Waterfowl Rejection

We had some unseasonably nice weather and even though it's kind of creepy for it to be so hot in april we thought we'd take advantage of it and cycled to Thorpe St Andrew to see the ducks.

Hi scary friend.

I have always had a soft spot for ducks, look how precious they are! And I love the sounds they make. I want to hold one so bad, they look so cosy. I think I'd cry.

We took some grated carrot to feed them, google said it was good for ducks and we know bread is bad for them and that it was a bank holiday so they'd probably had a lot of it. They hated us lol. If you want to see us get rejected by ducks, geese and swans I have a video here. They were not into it. They know backpacks and tupperware is where food comes from so they'd come over and then they'd see what we had and just leave. It was so funny. I don't mind being rejected though, I still get to see their beautiful bods.

There's a small church and cemetery nearby so we popped in there for a look. Some of the grave stones are pretty old and there were bees living in the walls of the church, at least three nests really close together. It was so cool.

Then when we got home I did some drawing from my photos. I'd like to draw more while I'm out but this wasn't the day for that. I had to memorialise the swans and how affronted they were by the carrots.

Hedge Goblin ~ 7/7

Ooooh 7 of 7, pat myself on the back, good job. I was right to set a 7 day challenge rather than a 30 day challenge, this has been the perfect amount to make me want to blog but not enough that it got difficult and frustrating. After a big 30 day type challenge I always feel like I need a break from the thing and that's the opposite of what I wanted to achieve with this.

I've been feeling a bit anxious about work since finishing the patches but I'm trying really hard to not beat myself up about it and to just do life, whatever that ends up meaning each day.
Today I started making notes and writing for a new zine I want to make about libraries, specifically libraries that have been in my life somehow. I did some drawing in my sketchbook and had a go on fabric with poscas.

I also made chocolate nests. I don't really do easter but I love little traditions and I make nests every year. They normally have mini eggs in them but this is the first easter that we're fully avoiding dairy so no eggs for our nests but I think it's kinda funny because we don't eat eggs either. It makes me feel kind of like a weird little hedge goblin, once the birds are done with their nests and the eggs are hatched and fledged I'll collect all the fancy little nests and consume them for spring time energy. lol

I'm excited for all the kids to disappear back to school next week so I can go out exploring without them being all over the place. There are a lot of places I want to go and I'm sure I'll be blogging about it when I do :)
I also have a new found love for just writing down my day or thoughts on the blog which I wouldn't have done before because it didn't seem exciting enough but I just want it to be cosy here, anything goes ^-^
Anyway, I hope you're good and thanks for being here. If you have a blog please leave a comment linking to it ^-^

Garden Drawings ~ 6/7

I missed a day but it's fine. I think when we set goals for ourselves and then don't manage it perfectly it's really easy to be like, "Well, that failed. It's over. Done with that." But if it's something you want to be doing then why would that be enough to make you stop? Doing something a little bit is so much better than doing it not at all. So yeah, I missed a day but I'm enjoying it so I'll just carry on from here.

The past two days have been so warm and sunny so I've been spending time in the garden with my sketchbook. I scanned in a few bits and made these messy (but I like 'em) collages of some drawings and some photos I took while I was out there.

A Bunch of Patches ~ Shop Update

I talked about the process behind these patches here on the blog and also in a couple of recent studio vlogs so I won't repeat myself too much here again but it was a long process that you probably can't even see in the patches however I'm proud of how much effort I put into these and I do think it was worth it.
Worth it for the patches and worth it for my brain.

Here's a link to my etsy shop, there's a patches section on there to find them all easily but I'd like it if you had a look at the other things in my shop too, if you're visiting anyway ^-^

A couple of them are already gone so if you want one, grab it. A lot of what I do is ooak so even if I make similar things in the future, that particular item will be gone forever. Also, sales are sloooow at the minute so I'd massively appreciate the help right now.

Help this lil art gremlin live ❤ they'll love you forever.

