Yrae Chronicles

Merry Christmas, my lovelies <3! It would appear I've left myself to another massive life update. Again. I swear to g this will change next year. But we'll get to that. I have a couple of months to catch up here yet.

So. October was the last update, eh? Cool beans. The biggest thing that happened was Gran, the old battle-axe of the family, 98 and a half years old, finally passed on. We've all been halfway-expecting her to make 110, certainly a hundred, but despite that it wasn't a major shock. I mean, how much of a shock can it be at 98 and a half years old? She fell over back in September, on the way back from posting her marriage equality postal survey, and broke her shoulder. From there she went to hospital, and whether consciously or unconsciously, we figure she just decided it was too hard to get better and so just said 'bugger it.' She moved through to respite care, which then became a nursing home, and despite all her medical stuff saying she was about as healthy as your average 80-year-old, she stopped eating and drinking and just faded off. Peacefully, in her sleep, one of her dear sons holding her hand... literally couldn't have asked for better (except that she wanted this like ten years ago, but that's her problem).

I haven't cried. I figured out this is mostly because I can't feel sad for her. Like I say, she was healthy right to the end, still living at home until she'd fallen, pretty much her decision to die anyway, peacefully in her sleep. Everyone dies. I don't think it's possible to die better, so good bloody on 'er, I say. Also, she's been preparing us so well for this. We've always openly joked about her age and death and everything with her, usually with her being the one to bring it up, so yeah. Go Gran. More power to you o7

The marriage postal survey happened! Which was a massive waste of $120 million but it had a MASSIVE turnout of 80% of the voting population, of whom nearly 62% voted yes, the law should be changed to allow same sex couples to marry, and rainbows exploded all over the country. The whole campaigning process was toxic, with the no campaigners basically running nothing but a fear campaign, saying boys will start going to school in dresses and that goddamn argument about the baker not being able to refuse to bake a cake for a gay wedding that just will not die, and 'Safe Schools' coming back and warping kids' minds about what sex and gender is... It was all just so hateful and unresearched and wrong. I was so scared it wasn't going to go through. I'd hoped for more of a landslide, but it was enough for the pollies to recognise that most people DO want this to happen, so yay. Fiiiinally, by the last week before Parliament knocked off for the year, the law was passed and more rainbows exploded across the country, so we'll start seeing our first gay weddings in January, I believe. WOO! 23rd country in the world but we got there in the end.

At work, we've been doing 'Lunch and Learn' sessions, about improving out salesmanship skills. I hate all these things. I've had so many workshops at this place that show me how to be a better salesperson. I am not a salesperson. I am a graphic designer, but we've had absolutely zero upskilling for graphic design. I just learn by doing and observing what's going on with other design around the place. I have one workmate who's a graphic designer, and honestly he's more programmer than designer. How much programming and salesmanship does a graphic designer have to do in an actual graphic design studio? I genuinely have zero idea. What, exactly, is involved in professional web design? Do I have to know the coding or do I just design it and palm it off to a code monkey to make it happen? No idea. Maybe I can figure this out .-.

Anyway, sidetracked. I had a sales win! After seven years of people trying to shoehorn me into a sales role, I actually did a thing. Someone rang up asking first for envelopes, regular DL and DLX for machine inserting. Except that their machine was broken, so they'd have to do it all by hand. 'Oh, we can do that for you :D' says me. 'We could even print all the letters for you, if you haven't done that bit yet.' So in the end we covered their entire 1200-ish mailout, with barcodes and lodgement with Australia Post and everything, when all she asked for was envelopes. I DID A THING YAAAAY it felt good. Sure as hell not something I'll ever want to do for a living, but nice to have a win.

And now we're into Christmas and holidays and all that entails, YESSSSSS. First extended time off since Japan <3 So Alex has come over from Sydney, we've been to disgustingly hipster cafés for breakfast, lunch and dinner, been swimming in Mum and Dad's pool and went to see Thor: Ragnarok again because it's just such a fun, hilarious movie. Lunch and shopping tomorrow, probably the same on Saturday and NYE on Sunday night with the girls. Woo!

Christmas we've done in three parts, owing to the availability of various persons. Last weekend we were down with the Goolwa connection, because Colin and Laura were with Laura's folks for Christmas Day and one of my cousins had gone back home to Darwin. Second was just the five of us (Mum, Dad, me, Colin and Laura) at Mum and Dad's, when we did presents and a relaxed and awesome lunch from Mum. Christmas Day was back down at Goolwa, same people as the previous weekend with a few extras and a few missing. So, disjointed but so, so much amazing food. We stayed down there the night at Dad's brother's beach house with an amazing view down the South Coast.

