I can finally move on from this project and actually have fun making things. I don't think I will ever make something of this size again. It's just too much labor for very little money.
I finished Don't Pick Up the Phone on Netflix, started Into the Deep.
That's about all. Nothing new otherwise.
Exhaustion and migraines are a terrible combo, but they're both present at the moment. I feel like crap.
Bad news, I'm not getting ANY frogs soon. My dad booked a trip to Florida, and because the frogs would be babies, they would need to be taken care of daily. Being away for a week and expecting them to survive isn't feasible. I don't have local friends, and we don't have any neighbors that we can trust. So yeah... huge bummer. It's really upsetting when you have worked so hard and been so patient for something to happen, and then realize you have to wait even longer.
I've been on asexual dating sites almost all night, panicking that I'm going to be alone forever. I really wish I didn't feel aesthetic attraction. Some aces literally say "I couldn't care less what you look like or what gender you are, what matters is the kind of person you are," in their profile. It would be incredible to be like that, you could date anyone!
But nah, I either find someone attractive, unattractive, or just neutral, with neutral literally being neither. I'm not going to state my preferences because I'm bound to offend someone who can't understand that people don't have control over these things. Let's just say it's reaaaally difficult for me to find someone who is attractive in the USA. The UK on the other hand is chock full of attractive people. It's a little depressing to be honest. I'm never moving to the UK because I want to live with my family close-by. I'm sure nobody in the UK wants to downgrade to life in the US either.
Aaaand I fell asleep again.
My dwarf white isopods arrived! I'm really happy, now I'll (hopefully) have a population of springtails and isopods in my tank. I really need them if this bioactive tank is going to work.
Bioactive enclosures are pretty damn cool. The intention is this: a contained environment that is self-sufficient. We all learned about the food cycle back in school. Well, a bioactive setup depends on that.
(I'm such a fucking nerd that I made a diagram.)
Basically the point is to keep the frog alive. The frog needs food, shade, and a clean environment to live.
The TL;DR is this: Frog poops. Plants absorb nutrients from the poop, isopods and springtails eat the poop. They also die, which also helps fuel the plants. The plants shed dead leaves and become food for the bugs. They basically both fuel each other. Plants provide shade for the frog, and the bugs are eaten by the frog. That's how you achieve a self-sufficient enclosure.
There's only two things that need to be continually introduced: water and feeder bugs.
You can't make it rain, so yes, water must be added. Water keeps the ground moist, making a nice humid environment for the cleaner bugs. Plants need water to grow, frog needs water to live. As for the feeder bugs, frogs can't just eat isopods all their life. Depending on the size of the isopods, the frog might just consider it to be too small to even bother with. The frogs also need calcium supplementation.
SO ANYWAY.
Good to finally have those isopods. A good portion arrived dead though because USPS manhandled the hell out of that poor box.
So I forgot to photograph what I'm currently working on in Ceramics, but I did photograph what I did last class. 10 pinch pots, all ruggedly textured by my favorite tool. (I should photograph that too.) And guess what? One of the students from last semester came in to work with some clay. Turns out that she is demisexual! I have never met a fellow asexual out in the wild! So damn incredible.
Worked on the cat tonight for the first time in a while. I finished the face. Now I'm working on stripes.
I AM SO CLOSE TO FINISHING THIS STUPID THING.
Polkadot plant has been growing!
Sorry for the short entry, I really just want to eat breakfast.
Okay, this is pretty fucking embarrassing, but I'll be blunt.
My meds, as much as they help me, also unfortunately cause constipation. It really sucks, but the trade-off is worth it. I'd endure almost anything if it meant I don't want to kill myself. I also have ADHD, which I'm rarely medicated for, and that makes me easily forget things that aren't directly in my face. (Like I always forget to take vitamins because they're in a cabinet, and I don't see them. If they were on the table I would be like "oh vitamins" and take them.) Well, this time I forgot something really bad.
