#NerdGirlThoughts hashtag - Bluesky

7 months ago

Journaling is one of those intensely personal things, for people who choose to do so. It's not a consistent practice for me, but it's lovely to have it to turn to when I need it.

#Blaugust2025 #NerdGirlThoughts […]

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7 months ago

Today's Blaugust response post is on the topic of the challenge of starting something new, even - or maybe especially - when it's something that only provides personal fulfillment.

#Blaugust2025 #NerdGirlThoughts […]

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7 months ago

You'd never guess, but... - another #Blaugust2025 group project, and one that got heavier than I intended.

#NerdGirlThoughts

nerdgirlthoughts.game.blog/2025/08/28/blaugust2025-...

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7 months ago

Another response post today - I'm fantastic at showing grace to absolutely everyone but me. Why do so many of us have our standards sky high for ourselves, but not for others?

#Blaugust2025 #NerdGirlThoughts […]

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7 months ago

Never let it be said that I don't put things off as long as possible. This is my first response post for the Community Builder badge, in which I answer Paeroka's question of if a game can be both cozy and challenging.

#NerdGirlThoughts #Blaugust2025 […]

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#Blaugust2025 Group Project – Small Joys, Big Smiles _One of the possible tasks for the #Blaugust2025 Community Builder award is to create or join in a group project. I invited my fellow Blaugust participants to write about their “Small Joys, Big Smiles” – the tiny things that make them disproportionately happy!_ _If you’re following a bunch of bloggers, you may see multiple posts on this topic today._ ### A Fresh Manicure I am very decidedly *not* a girly girl. I sometimes forget to get my hair cut for literal years, I barely bother with skin care, and I only recently bought some makeup after not owning any for close to a decade. But there is very little that will perk me up faster than a two fresh coats of some sort of sparkly nail polish. Over the last several years, I’ve become a pretty dedicated fan of ILNP, and I retail therapy myself a few new colors far more often than I should. When things aren’t going absolutely crazy in my life, I make it a point to sit down every single Sunday (give or take a day) and redo my nails. It’s not much – and really, no one else even sees them most week, except when I post on Mastodon about it – but it makes me feel good about myself. I’ll even admit that I occasionally just wiggle my fingers back and forth and enjoy the glitter. My nail polish cabinet is getting pretty close to full! I’ve been building the collection up for several years now. ### The Process of Kitting Up a New Cross Stitch Project I am currently **_so far ahead_** with projects that take months – if not years – to complete, because the process of preparing to start something new is just oh-so-very satisfying. I still have a few projects that I’ve ordered all the supplies for, but I’m holding back actually doing the prep work because I know that nothing will bust me out of a funk in quite the same way. I can’t explain why I get joy from laying out all the little cards, writing the numbers on them, and then spending an hour or two removing floss from skeins and winding it on the cards. It’s just such a chill, meditative process, and it feels like holding raw potential in my hands. I may actually get more joy out of this step of the process than any other, which is too bad, because the actual stitching takes so very much longer. ### The First Few Days of Autumn Don’t get me wrong – autumn is my favorite season by far, but those first few days every year when the weather starts to get cooler are incomparable as far as joy goes. I am not a fan of summer at all – the hot weather drains me in ways that the bitter cold of winter does not, and I am wishing the summer months away every single year. It’s such a profound relief the first time I feel chilly, when I go looking for the socks I haven’t touched in months, where I actually grab a sweater on my way out the door. But the cooler weather doesn’t just mean increased comfort. It means the trees are about to be at their most beautiful. It means that spooky season is just around the corner. It means I’m about to put away the ice cream maker, and instead spend time in the kitchen making soups, stews, and baked goods because it’s no longer too damn hot for all of that. In a lot of ways, the start of autumn feels like coming back to myself, and maybe my joy in it isn’t disproportionate after all. * * * _If you’re seeing this after Saturday, the 23rd, there’ll be a list of links to other Blaugustians small joys, big smiles below this. If you’re seeing this ON Saturday the 23rd? You may wanna check back later, because I expect many others will have more interesting posts than mine._ * **Small Joys Big Smiles** – Nerdy Bookahs * **When a Flyswatter Makes You Smile** – Gaudete Theology ### Share this: * Click to share on X (Opens in new window) X * Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window) Facebook * Like Loading... ### _Related_

7 months ago

My response to the #Blaugust2025 Group Project for today - looking at small things that bring big joy.

#NerdGirlThoughts #SundayMani #CrossStitch

nerdgirlthoughts.game.blog/2025/08/23/blaugust2025-...

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#Blaugust2025 Group Project – My Low Stakes Hot Takes _One of the possible tasks for the #Blaugust2025 Community Builder award is to create or join in a group project. I invited my fellow Blaugust participants to write about their “Low Stakes Hot Take” – something they have strong feelings about that probably really doesn’t matter all that much!_ _If you’re following a bunch of bloggers, you may see multiple posts on this topic today._ * * * Oh, friends, I am full of opinions on things that don’t much matter in the scheme of things, and I’m fairly sure I had a handful of ideas of what I was going to write about when I set up this particular group project. Of course, now that I’m sitting down to actually **_do the thing_** , I cannot remember a single thought that was in my head at that time. Because of course I can’t. So, instead, I’m going to go with some hobby related takes that maybe aren’t exactly scalding, but closer to lukewarm. ### Gaming genres have become almost entirely useless, and maybe always were. A few years ago now, I tried to break my overwhelming large Steam library into genre categories. This was before Dynamic Collections was an option, and although I initially started with only a handful of categories, I quickly realized that I was going to need subcategories for most of the genres, and it became an obnoxiously huge project that I fully admit I have failed to keep up with. Still, the following screenshot might make it a little bit clearer why I think genre tags are basically useless at this stage in gaming. Even having manually broken up the “simulation” label into a dozen sub-categories, the number of games I manually slotted into that genre comes nowhere close to my dynamic “simulation” collection. Sure, I’ve slacked off on categorizing things for awhile now, but even if you doubled the numbers in each of the manual subcategories, they wouldn’t come anywhere near the number of games in the dynamic simulation collection. I think part of the problem is that there’s just too much overlap in naming conventions. I don’t remember hearing the genre “immersive sim” before the past few years (although **wikipedia** seems to think it’s at least a couple decades old now), but because of the overlap in terminology with the simulation genre, Steam can’t tell the difference. The other part of the problem is that with the absolute explosion of indie games, developers are discovering the best way to generate sales is with buzz words. Sometimes, they pick buzz words that actually fit the game that they made, but sometimes? They pick genre indicators that are selling well, and that could maybe possibly be applied to their game if you didn’t actually know what that genre was **_supposed_** to be. Categorizing video games was never really simple, and it just keeps getting worse as more games get made, and more of those games are mashing together popular genres to create something new we don’t have a word for yet. ### Listening to an audiobook is absolutely reading, and anyone who says otherwise is just wrong. There is a weird snobbery that happens in the book world, and a lot of it seems to be focused around audiobooks. Even if we set aside the accessibility issues that come with the assumption that “reading” cannot be happening without eyes on words, the idea that one form of consuming works of fiction & non-fiction is so vastly superior to another as to make it **_not count_** is absurd. I go back and forth on audiobooks for myself for one reason only – I can read words on a page so much faster than I can have them read to me. Frequently, I’m choosing between spending 12 hours on an audiobook, with the benefit of being able to also do something mechanical during that time, or spending four hours solely focused on reading. I don’t think it matters one bit if you visually read a story or if you listen to it. You’ve still experienced the story, and that’s what reading really is. ### As long as the front looks good from a distance of about 18″, your cross stitch project is perfectly well done. I am absolutely a chaos stitcher. I jump colors at random, sections at random, and I frequently change between stitching bottom-to-top or right-to-left based on what makes sense to me based on the pattern. I carry my thread farther than I should, I sometimes just hold extra thread on the backside when I get knots instead of ending and restarting, and as a result my backsides are frequently a hot mess. And once I frame that piece? No one will ever know the difference. There are people who would say I’m a bad stitcher because my backs aren’t consistent and attractive. I don’t care. I wouldn’t enjoy the work nearly as much if I were worrying about a pristine backside. * * * _If you’re seeing this after Monday, the 18th, there’ll be a list of links to other Blaugustians low stakes hot takes below this. If you’re seeing this ON Monday the 18th? You may wanna check back later, because I expect many others will have more interesting posts than mine._ * **A Molehill to Die On** – Time to Loot * **Low Stakes Hot Takes **– Tales of the Aggronaut ### Share this: * Click to share on X (Opens in new window) X * Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window) Facebook * Like Loading... ### _Related_

