the day we spent

A bunch of things happened between here and the last time I wrote.

We lost my baby kitty boy Doppler to Kidney Failure. Right in the thick of all of the chaos. Was not a great time. We cried a lot.

And now we have Newton, who is a 12 pound ball of outer space. He’s an absolute monster next to Peebles with her summer haircut.

ADHD Assessment never happened because of c*vid, and though he’d never met me, the psychologist was suggesting I go on a mood stabilizer. Which sent me in another spiral that omg – what if I’m bipolar? Or borderline? Not that it would be the worst – just that I just needed someone to listen to me.
In the end, my doctor was unimpressed with this Doctor (after I told her that he wanted me to remove a medication that helped) and so we did some ADHD trial and error. Hey, whaddya know, I’ve been misdiagnosed my whole life – even though two other people in my immediate family have been diagnosed, and most depression medication didn’t do anything except for make me avoid intimacy. Thankssss.

We went and visited my family in BC for father’s day. We bubbled and basically just sat around and caught up. Then we went up and saw my brother, sister and my nephew more up north. I had a beautiful time, I’m just sad I wasn’t able to spend more time there with them. It was a long 15 hour drive each way, so it’s been nice to just chill.

Okay so, I have done therapy. And I’m a trained Social Worker. I’ve taken classes so I can help other people help themselves. And for some reason, I just have been unable to take the theories that I’ve learned and like, legitimately apply them. CBT – who’s she? So anyway, after neglecting myself and being unable to pull myself out of a funk, I got a life coach.
For some reason, Catlord has a thing against life coaches. Same kind of ‘tude that others in my life have had against medication, or talk therapy. But this coach has been incredibly helpful for me so far. She’s able to take all the things that I should be doing and help me organize my life so I can use all of my self-help/care & wellness skills that I already know and apply them to myself. Like compassion. Empathy. Ulgh. Dat burnout though.
So anyways, I’m 5 sessions in and I’m pretty happy with the results. Appropriate medication support and someone just helping me see my victories has been kinda life altering.

This week has been a bit strange mental health wise. Not in a bad way – just a stupid thing that happened. I ran out of my medication and called the pharmacy to get a refill of my script to last me until Friday (today). She said she had to contact my doctor’s office and would give me a call letting me know the next step. This was on Sunday. So anyways, Thursday rolls around, here I am, toughing it out without my SSRI medication and I suddenly became so violently ill.
I knew that it wasn’t c*vid because we had just gotten tested and received the results. It wasn’t a child because that ain’t happening. Looking up my symptoms and knowing that I was not on my SSRI for over 3 days, I was likely feeling SSRI “discontinuation” symptoms that would likely go away in a few hours after taking the missing medication. The TL;DR is that you shouldn’t miss your medications. I got scolded by my doctor and the nurse lady on health link for not being more stern with the pharmacy, and for not telling the pharmacist that I *needed* my medication **RIGHT THIS MINUTE**. Which yanno, as someone with anxiety and automatic guilt – caused me to spin out for a little while. Not super fun, would not recommend. 1/5 stars.

Anyways, I’ve been just sitting in my backyard watching the cats chase bugs and just living for this calm breeze. Earlier I spent a good two hours scrolling through tiktok on the floor with Tesla. And that’s on mental illness.

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the stars were so bright

We pulled a puzzle out from our Christmas gifts and turned on some music from our childhood. I got a call from a concerned friend and he calmly talked me off a ledge, and I was grateful for the love of others. I stood outside and watched the stars shine. Just a moment. Me, my dog, and the vastness of the universe. I took in a deep breath and felt the healing of the wind. It was just a moment, but it was a moment of clarity.

I’ve been struggling with self soothing techniques. Yesterday was a big, deep, dark sad day and I couldn’t shake the endless loop of darkness and endings. I colored. I sang. I baked. I smoked. I laid down. I cuddled my dog. I hugged my husband. I wrote a blog. I sat in the shower. But nothing really helped.

Except the bright night sky.

