfortable to relax and create anything. I cant sit and read, cant sit and play video games. Its hard to rant online because I got family as neighbors now and I feel like I should just walk over there and rant to them.

I'm just at the moment, counting down days til maternity leave and then hopefully me and my spouse can rearrange our lives again to something that better suits us. Looking at cost of living here and buying a house here is still making me pause in hesitation. I'm just uncomfortable.

we filed our taxes, we got our insurance switched, filed for our travel reimbursement from the military, think husband might have his first retirement check sitting on hold in the bank. We then have to wait for his VA disability. His job isn't hard, its just not bringing him joy and I think he feels lonely and he has a lot of family issues going on in another state. Our tentative plan is, is he be a Stay-at-home-dad . He can quit his job when his retirement pay and everything starts rolling in.

I still think my job is a great learning opportunity. I just do miss us having more flexibility over our schedules. Atm we are having a hard time organizing appointments when we are both at work all the time. I'm just trying to collect as much PTO as I can before June.

[dausy]

Hello 2025. Ive taken a break since the change over to the new year. Not even sure where I left off. I did finish my Daily Drawing Challenge and then just bounced. I had plans for the end of this year. Its a good time for vlog videos. I had plans to do like, another, Christmas artist wish list guide, or favorite art supplies, or year-of-art round up. I wanted to put my daily drawings into book format and possibly print it out for me.

and I just can't seem to get art motivated at the moment. We have been in our townhome for almost 2 months now. I'm halfway through my orientation for my new unit. Normally, Id want to complain about having to work but I had that nice long sabbatical last year. Feel like I gotta work a while before I start complaining I'm tired again. My current job is in a very niche nursing environment thats hard to get into. Since covid, I told myself Id never work full time again for a hospital but this field is so unique, I thought it'd be worth the experience. So I'm pretending its more like school than anything else. I have a couple pretend semesters and I'm done. But it is full time and theres on call requirements. Its 4x10s. Which Ive done before but the hours arent great. 730a-6p. It makes it feel like they're 4, 12 hour shifts and not 10s. So I'm exhausted. When I did 10s years ago it was 5a-330p and sometimes I'd get off early around 130 or 230 and theres a ton of afternoon left to do things. Now, I go to work, come home, fall asleep. Also, its complicated further in that, I may be a little pregnant. I have felt sick this entire time. I feel better now than I did in November. I think the second semester is kicking in but it feels like you're on deaths door all the time.

so in about 6 months, Ill have a nice little mini vacation from work again. I don't qualify for any form of fmla and I'm trying to bank $$ and PTO as best I can until then. I'm hoping I can get a short term disability. I dont know about my ability to bounce back that quick. My husband and I are still talking about our different options on what to do for child care at that point.

but another thing I finished were my 2, 5 year journals. I really wanted to go out and get maybe a single year journal. The 5 year was a huge pain to fill out. Its got some cool stuff in it, I guess, if you consider the world events that have happened in the past 5 years. But filling it out was an ordeal. I kind of wanted to do a single year journal and maybe fill it out in english, spanish and french..and I wanted to pick up an art journal to just do silly waste-paint-no-stress doodles. But lord knows, journals cost a crazy amount these days. I chickened out.

anyway, my husbands birthday is soon. Valentines day is soon. Its a snow-pocalypse right now outside. I'm waiting for warm weather and then maybe we can do some cute pregnant girl site seeing shit.

[dausy]

I am reporting to you from my desktop computer. I got scared for a moment I wasnt going to be able to get her to turn on. It was not behaving. I thought maybe the movers killed her too. Oh lord, so much of our stuff got damaged this time round. But she's here and she's working.

This is my first tumblr blog in my new house. I've been updating twitter daily. I know everybody has done like abandoned twitter (again) but I accidentally packed my daily journal and I needed to have info for when I back-update it. Also, being displaced it was hard to keep up with 18 social medias. So I just picked one and ignored the others. I know my mom reads these too but its hard to blog when in somebody elses house, when they're right there and you can like..talk to them..I dont know its weird and distracting and I couldnt do it.

