Mania: mini update

So I think I might be in the midst of a mania cycle. My mind is humming a million miles a minute, I'm stumbling over my words and I'm highly productive. Productive to the point where when I'm not doing anything I feel anxious and like I'm not doing enough. I guess it would be a good time to give the house a real good clean down or start a few projects I've been meaning to start (but they required planning and I need to buy stuff to begin). Planning is difficult because I really need to think things out, which is hard when I'm switch from here to there every other second. Money...I should just stay away from buying things. I've somehow already put my bank account in a tight spot, not sure how it happened.

It's been a while since I've felt this way to this extreme so I'm not sure what to do with myself. I don't really have the attention span to stick to one thing too long (although I did marathon 4 seasons of Legend of Korra over the weekend). Watching things is easy because I get involved in the story and the characters but it's just a waste of time. When, instead I could be learning things or getting stuff done.

I don't really have much more to talk about because it's hard to keep my train of thought before jumping to the next thing.

I did plan a my very first adult trip to Austin next month from the 10th-17th. My boyfriend are flying out to stay with some really close friends. No big plans as of yet, I'm just excited to see my best friend. Then I turn around on the 18th to fly out for a conference for work in San Francisco! I'm a bit scared about that to be honest but I'm going to try to make the best of it. It's going to be really tiresome to go from plan ride to plane ride back to back. I 'll be out there until Thursday, so I'm debating taking a vacation day that Friday or just work from home. I'm going to be really drained I'm sure but this is just how the cookies crumbled. I'd been planning the Austin trip for a while and the conference didn't seem like it was going to happen even though I spoke to my team lead about it earlier in the year. I just hope I don't be a stick in the mud and can actually mingle and network.

Work has been insane. I've been assigned to a special project that takes me away from my normal work and team. I miss the social aspect of seeing my team but at the same time I'm excited to learn all this new stuff. Eventually I'll be coming back with all the info to teach the team. But for now I'm taking it day by day trying to learn as much as possible and hope that it all sinks in and I get everything documented so I don't get stuck again. My "mentor" on this project is not a hand holder and I think I've gotten a little bad about trying to figure things out on my own so it's a good chance to reestablish those problem solving skills.

Also I signed up for a watercolor class for Monday nights but now I'm not sure if I should cancel or not. They pushed the start date back a week (so there goes one class I paid for) and then I will be missing two classes for the Austin trip and the work conference. So I'm just not sure if it's bad timing or if I should just do it anyway. I think I'll go to the first class and decide then. I still have a little time to drop and get my money back. I was just really, really looking forward to learning that medium.

It's been really hard for me on the weekends to get motivated enough to do just about anything recently so this "manic" feeling only started Monday. Now, there is a chance it could be a side effect of my new ADD medication but the symptoms seem to fit mania better. Or perhaps the ADD med is putting me in a manic state. I'm not sure. I've only been taking the new med for a little over a week now. I also missed 3 days of meds over the weekend (I know a big nono) so I'm not sure how my body is adjusting.

I see my therapist on the 23rd, I don't feel like I have much to talk about or work on. I dunno. I see my psychiatrist on the 3rd so it will be a while until I can adjust my meds, if needed. Which probably will considering I'm rapid cycling right now (the weekend I didn't want to move).

Anyway that's what's been up lately.

Up and down we go, when will it stop? I'll never know...

So recent update on the mental health journey. My work from home stent ended and I'm pretty much in the same boat as before. My social anxiety and GAD are an everyday occurrence and I'm trying to treat it without medication as best I can but I just end up taking a Xanax to calm down enough to concentrate. I'm just not sure how to cope anymore. I kind of think I'm depending on the Xanax even though whenever it happens I try to take 30 minutes to clam myself down before resorting to take the Xanax. But it's happening so often I can't keep it under control. I'm not sure if there's something more daily I could take to manage the anxiety rather then the quick fix Xanax. I've tried Abilify but it didn't work for me.