I completely forgot that pooping existed.
It wasn't until I started feeling ill that I realized "wait when did I go last?" I couldn't even remember. Well, the answer was "too goddamn long ago." I was in bed sleeping for hours, unable to figure out why I was so incredibly fatigued. Case solved, I was constipated to hell and back. I had to take laxatives, which made me feel even more ill. Everything turned out okay in the end, but the headaches and nausea lingered longer than I had hoped.
That is why I haven't worked on anything. I guess I needed a break too, working on that cat was driving me crazy. I'll have to get back to work, but tomorrow is the first day of Ceramics class. I'm really looking forward to it! I'm going to try to work on sculpting this semester in the hopes that it'll translate over into small-scale toy sculpting. Good stuff.
Still waiting on frogs.
Today my body totally crashed. I slept almost all day, except to feed the dogs, walk the dogs, play with dogs... I really love these dogs. I also had this crazy thirst almost all day. I drank a whole 17oz bottle of sparkling water during my therapy session alone. I've drank a whole lot since.
I took it easy tonight, woke up at 3am and finally beat Covenant 25 on Monster Train. Such an addictive game where every choice could mess up your game.
Nothing new with the reptile room, I did have to save three beetles from drowning though. They are such stupid animals, my god. It's not that they jump into it, they're just so horribly clumsy that they fall right in. Stumpie got scared of my voice for no apparent reason, I always say "Hey Stumpieee," when I open her enclosure for food time, so I don't know what that was all about. Still looks like the frogs I'm waiting on aren't out of the water yet.
Great news! There was a bit of dirt in the pink rock bowl in my tree frog enclosure, so I put in some water. I picked it up about to swirl it and pour it back in the soil when suddenly... movement under the bowl! Springtails!! They are living it up under the water bowl! I was overjoyed for two reasons. One, this means that they are mingling and (hopefully) mating in their new home. Two, I don't have to buy another pack of springtails. I carefully set the bowl back, and they're probably back to business. What I didn't see was a single isopod. Guess I might have to buy another pack after all, isopods usually love being under bowls and dishes too. If they're not there, I'm not sure where else they could be.
Procrastination again. I'm getting really bad about this. I'm just usually not in the mood to be under bright lights, watching more Netflix and stabbing a cat doll hundreds and thousands of times.
I eventually got up and worked on the cat. I became more and more excited as I worked, because I could finally see it coming together. Instead of Netflix, I opted for listening to music on Spotify. Aside from my regular post-hardcore music (my favorite genre), I checked out the Release Radar. It was awful. I don't know what my Spotify is thinking, but it's been playing metal/metalcore for me, and I can't figure out why. I like some metalcore, but metal usually isn't my thing. (For example I absolutely love ERRA, but now that I think about it, that's progressive metal, isn't it?) No matter how much post-hardcore I listen to, it never changes. That was a bust in my search for new music. Started listening to Discovery Weekly and it was a bit better.
It was a little freaky, I felt like I was a moment away from fainting at one point. I'm really falling apart I guess. I can't give up now though. I just want to finish this damn thing for good. Then I can sleep for a day.
It still needs eyes, a mouth, fur around the neck, and maybe stripes? I'll decide later.
I'm getting so impatient waiting for frogs! The breeder I'm going to be buying from, Mike Matson, is having other batches of whites tree frogs come out of the water, but it looks like the batch I want to buy from just isn't quite there yet. I'm just going to have to wait longer... but I don't have to like it.
I procrastinated a lot tonight. I checked up on the reptile room, played some Monster Train, browsed Reddit and Facebook. Had some snacks and chose tonight's Netflix docuseries, Web of Make Believe: Death, Lies, and the Internet. Watched the first two episodes and started the third, but I was getting way too sleepy to continue.
I finally have finished the paws!! Now I can move onto the face and finish this thing up. What a huge relief this is.
Happy Maddie is happy. (And awfully in need of sleep, just like Bruiser is getting.)
