January

     "You look exhausted", my aunt lovingly said to me over a video call with my mom earlier today. Her concern was like a warm little hug for my soul.

Me, waking up every single morning after not sleeping longer than 1.5 hour increments, ready for the day!

I don't care though, I'll still advocate for co-sleeping, lmao. Things have taken a turn recently though, it's nice. I just have to trust the process and sleep instead of waiting up.

Anyway, January's already over. But it started funny.

So the morning of my follow up appointment at the optometrist, Mung Bean scratched me in the eye again. Same eye. Hurt. Knocked me back from the pain, lol. I thought she had just hit me and grazed my eye flap or something, but the pain was familiar, only not as intense. I wasn't sure. We'll see.

Man, we were just getting out of bed all cozy and stuff after getting home the evening before from Vegas, lol.

And yeah, the eye doctor took a look and was like yeah she scratched you again. So I melted peppermint peeps in my latte. Fortunately, this time wasn't as debilitating as before, and apparently my flap was healing well. It was just the edges that were still... adhering. She said to keep using eyedrops and to not rub my eye. Hooray.

The vision in my right eye has not been the same, lol. I'm not sure if my vision has blurred because of the more regular use of my glasses, or because of the trauma to my eye, but my vision is blurrier now for sure. COULD BE WORSE, RIGHT?

Thank you for an unforgettable ending and start to the New Year, hijita.
Bechitos!

"Love her" isn't enough.
Ahhh. My sweet bb.
She gives me so much exp.

I got one of those Hobochichi journals or whatever they're called. SUPER cute.

The sticker and washi tape is separate, but I've been enjoying writing in it. I can see why they're so popular. It's kinda overpriced, but at the same time it's really nice if you're someone who values journaling.

Also, been reading Midnight Sun and it's so feral, lol. It's the first Twilight book from Edward's POV and he's a LOT. It's almost like reading a gossip collumn. But basically his fascination with her is that she's boring, different, and he can't read her thoughts and it's like, an affront to everything he thought he knew about humans. And she smells insane to him. Good and bad. It's wild. I'm enjoying it, though truth be told, I only get to read when I'm at work during my lunch break. 

Adventures!

I've been wanting to take Mr. Chicken and Mung Bean to the Griffith Park Observatory for a while now, and the stars aligned, so we went on an adventure to see space stuff.

Except instead of the Griffith Ovservatory, we went to Mt. Wilson Observatory, at Mr. Chicken's request. This was cool for many reasons. But mostly because it was a weekend and unlike Griffith, it would not be obscenely overrun with visitors and nightmare parking scenarios.

Another reason was that as we approached, it looked like Black Mountain, from Fallout: New Vegas. Radio towers and all. As we came towards the entrance I was expecting Super Mutants to jump out at me. I mean, they did... in my imagination. But it looked like we were there in-game, really cool location intro.

The other cool thing is that it's an active site for research.

Look at this tree. It made me think of the tree storyline in Fallout 3.

Mr. Chicken took his camera uwu
I love his candid shots so much waaah

My loves and giant telescopes, heehee

Science rules!

That's a pretty big Hooker.

There was a door with a stairway that went up. It looked ominous. I told Mr. Chicken to go up and check it out. He was so excited, lol. When he came back, Mung Bean and I went inside.

Gosh. The climb up the industrial metal stairs in the narrow space and the dark ominous room with a window looking out to this giant machine... felt like something out of System Shock. It was SO cool.

It was especially cool because I was wearing my System Shock 2 shirt, with my Fallout hoodie, so it was like... serendipitous af. 

We found many acorns.

It was an awesome place. There were small museums on the grounds that went into the lore and contributions made by the research achieved there. Really impressive stuff if you're into that stuff. 

The drive was long but worth it. 

The cherry on top was dinner at Sun Nong Dan and a bunch of blind boxes to open at home because we have no self control. And by we I mean Cynthia.

But look at what Mr. Chicken does for me

He randomly made egg bites one morning. I was exhausted from a rough night and he let me sleep in. I woke up to egg bites in cute little flower thingies T_T

And there was another night I got home from work and saw the Expedition 33 collector's edition box on my desk. 

A man of few words but look how loud his actions are. Hmmm, my Mr. Chicken ^_^

My bitty Legendary crafted item
Teehee ^_^

It was a Thursday

Visit to the parks was necessary. I renewed my pass and dragged Mr. Chicken with me. He has no choice. Oswald agrees.

Met up with Smur because why tf not lol

It rained! On and off. This was fine because the crowds were tame. 

Her little babooshka outfit, lol. I tried to do a strawberry chocolate thing (Valentine) but it looks funny from the back, haha. We all just kinda hung out by the pier while she and I ran around. It was overcast and not too cold out. Loved this moment so much

Once the rain began pouring more, we called it. Spent a good chunk of day there though, was nice. Good hangs. Wholesome day with Uncle Smurr.

OH, and on our way out just before walking into the parking lots, Mr. Chicken bought Mung Bean something.

a dang Loth Cat

Just like that

We went into the Star Wars store in Downtown Disney really quick just to check it out. One of these Loth Cats were out of the box on display, and of course Mung Bean wants to touch it and stuff. 