A Cosy List ~ 5/7

It's getting late and I'm not sure what to post today so I thought I'd do a little list of
things that make me feel calm:
(in no particular order)

1 Cooking. Sometimes the idea of cooking makes me kind of stressed, especially if anyone is about but if I'm by myself and I manage to start cooking, once I get going it's pretty relaxing. I like to make tomato-y things that go on rice or pasta. They vary but I have a basic way I do it every time so I don't have to think too much. There's something magic about preparing food too, it really does feel like I'm looking after myself and whoever else will be eating it.

2 Sitting in the garden. So simple but so pure. Our garden is fairly wild and I love noticing new things growing in it and outside noises, whether it's birds or trains, are just the best. I can't imagine we'll always have a garden so I try to make the most of it. I love to sit out on the concrete drawing or reading or just sitting.

3 When I scratch the rats' cheek and their head tilts sideways and their little arm stretches out and they look so happy.

4 When Will is snoring.

5 A cup of tea. Not very exciting I know but it's true. I don't know why tea is magic but it is. All kinds, whatever suits the mood, but it's all magic.

6 Libraries. Collections of books anywhere but libraries are free and for everyone so there's no money stress hiding in the back of my brain. It's taken various forms over my life but I have always had a strong attachment to libraries, libraries are also pure, important magic.

7 The smell of my mum. Does that sound weird?

I'm going to stop at seven because they came quite easily and I don't want to start forcing it. Although, writing that made me think of another so here's a bonus: looking at my druid oracles, I have one for trees and one for animals and they're very calming to use. That's it.
Something that isn't calm for me is to post a blog with no image. It might be a bad choice to post just text but it's supposed to be a good thing to do things that make you uncomfortable so let's try it. As a juxtaposition to all the cosyness floating around from the list.

See you tomorrow! What would be on your list?

A Day ~ 4/7

9:25am
I am sad. It's so frustrating because I don't know why I'm sad. There is no reason for me to be sad this morning. Nothing has happened. It came from nowhere. But I am, I am sad. Sad, panicked, despondent, negative, anxious, woeful. The sad feeling has come from seemingly nowhere with no obvious cause but the feeling of sad makes me come up with all sorts of reasons why "of course I'm sad" this and this and this that is always bothering me, in the back of my mind. But I wasn't thinking those things before I got sad, they came after so they aren't why I got sad, they're just popping up because of the sad. I mean, I guess they're always there, in the back of my brain even when I'm not consciously thinking about it so maybe they are why.
Anyway.
I'm not going to fight it. I'm going to feel sad until I don't but in the mean time I'm going to get on with what I was planning to get on with. Sometimes it's good to just have a sit down and be sad and not do anything else. It's good to feel things. But that doesn't feel right today, that would just make me sadder and give more fuel to all the bad things being sad makes me think about myself.
I have washed my hair, I have had a good breakfast. Let's do a day.

12:53pm
I spent the morning photographing my new patches and editing the photos and getting the listings sorted and active on my etsy and now I am hungry. It is very much time for lunch and not that you have to earn lunch but I feel like I really have. Current mood: proud (and hungry).
While I worked I started listening to Death In The Afternoon (podcast) and am really enjoying it. Which is not a surprise because I love Ask A Mortician and also Caitlin's first book (I haven't read her second one yet, I'm sure it's great too). Lunch.

4:20pm
Don't you just love to post some work you worked really hard on in an attempt to pay for food and all that happens is you lose followers. *thumbs up*
It's fine, I know really that if my work made someone realise they wanted to unfollow me then it's good they're gone. I can't help but feel a little put down by it despite the logic, but it's fine. The number doesn't matter it's the quality of the followers, or something, that sounds like a weird way to describe people. I don't know. Wah!

