HEY SAGE, WHAT IS GOING ON?

• Knitting.  Lots of knitting.  I've finished six projects in the past three months (two hats, dance socks, arm warmers, a scarf-hood, and a dwarven battle bonnet).  Nearly done a honeycowl for my brother's girlfriend. 

• Getting more aggressive on eating right and exercising daily.  Hoping to lose 10-20 pounds by Fanime.  At the very least, I'm eating out less and spending less money on food, which is awesome.  With the increased daylight, it is getting easier for me to exercise in the evening as well (and hopefully I can start biking soon too).

• Tomorrow I will FINALLY buy the geta I need for Lime's shoes.  The plan thus far will be: geta for the bottoms, a pair of Crocs glued/nailed into the geta, foam over the Crocs to carve out the rounded shape of the shoe, muslin on top of that, and finally cover it with yellow and white vinyl.  I imagine it will take most of February to make them, but the rest of the cosplay should be EASY compared to those.

• A week from tomorrow, I will be in Vegas again!  This is to give a presentation with my boss at the Big Data Innovation convention there.  With all of the people there who work at the big shiny companies which I love (including Etsy, zomg) I'm hoping that I don't puke on stage, or at the very least, that I don't embarrass myself too much in front of all of the most influential people in my field D: 

• Playing Super Paper Mario for Wii and DAYUM that shit is cute.

• Lots of social stuff, lots of Meetups and groups and stuff.  Starting to do more volunteering as well - aiming to do two volunteer activities a month if possible (one of them is a charity knitting thing, which is relatively easy to commit to).  Doing a day at Second Harvest in early February as well.  

• Fuck I actually read a book this month, and I'm reading another now too. 

• I am now the Reigning Monarch for the Arcadia game!  Arcadia is a far-future dystopian steampunk/dieselpunk Sailor Moon game which Brenna started and all of us players obsessively loved, and after it stalled out for a while, I decided that I personally wanted to see it come back.  I play Sailor Orpheus (emo rock sitarist, of course), and also Queen Sin Bendis, who is quite literately the princess's Evil Cyborg Aunt who steals away the rightful rule of the Vega system.  (I also play a dude who hangs out with Cubchoo and Delibirds on the ice planet).  I am way super excited about this and really looking forward to writing in that world again.  
  • The link I provided, btw, is quite a bit outdated, but hopefully good enough for you to get an idea of what is going on.

SO YES THAT IS WHAT I AM DOING.  WHAT ARE YOU UP TO?

TAG UPDATE
( Guess which of my characters is bleeding to death (again!) )

I really want to plow though a number of my PW posts, maybe tonight if I have enough bandwidth.  

BUT FOR NOW I have just consumed some delicious falafel, and I am going to go to the gym once Kol is done with getting ready for her event!  We actually had a really good, really fruitful afternoon out doing shopping.  I have been wanting to get some nicer outfits for work, and between Express, Gap, and H&M I've been finding some really wonderful stuff.  

Going to the gym again is awesome <3 I am going to be heading into work earlier now, at about 8 AM, which will get me out at 4:30-5.  The plan is to do the gym after work, and get home by 6 to do Other Things.  Usually weight melts off of me as soon as I get exercising, so I'm looking forward to that.  Working close to a Trader Joe's has also increased my options for salads at lunch and healthier dinners for me to stack in the freezer and prepare when I get home.  I've also been starting my morning with protein shakes and Clif bars, and the protein is making a big-ass difference in my energy levels.  I need to get a set of vitamins to keep at work, and then I think I'll be onto a good start. 

One thing I used to love to do at the gym is play my Nintendo GBA/DS while on bicycle machines XD  I did buy a new video game with the gift card I won last week - Dragon Quest IX, because I really needed an RPG fix and the Wii don't have many RP games XD   It's decent, nothing earth-shattering, and kind of chill in the way that Final Fantasy isn't anymore.  It feels a lot like the old SNES RPGs, which is definitely refreshing.  Also, your party is completely customizable.  My player character is Sage, which of course is a purple-haired purple-eyed chick, and I made Deon, Val, and Rae characters in my party (Warrior, Mage, and Priest, respectively.  Rae is a badass D: )

Also I'm making these socks.  I loved the pattern so much I bought the damn book! SO EXCITED.

And I've been listening to a lot of 90's mixes on 8tracks lately.  Hence my current song, which I completely forgot existed even though I loved it so much at the time.  I love this mix the best so far.

STUFF, THINGS, AND MY EXCITING LIFE.

ALSO CHEER FOR ANGIE AND KOL WHOM I AM VERY PROUD OF.