I need to get out of this house and go live in the woods. I need to reconnect with myself. I need to sit beside a campfire. I need to paddle a canoe. I need to forage for berries. I need healing.

obsessions

So it’s just a thing that happens. I have an idea or pick up a new craft and suddenly it’s all I think about. But in this case it could actually be going somewhere.

Earlier this month Catlord celebrated his birthday. It’s a big birthday for him, so I got him a real big gift [and I’m usually shit at gifts so…was about time I did better], a 3d printer. As I am researching 3d printers and filaments, my brain says “but like…what happens to the 3d print failures? what is 3d printer filament? must be an easier way to get it.” I somehow stumbled in to small scale plastic recycling as an attempt to mitigate the filament waste [filament is expensive yall].

This later turned in to an immensely huge project.

The “peaches starts a business” project.

I made my way to the precious plastic site and there it was. The answer to my question. The answer to many questions. Precious Plastic is a NFP collective type thing, they share everything they have learned about small scale plastic recycling in easy and inclusive ways *for free* – including machine blueprints, business plans, workspace suggestions etc. I think my main purpose is to take something that is literal garbage and create a conversation around how great this resource is when it is applied to it’s full potential, rather than trinkets and plastic spoons. This post isn’t sponsored or like…an ad. I’m just genuinely excited that there is a way for me to positively impact my physical environment by removing plastic from the landfill. If you’re a likeminded human, I suggest checking out the website, if nothing else, just to see what can of magic can happen when you’re forced into the crunch line of global warming and armed with a bunch of Captain Planet type nerds.
So now I’m starting a business with a friend and I’m extremely excited for it. I love my current job [like so much, you have no idea] but I feel like I could take on the work [and like holy shit I need a creative outlet that gets me out of my house I swear to fuck). I have lots of ideas, and I can’t wait to share them, but until then, I just leave you with an invitation to chat about plastic recycling with me and how you can take literal trash and turn it in to amazing things.

And yes, I know – we need to be encouraging less consumption of plastic all together, and like, yes. But also – only 9% of the global amount of plastic is recycled, which means there’s a shit load of it all over the damn place. I think I will always be someone who advocates for the greener choice, someone who says yes to reusing jars and tupperware for a zero waste option, and genuinely doesn’t want anymore plastic created. I would love to get to the point where I can no longer recycle plastic into products because there is a shortage. Here’s hoping.

Anyways, we had a community meeting for PP folks in the city, and I’m really hopeful that something cool will come out of this for all of us. I’m trying to turn my brain off and it’s hard. Hoping the word vomit helps. And the tea. And the drugs.

recapsss

So last week was really up and down with productivity and life. On Monday I marathoned a bunch of documentaries about permaculture, homesteading, and canning. Because that’s a normal thing to do. I am crocheting a baby blanket for my co-worker’s shower this Saturday, and didn’t want to just waste time, I wanted to learn a bunch of stuff. And learn I did. I also learned that it’s really important to LISTEN TO THE PEOPLE WHO WRITE PATTERNS. If the crochet lady says you need a size 4mm hook, don’t assume you can use a 5mm and get the same results.
On Wednesday, I had my sewing moment, which like…exploded. Becausse on Thursday and Friday, I spent the entire day cutting and sewing lace and made a bunch more bags. Managed to sell a couple, so you know, that’s really helping my brain feel more productive (and assisting in my thrift store addiction, tyvm).
CatLord won his bid on an Occulus Virtual Reality headset. It’s pretty neat, but it only runs on my computer, which means my tower is currently sitting in the living room downstairs. I am eyeing up a VR boxing game to maybe help me get some more exercise. Just waiting for JustDance vr. Get my wiggle on.
Over the weekend CatLord and I did a bunch. We did an escape room for a friends birthday (got out with an extra 12 minutes, only used 2/4 hints). We went to their place afterwards and I tormented/brushed their fuzzy cat Tasha for a million hours. On Sunday we did a lot of running around, went to Costco, which is always a horrific experience, and then finished off our grocery shopping at our local market. After being sad about plastic for 9 years, we came home and did some cute crap. We bought a bunch of lean ground pork for Daisy from Costco ($12 for a tube the size of my calf muscle), so I threw it in the slow cooker for 8 hours. While that did it’s thing, CatLord would only let me buy the neglected fruit on the 30% off shelf if I promised we would make it that night, so we bought a bag of slightly bruised, but perfectly fine apples, and we made apple sauce! In our smaller slow cooker, a 3lbs bag of granny smiths, half a cup of water, half a cup of sugar, and a few shakes of cinnamon for 4 hours. Apples were whiskable into perfect sauce. I canned them using the upside down method (neat!) and now we have 4 jars of applesauce for the next couple months. (CatLord says he’ll eat them all right away, but whatever). Maybe I’ll sneak the applesauce cookie recipe from my mom.