7 months ago

My response to the #Blaugust2025 Group Project for today - a few takes of varying temperatures on some of my hobbies.

#NerdGirlThoughts

nerdgirlthoughts.game.blog/2025/08/18/blaugust2025-...

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7 months ago

This probably should have been a topic for a Self-Reflection Sunday post rather than an Introduce Yourself Week post, but today I'm talking a bit about identity and how sometimes a chosen identity doesn't fit as well as it once did.

#Blaugust2025 #NerdGirlThoughts […]

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I Was Supposed to Play A Game Last Night I was supposed to play a game last night. I didn’t have anything specific in mind, but I feel like if I’m not playing anything interesting, I’m not sure what to write about. So I told myself that since my Wednesday nights tend to be quiet, I’d pick something to play. And then… When I got home from work – early, I’d like to add – I had Discord notifications. I chatted with some friends. While I was doing that, I certainly couldn’t be playing a game, but I could at least look up the portfolios of some tattoo artists, since I’m thinking about getting my first tattoo soon. I was also chatting with another friend through text messages. After that, I decided it was still really early, I’d do a couple of quick chores. I put together another bagful of laundry to do at work on Friday – I’m almost through my laundry backlog and getting a bunch of clothes that either my ex left behind or that I don’t like for donation, so I’d like to finish that up. Once I was had that together, I decided to see if there was any more laundry still in the closet. There wasn’t, but I noticed a box with a bunch of folders and notebooks in it, and decided to go through that. All those papers were 25-30 years old. I started looking through them. I’ll admit, I got sucked in. I found some very very old poetry, and lots of early drafts in the notebooks. I spent far longer than I anticipated going through them all. By the time I was done, it was nearing dinner time, so I heated up some leftovers and ate. After dinner, I did a few pet care chores, and while I was out in the living room, my roommate came home. We chatted for the better part of an hour before I remembered I had planned to play a game. But before I started that, I wanted to make sure I got my daily puzzles in, so I did those. I walked the dogs, made some coffee, and sat down fulling intending to play a game, and then messed around on social media for the better part of an hour. At this point, I have misplaced six entire hours, and I know I’ll soon be distracted by texting with the same friend from earlier, and I realize I no longer really have time to both play a game and then write about it, so I decided to do neither. * * * While the actual activities vary quite a bit, this has been the struggle I’ve had with blogging for the past several months. Outside of my co-op nights and my daily puzzles, I’m mostly only playing time waster games or doing jigsaw puzzles in my browser. I don’t know where gaming fits into my life anymore – if it even does – and what that means for blogging going forward. Obviously, like any other hobby, I can **_make_** the time if I’m determined enough. But it no longer just **_naturally_** is a part of my every day life. Last night was a bit of an anomaly, as I didn’t even substitute a different hobby – most days I watch a movie or two, and I spend some time at my crafting desk stitching. Suddenly, gaming has gone from the thing I do first to the thing I do only when I have a good sized chunk of time and absolutely nothing else on my to do list. Sometimes, big life changes have smaller ripple effects that we don’t see at first. This has been one of the smallest and yet, one of the most disruptive. I don’t think I’ve completely lost interest – I just don’t need the escapism that gaming provides as much as I once did, and I’d rather spend time with real people than imaginary ones. ### Share this: * Click to share on X (Opens in new window) X * Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window) Facebook * Like Loading... ### _Related_

8 months ago

The trouble with having a blog that's mostly about gaming is, what does one do when gaming isn't happening?

#NerdGirlThoughts #Blaugust2025

nerdgirlthoughts.game.blog/2025/08/07/i-was-suppose...