Hopefully I'll have some news about the frogs soon. I think I might need a day off to catch up on sleep, probably tomorrow night. I can't keep this up for too long, got to have a rest day.
I slept so so much. 8am-3:30am, 8pm-12am. I guess I got "peopled out." Socializing is great, don't get me wrong, but it's absolutely exhausting.
I have stuff to show today!
First off, a mealworm beetle orgy.
I'm glad they're breeding, but damn. All under one leaf.
My polkadot plant basin is full of little sprouts! I'm so excited. Just a few days ago I was worried I had a dud. That's definitely not the case at all.
NOOOOO I lost everything I wrote because my browser refreshed. I'm really mad.
I'll try to remember everything I wrote... Well, here is the enclosure, looking good. The grow light has really made a difference in the health of the plants, they either are more vibrant, less wilted, or have actually grown a bit! Super happy about that. I think I need to buy another set of isopods and springtails though. I'm not seeing them anywhere.
Tonight's snack was Baked Cheese Crunchies, basically the Trader Joe's version of Cheese Doodles. Really delicious, especially since I seem to be on a cheese binge. Okay, maybe not a binge, especially because that has eating disorder connotations. An eating-more-than-usual? Why don't we have a word for this?
I watched Sins of Our Mother on Netflix and wow, that was a trip. I had heard about this case in the news, but when the suspects get caught, the media circus kind of dies out. This docuseries explained everything. There was so much more to this case than what the sensationalist media shared. There isn't much that scares me in life, but religion and children dying are two topics that bother me a lot. This story had both. I don't want to spoil it, but the beliefs of some people involved in the case were the absolute scariest. I stopped needle-felting when it ended.
So here's where I'm at. Did paw pads on the other hand, covered the back of one hand with yellow, started to cover the other one too. Pretty weirded out at the thought that I need to make a head now. I don't have enough pink to enlarge the head as it is, so I'm thinking I'll go cartoony for sure on the face... but what if it ends up looking all wrong? Doing things on a larger scale than you're used to can lead to some stupid mistakes. Maybe I'm just nervous because I've been working on this thing for so long.
Went to jewelry-making class at a fellow student's house. I had fun, even though I was weaving the same thing all through class. It was just nice to be around people again. We actually have one more meeting next Monday, I was mistaken. My teacher has goodie bags for us, I can't wait to see what's inside them! Sure hurt my toes a lot today though. Putting them in shoes isn't pleasant. Also everyone was psyched about my straight nose!
After driving home and eating a horribly unhealthy bunch of Burger King food, I fell asleep. I woke up around 11pm, was on my iPad for a little bit, and then I was sleepy again. Fell back asleep holding Bruiser and woke up at 2am. Did the usual rounds. Turned off Stumpie's lights, fed her, refilled her water bowl, watered the plants in Stumpie's enclosure, watered the plants in the tree frog enclosure, refilled the humidifier in my room... I'm really pleased with this grow light, I can already see the difference. The half-wilted pothos got un-wilted, the wandering dude is growing upwards, everything just looks great. The polkadot plant has so many little sprouts! I poured extra water into the substrate because if the springtails and dwarf whites are still alive, they need damp soil. I haven't seen them yet.
I continued my needle-felting after that, I finished Capturing the Killer Nurse and next up was Girl in the Picture. I finished with the cat's feet and started working on the hands. When the documentary ended, I had just started the paw pads. I decided that this was a good place to stop.
I'm feeling a bit better about this project now that I'm closer to the end. A few more nights and I'm done. From then on... small projects only. Needle-felting something this large is a royal pain in the ass. Not sure what I'm going to make next. I'll have to think about that one.
I didn't do anything last night, I had to get to bed around midnight so I'd be rested for the last (very delayed) day of Jewelry-Making. My toes are going to hurt a bit from being in shoes, but what can you do. I have to be there.
