2022 and start of 2023 Update

Hello! I know it's been a while, but don't worry, I never intended to abandon this blog. It's just that, well, life got in the way for a while. So if you'll indulge me, I'll do a little update on the arts, crafts, garden, hobbies, and all the other random stuff that this blog covers. Then hopefully I'll do some expanded posts on a few different topics soon.

2022 was a bit of a topsy-turvy year for me. "Strange" is the word I've heard most when people were describing their year, and I'd have to agree.

Me

I was diagnosed with several 'new' chronic illnesses. I was already pretty sure I had most of them for a while, so there weren't any big surprises, but it was nice to have the diagnosis confirmed. I was then able to start sorting out the best treatments, etc. This kept me busy with appointments, new doctors, new medications, etc. 

 

Videos

My style and sewing Youtube channel has been continuing. In the beginning I was hoping to make a video once a fortnight, but in 2022 it ended up being once a month, on average. I'm still very happy with that, because along the way I've learned many new video-making skills, and it's been a lot of fun. My channel is here if you haven't heard about it yet and you're interested. 

 

Arts

2022 was a topsy-turvy year with art, too. In the first half of the year, my Collective and I staged 3 exhibitions. (That's a lot!) Then we took a long break. I didn't do any art for a long time -- I guess I was burnt out. Around July I slowly started doing some art journalling and started a junk journal. I wanted to ease back into things by doing something very low-key and low-energy friendly. In December and early January we had 2 exhibitions scheduled, so towards the end of the year I started to ramp things up a bit and make sure I did everything I wanted to for those. Plus, I made a real-proper website for my real-proper artist stuff. It lists all my past/current/upcoming exhibitions, projects I'm working on, etc. It's not quite finished yet, but if you'd like to see it, here it is.

Crafts

Arguably, a lot of my real-proper art has some definite crafty elements to it, as you can see above. Unfortunately though, I didn't do much crafting just for myself in 2022. I did start a new tablet weaving, but the tension was wonky and it was a bit of a mess. Husband promised that he would make some improvements to the weaving loom he made last year. After some delays, that was done last week and I started a new weaving. (Yay!) It's going to be a bracelet, but I'll probably end up with 2 or 3 as the base threads have to be at least as long as the loom, so I may as well make as many bracelets as will fit on.

Garden

The Spring/Summer of 2022 here in Australia has been such a strange one. It rained a looooot more than normal in Spring, and some days were cold enough to still be Winter! Many of my plants were confused and didn't know whether to grow or not, so things got off to a slow start. I did buy quite a lot of new plants, but I'll introduce them in a separate post.

Note: this isn't at my house but a spot nearby.

 

Home

I did a huge project in June to tidy up my Hobby Room / Studio. It was for a studio tidying challenge online ... and I won the challenge! I put it mainly down to stubborn persistence, and remembering to take 'before' and 'after' photos. Perhaps the 'after' photos don't look that much different, but to me it's a huge change. I was never a minimalist ... I think I'm firmly in the pro-Cluttercore camp. :)

  Thanks for reading, happy 2023, and look forward to more posts soon! (Soon-ish?) :)

Habitica : Gamified Motivation App

A few weeks ago I started using Habitica. In the creators' words, it's a "free habit and productivity app that treats your real life like a game". The app has been around for several years, and I have to admit, it's not new to me either. I tried using it a few years ago and found it too complicated and confusing. But for some reason I decided to give it another go, persisted in trying to understand it, and now use it daily.

Anyone familiar with roleplaying games will understand how the Habitica game works. You have a character with a certain amount experience points. Every time you complete a task, these increase slightly, and over time you level up. When you level up, you receive stat points that you can allocate to the character's four stats. You also earn coins that you can use to buy outfits, decorations and weapons. There are four different character classes to choose from, with different skillsets. (I'm a Rogue!) Players can join challenges or play in a party to defeat monsters. I haven't personally joined a party myself, but I am doing some challenges which are fun. You can also collect pets! Currently I have my favourite one with me -- my pink dragon!

