This is my wallpaper for December. It's Sebastian from Kuroshitsuji or Black Butler. Seemed good for this month since there's snow, and kind of fits my mood during it. I like Hanukkah a lot, but the Christmas stuff out there, no matter where you go 24/7, gets to be much. It's in your face and on blast. If you don't celebrate that holiday, it gets aggravating after a while. I'm happy when retail people or waiters say things like happy holidays instead of Merry Christmas. It's more inclusive and doesn't throw a holiday that you don't celebrate on you. There's a holiday for pretty much everyone this time of year. Including New Year's Eve. I have no problem with friends celebrating it. In fact, I hope it's a great one, and that they knock themselves out with decorating and such. It's the public things that get me the most. (At malls, cafes, other stores, public schools, 'Santa' riding a fire engine through the neighborhood, whole downtown area decorated with Christmas stuff, etc.) Also, Hanukkah is not the Jewish Christmas. We don't have a holiday like that. Hanukkah is a minor holiday, also referred to as the Festival of Lights. It just so happens to fall around Christmas this year.
The month-long holidays for December are: National Pear Month. Some are for important causes, some are to make you appreciate things you may take for granted, and some are just for fun. Not much this time. I love pears, though.
My Jewish calendar features 2 menorahs this time. I should say technically hanukiyah, which is the specific menorah used for the holiday. Menorah just means lamp. The one for Hanukkah has 8 branches and one holder for the shamash (helper or leader) candle. Usually the one for the shamash is raised up more than the others and/or is in the middle. A regular one has 6 branches and one holder. So, there is a difference. Each night for Hanukkah we light the shammash and another candle with it. They're really beautiful by the last night. Since my mom used to work for a Judaica shop, she collected a lot of them. Some were free, and some she bought discounted from the shop. Free if they had some minor flaw, like some branches were slightly bent. She and I would sometimes light a bunch of them on top of the piano. It was glorious seeing them all lit up, although it was pretty dangerous, too. When I do it myself now, I usually use one. Sometimes 2 on the last night. I have so many different ones that I inherited from her. I've been using a more traditional one the last few years, but it only uses Shabbos candles, not the slimmer Hanukkah ones. A couple of the branches are bent, too. It's quirky, yet impressive. People can see it more from the outside than the others. We're supposed to have it be seen, so it works. Anyways, one of the ones on the calendar is made out of copper from 1900. The other's iron from 1935. They don't say where they're from, unlike many of the other artifacts in previous months. However, the museum is in Amsterdam. They might have come from there. Interesting to see such old ones.
The elements calendar features tin this time. They talk about how tin soldiers were almost never made of pure tin. Tin-lead alloys were usually used. Many things called tin don't actually have tin in them, and it's come to mean any sort of thin sheet metal. They show a tin soldier that is 99.99% pure tin. There's a gray tin allotrope growing on a piece of metallic tin. A piece of the mineral cassiterite (tin oxide) from Bolivia. Lead-free solder, which is mostly tin. And, finally ingots of pure tin. Interesting.
Went to a family friends' place for Thanksgiving. We usually go there. This time it was my parent and I, the 2 hosts, and a work friend of the hostess. I was told there would be 6 of us, so that surprised me. They usually have a sizable crowd for their holiday dinners/parties. (They also host parties for New Year's Eve, sometimes Hanukkah, and a seder during Passover.) For the last couple of years, it's been noticeably smaller. Anyways, I've met their friend before at previous dinners. She's pretty nice and open-minded. They only have one dog left. The other passed away not that long ago. I miss that one, too. They were both big and really friendly. I couldn't eat the green salad we brought, since I'm trying to stay away from pain as much as possible. (Roughage like things scratch up against the scars in my colon. Fun fun.) We also brought a berry/grape salad. Didn't add anything to it, since I'm not familiar with fruit salads. My parent wanted to add whipped cream, which is apparently a thing. I just think fruit is usually good by itself. Like nature's candy. I technically wasn't supposed to eat the berries because of the seeds. I did anyways...The host smoked the turkey, like usual. There was gravy, homemade stuffing (a bowl of it without chestnuts for me), salmon for the person who doesn't eat turkey, cranberry relish (I don't like it, so they usually have the canned jelled stuff for me), cookies, and pumpkin pie. They forgot about a cooked green vegetable, which I probably could have eaten in place of the salad. We played a game of Trivial Pursuit, which is like a tradition there. It used to be very binary with the men against the women. Acknowledging me, and realizing it wasn't the best thing to do anyways, they stopped splitting us up like that. This time it was the 'away team' vs the 'home team'. 3 against 2 isn't bad. If it was with genders in general, I would be by myself and probably wouldn't have gotten very far. (The host would have been too, but he's relatively good at it.) We were in the lead for a while, but the 'home team' won. Sadness. The only thing that I didn't care for was when the hostess was talking shop with her friend for long periods of time. (They both work for OC or Olympic College.) They wanted to share and explain what they went through and such, too. At first it was interesting, then I started to get sleepy. After a while, I kept catching myself before falling asleep. If that was the only down part, that's pretty good.
