Back so soon, I know. I don't expect to keep up with weekly posts, that would be a bit much at 52 blog posts a year, but some cool stuff happened this last week that I want to get down!

First, some website updates and a rough timeline of where I want to go from here.

Last week I felt like my blog page was done enough, still very much a WIP, but done enough to start blogging on. I didn't want to wait because I knew I would continue to pick at the page for a while. But I did get a post up, hurrah! I also got obsessed with the idea of putting photos of some of my irl trinkets up on the crt tv I wanted for the page, and then making a silly glitched gif for the screen to "play" and while it was a nightmare to position everything correctly, I'm overall happy with it! Too bad the moment I got that finished I suddenly had an better aesthetic in mind for the main page that I spent weeks on...

I had a an idea after the fact of making the main framing more "wood" like, to emulate a cabin interior, and then a darker wood bg and some hanging light decorations, that kind of vibe. Add some faux posters and just generally make it more room like. Maybe I'll just build a second dark/night theme that will look like that and keep this as a day/light theme. I also still want to put something in the upper right, that space seems very blank, but I must resist until more of my website is up done.

Besides the blog, I finally went back to my Links&Credit page and added drop down categories to the Media Share section. I know it's a simple thing but I love how the drops downs look with the little shadowed icon! My vision for this section is to use it to share my favorite web media, such as webcomics, webnovels, artists I enjoy following, and other videos. The artists list is gonna take a while to fill out but I am excited. Some of this is how I envision what my Library site will act as, and may eventually move there, but for now.

Quickly added a Guestbook using atabook! Image/bg is temporary as I feel weird using that bg painting w/o explicit permission even with credit.

Last but not least I also set up a CCS page for my fonts that I turned into a little Font Directory page (inspired by this very helpful organization resource). This should clean up my css sheets significantly and make it so much easier to pick fonts. Now I have to fill it out a bit with my favorites.

Finally on the topic of the website, a little look into my immediate upcoming plans (always subject to change). My first priority is getting an Art Landing page, with a blog and gallery up and running. Eventually I will add a needlefelt/craft specific page and a commissions page (or just link to vgen). The blog would be the main page and include regular posts of my newest art pieces, including sketches and wips and unfinished pieces as I work on them; the layout out I envision would be kind of like old Tumblr feed and paginated by year as posts increase. I also want to connect an rss feed to this so I'll have to learn how to do that. Design wise, I want it to be pretty clean and simple as the focus should be on the art itself. Thinking two columns, a side bar with a pagedoll and navigation options, and then a center column with a wide/thin top banner followed by the post: date - art - details/description - tags. While most of my pages I build for desktop and kinda shrug about how it functions on mobile, I would like this particular page to be well optimized for mobile, and without using iframes ideally.

Once that is up and running, my About page is next, but I feel like that could be weeks to months from now so I'll write about that later.

The Lion King - Buelle Theater, Denver (11/06/2025)

I'd never seen a real, non-HS/student production, of a musical in person and I am thrilled to say The Lion King was my first. Me bf bought the tickets months ago and it kind of crept up on us after Halloween. We drove down with my bf's mom, who is a vocal performer, teacher, and big on musicals in general, but had also never seen The Lion King before.

We had really great seats, second row and center; we were close enough to "see the whites of their eyes" (and sweat). When we first arrived, the front two seats in front of my bf were still empty. Always one to jinx myself, I just had to say: "I bet of all the people that could possibly sit there in front of me, it's going to be the tallest person in the theater." And then it was. It was a 6-7 foot MASSIVE grown man, big head right in my way. I should not have said anything orz

Despite having to look between big head for the entire show, it was a spectacular experience, like nothing I've seen before. I'd heard of the costumes and masks, but it's entirely different to see the craftsmanship in person, in motion. Scar's mask when he lunged forward that would fall over his human face just right, the 4 person elephant, Zazu's bird puppeteering, and my favorite, the cheetah woman who leaned back as the front of the cheetah reared up. The opening number for Circle of Life with all the animals where they came from the sides of the pews...too cool. The actors and back up dancers were all extremely talented and even though I know the story beat by beat, I was no less enthralled with seeing how scenes would be portrayed on stage. Simba talking to the ghost of his father was pleasantly chilling. Oh and Rafiki? She was perfect.

I only have this photo as photo/video is rightfully so not allowed during the performance, but I absolutely recommend seeing the show in person if you ever have the chance, 12/10. Looking forward to seeing more musicals now~

Last night (11/11/2025), we were able to witness the Aurora Borealis right outside of our house!! My bf heard about it on reddit and checked outside earlier in the evening, around 7pm, and you could kind of see some reddish with the naked eye, and a bit more with a photo, but it was very subtle. Similar to what I saw last October. We went back inside. A couple hours later our neighbors are ringing our doorbell, knocking on the door, riling up the dog (super outta character for them). We open the door and our neighbor, excited, out of breath, is like "you've gotta see this!" They had just returned from chasing the event up the front range only to find it was beautiful right outside their house. You could see the streaks of red and green right from our shared front lawn, and it moved and changed as it was crossing the sky above us, illuminating buildings in red.

We've been planning a trip to Norway next summer and were kind of bummed the time of year was gonna mean no northern lights, but looks like we have some northern lights at home. Still wanna see them in Norway some day.

It was such a cool experience and I'm glad they brought us back out there to witness it. And to know it was shared with many more people across the country and even the globe--it was a feeling I needed right now.

To wrap things up, I have some upcoming trips that have come up within the last week to look forward to. First, after xmas and over new years I'll be heading home to San Diego and spending time where my dad lives in Oceanside. My family is always asking when I will visit but it can be hard (and expensive) to fit in around or other events and travel. I was last in CA in August to see my long time friends going to Pokémon Worlds Championship, but that was in LA/Anaheim which Californians will understand is not really near enough to SD for a quick side visit. Before that I was home for a weekend in May to see Elton John with my mom as a 33rd bday gift (an experience I treasure greatly) but I didn't have time to also see my dad because the visit was so brief and focused on that event. Thus this trip! Thankfully it's mostly paid for (used cc points for the flights, dad has connections for an Airbnb/hotel room for our stay, gonna lend us his car to get around) outside of parking our car near the airport. It's also conveniently over our winter break we get due to how our jobs work. So yeah, couldn't really say no to that one. Hoping to not do too much and just have a relaxing vacation for once.

Unexpectedly...we're also going to Fanfest 2026 in Anaheim?? O:! I say unexpectedly because damn those tickets are overpriced ($250) and we have a big Europe trip on the horizon, so we originally only signed up for the ticket lottery to help friends get tickets if they wanted them. But then the emails started going out and a lot of my friends decided to go, and my bf won the lottery, and everyone who wanted tickets had them...so I was pretty easily convinced by then. Maybe less so for the event itself, but I love hanging out with my friends and will take any opportunity I can to do so. Last Fanfest I went to was 2018 where Shadowbringers was announced and that was hype af even though I had only been playing the game for less than a year at the time. Now I am a semi-casual player (still obsessed with my ocs tho) so I am looking forward to what this one holds (especially now that it is out of Vegas). I'm definitely going to be making stickers to pass out to other attendees and considering some cosplay options, but we'll see!

That's about all for now --oh wait, I've been playing Pokemon ZA and caught an alpha Mareep and did some doodles! I'll put those below since the art blog isn't ready. Next blog post will be less of a life update and more of a history lesson ie. I am going to write my internet history down as best I can recall!

Playing: Pokémon ZA | Reading: The Bewitching by Silvia Moreno Garcia | Watching: Invincible (+ Severance s2 rewatch) | Listening to: Mini Trees (new album!)