The core of Habitica is the tasks, and there are 3 different kinds which work in different ways. As I mentioned earlier, I did find it a bit confusing at first, but I came to understand it fairly quickly. The 3 different kinds of tasks are:

* Dailies -- tasks that you repeat every day, week, month, year, etc. These might be 'do the dishes', 'take my tablets', 'clean the windows', 'buy a planner'. These tasks disappear once you tick them off, but reappear on the appropriate day.
* To-Dos -- one-off tasks. Once it's done, you get the kudos, and it disappears forever.
* Habits -- these are things that you'd like to get into the habit of doing. They are repeated but don't have regular intervals. You might do them several times a day, or only once or twice a week. Examples might be 'read for 1/2 hour', 'work on art', or 'weed the garden'.

The three kinds of tasks are in different sections, and you need to flick back and forth to access them. I would say that's the only drawback of Habitica that I've found, but once I understood the purpose of the different types of tasks, it was a lot easier to handle. I've been using Habitica daily for over almost a month, and have found advantages that the other organising systems I've used don't have. The tag system is invaluable: I've set up tags such as 'morning', 'evening', 'computer' and 'garden', so I can filter tasks according to my situation at any particular time. This is something I couldn't do with other systems I've used, and I've come to find it incredibly helpful. In fact, Habitica has completely replaced Trello and my whiteboard as my way of organising my day.

The game is quite forgiving in many ways. At the beginning of each day, all of the previous day's not-done tasks are displayed, giving you the chance to tick off any that you did but forgot to update in the app. It also has a built-in motivator: every day that a task isn't done, it turns a deeper red colour, and when you finally do those, you get extra experience and coins. Ones that you've diligently been doing daily turn green and then a beautiful turquoise colour. Of course, it's up to the player's sense of honesty to faithfully record what they did or neglected to do! I don't know about you, but I always feel like I didn't really earn something if I cheated to get it.

I could go on about Habitica's features (like the group challenges and supportive community) but I'll leave it for now! All that remains is to tick off the "Blog Post" task. :D

101 Things in 1,001 Days : Huge Overhaul

For the last few years, I've been on the 101 Things in 1,001 Days track. (Click that link or the tab above to see the full list.) My second cycle is due to finish this coming March. 1,001 days seems like a very long time -- two and three quarter years. Or, it used to seem like a very long time, anyway. Now, at the end of 2020 and all the things that happened (and didn't happen!), it seems like just a hop and a skip.

For most of last year, I forgot about my 101 Things goals. There were so many more important things to think about. I didn't feel like doing most of the things on the list, and some of them I wasn't even able to anyway.

Recently things started to look brighter, and I looked at my list again. It hit me that the end date of 13th March 2021 is only a few months away. And I'd only completed about 15 of the 101 items! That's a bit drastic!

Things I did do: played board games!

I've seen people online refer to 2020 as "the year that time forgot" or a "leap year" -- not in the sense that we had an extra day in February, but that it felt like we collectively skipped a year in our lives. So I've decided to do the same with my 101 Things list! I extended the due date one year, to 13th March 2022.

Remember when the seasons used to change?

Then it was time to look at the actual things I'd wanted to achieve. Soon after the first lockdown started, I'd already gone through the list and marked some items with the label 'Compromised'. This meant anything that I couldn't really do at home, like going to a drawing class, or getting a beauty treatment, or going overseas. (Yeah, that last one was a big one!) I had trouble thinking of a good word for the label, and I ended up choosing 'compromised' because it was halfway between things being fine and things being actually cancelled. I'm really glad I did that in the past, as it helped me to overhaul my list and not get too overwhelmed with all the things I have to let go of.

We had an indoor picnic!

There were also some new things I'd started that I wanted to be included in the list, so I replaced some old items with them. Here are some of the things I changed:

❖ #8 - removed "make a gluten-free flour mix" and replaced with "keep a Morning Pages journal for 1 year"
I'm no longer eating bread at all (gluten-free or otherwise) so this goal is pretty pointless. I started writing daily Morning Pages last November and have been going steadily so far, so I thought I may as well make it a proper goal. A whole year seems like an intimidatingly long time, but I thought I may as well challenge myself.