Boom.

That little box next to it was a wooden rocket ship I bought her LMAO. I actually really like it, it's so cool. Man, that Loth Cat straight up looks like a Ghibli-Star Wars hybrid taxidermy. It's creepy but also kind of cool. Makes noises and can be posed, and it's bigger than Ophelia. She also got something out of all of this, she got a box.

That box is my golden ticket to a DIY project I have in mind. I hope I can get to it soon. I want to craft a dollhouse for Mung Bean, and that box is like, the perfect size. So I'm gonna use it as a template, but I need to buy the supplies for it and stuff. And before I can do that, I need to plan, design and measure. Yuck. But... I don't know, it seems fun. Here's hoping I actually get to it and not cave into just buying her one.


January was a month of frivolity.

There's a MINISO near a place like to eat at, and while we were waiting for food, Mung Bean got restless. Mr. Chicken and I look at each other, having already agreed that I wouldn't buy her more blind box figures (I need help), and he gets up, walks out and heads in the direction of the MINISO. He comes back with another Miffy blind box. Says technically it doesn't count because I didn't buy it - I'm scream.

Good din din, Miffy and all.

Our final Disney trip for January was special

It was for Blizzard's end of the year party, and we got a few hours of California Adventure to ourselves! 

Of course, since we're gross, we went earlier and spent the day there. We reserved Disneyland first, but when we got there we realized there wasn't really anything worthwhile going on there because the Lunar New Year event had started at California Adventure, so we ran in there quick to have our things scanned and left immediately to head to CA. There's a penalty if you're a no-show and when you reserve a park, you have to start with that park. You won't be admitted to the other one until you do. So that's what we did, and once inside immediately went to grab our foodie passes.

God I love winter
Okay, so the event wasn't officially open until 5pm, when Blizz peeps could be admitted into the park. So we had to pre-game before running into everyone.

This meant running around and getting stuff from the food booths before they got crazy. And of course the beer flight.

Longevity Noodle Co. booth had garlic noodles and japchae. And a strawberry lychee cocktail. Mung Bean needed her noodles and mommy needed her gamer fuel.

My hair loss is  L E G E N D A R Y
Looks like how my hair used to be, lol.
Anyway, we had a lot of fun running around. Seeing familiar faces trickeling in here and there was so heartwarming. And seeing Mr. Chicken's colleagues again, always so fun!

My boy, Horace. 
I'M SO HAPPY THEY DID THIS. I called it! Horace Horsecollar for Year of the Horse. He's an underdog. Not a core character, but he's OG. Horace is also Clarabelle's paramour, not Goofy!

I've seen him in the park 2 other times before and got a photo with him once. He's rare, but this was a treat. I love, love, love when Disney pulls out the OGs, It's just wonderful. Year of the Rabbit was still my favorite because not only was Oswald there, but Ortensia was also there for Tet, Year of the Cat.

I'm short and couldn't see much, but I was determined to make sure Mung Bean could. It was a special World of Color!

We had until 9pm to fuel up

Found the raid group

My heart T_T

While running around Avengers Campus, Mung Bean was just hauling ass towards this entrance in the Spiderman area. She wasn't going to go in and there was no one around so we were all chasing her being silly.

And Spiderman walks out, looks at her, she looks back at him and he just does the meme pose
I hate how much that had us all cracking up lol 

Had to get a raid group shot with Becky, a-hyuck.

THEY BROUGHT THEIR ONE PIECE DECKS

SHAMELESS

So many of them went on rides. I was glad they could because it's rare to wait less than 15 minutes for some of the higher intesity rides. While they did that, I took a stroll around California Adventure while Mung Bean slept in her stoller. We came prepared, she was in her jammies and snuggled up with her blankie. And she's used to the noise and lights. 

Her environmental resists slider is set all the way to the right.

So we walked and walked. It was quiet, with the exception of the rides.

Love these quiet, late night walks. I used to do them often. I'd drive down to Redondo Beach Pier at like 1am and just wander around. The cold was sobering. It was a turbulent time, but I was always grateful for the darkness and the quiet that place had. The lights there glowed so pretty, I remember their cool green hues and how they reflected in the water. Good times.

Started there, now we here.
I gotta go back there with the fam. There's a place I always wanted to go eat at there, and I told myself I'd go back to finally try it.

Found out recently that I pissed a couple people off.

LOL
Same, Clarabelle. Same :B

The Geminis
Homdray and Lifa

The evening was awesome. It was great seeing people again. Mung Bean got to ride on shoulders and watched the parade twice! And a special World of Color. Soooo colooors.

We called it a little earlier. It went until 1am but by midnight we were pretty beat. The walk back was serene. 

Everything felt so calm and still, albeit a little blurrier in one eye but yanno. Flaps gonna flap. That was a nice event to wrap up January.

 Mung Bean drawing the squiggles I telepathically send her so that I know what it's like hearing me talk. It's like looking at squiggles.

I'm closer to getting my embalmer's license. That used to be a dream. The life I have now used to be just...  A maybe. A shrug of defeat. 

Waah. Sigh. ^_^

Hi, Ophelia.

Mkay. All done!

"Daaaaiiii" - Mung Bean