I'm on a new ADD medication, Concerta because I was concerned on getting hooked on the Ritalin. But now I'm beginning to think that was a bad idea. I don't feel like this new medication is working, now mind you I've only been taking it for a week. It's just the Ritalin kicked in right away, it just had such a short half life, I felt I was popping too many of them even though I was sticking to the directions and on a low dose. This is only one of the minor things I need to treat right now so it's kind of fallen by the wayside but it's really beginning to bother me. Whenever I take the time to just sit down and try to study something, I can't absorb the information. There's just no focus for me. Then  when it gets slow at work, I just web surf and I feel guilty and disgusted at myself that I'm not using every free minute to learn something. Because in the end, I want to move to a different role. I want more freedom and I just don't have those technical skills right now. So I NEED to learn. I'll have to address it sternly in my next appointment if I don't see any improvement by then. I'll probably ask to switch back to the old stuff even though my doctor will have push back. The Ritalin worked, I was just worried about the addiction aspects. Although I honestly don't feel I'm the type to get hooked. But if Ritalin is just a temporary fix I want something else anyway.

Next would be sleep. So the good news, I've been getting consistently sleepy every night around the same time. Now that isn't to say I can FALL asleep easily but my body knows when it's time for bed. So after many different meds (failed Trazodone which was a combo fall asleep and bipolar med to replace Xanax and Latuda; it made me sick if i didn't eat with it and I don't want to be eating at 9/10 pm at night) to FALL asleep we defaulted back to Xanax this week at a higher dose, 2mg. I know it works so I'm happy with that decision. Although now that I think about it, I filled a script for Valium but never started it so I'm not sure if I should have inquired as that as the fall asleep option.

The problem now is STAYING asleep. I'm a pretty light sleeper. I didn't have so much trouble when I was combo-ing Ambien and Xanax (and Latuda as the companion bipolar med), I slept like the dead and it felt great in the morning. But Ambien just magically stopped working. So I had to switch to something else. I started Restorial as my stay asleep med with Trazodone for my go to sleep med but I kept waking up periodically through the night so I never felt rested. I gave it over a month and no changes so I asked to switch to something else. Now with that being said we had eliminated Latuda from my regimen because a higher does made me sick. So we had to replace the companion bipolar medication with something else. Now I'm taking Seroquel. Apparently part of the side effects is sleepiness so it's supposed to be dual purpose for Bipolar and staying asleep. But the problem is that I'm still waking up at 4 or 5 in the morning everyday and not being able to fall back asleep despite staying the bed and trying my hardest to remind myself I still have tons of time I need to sleep. Again it's only been a week so I still have to give it time. I just want a combination that works like Ambien and Xanax did. Sleep is so crucial to my mood stabilization. I know I'm sleeping my life away when I'm taking 9-10 hours a night but it's the only way I feel rested and strong enough to take on a new day with all the challenges of the agonizing anxiety.

We wanted to nip the depression in the bud, so to speak so I started an antidepressant. Now I know from research SSIRs can create a lot of side effects and can even make bipolar worse. I started on a low dose of Prozac and recently uped to 40mg. I'm not sure if it's attributing to anything yet because there are so many other things going on right now. So many medication switches, dose changes and the like. I've tried Cymbalta and Wellbutrin when I was being wrongly diagnosed with depression and neither seemed to have effect at the time, but they might be viable options now if this doesn't work. 

Also on the depression note, I started counselling again with a new therapist. She's nice and I'm interested in her approach to treatment (cognitive behavioral) but I'm not sure it's working for me. I feel like I go into my session anxious because I have nothing particular to talk about because there haven't been any clear triggers for me lately. Her feedback cycle is generally the same thing, think positive thoughts, notice when you're spiraling out of control etc. I'm not saying that wouldn't work, but it's very difficult to put into practice.

Other than that my Lamictal was uped from 200mg to 300mg. I've read that anything over 200mg probably doesn't do anything but I'm willing to try it if it means I stay reasonable stable. At the moment that is not the case but it can be attributed to my sleep problems rather than the bipolar. I HAVE cycled though so I'm very worried. It all started out as a major depressive state and then I started to feel a little better, mellowed out because I didn't have to worry about going to the office; then I started to feel a lot better (mania starts) and my spending shot up and I started a lot of projects among other symptoms. It was more subtle that usual so it was hard to detect but it lasted for a few weeks, much longer than usual. Now I'm going back down. I wish Lithium was an option for me to try for my staple bipolar medication because I've heard it really works for a lot of people. But due to my age (baby making years) they won't consider it an option.

The last two weekends I've cancelled plans, isolated myself from my boyfriend and pretty only slept or stared at the wall and intensely other think everything. I hope these switches in meds kick in soon. I'm getting anxious trying to balance adult responsibilities, work and my relationship as best I can.

