More ennui

 Sorry I haven’t posted in days hahahah. Trying hard to get through the last few days of summer job before school starts again… 

It’s been rough because I’ve been out of school for 10 years, and I’m planning on trying to get into a program with pretty limited seats, so I’ll really have to lock in. I don’t even know if I even know how to study. I’ve been a burnt out gifted kid since, oh, age 10 or so…

In kinda exciting news, I grabbed a used thinkpad for schoolwork and I’m planning on getting it all set up with a hot pink skin and fun stickers and… Linux???! We’ll see how I like Mint, it seems pretty nice and easy! But I for sure don’t want another windows machine in my life and I’m sick of the iPhone/iPad life under the weight of Apple’s whole planned obsolescence schtick… so maybe this is the way forward?

Arjava is finished???!

 Well, until I decide to sand and dye her again— because while this time was better, it still not 100% there, you know?

Still pretty happy with how dramatic this version of Arjava is. Really want to make Arjava her own profile page— dunno why but I wanna make a real edgy something for her. Spinny skull gifs, flames, everything.

Welp

 When Waifu leaves and I get the kitchen cleaned up, it’s back to the dye mines. Very nervous, have been really looking forward to this for the past week.

The sublime triumph of using a square pan for tamagoyaki

 

Today my life has been changed forever.

Green onion and pickled radish onigiri, ginger apple hijiki, and… what’s that? The world’s most beautiful tamagoyaki? Yes, yes indeed! You see, we went down the housewares aisle at Mitsuwa when we went last Sunday, and we picked up their cheapest square tamagoyaki pan.

When I first started making bento, I pored over as much YouTube as I could, and saw all these bento wives cooking the whole meal in the little square pan… and later, I saw them using these square pans to make the perfect rolled omelettes/tamagoyaki. I was like, “there’s no way it makes that big of a difference.”

Today I made the most beautiful tamagoyaki of my life, with coarse mustard and nori flakes. I wish I’d gotten pictures of this thing unsliced and fresh out of the pan. Jesus Christ. It looked like it was crossed between a perfect restaurant pancake and a bar of solid gold.

I’m not ever going back to making tamagoyaki in round pans.

Cool things coming

Sundae doesn’t know how she feels about her new nose yet… and I plan to do some troubleshooting on that tonight.

 Also putting together a doll dyeing tutorial soon that will just sorta compile all the weird tips and tricks I’ve heard over the years.

I’ll also be testing a new dyeing method I was told about, which involves these big mesh laundry bags, and seeing if it works!

I don’t know, it makes me sad that a lot of the tutorials I followed when I got in the hobby are either long gone or hosted on Den of Angels, which I know isn’t super accessible place for people. So even though my tutorials won’t have any new or revolutionary information in them, I hope they’re at least helpful to someone out there who can’t access DoA and doesn’t want to dig through YouTube or social media posts.

Miso pork tenderloin bento

Here’s what waifu has today! We went to Mitsuwa (a Japanese supermarket) yesterday so bentos this week are gonna be a lot of fun. For today, I made her egg musubi, nori bell peppers in sesame oil, and miso pork tenderloin with kumquat garnish! We had the miso pork last night and it was way better than the last time I did it.

Studs for Lychee

 

Dunno how I feel about these studs on his ear yet!

I also got Arjava’s dye stripped off this evening! Let’s go! I got lots of really good tips and advice for my next dye attempt… hopefully it’ll go alright!

So there’s a few little stains here and there… maybe that won’t be such a bad thing. I know it’s unavoidable to some extent… Nothing tests my ocd tendencies quite like dyeing a doll, unfortunately.