Question of the day.

   How did your 2023 start? 

   My answer: 

   Pretty normally. Honestly, I don’t really get celebrating New Year’s Eve, like in general, the fact of a new year starting is a rather neutral thing for me, and in particular, I don’t get the way most people seem to like to celebrate it, by getting drunk and staying up until as late as possible and do peopling. Ugh yuck. Oh yeah and the fireworks, I don’t see the point in that either, perhaps I would if I could actually see anything but I am kind of doubtful.

   So I didn’t do anything special for that day, in fact the first half of New Year’s Eve I actually had a migraine but thankfully it dissipated later on (things could have gotten quite challenging if it hadn’t until the evening so I really am very grateful). However both Olek and Sofi invited their respective mates here, and my poor parents, who originally planned to stay at home and perhaps invite a couple that they’re friends with, felt obligated to take part in a New Year’s Eve organised by my Mum’s cousins. 

   We’d had a few such situations last year where our parents would go out somewhere and my siblings would invite their friends, and while I generally didn’t mind it or anything, it did make me rather uneasy having some random peeps here and two parallel parties going on in the house at the same time, with the peeps running around the place and blasting music at full volume, and you can’t even have a proper guarantee that you won’t come across someone while sneaking out to the loo. And Misha gets all dysregulated as a result, I don’t know whether it’s more because of the noise, strange people, lack of structure or lack of Mummy but he gets very unsettled and it’s me who gets to deal with all that. And these peeps can’t even clean after themselves and leave loads of filth, I feel for their families. But  I have my room, after all, and no random peeps are allowed in here, (why would they  if they’re not my peeps), so I can and do stay in here and so can Misha if he wants, and listen to my own music and do my own things. 

   This time round I found it slightly more difficult though, because soon-ish after Sofi’s party started, I was treated to overhearing a whole very dynamic scene where the main character was Sofi’s friend puking (my room is next to the bathroom). For any potential uninformed newbies, I’m emetophobic so… Well, actually, I didn’t even get properly scared, I knew it most likely wasn’t a sudden bout of stomach flu that she got, but hearing such a thing was rather distasteful. 😀 

   So at the start of  New Year, I think I was in bed listening to music and  engaging full-on in one of my most favourite hobbies, i.e. paracosming (is that even a legit word? Do I even care? 😀 ) Well yeah, now that I’m thinking of it, actually perhaps that’s the exact point of New Year’s, everyone gets to indulge in their worst addictions or develop new ones, so that then they can make a New Year’s resolution that they’ll try to indulge less. 😀 But yeah, as a lot of cultures and languages say, like New Year, like the whole year, so according to that I’m not very likely to become any less maladaptive of a daydreamer any time soon. Sofi’s friend will probably be more successful overcoming her issues, as she managed to indulge properly before midnight. 😛 I stayed in my BrainWorld until 1 AM, which was when my parents came back, full of regrets, because that get-together for cousins was even more boring than they predicted. And when they did, their regrets became significantly greater, as they saw the state of the house and in it some peeps with temporarily altered brain chemistry who were very reluctant to leave and a “v-v-veeer-r-rytired” Sofi”. Suffice it to say that neither Sofi nor Olek are allowed to invite friends  this year, and Sofi had apparently broken all the rules that she promised to follow, and others that Mum thought were obvious. I kind of wonder why, because Sofi is normally more sensible than that and it seemed a bit out of character for her, but she doesn’t even seem to feel any contrition or at least doesn’t show it at all. To be honest, while as I said I never particularly minded those parties when Sofi had them before (and they were  more civil and more teenage-like than the New Year’s one), I was always kind of surprised that Mum even allows this, because generally she is very attached to her house, hates the thought of someone coming in here when we’re away, doesn’t like to leave the house alone for too long as she’s afraid of theft, and has a strong sense of privacy, so allowing a bunch of random young people to come in and do practically whatever they want while she’s away seemed like a huge sacrifice on her side. Anyway, we all feel quite disappointed with Sofi, but also it feels like a relief for both of my parents and myself, and perhaps for Misha the most, that those parties are a thing of the past now. Olek has got a large-ish plot in a different town so he can still invite his friends there, and, actually, if I were him, I’d much prefer doing it at my own place, even if it’s not a proper house. And a part of me feels for Sofi, even though Mum says I shouldn’t because it’s her own fault, but I still do because she’s going to have an awful year by the sound of it. No parties, no sleepovers, no concerts, no hanging out after school… And I bet she doesn’t even have fun memories or anything, and probably a few spoilt friendships to make things worse. 

   Anyways, Sofi & Co. aside, after my parents came back, I decided I can’t be worse and went to sleep as well, or rather intended to fall asleep, but couldn’t. That’s why paracosming right before sleep isn’t always the best idea, ‘cause your brain gets all activated and doesn’t want to stop working. After 3 AM, I gave up and decided I’d rather be a zombie, because I had to get up early to go to church anyway, and I prefer to be a zombie than having to go through the torture of just having fallen asleep early in the morning, and then having to get up after what feels like a few minutes later, even if in reality I’d get two or three hours of sleep. But I wasn’t meant to start off the new year as a zombie, because I drifted off to sleep after 6. 

