Hello all! As we dive into the heart of summer, I figure it’s time for a bit of an update on how I’m spending my time these days! Who is the enigma that used to be “Kristina Horner, Chief of the Unicorn Warriors”? The more time passes, the less I feel the need to project my life onto the Internet, so forgive me for extreme periods of quiet in between updates. If I’m being honest, the bulk of my time has been spent working at Mixer, writing a book and doing yardwork. But here are some recent standout experiences you might be interested in.

Cool experiences I’ve had:

As I’m sure is no secret, I love things like escape rooms and immersive theater. Most recently, I had the good fortune of getting to try out an experience called The Confidence Game put on by Cat & Canary. It was unlike anything I’ve ever done before, sort of a blend of an escape room and live immersive theater. Joe and I called up our friends Tara and Alexander — because when it comes to both experimental theater and breaking the law, they’re the first people we’d go to.

The Confidence Game puts you at the heart of the story. The experience happens in real bars, parks and hotels in the city, where you meet up with a hustler who enlists you to take part in a tricky diamond heist. From there you’re expected to negotiate, pickpocket and straight up lie your way through the story, interacting with talented actors who will make you remember why you aren’t a criminal in real life. That shit’s scary, man.

I’m gonna be honest, parts of this were terrifying for me. Not terrifying in the “I fear my life is in danger” way, but in the “my friends are really good at improv and I’m better with a paper and pen and time to think” kind of way. However, when we had to split up into the “thieves” and the “hustlers”, I of course was nominated for the negotiating team. I would probably have made a better pick-pocket in hindsight, but I like to challenge myself, so Alexander and I set out to negotiate “no less than $50,000” for the diamonds with an actor, while Tara and Joe got to do the sneaking around.

My favorite part of the night was when Alexander and I were intercepted by the Feds (another actor), who tried very hard to get us to sell out the guy who put us up to the job. I think my “acting” skills really shone here, when my only response was to keep asking Alexander where the cameras were, as I was “sure we were being punk’d on our anniversary night out”. We told the guy we were just two country folk in town to celebrate, and had no idea what he was talking about.

Overall we had an amazing time, got to live out some criminal fantasies and ultimately played through the experience in the manner that involved none of our party ending up being ‘arrested’. All things considered, a pretty successful night. While this experience was part of a soft launch for the company, they should be bringing it back a bit later in the year, so keep an eye out! Cat & Canary also create custom experiences for special events, so if you can convince your work team to do something like this, or want to plan an epic surprise party… keep them in mind!

Games I’ve been playing:

Well, obviously…. Wizards Unite. I’m a Professor, and loving the experience of playing in the wizarding world like it’s my real world. But despite all the cool new features, and the fact that a bunch of my friends are finally interested in playing an expansive AR app game, it just doesn’t compare to my one-true-love, Pokémon Go. I’m still deep in that game, because — obviously — I need to be the very best.

I also recently played Scythe for the first time, then played two more games shortly after. I really do like crunchy euro-style games, but sometimes I look at a table like this and I’m like… yeah. Maybe I’ll do something else today.

But I powered through the learning process with this one, and I’m so glad I did! So far I’ve played three different factions and had varying success with each of them, and have plans to start the campaign version soon.

Homeowner things I’ve learned:

Homeownership is an adventure, guys. It’s something new every day, I’m finding. Here are the things I’ve learned just since moving in in April. It’s hard work but I am having a blast and I can’t wait to keep learning forever.

• How to install drywall screw anchors, an electric drill, impact driver, hedge trimmers, a weed whacker, lawn mower and our new grill
• How to identify way more plants than I used to be able to, and also how to weed/trim/prune a lot of them (and which ones are weeds)
• How to grow tomatoes, mint, rosemary, strawberries, blueberries and cucumbers (sort of, there’s a lot of guesswork here but nothing has died yet)
• That there are all sorts of amazing products that make life easier like simple hose attachment switchers, table cloth clips, hose water timers, and all sorts of other magical things I have yet to buy at the hardware store (I love finding solutions to problems I didn’t even know I would have! People are brilliant!)

Projects I’ve been working on:

The biggest project is my book. I’m STILL working on my Renaissance Faire book, but I am really hoping this current draft is the last one. Fingers crossed, y’all. That said, I won’t have anything to share for a hot minute, but I hope I can start pitching it to agents…. sometime soon.

I’ve also kept this mostly under wraps for now, but I am working with my friend Liz Leo on podcast that we should be launching very soon. I believe we’re aiming for the start of August for a go-live date, so keep an eye out. Signing up for my mailing list or just following my social channels are the best way to keep up to date with any exciting news like new podcasts.

I’m also doing a wardrobe challenge right now on Instagram called #wearitalljuly, where you must wear through your entire wardrobe before you can do any repeats. This is part of an effort I am doing to minimize how many clothes I have, so wish me luck and follow along!

That’s it for me, folks! Feel free to send encouraging words about the writing process, or just say hello on Instagram and Twitter! Until next time… stay motivated, and stay cute.

What a year, man.

Since the wedding, and my incredible trip to Japan, and being laid off, and a record-breaking NaNoWriMo, and getting a new job, and taking on a freelance writing project, and buying a house, and moving… I’m honestly not sure I’ve taken a breath the whole year!

Now that we’re in our new place and I’m just sitting here on the bed, thinking about the future and what’s next… I’m not even sure what to do with myself. Hence, a blog post. It’s always good to be a little introspective when you’re not sure what you used to spend your time doing, am I right? What do I do with my hands?!?

So, let’s recap.

