• At least 8 posts for the #JustOnePercent project.
• At least 4 posts unrelated to the #JustOnePercent project.
• Finish leveling at least 2 more characters in World of Warcraft.
• Complete the Mountacular achievement in World of Warcraft.
• Complete the Re-Re-Re-Renowned achievement in World of Warcraft.
• Participate in the group review of the November Humble Choice.
• Read any six books.
• Complete any one stitching project.
• Watch at least a few episodes of Channel Zero on AMC+.
• Cancel AMC+ before it goes back to full price.
• Schedule four Monday Night Movie watch parties.
• Schedule at least two game nights.

Another month that actually looks better in the rearview than it felt at the time. It sometimes feels like every time I get something back on the track I want it to be on, something else derails. I have been putting a high premium on settling my sleep schedule to something that works better for me on the regular, which ended up leading to dropped routines in other places (post-midnight Wordle, I was sad to see you go). More time spent playing video games led to less time at my craft desk. Trying to figure out new social media sites led to less time spent on the blog. Everything’s a balancing act, and I’m forever trying to pile far too much on the scale.

Also, I should have shot for that level 70 goal in World of Warcraft. I made it, with a couple of hours to spare.

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GAMING

#JustOnePercent

I went into the month pretty sure that I was going to end up dropping games, and I think that almost felt like explicit permission to do so. I ended up getting behind and missing the anniversary for Exodus Borealis, and I bounced off Tunnel of Doom, Fantasy Gardens, and He Will Shoot within a matter of minutes. Finally, I decided to swap out Archvale for Aspire: Ina’s Tale so I could cover one more game from my library rather than GamePass.

I ended up making 105 project posts, which once added to the 12 qualifying titles I wrote about before starting the project, that means I played 117 out of 10,967 games released in 2021. I had decided up front to only count games that fully released during the year, but I have no idea how to even begin to calculate how many titles were first made available for sale versus how many were full release titles. Without the dozen prior posts, I wouldn’t quite have covered 1%, but I feel like I met the spirit of the project.

World of Warcraft

Dragonflight prep took up a lot of time this month, but not nearly as much as I expect that Dragonflight proper will in the coming month. I had hoped to level a couple more characters, but between the pre-expansion event, and the adjusted experience gains that came with the second half of the pre-patch, I managed to finish all the remaining classes on my main server. I did however, take a small shortcut; I had a level 50 boost just hanging out on my account, and I decided to use that on my rogue, cutting out 40 levels worth of time.

So, for the first time ever, after having set it as a goal multiple times now, I am going into an expansion with every class at max level! Which kind of took a bit of the shine off of my other goals, but I met those tasks as well.

Mountacular ended up being even easier than I anticipated, and I got it while working on cleaning out my quest log by finally doing the scenarios to unlock the Dark Iron Dwarves and Lightforged Draenei. I had completely forgotten that finishing those questlines rewarded racial mounts.

Re-Re-Re-Renowned took considerably longer. I eventually decided that I’d finish grinding renown on my original four level 60 characters. I picked up the consumable item that would boost them each to level 60, and did most of the rest through daily callings and questing through the Zerith Mortis story. I finished Necrolords in the earlier part of the month, but managed to put off doing anything with Night Fae until just about the very last minute.

Although there’s still some things I wish I had gotten around to, I was overall pleased with the progress I made in finishing up Shadowlands achievements. It’ll most likely be almost entirely Dragonflight for at least the first month or so, but we’ll see if I end up popping back into some older content.

Other Gaming

The biggest chunk of my non World of Warcraft game time this month went into my third attempt of My Time At Portia. I’m about 40 hours into a fresh save, and I’ve only recently passed the point where I usually wander off from the game. Will this be the time I finish it? Only time will tell. It has been several days since I’ve checked in on my builder, but I do expect I’ll get back to it, maybe even as soon as this weekend.

We had a SMITE night in the clubhouse, so I got to shake the rust off a little bit, and I played my first ever game of Settlers of Catan via Tabletop Simulator. I played around a little bit in RoboQuest, so I could do a short write up for UnwiseOwl’s group review of the November Humble Choice. Past that, I hardly even loaded anything up.

Gaming Related Spending

However, I clearly wasn’t deterred in the least this month from spending money on gaming! I had all my regular subscriptions (GamePass, World of Warcraft, and Humble Choice) this month, but I also did a lot of other shopping.

My total gaming-related spending this month came in at a whopping $157 – and that doesn’t even include the expansion, which is part of my Christmas/birthday gift from my husband for this year.

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OTHER NERDSTUFF

Reading

Going back to reading on my tablet before bed made a world of difference this month. In fact, out of nine books, only one was an audiobook this month. I have basically been picking things almost at random from my Scribd recommendations; as far as I can recall, I haven’t read a single book from any of these authors prior to this month. It’s been mostly working out for me, although a few I would consider to be just alright, there wasn’t anything here that tempted me to leave it unfinished and choose something else.

Watching

I’ve also recently started re-watching Gotham from the beginning. I love the first season, I’ve probably seen it four times now. However, I find I quickly lose interest a few episodes into Season 2. I’m not super invested, but it’ll be interesting to see if this is the time it sticks.

Stitchcraft

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This month really solidified for me that I just have too many hobbies. I have a ridiculous amount of free time compared to most adult humans, and I still can only manage to make headway with about half of the things I’m juggling at any given time, never mind the several other things I’d like to be doing or learning, but I just don’t have space for in my life currently. I don’t know how working adults with families – even healthy working adults with families – find the time and energy to do anything at all!

With all that remains of the #JustOnePercent Project is the wrap-up post, I have a nearly empty content planning calendar for the first time since I implemented it. I had hoped for a giant cartoon lightbulb to magically appear and direct me at what comes next, but maybe this is best. Maybe December is a good month to kind of lie low a little bit.

