As I've scoured other blog posts from this month of Blaugust 2023, I felt compelled to share with everyone who reads this WHAT it is I do, including hobbies.
Let's start with what I do on a weekly basis. I do streaming over on Twitch 4x/week for 4 hours at a time. Right now I've been focusing on Warframe and Guild Wars 2, but I have rotated games around and I've done a decent amount of game completion on streams. I'm not quite sure what kind of games I enjoy since I've got a background in game design/development, but I do enjoy playing all sorts. When I went to university for that degree, one of my professors had said something that really stuck to me: make yourself unique. I ended up buying a domain and utilized it for my online portfolio so to speak. Over on that website (which I still have even if I haven't worked on games since post graduation burnout), I've journaled my university progress in game design and development. Eventually I started doing my own game design breakdown of other games I played. I'm not quite sure why I decided to do this, but it stuck with me to this day. Admittedly, I haven't uploaded a game breakdown in ages but I do keep notes in a physical journal in hopes that one day, I'll write about them. Back to my gaming types. I grew up on consoles and have a huge appreciation for console gaming. In fact, I've got my collection of game consoles that I've kept from over the years.
What isn't in this picture is an original Atari and the original Pong and Pong IV. Ran out of space for them due to poor planning of slots and space. As for handhelds, those never got a photo-op from me, but I have the Sega Game Gear, Gameboy Pocket, Gameboy Color, Gameboy Advance SP, Nintendo 3DS, and a PS Vita. I might edit this post later for a picture insert of them because as of right now,they are kind of all over the place and it's dark. There are other little offshoots that I have, such as a MyArcade that I picked up from a gas station and a handheld Monopoly game.
My taste in games isn't solely digital either. I have a small collection of board games that I've collected over the years, as well as a "sizable" collection of Magic the Gathering. Last time I had a chance to take a photo session of my board games was awhile ago. I had to go into my Instagram for one of the photos because it went missing on my phone.
Last thing I want to say about gaming is that I also run ttrpg sessions with my community. Over the years, my community has asked for D&D and the last time I ran one was over a decade ago. Luckily, they were and still are VERY understanding when I'm running them. Currently doing a merged campaign of Pathfinder 1e, in which I write up post session recaps here on this blog. Running these sessions has inspired me to revisit an old game idea that was originally for PC but the amount of work that would be put into deterred me from pursuing that passion. After getting Foundry VTT gifted to me (thanks Triggs <3), that gave me new ideas and inspiration for converting that large PC game into a ttrpg game. Maybe in 20 years I'll get it done.
Along with gaming I found myself writing game guides. This actually started around 2018 when I was introducing a lot of friends to the games I play, just to find out they easily got lost just as I had when faced with specific situations. It all started with a Google doc for Legendary and Ascended Gear for Guild Wars 2, documenting how I went about getting my legendary armor from WvW while rocking some ascended trinkets that did a decent enough job for WvW as well. After sharing that document with the Guild Wars 2 community I was involved in, I realized that people actually liked how I conveyed information. Months go by and I find myself coming up with a name for a website to where I can host guides for the games I play. After 5 years go by, I'm finding myself happily plugging away to guide making for Warframe and Guild Wars 2. I plan to apply for partnership with both games at the end of this year!
When I'm not busy at the computer (believe it or not I DO NEED some time away from it), I do arts and crafts. I dabble in a bit of everything: sewing, book binding, origami, wand making, 3d printing/modeling, crochet, and my newest find of painting my 3d printed models. Long ago consisted of drawing, but I'm currently waiting for a good deal to happen for a digital tablet. I have one now, but it is one that requires hand/eye coordination between not looking at your hands but looking at the screen. I'm not terrible at drawing with it, but I'm finding myself wanting to get a more "traditional" experience, such as pencil and sketchbook. Before you ask me, yes I can type without looking at my keyboard. I can thank my middle and high school years for the paper-over-fingers typing classes. I want to get into cosplay but I have absolutely no idea where to start with that, let alone who to get inspiration from. It'll happen eventually.
