I haven’t written or blogged in five months, and I always say I will start blogging and writing more often because I adore writing, but I don’t know how I stay in the habit with just life constantly rolling. There is so many things I want to do, and never enough time with work (since I always have a personal grudge that the 40-hour work week Monday through Friday is the American norm). I think if I just do a causal blog, maybe I can get into the habits of sticking with certain topics when I have something.

I’m still in my reading girl era, with me bringing my Kindle everywhere! I just finished “The Everlasting” by Alix E. Harrow, which from the description I thought would be an enjoyable read (giving a lady knight, a historian who time travels back to her time, a love story), and I expected to fly through the book, but instead I found it just okay. The time traveling wasn’t what I expected, with it being repetitive over and over again, where I expected bigger differences and more romance but…I couldn’t get into it. I wasn’t a fan of the MMC, Owen Mallory, and kind of found him a bit annoying. The FMC, Una Everlasting, I actually didn’t mind and would have preferred the entire book to be from her perspective. The villain, Vivian, was just…okay (and honestly, I’m on an FromSoft kick so I really just pictured her as a From villain making her x10 cooler than she was). The writing was really well done though, so my problem really was with the story and some characters.

Now that I’m done with this book, I have now started “Mistborn: The Final Empire” by Brandon Sanderson for my book club that I am apart of. I’m actually really enjoying this book, and have been using the immersive reading method because I was able to get my hands on the audiobook via Spotify. I’m only on Chapter 4, but I’m really enjoying the world building and the characters, and I’m looking forward to finding out more about the story.

Once I complete Parts 1 and 2 for book club, I’m going to be starting “Japanese Gothic” by Kylie Lee Baker. I found this book on 2026 Reading Challenge under the AAPI Heritage achievement, because my goal this year was to try and get all of the achievements (in addition to reading 24 books compared to my goal of 12 books last year…which I blew out of the water). The description on Goodreads seemed interesting enough: following two characters, one from the past and one from the present. I really can’t wait to start reading this book because after playing through Silent Hill f a few months ago, I’ve added a bunch of similar J-horror books to my TBR and I haven’t had time to start any!

Speaking of Silent Hill f: holy crap what a fantastic game! I was super wary about buying it on the PS5 because I did not enjoy Silent Hill 2 Remake at all. I want to say SHf was 50% off, so I ended up making the jump and buying it just to give it a try, and I loved the story so much I ended up buying it on Steam as well. The one con I had with the game was the combat, which could get super frustrating and janky at times, but other than that I adored it (and I mean I wish they had more enemies because the designs were great but left me wanting more). The setting and environment was gorgeous, I loved the characters so much and wish I knew more about them, the overlapping story lines were fantastic, and really have me wanting to jump into another playthrough so I can unlock more endings. I am super happy with this game, and so happy I actually decided to play it!

Right now I’ve been replaying Bioshock Remastered alongside my first playthrough of Crisol: Theater of Idols. I thought Bioshock was going to be a fast playthrough, where I could then jump back to The Long Dark to start Episode 5, but it’s taking longer than I expected (between being sick for a few weeks, other priorities and events, and just being tired). I have also been saying this on stream, but I also don’t remember the remastered version being so buggy. I have had nothing but issues on startup for this game, and honestly I can’t wait to just finish it and put it away for another few years.

Crisol has been a lot of fun, though! Originally after seeing the trailer, it gave me some Bioshock vibes, and now that I’m playing it I am having a lot of fun with it! I don’t know how far along I am with the game, and honestly I want the ending to be a surprise when I get there, but I will say I am happy with my purchase of this game! The last game I bought while going off of it giving me previous favorite game vibes (Fallout) was Atomfall, and that was a sore disappointment (and to see that it’s $49 on Steam makes me internally scream because Crisol is $17 and 100x better). I am happy to finally be playing Crisol, though, and have been enjoying the gameplay and story!

Off stream, I’ve been playing Hello Kitty Island Adventure, Yakuza 0 Director’s Cut, and Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice. I’m honestly almost done with Sekiro, I just need to defeat Sword Saint Isshin, but I’ve only got to his second phase once. As soon as I’m done with this game I said I need to order the art book to treat myself because this game has been absolutely beautiful, and has me super hyped for the anime that is coming out in a few months. Fromsoft can do no wrong in my eyes!

Some other fun things have been going to Rockville because Bring Me the Horizon was headlining, so as soon as that was announced last year (or the beginning of this year) Matt had bought day tickets. We got there and ended up actually parking on the track, which was a really cool looking spot, and walked right in with no line. We caught a tiny bit of 3OH!3, and while we were walking back and forth they ended up pausing the sets due to weather. It was a huge gap, but we still ended up seeing Flyleaf, Highly Suspect, Dead Poet Society, Motionless in White, and got a great spot for Bring Me the Horizon. We don’t know if we will end up going again next year, because it’s expensive and since it’s set in May hot weather and rain is always a guarantee, but we will see.

This past weekend I also went on a baking spree, with only one of the three (four if you count me remaking one of them) actually working out well. I attempted to make a s’mores sourdough loaf, which came out terrible because the inclusions all melted during the bulk fermentation so when I went to shape it, everything was mushy. I figured I’d try baking it, because what was the worse that could happen, and it didn’t taste great. I also made a jalapeno-cheddar sourdough loaf, which is my go to and always comes out good, and it honestly baked perfectly. The last thing I made was Subway Italian and Herbs loaves, which the first time I made them came out beautiful, but the insides were doughy and when I went to pull them from the loaf mold it tore, so when I went to make it a second time using a different recipe they came out terrible tasting. I ended up throwing them all away, which was really sad because I wanted to make the Subway order that Matt gets us for the beach on Monday. The only good outcome was I did successfully make the chipotle sauce from Subway, so that was at least another win.

The beach Monday was actually really nice! We went to one that we don’t normally go to, but had to make reservations and pay to park. We got there (after a terrible drive due to almost getting into two car accidents because no one wants to look before they come over into your lane or before they want to try and cut people off), and there was no line to get in, and although the parking lot was starting to get busy, the beach really was not bad for Memorial Day. It was windy, which was frustrating because trying to keep things situated in the wind is a project in itself, but the wind helped it not be so hot! It was a good day!

I’ll try and do more ramble posts from now on, because like I said before, I love writing. I know I also need to update some pages, because certain pages are out of date on things I’ve completed and such. Until next time!