National Potato Chip Day!

I love potato chips! There are so many different kinds out there. Some of my fave flavors are: salt and vinegar, honey dijon mustard, BBQ, and dill pickle. When I could eat spicy food, jalapeno potato chips were amazing. I miss those...I basically love potatoes in any form. Chipped, baked, roasted, mashed, etc. Good stuff.

I'm hoping to post more often on here. So far so good. I felt like I was hit by a truck when I woke up today. I was going to get up at around 8am, but I somehow fell back asleep after that. I ended up getting up later than I wanted to...A similar thing happened on Monday. However, I went to bed earlier last night. 

I'm close to 170 pages altogether for both books. Almost done with the dessert section for the cookbook. I think she had a snack section next. There aren't many recipes left. It seems I'm almost done with writing the recipes out. I'll still have to rearrange them, change the section titles a bit, maybe add pics (if I can...), etc. The cookbook seems like it'll have a lot more 'editing' than the other books. The current chapter of Alliance is intriguing so far. Not sure exactly where it's headed. 

For German today, I'll be going over places again. Yesterday was a 3rd predicative part for this section of the 'trek'. There was a predicative part in the section just before that I was having difficulty with. With this one, it was really easy. Maybe I just improved? I don't know. The one after places is feelings. I'm surprised they haven't gone over feelings yet. I'm pretty far into their course on Duolingo. They might not have thought feelings were as important as the rest of the stuff. Still, it seems odd. Feels like it also took forever to get to any 'numbers' parts. I'm up to 57% fluency now. I feel like I hardly know anything yet.

Ao no Exorcist or Blue Exorcist had an update yesterday. Didn't really reveal much. Everyone is starting to be able to see the demons that are coming through the forced open gate. Mephisto said he tried to tell Yukio numerous times about the truth behind their births and their mother. However, they never showed that in the manga. Since he's the demon lord of time, it hints that he has been repeatedly setting back time after each 'failure'. Eventually, he gave up on Yukio, and is going to help Rin with the truth. Rin never wanted to know about it. He even asked why help someone who doesn't want to know, and he said it was perfect that way. Rin wouldn't be too eager or desperate about it. Plus, he likes messing with the brothers. It ended with Rin about to walk into a portal to the past. They had a similar thing with Lightning traveling to the past by using a special key in any door, and opening it to a portal to a different time. I don't think Lightning could change the future with that. It was more like they could watch things happen and go through the records that were there. I think Mephisto controlled it, too. Not sure if he would with this one considering Rin's using his adoptive father's key. Might be a totally different thing. Guess we'll just have to see.

Managed to do some more cleaning yesterday. Yay, for a little more energy! I'm able to do a little bit with it at least. I got to my bathroom counter finally. I didn't realize how bad it had gotten. Had to really scrub at areas. Looks much better now. 

Posted my recent drawings to deviantART and Instagram. These were of Shadow's wings in 3 different perspectives. I had to clean them up a bit in Photoshop beforehand. (Not as much as I thought.) I'm surprised by the response. I quickly got 4 faves and a watcher on dA. People collect other people's art by faving them or putting them in specific collections. A watcher is like a follower on there. (Although, it sounds creepy to have 'watchers'.) It hasn't been seen by many people on there yet. I had to crop each drawing by itself for Instagram, so I ended up putting 3 posts up for it. If I hadn't done that, 2 would have been cut off. If I had grouped the cropped versions together, all of them would have been cut off a little. I got a couple of follows with that, and a ton of likes. I was surprised by the amount of likes I got right away. The 1st one, which I don't like as much as the other 2, got 6. The 2nd with the wings extended, and the one I like the most, got 11. The last one got 10. Most of those were almost as soon as I posted them. Got a couple of comments, too. I'm thinking I'll post future drawings on there, as well. It'd be interesting to see what another 'community' thinks of it. 

