Talk About Tuesday

 

In Which I Don't Even Know, Man...

I have not felt like doing much of anything lately. It's not laziness - laziness is a delicious and hedonistic desire to stay still, and what I've been feeling is absolutely not delicious or hedonistic.

I've been stuck.

I'm back to chugging too much coffee, back to losing time, back to being tired all the time, back to losing interest, back to anxiety at weird times when nothing's wrong.

In short, I think I'm having a very annoying depressive episode.

I'm not in any danger, though. No Bad Thoughts or anything, just... meh. Not feelin it, lately.

I'm pretty sure it started when I realized at the end of September that my wrists ache. There's a feeling of stiffness and soreness just above the knob of my wrists, and it's worse on the left than the right. I started feeling a little melancholy - mid-30s is a bit early for arthritis, and there's no inflammation or swelling. They're just a little stiff and sore. They've always sounded like they've got gravel in them when I rotated them. Same with my ankles, though they're not sore yet.

The discomfort isn't too much, but it does interfere with my art and crochet, so I'm very behind on Cozytober and haven't done too much crochet lately.

Aching wrists aside, we're fixing the deck this month, and I absorb other people's stress like a sponge. The deck repairs have not been going well, and there's been a lot of upset on my parents' part as they work to make sure it's both sturdy and good-looking. It does look very nice, so at least all that hard work has been worthwhile! Still, that's been stressful for me by transference.

It's been raining a lot since I got back from the Ren-Faire, which makes it very frustrating to get around and do things, so I've been stuck inside.

And then Evie got sick again. It's a chronic infection, so we were given the same antibiotic as last time and we're pilling her at both 8 AM and 8 PM, so that's been fun.

The most recent demotivator has been the fact that pretty much every time I venture outside something goes poorly for me. My local fiber circle canceled this month's meetup and I didn't find out until I'd already crossed town. On some attempts I made at being social, I was chased by hornets. When I try to go outside and get some sun on the few days it's here, I'm buzzed by my neighbor's honeybees. Heck, I've even been hearing more people yelling rude stuff while I'm out walking! It's a residential neighborhood, you weirdos, don't yell at the preteen girls who are jogging past me that they'd better keep going or you'll kill them!

Seriously, don't do that. If you try that again, I'll unhinge my jaw and eat you. I'm getting grumpier in my middle age.

The weather has been nice and chilly, at least, which I prefer to hot and sticky. I just wish there had been more nice days that I could go down to Main Street and paint.

It's going to be too cold for that, soon, and I'll have to switch to sketchbooks. I really should get a soft-cover drawing pad with detachable sheets - it'd be fun to be able to sell sketches as I work.

But hey, enough morose nonsense - I do have good things to talk about!

I made iced tea this week! I've never made iced tea from teabags before! I dumped 7 Meyer Lemon teabags in a pitcher full of cold water and left it overnight in the fridge. The resulting tea was just a touch sweet, a touch bitter, a touch sour, and incredibly pinkish-orange. The Meyer Lemon tea I have is made with rosehips and hibiscus, so the pink was expected. What was unexpected was how freaking delicious it was with a splash of Cranberry & Elderberry juice to sweeten it. The color deepened to a regal purple-red and all of the sweet/bitter/sour notes soared. Just lovely!

I also got to have my first taste of cider for the season, which was also delightful. Early apple cider is better than winter apple cider and I will fight you on this. It has none of the mealy undertones of a winter cider.

And when I say cider, I mean the pressed apple kind, not the alcoholic variety.

I'm being needlessly pedantic sorry lol.

Oh! And today, after years of trying to fan-cast a new Kolchak series, my guy & I came up with the perfect new Kolchak - Bob Odenkirk. I dare you to disagree. You'll be wrong lol.

Anywho, I am still planning on catching up on my missing Cozytober pieces, despite having missed... a lot, so I'm going to need to get back to the drawing pad.

Go Enjoy Something, folks!

