mostly roving, partly stars

I'm trying out the bullet journal thing, which will hopefully lead to less todo lists here. I'm hoping it works out for me - I love notes and lists and so on, but having a system to index them and an excuse to do it pen & paper style is appealing.

In other news, Jams started a group chat for all her current serious partners. My two new metas both seem nice! I have a not insignificant number of friends in common with one of them, actually. I hope this keeps going well, for my sake and for Jams. I'm also going to have to come up with aliases for them, lol.

 

I'm a fucking mess, guys

 

New day, new start! I have some exciting projects to work on, and a date night with many snuggles to look forward to.

 

Current mood: being that basic bitch who has deep emotional identification with Taylor Swift songs

 

I've been running at a spoon deficit for days, so today after Grove I took an almost 3 hour nap, then laid in the dark reading on my phone for about another hour. Not all the way recharged, but getting there. Recharged enough to be a bit excited about planning fall/winter kitchen stuff again, at least - my sis and I are trying a new storage container use plan (leftovers ALWAYS go in the 2cup individual serving containers, so they're already conveniently portioned, while the bigger containers are reserved for precooked ingredients so I can be more confident precooking stuff), and we're going to for real absolutely seriously do the kitchen reorganization, because our potato storage situation as it is is dire, and Tiny Apartment Life sometimes means that to give one thing a better home, you have to move literally everything else. But in a fun way! Mostly.

 

Just realized that the gradient is not working out as I expected on this cowl. It looks almost like a section in the middle of the Big Skein is backwards? Like, it's supposed to be dark shading into light, but about a third of the way up there's a sharper transition to light, which fades into dark again before a sharp light transition nearer the top. I don't know if I assembled the Big Skein wrong from the various bobbins that had to be made, or if I spun my rolag stacks in the wrong order consistently in the singles themselves, but this is definitely not what I was going for.

I was going to stop for the night anyway, but now I definitely need to so I can decide how much this is going to upset me and if it's worth ripping back a week or so of work to try and fix it. >.<

At least the gradient scarf is going well so far? I am much smaller of a percentage through that project though. It could have horrible gradient surprises too, you just don't know. (At least on that one I kept the bobbins as separate skeins just stored twisted together rather than trying to join them as one. I can join them the right way in knitting up and no problems can arise from that particular point of failure.)

 

On the other hand, I'm really enjoying knitting a ton with my handspun for holiday gifts. I've been slow using the yarn I've made, and it's nice to work with it to its intended purpose.

Other things I'm enjoying in a hobbitish, homestead-wife fashion:

• the rush of Cooking potential energy I'm building up as we time a major weather shift (it's WINTER now folks) with a major kitchen reorganization. As soon as everything's mostly sorted out, I am roasting so many veggies. I am going to make leftover roasted veg a fridge staple, guys. I'm going to make it work.
• having wool garments I own to keep me warm in these trying times (the wind is literally howling through our courtyard intermittently now, but I had to peel out of my outerlayers despite having our thermostat set low & there being a definite draft, bc I had gotten a tiny bit overheated. I'll cover up again soon, but feeling a bit over-warm while listening to that nonsense out there is a particularly proud sort of delight when it's wool, alpaca, and angora we knit up ourselves keeping me toasty.
• my sis made yet another loaf of fresh bread from our tiniest of livestock (the good good yeasty boys, aka Aziraphale, aka our sourdough starter), and pulling it out of this oven during the thickest wave of snow this afternoon was like a magic spell against winter despair. out of flour and water and minimal additional ingredients, we made this! (I personally mostly make crusty artisan loaves that typically are flour+water+salt, but for daily use my sis has been perfecting a chewier, less hole-y sandwich loaf with enrichments and texture/chemical additives like diastatic malt powder and potato flour.)
• new flannel sheets! new flannel sheets! the only warm sheets we had were jersey cotton knit ones from Target that lasted all of, like, a year? maybe two, when I think about it, bc I have a sense memory of them in the bedroom at the crash landing apartment in our college town, and that would have been two years ago. but still, they got multiple holes, and so Kai got new flannel cotton sheets, and she found ones with the perfect cream-and-soft-red plaid that is the exact color of cozy to me, and I am <3 <3 <3 v excite for when I finally get sleepy enough to go crawl between them

 

I can meme in my bullet journal if I want to

 

I'm never going to get over people coming to my place to hang out and then saying that it was interesting. I have it so internalized that most people find our crafts boring, and for us it's just a quiet afternoon, but they were SO FASCINATED by my spinning wheel. Well, dad fell asleep, but the soft whirring and clicking noises were highly praised for their relaxing qualities. R actually said that she wants to find spinning wheel asmr now.

