Snowy Weekend

Made a little snowman ⛄️  It's so nice to observe the snow falling from the comfort of your bedroom!

Life Remastered

 I've been back to work this week, and reading romance manga... So far, so good!

ENTER 2025!

 I love our new RUG and I love my new UGGs! 😍

We picked up a new Ruggable 6x9 rug in Marble Golden Ivory for the office bedroom. It looks so incredible! Way better than the shaggy Amazon "meme" rug I got when we first moved in 2022. It really ties the room together and for some reason the low-pile rug makes the room seem more spacious. I literally don't know how this is possible since the space is literally the same as it was.

As for my UGG boots, I got the ultra mini style in pink! I've always fancied pink Uggs but never pulled the trigger on them. I went from... black, to "mushroom" (beige) to grey, and now finally I am in my pink comfy shoes era.💗 They feel a bit short and I'm not used to that compared to the taller styles, but still super cute! I'll throw some water repellent spray on them later.

What else is new? I have small 2025 new year's goals! A wedding is coming to a church near you this August! I am excited for my ONE MONTH honeymoon overseas! And... most importantly, I gotta save money and cultivate my hobbies. 💭 But, what would my hobbies entail? 

More bullet journaling! Gardening when the weather is nice. Cooking, and caring for my animals.

I need to open my 2025 Vancouver police dog calendar hahaha. I buy one every year. Even though my family always gives me the classic Asian calendar from the stores.

I also need to break in my Bella Belle wedding shoes. They're feeling a bit tight, still. A lot to prepaaaaaare!

The elegant new rug!

Adult Life

Life has been good these days, busy but good. Things are coming together in the good name of the Lord.

I have a comfy nest that I can decorate as I see fit. I just need to figure out what to make for dinner, as always. Also, cleaning is like a shadow that follows me everywhere! That shadow is never dispersed!

We currently have a fun little group of animals living with us. And that's been fun.

Gotta keep on my strict budget for the wedding. Sigh~

Kitty Cat Days

So, I decided to get a cat last month and you know me, whenever I do something I do it big, which actually meant I got 2 cats. :D

What happened was that I committed to Yuki, my british blue shorthair, but then fell in love with Shiro, my exotic shorthair. And after begging my fiancé to allow me to have two cats instead of one (which took several days and a lot of dedication on my end), we ended up bringing both kitties home! About 2 weeks apart from each other, so Shiro got to settle in first.

Shiro warmed up really well. We were besties practically after the first week.

Yuki has been a bit more of a challenge. However she is slowly adjusting~

Level Up!

I'm here for it. I have gathered more friends to write stories with this year! And that's beautiful. I haven't blogged properly in ages so here I am.

Stuff

The weather has been nice. It feels like summer. Not much to report these days, life is 

Well, what is it? 

My life is a calm sea. I should be grateful, but sometimes calm is boring. And I've never been one to enjoy boredom. I don't know many people that are.

Still -- I feel restless. A story is not enticing if there is no excitement.

The Daily Life of a Fish Mum

This morning we picked up Merlin the Fish, the butterfly male betta I won from a contest held by a local breeder. I've placed him in a ten gallon aquarium temporarily, while I find my bearings. I'm not sure what to do with the three tanks I have running at my parent's house right now. My stocking options are roughly this:

26 gallon Fluval in living room - BAT tank 
-buenos aires tetra x5
-zebra danios x7-8
-corydoras x5 (albino and elegens)
-otocinclus x4 (I HOPE)
-MAYBE cardinals? maybe? is the tank even large enough o_o
-amano shrimp x5? 
-mystery snail x1 (Faker)

Merlin's tank - Moon tank 3.0?
-male betta x1
-harlequin & lambchop rasbora x??? (I have a lot... need to count stock)
-nerite snail x1 (Snorlax)

Fluval Flex 15
-female betta x1
-ember tetra x3
-allllll my pygmy cories (don't know how many are alive still o__o)

I might put my oto's in the pea puffer tank of 37 gallons, depending on how established at the time of the move. I am planning for this Saturday.

Last night, Peter and I watched Everything Everywhere All at Once. It was a heartwarming story, and very funny. 

The movie helped me appreciate the smaller things in life, such as daily life with a loved one, even when the day is filled with mundane tasks. Peter has been working so hard to support our home. He made a delicious dinner last night and even made soup for us, which we ate with some macaroni today for lunch. I feel so fortunate to have such a kind man as my partner. And he even lets me litter the house with aquariums, ha ha ha.