FC

Talk About Tuesday

 

In Which I Am Very Tired

I am, as the caption says, very tired. Poor Evie the cat is back on her antibiotics again, but we did get good news from the vet saying that her kidney values are down, and it seems to support my theory that her upper respiratory infection was a bit more widespread than they'd initially thought. She's coughing a lot (probably because the meds are draining her sinuses and loosening gunk in her chest) but she was just playing like mad downstairs, so I think she's actually feeling much better.

The back half of December is always tricky for me. I rarely buy presents for people, preferring by far to make things for them. Unfortunately, I'm also an over-committer. I make too many things all at once and I don't plan accordingly.

I have 2 parents, 3 grandparents, 3 siblings with a partner each, 3 niblings, an incredible boyfriend, some friends, and a cat. I also have the time management skills of an overstimulated toddler.

Did I mention that some of these folks have birthdays this winter? Yeah, that's also a thing.

My final count of Making for the holidays was:

• 20+ snowflake ornaments
• 1 pair socks
• 3 amigurumi (2 cat cupcakes and 1 chibi dragon)
• 3 doilies
• 1 bag of popcorn (not crafted, but purchased!)
• 1 set of fingerless gloves
• a mouse that has already found its way under the couch beyond the reach of the yardstick

Needless to say, I was unable to find time to work on that Mystery Project I thought I'd finish in November (ha!).

Then I went shopping with Christmas money and realized that the jumbo skeins of Red Heart Super Saver Neon Stripe were very in-budget.

I've had an ongoing promise to myself ever since I first encountered the colorway that I would make myself a sweater from it one day and after bullying my way back through old Lion Brand Patterns, I chose the "One-Stitch Adult Cardigan" (pattern #957). 

It took just about 4 skeins of the RHSS in Neon Stripe and a week to achieve my dream. I lined the pockets and finished the seams with a jumbo skein of solid black I had on-hand, and next thing I knew, it was not only finished, but I have worn it pretty much every day since I made it!!!

Behold, the reason I haven't been posting lately :P

I even made the buttons myself (because I hated the selection in Wal-Mart and the local sewing shop wasn't open that day. I have one sleeve stuffed in the pocket because I didn't want to back all the way up lol. And yes, that black triangle on the sleeve is natural pooling.

The post-Christmas exhaustion was to be expected, but as I've mentioned, I also have to help pill poor Evie every morning and night. I'm one of those perpetually-exhausted-pigeon people - neither an early bird nor a night owl. I also don't get to sleep easily. And I cannot fall back asleep once I've stood up, so that means I've been exhausted for the past several days. You wouldn't think an 8AM-8PM schedule would be so grueling when I'm not doing anything else to exhaust myself!

And yet here I am, midnight rolling past me once again, and I'm stupidly tired.

At least the cat is fairly easy to pill this time around. I've got it so I hold her like we're just cuddling, but I have her paws on my right bicep while my left arm curls around her haunches and that hand gently holds her back feet. Then I press my cheek gently into the back of her head so she has nowhere to twist her face. At that point, my mother quickly apologizes to Evie and forces the pill into her mouth. We've got it down to a 30 second job that mostly involves me trying to collect the cat for pilling.

Heck, I've pilled her solo twice now with very little difficulty. The first time, my mother was busy during an evening pilling so I was alone and managed to lay down next to her on the carpet, snake an arm around her to keep her from running, and stuck the pill (and most of my finger) into her mouth. The second time I ambushed her during Wheel of Fortune because she was asleep on my mother (and waking her up would've made pilling her harder). That time I literally just petted her a few times before slipping the pill into her mouth. She did not appreciate that at all and coughed at me accusingly for a bit.

She's such a gentle cat, too!

At every juncture of the pilling process, she could easily gouge at either one of us with her little razor claws or bite me right in my fat stupid face but she refuses to do more than turn her head like the slightly cranky baby she is. We really, really lucked out with her, health problems and all.

I think that does about cover things from me this week.