I'm seeing one of my friends on Thursday, I'm excited. It'll give us some time to catch up. Plus we're checking out a coffee place that I haven't been to yet.
That's about it.
Tonight I procrastinated, again. It's the cat. Again.
I watched/listened to The Hatchet-Wielding Hitchhiker and started Capturing the Killer Nurse on Netflix while working tonight. Working on the cat has been tedious as all hell.
Well, at least Bruiser likes it. Did the other foot. Next are the hands. Ugh. I don't like working on this.
Oh, and there are tiny little sprouts coming up from the polkadot plant basin!! I'm excited to finally grow them. I think I'll just keep them as houseplants because my enclosures are already (at least in my eyes) fully planted.
Kind of torn. Josh's Frogs has blue-eyed Whites Tree Frogs. They're not honey blue-eyed though. I guess I'll just wait for Mike's tadpoles to come out of the water. If Josh's Frogs are restocking the tree frogs, maybe they'll be restocking the pacman frogs soon. That would be great.
I've been procrastinating so hard since I woke up at midnight. Browsing Facebook, playing Monster Train, the usual. I just really REALLY don't want to work on -gestures- THAT THING. The pink cat. My arch-nemesis. But it's something I just got to do.
At 2:30am-ish I got up, refilled my humidifier and watered the plants in both enclosures. Absolutely nothing in the polkadot plant pot. I'm starting to think that I got a dud. Then off to... you know. I finished I Am a Killer on Netflix last night, so I had to choose something new. Netflix recommended that I watch Grease. I really don't like romcoms. Netflix, your algorithm is off.
I chose The Texas Killing Fields. I really love true crime shows. Believe it or not, I used to be a Criminal Justice major. I tried to find every non-fiction book, memoir, whatever, about serious crimes and the people who solve them. Took a lot of classes. I read textbooks for study. I wanted to be a forensic scientist or forensic psychologist so badly. I've always been so fascinated by psychology, probably because I was a teen struggling with many issues... depression, ADHD, being bullied. There are certain people that you just look at and say "How on earth do you think? What compels you to do bad things?" It's a mystery and bothers me because I just can't wrap my mind around the "why." Forensic psychology delved into that.
I find murderers to be fascinating because their minds literally don't work like ours do. It's almost as if they're a whole another subspecies. It's also so satisfying to see these assholes captured. The process of interpreting and then using forensic evidence to tell the story is amazing. Even though forensic psychology can pretty much tell you "why" they do what they do, I still can't wrap my head around it. I can't imagine my life without empathy playing a role in almost every choice I make. Even though I gave up that dream of becoming a forensic scientist/psychologist in favor of being a starving artist, that fascination remains. The Idaho slayings have been particularly interesting. Based on what we know about the killer, I truly believe that he became a Criminology major to learn as much as he could about committing murder, and that his goal was to pull off the "perfect murder." There's a reason why almost anyone in Criminal Justice says "there's no such thing." It isn't possible. He got caught from sheer human error. The idiot dropped the sheath to his knife in the dormitory. It gives me so much satisfaction to see him captured. He's a fucking psychopath.
I ended up finishing the show, and at that point I quit needle-felting for the night too.
I managed to get one foot yellow, added paw pads, and started working on the other foot. Wish I had made more progress in the time I spent stabbing it. (And my poor fingers.) Once again, no interest from Bruiser. Maybe he's dissing my work.
We're going out to dinner later. Not thrilled about it because I completely forgot until my dad told me yesterday. I've never been to this place before, I hope there are things I'll like there. Supertaster problems...
My therapist is amazing. Somehow there was a loophole. I can't really remember what she said, but I think they recorded the missed appointment as a rescheduled appointment, and I saw my therapist today. I don't lose my docs!! I unloaded a lot of baggage on her because it had been two weeks since we spoke. We talked about the death of Sprout, recovering from two surgeries, this blog, being nocturnal, revenge-crafting... (I wish I could go into detail, but I can't due to personal safety reasons.) A lot of topics were covered. Talking about Sprout's tragic end helped me process it better. I do have some guilt, like "did I not try enough?" My therapist is correct though, I did absolutely everything I could. He was probably doomed from the start as a genetic mess. I love the hobby of frog keeping, but these breeders that keep inbreeding are making it more difficult to buy a healthy frog.