October Begins

Happy October, happy fall! The weather has been lovely, not too hot and not too cold. It's the perfect weather for walking dogs in a floral dress and denim jacket. Although I am still pining for the warm comforts of summer, I am glad that the air is still relatively warm and not gotten too chilly.

This season, many new changes have occurred in my life: a new home, a new dog, and a fresh chapter. We are to be homeowners! Our possession date in December of this year and in two weeks we will be boarding a flight to Barcelona to start our Europe trip! Exciting stuff as I've never had the opportunity to visit Europe, and now I am spreading my wings to cover several popular cities.

Oct 15 Barcelona 

Oct 16 Marseille

Oct 17 Florence/Pisa 

Oct 18 At Sea

Oct 19 Valletta 

Oct 20 At Sea

Oct 21 Kotor

Oct 22 Corfu

Oct 23 At Sea

Oct 24 Messina 

Oct 25 Naples 

Oct 26 Rome (Civitavecchia) 

Once in Rome we will stay four more days, then depart on Oct 31st. It will be a hectic fall/winter season for our family. I hope I can find the energy to write about the memories we will experience!

Spring It On!

 Hello, all! Happy Spring!!!

I finally got around to uploading some new images to the blog. It's been a dead zone here. I have been doing more journaling in a physical book these days. That doesn't mean I should neglect my online blog for my thoughts, though!

What's new with me? Well, my plants have been thriving, I got 2 fish tanks set up, and I'm still working from home in my comfy Shawffice. 

Toyhouse!

 It's tiring being a hand of the Lord. I don't always want to reach out and touch people's lives, like, being human is hard.

I've been really having fun on Toyhouse, "A community for collaborative character creation and trading, worldbuilding and roleplay." Let's hope I can ride on this inspo train for longer, haha.

I've been spending too much money on commissions and need to stop that, ahaha.

March Forward

Yesterday I started working out again. I dragged my butt to the gym and used the elliptical and row machine, two of my go-tos. I'm planning to lift weights later on once I've gotten into the hang of things, though I've started with dieting aka portioning rabbit food. What a p a i n but gotta get that summer bod! I'll still eat a cheat meal once a week though. My anniversary is coming up so I know my partner wants to take me out to eat omakase on this upcoming Sunday. 

I'm trying to take breaks from social media to instead force my mind to create, write, or express my thoughts and feelings. I've been reaching out to God more regularly throughout the day to ask for His grace. I want to embody Jesus. I want people who interact with me to see Him. It's my own personal thing and it's a hard goal because I'm an impatient and selfish person at heart. But I'm also bad at hyping up my good qualities so those are chains I need to break free from as well.

There's a lot going on in my life that I don't write about; I suppose the same could be said for anyone. I'm getting a lot of custom art done these days. Although most of the pieces are Obey Me! related, one piece is a custom drawing of Keanu Reeves as a viking, done by a new hire at work that I'm training. He's printing this onto a hoodie and t-shirt for me and that's to commemorate the training class, which we've dubbed Team Keanu. New hire facilitating has been a challenge, but also such fun. Not only that, but I've been learning plenty and growing as a person, and that's neat. 

Maybe I can come back to my roots again. That would be nice. 

I wanna talk about the latest event in the game too but I suppose I'll save those ramblings for part 2.

~K

Grand Design

i put in the effort to come and write here in this space, even if there's nothing i wanna say. my friends say journaling without any real point can be cathartic. but i just can't even focus lol, on what i wanna write about, and these long arse nails i'm sporting really don't help. i mean i'm struggling with it but here i am!

Growing Pains

I really wanted to write something because I've been in the mood, but I've been too busy this week. A big part of it has to to with stepping up in teaching the training class and also my houseplant hobby, and then a birthday over the weekend took up a day and ugh it's just been one huge blur. 

I've been having strange dreams but that's nothing new. I feel strange these past few days. This week has been tough, I want another weekend, even if the weekend has just ended!

So like, I've been roleplaying AU's and creating new characters. Akari, Wilfred Laurel, and Orion Bloom. Will likely write a bit more about this world so I can have it documented. In the meantime I'm just struggling to get through this Monday, haha!

Rainbow Dreams

Walking outside with Jacks, the air is fresh and clean -- smells like spring, even though it's still January. Week two of my training class has ended, and so far so good, I haven't made a fool of myself yet. My plants are doing well; I've gotten them a grow light with a timer, as well as installed a grow lightbulb. I currently have 12 plants, haha, but I'm planning to combine my scindapsus silvery ann into one pot and keep my argyraeus in another. 