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GAMING

World of Warcraft

Probably my favorite part of an MMO is right when there’s a new expansions. I mean sure, content patches can be lovely, but there’s something incomparable to the time when absolutely everything feels new. I walk a weird path in World of Warcraft, where I like to raid, but otherwise, I am an uber-casual when it comes to end game content. I do as few dungeons as possible, avoid Mythic+ like it might actually kill me, and I almost never do any PvP. Instead, I level alts, work on professions & collections, and old content. A lot of the time, for me, World of Warcraft is a single player game that just happens to have other people in it.

I expect a lot of the next few weeks to be taken up with leveling – both in terms of character XP, as well as doing whatever I need to do to increase my reputation, and really dive into the profession rework. Usually, I spend a week or so fully focused on my main character, and then I start poking at alts. Although I still have unfinished business in Shadowlands (and Battle for Azeroth, and Legion and…), I expect almost the entirety of December to be hyperfixated on the Dragon Isles.

I’d like to have a minimum of three characters at level 70 before the end of the month. More would be excellent, but December is also a month where things tend to come up and eat away at my free time, so I’d rather set the goal on the low side and not get burned out right out of the gate.

Since I mostly have managed to avoid spoilers, as a result, I also really don’t know how most of the systems in Dragonflight actually work, so I’m keeping my achievement goals to things that feel very achievable.

Other Gaming

I’m not sure how I want to set goals for gaming outside of WoW, either, because if I’m really enjoying the new expansion, it will absolutely eat up my all of my gaming time. On the other hand, I kind of want to celebrate being free of the shackles of games I am “supposed to” play by playing some of the stuff I’ve been neglecting over the past 10 months.

Finally, I’d like to do a Quick Look of one of the games I purchased during November, in an attempt to stop buying things and then instantly forgetting they exist, as well as continue to participate in UnwiseOwl’s group review of Humble Choice, provided he continues with it. All in all, I would like to make at least 10 blog posts in December, although I won’t necessarily restrict all of them to gaming topics.

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OTHER NERDSTUFF

Reading

I made an impressive about-face from the reading slump I had been in for months, and now, for the first time in awhile, I’m ahead of schedule to finish 48 books this year. Normally at this point, I’m hunting around for the shortest things I can find that I’d be okay with counting towards my goal, and this year, I’m expecting smooth sailing. In fact, I could be done now if I just finished three of the titles I have in progress! To keep it simple, I’d like to meet my 2022 GoodReads challenge of completing 48 books before the end of December.

Stitchcraft

I’ve recently realized that, even with the copious amounts of free time I have, if I want to make any significant progress in my hobbies, I need to focus on one or two at a time and stop trying to do it all.

I am starting to despair that I’m ever going to finish my works-in-progress, never mind finish them all in time for holiday gifts. In fact, I expect I’ll need a lot of discipline to get even one done in time. I have just under 10,000 stitches remaining for the project currently on my desk – which is about 30% done – and that would take at least 20 very dedicated stitching days to complete. Since that seems less than likely, I’ll set a more modest goal of 66% completion before the month’s end, which feels reasonable even if I work in smaller blocks of time.

I’d also like to do more research into a scroll frame, preferably one that is meant to be used table-top, because my taste in projects has been running on the larger side. I’m already not prioritizing portability in my projects, so a solution that would allow me to see more of my project at once might be motivating.

Other Nerdstuff

I’m not going to set anything in the way of specific goals for either watching or Discord this month, other than to run the December game giveaway. This one should be significantly shorter than the last two, as I’ve decided to skip anything that didn’t make it out of the last chance giveaways during the past two sessions. I will still probably keep scheduling Clubhouse events, including a couple of holiday movie watch parties, but I realize at lot of people are socially overwhelmed in December, and I don’t want to add much to that pressure.

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IN SUMMARY

• Make at least 10 blog posts in December.
• Do at least one Quick Look of a game purchased during November.
• Participate in the group review of the December Humble Choice.
• Get at least three characters to level 70 in World of Warcraft.
• Reach 100 points in at least one primary profession in World of Warcraft.
• Progress in My Time At Portia at least as far as Somber Marsh in the main story.
• Complete the fourth main dungeon in Rogue Heroes: Ruins of Tasos during co-op nights.
• Complete my 2022 GoodReads challenge of reading 48 books for the year.
• Progress to at least 66% completion in my current cross-stitch project.
• Research and consider buying a table top scroll frame for cross-stitch.
• Run the December 2022 Game Giveaway event.

• Twelve posts for the #JustOnePercent Project
• At least four posts unrelated to the #JustOnePercent Project
• Finish leveling three more characters in World of Warcraft (priest, warrior, demon hunter)
• Participate in the group review of the October Humble Choice.
• Play & post about at least one horror game.
• Play at least four demos from the October 2022 Steam Next Fest.
• Read any six books.
• Schedule at least four horror movie watch parties.
• Order the remaining supplies for my 2023 stitching project, and get the floss carded.

October just might be my favorite month of the year, but holy moly it’s full of distractions. Since my Septembers are typically hectic, I almost always need to spend more time on rest in October, and I invariably forget about this in my great desire to use all my spare time on things that bring me joy. Thankfully, one of the things that brings me the most joy in October really isn’t incompatible with extra rest, and that’s watching all manner of horror movies and TV programs, and I did plenty of that over the last several weeks.

But that meant less time for everything else, and I didn’t really account for that when I was setting my goals, but I’ve long since stopped expecting to cross everything off every month.

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GAMING

#JustOnePercent

I did not choose my games well (or wisely) this month. I ended up dropping 5 games in total, four because I just couldn’t get into them after several attempts, and another one (Evil Genius 2: World Domination) because I made the exact same mistake as last month – confusing the XBox Game Pass release date with the game’s actual release date. This after dropping the final three titles I had slated for September felt really bad, but I consoled myself with the knowledge that I still had plenty of games that came out before the end of 2021 that I was still going to surpass my goal in the end.