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#Blaugust2025 – Meet the Mentors & Blogroll I’ve got to tell y’all – I was **_very_** apprehensive taking point on the promotion of Blaugust this year. I’ve always been just as happy to have a small following, but I was very worried that my lack of reach would impact the size of this year’s event. And it might have, but so many other Blaugust veterans shared and posted about the event, and I am pleased to report that we’ve broken last year’s record – **125 participants** when I’m sitting down to make this post. Like many others, I will be posting the full list of participating blogs, but before I do that… I want to introduce you to the other Blaugust Discord mentors participating in Blaugust this year. * Aywren – **Aywren’s Nook** * Bhagpuss – **Inventory Full** * Jaedia – **The Dragon Chronicles** * Magi – **Indiecator** * Naithin – **Time to Loot** * Paeroka – **Nerdy Bookahs** * Roger Edwards – **Contains Moderate Peril** * Wilhelm Arcturus – **TAGN** Even all working together, I don’t know if we could have pulled it off without the excellent framework that **Belghast** has in place. Picking up the mantle was easy, and the community really has rallied this year. Now, without further ado, a complete list of blogs (including this one) participating in Blaugust this year. Much thanks to Wilhelm Arcturus who formatted and alphabetized all of this for ease of posting! * * * ### Blaugust 2025 Participant List #### _Asterisks indicate first time participants._ * A Lovely Harmless Monster* * A Calm in the Chaos* * A Nerdy Fujo Cries * A Pixel Nomad * Achille Toupin* * African Music Forum* * afsheen.me* * Alex’s Review Corner * Alligators And Aneurysms * An Archaeopteryx* * august morning * Axxuy.xyz * Aywren’s Nook * Beyond Tannhauser Gate * Calishat* * Casual Catte Creations* * Chaosgoat* * Chasing Dings! * clandestini.org* * cobb.land* * coffee spills* * Conor Zone* * Contains Moderate Peril * Craig* * Cubic Creativity * Dave Henry Blog* * dirchansky freetalk* * Divergent Rays* * dreamwidth.org* * EVE Online Pictures * Exposition is Inevitable * Fiat Mihi* * finnybox* * Forking Mad* * from rscottjones * Gaudete Theology * Geek on a Harley * Glome* * Gridrager* * Heartless Gamer * HeyDingus * In An Age * Indiecator * Inventory Full * isa.tiger.place* * jackalope.city* * Jayeless.net* * Joelchrono’s Blog* * Juhis * kavmac * Kay Talks Games * Kaylee Rowena* * Keeroks Space* * KF’s Playground* * kimberlyhirsh * Konfetti Explorations* * Lameazoid.com * lapislabel.net* * Lars-Christian’s website* * Le Blog de Didier MARY * leekscosycorner * Lemons to lemonades* * leveret.study* * Liquid Depresso Injection* * LunarLoony.co.uk* * MagiWasTaken * Mailvaltar – MMOs and other stuff * manonamora’s computer* * Many Welps * Matt’s Blog* * Megan’s writings* * Midnight Dreaming * Mikes Thoughts* * MMO Casual * Mmo one night * monocyte’s blog* * Monsterlady’s Diary * Muliama’s diaries* * Musings and Mumblings* * Musings on seeking* * Nejimaki Blog* * Nerd Girl Thoughts * Nerdy Bookahs * Nero Villagallos O’Reilly Art Blog* * Neurofrontiers * NickSimson.com* * Nik Kantar* * notes / druchan* * Notes by JCProbably * OrbitalMartian* * owlblog * Pixel Nomad * Portrait of the Artist as a…* * Queen Of Squiggles’s Blog* * rabbiting* * re: nyman* * Reay Jespersen* * ribo.zone* * Riverpunk* * Robert Birming* * Rosaria Delacroix* * Rseeber* * Shadowz Abstract Gaming * Small Good Things* * Splendide Mendax * Story Mode* * Syl’s Blog * Tales of the Aggronaut * Taxodium* * Taylor Film Crit* * Technbuzz* * teejay.blog* * The Ancient Gaming Noob * The Dragon Chronicle * The Ghastly Mirror * The Sun and the Air* * The Works of Egan* * theTangentSpace * Tim Bornholdt* * Time to Loot * Trevor’s Cold Toast * Ubergeek Kellys World * Unidentified Signal Source * Varun Barad* * Virtual Moose* * vrabia’s blog* * Werd I/O * Why I Game * Words of the AgingGamer * Words Under My Name * WW0CJ.radio * Your friendly neighborhood Blu ### Share this: * Click to share on X (Opens in new window) X * Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window) Facebook * Like Loading... ### _Related_

8 months ago

Curious to see everyone participating in Blaugust this year? I've got the full blog roll, and a little extra love for the Blaugust Discord mentor crew.

#NerdGirlThoughts #Blaugust2025

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100 Horror Movies. 92 Days. #100Horror2025 By the start of August, I am absolutely **_desperate_** for autumn to show up. I’m one of those people who have a very small window of comfortable temperatures, and although I cope okay when it gets a lot colder, I do **_not_** thrive when it’s warmer. I know there’s a lot of people that love summer, but I will never be one of them. Last year, I stumbled over **this horror movie challenge** from SpookySarahSays. While I really liked the idea, I felt like her rules were too restrictive for me to have fun with – most specifically the one where all 100 films need to be first time watches. There’s a lot of movies I love to revisit, and with the challenge already requiring more than one movie per day, I just am not willing to give up those favorites. So, as I tend to do, I made my own rules. Because of course I did. * * * #### Krikket’s 100 Horror Movie Challenge Rules * The challenge runs from August 1st through October 31st. * The goal is to watch at least 100 horror movies in this time period. * Films must be at least 45 minutes to count. * At least half of the films must be “first time watches”. Only fifty re-watches will count, even if I exceed that number. * Films from series like Masters of Horror and Hulu’s Into the Dark are considered feature-length films and will count. * If I really feel compelled to watch a horror TV series, an entire season will equal a single movie. This is not time efficient, and I’m unlikely to actually do this, but I’m giving myself the option. * A film is horror if it’s tagged as such on IMDB, or by the streaming service, but I’ll allow myself wiggle room of up to 10 films that I think fit the category even if I can’t find anyone who agrees with me. * * * Last year, I started a couple of days late, and I started **_slow_**. I went into October still needing to watch more than half of the total number of movies, but I feel like I might be better prepared this year to stay consistent throughout the three month period of this challenge. …which likely means I’ll be watching two movies a day throughout October again this year. I do have a list of new-to-me movies and where they’re streaming, which should help with some of the decision paralysis. However, that list is already longer than 100 movies, so there will still be decisions to be made! Plus, over the course of three months, I will likely discover movies to add, and some stuff will leave the streaming services I have access to. A collage of the 100 movies I watched for this challenge in 2024. As I did last year, I will be threading what I watch (including IMDB link, year of release, length and where it’s currently streaming if applicable) and a quick spoiler free comment on each movie on **Mastodon** under the hashtag #100Horror2025. I’m not entirely sure that it’s a great idea to be trying to keep up with this challenge and with Blaugust simultaneously after a series of months where I’ve been aimless, but we’ll see how it goes. ### Share this: * Click to share on X (Opens in new window) X * Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window) Facebook * Like Loading... ### _Related_

8 months ago

Today I'm laying out my rules for #100Horror2025 - it worked so well last year, I figured why not do it again?

#Blaugust2025 #NerdGirlThoughts #Horror #HorrorMovies

nerdgirlthoughts.game.blog/2025/08/02/100-horror-mo...

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8 months ago

July for me was full of delightful things - but most of them weren't the delightful things I normally blog about.

Still, I'm starting to feel like I'm coming back to myself again, and that's worth celebrating.

