greetings thatoddhaystack shareholders. there is pizza available for everyone this meeting but please only take one slice so everyone can have one. I said I would write an entry in august about july but that…. didn’t happen. to be completely honest july was a bad mental health month and august was. worse. but at the beginning of september I started taking steps to mitigate the great summer crashout and I am not like. 100% back to normal right now. but I am doing better! and that is something. also I started writing this entry at the beginning of september so I am not talking about. september. just july and august!
july projects
I didn’t get a ton during july compared to june but I did work on a few things. I talked a lot about the no sleep for kaname date countdown last shareholder meeting so I won’t rehash all of that. but it was something I did. I also started crocheting again this month, with a simple baby blanket that will be a gift for a baby shower in a few months. I haven’t been super consistent with working on it so far but I still have plenty of time.
artfight
I participated in artfight this year as per usual. I didn’t participate as much as I have in some previous years on purpose. I thought I would be directing my energy towards other projects but. that didn’t really happen. still! I dedicated my weekly doodles this month to artfight (aside from one doodle I had prepared in advance). I was team fossils this year, and while I am sad we lost, I think in the end we are all winners… feeling very grateful for all the attacks I received during artfight this year esp when my mental health was kind of crummy.
july happenings
friend hangout
I made a new friend through horror book club and we hung out in july! we went to a local bakery and had an oshikatsu #moment, and they tipped me off to a local anime store that’s been nearby for like. Eons that I never knew about until now! we drove around a bit more, and then drove back to their house to chat for a bit (also because I was nosy and wanted to see all the prints and merchandise she had collected….). honestly we talked for hours and it felt great!!!! isolated freak is shocked and awed by human interaction being good for them!! I say that kind of tongue in cheek, but as someone who works from home most of the time and who has most of their friends online I do genuinely forget that like. i need to interact meaningfully with people in person or else I will go insane. he will never learn. I have plans to meet up with this friend in the future also so look forward to that!
beach trip
the biggest “event” I had in july (spilling over into august) was my dad’s annual beach trip to the outer banks, where he rents a beach house for the week for his immediate family. changes in my job (while contributing to my stress during the month) meant that this was the first year in a while that I was able to go on the trip for the whole week, instead of just two or three days. honestly the days leading up to the beach trip I was stressing about having so much time off??? which is wild to think about in hindsight. but I genuinely don’t think I have had a full week off since…. at least 2021? maybe earlier than that. 2019. I don’t know if I ever got a full 7 days in a row off when I was working retail. ANYWAYS I’m getting off topic. the idea is that I was genuinely worried that with all the open time I would become stir crazy if I didn’t have PLANS and THINGS to look forward to beyond just “ayyyy we are at da beach”
I did go to the beach, of course, but I also did a few other things! I went to an aquarium and got to see the otters get fed which was really cute. I was reminded of my cats begging for their wet food… we did an escape room one of the days! there is a local escape room on the island that we have returned to a few years in a row now because they have escape rooms that are themed specifically after outer banks scenarios… which I really like when an escape room draws from local lore as opposed to being more generic. we escaped with a few minutes to spare, so now we are now 2/3 on escaping from this particular place >:3
I visited a local rum distillery and had a few drinks with my dad which was fun! he is a spiced rum guy first and foremost, but surprisingly we both agreed that the distillery’s gold rum was our second favorite. I bought a bottle of the spiced rum (our favorite of their offerings) home but I didn’t realize until I got home that they don’t actually sell this variety in my state…. they have other rums from the distillery but not the spiced! so I will need to make it last… or not tbh. every day is all we have.
I went on a kinda long sidequest throughout the week where I mentioned offhand that I wanted to get a mini innertube for sandalnui so I could take pictures of him in the hot tub and such and I went to so many beach supply stores searching for one. before finally, five below of all places had inflatable cup holders which were perfect since they had a bottom to them, thus keeping sandalnui dry. I took many many pictures of him with his little floatie. best dollar I have spent in my life.
I spent an entire day at a waterpark with my sibling and that was great! I wanted to go on more of the water slides, but the singular one I went on gave me massive vertigo so I opted to stay in the lazy river/wave pool for most of the day. I took a few oshikatsu pictures and videos of sandalnui too. I did also get sunburned kinda badly (for my standards) despite being diligent with sunscreen… but it was a fun day in the end!!
one of my goals for the beach trip was to stay off my phone and work on more analog hobbies. I didn’t end up working on watercolors really, but I did start a crochet project. I did also get really into jigsaw puzzles, and ended up finishing three of them over the course of the week with my dad and siblings. I also finished one book and started another! overall I am elated that I got a week off from work to decompress, and even though I did have kind of a bad time in july and august, I think things would have been a lot worse had I not had a week in the middle to just. Be Free Of The Work Emails.
august projects
um <3 I’ll be real I straight up was in a depressive haze for most of august. and the worst part is I don’t even know what caused it! I thought I was doing okay with life and then boom. what if we didn’t have the energy to do anything actually. genuinely I do think that I was just mad depressed from like. the state of the world + miscellaneous Changes at my job that were stressing me out because I am a creature of habit. and I can’t handle change.
during the middle of august I started trying to pull myself out of this slump. and started going out for walks consistently because the weather was nice. which helped! call me the long walker because I am. walking.