I think the biggest positive surprise for me was At Eve’s Wake – I’m not a huge fan of visual novels, generally speaking, but this one had me hooked. I did end up wandering off before discovering all the endings, because the more I played, the more the rough edges started to show. It was clever, but not quite clever enough to stand up to multiple back-to-back playthroughs. It’s something I probably never would have picked up if it weren’t in a bundle, so I’m very glad to have discovered it.

World of Warcraft

I definitely played more World of Warcraft in October than I did in September. Partially, I can chalk that up to having more time to play, but mostly, I think, it was a result of having firm goals to work towards. I didn’t do as well with leveling as I had hoped, but Blizzard’s decision to split the pre-patch into two separate events and continue the Winds of Wisdom buff for three more weeks took a bit of pressure off there, freeing me up to spend time on other stuff.

The quest for the Jellycat probably took up the most time – not only did we do weekly raids trying to finish it up before 10.0, since none of us were sure if it was going to be available after that, but most weeks, we raided an extra night. Still, had it gone away with the first part of the pre-patch, we would have been out of luck – when the update came on the 28th, we were one solitary boss away from completion. However, we were able to go back in this past Wednesday, and killed the Jailer, awarding about half our regular raid team with their very own ugly green riding kitty.

I also managed to knock out a few other last minute goals. With the help of my husband and another guildmate, we managed to complete four levels of The Jailer’s Gauntlet for a mawrat mount, and then my husband and I tackled a full set of Flawless 12s to get the Mawsworn Charger. I spend entirely too long hanging out in the Endmire day after day, but managed to finally tame Sinrunner Blanchy and free up a handful of bag slots in the bargain.

Lastly, as someone who usually really enjoys the whole questing experience, I was surprised to discover I’d missed just a handful of side quest chains, so I did not have Loremaster of Shadowlands. I knew I wanted to remedy that before moving on from the Shadowlands to the Dragon Isles, so I knocked out the remaining handful of quests in one night. Oddly enough, I had done just about all of it across the characters I had leveled, but in two zones, no one character had done all of it.

Despite not getting to do everything I would have liked to, I am pretty pleased with the progress I made this month.

Other Gaming

Around the middle of the month, Stardeus finally released into Early Access and ended up being my major single-player time suck for the month. Right now, the early game is fantastic, but as you get closer to the endgame, it starts to lose that wow factor for me. The pace of upgrades, research, and new colonists becomes very very slow indeed, and you’re still only one crisis away from a disaster you cannot possibly recover from. Shortly after reaching the slow down the first time, I ended up losing everything. The second time, it went much better, but that also lead to me losing interest. I’ll definitely be back to check in on it as more things are added and tweaked, but I think I’m satisfied with my progress and understanding of the game mechanics for the time being.

I managed to download and play twelve demos during the October 2022 Steam NextFest, which I wrote about in two separate entries [(part one) and (part two)]. I keep on getting excited about some of the new stuff that’s coming out, but I am also perpetually impatient waiting for things I tried out a year or more ago to become a purchasable product. More and more titles on my wishlist are starting to show dates in 2023 or beyond, and while it’s not like I don’t have anything else to keep me occupied, it’s hard to maintain enthusiasm over such a long period.

On co-op game night, we managed to wring a few last bits of fun out of Card Hunter, before moving on to Rogue Heroes: Ruins of Tasos, which is far more entertaining than the Steam reviews had lead me to believe. It probably wasn’t anything either of us were going to drop full price on, but we somehow managed to both end up with it from bundles or giveaways, and decided it was worth an evening to try out. It’s been quite awhile since I laughed that hard playing a video game. It’s more than a bit grindy, but since our least favorite part of co-op night is deciding what to play next, that’s not necessarily a bad thing unless it gets overly tedious.

Lastly, I managed to try out two of the games in the October Humble Choice Bundle, and give my first impressions of them. Unfortunately, I wasn’t crazy about either game this month, but considering they only end up being around $2 each, it wasn’t a great disappointment.

Gaming Related Spending

The only non-subscription item I spent money on as far as gaming was concerned was picking up Stardeus on release. Add that to my World of Warcraft subscription, Game Pass subscription, and Humble Choice subscription, and my total game related spending for October was only $60.

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OTHER NERDSTUFF

Reading

After almost two months of not having the attention span to read or listen to any books, I may not have made my goal, but I feel like I’m getting back into the groove. Although I listened to The Team while stitching, I read the other two on my tablet. I’d gotten away from print for most of the year due to my tremendously irritating quirk of being unwilling to do just one thing at a time.

However, I’ve fallen into some really bad pre-bedtime habits, so I’ve made the decision to get back into the routine of reading right before I want to be asleep. My goal is to be in bed an hour before the time I’d ideally be asleep for the night, and use that hour to read. Sure, it might backfire occasionally if I’m at an exciting part of a good book, but at least I’ll be staying up too late doing something I actually want to be doing, rather than scrolling Instagram mindlessly, or playing one more level of a matching game on my phone.

Stitchcraft

When I decided to get back to stitching, I really dove in, and for the first time in a long time, managed to both start and finish a project in the same month! Having a whole bunch of movies to re-watch really helped me along, and the fact that the project was only 6 colors and around 3000 stitches didn’t hurt either.

I also got in my (nearly) final floss order in for the mega-project I’m planning to start in the New Year. Somehow, despite having a spreadsheet with everything I needed, and rechecking the order twice before placing it, I managed to miss a single skein of thread when I was shopping. Since I’m not interested in paying for shipping for a single skein of embroidery floss, I figure I’ll put it in with my next order, as I’m likely to need something to break up that 500K stitch monstrosity.

So, every color I need for the project – save for that one – is carded and ready to go. Organized floss boxes are so very satisfying to me.

Watching

I feel like I watched all the things this month. All five titles in the Final Destination series. The first seven movies in the Saw series. I binged the entire sixth season of American Horror Story over three days. I saw Halloweentown for the first time. We watched five different movies during Monday night watch parties. I re-watched the first Puppet Master movie, and the IT miniseries from the early 90s. My husband’s best friend came over one night, and I watched the 1982 version of The Thing for the first time. I binged a couple of seasons of Tales from the Crypt, as well as the feature length Demon Knight. We even watched a few episodes of The Halloween Cookie Challenge on Discovery+.