And now we're here! This year, I had a diary wherein I wrote lists of stuff to do each month, including a bunch of standard stuff that had to happen every month, and it worked out really well. I got a lot of stuff done each month. Next year, I'll add a weekly list, and on it will be LJ post. I work well to lists, so if I have that on there, it'll get done. Maybe I'll miss one here and there, but at least I won't get so behind as I've been doing this year. No specific day, because there'll always be something that comes up and interrupts it. I kinda want to do a journal, too. After Gran's death, I went back through my LJ and a journal I'd kept when I was 14 and it was pretty fascinating to read back on. The journal especially, because I wrote it without the intention of anyone else reading it. We'll see.

For now, I need dinner.

Merry Christmas, my lovely darlings! I love you all dearly <3 <3

Okay real talk. Really real.

You know my awesome hot chocolate mix with minimal sugar? I want to release it. In actual containers that people can buy and make their own awesome hot chocolate.

I've been thinking about this in various different guises for years. It started out, of course, as, 'Wouldn't it be cool if..?' A year or so ago, in making my online portfolio, I recognised all the different levels of marketing and design involved, from the stuff I already know how to do, like business cards and brochures, through the obvious website and packaging, maybe even point-of-sale stuff. I could make all that as mockup stuff as if it were a real brand for my portfolio.

Over the past few weeks, I've been going to local markets to look for Christmas tree decorations. Brick+Mortar Creative is one of my favourite places in Adelaide. It's part café, part point-of-sale for a bunch of local makers. Almost like a permanant craft market, all really high quality artisan stuff. Ceramics, jewellery, beautiful prints, workshops where I've done a few lettering/calligraphy workshops, and in the last few months, produce. 'By golly, gee whizz, I wish I had the guts to do that.' Except that my artistic talents I don't think are suited to such a place. Pencils and computer art are frigging everywhere on the Internet, and I know I'm nothing special to stand out from that, and graphic design... well, we know the stage that's at.

But last Thursday, I went to their Christmas champagne cocktail party do, which was lovely. Full of the makers who sell their stuff there, including one person selling chocolate she makes. So delicious, dark and bitter and fruity and local and awesome. So I bought a block, and shortly afterwards heard her talking to one of the proprietors. 'I just sold a block!'

And you know what? I'm starting to get the guts. I have absolutely zero idea where to start, so consider this post The Start. The Dream. With things like Patreon and Kickstarter and places like Brick+Mortar existing, it's just that little bit easier to not be scared of failure.

First step is to figure out what's involved in getting started. Legalities... other things... how do you get suppliers? I have my favourite cocoa I use, but could I get something more local? The cayenne and cloves are just Masterfoods. I don't even know where the cinnamon's from; it just came in bulk from Gaganis. What about packaging? How do you get stockists? Do you have to have a factory for this stuff? Who does that go through? Food labelling and what's required there. Start with Business SA and go from there.

Marketing I feel would be much easier, simply because I have some sort of a toe in the water of that. Start with cafés, places like Brick+Mortar. Markets? Maybe, but the face-to-face thing is still scary. But hey, if this is real talk now, really real, maybe that'll happen.

I can so totally do it. Why the hell not? What if I fail? No idea. I genuinely don't know what the consequences of failing are. But on the other side, what if I succeed? Now, that bit I can picture.

"No white, no snow-melt, no ice-bound lakes, just birdsong strung across a cobalt blue void."

Cos sometimes winter does that. I rode down to the beach today, which took all of 25 minutes, got myself a piece of grilled butterfish and chips for one (which, being a fish and chip shop, means two pieces of grilled butterfish and chips for a respectable-sized Italian family) that I ate on the lawn, then walked pretty much the length of said beach over the course of the next hour-ish looking for driftwood. Didn't find any, but I did get a bunch of pretty shells and rocks and a shard of mother-of-pearl so that went well.

GLORIOUS. The only way you could tell it was actually the middle of June was that nobody was in the sea except stupid dogs who'd lost their tennis balls, and all the people were rugged up in jackets and scarves. Much fish and chips on the lawn and kids running around with ice creams still happened, though.

Bummed around GW2 for about two hours when I got home, literally accomplished nothing but just ran around Divinity's... Whatever It's Called going OMG THE PRETTY. I found a sinkhole and a freaking STUNNING city garden and a little... memorial gravesite type place where there were no people and the lag was nonexistent, so that was nice. I will need moar ram for release, tho. One frame per second really doesn't make for great battle experiences. I died on a wurm :<

I've also spent $50 on skin shit to make my bacne go away. I WILL REPORT BACK. In, like, a year apparently. YEAH~ 'this time next year' seems to be coming up a lot in my plans. Looking for a house, full-time graphic design, 74kg/size 12, no more bacne, all of it is 'this time next year'. June will be a big time, apparently. GO ME.

Hot chocolate mix is going well but requires further testing. I've got the cocoa-to-sugar proportions right, just need to figure out the spices.

Now I'm going to reconnect with my formative years and watch Trigun because it's been TOO LONG.