This week, like the last, was eventful and busy, but there was time to breathe too. Overall, it was pretty good! The nice thing about writing these posts and looking back on them is realizing how full of fun things my weeks usually are and how different the days can be. Life is always full of surprises and fun experiences!
๐ Monday ๐
On Monday we had our belated Valentine’s Day cooking class! I got a beautiful sunset shot on the way there…
And some funny photos during the class itself:
Even though it wasn’t my favorite type of cuisine, the meal was pretty yummy, and the custard we had for dessert, in particular, was delicious! I also got to have a little drink.
I’m sure we will do this again, it was a lot of fun!
๐ Tuesday ๐
On Tuesday we went on our (again, belated) Valentine’s Day dinner. We ended up doing everything on different days. This was a promising French restaurant, and the drinks were wonderful:
The guys liked their food a lot, but I found it all very bland, though the presentation was very nice:
In fact I would say this was my least favorite fancy restaurant experience so far. The only place I wouldn’t care to go back other than the drinks. But it’s still fun to try new places!
๐ Wednesday ๐
I made a new type of salad for Wednesday’s lunch, a variation of the previous salad. This one had a baby spinach base. I think I liked it even better!
Later, after struggling a lot to decide how to handle this drawing, I printed it out into two different 8.5″ x 11″ pages and now I am tracing it onto a large piece of watercolor paper:
I really wish I had a bigger printed to print out my sketches onto directly in non-photo blue or other light color. Maybe later this year. I’ve been doing research on it, and I have one picked out.
This was tank cleaning day. Here’s some happy snails enjoying fresh foods and a clean cage!
๐ Thursday ๐
I feel like I post too many photos of Tomoyo laying on my bed, but she is so cute…
Recently, during grocery shopping, I came upon a wonderful find. I’d first spotted this guy well over year ago in the same section of our Publix:
I’ll get him later, I told myself. I think I went the day after, or two days later. No dice. I waited for weeks, then months, for a restock. I found out it was scalped all to heck online. Such a bummer! This is a cheap little dino from the cheap toy section at the grocery store. But official JP babies are uncommon (I’ve yet to see that nasutoceratops IRL… ๐).
Anyway, this week, lo and behold there he was again, and somehow he had not suffered from inflation. The price was the same as the first time I saw him. So this little guy came home with me, and now sits between the sturdy legs of mama brachio!
I don’t want to keep finding excuses to fail on my resolution, but it sucks when this was something I missed out on before and it happened to show up, finally. Sigh… ๐ฉ
๐ Friday ๐
I’ve been drawing a little almost every day. On Friday, I worked on another badge!
Here’s Tomoyo laying on the laundry I’m trying to put away. She can be terribly cute sometimes.
Before bedtime, I got a good amount of writing done. Well over a thousand words. So that was good.
๐ Saturday & Sunday ๐
The weekend was really nice! Our partner bought these red ceramic knobs for our kitchen cabinets that he knew I’d been wanting, and we installed them together. Objectively, I can say (I know) they look bad. ๐ But also, red is the accent color all over our kitchen. So, subjectively, I love it. Christopher was about as horrified as we expected he would be.
We had pizza for dinner on Saturday, and I also did our taxes on this day. It was nice to get that off my back.
After a few missed Project Nights, I did a little bit of scrapbooking on Sunday afternoon, and completed two new pages, a Jurassic World one (themed after my new Pyroraptor friend) and a Sesame Street one. Here they are in progress…
And all finished!
On Sunday morning I finally finished reading Stephen King’s “It”. This was a big deal to me, because “It” is the longest book I have ever read (that wasn’t a compilation of multiple books). It never, ever bored me for a minute. I’m going to read a comic collection next, before tackling another “real” book.
I’ll end this post with this GIF of Rosie hiding in the Kallax:
CONTENT WARNING: There will be some minor references to struggles with food and eating in this post. It will be from Friday onward and will have a reminder content warning so it won't surprise you. This stuff will diminish with time, right now it is a big thing in my life, so I apologize if it is annoying.
Happy Sunday, everyone! Firstly, let me address something you may have noticed (perhaps with relief) if you’re a daily subscriber: the 2023 Goal Tracker post notifications are no longer being sent out.
This is because I was apprehensive about flooding people’s inboxes with something that interested only me (I mean, more than the rest of a lot of this blog’s content, even). Sharing the posts imbued me with a definite sense of accountability, but it wasn’t worth causing people to unsubscribe. So I still publish them, but now they are all private, for my eyes only, and so, no one gets notifications for them. You can still keep track of my progress on my 2023 resolutions page if you are so inclined. ๐
Overall, this was a positive week. Let’s get on with the summary!
๐ Monday ๐
Christopher has been a little low, so I baked cookies to cheer him up! And well, I also wanted cookies. They were great! We still have a package left, I’ll probably make it next week.
