Equals get Eggs

Feels like it's been a lot longer since I last wrote. Not that anything super crazy has gone on or anything!

Last last Friday was my planned Valentine's Day for Hunter. Not much of a plan exactly, but I baked him an apple pie, all from scratch :D Also made him a vector art full-page card. It felt simple, although it'd taken me ages to get it right for him. Apparently, I'm just setting myself up for failure one day with all of these handmade gifts and whatnot. He's going to be expecting this high caliber of gifts forever!

Had our first Iron Gods game on Valentine's Day. We started kind of late, so I was pretty much passing out by the end of the game. Thankfully, my healing services weren't really needed for the bit of combat. I don't remember much of the actual mod's story that we ended up getting to, since we spent a good amount of time in town mucking with each other. I guess that's what happens when there are so many already-formed relationships between character :d Hunter and I are married locals, Balo's also a local but he's a distant cousin of Felix and Sara's, who are half-orc siblings. And then we have two space rat brothers: Cullyn and Bradd. Should prove to be a very interesting game, and I have the feeling someone will be finding out what spices go best with charred space rat at some point...

Sunday we skipped out on PFS to spend all day together (little did we know that was kind of in vain considering the following week o.O ). This was my designated Valentine's Day :d Although, he had already given me his completed gift in exchange for the card on Friday, he still treated the day like it was all about me :D Cooked dinner for me (delicious tortellini!), and we just hung out playing games and cuddling up watching stuff. Fantastic time as always :)

Monday was President's Day, so (apparently) my office was closed :d It also was the beginning of the week of snow and ice! A crazy winter weather storm swept through the valley, coating everything in a nice thick layer of ice! Although, it doesn't take much to get Knoxville to shut down XD Hunter's school (along with all the others throughout the area) we closed all week, as was his work. I was able to work from home all week! This meant until Friday when Hunter's workplace was finally open again, we spent a straight 160 hours together :o My first thought was: and we didn't murder each other! This must be a good sign :)

He stayed again until last night after Pathfinder, which meant outside of him going to work for 4 hours, we spent about 240 total hours together o.O Pretty crazy, but definitely was a really enjoyable time <3

Most of our time was spent playing Divinity (my wizard and his 2-handed magus.) We're finally well beyond anything I'd gotten to before, so it's fun to see all sorts of new stuff :D He also got me into Sins of a Solar Empire. Lots of micromanagement and having to deal with aggressive AI, even on easy mode so I can learn! I've enjoyed it thus far, tho :) Spaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaace.

Hunter and I have gotten into League of Legends quite a bit. I've become quite fond of Twisted Fate, Annie, and Miss Fortune, while he's gotten used to Jinx, Lulu, and Shyvanna. Last night, we were actually the best two players on our ARAM team. I got stuck with Syndra, who I've played before and generally suck horribly with (but I do love throwing my balls in peoples' faces!), and Hunter was Wukong, who he's actually fairly decent with! If only the rest of our team had some balls, we would've won. Oh well :d

Monday night the power at the apartment went off during our Divinity game around 8 at night, and didn't immediately come back on. In lieu of computer games, we decided to play Red Dragon Inn (the proper way, btw ;) ) by candlelight! Was his first time playing, and tons of fun :D The power finally came back on around 230 in the morning, thankfully.

Had tons of frozen water everywhere to play with that week, too! :D

This Saturday, after the majority of the snow and ice that had accumulated over the past week had melted, Hunter and I were invited to our friend from Werewolf Michael's housewarming party. A bunch of people I only know from Werewolf came, including Brock, San, Clown Guy, and Jay. Was a great party, despite us not even playing Werewolf (which was the original intent!) Ended up playing Resistance (which might as well be like a mini-Werewolf game), Red Dragon Inn (I was knocked out before my second turn with half the table, but Hunter won as Zot!), a word/category association game I can't remember the name of, and Reverse Charades. I failed my team twice during Resistance :( and I was on the horribly losing team of Reverse Charades, but we got all the difficult cards! XP

There was still so much slush on the road, that most of us couldn't make it up the hill to Michael's house, so we had to park at the entrance to his street and walk. Also meant that outside assistance was required in order to leave XD

Had a great table yesterday at PFS. Felt like it'd been forever since I'd played o.O Queen Val and Dee Goodguy got to team up together again tho! We even got a new girl on our GIRL POWER team! (Although I don't think he was very happy about it... might've scared him off.)