❖ #82 - removed "re-read the Harry Potter series" and replaced with "complete 6 challenges on The StoryGraph"
While I'll always like Harry Potter, I'm really over JKR's recent activities, and I just need a rest from her creations. I was in a bad reading slump throughout most of 2020 anyway, until I discovered The StoryGraph. Their challenges are a lot of fun, so I added this one in.

❖ #56 - removed "go overseas" and replaced with "complete 3 writing challenges"
It was with a heavy heart that we had to cancel our trip overseas. We postponed it for 2 years to October 2022, which is too late to add into the current 101 Things list. It will hopefully be in the second one, though. I've been much more into writing again, so I replaced it with a writing goal. I've talked myself into and out of writing (properly) so many times, and I just want to do it! Or not do it! But either way, just make up my mind, haha.

I had a green-themed tea party in my backyard.

There were some things that I decided to reduce and/or modify, rather than replace, including:
❖ #44 - art/craft classes reduced from 6 to 5; also online classes count too
❖ #33 - finish current craft projects reduced from 12 to 10
❖ #74 - read biographies reduced from 10 to 8
❖ #49 - computer-free days reduced from 20 to 15

Example of unfinished craft project.

And there were a few things I was pleasantly surprised to find that I've completed! These were:

❖ #15 - "decide on something to collect and do it"
I decided a while back to collect tea pots and tea tins. I visited my Mum once I was allowed to again, and she let me have first pick of all the knickknacks she was getting rid of. I chose 4 teapots and lots of other teawares for my collection. Added to the 8 or so teapots I already have, I think that's probably enough ... for now!

❖ #77 - "read A Christmas Carol every Christmas"
I actually managed to do it before Christmas this year, too! I watched Townsend's reading at The Nutmeg Tavern on Youtube, and it was delightful. Technically now though, seeing as there's another Christmas to go before the new ending date, does that mean I still have one to go before I can tick this off? No, I think I'll give it to myself. We all deserve some self-kindness.

I'm still feeling hesitant to make any firm plans, and I think I'll review my list again in a few months. But just having done this much feels like a real achievement. Now I can get back to reading and writing and making art and crafts! And hopefully writing about it here more regularly. See you soon!

I've been doing a lot bit of drawing too.

What I've Been Doing Lately

I've never been one to apologise for not posting for a long time, but gosh, it's been ages, hasn't it? With everything that's been happening in 2020, I'm sure you can't blame me. Whether I post once a week or once a quarter, I'm always intending to keep on blogging.

I thought I'd kick things off with a little wrapup of what I've been doing these last few months:

An exhibition!
I was lucky enough to be chosen once again to hold an exhibition at NOIR Darkroom, called Before(During)After. It was originally supposed to be in April, but was postponed a couple of times due to the pandemic and the gallery not being able to open. The gallery allowed me to change the theme, which I did to something more current. It explores how my art has changed during the pandemic and my uncertainty about what the future holds (for my art, but in general, too). There's a digital gallery on NOIR Darkroom's website which has photos and also an artist talk I did. I managed to talk for quite a long time for someone so shy!

Art! and a Conscript!
More specifically art-wise, I've been working on a series I call my Codex Pages. They're inspired by the Voynich Manuscript, a medieval book written in a mystery language that no-one can decipher, with strange illustrations. I've been fascinated with it for years. I finally had the idea of trying to make my own version. I created my own constructed script (conscript) for it. I always find this a lot of fun. I say 'always' when I've only created one before, but you get the idea! I'm hoping to write a post on this in more detail in the future.

These ones aren't finished yet:

Building a City!
Not a real one -- I was furnished with a game called Cities Skylines. It's like SimCity if you've heard of that (but better, by all accounts). My city just hit 80,000 inhabitants, and is called Lavender Town. I know! But it's not named after the location in the Nintendo game, but the pre-made map I chose in the beginning, which was called Lavender Lake. It's just the kind of game I like, and I've been spending a lot of time playing it lately. Here are a couple of screenshots.

Reading!
I was in a reading slump for several months, from about May to the start of December. I was given some ebooks to review, and of course whenever you're obligated to read something, it's no longer fun, so even though the books were good, I found it a little bit excruciating to get through them. (I still have 3 to go, oops!)