It was tank cleaning day, so have some photos. Excuse the poop. They’re literally always pooping.
๐ Tuesday ๐
I worked on art lots on this day, getting this piece almost to completion –here’s a WIP:
And here’s a random photo I took of Kotoko on this day. She was being extra adorable.
Being Tuesday, Project Night was next! Grogu kept me company as I worked on a Mandalorian Valentine page.
It was especially fun, and I’m glad I grabbed the card while grocery shopping to do this. ๐ Even if its message seems oddly threatening…
๐ Wednesday ๐
Christopher stayed home on this day, as he wasn’t doing so well. I did my best to look after him. I also finished the art I shared a WIP of for the day before. Other than that, it was a normal day of doing my best to stick to all my resolutions.
One of those has been riding my stationary bike almost every day, and playing Legends: Arceus at the same time. I found that it was easier to go from Violet to Arceus, than it was on my first attempt when I went from Sword to Arceus for a bit. Violet got me a little more used to the whole open world business.
I’m also glad I finished Violet before going back to Arceus because otherwise the graphics in Violet would have bothered me so much more. Arceus does have glitches and frame rate issues as well, but I still find it utterly beautiful.
The utter disappointment in Mai’s Munchlax face after losing the battle was SO cute. He looked so crestfallen! I felt kinda bad…
WAIT –Bambi’s dad!?
Nevermind it’s just Wyrdeer.
I can’t be the only one who thought “Old Prince” when I saw him in that pose, though!
CONTENT WARNING: Going forward for the rest of the post, there will be occasional discussion of disordered eating, fitness, and weight loss. It will be in a mostly positive note, but please don't continue reading the post if this topic is triggering for you. ๐
๐ Thursday ๐
On this day, you may recall that I made this post. It was a self-reflection that was very long overdue. I’d mostly ignored a lot of the issues presented there, because I am neither worryingly skinny nor morbidly obese, nor does my weight fluctuate wildly, nor am I engaged in seriously physically harmful practices in relation to food.
But I could tell that my relationship with food was becoming problematic, obsessive, and distressing on an everyday basis. I started to feel that if I continued to ignore it, it could verge into actually dangerous territory. So, I made changes to my everyday life that began on this day.
The primary change, really, is simply a drastic reduction in my snacking. I have lunch, a snack, and dinner. Because I’d been so obsessive with eating a small snack whenever I felt like I could, I’d forgotten how to read hunger cues (indeed, I had not had them for a very long time). You could say I am really bad at hearing my body’s signals. So, for me, limiting my snacking to very set times is very important, as is planning everything I will eat that day on the day before.
I am flexible: generally, I simply have mate for breakfast (it’s like tea, no calories, so it doesn’t break my intermittent fast) but on this week there were been two mornings where I had a handful of Raisin Bran because I am trying very hard to increase fiber in my diet and every extra bit helps. One night, after a full dinner, I was still so hungry that I had a banana, and that was okay. I listened to my body and gave it something good.
On that note, the primary reason for my intermittent fast is to have a set time for dinner and not go to bed too soon after (a healthy practice) and to actually be hungry for lunch. So, it is not a diet practice as much as a lifestyle change that I want to keep for every day.
Anyway, on to more fun things, this was date night! We went to Tijuana Flats for a treat, and I snuck Toro inside my backpack. ๐
He enjoyed some tortilla chips!
Once we got back home, we played with LEGO, and I completed my first set of the year!
123 Sesame Street is full of adorable details and it has to be my favorite set I’ve put together yet, along with the LEGO Friends Friendship Tree House.
Later that night, I happened to spot our littlest possum visitor through the dining room window. He was so cute! I went to the door (without opening it) so I could get some photos and video from the narrow window on the side.
I’ve been making an effort to clean this area before night to discourage the guys from visiting, much as I love them. They get really close to the house and I wouldn’t want them to get aggressive. They come after the bird seed that the birds dropped during the day, but admittedly there is never much that is edible. They mostly sniff around for a few minutes and leave.
After our nightly anime watching, I went to write for a while. It wasn’t until the clock showed well past 2:00am and Christopher came into the room to make me go to bed and turned on the lights that I saw that the Boba Fett plushie I longed for had been hidden among other green friends! It was there all the time, for hours, and I hadn’t seen it!
This was such a lovely surprise from Christopher, and I can’t wait to make him a bandana and kandi necklace like the rest of my toys. I’ll show close-ups of him in and out of the box a little later in this post. Needless to say, I went to bed very happy!
๐ Friday ๐
To start this day, here is Tomoyo laying on my chest while we hung out on the couch in the morning:
On this day I started to watch 3000 Leagues in Search of Mother (ๆฏใใใใญใฆไธๅ้, Haha o Tazunete Sanzenri) a Japanese animated television series directed by Isao Takahata that aired in 1976. You may recall me mentioning this anime when I was reading Corazรณn: Diario De Un Niรฑo by Edmondo De Amicis earlier this year. The GIF that started this day’s summary is from that anime.
