#late season roses

[ediblegardenspointloma]

In My San Diego Garden and Kitchen

Warmer days and less fog kick-started the red bell pepper plants. These were the first four of the season and there are another half dozen in various colorations. Stuffed green bell peppers are ahead and some will be diced and frozen for winter uses. I can be patient for a week or two as the cauliflower starts need to size up before supplanting the peppers.

Over the last ten days I’ve removed the three dwarf tomato plants and the black cherry. Though the Rosella Purple were often “cat faced,” they echo my favorite tomato, Black Krim. A recap of the “dwarf tomatoes in the fog belt” experiment is coming soon. Capsule summary: we got tomatoes though the months June through September were the cloudiest in four years as measured by our solar panel production.

With the messiness of end-of-season tomatoes and dry beans cleared, I refreshed the beds with compost, organic fertilizer and gypsum in readiness for the second season garden. Premium Crop and Jacaranda broccoli thrive in the bright winter sun and cool winter days. Netting protects the plants from cabbage moths for a few weeks and 40% shade cloth is at hand for hot, dry Santa Ana conditions

We’re still in strawberry guava season with the total harvest at 75 pounds and another 20 percent of the crop to come. That is thousands of guavas. The fruit is larger and more abundant this year likely due to excellent winter rains last season and two inches of rain in August with the tropical cyclone. Yesterday I did guava drops at church (pizza pan) and three pounds or so to a friend’s front porch. If they weren’t so perishable, I’d give to a local food bank.

Click on the square in the lower right corner to expand the guava shake. You can hear them plop down on the trays below the tree. We harvested 15 pounds on the weekend. There appears to be a smaller winter crop coming on as well, guessing around January or February.

Light is everything and late season roses are enchanting. Hot Cocoa and Ambridge.

This is most of the dry bean harvest from a 3 x 4 foot area, drying on the warm stone patio. The reveal comes next week. I may struggle with tomatoes, but my garden in amenable to beans. I doubled the ground devoted to dry beans this year.

October brings the asters and fond recollections of the ones I grew in my Massachusetts garden.

Check the What I’m Planting Now page as I transplant and sow seeds for the cool season garden. Then head today to Harvest Monday, hosted by Dave at Happy Acres blog and see what garden bloggers around the world harvested last week.

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[dragongirltongue]

We're not calling it Season 1, it's either series 14 or season 40. Resetting the count now is like how comics started releasing new number 1 all the time.

We're loving Ncuti Gatwa as the doctor and the direction they're taking things but like, no this is not season 1, season 1 aired in the 60s.

[alatabouleau]

Some weeks ago, I finally watched the first two seasons of Doctor Who (2005). And it was. Beautiful. So, I just wanna say, one thing I love about The Doctor with Rose is that it's not a "will they, won't they" story. Throughout these two seasons, it's pretty clear that these two are in a committed relationship. Only that this relationship transcends human categories as much as everything else they do together on their adventures. It's not fully romantic, yet not entirely platonic, either. It's something in between, something you cannot pin down, except for one thing: This relationship is vital for them. They are better together than on their own, a one-in-a-lifetime-kind of thing that happened completely by chance, yet changed both of them forever. Soulmates. I love it.

[jasontoddsgaythoughts]

Okay back to our regularly unscheduled programming of “The Batfamily as a Sitcom” part two. *end commercial break*

After Cass’ and Jason’s plan fails they enter a four person group chat where they plan a way for Jason and Cass to sneak into the guest rooms without seeing Bruce. Cass tries first but is stopped by Alfred when he knocks on her door to deliver the ballet shoes she left in another room, and to tell her how proud she is that she’s putting herself out there romantically. Jason tries second but Alfred shows up to request they cook breakfast together the next morning, so Jason can show off to Rose and so Alfred can spend quality time with his grandson. As Alfred leaves he notifies Jason that he will be checking in with the rest of the family before going to bed, so Jason texts the group chat that they’ll probably have to wait until Alfred’s done before they can sneak out.

