Talk About Tuesday

 

In Which I Am Always Tired

I am always baffled when people talk about how sunny days make them feel more energized. I wake up, the sun is shining, and the most I can muster is an "oh, that's pretty" before the urge to burrow under my blankets and not encounter another human being ever again threatens to overtake me.

I am aware that this is a symptom of depression.

I am aware that I have a history of depression.

I am also aware that, while I feel unmotivated and incredibly sleepy, this is not depression. It does not feel like despair. It doesn't feel empty. It doesn't feel bad. I just feel tired.

And I know why!!!

I'm tired because I don't sleep well. I don't sleep well because I have anxiety. I have anxiety because it's a freaking pandemic and things keep. going. wrong. everywhere. all. the. time.

But I have a few secret weapons to make myself be less bed-bound and determined:

I have ~ h o b b i e s ~

Hold on, I have to stop cackling like Old Peddler Woman Evil Queen In Disguise from Snow White...

But seriously, yeah, my hobbies of watercolor and crochet get me to be more active than I otherwise would be one way or another. I'm either crocheting/painting/drawing, or... I'm avoiding them.

If I'm doing the arts & crafts, I'm being productive. If I'm avoiding the arts & crafts, I'm still being productive more often than not because I do things like "oh, I can't paint right now, I have clothes to put away" or "oh I can't crochet right this minute the cat needs a walk" or "hmm... I could write in my novel or I could go shopping a half mile down the road..."

See? Active.

Just... not today.

Today I just want to bury myself in soft blankets with hot coffee and thick socks and listen to a cute Australian lady find out what those ceramic molds she bought on Gumtree contain.

And that's okay.

It's okay to be unmotivated and need some coziness once in a while.

It's when it lasts more than three days that you need to worry. Trust me on that. If you feel like your bed is too welcoming to do anything you really should be doing and you feel that way for 72 hours straight? That's either depression or diabetes. You want neither, but if they happen, you want them to go untreated even less. Brains and Pancreases don't exactly regenerate well without assistance (and pancreases even less than brains!) so if you're having a sudden "Nope" period for more than 3 days (and you're not having a period, because let's be real, sometimes the ol uterus is the one saying "nope"...) then you should probably see a doctor.

If you can't see a doctor, have someone sniff your breath and if it smells like apples when you haven't been eating any, get thee to an ER - that's diabetes. And it's bad.

Uh, to be clear that last bit hasn't happened to either me or anyone I know, but I've known some people who've known some people who've seen some stuff, so uh... that's a thing.

Anywho, it's Tuesday, and it's beautiful looking out there. There's soft, puffy clouds in the bright, robin's egg sky, we've only had one bird-murder in the last week (today - red-tailed hawk took out another one of our pigeons), we've seen the wood rat (she's very, very fat and apparently likes snacking on the neighbor's compost pile), and we've also got a red squirrel passing through. It's currently 66℉ (18.9℃) and about 64% humidity. The crows are cawing.

And I had a hell of a Saturday. Which, come to think of it, might be part of why I'm so resistant to movement.

My mother's mother is, as many grandparents are, quite eccentric. Like the majority of my relatives and myself included, she's also a musician. I play flute and piano, my mother plays trumpet and piano, my father plays trumpet and flugelhorn and bugle, my uncles & aunt play other instruments, and both of my grandmothers play piano...

But my mother's mother also happens to play the organ, and having moved multiple times, her own electric organ has become unplayable.

So she wanted a new one and found one!

A free electric organ!

A free electric organ two hours (one way) away from my house.

Which she lives two hours away from.

And she's recently had surgery.

So she obviously needed assistance retrieving this marvelous find, right? Well, she's only got 2 kids - my mom and my uncle. My uncle is not able to help with something like this for a multitude of reasons, nor would he be willing. My mother should not have helped with this, but she was too well-aware that my grandmother, the human definition of stubbornness, would have attempted to lift a whole damned organ by herself just to get it.

So my mother volunteered, despite having a back injury and a torn bicep that still has not fully recovered.

She also, regretfully, volunteered me.

I was... less than thrilled, but guess what? There's literally no one else to do this and I love my mother and my grandmother, so it had to happen whether anyone liked it or not. That's family, sometimes.

Now, this four hour trip would've been rough under the best of circumstances, but unfortunately, the circumstances got worse and worse.