Emailed UT graduate admissions with a question 2 weeks ago, with no response yet :( Kind of important... but at the very least I should begin studying for my GRE, I suppose :d

Huzzah, taxes are done. Later than I usually like to do them, but that's okay. Someone please remind me one day to never rent property I own ever again. New motto: Just Sell It.

Mike shared a link to Cards Against Humanity online awhile ago. Sooooo addicting!

Kittens love chairs.

"When a guy does something stupid once, that's just because he's a guy. But, if he does it twice, it's usually to impress a girl."

Up like a tree full of cats

So, I feel like a crazy person. Assisted Hunter with his math homework the other day. Nothing intense, but it made me miss math so badly :/ It planted a seed that began sprouting on Monday while I was at work: what if I went back to school to obtain a Master's degree? Aah! I never thought I'd really consider it; what has come over me??

I even started looking into it! Took a gander at the UT Graduate program and catalog. I'd go into Computer Science most likely. I considered Computer Engineering, but I'd pretty much need to go back through a Bachelor's program before being able to even attempt that Master's. I will need to take some math classes; in particular, Calc 1, Calc 2, Diff Eg, and Linear Algebra. I might be able to get away without taking Calc 1 again, but the others will definitely will be on the agenda. I've also never taken an actual programming class, and that's part of the suggested requirements. However, it's my job and what I do every day :d So, I guess we'll see where that goes.

One of the factors in my decision is that work will reimburse my tuition (if I'm not mistaken.) I'd have to commit to my job (oh no, how terrible? And like I'm not already), so that's not a big deal.

I know it's a fantastic idea, but that doesn't make me not nervous about it.

Had a blast at Werewolf this weekend… I even moderated my first game! I was super drunk while doing so, but I was told later that my game was enjoyable :) I'll have to do it again! I'll not include the Chupacabra card, tho. Felix is right: it is quite powerful, and did win in my group (the girl in the photo from the group of 3 in the circle.)

Finished my character's background for the Iron Gods campaign that's starting on Saturday. Hunter may not be able to make it due to work :( but hopefully he won't be there too terribly late.

My character is an Aasimar Cleric of Pharasma: Anna LeBeau. Been working on a sketch for her, too. Maybe if I have one I like enough, I'll share it. Just started one for both Hunter and my characters together, since they're married and everything :d (I'm starting to lean toward getting some nice colored pencils sometime …) Hunter's character is a Tiefling Brawler (Baru Nomad); going all Captain America style.

Anna was born to the overjoyed human LeBeau parents a seemingly healthy baby girl. However, while holding the tiny new life in her arms for the first time, the mother was alarmed at how abnormally pale the newborn's skin was. An oddly-shaped birthmark gleamed of iridescence all along the baby's right arm, which illuminated the otherwise mostly pitch-black room. Her husband quickly reassured her that there was nothing to worry about. The chances of another tainted-blood birth after the Nomad family had theirs here in Torch only two years ago was too low to cause concern. Besides, it's not as though Anna came out of the womb with skin dyed the color of charred ashes.

It was true, the other relatively recent local newborn, Baru, had begun sprouting horns under his dusty black hair atop his tiny head as the months passed after his birth. His fiendish ancestry was on display for the world to see. However, despite having given birth to a tiefling, his human parents were ecstatic to have this child in their life, and they adorned him with unbounded love and acceptance.

