Somehow I made it through all of NaNoWriMo trying to be a rebel and write D&D wiki articles and it did not even cross my mind that I have been neglecting this blog for most of the year. I guess that’s par for the course with me and, like always, I’m back again to make another go at it. I don’t plan on making apologies or excuses this time for my absence, but instead, I’m going to jump right into what I am working on now and what I want to be working on soon.

I feel like I really did try a lot of new things in the past year, even if I half-assed a lot of them. I briefly started streaming my crafting and video games, tried to stretch myself with non-cosplay concept photoshoots, jumped into (and out of) novel writing, found my stride as a dungeon master, and started to podcast. While I have definitely slumped back into consuming significantly more than I create, I feel like I have successfully led my life for myself in the past year and let a lot of false sense of obligation fall away.

I finally reclaimed a living situation of my own, this time with my wonderful partner, and so much of my interest has been in nesting and really making our little one bedroom apartment our own. A year of watching HGTV before falling asleep really fostered the urge to decorate and to over-establish a unique style within my living space. I am finally living my dream of a Nautical/Sea-Monster themed kitchen and slowly becoming obsessed with Hygge, despite living in a coastal desert. The real piece de resistance on our little apartment was the adoption of a nine-year-old cat who we have renamed C.J. (or Clawdia Jean) after Allison Janney’s character on the West Wing.

I am excited to catch this blog up on some of my cosplay work from this year (which includes a delight Sailor Uranus variant that was truly a dream-like experience). With my sewing machine finally out of storage, I feel like there are a lot of projects on my horizon, even though I can’t exactly tell what any of them are yet. I feel strangely optimistic for this time of the year (when normally my depression sinks me very low) and I am trying very hard to focus that positive energy into realizable goals.

I don’t know what 2019 is going to look like. The last few years have felt like a serious of false starts for me and I chalk part of that up to high expectations and low tolerance for forgiveness, all from and towards myself. I think in the coming year I want to narrow my focus and really try to grow in a few of my skills and hobbies instead of trying to collect more or to spread myself too thin. My resolution this year is to finish more projects or to see things through to their end, whatever that end may be.

Either way, you’ll see me soon.