Sena's DW :: Watermelon Life

I just finished up Serendipity, but I know there's a couple of rough spots in it that need ironing out. I guess that's what editing is for, though. I printed it out anyway to add to my first Storm Season et al binder. Last night I also printed out Ghost In The Machine, Pinfeathers, Teeth and Wayward Daughters even though they haven't been edited, either. Now my whole first Storm Season et al binder is pretty much full and I don't think my second one will hold all the rest. Might need a third. =/

Now that I'm done Serendipity, I really am going to write Temper Tantrums, I swear. :|

Today I have to make approximately a bajillion cookies; lemon cream cheese, shortbread and chocolate chip, as well as possibly date squares, and coconut syrup for Mom. The coconut syrup won't take long, it's like a 15 minute job, but the COOKIES. Ugh. I should have done them ages ago, though, so it's my own fault, really.

I need to go to the Dollarama for bead boxes, bubble wrap and chocolate bars, but today will be INSANE for shopping so I'm kind of like... yeah. But also with the snow and my recently bad ankle (and perpetually bad knees and hips), even walking to the corner is probably beyond me. Mom has to go out to pick up a prescription later so I'm hoping maybe she'll take me with her and we can swing by the Dollarama on the way past? I dunno, maybe not. She hasn't been in a very charitable mood lately, so idk.

I need the bubble wrap to wrap up the candles that I made to sell for Christmas this year. I posted them on FB Marketplace but no one was interested, which was disappointing. Mom bought 2 but I think she largely bought them out of pity. The rest I'm going to wrap up for storage for next Christmas and try again then, I guess. I really wish I could list them on my Etsy, but candles are too heavy and expensive to ship. I think they'd do well on Etsy, though...

My cane pick for my new cane and my copy of The Mean One (on DVD) came in yesterday. I still have to attach the pick to my cane but I'm THRILLED to have my copy of The Mean One, I've been trying to find it for MONTHS now, ever since I found out it existed and watched it for the first time. It's one of my own "classic Christmas movies" along with The Nightmare Before Christmas and Anna And The Apocalypse lol.

I have edited the Horror High one-shots like six times now and every time I think they're good and I print them and put them in the binder and then I look at them again and find more mistakes or things I want to change and end up editing them again and printing them again and I am going through SO MUCH paper and ink doing this I just. I need to stop. To that end, I edited them again yesterday and printed them (again) and put them in the binder and I have decided I am DONE. THEY ARE WHAT THEY ARE, FOR BETTER OR WORSE.

...I think I'm just hyperfocusing on the editing to keep my mind off of Poe and stuff, though, tbh. They still haven't replied to my last email and their Insta stories are making me worry and I just want to know they're okay. Like I don't know why they moved or where they moved to, but they don't seem to be doing well there and I just... fuck, I don't know, maybe I shouldn't have sent that email after all. I know I put the kibosh on our friendship FOR THEM but I hate to see them having such a hard time and not being able to do anything about it. It HURTS.

I hate this.

Anyway.

So I've been doing superfluous editing and working on writing to try to keep my mind off it as much as possible, but it's hard. I'm working on notes for a new original project, The Rabid, which is a zombie apocalypse... ish. Thing. Kind of more classic zombie apocalypse setting than My Zombie, while also not TECHNICALLY being a zombie apocalypse at all? idk I'm just tinkering with the notes for it right now and we'll see where it goes, if anywhere.

I'm back up to 8 tabs open in Word again because I shut them all down and then immediately start opening them back up again, or adding new ones. Part of it right now is that I'm so worried about Poe I need ALL THE THINGS to focus on to try to keep my mind off it, I guess. But I really do need to shut most of them down again. Even TKA could be shut down until November, since I'm going to work on it for the NaNo, which of course means it's officially cursed. :|

I got all the stuff out of my storage bins to make candles like three days ago and I still haven't made any. I need to get on that, really. It's not like it's hard. It's just that the motivation isn't there for ANYTHING right now, except a little writing, so...

