Some Good Things

I've been using the Wysa app and finding it really useful and one of the options I have set up is at 4 o'clock everyday it asks me what I'm grateful for. It's a small thing but taking a moment to focus on what is positive can help teach you, over time, to focus less on the negatives that are so easy to dwell on.

Most days they're tiny, regular things but this week a couple of things have happened that have made me feel really lucky and grateful and I thought it'd be nice to share them here.

To start, here's a lesson about just being honest.

In college I wasn't so great and one time I skipped a psychology class that was going to be a mock exam. The tutor took me out during the next class to ask why I hadn't come to this test and I just told her the truth, I hadn't studied for it and didn't see the point in just sitting there for an hour not being able to write the essay anyway.

I think prior to this I would have had an instinctive reaction to make something up, just make up an excuse in an attempt to not get in trouble. For all the lessons we're taught about honesty when we're little I think this "just try and get away with it" mentality is actually more prevalent in what we learn from society around us and especially as a teenager you don't want an adult to tell you off, you want to get away with stuff.

But guess what? She appreciated the honesty. She obviously explained to me that I was being kinda stupid and I wasn't making the right choices but the fact that I was honest about it meant we could just have a conversation with no one getting angry and defensive. It was much more constructive and I think about it a lot.

Allowing yourself that moment of honest vulnerability can feel like something you shouldn't do, power moves and tricking people to get what you want is often celebrated but it's not healthy for you as an individual or good for us as a whole.

Back to this week, I had two instances this week where people wanted me to phone them. One for some invoice/payment info and one for an account being hacked. After the anxious gremlin in my head told me to abandon getting paid and to just let the account be lost forever I remembered my little honesty lesson from college and reminded myself to not be controlled by the anxiety gremlin and I emailed both of these people and just explained that I have really bad phone anxiety and I was hoping the issues could be resolved in other ways and both of them said it was fine.

I love to be unashamedly honest. It feels so good to just tell the truth and I think more often than not people respond well to it. It isn't just some other trick to get what you want, I fully expected these people to be like "nah, you need to phone" but at least we'd have all been on the same page. And as awful as people can be I think that's learned behaviour and at our core we naturally want to help each other.

The other, more massive, more brilliant thing that happened this week is about Tank's face. Last week we noticed a lump on his cheek, under his ear and we took him to the vet and she said it might be an ear infection so he had some antibiotics and to come back in a week for a check up. After a week the lump was still there. It had changed, I think there was an ear infection but also there's a lump. So we took him in for a check up and it didn't look good. We were told about biopsies and surgery and how it's dangerous and a bad location for nerves and rats have a high risk under anaesthetic and we came home feeling pretty shit and upset. We talked over all the options and decided to have the biopsy, at least we could try and find out what it was.

We took Tank into the vet at 8.30am the next day and left him there to have the procedure, we've never come home without one of the rats before and it was horrible. We were expecting him to have to be put to sleep to have the biopsy done, a needle into the lump to take a sample, and we'd be phoned about lunchtime when he was ready to come home. Lunchtime came and pretty much went and early afternoon we got a phone call.

He was fine! He was a really good boy and hadn't needed the general anaesthetic, he just sat there being a good boy AND the lump wasn't a tumour at all, it's just a cyst! The relief was incredible. There's no tumour, he's just a beautiful gross cyst face boy! We had to wait another three hours before we could go and pick him up (which was torturous) just because the nurse had to discharge him to us and they were out on calls and we went in and got him and it was amazing and the best feeling and I just feel so lucky. He doesn't even need a check up, we just will keep an eye on it. He didn't need the general anaesthetic and it's just a cyst!

Having to deal with Tank was really difficult and having these phone call requests coming in at the same time was really stressful but being able to stop and think "maybe I can just ask them about it" rather than panicking and feeling all "woe is me" turned it all around and made it go much smoother and I'm really grateful. I'm grateful to myself for trying, to the people for not making me phone them and mostly for Tank's beautiful, gross face being gross not deadly ^-^

Baba Yaga's Cat

Someone asked Will for a tattoo design of their cat with a chicken leg. I'm not sure how long it was before I realised they meant their cat and a chicken leg rather than a chicken legged cat like Baba Yaga's Hut but it stuck and I had to draw it.

I put it up on redbubble if you'd like Baba Yaga's Cat on a shirt or phone case or whatever ^-^

Skulls and Flowers ~ Painting Clothes

I love to paint my clothes ^-^
I feel really good wearing them and the process of painting them acts as a kind of relaxing, self care type of activity. I love it, it makes me feel good.

I don't buy a lot of clothes but I needed something for bike riding, I don't have many pairs of trousers and most of them are loose and would get covered in chain grease and my main bike trousers have started to get the old chub rub, bike seat, crotch holes so I went round the charity shops and got lucky with these pink jeggings for £3.50. To be honest over £3 felt a bit steep for something that had visible (and kinda smelly) dirt on but I knew I'd be able to wash them and they'd be fine. Seriously though, wash clothes before you donate them, be decent.

Before I started I did some quick doodles to warm up/clarify my ideas. Even though it's a simple design I get anxious so easily it's better to do a little prep work so I don't freak out when I come to actually painting the fabric.
I made a video showing how I do it. It's not complicated, I just like making videos too :)

Social Media Breaks

I've been avoiding social media. I find it really good for me every now and then to just take a step back and let my brain breathe a bit. Most of the time I love looking at everyone's stuff. The internet is amazing. I'm so nosy, I love to see people's lives and I love art so much, it's amazing to be able to follow so many amazing artists and most of the time it's great.

Sometimes I'll realise I'm not actually looking at what I'm scrolling past which then feels like a waste and sometimes seeing all these amazing things makes me feel bad about myself. Seeing people with things I don't have makes me feel poor and unsuccessful. Seeing cool drawings makes me feel uninspired and incapable of good ideas. When I realise that is happening I take a break. I don't set a time on it, I just stop opening the app until I feel ready to again. I've taken complete breaks and I've done, like this time, breaks from looking but I'll still try and post. (and then I wonder if that's hypocritical of me, why should people use the app to see me if I'm not using the app to see others?) I've consciously done it a few times now and it always helps. I spend the time looking at other things and I spend more time with myself mentally and I start to feel more creative again. I don't think social media is the cause of my problem but I've noticed it can sometimes make it worse so I just stop for a bit, get some air.

I've started looking at twitter again so I'm sure I'll be back in instagram soon too, and I'll try to be more intentional in how I use it so that maybe, eventually, I'll be able to use them in a way that doesn't contribute to me feeling bad about myself because I really do love seeing everyone's posts but obviously when it starts having a negative impact on me it's a good idea to stop until it will be positive again.

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.