So no progress on the polkadot plant. Nothing has germinated, not even the smallest green shoot. I sure hope that these seeds weren't duds. Stumpie is still hiding in her cave, which does worry me a bit, but I know from participating in gecko groups that sometimes it can take weeks for them to get acclimated. I'm feeling pretty impatient about the frog situation. It's tough not to have another pet to take care of. Stumpie only eats once every 3 days, and she's not friendly. She'll gladly take mealworms from my fingers or on my hand, but if you try and touch her she'll give a warning bite. I of course check on her every day, refill her water bowl, water the plants, but that's not a lot of required care. It's weird to say, but I actually want more work. I love caring for animals. I guess there's nothing else to do but wait until I hear back from Josh's Frogs or Mike Matson. (Mike is the same breeder I bought from in 2017, top notch frogs.)
I actually used to have 5 pacmans, all bred by Mike. Two cranwelli brothers from the same spawn, a male and female ornata, and another cranwelli. The male ornata seemed to have died from some weird mold in his substrate. None of my other enclosures got it. The cranwelli tragically died from an injury in his mouth, probably from the tongs. (I guess I should have used tweezers.) Neither death was the fault of the breeder. The three that lived were big, robust, and enthusiastically hungry. Couldn't have been better frogs. Sadly my depression got really bad. Like REALLY bad. This was around the time that my guilt and anxiety over being asexual in a normal sexual relationship became too much to handle. It completely broke me. That's a whole another story though. I ended up giving my three frogs to a rescue/sanctuary. I cried, the woman from the rescue cried... It was incredibly tough, but I did what was best for them. I didn't have a frog from 2017 to 2020. Those weren't the best of times.
Anyway, I trust Mike's breeding practices and will definitely buy my tree frogs from him. My next pacman will have to come from Josh's Frogs, a company that sells frogs bred at the Frog Ranch. They're legendary for having discovered and isolated the genes for pacman albinism. They're known for more than that, they work with universities and US states to protect and promote research of frogs. It's also their mission to breed the most robust, healthy frogs. Unfortunately you can't buy directly from them unless you're a wholesale buyer, but that's where Josh's Frogs comes in, of course. I haven't heard back from Josh's Frogs about the ornatas yet. Just have to be patient I guess.
I am really starting to loathe my needle-felting project. I've spent so much time on it. I work hard only to have to correct it again and again.
Not even Bruiser was interested. But yeahhh, I need to fix a lot. I'm running low on pink so I decided to use yellow in it too. I need to bulk out the feet because they're flat and frog-like. I tried expanding the head, but like I said... don't have much pink left at all. I also need to cut down the fur on the end of the tail because I don't want it to look like a troll. Then I'm going to do stripes and a yellow belly, and then finally I need to do the ears and face. I'm thinking baby blue eyes? Ugh, so much work. Why did I make this thing so big?!
I'll be so relieved when this thing is done and over with. Smaller projects only from now on.
Well, my needle felting tool came today, along with my daily planner and frog-friendly plants.
Look at this thing, it's kind of terrifying. It looks like it'll really make a difference though in speeding up the felting process.
First thing I did tonight was go plant one leafy buddy in the frog tank. I chose this one because it's a vine. I want a vine to wrap around the fake tree and then go up the imitation vines.
Maybe it's a good thing I don't have the frogs yet, my plants can grow out a bit. The one thing that I keep questioning though is whether or not the springtails and the isopods have survived. I'm thinking of buying another set, but that's around $25 and like I said... not thrilled to spend more money.
