Marsden is Here

So, 2024. We've kept our heads above water but little more. Ever in hope of the bulk of D's inheritance actually arriving which has seen delay after delay. It means we've periodically shifted into house-hunting mode as with D's youngest, R, coming to live with us ... in less than a week now ... and D desperately needing more studio space we have outgrown this little house. We're poised to put the property the market (contract signed etc) as soon as we have somewhere else we can offer on. We've seen a good number of places that would work excellently for us, or be they mostly at the very upper end of what we expect to be able to afford, and sales in that space have been slow so I'm confident we will be able to find somewhere.

The landscaping on this property has been done, just lawn, gravel and a little wall along the back bank, thanks to a loan from parental unit which will be paid back when house is sold.

Work this year has been solid, no dramas. The NDRI prescribed by my new doctor seems to be working, I've been able to keep focus a lot better although this hasn't actually increased the number of hours I can manage :( But I'll take writing better code that I'm more confident in / happier with as a win. I've also had more energy for chores around the house in the mornings, though not a lot more mental/emotional spoons outside of work.

Gaming - not much, in person anyway. A short campaign at the beginning of the year while A was in the country. A couple of visits to J & T's. Mostly it's just D and I on BGA, Terraforming Mars mostly with Wingspan, Seven Wonders Duel, or Race for the Galaxy when we don't have enough time/spoons for TM. D gave me Masters of Orion 3 for Xmas so we had an actual computer game that we could play together, the MOO games are exactly one of my cups of digital tea so I may lose more time to that on single player than I should.

Family-wise - D & I had our big trip to Sydney, and we'll have been married 5 years in two short weeks. On one of the boys' visits down R discovered that D keeps all his cards and drawings and stuff and had a bit of an epiphany about how much his Mum loves him (and a consequential emotional overload episode). That's contributed to him expressing his desire to try living/schooling down here for at least a year. E has had a bit of a roller-coaster year including more diagnoses, but has really blossomed in/from their drama group and grown in confidence overall.

We lost Gytha of course, which was a big blow to all of us. It was a bad year for pets - I lost count of how many friends and acquaintances also had to send fur-children over the rainbow bridge.

D has continued to go from strength to strength in her quilting with more exhibitions, more prizes (including a viewers choice), and of course Epilepsy's acceptance into the Houston International Quilt Show. We did manage to raise enough funds to send her there, I'm very proud of her receiving 3 out of 3 funding applications as well as very grateful to everyone who contributed to the GiveALittle. Once she actually gets the write up posted on her website I'll come back and link to it. She had an intense and inspiring time.

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I have taken the work shutdown as holidays again this year, and intended to take it easy. In actuality my time has been mostly taken up with end-of-year administration, reinstalling 2 PCs and 2 laptops (so far) with slimmed down versions of Windows 10/11 in anticipation of increased household computing needs, and "spring" / pre-sale cleaning and clean-out, and I don't feel rested /at all/.

E is at their father's for Xmas/NY so D & I have theoretically had a quiet couple of weeks together. In actuality between our body clocks running almost completely opposite hours at the moment and a mutual lack of spoons we haven't seen as much of each other as we would have liked, nor to get out and visit friends. D has spoiled me with dinners and baking though <3

in the trough that is Neverwinter Nights.

Finished my old game yesterday. There's something ironic about beating Mestophiles to death with a morning star that I took of Maugrim when I killed him (again) in the afterlife. That was only because the 1d8(?) divine damage on the weapon was the only thing I had which penetrated his defenses!

(Tamilla being a scimitar critting sneak attacking machine of doom doesn't work when he has immunity to both crits and sneak attack, DR of 20 and all the elemental immunities - even with +10 scimitars :( :( )

So today I have a new character. Trying out a mage this time. Starting with Shadows of Undrentide. So far, so so. Level 4, relying heavily on the hellhound familiar (breath weapon good!) and the companion.

Have stopped for the night, needed to eat, need to go and do the grocery shopping or I don't have lunch tomorrow.

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Computers, like cats, can operate crossdimensionally; the trick is in getting them to do what you want.