My friend Emilie started a Youtube channel a few months ago: Teacher Emilie in the Dining Room Library. She reads illustrated childrens books -- like an online storytime! It's kept me from having to admit that I read absolutely nothing in that time, if you believe that books usually for toddlers count! She often has wise comments to add as well. I recommend it.

I discovered The Story Graph a few weeks ago, and that's what really got me out of my reading slump. It's a reading community like Goodreads (but better, I daresay), with stats and graphs of books you've read. It aims to develop a really accurate and satisfying recommendations system. It's still in beta at the moment so you need to sign up to see everything, but for me it's definitely worth it so far. Reading challenges launched a few weeks ago, and members (including myself!) are enthusiastically creating and signing up for challenges.

Music!
Late last year I started a project to replicate my itunes library in Spotify. I ran into some hiccups at first which I won't go into (nothing to do with Spotify) but I've had lots of time to work on it while lurking in my cocoon this year. I'm working by artist and I've just finished the Gs, plus Eurovision working backwards from the present to 2004 so far. All the while I'm discovering new artists and songs. Who knew there was so much music in the world?
(The title of this playlist comes from a private joke of mine.)

Gardening!
Even through Winter there's usually something to do in the garden, but now that Spring (early Summer really) is here, it's all stations go! I'm barely keeping on top of the weeding, let alone planting new plants and re-potting old ones. But it's honest work and it makes me happy.

Well, that's about all I can think of for now. Hopefully I'll see you again soon!

My January

January has been a typical one, weather-wise -- days of searing heat mixed with stormy downpours and sticky humidity. I was still recovering from my surgery, but got the go-ahead to resume normal activities in the third week of the month. I still find myself very tired though, and I find I need to either have a nap mid-afternoon, or go to bed very early. In some ways it's like being a two-year-old!


What I've been harvesting ...
The plums were ready to harvest this month. The harvest was about half what it was last year -- but I wasn't complaining. There were just too many for us to handle. This year, there was enough to fill about 4-5 plastic takeaway boxes once stewed. I just didn't have the energy to go to the bother of making jam (sterilising jars, etc) so I stewed them, packed them into boxes and stored them in the freezer.

Aside from that, most of my time in the garden has been employed in watering the plants, trying to keep them alive in the heat.

What I've been painting ...
I painted a landscape for a bushfire fundraiser exhibition/auction. This photo shows it still in progress. It's a bit different to my normal style: I was trying to be more realistic and make something that someone might want to buy.

What I've been journalling ...
I decided to do Rainbowholic's New Year 2020 Kawaii Journalling challenge. I've done 3 so far, not including the intro/title page. Here is my first page:

What I've been doing ...
I went for a walk in the park.

What I've been eating ...
After a trip to the dentist I went to a place I remembered from where I used to work over 10 years ago, which sold delicious French baguettes. It was still there! Emmenthal cheese, salami, whole gherkins and mustard -- just how I like it!

What I've been playing ...
Husband and I played Tsuro: Phoenix Rising, a variation on the popular Tsuro game. I think I enjoyed it even more than the original. I won't write any more now; I'm planning a full post in the near future.

What I've been reading ...
I've joined two readathons this year already! The first was Bout of Books, which went for a week. I managed to finish 4 books, one of which I'd had on my Currently Reading list for a year. That felt good. Currently I'm doing Pondathon, which is a story-based, co-operative reading challenge organised by CW from The Quiet Pond blog. Readers earn points for every page they read, and they affect the outcome of the story as its revealed over the 6 weeks of the challenge. There are cute characters, stamps to collect and, of course, books to read! Here's my character card with my first stamp:

My 2020 Planner

In 2019 I made a big change to how I use my planner. I shifted it online and started using Trello after I saw how it works at my old job. While Trello is excellent for managing projects, daily planning and to-do lists, I found it wasn't very good for future events, appointments, etc, so I decided to keep going with a paper diary for these things. I downsized from an A5 to A6 size diary because I don't need the extra space for to-dos and tracking anymore. I'm only using it for yearly holidays/festivals, birthdays, appointments, moon phases and similar things.