Sunday was the start of Crohn's & Colitis Awareness Week. The only things I've done for it are added a frame to my fb profile pic, filled out an infographic on my experience, and shared both to Instagram as well. I've talked about my experience often on here. One thing that's surprised me is that you can still suffer symptoms while in remission. It really depends on how much damage it caused before going into remission. People tend to think in order to be in remission, you must not have related symptoms. Also, there's a high possibility of getting another autoimmune disease eventually with it. I apparently have another one, but they (doctors) don't know what it is yet. So, that's a fun thing, too. There isn't a cure for colitis. This can be hard for many patients to come to terms with. They'll have to deal with it for the rest of their lives. While in remission, it doesn't actually stop. The disease has just gone down to an unnoticeable crawl.
Finished watching The Truth Seekers. It's a Singaporean private detective drama. They solve cold cases. I liked it a lot. I didn't care for the added tension towards the end. Plus, the love triangle thing...The characters were likable and felt like family. They left it wide open for another season. I'd so watch it if there is one in the future.
Started watching the 2nd season of High Seas recently. It's a Spanish mystery series set in the 40s on a luxury cruise ship. The cinematography's great, they have elegant costumes that would have been popular at the time, and a lot of aspects are accurate to the way things would have been. The acting is occasionally over-the-top. Very interesting story and kind of cool that most of it is from the perspective of 2 sisters. This season seems a little weird. Ghosts might be involved this time, although it might all be an act by someone they rescued recently. That someone is apparently lesbian or bi. Not sure if that's good representation, considering she could be stealing and a fraud posing as a medium. She kissed one of the sisters that believes her. As far as they've shown, the sister is straight, and recently got married to the owner of the ship. She could be bi...She seemed to like it. They were hinting that she'd do something like that with how touchy-feely she was with her. This season isn't long, and I'm already halfway through it. It'd be interesting to see how it goes. The 1st season was mainly about mysterious murders and the sisters' long-thought dead father. I wasn't sure there would be another season with how the last one ended, so it's been a pleasant surprise.
I finished Duolingo's Dutch course. I was thinking about going back to modern Hebrew next, but their course for it is awful. I can't seem to find any good apps for it, either. I thought about Yiddish, but that's hardly available anywhere. Although, I did read that Duolingo is creating a course for it and might be out in a few months. Started Duolingo's Scottish Gaelic course today. It's really new. Newer than I thought. Came out a week ago. There hasn't been any speaking lessons yet, but I'm at the very basic stuff. Some of the other languages didn't have those until a few more units in. They have a lot of different native speakers, which is good to get more of a feel to how it sounds. I knew the language was a little odd, but really looking at it brings that to light more. It's another language that my ancestors spoke, so I thought it would be good to learn that way. Not many people speak it anymore. There is an effort to change that, though. The course looks short, but maybe they're only showing me some of it, then once I get to the last checkpoint shown there will be more. If not, I still feel lucky to get a taste of it.
Finished editing Alliance: Dawn. Started editing Sweet Endless Terror. It's 12 short stories based on my nightmares. Went through the 1st story: The Head. It's the shortest one. 5 pages of the ebook and 8 pages of the print. I also didn't remember how short the ebook was. It's only 94 pages. The print is 255 pages. I formatted the print to be for a small book, so it makes sense. The difference is weird, though. Especially seeing them side by side.
Finished fixing the drawing of Junko's lines. In Photoshop, I added color to her skin, eye (she's winking, so only one is open), hair, shoes, and ears. They're not exactly the colors I had in mind, but they're not bad looking. I don't know much about color codes in Photoshop, but I'm looking them up as I go. I'll color in her skirt, socks, and shirt next. Then, I'll mess with shading. I have to remember to go a little darker with that than I did with Shadow.
This is my wallpaper for July. It's the Heart Pirate's Jolly Roger from One Piece. It's very similar to the Donquixote Pirates', but there isn't a slash through the smiley. The other one doesn't have the 6 things coming out of it in different directions. The captain of the Heart Pirates (and their doctor) is Trafalgar D. Water Law. He was once a member of the Donquixote Pirates, so that's probably why it's similar. It's also a smiley because Corazon, who was like a mentor to him and brother to Doflamingo, wanted to always be remembered as smiling. Doflamingo hated him, so it'd make sense that he'd put a slash through his. Law is one of my fave characters. He's considered as one of the 12 pirates of the 'Worst Generation' along with Luffy. He's known as the Surgeon of Death. He ate the Op-Op Devil Fruit which gives him the ability to 'operate' on people/things.