Somehow, I still found enough time to dive deep into the archives, and do a triple feature of horror movies about video games (as opposed to video game adapations). None of these movies are particularly good, mind you, but this year, every one of them seemed to hit the spot.

Even with everything I’ve listed out, I know I’ve forgotten some things. It was a horror filled month, and it made me wonder why I feel like I need to ravenously consume all of this each October, and then barely indulge during the remainder of the year.

Krikket’s Clubhouse

Just click on the header if you’d like to join in the shenanigans!

Monday nights in October were for the weird, the scary, and the absolutely ridiculous. For the first three weeks, we watched movies I watch pretty much every year. I branched out a little bit for the last two, although Cabin in the Woods I revisit from time to time, it’s not an every October movie for me. Attendance was somewhat spotty, but it’s clear we have enough folks that are into watching a flick on a Monday night that I may try to make this a weekly occurrence. Worst case scenario, it means that I’ll at least watch a handful of movies per month.

I would be absolutely open to getting another online escape room to play, but I think I’d possibly try a different source next time. Both the lack of resolution and the fact that once you play the game, you lose access to it irked me a little bit.

For most of the night, I was sure we weren’t going to make it in the hour time limit (although the game stated that you could play beyond the timer, you just wouldn’t “win”). But we did, with six entire seconds to spare.

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Oddly enough, my monthly “In Review” posts probably take longer to organize and write than anything else I do for this blog. Fortunately, they’re actually probably my favorite part of blogging, and the posts I’m most likely to go back and reread!

I am so far past ready for this entire train wreck of a year to be in the rearview mirror, but we’ve got two more months, and I’m going to at least try to make the best of them. I’ve mostly settled back into more comfortable routines, and although there’s a few parts of my life where I’m still riding on the struggle bus, most days are more or less fine now.

I love a schedule, but once I need to discard the plan and fly by the seat of my pants, re-integrating myself into the world of checking off to do lists and making good use of my time always feels hard. It’s worth it, because once everything is running smoothly, I’m at my best, but I feel like I’ve been huffing & puffing my way through a strenuous uphill climb the last month or so.

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GAMING

#JustOnePercent

Planned games for the #JustOnePercent Project for October are Hammerting, Next Space Rebels, Factory Town, Exodus Borealis, Toy Tinker Simulator, Tunnel of Doom, PCI: Public Crime Investigation, Huntress: The Cursed Village, Fantasy Gardens, Archvale, Wytchwood, and He Will Shoot.

This is one of those times I’m super glad I built myself some wiggle room into this project. Having dropped almost half of October’s games, I still have not crossed the 100-game finish line, but even if I have some issues again this month, I only need to do three of these dozen games for the project to be complete – everything else is extra credit. Because of this, despite having chosen a dozen games, I’m going to set my goal a little lower this month – to cover at least 8 of the titles I pre-selected.

I’ve been finding moving screenshots from the Steam Deck to the PC to be more steps than I want to do on a regular basis, so the only game I set aside for Deck play this month is Tunnel of Doom.

World of Warcraft

Despite some frustrations that came with the pre-patch, I’m fairly certain I’m in for at least the Dragonflight leveling experience. As much as I’d like to set my goal to have a level 70 character before the end of November, that might be a pretty big ask with only two days to accomplish, and the potential for all the connectivity issues that tend to come with a new expansion.

Instead, I think I would like to focus on a small scale World of Warcraft related blog project where I choose a small handful of achievements, some from current content, some from expansions past, to focus my attention on each month. I was surprised how much I was able to get done in October once I set my mind to things, and if I’m honest with myself, chasing achievements and collectibles is one of my favorite parts of the game.

Given that it’s pre-patch, and there’s still quite a bit I’m trying to get used to, I’m going to make this this first batch a little challenge-light.

The Winds of Wisdom buff has been extended through the drop of the second half of the pre-patch on November 15th, so continuing to level alts doesn’t seem like the worst way to spend the next couple of weeks.

Other Gaming

This should be the last time for awhile that I’m going to have to de-prioritize general gaming in order to allow myself enough time to do all the other things on my list (although I expect at least the early weeks of December are going to be all about World of Warcraft). I do intend to participate in Unwise Owl’s group Humble choice review (assuming he decides to continue the project), and I have no plans to end my weekly co-op game night.

Past that, I think I’d like to dedicate some of my Other Gaming energy this month to figuring out if there are any other blog-projects I’d like to start up with #JustOnePercent coming to an end this month. Otherwise, provided I have time and energy, I’ll play whatever suits my fancy.

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OTHER NERDSTUFF

Reading

I am still behind on my reading goals, although I not so far behind that I feel like I can’t get caught up. After a couple of book-light months, my interest in reading has been re-kindled (pun absolutely not intended). I’d like to shoot for six books again this month. If I manage to stick to my goal of reading to wind down at night instead of playing mindless phone games, this is probably very doable.

Stitchcraft

This is another hobby I managed to wrestle back on track during October, and I will be happy enough just to continue apace. I have four in-progress projects (including one that I set up specifically to be a portable project), and I’d like to complete at least one, with a stretch goal of two before the end of the month, which will put me on track to have my plate cleared before starting up my massive project after the first of the year.

Watching

I’ve mostly decided that I want to pick up Netflix again for a month or two, but I’ve been putting it off to make sure I had the time & energy to devote to watching everything I want to over the course of no more than 2 months before cancelling again. I had toyed with the idea of re-subbing during October since a lot of what I am interested in is horror or at least horror-adjacent.

Krikket’s Clubhouse

I really enjoyed having Monday night movies throughout October, and I am fairly sure I’m going to continue on that schedule through November. We even had some impromptu watch parties. But those were the only events that saw much success this past month, so I’d like to try scheduling some party game nights again. I’ll keep my expectations low, however, as with the upcoming holidays, I expect most people will have less time to hang out with their friends online while they are preparing themselves to hang out with their families in person.