• The day started after noon for us.
• We hit every rumble strip from here to there and then from there to here.
• My grandmother likes to drive one-handed
• She didn't have the directions to the organ's location written anywhere
• She kept calling for directions on the way
• None of us knew where we were or where we were going
• She brought her 85lb neurotic German Shepherd mix who kept trying to hang himself by his leash because he kept jumping over the backseat so he could be next to my grandmother

That last one? That's why I have bruises and a very sore spine. At one point, this animal decided that he was tired of sitting in the back and tried to sit next to me. There was no room next to me because we had moving equipment piled up. Also his leash was shortened so he was hanging himself. And his butthole was planted firmly on my shoulder. And he was struggling.

Eventually, I managed to yeet him back where he came from, but he kept trying to come back up! I spent probably 3 hours with my left arm around the headrests of the rest of my row just to try desperately to keep him in the back. It only worked about 70% of the time, so the other 30% of the time was me desperately trying to remind the pointy-skulled garganth that he would choke himself out if he kept forcing himself forward. All while knowing that at some point I'd be getting out to shift an electric organ.

Before heading out, before she'd told us the make/model of the organ, I tried looking up how much electric organs weighed, and one of the estimates was around 425lb (192.8kg). My max lift/carry is 100lb (45.4lb), and that's with a hernia belt and spotter. It's also my estimate from 15 years ago. I was, of course, terrified that I'd be trying to lift a behemoth with my mother while both of us have compromised arms - her from the bicep tear, me from an old injury + holding the dog back for hours.

I needn't have feared. The organ weighed all of 125lb (56.7kg) and the gentleman trying to get rid of it helped us. Also we brought a dolly so that helped a lot.

The organ was the easiest part of the trip.

Needless to say, the dog was no better behaved on the way home and ended up strangling himself a second time before he finally exhausted himself and laid down in the back.

For ten minutes.

Before starting right back up on his bullmalarky.

Needless to say, my shoulder is still sore and I have bruises that make it look like I got battered by a poorly controlled baby elephant. Both of my wrists have bruises (resting them on the laptop to type is annoying), my spine aches from being at a weird angle for so much of the journey, and also I'm just... I'm tired.

Sleeping has been hard, as I've noted many times.

Sunday was great! I spent time with my boyfriend, we watched silly stuff on YouTube, ate pot roast, talked about stories we're working on, and we ate a whole bag of popcorn between the two of us. It was a 10/10 visit and I had a blast.

Yesterday sucked, unfortunately, with nothing going the way anyone wanted it. Today has also sucked for similar reasons.

I mostly just want to eat chicken sausage and go to bed, but I also want to be productive in some way, shape, or form.

My hope is that after I post this and eat dinner, I can get a small sketch out. Maybe not a painting. Maybe not even something in color, but a sketch of some variety so I can get these creative juices back to where they were on Sunday.

How is the week treating all of y'all? Have you also had a "bent at an angle with a dog's butt on your shoulder and the seatbelt strangling you" kind of week? Has your week been mediocre? Has it been marvelous? Feel free to vent, bleh, or even brag in the comments!

Also, the plan for Thursday is to post something properly autumnal, so keep an eye out ;)

Go Enjoy Something!!!

FC 

Thursday Art Walk

 

In Which Today Was Busy As Hecc!

Today I took a nice walk! Well, two actually... 

During the first walk, I went down to my local library because they have free books and also someone dropped off a few (read: SIX!) crates of veggies from their garden for anyone and everyone in town to enjoy. I showed up later in the afternoon, so I ended up with a smaller variety, but that just made me super happy that so many people wanted the veggies! I got a lovely summer squash that we ate for dinner (perfect flavor!), some tiny cucumbers that tasted like candy (I ate two of the three I picked up and tossed the third out for the crows, who loved it so much they hopped across the yard with their beaks full!), some beets? radishes? no one seemed to know but I picked up four of them, and a normal looking cucumber as big as my hand from middle finger to wrist.

I also found five Joyce Carol Oates books my partner didn't have yet and picked those up for them.

