#3700s

i changed my phone background today while helping my mom finish up the quilt top.

jayvik ruined my life, so now i can curse at them every time i open my phone.

edit: the source is fanart! by @net-prophet here on tumblr who is also @/togatapunch on twitter. i have reblogged the original and removed it from this post.

anyway.

mom and i eventually went out today, but it was legitimately so cold that i wore a jacket out of the house, along with long socks, boots, pants, and a long sleeve shirt. and i was comfy. damn.

i love when it's blustery.

but also the lighting of the sky this afternoon, the wind and the clouds and all of it had a sort of liminal feeling to it that i can't really place. because we live in the northeast us, the days are fairly short now, which means that even going out at 3pm means the sun is far lower in the sky than it should be. it's beautiful, really. this is my favorite time of year.

we stopped for food and snacks and stuff to make us less cold. really we just needed to move the car from its resting spot on the new driveway pavement - what nobody tells you about getting a new paved driveway is that you can't park in the same space for more than 24 hours for six months, AND you shouldn't try to turn your tires while still. it's wild.

coming home we figured out food for thanksgiving and then went directly to making dinner. shepherd's pie. one of my FAVORITE things. so i'm excited to have leftovers. it's one of like two or three things i'll eat leftovers of, of a dish that was fully assembled before it was refrigerated. tacos are something that needs to be assembled, so are tuna and chicken salads. pasta salad can be eaten right out of the bowl in the fridge because it's supposed to be cold, so things like that don't really count since they're different.

anyway.

dinner was delicious. after dinner mom and i watched a few episodes of ncis since we haven't found another or different show to watch.

all day, in the meantime, i've been scrolling through twitter or talking to my sister and yelling about arcane.

i yell.

i got to talk to leo a little bit this evening. i talked to joel earlier. tomorrow i'll get to see joel after work. leo i will see next weekend.

today was a great day! (it's my birthday! ☺️)

unfortunately because i was so exhausted last night, i woke up with a really sore throat that's lasted all day. i took some ibuprofen about it and was sure to drink water but i was snoring last night so it made my throat miserable. yeah.

i got to sleep in! i woke up around 10:30 or so. i knew i had to get up and shower, so i went to do that.

i did wake up to a happy birthday text from both joel and leo. that was nice.

when i went downstairs, i saw all the things i'd intentionally ignored the night before while coming in late - the table was set in purples and pinks and there were balloons and flowers and it was really really nice. my mom always decorates really nicely. it was the first time in a while that i didn't decorate for a party for myself.

once showered and dressed and ready for the day, i went to help my momma with the cooking. we made hand pies and a salad for lunch but to put things in the salad, we needed tomatoes! so i took a box and went out to the garden and picked a bunch of tomatoes. it was an absolutely perfect day - perfectly comfortable with a very light breeze. sunny and bright. i brought them in and they were fresh and juicy and flavorful and generally delicious.

we were making the primavera when people started arriving. in my family, we have family parties for people on the sunday nearest their birthday, and since mine was on a sunday, we got to have it today!

the food was delicious. it was nice to have everyone there to celebrate.

when i'm given cards with things in them, i ignore the things in them in favor of reading the card. cash, checks, gift cards - i will read the card first and then assess. when i was younger i got too distracted by money and didn't finish reading the cards, but no longer.

i was given a good chunk of change so i can save it for any move that occurs.

after eating lunch and socializing for a bit, i was tired, so i went upstairs. i was actually a little chilly, so i grabbed leo's sweatshirt and put it on. i took a nap wearing the sweatshirt, and it worked wonders tbh. i slept so well.

i woke up four hours later or so.

i also immediately started texting leo. he was at work and it was around 8pm so i was happy to talk to him.

i watched some more of the flash with my momma and ate some of the leftover mochi donuts from my date with leo. it was really nice. they were so good, too. and it turns out i like cinnamon, but i don't like apples or sticky food. because i got a cinnamon one and it was so good.

after a bit of watching with momma, i went to bed. i continued talking to leo.

good lord.

the last, like, 36 hours have been so fucking stressful.

tw: friendship problems, toxic friendship. end marked by a meme or something.

new year's eve has been decent.

woke up cuddled with leo and happy as a clam. he's been so affectionate and it's wonderful. i love it.

we went for breakfast at the red arrow, like usual, and we got chicken tendies. delicious.

after a bit of a sad goodbye, i went to manchester to work with nancy. we worked on a project for her nutrition course, which was interesting.