I start my orientation for my new job on monday. I've felt kinda lung-gunky today which has me worried I might be getting sick but I can't tell if I'm just paranoid or if its a real feeling. I've been feeling on and off that way anyway the past couple weeks but I wasn't sure if it was the air in this city or what. But yeah, I'd prefer not to get sick. I don't know how to make up an orientation when they've been waiting for me to get to TN since beginning october.

but the move was ok. We left El Paso, stopped outside Houston for the night, woke up and visited my grandpa (who I havent seen in years and my husbands never met) outside Houston. It was only a bit of a treacherous drive with traffic and hurricane rain. We then left and drove to MS to visit my husbands Uncle who hosted us for the night and then the next day got to my moms which is where we've been camping at.

We had a horrible time house hunting. We found a gorgeous house that I'd probably 100% buy something just like it but then that rental agency essentially wasted our time and we had to start all over again with the hunt. We ended up finding a new build townhome. Could very much so be a scam. Who knows. I guessed we'd be looking at a 2200/mo rent and I'd essentially guessed correctly. I really wanted to keep it at like 1900 which is about my spouses military BAH but apparently 1900 these days gets you a bug infested peepee house.

But we are moved in. I finished unpacking pretty much all the boxes but we have to throw them out still. I do have some collectables in boxes that Im not even going to bother with right now. We plan to start hunting for a house to buy after we've been here 6-9mo. So no point.

it is a bit cramped in this new space. I'm still not really sure how to set up doing art again. I need to find a new groove, organize this house and I need to get a few paychecks and make it through Christmas.

theres more, but this is long enough for now. See you guys in the morning.

[dausy]

We said goodbye to our house. Packed up all the rest of our belongings into our 2 vehicles and are currently chilling in a hotel. If we had stayed another 2 days we wouldn’t get our money back for the rest of the month for who knows how long.

Yesterday we went out for dinner with a friend. Today we are going to go get our retiree ID cards and get the all clear to leave. We plan to hit the road tomorrow morning. It’ll be a long 11 hours across Texas. Tomorrow will be our longest day. Gonna go try and visit my grandpa in Houston as I haven’t seen him in years but he always posts hilarious things to my husbands Facebook. The two have never met. Then we are going to visit my husbands uncle in Mississippi and then we will make our way to Tennessee. I’m tired already and can already tell I’ll have to pee every 5 mins. Last time we did this because we are doing 2 vehicles, we found it easier to go old school and talk to each other via walkytalky. Also, my husbands headlights are messing up and we want to avoid driving at night because it’s hard to see.

I’ve already mispacked and couldn’t remember what bag I put my dogs stuff in, where I put my make up, where I put my charging cables etc lol

My dog seems hella confused and concerned.

The hotel we are at had requested we bring our kennel and my husband almost talked me out of bringing it because we’ve never needed it before. But I’m glad I left it out and brought it. The hotel practically had us put it together in the lobby so they could take photos of it. They must have had issues with pets in the past. I’m glad I kennel trained my dog. She hasn’t been in her kennel in a couple years and I literally forgot she was and was real nervous leaving her in her kennel in the room alone. She just went in and chilled. Yay me.

Our next journey is to find a place to rent and get out of my moms house asap because I just learned my brother was moving back home too and I love family and all but it makes me claustrophobic. I’d kind of like to rent a luxury apartment or home in a community that has a community pool and gym but alas..that might be out of reach. I start my new job in December and my husband has a tentative job offer from another company that also starts in December. We did the math on our finances and if everything goes as planned we could actually afford more than I’m comfortable spending. But I hesitate to bank on anything until the money is actually flowing in. I really just want it to be 6 months from now when we have all our belongings back and we are settled into a new routing where we both complain ‘I don’t want to go to work tomorrow T.T”

My husband still wants to try and sneak in a Washington DC trip too until we start work but I dunno if that’ll happen while we house hunt.

Anyway, happy travels tomorrow. I’m going to try to listen to a book I’ve been putting off but probably listen to trash tv podcasts the whole time.

[dausy]

My birthday came and went. We did go out for brunch at a new restaurant and we went window shopping at the local Disney outlet. Can’t really do gifts this year because we’re in the middle of our move. My husband did buy me that one simba figure last month and I found a mufasa ornament at Walmart day before yesterday ^^ so I don’t need anything else.