Now, before I hit up the library and its vegetal treasures, I swung by a local shop near my house that services most of the restaurants in town - they're a wholesaler, but the public can shop there, and they often have Jarritos and Mexican Cokes and also some local sodas and San Pellegrino. I picked up a can of Mtn Dew and a bottle of lime-flavored Jarritos along with a small bag of locally made potato chips! Those with my cucumbers made a fine, snackish lunch :)

With my jaunt complete, I headed home and checked on the cat, who was snoozing in my finished-project-box in my room. My partner swung by for the books just as Evie woke up and she tried to escape, so once the books were safely away (and I'd hugged my love a *lot*), I waddled back inside, threw on my shoes, and wrestled the cat into her harness. She hates that part. She loves being in the harness, but god help you trying to put it on her.

After wrestling a very wriggly kitty into her harness, I managed to clip the lead on her and we went outside to... sit mostly, to be honest. She doesn't move much once she's out there unless she's annoyed with the quality of the grass nearby.

Here are some pics from our "walkies":

A maple tree in my yard with one branch changing color

A flowering bush  my mom planted a couple years ago

The Shade Garden

She saw... a bug? I saw nothing.

That time she saw a bird, but it saw her first lol

Grass is delicious. Apparently.

After the nomnom grassfest concluded, I went inside and started sketching up a landscape on that new hot press paper I bought last week!

Base Colors Only

I'm gonna see how well this paper really handles the layers of color and the different pen elements I'll add later. I'll also see how well it handles the tape I bought - initial positioning indicates it'll be just fine!

Here's hoping that I can get this image completed (it's super blurry in that pic because I could not get the lighting right...), because I love the photo it's taken from, which is a view of Cerro Gordo, CA.

Also, please someone stop me from buying things because I bought more paints tonight. One is a stick of Buff Titanium so I can do better sand colors, and the others are... it's another paint set. I have a problem.

lol

Speaking of problems... I'll probably be helping my grandmother pick up an organ tomorrow. That's several hours in a vehicle with her crazy dog. Love my grandma. Love my mom who'll be helping pick up the organ. Don't love heavy lifting or neurotic dogs as big as me..

Anyway, that'll do it from me today! I just wanted to give you a peek at the painting I just started!

Go Enjoy Something!

FC

Talk About Tuesday

 

In Which I Am Very Sleepy

What is going on lately? It seems like no one can sleep in the last couple weeks, and weird, unforeseeable events keep cropping up! I have only managed about 5-6 hours a night lately, and my brain feels like soup. Also, my cat has taken to sleeping most of the day in my (sadly underfilled) finished-project box in my room, which is weird since she usually ignores me.

First things first - what weird stuff has been happening?

My grandma wants my mom & I to pick up an organ about 2.5-3 hours away from here with her and her psychotic dog. I love my grandma and normally I'd be happy to help but that dog, that distance, and that instrument are all Much Too Much, tbh. Thankfully this one may have resolved itself - if she can get the organist's family to load the organ for her (they're already helping him move it from the basement, after all...), she won't need us Friday. The original plan was to head out today in the bright-and-early, but thankfully that didn't happen.

My mom decided yesterday was the day to take back bottles despite Mondays always being a zoo at the redemption centers, of which only one of the two dedicated locations in town was open... in theory. In practice, it was closed the first time we tried - understandable (it's a mom & pop place with few employees in an alcoholic area, of course they need a lunch break!!!) - but they were also closed when we came back and we checked the other joint but they were closed on Mondays. It's still Tuesday as I type this, btw lol. Eventually we swung back to the first place and yay they were back open! But they were also chockablock filled with patrons. Luckily they had their best folks on it and everyone went through quickly.

My younger sibling moved into a new apartment and I and my partner inherited some really nice, really sturdy handmade night stands. The one I've got is being used to house my art supplies!
There are some health issues with my parents, but they're already under control thankfully!
Other Family Health Issues are also cropping up, but again, they're being handled, so it's just me being stubbornly anxious lol

The cat got into a slap fight with her supposed boyfriend (my partner and I think I interrupted them establishing dominance and/or flirting, since my cat ended up on her back with her paws up but her claws sheathed, so uh... that was a stressful walk that ended abruptly. When I brought her back in, though, the neighbor's big gray cat followed us and sat on the deck calling out to her with charming little meows (that's not sarcastic, he sounded totally adorable) and she'd chirp back through the window. All night. And then he came back in the morning!!!

Norm MacDonald died today and that sucks a lot. He was insanely funny.