So the current regimen:

Morning

• Lamictal 300mg
• Prozac 40mg
• Concerta 36mg
• (many many vitamins)

Daytime

• Xanax 1mg (as needed, up to 2x day)

Night

• Xanax 2mg
• Seroquel 50mg
• Melatonin 6mg

Currently feelings: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J61u3wFzl68

Dreams, stress and work from home

Everyday we make choices. I understand I won't always make the best choices but I really need to start pushing myself to make the right ones.

I feel like I've stagnated. Being out of school for half a year feels foreign to me, like it's something I SHOULD be doing still even though I have my degrees. Don't get me wrong, I don't WANT to go back to school but I feel like to move toward my goals I need to do it.

If it were up to me and money wasn't a problem, I would be an artist. I would make so much art that I would sell it on Etsy and make a comfortable living. But I feel like that's a pipe dream that will never happen. I missed my best years to learn and I can't get them back. I could take classes at a local community college but I just don't think that will make me good enough to make a living. Although art is my hobby and dream, I already have so little time with my job to devote to my passion. 

I feel like I'm never doing enough for work, like learning more coding and computer science stuff but every time I try to learn I feel like I never absorb anything. Then I just give up. I don't know if I stuck to it if someday it would just click, I think I've pretty much convinced myself I will never be able to code. This is the problem because in order to get to my short term goal, "the realistic" one, I would need to be a competent coder. I want to work from home. It doesn't really have to be on my own schedule, I can do the 9-5 or whatever, I just feel working from home would be so much better. Or even just going into the office twice a week would relieve the everyday stress I encounter being around people.

I don't feel like I can be myself. With my recent health problems my work has been very helpful. But in the end, I can't just have it the way I want it, at least I don't think so. It's something I would have to bring up but I'm not sure how to approach (working from home 3 days a week) and I'm not sure it's something I can bring up at the moment, after having just been accommodated to work from home for a month straight.

So I'm at a cross road. I don't feel I qualify for a lot of the IT jobs I could do from home. The only realistic thing I think I could do is tech support but I would be taking a big pay cut. So it doesn't seem worth the sacrifice. Now that's not to say I wouldn't take a paycut but ~50% is too much (or that's my guesstimate). So what do I do? Who do I go to? Self searches will only bring me so far, if I don't know what I should be looking for I won't find it. It doesn't help my confidence is in the crapper. But honestly, who do you talk about these life changes? Are adults just supposed to know what to do? I hardly believe that's the case.

So that's my little rant/update on my life. I know no one ever has it easy as an adult, I get that. I just hate that it's a little bit harder for me because of my health. I know things could be worse, but I also think I shouldn't be comparing myself to others. I just wish sometimes. A daydreaming about being an artist or winning the lottery makes me really sad because I know neither of those things will happen for me. I guess I just don't have what it takes to make my dreams into reality. I probably only have myself to blame. I should just be grateful for what I do have. Now I feel like a horrible person. Ugh.

Bipolar II: Major Depression

On the spectrum I've been diagnosed with Bipolar 2. What does that mean? Well it means I have short cycles of hypo-mania and longer cycles of depression (mostly major depression in my case). The fact that my depression is so incredibly low means I technically am not on the spectrum for Bipolar 2, but that best fits my situation. I fall somewhere between Bipolar 2 and Bipolar NOS (not otherwise specified). But for clinical reasons a familiar term needs to be diagnosed.

What is hypo-mania? It's a mild form of mania, which includes symptoms: 

• Mood Changes
• An overly long period of feeling "high," or an overly happy or outgoing mood
• Extreme irritability.

Behavioral Changes
• Talking very fast, jumping from one idea to another, having racing thoughts
• Being unusually distracted
• Increasing activities, such as taking on multiple new projects
• Being overly restless
• Sleeping little or not being tired
• Having an unrealistic belief in your abilities
• Behaving impulsively and engaging in pleasurable, high-risk behaviors.

*nimh.nih.gov

In my case I experience most of these symptoms and it goes mostly unnoticed. I'm really the only one who notices when this is happening. Even though I'm being treated for Bipolar disorder, I sometimes still experience these symptoms. So treatment with medication is never really 100% the answer but being aware of when I'm cycling helps me to understand what's going on and reflect on my decisions better to keep myself in check. So mostly I can manage my hypo-mania and I think that's because of my medication regiment and self-awareness.

The other side of Bipolar 2, the depression is really harsh in my case. I wish more people understood depression in general. Major depression is a serious problem for me and can basically incapacitate me. Symotoms include:

• Mood Changes
• An overly long period of feeling sad or hopeless
• Loss of interest in activities once enjoyed, including sex.

