speaking the truth

[ Two black picture frames hung on a pale lavender wall — one holds a single print, art of a mystical portal striding through a barren landscape on three tall legs; the other has three prints in the same style: another mystical portal between two rock pillars, a flying island with a conical building on it, and another flying island with a tree. A long, lanky black dragon flies near the island in the third print. ]

My friend Jank sent me these prints a while ago — it’s been more than a year, maybe closer to two, & I admired them greatly, & then stuck them in a drawer until I had time to do something useful with them.

Which I have finally managed! They’re cheapass mall wart frames, I spent a while haunting the local thrift stores without finding what I needed, but it had to be pretty specifically this so I’m not shocked that I couldn’t find the right stuff. They work, though! & now they’re hanging above my comfy chair, right where I can see them when I’m in bed, & I am very happy to have them there. I’m really enjoying having some art on the walls, & as I get more walls up, I’ve got more art to put on them. Eventually this place is gonna look REALLY nice. Little steps!

originally posted on Patreon; support me over there to see posts a week early!

[ A paper bowl holds some unshelled peas; one has been opened, showing three peas inside, spaced so they look like scraggly teeth. ]

FIRST & FOREMOST, that’s not a mimic, it’s actually peas. Yes I’m sure, I ate them, they did not eat me. Yes, I WILL still be careful the next time I eat peas, you never know.

SECONDLY, I’m SO very glad my friend Dwen taught me about eating fresh peas a buncha years ago, because when Jasper & CJ brought some home from the farmers market last year, I knew immediately that the best thing to do was shell & eat them immediately. Which we’ve been doing ever since, all through fresh pea season.

They’re DELICIOUS.

(Hypothetically we COULD shell some, dry them, & save them for over the winter, but also, why would we do that, they’re DELICIOUS.)

(okay FINE we probably will at some point, if only so we can grow our own delicious fresh peas, but we gotta not EAT them all first & y’all, that’s HARD)

originally posted on Patreon; support me over there to see posts a week early!

[ Clusters of tiny, very pale pink flowers with deep red centers grace the ends of reddish-brown twigs, interspersed with leaves in much the same dark shades of red. ]

These bushes outside where I go for therapy are SO pretty. They flowered for, like, three weeks, & there were still a few stragglers the fourth week. I’m glad I thought to get pictures the week before that, though.

[ Another part of the same bush, this time focusing on seven of the lanceolate leaves; four are reddish-green, almost black, while the three younger, smaller ones are a deep pinky-red. ]

They smell divine, too. I really enjoyed them while they were blooming.

originally posted on Patreon; support me over there to see posts a week early!

[ A white dorm fridge, the nice kind with the actual separate freezer, sits in my room. The bed is just behind it, and a blue stand mixer sits atop it. ]

Little by little, step by step, things are getting easier.

(In other words, yes I AM eating cereal twice a day minimum.)

originally posted on Patreon; support me over there to see posts a week early!

[ My hand, holding a palmful of tiny round tomatoes, ranging in size from three-eights to maybe half an inch. Most are yellow; the rest are red. ]

THEY’RE SO TINY, they are seriously so small I got CUTENESS AGGRESSION FROM THEM, I ate them all in, like, three days. They’re, yanno, store tomatoes, they taste okay but not great. but they’re SO TINY.

I hope we can find seeds or seedlings for em. I want two containers of them growing in a nice spot outside, one on each side of a comfy chair. I will sit in my comfy chair, read a book, & gorge myself on freshly-grown, sunwarmed, tiny round tomatoes.

& then I will probably have acid reflux, but some things are totally worth it. NO REGRETS.

originally posted on Patreon; support me over there to see posts a week early!

[ A necklace display, shaped as many of them are with a rounded neck and unrealistically narrow shoulders and waist, and cut out of what’s obviously cheap OSB plywood, sits propped up on a wooden book stand. A purple and white necklace is displayed on it. ]

I admit I spent longer than I really needed to before finally deciding that YES I could just make my own necklace display thing for taking product pictures, instead of buying one. In my defense, it was gonna involve cutting a lot of complex curves, & even with a nice jigsaw & a narrow blade I’m just not GOOD at that. On top of which, the pattern I found was too big to fit on one sheet of paper, which meant that whole process was gonna be a Thing, too.

… look, sometimes it just takes a lot to get started, okay?

In any case, I wound up taking the pics for the first two necklaces I posted earlier this month on the same book stand I’ve been using for pictures of the rest of the jewelry, & it … was very clear that it was NOT designed for that, & it was NOT going to do a good job of it, either. I got some not-too-terrible pictures, but I also got the smitch of executive function I needed to actually, you know, DO THE THING.

Which wasn’t TOO hard. I hadda mess around in Inkscape for a minute to trace the pattern into a lovely vector format & then break it into four sections, then print each one & tape em together, & then I hadda take really quite a few minutes to have at with the jigsaw & get the thing cut out of a handy spare hunk of OSB plywood in a semi-reasonable fashion. & then I stared at it for FAR too long trying to figure out how to build something to hold it up without 1) buying anything, which I was trying to avoid in the first place; 2) having to tear apart any more pallets than I’ve already torn apart, which was already too many; 3) having to do Highly Complex Geometrical Math Calculations; or 3) screaming before realizing that the book stand that’s been doing double duty as a jewelry display item would also do a perfectly good job of, you know, holding up a mediumish slab of plywood.