First things first. I’ve been at Mixer for 5 months now! I kind of can’t believe how fast the time has gone. I’m learning a ton, and it’s particularly fun to immerse myself in the streaming world, since my own background is so YouTube focused.

This job has afforded me the ability to travel to PAX South and East already, which has been a really great opportunity to get back in the convention scene. I’ve even run into a number of people who used to watch my videos while at these events — which was a funny experience for my coworkers to witness. One girl came up and told me that my videos meant a lot to her when she was younger (^_^) while I was talking with one of my Mixer partners — after the girl left he turned to me, eyes wide, and asked, “Who are you?”

*wink* Just your friendly Microsoft Partner Account Manager!

Beyond work, so much of my time since January has been spent on buying a house. Joe and I have known for a long time that it was something we were interested in doing, and there’s something about being married yet still living in the rental you’ve shared with so many roommates that just… doesn’t feel like you’ve fully taken that next step. So we started searching in earnest right after the holidays, and thankfully the whole process only took a couple of months! Moving is always a bit of a nightmare, but we’ve successfully landed on the other side, and we’re so thankful.

Now the fun part: decorating!

Now I’m just excited to figure out what’s next! We don’t have any MASSIVE plans coming up on the horizon, so for now… I’m excited to put my feet up, pick out a new couch, and figure out what to do with the fact that I now own a backyard. Am I now a person who can grow actual food out of the ground? Can I buy a slide ‘n slide? Do I have to learn how to mow the lawn?

In my very immediate future, I have the following fun things to look forward to (and hopefully write about!):

• This Saturday, April 27th, is Indie Bookstore Day! That means that a group of friends and I will be taking the indie bookstore challenge, which includes visiting 21 unique bookstores in a single day. I am so pumped, and there will be a blog post chronicling our adventure.
• Next Wednesday Joe and I are packing our bags and taking a long weekend to go to Iceland! This is a place I have always wanted to go, and we’ll be spending our first wedding anniversary there!
• I’ve got two camping trips, two weddings and hopefully a writing retreat planned already for the upcoming months. But I’m really keeping my fingers crossed that it will be a chill summer.

That’s all for now! I just wanted to get back in the swing of things, since part of moving for me is going to be centered around building some new/better habits. I’m really trying to set my new spaces up in ways that are positive and productive, and I’m excited to keep you all involved along the way.

Until next time!

Something about me that’s always been true is that I am, without a doubt, a dreamer. I’m always thinking ahead to the future, making plans, setting goals, and feeling more inspired than I have time to be. I’ve got an extensive bucket list I’m always adding to, I’m always juggling about three too many project ideas, and there never seems to be enough time in the day to do everything. That’s why, now that I am in my thirties, I decided to take a step back and make myself a nice little top-ten list of the most important things I want to accomplish in this life time. That way, next time I am feeling overwhelmed, I can use this as the razor by which I evaluate how I am spending my time. Does what I am doing bubble up into one of these buckets?

I’m always looking for good ways to really focus in on what’s important to me, because time is our biggest non-renewable resource. So here’s where I’m at, in terms of what I want to do with this one glorious life I have:

1. Publish a book (the traditional way!)

This is always the top of every list for me. It’s something I totally have within my power to make a priority, but it’s one that gets pushed down by other things that might feel more immediate, more flashy, or just plain easier. I need to buckle down and just get something ready enough to go for it. You only get one debut novel, yes — but after that, I feel like the biggest obstacle is taken care of. There’s something scary about “your first book”. I want to conquer this fear to pave the way for my second, third, and twenty-fourth book.

2. Celebrate a 50^th wedding anniversary 

Maybe I’m getting ahead of myself here, since we haven’t even celebrated our first wedding anniversary — but this is something that matters a lot to me. I want to make my marriage a priority and work on it every single day, and never take it for granted. I want to be in love for a very, very long time. I want to be adorable little wrinkly old people who know each other better than anyone else in the world. I want to have one big massive joint 80^th birthday and 50^th wedding anniversary party because all three will happen within 6 months of each other. I just know we’ll get there.

3. Give birth to a child

I’m not making any strong goals about number of children or anything like that — I just want to make sure I experience natural birth at least once in my life. I’ll be honest, the whole idea is a little terrifying to me, but I am fascinated by the idea that my body was built with the ability to make the choice to do this. That my body already knows how to do this. The fact that I could make a little human is incredible, and I’m starting to feel it in my bones that I’m meant to do so. I’m not quite ready… but someday. 

4. Visit all seven continents

I just feel like this planet is too beautiful not to try to see as much of it as I possibly can. So far I’ve been to Europe and Asia on top of the obvious North America. Hoping to go to Australia later this year, but that leaves Africa and South America. And I’m not ruling out Antarctica. There’s a cruise that leaves from Ushuaia, Argentina (the southernmost city in the world) and takes you up close and personal with some penguins. Someday, I’m going to be on it. I’ve also never gotten over that time I got second place in a contest to win a trip to Antarctica, so amends must be made.

5. Live somewhere else for at least a year

Sometimes I lament the fact that I grew up in what I fiercely believe is the best city, because I never saw myself as a person who would live in the same place all her life. I guess I moved from the suburbs to the city when I turned 20, but ultimately that wasn’t really a paradigm-shifting move. I love Seattle. I love how liberal it is. I love how tech-driven and nerdy it is. I love how much there is to do, how many of my friends live here, and how green it is. I love that we care about recycling, and not using plastic shopping bags, and how temperate the weather is most days. I want to raise my family here. Because of all of this, I would love the chance to live somewhere else — just for a little while — to have a completely different experience.