Behavioral Changes
• Feeling overly tired or "slowed down"
• Having problems concentrating, remembering, and making decisions
• Being restless or irritable
• Changing eating, sleeping, or other habits
• Thinking of death or suicide, or attempting suicide.
• *nimh.nih.gov

So for me, there are days I just can't get out of bed. I also basically stop eating (I only eat when forced to which usually only entails needing to eat something to take my medications). I sleep too much and I never have energy to do anything (not that I want to do anything except stare at the wall and think too much). But this is a serious problem when you're an adult and you have to do your adult job. Before getting treated when these cycles happened, they lasted for a month normally. And it was something I could basically get through by becoming a shut in because I didn't have a job to worry about.

The dilemma I'm facing now is how to balance my depression with my anxiety disorder. Being around a lot of people sets off regular anxiety attacks which can spiral into crying spells. Something you really can't do in the office. Most people won't understand what's happening. For me, the only private place is the bathroom and even then it's not so private because if people hear you they ask if you're okay and that's the last thing you want, people to notice you.

I haven't had a serious depressive cycle in over a year (since I started medication treatment for my Bipolar disorder). So it's really hard for me to navigate my day-to-day. The worse part is sometimes I have good days. Sometimes I can go out of the house and grocery shop or be around people (for short periods of time). But I never know when I'm going to have a good day and when I'm going to have a really, really bad day. And then there's the mixed days where I seem find in the morning/afternoon and I slide downhill in the afternoon/evening.

The most prevalent issues I'm dealing with right now are 1. too much sleep, 2. not eating, 3. low/no concentration, 4. crying spells. Although I feel the other depressive symptoms regularly too.

So right now I'm navigating unknown territory, trying to keep my job while I undergo treatment. I've never heard of anyone going through this issue that I personally know so I don't really have someone I could talk to (although I should get on some forums and read up what others have done). I can schedule appointments after works hours for the most part and we've already adjusted and added meds to help with the issue but it will take time to set in. I don't think I'm allowed to get into details of how I'm working out things with work but I want people to know, there is help. And as afraid as I am of losing my job because of this, I reached out rather than suffering through this very difficult period of time. I personally don't feel qualified to pick up another job like the one I have, so it's really important to me that I keep the one I've got. But there are other options on the table for me to do if this lasts longer than a month.

So really I just hope this post educates people about my disorders and lets people know there is help. I'm not sure how reassuring your HR department might be, but I've found basically everyone I've disclosed to has been very understanding and willing to work with me. If you're in a similar situation reach out to your support system also. Having people to talk to (as much as you don't feel like doing) can give you a little boost to stay in human contact and not go crazy dealing with it on your own. And don't feel like you have to tell everyone. Just tell the people you need to tell in order to get help. Everyone else who is close to you but don't need the details only need to know you are getting help "for medical reasons." Nothing else needs to be disclosed.

Thanks for reading.

The woe of a Saturday in the life

My day started last night. We had a friend over for a favor which turned into a casual chat session, turned munchkin (which I'm beginning to believe I sincerely do not like that game). The original point is that I was up late last night, which threw off my schedule a little bit.

I woke up to go to my dentist appointment, which I was dreading just thinking about the huge, painful needle that would have to be shoved in-between my gums and face. After being shot 3 times last time I went (since the first two didn't numb the correct tooth), I was expecting the same sort of situation. Well, I was right, it really did hurt even with the topical numbing solution they use but luckily I only needed 1 shot. And I didn't even feel the filling procedure at all this time.

So at this point I got to get up a little later then usual (9 am) and my dentist appointment was better than expected. Even the copay wasn't that painful. A little win-win-win here. So you'd say a good start to the day right?

We had lots of errands to run. Firstly, I was determined to have a good, tasty breakfast. Which, to me, usually means going to a restaurant. Not my boyfriend's favorite thing to do but we know of this niche/nook place that has excellent custom breakfasts that he likes. Also I know I like the greek omelette on the usual menu. So we went and, of course, he got something off the specials menu and I got the regular greek omelette. And, of course, his looked better and seemingly tasted better than my meal but regardless, it was good. So we'll say a win.