I think I'll draw all the tails of the characters in Alliance next. Maybe the horns and ears, too. Might focus on features or parts of them right now. Eventually, I want to draw both a Dark Healer and Doina, who's a Light Healer, next to each other with different perspectives. Mostly with their heads. Probably would color those. I want to draw one of the Dark Healers' face and arm tattoos. That sounds fun. Eventually, I'd want to draw all the other characters, too. Buildings, scenes, landscapes, etc. would be great. I have so many more ideas for Alliance-related stuff. Seeing the response this time, encourages me a bit. Hopefully, I can put out something each week. This also will connect me more to the story.

Finished watching Strange Calls last night. It's an Australian supernatural TV show that's on Netflix. It reminded me partially of Eureka. Some say it's similar to Haven...I don't agree with that. Everyone in Coolum seems to hate the new cop, Toby Banks. The only one that befriends him at first is an elderly and very earthy man named Gregor. Toby's duty is to stay in the police's trailer, answer calls, and act on those calls if need be. There was a chicken place where the chicken was so good, it turned someone into a chicken. Another one was about people hearing an old lawn mower ad jingle and stealing mowers, and eventually either killing themselves or becoming homicidal. Another was about a killer ghost cat. Another one was about people turning into trees. With a lot of them Gregor immediately knew what to do. He always said he was 47, but during the last episode we find out he's much older. (We all knew he was, but didn't know his exact age...) The show even made fun of itself in the last episode. They mainly had one song played throughout the whole thing. In the background and with the opening theme. I didn't realize this until they pointed out the actual band that was standing outside the trailer. It was funny. It was pretty good overall.

Girl Scouts' Birthday

I was in Girl Scouts for a while. A Brownie and then Junior. I still have both vests. Even though I wasn't really a girl, I really enjoyed being in it. (I didn't know I was agender when I joined.) You could choose not to do the supposed 'girly' stuff, which is a plus to some. I learned a lot through them. I tried to get as many badges as I could, so both vests are pretty full. The only thing I didn't like was some of the 'religious' aspects. They started almost every meeting with a prayer, and we did 'holiday' projects. (As in Christmas and Easter stuff.) I think they're different now. They tried to 'accommodate' me by telling me to say Jewish prayers and sit out for those holiday projects. Didn't really feel right. More like isolating to me, and missed the point with people who weren't Christian. What would they tell an atheist who wasn't apart of any religion? They didn't get it. I loved camping with them, and we went to an awesome all day and sleepover event at the science center. A lot of good memories. Today celebrates the day in 1912 that the first Girl Scout group (with 18 girls) officially was registered in Savannah, Georgia. 

I finally embedded Alliance: Dawn and More Than Meets the Eye's Amazon previews on the right hand side of this blog. It's interesting to see all 4 books together like this. If you're on the mobile version, you won't see it. You have to switch to the web version for it. At least people could still see it on their phones. The previews have samples of each. I can only embed their ebook versions. Maybe after I get the next 2 published I'll create a page and move them there. Or, move other things. Otherwise it's going to get much more crowded. 

There was a local trans group meeting last Wednesday. We were doing a clothing exchange. There were a lot of clothes that the group has already collected. We don't have a permanent place for them, which makes it difficult for the person who currently has them. I thought there would be more people. It was about 7 this time. I wanted to look at both the masculine and feminine things. I think I might like some masculine things, but haven't really explored. I know I like a lot of feminine stuff. I think my ideal 'expression' might be a mix of the 2. That would be fun, and I can mess with others. One of the members knew about this, and really wanted me to look at the men's cologne. I'm not much of a perfume/cologne person. Plus, my skin is very sensitive so it's a little iffy with me. I used to wear a 'women's' cologne called Ambush. They stopped selling it locally years ago. The smell was great. Not really that flowery, or seemingly feminine. More spicy (I guess?) and had a slight citrusy thing going on. Hard to describe. It was one of the best, though. I also loved my grandpa's cologne as a kid. Not sure if he uses it anymore, but it was Old Spice. I could try that in the future. The colognes I looked at were different, and one was way too strong. 

I only found one thing there. A thick and long velvety skirt. I can't wear most normal-length skirts because my legs are so short. They end up dragging on the floor. Sad, because I like long skirts. This ends right at my ankles, which was good. I like velvety skirts, too. Haven't had one in a while. It has a nice downplayed floral print, and is a dark brown (almost black) color. The only problem is that it's a little too big around the waist. I'll have to pin it. It's fraying a little in the waistband, and there are no tags for size and cleaning. Still, not bad considering. 