Corazรณn is the daily diary of an Italian schoolboy growing up in the late 1800’s. Included in the novel are twelve stories that Enrique has to copy for school, which the teacher provides to the students. The stories all have morals about family or patriotism, or the like. The anime is loosely based on one of these stories, “De Los Apeninos A Los Andes” (From the Apennines to the Andes).
While this short story is the longest in the novel, it’s still but a few pages long. The anime greatly expands upon it, turning it into a 52-episode epic that had me crying with just the first one! It is full of heart, and definitely a drama. Not something you’d see being made for kids nowadays, I’m sure. It would be considered traumatizing.
Very sad, given that stories like these recognize the real pain, loss and fear children experience daily all over the world throughout history and across all generations, regardless of whether adults today like to think about it. Anyway, I’m looking forward to binging it over the next few weeks.
I didn’t have time to free poor Boba from his bindings this day, but I took a close-up photo of him:
I went grocery shopping on this day. Before doing so, I’d trashed a lot of my unhealthy snacks. I did keep some, and I put them out of my easy reach. But sometimes I pick one to have the next day and leave it where I can get it. Believe it or not, I have the rest under lock and key, and I give the key to Christopher during the day. I guess perhaps a detail such as this might make it more clear why I feel my lack of self control is such a problem (the key was my idea, mind you).
It took me longer to shop for groceries because I was much more careful with my choices. I came home with a lot of healthy foods, non-processed stuff, fruits, veggies. I very much enjoyed my meals the rest of this week and surprised myself with how delicious I could still make meals without smothering everything in cheese, or frying stuff.
I made tilapia with potatoes for this night. Normally I’d have made a second side. But we were all full without one. That was a good choice too.
Afterwards, I enjoyed playing more Legends: Arceus and riding my stationary bike. Once I finish, I always lay on the couch with Tomoyo for a bit, who by now is eager to get fed, but tolerates some love anyway…
What a face!
On this day, I finally began using my food diary. I decided to use a Google Sheets document rather than a written book after all. I find this more useful, I am more likely to enter the data, and I can add up calories and subtract exercise.
๐ Saturday ๐
As the week went by, my feelings towards food and eating improved more and more. I began to eat much more mindfully, not snacking became easier, and food was tastier as a result. I felt more satisfied and happy, and a lot of my feelings of guilt began to go away. This week I had salad for every lunch. I’ll switch once the salad mix is out, but I know I’ll make it again soon because it was so delicious!
It has krab (which I seasoned with salt, pepper and Old Bay seasoning) boiled egg, some crunchy topping, a cracked black pepper ranch dressing, and a base of iceberg lettuce, romaine lettuce, carrots, red cabbage and radishes.
I’ve been trying to use meditation techniques to control some of the obsessive snacking thoughts. I acknowledge the thought, and let it pass, or try to. I do not guilt myself over the thought. It’s just something that crosses my mind, and I remind myself it doesn’t actually have the power over me that I think it does. It was hard at first but it’s been helping a lot, too.
On the afternoon, I finally found time to free Boba Fett. He is so flippin’ cute! I love his little fists. I’m not sure he should trust the rocket launcher, though. It’s not the most reliable. I also cut up the box for more scrapbooking materials!
For dinner, I made turkey burgers with avocado. ๐๐ฅ๐
Random snail photo of the day:
During the night we received a rarer visitor: one of the local raccoons! He was just passing by.
๐ Sunday ๐
It was a rainy weekend, and a lazy, relaxing Sunday. I had my usual breakfast early in the morning as the sun was coming up, and read a little more, too.
Afterwards I took a little nap and Tomoyo napped on me too:
I had an unexpected gift card later in the day. I was really happy that I could buy a simple board game to play with my mom the next time I visit her!
Since I had enough left, I got something off of my wish list… I’m gonna say this doesn’t count against my resolution since it was a gift card. I’ve been wanting this little guy sooo much!
Afternoon snack was rich in fiber. Did more reading, and Blue kept me company this time!
Having worked on Patreon rewards all throughout the weekend, I decided it was ok to take some “me” time to scrapbook. I really wanted to make a couple of Child’s Play / Chucky themed pages.
Here’s the “Good Guys” page before everything is pasted in!
And here it is all finished:
This was the more “gory” page. Here it is underway…
…and all done!
I had a lot of fun! Dinner was grilled chicken, mashed potatoes, some avocado slices and kale salad. Pretty small portions, so on this night, after exercising, I had a banana, too.
I finished the week with much more positive feelings than it started with. I hope I can carry them on into the next, and have fun things to share with you all! Have a great week, guys!