After that, I watched most of season 3 of Queer Eye and cried while I cut out more bags.
NEAT. How was your week?

finding words

It’s been a weird couple of days.
I’m fully transitioned on to new medication. I attempted to write a blog post a few days ago and discovered that “I had lost my words again” which broke my heart and sent me into a sadness spiral. I’m still a bit weird about it and am struggling to find the right words to explain things, but I’m determined to over come it.

I turned 31 on Sunday and celebrated by eating a lot of pizza with a couple friends. I’ve also been playing a lot of Stardew Valley with the online fam, and yanno. It’s fun. Not a great way to be accomplished and like…be healthy, but I at least I’m interacting with people? It’s also making me pray that spring is actually on it’s way so I can start playing out in my own garden.

Daisy and I went on a walk last week, and then I visited the library. I picked up a few books, one on preserving fruits and veg, one called Thug Kitchen: Eat like you give a fuck and one about green beauty. I’m hoping to make it over there sometime this week to take out some books on vermaculture and maybe one on cross stitch (I’m currently on my 3rd cross stitch for mah homeskillet. I’ll post once I’ve delivered it.)

Yesterday was busy. I met with my new therapist, and then went over to a friend’s place to do some crafts. It was nice to be out of the house, but I’m definitely ready to recoup some of them spoons today. I think I might be getting allergies which means spring is on it’s way, right?

Yours sneezingly,

a freezer full of bananas

Mood: off
Project: Chris’ blanket, banana bread
Desire: to drink tea and have a nap

It was -8 yesterday, it got up to 0. It felt like I was living on a tropical island. It was amazing. The sun was out. I could take Daisy to the dog wash without fear of her freezing as soon as we stepped outside.
It’s only -7 today, but it’s a bit windy, snowy, and overcasty, so I’m hiding indoors today.
Does anyone else buy perfectly good bananas specifically to let them brown for banana bread? Because I secretly do. The only place I’ve found paper bags of browned bananas is at the organic store, and they still charge per banana. Cmon child. Please.
I’m currently flooding my house with the scent of banana bread. My mom has this imperial margarine cookbook from a looonngg time ago, it has the best recipes in it. Some of my favorites are the pancakes (although we’ve altered it and tripled it to fit our fams needs), the chocolate chip cookies, the dogturd cookies (no bake chocolate drop cookies), and the banana bread. One year, my mom asked me to make a bunch of loaves of banana bread for a Legion gathering or something. So I harvested the several grocery bags (yes) of frozen bananas and made like 15 loaves. I substituted the eggs for more bananas and used…butter…I think, instead of margarine. They were the best damn loaves of banana bread I’ve ever tasted. I continue to scour the internet for a recipe that is close, subbing eggs for bananas, and so far I’ve come up with a bunch of overly moist banana loaves that no one else eats but me (I’m not complaining). I should add that recipe book to my thrift store watch list, it’s amazing.


I’m in the middle of another med adjustment, my spirits feel up but my mood seems low. If that’s possible. I’m trying to be optimistic, but it feels draining.
CatLord and I watched half of season 2 of the Expanse last night, it’s pretty great. I’m really loving watching more sci-fi. I think my next big series watch is Battlestar Galactica. 
Anyways, the banana bread is just about done, and I think I’m going to try to get rid of this oncoming migraine.