the one “project” I had was cleaning up my hot pants cosplay that I had bought several months back. I trimmed the belt, and also trimmed the $8 amazon wig I was using for the cosplay. I wasn’t putting tooooo much effort into styling it because the amazon wig was really a stopgap until my arda wig came in which uhhhh. with the tariff situation I am not sure if that will happen this year. Whoops. Eight Dollar Wig It Is. at least hot pants wears a hat so the wig isn’t super visible.
august happenings
otakon
I like how I told myself I wasn’t going to do any cons this year and now this is con three of this year. whoops. I bought a sunday ticket for otakon and blacked out and spent wayyyy too much money in the artists alley. as one does. I did pack lunch though so at least I saved money on that… hahaha…. I wore hot pants to the con and got my photo taken by one of the staff :flushed: which has NEVERRR happened before so… it was nice. I was also recognized by a lot of people! which also never happens! because I usually cosplay niche characters… I hung out with a friend in the morning before artists alley opened and then I spent almost all of my otakon time in there. I didn’t even get to the dealers hall, which I’m not tooo upset about because I had already spent so much money in the AA so I really did not need to spend more LMAO.
I ran into a snake zero escape cosplayer and hung out with them and their friends for a bit after the con had “closed” and it was nice to just chat and take in the nerd vibes… I think I will not do only one day of otakon again though because one day was not nearly enough to like. do anything. I suppose if I had ditched shopping and just gone to panels and photoshoots on sunday it would have been more exciting but I did not realize that the artist alley at ota was SO HUGE. but that’s ok. lessons for the future! I did meet sen of johnnyshrine who was tabling at ota and that was fun! to meet someone in person who I have only known through a discord screen for the past few months. overall I did have a good time at ota I just know that I probably will not Only do a one day trip again, if I end up going back next year.
other things
I visited a japanese restaurant that opened recently as a little solo date for sandalphon and I!! It’s actually a restaurant that has a sister location in new york that I ate at back in june, so it was interesting to see the differences in layout and decor between the two restaurants… I was very brave and got a grilled beef skewer (along with numerous other skewers) and it was actually really good! wow… imagine… meat can taste good if it’s cooked properly… one small thing I did appreciate is that I only had one cocktail that night (telling the bartender I was driving so I didn’t want a second) and before I left the bartender did check in on me to make sure I was OK to drive.
my team’s entry for the interactive fiction competition was released! if the concept of a weird sci-fi romance VN interests you please check it out and rate it! everyone did great :-)
favorites
together
managed to catch an early screening of together hosted by bloody disgusting and I loveddddd this movie. big win for people who think sweet pool red road ending is the pinnacle of intimacy. tbh my nitpicks with it were that I wish it had gotten even weirder with the body horror. but that’s just me. I <3 toxic codependent failing relationships.
movie for people who think wanting to crawl inside your partners ribcage is romantic (the kinda shit I say about my fictional blonde freaks all the time)
spirit halloween
TIS THE SEASONNN for spirit halloweennnnn. and I didn’t have to drive over half the state this time to find one! I haven’t made any spirit purchases yet this season EXCEPT for one thing that is a small gift for a friend, but I feel like just walking in a spirit and looking at all the animatronics and decor gives me life. as a new yorker at heart I do get a kick out of their theming this year. let us hope that I can find the spirit halloween exclusive scrub mommy (shaped like a clown) before the season is over.
thrifting things
recently I’ve been going thrift shopping a lot more. nothing in particular inspired it, except maybe the desire to have single serving cookware to make meals for myself when I work from home. I have found two really cute single serving pieces of cookware; one is an orange mini dutch oven (not sure what else to call it) and the other is a single serving container suitable for making bread, perhaps. hand in photos is for scale. I have only make baked oatmeal in them so far, but I want to cook more single serving meals eventually…
the best thing I have found so far while thrifting though is an instax mini 7S. I had honestly been wanting an instant camera for a while after toying with a disposable camera on vacation and having fun with it. for $11 I now had one… although I’ve probably spent several times that now on film and accessories for it. I think it’s worth it though, since I have been having a lot of fun taking pictures with it… I’ve find myself craving analog/”dumb” versions of things my phone tackles (music players, phone, camera). and while I haven’t scooped up an mp3 player or a dumb phone yet, having an instant camera to play with is exciting for me.
future plans…
september has been a time of turning inwards for me. I’m in my cocoon era #goopmaxxing. I guess what I mean by that is that I’m still going outside and interacting with people but I’ve been less active on social media. now, I still find myself falling into hour long instagram reel scrolls, but I am trying to take steps to keep myself from burning out again. some of that is working on analog projects (crochet) instead of getting sucked into the Dopamine Holes that are endless scrolling of social media. some of that is walking a lot!! dear god I have been walking. it started out with “ok I am going to walk outside without looking at my phone much because my brain is a caged animal and it needs walkies” and now it’s like. a habit. I am also just now trying to get my sleep schedule back in order (for the umpteenth time yes) because I firmly believe that the root of a lot of my problems is being tired all the time!
I have also come to the realization that perhaps, I am trying to do too much. I have several things in a half finished state right now and I need to Cut Down on trying to do everything simultaneously because trying to do everything at once leads to me burning out! which sucks! not that I was ever super consistent with putting out monthly blog posts but one thing I will do to cut back on multitasking projects is to make these kinds of Big Update Posts only every two months instead of trying and failing to put one out every month.
I am still working on things but I think I will keep the actual things I am working on a surprise until the next entry… so that hopefully I can say “hey, I finished This Thing” instead of “I still am only half finished with This Thing.” you get it? you get it. bye bye for now. stay hydrated take your meds get some sunlight.