The month-long holidays for July are: National Grilling Month, National Hot Dog Month, National Ice Cream Month, National Honey Month. Some are for important causes, some are to make you appreciate things you may take for granted, and some are just for fun.
For the Jewish calendar, there are a couple of pairs of Torah finials. Ones from around the 1920s, and the other's from the late 19th century. The older one still looks somewhat new. Must have been well taken care of. The elements calendar features iodine this month. The main pic's of it being gently heated to slightly melt. It gives off a purplish liquid as it's melted. They mentioned a few of it's uses.
Recently started taking a non-gendered gummy vitamin. My previous one was Women's One-A-Day Vitacraves. I got tired of misgendering myself everyday. I like the gummy version of vitamins. They're kind of fun and I don't have to swallow another pill. The gummy versions of their multivitamins are for men, women, and adults. Like many brands. I find it funny that it seems to imply that men and women aren't adults...Or, that adult is a gender. Anyways, their 'adult' version is much more expensive than the others. So, I looked at another brand's. Plus, I was tired of their flavors. Got VitaFusion's adult version. All 3 (men, women, and adult) are the same price. Seemed more balanced with the vitamins than my previous one, too. I'm glad I now have vitamins that aren't gendered. I know it's a small thing, but it does feel a little better.
I've been using Selsun Blue, and I'm surprised at how well it's working. I don't have as many flakes and they're drier/much smaller now. The scalp oil stuff arrived in the mail on the 1st. It's aka Derma-Smoothe Scalp/FS or Fluocinolone Acetonide. Scalp oil just sounds funnier and darker to me. It's an oil-based steroid that helps with seborrheic dermatitis and other skin conditions. It's supposed to help with the 'scale', redness, itchiness, possibly with hair loss, etc.
Tried it that night. It comes with 2 clear plastic shower caps. (Pretty flimsy looking ones.) There are 2 options of caps for the bottle, too. You're supposed to wet your hair, apply a 'thin film' on the scalp, massage it in well, put a shower cap over it/your hair, sleep with it on, and wash it out with shampoo in the morning. It says it should be every night until it clears up or a certain amount of time. I was going to take a shower anyway, so instead of covering it up with my regular shower cap I went in without it and let the water soak in. I normally wash my hair once every 3 days in the morning, and shower every other night. My hair gets in the way while taking showers, and I normally can't do my hair that often. I coudn't really do a thin film of it. I poured some into my hand, took some in the other, and rubbed it in. Tried to cover as much of it as I could. Hard when I still have such long hair. It did feel a little greasy, but not bad. The shower cap seemed way too loose. Luckily, I managed to get most of my hair to stay in. It stung a little in some patches for a short time. Wasn't too bad with that. I can't tell if it did anything more yet. I've decided to not do it every night. Only the night before I wash my hair. That way I'll already be washing it the next day, and I won't dry my hair out too much. I think she mentioned that it'd be best to not do it every night, yet her instructions for it are different...
I've managed to keep up with doing one of my 2-mile walks a day, and 5 sit-ups twice a day this week. Yay! Hopefully, I can keep it up. With the sit-ups, my plan is like it was when I did them regularly: adding 5 to both times each week. So, next week it'll be 10 twice a day, in 2 weeks: 15 twice a day, and so on. If I don't do it for a day, I'll either start at the beginning with the 5s or go back to however many I was doing the previous week. Just like before, I'm also doing them when I wake up and when I go to bed. It's a good way to remember. 5 of them both times feels more like a little warm up for the 'real' ones. If I keep up that walk every day for a month, I'll add another one in. I think that'll be a wise way to do it. Have to get used to it again first before that. If I skip a day, I'll start that month over. It seems strict, but it might be a way to motivate me, too.
I've also been walking with my iPhone, which I didn't do last time I did this on a regular basis. Interesting to see how many steps it takes me. Also, I've been trying to have it on me during the rest of the day just to see how many steps I've taken in general. I think I've actually been doing that more this past month. I normally just leave it charging most of the day or sometimes forget. Anyways, it was interesting how many steps and flights of stairs I got in yesterday according to it. That was just over 9,000 steps and 6 floors. On Monday, I did 13 floors, but 6,318 steps. I'm not trying to shoot for a number of steps, like some try for 10,000 a day. Some medical professionals say for some people that might be too much. A better one is 5,000 a day at the very least to start with. Everyone's different. 9,000 steps was one of the highest it's recorded for me. I didn't have it track me well during trips and such where I most likely walked more. (Like Montana.) I go up a lot of flights on Mondays and almost as much on Fridays. It's mainly because those are my laundry days. I'm going down and up a flight of stairs constantly those days. (I use them a lot regularly, too.) I think the most it had for flights on there was actually 16.