(I do have most of a plan-like object for making a proper stand now, which is good, cos eventually I’m going to want to use the display board to actually display necklaces in a place where people might like to buy some, & they don’t work well for that if they’re laying flat. But that also means that I’m gonna need to cut more complex round shapes with the jigsaw, cos chances are preeeetty good I’ll want to display more than one necklace at a time, so I’m not thinking about that yet, because of the screaming.)

In the meantime, it works JUST fine, & I’ve taken new pictures of those first couple necklaces, & they all look pretty good. It’ll do.

originally posted on Patreon; support me over there to see posts a week early!

[ A tall set of shelves with three drawers set into the bottom. The inside has been painted pale lavender, the shelves and drawer fronts are slightly darker, and the outsides have been painted dark purple with repeated simple geometric shapes painted on in lavender. The shelves are mostly occupied by a variety of baskets. ]

Yes, there’s still uncovered insulation in my room (I’m working on THAT this week) BUT having my sweet purple shelves in here? HELL YEAH, they make it look SO MUCH better. Plus storage; what’s not to love?

This was a plain set of pressboard shelves finished in We’re Not Even Trying To Pretend This Is Wood veneer, until I got my hands on it. It is, of course, the same colors I use on display boxes in the booth, the same ones I used on Tyrava a couple years later.

The decor is extra-geeky! I dug around online for images of Corded Ware pottery & saved a bunch of pics until I had enough patterns to go all the way around the edges. What, me, only use one pattern? AHAHAHAHA no, I am extra at all times it is possible to be extra.

… okay, I think this is gonna be one of the few short takes posts with more than one picture, because the patterns aren’t very visible in the wide shot.

[ A close view of the top drawer and the bottom shelf. The border between the drawer and the shelf, and the vertical side border next to it, both have repeating geometric patterns painted on in pale lavender paint. One is parallel zigzags between two parallel straight lines, another is a straight line between two rows of dots, a third is a straight line with short lines of varying length sticking out on either side, and another is diamond shapes between parallel lines, with dots in the middle of each. ]

It needs some touching up — this thing has been moved SEVERAL more times than most furniture these days is built to stand up to — but that’s easy enough. & I just LOVE how it looks, & how it adds color & interest to the room.

(the extra storage space ain’t bad either tbh)

originally posted on Patreon; support me over there to see posts a week early!

[ A Nikon D S L R sits on my bed, the case behind it. It’s obviously been through some stuff, but it looks like it’s still in good shape. ]

Not even a Giftmas gift — it’s a ‘I’m not using it so what the hell’ gift, from a friend who knows how vital good product pictures are to anyone who sells things online.

Not that I’m using it yet, I still need to get an SD card reader, & then figure out the bells & whistles — there are a LOT of bells & whistles, & the last time I used a camera anywhere NEAR this complicated, they hadn’t invented digital cameras yet.

I’ll get there, though. Thank you, Larisa, you ROCK!

originally posted on Patreon; support me over there to see posts a week early!

[ A pile of firewood, cut and chopped to the right size to fit in a standard wood stove, sits out in the front yard. Judging by the van behind it, it’s over six feet tall. There’s … there’s a lot of firewood there, is what I’m saying. ]

Much like last year, we’ve been working hard to keep up with the demands of staying warm. Unlike last year, we’re running two wood stoves. The up side is that we have decent insulation now, & with that, we’re running both stoves using barely more wood than we did last year, with one.

Down side? We didn’t manage to scavenge NEAR as much wood as we did last summer.

Up side? CJ passed his pharmacy tech test, got certified, & most importantly for the issue at hand, got a raise.

Which we immediately spent on firewood. Which, this year, came ALREADY CHOPPED.

Y’all who’ve done this? YOU GET IT.

This is two cords, which is gonna last us a WHILE. & when they’re gone? There’s more where they came from.

SUCH A RELIEF.

originally posted on Patreon; support me over there to see posts a week early!

[ A Crayola-branded cardboard box is filled with little packets of brown paper. They’re all stamped with a smiling-faced sun, many of them are closed with washi tape in a variety of colors, and they’re all numbered in dark red ink. ]

One of the many discord servers I’ve joined since the onset of the plague — the first one, in fact — is called Gnome Space, & the fine people I’ve met there have done a lot to get me through the last several years.

Of course, any grouping of highly intelligent, VERY strange people will eventually start producing lore, & the gnomes are no different; St. Cod exists, as does the Fish Butt, & of course the Space Whales carry your packages.

& there are a LOT of packages, because we gnomes send each other a LOT of stuff. There’s a traveling perfume box, another for gaming stuff, & yes, a traveling box solely for exchanging googly eyes.

… we’re like this.

We also do gift exchanges several times a year, centered around solstices, or equinoxes, sometimes the lunar new year, occasionally around holidays we’ve adopted or made up for ourselves.

This year we’re doing Gnome Yule Advent, which involves sending a gnome twelve wrapped presents, & receiving twelve wrapped presents from another gnome. They’re to be opened beginning on Yule itself, or perhaps Christmas, or on the first of December; or twelve days before Yule or Christmas or Festivus, or intermittently through December when you’re having a bad day — anyway, the rules are very strict in stating that one may make one’s own rules.

Above is the box I sent out a couple weeks ago, which will, I hope, bring great cheer to someone who is very dear to me. & I have, also, received a box, from someone I barely know, who also lives in Colorado, though about as far away from here as it’s possible to get.

I’m still not sure when I’m opening mine, but chances are good I’ll be posting about what I get.

originally posted on Patreon; support me over there to see posts a week early!