Real Life – A Pixel Nomad

[Life] Merry Christmas

Christmas can be a complicated season. On the outside, it’s lights and traditions and doing everything I can to keep the magic alive for my kids. It’s just my immediate family, and we work really hard to make the days feel special — baking, decorating, wrapping gifts, creating moments I hope they’ll remember fondly. During the day, there’s noise and purpose and motion, and I pour myself into that role completely.

But when the house finally goes quiet at night, the loneliness has a way of settling in. There’s no extended family gathering, no busy calendar full of visits, no one dropping by. It’s in those quiet hours that the weight of how small our circle is becomes very real, and Christmas can feel less like a celebration and more like a reminder of what’s missing.

Still, I’m grateful for something: the gaming community and the friends I’ve made through gaming. In a season that can feel isolating, they’ve been kind, welcoming, and genuinely lovely. Sometimes connection doesn’t look like a crowded living room — sometimes it looks like shared worlds, late-night conversations, and knowing you’re not as alone as you thought. And this Christmas, that has meant more than I can put into words.

[Life] Tracking all of the things (TV Series) related

I’ve never really been much of a movie or TV watcher, but some days my multiple sclerosis prevents me from doing much, and I like to have something to watch in the background other times while I knit, spin, draw, or game. Unfortunately I’m also horrible at remembering what I’ve seen, and I leave off on some shows depending on my mood / interests – only to completely forget I was even watching them when I eventually return.

So I stumbled into a discord conversation about this exact thing, and someone mentioned a website called ‘Serializd’ (which I believe is a TV series version of Letterboxd). I signed up, and spent an evening browsing through my netflix/crave histories attempting to remember shows that I’ve seen over the years. I love tracking statistics, and I really like the minimalistic view of this one, for now at least. Whether or not I keep up the tracking, we’ll just have to see. I also wish that both movies & tv were tracked together, but I imagine that’s a whole other ballgame to handle.

Anyone else using a website to track like this? How do you like it? How long have you used it? Let me know in comments!

Now back to your regular scheduled gaming posts…

The End of Streams – Again

It seems like no matter how hard I try, I just can’t get live streaming my gaming sessions to stick. There’s a number of reasons and some things are unavoidable like health problems, and being married to a first responder, being primary caregiver to two high needs kids, and keeping any sort of schedule just sort of flies out the window. I need schedules.

Some of the issues are within my control, but I can’t do anything about them. Things like my energy level, what time I stream, what I stream. It seems like every few years I try to make a dive at it again, manage for a few weeks, and then give it up for whatever reason it is that time around.

I used to write about video games professionally (back when magazines still existed). I used to work for a video game company (You remember Carbine Studios? NCSoft?) and I desperately cling to trying to do and be something besides just ‘mom’. There is absolutely nothing wrong with what I do, but there are many days I feel lost and very alone.

What’s the solution? Well, besides professional help and working on ‘me’ the only real solution is to just keep trying – but trying and growing in different ways that make sense given my situation. What does that even mean?

In my very specific case, that means I’m not going to try to live stream to twitch any more. I am going to try to record and post content to YouTube, on my own schedule, when I can. I can record sporadically throughout the day here and there when I have the moments, and do the audio at night when the house is a bit more quiet. I can learn how to edit, and still scratch that scheduling itch. I also want to continue to grow with my art, and I’ve been posting to Cara and Instagram, and doing a little bit of drawing every day. I’d like to get back on track with my reading journal, and posting updates over on my book blog. I have a lot of FOMO when it comes to streaming. I watch a lot of twitch streamers throughout the day while I do other things. I see their enthusiasm and love for their games and community. I see them get sponsorships, I see them get noticed.

Why write it all out here? Well. I just wanted to get it out, honestly. It was too long to put on Mastodon, and now I can just move forward.

And Now for Something Completely Different..

I love ramen, but like a lot of people I don’t exactly have any experience with the noodles, and I never know what to buy or what I might enjoy. While I do like SOME heat, it really depends on the type of heat. For example, I love sriracha. I don’t like Franks.

I admit it, I saw these carbonara noodles on tiktok, and they looked amazing. I decided to buy them on amazon, and they are WAY too expensive – I purchased them at $18 for 5, and now they’re at $25 for 5. Thankfully, my grocery store also supplies various versions of these noodles. The downside is that they’ve been out of stock FOREVER. They’re also only $8 for the package. Anyway, I was ordering groceries for the week, and I saw they finally had them in stock so of course I bought some. I made them, I ate them, I loved them. I made them with breaded cooked chicken breast, and a runny egg (I also mixed the sauce with some Japanese mayo). Fantastic. Highly recommended. I think one of my favourite features is that the spicy sauce can be applied with as much or as little as you want. I normally use it very sparingly. Other days I might want a little more heat.

Sometimes, it’s just nice to have something simple to eat that doesn’t require all sorts of preparation or thought.

Now returning you to your regular scheduled gaming posts..