This was, for sure, a much better week! Itโs been a bit of a battle, but slowly Iโve been clawing my way back to more successful days, with more goals accomplished. This week we got to have dinner and hang out a little with our beloved friends Kitty (whom you might know as Blankit) and her husband Dan. That was a huge treat, as we hadnโt seen them in forever. Let me tell you about that, and about the rest of my week, below!
๐ Monday ๐
The week started off a little rough. Work has been deeply stressful for poor Christopher and it was having the worst effect on his mental health at the end of the weekend and start of this week (you might recall me mentioning last week that he wasnโt doing so well). So that was on my mind a lot on Monday.
I did a lot of laundry and worked a lot on my fantasy novel on this day, to catch up on what I couldn’t do the previous day. I wrote a total of 1,540 words which was really satisfying. Other than that, I donโt have much else to share about this day beyond this photo I took at bedtime:
I was feeling so cozy in my little corner playing Pokรฉmon that I decided to take a photo to remember that pleasant feeling. ๐ฅฐ
๐ Tuesday ๐
Another day on which I missed writing, but since I caught up so much on Tuesday, I was still good for my weekly goal. I also exercised and gamed a decent amount.
Tuesday I made the decision to set up a cohost account, finally. It wasnโt as hard as I thought, and I was very pleased with the result:
I think it looks pretty nice! I also got cohost Plus! to help support the site. Staff activated me for posting the same day, and I have been enjoying interacting with people over there since.
๐ Wednesday ๐
This was a special day –and a very busy one! As usual, it started with breakfast on the couch, reading a book, having mate and enjoying Elliot’s company:
Afterwards, I spent a few hours doing chores and straightening up the house. This included cleaning the snail tank:
At noon, I had the usual Zoom call with my mom. I worked on commissions and did more chores before hopping in the shower. Soon after I got out, Kitty and Dan arrived! We showed off the house to them and then left to go to Nine Five Phแป together for a nice little dinner.
Kitty and I talked a lot about all sorts of things, including many recent fandom debacles. It was really nice to discuss these things in person with someone. We also caught up on each other’s lives, and got a couple of photos together…
Afterwards we went back to our house, where we had snacks and played the Fronks game on the Wii U. Then we switched to the latest Mario Party. I performed horribly as per usual, but Dan really gave Christopher a run for his money the entire game. It was close at times, but eventually Dan won!
After the game, it was time to say goodbye. We hadn’t seen one another since Megaplex 2019… I didn’t realize it had been so long. Truly, COVID warped my sense of time. I haven’t been to any conventions since. I was starting to think I never would again, honestly, but seeing Kitty and Dan put an ache back in my heart for memories of those days. Then again, can those days be recaptured? I’m not sure… but I feel maybe I should return to the con scene, and to old friends.
๐ Thursday ๐
I worked hard all day to have all my chores done and still have time to watch TV. I wanted to finish binging through The Book of Boba Fett, and finish an overdue commission for Kiba. But first, here’s a photo of Elliot and Tomoyo doing their usual morning window watching, while touching butts:
I feel regret about sleeping on Boba Fett all this time. I hadn’t realized it was pretty much a continuation of The Mandalorian. I enjoyed it immensely, the ending was so awesome and adorable, honestly to a fanservicey degree, lol. I just loved it.
I finished Kiba’s commission and then left to do the grocery shopping so that the timing would be just right for Christopher to pick me up on his way home from work. Once home, I put the groceries away and he started cooking. He made this really weird chicken chili soupy thing with tortillas that was extremely comforting to eat and I can’t wait to have again.
Then it was LEGO time! It was date night, after all. I got some nice progress in on my Sesame Street set:
The guys worked some more on their lighthouse. Then we cuddled and watched anime together.
๐ Friday ๐
This day I felt very accomplished. Not only did I get over 700 words written on my novel, but also exercised for over an hour and burned over 600 calories. It felt like a very successful day! I also got more gaming done, and reading too:
I really thought I’d have to read a few other books alongside Stephen King’s “It”, because it is over a thousand pages long and seemed so overwhelming, but it’s been so utterly engrossing, I just can’t put it down to read anything else! I’m making good progress on it, too.
On another topic, you know those fuzzy caterpillars everyone here calls woolly bears? In Argentina, people called those “gatas peludas” meaning “furry cats” (specifically, female cats, for some reason). When I was looking at the misshapen lump that was Rosie on the cat tree, it made me remember that… she might as well be a giant fuzzy caterpillar for all you’d know:
After getting all my chores done, I made dinner (salmon croquettes) for me and the guys. We watched Chucky again (the TV show –we’re on season 2). It was a very wacky episode. Just like with the movies, I both love and hate the show. It truly is exactly like the movies in feel. If you dare take it seriously/get attached to anything or anyone, or expect it to make sense, it’ll slap you on the face, give you the finger, and laugh.