Ten or so minutes later, like a true sitcom, the plan changes to Rose and Kyle sneaking out for a minimal reason like Cass and Jason are too comfortable to move now. Rose tries sneaking out first, but is interrupted when Alfred walks in to offer more blankets and/or a tea before going to bed. Rose appreciates the hospitality but tries her best to get rid of the older man. When Alfred does leave she texts the group chat that it might take a while because Alfred’s still not in bed, and she assumes he’ll check on Kyle next. Kyle doesn’t try to even leave the room, instead he tucks himself into bed believing playing along with Alfred’s nightly visit and looking less suspicious would get him to leave faster. When Alfred enters he raises a brow at Kyle’s relaxed attitude. Instead of being warm like he was with the Batkids and Rose, Alfred gives Kyle the most intense shovel talk of his life and takes the blankets Kyle is already using under the excuse of them being dirty so Kyle will probably need new ones. Needless to say after thirty minutes of waiting Alfred just never returns.

When Kyle complains about his lack of covers to the group chat, the girls ignore him and suggest now is the perfect time to sneak out. With none of them planning anything solid now, they all sneak out at the same time, only for all four to run into Alfred who was waiting patiently for this moment. Instead of trying to lie to him, they come clean about their plans, and this is the cheesy sitcom moment of “You gotta tell your father the truth yada yada, master Jason and miss Cassandra you’re college students now you should be able to talk to your dad yada yada, yes he can be stubborn but he cares about you yada.”

And next morning when they confess at breakfast Bruce is upset, but he understands where they’re coming from after Alfred intervenes by bringing up Bruce’s own sleep over experiences. Bruce agrees to give them more freedom and trust, but the moment comes to a halt when Tim, who is still in a half sleep state, says he thought B was cool with that considering Dick is dating a red head and they sleep over all the time. And as if on cue Dick comes down for breakfast followed by Barbara, Kori, Roy, and Wally who all slept over last night. Cass, Rose, Jason, and Kyle decide they should get breakfast somewhere else as soon as Bruce’s eye starts to twitch… and end of the episode! This episode was not filmed in front of a live studio audience.

follow up to this post here

[thebitterflamingo]

I love them your honor 💖

[iswearthatimtryingmybest]

always with you

[satanicspinosaurus]

Hello to spring*! Conferences are mucking up my ability to go toddle around in nature, but we did get to go see all the tiny flowers in our park on a half-Friday. The leafing out process is wack this year, but I am rooting for the plants to do their best. Local animals not sure what the shit is going on. This large mammal is also confused, but did enjoy seeing several dogs. *Spring is usually me trying to take a day off around the equinox, but also like weather varies and the trees will tell me when it is spring. Tuesday, did not smell like spring, but Thursday did. I cannot explain.

[carlthethoughtfulsoul]

I want to lay with you forever and watch the seasons change around us.

[amtrak12]

This 44 story subscribers/388 hits/ 65 kudos ratio single-handedly wrote me 2400 words on my story today. Plus editing the other 40k and pulling together a 2900 word outline for the current chapter.

Feedback and validation is awesome :D

[superpixie42]

It's been a week now of my son deciding he's Fully Awake for approx two hours overnight. I suppose tonight is better because it started at midnight instead of 3am like it has been?

I was trying to remember if my daughter did this, but I genuinely cannot remember large swaths of my daughter's first year because she -and therefore I - slept so poorly that my short and long term memory were completely shot. I think she might have Because this is when she started cutting teeth and that was a new level of hell I had never before experienced and do not wish on my worst... Okay maybe them but nobody else.

Here's hoping he's just an ass and not a violent ass who projectile vomits bright red Tylenol (seriously who the fuck thought dying A CHILDRENS ORAL MEDICATION BRIGHT RED was a good idea!?? that's a specific stress nightmare I did not need grounded in reality) like she was.