#NerdGirlThoughts #Blaugust2025 #100Horror2025 […]

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Nerd Girl Goals – August 2025 Two months with no real goals has not been good for me in any way, and I figure it’s not going to serve me any better with Blaugust starting tomorrow. I need to rediscover my focus, and figure out what all the changes in my life over the last several months mean for the future of Nerd Girl Thoughts. I’m not quite ready to call this my last hurrah, but if I cannot get it together it very well might be. Probably the biggest problem is – I’m just not playing much of anything at all. I’ve got a surface level interest, sure, I’m still buying new things, checking out bundles, and keeping up with new releases that appeal to me. But when it comes time to sit down and actually play something? It’s just not happening. I’m keeping up my with puzzles, and playing stuff on my regular co-op nights, but I’ve just kind of … mislaid my spark for single player titles and MMOs. …and I can’t even tell you where all the time I’m not spending playing games or writing about them is going. * * * ### Gaming & Blogging #### The Goals * Complete all the requirements for the **Community Builder Badge** during Blaugust 2025. * **In Review** & **Nerd Girl Goals** to bookend the month. * Complete the monthly trading post goals in **World of Warcraft**. * **Play at least 10 hours of single player games during August of 2025**. * Do the daily **Sexaginta-Quattuordle**. * Do the daily **Logic Town** challenge. I realize that, even still, these are very light goals for me. But I’m kind of looking at this like exercise – when you haven’t done any in a long time, you need to build back up slowly or you’re likely to hurt yourself. So I’m starting small, and seeing if I can find my spark. The **Community Game-Along’s** theme for August is Mystery Games, and boy howdy do I have a bunch of those, and I do love a good mystery. Maybe that will be enough of a push to get me back to finding the joy in gaming alone. Ironically. #### OTHER NERDSTUFF #### The Goals * Read or listen to at least **four books** during August. * Watch at least 20 movies as part of my 100 Horror Movie project for 2025. * Put at least **4,000 stitches** into any of my current works-in-progress. It’s going to take nothing short of a full on miracle to make my 2025 Good Reads goal of 48 books by the end of the year, but four will still be four more than I’ve managed to read in a month since January. I haven’t ruled out revising that goal downward, but I’m also not quite ready to do it just yet. I’m not overly worried about the movies (and I’m still setting the bar low because I should be watching closer to 35 to stay on track), and cross-stitch is the one hobby I’ve managed to pick back up like I never stopped. I need some wins this month, and I’ll take them where I can get them. * * * Reminder: It’s not too late to set your own **#Blaugust2025** goals. You can find the sign up sheet **here** if you haven’t already declared an intent to participate this year! ### Share this: * Click to share on X (Opens in new window) X * Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window) Facebook * Like Loading... ### _Related_

8 months ago

After a couple of rough months, I'm hopping back in the saddle, setting goals and getting ready for #Blaugust2025. Who's with me?

#NerdGirlThoughts #MysteryGameAug

nerdgirlthoughts.game.blog/2025/07/31/nerd-girl-goa...

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Blaugust 2025 – Calendar & Weekly Prompts _Yet again,**Blaugust** is the brain child of Belghast of **Tales of the Aggronaut** , but this year, it’s a group effort! Check out my **Blaugust 2025** intro post for more information or to sign up!_ As per usual, I’m running a bit behind on everything, but I wanted to make sure I got the calendar out, along with a few prompt ideas for each of the theme weeks. Much thanks to **Wilhelm Arcturus** of **The Ancient Gaming Noob** who has been coming in clutch with this year’s graphics. * * * Please note: these themes are **_completely optional_**. If writing about these topics doesn’t appeal to you, or doesn’t fit your blog, that’s perfectly fine. We have attempted to break down August into 5 roughly equal periods of time instead of your traditional Sunday – Saturday weeks for the themes this year. Now, participants may interpret these themes any way that they like, but as someone who’s done this a few times now, I know I sometimes struggle to come up with a fresh spin on each of these themes. So, without further ado, onto the prompts! #### Week One – Welcome to Blaugust Week August 1st – August 6th * What made you decide to do Blaugust this year, and what are your personal goals? * Did you start preparing for Blaugust before the August 1st start date? If so, what did you do ahead of time to make sure you’d stay on track? * Do you remember how you heard about Blaugust for the first time? * If this isn’t your first Blaugust, what keeps you coming back to do this year after year? * **Community Builder Bonus Prompt** : Who are the Blaugust bloggers who you keep reading all year round? #### Week Two – Introduce Yourself Week August 7th – August 13th * Tell us ten random facts about the human behind the blog. * Tell us about your absolutely favorite entertainment media. * Tell the story behind the creation and name of your blog. * What other hobbies do you have besides blogging / the topic of your blog? * Tell us about the part of the world you live in like you’re trying to attract someone to visit. * Tell us about your blogging workflow and / or show us your creative space. #### Week Three – Creator Appreciation Week August 14th – August 20th * Top five (or 10 or 20) bloggers. * Top five (or 10 or 20) musical artists. * Top five (or 10 or 20) YouTubers/ Twitch streamers. * Top five (or 10 or 20) authors / book series. * Top five (or 10 or 20) game developers / modders. * Top five (or 10 or 20) actors / directors / screenwriters. * Do you have friends who are creatives? Tell us why they’re fantastic and plug their online presences. #### Week Four – Staying Motivated Week August 21st – August 27th * What tricks do you use to keep yourself motivated when something feels impossible? * What are your blogging goals? Do you think participating in Blaugust is getting you closer to where you want be? * What do you think you’ll get out of completing your Blaugust goals? * What drives you to blog? * Are you happy with your Blaugust so far? If so, why? If not, why not? * How important is goal setting & reaching your goals to you overall? * Did you read any posts during Blaugust (or before) that you found particularly inspirational? Share them! #### Week Five – Lessons Learned Week August 28th – August 31st * If you could go back in time to August 1st (or whenever you signed up for Blaugust), what would you do differently to prepare? * What are your top 3 or 5 takeaways from your Blaugust experience? * Were there any posts your read during Blaugust that changed how you felt about the experience as a whole? Share them! * What were your favorite and least favorite parts of participating in Blaugust 2025? * **Community Builder Bonus Prompt:** If you decided to shoot for the Community Builder Award this year, which options did you choose? Do you feel like it added to the experience for you, or did it detract from your personal goals for the event? ### Share this: * Click to share on X (Opens in new window) X * Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window) Facebook * Like Loading... ### _Related_

8 months ago

Blaugust 2025 is right around the corner, and today I'm looking at the weekly themes and offering up some prompts for each week.