6. Start my own business

For four years I was a freelancer, and I made plenty of money — but that felt like “getting by”. What I’m talking about is dreaming up a concept, putting together my business plan, and launching something. I have a lot of different ideas swimming around in my head, and someday I just have to take the leap. I haven’t had a lot of extra time or funds lately for an extensive side-hustle (particularly while planning a wedding and then searching for a new job), but once I get a bit more settled at my new job, some of these back burner ideas might get more love. I just want to keep making things. 

7. Own a home

This is something that I’ve been thinking a lot more about, especially as Seattle has taken its spot as the third most expensive city (in the US) to own a home in. It beat out New York City and Los Angeles, which… I’m going to be honest, sometimes keeps me awake at night. Anyway — despite all that — I still wanna do it! I want to feel like a little plot of land in this big wide world is mine. I want to paint walls without asking for permission. I want to live through a messy remodel. I want to have a tiny little garden, and have to learn how to unclog a drain, and have a place to put a couple boxes of Christmas decorations. I want a place my future kids will be excited to come home to when they’re grown up because they have so many fond memories of the place. I want a place that really feels like “home”, because we made it that way.

8. Voice a character in an animated show or radio drama

Okay this is the only thing on the list that’s a little silly, but it’s something I’ve always wanted to do. I have dreams of being cast in a cartoon web show, or some sort of radio drama, or just writing and performing my own narrative podcast. I’ve done a good amount of acting, and plenty of singing — but I’ve never just straight up done voice acting. I’d love to help bring a character to life. It just sounds fun. It’s my one frivolous selfish goal on this list and I just think about it all the time. 

9. Create something wild just because I want to

This is a bit vague, and possibly could be tied in with many of the goals above (#6 and #8 in particular) but someday I just want to invest in something outrageous just because I can. I’m talking like rent a summer camp and make it a writing retreat space for adults. Buy a house and turn it into an Airbnb that looks like Hogwarts. Turn a whole wall of my house into a 1:12 scale dollhouse and fill it with miniatures. Put on some kind of crazy performance in an abandoned space and sell tickets. Fill my yard with rubber ducks. I don’t know, man. I want to be like that guy in Seattle who turned his house into Diagon Alley for a few months and then let people come look at it. I can’t afford to do any of this stuff now, but someday. Someday I want to make something really outrageous just because it sounds fun.

10. Live a life without regrets

This one is obviously a bit more conceptual, but I’m really hoping the end result of #1-9 in this list is that I ultimately achieve #10. I am a person prone to stress and anxiety. I want to do a lot of things. I cannot do all the things. So my biggest goal is to be intentional about how I spend my time, to create things that matter, to love deeply, and to share my life with people who make it richer and vice versa. I want to look back on my life and know I spent my time in ways that bettered the world, or fulfilled me personally, or at least made other people smile. I want to learn to be happy about the things I choose, instead of always wishing there was more time for “something else”. 

So that’s my list! My thirties have already held some of the biggest adventures of my life yet, and I’m so excited to try to tackle more things on this list. Which of my goals are yours as well? What other life goals do you have for yourself? I’d love to hear from you in the comments! 

The closer we got to the end of 2018, the more I felt that nagging desire to write some kind of “end of year blog post”. And yet every time I sat down to do it, I just… couldn’t. This past year was big. It was hugely transition in many ways, from gliding into my thirties, hitting many large positive and negative life milestones, and altogether having a sense that I’ve been doing the same things far too long and needing to take on new things.

While on the surface I’ve very much adjusted to living a life without YouTube in it, there’s still a huge part of me that is recovering from that lifestyle, and still grasping to find ways to fully fill the holes it left. It’s easy to keep doing things because you’ve done them for a long time. It’s brave to stop doing things when you realize they aren’t adding value to your life anymore. It’s scary and hard to figure out what to replace them with.

But every day is a new opportunity to reinvent yourself, and there’s no deadline. 2018 threw me some serious curveballs, but I like the direction my life has taken, and I want to keep exploring what else there is out there for me. So I’m going to spend some time looking back on this past year, and then think a little bit about my plans for 2019. As always, I thank you for joining me for any of it,

2018. We didn’t always get along, but boy were you an important year: 

• Got married to my best friend on May 4th. 
• Completed a lifelong goal of visiting Japan, on our honeymoon. 
• Learned to snorkel in Hawaii!
• Came home from my honeymoon to find out things were not going well at work. 
• Became the casualty of a company-wide reorg and lost the job I loved. 
• Got laid off for the first time ever. 
• Spent many months job searching and interviewing for so many jobs that I genuinely lost count (probably at least twenty).
• Went on many amazing trips like Disneyland, NYC, and San Francisco with friends, and a solo Chicago trip for work. 
• Took my spontaneous road trip to North Dakota while being unemployed and got to spend some quality time with relatives. 
• Finally started my book inspired by North Dakota, which became my 13th NaNoWriMo win.
• Also spent most of the year working on another book project that’s pretty close to what I’d call a “first draft”. This will be my first non-NaNoWriMo draft of a book.
• Taught myself all sorts of random new skills while being unemployed since I can’t sit still, like: sewing a quilt, embroidery, building miniature things and some minimal baking. 
• Finally got a new job at Microsoft, and started my exciting new role with the Mixer team as a Partner Account Manager in November. 
• Read 30 books, which is actually quite low for me, but a number I felt good about for wedding year. 
• Realized that with my new job and new marriage and fun hobbies and great friends I am genuinely just so happy, and cannot wait to see what this next year will bring. 