I hope he sleeps late or something because I have to drive all over creation tomorrow looking for formula as we enter yet another wave of Unpriced Shortages.

Now I understand why so many moms I know have Ambien prescriptions..m

[lendmyboyfriendahand]

Sandman!

[khruschevshoe]

Do you ever think about the fact that we don't get a non-introduction story that takes place in the modern day with the companion's family/home life fleshing out the supporting cast (ala Aliens of London/Lazarus Experiment/Sontaran Stratagem/the Caretaker/Knock Knock) until either dinosaurs on a spaceship or the power of three when it comes to Amy and Rory? I suddenly realized why Amy and Roy sometimes feel so unmoored/unanchored as characters and I'm going a little bit feral-

[idiopathicsmile]

you know what really grinds my gears?

okay, bear with me: so as you may know, harry houdini and arthur conan doyle were friends, at least for a while.

by the early 1920s, both arthur conan doyle and acd's wife jean, aka lady doyle, believed whole-heartedly in spiritualism, talking to ghosts and all of that. (sidenote: this was of course right on the heels of a devastating world war and a devastating pandemic, both of which had created a huge population of grieving people, so spiritualism was having a moment.)

lady doyle sincerely thought she had the ability to go into a trance state and pass along messages in writing from the dead. she offered to do this for houdini. houdini agreed.

lady doyle attempted to channel houdini's late mother. she basically drew a cross at the top of the paper and filled it with generic platitudes addressed to "harry." houdini's mom was jewish and didn't talk like that, so houdini knew the jig was up, even if lady doyle didn't. but not wanting to make the situation awkward, he kind of went along with it to their faces.

then acd decided to publish a glowing account of the seance, and since both he and houdini were super famous, it got a lot of attention, and letters started pouring in for houdini, asking if this was true. ultimately, houdini couldn't lie about it. so he essentially said, like, "yeah, i think lady doyle THINKS she can talk to ghosts but she absolutely can't." and it ruined his friendship with acd forever.

and then of course a lot of the people running seances weren't even well-intentioned like lady doyle, they were just simple charlatans taking advantage of traumatized people mourning loved ones. in houdini's youth, he and his wife had traveled the carnival circuit where he did an act pretending to commune with spirits, so he knew all the tricks of the trade AND he had lingering guilt over having done this, AND he was infuriated by this increasingly popular wave of con artists so he decided to assemble a team of anti-grifting grifters and together they went on the road exposing whichever spiritualists were preying on the locals.

houdini's best agent was a young woman named rose mackenberg, who donned disguises to visit the fraud de jour and then importantly sussed out what non-supernatural thing was actually happening, and then houdini would demonstrate the techniques onstage to packed audiences.

(if you want to know more, check out episode 175, "ghost racket crusade" of the podcast Criminal or read Tony Wolf's book The Real-Life Ghostbusting Adventures of Rose Mackenberg.)

but yeah, what really gets my goat is that all this happened and as far as i know, we still don't have like four seasons of a Leverage-style historical procedural about rose mackenberg and the rest of the crew having adventures in the 1920s as they unmask craven hucksters all over the united states. (what we do have, apparently, is one season of a show called "houdini and doyle" which is about the oddball friendship of two contrasting men solving sometimes-actually-supernatural mysteries, and whose premise does i think at the very least a real disservice to houdini's whole quest and also totally erases rose, who is arguably the most interesting part of this story to me.)

i am just steamed about this. steamed.

[saudadeko]

ADHD tips from a girlie who was diagnosed in her late twenties and has had little to no support since and is being so brave about it:

1) Make it easy, make it accessible, and make it appealing. If anything this is the most important thing, all tips going forward are based around this concept.

2) That thing you think would help you but you haven’t bought/done it yet because you’re technically surviving without it? Buy it, you need it. It doesn’t matter if people around you might think it’s wasteful or that you’re lazy, you’re not, just do it, trust me.