After figuring out coupons weren't valid yet, I crossed one stop off the list and we headed to the first stop. Best Buy. Now, I don't like Best Buy; I've had some experiences that left a sour taste in my mouth. But we found a hefty gift card for BB and combined with my birthday gift cards for the last few years we had enough to buy a Wii U. We both want the system for various games and it seems the most party friendly so it seems like a good investment on our behalf. So we went to check out. I slammed down my gift-cards excitingly and waited for the clerk to return my third gift card, since we had more on the cards than the price. Well as it turns out, one of my cards had degraded and was missing $12 I expected to be there. Okay so not a big deal, I just paid the difference but still a bummer. A little loss here.

Then we went to stop 2. Jo-Ann's. The place I'm convinced I single handily made my boyfriend hate. There's a good sale on patterns and it recently came to my attention I had bought several patterns in the wrong size (including a specific one I bought materials for a cosplay). So I went find a similar pattern to make my costume with. Turns out they had the same one I needed, in my size, on sale. So a little score there. Also the red tab fabric was on sale 50% off. I recently bought another pattern for a lolita cosplay I'd like to do so I hunted for a cheap fabric in the red tag section. Turns out there was a good fabric, in reasonable colors, reasonably priced (even better with 50% off) with a 1/4 yard more than I needed. Another little score too. Knowing how my boyfriend must have been feeling, I knew I had limited time left to get everything done so I cut myself short and we checked out. Even had a 15% coupon. Score.

At this point the score is 7 good vesus 1 bad. Also at this point I realized I needed to either very quickly finish everything up or eat lunch. We were on a roll and I know how my boyfriend feels about spending money out when we have food at home, so I decided to just go straight to stop 3 and 4. This was a poor decision on my part because my mood rockets out of control when my blood sugar is low. But I stupidly do this fairly often so I figured I could keep my composure until we just get through the last few errands.

We stopped at Petco, grabbed litter and a few toys. A quick in and out. At the same time I started to feel less neutral and more sad. But I wasn't able to pinpoint why. Buyers remorse? Who knows. Just one more stop and we're home free.

We hopped next store to Meijer for the weekly round up. These trips are a story in and of themselves so I'll save you the trouble this time. But we had a short list and we knew pretty much everything we had to get. I dropped him to return the bottles and parked the car. I was back to feeling neutral in a matter of minutes. We were getting snippy with each other but everything was under control. I stopped by the card kiosks to collect all the birthday cards I needed for mom, dad and my boyfriend. Cool, I'm getting them all done at one time, no worries for the rest of the week. That took a long time. Long enough for my boyfriend to finish the cans and come find me and have to hang around a little longer while I decided. We bickered but moved on to the rest of the store.

This is were I started to lose composure. We fought, like couples will, nothing important. We were both tired. But I was feeling the burn; I was hungry and had low blood sugar, angry and irritable but also really upset. So we finished up finally and this is when I came out to my boyfriend that I should have eaten over an hour ago. I wasn't in the danger zone yet but it sparked another fight we've been having because this happens fairly often. I eventually just shut down because I couldn't deal with the guilt and feeling bad about starting another fight about the same thing, not taking care of myself and whatever else was eating at me.

We got home and I lost it. I put away as many groceries as I could and retreated to the bed. Proceeded to put the blanket over my head and sob. Why do I have to feel this way? People don't really talk about this mundane stuffy but they also don't talk about when they lose it. It's like you're shamed for breaking into pieces. I mean, looking over how my day went thus far, it was a good day. But for some reason I couldn't handle anything anymore. I'm also not a very open person about when this happens too; I tend to hide as best I can even from the people who love me. It just makes it worse sometimes when there is someone else there. I think my boyfriend eventually caught on I wasn't just being low-blood-sugar-moody Heather, I'm being there-is-something-wrong Heather.

It's a really weird feeling. When you cry it's an urge. I've learned bottling it up has nasty side effects and when I get it all out (as gross as it sounds similar to throwing up) I feel a lot better after. But when I do it alone it's a lot different from when I do it in front of my boyfriend. It just feels more intense but it lasts much shorter.

So after my crying spell my boyfriend went on to do chores, I feel bad for not helping him but I sort of did help by feeding myself some food even though I'd lost my appetite. And now I'm here, writing this post like a diary of sorts. I'm not sure if it's interesting to anyone or if I really want to share this because I'm afraid it's too boring. But I felt the urge to write so I just found myself here again.

I want to do this more often. But I also want it to be worth while to anyone who follows this. So I'm not sure where that balance lies. I'm going to make a better effort, because even though I'm always busy I really want to take 20 minutes out of at least one day a week and just go over something that happened or talk about my mental illness or share something I learned or something I accomplished. I don't know. I just want to write until I feel something's been said.