It's the same reason I've had the milk in the house for making rice pudding for like three weeks and haven't gotten around to it. And I asked for my parents to pick up sweet potatoes and cream so I could try making sweet potato pie and that was a week ago. I just... don't CARE about anything right now. I think I'm more depressed than I'd like to admit, tbh.

Last night we watched the premier of Brilliant Minds and Lee was bitchy the entire time because we weren't watching Chesapeake Shores but FUCK Lee, Brilliant Minds was actually really good and I am always up for some Zachary Quinto! I'm hoping it catches on because I really enjoyed it, but I think with it's House Vibes and the Zachary Quinto factor it might have a chance. Fingers crossed!

Oh, and my Aunt actually managed to convince Grandma to move to the new care home, so they're moving her on Wednesday, which is, in fact, tomorrow. And by "they" I mean "we" because I stupidly volunteered to help even though they're moving her right in the freaking middle of my Bad Pill Time. So I have to get up an hour and a half early tomorrow to take my pills early and hope they're done making me VIOLENTLY ILL before it's time to leave to move Grandma.

I know she needs to be in the care home, but she's going to be sharing a room with someone and I don't see that working out very well. =/ Also now that she's in Orillia she's really expecting me to come visit her like... A LOT. And I just... I can't handle being around her in the state she's in. Which is a horrible thing to say and makes me feel like a terrible person, but my own mental illness can't HANDLE her dementia and every time I see her now I come home after ward and just SOB.

Like Christmas is my favorite day, when we all get together, and last year was TERRIBLE because of the way she is now, I HATED it, and this year is going to be even worse. I don't even want to go to CHRISTMAS because of this, and I just... I feel like such an awful person. I hate myself for feeling this way, but I can't HELP it...

EDIT: Also, my image hosting site is being stupid and I don't know why and it's really pissing me off. >|

A couple of days ago I somehow ROYALLY buggered up my knee, and basically my whole left leg from the knee down hurt like FUCK, but especially the top of my foot for some reason? And only when I walked, when I STEPPED DOWN and put pressure on my leg. It wasn't sensitive to the touch or anything, it just hurt like fuck to WALK. And I was like, cool, you know, sounds like a plan, body, what else have you got for me? Luckily it only lasted a couple days, and this morning it's (mostly) back to normal with just some minor pain when I walk, which I hope will be completely gone in another day or two.

Next week Mom and I have to go back to the house in Baysville to haul furniture and boxes some more, and I think Mom plans to go twice in the week so that's going to suck but I guess it needs done so LET'S DO IT. It's just hard because of my back/hips/knees/wrists/hands/lungs BASICALLY MY WHOLE BODY, hauling heavy stuff up flights of stairs is like torture. But we have to get as much of it out to the garage as possible so that I know what's left to go to Dad's for storage there, since storage units are like $500/month now and I CANNOT afford that. :|

Last week when we were there we discovered that the mice that Grandma allowed to run rampant in the house for years had gotten into my couch and love seat so I had to throw those away. I have a chair down there still that I have to inspect but my hopes are not high for it, which SUCKS because it's the best chair EVER.

I have a lot of regrets in my life, but moving out of my last apartment and in with Grandma is one of the biggest ones. I was having mental health crises in that apartment, but if I had just stuck it out and gotten on the right meds it would have worked out and I could have stayed there. Then my stuff wouldn't be destroyed and I would have my own apartment, still. But I guess there's nothing I can do about it now, except wait for the subsidized housing people to get to me on the list, preferably some time this DECADE.

It's been twenty days since Poe last emailed me, other than to tell me that they couldn't email me for a while because of the whole mentioning TW thing. Sometimes I feel like our crazies match up, and other times I feel like they just look for excuses not to talk to me. I'm starting to wonder if we just weren't meant to be friends after all, considering all that's happened, even though we're basically the same person. I want to send them some Juna pics to cheer them up, but I don't know if that's allowed. I just don't know anymore. I just want them to be happy.

I still haven't gotten the wiggly foxes up on Etsy even though I said I was going to. I looked at the pictures I had taken and decided that I needed more of them, but then I've been procrastinating over actually DOING to pics, because I always do that, so they're just sitting here, staring at me.