What we wanted to do for Pride in July came up. Of course we wanted a booth. I came up with the idea at the end for having a clothing exchange there, too. We could get rid of more of it, and might reach more people. They thought it was a good idea. I was unsure of it at first, just thought I'd put it out there. I'm glad they thought it was a good.

Finished drawing those wings I mentioned in an earlier post. They're not bad considering I haven't really drawn in a while, I'm not used to drawing wings, and not used to different perspectives. It was good practice. The first set of wings weren't as good as the other 2. Or, at least, I didn't like the style as much. I tend to like to draw a lot of detailed and tiny things. I put too much detail in that one. I might take a pic of them tomorrow and post it to Instagram. Then, scan the drawings, clean them up a bit, and post that version on deviantArt. Since it's more of an art place to me, might be good to put a 'clean' version up. I don't know. Depending on the pic, I might post that to dA, too. Their app isn't great, but easy to submit things quickly. I'm unsure if I'll post all my future drawings on Instagram, too. It'd be interesting to see what another audience thinks of them. So far the only drawing I've shared there was the identity one. The one with an ace flag in the background, a heart in the aro flag colors on top of it, and the agender symbol in black on top of that. People seemed to like it on there.

National Meatball Day!

This holiday was on Friday. I love meatballs! As long as there isn't pork in them, I'm all good. (If there are shellfish meatballs, I won't have those either.) I've made meatballs a couple of times. They're simple and somewhat fun. Lamb with mint meatballs are really good and different than the typical beef or poultry ones. Fish meatballs can be good, too. You can put meatballs in so many different dishes. I normally like spaghetti or other pasta dishes with them. 

This is my wallpaper for March. It's Subaru from the manga Dear by Cocoa Fujiwara. There's another manga called Dear, and that's why I mentioned the creator. That other one is a sports-type manga. This one falls under the supernatural and adventure genre. Quite different. This wallpaper came out cleaner than last month's Hell's Kitchen one. I like the effect, too. I only stopped reading this manga when there wasn't an update for a few months. I eventually gave up and put it in my 'dropped' list on MyAnimeList (they also have manga lists). It's been a very long time since I've read it, and I've noticed most of it, if not all, is available now. I really liked it. Even the romance aspect was done well enough that I actually enjoyed that. That's rare. If I ever do go back to it, I might have to reread the whole thing. I barely remember Subaru, and he's one of the main characters. The manga started in 2002 and ended in 2008, so it's a bit old. I might have stopped reading what was available in '09 or '10. That's how long ago it was. It's a longer series than some, too. 

The weather calendar has an aurora above some mountains in Alaska. The smaller pics are a couple more supercell clouds with lightning coming out of them. Friday's blurb is about heavy rains and high winds (113 mph gusts) that happened in Russia in 1995. The only fatality was a goldfish. That seems sad that any life was taken, yet somewhat of a miracle that it was just a goldfish. 

The month-long holidays for March are: National Frozen Food Month, National Noodle Month, Irish-American Heritage Month, National Women's History Month. Some are for important causes, some are to make you appreciate things you may take for granted, and some are just for fun. Frozen food is quite a nifty invention, and definitely should get some recognition. I love noodles! I'm part Irish-American, so that's a more personal one for me. Women should be recognized for their achievements, how they've changed history, etc. 

Thursday was International Women's Day. I feel a bit strange about it. Some afab (assigned female at birth) enbies had very mixed feelings about it in the fb enby group I'm in. It seemed every other post on there that day was about how dysphoric it made them feel. Especially, when people would tell them Happy Women's Day, like they assumed they were women... Some responses had very good points. Society views us afab enbies as women, and therefore it's our day, too. We experience much of the same things. I understand this and somewhat agree, but it still doesn't feel right to me. This way of thinking would probably apply to trans men, too. They're men, but some might not be out  or might not 'pass' as well others. (I hate the thing behind 'passing'...) They also have similar issues with reproductive health, with some added stuff to it. Some cis women exclude trans women, but they are definitely women and deserve this day. There are a lot of misconceptions that cis women that exclude trans women have. They still go through similar things. I don't know...Maybe it's the wording, or assuming everyone who looks a certain way should be included, or people that look a certain other way are excluded. There are issues behind it. Maybe everyone but cis men? And then for Men's Day (I think there is one), everyone but cis women? Still not right. I definitely can get behind the idea of Women's Day, though.