37 is going to be a really bizarre year. Honestly hope next birthday is boring too. Boring because we are settled with a boring routine.

Otherwise, I realized my daily 5 year journal got packed and I won’t be able to remember anything to back log everything that’s happened. It’s on its final days to complete its 5 year journey too lol.

I’m thinking about next year getting a single year journal but filling it out in Spanish.

Our furniture is totally gone. The first night my luxury air mattress popped and tried to suffer through it as it was a slow leak but it became so wobbly it was making me sea sick as if it was a waterbed. Ended up sleeping on the ground and had to run out the next day for a new air mattress. Each of the past few days we’ve been cleaning individual rooms and shutting them down. Today we began tackling the kitchen. We still have to use it for a few more days so can’t completely clean it til last. But we completely tore apart and cleaned the fridge. Tomorrow we’re going to tackle the oven.

Army’s screwed up my husbands leave plans already and that’s adding a bit more stress. But he’s supposed to finally be done with everything now except the day we leave.

Meanwhile, getting discouraged at the jobs available that my husband might qualify for when we move. Looking at cost of rentals and our pay. I’m low key wondering if we’ve made a mistake deciding to move to that end of the country. I know in the end everything will end up fine. Just with my first pay check I really want to go on a mini shopping spree.

‘I’ll tack on my Hakuna Matata image for good vibes.

[dausy]

I bought the tiniest portable keyboard and mouse and meant to leave it out but alas, I forgot and it has been packed up.

Movers came yesterday. They had scheduled 2 days worth of packing and then a day of putting our stuff on a truck. Which seemed a little overkill because we don’t actually own that many things. They definitely finished packing yesterday after a few hours and won’t be back today. So now I get to sit here with some of my belongings in boxes mocking me.

We already made the rooky mistake yesterday when we tried to cook dinner and realized we wanted a big bowl for a salad and realized it was packed lmao. Also realized the movers packed our paper plates and utensils. Luckily for breakfast my husband had ordered food and we had the styrofoam box and forks from then. We just tore the box in half to use as 2 plates and cleaned the forks.

We didn’t have much say in when the movers got here based on their schedule but we will still be in this house until Halloween. So we have plenty of days to be furnitureless and clean the house.

‘Otherwise we have a lot of life changes coming. We are both super nervous. I just hope we can find a reasonably priced home quickly and setting back into a routine. I’m thankful to start working again but I also know that if you give me a week I will be complaining I don’t want to have to work.

I’ve also been talking to military nurse officer recruiters for myself. I know that sounds crazy but I still kind of have a desire to join and maybe this time next year I’ll do it. I’ve altered my gym routine so I could practice PT requirements. Mainly, I don’t run and have no endurance. We will see, maybe we will get to Tennessee and decide I like civilian life and don’t actually want to PCS anymore and I’m having a midlife crisis.

I did one more video for YouTube, it just hasn’t been edited yet and I had to do it quick, so for all I know the whole thing is blurry.

All my art supplies are actually with me in my ‘do not pack’ room. I organized the house to make the packers jobs easier and to make my unpacking job easier in the future but our ‘do not pack’ room is pretty much just us throwing stuff in there so we will have to pull everything back out to reorganize it later.

/life

[dausy]

I got a job.

Which is kind of nifty I guess. I feel like it removes some of my stress although I knew I wouldn't have an issue finding a job, its just that the unknown makes us feel like we are continuously poor and homeless when that isn't the case.

An old classmate of mine from nursing school had messaged me some odd days ago saying she was leaving her job because her commute was really long and she wanted to know if I wanted it. She said she loved her job otherwise. I was actually going to wait until we moved to start applying for jobs because a lot of places want you to start ASAP and I don't want to apply too early. But she had already recommended me to her manager and he contacted me with a referral link to fill out. Did a virtual interview and he told me he knew he was already going to offer me the job.