No change in the polkadot bin. (The enclosure is very cool because the heat lamp isn't on, just the grow light.) I also began to tie the coconut to the center bar on top of the enclosure, but I didn't have scissors on me. I didn't feel like retrieving one so I'll save it for another time. Didn't want my toes bleeding again.
I sent an email to Josh's Frogs asking when they will have non-cranwelli pacman frogs again. All ornatas and cornutas are sold out, though I'm really leaning towards a high red ornata. I hope I get a girl frog, they grow significantly bigger than males. I'd still be happy with a male though, boy frogs are appealing because they croak. Let's hope I get an answer soon.
I ended the night working on the cat. The new tool is great for large areas, but it's kind of useless when it comes to precision. It still took me a lot of time just to make legs and start one foot.
Bruiser had absolutely no idea.
Tonight I did some work, not too much, but good enough.
First I should probably explain the title. I was going to order my tree frogs, and the breeder had blue-eyed morphs... but as tadpoles. Guess I have to wait until they're out of the water. I decided that maybe I'll get a new pacman frog. (Maybe I'm weird, but it helps me so much to replace a pet quickly. It's not that I find them expendable, it's just my way of distracting myself from the loss of a buddy.) I checked Josh's Frogs because I got so many recommendations, but they are all sold out of ornatas. I really don't want another cranwelli pacman, not after my last two died. I guess I just have to wait on frogs, and that frog-shaped hole in my heart will remain empty until then.
Anyway, tonight I started out trying to lure Stumpie out of her hide. She still doesn't feel safe in her new environment, but she'll adapt. I offered a mealworm outside of her hide and successfully lured her out. She stayed outside her hide, not moving, but turning her head to look around. After that she slunk back into her hide, into the shadows. I noticed that some of my plants were looking wilty, so I made sure to water them all.
The fishing line I bought was too thick to fit through the mesh top of my tree frog enclosure. I sat there pissed off for a bit, but then I realized that the center support bar is under the mesh! That meant I could hang things from it. I'm horrible at tying knots, but the cardboard backing of the fishing wire bubble pack explained how to make a certain knot. I have no idea whether I did it right or not, but it doesn't seem to be getting loose. I hung the two vines and played around with their bendiness. I think I positioned them pretty well.
If you look at the photo, the big vine goes from the top to the bottom. The small vine goes from the wood tree to the jungle tree. I think this will give my future frogs access to more of the tank. I had also set up the mushroom ledge and redid the velcro dots. I put three dots rather than just two, so we'll see how that works out. I also had to switch fixtures for my new grow light, I removed Stumpie's heat bulb and put it in the large fixture I got from the giveaway gift-cards. It said "for incandescent lights" on the packaging, so I wasn't feeling good about putting the grow light into that.
After that I set up the polkadot plant kit. (aka hypoestes phyllostachya) Basically just a little metal "basin," a puck of compressed dirt, and seeds. I put it in the big green feeding bowl so it can get some exposure to the grow light. This is mostly for me, not for the tanks, though I could spare a plant or two. It's supposed to grow white, pink, and red polkadot plants. I just like how they look.
I found myself super hungry after all of that. Tonight's snack was cheddar Chex mix. I forgot that it even existed but was reminded when ordering my nuts.com box. (Sadly they only had the original mix.)
I finished off the night with some needle felting. I tried the other needles I had, and they were even duller than the one I was complaining about. It was no surprise that it took forever to make 6 fingers. Now the hands are too big. Maybe I'll just make that the style, big hands, big feet, big noggin. Yeah, that can work.
Time to have breakfast!
Literally did nothing last night, except for opening my Amazon delivery box. I got the fishing wire, a hanging coconut hide, a grow kit for polkadot plants (they're so gorgeous), a mushroom ledge, and an LED grow light. Then I had to go to sleep early because I had to get up early.
