jeliza

The last of my nieces and nephews is getting married, which feels like some kind of milestone. Given that I'm in my 40s and 10 years younger than my youngest sister it shouldn't actually be surprising, but the symbolism is there. 

It will be the first of the weddings I'm missing, but given how the omicron surge is going, I don't want to commit to traveling in April. I'm feeling like I dodged a bullet with the trip to North Carolina, and we're considering pulling D out of in-person school; he's too scared to go right now anyway, so isn't like he's learning much and our district has shown no signs of putting a digital option back up. His particular school is, for reasons unknown, the worst. (3% of the student body has tested positive for COVID since September, almost half of which are since January, and that's without the mass first day back testing that caught the asymptomatic that Seattle Schools did.)

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In general, I've got a brain like a steel sieve, which is to say my memory is crap.

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Being someone who crafts/arts as a job results in a strange relationship to the winter holidays. This year I only have two shows, because COVID, but that still means feeling like I can't do anything from November onwards. Thanksgiving is the day of painting and pie and not particularly social. Christmas music mostly makes me stressed until the shows are all done (this year, that's the 19th.)  And I cannot with a straight face decry the commercialization of Christmas, because frequently it's where I make a third or more of my yearly income.


I survived GeekCraftExpo (yay) and discovered it is strange to work a table and not be able to smile at people as an interaction, talking is much more necessary. There will be a teeny show for which I have no expectations whatsoever on the 19th at a BBQ bar called the Hidden Door here in Shoreline which opened basically at the beginning of the pandemic. And there is Arisia, which technically is a January show that I mail to, but all the work has to be done in December.





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I had trail mix and cheese for dinner and I am not ashamed. 

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Today I had my first appointment with the strength-focused trainer i had bookmarked way back before I broke my ankle. I remembered more proper form than I expected, but the amount I could actually lift was as low as I suspected. It felt really good to start again, though my shoulders disagree. 

It was otherwise a fairly frustrating day -- everyone else has done kind of bug, and painting did not go well, so it was really nice to end with a confidence builder. 

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The progress on the house finally feels like we're moving past baby steps into actual momentum, and just having so much more floor clear makes it easier to breathe. I'm about to go into serious production mode for GeekCraftExpo on the weekend after Thanksgiving (tickets are $2, and with that there will be proper crowd control for covid-ness). Whether I can implement the buttload of new ideas I have is up in the air (so. many. ideas. Most of which involve learning new painting or woodworking skills oops) but I think at least the boxes will be added to the inventory. Thanks to y'alls gentle pushes, I finally have a proper online store! I'm trying to add new things every week without letting it overwhelm the rest of my work time.

I went out to North Carolina to help R get the final heavy things that really need two people lifting out of her POD. She got covid AGAIN when she moved out there, and still fatigues easily, so big chunks of moving in had been really stalled. I think some of the momentum from getting that apartment put to rights carried over to coming home.

Waynesville, NC is very pretty, especially with the leaves turning, but I would have difficulty living there, I think. Fiber degrees are really damn thin on the ground these days, though, so I totally understand why R is making it work.





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I got one new design finalized today that pleases me: pendants that will be cut custom with the person's natal triad.



That was version 6, I think? Of a design first sketched three years ago.
After that, the rest of the day all my ideas came in two flavors: ugly or beyond my ability to execute, but I'm slowly working through an Illustrator textbook that should help with the second one at least.

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 It is wild how much easier the 36 hours of clear liquid diet got when I found out I could have gummy bears. It's weird to miss chewing so much.

Also, Black Forest brand gummy bears are pretty decent, not as soft as Swedish fish but not little rocks like haribo. 

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I am having a days where I have no idea what I am doing. Just at all. Keyboard shortcuts for photoshop I would swear could never leave my muscle memory after two decades of use just out to lunch, I had to hunt through menus.  I have no idea where I was filing my product photos. The brain is not along for the ride. Reading isn't even fun, but I don't feel depressed, just like my brain is out to lunch.

I hope this isn't an aging thing, but I suspect it is.

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 My first post-cancer show went pretty well. I didn't manage to make anything new, but I had plenty of stuff from before and sold a pretty reasonable amount. 

I'm wearing a mask and distancing from family, though, because so many people weren't bothering to wear their masks correctly, including some just... holding them. With. I had a pretty hardcore n95 mask for the occasion and didn't eat or drink or do anything that involved breaking that seal  but I'm indulging in not quite paranoia. I used up all my talking to people energy for the week anyway. 

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