When I casually said I would take part in this event I did not expect to be part of something this magnitude 
This is an event kicking off the NinjaPull’s Tamriel Academy ESO teaching events season, and I cannot wait to do my bit!
So, if you are on Twitch, please stop by on Fri 17th July 2026 at 12:30-16:30 BST at twitch.tv/linaelvira to watch me showcase The Elder Scrolls Online and talk about gaming journalling!
Sometimes you are just streaming, vibing and hanging out then you find yourself just making a random awesome outfit based on interactions with your chatters! That’s what happened today when I was doing my usual Tuesday stream of Elder Scrolls Online.
Thank you to my Twitch family, you know who you are!
Behold, the most glorious outfit to grace my Templar High Elf in many Khajit bright moons – the Love of Lilydryade!
The armour style is the Dibella’s Exaltation style, which was a Golden Pursuits reward for Valentine’s Day event in 2025. The style consists of the usual items; Helmet, Arm Cops, Jack, Belt, Bracers, Guards, Boots. It is a medium armour style.
I had clean forgotten about grinding for this, only to be reminded of it again by the eminent ESO player after which this outfit is now named!
I paired it with my all-time favourite Weapon style, Jephrine Paladin. The only tweak to the original style that we added was – after some grinding to get the Legendary Jewelry Crafting achievement dye – Divine Gold on the upper part of the shield (the 1st dye slot; see below). We tried a few golds before settling on this one. Ayleid Gold is also nice, however it is a more muted, antique gold.
This outfit fits right into the era my character Taliassae is in right now; she’s being refreshed with new skills and attributes after being my first character created when I entered the full game upon release from beta testing, and needs a fresh new style to go with her magicka. And what a glow up – how can you not love the gold and white??
I am personally pairing this new outfit with the pale magnificence of the Yorgrim River Ram and the glowy Luminous Raven. Once a rarity, the ram mount is now available at select Stablemasters for a small fee of 100,000 Gold… The raven pet is currently available as an Epic-level reward in the Anu vs Padomay Crown Crates. A magickal girl needs her magickal pets after all!
Hope to see you soon in Tamriel (I love hanging out crafting in Vulkhel Guard, hint). If you see me ridin’ in-game, stop and say hello!
Another month, another stream, right??? This month sees some exciting new content in Elder Scrolls Online, but also a new DLC for DOOM: The Dark Ages (in this economy??) and a new seasonal event in Palia.
For #mommyplays, this month is all about Elder Scrolls Online – revisiting Glenumbra with Season 1, and continuing to gather Tome Points! I have a special lonh stream coming up on 17th July, and will post more information shortly on that.
12:00 – 14:00ish Mon/Tues on twitch.tv/linaelvira
MON 6th July #mommyplaysmondays Season 1 Prep
TUES 7th Last push for Season Zero/Zeal of Zenithar
THURS 9th ESO Season 1: First Look
MON 13th #mommyplaysmondays ESO Season 1 Thieves Guild Quest Line
TUES 14th ESO Season 1: Dynamic Encounters
17th ESO Freshman Weekend Stream – (Re)Starting ESO? Finding your MAIN CHARACTER energy! gaming journaling and ESO talk about how to enjoy gaming on a different level
18th July – 2 August ~STREAM HOLIDAY~
3rd August Sheogorath Quest Line ~ live cheese board on 2nd cam ~
So I’ve been creating content since 2008. That’s a long time. A whole generation ago (cray cray, as the Gen Z kidz say). I never really had the tools, or the time, to be one of those “I upload a new video every week on Mondays and Thursdays” types to make money from it. In my OG nail blogger days I did get quite a few PR packages but never any real revenue. But it has been a cozy, creative outlet for me over the years that’s been worth more than freebies, sponsorship and ad revenue!
So, nearing 20 years of content creation, I wanted to look back at what my most popular content has been…
My OG blog, Pretty Perfect Beauty, about nails and beauty, has over 1.2million views over the last 19 odd years and still delivers over 70k views a month. Clearly, if you make quality content people will continue to come back to it! I did have it monetized at one point but when I stopped posting regularly I fell foul of not keeping up to get the monetization renewed.
Nice one. 94k views and counting! Clearly it’s essential viewing. I should have monetized it, I might’ve been able to get an actual new toilet by now!? My content here has really just been random stuff which I have been interested in posting about / that I would watch myself.
Who can resist cute cats and toddlers? No one. My #crazycatbaby reel has 14.3k views and counting! My Instagram is basically again just content I like to share. No business plan just vibes.
So what’s next for you to check out? My Twitch, of course! I think I will combine my love for gaming with my content creation for the next phase, and see if I enjoy the combo!
So today I published the very first episode of the podcast, go and check out Love every day! where you usually binge podcasts or find it on my Anchor.fm
I am personally getting a bit jaded being indoors already and we’ve only been working from home/in actual lockdown for about a week. I’m busy trying to juggle work, childcare, all the side hustling and just trying to chill out. The family are all still in good health albeit between toddler tantrums over not standing on tables, queueing for the grocery store et c so I am grateful for that!
It’s safe to say I need some diversions to keep myself sane. I have been doing some thinking for a while that I want to start a podcast. After some Googling I decided I needed the basics explained to me, because even though I used to do actual radio back in the day at community college, I seriously lack understanding of audio on the computer/internet….
So I downloaded the Anchor app on my phone, cuz iz free so ain’t got nuthin’ to lose, and already I was intimidated by that little microphone button… It’s easy to use they said. OK… As I hit YouTube to seek reassurance and assistance, I was overwhelmed by recommendations for kit which I didn’t understand; what IS a condenser microphone, boom arms, specialist mixer decks, complicated software (looking at you, Audacity). Ugh.