3) Expanding on tip #2, if you’re like me and eggs are your main source of protein because they’re quick and easy and feeding yourself is a near insurmountable task- buy yourself an electric egg cooker, make a bunch of hard boiled eggs and keep them in your fridge for quick and easy protein to add to any meal (handful of crackers, a hard boiled egg and a banana? 5 star meal right there. Or mash them up with some mayo for egg salad sandwiches). Other easy proteins include: potstickers (put them in instant ramen), edamame (they have microwaveable snack packs), chickpeas (put in salads!), beans (can of beans microwaved with shredded cheese and some tortilla chips), peanut butter (with crackers, apple and cheese, adult lunchable style), and tofu (cut into cubes, throw them into a ziplock with some seasoning and potato starch, shake that shit up and bake it until crispy).

4) Spend a little extra (if you are able) on daily use items that excite you, it will make you more likely to remember/want to do said daily task. For example: the only reason I remember to use sunscreen is because I bought some fancy japanese sunscreen that smells like roses so I get excited to use it, same for laundry detergent and body wash! there’s a gajillion different body wash scents out there, switch it up!

5) If there’s a task you continuously struggle with take a moment to think about which part of the task is making it difficult, it could be something even as small as “I don’t put my dirty clothes in the hamper because my hamper has a lid on it and lifting the lid is one step too many-”, sounds a little stupid huh? But trust your gut, it’s not stupid if it works. See tip #2 and BUY A HAMPER WITHOUT A LID.

6) If you are having trouble starting a task, break the task down further, sometimes the way I start a task is just by going “Ok step 1) stand up-“ and so forth. Don’t worry about the task as a whole just take it one step at a time.

7) If you’re halfway through a task and have to stop, leave it out. All this, “Put things away when you’re done with them.” is bullshit. you will be much more likely to finish the task if restarting it is easier because you left it out plus it’s a visual reminder. You can also create faux deadlines like “I gotta finish this project before my friend comes over on tuesday because after I finish it I can clean off the dinner table.” etc.

8) It’s okay to outsource tasks and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise, humans are designed to ask for, and to require help (what do babies do when they’re first born?? cry for help!!) ask for help and receive help without shame, if it makes your life better, you are WINNING.

9) If you have one big overwhelming task that you think you need to get done before anything else, but you feel motivated to do other tasks, do those other tasks first, it’s okay. Otherwise in all likelihood (at least in my case) you’ll put everything off until the last minute and then have to do said overwhelming task and those other tasks won’t get done at all. Doing those smaller tasks also lowers the mental load and you can use them as a motivation launch pad to tackle bigger things.

10) If you notice you tend to not put something away/forget to do something, perhaps consider moving and storing the item closer to where it ultimately ends up or where you are more likely to see it. For example, my makeup, pills, and mail are all stored on my desk because that’s where I tend to do my makeup, take my pills and deal with my mail. I used to store my pills in my bathroom medicine cabinet but all too often I would forget because they weren’t in my line of sight. Now that they’re on my desk, I have multiple chances per day to pass by them, go “oh I gotta take those.” and take them.

11) Open storage, open storage, OPEN STORAGE.

12) Motivation can look like all kinds of things. sometimes the only reason I get out of bed is because I remember I have a fun snack and I get to go eat it if I get up. It’s okay to lean into those simple “animal-brain” type motivators, you’ll eat because then you can use that fun new kitchen gadget you got a daiso? Neat. you’ll shower because then you can paint your nails that fun new color you got? Fantastic. You’ll go to the dmv and do that annoying thing because you’ll take yourself out for boba after? Superb. Lean-IN to those small motivators, they aren’t stupid or childish, they are VITAL.

13) Don’t buy into the cult of “if it’s worth doing, do it properly” it’s guaranteed to set you up for failure. If it’s worth doing, do it in whatever capacity you are able to. I put sunscreen on once a day because that’s fucking better than not doing it at all and I sure as all hell will fail at reapplying it multiple times a day. If it’s worth doing, do it half-assed babieeee.