HR already sent me an acceptance package and stated they wanted to pay me a relocation fee. Just an FYI this is for an Interventional Radiology nurse position, which I suppose I do have a bit of experience in with my previous position. IR is considered a cush or "soft" nursing job, but this is with a lvl1 trauma center and I'm not that familiar with the type of high acuity cases that they do. The last time I worked in a lvl1 trauma center it was primarily preop/PhaseII and a smidgeon of pacu. I wasn't in the thick of super acute/sick patients. So I don't really know what to expect in IR. It SOUNDS like they just want somebody who is familiar with and knows how to push meds for conscious sedation. They have techs who scrub in with the doctor. That was primarily what I was nervous about was trying to learn how to scrub for so many different types of procedures (cause they said they do about 40 different types) and I was like "oh lord thats a lot to learn and prove myself on, in a short orientation". But they told me that I would just be doing the conscious sedation and thats it. Which takes a lot of stress off. I don't know how to scrub..so..

anyway, coincidentally at the same time I accepted the position, somebody posted on the nursing reddit saying something like "those of you who want to work in IR because its a soft nursing job, WE DONT WANT YOU" I mean, I work hard and I split myself into 1400 pieces to try and help everybody so I'm not coming in to just sit and play on my phone.

The downsides to this job is that there is on-call and then I'd be making less money than what I was getting paid 5 years ago and rent prices have skyrocketted. Which is really sad. It has pretty much doubled. So less pay and more expensive CoL. We are already expecting to have to pay around 2000-2200/mo on rent alone for nothing super special. Not including pet rent and then utilities.

Me and my spouse were jokingly talking about me joining the service for the benefits. While its been brought up to me before in the past, I didn't think I had it in me to join the military. Now I'm actually kind of taking it seriously. I already talked to a recruiter but they aren't making it easy to get in contact with them which makes me think they're going to tell me they werent interested. But hypothetically, if I joined the military nurse corps, I'd go in as an officer, get officer pay, get BAH, get a retirement, continue the lifestyle of which I've become accustomed and if they have my specialty available, I would just continue doing the job I've become accustomed to. It was actually kind of enlightening.

If I have to work my booty off being full time, on call, making less than my mom as a secretary and I have to continue being a nurse....I mean, I dunno..people say that the military can't compete with civilian hospitals, but I kind of beg to differ. To me, it seems like they're offering a lot more.

But if military says "no, we don't need your specialty", I do have a job waiting for me for when we move.

[dausy]

My husband had his retirement ceremony T_T. Both of our moms came out which was really nice. We were concerned his mom wouldn't make it out because her husband was having issues in the hospital again but I think my hubby really appreciates having the family there.

I did cry. I started crying at their little welcome video. Then I had to stop paying attention to stop crying and then started crying again when the first guy went up for his retirement certificate and flag ceremony. So all the photos of me that we get back from the professional photographer, I'm sure are going to be hideous. I was trying to contain my red poofy eyes and snotty face during his own flag ceremony.

My MiL got him a rank sign wall hanging thing and my mother made him a personal quilt. I got him a storage box that has all the ranks he's acquired and the soldiers creed. It has the tanker symbol on it too. So he can store his uniform and memorabilia for future generations I suppose.

kinda sad that I'm old enough to have gone through 2 of these ceremonies.

otherwise, we didn't have time to do that much when family came down. My husband still had to do a bunch of appointments. Did take my mother to whitesands national park yesterday, which I hope she thought was cool. We also went to go check out Holloman Air Force Base which is out there. I was raised in an airforce family so it was so funny to be on an AF base again. Just want to brag that the army bases we've been stationed at have been much much better than that one. Ft Bliss has a rocking shopping area. Their PX cannot be beat.

today, my spouse had more appointments and had to make more appointments. An old coworker reached out to me and told me she was leaving her job and wanted to know if I wanted her position. She said she loved her job but she found one closer to home because she has to drive over an hour to and from work. So her manager reached out to me today. So I'm going to talk to him over the phone next week. Tennessee pays their nurses garbage but we will see where fate lands us. The anxiety is getting to both me and my husband. We are moving back to an area that we havent been to in 10 years and know it wont be the same and its without the security net of the army. We have our walkthrough with our movers in 3 weeks. Have to start dismantling our house soon. Our daily routine is being taken apart.

[dausy]

I broke my twitter and went a form of viral that I'm not used to on twitter so I'm just letting it play itself out until the alerts on my phone run dry before I continue to post my daily drawings there. I feel like I'll ruin it. So I'll hang out on ye olde threads until then. I actually quite like the algorithm of threads. I don't think we are supposed to but I kinda do.