#NerdGirlThoughts #Blaugust2025

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Blaugust 2025 is Coming! Some of you may be thinking “Hold up, why are **_you_** posting about Blaugust 2025?” and that’s an excellent question. The answer is simple – this year, the inmates are taking over the asylum! Blaugust is at its core a community event, and there’s something a little beautiful about the community coming together to make it happen. Belghast would normally be making this post around this time, but he’s taking a bit of a break from the blogosphere. While he’s away, several of us Blaugust veterans and regular participants have jumped in to make sure that the event continues on for what – if our math is correct – should be its twelfth year. While we may not have all the bells and whistles participants are accustomed to, we’re going to do our best to make this year’s Blaugust event feel just as good as those that have come before. Part of this is that we’re going to offer a couple of choices for folks in what they want Blaugust to look like, but as always, we’d love for you to make the event your own in whatever way best serves you. The only way to lose Blaugust is not to play. * * * Already know everything you need to? Go directly to **the signup form!** * * * ## Blaugust – Classic Edition The next two sections here are stolen in its entirety from Bel’s post Blaugust 2024 is Coming. Only the dates have been changed where necessary. ## What is Blaugust? For anyone arriving here for the very first time Blaugust is a month-long event that takes place each August which focuses on blogging primarily and has started to include other forms of serialized content over the last several years. The goal is to stoke the fires of creativity and allow bloggers and other content creators to mingle in a shared community while pushing each other to post more regularly. Above all the goal of Blaugust has always been to prove to folks that they can in fact sit down every day and create something fresh and then share it with the world. Posting regularly builds a community and in this era of AI-slop content, our voices are needed even more than we ever have been at any point in the past. Our hope is to create a nurturing environment where Veteran bloggers can help those just getting started and the cross-pollination of ideas can create something truly spectacular. Your blog gives you a permanent foothold on the Internet that you own and have complete control of, and that is a really good feeling in the midst of shifting trends. ## The Core Challenge of Blaugust Blaugust at its heart has always been about celebrating the creation of content on a regular schedule. The original challenge was to post 31 times during the month of August which is 31 days long. This can be posting every day or doubling up on some days to make the schedule a bit easier. However, we also want to award anyone who starts down this path, because deciding to blog in the first place is a victory in itself. As such we give out awards based on the number of posts that you manage to knock out during the month of August. Again the idea is to spark creativity and get folks to create more content, not necessarily grinding them to dust on the millstone of some lofty goal. Here are the guidelines for each of the awards that we give out as part of this original challenge: * **Newbie Blogger Award** – You did it! You joined Blaugust for the very first time and we are extremely happy to welcome you into this raucous community. As a result, we are going to recognize your efforts just for signing up. * **Bronze Award** – You made at least 5 posts during the month of August 2025. * **Silver Award** – You made at least 15 posts during the month of August 2025. * **Gold Award** – You made at least 25 posts during the month of August 2025. * **Rainbow Diamond Award** – You beat the original challenge and posted 31 times or more during the month of August 2025. ## Blaugust – Community Builder Edition As noted above, Blaugust has been around for a bit now. While it still attracts new bloggers every year, quite a few folks have now conquered the 31 post challenge several times. We know we can do it, and a few of us have been chatting about the idea of mixing it up a bit and trying something a little bit different. Blaugust is so much more than just a personal challenge, and we wanted to offer an alternative “rule set” that reflected that. Anyone choosing to participate in the Community Builder edition of Blaugust this year will earn the Community Builder award in tandem with whichever other award you obtain for your number of posts. Community builders will meet **at least three** of the following challenges: * Have a post count that gives you at least the **Silver Award.** * Of those posts, at least 5 should be directly inspired by a post by another Blaugust participant. Make sure you provide a link back to the post in question. * Engage with other Blaugust participants at least once per week. Read posts, leave comments, join discussions in the **Blaugust Discord** and share posts written by others on social media. * Guest post on another Blaugust participant’s blog – or have someone else guest post on yours! * Create or join in a group project – choose a topic, find some other bloggers, and each post your own take on that topic on the same day. The Community Builder badge will be done strictly on the honor system. If you think you’ve earned it, claim it and wear it proudly. * * * In the coming weeks, we’ll be posting more about the theme weeks, the various Blaugust prompts and Blaugcheivements that are still available to you from years past, and various and sundry other things you might like to know. In the meantime, feel free to check out posts about Blaugusts past over on **Tales of the Aggronaut**, and use our handy dandy **sign up form** to commit to this year’s shenanigans. **_Please be aware that Blaugust is committed to the efforts of writers and content creators, and as such, blogs consisting wholly of AI generated content are asked not to participate. We will not be policing use of AI in editing or image creation attached to a human-written post, but something in your post should be made solely on your own efforts._** ### Share this: * Click to share on X (Opens in new window) X * Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window) Facebook * Like Loading... ### _Related_

8 months ago

We're a little over a week into July, and it's time to start talking about #Blaugust2025.

I've got the sign up form, and information about the new Community Builder award, come check it out.

#NerdGirlThoughts #Blogging

nerdgirlthoughts.game.blog/2025/07/10/blaugust-2025...

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Self-Reflection Sunday – Getting Back In The Saddle It’s been awhile – almost a year since my last Self-Reflection Sunday, and nearly that long as well since I’ve been posting with any semblance of regularity. In fact, I’ve been seriously considering just pulling the curtains on this particular blog – five years is a pretty excellent run, after all. But I’m also desperately in need of something to focus on, and it’s almost Blaugust 2025. * * * It’s been almost 3 months since my life became something completely different. I knew things would most definitely change, but it’s the changes I didn’t anticipate which have rocked me a whole lot more than the ones I did. The Must Do list that I thought was never ending is pretty much all done, and I realize now that I have – in a lot of ways – forgotten how to relax, and forgotten to do the things I have historically done to keep me sane. I’ve spend almost no time on single player games over the last three months, and I even missed posting goals and reviews at the end of June. But I think I might be finally settling in now. I’m not sure I have it in me to full speed ahead into a Rainbow Diamond Blaugust, but maybe I don’t need to. Maybe I just need to get back on the horse and ride. ### Share this: * Click to share on X (Opens in new window) X * Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window) Facebook * Like Loading... ### _Related_

9 months ago

Am I back? I might be back. It's certainly about time I was.

#Blaugust2025 #NerdGirlThoughts #Blogging

nerdgirlthoughts.game.blog/2025/07/06/self-reflecti...

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In Review – May 2025 * Make at least **6 posts** in May 2025. * ~~**In Review** & **Nerd Girl Goals** to bookend the month.~~ * Do the summary **Humble Choice** post. * Complete the monthly trading post goals in **World of Warcraft**. * Play and write about **at least one game purchased during April 2025**. * **Play at least 5 hours on the Steam Deck**. * ~~Do the daily**Sexaginta-Quattuordle**.~~ * ~~Do the daily**Logic Town** challenge.~~ * Read or listen to at least **four books** during May. * ~~Watch any one new-to-me television series or season.~~ * Put at least **4,000 stitches** into any of my current works-in-progress. May was actually a big improvement for me personally over April, but I still haven’t quite gotten a handle on what my life is going to look like. Some months, I don’t meet many goals in spite of trying – this month? I nearly forgot they existed most of the time. * * * ### GAMING I’m still struggling to play anything outside of my co-op game nights, and daily puzzles. This month’s top three games were all co-op, leaving less than 7 hours of non-puzzle, non-co-op game time. #### Daily Puzzles Puzzles are still on track. Something should be. #### Gaming Related Spending Had a very light spend month this month – still trying to figure out what I can afford to spend on fun stuff. I did pick up two bundles on Fanatical for a grand total of **$39.00** on game related spending. ### OTHER NERDSTUFF #### Reading I started a bunch of different books – finished none of them. #### Watching I did get some TV time in this month. One season of **24 in 24** and three seasons of **Tournament of Champions**. I also watched **Companion** early in the month before my Max subscription expired, and **The Rule of Jenny Pen** on AMC+, which I picked up for a couple months at a good price. #### Stitchcraft Etc. I came fairly close to meeting my stitching goal somehow – just over 3000 stitches got done during May. I feel like the biggest success is that I haven’t completely fallen out of the rhythm which makes it really hard to start back up. * * * Considering how much real life intruded on the fun stuff during May, I am not really upset at how things shook out. I’ve managed to deep clean most of my house, do a lot of very annoying paperwork, and spend plenty of time with friends both new and old. I’m going to try to go with the flow during June – I feel like I’m on an adventure of re-discovering myself, and I don’t want to put too many restrictions on myself while I do. ### Share this: * Click to share on X (Opens in new window) X * Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window) Facebook * Like Loading... ### _Related_