The start of the year was a whirlwind. I loved our wedding, but I hated what planning it did to me. I’m already prone to anxiety and stress, but the months leading up to the wedding were on another level. Frankly, I’m not sure I would do it all over again if I had to. But the wedding day itself… was truly magical. Seeing the joy on the faces of our friends and family really did help to make up for it, and people are still telling me it was the coolest wedding they’ve ever been to… so I suppose all the work was worth it. I’ve already blogged extensively about this, but it’s obviously the biggest pinnacle of 2018 and I am loving married life so, so much. 

I’m not so interested in new year’s resolutions, because I’m already big on habit tracking and basically set myself resolutions all the time… but here are the high level things I want to focus on next year. My values, if you will. 

1. Self-care, and setting myself up for success. By this mean I learning more about myself in terms of what food my body likes, how much water it wants, and getting in better shape, as well as being more mindful and intentional about how I spend my time. 

2. Investing time into the projects that mean a lot to me. Writing. Crafting. Cooking. Mostly writing. I’ve got a project I’m currently working on that I’d like to have in your hands by the end of the year, but we’ll see. I guess my intention for this year is to work harder on writing than ever before, and start to share it, in some form.

3. Travel! This one is a little tough because losing my job and starting over made me zero out on vacation days, but as I slowly start to accrue them again, Joe and I want to do so much traveling. We’re starting to think about larger life steps, so before we dive head-first into that stuff, we want to make sure we’re doing all the things that are so much easier with kids, a house payment, etc.

That’s it! I am in a really good head space going into 2019, I’m happy, I have a wonderful support group in terms of friends and family, my job is new and exciting and challenging, and I am deeply passionate about so many projects I’m working on. The biggest challenge, honestly, is focusing in on a couple things so I can actually do them justice. That’s always been the toughest thing for me because I always want to do EVERYTHING.

So 2019 will hopefully be the year that I do SOME things, and do them well.

Thanks for all your kind words, tweets, emails, instagram comments, etc. You have no idea how much it means to me to hear from you, especially when I’m not “creating content” regularly. I promise I am making things… it’s just on projects that take much longer, and stay much closer to the chest in the mean time.

Happy New Year! This will be a year of positive, intentional change, and I’m already loving it.

On May 29th, I came back to work after taking nearly a month off for my wedding and honeymoon. I was feeling refreshed and excited, ready to get back to my routines, ready to take on my next project. That day, however, I found out things had not been going exactly as planned at work. I found out that most of my coworkers had been living in an unnerving sort of unknown for weeks, due to hallway talk and things said in hushed voices.

On May 30th, an email came out letting us know our org was being dissolved effective immediately, and while no one was losing their job that day, there were a lot of questions that needed to be answered.

On July 9th, after a month of not knowing what was going to happen, my team was laid off – along with a whole bunch of other people we worked with.

A lot of layoffs at Microsoft are interesting because they don’t happen immediately. Though I got the news of the layoff on July 9th, my last day wasn’t set until September 7th. This is because they give you time and resources to look for a new job within the company, hoping you’ll stay. I’m thankful for that time, but what this did was create a very stressful summer, in which I felt a ticking clock constantly echoing in my ears, reminding me how many days I had left to find a new job, how many days until I would be let go for good, how I wasn’t working hard enough or applying for enough jobs or scheduling enough informational meetings.

All I wanted was to leave the stress of wedding planning behind and start the next chapter of my life on a healthy and happy foot, and yet, instead, I stepped into a new pit of stress and anxiety, worrying that if I couldn’t find another role in the allocated 60 day time period, then I must not be good enough.

Well guess what. I didn’t find a new job in the allotted 60 day period.

September 7th was my last day at Microsoft, which honestly felt pretty bad. I loved my job. I loved my team. I loved the work we were doing, and the culture our org cultivated, and I honestly loved being a Microsoftie. I loved the campus. The farmer’s market. The ham and swiss and granny smith apple sandwich I ordered way too often. I didn’t want to leave. I worked hard there for four years, I stopped making YouTube videos, and I leaned into being a ‘career person’.

And then as quickly as it began, it was over. And I’ve learned an important lesson in not counting on anything as a sure thing, not believing anything might be ‘forever’ – and it’s not a fun lesson to learn, nor is it a very optimistic way to approach life. As quickly as I have learned this lesson, I’m trying to figure out how to unlearn it.

Now it’s almost been a month, and I’m in a slightly better place with this whole situation. I finally feel like I have time again, now that the “60 day pressure” is off. I’m still working on finding a new job every day, but I’ve also given myself some room to breathe. Your job isn’t your only defining feature. It does not dictate your value or your worth. I’ve been taking a cycling class. I’ve been teaching myself new crafting skills. I’ve been writing and catching up on shows I never have time to watch and playing Pokémon Go again and cooking, and I’ve gone on a couple of little trips.

I’m going to find a job. I know I have an impressive resume and useful skills, and soon enough I’ll be back at a desk, back to my commute, back to the routine. For now, I’m trying to appreciate this time, and see it as a gift. How often do you get a few months off? How often can you decide to teach yourself embroidery just because you have some time? How often can you schedule appointments during business hours and go for a walk at noon and actually make it to bars in time for happy hour?

Don’t get me wrong – I definitely look in the mirror some days and ask myself, “why haven’t you gotten a job yet? Why did the other people in your predicament find something right away while you’re still floundering?”

But that kind of thinking isn’t helping me. All I can do is keep being brave, keep putting myself out there, and use the time as best I can. No one will be able to look back on my unemployment period and say I wasn’t living it to its fullest.