   I was woken up by my Dad who kept saying “Bibiel?… Bibiel… Bibiel…!” In a way that sounded a little off for some reason. When I managed to shake the thickest layer of sleep off my brain, I was rather surprised that instead of telling me to get up or something like that, he asked if I was hungry. I was WAAAy too disoriented to answer such complex, introspective questions, and a more conscious bit of my brain was a bit like “wtf? Why? did I sleep for a week or something?” so I think I uttered some very ambiguous response like “Hmmmmm…?”, and he must have decided that that means “yes” because he was something like “Let’s go then” and basically pulled me out of bed and led me, or rather dragged me, as I was basically hanging off his arm half-asleep, to the kitchen. If I weren’t as sleepy and all round confused, this would have been quite absurdly hilarious. Mum was in the kitchen and said that she thought I’d be very hungry because I ate very little the day before due to the migraine, and for me that is one of the triggers that causes me to feel really really faint so Mum was afraid and didn’t want this to happen to me so she sent Dad upstairs to ask me whether I was hungry, and he must have assumed that I was so out of it because I was feeling faint, rather than just zombie-ish. 😀 I was very appreciative of her consideration, even though I wasn’t hungry and didn’t feel any weak feeling or anything to be approaching. In the end, I was glad that Dad woke me up like that, because it was already after 9, so this way we could still make it to the 10:30 Mass instead of having to wait for the next one at 6 PM, I think it’s very lousy to go to evening Mass if you don’t have a solid reason for putting it off, or in any case I would feel as if I was being lousy. And Sofi wouldn’t be fit to go with us either way. So I was glad that, even though I fell asleep probably even later than most people who celebrate New Year’s the “right” way, I didn’t have a lousy day. And despite I was definitely under-sleeped, my sleepiness dissipated fairly quickly and I didn’t feel like a zombie or even half-zombie at all. 

   So we went to Mass and then had breakfast and I talked a lot with Mum, who was feeling really blue after that lame party and the Sofi thing and we ate a lot of apple pie. It was my grandad’s birthday and we wanted to visit him like we usually do but we found out that there are quite a lot of people there and my Mum was not in the mood for dealing with a lot of people so we decided we’ll go some other day. And other than that, it was really just a normal day. 

   How about you? 🙂 

Happy New Year to all the peeps. Plus the new My Inner Mishmash playlist.

   How’s your New Year’s Eve going? Or maybe it’s already 2023 where you are? In any case, if you’re celebrating anything in any way today, I hope you have lots of fun, and that the new year will treat you kindly, graciously, serenely and compassionately, and maybe sometimes a little mischievously but not maliciously. My Mum and me have a bit of a tradition going on that we always wish each other lots of new discoveries each year. Because what is life with no intriguing, fascinating and fun discoveries? Deep, bottomless rabbit holes to dig through (not the gloomy kind, no! The engrossing kind)? Obsessions to keep you awake at night and give you inspiration? I hope you’ll learn loads and loads and loads of new things and your brain will grow as a result (not literally, of course, I wouldn’t necessarily wish you megalencephaly). But yeah, I hope that this will be an interesting year for you, but not too turbulent or anything, unless you feel that you do need some radical change. 

   Misha wishes you a lot of peace, rest, good food and a comfy blanket to wrap yourself in when you’re blue, like he appears to be right now. I just got a huge blanket for him yesterday (well, for both of us really 😀 ), it’s a fleece blanket and as wide as my double bed, so finally he can stretch himself out here to his limits and roll around and still feel the blanket underneath. Previously I only had a piece of sheep skin for him, and a synthetic blanket, but he seems to enjoy that one a lot more and has made himself a little, tight cocoon so that I even wonder how he can breathe, and he sleeps like a little baby in there and sometimes lets out a quiet, shaky sigh. But he also seemed sad in the morning and made very sad, mournful sounds so perhaps he’s sleeping this blues off. 

   Traditionally, I’m including a Spotify playlist with all the songs (that are on Spotify) featured in the song of the series this year, and you can look up other playlists on this page if you feel like it. 

The happy new year post, plus the new My Inner Mishmash playlist.

As this current year is about to vanish into the past very soon, I wish all of you, my lovely readers, a very happy new year. Not necessarily happy as in that you should actually be super happy all the time, as that’s hardly realistic, but hopefully happier than this past year, and simply filled with moments, events and things that you’ll appreciate and enjoy. May you learn a lot of new things this coming year and make loads of fascinating discoveries. This is what my Mum and me always wish each other for new year, because it’s such a fab feeling when you discover something absolutely fascinating and possibly even life-changing in a good way. May it also give you plenty of opportunities for development in areas in which you need it, and maybe even in some in which you don’t yet know that you need to develop. 🙂 I hope it’ll be an interesting year for you, but also peaceful at the same time, as peaceful as it can be in our current external circumstances, pandemic and all. If you’re making some resolutions, or perhaps goals or anything like that, I am hopeful that you’ll be able to stick to them. And also, I wish you a lovely New Year’s Eve, regardless how you’re spending it, and a fabulous New Year, because apparently what your New Year is like says what the entire year will be like for you. 😀

Misha is wishing all the pets and peeps alike, as well as himself, some exciting adventures this coming year.