I plan to do some more art on Thursday, finish more of the Mystery Project for Monday, and blather at you all again next Tuesday, but aside from that, it's too cold and precipitative for me to make any kinds of plans. Seriously, it never got above 7℉ (-13.9℃) today and we're supposed to get another storm (our 3rd this month!) on Sunday. Bleh.

I hope you guys are having a restful beginning of the year, and if not, then I hope you can at least find some time and energy to be creative!

For now though,

Go Enjoy Something!

FC

Talk About Tuesday

 

In Which Today Has Been Very Long

My day started at 5:30AM with the buzz of my laptop fan.

This was not a good thing to hear because it meant three things:

1. I had fallen asleep with the laptop on my lap again
2. I was awake at 5:30AM
3. Microsoft must've pushed the update and restarted my laptop...

Now, frustratingly enough, I was right about all three things, and it meant that Windows had oh-so-helpfully force-closed all the programs I was using in order to restart.

Which included the massive art project I've been working on since October first.

18 days of work were completely corrupted and unsalvageable.

So why wasn't I more than slightly annoyed?

That would be because the Project Resentment had already set in.

At a certain point in large projects, I realize that I haven't prepared thoroughly enough and my work starts to suffer. At that stage, I start to slowly come to despise the work itself, everything I've done, and everything I have left to do. The Resentment started some time last week, so as you can imagine, I was pretty pissed at every perceived mistake.

Often, if I don't finish the project quickly when I recognize the Project Resentment, I'll just destroy it myself. I'll delete the whole thing and all of my research and start over.

Now I didn't have to do that because my computer did it for me.

So instead I rolled my eyes, opened the programs I'd need and headed downstairs while things loaded up.

The cat needed her pill at 8AM, so I stayed downstairs drinking coffee and playing on my phone. Once the hour struck, I woke up the cat where she was draped over the back of a recliner and held her still while my mom jammed a pill into her mouth. She pouted for an hour, but was otherwise fine. She hasn't coughed in several days! She has the zoomies again! She played for a full 10 minutes this afternoon!

She spit her pill out tonight and we had to jam it in her face a second time and now she hates us!

Pretty sure she growled at me for the first time ever.

Sorry, lil brat, you need the pills so you will recover from this stupid infection we've known you had for years and yet the vet never wanted to do anything about it...

Anywho, it's been delightfully chilly the last couple of days - we had temps of about 51℉ (10.5℃) and while it has been drizzly and damp, it's also felt very fallish. I'm wearing a sweater, guys. A turtleneck sweater. I've got thick, fuzzy blankets on my bed.

And of course it's all going to end tomorrow and come back next weekend, but hey, we can't always get what we want, right...

I like chilly weather.

I will say there's two parts I don't enjoy about the shift from summer-to-autumn, though:

1. the effect rapidly shifting temps has on my sinuses
2. the effect rapidly shifting temps & humidity have on my window

I'm apparently allergic to change - every fall and spring I go through a phase where, around 7:30PM, I just start stuffing up and sneezing. This happens everywhere, not just at home, so it's something to do with my body and the world in general. Best guess? I inherited my mother's terrible sinuses which can't withstand anything at all and I'm super sensitive to the rapid temperature changes. The lining of my sinuses stretches and dries rapidly, triggering a sneeze.

As for the window, whenever the glass gets wet for several days and then dries out in cool temperatures, it makes these awful digestive noises. It seriously sounds like someone's having gurgling heartburn at the end of my bed with their mouth open, face pressed to the glass of the window. Wretched. Especially after mainlining all the seasons of Buzzfeed's Unsolved Supernatural shows.

Still writing that spooky ghost hunter story.

Still writing the wrestling story, too.

I think I've rambled enough, though, so I'll let you go with a warning that I may seem equally loopy and exhausted on Thursday since we're still pilling her until Friday or Saturday, so... early to rise for a few more days.

Thursday should contain art, however, and next Monday I'll have more shawl & secret project updates for Fiber Monday :)

That'll do it for me, tonight!

Go Enjoy Something!

FC