I was unable to have Project Day on Tuesday as is normally scheduled. Didn’t plan my day out properly and also just wasn’t feeling it. So, I did it on this night instead, right after dinner. Since all of my scrapbooking stuff was now organized, I figured I’d give it a go and finish a new page for my Squelf-Book:
And, to add another tick to my “enjoy my toys” resolution, I brought Clicky down for company. I really love my little clicking dino, but I’ve not played with or enjoyed him at all, so it was about time. Clicky helped me pick scraps and cut-outs to decorate the page with!
He even helped stick some of them in place:
When it was all done, we were both pleased with the results!
By this time next week, I’ll be on to my next video game. I truly loved Pokรฉmon Mystery Dungeon: Rescue Team DX, it’s a game that will remain in my heart forever, so I wanted to do this page to commemorate my playthrough.
After this, it was time for anime and cuddling. We are watching the original Trigun. We were going to watch the recent remake, but not only were Christopher and I slightly put off by it –we also found out that our partner has never seen the original Trigun, and this situation must clearly be remedied.
๐ Saturday ๐
This was a very busy day! I did lots of chores, and exercised + gamed a ton. I finished Pokรฉmon Mystery Dungeon: Rescue Team DX! It was such a lovely game that I’ll always remember fondly. Tomorrow, I’d pick up Legends: Arceus where I left off.
I also did lots of outlining for my novel, and worked lots of commissions, catching up on the changing table badges:
I got a little video to show you that I took on Saturday. This is how snails groom their shells so the edge doesn’t hurt them:
Not unlike a cat grooming, snails do this daily. Usually, they do it after they wake up and before starting their daily roam for food, water and, er, companionship. ๐
At bedtime, Rosie was waiting for me:
I took my Switch to bed and after about an hour, I’d beat the game:
I took one last picture of Rosie cuddling next to me and purring up a storm before we both fell asleep…
๐ Sunday ๐
Sunday was utterly exhausting. It was time to make a proper dent on commissions, so I practically did nothing else and finished eight by the end of the day. No exercise, no writing, no chores… just art until my eyes bled. In spite of the progress, I ended the day a bit unhappy because being able to exercise and write are the two things that make me feel the most accomplished.
And yet –in spite of this, I beat the writing goal this week, with 3,611 words. When you consider all the outlining done as well, it’s a huge success. And I beat a video game and finished a scrapbook page!
A nice thing that happened on this day is that our partner finished adding a different band to the Bluey watch he got me for Christmas. The band that came with this watch is total garbage, the watch would come right off a kid or adult’s wrist. It was unusable. But the watch is very cute. It took a lot of work to make the 20mm rainbow band I bought for it fit, but he did it, and it looks great!
Sometimes, if they are sleepy enough, these two get along…
Lately Rosie has been super cuddly, every night… she’s always purring, stretching her little paws to touch me, getting up and then letting herself fall heavily against me. She is so sweet, I adore this little cat.
I played a little of Arceus at bedtime. Still can’t quite get into this game, and I find it a bit difficult, but we’ll see how the coming week goes with it.
Ups-and-downs are normal to have, but it’s rare to have such a good week be followed by such a bad one. No major catastrophes took place, and a lot of what made it so hard to handle the smaller difficulties was my period, which for some reason was very unusually long and harsh on my body. It, combined with other stuff, managed to sink me into a days-long depression. Most of my goals fell by the wayside.
This journal is pretty dismal overall, though it picks up in tone near the end of the week. I apologize that it’s not as cheerful as usual. It was just a really hard week for me. ๐ฅ
๐ CW: pet loss discussion in this blog post. ๐
๐ Monday ๐
Right from the start, Monday was not an easy day. Physically, I was still feeling down from the day before. I had been unable to stay on top of my goals for days for a variety of reasons. In addition, it was very cold, and the guys wanted to sleep with the windows open. This made for some truly miserable nights and mornings for me. And bad mornings tend to throw my entire day off track. I just felt unhappy, unmotivated, and like everything was a struggle.
I pushed myself and cleaned the snail tank this day, so my little guys didnโt suffer from my lack of motivation:
The cats stayed in cozy corners all day. Even Elliot spent time indoors. Hereโs Kotoko hiding in one of the cat condo nooks:
Speaking of Kotoko, in the evening I decided to give her a bath in spite of the cold because she was just so dirty. Sheโs old and canโt groom herself very well anymore. As I was drying her, she peed, on my Jurassic Park rug no less. So that was great. I was upset about the rug, but above all because it felt like I put Kotoko through hell for nothing. ๐
๐ Tuesday ๐
This was another cold morning. At least Kotoko had forgiven meโฆ I think the cold might have helped with that.