I finally got that sepia fineliner! It arrived in a large padded envelope, which I appreciate from a safety point of view but dudes, it's literally one Pigma Micron, the Standard Shipping Envelope was a bit much. The mail person handed it straight to my mom while we were trying to take back the bottles lol.

Oh, and today I took two walks! For the first one I walked down to a side street where I know a really cool person is running a business where she sells bouquets of her own home-grown flowers off of an adorable little cart! I love the bouquet I bought from her for my mother!

A Lovely Bouquet Indeed!!!

I also walked down to grab snacks at my local Family Dollar, but due to the supply chain essentially shattering into a million pieces, they're not getting the shipments they need, so a lot of the shelves were, if not bare, getting there. It really sucks for everyone who works there - they're not paid enough to cope with the clientele and their complaints about everything and anything, especially since the employees can't do anything about it. They can't magically un-kill everyone who was working on the supply chain who died of COVID. They can't make more Reese's Pumpkins suddenly appear on the shelf, or alchemically summon more Coke products into the coolers. All these folks can do is try to keep the till running until the worst is over. They're just there to stock what they have and sell what they can.

So uh, basically, what I'm trying to say is...

Don't be a dink to anyone who's trying to work in a shop right now. Whatever problem you're about to lash out at them about? They know. They know and they can't do anything about it.

Sometimes stuff just kinda sucks.

And sometimes your cat pokes her head out of your Finished Project Box and squints at you, bleary-eyed from her 8 hour nap, and sleekly vaults herself to the floor. She'll slink out the door without so much as a backwards glance, and you'll smile.

Because it ain't all bad, folks.

Today's weather was amazing. Yes, Wednesday is gonna be all mud puddles and thunder showers, but today (well, Tuesday, at any rate) was a gorgeous 72℉ (22.2℃) with mild humidity and warm but not hot sun with a gentle yet chilling sea breeze. My walks were beautiful things and I enjoyed them both immensely.

I hope that, whatever else happens this week, whether I'm Truck-Bound with the Crazy Dog off to grab a retired church organ from some guy's basement on Friday or not, I can maintain some of this chill demeanor. If it's cool enough to wear this flannel shirt I'm currently in, I have faith that some of the day will be salvaged lol.

I also hope that you all have a much chiller week than I have!

That'll do it from my rambling self.

Go Enjoy Something!

FC

Thursday Art Walk

 

In Which I Have Been Shopping!!!

I'm not a shopaholic. No, really I'm not! I just... have needed things lately. For Art. And life in general, but mostly art lol.

I went for a lovely 3 mile walk on Tuesday and trotted myself downtown. There's a lovely beach down there, and you have to pass a lot of really nice local shops to get there. One of those shops was hiring and because money tastes good and I love the shop (I get my cat's favorite toys there!), I decided to apply there. It's conjoined to the fancy art shop in town, too, so I popped in there, too. After all, you can never have too much watercolor paper, and I was hoping to find some Buff Titanium watercolor.

Well, the Buff Titanium was unfortunately not available (they only had tube paint) but boy did they have a lot of other goodies!!!

The *~* HAUL *~*

Before you lies a delightful assortment of useful art supplies! A roll of masking tape so I actually have borders on my art, a gorgeous pad of cold pressed watercolor paper in size 11"x15" (27,9cm x 38,1cm) with 30 sheets for me to play with, a small block of hot press watercolor paper in size 6"x8" (15,2cm x 20,3cm) which I've never used but has a much smoother finish and is also bound on two sides so it won't warp as easily, and finally a set of 16 pearlescent Yasutomo Niji watercolors! The watercolors were only about 6 bucks and the large paper was only about 19 bucks, so those were quite the steal!

Pretty pretty... shiny shiiiiiiny...

But please don't believe I've not done any artwork since I vanished - I've got two base-colored landscapes I'm working on!

"Impressions Downhill"; watercolor pencil; 2021

"Shabby Harbor"; watercolor pencil; 2021

You might be able to guess I'm not 100% done with these (especially with how faint the colors are) but it's hard to get the layering right when you're outside! I'll be working on these, experimenting with my new paints and papers, and just generally having a blast, I think!

How are your own artistic endeavors coming? Have you worked on anything you're proud of this month?

That'll do it for me!