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IN SUMMARY

• At least 8 posts for the #JustOnePercent project.
• At least 4 posts unrelated to the #JustOnePercent project.
• Finish leveling at least 2 more characters in World of Warcraft.
• Complete the Mountacular achievement in World of Warcraft.
• Complete the Re-Re-Re-Renowned achievement in World of Warcraft.
• Participate in the group review of the November Humble Choice.
• Read any six books.
• Complete any one stitching project.
• Watch at least a few episodes of Channel Zero on AMC+.
• Cancel AMC+ before it goes back to full price.
• Schedule four Monday Night Movie watch parties.
• Schedule at least two game nights.

• Twelve posts for the #JustOnePercent Project
• At least six posts unrelated to the #JustOnePercent Project.
• Work up a list of pre-expansion goals for World of Warcraft.
• Reactivate my World of Warcraft subscription.
• Read / listen to any three books.
• Pick up at least one core rulebook for a rule-light TTRPG system.
• Finish up current stitching project.
• Decide on my next two stitching projects and order supplies.
• Figure out if there’s enough new-to-me stuff on Netflix to justify restarting my subscription.
• Plan at least six Discord events, with at least one being a new type of event.

Until I sat down to do this, I was sure I wouldn’t be able to cross off a single line item for September. This was an absolute disaster of a month for me, full of health issues, a lot of stress in our household and with extended family. Our car finally hit the point where it was no longer safe to drive, and with everything else going on, we realized we really couldn’t afford to be without transportation for several months, so there was scrambling for a replacement car. All of this was on top of the last couple weeks of September and the first week or so of October being insanely busy for us anyway.

To top it all off, we took in a cat that had belonged to an elderly relative that passed away this month, and I would love to pay the pet tax and show you a photo, but she’s barely come out of hiding when anyone was around. She is eating, drinking, and using her litter box, so we’re trying to play it cool and let her adjust at her own pace, but we plan to continue efforts to integrate her into the household this month.

September was a lot y’all, and I’m not at all sorry it’s over.

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GAMING

#JustOnePercent

Continuing to be slightly ahead in the beginning of the month is probably the only reason I didn’t completely botch keeping up with project stuff this month. I spent the first four days of the month down with a stomach bug, but I thankfully had the first two project posts pre-scheduled. After that, posting started to get spotty, and a couple of times I really found myself scrambling. I never really got my rhythm back during the entire month, and I ended up dropping the last three titles completely (although one – Dandy Ace – shouldn’t have been included in the first place as I noted down the date it was released on Game Pass rather than the date it was released on Steam).

I did a complete play through of both Milo and the Magpies and If On A Winters Night Four Travelers. I had intended to also go back after I did the post and complete The Artful Escape but it was removed from Game Pass before I got a chance to go back to it.

The biggest surprise of the month was how much I enjoyed Gas Station Simulator, considering it was a title I wasn’t overly interested in. It’s significantly more frantic than most of the simulation titles I’ve played recently, and I think that really worked in its favor.

Non-Project Gaming

The only times I’ve picked up my Steam Deck this month were to either play project games or install things I thought I wanted to play, but lost interest in actually playing before the install was even finished. Yep, the whole month was like that – I feel like I was either all in or all out, and I was mostly all out.

Gaming Related Spending

Although I had three subscriptions this month (Humble Choice, Game Pass, and World of Warcraft), September was only a moderately spendy month. I grabbed a BYO Bundle on Fanatical for a whopping $3, and then spent another $15 on the Humble Career Break Bundle. My last pickup for the month was an impulse buy of Slipways on a recent sale, which, you guessed right, I have yet to even open, although I did install it both on my desktop and my Steam Deck. Overall, I spent $68 this month on my gaming hobby.

EVERYTHING ELSE

Believe it or not, that’s the entirety of what else I did this month. On the one hand, it makes sense then that my gaming hours were up; I barely touched any of my other hobbies. I did get some stitching supplies ordered and organized, but I didn’t touch either of my current projects, nor did I set up either of the next couple. With so much else going on, and with stress having a pretty severe detrimental effect on my vision lately, it just wasn’t worth the frustration this month.

Over the last couple of days, I have started attempting to rebuild my routines and catch up on my sleep, so I’m looking forward to a more enjoyable October.

Now that autumn is well and truly here, spooky season is most definitely upon us, and I have dragged my sorry butt through the nightmare that was September, I am – at least mostly – ready to get myself back on this horse. With a new month, comes new goals, and I’m not going to dwell on last month’s failures, at least not until tomorrow’s post.

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GAMING

#JustOnePercent

Assuming everything goes according to plan, I will do post #100 of this project towards the very end of October, which will technically finish the project, although I do still plan to cover another dozen games in November before calling it quits. Quite a significant portion of October’s games are things I grabbed in bundles, with a single Game Pass game, one on Utomik, and a few I picked up individually. This month, I’m hoping to play Subway Midnight, Dogs Organized Neatly, and Time Loader on the Steam Deck.

World of Warcraft

With the release of Dragonflight just announced to be November 28, 2022 and the pre-patch likely coming before the end of October, I’ve realized that I am probably going to have to let go of some of the things I wanted to wrap up in the twilight of Shadowlands. However, with the Winds of Wisdom buff also announced to be making a return from October 4th until the arrival of the pre-patch, I think this would be the best time to work on some character leveling.

I plan to prioritize my priest, warrior and demon hunter to finish filling out my stable of professions for Dragonflight. So far, I have five characters who are currently sitting at 60, so finishing three more would leave me with two characters who’ve reached Shadowlands content (mage and hunter), and two that are lagging far behind (monk and rogue). I expect that it won’t be a stretch to get three more characters through the current expansion content with 3-4 weeks of the experience buff, so that’s where I’ll set this goal.