Now excuse me, I’m going to go learn how to make glow-in-the-dark slime.

I figured it was well past time for me to write some kind of blog post, since my content has been very, very sparse this year. 

Hello! This is me back at work, wearing clothes I bought in Japan.

It’s sort of amazing actually — for the longest time I felt like I had been making videos for such a huge portion of my life that I really didn’t know how not to make videos. I had all these extreme notions that video-making and being a YouTuber defined a huge portion of my existence, and it turns out — that was just bs guilt I was putting on myself.

Once you strip away the false obligations, the needless stress, the sense that you owe people something, it’s surprisingly easy to not do something. As soon as I stopped making videos, it didn’t take me long to get very used to having one less thing on my list of stuff to do. I hate to say this, but I hardly miss it at all.

Here’s something I’ve learned in the past year:

I started seeing a therapist, who early on, asked me to divide up my time into 4 buckets. Work, Family, Friends, and Things for Me. She told me to guess what percentages of time each of these buckets was taking up in my life, and I’m pretty sure I said something that sounded very reasonable and balanced.

Then we actually divided it up, I was shockingly wrong. Doing this was such a strange experience — I kept trying to put things like YouTube, blogging, social media, and costume-making in the “Things for Me” box, because that’s the way I’ve always viewed them. But my therapist wouldn’t let me. 

“Those things are work,” she said. “They belong in the work category.”

“But they not my job anymore,” I argued. “They’re hobbies.”

“But do they take up energy? Do you feel tired after you do these things? Do they drain you creatively? Do they take up time you could be spending on other things?”

I felt called out, I felt seen — and not in the good way. “I like doing this stuff. I do this stuff for me,” I tried again, a bit less certain.

“Do you?” she asked me. “Do you make YouTube videos for you? Do you post on Twitter for you?”

I paused. Did I? Were all of these hobbies, this incredible amount of time I spent making things, was it because it energized me? Or because I felt some sort of obligation to do it, like most work?

When did making internet content become akin to eating my proverbial vegetables?

“Let’s start here,” she told me. “How much time do you spend… taking a bubble bath. Exercising. Watching TV. Coloring. Going for a walk.”

Let’s just say it was an embarrassingly small percentage of my time. But the knowledge that those things do have their place and should take up a percentage of my time made them vastly easier to do. And knowing that some things I had convinced myself were enriching and necessary were just more work I had convinced myself was ~so important~ was… a wakeup call.

So that’s why I’m over 2 months past my wedding, but haven’t posted many pictures, haven’t made a big blog post about it, or even sent thank you cards yet. Because those things are all work, and there’s a time and a place for them, but maybe it’s next month. Or not at all. Or maybe tomorrow. 

Since I got married, here’s what I have done:

• Went on an amazing honeymoon with Joe to Japan and and Hawaii, and we still dream about it just about every day
• Went camping twice, once with my family and once with a large group of friends. On the friend camping trip, we played a lot of board games, and by ‘a lot of board games’ I mean I was part of a group of 4 people who played 7 games of SeaFall over 2 days which probably amounted to over 20 waking hours of our trip
• Found out my org at Microsoft was being dissolved, which catapulted me into a rigorous job search almost immediately upon getting home
• Took on a massive house clean-out project, which has resulted in most of my weekends being spent moving things and rearranging things and throwing things out
• Spent a lot of time with my friends. So many of them did so much incredible stuff for Joe and I to make our insane wedding dreams a reality, and now we’re trying our hardest to repay them by being the chillest, most agreeable people we can be

I’m looking forward to figuring out what my next career step will be, spending even more time on my book, trying to be a yes-girl when it comes to fun things going on with my friends, actually having time to do BookTubeAThon this year, enjoying a few upcoming trips to NY and SF, and of course, there’s this year’s NaNoWriMo. It’s lucky number 13.

Joe and I on a hike in Hawaii.

I’m trying my hardest to get ‘back to normal’, even though I really have no idea what that means anymore. It’s been pretty incredible discovering it every single day, with Joe right by my side.

I’ve had “write a blog post” on my to-do list for a couple weeks now, and I keep pushing it off because I’m just so exhausted.

“But you should do a life update!” I tell myself earnestly, amidst the messy bedroom I haven’t had time to tidy, the work project I’m completely heads down on, the wedding tasks that are piling up, the seemingly endless stream of appointments and engagements and wedding crafting sessions and, like, that one night I got to see Hamilton. I scream it into the void, “the world would love a life update!” but it echoes off the stacks of dishes I haven’t done, the laundry that sat waiting to be folded for two entire weeks, the twenty new emails I got just since I left work an hour ago.

(Hamilton was great by the way).

The truth is, I am barely keeping my head above water.

I’m not saying this to gain any sort of pity, or prove how much hustle I have by wearing my stress on my sleeve, or anything like that. It’s just true. It’s just why I’m ‘absent’ online. It’s just that I don’t have time to blog. Why it takes me over a week to reply to most emails in my personal inbox. Because I don’t even have time to pick up the pile of various random things on my floor that I’ve stepped over every day for an entire month, let alone find ways to make my life sound interesting and cool in a trendy blog way.

This is the place I’m at in life right now! I’m busy! That’s the thing I can yell from the rooftops — I’m 2 months away from my wedding! I said yes to owning a project that was maybe a little bit too big for me right now at work but I am super committed to blowing everyone away anyway! I have to work late some days because I want to! And except for how stressful wedding guest lists are, the guilt associated with asking everyone you know to help, I actually like the wedding planning process. I like finding unique ways to express my relationship in party form. I like finding little ways to delight our guests. I like fabric swatches and schedule planning and decorating. I like planning a fantasy honeymoon for the magical ~other side~ of this process.