Go Enjoy Something!!!

FC

Talk About Tuesday

 

So... It's Been A While...

I'm back!!! I'm not gonna lie and tell you some sob story about how oh woe is me, I had so much to do!

I didn't. I just wasn't home for a lot of last week lol! I took a wee bit of an unexpected vacation and spent time with my partner! I got back on Wednesday last week but I didn't have my stuff together for a proper Thursday Art Walk and I decided I'd rather just fill y'all in today without a sudden Fiber Monday popping up before my explanations.

So yes, I've been Out a bit, and I've loved every second of it lol!

From Sunday before last to the Wednesday that followed, I was in a completely different town. I had access to internet, but I was spending one-on-one time with someone I love, so I basically unplugged. I also went for a lot of walks!

Taken While On Tip-Toes!

Truly a beautiful vista...

Very pretty this way too - and I love that dead tree!

Those pics were from my mini-vacation out of town. These next ones are from today about 1.5 miles from home!

Lol that last one was an oopsie on my way back, but I actually like the play of light and shadow, grass and brick, so in it stays!

All in all, I had a very busy day - I went down to the beach and painted, I went shopping at the fancy art store in town, and I even picked up some fabric from my local fabric shop (my masks are getting very worn, and I'd very much like this pandemic to end...).

Sadly my trip only lasted a couple of hours because my town is hosting a stupid cruise ship and all of the tourists wanted desperately to drag their toddlers and dogs to the fanciest restaurant in the neighborhood, despite about a dozen other tastier and more affordable options much, much closer to the boat. Being allergic to human interaction, I fluffed off homeward and settled in, uploading all these pics... a task that took several hours and multiple attempts. Seems I've got to purge my photo folders...

A task for another day, perhaps!

For now, I will be oozing into bed and falling asleep, nursing the bugbites on my calves and the strained muscles in my feet. Yes I am that out of shape. Give me a break. Everything's over a mile from my house and it's been raining. Today's mostly-sunny 70℉ (21℃) weather was a freaking reward.

So to you all, I say good night and good luck!

And Go Enjoy Something!

FC

PS: I'll be back on Thursday, dropping some art and the results of my shopping spree on ya!

Thursday Art Walk

 

In Which I Show You Progress & Errors!

Alright, I've been following YouTuber Nianiani for a few weeks now and I've learned so much! That picture with the seashells I posted a while back? Based on one of her tutorials. Couldn't have done it without her.

So I decided to try more of her tutorials!

She's got these lovely fruit, flower, tree, and even bunny tutorials but I am very hot. Today reached 87℉ (30.56℃) and it was so humid that it felt over 100℉ (37.78℃). I wanted to go to the freakin beach, but I didn't wanna go outside.

So I decided to try two of her tutorials involving the ocean!

The first attempt was a seascape with trees and a beach and it was lovely! But I literally could not make my paints cooperate, and since she utilizes quite a bit of Buff Titanium (a well-covering off-white tone I do not own yet), alas, I had to abort.

Attempt the Second was simply an aerial view of a wave coming in to shore. A study on the interplay of blue and gold (not Ted Kord & Michael Carter). A... highly complex layering experiment.

That I botched.

Twice.

Now, fortunately, Watercolors are fairly forgiving, regardless of what you've heard. They are forgiving, but they are also hard to substitute, and if your painting calls for pans and you have pencils, you're going to have to become... creative. Especially if you have committed the cardinal sin of painting without swatching your tones first.

Which is what happened to the first two tries I made at this piece.

Which I'm also not finished with yet.

Because I'm not in the AC anymore and my bedroom is a toasty 85℉ (29.44℃) plus an uncomfortable level of humidity. I have no one to blame but myself for being too stubborn to sit downstairs at the couch, battling the cat and wearing headphones. Yes, I'd rather have my inner knees sweat than my ears.

I'm dumb like that lol.

So here they are - my attempts at watercolor!

Try #1 at the Wave; Watercolor; 2021

What went wrong here? Well, you may notice the visible sketch lines in the background, but the other problem is... the blue is too irregular and too small. You'll see why if you watch the vid or see picture #3 lol.

Try #2 at The Wave; Watercolor; 2021

So what's wrong with this? Uh... kinda same problem - blobs too tiny, background gradient not very good.