I’d also like to finish all the shenanigans to obtain Dead Blanchy (if for no other reason than to get all the ghost horse related stuff out of my bags), as well as continue working through The Ember Court on my warlock. I’d also like to start cleaning up the basic Shadowlands-specific achievements that became way easier with some extra gear and a flying mount.

Other Gaming

There’s definitely other gaming-related things I’d like to do in October, but I really haven’t had the time over the past few weeks to really sit down and plan ahead like I usually do, so I’m going to keep the goals fairly general. I do plan to check out a game or two for the group review of October’s Humble Choice (spearheaded by UnwiseOwl). I’d also like to play and write about a couple of different spooky, horror, or Halloween-themed games during the month. I’m also planning to check out at least a handful of demos from the latest iteration of Steam Next Fest, which is slated to begin in just a few days.

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Other Nerdstuff

Reading

For the first time all year, I am behind my annual reading goal, which I’m more annoyed about than I should be. I’d like to get through six books in October to not just get caught up, but every so slightly ahead again. I’m likely going to have to spend some time with either paper books or ebooks to make up the deficit, since I can read a whole lot faster than I can be read to.

Stitchcraft

This is another category where I’m not where I would like to be, so I really just want to make some progress on something this month, as well as order the last of my supplies for next years giant project and get everything all organized. I’ve still got two projects in progress, and two on deck, and I want them all done and in their new homes before the end of the year so I can go into 2023 with a mostly clean crafting slate.

Watching

Yet again, I’m somewhat stymied by the lack of preparation, but October is usually a pretty hefty watch month for me. Since I’m not sure what I’m going to have access to, this is again going to be sort of general. I’d like to watch at least one new-to-me season of something horror, re-watch one of my go to horror movie series, watch at least one new-to-me contemporary horror movie, as well as one new-to-me classic. I don’t see myself getting out and doing any Halloween activities this year, but I will do my best to make up for it in my pajamas with popcorn.

Krikket’s Clubhouse

I plan on bringing back the watch parties this month, which might just mean I’m watching scary movies on my computer alone every Monday night, and I’m pretty okay with that. For the most part, I plan to pick movies I watch pretty much annually, with the exception of the 2022 version of Scream, which I’ve been meaning to watch and haven’t gotten around to.

I also picked up a Halloween-themed mystery escape room game that can be played online, so I’ll be doing that at some point in the month.

I am still trying to mix up the types of events I schedule, in hopes of luring some lurkers in to participate, but at least for the next few weeks, I really feel like I should be sticking to things that are low-key, low-pressure, and bring me joy personally.

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IN SUMMARY

While I want to do a lot this month, not all of it is a good fit for my bulleted list format. Which is probably for the best, since it would be nice to be able to check most things off when November rolls around.

• Twelve posts for the #JustOnePercent Project
• At least four posts unrelated to the #JustOnePercent Project
• Finish leveling three more characters in World of Warcraft (priest, warrior, demon hunter)
• Participate in the group review of the October Humble Choice.
• Play & post about at least one horror game.
• Play at least four demos from the October 2022 Steam Next Fest.
• Read any six books.
• Schedule at least four horror movie watch parties.
• Order the remaining supplies for my 2023 stitching project, and get the floss carded.

• At least 31 posts during the month of August & get the Blaugust 2022 Rainbow Diamond Award
• Obtain the Blaugcheivement Platinum Trophy
• Write at least 12 #JustOnePercent Project posts
• Write at least 2 game-specific non-project posts
• Do not forget this is all for fun and do not burn myself out
• Read / listen to at least four books

Well, there’s another Blaugust in the rearview mirror, and what might be my first full crossed off list since I started using this format. I’m not going to say that I low-balled my goals for the month, but they were pretty focused, so I feel like this month was almost more of a pass-or-fail system than usual for me. I do think I got more of a feeling of satisfaction out of writing and scheduling ahead than I would have if I actually made it a daily practice, so I think that’s likely to influence how I put things together going forward.

Being a procrastinator in recovery is really weird sometimes.

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GAMING

I toyed with the idea of dropping the chart entirely until I wrapped up the #JustOnePercent project, as jumping around to as many different games as I do right now makes the whole thing kind of meaningless. But with only three more months in the project, I think I’m going to just stick to it, but I’d be lying if I didn’t say I was really looking forward to seeing what these look like from December on.

#JustOnePercent

By some metrics, this may have been my most successful project month yet. Sure, there were a few games this month I didn’t much care for, but overall, I think I chose well for myself this month. I did scramble my schedule a bit to get my post out on In Sound Mind considerable earlier to participate in UnwiseOwl’s group Humble Choice review, but I felt like I had made and stuck to my schedule better than in previous months.

I saw credits on two games this month – Behind the Frame: The Finest Scenery, and The Big Con – but most of the games I don’t feel like I need to go back to.

Non-Project Gaming

My non-project gaming also felt more focused this month, with only three additional games played on the Steam Deck (Zuma Deluxe, Going Under, and Magicmaker), and three on PC, including Card Hunter, which has been our co-op game night choice all throughout August. I feel like I’ve about exhausted the available content in Clanfolk; I have successfully unlocked almost the entire tech tree and managed to get through a winter well set-up for continued success. I expect this is a title I’ll revisit as it comes further along in its development.

The real wild card this month was Saint’s Row: The Third. This is a game I’ve played to completion in the past, as well as dabbled in a few times. A bit past the midpoint of the month, I found myself just really craving something chaotic and silly and brainless. While I considered a handful of titles, Saint’s Row ended up winning out, and I played it obsessively for a couple of days until the craving was satiated.

Gaming Related Spending

While August was an incredibly spendy month for me, very little of that was for gaming-related expenses. In fact, other than my regular subscriptions (Humble Choice and XBox Game Pass), I only made one other gaming related purchase. I picked up a couple of build your own bundles on Fanatical, where I nabbed a bunch of stuff that looked interesting at really good prices, but mostly, I wanted Aquarium Designer from one set and Unmemory from the other, and added other things that looked good to fill out the bundles. Total gaming related spending for August was only $35.

