2020 Twitter Art Exhibit

Twitter Art Exhibit 2020 is already coming up.

This avocado is on its way to Myrtle Beach.

For more info, visit twitterartexhibit.org.

Just a little January

I feel like I have a lot to say right now, but I can't seem to get it out on paper (screen?), so I hold it inside until I can process it all and write it out. This was easier years ago. Maybe I'm just old.

At any rate, I can share a few photos. That's more entertaining to look at than my word salads anyway, right? Right.

Talk about a blast from the past!

I can't believe I found one of these things.

It was at a (very sketchy, yikes) diner in my area.

How nuts is this? Number three.

I think I'm back to four now, but wow.

I can't keep up with it all, but I'm trying. 

It's ask.fm/ugottafriend, if you're bored.

My body is being even more stupid than usual.

I'm unfortunately back in stage two hypertension.

I also have tachycardia, but that's the norm for me.

I'm not sure what to do yet. Just monitoring for now.

The chart is an FYI, in case you want to assess yourself.

I finally saw my gaming friends again.

We played Sentinels of the Multiverse.

I was La Comodora, a time-traveling pirate.

This was the best Christmas gift I could have received:

the extremely violent neighbors were finally evicted.

Thirteen months of pure hell with those psychopaths.

I have new neighbors now, who aren't a problem so far.

The chemical smells (drugs without a doubt) are gone.

I found school pictures of my brother and me. Makes me laugh.

We really do have the same parents. I know that's hard to believe.

My little nieces Zoey and Sadie look completely different also.

Genetics is funny sometimes. (Most of the time, however, it's not.)

The rest of my month will be spent working on a new postcard for Twitter Art Exhibit, which is being hosted this year in the United States - South Carolina, to be exact. Sadly, that's still too far for me to attend. I'm deciding now what I'm going to draw/paint. I'll have it figured out and executed by February and sent priority mail.

I'm working on my therapy with the Circle as well. And I'll read at least one book, if not two.

Otherwise, I'm down a lot with periodic paralysis, insomnia, and gastroparesis. I'm exhausted.

Talk to you soon.

Some good in the world

My brother and sister in law are expecting again.

I love that our survivor, Sadie, is going to be a big sister.

She's pretty excited and has offered to babysit, haha!

I look forward to meeting you, little one.

A Cornucopia of Updateness

Tea Time

I'm not even sure where to begin, so this may be a bit all over the place.

Books

I did tell you a while back that I was going to recommend a few books from my 2019 Reading Challenge. Those books are:

1. Mountains Beyond Mountains by Tracy Kidder - the forming of charitable organization Partners In Health
2. We Crossed A Bridge And It Trembled by Wendy Pearlman - the Syrian conflict in refugees' own words
3. Psychology In Plain English by Dean Richards, MD - an entertaining introduction to Psychology
4. Unfu*k Yourself by Gary John Bishop - tough love from a cursing Scotsman
5. Nimona by Noelle Stevenson - a comic graphic novel that I loved

A very nice person on Twitter signed me up to a book club, which is where I found the first two books on that list. I'm glad I read them. Most of the books, I did not care for. A couple of them had too much rape and murder, and I abandoned the club altogether because I just didn't enjoy it. It turns out I don't like being told what to read; I guess I'm picky (I don't guess, actually, I know I'm picky). I thanked her for her thoughtfulness and moved on.

My Goodreads 2020 Reading Challenge is only 24 books. I intend to read several large ones that are the size of encyclopedias, which is why the number is lower than usual. What I can say, and I am somewhat proud of, is that I have read 100 books in two years. That's more books than I had read in the previous twenty years. It is a big change I wanted to make in my life, so I did.

Art

I have joined Twitter Art Exhibit 2020 and I am still trying to figure out what to paint. I'll keep you posted. I also want to pursue typography, and create a few more acrylic pours this year.

Cooking

I will be doing much less of it. My body is a wreck. I'm just trying to survive over here. You'll probably see an occasional dish on Instagram, but don't hold your breath.

Therapy

I haven't been talking about this, and it will probably be a little while before I do. But I do plan to bring awareness and try to help reduce stigma and anxiety about mental health care. Talk to you soon.

AskFM

Holy implosion, Batman, my experience there has changed dramatically. They started a points and rank system, and that resulted in many people befriending each other to climb up the ladder. In just a short time, I went from having 40-something followers to almost 200. I was awarded VIP status today, which issued over 32,000 points and launched me into the top ten.