On that note I think I'm done for this post.

Review: unbreakable kimmy schmidt

Spoiler free (save the first episode).

Years: 2015

Media: Netflix

Release: March 6, 2015

Episodes: 13

Seasons: 1

Synopses: Kimmy Schmidt is a mole woman from Durnsville, IN. After interviewing in New York about her 15 year ordeal and release, Kimmy decides to stay in New York and see if she can make it. Out-of-the-times Kimmy finds a place, love and battles her nemesis, the reverend, in tacky style and humor.

Overall: This series had me laughing and cringing, sometimes in the same episode. The stereotypes are blatant, un-refreshing and sometimes left me asking "whhhhhat?". The cringing really broke out when Tina Fey made a cameo later in the show. The jokes were beyond lame, I'm sure the intent, but just turned me off completely. The rest of the story was being underwhelmed by it. I liked the original idea of the show, and it flowed well enough but there just wasn't enough consistency in the humor to make it a hit IMO. Mostly I stuck to it because the opener is so damn catchy, dammit.

Future: Left off at a cliffhanger for obvious reasons but it mostly feels wrapped up. If not a huge success, which I haven't researched yet, this will definitely die quickly. Being a Netflix original doesn't forsake the show but it isn't getting points for it. I think I heard a rumor it was going to be picked up by a real TV channel but I don't think it will go off well.

W/N: Not.

The tale of my xbox 360 (and PC side stories)

My xbox is not a gaming console.

I no longer use my xbox (Note I'm referring to my 360 this whole time. Although I do own a xboxxbox, it has never been used and I think I picked it up at like a garage sale. It's mostly for archive purposes but maybe someday when I have more time it will see some love) to game. It's an interesting evolution-y, cyclical occurrence that's happened to my poor little xbox.

My original xbox  was a Christmas gift in years past. It was then gifted as a present to a friend. It was manufactured during the great red ring era and could have suffered a fate so foul for all I know at this point. The friend I gave it to and I don't talk anymore so it will remain a mystery forever. 

However, at some point, before I gave away my old one I had gotten my hands on a sleek, sexy black xbox. I'm pretty sure the story behind it went something like, my mom and I were out in the cold for some ridiculous amount of hours in front of Best Buy for a Black Friday sale on a bundle of some sort because my mom was buying one for my brother and I was selfishly buying one for myself. Mostly because it was black. But also it has more storage. Not that I really need that much but it sounded cool. I probably even still have the receipt somewhere so I could tell you what a great deal I got on it back in...whenever the black "slim" ones became popular but that requires effort.

Anywho, some time in college, when I was going to OU, the xbox was actually used for its intended purpose. As a console. I come from a background of a long linage of PC gaming. When I was younger, although we had a Nintendo, I wasn't allowed to play it. The only game I remember playing myself was Barbie and I had to ask my brother to help me jump over those damn water spouts because I just didn't get enough practice gaming. Flash forward to the family PC era. I took to it like a natural and it became my primary source of entertainment. My brothers were as tech savvy as you needed to be to download porn, of course, but generally I learned more about computers than anyone else in my family. There was the great bios wars where I got fed up with them slowing down the computer with all their activities that I locked it down with a password as an admin. But it escalated to one of them locking it down with a password in the bios and reset with a new password on the admin account. Eventually, although incredibly annoying because I was locked out, I did learn how to reset it and locked it down from the bios myself without a work around. Long story short, I used the PC a lot. 

Somewhere around my first boyfriend times (because it's easy to measure time in boyfriends sense I have such a crappy sense of time) I learned about World of Warcraft. He gave me a beta invite and it was all down hill after that. To spare you the details, I continued the trend well after him and was the first to introduce my fellow high school friends to WoW. It was a lot more fun with a guild, friends and all that jazz.

The xbox has a pick-me-up put-me-down history with me. During the third boyfriend years I received a copy of Battlefield 2. I was never a fan of FPS games but I wanted to play games with friends so I gave it a try. I sucked, like really bad. But even though I got really frustrated, I continued to play even without my boyfriend and his friends. I eventually got really good at it and began topping the charts. I was by no means famously good at the game but it felt good to not always be the last player on the board. I stopped playing the xbox after we broke up but I wasn't done with it forever.

