Looking back: Sep '25, Week 3

Pretty sure I got sufficient sleep last night, but somehow I'm still SO sleepy today. Almost completely forgot to blog and have coffee. COFFEE. How could I forget to have coffee?! 🤣

After spending a little too long reviewing old content (even from my past life), I'm finally... zzz...

... OKAY maybe a nap after writing?! This post ain't gonna write itself!

✨ Gaming -- RATATAN Early Access (finally!), more Don't Starve Together, and more Etherfields!

Let's start with the highlight of the week, shall we?!

We're so back! 🔥

It completely slipped my mind last week that Ratatan Early Access was going to be released! My ears are hurting from playing Ratatan a little too much last night, even though it wasn't that long a session either. I must have forgotten to adjust the game volume in my excitement to play. 🤔 Got to feast my eyes on more Nyandola, and try the other characters! 💜 This feels like a game that I need to get better at to reach the end. I wonder if I'll be able to complete the game? 🤔 One thing's for sure: I'm going to have fun while I'm at it! 💖

Speaking of fun, of course I had fun dying in Don't Starve Together this week! (?)

Me having fun blending in with the veggies that are now a rarity since I don't need to manage farm plants now. Also, the day count doesn't matter at this point. 🙃

I made many careless mistakes in-game this past week that lead to my demise in combat. :( Would like to fix that record this week. To be fair, I died the most often whenever I got complacent so I deserved to be punished. :P Maybe next week's screenshot will finally not be of the farm?

I have way too many passives.

On Saturday I played Etherfields with the usual gang, and finally remembered to take a photo for keepsake! 🤣

I'm glad for the opportunity to try playing this character instead of sticking to my previous one. My general gaming style still hasn't changed much -- I like to hang back to look for gaps in the team to fill, and otherwise focus on myself. But now I have more opportunities to think ahead and "play the late game" because of the character's base abilities.

Speaking of characters, Wave 2 of Middara was delivered to my parent's place last week! 🎉🎉🎉 I enjoyed playing Middara very much years ago, as much as Etherfields, so I can't wait to replay the first campaign and explore the second! Choices matter in both games, and it's been fun replaying Etherfields, so I'm confident that it would be a blast having to make choices in Middara too since the last time I played was so long ago.

Will I replay the same character and coin flip my way to survival?! 🤔🤣

✨ Housewarming -- Had some ex-colleagues over

You know what? Maybe my ears hurt because I did vocal recordings in the morning, had a group of very rowdy guys over, and THEN played Ratatan after they left. 🤔🤔🤔

In almost all my past jobs, I've been treated pretty well by my teammates and managers. I think I give of younger sister vibes or something, because it always seemed to me that I people were keen to make me happy, never failing to proudly show to me that they remembered what I liked, and always (clearly) eagerly waiting to see me smile in response to a treat... Or maybe it was all in my mind, and I was just always blessed to work with really nice, caring people. 💖 One particular team has kept in contact with me even as we all took turns to leave the company. So they decided to hold a farewell meetup for one of them at my place -- yes, they essentially asked to have a housewarming. I did offer to hold one some time ago, but was dragging my feet to organize because I've been running low on social battery since moving. 🥹

As usual, it was refreshing listening to them talk about their lives, which are vastly different from mine. They get really rowdy, but are always gentle with me (other than the occasional comment that I'm different, that is), so it was a nice reminder that I am... welcome. 🥹

They learned about my YouTube channel because I talked about how I spent my morning and what I've been up to. I wonder if they will ever find this blog. 🤔

✨ Music projects -- Finally done recording vocals for the next cover 🥹

I'm still not sure if the Better Voice vocal trainer did anything for me after a week of practicing the song with it, but I was happy to use it because it restrained the sound I produced. 🥹💜 Sometimes when I practice high notes, I freak myself out because I can hear my voice echoing/ reverberating in the house -- I don't like feeling like my presence has filled a room. I have a Beltbox that I used previously, but it was most useful for experimenting different expressions/ checking if I can belt a high note. It was difficult to hear myself when singing softer parts of a song.

The recording session went smoothly, in part thanks to the harmony guides that I made in preparation for recording day. While I still think that my singing has ways to go, I'm glad that I managed to do what I had set out to.

On to the next task on my To-Do list! ♪

✨ Random interesting thing (well not really) -- Why are there SO many bugs in my house now?!

The whole week, I probably spent at least 30% of my mental capacity either being bothered by scuttle flies (phorid flies), hunting down bagworm moths (dust moths), or some unknown type of mite.

Fortunately, or not, I only encountered 1 mite, so maybe it was a stray mite that got onto 1 piece of clothing (I found it on my hand after setting the laundry to wash). But the bad news is that I just found out today that there seems to be a scuttle fly infestation in my estate, probably due to the rainy season and landscaping (fertilizers used for new plants)? I'm hoping that if we keep the windows closed for 2 weeks and avoid cooking that the ones that got into our house that we didn't manage to catch will die of old age. I'll also need to spray insect repellent at our doorway after I'm done with today's blog post to stop them coming in whenever we open the door!

As for bagworms, I was worried that there's some infestation happening amongst our clothes, but I found one PAINTED OVER and sealed to our wall. So, no, they probably got into our home during the renovation period and have been taking their time to wander around. So far I've caught (and killed) maybe about 5-10 bagworms and 1 adult bagworm (i.e. dust moth).

Here's hoping that the numbers will dwindle. I swear I clean the house every day! It's how I found these buggers in the first place! :(

✨ Random interesting thing (for reals) -- More photos of prints on the wall, and the curtain I made for the kitchen!

The curtain was clearly made to be functional and not pretty. 🥹 I'm glad there is still lots of space for more prints!

Colorful things to end this week's post on a high note! I finished putting up all the prints and the finishing touches of the curtain earlier in the week, so I took photos to commemorate finally finishing all the home decorations that I had planned to do. ✨

My hands (mainly the finger tips) are in dire need of a break though, so I'll put in more effort to minimize tasks that would crack, rub, or dry out my finger tips this week, and continue to apply hand cream/ cuticle oil as prevention and not as a reaction. 🥹

~💜~

Hopes for this week

♪ Practice singing the next song cover ♪ Start working on a commission 🤔

♪ Maybe start editing vocals? 🤔

☆ Play Don't Starve Together!

☆ Play Ratatan! ☆ Prepare the house for one LAST housewarming. 🥹

☆ Hope bugs don't get in! Leave me aloneeeeeee! 🙃

Thank you for reading! 🌙🐰

I am still sleepy... zzz