10 months ago

I can't count May as a huge success nerdstuff-wise, but I'm getting back into the swing of things now.

#NerdGirlThoughts

nerdgirlthoughts.game.blog/2025/06/01/in-review-may...

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10 months ago

Well, I think this is the first time since I started that I've gone basically a whole month without posting.

But it felt wrong not do something for the end of the month. Everything - and I do mean every little thing - is in flux right now, and while I'm grateful that the surprises are mainly […]

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In Review – April 2025 * Make at least **6 posts** in April 2025. * ~~**In Review** & **Nerd Girl Goals** to bookend the month.~~ * ~~Do the summary**Humble Choice** post.~~ * ~~Complete the monthly trading post goals in**World of Warcraft**.~~ * Play and write about **at least one game purchased during March 2025**. * **Play at least 10 hours on the Steam Deck**. * ~~Do the daily**Sexaginta-Quattuordle**.~~ * ~~Do the daily**Logic Town** challenge.~~ * Read or listen to at least **four books** during April. * ~~Watch any one new-to-me television series or season.~~ * Put at least **6,000 stitches** into any of my current works-in-progress. April was – in a word – a disaster. I had a lot of real life stuff going on that I couldn’t have anticipated, and I’m still not entirely sure what it means for me (and thus, this blog) going forward. I’m going to get all the nerdstuff out of the way first, and tell you all a little bit about it at the end for anyone who hasn’t already heard it all on Mastodon over the past few weeks. If you only care about the nerdstuff, skip the last part of this post. * * * ### GAMING It’s a bit unusual for me, but only about half of my gaming hours this month were in single-player titles. I did put quite a few hours into **Dead State: Reanimated** in the first third of the month, and I’m keeping up with my **Logic Town** puzzles. Everything else I played this month was either an MMO (**World of Warcraft** – with about half the hours actually in the raid) or played co-op. I spent more time with my Monday night co-op partner than normal during April. We played almost 9 hours of **For The King** , which was long enough to beat the first campaign on our second attempt. We spent one night playing **We Were Here** , which I had played in the past but forgotten almost everything about. Wrapping up the month, we dove into **Diablo II Resurrected** , and in the first 10 hours went through the first pass of the story on normal, ending up right around level 30. We expect to continue that for at least a portion of May. I’m still playing **Palworld** with another friend on Thursday nights, although we only got in three nights of play during April. I did do a lot of sub-hour dabbling hoping to find something that would stick, but without any luck. I didn’t even touch my Steam Deck other than to install some stuff and update the software on it. #### Daily Puzzles I’m actually surprised that I managed not to miss a day of either of my daily puzzles. My placements in **Logic Town** were pretty dire, except for one day where I think I made the top 25. On the other hand, I am still maintaining my 100% win streak on **Sexaginta-Quattuordle** , which I’m pretty pleased with. I’ve also been spending quite a bit of time doing jigsaw puzzles on **JigsawPuzzles.io**. I’ve managed to complete 14 puzzles in a little more than a week just working on it a bit here and there. It’s a web-app, so I don’t have time tracking, but maybe I’m better off not knowing. #### Gaming Related Spending I also managed to reign in my spending a bit this month (at least on games – my craft spending was another story entirely!). I only grabbed a couple of small bundles on Fanatical, a couple of games on Steam which were full price (or nearly so), and I spent $14 on Diablo II: Resurrected during the Blizzard sale. Adding in my World of Warcraft subscription, and I ended up with **$93** in gaming-related spending this month. ### OTHER NERDSTUFF #### Reading I only read one book all the way through this month, although I’m partway through listening to two others. Yet again, I’ve managed to turn what should be a super manageable goal for me of four books per month, and gotten far enough behind that I’m going to have hustle during the back half of the year. I may even end up needing to do what I did last year and revise down the annual goal, but I’m not ready to admit that defeat just yet. #### Watching I did not end up having the TV month that I had hoped for. I did do a bit of rewatching, but I managed to sneak in a couple of new-to-me shows. The first was **Wall of Chefs** on Hulu, which was – more often than not – background. Then, just over the past couple of days, I watched all of **Sweetpea** on Starz. I cancelled most of my streaming services this month, so I wanted to prioritize the ones that were going to expire first, which pushed back my dive into the new season of Yellowjackets – my Showtime subscription is good through June. #### Stitchcraft Etc. I ended the month just over the halfway mark to my goal. The big project I’ve been trying to finish is back in its time out spot while I work on something far more brainless. I’d fully intended to finish another project before starting one (although I’m still within my personal rule to finish two before starting a new one until I’m caught up), and I may even end up bumping the project I had planned to be my next start because I stocked up on supplies this month, and found a pattern I’m just a little more excited about. I bought an overwhelming 11 patterns in April, and ordered all the materials for five of them. This is so much more cross-stitch spending than I normally do, but I was concerned about the impact of the tariffs, and decided to splurge a little bit. By my most optimistic estimation based on my typical month’s stitching, I have fully kitted out enough projects to last me at least 3 years, without even touching the cross-stitch kits I’ve picked up here and there. I figure I’m well covered even if prices skyrocket. * * * So, onto the personal stuff. I came home from work on Friday, April 11th, and my husband of just shy of 10 years announced that he was leaving me and moving to Texas in a matter of days. That weekend was spent being a bit of a mess while also trying to separate all our finances. Since he’s been gone, I’ve really been focused on getting the house cleaned up and preparing to get a roommate, which has thrown my schedule off significantly. I’m okay. Really. I am. Obviously, it’s a big deal, but I’m handling it. I didn’t see this coming at all, but in truth, I probably should have instigated this long before now. It probably wasn’t a terrible decision, but he handled it terribly, if that makes sense. I kept the house, the pets, and pretty much our entire friend group. He took the car and of course, he was bringing in the money through VA disability, so he gets all the income we’d been living on. If I’m careful with money, I’m good for about three months before I have to have another income stream. I’ve got the how of things mostly settled, but I’m not entirely sure how that’s going to affect my schedule and my nerdy goals. I had been planning to move this blog over to another host in a couple of months, but unless I find I’m reinvigorated to write here more regularly, I’m not sure that continuing to pour money into it is really the best idea. This coming Blaugust may, in fact, end up being my last hurrah, but I haven’t definitively decided anything just yet. So yeah, I’ve got a lot of things that are very much up in the air right now. Hopefully, as more time passes, I’ll figure out what I’m doing about the little things in life. This week, I’m doing my best to rest up after a bunch of big ones. ### Share this: * Click to share on X (Opens in new window) X * Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window) Facebook * Like Loading... ### _Related_

11 months ago

Taking a look back at what I did - and mostly, what I didn't do, during the month of April. It wasn't an easy month in any way, and my recap reflects that for sure.

