Tag: fun times

That Googling Thing

The sweet embrace of unconsciousness.

With all that’s going on right now, we need to be cognizant of not just our physical wellbeing, but our mental health as well.

Case in point: when COVID-19 first settled stateside, I could not stop googling the news about it.  I’d just have to.  Next thing I know, it’s two hour later and I’ve fallen down a rabbit hole of news articles and opinion pieces.  The result?  My anxiety would spike hardcore, and I needed to get all my thoughts out there and just vent and vent and vent (mostly to my parents, who are indeed saints for dealing with me), my mind a non-stop roller coaster of awful.  And it would always be right before I’d go to bed.  The worst time to have my brain running a hundred miles per hour.

I’m not promoting ignorance.  At all.  It is important to stay informed.  But this is not being informed.  This is me racing through internet pages and internalizing everything awful, then spewing it back out.

The fact is, I need to step back.  For me to stay in one piece, I need to keep myself from this horrible habit.  I’ve been trying – a few slip-ups here and there, but for the most part, I think I’ve done okay.  I’ve learned that I need to redirect myself or physically hold myself back.  I don’t know if it’s some weird OCD thing or not – I have not been diagnosed by a professional, so I really don’t want to classify it as such.  But I do need to breathe, and back away from the Google, if I want to have any chance of coming away from the COVID-19 pandemic mentally together.

If reading the news helps keep your anxiety in check, great.  Go for it.  But I know that I can’t right now.  Because I won’t get anything from it.  My anxiety will just suffer.

So I will step back.  Breathe.  Knit.  Draw.  Whatever.

And keep moving.

 

Dot and Friends

Dot’s going for that bogey.

The idea of Dot having some monster buddies popped in my head this past week – possibly for a future storyline – and I wanted to get their designs out on paper.

So, here they are – all hanging out and doing some mini golf.  Wanted to get a bit of levity during these trying times.

Let’s All Go to Day Camp

No AC. This does not spark joy.

I posted 3 times in June.

I deem this unacceptable.

That’s clearly going to have change.  And it’s going to this month, with a brand new storyline!  Wooooooooo!  Good times all around, I promise you.

 

Another Drop in the Basement

Water water EVERYWHERE AGAIN AHHHHHHHHH

Jeff considers any holiday that isn’t Christmas to be an inferior holiday.

Easter and Thanksgiving get a pass.

But yeah.  This was our Friday morning.  My mom goes downstairs, I’m just getting out of the shower, and –

“DREW!!!!”

Yep, our basement was flooding.  Yet again.

Three different puddles had appeared all around the basement floor, with no apparent source of the water.  Like it was coming out of the walls or something.

Then I opened the door that led to outside, and surprise!  The outdoor drain was completely submerged.  It must have gotten clogged or overwhelmed or something, so instead of the water draining, it was backing up into the house.

It’s all okay now – we managed to get the drain to start going again, and the water’s all gone from the basement.  But still.  A very fraught morning.  Nothing we need to repeat again.

More Rain YAAAAAAAAY

OH WHAT FUN.

I swear, poor Spring is going to have a nervous breakdown by the time this season’s over.

So, judging from the comic, you can probably guess what we spent our Sunday evening doing after the discovery of our basement flooding yet again.

Because nothing says fun quite like:

  1. Trying to figure out where the hell the water came from – we’re still not entirely sure; our best guess is the sealant beneath the door leading to the outside got loosened, the drain got clogged, and with the non-stop rain we’ve been having…
  2. Trying to desperately save multiple boxes of stuff/books from being damaged.
  3. Attempting to at least mop up a little of the quarter inch of water that ended up soaking two-thirds of our basement.

Yippee.

Thankfully, it’s all mostly dry down there now – smells a little musty, but whatever.  And the weather has decided to cooperate and has been super nice as of late, helping us to dry out a few things.

Hopefully, it’ll decide to stick around at least a little bit longer.  Of course, I said that last time and, well, look what happened.  Mrph.

Processing…

HHHHNNNNNGGGGHHHHH…

Holy crap, June has been a month.

Just a lot of stuff happening all at the same time.  The job interviews.  Attempting to wait patiently to hear back about said job interviews.  Mom heading off to the Ukraine.  The start of Summer Vacation/Library’s Busy Season.  Throw in perhaps the weirdest Father’s Day weekend I’ve had in a while, with a broken washing machine and my grandfather landing in the hospital, and yeah, it’s been one heck of a month.

I just need a moment to sort of process it all.

Also do need to get used to the idea of being busy.  Something that is admittedly new for me, but is a part of being a functional adult.  So yeah.  Fun times for all.

Hoo boy.

Wine Tasting

Adding “wine glasses” to the list of things that are surprisingly hard to draw.

Went to my first winery this past weekend to celebrate Chelsea’s birthday.  Loads of fun – got to go on a historical tour of the establishment, as well as taste some of the wines made by the winery.

Now, I’m not the world’s biggest wine drinker – or really any kind of alcohol drinker, unless it doesn’t actually taste like alcohol (i.e. Mike’s Hard Lemonade).  Also, I am a total lightweight, and have gotten tipsy from just one glass of wine.  Still, it was interesting to get a little taste of each, and to see if there truly was a difference between each one (the answer being yes and no – very subtle distinctions, but in the end, they all still burned/may have blurred together).

Seriously, though, I was stunned at how fast people were able to get through each wine just in time for the next one.  I can’t chug alcohol.  I have to take my time with it.  So I probably finished only about two, with the rest ending up on the ground.  Fairly certain I got some looks/whispers from some of the more experienced wine drinkers on the tour.  But eh.

And yes, those pulled pork nachos were AMAZING.  Thank you, BBQ Hole Food Truck.  Just what I needed to soak all that alcohol up.