I’m doing a LOT right now and I am really over letting myself feel guilty for not ALSO doing things that are arbitrarily self-imposed, like blogging or making videos or any other things I just do because have made a habit of doing so. I’m the boss. And the boss says it’s okay to not do it. The boss says it’s okay to be a girl who’s spending most of her time on her wedding, because she wants to. It’s okay to be a girl who’s putting in extra hours at work. It’s okay to have a messy house because you have other priorities right now and it won’t always be like this.

I am in charge of a massive project at work that’s a huge stretch from my regular responsibilities — and that’s an awesome opportunity to learn and grow. I’m under 60 days away from my wedding day and insisting on making it special and awesome in a dozen ways that all take a ton of time and planning — but will be so worth it. My friends all seemed to turn 30 in the same year and I believe everyone deserves to celebrate their special days in special ways, and I’m so glad I’ve been there for them. There are bridal showers, and bachelorette parties, and wine-tastings, and hours and hours and hours poured into the process of telling the world, “hey world, I love this person.” But I wouldn’t do those things if I wasn’t so excited to share that love with my friends and family.

Plus it’s tax season. That part just sucks, but not everything can be sunshine and rainbows.

My social media accounts are barren. I haven’t made any new cosplays. I’m still writing but only in the cracks of time between everything else, and usually when I find a rare, blissful, beautiful spare moment, it’s all I can do to just fall in bed and watch some TV so I can recharge a little bit. Sometimes I just cry, because it’s all so much.

But I’m doing awesome stuff.

And I can blog about it when it’s over.

Until then, I’m just going to try my best to get 7.5 hours of sleep each night.

So you know what, to-do list? Screw you. I’m not writing a blog post today. I’ve got enough going on right now without your bulleted-list of judgment.

*Crosses “write a blog post” off to-do list*

The end of this year really snuck up on me. 2017 was a strange one. It was a terrible year for politics, for shootings, for climate change, for sexual harassment, for generally feeling happy, and for the USA in particular. And while I had some personal wins this past year, it wasn’t actually a particularly standout year for me in terms of accomplishments or life achievements. It was mediocre, in just about every way.

But in a sense, that feels sort of fitting for the year that put a lid on my twenties. My twenties had some truly incredible moments. But they also had some pretty low lows, and I do feel a bit like that decade of my life had turned into the guest who’s overstayed its welcome. I am more than ready to embrace my thirties. I have learned so much about myself, what I want in life, and who I want to share that life with.

So for 2018, I welcome more than just a new year filled with hope and possibilities. I welcome the next chapter of my entire life.

Living my best life on my recent 30th birthday cruise

• Attended my first political march/protest and made an effort to follow the news and get involved more than I ever have before.
• Started a writing prompt project/community called #Wordbound, which has since fizzled, but I’m working on bringing it back in a bigger and better way that should launch in 2018.
• Have maintained pink hair for the entire year – and learned to go much longer between hair washes! I am comfortably up to 4-5 days, when I used to be a chronic every day washer.
• Spent a lot of the year planning my wedding, though I have a lot left to do (in 2017 I secured our venue, photographer, videographer, attire, asked a bunch of our best friends to be involved, and much more!)
• Made 2 large adult purchases with Joe (a new dining room table and a new couch) which felt really good and made me very excited to continue to make life decisions with him.
• Spent our summer vacations getting to know each others extended families in North Dakota and New York.
• Did a good amount of traveling on the weekends, including a Disneyland trip with my lady pals, two trips to Vegas (one for Joe’s mom’s birthday and one for our good friend Alexander’s birthday), Boston for NerdCon and San Francisco for the Night of Writing Dangerously.
• Went to my writing group nearly every week and dedicated a lot more of my time to writing than I ever have before, which included completing my 12th NaNoWriMo and starting a book I am feeling really good about releasing publicly when it’s finished.
• Read 44 books! I didn’t quite hit my 45 book goal on goodreads (drat) but I feel really good about how much I managed to read this year, especially taking breaks now and then on my commute for podcasts.
• Played a lot of board games, including finishing Pandemic Legacy Season 1. Also did a lot of escape rooms, and I’m pretty sure we solved every room we attempted in 2017.
• Continued working at Microsoft, building my career, and saving money. As many of my friends are quitting their day jobs to pursue their own passions and hobbies and online content creation, I’ve found myself clinging to the very kind of life I used to run from. Stability is so, so nice after a decade of hustling on YouTube. I really am enjoying my job.
• Stopped making YouTube videos, maybe not forever, but at least for now. It’s been sort of a strange year, since I’m not making regular content on any platform really. I made 1 video in the past 6 months, Team Hypercube has been defunct for awhile now, and even my social media has slowed down. I feel personally engaged with my hobbies, but since the bulk of that is writing, most people don’t see it. So I’m quieter these days, but I’m not gone. I want to blog more. I want to take more pictures. But I can’t promise much else.
• Turned 30 years old on a cruise to Mexico with my favorite friends.

 

Kayak tour in La Bufadora, Mexico

Moments after losing “Trivial Pursuit Twister” on the cruise, a game invented by Joe around 1 in the morning

1920’s speakeasy-themed escape room in Long Beach after the cruise, where we got 10th place in terms of overall time

• Actually finish your book to an extent where you feel okay sending it to beta readers and then, potentially, agents.

• For the love of god, start writing a completely different book. (After you finish this one, Kristina. After.)

• Plan an awesome wedding you’ll always look back on fondly, but also don’t let it make you crazy.