It was a shocker. The ranking fluctuates constantly, so don't expect me to stay there, but it sure is different to be noticed. I'm overwhelmed. As for that "Ask Yourself" button, I have never used it and it honestly makes me uncomfortable. I hope they'll ditch that feature someday, like other popular Q&A sites have. I only answer legit questions, and I screen them pretty heavily for decency. I've blocked plenty of trolls, but for the most part, it has remained an acceptable distraction.

I figured I would give y'all a laugh.

I went to the park and got caught in a flash flood.

I was catching a Pokemon. 😂

That's all for now, I think. I need to get my thoughts together before sharing more.

Thanks for still hanging in there with me!

A 2019 Review and Cautious Welcome to 2020

Every year, I assess myself on NYE to see what I accomplished throughout the year. I plan to do that now, even though this particular year was quite different, and not really in a good way. My personal challenges, I realize, were reflected in the sporadic, unruly condition of my blog. I do hope to improve upon this in 2020 and get back to writing more consistent content worth reading. This will be one of my goals, of a few that I will set for myself in the coming year.

Last year's post is here. The goals were as follows:

1. Relearn basic conversational (Canadian) French

2. Relearn Chess and attempt to start a local group

3. Spend less idle time on my social media accounts

4. Pursue therapy, coping, and pain/stress management

5. Reopen art and craft sales strictly for charitable purposes

6. Catch up on all things Periodic Paralysis and update the blog

7. Work on my family tree, updating my blog and Ancestry account

My review:

1. I tried and didn't get very far for several reasons. I am not going to give up, but I want to go ahead and try Spanish. I will pursue this in 2020.

2. I relearned Chess. I would consider myself an average player, but I would like to get better. I tried to join a local group, but one library said their group wasn't for adults, and the other library never responded to my request. It was frustrating. I will play at home until I find somewhere else.

3. I did do this, although Twitter may disagree. Tweeting is too easy, perhaps. But I did spend less time on social media. I know this because my time was spent reading and playing Pokemon GO instead. I got out a lot more, mostly visiting city parks or libraries.

4. This was a big one. I started therapy in February. I learned a lot about myself just by running my mouth. I appreciate my counselor, who listens quietly and doesn't judge me. I intend to return in 2020 in hopes to unload more of my trauma and attempt to deal with it. She has done an excellent job of listening calmly while I talk things out on my own, but I want her to start talking more and offering advice, and I will ask her to do that at our next appointment. I also became a founding member of an online group that focuses on understanding and healing trauma. This is something I must do if I want to be a better, safer, more grounded person. I have learned so much already.

5. I opened an eBay Charity Store. They are only letting me upload a few items for now. Eventually, I'll be allowed to add other things, including crafts and original artwork. Stay tuned.

6. I didn't. I stayed as far away as I could. My mental health couldn't deal with it.

7. I worked on a little bit of genealogy, but I did not publish it. This was a pretty big fail, in my opinion. I will redeem myself in 2020 if I feel up to it.

I'm hard on myself sometimes, but I'm trying not to fret over much of this. The foreign language thing really gets to me if I think about it long enough. It's ridiculous that I know so little about other languages, and I resent living in a place that didn't make such education a priority early in life. There's absolutely no excuse in adulthood, however. I could have, and I didn't. That's on me. I want to change it. I'm less flustered about the other stuff I missed the mark on. I can do better, if I want to. The word of the year will be "discipline". That sounds a bit scary, but I know it's what I need.

I'm not sure what else to say about 2019. I feel like I summed it up already in a previous blog post that I published in September. There's nothing else to add, to be honest.

2020 will be better. I honestly can't believe it's here, although it feels anticlimactic. As a friend on Twitter said:

Thanks @graphickat.

I am setting a few goals for myself in 2020. Most readers are already aware of what they are.

1. Weight loss

2. Read more books

3. PTSD and trauma recovery

4. Continue pursuing foreign language

5. Improve and consistently maintain my blogs

6. Strive to be a better friend, and consider a companion

7. Last, but not least...

Less Brain. More Heart.

I'll try not to spend all of my time in the new year fussing on Twitter or playing Pokemon, although the latter is tempting. My nieces gave me a Nintendo Switch for Christmas, haha.

I wish my dear readers the best in 2020.
May you have joy, love, and a life worth living.

Christmas 2019 In Pictures

Family,

a few selfies,

a new doggie,

the best kitty,

road trips,

lots of sweets,

and silly girls.

I’m thankful to have survived another Christmas.

We’ll have at least one new baby to dote on next time.

