- Make at least 10 blog posts during March.
- Reach Level 70 on at least one more character in World of Warcraft.
- Play and write about two games for #MusicGameMarch.
Play and write about one title purchased in February 2023.- Play and write about one title in my Itch.io library.
Participate in the group review of the March Humble Choice.Spend at least 10 hours gaming on the Steam Deck in March.Read / listen to at least four books.- Watch at least one new-to-me movie.
- Watch at least one new-to-me series, mini-series or season.
- Finish the crochet scarf I’m currently working on.
When I was putting my March goals together, I was trying to go at least a bit easy on myself. Clearly, I did not go easy enough on myself. The balancing act of trying to keep goals manageable without running out of stuff to do during the first week of the month is currently on hard mode because I haven’t yet fully adjusted to working four days a week, and only barely starting to shift other responsibilities off my plate to compensate for the energy-drain of that.
I continue to be in awe of the chronic illness sufferers that manage to balance a full time job, household responsibilities, and still find little pockets of time & energy to pursue hobbies. I don’t know how y’all do it. Which is to say, if you’re one of those people handling it all, and have tips to share, I’m all ears.
GAMING
The only goal I feel like I really hit out of the park this time around was hours played on my Steam Deck. I more than doubled my original goal, re-playing the entirety of 10,000,000 and You Must Build A Boat. I’ve also played through more than half of AuroraBound Deluxe, and a pretty significant portion of Potion Permit, absolutely none of which I’ve blogged about.
On co-op night, we finished up The Survivalists mid-month, and dove directly into the recently fully released Sun Haven immediately afterwards. I enjoyed Ephemerid: A Musical Adventure for #MusicGameMarch, which was short but lovely. Unfortunately, I didn’t do nearly as well with Shrug Island – The Meeting, which I bounced off of fairly quickly.
I also finished up the entirety of the Mystery PI series of hidden object games, and played a bit of the Early Access game Cygnus Enterprises, which is a mix of a base management game and an action shooter RPG, which I picked up this month on a whim. This month looks like it was one of those unsatisfying dabble-in-everything months, but really, I was completing a bunch of shorter titles.
World of Warcraft
Our guild finally finished up Vault of the Incarnates this month, and we’ve killed Raszageth a few times now. This is the point in the tier where my guildies start to itch to take down a few bosses on heroic, and where I usually dip out of our main raid until the next tier. I feel like I’ve completed the story of this chapter, and I don’t have the patience anymore for harder difficulties for a chance at a couple more item levels.
I’ve (mostly) kept up with completing profession weeklies as well as Aiding the Accord on four characters, and I made some progress leveling up my druid. I’ve been distracted by the new Forgotten Reach content that came out with 10.0.7 and it’s looking like all my alts – current and future – will be able to go into 10.1 well dressed and mostly prepared for what comes next.
Gaming Related Spending
There were far too many good bundles during March, including one on Steam which netted me 12 indie games for under $10 which I couldn’t pass up. I also grabbed the Humble Earthquake charity bundle (although I only redeemed a handful of titles), as well as the Humble Heroines bundle. I rounded that out with a three-game bundle from Fanatical, as well as a couple of specific game purchases. Add into that my Humble Choice and World of Warcraft subscriptions, and all in all, I spent $127 in gaming related spending during March, and I still feel like I got a bargain.
Other Nerdstuff
Reading
I didn’t manage to finish any audiobooks this month, but I read through five titles on my tablet. After being somewhat unsatisfied with Within These Walls by Ania Ahlborn, I decided to move back to thrillers and mysteries for the rest of the month. Everything else I read was good, but If We Were Villains was the highlight for me. Who knew I’d be so enthralled with some theater-kid dark academia?
Stitchcraft Etc.
I very nearly had nothing else for the Other Nerdstuff section – I don’t think I even turned my TV on this month, so no watching at all. However, I was browsing /r/Cross-Stitch, and noticed that their theme for this month’s stitching contest was “Less than 300 Stitches”. It seemed like a good way to shake off a little bit of the rust, so I adapted a quick pattern from a perler bead pattern I found online, and stitched up a tiny Toy Story alien.
It only took about 90 minutes, and while it has yet to inspire me to get my butt back in the chair at the crafting desk, it has made the prospect a little less overwhelming.
Sometimes, I’m downright embarrassed by how poorly I react to change, and how difficult it can be for me to find my way through things. As far as that is concerned, March was more of a success than I truly expected – I’m finding my groove slowly but surely.
Nerd Girl Thoughts 