#NerdGirlThoughts

nerdgirlthoughts.game.blog/2025/05/01/in-review-apr...

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Nerd Girl Goals – May 2025 The month of April was **_a lot_** – more on that tomorrow – so we’re going for short & sweet this time around. Hopefully I’ll be back on track long before June’s goal post. * * * ### GAMING & BLOGGING #### The Goals * Make at least **6 posts** in May 2025. * **In Review** & **Nerd Girl Goals** to bookend the month. * Do the summary **Humble Choice** post. * Complete the monthly trading post goals in **World of Warcraft**. * Play and write about **at least one game purchased during April 2025**. * **Play at least 5 hours on the Steam Deck**. * Do the daily **Sexaginta-Quattuordle**. * Do the daily **Logic Town** challenge. #### Community Game-Along This month’s Community Game-Along theme is Fighters & Brawlers, which is very much Not For Me. I’m going to skip this one. #### OTHER NERDSTUFF #### The Goals * Read or listen to at least **four books** during May. * Watch any one new-to-me television series or season. * Put at least **4,000 stitches** into any of my current works-in-progress. I cancelled almost all of my streaming services this past month, so I’m playing catch up on all the things I said I’d watch later. Ideally, I’ll get through at least a couple of those things during May. I’m going to give myself an easier stitching month, though. I’m approaching the tail end of a project that is super slow stitching right now. I do plan to alternate that out with an easier project, so I’m not really expecting to have a finish this month, but I do want to push through since there’s a whole bunch of things I have in queue that I’m very excited about. * * * I know I keep harping on about how I’m going to get back into the groove **_any time now_** , but I actually think that enough in my life has changed that I might actually do it this time. ### Share this: * Click to share on X (Opens in new window) X * Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window) Facebook * Like Loading... ### _Related_

11 months ago

Nothing new in this months goal setting - just keeping it simple in hopes of actually getting back on top of everything.

#NerdGirlThoughts

nerdgirlthoughts.game.blog/2025/04/30/nerd-girl-goa...

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11 months ago

After a couple of lackluster months, Humble has hit it out of the park with the April bundle. From indie darlings to big name franchises, there is going to be something here for most gamers. Well done!

#NerdGirlThoughts #HumbleChoice #IndieGames […]

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In Review – March 2025 * Make at least **6 posts** in March 2025. * ~~**In Review** & **Nerd Girl Goals** to bookend the month.~~ * ~~Do the summary**Humble Choice** post.~~ * Make at least **one Community Game Along** post. * ~~Complete the monthly trading post goals in**World of Warcraft**.~~ * Play and write about **at least one game purchased during February 2025**. * **Play at least 10 hours on the Steam Deck**. * ~~Do the daily**Sexaginta-Quattuordle**.~~ * ~~Do the daily**Logic Town** challenge.~~ * Read or listen to at least **four books** during March. * ~~Watch any one new-to-me television series or season.~~ * ~~Put at least**5,000 stitches** into any of my current works-in-progress.~~ March was a bit better than February for spending my time the way I wanted to, but I still struggled most of the month with finding a game that could hold my attention. I think that may be due – at least in part – to wanting to do too much in general, so I have to really be obsessed with a game in order for it to pull me away from the other things vying for my time and energy. * * * ### GAMING Normally, there’s one or two games that make up the majority of my gaming time in any given month, but I did a lot of jumping around in March. **World of Warcraft** just barely eked out the top spot, but more surprising is having **ARK** in second place considering I only play it around three hours a week. However, we’re moving on from ARK starting next week, and, well, it’s been a year, and I think we’re probably ready for something new. **Palworld** will likely continue to make an appearance going forward, and I’m hoping to actually stick with **Dead State Reanimated** , which I just started playing over the past few days. I’m still doing my daily puzzles in **Logic Town** , but the other half of the list were things I picked up for a bit and then set aside. #### Daily Puzzles I’m still keeping on with my daily puzzles. The start of Daylight Savings made doing the **Logic Town** dailies a little less convenient since instead of resetting at 7pm my time, it now resets at 8 and if I have evening plans, they’ve already started by then. I didn’t place nearly as much this month, but since the goal is just completion, it doesn’t really matter. #### Gaming Related Spending I don’t remember the Steam spring sale being any big deal in the past, but I found quite a few things that I nabbed this time around. Add in a few things from Fanatical, and a single game on the Humble Store, and my gaming related spending for March totaled **$108**. ### OTHER NERDSTUFF #### Reading I listened to two audiobooks this month – one from Everand and one through my local library. I won’t say I’m entirely unconcerned that I’m falling behind this early in the year, but I’m not really **_worried_** yet. I am building up quite a list of Ebooks I’m interested in, and print reading goes way faster for me than audio. #### Watching The beginning of my month was all Traitors all the time. I watched US Season 3, and UK Seasons 2 & 3. After that, I watched the limited series **Black Bird** on Apple TV+. #### Stitchcraft Etc. I finished up my koi pond cross stitch about midway through the month, which was my second finish of 2025. Which means it was finally time to pull my 3/4 finished project off the wall. I was about 3/4 finished, which means about 10,000 stitches left to go. It’s slower than anything else I’ve been working on because of color changes and confetti, but I’m optimistic I’ll actually get through it this time, although probably not until sometime in May. ### Share this: * Twitter * Facebook * Like Loading... ### _Related_

1 year ago

I was super unfocused during March, but I managed to knock out a few goals at least.

#NerdGirlThoughts

nerdgirlthoughts.game.blog/2025/04/01/in-review-mar...