after we were done with that, nancy pulled out a little motorbike that was given to her now-three-year-old son for his birthday. and i built the bike. neither nancy or her husband or their kids could figure it out.

after that i came back to joel's, and eventually i filed for unemployment for the week and was chillin.

joel finished work around 5, and we left around 6pm to get a few things for joel's friends house. was a good time, too.

we watched the ball drop and then made our way home shortly thereafter.

and after showering i am in bed with joel and i am very happy.

today was nice.

i got up and took a shower and got dressed and headed home to check in on my momma. she hasn't been feeling well. and i wanted to grab a bunch of stuff to go see leo and for the trip with joel and the idiot squad.

so i went and grabbed stuff and then headed to a bunch of stores to grab gas and juice and some vodka and then an hdmi cable and then it was off to see leo.

and it was so nice!

we spent a long time just being present together and just. making each other feel good.

for dinner we went to get hibachi food. at first, leo wasn't doing great but as soon as the chef started spinning an egg, he was so invested in it. and it was a great time, and i looked hot asf.

it was a good time.

and then we came back and played some speedruns on some games, and i played balatro a little bit, and we played smash and i won a round this time! it was a lot of fun.

today was another day.

joel and i had plans to get lunch and go shopping with the idiot squad for the trip this week, so eventually i got out of bed and took a shower and got dressed.

there were six of us who went to costco together and we got a bunch of food and ingredients and snacks for the trip. i also spotted this chicken burrito bowl thing? which looked SO GOOD, so im gonna get a bag of corn chips to eat them with because that would be really good.

it's always fun to hang out with the idiot squad. i'm excited for the trip.

after shopping with them, joel and i went to the mall. joel wanted to find some gifts and i was tasked with returning a bunch of stuff to bath and body works by joel's mom. i did so successfully, which was nice. i didn't have to have the card, which i didn't have, so that was good. after the mall, we went to barnes and noble and found a few things for gifts.

when we went home, i got a little depresso. a bunch of things just ganged up on me at once, and thankfully joel was there to kind of keep my head above water. it's a lot of shit all in my head at the same time and i'm very frustrated with it all. but i don't have almost any control over it, so i have to not worry. even though i do. and i will.

anyway.

joel and i also played a round of arkham horror this evening. i had a muffin for dinner at almost 10pm.

i've been talking to leo on and off all day, but he's been fairly busy, so it's more been off. but i get to see him tomorrow. i'm so excited.

today was christmas with joel's family! the numbers i expected went from 10 to 8 to 6 to 7. the actual numbers were 6. john, lisa, me, joel, renée, and wade. nice and small but still enough to be festive and fun.

we spent a while coming up before renée and wade arrived, and i wrapped the final gifts for lisa and the last gift i had forgotten in my car for john.

when they arrived, lisa made bread and ham and french toast and bacon and it was so good. we then opened gifts together, and it was nice seeing people's expressions when they opened the gifts i gave them. renée and wade were entertained by the giant reese's cups and grateful for the gift cards. lisa was super surprised by the three bottles of body wash that's her favorite but is out of production. john thought the vintage d&d dice set was super cool (to be fair so did i). joel was unsurprised but grateful for the tokens the arkham horror (and we can now play with them!) hell yeah homies).

i received mothman socks, a fuzzy throw blanket, a squishables plague doctor backpack, a larger travel backpack that'll be good for having my laptop with me (and would be ideal for going back to school), and a set of really nice noise-cancelling headphones. i figured out the headphones, put them on, and wrapped myself in the blanket, and i was the coziest and happiest autistic person along the eastern seaboard.

so comfy.

we stayed around and talked for a while before renée and wade headed out again. when they left, joel and i came downstairs and while he reattached his desk, i briefly messaged leo, who was having a very busy shift, and took a nap.

i woke up with an alarm a while later, still with hip pain but a little better rested. joel and i need to figure out dinner, and so while i tried my best to tell my brain i could eat something other than applebee's, that's what it wanted. so we went to applebee's and got half-priced apps and a sodie pop (thanks leo lol) and some dessert. it was really nice.

and since we got back, we've been lying in bed chilling. but joel is definitely sleeping now. he's a decently heavy sleeper, but i'm always afraid of waking him up to the point of me becoming a light sleeper. i wake up at a lot of things if i don't dig into the deep sleep that my body desperately needs. (which i rarely get.)

regardless, i spent time with joel, talked to leo for a good portion of the evening, and am now in bed with a snoring joel behind me and an aching hip acting up.

