May has been a hell of a month, specially near the end. Not much to say other than that - so let's get into it!

Content Warnings: food, cramped spaces

Woke up to this crime scene one morning. Not exactly sure how Echo managed to pick a fight with my partner Ridley's cactus (whose name is Coffee by the way), and somehow won?? We didn't hear anything during the night and just woke up to Coffee having been uprooted on the window ledge... I'm also not sure how he didn't knock over the vase during the night in the process.... It's a mystery. Regardless, he has been repotted and is back to his old, prickly self!

So last month I wrote about the cross stitch project I was finally restarting and I figured it would be fun to include some shots of my progress over the last couple weeks! I'm really happy with how it's turning out, and although my motivation has dipped a bit recently with a lot of things, I know I'll keep slowly working on it with time. This project has been nice because it's detailed, but still has a lot of large block coloring. That makes it easier to stitch without having to check the pattern frequently to make sure I'm not messing up details or misplacing stitches. It will get a bit more detailed with time, but for now I'm focusing on the easier, blocky parts :)

My birthday was at the end of this month! Didn't do anything super crazy, given... everything. So I just had a nice relaxing day off at home, playing video games (somewhat guilt free). As a surprise though, one of my best friends who lives out of city coordinated with Ridley to surprise me with Mcdonalds for lunch via UberEats!!! This might seem anti-climactic or weird, but back when we used to be roommates with another one of my best friends, we spent a lot of time bonding over getting McDonalds that its just sentimental at this point (and also we just love trash food). It was a very welcomed surprise that made my day even better.

So my dad over the past couple years has migrated from playing racing games on his PS4 to the iRacing platform on PC (that he bought the PC specifically for by the way lol). He absolutely loves it and does really well in the races he competes in! His PC setup has slowly evolved over time, now complete with a full-on racing seat, wheel + mount, pedals and with the newest edition - a full gear shift. I had to visit recently because he had just bought the gear shift, along with a new wheel and needed help setting them up. That was.......... an ordeal for sure lol. It took me 3 hours in front of the computer to get it working but after much frustration and banging my head against the wall, I managed to get it all ready for him.

The funniest thing about the visit though, was where his setup had moved to since the last time I was there. Before, it was in the guest room next to my parents bedroom, but because they're doing major renovations and converting that guest room into an on-suite bathroom, he had to relocate it somewhere... That somewhere was the tiny little room that is randomly attached to the current bathroom, that is essentially just attic space lmfao (thus explaining the photos above). I laughed for a solid 5 minutes when my mom showed me the new setup. Because of the slanted roof, I could barely stand in there and I'm 5'2" on a good day. My dad? Is just above 6'. It's not ideal that's for sure, but for now he doesn't really mind.

As expected, lots of Animal Crossing has been played in our household since release. To make things a bit more comfy, we fashioned a contraption for Ridley so that they can lay on their back comfortably with the joycons detached. The result was amusing to say the least but when their wrists or back hurt and they want to keep playing, it works well enough! It still needs a few modifications, but the prototype was definitely a success.

Boys Update: things are still going smoothly. Echo can definitely get on Spicy's nerves but overall, I think having Echo around has actually brought out Spicy's playful side. Before, he would only really interact with toys on his own time, wasn't a bit fan of chasing things we wiggled for him. But now, Echo's interest in it means he's interested. Echo for sure still pushes Spicy's boundaries on the occasion, but overall Spicy has done a great job tolerating the new dumb baby in the house and I'm very proud of him! I'm hoping as Echo ages and mellows out, he and Spicy can be better pals. He's still very much a feral bastard of a kitten, and Spicy 90% of the time just doesn't know how to handle it lol.