I think I'm depressed right now and my motivation is just... not there for most things. I should be making candles, too, but I just... meh. I dunno, maybe I'll get out my candle stuff so I can make a couple later in the day when Jessie's room is closed up (that's where all my candle supplies are stored.) I really want to check the Dollarama for more of the super pretty Thanksgiving mugs to make into candles but I had to buy printer ink with my Trillium Benefit so I'm broke now until the end of the month unless I take money out of my jar again, which I shouldn't. Sucks.

I started writing three more Hijack one-shots last night, Switch, Paris and Violets Are Blue, all of which are Chemistry side-stories. I'm really enjoying writing Hijack in-and-around my SPN stuff lately, it's nice to get my head out of the Destiel for a while on occasion. I mean, I'm still working on Storm Season and When Lightning Strikes at the same time, and I also write a couple of blurbs for The House this morning, but, you know, variety is the spice of life and all that.

I really do want to write something for Valdemar soon, too. Maybe I'll finish Not Horses or Wander, or possibly Knowing? I don't know, I always have SO MANY Valdemar one-shot ideas it's hard to narrow it down to just one to work on. I'll figure it out, though.

Writing seems to be one thing I can still focus on despite the depression creeping back in, and I'm sure that's because of the ADHD meds. I think without them everything would just be me laying around thinking about the sweet embrace of death (again) and just generally being horrible. At least with the writing it gives me something to focus on and keep my mind of the CRUSHING DESPAIR, for part of the day, at least.

My Amazon cart currently has $145.09 worth of stuff in it, but to be fair there are 4 DVDs (Abigail, The Mitchell's VS The Machines, Sting & Kung Fu Panda 4) and two things of Halloween candy for next month, so it makes sense that it's that expensive. I can't pay for it until the 30th, and even then I might have to defer some of the stuff until my other government payments come in around the 15th of October. I also need to mail Poe's parcel when those come in, and the TINY PACKAGE is going to cost me like $118CAD WHAT THE EVER-LOVING FUCK.

Literally I remember mailing SUBSTANTIAL parcels to the UK back in the day and it costing me like $38CAD to do it, I have no freaking idea why everything is so much more expensive nowadays. INFLATION, MAN.

P.S. I did manage to get about 3 hours of sleep last night after all. I am freaking exhausted, obviously. Going to go get candle stuff and then have a nap, I think. Hopefully I can sleep for real this time. *fingers crossed*

EDIT: Also, Mercedes Lackey is running another kickstarter type thing for a deluxe leather-bound book of like 30 of her short stories and I want it SO BAD but it's $100USD and it ends in like 15 days so WAY before I'll have the money to pay for it. I hate when people run kickstarters (etc.) for really short periods of time, it means people like me who have to scrape together the money get left in the lurch. :(

I got a great idea for Pinfeathers last night and started writing a bit of it, now I've got about four?? pages written, but I'm jumping around between fics right now so they're all getting written in bits-and-pieces. Basically what I need to do is close down most of my Word documents and just focus on writing Storm Season until it's done. (Right now I only have 11 Word documents open, which is a minor miracle, it's usually more like 30.)

So just... close down everything but Storm Season and my Journal and maybe one other? Yeah that's probably what I should do. Sometimes even WITH the ADHD meds my brain grabs at too many things at once and I have a hard time reining it in. I have to kind of force the issue, you know? I think this is one of those times. :|

Yesterday my boxes for shipping wiggly foxes came in and they SHIPPED MY BUNDLE OF CARDBOARD BOXES INSIDE ANOTHER CARDBOARD BOX, SURROUNDED BY PACKING MATERIAL because of how breakable cardboard boxes are, naturally. It made me laugh. I only ordered 25 boxes because I don't even know if the wiggly foxes are going to SELL and I didn't want to be stuck with like a thousand 8x3x3 boxes if they don't. I can always order more if I need to. *shrug*

The other day I took Dean and Castiel out back and knocked out as much of the dirt from their roots as I could, then rinsed them in a big bowl of water, then under running water until they were ready to put in the aquarium. It turned out both of them were too big for my aquarium planters, though, so I have two small pots with mini!Castiel (his name is Jack) and mini!Dean (currently unnamed) in them, which Mom will probably adopt. At the same time as I did that I finally potted Bella in actual dirt, so that's done as well.