I am still doing my daily doodles but now I have a backlog of them.

other things that I've done:

applied for an absentee ballot to vote since I'm still considered a Georgia resident

notified housing of our plans to vacate the residence

my husband got a biopsy of his foot

I went to the doctor because of stomach pains and she ordered a CT scan and I got my CT scan scheduled on the day before our parents are supposed to arrive for my husbands retirement ceremony

we both applied for several jobs. I wasn't anxious before but now I am. So now both of us feel displaced and jobless/homeless. Thats not true though because he's still active duty until February and then will get retirement and VA checks coming in and we have family that will let us stay however long we want. The real timer is the storage on our stuff.

My husbands retirement gift is ready for pickup

We're trying to figure out about our retiree ID cards and clearing post and our travel route for moving. We may have to stay an extra day and rent a hotel an extra night after we clear our house.

I was going to wait on my stomach issues until we are civilians again and then just start the processes all over again but I've been having near constant problems for the past month and one really bad episode where I hung out on the floor for 2 days. My doctor actually asked me to follow up a while ago but I just assumed I wouldnt..go..back...and now of course we only have like 50 days left so I'm trying to fit in a CT scan and then follow up with her again. I'm still not convinced I don't have a weird gallbladder but we gonna check for diverticulosis.

The urge to paint again is hitting me but I don't have anything to paint. And I'm ignoring my youtube still. We're just doing a lot of panicking and nothing and panicking all at the same time that I can't sit still for youtube.

[dausy]

Hello, just got back from our weekend trip. I hesitate to call it a vacation because we went up to the phoenix area because my husbands step dad isnt doing to well and he (my spouse) got an alarming phone call about it. So we drove down there and while the guy isn't fine, he's doing fine and was transferred back to a facility close to his home in a neighboring city.

so in the meantime we visited a quilting convention. In hindsight I probably should have filmed this visit because its still artsy fartsy. I do not understand the world of quilting and sewing but I had a connection with the people there who were obviously geeking out. Had this been an art supply convention I would be doing the exact same. So it was kind of cool. The one disappointing thing though is I saw one booth of obvious hand quilters. The only reason why I point that out is because my mom is a hand quilter. Everything else was very computerized, have the computer quilt the entire thing. Which I can see how maybe that takes away some of the artistry when talking about quilting. They were kind of cool to look at though and thats not necessarily what made me sad. What did make me sad was not only was computerized sewing machines quilting, but it was they were quilting AI generated imaging printed on fabric. Lots of very obviously AI generated dragons and kittens that then the computer quilted outlines around. Idk..like..yall ladies didnt make none of this..

but in anywho, interesting show.

The next day we visited the Grand Canyon because a member of our party hadn't been before. My inlaws took me once years ago, so this was my second trip. What they didn't tell me was that there was a nifty little walking trail and you can actually walk around the rim. We were not prepared to do any sort of hike into the canyon itself but the last time we visited we just looked at one of the lookouts and left. It felt really good to get a nice decent walk though. I don't think other people necessarily meant to encourage us to do that walk though. There was a german group there trying to feed some squirrels and they got yelled at for it. I don't know german but I definitely understood "karen" in german.

next day we just drove around a bit and did some shopping and hung out.

yesterday we drove home but stopped by Tombstone on the way out just because I'd never been. It was about what I was expecting tbh. Otherwise, not an exciting drive.

I did read the book Slewfoot because its being recommended by all the fall girlies on tiktok. I don't know what my thoughts are supposed to be on this one. I meant to watch other peoples reviews to make up my mind. My initial thought was Carrie meets Salem Witch Trial.

now that I'm home, I downloaded Visions of Mana on the PS5. I need to make a hair appointment because mine is getting ridiculous but I hate going to a hair salon so much. Also need to take the dog to the vet for her vaccines, since they're do.

but I'm really not in the mood at the moment to do anything. I don't want to do art because I don't want to sit still but I don't want to leave the house.

[dausy]

Think I'm in a lazy phase where I have free time and don't know what to do with myself and then I just don't feel like doing anything. I have a One Line A Day book where you journal what you did that day briefly and boy had I not touched in a month and didn't document much elsewhere for me to remember what I've done to fill it in.

