all made up with nowhere to go

The new washing machine is here! And it works and everything! (As it darned well should!)

I got up at 6am yesterday, because the site I ordered from let you know between 6:30 and 8:30am when your delivery is due, and the last time I ordered from them, they told me at 6:30 that it was coming at 7, so that was a nasty surprise. But this time I was prepared. So I got up and made sure everything was sorted, and the delivery email said it would get here between 9:30am and 1:30pm, so I got to spend a lot of time hopping around the living room feeling very anxious.

They eventually came at ~11:30, and were gone by 11:45, which was bloody amazing, frankly.

The only gripes I have is that the one guy pushed the washing machine too far back, so the outlet hose got kinked, and that the other guy was very ignorant, and carried on a conversation he'd been having about dog food evidently before they even got to my house (and more or less ignored me the entire time). But it was 900% a better experience than last time, so I am absolutely not complaining.

I was only without a washing machine for three days, but oof did I feel it. I put on a load after they'd gone, and because of the outlet pipe being kinked, it caused an overflow in the pipe that connects to the sink outlet. Which was delightful, of course. But it wasn't a bad overflow, so it was easy to clean up, but I would have rather not had to do it at all.

But now I have a fancy new washing machine, that I can talk to with my phone! This is optional, but you can choose different cycles from the in-built ones, and see how much time is left on the cycle, etc etc. (You can also see on the machine itself how much time is left, and I know this is not a new thing, but I appreciate that a lot. The old one didn't have anything like that).

~

So after I made the book wrap, I realised I'd sort of run out of things to make (despite having mentioned things here and so on, but I think my brain's just on one at the moment), so I made a coaster and some other bits and pieces in the same fashion. And now I am in a "feeling uncreative" funk again. I know it's probably just because I'm feeling very tired at the moment, but ugh, I wish it wasn't happening. I know it'll pass. I'm just venting.

I got out the book that I borrowed from the library that has the felt succulents in it, so I am going to have a look at that later for some inspo. I even bought some felt with my Xmas money that is in a colour set called Succulent, so if that isn't perfect, I don't know what is. I got the felt before I borrowed the book, just because I liked the way the colours went together, so it's sort of coincidence that I have the two things at the same time.

I think the last twelve months have just done a bit of a number on my brain, and it's taking me time to get back around to how I was feeling before that. I mean, I felt shitty before last January, but not as shitty as I did for the majority of 2023 until now. BUT ANYWAY. I'm sure I will work myself out of this. I've done it before, and I can darned well do it again.

~

Finally, I am watching Johnny Chiodini play through a game called The Tartarus Key, which is an escape room type game with PS1 style visuals (so right up my street, really). I bounced off it initially, because I realised (although I think I already knew) that, in a lot of cases, I have to be in the right mood for Johnny's streams. I like them as a person in general, but sometimes they just wind me up and get on my nerves, which is what happened to start with. But then I came back to it a couple of days later, when I was feeling tired and teary, and IDK everything was fine? Like I even laughed at a couple of jokes they made, where on the previous day, I'd been like, "Ugh, stop being such a fucking fool!"

Anyway, I recommend it! I think a few of you would like it, since some of you like puzzle games (though IDK how you feel about escape rooms), and I thoroughly recommend that you go in blind. It's more fun that way! Also I couldn't find any spoilers on the internet but I didn't try hard enough, lbr. But yeah, I deffo think it's a neat game and I've liked what I've seen so far.

I have finally moved the tumble dryer from the front bedroom to outside! Now I just have to contact the council to pick it (and some other stuff) up.

I happened to run into my friend Jackie between Xmas and New Year and was all, "Could you do me a favour?" and she said yes, so I rang her the other day, and she came over that afternoon. It's not even that the tumble dryer is heavy, it's just awkward. But there's no way I could have got it down the stairs by myself.