I still have one pink princess philodendron clipping that hasn't died (yet) but isn't doing anything, and I'm to the point that I really doubt it ever will. So I'm just going to buy a fully rooted pink princess PLANT, which is what I should have done to begin with. It cost me $30 for the two clippings, and it'll cost me $30 for a full-on plant. I don't know what I was thinking, really.

Next month I have like three government payments coming in (two of them are large), so I have to ship Poe's parcel and hopefully go to Barrie and find some aquarium plants. A month ago the Petsmart here in town got some really nice ones in, but I had no money, and by the time I had money they were sold out. Our Petsmart isn't really reliable for keeping things in stock, so I'll check there at the end of the month but I'm not holding my breath.

Also I need to figure out where to buy duckweed. .__.;;

I am possibly going to order another aquarium fan for the other side of the tank, since the one I have is only two fans and probably won't do all that much good. But it's cooler here most of the year and then during the summer I have the A/C unit so hopefully that'll keep the axolotl tank at a decent temperature for the critter when I eventually get it.

.....

I need more wax. I think I have like three?? bags of it in Jessie's room but the mug candles use a LOT of it per candle and I want to make some Thanksgiving ones to sell on FB Marketplace, and some Christmas ones when it gets closer to time. Bags of wax are like $35/each, but one mug candle goes for $30 so it'll add up pretty fast assuming they sell.

I'm selling them on FB Marketplace because they're HEAVY and shipping them would cost A TON, so it's not a great option for Etsy, even though I think they'd go over really well on Etsy, actually.

I really need to start looking into Vendors and Crafters Markets, really. Poe found me a really good FB link for a group for Ontario markets and vendors, I need to check it out more. The problem is that I would have to rely on Mom to drive me to the markets and help me set up/take down and I don't know if she'll go for that. I feel like she already does so much for me, I feel bad asking her to do even more.

EDIT: Just ordered my pink princess philodendron! <3

I made a candle last night, for the first time in forever! :)

So Sparrow is currently sitting in Tyler's lap because I literally have nowhere else to put them until I finish getting the axolotl tank taken care of. That's fine, though, they're safe there even if my poor printer is under way too much weight now (Tyler, Aidan, Katie AND Sparrow are sitting on it now) so it won't print anything unless I take everybody off first. It's a pain but I won't die from it.

Poe has another Finch model doll only in pink resin color and they absolutely can't seem to bond with her, so they've said they're just going to send her to me, too. I think if they do I will keep that one's name as "Finch" instead of changing it like I did with Sparrow. "Finch" is the doll model name, not a name Poe gave them, but I like it anyway. I just renamed Sparrow so they wouldn't both have the same name.

Sparrow is definitely going to be a brown tabby at some point in the future (not sure when), and if Poe sends me their Finch I think I'm going to paint her in calico markings but in like greens and purples because her skin tone is pink. She'll be very pretty. But I'm not counting on anything yet. *shrug*

Last night and this morning I worked some more on the fic formerly known as Counting Scars, now called Falling Stars. Like I said, it just randomly went in a radically different direction than I had originally intended. It was supposed to just be smut for the sake of smut, same as Cheap Motel, but Falling Stars just DEVELOPED a plotline and now I'm like OKAY I GUESS. THIS IS FINE. Not sure how long it'll end up being but I'm hoping around the same length as Cheap Motel, which clocked in at 34 pages. So far Falling Stars is at 18 pages, but it's nowhere NEAR done (I haven't even written any of the smut  yet.) It might end up longer than Cheap Motel after all.

Last night I put the plastic drawers I got at the garage sale yesterday into place in Jessie's room and immediately filled them up with all the mugs and glasses that I bought to make into candles. That garage sale was convenient because literally I had this huge bag of mugs and glasses that were just taking up space in my room because I had nowhere to put them. I wasn't thinking about that when I bought them. But now they're all stored away, so that's good.