GROSSNESS WARNING
I had minor surgery today. I injured the nailbed of my big toes sometime in 2001, and they grew out wrong. Super thick, cracked in multiple places, and yellow. I thought I had fungus, but I was too young to take the meds. (They're apparently tough on the liver.) I just lived with it and never wore open-toe shoes. Well, turns out I never had fungus, it was a nailbed injury. I tested negative for fungus twice, both toes, at two different podiatrists. When I asked the doc what I can do about it, she told me I can either take a Dremel to it, or I can have my toenails removed. There was the possibility of my nails growing back the exact same way, but I'm all about taking chances now. I had them surgically removed today, and I'm feeling good about this decision. There was a slight problem with anesthesia, I forgot to mention I'm resistant so I needed extra. Honestly I felt nothing during the surgery, it was the anesthesia shots themselves that hurt really bad. Kind of hilarious. Oh, and I totally didn't watch. I just browsed Facebook on my phone the whole time. It's weird but if I don't see something happening, I think it hurts less. I do the same thing for blood draws, just don't watch the needle going in.
Well that was it for excitement, had a nap afterwards and a nice dinner. I'm supposed to keep off of my feet, but I can't stop walking completely. No idea what I'll be up to tonight.
I overdid it. Three nights of work finally hit me square in the face. Had a headache all day, slept for probably 12 hours, sat and vegged out on my iPad. This is actually pretty typical. I get sleep deprived a lot. You'd think I'd just do things earlier, but I have absolutely zero motivation to do anything during the day. At night it's like someone shoved a battery up my ass, and I go full-power mode. ADHD is one hell of a hassle.
Just because I was feeling like crap during the day doesn't mean I took the night off. So it seems I was wrong, my mom still had plants for me. I started the night planting them in my frog tank. I planted pothos, wandering dude, spider plant, snake plant, and a cutting from my Thanksgiving cactus that had rooted nicely since the craft fair. The adhesive on the velcro is continuing to piss me off. I'm not really sure how I'm going to get these stupid thermometers to stick.
After that was complete, I decided to tackle my very messy art table.
It's been a mess since the craft fair, I haven't done anything arty since that day.
Cleaned and organized all of it, because I'm probably not going to be making jewelry anytime soon. I'm planning on needle-felting for a while. Set up a snack, drink (not pictured, I left it on the sofa), and Bruiser to the left of me. I then began to felt, also eating pretzels while watching/listening to I Am A Killer on Netflix.
Bruiser got a few little pretzel pieces too. (Excuse my dirty fingernails, they're still like that from when I mixed all that soil.) I had completely forgotten how tedious needle-felting is. It took me hours to just make a head, body, and arms for a pink kitty. Or maybe I'm not doing something right. Maybe my needle is dulling? I decided to order a needle tool just in case. That will also help me felt faster because you can use up to 7 needles.
It's got thumbs. Seriously though, I can't believe this is all I made tonight. My thumb and index finger on my left hand have all these little blood specks where I poked myself too. Oh well, I'm sure I'll be more efficient when I get the felting tool. Another expense though... I'm getting tired of making purchases.
Well, I'm going to call it a night. I'll continue this project later.
I guess all these nights of staying up all night working is finally getting to me. My muscles, especially in my back, ache mildly. I took a nap around maybe 9pm, and woke up at 1am. Didn't feel stellar. For about an hour and I half I forced myself to hydrate while playing (losing) Monster Train. It did help my headache a little.
You know the velcro dots? They suck. Everything fell overnight, and not due to the velcro coming apart. The adhesive wasn't strong enough. I had to order clear fishing wire to secure the tree frog enclosure's vines instead. It's coming on Sunday. Not sure what I'm going to do about the thermometers.
I got two things in the mail today, Stumpie's UVB bulb, and our nuts.com delivery.
(This isn't an ad, I wish I was getting paid.)
I'm trying to be a little more healthy this year. Just a little. Ordered myself acai powder, mango juice powder, chocolate peanut butter powder, and plain whey powder. I want to mix my own smoothies. Also got a pretzel mix, cheese powder for mac and cheese, lemon crystals because my sis finished our stock, and loose blackberry tea as a gift for my sister. Oh, that's another thing. I want to be a better sister if I can.