I originally wanted to open an Etsy shop but for some weird and unknown reason, I can't. It won't accept my bank information. Even asked for help and got a "meh" response. While searching for other sites that I could sell my creations on, I stumbled across Ko-fi. Ko-fi has been a wonderful experience for me, offing a blog-like site as well as a shop for digital AND physical items PLUS commissions. Best part is how the fees are dealt with. Now, I had an Etsy shop way long ago but decided to close it due to switching from the USA to Mexico. The fees were atrocious there. Ko-fi is hands down...way better. Feel free to check it out! The reason I wanted to sell my creations was because I just like making things (much like me and baking) and I needed to do something with them. I mean, I could just hold onto 20 dice bags and a bazillion wands I make but that would be silly. Kind of feels like an adoption at this point if someone purchases from my shop. Over on my Ko-fi page, I usually do a short blurb of my weekly tasks, like what I did and what I plan to do. Sadly some things never get done or just forgotten because ADHD brain.
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| Journals I've made |
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| Current wands for sale with more to come "soon" |
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| A small dice bag |
Along with "traditional" crafting, I like to dabble into electronics. I have programming knowledge and I've created some things (I adore my Twitch bot when it isn't being difficult) and have some ongoing projects as I write this. Animatronics. I adore them. I have a collection of furbies and no regrets. Back in like, 2018, I had an idea for turning a furby into an Alexa unit. You can scroll on this website to see the documentation I have for that. Sad to say that I never finished that project because I kept taking 3 steps forward, 2 steps back. While aimlessly scrolling on Pinterest before bed, I came across a Python version of Alexa. I plan on trying this idea out once I've caught up with everything else I'm currently doing. I will have a smart furby, come hell or high water. There's been other projects I've done, such as using the parts from 2 dvd drives to create a doodling CNC machine. I eventually broke that down for other projects but it was pretty fun to do. One of my current projects that I NEED to complete before going back to other, previously-started-but-stopped projects is a Claptrap unit. I found a 3d print model on printables.com of the adorable little guy and was pretty stoked that I could make my own. All parts have been printed, sanded, and primed. Currently painting the colors on him and setting up the arduino inside with the code. This hasn't been well documented on my end and I kind of regret it. Next project will get better documentation though!
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| Part of my electronic board collection |
Last thing I like to do is bake and make preserves. Baking is therapy for me, but I really dislike eating my creations. It's weird, I know. It's been an issue for as long as I can remember. People who have eaten my baked goods really enjoy them and they ask for more, so apparently I'm doing something right. Breads, muffins, biscuits, pies, rolls, noodles, etc are in my arsenal. My other enjoyment is preserves. Now, a bit about me to paint the picture of why I enjoy this art. I grew up in the middle of nowhere and my family survived on preserved food from the garden. Later on, my mom developed a food allergy to a preserve that is damn near in everything, thus causing my family to learn how to make other things, such as ketchup. Skip ahead a few decades and in another country, I've found my love of making preserved things. I made one hell of a ketchup last year and I want to do it again this year. There's a jar of pumpkin butter left in the freezer that I need to thaw (it didn't seal right so that was my next option as I rationed it out) and I'm waiting for autumn to hit so that the apples go on sale for some delicious apple butter. Pickles, candied jalepeños, salsas, butters, sauces, various toppings, ketchups, maybe more are my go-to choices of things to make. This brings up another topic. I really want a garden here and technically we have a place to create one, however we have one problem. It would be on our rooftop, which that isn't the problem. Accessing the rooftop is. My husband and I have discussed options and in the end, we would have to save up a decent amount of money here to make that happen. Mostly buying bricks and laying down a perimeter so that plant pots can't go flying off during heavy winds. The rooftop access hatch we have is currently welded shut, so that would have to be dealt with as well.
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| Cinnamon rolls and an apple pie that I sell on Sundays |
If you ever want to find me on the internet, you can check out my About Me page here. I do plan on sticking the links in the sidebar or perhaps at the foot of the page, but for now it's parked at the bottom of my About Me page.
(Note: I just remembered that I did a room tour this year, in which you can see what I'm into. Here is the video link on Youtube and Peertube as well as my Instagram post and Pixelfed post)
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