So now I've moved some stuff around - primarily all my boxes of fabric are together and against a wall, as opposed to being in a stack with air all around them. I also managed to reclaim another box, so most of it is in boxes now, which pleases me as it's easier to store. I think I need to sort through the fabric again. I kept some stuff that should probably go as I'll never use it, and I still have the material I don't want from last time (because brains, tiredness, etc).

Now I need to work on sorting through stuff and throwing away/recycling/donating anything I don't want or need.

Jackie said we should both work on making ourselves a functional workroom this year and me, knowing what my energy levels (and migraines) are like, was all, "Ha, like that's going to happen!" and Jackie said she would actually do it. But I'm actually invested in doing it. It's what I've wanted to do with the front bedroom for literal years, but I've been delayed(?) in doing it by not having easy access to get rid of things. And I still don't really now, but just doing this is starting to make things seem a bit more manageable.

~

Yesterday I sorted through a bunch of tapestry wool that I didn't think I had a use for - except that now I do! I can use it for needle felting! Among other things. And because it's 100% wool, it will felt really well. I don't know why mum had it, or even where it came from, but it never got used while she was alive, so I might as well do something with it.

~

Finally, I am still trucking along in FFXII. I did a grinding for money/hunts run, and somehow ended up with 50K gil purely from vendor trash (I got lost in the Ogir-Yensa, nobody is surprised). But this meant I could buy the weapons and armour I wanted before I did the Stilshrine. Which I just finished last night.

I'm still doing pretty well. I still haven't had a game over, and I've beaten every boss on the first try so far, so I must be doing something right (or I'm getting better at video games, ha ha).

Happy New Year?

I've been working over the past five days, and today is the first day I'm not, hence the ability to actually sling together some sort of post. So obvs I am late to the party on wishing everyone happy new year.

I had an okay Xmas, it went nicely and there was no drama, which is always good! It was also one of the few days I didn't have whopping migraine over about a week (one was so bad I couldn't even look at my phone/TV without feeling violently nauseous, which was delightful).

Then I worked five days in a row, and I got to experience some people being awful! Because retail! Nobody was outright threatening or anything like that, but there was one woman who described the process of trying to get a refund as the worst experience she'd ever had, just because she wasn't getting her own way (and she was a tight-fisted so and so to begin with). Several people were annoyed we didn't have certain things in, and I was like, "It has been Xmas and New Year! There have been NO DELIVERIES!" and they were all just kind of like, "And??" which irritated me because I tend to (or try to) take that sort of thing into account when going places at this time of year!

ANYWAY.

I'm working one day in the next eleven and holy fuck am I glad about that.

~


I don't really have any resolutions for 2024. I hope it's better than 2023, which was a mixed year for me, to be honest.

I'm still continuing on my textile adventures - I'm going to have a go at 2D needle felting this year! I thought I wasn't interested in it/thought I may easily hurt myself (since it uses stabby needles), but ye olde weasel brain has other ideas. I'm just getting a little starter kit, and see how I go!

And that's really it for now! I'm going to post this and debate what to have for dinner.

I "accidentally" fell into watching journalling videos again, and omg that stuff is so soothing for my brain, and I have no idea why. Especially because most of the videos I see, the people making the spreads use things I would never consider using (doilies, lace, particular types of stickers or washi).

To which end, I have a book I made...forever ago...that I decided I would use as a collage spread book* (because, to me, those journal spreads look more scrapbooky or collage-y than they do what I would consider appropriate for a journal, but that's because I am an old man who yells at clouds). It's roughly the same size as a Traveller's Notebook, because you bet I thought about making inserts once upon a time. So it's not so big of a space to fill, and I don't have to do both sides at once if I don't want to.

And then I thought, "I need to sort some stuff out!", so now I have various folders full of various types of paper and card (supplemented from some general tidying I have been doing) that I can use for said collages.

I even categorised (some of) my sequins, because of seeing someone use some in one of their spreads. And came to the conclusion that I either need to sell or donate some, because I have a veritable mountain that I will never use. (Curse Poundland and that time they had massive bags of sequins in multiple colour sets! Like, it's nice having the different colour options, but oh boy, even if I encrusted every page in sequins, it would probably take me years to get through them all).

