Tag: my rock star life

Boy, am I bad at maintaining a blog.

Boy, am I bad at maintaining a blog.

Posted on by vanarendonk
Sparkles the wonder pibble

I can chalk part of that up to a massive multi-year pandemic, which messed with a lot of people’s productivity. But the rest is just life getting away from me and me forgetting to write about it.

I laughed when I looked over my last post — shared exactly five years ago — because the room pictured hasn’t had carpet or been used as a closet in years. I built myself a custom corner desk to fit the end of that room more than four years ago. Oh, and Sparkles the Wonder Pibble (pictured at right, now a senior who spends a lot of time napping) is no longer a foster dog. After spending two years of lockdown with me, I couldn’t exactly explain to her that she wasn’t really my dog, y’know? She thought she lived here.

A lot has happened since then. A lot has happened in this year alone, from wrecking my ankle (ow) and spending several months in a wheelchair/scooter, to sustaining my first concussion (uh …yay?), to buying my dream house (yay! well, almost yay; I’m still a few weeks out from closing), so I won’t even try to summarize the previous ones. Suffice it to say I’m still kicking, albeit with only one ankle at times. I have a new story coming out in early 2026, I’m doing some costume work for a brand new holiday musical by a brilliant writer/composer, and I’m getting back into voice acting. I’m in the process of updating my laser cutting equipment (day job) and will be expanding my business after I move, and I’m also launching another fun pin campaign with my creative partners (more news on that to come in January!). I’m also overseeing the renovation of a historic home for the nonprofit historical society I work with, which is… an adventure.

With all that going on, I can’t promise to write regular updates here, but I’ll try to report on the big things as they happen!

Optimizing my work space

Optimizing my work space

Posted on by vanarendonk

After months of being in lockdown and struggling to work at home with no good home office space, I knew I was going to need to make some improvements to my work environment before NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) began. During the cold winter months, I have a bad habit of turning on my heated mattress pad and sitting in bed to write, which is really bad for my already-damaged spine. I do have a vertical projector that allows me to project my computer screen onto the ceiling over my bed so I can write lying down, but that only works when it’s dark outside.

So I spent most of today cleaning and overhauling my closet (actually a small bonus room off my bedroom that’s about the size of a walk-in closet, so that’s what I use it for) and setting up my drafting table as a writing station. Most importantly, I placed the table against a wall with an outlet in the center, so I can turn on a space heater under the desk! (My bedroom is not well heated.)

Sparkles the Wonder Pibble, my foster dog, was deeply disturbed that I moved her crate in order to put my desk in a more efficient spot. She protested by flopping down on the freshly-vacuumed carpet and taking a nap.

Love old books? Science Fiction? Antiques? Check this out.

Love old books? Science Fiction? Antiques? Check this out.

Posted on by vanarendonk

I’ve been pretty quiet online lately, because my life — and house — have been completely taken over by the Franklin Township Historical Society’s fundraiser rummage sale. I sit on the executive board of this small nonprofit organization, and since the pandemic nuked most of our in-person activities this year, I suggested that we have an online auction to help raise the necessary funds for repairs and maintenance on our 149-year-old building.

That’ll teach me to make suggestions.

So in the end, I found myself in charge of running the sale, which meant collecting and sorting through hundreds of donated antiques and collectibles, photographing them, researching their value, and listing them individually on eBay. The downside of this was the couple hundred hours I put into the process over the past two months, the frantic few days of packing and shipping that I have to look forward to, and the loss of my entire kitchen and office to boxes of antiques. The upside is that we had some REALLY COOL STUFF donated, and I got to look at all of it!

My office used to have a floor. Now it’s just a holding pen for hundreds of auction items.

We have a large number of rare and antique books, vintage Star Trek collectibles, antique furniture, vintage Victorian and Edwardian (and later) garments, antique bisque dolls, kitschy midcentury toys, and even some more modern things like DVD sets and comic books. So if you want to start your holiday shopping early, might I suggest supporting a good cause while you do?