Something Magical

Challenge #2 - In your own space, set some goals for the coming year. They can be fannish or not, public or private. Leave a comment in this post saying you did it. Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so.

I do love some goal setting, always have and love the process of taking a big goal and splitting it down into monthly and weekly steps to allow me to achieve them.

Read 75 books I usually read about 70 books a year. I read on average 80 pages a day, if we call an average book length 400 pages, that's a book in 5 days. So 75 should be a doable figure.
Within this, I want to catch up on series I've lost track of, because there's been a couple of Rivers Of London books and I don't think I ever finished Women Of The Otherworld and I think there's new Dresden Files. Now that I have all my books out and up on shelves and I can see what I've got, I'm starting with A (Ben Aaronovitch - Rivers Of London) and working through them all. I'd like to read every book I own but that's not doable in a year!

Learn to type properly I'm a fairly decent typist and according to a recent typing test I did, I type(at 52wpm with 98% accuracy. I don't type 'properly' though with my fingers on the right keys. I'm not a finger pecker but would like to be able to do it well. I've signed up for an online course , I've done the first couple of lessons and I'm enjoying it.

Start drinking more water I am terrible at remembering to hydrate at all. I get terrible headaches and then realise I haven't drunk anything all day. Pre-pandemic when I worked in an office, I had a colleague Liz who would bring me drinks, but since working from home and now living on my own, it's really hard to remember. I have an app on my phone which will randomly remind me 8 times between 8am and 8pm to drink - now all I have to do is pay attention to the alarm and get a drink when it goes off
The same for remembering to eat.

Stop worrying what other people think This is mostly about stimming, especially when I'm not in the house - which granted isn't very often but it can and does help the anxiety and panic. I'm always really worried that I'm going to panic and then people are going to stop and stare and I'm going to be incredibly embarrassed which makes the whole thing worse. I am learning that logically, most people are too wrapped up in their own lives to pay any attention to me. I haven't quite figured out how to apply that and actually make it outside, or to feel comfortable stimming when I need to. But I think it's a big first step.

Try one new recipe a month I love both cooking and baking, and have quite a collection of recipe books but I tend to eat the same meals all the time. They're safe. But I know the tastes and textures that I do and don't like so I want to and try and experiment with making and eating new things. Once a month sounds doable.

Make new friends I'm hoping that I might make some online friends who I can talk to about things like urban fantasy and rock music and Marvel and Doctor Who because I don't have many people in real life to talk to these things about (or know how to find them)

Challenge #1 - In your own space, update your fandom information! Leave a comment in this post saying you did it. Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so.

Hi, I'm Molly and I have no idea what I'm doing here.

My brother, as he is often known to, told me I 'needed a hobby', that I had to 'get a life'. He doesn't seem to grasp that I do have a hobby. My favourite way of spending my free time is either in a big snuggly pile of blankets listening to music and reading, or watching a movie/tv show - preferably the Marvel ones. That is my hobby but he doesn't get it. He thinks I should be Getting Out Of The House, Doing Things With People. And that sounds terrible to me.

I have a whole bunch of anxiety and social anxiety and agoraphobia and Outside is... not safe right now. I moved into a new flat, a flat of my own that I bought, in the last quarter of last year and I'm still getting comfortable inside. I love Chris dearly, he's my twin brother, but he really does get it, really doesn't get me.

But for arguments sake, here I am trying a new hobby. Blogging, apparently. I've also now got myself a goodreads and a twitter and a storygraph too. It's entirely possible you will find here lots of posts about books because I love reading and finally having space for all my books is really exciting, they're all on shelves and they're alphabetical and on the spaces in front of the books on the shelves there's cute little knick-knacks and beanie babies and various other things like that. I have my own little library - aka my spare bedroom - but it's got my books and a comfy chair and a bean bag and a coffee maker and it's so cozy!

That's not what this post was supposed to be about. Although it does tell you a lot about me heh. So, I found dreamwidth which is apparently where all the cool kids are, or something. I've started filling in my profile and then I found snowflake_challenge which although it's like almost over I've decided to try and join in and challenge one is to introduce myself. And being social and connecting with people, even online, is supposed be to good for my mental health - but the best thing is that if it gets too much, I don't have to go anywhere and can just hide where it's safe in my blankets!

Hi, I'm Molly. Which I already said. I'm 38 and live in the Midlands, in England, with my cat Toto (he was a rescue, 7 years old and already knew his name. I wouldn't have chosen it). As yo may have guessed, I love to read, especially Urban Fantasy. My favourite author is Kelley Armstrong, especially the Women Of The Otherworld series. I also really love the Marvel movies, Captain America is my favourite ♥ My favourite music is rock, and I would say my favourites are Bryan Adams and Bon Jovi. 80s/90s soft rock is where its at! I've signed up for Spotify this year because I see so many people posting about their stats and I'm interested to see what mine are.

I'm not quite sure what else to write and I've probably waffled away like a crazy person (spoiler alert: I am!). How do you actually introduce yourself online? Is there anything I've missed that's super obvious that I should have said?

Next up, I poke around and find a layout. And where do I get a userpic from?