As Anna's stark-white hair grew in, the faintest glow of her celestial descendance began to make an appearance as well. Up until the day the traveling merchant made a boisterous comment about it in one of the town's squares, the LeBeau parents had been able to convince themselves that their eyes had been playing tricks on them. To their dismay, this was not the case, and it was immediately prevalent to them and everyone in Torch that their daughter possessed an unmistakable glowing halo floating mere inches above her unnaturally-colored head.

Why this had caused them so much turmoil was a question that floated amongst Anna's thoughts throughout much of her adolescence. Within her veins flowed the blood of angels! How could this possibly cause parents to hold such disdain for their own child? Even the Nomad family unconditionally loved their devil-blooded child, and this only made the pain in Anna's heart sting with greater fervor.

Being in the same relatively small town, and nearly the same age, the two blood-tainted children grew up together. Although Anna was the younger of the two, this didn't prevent her from undermining Baru whenever possible while they were playing together. She unfairly resented him for the acceptance his parents gave him, since she had not been by her own. However, this never seemed to bother Baru. Maybe that was why Anna took to him as she did, as his nature was almost the opposite of hers. Perhaps it was due to his naivety, but overwhelming faith and forgiveness of others exuded from his speech and actions; even when Anna was nearly breaking the bones in Baru's tail whilst attempting to tie it in knots.

Initially in her own naivety, Anna did what she could to prove to her parents that she was someone they could be proud of. While she did not possess any great strength or arcane-based abilities, she found within her a strong connection to Pharasma, who granted access to the divine arts. At any given opportunity, Anna pushed herself out of her comfort zone and into a battle within the war-torn lands in order to provide medical relief as close to the front lines as possible. It was here amongst the demonic conflicts that she and Baru forged an unbreakable bond that would remain with them the rest of their lives. With regard to her parents' approval however, this did little to nothing in their eyes. The day she returned from her last crusade, they looked upon her with the same dissatisfaction they did the day she left.

After the passing of both of their parents (hers undoubtedly from internal grief, and his during a horrific battle), Anna nearly had a heart attack when Baru proposed the idea of marriage between the two of them. She hadn't had siblings as he did, so she associated his proposal with his brothers and sisters having families and children of their own, and his desire to follow a similar life path. Once again that pure hearted goodness of his won her over, when he assured her that was not the case, and that it was instead due to his genuine love for her ever since they were small children.

Even to this day at 74 years of age, Anna is rather unimpressed by her own unique heritage, and does her best to forget about her ever-present glowing headpiece. She has grown accepting of her iridescent Pharasma-swirl birthmark that runs the length of her right arm, and believes it compliments her unnaturally pale complexion well. With her parents gone she has little reason to put her life at extreme risk in order to impress anyone, and spends many of her days as a local Torch medic. However, she was never one to resist a request for assistance...

I think she'll be fun to play! All anti-being-an-Aasimar XD She'll have this lackluster attitude about most things :P Wish I had the time before to write for Brie. Could've made her pretty cool, I think. Oh well! What I really need to do is get my "Call of Cthulhu not Call of Cthulhu" game ready to play, since the table is 2 stain sessions away from being done!

If I was somebody else, would this all fall apart?

#giventimeandmoney

It didn't really matter that I previously decided to opt out of the Pathfinder games that weren't already canceled this past weekend, since I came down with stomach flu! Woke up around 3am Friday with a weird "am I hungry or about to puke?" feeling in my gut. Couldn't really get back to sleep, but still got up at 6 to get ready for work (albeit very slowly.) Drove in, and lasted about 20 minutes before I had to head back home with a fever, vertigo, and nausea :/ Was so sick, I couldn't even play video games. It was terribad!