This day I went to visit my mom. From early on, I felt very depressed. Iโd been down since the day before and just continued feeling increasingly worse. I wanted to take her to the movies this week, to cheer her up (sheโs still not doing okay after Shampooโs passing) and there is rarely enough money in the family finances for that sort of thing.
I was really down about that, but ultimately managed to sell a commission to take my mom to dinner and a movie the following Saturday. Thank you, Snow, for that.
Throughout the day, before I went to her place, I did my best to do my chores, work on art, finish another book chapter, take care of the pets. I did whatever I could to get through the motions, but it was hard. I hadnโt had to push through feeling so bad in a long time.
Once at my momโs, whatever good cheer Iโd managed to bring up hit the hard wall of Shampooโs absence.
Seeing all of her special spots without her in them was terrible. Seeing her pretty little urn, while not hearing her usual loud meows… it was all very hard.
I managed to keep that pain to myself for my momโs sake. But truly, more than my heartache over Shampooโs passing, the fear and grief that an event like this brings is always mostly about Kotoko. Iโm not afraid that I wonโt be able to handle her loss when it happens. It’ll hurt, but eventually I’ll be okay. But I am very afraid for my husbandโs sake. And I fear that the man he is now will sort of die when Kotoko dies, and whoever he will be after that, I donโt know, but I am very afraid that he will never be the same again, and I will never have this version of him again.
I donโt know what to do with that fear, and every passing year it becomes worse. Sometimes I feel like our beloved old cat is a ticking bomb of grief. This event has redoubled that, especially because I think he is in some deep denial about her advanced age and the limited time she may have left. This literally keeps me up at night.
Anyway… as usual, my mom had a little snack spread ready when I got there:
Then we had baked potatoes for dinner:
And seeing Sweeney was nice, but I couldnโt help thinking that he is the age Stimpy was when he passed, and Stimpy seemed pretty okay until near the end too. I guess I am full of grim thoughts right now.
For some reason, during this visit a lot of old fears and worries hit me very hard. Though I appeared cheerful to my mom, and I know she thought I was okay, I ended Tuesday feeling the most depressed I have been in a very, very long time. It was an overall feeling of hopelessness for the future, that Iโm sure (I hope) I can shake off.
But itโs a hard feeling to carry for any length of time. I know what itโs trying to say. Itโs whispering in my ear, cruelly, insidiously, โthings arenโt going to be okay, but no one really caresโ. It is a lonely feeling to carry.
When I feel this way, holding strong to my โdo not buy toysโ resolution is incredibly hard. I would love a small toy from my wishlist right now to distract me even for a moment from feeling the way I do, no matter how fleeting that relief is.
On the upside, earlier in the week a kindly commissioner sent me a set of colorful drawers where I will be able to sort all of my scrapbooking supplies for Project Night, which is set to arrive on Thursday. Iโm thinking about that, to feel happier and excited about something to do.
๐ Wednesday ๐
After a Tuesday night full of nightmares and unusually strong cramps that lasted into the morning, Wednesday began.
It was a beautiful sunny morning, and I felt a bit less depressed, but now I was in a lot of pain instead (continued from the night). Maybe rather than feeling less depressed, I just felt like I was settling into my depression, I guess? Getting used to it? Maybe Iโll feel this way for some time.
We had mate for breakfast, but because I was in pain the whole time, I didnโt want any. Anyway, have some Sweeney toebeans:
I was slow, achy and tired for a lot of this day. Whenever Iโm at my momโs feeling really low, itโs hard, because I want attention from my husband and our partner, but I feel too low to even tell them Iโm not okay or try to reach out for that affection. And if I do attempt to convey that, and donโt get a response, my frame of mind makes me read that as neglect and it can be very painful when Iโm feeling deeply vulnerable already.
So it was really nice that at one point our partner did send me a random sweet little message, I donโt usually hear from him when Iโm at my momโs. Almost like he knew. That helped a lot, though I didnโt tell him I wasnโt okay, only that I was in a bit of pain. But it meant so much to get that message from him just out of the blue.
Still, mostly I just lay on the couch miserably for hours, though I did play more Pokรฉmon Violet here and there and work on a couple of commissions. I did also read a little (still working on โItโ) and since my mom was interested, we began to watch the original movies.
For dinner, we had these little mac โn cheese balls and fries:
And for dessert we had strawberries and cream! ๐
Sweeney was very affectionate towards my mom all the time that I was at her place. I think for years, heโs been relegated to the background in all kinds of ways. Shampoo took most of my momโs time, affection, and even vet-related finances. It could hardly be helped when it felt for years as though every day might be her last. Now Sweeney has my mom all to himself and will hardly leave her lap.
It is sweet, but also a little sad. He must have felt neglected all this time. My mom took him for a check-up today because he hasnโt had one in a very long time for the reasons I just stated. Hopefully all the labs come back with normal, reassuring results.
