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2019 In Summary

April 23, 2020 / / 0 Comments

For whatever reason, I don’t think I ever posted this video. Throughout the year, I try to record short 8 to 15 second videos on my phone of whatever we happen to be doing for the sake of collecting the most interesting clips from each month and stitching them together at the end of the year.

I was watching the video again and just noticed that the footage I had recorded from the Cubs game at Wrigley Field never made it into the video. I guess it must have gotten dropped somehow when I was migrating my video editing workflow from my phone to the iPad? No clue. I may readd it then reupload it to YouTube, but we’ll see.

I don’t have any idea why I just never made one for 2018. I may dig through my phone and make one or at least make one for our 2018 Japan trip since I recorded a buttload of video..

Anyway, 2019 was a great year. We had originally planned on not traveling anywhere aside from maybe one short family visitation trip. Instead as it turned out, we ended up traveling quite a bit (for us). I am glad that we did Japan trip #2 in 2019 since we uuuh are not likely going to be flying anywhere anytime soon.

Animal Crossing New Horizons

March 22, 2020 / / 0 Comments

Suffice it to say, a lot of Animal Crossing was played this weekend. Was there ever a more perfect time for Animal Crossing to come out? I really wanted a physical copy of the game, but Amazon delayed my preorder (as well as literally everyones preorder for obvious reasons). As such, I cancelled the preordered and purchased it digitally.

Next house upgrade coming tomorrow morning as well as possibly a new neighbor.
My two starting villagers are Shari and Sheldon.

Also, super pleased that I can scan the QR code’s for the clothing that I had made in New Leaf using the phone app.

My Traveler’s Notebook (Regular) Setup

March 18, 2020 / / 0 Comments

Here is a post on how I use and setup my regular sized Traveler’s Notebook. My passport sized TN is used as a daily planner/general notebook whereas my regular sized TN is used as a creative outlet for watercoloring, sketching, scrapbooking, and stuff like that. I really like the TN system because of how modular it is; I use my notebooks for a variety of things so being able to swap inserts in and out is crucial. For daily use, I usually have 2 or 3 notebooks inserted at a time (detailed below). For travel, I will have one notebook (an insert dedicated to travel journaling) to keep the thickness of the TN down to a manageable size, since my travel journal insert is filled with about a dozen pamphlets and stuff like that.

This is the Traveler’s Factory Tokyo Station edition notebook that I picked up during our first trip to Japan in 2018. The red mizuhiki charm (the knot thingy) was purchased during the same trip. The brass charm was purchased from the Nakameguro store when we visited in 2019.

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How to: Add a Suica card to your Apple Wallet

September 24, 2019 / / 0 Comments

Here is how to add an unregistered Suica card to your iPhone. Keep in mind that only iPhones 8 and newer have the chip that allow you to use your phone. I think Japanese iPhone 7’s have it as well. Mind you that this post is an imperfect guide. I don’t read Japanese fluently.

We found that using the NFC chip on our phones to be way more convenient than carrying around a physical metro card. It’s one less thing to have to worry about losing and it’s way easier to recharge it using Apple Pay (vs feeding yen into a machine).

There’s an English app that allows you to add a card without the need to change your phone’s region to Japan, but it doesn’t allow you to view the full virtual card number on your phone. It’s not really that big of a deal for normal metro use but if you need to register your card for any reason, the full number will be required to my understanding.Set your phone’s region to Japan.

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Update on the Neglected Lithops

June 6, 2019 / / 0 Comments

My shipment of pumice and potting supplies finally came in. I am in the process of re-potting the Mesembs into a grittier mixture. The soil mixture that they are currently in is too dense and was mixed with perlite, which had all but floated to the top of the pot and blown away.

I had re-potted the lithops mentioned in my previous entry to survey any damage that resulted from the unseasonal amount of rain and rabbit munching. To my fortune, they do not appear to be as bad off as I had originally thought. Both the roots and plant body on the larger leaves look to be okay (no rot, fuzzy root growths, no mushy spots). One of the leaf sets looks dubious. But then again, they have looked dubious for over a year (pretty sure they are slow dying).

I am very very surprised that my lithops survived the rabbit apocalypse as the damage was quite severe. On a plus side, the new growths look healthy and are undamaged. Since I had left my plants out in the rain, their growth cycle is a little fucked up. Consequently, I cannot pot them with the new lithops that I had purchased last weekend. So for now (and probably ever), they will live in their own little pot.

I really need to find a relatively sunny rain sheltered place for all of my plants. We have a patio, but it’s a little too shady. I like working in the garden after work when it is light and not shitty outside, but in about 5 months, that’s probably going to change. Maybe build a plant thing? I would love to put some of my plants in a window but all sunny windows in the house are cat windows…

Succulents: June 2019

June 2, 2019 / / 0 Comments

Happy June everyone! Although literally no one visits this site, I am trying to get into the habit of updating this site more than once every year. I have made a few recent acquisitions + It’s been literally over two years since I last posted a plant update so hey, that’s a good place to begin. A combination of severe neglect and an unseasonal amount of rainfall here in Southern California has left a number of my more finicky succulents in a poor state. Most of them are fine, but some of my favorite plants (lithops and fenestraria are a little worse for wear).

Luckily, my husband had pointed out that our local succulent society had a show and sale this weekend, so I did manage to pick up a few new plants (as pictured in the featured image). My next project, now that the rain has (hopefully?) stopped is to clean up and work on my succulent gardening area in the backyard.

Here is my lithop pot. I had neglected to move them under the overhang during the like, 5 storms that we have had this year. Some of the leaves are in the process of growing new leaves that look like they may be okay, but I haven’t had a chance to check on the status of their roots (going to repot them into faster draining soil).

Additionally, the backyard rabbits seem to love munching on the lithops for whatever reason. As such, I have learned that they need to live on one of the succulent tables that isn’t rabbit prone and isn’t undearneath the stupid california pepper tree that rains shit all over my plants.

The burro’s tail seems to be happy enough to fill the pot with new growths. Once it grows a little more, I think I will repot it into a larger pot. They are so tricky to work with though, every time I touch it leaves seem to fall off.

Here are the new plants. The baby toes are frithia pulchra, a different type of mesemb than the baby toes pictured in previous posts. They have different watering requirements than the fenestraria so they cannot share a pot. I want to repot the newbies and some of my existing plants, but I am waiting on a shipment of pumice + faster draining potting soil. The blend that I am using now does not drain fast enough (the internet was right, perlite just….floats to the top of the pot. Annoying).