Go forth and prosper!!! xoxo ✌️🩵

[rugessnome]

Back 9-10 years ago when I was first into Doctor Who, I got somewhat spoiled for The Pandorica Opens/The Big Bang and then I avoided watching them until... this past week.

The premise sounded, imo, bad.

But the episodes themselves were... not as bad as I had been afraid they might be.

In fact, because i have some weird creative differences with RTD, they might be in the running for my second favorite of the New Who finales two-parters up to that point. (The first favorite is probably Bad Wolf/Parting of the Ways)

I still would not put them on a list of my favorite all time Who episodes and I think they fall short of being a truly Good Quality story but it was not as egregious as the summary sounds...

[bumblequinn]

hi @sourpatchsquids! thank you for your question.

as an artist with ADHD, i know this struggle very well. unfortunately offering advice on this kind of thing can be tricky, because what works for me may not work for you (and vice versa!). nonetheless, i can try; take whatever works for you, forget the rest, or reshape any part of it as you see fit. :)

but before i offer any actual tools, i have one caveat. i want you to take a moment to reflect and consider if you should be:

changing expectations

the timing of this question seems fated, because just the other day i had a therapy session wherein i expressed my grief and frustration over struggling to work lately due to my seasonal depression. it's not fair that i'm struggling just because it got a little darker outside! i just want the spark i had in the summer! i was so much more consistent!

my therapist's response: nothing about human beings is consistent. we get sick, we get tired, we get hungry and thirsty (and thirsty) and sad and lonely and restless and stressed and overwhelmed. this all gets amplified for folks who are atypical in some way or another.

when my therapist compared our seasonal cycles to those of plants and other animals, who wilt and slow down and hibernate, i protested aloud that i wanted to be a perennial instead. at this she said: even perennials change with the seasons. rose bushes have to be pruned, sometimes down to half their height! it was a dose of perspective i didn't particularly want, but really needed.

so when you're struggling to work through executive dysfunction, burnout, or brain fog, it can help to first check in with yourself about a few things. what do you have the capacity for right now? do you need any accommodation? and if so, what changes you might make to accommodate yourself?

with practice and self reflection, i've learned a handful of specific routines that help me when i'm struggling with creative work, which i'll detail next. note that while your question is specifically about music and i am specifically a musician, i believe that all of these suggestions can apply to most any form of digital creative work.

with that in mind:

#1: work slower

when i'm at the top of my game, i can get a LOT done in a day. but when i'm depressed, fatigued, or distracted, i just can't go full steam. sometimes i'll try to convince myself that i can if i just push harder, but what actually ends up happening is that i'm just fiddling with settings and going in circles rather than moving forward.

instead of that, when i want to work a lot but can't, i try to work slow. how slow? however slow i need to. take four hours to figure out the melody for a single verse. take all day to figure out that drum groove. yeah, i take a lot of breaks in between. who says i have to be my Absolute Most Productive Every Day Or Else? that's the puritan work ethic talking. kill it. be kind to yourself.

i'm reminded of advice i once read about some super successful and prolific author (gaiman? king? pratchett?) who said they wrote only four hundred words every weekday. that's already less than the word count of this post, and i'm only—[travels into the future to check my final word count]... 22.8% of the way through writing it!

now, i don't think i could function that way, because ADHD means some days i'm hyperfocused like crazy, and other days i just have no steam at all (more on that in #4-6). but it seems to me that if even someone highly respected in their profession can achieve what they have with only a little bit of work on a regular basis, maybe i don't have to punish myself for not pumping out a finished work every single week.

doing less work per day means you're much less likely to burn out, which does a lot for working more consistently. if that consistency still doesn't look like a five-day work week, that's okay! as long as it helps you work even a little more often when you want to, it's something worth doing.

