The Aviary

I keep thinking that I should post something and then realizing that I have nothing I want to say, because summer and depression and everything being boring. But that sucks! So instead, I will revive my daily Three Good Things posts.

So. Three Good Things About Today:

1) It is Friday, and the Friday before a three-day weekend, thanks to the newly minted Juneteenth Federal holiday this month. (The library isn't closed on Monday, as the library generally recognizes holidays on the dates on which they actually fall, rather than the 'observed' date, but since it falls on a Sunday this year and we're closed on Sundays, I get a flex day on Monday.)

2) After about a month-long break from actively playing my tiny solo rpg, I've now started again. And made some fun plot advancements today, which I'm quite happy about.

3) Yesterday, we had a lady come in to the library and complain about our Pride display, saying some nonsense about how she "didn't want her tax dollars paying for that crap" and then asking pointed questions about whether we had any Bibles in our collection. (Of course we do - we're a library.) Which sucked. But fuck her, because today two teens came in and were visibly overjoyed about the display - they came up to the desk and told us how happy it made them to see it, they checked out several books from it, and they were really excited about the pronoun pins our kid's librarian had made with our button maker. Those kids made my day and I'm so glad that we can make the library somewhere they can be happy and know that they're safe.

Good things about today:

- On a whim, I bought an ounce of milk fiber for spinning, because I am fascinated by weird man-made fiber and wanted to try it. (Milk fiber is, as far as I understand, made by processing some kind of milk protein byproduct into fiber.) It's pretty cool - it's very silky and the fibers feel a little weird when they move against each other and the undyed yarn has a very cool golden undertone that I really like. I'm tentatively planning to dye it when I'm done spinning, because I also love dye experiments. Possibly, it will be dip-dyed.

- I have been between stories of late (which has not been helping with the depression), so I have decided to try to kickstart a new one by playing world-building rpgs by myself. Right now, I am slowly playing a solo game of Microscope, using the GM's Apprentice to emulate other players. While this is probably a very different experience to playing with other real people, I'm having a lot of fun.

- Today it is very hot but I have been lucky enough to spend the day entirely in air conditioned environments.

I slept terribly last night and feel generally exhausted and awful today. Thus, I am bringing back my Three Good Things About Today, because thinking about how I feel awful all the time is boring and dumb. So!



Good Things about Today:

- I made pumpkin-peanut-butter soup (because fuck you, summer, I do what I want) for lunches this week and had it today with homemade bread and you guys, this is the best pumpkin soup ever, I will never make a different pumpkin soup recipe again. ( I include the recipe in case you also want pumpkin soup in June. )

- I have knitted almost the whole first skein of my sweater yarn and it's soft and very pretty. I'm very much enjoying how the different colors are coming out. (I will have pictures when I do finish the first skein.)

- I had forgotten that there was a special extra Critical Role episode on Friday but now I have been reminded and get to watch it tonight when I get home from work.

Good things about today:

- Despite having game last night, I actually slept quite well.

- Tacos for dinner - very good.

- I have finished the body of my current sweater project. Now I just need to knit the buttonband and the pockets and it will be done!

Good things about today:

- I have been reminded that February is InCoWriMo or International Correspondence Writing Month. So I've decided to try to write a postcard every day in February. I'm pretty excited about it. At this point, I'm assuming that most of my postcards will go to Postcrossing folks, but if you would like to receive a postcard from me in February, please feel free to message me your address. Everyone enjoys fun mail, right?

- I also ordered new stamps today, because I guess I am now a person who cares about stamps? (No, really, I have, like, a book that I paste cool stamps in and everything.) Anyway, the post office is finally bringing out new postcard stamps later this year to replace the ones we have now which are fine but boring. The new ones have coral reef animals and I'm excited about them. Alas that they aren't out now.

- Okay, this is a weird silly thing but - I do our weekly money transmittal report every week at the library. The forms have to be filled out in blue pen. We used to have good blue pens that were pleasing to write with, but they all eventually disappeared, leaving us with cheap terrible blue pens that are very unpleasant to write with and usually have lost their caps and are dried out and generally horrible. But! Today, in a drawer, I found one of the old good blue pens! And I put it in the pencup at the desk where I do the transmittal report. It was still there when we closed tonight, which means that it will be there when I get to work tomorrow and do the report. (It will probably then disappear between tomorrow and next Thursday, but at least I'll get to use it once.)



All right, see, this is why this is a good practice because, friends, today was Not a Great Day. Nothing terrible happened or anything but I'm having a mild depression flare up and basically everything has seemed mildly dreadful all day. But now I have written this post and there are three things that I can look back at and say, "Y'know, that was pretty cool." Even if it's just postcard stamps and getting to use a better pen.

Not everything is the worst, y'know?

Good things about today:

- Rediscovered my octopus cardigan this morning and got many compliments on it at work. This is the advantage of avoiding laundry as long as possible - I find things in my closet that I'd forgotten.

- Learned how to adjust D&D modules for solo play, so that I can play adventures that my normal group aren't into. I spent an hour this evening playing the first part of Hoard of the Dragon Queen and it was great.

- It is Friday, this is a three-day weekend and tomorrow I am going to PodCon!

Good things about today:

- There was frost on the ground as I drove to work today and it was beautiful.

- My book has taken a turn for the weird and extremely compelling, I'm so happy! (See previous post.)

- We have a big everyone-who-works-for-the-library-system meeting at my library tomorrow. Parking is going to be a nightmare and I have been lowkey anxious about for literally days. But! Tonight, my mom generously offered to be my ride tomorrow, so now I don't have to worry about parking at all. Hurrah!

Good things about today:

- When I did meal prep this weekend, I divided my big pan full of stirfry into individual meal-sized portions, which meant that I just had to grab one out of the fridge this morning. It was very convenient.

- Driving to work today, there was the kind of fog that turns golden because the sun is shining through it and a flock of sparrows leapt into the sky in front of me while I drove down a long straight tree-lined hill.

- Choir has started for the Winter/Spring session. I took last session off and thus hadn't done any real singing since last April - I hadn't realized quite how much I'd missed singing choral music in a large group until rehearsal started. I feel wrong when there isn't any serious singing in my life. ( though there are some caveats on this last bit )

Caveats aside, this session, our repetoire is half songs about stars (several of them settings of poems by Sarah Teasdale) and half John Rutter's Requiem, so it's basically a concert designed to appeal to me.

Good things about today:

- Katie came over from Seattle this morning and we went with Mom to the Bloedel Reserve, which is lovely and has a moss garden. Plus, there were buffleheads and some other cool-looking duck-like birds that I was sadly too far away to properly identify. One of Katie's goals this year to to learn more about local mushrooms, so we took pictures of every mushroom we saw.

- I had a bacon cheeseburger for lunch and the bacon was outstanding.

- Spent several hours this afternoon quietly playing a Pokemon game which was delightful and very relaxing.