5.18pm
I drew so many chickens. Finding chicken reference was harder than I thought it'd be though. Poor cooked chooks. But even aside from all the food posts, I searched "hen on nest" on pinterest and every single image was ceramic/glass ornament/bowl things?! I just want to see some chooks!
It was a slow start on the drawing. After lunch I was wondering whether I just needed a longer break because I'd worked hard in the morning but it felt like excuses so I went and got Tank and put him on my lap so I'd feel too guilty to get up and I just started drawing and it took what felt like a long time to get going (and I obviously got a little distracted in the middle because I was here at 4:20) but making myself just get on with it really worked as it does most of the time. Think I've had enough of this awful-for-my-back chair for today though, I really need a new one, and am going to maybe read in the garden for a bit if it's not too cold.

8:18pm
I sat in the garden for a bit, there are some mushrooms growing. They're bowl shaped and are getting really big. There's also a flower growing out from where we buried Snickers almost two years ago which is really sweet. Now I'm full of noodles and am feeling cosy. A much better end to the day than the start. It actually turned out to be super productive. Plus, I sold two of the patches I listed earlier! I was worried they wouldn't sell at all (thanks brain) so I'm very grateful to have two go so soon. Now I'm gonna drink tea till I fall asleep.
Bye :)

Relax and Ephemera ~ 3/7

Had a quiet day. I was planning to work on and hopefully finish my patches but the eczema in my elbow was playing up and I didn't want to make it worse by having my arm all bent working so I spent some not very productive time doing nothing except worry and feel guilty about the idea of not working. Then I sorted myself out and started reading a book I got out of the library last week and had an actual day off type of Sunday. I read while Will played playstation, we had naan bread pizza for tea and then I hung out with the rats (after they'd had a lazy day too, all their days are lazy though). It was suitably chill and now I'm ready for Monday. I like Monday's, I always feel productive and ready to get on with stuff on Monday :)

An extra thought: I love it so much when I find things in library books, even if they're super mundane it's like finding a little treasure. Ephemera is one of my favourite things. I don't know what it is about little scraps of paper but I get a lot of joy from them.

Hating Hayley ~ 2/7

Today I've been listening to some old Paramore stuff. I don't really know Paramore, when they were getting big, Misery Business sort of time maybe, I was sort of past my Kerrang era. I wasn't so much in need of angst, I think it was probably around the time I was really into eighties hair metal lol. Anyway, I thought Paramore were lame, I thought Hayley Williams was a twat and I had no time for it.

It's really interesting to look back on it now and realise that not liking the music was totally valid, you like what you like and at the time I didn't like it but thinking anything negative about Hayley Williams was just internalised misogyny. I feel like I heard people saying things about how "actually she's really difficult and annoying" "she's just a bitch" and if I hear things like that now I instantly question it but I just accepted it because I didn't know any better. "Yeah, she probably is." Why though?! I didn't know anything about her.
Looking back at it these claims don't seem to have had any basis in anything except people hating on her because she was a girl. A successful girl, that probably wasn't doing as she was told.

A typically pretty girl too, they were the worst. There was an ingrained hostility towards other girls. If a girl turned up and was lame, she'd make us all look bad. Plus she probably wasn't even actually alternative, she was probably just doing it for attention or something...It's all pretty fucked up, we were (are?) taught to hate each other so that we could fit into what the boys had decided was cool.
I was always a tomboy and as I got older I had to reclaim a lot of love for "girls" things because without even knowing it was a thing I'd taken on the whole "girls stuff is lame" "not like other girls" "urgh, I hate pink" sexist mentality. Not that you need to be into "girly" stuff but I definitely noticed times as I was getting older when I've liked something and felt like I had to justify it because it was pink and frilly (read: possibly lame) or whatever. And don't even get me started on the nonsense that is gender anyway, tbh using the binary "girls" and "boys" as "me" and "the other" has made me feel kind of weird but that's how I was experiencing it and how almost everything in our society is set up so let's keep it simple for now.