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EVERYTHING ELSE

READING: I got through four more books in the 87th Precinct series, but this wasn’t a heavy reading month, at least not as far as books go, but I probably made up some of it in the sheer quantity of blog posts read. These audiobooks have been averaging about 5 hours, and this month, I found myself listening more often while cooking or baking as well as while crafting in order to meet my goals.

BLAUGUST: I managed to put out 31 posts during August (and only a couple of them were absolutely fluff). I also systematically worked my way through the Blaugcheivements, earning my first ever platinum trophy! No, seriously. While there are many nerdpoints to be had on PC, I think that Platinum Trophies are pretty much a console exclusive, and since that’s never been my jam this is my very first. I also think I did a better job of reading, Discord participation, and general networking this time around, so I am overall pleased with how I tacked this event this year.

That said, I don’t know how many more days I have in me for this streak; I’m perfectly happy with my 3-5 per week posting schedule, with occasional periods of less activity, for the other 11 months out of the year.

This is my 31st post for #Blaugust2022, and hooboy, am I glad that’s over. In all fairness, this was probably my easiest Blaugust yet, but trying to figure out what to write about every single day is harder for me than the actual writing (and that is taking into account how much easier it becomes when you’re looking at a minimum of twelve project games, as well as five themed posts). My ideal blogging schedule is somewhere in the vicinity of 3-5 posts a week, so going forward, I think I’ll try to keep that in mind when planning out my calendar.

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GAMING

#JustOnePercent

This is probably the batch of games I swapped around more than any other. On my initial list, September was almost entirely made up of XBox Game Pass games. I ended up switching out some of those titles I was personally less interested in for things I’ve picked up here and there over the past few months, but for some reason, this batch still feels a bit overwhelming.

However, I now have the schedule as firmed up as it’s going to get through the end of November when I’ll finish up the project, which means I’ve got 36 more games on my list, and 81 behind me. If you add in the other dozen 2021 releases I wrote about before starting the project, that means by the beginning of December I will have played 129 of the 10,967 games released on Steam in 2021, or a whopping 1.18%.

The games I’m planning to play on the Deck for September are Milo and the Magpies, I Am Fish, If On a Winter’s Night Four Travelers, and Embr. For the goal list, it’s going to twelve project posts again this month.

Other Gaming

I’ve really been all over the place gaming-wise lately, but the one thing I am sure of is that I’d like to renew my World of Warcraft subscription. However, before I do so, I’d like to have a much better idea of what I plan to do with it, so I want to sit down and make up a list of pre-expansion goals. I’ve already pretty much decided that I’m unlikely to return to raiding when I’m more than a full patch behind as far as gear progression goes, but as long as I go back in with enough other things I’m interested in finishing up (or even working on from past expansions), I’ll probably get my money’s worth out of it.

With everything else I have on my plate in September, I’m going to avoid making any other game-specific goals this month. However, I would like to keep up with my more regular blog schedule, so I’m going to shoot for six non-project posts in September, which will put me in comfortably in the 5 posts per week zone. I just have no idea what they’re going to be about yet.

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OTHER NERDSTUFF

Reading

While I’ve been enjoying my 87th Precinct Audiobook Reread, I think it’s time to start mixing it up a little bit. My Scribd audio TBR (and print TBR) list just keeps growing. While I’m a bit concerned that switching back to longer listens will hinder my ability to finish as many books as I’d like to, I’m also really ready for something different. In the spirit of compromise, I’ll task myself with only three books this month, which will give me a little more wiggle room for some listens longer than a few hours.

I’d also like to grab a couple of core rulebooks for TTRPG systems I’m unfamiliar with from DriveThruRPG, and start poking around in them. I’m ever-so-slightly toying with the idea of setting up some sort of short campaign to play online over the winter months, but most of the ideas I’m tumbling around with aren’t a great fit for any of the systems I have passing familiarity with. I’d like to pick up at least one “rules-light” system corebook that’s appropriate for more contemporary stories, and go from there.

Stitchcraft

Due to being over ambitious, I’m still working on a pair of rather hefty projects, but the deadlines I had set myself are already in the rearview mirror. Still, I’m probably about halfway through one of the two projects now that I’ve scaled it down in scope a little bit, so I’d like to have that one finished by the end of September.

However, since I know that I tend to get antsy when I don’t know what’s next project-wise (it’s a personality flaw), I’m going to try to get my next two projects picked out, and supplies ordered this month as well. I do have a little extra fun money burning a hole in my pocket, so while I’m ordering stuff anyway, I’ll probably pick up somewhere between a third and half of the supplies I’m going to need for my giant project, even though I’m still several months off from starting it. It’ll give me a little burst of joy to get some of that stuff actually in my hands (and will help me avoid being outrageously annoyed late on because this way I won’t have to card 90 colors of floss all at once).

Television

Although I almost always ignore my watching goals, I’m finding I’m starting to miss watching stuff, and my list of shows that I’m interested in never seems to stop growing. Of course, being forever behind has it’s advantages – sometimes the wait means that something I’ve been interested in gets cancelled, which means I won’t be stuck waiting for more seasons, but also, that there aren’t going to be any more seasons, which usually leads to unsatisfying endings.

Yes, I’m talking mostly about The Wilds, and no, I’m probably not going to bother watching it now.

Krikket’s Clubhouse

So far, I’m reasonably pleased with how my Discord server is shaping up, but I would really like to be more diligent about planning different sorts of activities. So, rather than setting goals related to the growth of the server – which I only have a little control over – I’m going to set myself a goal of planning at least six events during September, at least one of which will be something other than a watch party, craft & chat, or Codewords Online.

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IN SUMMARY

Having typed all that out now, I realize I’m at risk of overloading myself to make up for all the stuff I got a crazy urge to do in August that I shelved to focus on #Blaugust2022. However, we’re also heading into the time of year that my interest in doing things surges, as the really hot days start to be the exception rather than the norm. I’m okay going a little bold with my goals this month.

