March. Spring and fresh beginnings. Trees are beginning to bud out ever so slightly as the warmth and sun returns, and on my neighborhood walk last night I spied some spring bulbs starting to stretch forth from their wintery slumber in neighboring flower beds. We’re not out of the woods yet, weather-wise, but we’re certainly not in the depths of gray, depressing winter, either, and there’s no denying that the wheel of the year keeps turning. I feel a bit like the plants right now – starting to awaken from my wintering period. I find myself looking ahead at true spring, and even summer, and thinking about the things that…

I’m calling it. This funk isn’t just winter blues combined with political bullshit anxiety… it’s depression with a lowercase d. Not to be confused with Depression, the bigger downer that happens to me occasionally. But we’re definitely riding out this roller coaster right now and tightening down the safety nets (daily walks, eating actual meals with veggies, sitting in the car on sunny days baking in the light like a plant in a greenhouse, etc) in an attempt to mitigate damage and prevent the little d turning into a big D. Part of this mitigation strategy includes easy win art pieces. Instead of beating myself up about how I should…

All those years of learning about Nazi Germany and wondering how people could “let” it happen, how people could go on living their lives despite all the terrors happening around them… only to watch it unfold in real time here in the US. (After all, that wasn’t just an “awkward gesture” that was made by a certain weirdo billionaire, and anyone telling you that is trying to gaslight you.) She’s 10 year old me, painfully aware of what’s going on but with no power to do anything about it.

I’m out. I’m opting out of Meta. I’m opting out of Facebook, Instagram, Threads, and whatever else I can. This is likely no surprise to anyone who has known me over the years. Facebook hasn’t been a “good” platform in a decade, honestly. Perhaps I sound a bit boomer-ish, despite my elder millennial status, but I stand by my statement. I’ve had a love/hate relationship (largely on the hate side) with the platform, and have only truly kept my account because of my professional life. I still, honestly, have to keep at least minimal contact for business via the platforms until I can get customers to follow me to another…

Decided to tackle the annual Birbfest art challenge this year. I love birds, and it seemed like a fantastic way to stretch myself a bit in drawing this year. I don’t know that I’ll draw every single bird this month – it’s my busy season at the yarn shop, and also I’m just slower in general this time of year, but so far I’ve managed 5 birds (will likely draw today’s later this afternoon). The Lady Ross’s Turaco – the big blue one – was a challenge, especially in trying to nail the vibrant color of the bird in my reference photo. The Piping Plover looked, at face value, pretty…

I don’t have any goals yet for 2025. For the last week I’ve been trying to muster up any sort of enthusiasm or energy for the new year. Maybe it’s my age and life experience, maybe it’s just that collectively 2020-2024 feels like this alternate universe we’ve somehow found our way into, maybe it’s that end of year this year means facing reality that my dream business, while still open, still isn’t generating any real profit 4 years in…. I just can’t be excited this year. I’ve sat down and tried to do my usual end-of-year recap, introspection, and planning. I’ve tried to think of what goals I’d like to…

Anxiety still hasn’t subsided from last week. I’ve moved into the phase where I’m deep cleaning the house and making things, probably from a lack of a better way to process all these feelings, emotions, and fear. This week I’ve been comfort baking and going through the kitchen and pantry and clearing out old canned foods to reclaim the jars, making note of what we have left, what I need to start restocking, etc. We’re low on one of my favorite Thanksgiving staples, the Apple Cranberry Jam from Food in Jars, so I dug out the canning pot this morning and whipped up a half batch to bring out here…

I don’t know about you, but I’m a mess of post-election feelings right now. So, I’m sorting them out as best as I can with some good old fashioned isolating and digging deep with the journaling and art creating. The social media apps were all removed from my phone – likely temporary, though I often daydream of it becoming a permanent situation – to reduce the onslaught of information, complaints, and overwhelming sadness being shoved at me from all angles. I’ve never been one to shy away from sharing my feelings and what makes me human, but right now, I’m finding that I’m feeling very vulnerable and downright unsafe in…

I woke up grumpy this morning. Why? Because the calendar says November now. Because this, ultimately, means that I now have to jump from enjoying autumn and Halloween and all the best things about this time of year and into the frenzy of bullshit that is holiday marketing, shopping, decorating, wrapping, and everything else. It was bad enough when I was just a normal person with a normal job and all I had to worry about was the idiotic ads and emails pushing me to buy, buy, buy. But now, as a retailer myself (though not a typical one, anyway), there’s the push on another front to sell, sell, sell…