• Cosplay, or not, but only because you want to.

• Read at least 40 books. Be mindful of the books you choose to read.

• Continue to de-clutter and minimize possessions/wardrobe. Invest in nicer things, but less of them.

• Exercise. Please. Even just a little bit.

I did! I promise, I did! This summer I discovered virtual marathons so I did a lot of running (I have 4 medals to prove it!) and I did another 5k at work, which brings me to a total of 5 races participated in. My fitbit helped me make sure I was moving around enough each day, and I went to the gym a little bit. Baby steps, but I definitely got more exercise this year than in previous years of my adult life. Next year will be even better.

My resolutions for next year:

1. FINISH A SOLID DRAFT OF ANY BOOK, FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT IS HOLY. I’m not going to put an unrealistic or stressful goal in here about agents or shopping the book around, just finish it. Maybe get a beta reader or two. You can do it, Kristina.
2. Enjoy the remaining 4 months of wedding planning, and remember to keep it about you and Joe to the very best of your ability. By the time you revisit these goals the you will be married and the wedding will be over and that’s pretty powerful to think about right now, so enjoy it enjoy it enjoy it.
3. Read at least 30 books. This is a very low and unambitious goal, but I want to enable time for myself to listen to podcasts and watch TV and see movies, which are all things I never have enough time for. A big part of this goal, really, is to see more movies in theaters, keep up with more popular TV shows, and discover new podcasts. All of this will be in balance with your reading goals.
4. Once the wedding is over, work on at least one of your big backlogged project ideas. Maybe that podcast idea? Maybe the other secret idea?
5. Finish Pandemic Legacy Season 2 and Charterstone within the year. You are only one game in on each of these, but you deserve more leisure time. Have game nights!
6. Do many more escape rooms! I won’t put a number here, but do them all!

Thanks for sticking with me, blog readers. I appreciate it so much that there are many of you who will stick around even if I’m not making stuff constantly. I’ll still share things, of course, but your patience as I try out having an actual real normal human life is everything. Happy new year, internet fam.

I’ve always loved ghosts. When I was in about middle school, I discovered this show called “Real Scary Stories”, which was a show where (if I remember correctly) each episode would discuss the history of a known haunted location and then would let locals share their own stories about weird things that had happened there. I looked it up while researching for this blog post and apparently the show only ran from 2000-2001, which is a real shame.

Watching ‘Real Scary Stories’ was the first time I had really thought about haunted places existing in real life, and being able to personally visit such haunted places. This was especially made clear when one episode happened to take place at a hotel relatively near to where I grew up. Manresa Castle is located in Port Townsend, Washington (about 2 hours away including a ferry ride), and I was so excited by the idea of this place that I begged my parents to take me there.

This is not a blog post about how my parents didn’t take me there, even though they ended up staying at the castle themselves at least twice between then and this past weekend. Mom and Dad, I would not throw you under the bus like that. This is instead a blog post about how when, nearly twenty years later, my mom suggested we take a family trip to Port Townsend, little twelve-year-old ghost hunting Kristina burst from within and insisted we stay at the castle.

And finally – finally – it happened.

Joe is expertly blocking an ugly truck that was really cramping my castle-photo vibe.

On Saturday (after copious amounts of wine-tasting with my parents) we arrived at Manresa Castle. It’s a full-fledged castle, it’s old and creepy, and I was super ready to get my spook on.

Look at this excellent carpeting. They just don’t put carpeting like this in places without ghosts.

The first order of business was exploring. We hadn’t thought to request either of the known haunted rooms (drat!), but we sure as heck were going to go find them. We wandered the hallways, discovered a creepy old laundry shoot (a maid told me it was still in use), and found both the room where a girl apparently jumped from a window when she found out her love was lost at sea (Room 306) and the room right beneath the spot where a Monk allegedly hung himself (Room 302). We even snuck out an open door we found that led to a very sketchy fire escape.

And after a thorough investigation, I deduced that the place was scary because it was old, and creaky, and because we wanted it to be scary – but ultimately we couldn’t find anything that made it scarier than any other creaky old building. Even with the weird carpet. Even with the dusty sitting room. I had been hoping for weird sensations or noises, or things moving on their own, but you just can’t make that stuff happen on command. You can’t summon a weird experience just because you drove two hours and rode a ferry, or because you’ve waited for it for nearly twenty years, or because they charge $200 a night for a room.

It’s a beautiful castle, don’t get me wrong. It’s excellently renovated, each room is uniquely layed out and decorated, and it’s always a delight to stay in a place rich with history. but it didn’t make the hairs on the back of my neck rise. It didn’t make my skin tingle. I wasn’t afraid to be alone in the bathroom brushing my teeth, and no floating apparition woke me up in the middle of the night demanding I pay some sort of blood debt. It was sort of a letdown.

However, that evening after my family had dinner at a delicious Italian restaurant called Lanza’s Ristorante, we gathered at a fountain in town to meet our tour guide for a rousing evening of Twisted History. Let me preface this by saying – if it’s not already abundantly clear by this blog post – I love ghost stories. But even more so, I love learning about the dark history of towns, the seedy underbelly of their society, the unexplained horrors of the past. Whenever I visit a new place and have time to spare, I look for ghost tours, or some kind of underground to explore, or anything that will show the darker side of history. I’m fascinated by it. And Port Townsend is apparently one of the top 20 most haunted cities in the country.

I had no idea! I just knew they had a castle!