I did other things and picked up the xbox back up solely because I wanted to play games with my friends. I met a good friend in an anthropology class of whom introduced me to a friend, we'll call him John. John introduced me to some of his friends who avidly played xbox games. So eventually I picked up a copy of Gears of War 3 under the peer pressure. I wasn't great at it but I wasn't too terrible due to my practice from battlefield. It had a similar feel so I started to gradually get better and better at it as time went on. I formed a tight bond with my xbox friends and we were playing on a weekly+ basis. I branched out into other games and eventually moved away from co-op FPS. I began RPGs, something I wasn't able to really do before. I really liked the xbox at that point. I was paying for a gold membership without much complaint. Then college ended, people weren't on a regularly. We weren't able to keep the bond going. I kept playing by myself but it wasn't as much fun.

Then the fourth boyfriend period happened. I moved in with him in haste and had a lot of free time; I was still in school for my second degree and unable to find a full time job. I did have a part time gig but the drive was becoming cumbersome so I quit to pursue school more avidly and try to find an internship in my new field. I was excited there was someone else I could try to play games with again so I immediately set up the xbox. He wasn't so into it so I played solo again after a short period of time. He convinced me to play WoW again and the xbox slowly faded away into it's little niche on the entertainment center. At the time we had had a media center set up on an unused PC so we didn't need console for entertainment purposes such as Netflix or media we had on our PCs.

That time ended. I quit WoW again and dedicated myself to mostly nothing. Eventually I went back to school for a software engineering degree again and that took up most of my time or at least I made it take up my time. I met my best friend, a not-so-video-game-player, and continued to devote my time to school. This is really when the board game age began (and will probably never end). But that's for another time.

The fifth and current boyfriend chronology began sometime in the middle of the board game night blitz and D&D revival (again, another story). Seeking common ground in the gaming realm, I tried League of Legends for the second time. I had a horrible first experience, playing on my own, without any guidance against people who drove me out with their "noob" banter. Nonetheless, I tried again. This is when the PC came back into play again. I was able to branch out with my steam account of which I began hoarding games that went on sale but never played (bought too mannnnyy gammesss...) but who doesn't do that? Although I'm not proud to say I feel 0% better at it then when I started, it's still a common staple in my gaming day-to-day. It's funny how gaming has made me so many friends and yet how hard it is to find NEW friends to game with.

Now to the point and probably only sentence I had to write about this post. Essentially my xbox has became a media center. I don't have a gold membership anymore, I long let that lapse. All I ever do is watch Netflix, Hulu (when I borrowed an account), HBO GO, Amazon Prime, CrunchyRoll (when we begged for weekend passes) and YouTube. I also have silly windows media center set up on it to watch movies. Atop the shelf sit many a game, some yet to see the light of LED, softly weeping as I currently watch a documentary about YouTubbers on Netflix. Perhaps there will be another period of time of which the xbox will rise from the ashes and restore itself to its former glory, taking the omnipotent place of king of the gaming platforms (of my little world). But for now I'm content to use it for my mindless streaming of all things watchable, good and bad.

With that I tip my hat to you and continue to watch my randomly selected documentary before I adult myself into dinner and play another round of LoL just for funizies because I already got my Win of the Day.

Sunday, sunday, sunday: Super Fight!

The day after a mediocre house warming is making me feel a bit sad. We stopped really early on in the night and I got a headache/too tired too quickly. I basically scurried away to the bedroom at 11:30. Waited all week, prepared all day just to turn around and hit the hay early. It just puts so much disappointment on myself that I couldn't handle being with people as much as I love to play games and be with my friends.

On the flip side, we did get the chance to play a new game called Super Fight. I'm pretty jealous my friend got the promo for free but glad someone in the group has their hands on it because it's actually a pretty fun game. So to review what little bit of playing we did do, I'd rate it 7/10.

Not a particularly meaty game, it's a lot like CAH or A-channel but everyone's a judge instead of one person. Also it seems HIGHLY customizable for house rules (as well as actual other set rules to vary the game play). Since you play 1 round from each hand and entirely discard I think it also helps to stave off the 'stale hand' problem of ending up with a hand of junk. You tend to want to play the best cards from your hand right away since those leftovers will be going into the discard pile anyway which makes it more interesting. Even if you do have to throw off, it's only for one round.

Replay value seems high as there are A LOT of cards, although discarding your hand makes you more familiar with the cards faster, it doesn't diminish the replay value because with good shuffling, the combinations won't get stale. You might have a card you know is in there and you'd love to play it but this game you just didn't get a good combo. The next (shuffled) game around you will have the chance to play it all over again but we possibly better cards.