I might make some candles soon, though, and try selling them on FB Marketplace. Poe pointed out that candles are HEAVY and shipping them would be EXORBITANTLY EXPENSIVE so they might not be the best thing to list on Etsy, much as I'd like to. They're better suited to local sales and markets. I see their point, so FB Marketplace it is! (I think if I list them around Christmas time they might sell well then.)

I still need to finish cleaning out the future-axolotl tank and get Mom to help me dump the last of the water out of it, because I'm gotten all I can with the scooping jug. I have a TON of plants that I'm trying to propagate for the top of the tank right now, and at the end of the month I'm hoping to be to the point that I can start cycling it and get some aquatic plants for IN the water. Also Poe suggested using terracotta pots for hides, which is a fabulous (and cheap!) idea. Otherwise I'm going to use PVC piping, I think, though I so want the tank to have as "natural" a look as possible when I'm done with it, and I'm pretty sure I can get terracotta pots from the dollar store this time of year.

I ordered the plant holders for the top of the tank last night. Eight of them cost me almost $50, but that should do me for the size of tank I have, unless they're really tiny? I probably should have read the dimensions before I clicked "buy" but it's too late now. They're being delivered today.

Yesterday I also ordered a macrame plant hanger for my room off aliexpress, so that should come in in like... two weeks, I want to say? AE has really increased their shipping speed lately. (I still can't login to my account via my computer, I can only use the app, which. Boo.)

And I ordered two more books from thriftbooks, even though I said I was done buying books for a while: "Wilder Girls" by Rory Power and "Camp Damascus" by Chuck Tingle, because Poe highly recommended Chuck Tingle to me and Camp Damascus sounded really interesting.

Last night I swapped some of my binders around, used acetone to erase the labels and wrote new ones, then sealed them with Mr. Super Clear. It's the best way I've found to label the binders with the plastic covers. Anyway, Horror High (et al) got moved to one of my biggest binders, and all my TKA notes got moved to a smaller one for now. They'll get moved back to a bigger one again once I start printing out TKA proper. I also found some dividers and used them to divide up the fics in the Witcher SPN AU binder to make for easier reading. Just. Organizing.

I have so many binders and literally nowhere to put them, a bunch are just stuck on the floor between my computer table and my work table for lack of anywhere else. I desperately need more shelves but there's no more ROOM for shelves. What I REALLY need is my own apartment, but try telling the subsidized housing people that.

Last night I made roast rabbit for dinner. I bought it from the Muskoka Meats store last week and it cost me FORTY DOLLARS. YOU CAN BUY rabbits from the PET STORE for less than that. Anyway, cost aside, it was easy to prepare and cook. I just had to pull all the organs out (I cooked them and chopped them up for the cats) and stuff it, then rub it all over with butter and stick it in a roasting pan with water in the bottom. Then into a 325 degree oven for two hours and presto! Roast rabbit! We also had carrots (haha) and mashed potatoes. I know it's cliche, but it really did taste like chicken. I probably won't spend that kind of money on another rabbit, but it was neat for a change. I WILL, however, be hitting that store up for PARTRIDGE at some point in the future.

I just downloaded Alien: Romulus, so now it's a giant question as to whether I want to watch it IMMEDIATELY or do some more writing and then have a nap and watch it later today or tonight. I'm leaning toward the later.

And yeah. I think that's enough rambling for now.

EDIT: Oh ALSO, the pain I've been feeling since having that tooth extracted three weeks ago? Turns out it wasn't all because I had another tooth that also needed to be yoinked. THREE WEEKS AGO when I had THAT tooth pulled, the Dentist actually BROKE MY FUCKING JAW in the process of twisting and wrenching the tooth out. It's cracked and I have like, bone shards protruding through my gums from it. They had to shave them off when I was in this week. But since it's just cracked there's nothing that can be done except just let it heal and since I signed a waiver before having the tooth pulled I can't SUE THEM. So here I am. Broken jaw. Fun times.