The kids are off school for a week for half-term. It has been non-stop "Muuum she did this" "Muuum he did that!". I'm so stressed, my migranes are getting worse, which is making me more snappy, and it's like they realise I'm struggling and are 100x worse. My daughter is just constantly rude to my son when he tries to play with her, she gets really controlling with her games (literally "ok walk your doll over there, now say this..." and will freak out with any slight deviation) and my son will start acting out, which causes her to scream at him, which causes him to hit/scream/throw her toys or whatever. Then she screams more. Then my roommate screams at both of them (which causes them to absolutely lose it) and gets all arsey with me and calls me unfit while I'm trying to calmly de-escalate the situation. Funny how childless men are the best parents. Doesn't say anything to my husband who is also their parent but sure I'm awful. All that does is stress me out more. Then I shout more. Then they get more frustrated and fight more. Today has just been awful, I've sat down and spoke to them before bed and said tomorrow is a fresh start and they need to start acting kinder to each other. But it'll be a marathon not a sprint.

I ended up picking my alien back up. I actually rage quit it a few weeks ago. First, the head fell on the floor and the paint came off, it ended up with lots of little tiny tiny scratches and a whole layer of paint missing from its brow/cheek. So I ended up adding some red to make a blush. It looks less like a Sim, but I have a default-replacement alien skin in my game anyway so I figure it's a happy accident. Then when putting the eyes in, they melted! All down the face. Turns out acrylic paint over plastic eyes are not the way forward when you have to heat up the vinyl head to get the eyes in. Acrylic goes rubbery and sticky. I managed to get most of it off, but it's in the tiny scratches making them way more noticable. That's when I rage quit for a week or two. Today I decided to try painting the eyes with shiny black nail varnish and it went better. It's more of a grey but I figure this kit is blah anyway, might as well use it as a practice and then take those skills and make a better one in the future. Husband was kind enough to do the fiddly bit of securing the eyes into the head, without me even having to ask. It looks good, despite its very obvious paint cracks all over. I do love how it looks.... if I don't look too close. I'm debating giving it eye brows now though, to make it more Sim-babyish.

Also crocheting it a hat. In case it's poor little bald head gets cold.

This weekend, we're expecting a dumping of snow.

My family and I are tired of the icebox conditions outside.

Plenty of snowfall here, too - but it just gets throdded down into an icy/slippery layer in the span of a day or two, so it's no fun. My hope is that the milder weather today + rain is going to wipe away at least the icy layer.

We're bracing for impact.

The snow is starting.

It be blizzardin' outside. Somebody can shut off the snow machine anytime now. We had 2-plus feet snow banks in the yard already from the last snowstorm we had.

We're going to have snow banks until June at this rate....

If anybody wants to see the mess that is happening on the east coast of the US, Ryan Hall ( one of my favorite YT weather guys) is live.


Live - Historic Blizzard Slamming the Northeast - Thundersnow, Whiteouts & 100K+ Without Power

https://www.youtube.com/@RyanHallYall