I also grabbed my mum's two seals out of writing sets she'd bought + the additional wax because IDK it looks cool when people on the internet do it. One has an interchangeable head, which is nice, and the other one doesn't, but that's okay. It's not like I have an alternate head for it at this point in time anyway.

I'm going to get one that is more "me", eventually. And one that has my constellation on it because I can! (hopefully; as constellations go, Aquarius isn't the most complicated, but it's also not the most simple).

...I just need to get everything a bit better organised in the living room so that I can access things when I need them, and not have to dig through layers upon layers of boxes (or whatever). And then I can collage to my heart's desire!

~

I don't think many of you follow me on twitter, but in case it does collapse in on itself, you can mainly find me in the following places online (as well as here, obvs):

wordpress: rootsandbonesart.wordpress.com

ko-fi: ko-fi.com/rootsandbones

society 6: society6.com/rootsandbones

my hilariously out of date website: rootsandbones.weebly.com

I am thinking about setting up a gumroad account for digital downloads at some point in the future! I will likely only put freebies up on ko-fi for reasons I'm not going into, because they are, quite frankly, really boring.

Also I figured out a way to film stuff at my desk, and it is not great, and I am not making any promises that that will happen, but hey! I finally figured it out!

~

*This is what I was wonkily talking about in the last entry, except sometimes I get carried away with myself, and also assume that because I know what's going on, so does everyone else.

Weaving on youtube: boring, all white or neutral colours, roving weight yarn if you're lucky.

Weaving on pinterest: SO MANY BRIGHT COLOURS! DIFFERENT WEIGHTS OF YARN! Not boring at all!

I realise these are GROSS over-simplifications, but it's a bit how I feel sometimes. Also it didn't help that the people whose weaving videos I watched were - I don't want to say "generic crafters", because it feels very mean, and yet that's what they do. They rarely spend more than one or two videos on whatever craft they're trying, and their channel contains multitudes. So of course they weren't really going to branch out and try weirder stuff. Also the one channel I watched a lot of is more a lifestyle channel, and her focus is mostly on decorating, so she's going to go with what's fashionable in that, and that is, of course, whites and neutrals.

Not that there is anything wrong with liking whites and neutrals, because there isn't. I just like colours, y'all.

Anyway, after months of not doing any, I am back on a weaving thing in part because my friend Sarah bought herself a loom so she could weave yarn she can no longer knit with. Obviously, I am mildly jealous, as I don't really have room for a loom at the moment. I don't really think I want one, at least not at the moment, since I'm not that into it anyway. (Though looms are not as expensive as I thought! I can get one similar to Sarah's for around £120 which seems cheap to me! I thought I'd be looking at at least £500, but I guess it depends what you want it to do as to how much it will cost).

I particularly like weaving where there's a mixture of thicker warp and thinner weft (or, yanno, a whole bunch of what they call art yarn, of which I have some), or really slubby yarn has been used. There are examples in my weaving folder on my pinterest, if you want to see what I'm talking about.

So I'm going to have a go at that, along with everything else I am messing with at the moment - which is dyeing fabric with food items (I just dyed some fabric with coffee and it smells disgusting. I'm not sure how it smells worse than tea dyed stuff, AND YET), and also making weird sewn on doodles with fabric scraps to see how it turns out, and some other bits and bobs as well.

And, not for the first time, I have spent most of this week wishing I'd gone to the textiles lessons at college when I was doing art. I think I didn't because they clashed with something else, and I deemed that thing more important, and also I didn't think I was that interested in it, in spite of my first ever project there being extremely textiles based (it's how I'm familiar with dyeing stuff with tea).

~

In other news, I bought the Inscryption soundtrack because it is available on Bandcamp for $4!! and it is an absolute banger.

~

And that is all I have to say at the moment, really!

I've had a really bad cold for the last week or so, which has been fun (not). I went to work last weekend, feeling like absolute ass, and I didn't know why, except that I'd just had a three day migraine, so maybe it was that? It wasn't.