I'm ignoring my youtube even though I filmed stuff, I just don't feel like editing.

My back hurts, my stomach hurts, my head usually hurts in-between and I feel sleepy and fatigued even though I have no issues sleeping. My hair quit falling out though. I don't know if I just had a huge hormone shift or what. For a while I was really concerned about the hair falling out in chunks. I went ahead and rescheduled my doctors appointment. She said she wanted to follow up ages ago and I never went. I just dont know what to say other than the above. I don't feel like I eat terribly and I dont want to take medication. I'm just getting old.

My husbands immediate family are having some issues, some health problems and then he's stressed out with retirement. He has had a couple job interviews and job opportunities, so its not like he's unhirable. But its still just stressful and we're looking at the cost of living of everything and life just seems unfair when it seems like we should be walking on easy street. No reason why an experienced RN and a 20year retired military vet shouldn't be able to have any stereotypical American white-picket-fence home of choosing but lord its bleak out there.

I finished FF16 and I was impressed with its beginning, but it was just super short and the farted and sizzled its way out on its way to finish. Overall feeling was "meh". I plan to get Visions of Mana at the end of the month. So heres to hoping.

I did read The September House because I was in a spoopy mood. I've barely read anything this year. I read that really fast. Kinda enjoyed it. I really want to decorate for Halloween but we will be moving so we don't get one this year.

I'm enjoying threads for my short sentence social media posting. I actually get lots of interaction on it.

oh and I took my exam for my CAPM cert. Studying for that was filling in a lot of my free time and now its finished. Exam was definitely easier, like I had hoped. I had a feeling all the studying and practice exams were going to be really hard and then the real exam would seem simple in comparison and I was correct. Seriously considering doing a career shift and starting in an entry level position to utilize this cert but change in scary. But otherwise it was just something "fun" to do because I enjoy stationery and being a student. I used all the pretty pens and notebooks.

anywho, think we are driving back to Phoenix in a few weeks to visit my husbands family since they arent doing to well. We may go to the grand canyon. And then my mom and MiL are flying down to visit for my husbands retirement ceremony. My husbands been turning in his army gear. We have to go get living wills made while its free to us. I applied for a government job and I'm updating my resumes and linked in.

Just goin with the flow.

[dausy]

ok so I finished Xenoblade 3. Though I have the DLC, I think, and I haven't started it yet.

I will say that, while I'm tempted to get Octopath Traveler 2 now, I am telling myself to hold off and wait for August because theres a new Legend of Mana game coming out but its on the PS and not the switch. My husbands been a bit of a playstation hog recently....but I told myself I have 4 books in this household that I started and need to finish and I have kinda told myself that I need to just binge read some stuff and get them out of the way before I go and get distracted again.

But anyway, Xenoblade 3. I was enjoying that game a lot more than the other 2 for a while. It had a weird major twist in that back end that I think distracted me from the final 2 chapters. Those were some massive cutscenes and I think my brain read that as "this is big enough to be a finale" and then I sort of lost interest, even though it wasn't a finale. Then the finale kinda made me go "meh". After 120hours, I was just tired. That one "group" photo was ODD too, ifykyk. What kind of weird man fantasy was that?

It also made me realize that I don't remember XB1 at all. I played it maybe a year and a half ago now and I do. not. remember. it. Listen to me sitting there saying "wtf is a shulk?" and I had to look it up. ITS THE MAIN CHARACTER. My memory is 1. bad. 2. I didn't care for that game THAT much because it felt very Chore-y...I might have skipped all the cutscenes and just don't remember skipping the cutscenes. But I must have. The thing is, is I remember the game locations. I remember doing the tasks and exploring the dungeons but I could not tell you character names or what they looked like. I rewatched a play-through of it on youtube last night so I can remember a bit of that story and its like..nope..only the dungeons were familiar. I can tell you about my struggles climbing up the nopon tree and getting murdered by level 90 monsters in level 2 areas..that I remember. Don't remember the story. MY BAD.

but I did have to rewatch that story so that I could try and made XB3 story make a bit more sense.

I am glad that I played XB2 even though everybody told me not to. While it wasn't a great game, I do feel like I would have been lost playing 3 and everybody assured me that the previous games were not important. I disagree. I do think 3 was a superior game though compared to both. I really liked the familiarity of the voice actors and I thought they did a good job.

