MaeradCase

Thank you! It was exhausting playing for an entire day! I couldn't even run on Monday last week because we were still spent! When Wednesday rolled around we had a laid back table top game night last week, and we won't have a session this week. Hopefully next week we'll be back to Humblewood. As for tonight, my players will resume exploring the vast Castle Ravenloft, and hopefully find a way out. *waggles eyebrows dangerously* Fingers crossed my health will prove stable enough this week that I can resume challenges next week. Breathing has continued to be an issue, and panic attacks are a new bane of my existence. DX

I have so many unread emails from last year's... 😅

Changed my mind - Animal Crossing can wait - I want to go into details. XD

Oh, guys, you must be wondering if the medicine is helping! Bad news: not really, but I think I'm the one to blame for that because I haven't used an inhaler since I was a child with a parent making sure I did everything right, so I took a week to figure out the three things I was doing wrong: 1. That I was breathing in at the wrong moment of the dose 2. That I wasn't getting the full dose because I had to do it twice 3. That I wasn't getting enough medicine because I was using it only when my breathing was difficult, and not on a consistent schedule. So now my lungs hate me and hate the medicine, and taking it makes it hard to breathe, but not taking it makes it harder to breathe, so I'm still taking it on a semi consistent schedule. 😅 Help In better news, I got to see the solar eclipse on my lunch break on April 8th. There was a crescent of the sun still visible at the peak of the eclipse, but the shaded day was still observable, and I had a lot of fun using the glasses to take occasional peeks at the astronomical event. :3 Speaking of events, yesterday was the grand finale for the D&D storyline that we'd abandoned for a few years due to the interpersonal conflicts that would arise at the table every few months. It was worth all the effort we've put in to prepare and play lead-up sessions in the place of our far more pleasant Humblewood game (which has been an excellent return to D&D after a year of other forms of table top games). The marathon covered three different scenes of combat: one at the main gates of the city we were bringing the armies of the world to break into at various points on the perimeter, one in the castle's throne room against Goliath warriors (one of which was the brother of our barbarian/cleric of Bahamut - the brother had been corrupted by Tiamat, but a successful divine intervention severed her hold), and the final battle against the evil emperor whose arcane ritual would serve Asmodeus' purpose. We played from 10 in the morning (when I'd finished setting up the charcuterie spread, and the prodigal player had been fetched), through lunch (pizza delivery, which I made sure to have with a hearty serving of veggies from a tray I'd brought), past dinner (Cidran got BBQ, and I again hit the veggies), until we were wrapping up around midnight. I made excellent food choices by have a diverse variety of fruits and veggies in addition to everything else, and there was plenty to go around so everyone else was having them, too. 🥰 I had a serving each of grape juice, Capri Sun (with ACNH illustrations, otherwise I wouldn't pick Pacific Cooler as my flavor), and a root beer. I used my Hufflepuff cauldron mug (which holds like 18 oz) with plenty of ice to drink water the whole day. 🥳 And I got a bit of stretching in here and there to keep from getting my muscles in a bind. I am proud of my food decisions, and the game was like five sessions stacked atop each other. We had a giant Jenga tower going to show the growing tension of when the emperor's spell would go off, and it waited for the very end where we had a climactic conclusion to the event. 🤯 It was everything we could've hoped for. Anyway, I got to bed at 2 and slept in until 10:30 when my body finally insisted I could not roll over and doze again. I've had lunch, Zemi is curled up against my leg, and I think I'll play ACNH now that I've checked in here. Hope your weekend has something awesome and/or a beautiful quiet moment. Maerad

That checks out. 😅 Wow! That is some amazing insight! 😲 Thanks for sharing it with us! As for your latest update, Sovalis, those sound like good steps correcting the massive imbalance and I'm so happy to hear any improvements are being found no matter how small. Excellent work communicating, and a solid chance for recovery. Love the dice spread. They are gorgeous. And the pool of neon dice is really eye catching. 🥰

I hope this investigation goes well. Finding security in new locations when the present place is compromised sounds like a safe measure to take. Not to mention librarians are so awesome! 🥰 I like the beans and rice suggestion, too, and hope you find a number of fun ways to serve them! ❤️ I'm glad you know there's support for you here where we all are horrified by the people that make ridiculous demands on your sanity and well being.