After unpacking that I took the UVB to the reptile room. At first I panicked because it wouldn't turn on, but then I realized I didn't rotate the bulb into place. After that I mistakenly fed Stumpie early. I could have sworn feeding day was today... Oh well, she got her meal a day early.
Excuse the mealworm pupae everywhere, waiting for them to become beetles. She actually did come out of her humid hide, as evidenced by the photo, but she scurried back in. I don't think she's used to her new enclosure yet. I'm just overjoyed she doesn't have any eating problems. I'm going to be paranoid about appetite issues for a while after Sprout...
I didn't do much else because my headache was coming back. I have migraines, and a headache always seems to be a precursor to one. Can't fuck around with headaches. I went to bed earlier (earlier means 5pm, hah) to try and kill it.
It's fine if I didn't function too well tonight. For the past three days I've been running myself into the ground. It's not surprising to finally be exhausted.
I don't want to jump the gun, but I actually got off my ass again and did more work. Still doing things for Stumpie. I disinfected and washed EVERYTHING in her tank including her new hides. First I had to clean the tub I carried all the dirt in, which was honestly the most difficult part of the night. After all of that I started setting her new tank up.
It looks really empty. There's just so much open space. It's definitely not finished yet. Stumpie now has four hides. She has her original bridge on the hot side, another hide between hot and warm because she likes using the coconut, a humid hide in the middle, and one on the cool side. She has a piece of cholla wood that is way too small for the tank, her calcium and water dish, and I have two digital thermometer/hygrometers, one for each side. The humidity in the tank is wild. It's reading about 88% humidity on the cool side. In order to lower the humidity asap, I'm going to leave her basking light on for a while. It's already gone down to 79% on the hot side. It's also cold as hell. Cold side is 69F (niiice) and I managed to get the hot side to 75F. Hopefully I'll have the parameters right soon.
There's still more to do. I need to put in my plants, she needs a T5 UVB (bulb is on the way, I ordered a T8 by mistake), and I think I'm going to buy something she can climb on because pretty much NONE of the vertical space is being used. I also need to velcro the thermometers in place against the back wall. I'm probably forgetting something, but it's 5am so...
I really hope I can keep this momentum going. I need to get used to "work." It's been 12 years since I had a "real job." I went back to college, tried to make a name for myself as an artist (I was so close too!), tried to be self-employed, and I can't even count how much time was devoured by crippling depression. If I'm being totally honest, I don't remember a lot of what happened during my 20's. I don't know if that's my brain protecting me from trauma or what, but I kind of view my life right now as "pre-killself" and "post-killself." Maybe if I keep doing some kind of work as often as possible, I'll get used to it and be able to get and keep a "real job" again. That would be pretty awesome.
Today I actually did something productive. Of course, it was at night when everyone is asleep. I have a pretty good amount of energy at night, which is weird.
I mixed 50lbs of soil and sand together to make a good substrate for my leopard gecko's new enclosure. Given the fact that I am weak as hell, I'm actually pretty impressed with what I did. I only had my two hands, a spade, and a small tub to work with. I had to fill the tub, mix it, and dump it in the tank about 6 or 7 times, but I managed to transfer all of that soil mix indoors. It still kind of looks like I don't have enough substrate though. I might need another bag of soil... I still have play sand left. I also washed Stumpie's basking spot, which is a ceramic set of stairs that lead up to a platform. It has space underneath for her to hide in, and it gets nice and warm. Still have to wash and disinfect everything else she has.
Ah well. As long as I make progress, that's all that really matters. She deserves new digs. I took bad advice on tank size, so she's been in a 20 gallon long since I got her. She's going to be moving into a 120 gallon enclosure that I initially purchased for a bearded dragon. I guess this is my way of making amends.