My kittens kept me company in my sick state most of Friday until Hunter was able to come over and take care of me. Apparently, he's never taken care of anyone sick before, so it was a learning experience for him XD Luckily, I think I'm a pretty decent patient :P

The first half of Saturday, I was still pretty sick and out of it. Couldn't eat normal people food, but I was at least managing to keep some toast and banana down. Was even able to play video games! Got Hunter into Divinity and League of Legends, and he got me to play World of Tanks :D (Been doing our best to keep away from the addictiveness that is Civ BE!) He went melee fighter and I chose a mage for Divinity; should work out well ^^ WoT was interesting. The games are fairly short, especially considering you only have one life o.O Kind of weird in that regard. Wasn't a big fan of how slow the tanks were!.. but I had fun. Will play with him again I'm sure :)

Been awhile since I'd played LoL, and I've definitely never even attempted to assist someone else in learning the game. I'm definitely terrible at it, but hopefully my horribleness doesn't rub off too much on Hunter. I busted out Vi for the first time since purchasing her, and had a blast murdering robot faces! Little did I know that she's apparently a jungler? How is it that I keep picking up champs that are junglers XD Not that that is a bad thing, I guess the game is just telling me the role I'd be best at: staying out of everyone else's way while they murder each other, and just jumping in when I can ambush!

Hunter was a bit uninterested at first; the tutorials kind of suck. But once we got into a 5v5 (even tho it was with beginner bots) he definitely perked up. Took pretty well to Shyvana. There's something about murdering faces as a dargon that just gets everyone excited, I think :)

"There are some good free champs this week in League." - never thought I'd say that :o

A movie I'd been waiting to see came out this weekend: Project Almanac. I know, I know, Michael Bay has his name on it, but only as a producer! That means he just threw money at it :P I'm not one for reading reviews, or really caring what people say about a movie I'm interesting in going to see (much like video games that I want to play!) Early Saturday evening I was feeling a bit better, and my nausea had rumbled down to a minimum, so we decided to go check it out. Wasn't the best movie ever or anything, and I'm a sucker for time-travel, so I thought it was okay. Glad I went to see it, despite the multitude of plot holes. Wish it had been a little longer so they could've spent some time tying up unraveled ends. Oh well!

We had originally planned to have dinner with his Mom Friday night, but since there was no way I was keeping nibbles of wheat bread down, it'd be impossible for normal food. The dinner was moved to Sunday night, and I'm happy I was feeling well enough to attend and enjoy :D She and Hunter's sister, Taylor, cooked up some delicious vegetables, fried shrimp, and sweet potato patties. Even had an apple pie for dessert! Pretty fantastic, if you ask me :)

Thankfully, I was feeling significantly better as Monday came around (despite waking up with what felt like a brick in my stomach.) Went into work, felt alright, came home and waited for Hunter to get out of work so we could head down to Atlanta for the Reel Big Fish and Less Than Jake concert! ^^ Only... we left a little too late.Figured there'd be 2 opening bands, and turned out only to be one. So by the time we got there we only saw the tail end of RBF. However, we did get to enjoy all of LTJ. They were so much better than I remember :D All the nostalgia came rushing back!

Stopped for some Chick-fil-A on the way, and the first one we stopped at happened to be CLOSED! :( Bad picture of the sign, but of course the one day that isn't Sunday that they had to be closed for remodeling was the day we came by :P

I know it's silly to drive to and from Atlanta in one night just for a concert; we didn't get back to my apartment until 330 in the morning... but I think it was more than worth it for the 6 hours of quality time in the car with Hunter :) /gush

Hunter and I made a bet a few weeks back regarding gas prices. They'd been dropping quite rapidly, and he said they'd be 1.50$/gal by the beginning of May. I told him he was crazy, and we bet each other a tank of gas. Was looking bad for me last week when they were around the 1.80$/gal range, but they shot back up to around 1.90$/gal on Tuesday. I may win this yet ;)

Valentine's Day is fast approaching- are you ready?? I'm not :d I've got to finish up my gift for Hunter... ack!

Werewolf this Saturday! Was invited to dinner by Felix beforehand, but Hunter and I won't be able to go. We'll have to buy him shots or something at the VFW in celebration instead :)

Promised a shot of my arm once the bruises from falling down the stairs set in. Looking ever more beautiful each day.

This is no time for caution.