September Update...

I've been busy working on Christmas presents all year in between my other things. I've also been sick, burnt out, and struggling with my mental health but overall I think I'm doing pretty well considering.

I hate being stalled out on stuff and I think it killed my momentum. Restarting is always the hardest part. While I have my felt now. I'm working on sourcing more polyfil, I will likely need DMC thread soon, and I'm hoping to procure a couple of sound boxes used in dolls, something I can preferably both record and upload stuff on to. I also need a couple of LED lights that would work well with fabrics, heating is something I want to watch out for. I want to design my stuff to be as safe as possible. I'm hoping to add to that 'list of demands' something that I can plug into a wall because I don't care if it has a cord. 

Just. No. Batteries!

I'm still trying to, I guess let people in on what I am doing without shouting from the roof tops what I am doing. Because I think some of those articles I've read online over the years are true to a larger extent. There's something about talking about your ideas and actually doing them being two different things. Those that just talk about their ideas all the time end up not doing them because they're getting the same dopaminergic release from talking about it. That and there's the other thing that can possibly happen where you jinx yourself. This newer approach seems to help with my ADHD.

This whole lineup of projects that I'm doing, are kind of part of a larger whole for me. It feels like I'm not really making a whole lot of progress but then I go back through my to-do list and I see that I've completed quite a bit. It's just sometimes hard to see progress when you live in this post AI internet everything's being turned out so fast it gives you the sense that you're not being productive enough. But just looking at my Ravelry it says I've completed 40 Projects this year even if they're small stuff. And that's a lot! And I recycled stuff!!

But yeah... so there's that. I think I'm fighting imposter syndrome. I've been trying to use this as an impetus to fight my depression... And take back my life and get out of this entropic feeling that has been going on since I left the cult...

I think the other thing that's stalling out is, and I know everybody's pissed off with Amazon, but when you live where I live, where there's hardly any infrastructure and it's barely starting to catch up... It's so very difficult not to shop on there, because I can't travel out of town. My car won't make it. It barely putts around town... And then I don't know what's even out there anymore if I try to source things locally it's difficult. I'm finding out there shortages on so many things and if I have specific need. It's so niche that I have to go on to Amazon anyways. 

I miss brick and mortar stores. Everything started disappearing when I graduated high school. And we saw this slow decay of just being able to go to the store for what we needed or even wanted for the most part. 

For example nobody in town even with the new craft supplier that just came in has sound boxes for dolls. I'm guessing that's like hyper niche? And then when I go to look for anything online they're like super expensive brand new or they are antique, used, and basic. I have no clue what I'm looking at and I don't know what to expect on quality. 

Same goes for LED lights I have shopped around my local Home Depot, Walmart, and our new craft supplier. And apparently it's a tall order just to look for an LED light that's just a single light and also a plug-in lamp. And even more of a taller order if I want something specific with a fader or a strobe. If I find anything with a strobe there's usually like three to six lights attached to it. I don't need six! Ugh...

I don't know. 🤷‍♀️

I'm scared to even poke around on the state of things. I had to bow out a social media overall because it was affecting my mental health. So I have no clue what's going on anymore... And sometimes I feel like that's a really bad thing but at the same time I feel a lot better.

On another note, my son wants FNAF dolls in crochet. So I made a deal with him for next Christmas he can earn them if he does his homeschool work stuff and doesn't complain or audhd demand avoidance me too badly. Lol impetus. You know some people would probably call that bribing but when I was a kid you set a goal and you worked towards it. And if it was a really big goal then you worked on it real long and hard and had patience. If you did a great job you earned something for it. I remember saving up for a 6 slot CD player boom box. Then when I finally got the money I ended up just saving it for something else, and then something else... and then I ended up later with 200 bucks. I just went to the mall and spent it on pants. Cuz we were poor so clothes were important. I decided on clothes over a CD player lol... Life. But it taught me patience over a year and saving up. So that's not a bad deal.

Anyways no pictures yet today. I'll probably post some soon. I'll showcase some of the gifts I've made and works in progress. I even reverse engineered a pattern that was discontinued because the artist is no longer online or available. Dang. Oh well. So I don't know how accurate it is but I think it looks pretty close! Apparently that's a milestone in the knitting in the crochet community. But there's rules around it obviously you don't sell the patterns and respect the copyright.

Inspection is coming soon and I'm still sick so I'm going to be slowly working on that first before I kick back into gear again. Until then hope everyone is doing better. I know life is rough right now in many places in the world. Wishing you a good rest of the year and sensing good vibes.