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— Frank Bidart, from “Half-light: Collected Poems 1965-2016; ‘The Third Hour of the Night’", published c. 2017.

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Can’t wait to get this for my girls and me to color!!

The mermaid coloring book is coming together!

Little by little the last few steps are wrapping up. My goal is to have the book published by the end of July <3

I am the artist! Do not post without permission & credit! Thank you! Come visit me over on: instagram, tiktok or check out my coloring book available now \ („• ֊ •„) /

https://linktr.ee/ellen.artistic

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Visiting my maternal extended family and hearing all my female relatives speak is like witnessing a mass casualty event of body image issues. I hear my internal dialogue given voice by my aunts and cousins and it’s wild.

I love them so much but glad to be raising my girls far enough away that they can’t catch that voice.

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I processed 9/11 as a high schooler with online friends from ff.net.

you wouldn’t last an hour in the asylum where they raised me

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@finweanladiesweek day one

Miriel & Indis

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sketh

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It is also job creation for us aspiring bog witches, think of the economy.

Did you all know that restoring bogs could help slow climate change? They trap a lot of carbon in the peat, and they are placed where only certain plants grow. They also create lots of cover for bugs, birds, and other creatures. Bring back the bog!

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Have you reconsidered embracing ceremorphosis?

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hair by nikki nelms & photography by adrienne raquel

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sleeping arrangements (not sure tara would ever actually deign to sleep in the same 20ft radius as shovel but who can resist those big shiny insectoid black eyes 🥺)

plus:

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just learned that magnolias are so old that they’re pollinated by beetles because they existed before bees

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Jedi Gaz!

Like my stuff? A reblog would be appreciated :)

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They also come work at my place of employment sometimes. Me and coworker feel uniquely qualified to manage some individuals because we both have strong willed little girls.

There's a phase that small kids go through, when they've just learned how to talk enough to have something sembling an intelligent, intellectual argument. They like to practice this by wanting to disagree about anything - mainly general statements that were not 100% perfectly waterproof. If you tell a 4-year-old that bananas are green when they're raw, and they turn yellow when they're ripe, there's a good chance that they'll give you that "well that can't be right" frown, and start to argue. Surely not all bananas that are yellow are always ripe.

Unfortunately humouring them about these arguments is very important for their development and a great opportunity to teach them more about how the world works, so you'll sometimes end up arguing about things like these, and every single time when you explain that's not how something works, they'll come up with another argument starting with "but what if-", until you are forced to admit that yes, if someone did for some reason take one single green banana, spray-paint it yellow and then expertly textured it to look just like a ripe banana, and then break into a grocery store in the middle of the night to slip that one painted banana into the display of ripe, edible bananas, then that one specific yellow banana would not be ripe and ready to eat.

As far as the child is concerned, this means that your entire initial statement was false, and you were wrong and they were right. Their need to be correct about something has been satisfied. Fortunately, most children grow out of this phase eventually.

The ones that manage to survive into adulthood without growing out of it end up on Twitter.

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My four year old wanted to painstakingly, letter by letter and with my assistance, read her Elmo alphabet book and I was so happy and proud I committed to stick it through. About 2/3 of the way through and thirty minutes later, she looks at me anguished - ‘I don’t wanna do this anymore, it’s making my head hurt!’

And I had to explain to her the concept of mental exhaustion from learning and trying hard to do new things. We rounded out bedtime with me reading her a few stories and her expressing excitement about trying to read more by herself soon.

Parenthood is so much mundane, often tedious, and nearly always thankless labor but oh my god watching a little person learn and experience life can be incredibly humbling and magical sometimes.