One thing I did kind of miss though was exploring cities. While there was one city and you could visit little colonies, in my RPGs, half the fun is getting to the next city or castle. It just felt like a lot of open land with occasional people. I get that that is the story. So I'm hoping this new Legend of Mana game is going to give me whatever RPG feels I'm missing.

I am really chasing that feeling I used to get with games when you'd first turn on that big blockbuster novel of a game. I think the last time I got some sort of Feels was probably the first Ni No Kuni. I'm ignoring FF7 rebirth because its a remake. But that smell, that feel, that sense of wanting to explore and then a huge story unfolds..like I don't think I'll ever feel that way that I did with FF7, or 9, X, 12, kingdom hearts even..so yeah..

[dausy]

Survived my airplane trips to San Diego and back. I am not a fan of airplanes at all.

I believe I've actually been to San Diego once as a child and we took photos in front of an aircraft carrier and visited a beach. But I dont ever remember my parents announcing where we were going, I just remember being there..so I guess it doesn't count.

My SiL invited us to go as she really wanted to have a summer beach vacation. Unfortunately, theres a bit of frustration that occurs when you have a group of people and everybody has a bit of a difference in opinion about itinerary. I do wish that we could have afforded another 2 days to get in some more items on our wish list. We just unfortunately did not have time.

My SiL really wanted a hotel on a beach. We ended up renting a cottage with the Point Loma MWR which is on a navy base. While it wasn't a beach a house, it was on the water and it was an extremely nice cottage. You just couldnt get in the water. It was also about half the price of all the hotels in the area. She also really wanted to go to the beach but we had planned Saturday as our beach day and lort knows we could not find parking. I do not understand how you have a city of millions of people and tourists and then have very little parking. We struggled to find a beach to go to and ended up at La Jolla which is where we had scheduled a sea kayaking tour. But the beach itself was pretty hideous but we also didn't want to be late for this tour. So thats where we hung out. I was also freezing to death (thats exaggeratory but to me it was not warm enough outside to go into the water). It was a high of 73-74 apparently and I was not going to go swimming in that.

everytime I go to California I misjudge its weather and do not dress appropriately. I just assume because its summer its going to be hot outside and all the other southern states are sitting at a brisk 100+ weather.

but the first day when we arrived our plane was delayed an hour and then we had to sit on the tarmac for an hour due to the weather. It was too foggy to land and all the other planes had gotten backed up so there was no place to deload. When we did get checked into our cottage, we went and got dinner and visited a Sherlock inspired escape room and barely escaped. It was a pretty decent escape room though.

Next day, we spent the day at the San Diego zoo which I really enjoyed. It was definitely different than all other zoos Id ever been to. They had a restaurant/bar in the park and we sat next to a waterfall and the ambience was great. I don't think we were expecting to spend 8 hours walking because the park was so huge, but we did. So we didn't have time to do much else afterwards because a lot of other places closed at 5pm (!?!?!?!) I would have liked to have seen some of the other neighboring museums. We visited little italy and got some food and I accidentally found their blick art supply store. I was hoping there would be some sort of tourism boutiques in this area but again, everything closed at 5pm and there just wasn't much in this area other than food.

the homeless situation in San Diego was certainly interesting. I've never seen tent neighborhoods before. We got asked for money once and I got heckled once to smile "whats wrong with you girl, why you ignoring me" I. HATE. THAT.

The next day was our beach day, some people I think woke up grumpy. We had a hard time getting out the door and then we did go to the maritime museum. Which I think was really cool and a lot of fun. Again, if we'd of had more time I really would have liked to have seen the aircraft carrier museum next door but this is when we booked it to the beach.

then we headed home the next day.

All in all, I was not impressed with the downtown San Diego area. It was almost like a weird twilight zone version of Savannah but with some bigger buildings. I wouldn't be comfortable wondering down there by myself. I think some of the Californian house architecture and design is very nice and the foliage as well. We like to play the "what would it be like to live here/would I want to live here" game. Based on the city itself, no. But I'm sure they had to have some sort of nice suburbs right? Most city centers I don't want to live in.

so yeah, I just needed a few more days to look around more and do some shopping.