What Could Possibly Go Wrong?

I had a terrible headache all day. Probably, I didn't drink enough water yesterday. Or, it could be hormones? Staying up too late? Anyway, it is finally going away.

Did I tell you about the basket? A while back, the AI and I talked about how to make a basket from rope, and neither of us were finding a lot of tutorials on how to do it that didn't start with "take some rope and a hot glue gun". That isn't my style. So, I had started a basket with a Navajo style, which is super cool and would have taken the rest of my life to complete. Looking again online, I found a tutorial where someone was using something that looked like a regular basket pattern. Then, I found another. So, I tried it out, and in fact, the sisal rope works great for making baskets. The one I made for laundry is about 10 inches wide and 15 tall (24cmx36), which will hold about as much as our washing machine does. I need to finish that. Now that I've figured it out, I need to make a couple more for various uses and clean up the bottoms, which aren't perfect yet by any means. I'll figure it out.

In other news, a friend of mine wrote this brief piece about what is going on in Minneapolis. She covered the riots in Portland in 2020 in a very impressive way. For me, there is a big difference between anger and defiance when it comes to reactions to politics. This piece is defiant in a way that I find encouraging. I would love to see less "you should be afraid" or "you should be angry" articles and more "we can work together to fight this". Of course, I'm worried for my friend, but we are rapidly approaching a situation where everyone is in danger. Might as well step up. (I'm not in a position to protest, even if I was in the US. However, I decided to get a paid subscription to this friend's newsletter, since I know that she's doing good work and will need the support.)

We got one notice for each of us from the post office. Could it be our residency cards? Fingers crossed!! We'll try to pick them up tomorrow.

The hat is done! It is much weirder than it seemed at the halfway point, but it is recognizable as a hat, so we'll go with it. Unfortunately, my abdominal pain is pretty bad. I'm going to up my stomach meds to three times a day to see if that helps.

Today is the last day of antibiotics!!!!!

So, I'm going to paint my first big painting (120x60cm/48x24in). I'm super excited. I drew out a sketch of what it will be like, and it looks really good. But then I realized that it needs more of a plan. The problem is that I don't want to just have some cool details. I want them to mean something. What style is the castle on the hill built in? Is that the same style as the bridge down below? Why are they in ruins? Does anyone live here now (besides the dragon on the castle), or is the whole area deserted by humans? If the area isn't deserted, then there are probably farms. What is the land by the river like? Is it a huge marsh or is it a river cutting through rolling hills? Is this climate temperate? Cold? Hot? Of course, that will influence the kinds of trees. So, yeah. At the moment, I don't have anything. My stomach is really bad from the antibiotics, so that isn't helping my creativity. Eventually, I'll come up with something, though. I just need time to think about it. Unfortunately, I want to paint it NOW!!!

I found a series of books called "Very Short Introductions" a while back online and am now listening to the one on the apocryphal gospels (like the texts written around the time of the texts of the Bible that weren't used in the Bible). There's a lot of really interesting stuff in there! I'm not especially interested from a religious point of view, but the historical point of view (as it relates to early Christian practice) is fascinating. I love the idea of getting a little bit of info, which would hopefully be enough for me to know if I wanted to hear more. Amusingly, one of the big complaints I see is often, "This book was too short. I wanted more detail." :P

Well, I got bitten by one of the dogs at the house of the biting dogs. Previously, they had only hassled and barked at me. So, now, we need to go talk to a lawyer to see what we can do about this (to get the people to fix their fence, so that their dogs don't get out). What a pain. Anyway, while I'll have a big bruise and am upset about being bitten, it isn't especially bad. I'm kind of rattled, though. So, I'm not going to do anything that requires a lot of brain function.

I ordered another powerbank and a couple of rechargeable lanterns, as the power was off again this afternoon (and came back on the second I left for my walk, apparently). My day is all kind of thrown off, but that's okay. I just need to get back to my to do list.

I'm sick. It is the season for it. I had my flu shot, and the covid test says that it isn't covid. Hopefully, I'll recover quickly.

OUR IMMIGRATION APPLICATIONS WERE APPROVED!!!!!!!!!