Aunt Kelli will keep you posted. :)

Life Lately, Part Three

This disease sucks.

I'm having episodes, and opted to take the flu shot for the first time, which triggered HKPP even more. I can't really describe the level of pain I've experienced over the last two weeks, in addition to the usual frustrating muscle weakness, balance problems, migraines, and digestive perils. I'm surviving, though. Some days, I manage to be a little bit productive, but not in comparison to the average person. Just productive for me. If I can wash my hair, drive to the grocery store, prepare a simple meal, and clean the kitchen all in the same day, it's a productive day.

I'm forever trying to deal with stuff in my apartment, as I am still attempting to minimize my possessions. I have no assets of value, just "stuff", and I've learned over the years that I dislike being surrounded by "stuff". Here's my progress:

Kitchen Owl is helping me organize cookbooks. :-)

I'm keeping a stack, and giving the rest to my sister-in-law.

Last year, I intended to shred a box of paperwork, but couldn't find it.

I finally found it in my storage room closet, haha. Glad that's done!

I'm still not happy with the bathroom, but this picture is nice.

It doesn't look nearly as cozy in real life. It's kind of ugly.

I'll eventually figure out what to do to make it look better.

The bathroom closet.

That's still too much stuff, but it's being used.

It will eventually look a lot less busy as things run out.

The kitchen is hanging in there.

Sadly, I was forced to get rid of the dishwasher.

They said it was a lease violation. :(

The recycling center is 35 minutes away, but I go twice a month.

I feel better about using plastics, especially, since I started doing this.

I sorted through my old paintings and decided to give some of them away.

These two big ones, painted in 2010, were shipped to California last week.

AskFM is a hot mess, y'all, but it is booming with activity

and I have surprisingly reached 2500 answers already.

Ask me anything, but keep the questions clean and don't troll me.

We're having some spectacular sunsets!

This photo is only a drop in the bucket.

Last, but not least, I finally opened my charity store! It's on eBay and can be found under username ugottafriend4charity.

That's all for now. Talk to you soon.

I'm Coming Back

Hi everyone! I'm writing to let you know that I plan to play catch-up in December and January.

I've done a horrible job with my blog this year, for many reasons. One of those reasons is losing two of my laptop devices to old age. One of them completely died, abruptly with no warning. The other is barely hanging on, but frequently gives me the gray screen of death, refuses to load outside of safe mode, and daily powers off for no reason. The poor Macbook, which I have called Bessie, is without a doubt on its last leg. I'm probably going to reformat it and sell it for parts in 2020. It was an incredible investment, being a 2009 model, purchasing it at 50% off, and seeing it last so many years in spite of its clumsy owner (that would be me). I couldn't possibly complain about it.

I do have a small Acer Aspire One, the prequel to modern tablets. It's the flip phone of the tablet world, and it's adorable. I still use it to listen to music, but it's not fast or comfortable enough to run a website, so anything you've seen from me lately has been done from my phone. And anyone who knows me knows phones and I don't get along. I simply put the blog on the back burner because it was the most convenient thing to do.

There are other reasons, of course, including my health which has been a whirlwind - tornado is probably a more accurate word - of pain and problems. With the family issues and the housing issues and the doctor issues on top of that, and all of the stress and grieving that comes with all of it, I've been a mess. Worse than a mess. I've been a catastrophe.

But I'm still here. And I will continue to be, at least, I think I will. I received a letter from social security a few days ago letting me know they've canceled my disability review. It's a great relief, as I'm not supposed to be under any stress, and my doctor is too busy to handle tasks in a timely manner most of the time, much less to talk to them about how impossible I am by a deadline. So it's a burden off of my back to know that SSA believes I'm the least of their problems. They're correct, after all. I received a letter a couple of days later informing me of my 2020 income, of which I am grateful for in spite of how hard it is to live this way.

I also recertified my public housing status and signed a lease. I'll be here at the same apartment in 2020. As I stated previously, I do plan to continue to put myself on waiting lists for smoke-free housing, but I will remain here until a better opportunity arises.

I don't normally condone lawbreaking, of course, but thanks to whoever wrote this in the handicapped restroom at the park. Shame on you, but also, you're a real gem. Ha! Bless you. :-)

(I also never open my camera in a restroom. I made sure I was completely alone before I did.)

I'll be back soon. I have a new-to-me device (Merry Xmas to me?), which is allowing me to write much easier and faster as of today. I think it'll give me the motivation to get my crap together and write a blog worth reading again. I'm going to see what I can do.

Thanks for sticking around. xoxo