Happy Monday and first work day of the new year to the 100+ unread emails in my work email inbox. Let's do this.

Playing around with Team Easy Button. We're trying to escape the Nether! Join us! twitch.tv/sundyst

UPDATE: I have caught some sort of plague (read: head cold), and instead of either DSIII or OCTOPATH Traveler, I somehow found myself playing Skyrim.

Layton ( @theshums.bsky.social ): What are you doing? Me, cleaning: “I’m just putting the adult sippies next to the Shumling’s sippies”

I like that mistletoe increases the odds of being kissed. More plants should offer temporary environmental status. Brawling under lingonberries. The soft yearning of a love that dare not speak its name beneath the nightshade.

Shumling has decided that the screensaver on the tv in our bedroom is his new favorite thing. He now loves to ask for “Fishes on the TV”. At all times. Whenever he is bored.

I live in Utah and thus have no access to Poutine. But I CAN get KPop fries from our local Korean BBQ joint and that makes me forget about Poutine.

Decembers suck. But today feels okay.

Purchased an assortment of Dice fidget toys as gifts for the players in my local D&D campaign. @worksofwhimsy.bsky.social threw in a few extras and I am tickled pink. (But. Like. How did you know I’m emotionally attached to fictional characters?)

Finally saw Wicked: For Good with @theshums.bsky.social tonight. It was everything my inner Music Theater kid wanted it to be.

Me: 'I think I'll make Dark Souls III the game I play over my Holiday Break'. SquareEnix: 'I am releasing Octopath Traveler 0 on all consoles' Me: ... Dammit.

Me when Mumbo Jumbo mentioned he was turning THIRTY on his birthday this year and changed his Minecraft skin to an old man. Mumbo, some of us are turning a number that is ten more than that number this year.

I don’t know. I felt happy last night and that hasn’t really happened a lot recently, so it must be documented.

I don't know. It's just been stuck in my head this week. How DO we sleep when our beds are burning? youtu.be/ejorQVy3m8E?...

My Trash TV TLC Documentary-style Series that I was watching has reached events that happened in 2020. The frustration I feel towards the people in the series has grown exponentially as they try to grapple with COVID shut downs.

I put the soothing piano piece on it's own playlist and then asked Spotify not to include it in my taste profile, but it didn't help because some time in June we stopped using that playlist and it became my number 1 song for the second year in a row. Time to get Shumling his own Spotify account?

Started playing Dark Souls III for the first time today. What the hell, FromSoft? Iudex Gundyr is just rude.

In person Dungeons and Dragons with the family. Happy holidays!

Why do we do this ritual every year? What if we all collectively decided to celebrate Thanksgiving with a brisket instead?

I have been craving this Creamy Cranberry Jalapeño dip for a year. I bought 3 packages of fresh cranberries to put in my freezer so I can have this again next time I crave it. Happy Cranberry Fall to all who celebrate.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=kjiY... This one too

Supergiant: hey Darren, we need you to come up with music for a fight with a big, slow, lumbering cyclops Darren Korb: I've got just the thing Supergiant: Oh goo-- Darren: JAZZ FLUTE

This song lives rent free in my head. Darren Korb is a genuis. youtu.be/xLL65k0tyVo?...

Playing Betrayal at Baldur’s Gate and this token always makes me happy.

Apparently if you want to make friends with random strangers in Provo, UT, you should wear a Dr Pepper sweatshirt. Escorted my sister to the hospital for a routine scan and nurses, strangers, and food court workers have all commented on it.

I thought Blue Prince may have been my Game of the Year for 2025, but 'The Seance of Blake Manor' has slid on to my radar at the last minute and I am HOOKED.

I can no longer watch my silly little doctor show on YouTubeTV because Disney, who is literally never going to hurt for money ever again, decided that they would like YouTubeTV to pay them more money for the privilege of hosting ESPN, ABC, and other Disney-owned networks? Good for you, YouTubeTV.

I have a problem. … The problem is we have FOUR switches and my GOOD Animal Crossing Island is on ONE of them. And I don’t know how to move it

I'm realizing pretty late in life that I have terrible Interoception. Nothing has humbled me more than realizing that I have NO IDEA how to appropriately dress my toddler for cold weather because - as it turns out - I may have not been dressing MYSELF appropriately for cold weather THIS WHOLE TIME.

2008 Aubrey will be putting this on her LiveJournal.

I stumbled across this Bardcore version of “Diary of Jane” on TikTok this morning and suddenly Emo!Aubrey is at the wheel now.

Wake up, babe, the least subtle visual metaphor in history just dropped

One at a time, please!

Someone stayed home sick from Daycare and discovered the JOY of watching Spidey from bed.

Me: “Yeah. I’ve just really been listening to a lot of Patrick Stump lately.” Them: “Oh. Has Fall Out Boy released new stuff?” Me: “Uh…No. I meant Spidey and his Amazing Friends.” youtu.be/RuER69Upyhs?...

Heavens to Betsy Betsy to Heavens Heavens BACK to Betsy Betsy GOOOOOAAAALLLLLLLL

Me, talking to Shumling about feelings: “Do you want to know something that happened today that made Mama’s heart happy?” Shumling: *Goblin Voice* “The Wheeeeels on the Busssss”

We are watching Cars for the 732nd time, and I feel like I need to take this moment to point out that Cars follows the same formula as Hallmark RomComs.

I don't know what I expected the soundtrack for the end of Democracy to be, but I did not expect it to be 'Everything In Its Right Place' by Radiohead. TikTok has decided that any video featuring news of Tr*mp / Governmental overreach should use this sound, and it makes my brain all fuzzy.

UPDATE: It was Final Fantasy XIV. Specifically the Dravanian Hinterlands and Forelands. The town I liked to go to was Idyllshire. The witch in the woods was Matoya (in a cave, not the forest). The 'volcano' was Anyx Trine (notably not a volcano). The Dragon? Nidhogg I slept GOOD last night.

I couldn't fall asleep last night because my brain kept trying to remember a video game that I've played in the last 5 years but maybe my brain is making up? And all my brain could supply was 'There was lush green grass and stone ruins' So, I guess that narrows it down to every RPG ever.

fall vibes

Tonight our toddler wanted ice cream in a cone, but we had no cone. So we put a small dab of ice cream in a bugle. Anyway. This slaps.

The most accurate recreation of DS9 I've seen.

“He spit on it, and then put his face in the chalk. So, it looks alarming… but it’s not blood.” - Out of context toddler parent things

I said the word “outside” in front of my toddler before I was ready to go outside. Rookie parenting mistake

The Shumling is almost 2. I did not give him permission to grow so big, but I guess there’s nothing I can do about it now.