Rage lift so that the energy has a place to go. 🤩

Agreed. Aside from a milder second round Monday night, I haven't had further issues. But now I have medicine for if I do... especially since it's exercise induced... so I may as well be prepared for the next walk or other cardio I do. 😅 It was! My thoughts exactly. 😂

Well, I chose to go on a walk because it'd been two weeks. I chose the worst day for it because it was muggy af outside. An hour later I couldn't breathe and the warnings on the internet had my anxiety through the roof that maybe I could die. So I went to the doctor and basically discovered that the athletic induced asthma I had as a child reared its head in defiance. 😮‍💨 Dealing with trying to get the prescriptions today. Looking forward to having the medicine on hand if it happens again. Worst April Fools prank my body has ever played. As for game night, I insisted the games must go on so that the fun could commence. I put out the four wrong name cards and let them each pick one. They rolled unheroic stats (3d6 in order) to fill in the blank bits on the character sheets, and that worked brilliantly for a comedic session in which they all split up and went into different sections of the castle the main party hasn't been to. There was a skeleton dance party, a struggle with dismembered hands, a flight from wights, and a cool interaction with a teleportation brazier after speaking with Bellview and Rahadin. Very eventful, very fun. I bought glow in the dark dice because I can't get enough of them. XD

Right? 😅 That would be brilliant, but I stuck to the occasional hot shower, the frequent hot lemon honey water, and a steady dose of DayQuil until my symptoms finally abated that by Friday I dared to go to work without a mask. This weekend was spent doing nothing so that my body could finish recovering. Small injuries inflicted by the cat are starting to heal now that my immune system can bother with anything else. Cidran and I have plans for a mostly unusual meals this week. Yesterday, I made Hawaiian chicken using a flavor packet I got that we then ignored a few months. Tomorrow I will prep carnitas in a crockpot to have for dinner. We also have plans for pork tenderloin and salmon dinners. All very good, and not our usual beef choices. Fun! D&D tonight is cracking me up because our last session two weeks ago the sensible cleric's player couldn't show up. So this week, instead of continuing where we left off, I am going to surprise them for April 1st by having them run four commoners encountered by the party near the end of the session. 😂 As for the Wednesday night games, we ran Part II of the Siege on Truthenholt despite my being mid-recovery. My nearly assassinated bard holed up and took charge of the military response. To participate in combat, I ran a really cool dwarf monk NPC whose weapon was especially strong against the devils that had invaded the keep. Very cool. This week, after confirming our characters all survived, we're taking them to attack the island taken over by the forces of the Abyss. Probably another two-parter to see how our fight changes the tide for the forces of good leading up to the big finale game. Now that I have the energy to poke around, I may explore what everyone's up to presently. Hope you're having a good day! Maerad

+ Thank you The period cleared up eventually. Fortunately before the sneezing began. Yesterday I stayed at home despite the new boss saying she'd rather I show up. I showed up to work today wishing I wouldn't, but recovered enough to be able to do so. My ears are so stuffy that my teeth hurt, a symptom which started yesterday and only cleared up for the duration of a very steamy shower. 😮‍💨

🥲 Not too great. Period cramps ruined my week starting Tuesday and a chest cold has been trying to kill me since it began developing on Friday. If I weren't currently in continual need of slumbering recovery, I could probably tell you about D&D and other things, but my brain has not the resources as my body is redirecting all energy to militarized internal defense. 😅

Oh no! Is this with the coil or au naturel? That's frustrating though That's my body as is. 😣 It's kind of stupid about my cycle. Yay! 🎉

Me every f*n month 😤 Glad to hear that it's going away, though. 😃

Tangents are where all the fun stories are. 😉