Overall, I'm feeling pretty sweet.

ANYWAY WOW the only things I talk about recently are Obey Me! and houseplants, haha. I can't help it, it's that arc in my life right now. BEHOLD:

How can you turn him down? (You can't, if you value your life)
Look at those lines lol, perfection *__*

Belphie's human world outfit~

How beautiful are the pieces featuring my MC and Belphie? I want to say, my Top 3 favs list has rearranged itself as:

1 - Simeon

2 - Belphie

3 - Stan

Runner up: Beel

Andddd ummm, ummm. I'm trying to think of what I want for an MC/Stan interaction, but I'm still not 100% sure, so. So we'll see!

Today, I also got Belphie's level 20 intimacy phone call, which is basically the 'date' call. It turns out, he also likes plants, because he enjoys visiting the Devildom Botanical Garden. Man-eating roses and flying pitcher plants? Sounds exciting.

So, how many times does he have to save MC's life before they're even? ;)

Plant Life!

My cozy plant corner.
I got 2 new tineke plants here.

Ever since Rosie started doing extremely well and pushing out so much new growth throughout the years, I've been on this huge plant kick. There are so many lovely girls in the YVR Houseplant Community, and I've grown my plant family in such a short amount of time. My boyfriend took me around to look at pots and plant stuff the past weekend, and he's been so supportive of my little babies, which I totally appreciate. 

So far my plant family includes:

-scindapsus pictus silvery ann 

-scindapsus Pictus argyraeus

-maranta prayer plant

-polka dot begonia

-n joy pothos

-2 cactus

-miniature rose plant 

I will eventually get around to posting images of my babies, hopefully by this summer. :')

In other news, I felt like blogging today. It's Friday, which marks the end of the first week I've been involved in training new hires at my company! I hope I'm making a good impression on these little ones. They all seem capable and I want to see them do well. I'M PROFESSOR BYLETH, GUYS! ...well, Byleth is a demon's name y'know? So I'll stick with being 'Professor Karin' aka 'Creator K'.

Speaking of demons... YES THIS IS GOING TO SEGWAY INTO OBEY ME, but perhaps in a separate post, as recently that game has been stealin' my h e a r t. 

Livin' My Best Life: Enter 2021

Henlo, all! 2020 was challenging, but we've finally turned over a new leaf into the new year. To be truly honest with you, my 2020 wasn't that bad. I kept my job and got to work from home, therefore spending every day with my dog. I still ate what I wanted, and got to experience a lot of nummy foods that I hadn't tried before: most notably Octopus Garden, Sushi bar Shu, Kuroki Kaiseki Omakase Kitchen, Pluvio, and Wolf in the Fog! I also watched a TON of amazing new shows and movies that I wouldn't have had the time to watch otherwise (Dhoom 2, Son: The Guest, and Sweet Home to mention a few). 

I even churned out a couple art pieces, haha!

Thinking back, my birthday in July was amazing, as full lockdowns hadn't been implemented during that time. My BFF surprised me with horseback riding, which was amazing - I had such a fun time! My family and I ate together at Hart House, as we normally do when my dad isn't back (if he's around we go to Dynasty Seafood Restaurant on W Broadway). I got to spend time at the beach (White Rock and Kits) and eat a fabulous meal at Octopus Garden. 

I also had the opportunity to visit Vancouver Island, staying at Ocean Village Resort in Tofino. It was nice to be able to escape from the city, if only for a few days. We hiked, we ate, we visited the aquarium, and I even met a kind doggo (sorry for cheating on your Jacks!). Of course, all social distancing and mandatory mask rules were observed, we did not break any laws. I recognize that I'm lucky compared to a lot of people and I am grateful! Thank you Lord. 

This year I hope I can stay more positive throughout life's challenges. I know how easy it is to fall into a negative state of mind, but sometimes the only thing breaking your own heart is 3.8 billion years of evolutionary programming! I saw that on a meme somewhere, and find it to be true.

SOOO last night I was trying to create a catalyst to summon a UR wrath Simeon card, so I wrote a short snippet of a story. ALAS, he did not come to me, but I'm hoping this means that an even better UR card will arrive to me in the future. Anyway, here it will go. Ciao for now!

On a cold winter morning, Simeon came to visit Karin at [ADDRESS REDACTED]. Karin was surprised and wore a look of shock after opening the door to greet him.

"Nani? Simeon?" she exclaimed.

