The mountain was so beautiful. Tyler was so calm and kind and patient. Josh also, who encouraged this venture.

I am not depressed this morning and I am confused about it. Normally I am searching for ways to self-soothe in the morning just to function, but I am all right, at the moment, so I don't need to. It's so abnormal it's disorienting.

Maybe I can actually do some PT before work, today?

This lady is amazing and this cosplay is amazing.



...

I am enjoying the inspiration from her channel, and I went back for the fuzzy white fur. I may make a moth or a butterfly or something else; a little white cursed bird, who knows.

I'd really love to make some sort of soft plushy costume that would completely obscure my human form and be easy to interact with, like Totoro, but I am not sure what that would be, yet. I have imagined variations on dragons and birds, but still have come up with nothing, so far. Will keep contemplating this.

I might make my puppet one of our local native blue butterflies. Fender's Blue has a remarkable recovery story, thanks to the efforts of those who also fought for spotted owl recovery in Oregon.



Its host plant is a rare, beautiful purple lupine called Kindaids. I could base a fairy costume on that flower.





I just love its fuzzy lil blue body and those stripy antennae! Many of our local gossamer winged blue butterflies have these characteristics.

9am on a beautiful Saturday morning. So much sunshine!

Will try to get on my bike here in a bit and ride up to the farmers market, I don't need anything but the ride will be good for me regardless, I think we are low on a couple things.

Some friends are hosting a bbq so I will try to swing by for that, I randomly bought some hot dogs for it last night even though they didn't ask for such a thing - I don't know how to show up to anything empty handed.

Finally vacuumed out my car. Dodged all the bullets. That place where we used to go when I was a kid is the only one of its kind in the entire city, so weird! It was fine.

I just need to wipe down the inside before I put all my stuff back in the car. The windows desperately need a thorough cleaning. I'll do that after my farmers market run.

Need to box up one order, it's small it'll be fine.

My hands and fingers ache fiercely today, I don't know why. It hurts so much. They are more swollen than usual, but no redness.

I've been failing to take any of my supplements, I haven't been entirely consistent with collagen and I keep forgetting my fish oil. I think getting back on that stuff would help.

Tummy is unhappy.

I should probably try to take a shower before socializing, ha.

So much cleaning I want to do! Maybe tomorrow. I want to tackle the bathroom and the kitchen and just throw most of my stuff away that's been collecting since we moved here. It'll make it easier to move, when the time comes. I need to do the storage unit and garage, too, but that's much more daunting and requires a lot of emotional work since I have bins of my mom's old things in there. I have to give myself permission to ignore that and just keep storing it, if I have to.

I woke up really sad and anxious but my mood is improving. I forced myself to go to Cynthia's last night to catch up and bake pears that were delivered to her doorstep by a neighbor. We ended up making two vegan sugar free pies, they are delightful. We had fun. Hanne has an aggressive form of breast cancer, she has already cut her hair and started chemo. She just got her diagnosis like less than two weeks ago. So things are moving quickly. It sucks but she has really good support, her husband is retired and they have plenty of resources, and she has friends, it sounds like she has as much support as anyone could hope for. I am glad.

I want to send her a card, and also my friend Robin who is going through chemo for pancreatic cancer, and also Naomi. I will pull those out and decide who gets what or maybe buy more if I need to. Will swing by a shop that has nice cards and look for something for the three of them. Sigh.

I've been so incredibly lonely and depressed. I feel a million times better when I am with others, but I rarely can manage the effort to make myself go be social. I tell a lot of stories to myself about being unwanted. It's gotten a lot worse with perimenopause, struggling with disliking my appearance and my body being in a lot more pain than I'm used to (and I'm already used to a lot of pain).

K, coffee is cold, that's my cue to get on my bike and get some sunshine on my skin and these achy joints.

It will be hot tomorrow. I'm okay with that. But worried about the fires. It seems like we're the only western state area not engulfed in smoke at the moment. Our turn is coming.

might need to ease up on the cleaning videos. at first they were relaxing but now they're starting to cause me some stress. I am throwing things away more, and thinking about what to throw away. I like the idea of the "move out/move in" technique of taking everything out of a room, cleaning it, and then putting everything back. But I don't think I'm up for that. culling first might be a better use of my time, especially since we will likely move this fall or winter anyway.

Josh is worried about moving in winter and yeah it would suck but I don't mind wrecking the holidays, holidays suck anyway and it would be a good excuse to skip them. I do love xmas, but just the cookies, tree, music, and a handful of light-hearted things to unwrap. hot cocoa and snow. sweaters and oversleeping. not so much the gatherings and pressure to be festive. I don't feel emotionally safe around my (alcohol-dependent) family and Josh's family is Jewish, so.

...

I'm home because my customer stood me up this morning. She didn't even bother to text me until I texted her when she was 7 minutes late. And didn't even reply when I offered to reschedule, or indicate whether she was going to try to come late or just reschedule, she just didn't answer, after her initial reply that she was having a "weird reaction to a gluten tolerance test" whatever that means. I hope she's okay. It sounds like she's not feeling well and my brain doesn't work in that condition, either, but it's also just so disrespectful to leave me sitting there waiting and not knowing. I hate service work, times like this.

I got really bad cramps again when this happened, I think they are triggered by stress. So I drove home in extreme pain and ate some saltines and granola and now I'm just sitting here trying to relax and not make it worse. I was going to try to vacuum my car in the high-homicide area during my lunch break but now I just can't make myself. Maybe I can just take it to the car washing place and let them do it for me where I don't have to worry about being shot at because I don't look right. There have been *so many* homicides in Portland, lately. People keep telling me it's getting better but I think they are deluded. (This was where we took our car to vacuum it out ourselves when I was a kid, it was not unsafe back then. It's the only way I know how to do it.)

Need to go back to work in half an hour but grateful to be able to just chill for a bit. Not sure what to wear to Shadowplay tonight, I feel so bloated and gross. I'll figure something out. I think dancing later might make me feel better. If this pain would just dissipate.