So I've essentially spent two weeks feeling extremely sorry for myself. But I am WAY better now, I promise! And I'm p sure it wasn't anything worse than a cold. (I wore a mask the entire time I was out of the house (as I always do), so hopefully I haven't passed it on to anyone!)

And so, because I was feeling sorry for myself, I took Type-0 out of the PS4, and put FFXII in so that I could play through on Strong Mode, which is the reward for beating the game once normally. And let me tell you, it is hecking hilarious.

What it basically means is that everyone is level 90, and you didn't have to grind anything to get there. It also means everyone hits stuff and they die. Except for the Wild Saurian in the Estersand, but more about that in a minute!

I have spent a lot of time yelling, "VENGEANCE FOR TWENTY SEVEN YEAR OLD ME!!"* as I plough through enemies that I know caused me absolute grief the first time, if not every time I played this game in the past. And I'm having an absolute blast!

(RE: the Saurian. I know from past experience that it is level 25, so I should have no trouble beating it, right? Except that Strong Mode makes it more apparent what weapons work versus which enemies and, when Vaan first goes to the Estersand, he's equipped with a dagger which DOES NOTHING against the Saurian. NOTHING. Also it should've taken out the Tomato in one hit, but part of that battle is scripted).

I'm sure I was thinking of some niggles I have with the Zodiac Age, but I have forgotten them because my brain is essentially going, "GOD I LOVE CID!" a lot right now. I mean, I do. I think he's a great character. I just love that he's having a ball doing what he's doing, and being how he is.

Oh yes, I remember! I don't like that certain item locations are changed, nor that you can only get some of the magic spells out of chests. Nor that the requirements to get the Zodiac Spear have been changed (not that I'm that bothered; getting it once in the PS2 version was enough!)

I'm more onboard with the job system this time, although choosing jobs is hard! Balthier ended up as a time mage again, and Fran is an archer because I have no imagination. I did avoid making Penelo a white mage, though, and she is a monk instead because why not!

I think this is my tenth playthrough [nervous laughter].

~

I found the link to the sewn canvas I was talking about! It's here, although I didn't do the dangly bit, I just sewed straight across my canvas in rainbow colours.

~

Finally, before I go, you may be interested in this video from Outside Xtra, wherein Ellen worked out exactly how much your time is worth when you're playing video games.

I don't play the sorts of games she mentions, but I absolutely found the maths fascinating, and I thought y'all might, too.

~

*I think I first played it in 2008, but I am not 100% sure. I know I was neck deep in the fandom at the time, because I was using it as a way to distract myself from my dad being terminally ill at the time.

I have been watching a lot of craft DIYs on youtube over the past few days because I like watching people make things, and my brain needed some soothing.

This backfired on me, however. I had already started doing some embroideries, and want to learn needlepoint techniques because of a fibre artist I started following last year. Okay, fine. Except then I started a DIY I read about on a random webpage, which is more sewing, but onto a canvas (it's about as tedious as it sounds, and difficult to hold).

And then I watched these DIY videos, and now I also want to do weaving (which I already established to myself years ago that I find it boring a f), and learn some macrame techniques. At the same time as all these other things I am doing!

I technically already know some macrame, as I went through a phase about eight years ago of making friendship bracelets to sell. And friendship bracelets also count as weaving, except you're not using a loom. And basically, I don't even know any more!

I sometimes think I am very suggestible, especially when it comes to crafts and video games. So I'm just going to have a go with the stuff I've got lying around (good job I never got rid of most of my yarn after stopping crocheting/knitting) and see how it goes, rather than investing in new stuff.

(And, in case you were wondering, and you probably weren't, yes I am feeling guilty about having not done any more lino cutting/using the ink I bought for that. Also feeling guilty about having not drawn for a week but, as I once said to someone else, it's not like I'm not being creative in other ways).

~

Yesterday, I watched Aoife from Eurogamer stream the first three hours of the Director's Cut of Death Stranding, and my basic reaction is, "uuuggggghhhhh," because it just looks so fucking tedious!