Pesach or Passover starts at sundown on March 30th, and will go until April 7th. In relation to the 'regular' calendar, it's earlier this year. (It's always on the same day on the Jewish calendar.) I keep thinking there's a lot more time before it starts. It must be because of it being colder out than usual and that it snowed relatively recently. The temp is supposed to warming up, though. 

I might have a lot more people this time for my seder. Dad will most likely be there for all of it. She has 3 colleagues that have shown interest, and if they do go they might bring their partners. Pretty different compared to last year. I'd have to prepare and/or think about more food for it.

Haven't gone to the QFC at U Village yet. Was thinking about going today, but it's more likely Tuesday or this coming weekend. It has one of the largest selections of kosher for Pesach food in the area. Probably for the year round kosher food, too. Many people trek out there just to get things for the holiday. If you wait too long, there might not be much left. I think they set it up about 2 months before the holiday. I think, they have people who make sure things are kosher in that area in case people have questions. (Maybe they're from Chabad?) That's interesting in itself. They usually have interesting new things to try. 

It'd be great if there was a pre-made charoset, and that it was in a jam form. I saw something similar online. Our tradional family one is chopped up apples, walnut pieces, grape juice (originally wine, but I don't drink it), and cinnamon mixed together. It's really good, but not good for my gut now that I have colitis. Even if it might still be in remission, it can irritate the damage I already have. I also still have trigger foods. Whole or pieces of nuts and uncooked (usually unpeeled) apples are triggers for me. Last year I mixed applesauce, peanut butter (might not be ok for it, considering I'm Ashkenazic), grape juice, and cinnamon together. It was weird, but still good. I only made a little for myself, considering I was the only one for most of my seder last year. (Dad came in at the end.) It also didn't upset my gut, which was a plus. It wasn't something I wanted to repeat. More like an emergency thing. I don't know what I'm doing for it if they don't have a pre-made one. I might have to do what I did last year, which might be weird for guests. Or, actually get a jam for it instead. Pesach food isn't exactly kind to people with colitis. I ended up ending the holiday early last year.

I did figure out what was leftover from last year, and what I'd still need. I did pretty well last year. Finished most of everything. Still have an unopened box of matzo farfel (matzo pieces), and another box that's barely been used. One packet of matzo ball mix left. Each packet makes roughly 10 balls. That's a lot. Unsure if I'd need more. Last year the soup part was chicken broth, carrots, celery, and parsley. Simple but good. There's half a canister of matzo meal left. Certainly not enough for at least making popovers for both my seder and our friends'. There's lots of potato starch left, so that's good. 

I think I only used one box of matzo, so I might do that again. It's sometimes hard to figure this stuff out when it'll just be you that's eating it, besides at the seder. Dad doesn't follow it, nor does she need to. It was a bit easier when we had to plan for Mom and I. 

Also, found out that Dad and I will finally be going to Leavenworth for 3 days. Her spring break covers most of Pesach. We've been wanting to go since at least my birthday back in November. It was going to be a birthday thing...It can still be that and a spring break thing. The only downside is we'll be gone for 3 of the days of Pesach. Since a lot of the food doesn't sit well with me, I'll take a mini break from the holiday. I'm not skipping chametz (food not kosher for Pesach) on that trip anyway. They have things like pretzel, gingerbread, and chocolate factories. Plus, I'm sure most of the options at restaurants will be full of chametz. I'll observe at least the first day and second night of the holiday, and maybe when we come back I'll go back to eating Pesach food. It'll be 5 days instead of 8...I might just go back to eating that way when we come home to finish whatever I get for the holiday. I don't know.