however, if you're still feeling truly stuck, all hope isn't lost. you can still try:

#2: switch projects

sometimes the reason i'm moving slow is because of a bad brain day, but sometimes the reason is that i just cannot muster the motivation to do the specific task i'm trying to do right now. ADHD is fueled by novelty and interest, and if i'm not interested in what i'm doing, or it's feeling stale, that's a sign that i need to switch gears.

this is why first it's helpful for me to have more than one project going at a time. this might mean completely unrelated works, or it might just mean related tracks as with the music for a game like SLARPG or susan taxpayer.

the idea here is not to start a dozen different projects and bounce around them like i'm playing whac-a-mole—though i have done that. (i don't recommend it.) the idea here is to have a manageable number of different projects i can be working on so that if i get bored or stuck on something, i have fallback options.

what that number of projects is depends entirely on the week. maybe right now it's two, maybe another time it's three. i would probably be getting carried away if i tried more than that, but that's just my own limit. maybe yours is different. that's something for you to think about.

but it doesn't have to stop there.

#3: switch focus

maybe there is this one project that i just HAVE to work on, but the task i'm trying to do at this stage just isn't coming to me. okay, well, why don't i try working on a different task?

let's say i can't figure out what i want to do with the melody in one part of the song:

what if i try jumping ahead to a different part of the melody? ...no, i'm stumped on melodies today. okay, how about working on the drums instead? ...hmm no, i think i'm just completely tapped out on writing parts right now. alright, what if i organized my tracks, making sure they're all grouped and named in a way that i can work with easily? what if i did a rough volume balance for the mix?

and so on. if that's not enough to shake the off stuckness, i might consider: what can i do to make this project more interesting to me?

what happens if i try using an instrument or effect that i almost never reach for? what if i try sampling something obscure? what if i bang out the drums using my midi keyboard instead of drawing it in on the piano roll?

any approach that breaks me out of my usual habits is bound to get that feeling of novelty and fun back when i need it.

or maybe i can't do any of that right now, and so i take the time to answer a question from a fellow musician instead. i consider that part of my work, too, in a broader sense. check in with yourself and figure out what you can do right now. the rest will still be there later.

but okay, let's say you try switching gears, and switching again, and again, and nothing is moving. you try new approaches, but that wall of awful is insurmountable in this moment. it happens! the next thing you might try is:

#4: learn something new

when you aren't able to make progress on your projects, you can still make progress on your knowledge and craft. i often find this stokes a flame of inspiration in me where there wasn't one before. and even when it doesn't, it still gets my brain out of that feeling of stuckness and dread and into one of thought and action. learning also benefits in the long term because it adds to the well of knowledge from which you draw for all your future works.

for all the awfulness that exists on the internet, it remains an absolute treasure trove of teaching. there's an endless ocean of videos, blog posts, and articles from which you might learn something about your craft. (and if you sail the seven seas, plenty of book PDFs as well. 🦜🏴‍☠️)

it's true that the quality and depth of information out there can vary wildly, but in my experience most resources get at least some things right. and the more you research, practice, and figure out what works for you, the better you will learn to differentiate between the advice worth keeping, and the advice to forget. (that goes for all of what i'm saying here, too!)

that said, since our shared focus is music, a few resources i would highly recommend are:

music theory and composition music matters, 12tone, charles cornell, music with myles, 8-bit music theory, and this introduction by andrew huang

mixing and production dan worrall (especially this series for fabfilter), kush after hours, red means recording, andrew huang, alice yalcin efe, in the mix

general inspiration nahre sol, ben levin, david hilowitz, game score fanfare, posy, jerobeam fenderson, open reel ensemble, and ELECTRONICOS FANTASTICOS!