If you're going to have me wandering about in the landscape, at least give me something to do while I'm doing it!

I'm just. I'm basically glad I never wanted to play it for myself, because that stream just confirmed I would've thought it was a waste of money.

~

Here's some Squeenix meme!

I keep forgetting about Kingdom Hearts, y'all! I know Squeenix made it, and that's part of the reason I bought the first two games, but I keep forgetting to put it in my answers, lol.

22. What Square-Enix standalone games have you played?

The Last Remnant, which I hecking loved, much to my own surprise!

Also Infinite Undiscovery, which I didn't get very far into - only as far as to meet the character voiced by Taliesin Jaffe (you can absolutely tell it's him if you're familiar with his voice). I promptly put it down and haven't picked it up again since!

23. Are there any unlocalized Square-Enix games you're curious about?

Ehhh, sort of? The mobile games that only got released in Japan for the FFVII compilation, for example, but only because I don't know what they're about. But other than that, I don't know if there any others.

24. Do you have any remakes/remasters of Square-Enix games?

Yes! I've got FFIII DS, FFIV DS, FFV GBA version, the HD versions of FFX and X-2, and the Zodiac Age version of FFXII!

I am just coming out of a three day migraine. At least, I hope I am. I'm not 100% sure it's gone, but I didn't wake up this morning feeling like there was concrete in my head, so yay? Also I was pain free yesterday evening, which is a good sign (I got up after watching the Oxventure stream feeling like I'd been dragged backwards through several hedges AND like my blood sugar was really low, though, so THAT WAS FUN. This is how it seems to be when I've had one that's lasted several days).

Multi day migraines are nothing new for me but, as I noted last year, they've suddenly started getting a lot more painful when they happen. Wheeee! Painkillers do seem to help somewhat, and I guess it's useful that we're in lockdown, as I can lie around feeling like crap and doing very little without feeling too guilty about it.

In other news, on the middle of those three days, I played some FFV Advance! It seemed like less hassle than Diablo III (and meant I could sit in my chair, rather than on the uncomfortable sofa). I beat Leviathan and Bahamut, and I have all the legendary weapons now. And the three extra jobs that you get because it's the Advance version (I will probably never have Necromancer, and I don't have Mime. I don't know if there's anything else I'm missing). I don't know if there are any other prerequisites before going into the Void - I'll have to check a walkthrough. (I did get to this stage once before, on the PSX version, but it was like fifteen years ago, at least, so good luck remembering what to do, me!)

And then yesterday I made two felt appliques! This is something I've been thinking about doing for a while now, but just not done because ???? I don't actually know. This is the first one I did, and it took the longest time. I also made a mushroom, which I'm going to upload a picture of later when I've taken one.

I want to make some more mushroom appliques, I think. And some more friendly monsters, because I've been drawing them for years now, and not really ever done anything with them. I don't know if I want to sell them - I certainly didn't make the first one to sell (which is good, considering I messed up his face and had to redo it). It'd be nice to do something creative that I automatically didn't think, "Oooh, I could sell this!" (which is where I'm at with book binding, but there's only so much space in my house for books right now!)

(Finally, please enjoy this conversation from the Oxbox crew about mattresses. It's relevant because they talk about futons. That's why my sofa is uncomfortable - because it's a futon).

(And check out this chiptune version of the Firelink Shrine music from DS1! Youtube gave it to me as a random rec, presumably because I keep sticking the OG version on to just chill to (it's about the only thing I like about DS1) and it just works really well??? original version for comparison).

~

And also, the reason why I'm here! On a Saturday! It's the Post Once A Day meme!

forests_of_fire asked: If you could design your ideal video game, what would it be like?

Well. If the game I tried (not very hard) to design a few years ago is anything to go by, it would involve lots of exploration in large areas (so an open world game, I guess?) with things to collect to either advance to the next area (a bit like Pokemon, but not) or for crafting purposes. Or just for the heck of collecting stuff (I mean, guess who has two thumbs and is forever running out of inventory space? OH YEAH IT ME).