On my blog, New Year’s Eve is also the time for officially sharing my playlist with songs that have been featured in my song of the day series in the past year. So the playlist for this year is now ready and you can see it below. Also if you want to see the previous playlists, you can go to my

Blog Playlists page.

Question of the day.

What small change could the world make to become a better place tomorrow?

My answer:

People could make sure to get some proper, good quality, long sleep tonight. A lot of people don’t get much sleep around the start of the new year, so if they finally did catch up on their lost sleep tonight, tomorrow we’d have less car accidents, and many other types of accidents, more happier people, smarter people, and people’s immune system would work better.

Your turn. 🙂

New Year wishes, plus a little New Year something for all my readers.

At the end of this weird, and very difficult for many, year, I’d like to wish all of you a fun New Year’s Eve – regardless whether you’re doing something to celebrate it or not really. – If you are like my Sofi and really love celebrating occasions like New Year’s Eve, but aren’t able to do so the way you normally do, or perhaps at all, because of a lockdown or some other restrictions that are currently in place where you are, I hope you can still have a great time. Regardless of what this day is going to look like for you, hope it’ll be enjoyable and pleasant. 🙂

And of course me and Misha would both like to wish you a happier, better new year. May it be peaceful, regardless or how much or little you have been affected by various difficult things going on for people around the world this year, and may it bring something good, new and exciting into your lives. 🙂 May you all be healthy and have helpful, loving people around you who care about you, or even just one such person. 🙂 And if you’re a blogger, may it be a good year for the development of your blog and may all your blogging plans work out. Thank you for your presence in my little Mishmashy world this year. 🙂

And now for the other New Year “something”. 😀

I’ve got a spontaneous idea a few months ago that I’d like if all that song of the day archive that has grown on my blog over the last three years could be organised. If not for any other reason then at least just for myself so that I could have it all in one place rather than just scattered all around the blog. And some of you who perhaps like this series could benefit from it too. So I thought it would be fun to make some sort of a playlist with all that music. And now that I’ve got my iPhone, I finally learned how to make Spotify playlists quite effortlessly. 😀 Yes, I’ve been using Spotify for years with very little idea about how to make playlists. That’s because in the desktop app, using my screen reader, adding songs to playlists is quite cumbersome. On iPhone this is much easier.

And so, I’ve created playlists with all the music that I’ve shared in the song of the day series, obviously except for what is not available on Spotify, and thought I’d share with you in case this would be fun for someone. I’ll be sharing a new playlist at the end of each year, or the beginning of a new year, once it is completed.

Apologies for those who like the idea but don’t use Spotify, I do not use other streaming services so wasn’t able to create them elsewhere. Aside from this post, you can always find the playlists in the Blog Playlists page, which is where I’ll be adding a new one every year.

My Inner Mishmash 2018:

My Inner Mishmash 2019:

 

My Inner Mishmash 2020:

Additionally, I’ve made a HUGE playlist for myself which I thought I’d share with you too in case anyone would be interested in such a thing. It is very raw, very huge and very disorganised but who cares. I called it originally Bibiel’s Playlist For Sleep, although I don’t really use it for sleep as it’s too varied for that, but the title kinda stuck and I don’t have a better idea. It contains all the music created by my faza subjects (Enya, Declan Galbraith, Cornelis Vreeswijk, Gwilym Bowen Rhys and all the bands with which he collaborated) that I like (for example you won’t find Enya’s Orinoco Flow because this is the only song by her which I dislike), all the music that I like from artists that are somehow related to my faza subjects – like their family members, so there’s for example Clannad because I like most of their music and because they’re Enya’s family and she had collaborated with them for a while, or a Welsh band Y Trwynau Coch in which Gwilym’s dad was the vocalist – various covers/interpretations of their songs that I like, or even other versions of some traditional songs they have interpreted in other interpretations that I also like, plus lots and lots and lots of harp music, because harp is my favourite instrument, with particular emphasis on Celtic harp, but there’s also orchestral harp, or even autoharp or Finnish harp aka kantele, and also there is some music from people who are harpists but that doesn’t feature harp. So the criteria for something to get into this playlist are rather lax. It just has to have something to do either with my fazas, or harp and harpists/harpers, and I have to like it. At this point there are some things in there that I don’t like all that much because I was adding a lot of things collectively and haven’t yet sifted through all of that, but generally I love most of it. It has no specific order but it doesn’t have to have because I listen to it in shuffle mode anyway. It is still under construction and will probably always be. So if you’re interested in that sorta raw, wild mix of music, come along! 🙂