"Hello, Karin," the angel greeted. "We are neighbours now, as I recently moved into unit 157, renting from your friend Ranjit. I am making pancakes for breakfast and have run out of sugar. May I borrow a cup of sugar?" 

Karin welcomed him into her home and asked him to sit down. She scooped a huge amount of sugar into a ziploc bag and handed it to Simeon. She always kept baking ingredients on hand, because her friend S-tan loved Apple Pies and she was constantly baking them for him.

"Before you go, would you like to stay for some tea or coffee?" Karin asked shyly. "I put the kettle on and the coffeemaker's almost done."

"I'm afraid I am in the middle of cooking with my housemate Luke," Simeon said. "But why don't you come over and have some pancakes with us? We can make enough for all of us."

"That sounds wonderful," said Karin with a smile. "But remember that my home is your home, and you are welcome here anytime."

"Thank you. That's so nice of you to say. I will take you up on that offer in the future," Simeon replied. "See you in a bit."

Simeon left and Karin went to get changed into comfy Leviathan's jeans that PJ got her and a fuzzy hoodie. She felt super happy to have nice friends to eat breakfast with next door.

THE END

Daily Daze

Weekly Playlist:

6 Feet -- Mahmut Orhan, Thomas Newson

Feel -- Curbi, Helen

God is a Dancer -- Tiësto, Mabel

It's almost the end of the year! I can't believe I'm still sitting here, blogging. Work has been challenging, but I've been rising up to meet my own expectations. I can only hope that others can see it, too. In January I'll be leading two training classes for new hires, so that will be a vast departure from the daily coaching I do with our technical reps. 

Aaaa what's new? Well, I finished watching The Guest, a Korean supernatural crime drama, and it was AMAZING! Peter really enjoyed it, too. Asides from that, I've been working, playing games, and chatting with my friends virtually. I've been on this huge Obey Me! bender, I'm just so absorbed in this fantasy. It's really decent mobile game. I don't know where I should be posting my cards, because I do want to share the ones I've painstakingly unlocked and the ones I was lucky enough to pull. Teehee, maybe I'll just do an image dump on my Facebook...

Dog Days Are Over

I'm back, and I hate the new Blogger interface -- it totally sucks! There's no contrast at all, just all white, and you know how that hurts my eyes D;

Anyway, work today has been... bleh. It's been normal. The usual. I'm trying to stay focused and positive. Goodness & love and all that shite. Right? Yeah, I know, I've always considered myself the jaded and cynical type, but I feel ~forces~ in the universe striving to change that. And, I do want to change that for myself as well.

All I know is, I feel like at my age, I should be saving up and being responsible and... and all that jazz, but a part of me just wants to play games and buy trinkets and travel and live life freely. Even if that's not supported by the society we live in, lol. But that's life, innit? 

It's been a while since I've felt motivated to write an actual post on how I've been feeling. Mostly because lately, I would rather fester in my own emotions than acknowledge them. Do you have any idea how hard that is to change? In my younger years, writing was therapeutic and I had tons of things that I wanted to discuss. Now, I look back at my younger self with a great displeasure, and embarrassment, haha. But why? Little Baby K did her best, even if it wasn't good enough, and it's because of L'il K that Big K exists today. So, I shouldn't be so hard on myself there.

I'm thinking of more I wanna say, but I can't. So I'll just leave it at this, until I feel motivated to churn out more fanservice.

Evacuated

Today was my first day working from home. I'm blessed to have my BFF help me move my equipment from the office to the spare room of my place. The setup is pretty makeshift and makes me feel like a college frat kid, but it'll have to do. I mean what else is gonna be the solution? They evacuated everyone in my office, so it is what it is.

At first I thought it would be pretty rad to work from home, but I can sense that it will be at least a month before they let us return, if they do. The "b" button of my keyboard is starting to act up, so that kinda sucks too. I'll have to hold off on getting a new keyboard, as I don't really want to spend any extra money right now.

Anyway, CS helped me get settled in and set up all my equipment for me. I did my first shift at home today; PJ dropped off lunch for me so I was grateful for that too! I got curry katsu, which I would say is one of my preferred foods. Then, when I got off shift, CS took me to pick up my preorder of Animal Crossing: New Horizons. I will play a little of that before sleeping tonight, to try and take my mind off the craziness in the world these days.

Mostly, I'm saddened that I can't go to the gym, or to the bar/pub with my friends. Being on lock-down sucks pretty badly, but I'm grateful that everyone around me is still safe. I pray the Lord look over everyone during these shaky times.