did you know it's very easy for me to get overwhelmed?

if i have more than two things to do and haven't written them down, i will either forget them or have them swarming in my skull like the gray in zaun and kill me slowly. so i get overwhelmed.

i had like seven things to do today and i had a timeline to follow that i had to stick to.

so i did my best and went at it. and by "went at it," i mean i did none of it before leaving the house the first time and did all of it afterward.

i left around noon to bring something to my aunt and gramma before going to lunch. i brought over some money for my aunt and my cousin who was to visit today, along with a box of cookies for her and a gingerbread house kit for aunt wendy, boo, and gramma to make together.

i rang the doorbell and aunt wendy greeted me at the door, ushering me inside and a great big smile. it was nice to see her up and about again and looking more like herself. gramma asked me if i wanted a slice of pie. usually i'd say no, but (1) it's my gramma and my aunt and (2) it was pumpkin pie. i am physically incapable of saying no to pumpkin pie.

(gramma's pies are the best as long as she remembers the sugar.) (she did.)

yknow sometimes when you go to a place and order pumpkin pie that it's not always delicious out there crust isn't sprays good out there put itself isn't creamy enough or is too grainy? you don't get that at gramma's house. the pies she makes have perfect, flaky crust and creamy, delicious filling that have the perfect texture. the same is true for the pumpkin pie i had. just a perfect piece of pie that wasn't too soft and wasn't too hard and had the right amount of moisture in the crust and the right amount of spices in the pumpkin. it was literally the perfect piece of pie.

but savoring the pie as it deserves made me a little late. i didn't mind. the pie was worth it.

(i also slipped my aunt two andes mints from my wallet while at the table with gramma. gramma didn't notice at all. aunt wendy and i laughed.)

and just before i went to leave, i helped aunt wendy out to the curb to toss the bag of trash she was taking out. she told me something that the nurses at the hospital had told her: that when she was in the emergency room, the young lady who looked like her daughter who stayed beside her was kind and pleasant. she has no memory of it, that much is certain, but i think it's more important to be loving, especially when someone isn't going to remember it. i am grateful that's who i am as a person, the person i have spent so long becoming.

my aunt cried and told me how grateful she was that i was there and how happy she is to have me as a niece. i gave her another hug before i left. my aunt is so special to me and is so important to me. i love her so much.

after leaving gramma's house, i met kristen for lunch today at the diner we frequent, and it was so nice to just sit down and spend time with her. i know my mom and dad are sick, and i haven't wanted to be sick because of my plans for next week, so i wanted an injection of vitamin c to keep the sickness at bay. so what did i order with my lunch?

hot chocolate and a chocolate frappe.

not quite the OJ i intended to get, but eh. it was good.

but we sat and talked for a while, and it was really nice.

when we went to leave, she handed me all of the little tootsie rolls the diner gives you like olive garden gives you mints.

and when kristen left, i moved my car to accomplish one of my tasks in the daylight: breaking down the giant box from my office and taking everything out. what an annoying task. fairly terrible. but i did it. i broke down the cabinets and the box and pulled out all of the tiny tchotchkes from the bins and put it all in a bag. that was that. and i went home.

i put all of my laundry away, ran a load, realized i didn't have to have that laundry with me at joel's, packed a bunch of dresses from the cold weather pile, gathered all of the gifts i needed for joel's family christmas tomorrow, and then grabbed my stocking contents (candy) before leaving for joel's.

i stopped at target and picked up a ton of shit while i was there - candy, more candy, more candy, some red bulls for joel, some wrapping supplies, and a knitted stuffed kirby. it was in the wrong section. i saw him and knew i immediately needed to get him.

And i got myself a new silver purse because it's cute and fits my wallet nicely.

i stopped at pressed cafe for dinner, right next to target. i got a tuna sandwich because that's what i was feeling, and the bread was so good. it's a seven-grain bread and since it's a panini it gets pressed (hence the name of the cafe lol). i got chips with it and a fresh squeezed orange juice, finally fulfilling my desire for the day - i drank half of it and decided to save the rest for tomorrow. all of it was goddamn delicious.

i made it to joel's and went to wrap gifts. however, i had been talking to leo all day and was stupidly horny, we're not going to talk about my actions here even though leo loved it

but getting to talk to leo was nice. he'd had a long day and was fairly tired, so he went to sleep shortly after i talked to him. but i got the gifts wrapped and done and went to bed.