I didn't know when things would be back up, and I still needed to get a Substack post out this week. The pirate story is now there.

If you have a deck of playing cards, don't just trust me on this! Grab your cards and follow the story!

https://diydiv.substack.com/p/the-pirate-story

I've got a few more folks seeing me here today than yesterday, so...interested in practicing divination with things you find in the back of a drawer or that one piece left from an old game you lost years ago?

That's what I've been writing about lately. Not offering readings or lessons. Just writing a substack on it.

https://diydiv.substack.com/

#introduction - Most people who know me on the Internet call me Fizzy. I write two substacks (links in profile). DIYvination is about divination with stuff around the house - big focus on charm casting. Wander the Forest is my short story fiction.

Bears are my favorite animal. Rainbow is my favorite color. I love puns. I'm learning Welsh. And, I know...I'm weird. Have been for 4 decades. It's fabulous!

Dumped out all of my sock yarn hexagons and counted them. I've knitted 111. I need around 300 to sew them all together into a blanket. Still haven't decided whether or not to do half hexagons to make the edges straight.
#CoSoKnitting

I got in a fight with a dresser today. Yes... furniture. Large wood container of folded clothes. And I'm still not sure who won.

Watching old DS9 episodes. My heart broke for Garak tonight. It's the episode in which his implant malfunctions. As an autistic person who will never see home again, I wanted to cry with him when he said living on the station is torture, and it's always too cold and the lights are always too bright.

I watched my cat play with a toy mouse tonight. For just a little while, in this small space, all is right. Those moments are little streams from a fountain of life.

I did this one in layers. The pink layer was actually first. It's an acrylic paint pen. The red layer is an ink brush pen, so it didn't really mark over the acrylic and ends up looking like the background.
#CoSoArt

We've been discussing a point I brought up a few weeks ago - that Musk is like a cheap knock-off Tony Stark somebody ordered from Temu. Now we giggle every time one of us calls him Temu Stark.

I honestly thought this was going to be a lost cause. It looked so crappy when I started that I almost tore the page out. It was a lesson in trusting the process.
#CoSoArt

Somebody brought home a glass bottle Coke for me because it's one of those little treats that says "I love you". The cat never heard me blow across the opening of a bottle until today.

Friends, my cat would like you all to know she was NOT amused.

I asked her, "How did you think I got such a clear sound on the flute with no training?" She just kept staring at me like I better start begging her not to fling me into the Void.

If people know pearls come from oysters, why are drawings often done of them in clams? Oysters do not look like clams.

That's part of why I'm focusing on art. My PTSD hypervigilance has been in overdrive. That's not good for my health, and it's not going to make me someone others can go to for help.

I am absolutely NOT suggesting people just "shouldn't be upset" about things. I will suggest that we figure out how to channel it into practical and strategic things.

Remember - the constant panic and shock is part of their strategy. It wears you down so you can't fight even when there's something that can be fought.

I decided to try the Safe Passage reading from "Agatha All Along". It makes more sense than I want it to. That's less about the layout and more about me having a history of feeling like divination is tools for calling myself out.

I pretty much always do this with ink. That may change now that I've experienced colored pencil changing the whole feel of it.
#CoSoArt

I'm celebrating every victory, no matter how small. With my arthritis being agitated by... everything...yes, getting dressed and making the bed has been victory today!

I'm just going to weird my way through this whole sketchbook.
#CoSoArt

Water, salt, etc...all in the shrimp tank! I'll let the water heat and the salt mix in, then put new eggs in tomorrow.

When I almost forget I live in a house full of Yankees, cold weather comes and somebody makes what they think is chili.

Bless their hearts. They are family. I love them. But I want the chili I grew up with!

I've been working on this all week. Just letting emotions flow with the paint first, then the ink. I think it's finished now. It has that feeling of "one more line would be one too many".
#CoSoArt

I put together the new end table for my shrimp tank today. I might not get water, salt, and eggs in there until tomorrow, but it's all ready to do this again.

Since it's not by the window anymore I might end up doing a background painting at some point to put behind the tank.

I'm going to have to be more selective in the coming weeks about people I spend time around. My hypervigilance is already in overdrive. I have to take care of myself so then I can take care of other people.