I'm up to 160 pages with writing both books. So much! I think I'll finish writing the cookbook before Alliance 3. However, I'm going to have to do a lot of rearranging, making more sections, and a lot of editing of it. My mom had things in a weird order. The dessert section is the longest, and I might break it down further with pies, cakes, candy, etc. sections. I'm up to 6 chapters for Alliance 3. I'm surprised at the direction it's going. I just let the story flow out of me. Of course, with the framework of the story so far. It definitely builds up on itself, and I can be more creative with it that way. 

I've decided to have some sort of promo for the ebooks every month. The one for this one has passed, but it was a countdown deal for the memoir. It started off at $0.99 and worked it's way back to the regular cost. Next month, I plan to have Alliance as free and Alliance: Dawn with the countdown deal at the same time for the first week. That might boost the series a bit. In May, I'm going to set Sweet Endless Terror to free for the first week. The only promo options I have are free or the countdown deals. The more books I publish, the more I can promote and have a presence. I think Alliance 3 and the cookbook will be done by the end of April. So, I'll have 6 out and be able to promote them more. Might have 2 promos a month when those 2 are out. Each 'select' period is 3 months long. However, A2 and the memoir are a month off from the other 2. So, the next ones might not be the same as either of them...So, technically, if they're staggered like that, I might be able to promote them even more. Once things pick up more, I'll lay off doing the promos a bit. I plan to embed A2 and the memoir on here, too. That way people can see it everytime I post and check it out. After I publish the 2 I'm currently writing, I'll start the next 2. Can't believe I'll have 6 published, let alone 8. I plan to continue the Alliance series for a while, and I have lots of ideas for other books. 

I also got back into drawing. Not drawing a lot, but a little almost each day during the week. I'm drawing different perspectives of Shadow's wings. He's the main character of Alliance. I'm trying not to give too many things away of the series, but It's a big thing in it and I was tempted to draw it. I'm not used to drawing or even thinking about wings. The first 'perspective' didn't turn out the way I wanted, but was still good practice. It's seeing them head on from the back when they're down. The second perspective is better, and I'm finding my 'style' more with it. Still not perfect, but better. Looked better before I inked it and erased the pencil drawing part. It's of them completely outstretched, and head on again from the back. The next perspective will be from the side. I might finish that 'series' with that one. I have a lot more ideas for drawing. Many of them having to do with Alliance or Sweet Endless Terror. 

Still keeping up with my German. According to Duolingo, I'm 56% fluent at the moment. It doesn't feel like it. Some of it really does remind me of Yiddish, which has been interesting. Yes, Yiddish is a combo of German, Russian, and Hebrew. It still's interesting. It also somehow sounds like 'family' and 'warm' to me. 

I started being even better about my health last week. Making sure I go to bed at a decent time (getting ready at the latest: 10:30pm), and getting up at a more decent time (about 8 or 8:30am), too. Better than going to bed as late as I was, and getting up at around noon. I have more of a day this way. I'm still not getting enough sleep during that time. It takes forever for me to get comfortable, fall asleep, then I toss and turn, am wide awake at certain times for a while, etc. I get maybe 5 hours of sleep in total now. More than I was getting a couple of weeks ago. So, at least that's getting better. I'm not going to care as much about the time I go to bed and get up during the weekend. Unless I'm going somewhere in the morning.

I also went back to being more focused on my set amount of calories for the day. The 1200-1600 calorie range. (Sometimes I'll allow myself up to 1800 for non-treat days.) I'm not keeping each meal to 280 calories, like I tried to do recently. I've noticed the best way for me is to only care about getting to the minimum and not going over the max by the end of the day. Breakfast and snacks tend to be less calories than what I have for lunch and dinner. Lunch isn't that much more. With this way, I'm surprised at how much I can have for dinner. My Fitness Pal is very handy for not only keeping track of the calories and nutrients, but also planning out my day. 

Since I've managed to get a little more energy and 'time', I've also been doing some cleaning. I haven't cleaned my bathroom in a while, because of the fatigue from lack of sleep and my colitis...I managed to sweep the floor one day, do the toilet another day, and the sink another day. I still feel I only have enough energy to do a little bit at a time, but at least I'm getting to it. Feels like I'm accomplishing more this way. Hopefully, I can keep it up this coming week.