I was basing it on things I liked in games I was playing at the time, and the open world thing was definitely an influence from Skyrim, although obviously I appreciate it in other games like Dragon Age: Inquisition (although the level locking on that annoys me).

The only thing I was really missing was changeable armour/weapons/clothing (although that said, I think my ideal game would be non-combat based. I just want to explore and take stuff in, and not have to fight off mooks every five minutes).

As games that already exist go, The World Ends With You is pretty darned near it. As I mentioned in another answer, it has the dress up element (even though the sprites don't change - for obvious reasons - there are hundreds of clothing items), and there's several tropes in it I really really like, and Neku's character arc is just *chef's kiss*.

I just tried to fill in a job application that had two of my most dreaded questions on it:

1. Give an example of when you have done exceptional work and exceeded expectations
2. Describe how your skills are relevant to this post

I think this is worse than "What is your expected salary?" (to which my answer is "Way above what you want to pay me, buddy")

I actually cannot give an example for question one because there hasn't been one in either my current job, or any previous.

Like, I went to a thing at the job centre several months ago, and they gave an example of how to answer that question*, but I literally can't give an answer like that. SIGHS

I swear the last time I was applying for jobs it wasn't this difficult. Anyway, I signed out of the page - I'll either go back to it in a few days if I manage to think of something, or I'll just forget about it.

At least it's not as bad as that library job I went to apply for whose questions may well have been in Greek for all I understood them. I've got a job centre appointment in a week or so. I might have to ask for help answering stuff like this.


*Their answer was, customer comes to shop looking for a thing. Exact thing is not there, but you helped them find something similar, as well as matching items, etc, etc. I haven't done anything remotely like that.

~

I did indeed ragequit the cross stitch I mentioned in this post. It was of the pixel Bahamut from Record Keeper, and it was just too many colours, and too much confetti (individual stitches in one colour). I should have dinked with it a bit before I printed it out, but I wanted to get on and do it!

I got about a tenth of the way into it and just...well, first I stopped, because it wasn't making me feel calm (usually stitching does, much like knitting and crochet used to). Then I started a different cross stitch which was a lot easier, and I've just carried on with that one, because it wasn't making me feel inadequate/blind.

Anyway, I am enjoying the one I am working on now, so that's good! I am taking progress photos as I go along, because I thought about making a time lapse video (I don't know if I'll post it anywhere, though). I did think about the good ole .gif, but I think the compression I'd have to put on it would wreck it, so a video it may well be!

I've also dug out a bunch more of mum's cross stitch books from her room, as I was in there doing some tidying the other day, and there's a whole bunch of books I didn't know about/had forgotten she owned. One of them has some tiny Welsh dragons in, so I might do those some time in the very near future.

~

I should probably get something to eat, so I'm going to go and do that.

I bought four craft books and I don't care!

(I would've bought more, but dropping almost £50 on books in one go is not a thing I can or want to do).

I got two cross stitch ones, one general embroidery, and one about Sashiko.

The cross stitch ones I can firmly blame on a mutual on twitter, as she asked about designing your own patterns, and I said it was pretty easy, though honestly it depended on what you wanted to do. Then my brain was like, hey, you could cross stitch while you're watching Critical Role! and I was like, heck yeah! except that I hadn't anything that wouldn't require much attention. So I am working on fixing that.

I've been thinking like quotes from stuff, but my brain is preoccupied with other stuff that nothing is coming to mind right now. But I will think of something, I'm sure!

ETA: I also picked up an Iain Banks book off the flea market the other day, but it is not one of the Culture ones. It is The Bridge.

There were also three others, but I wasn't as taken by their synopses. [/eta]

~

Talking of Critical Role, I am now at episode 73, which is the one that aired the week I started watching, back in 2016.

(yes, I am still horrifically behind, why do you ask).

Which means I have seen the one where ( spoiler happens )

Anyway, now I'm going to go and eat some pizza and watch some more!