February ’25 Update

February ended up being a month for finishing many things. First up, some finishing touches on my raven tattoo:

Then, I finished the antepenultimate block on my All Skulls crochet blanket, as well as half of the next block. Just 1.5 more decorative blocks left to go!

I also finished the embroidery project showing the area snowfall for the last 50 years, as outlined in my last post.

To round out the month, I felt like stabbing things repeatedly, so I banged out the rest of the Horseshoe Bend satin stitch project designed by Vika.

I also finished reading two books this month (both of which had been languishing since last year. World’s End, a graphic novel collection of Sandman Comics by Neil Gaiman that the library had taken out of its collection while I was reading it, and Thief of Time, book 26 of the Discworld Series by Sir Terry Pratchett.

Other notable events of the month:

• Had a nice dinner at Good Luck with Kim to celebrate her birthday
• Had a crafting night with a friend
• Saw MacBeth with David Tennant at the Little with my mom, it was a lovely production
• Helped out with another megagame at RIT
• Had a nice evening with my “game night” coworkers and spouses, where we mostly ate dinner and chatted instead of playing games
• Unfortunately the usual RPG game night with the other group of friends got cancelled, and I even had a new character play-tested and ready to go
• Finished another chapter in the book I’m writing. I’m around 62,500 words now and starting to wonder if I need to move things along more quickly or split the content into two books.

Lastly, we got some pretty bad news at work. The manager that I helped to train at the end of 2023 is leaving, because the University continues to block the creation of an assistant manager position to support the manger, even though we’ve been promised one for years. So, basically the manager has to be a superhuman with no personal life, and that’s why we can’t keep a manager more than a year or two. I believe it’s completely dysfunctional and that they will never realize that the job is too big for just one person. Anyway, these are the angers and frustrations that fueled a lot of my stabbiness at the end of the month, helping me fly through Horseshoe Bend so quickly.

I don’t have many plans for next month other than a few of the usual game nights and hangouts with friends, and one concert/show. I’ll be heading to Geneva at the end of the month to catch a Lord of the Rings concert with mom. I’m a little unsure what to expect as it promises a guest appearance by a star of the original movies, and it also says something about “featuring the voice of” Sir Christopher Lee, the actor who played Saruman. So, either he’s actually going to be there, or I’m being duped and we’ll only hear his voice, and the “star” will be some random guy who played orc number three. The tickets weren’t super expensive, though, so I won’t mind too terribly either way.

Stay warm, stay safe, and stay sane, everyone. I’ll be trying to do the same.

♥ A