 

The apartment got really cold after everyone left, but I put the chicken and a sheet of veg in the oven and now it's warm and there's more food happening :)

 

I'm trying really hard lately to be positive. Or, at least, to be mindful of the good things around me. I've got a lot of shit stirring in the dark parts of my brain and occasionally erupting, but honestly, none of it is new shit, and I'm really tired of spending so much energy trying to solve the mystery of why I'm upset this time, or what cause if I just find it will yet again be something I can't do anything about. I'm gonna listen to my pain and try to care for it, but I'm going to listen really hard for joy, too, and lay it away against dark and cold days.

 

Veg cooking notes - at least for this volume, an hour under the chicken is on the long side, but they're still tasty!

 

*sings under your window* you are my sunshiiiiiine <3

 

Something I found really helpful for this was keeping a "three good things" journal. Just. Three things, anything, that were good about a day (and not beating myself up when bad days happened, and I couldn't come up with something!)

And then on bad days I could go back and see - this is what made me happy. A fic updated, I made progress on a project, I spent time with a friend, my wife surprised me with something, I had good coffee...

Also I like keeping mine very physical. It's currently kept in a little metal index organizer, and each day is its own index card. It fills up pretty quickly and something about the sheer physical volume also helps

Idk being mindful of the good things around you is important! I thought I'd share a way I've been doing it but now I'm anxious I'm giving unwanted advice or something. Sorry if I am

 

No, this is helpful! I can make a "good things that happened" category in my bullet journal, or just make sure I'm putting three positive events in each daily log. It'll complement some of the other mental health categories I'm putting in there (gratitude, things I like about myself, things I'm good at, happiness maintenance skills, crisis coping skills, and things that fill me with unreasonable affection).

 

I know for me my "emotional object permanence" is basically shot. So when I'm sad it feels like I Have Been Sad FOREVER and I just. Can't. Think of anything good

So the only way to make "good things happen sometimes, actually" stick is to physically record it

Also! Your mental health categories are good! I should add some of those to my bullet journal too...

 

I had so much energy for the first half of the day! I talked with my sis about how I've been feeling kind of trapped in the apartment earlier over the weekend, and so we set 2 days a week that are my "errand days," when I know for sure I'll have access to the car to get stuff done outside the house. I didn't have any serious or urgent errands today, but I did have library books that I was done with. So I returned them, got more books (and a peppermint mocha on the way home) and came back full of energy! We finished the kitchen org work, and I got my yarn listings on Ravelry updated, and caught up with messages, and I helped make lunch and get towels in the laundry. Now is time for cozy couch knits, and then I'll get my laundry back upstairs and start making dinner for Kai, and i just have so much energy it's frankly confusing.

 

Novelty is usually a huge plus for my energy levels and sense of well being. I think that's more of an ADHD thing usually, but I don't see any reason why a change in pace that is removing forks wouldn't give you some more energy

 

Note to self- making the full capacity of our rice cooker is way too godsdamned much rice. Even if I'm trying to cook ahead and have leftover rice in the fridge. I filled two large storage containers, put two assembled curry meals with rice together, and I still have rice in the rice pot. I don't think we can eat all of this before it goes bad.

 

On the other hand, the clotted cream is just fine! I was a bit worried looking at the chilled bowl, but apparently a darker gold skin isn't unsafe to eat or a bad texture - the firmer layer of skin will soften as it's mixed into the final jar, and my cream won't be perfectly white to "standard." I'd suspect it'll be slightly sweeter, too, since the color is more advanced caramelization from my slightly too hot oven. But yeah! I did a thing!

Current fresh-cooked pantry stock:
1 lunch for Kai
A bit over 8cups chicken stock
A jar of clotted cream
Half a loaf of day old bread
Rising bread dough in bulk fermentation
A few small containers of roasted carrots, sweet potatoes, and butternut squash
A fuckton of rice