My mom and I got almost halfway to the second part of “It” (the 1990 version) when the guys came to pick me up. I would find later find out that Christopher, like me, had a pretty terrible day. But once we were all home together, things started to feel better, and I think he felt more cheerful too, though we both continued to feel physically miserable.
Something to note that has happened this week every time I slept (weather at night or a nap) is lots and lots of nightmares, or, at best, really bizarre dreams, usually connected to people or events present very recently in my life rather than those important or consequential to me. I’ve even had people I’ve never spoken to from one group chat I’m in appear in these bad dreams, multiple times. The topics are as varied as they are ridiculous.
Usually, but not always, the dreams are distressing, upsetting, or at best very annoying, so I’d categorize them as nightmares, but they aren’t the sort you wake up upset from. Just the sort that makes you go “huh” when you wake up. It’s as though my brain were going through some clean-up or organizing of thoughts at this time. It’s just bizarre.
๐ Thursday ๐
Although on Thursday morning I woke up still in a lot of pain and sort of weakened by my way-too-long period, my mood was a little lifted.
Iโm not sure why. I had a lot to do, and didnโt feel great yet. I suppose partly was just being with the guys. Just hearing their voices and seeing their faces, sometimes, lifts me up and is all I need.
All throughout this week, I struggled with, and mostly did not meet, my goals. I decided to call this week a wash. My body really, really conspired against me in the worst way.
We did play LEGO for date night, though Christopher was unwell and our partner had to work, so he couldn’t join us… but we did have LEGO and that was still fun.
Later, Christopher and I cuddled and watched TV. Rosie joined us too; here she is, blepping beautifully:
Unfortunately our partner continued working. He was concentrating hard on his coding and didn’t want to stop. He worked until past 5:00am.
๐ Friday ๐
Even on Friday morning my body still had the odd cramp. Frankly, I was really impressed. It never lasts this long. But this was the last day. In the morning, I built the new set of drawers. Mercifully, in spite of the terrible quality (which I was aware of) nothing was broken in transit, and it came out pretty good:
I’d spend the next few days completely reorganizing my scrapbooking supplies into this new colorful piece of furniture.
๐ Saturday ๐
On this day we took my mom to the movies, the three of us (Christopher, our partner and I). I spent the earlier part of the day doing chores and then we were off! I had my Totodile with me, and Pokรฉmon graham crackers. I’ve been in a big Pokรฉmon mood recently.
After picking up my mom, we walked around Brickell City Centre, a really cool and upscale outdoor covered mall in Downtown Miami. Our partner bought me the fancy French candies he’d long promised, and was kind enough to get some for my mom too. We walked around and took this picture at one point:
Then we headed to the movie early, because it was CMX Cinรฉbistro and we had to order our food. Right before the movie, I had a drink called Strawberry Fields. It was pretty good. I actually hadn’t had a drink in a while. I do not drink much by anyone’s standards, but by my own, I felt I was drinking a little too much, so I decided to cut back.
The movie, a “horror” comedy titled M3GHAN, was pretty silly, but hilarious. I’m not sure it was always trying to be funny, but it pretty much was the entire time.
After the movie, we got ice cream and walked around some more. Our partner bought a tiny but really fancy candle, and then we dropped my mom off before heading back to the house.
When we got home, I had two nice surprises. The loveliest was this drawing from YuriFairy, featuring both of our characters, and it’s one of my favorite depictions of my little squirrel avatar in a few years. It’s so beautiful:
A package from ODU with a sample of a new design by me also showed up:
It’s so exciting to see a product featuring my art again after a couple of years! Here’s another photo:
We went to bed shortly after. Our partner just went straight back to work though, and had another late night. Christopher and I cuddled for a while and then fell asleep.
๐ Sunday ๐
Between yesterday and today, I sat for several hours sorting all of my scrapbooking materials and labeling them, like so:
There are many, many of these rugged plastic envelopes. Every single drawer is full!
Unlike before, everything is sorted by topic, not material. This makes it infinitely easier to pick out the materials I need for the theme of the page I’m working on, and everything is sorted out alphabetically.
Outside of the drawers, I sorted all my playing cards (which I collect specifically for scrapbooking purposes) like this:
Then I labeled the front of the drawers, too. Now, everything is really easy to find.
An added bonus of borrowing the labeler and of sorting all my scrapbooking supplies was that I finally sorted a bit of a mess I had in the studio closet, which now looks nice and neat:
This guy has been with me for so many years…
I re-sorted all of my beads and kandi-making supplies, too. This is also where the Furbys live. It looks a lot better now.