I've been trying protein bars. Just recently finished a box of Special K chocolate chip protein bars. Felt like I was eating a candy bar every time. I noticed it had a little too much sugar for me, so I wanted to try something else once I finished it. Started eating Power Crunch French vanilla protein bars last night. One bar is humongous! It's coated with what looks like white icing and that easily melts. There are wafers with a vanilla cream in between the layers. It feels like a giant iced cookie. It only has 5g of sugar, which was really surprising. There isn't any nut products in it, either. The protein mostly comes from whey. The other bars had nut powders. That's ok, but I do have to stay away from whole or pieces of nuts. That can make it difficult when looking at protein bars in general. Most of them rely on nut protein. I'm glad this new one doesn't have any. The only downsides I see are the messiness with it melting easily and how big they are. It has 14g of protein, while the other had 12g. Another plus.
Yesterday, I got breakfast chicken sausages from Costco. The same ones I used to get a long time ago. They're handy and add another boost of protein. I don't normally get much protein with my breakfast. They're not bad in calories, too. They're a savory maple flavor. I think the only reason I stopped getting them was because I was tired of them. With this and the protein bars, I should be pretty set with getting enough protein. At least, closer to what the average healthy person's supposed to have. Having 2 conditions that make me need more than that makes it difficult. I don't think I can stomach more, and this is a very big step in the right direction. I still get it from my normal stuff like lunch meat, meat and/or pasta meals, a little from cheese, a little from certain breads, some from beans, etc. Another one I might need to focus on more is potassium. I'm usually very low on that.
Went to World Market yesterday, too. Found more cool things to try. My parent and I will share a pack of Indonesian stir-fry noodles called Mi Goreng. I think there are 4 or 5 single serving packages inside it. It sounds good. They have another one that's labeled hot and spicy. I'm glad they give an option. Despite eating quite a bit of sodium normally, I'm usually low in it with blood test results. (Still within normal range, but very close to the minimum every time.) I've heard many people have a hard time with eating too much of it, but I never have. So, things full of sodium aren't that bad for me. A lot of instant Asian food is like that. The noodles don't seem too high in sodium, though. I also got a type of instant udon that has bonito and sardines. It sounded great. The sodium is a little higher, but not too bad. I have to remember that it doesn't really matter for me personally. Although, I should still not go too overboard with it. It looks like the container has a huge amount. I expected a serving to be half of it. It's actually the whole thing and it's pretty good with the amount calories, too.
I plan to try one of Central Market's quiches for a small dinner before the local trans meeting. It's a single serving mini goat cheese and onion quiche. Sounds amazing! I think there's one other flavor I can try there: spinach and cheese. The others have pork products and/or mushrooms. I don't usually think about things like quiches. They're another way to have some protein, since it's egg and some of them cheese based.
Finished the Imperative, Demonstr., and Geo units in Duolingo's Dutch course yesterday. I'm breezing through it. The Geo unit was the most interesting to me. A lot of the terms were similar to what they are in English. Rivier is river, kanaal is canal, zee (actually pronounced as zay) is sea, etc. I made it to the top 15 of the Ruby League.
Edited more of Alliance yesterday. With the ebook, there are only 8 pages left. With the print version, 10 pages. Not much. I might still go over the beginning stuff again after that. Then, I'll start editing Alliance: Dawn. I want to put out both revised versions at the same time. Smashwords has a 'new' thing with highlighting a series of books that I want to try. Amazon will also have the revised versions. I can't decide if I want to edit what I have of the 3rd book (I don't think it has a title yet) in the series then continue writing it, or edit/go through Sweet Endless Terror after that.
I'm going to draw a full body of Junko next. Decided to plan and get ideas first. She's the 2nd character introduced in the series. I could go in order of appearances for the others, too. She's a cat demon, so there will be cat elements. With Shadow being human, there wasn't much 'extra' to figure. Plus, I'd like to draw what her previous (non-humanoid) cat form was next to her. The demon-type characters sound like they might be more fun/detailed to do.
Finished watching High Seas on Netflix. The cinematography was stunning and definitely gave off that 40's feel. It seemed that they really tried to be true to the time period with lots of things right down to hairstyles. I didn't expect the World War 2 angle, although it makes sense. It was overacted at times, but that seemed more like a Spanish cultural thing. I liked it for the most part. The ending left it on a huge cliffhanger. It didn't seem like there would be a possibility of a 2nd season until the last few minutes. I suppose they could continue it until the boat makes it to Brazil. I'll start the 2nd season of Dark next. It's a pretty complex German show.