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Nerd Girl Goals – April 2025 The weather is warming up, so at least there’s that. In all seriousness, I’ve been in a bit of a slump. I started off fairly well early in the year with trying to be more in control of my leisure time. Over the last month & a half, I’ve kind of lost focus on being intentional with how I occupy myself outside of my life’s must-dos, and I’d like to get back on that horse a bit because I think it was serving me well. While I work on that, I’m going to keep on with the simple goals, and see if I can make those two things work together. * * * ### GAMING & BLOGGING #### The Goals * Make at least **6 posts** in April 2025. * **In Review** & **Nerd Girl Goals** to bookend the month. * Do the summary **Humble Choice** post. * Complete the monthly trading post goals in **World of Warcraft**. * Play and write about **at least one game purchased during March 2025**. * **Play at least 10 hours on the Steam Deck**. * Do the daily **Sexaginta-Quattuordle**. * Do the daily **Logic Town** challenge. #### Community Game-Along April is #PlatforMonth, and, as I’ve said often in the past, I am rubbish at platformers. I am torn between trying out a couple of puzzle-platformers from my library, or just revisiting a game that fits the theme that I really enjoyed. So, on one hand, I have Gris. On the other, I have Psychonauts. I had hoped to play the latter on the Steam Deck this month, but I can’t seem to shake the spinning camera bug, unfortunately. I’m going to dip my toes into at least one of these during April. #### OTHER NERDSTUFF #### The Goals * Read or listen to at least **four books** during April. * Watch any one new-to-me television series or season. * Put at least **6,000 stitches** into any of my current works-in-progress. I’m dialing up the stitching goal a little bit this month, because I haven’t had much trouble keeping that on track, at least, and it comes out to about 1,500 stitches a week, which feels very achievable. I should be okay on shows as well, because the third season of Yellowjackets will be wrapping up in the next couple of weeks, and if it’s even half as good as the first two, I’ll end up binging it in just a couple of days. * * * I had hoped to be more focused this year, but it seems like that still isn’t really in the cards for me just yet. Instead, I’m going to continue to keep it as simple as I need it to be, so I don’t go completely off the rails. It doesn’t make for very interesting blogging, but I’m trying to just not **_lose_** ground until I feel more steady. ### Share this: * Twitter * Facebook * Like Loading... ### _Related_

1 year ago

The end of March snuck up on me a bit - but it's goal setting time again.

#NerdGirlThoughts

nerdgirlthoughts.game.blog/2025/03/31/nerd-girl-goa...

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1 year ago

It's time to look at March's Humble Choice, and I should probably tell you that no one - not even me - volunteered to play any of these games this month.

#NerdGirlThoughts #HumbleChoice #IndieGames

nerdgirlthoughts.game.blog/2025/03/24/humble-choice...

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In Review – February 2025 * ~~Make at least**6 posts** in February 2025.~~ * ~~**In Review** & **Nerd Girl Goals** to bookend the month.~~ * Post about one game from **February 2025 Humble Choice.** * ~~Do the summary**Humble Choice** post.~~ * Make at least **one Community Game Along** post. * ~~Complete the monthly trading post goals in**World of Warcraft**.~~ * Play and write about **at least one game purchased during January 2025**. * **Play at least 10 hours on the Steam Deck**. * ~~Do the daily**Sexaginta-Quattuordle**.~~ * ~~Do the daily**Logic Town** challenge.~~ * Read or listen to at least **four books** during February. * Watch any one new-to-me television series or season. * ~~Put at least**5,000 stitches** into any of my current works-in-progress.~~ I spent most of February in a comfort-cocoon. I did very little in my free time except play Palworld, cross-stitch, and watch Law & Order: SVU. It occasionally occurred to me that I might want to think about doing something else, but it was simpler to keep doing what I was doing. Most of what I managed to check off was done in the last few days of the month. * * * ### GAMING I actually expected my **Palworld** numbers to be a lot higher – it’s the only thing I put any significant time into this month. I have finally managed to hit max level – something I didn’t quite manage the first time I played. There’s still a pretty significant amount of content I haven’t done, but I’m not sure I’m willing to spend the grind time to have any chance of success at any of it. While the game won’t drop off completely because I’m still playing sporadically with a friend, I’m guessing my March hours played will again be less as I’m finding it less compelling now that I’m at the end game. My gaming time as a whole was down about 50 hours from my January totals, which is a significant dip, even once you consider that there were three less days in the month. Part of that was due to barely touching my Steam Deck at all, I’m sure, but it still feels like much more of a drop than I can easily explain by “being busy” or “focusing on other things”. **ARK** is still my Monday night co-op game, and everything else I touched this month was chosen as being adjacent to blogging. **Fabledom** was my Humble Choice game this month, I almost completely wasted my **World of Warcraft** sub this month by just … not playing, and **Logic Town** was strictly for daily puzzles. Not shown in the table is the half hour I put into **Find Love or Die Trying** for #DatingSiMonth – but I wasn’t particularly invested in it, and never went back after my first play session. However, this past week, I spent **_a lot_** of time on Next Fest demos, and I’m hoping that it’s broken me out of my game slump a little bit. #### Daily Puzzles **Logic Town** ‘s daily challenge mode: I got off to a really good start this month, with a pretty solid streak of placing in the top 100 (that’s what the red ribbon means). But most importantly, I’m sticking with it. The two activities combined take up less than 30 minutes from my day, but I’m very much enjoying the routine of it. #### Gaming Related Spending I nabbed two big charity bundles this month – Safe In Our World from Fanatical at the beginning, and the California Fire Relief Bundle from itch.io right at the end. I also bought a couple build-your-own bundles from Fanatical, and a few discounted games on Steam. All that plus my World of Warcraft subscription ended up costing me **$73** for the month. ### OTHER NERDSTUFF #### Reading So far, I haven’t noticed too much difference in my Everand subscription, but I also haven’t officially swapped to a new plan yet. The majority of books I have in my saved list are still available without an unlock. However, I definitely got bogged down this month trying to be clever about my reading choices. I had selected a five book series audiobook to listen to, and while the first book – The Recipient – was fine but not extraordinary, the second book in the series is absolutely dreadful and I keep telling myself I’ll go back to it, but I think it’s destined for the DNF bin. I did manage one ebook this month – Stephen King’s latest short story anthology – but it wasn’t quite enough to hit my goal. #### Watching I had the best of intentions of watching something new this month, but one day, I decided to throw on Law & Order SVU from the beginning, and before I knew it, I was almost up to season 8 and the month was over. I acknowledge this is an odd comfort show, but I’ve watched the first dozen seasons so many times, I can’t even say that I really **_watch_** it anymore, I just have the TV on with it playing. #### Stitchcraft Etc. I’m still very much on track to finish projects (although, after finishing two over the last two months, I let myself order supplies for a new pattern). The one I’m working on now should be finished before the end of next month if I keep up at this pace, and everything else I have left that I’ve started are going to be multi-monthers based on how many stitches I have left and what I can comfortably do in a month. The photo below is just past the halfway mark before I moved the frame to work on the bottom half. I’ve made quite a bit of progress since then – I probably did close to 7k stitches this month, with another 5,000ish to go. ### Share this: * Twitter * Facebook * Like Loading... ### _Related_

1 year ago

That's February done with, and while I was really good at puzzles and cross-stitch, I didn't manage to do much else that was on my list this month.

#NerdGirlThoughts #InReview

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