breadcrumbs

Actually I've kept up cooking too, haven't been posting much photos here since they end up on FFXIV Ontario, but here is the first mac and cheese I've ever made:

age

Reading webtoons is the few things I kept up:

2023 clothes

This blog has been on life support for a while with FFXIV screenshots, but I am feeling motivated to do some of my usual end of year reflection and updates.

Starting with clothes today.

It's been a very long time (since 2020??) since I updated my inventory spreadsheet. Took a while to enter in all the data welp.

At a very high level, I'm even farther at a point where my wardrobe is comfy and additions are mostly pieces I like the design of rather than trying to fill a functional need. I also took the opportunity of moving to do a very small clean-out and finally sell some pieces on the second-hand market. Facebook marketplace is not a fun experience, but I'm irrationally adverse to shipping stuff out (its really not as big of a hassle as I think it is).

Notable departures:

• Office clothing: because I don't go into the office enough to warrant keeping them. Most of them were bought for PEY, so they are showing their age in either style or durability.
• Thin cardigans (3): very highschool-y, overall I've not been wearing cardigans much except for the new Patagonia recycled cashmere one I got towards the end of last year.
• Pleated skirts (3) : I very much feel too old to wear pleated skirts rip, luckily they're getting a new life with my little cousin.
• Babaton cocoon coat: it's been a good 11 years with this coat but I don't see myself reaching for it over my 101801 in any occasion. Went to a loving new home, the nicest buyer I've encountered on FB marketplace. Now to do the same with my JCrew stadium coat.
• Adidas stan smiths: RIP, hit a good 70cents per wear over 6 years.

Remaining wardrobe overall stats:

• 108 pieces being tracked
• 24 items below $1 per wear
• 57 items over 5 years old

I half-heartedly wanted to not purchase any new clothing this year, but in fact did buy 13 new items:

• A blue knit crop tank in Montreal: $35 ish?
• Several items on Taobao, 2 mockneck layering pieces and a qi-pao collared satin top: $70 ish?
• Uniqlo and Mame Kuroguchi collab heart neckline top and 3d mockneck knit: $75
• MM6 bias cut skirt, a very impulse buy in China: $500 ish
• Nanushka faux leather pants, because windproof: $280
• Vickyyoung cream pants, technically bought ages ago on Taobao but only got it now: $25 ish
• MaxMara coat, my HG: $3578
• Zara shearing jacket, probably the only leather jacket that suits me: $90
• RM Williams wholecut chealsea, an impulse buy to match Rashik's but am wearing quite frequently: $700
• NB754 to replace my stan smiths: $91

I'm going to again half-heartedly commit to not buying clothes for 2024, because I would really like to pay off a bigger chunk of the mortgage when it renews in 2 years.

lodestar

I started the gatherer relics to motivate myself to play more, and did manage to finish my first one! Fsh isn't soooo bad, maybe 1-2hr per stage depending on your luck. I'm pleasantly surprised by the relic questline tho, it's so heartwarming. Definitely needed that. 

Would definitely like a commission with Lakeland landscape, it remains my favourite location in game visually. 

grape

Slowly getting back in the swing of playing XIV. Otherwise irl has been busy.

Took a few days but we finished the Sil'dhin Subterrane:

omphalos

I feel very blessed by all the information we got on the ancients in the raid and alliance raid quests hnnng.

lunar subterrain

It took this long to catch up to msq...but at least I got a cool background for it.

Now to gather the will to do the alliance raid x20 and finish a few relics welp.