During this process, I ran into some traditional art I hadn’t filed away…
Not just this, but so many sketches, and so many unfinished things. It made me tear up with this intense nostalgia for something I lost without even realizing it. I decided to move things around and create a new permanent area for traditional art, because somehow, I didn’t have one anymore. This is what it looks like:
And here is a close-up:
I hope I can make traditional art a part of my life again.
I had one shelf that was cleared of scrapbooking supplies that got sorted into the new drawers, so I moved the decorations that were on this desk to it:
Speaking of, I haven’t shared my little collections in a while, particularly since I displayed them after opening my Christmas presents. Here’s the shelves with some of the newer Jurassic World additions…
A close-up of my lovely little Parasaurolophus, I love him so much:
There are a lot of dinosaurs in my studio…
(But not too many. There is no such thing.)
I feel like every day I love dinosaurs and the Jurassic Park / World franchise more and more, like it’s almost becoming a part of my personality. That phrasing seems wrong… I guess I mean it feels less like something I’ll emotionally outgrow and more like a deep-seated, truly lifelong interest, that I don’t think can ever go away because at the core, it’s about dinosaurs and nature, and I’ll never not love those things.
Finally, here’s Kalinka and Natasha. I decided to display them side by side because they look a little like sisters:
Because I spent so much time doing this, I was up until 3:00am doing housework, including cleaning the snail tank. Here’s some happy snails:
I’m trying to keep in mind the fact that, outside of my resolutions, I would normally consider this a wildly successful week. In spite of unusual physical pain, I did a lot of writing, took my mom to the movies, reorganized all of my scrapbooking supplies, revamped the studio closet, and reworked my traditional art work area. I went grocery shopping and worked on my blog. It wasn’t all so bad.
But I also can’t deny the obvious: this may have been a terrible week for me, but bad week or not, I failed at ALL of my resolutions outside of reading. So, I’m allowing myself a fresh start with my fitness chart. I also set a more reasonable goal, which would have me at my goal weight by April. I won’t beat myself up over the missteps. Instead I’ll celebrate what I did manage, dust myself off, and tomorrow start again with new renewed vigor.
Another week down! This one went really fast. I’ve continued to write, read, and play video games, as well as make commission progress. Slowly, the small things that make my life worth living are taking more and more of my time.
Podcasts and music instead of YouTube. More gaming and reading instead of mindless doom-scrolling. Getting acquainted with my characters again. My stress levels decrease, and certain parts of my brain, like rusty machinery that’s been freshly oiled, shed more and more gunk and move more smoothly and fast with every passing day.
Every day I do fail in one of my resolutions in some small way. Most often, weight goals and hydration goals. But the failures don’t discourage me at all, because every day I still do what makes me really happy. I wish I hadn’t put simple pleasures off for so long… anyway, I’m trying to make up for it now.
๐ Monday ๐
On this day I received the curtain rod I’d ordered, and was able to hang the Grogu curtains I got for Christmas! I love how they complete my studio’s look:
My studio looks a bit like a “hidden picture” puzzle image. ๐ There is a lot going on. But I love it.
Today was a bit of a lazy day, but I did all my chores and worked on art. I took time to game and relax with Kalamata in the afternoon.
๐ Tuesday ๐
Tuesday means Project Night! But before that, I had to go to the gynecologist to get my pap. This time, it didn’t hurt at all. I really like this doctor, I was so relieved when it was over, though.
Normally, I would walk back, and get myself a nice treat (stickers, a small toy and maybe a snack) after an appointment I had been dreading so much. But I was determined to stay good to my resolution, so I called an Uber to go home.
My driver was friendly and funny, and gave lots of colorful conversation during the ride. He told me about his dog, and said he’d show her to me. I assumed he had a photo or something, and he’d pull it out when we got to my house –but instead, he picked up the doggy (named Chica) right from the front seat!
She was so quiet, curled up in her little bed, I never even knew she was there! It really surprised me. She was very cute, but seemed rather suspicious of me.
After I got home, I cleaned the snail tank. Here are two of my snabies, soaking happily…
For his project night, Christopher worked on his Asuka puzzle that my mom got him many Christmases ago. It’s a REALLY hard 1,000 piece puzzle!
My project night consisted of a continuation of last week’s coloring. This was my setup! I listened to 90’s Disney music while coloring.
It’s worth noting that this is not an activity I did as a child. Any creative endeavor, and even a lot of my play, had to involve some sort of way of gaining inspiration towards my “serious” projects like my book, which I was working on as early as age 12. Coloring cartoon characters with crayons is something kid me would have seen as a frivolous waste of valuable time. So, allowing myself to enjoy an activity such as this today, is important to me.
This time, I had Scout as a companion! And I had a chocolate soy milk for my snack.
I finished my Christmas coloring of Sister Bear! Here it is underway…
…and finished + laminated! Still needs the last stage of decorating with stickers. But that’s the first page of the year down –one out of twelve to complete my resolution!