The tour was amazing. We learned about how Port Townsend is called the “City of Dreams” because of the early view that it would become the largest harbor on the west coast of the US. We learned about how that dream died when the depression hit, and the Northern Pacific railroad didn’t end up connecting Port Townsend to the ports on the eastern side of Puget Sound. You’ve probably not heard of Port Townsend if you’re not from around here, but have you heard of Tacoma? Or a little place called Seattle?

We also learned about the boom of the 1870s to 1890s, when the dream was still alive. We learned about the impressive and horrifying shanghai-ing racket, the brothels, the drinking. We learned about some particularly shady men notorious for the ways they behaved in town (looking at you Captain Tibbels and Mr. Waterman), and a lot of people whose solution to their problems was to burn down the buildings of the people they didn’t like. We learned about a woman whose throat was slit for trying to shut down prostitution. We learned about a young girl who was accidentally shot in a duel between her own father and her lover. We learned about a woman who was burned alive because she owned a hotel after her husband died and the opposing male hotel owners in town didn’t want to compete with a woman.

Port Townsend has the most colorful history, full of tragic and unexplained stories. Nearly every story we heard was darker and more interesting than those of Manresa Castle, which led me to question how that’s the one that makes it into the ghost anthologies. Manresa Castle was built by Charles Eisenbeis, one of the only well-known men in Port Townsend who doesn’t have a laundry list of horrible things he did to build his wealth. Along the tour, I found at least two other hotels way creepier than the Manresa, one of which I’m dying to stay at next time and one I wouldn’t touch with a ten-foot pole (respectively).

Left: The Palace Hotel, a former brothel, now historic hotel. Right: The Bishop Hotel, another creepy and restored hotel. The owner collects dresses widowers wore to their husband’s funerals.

Suffice to say, the trip was exceptionally fun and interesting, even more so than I could have prepared myself for. I arrived in Port Townsend with very Manresa Castle specific dreams, but I left with an expanded love for the whole city. Everyone I met and talked to was delightful. The food was delicious. The shop owners kind. The man who loves and collects brass bowls enthralled us with his story for nearly an hour. The town was packed with more history than I ever could have hoped for, and with the weekend being so quick, it left me with many more things I want to come back and discover on a future trip.

I’ve even got a few of my own story ideas spinning around in my head, dying to get out. Can you imagine renting a creepy little room in a brothel turned hotel to write a ghost story? I have shivers, thinking about it.

So thank you, Real Scary Stories. Your show may have only run for two years, but the episode on Manresa Castle was a great pathway into a town I have completely fallen in love with, and granted me more ghost stories than I know what to do with.

Booktubeathon is upon us yet again, and I fear I have made a grave mistake this year. Actually, let’s take a step back.

So, as you all likely know, I am participating in Camp NaNoWriMo this month. I set a modest goal for myself, but writing 20,000 words in a month (arguably the busiest of the summer months) is still nothing to shake a stick at. I knew that attempting Booktubeathon and Camp NaNo in the same month would be a stretch, but I’ve never been one to look in the face of a challenge and back away. I welcome challenge. I thrive on challenge.

This was all well and good – totally doable – until I found out about the Marauder’s Marathon. This is a month long virtual Harry Potter themed marathon, which I, of course, signed up for because you can absolutely trick me into exercising if you disguise it as a fun Harry Potter fandom activity. Plus I am trying to be more active, so why not apply a NaNoWriMo-esque filter to running, to make it more exciting? 26.2 miles in a month? A whole month? No problem!

Problem is, it started on the 17th of July. While I was in New York, in oppressively hot weather. Listen, I’m as committed to pretending to be a wizard while I run as the next person, but I’m not going to start my running adventure in 90 degree weather. So here I am, finally home from NY, 5 days behind. But still determined.

Okay. Okay Kristina. Three marathon style events in one month. All overlapping for one chaotic week starting on Monday. Is this possible? You can listen to audiobooks and run at the same time. You can get up early to write. This is doable.

You can listen to audiobooks and run at the same time. You can get up early to write. This is doable.

Oh wait. Your friends invited you on a spontaneous trip to Las Vegas for one of their birthdays starting on the Saturday of your Week of Madness, and you can’t turn down a spontaneous adventure? AND your best friend gets married on August 9th and you’re not only in the wedding, you’re also planning the bachelorette party, which happens right in the midst of all of this?

Guys, nothing can save me now. I um… I may have over-committed.

BUT! Follow me on Instagram and Twitter over the next couple weeks to see if I survive, and in the mean time… here’s my Booktubeathon TBR:

The challenges:

1/ Read a book with a person on the cover: PAPER GIRLS by Brian K. Vaughan
2/ Read a hyped book: MILK AND HONEY by Rupi Kaur
3/ Finish a book in one day: DEAR IJEAWELE, OR A FEMINIST MANIFESTO IN FIFTEEN SUGGESTIONS by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
4/ Read about a character that is very different from you: HOMEGOING by Yaa Gyasi
5/ Finish a book completely outdoors: MEN EXPLAIN THINGS TO ME by Rebecca Solnit
6/ Read a book you bought because of the cover: THE WILD ROBOT by Peter Brown
7/ Read seven books: THE ONE MEMORY OF FLORA BANKS by Emily Barr

I forgot to mention… it would be so nice to have this weekend, this glorious Saturday and Sunday, to get ahead in writing, to do some solid running, cleanse my reading palate with some television, do laundry and relax and prepare for the insanity ahead – but I’m got another wedding tonight and won’t be back until tomorrow. *falls over and dies*

Wish me luck, and please let me know if you’re participating in any of the above challenges. Bonus points if anyone out there is crazy enough to do all three, like I am!