(if any readers have their own helpful resources for creating music or any other media, feel free to share in the replies & reblogs! 💓)

of course, on an especially bad day, it might be a challenge to seek out information, let alone retain it. that can feel pretty bad, but remember: be kind to yourself. the next thing you might consider trying is:

#5: consume art you love

not just music. books. shows. movies. games. illustration. animation. whatever moves and inspires you.

but do it intentionally. don't just pull up some random thing the algorithm suggested! check in with yourself about what you want (or are able) to engage with right now. choose accordingly. if you get a little way into it and realize it's not scratching that itch, hit the bricks. check in with yourself again. wash, rinse, repeat, until you find whatever it is that speaks to you right now.

and do it actively, if you can. don't just let it go in one eye and out the other! really pay attention to the work. what do you like about it? what are its themes and motifs? what makes it work so well? what are its flaws, and how much do they matter? what might you do differently? you can write notes as you do this if it helps, but even simply noticing and thinking goes a long way.

what you don't want to do is come at this with a lens of shame or envy. you're not here just to say to yourself, "ugh, if only i could do THAT." it's okay if it happens. use that thought as a springboard for curiosity: "well okay, how DID they do that? do i have the resources for it? if so, how could i apply that to my own work? if not, how can i adapt it, or what do i need to learn?" keep your mind open and approach the work with a sense of wonder.

as a creative person, it's very easy to think, "i should be making something right now, not watching a movie!" but that thought forgets something vital: your art is a response in a conversation. of course the "language" you use is your own, and maybe if you're lucky you'll invent a new word. but most of the words you use have been around long before you were born. you're just one voice in a dialogue that spans continents and generations, and that's okay. it's even the whole point.

none of us is an island. we are profoundly social animals. just as we can't live without eating, we can't make without learning. so half of making art is consuming it. consider this part of the process as well.

and finally,

#6: rest, and live your life

let's say you're in really dire straits. you've tried working slower. you tried changing focus, you tried changing projects. you want to take in new information or actively engage with your favorite art, but you're not in the headspace for it. what now?

take a nap. take a walk. take a shower. eat a nice meal, or an okay one. talk to a friend. maybe even do that chore you've been putting off (you know the one).

it's human to always crave making, but you're not a machine—and even if you were, machines need regular maintenance, too! you wouldn't drive a car that's completely out of gas, and you won't do yourself any favors treating your body that way either.

i know that when you take a break it feels as though you're not accomplishing anything, but you are: you're taking care of your animal self. and while you do that, your creative brain doesn't stop working! much like windows, it has countless background processes running at any given moment, with inscrutable names like "cbdhsvc_692da" or "Microsoft Edge Update Service." it's true, i checked.

when you're stuck on a project and you step away to rest, your brain is still chipping away at your ideas unconsciously. i like to tell people, "it's percolating." much like waiting for a pot of water to boil, that idea is still heating up, even when you take a step away. just be sure to check in on it once in a while. the time will pass, and it'll be boiling again before long. :)

before i go, i'll leave you with one last thing to keep in mind as you try all of these strategies:

be kind to yourself.

being human is just about one of the hardest things you can do. let alone being a human trying to survive capitalism while living with disabilities! the last thing you need on top of that is to overwork yourself, talk to yourself negatively, or treat yourself harshly. there are plenty of other people in the world who do that to you—don't be one of them.

i'm not saying that you shouldn't try to challenge yourself, to test your limits and go above and beyond your ambitions, if that's what you want to do. just remember that hard work and self compassion are not mutually exclusive. so be careful not to bully yourself. take pride in the progress you make, even when it seems small. encourage yourself like you would a friend who's going through a hard time. and when you challenge yourself, be your own cheerleader.

i hope you find this advice helpful! remember, this is just what helps me, so don't feel like you have to follow any of it exactly. maybe taking time to learn new information helps break you out of your rut more than working slowly, so you reach for that tool first. maybe having multiple projects going at once is too distracting for you, so you prefer to stick to one at a time. whatever your needs are, feel free to alter and adapt these ideas to fit you.

thank you for reading, and i wish you the best of luck in your creating.

with care, bee 🐦