• Twelve posts for the #JustOnePercent Project
• At least six posts unrelated to the #JustOnePercent Project.
• Work up a list of pre-expansion goals for World of Warcraft.
• Reactivate my World of Warcraft subscription.
• Read / listen to any three books.
• Pick up at least one core rulebook for a rule-light TTRPG system.
• Finish up current stitching project.
• Decide on my next two stitching projects and order supplies.
• Figure out if there’s enough new-to-me stuff on Netflix to justify restarting my subscription.
• Plan at least six Discord events, with at least one being a new type of event.

• At least 10 posts for #JustOnePercent.
• At least 6 posts unrelated to #JustOnePercent.
• Play & write about at least one game purchased during the Steam Summer Sale season 2022.
• Read / listen to any 6 books.
• Finish both projects with August deadlines.
• Do my Second Quarter Stitchcraft Gallery post.
• Run Krikket’s Game Giveways summer session.
• Start sending out invites for Krikket’s Clubhouse Discord server.

At least one thing I didn’t scratch off the list in July was a deliberate choice. I wanted to hold off on my Stitchcraft Gallery post to have it in for Blaugust 2022, and as a bonus, have another finished piece or two to show off once they were in the hands of their intended recipients. That said, I also did far less stitching during July than I had hoped to get done, so I expect that’s going to present an interesting conundrum in how I spend my time in August – I either need to get very dedicated very quickly, or I’m going be giving out some belated birthday gifts!

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GAMING

This chart really drives home that while my time spent gaming is just slightly below average, my focus was absolutely all over the place this month. It does make for a rather pretty pie chart though – lots of colors!

I put out a total of 20 posts during July, with a little more than half of them being part of the #JustOnePercent project. The game time split between my PC and my Steam Deck was about 60/40 this month, which I probably shouldn’t have found surprising, but I’m definitely using the Deck more than I think I am.

#JustOnePercent

I had to do a little scrambling this month as far as project gaming went. I ended up dropping Last Stop, as I hadn’t realized it left XBox Game Pass at the end of June, and Reality’s Reverse Side, as the translation was just not good, and it made it really difficult to follow what was going on. I ended up picking up another Game Pass game – Garden Story – which had not been available when I originally was making my list, so I decided to cover that one a little early rather than rearrange my entire month of August to accommodate it.

There were only two games this month I played for less than an hour, and only one of those was because I just didn’t care for it. I also managed to actually finish a project game this month, which is not something I normally have the time or inclination to do.

Non-Project Gaming

I was scattered when it came to gaming all month long, having almost doubled my total number of games played with non-project gaming during July. Most of these were played on the Steam Deck, and including the one project game I completed, I saw credits roll on three different games, although one of those (Battle Chef Brigade) was a replay for me.

Finding out what types of games I enjoy playing on the Steam Deck has been a bit of an adventure. Overall, I try to decide if I think a game will play more smoothly with the controller than the mouse and keyboard, but I’ve definitely shelved a couple of titles due to screen size – my eyes just aren’t what they used to be, and titles with a lot of small text are more comfortable to play on my larger monitor. Probably the biggest surprise of a title that I didn’t expect to work for me without a mouse & keyboard was Zuma Deluxe, although I’m still adjusting to the using the trackpad to aim, it’s become my late-night settle-my-brain game of choice over the last week or so.

Although I didn’t actually play anything from Itch.io on the Steam Deck yet, I did manage to follow the instructions I found on Reddit and have it working on there. It took me an embarrassingly long time, and then, I got distracted while cleaning out “non-steam games” from my library and managed to lose my shortcut, necessitating starting over from the beginning. I am pleased to report I managed to get it working in about half as much time the second time around.

Gaming Related Spending

This was a fairly spendy month. I picked up two of the big Itch.io bundles early in the month for a total of $20, spent an additional $32 in the Steam Summer Sale, grabbed a couple of newly released titles I was excited about for $29, and picked up a small bundle on Fanatical as well as the Humble Monthly and my Game Pass subscription. All total, I spent $106 on gaming during July.

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Everything Else

READING: Came up one short on books this month, but I’m still really enjoying the audiobook versions of the 87th Precinct Series. Not having to think about what I’m going to listen to next has been a nice bonus, too. Looking ahead, I can see that Scribd is missing a handful of titles in the series, but I still have quite a few to go before I hit the 20th book, which is the first missing title. I may just read my hard copies of the books that aren’t available in between, but I’m not 100% decided on that yet – it’s been a long time since I’ve actually read a book made out of paper!

STITCHCRAFT: I am so far behind. Like, I’m pretty sure if I chained myself to my craft desk for every waking hour for the next two weeks, I still wouldn’t be caught up. While some of this is due to having taken a couple of lengthy breaks for various reasons, really, the true culprit is that I just got overly ambitious. I’m down to two projects in progress, both of which are just not going to be done in time for their intended recipient’s birthdays, and I have – mostly – just accepted that as fact. The smaller of the two is just going to be belated, and I’ve decided that the 40,000 stitch full-coverage piece I’m going to shoot to have done in time to be a Christmas present.

DISCORD SHENANIGANS: The summer batch of giveaways went off without a hitch. Unfortunately, now I find myself left with about 100 or so keys that I’ve been unable to even give away after two separate events. My other Discord project – starting up a community general activity server – is going well, but is definitely still in the phase where I’m probably overscheduling myself to see what will actually entice people to log on. That’s ok, I expected that. I’m seeing activity in the text channels most days, and I figure that’s a good start.

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Lastly, I was able to check one more Blaugcheivement off my list right before the start of Blaugust 2022 proper. Jaedia, author of Dragons & Whimsy has decided to join in again this year, and my husband will also be participating with his brand new blog, Dispatches from Darksyde, which may or may not be live yet when this post goes up.

This was the task that I thought might keep me from my platinum trophy, so fingers crossed it’s all smooth sailing from here on out.