Also I would be amiss if I didn't mention this game includes BLANK CARDS. A crowd favorite. The only downside I see to blank cards is that they typically end up game group specific. You play with the same group of people, inside jokes are bound to ensue. These end up as cards. You try the game out with a different group of friends and no one is named Shane, it leaves everyone else begging to question "what's so great about Shane's literal penis?" Still, as long as there is opportunity to buy more blank cards in the future (because making your own cards from stock are far too obvious) you will be in a good spot for tailoring your game experience to group attendance which tends to just make the game better.

So that being said, why only a 7? It's a what I like to call a 'light card' game. Meaning it won't have much value unless the group actually WANTS to play. Much like CAH, you can't force a group to play it or it will just crumble and die to the sweet allure of DBZ abridged playing in the background. Unlike games that include pieces to play beyond cards, it's a light pick-me-up game that anyone can join at any time but requires little time investment and little interest because you can actually just throw some combo of cards and still win, which kills game play for me, personally. I like to see people excited about their choices, second guessing their hand and sneaking advice from the player next to them because their cards are just too good to choose from.

http://www.superfightgame.com/

So I'm 2/3 in terms of posting goals. I'll keep trying to make the effort to hit Sundays and then increase from there. I'm not sure how interesting things like "look at what I cooked!" "look at what I painted!" would be but I may have to add some filler like that because my weeks aren't terribly interesting, especially the ones I have to work evenings. Either way I will make an effort to actually go out and do things with people or just the bf so I have something to talk about.

Thanks for reading!

Feelings, updates and general journaling

It's a new year, a new attempt. Let's try this again. Re-re-opening of a blog. I'm going to try small. Couple sentences a day when I get home from work so probably mostly work anecdotes but we'll branch out from there. Today I'm just going to start with how I'm feeling:

Tired, tasked but loved and content.

Why?

Tired because we were up until around 4 am last night entertaining some friends for a D&D session (started at 3pm) turned dirty board game laughter fest. In our roleplaying interlude (10pm) we had a funny story trying to find an open Bdubs near our new home just to end up at the nearest location to my old homestead. My friends wanted to watch the big UFC fight with Rosy and they knew Bdubs was a "free" place to do it. I was happy to go with them because, wangs. Who doesn't want wangs on a Saturday night after a few pints of delicious Final Absolution? Yes wangs, not wings. Heh. We ended up stuck and unable to sit down because there was a curfew and not everyone had their IDs due to unpreventable reasons (not just because we're lazy). So we ended up ordering out and hanging out in the lobby and the car until the 2 second fight actually happened and then left to play a few more games. All in all, I think it was a funny story we gained, scrambling around to find a place to watch the fight just to be shut down by the perky hostess who was only checking a select few IDs (of which we happened to be the minority) and the solution to hang like flys because by god damn, we were going to watch that paperview fight (because who pays that? That's right, no one)!

Tasked because we have a lot of cleaning up to do. Having the first session of friends over for gaming, specifically the involved D & D type gaming has brought to my attention we still have need for some things such as a folding table or two. We thought our 8 person (compromised from a 6 person model) table would be good enough for the 5-6 people committed to such sessions but it seems the need for flat surface space is more. So I'm making a side note to myself to find a cheap way to get more (small) tables. Maybe building them out of lumber would be cheapest? (But storage is a personal concern, although we have some space I don't want to clutter which I already feel is happening...) Anyway it just boils down to having to put everything back in its home and cleaning up some stuff we didn't get to yesterday; namely the bedroom and office.

Loved because we woke up late to try to compensate those 10 hours I need per night so we got a lazy start to the day. But without even having to ask (although it was implied when we actually went to sleep because I pulled the bread out of the freezer last night) but basically without having to ask Matt made me french toast. It was simple, cheap and delicious. Doing that, even though it's actually simple enough for me to do it and I would have, makes me feel loved and taken care of.  I think I tell him enough that I appreciate all he does but I feel it has gotten a little muddled with the insanity of moving and the uncertainty of figuring out our roles since we not only moved, but moved in together for the firs time. But that's another story.

Content because it's finally happened. A big piece of my life has fallen into place and I'm actually pretty happy with the result. Of course no place is perfect, there are a few major flaws with this place. The basement is too cold in the winter (but I'm sure will be lovely in the summer); it's cold upstairs so the heating bill isn't the greatest but like I can't find anything else that is really worthy of complaining about. And I got to move in with the person I love and we get to take another step in our relationship to see how things work out and we can get stronger at working things out.