I purchased my planner from Typo this year, and the set-up isn't perfect, but it'll do. I wasn't as fussy about the set-up as in previous years as the planner will have more limited use. To be honest, I just bought the first one I saw with a cover that I even vaguely liked! It has the usual week-to-a-spread that I prefer. I don't really like the grey bands across the pages, and there were some other features I didn't like as well, but I ripped out some pages and glued other ones together until it suited me a bit better.

I decided not to decorate it as heavily with stickers and washi tapes, just adding a few accents. I stole re-purposed some of my favourite stickers from last year's diary (ones that I could lift up without ruining!), and used them to decorate it. I'll probably add more as the year goes on and if I feel like it.

I added a few inspirational quotes and thoughts I've had into the front, as I usually like to do:

Also the Indigenous seasonal calendar (though I accidentally pasted it in sideways, oops):

The mail order tracker I created a few years ago fits in just fine, thankfully. I only needed to chop off the bottom to make it fit the A6 size.

I did order a vinyl sticker to decorate the front but it hasn't arrived in the mail yet. I managed to peel the sticker off last year's diary and stick it to the back though. I like this sticker a lot; it's from Fox and Cactus.

Here's a page from last year's planner as a reminder. I still track most of these things, but on my Trello now.

Highlights (and Lowlights?) of 2019

2019 was a pretty low-key year for me. It seems fashionable these days to say that the year just past was a rubbish fire, and I was tempted to say that too. I had some setbacks, especially health-wise. But then I looked back through my blog and Instagram and realised that I actually did quite a lot this year. It just wasn't in the categories of what I used to do in the past, or what people 'should' do. There's nothing wrong with that, though.


LIFE & HEALTH THINGS
I only worked for 2 months this year. I secured a two-month contract in March-April, then decided to take a month off to concentrate on my exhibition (more details about that below!). Not long after that was finished, I developed some new health issues and some existing ones got worse. I developed a severe pain in my knee and could barely walk for about a month, something I hadn't experienced before. The doctor seemed to think it was arthritis, but I'm still not sure. Thankfully that got better, but I wasn't able to follow up on it because then I caught a virus which made me nauseous and dizzy for several weeks. Then my Adenomyosis treatment failed catastrophically and I was unable to leave the house again for some time, even just to try and seek treatment. I eventually ended up having a hysterectomy at the start of December, and I'm currently recovering from that. I was also dealing with my Ulcerative Colitis (my 'usual' chronic illness) all during this time. I don't normally go into this much detail on the blog, but I just wanted to acknowledge how much I managed to do this year, even despite all of these restrictions.

So what DID I do?


ART
✽ I held my first solo exhibition! (May) -- this was actually a pretty massive achievement!!

✽ I made a lot of art! (all year)

✽ I was accepted into and had a piece in Fat Feminism exhibition! (October)
✽ I joined a collective: Lucy Goosey Women's Art Collective! (November)
✽ I went to my first life drawing class! (October)

✽ I had a piece in NOIR Darkroom's Kris Kringle art swap! (And got an awesome piece of art in return!) (December)
✽ I made a flatlay! (October)

CRAFT
✽ I finished my first blanket! (Sure, I had to make it for my exhibition, but it still counts, I think!) (May)

✽ I tried a new craft: Lucet braiding! (April)

✽ I made some plushie monsters! (May-September)

✽ I joined the #makenine challenge ... and only made one item! ... It was my blanket that I keep mentioning. (all year)


HOME & GARDEN
✽ I grew potatoes! (January-February)

✽ Husband and I built a garden bed! (November-December)

READING & WRITING
✽ I set myself several reading challenges and read lots of books! (44 books and 39 short stories, novellas, plays, etc) -- this is double what I normally read! (all year)
✽ I re-read The Lord of the Rings and wrote a blog post about it! (August)
✽ I set myself a challenge to write short stories and I wrote 12! (June ; November)


OTHER THINGS
✽ I achieved many victories over my social anxiety!
✽ I went with Husband and my foodie friend on a road trip to the Geelong Show! (October)

✽ I started making videos!
✽ I ate a lot of food at a lot of places! (all year)
✽ I changed my fringe-style!

Whether you did a lot or a little in 2019, it doesn't matter. I had a few experiences which made me remember that I'm lucky just to be here. And I'm looking ahead to 2020!