I love getting older. I like what I like now, and I like a confusing mash of things that doesn't make any sense, without worrying about it. I mean, I didn't consciously worry about liking the right things when I was a teenager but I've noticed since then that I must have been missing out on stuff. The not liking of something would have been genuine but I just didn't know it was because I was living surrounded by a quiet hatred of girls, especially in the alternative scene. Listening back to some music I did love is kinda horrible, singing along to some of that toxic bullshit was bound to worm it's way into how you see the world. It's nice to know it now and to know that something being made for and by girls doesn't make it lame. Ever.

Anyway, I'm glad I'm better informed now. And don't get me wrong, I thought Hayley Williams was lame and it turns out it was based in misogyny but I didn't think everything by women was lame, I was very much in love with Brody Dalle for example, oh Brody...

Finding out about how sexist everything is as I got older really opened me up to a lot of stuff and now when I hear something bad about a front-woman or equivalent I always question it for myself. I'd rather blindly have faith in someone and be proven wrong than to dismiss them based on false ideas.

And, for the record, I quite like listening to old Paramore now and let's face it, Hayley is super cool. And I kind of enjoy the irony that based on the lyrics in Misery Business, she was probably having to deal with similar issues.

Blog Challenge Start ~ 1/7

I'm not sure if this is just some sort of weekend frenzy that will stop being appealing in a day or two but I've had a thought.
I'm going to try blogging something every day. In my head I keep thinking "30 day challenge! 30 day challenge!" but I'm going to be more reasonable and set myself the goal of a 7 day challenge. One whole week of blogging.

In general I don't really want to blog just for the sake of it, without having something particular to share but I do want to get back into the habit so I'll try this.

When I was looking through photos for my 10 year post I realised that I don't really take photos of random every day things so much anymore. As phone cameras have got better I figured I was taking more photos day to day but just not with my fancy camera and I think I probably do but only of me, what I'm drawing and the rats. I obsessively document the rats but my phone camera isn't actually very good (not just low quality but in a frustrating, weird way, I think it tries too hard to be clever) so I don't think to take photos of other things with it but because I have in my mind this idea that I always have a camera on me I don't have my "proper" camera to hand as often. When I was going through photos from years ago I found myself wondering why I'd taken a particular photo that seemed to be of nothing or something mundane but at the same time I really enjoyed it and as I got further through the folders there was less and less of it.

I love love love documenting my life and I love seeing other people do it and the tiny little things that seem to not be important are often the nicest things to look back on, even when they don't make sense anymore.

This isn't a photo challenge though, just a blog one. Prompted by the want for more photos but not dictated by it so I can keep it easy.
I want to take more photos, share drawings, talk about things I've watched or read or listened to or maybe even to just write down ramble-y thoughts. I don't mind. I just want to blog more.

I feel like I had a period where I was more creative and growing in that way and then it dropped off while I had a difficult period of self-reflection (panic and breakdowns and crying) and realised a lot of things about myself and the world (wow that sounds corny) and now I just want to merge that all together and actually be content and happy with myself.

Patches and Salads

I'm almost finished with this batch of patches I've been working on. My new problem is that sewing the edging to finish them off is hurting my wrist so I'm having to take my time with it. Gotta look after your body.

Some lunches I liked the look of purely because of the cabbage and carrot. Adding a salad to a plate always makes it feel fancier lol I don't know why but that's how it is. With spring and the longer days I've been really craving fruit and veg. I'm also trying to take advantage of the fact that I can make myself a lunch if I want to. What's the point of giving up the routine and securities of a "proper" job (like getting paid >_<) and dealing with the difficulties (like not getting paid >_<) if I don't take advantage of this un-conventional lifestyle? So I've started chopping veg in the middle of the day without worrying about how long my lunch break might be. It feels pretty good.

Bondaweb upadate, it didn't really work lol. I don't know if I bought a crappy, cheap version or if I used it wrong or what but it was lame. Nevermind! You don't know till you try.
Hope your day is going better than my bondaweb :)