The Wave; Watercolor; 2021

As you may be able to tell, this is the version I'm going with. Is it perfect? No. But I love that gradient I've got going from the deep water to the shore. I love the soft sand gradient. I am satisfied with the third layer of paint accentuating the ripples of the water. I can work with this.

Bonus: This was actually my first try at the Seascape painting, but I was able to rework it! I'm very, very happy about that.

Now, I'm about 7 minutes into the tutorial, so that should tell you how long this took between all the failures, life stuff (food, coffee, cats), and just waiting forever for paint to dry. Seriously. At one point I had to just... walk away for an hour while one of the layers dried. It wasn't even that wet! It was just that humid.

I hope I can get this finished in the next week or so, so keep an eye out!!!

Also, since I just got an iPad, if you're reading this and know how to do art on one, please let me know the best free app you can think of for painting on iPad!

That'll do it for me, tonight (wow it got late...)

Go Enjoy Something!!!

FC

Talk About Tuesday

 

In Which A Lot Is Up

I promise you I had every intention of writing a blog for tomorrow (edit: I meant YESTERDAY lol!!!). I had my crochet project at the ready (Return of the Downton Abbey Shrug), was about to take pics and... well... I couldn't focus. Let's rewind.

A lot has been going on, lately, and among these many stressors came my cat making a noise like wet rubber being twisted on itself while vomiting bile. Also having visible breathing issues. So off to the vet she went yesterday and came home with trimmed nails, a rabies vaccine update, and the usual "probably just a cold" shrug. So you'd think I'd have been 100% fine to blog, right?

Guess who can't sleep when stressed?

Guess who stresses about everything?

Guess who also has a room that holds onto heat and humidity and cannot sleep in humid heat?

Yeah. Me.

So I had exactly 1 hour of sleep yesterday. One.

No blogging was done. Barely anything besides compulsive coffee drinking was done, tbh.

Not all of the news and events lately have been bad, though! My grandmother is off to stay with family out of town and having a blast! My other grandmother sold her house and got to move back into her old place where she had a lot more room! My partner's going to have a new nibling in March! And on a more selfish level, I got some new tech to play with as a gift from my dad.

I have now officially joined the ranks of Apple users with the gift of a refurbished once-junked iPad! My dad repairs old, ruined tech sometimes for the challenge, and since he doesn't need a bunch of old laptops or whatever, family members get first crack. The latest challenge was an iPad, and he managed to resurrect it, repair it, and reset it so now I have an iPad!

It... has a fairly short battery life for a tablet - it took it only about an hour to drop down to about 78% battery life, and I have no idea what I'm doing with it, since I've literally never owned another Apple product in my life (I'm born & bred a PC pleb).

But my grand plan for this device is less for Pokemon Masters EX (though you'd best believe I'm playing that now...) and more for art. I've long heard that Apple products were the best for art, so if you're an artist out there and you draw on an iPad or another Apple product, what are your suggestions for a good, reliable, novice-friendly, (most importantly) free art app? I have no idea what I'm doing, have no Apple Pen (don't even know if this model is compatible with a Pen, tbh), and want to be able to do digital art. My current tablet, the XP Pen, works fantastically for sketching and basic coloring, but I have a hard time controlling it for details and proper layering (it's quite reactive to the slightest movements, which is good, but my hands shake).

Now, I've blathered about the material and emotional side of life so far, but how's the weather out here? :P

It's been very weird. The last few days were cool and clammy - low-to-mid 60s with thick fog banks! Perhaps that should have clued me in that today was gonna suck, weather-wise. It may have only reached about 76℉(24.44℃), but with the humidity and how still the air was, the house rocketed past 83℉ (28.33℃). It was, in short, miserable.

The cat doesn't care, though. She slept most of today, slowly migrating from lap to lap until, dissatisfied with our upper thighs, she elected to steal my mother's recliner when she got up to make a cup of coffee around lunch time. The cat has not moved since, slowly melting as cats do.

I have no plans worked out for Thursday. I know I'll do watercolor because that's what I've been doing, but I don't know what the subject will be yet :)

Next Monday, hopefully, I'll have some progress to report on one of my longest-running projects! After that, it's back to Tuesday again, where I blather like I did tonight :P

How have all of your weeks been going?

That's about all I've got for tonight :)

Go Enjoy Something!!!

FC