So my head kept thinking and my finger was scrolling even past bedtime. By the middle of the night, I came to my senses – fuck it, what’s the worst that can happen, I’ll just do this. I have a phone, a lapel mic and an app that seems fairly straightforward. So I’m away to record my first podcast today. So stay tuned, it’s probably awful to start off with but I’m sure I’ll crack it eventually!!
I remember my paternal Grandmother having loads of these, and Streptocarpus, on her windowsills! Even today it has a undeserved rep as “granny’s plant”. They were magnificent, and I always dreamed of having my own, but I thought there were some mythical way if keeping them alive/ flowering. But actually, they’re quite easy t look after but you do need to speak to them every day!
My mum harps on about only watering these from below, as does every book/blog/website you can find. However to be honest, this is only so that you do not put water on the leaves! If you do, they can turn brown. Not sure what Mother Earth was thinking when she evolved that, as surely they would be brown if rained on in the wild, but hey. But this family of plants have a very finely fibrous, shallow root system, and if they are potted deeply as most are, watering from below may not allow the water to reach all the way up to the roots! I have a bare patch of soil when I carefully water from the top (I like to live dangerously…) and my African Violet is thriving!
How? The African Violet does like to dry out a little before being watered again. Feed once a month during spring/summer, I just use a regular houseplant fertiliser. Pick off dead blooms and it will continue to flower. These will do well in a terracotta pot as they like to dry out a little between waterings, and not sit in water. The do love a bit of humidity; my tip is to put them on a gravel-filled plastic saucer, and keep water in this to the level of the gravel. Or nestle in among other plants – as the plants respire they release moisture so grouping plants tighter will mean they benefit from eachother’s evaporation! If you’re in the UK, you probably do not have to worry about humidity however. “Speak” to your African Violet every day; you need to ensure they are not sitting in water, too dry or getting pests/disease…
Where? I have mine in a large north facing window – it doesn’t get direct light at any point but it has a bright light most of the day, even in winter. Make sure the temperature doesn’t dip below 16C however; they do not love being cold!! Keep away from direct heat from radiators.
Friends? These will do well in the same window as Calathea, Stromanthe, Cthenanthe, Maranta, Hoya, Anthurium and most ferns.
I’ve got a penchant for bread, but I am not loving most of the offerings in the UK supermarket. Since arriving in the UK over 20yrs ago, I’ve never been one who have a loaf of bread in the house. It’s usually a frozen half loaf of white toast bread which lingers in the freezer with freezer burn until I’ve finally toasted it all… #oops
But it’s 2020, y’all. So decided I am going to get into making my own bread, also so that my daughter can have nice bread growing up, but also, better sandwiches for lunch, right? And by always baking and showing her, hopefully by the time my daughter is 10, she will be baking my loaves for me?..
All recipes for starters which I found relied on crazy long times of feeding and growing the starter culture. I had memories of my mum having a jar of it on the side table in the lounge as a kid. Being a busy mom/business woman, I was hoping for a quick fix – and found it on Tastes of Lizzy T! I followed the instructions, and now we wait…
Follow me on Instagram to see the progress of this culinary experiment; according to Lizzy’s recipe we can expect loaf-age within 48hrs!
So I had an opportunity to get some of these fun looking house plants from a person at work! They had been given seeds, which were sown and promptly forgotten in their sun room while the room was full of stuff from renovation. She cleared it out to find loads of little stone plants! I got 5 of them, after Googling and assuring myself I probably wouldn’t kill them.
These have small delicate tap roots, but looking online, this is what they are supposed to look like. I read all about it, and then watched some YouTube, fretted over the potting medium but then just went for it.
Potting it up…
I decided to use an orchid pot as these guys like it hot and dry. I used a bit of orchid potting medium in the bottom of the pot then filled up with cactus soil. I thought that this might increase drainage and aeration.
I’m aware a lot of people use ceramic pots as they keep dry but I didn’t have any of those to hand.
I used a pencil to make a hole for the root then I put the Lithops in carefully and used the pencil to push the soil around it gently to fill in the hole around the root.
I left the base of the actual plant right on top of the soil, to ensure that it wouldn’t get water logged.
I then top-dressed it with aquarium gravel – this is something I’ve seen done online so I just assume that it would help stabilise the plantlet and keep it from getting wet when watering? We shall see, haha!
How hard can it be?..
Supposedly these are super-tricky to be successful with, but I am hoping it’s a case of plant and forget and they will do well… I found Sucs for you on YouTube’s video very helpful in understanding how they grow through the year, which is essential it seems to get them to survive! Let’s see if these are still alive in a few months time – I will do regular updates!
Have you tried growing Lithops?! If so, do you have any tips and tricks to share?
So it’s another vegan fast food alternative out this month – this time The Colonel wants in on the action. Even though I’m not vegan, or even vegetarian, I’m all for expanding my greener eating options for the sake of the Planet!
The Vegan Burger is according to the KFC website a bespoke Quorn piece – all “11 herbs and spices, zero chicken”. I’m partial to the Zinger Tower Burger if I’m ever eating at KFC, and I must admit, this little number would do very well inside that! However, served with just (vegan) mayo and lettuce, it’s just a bit, well, plain. Texture is good but if you peer inside, the colour is a little reminiscent of tinned tuna…
However – I would have it again! KFC should consider making ALL their burgers have the option of being served with this instead of the usual chicken option! I know they won’t be vegan as such but for those simply seeking a more sustainable meat alternative such a move would likely be popular.
Have you tried it?! Or any of the other vegan fast food choices? If so what are your thoughts?
Lina-Elvira 