#blood work advice

[five-pillows]

TRIGGER WARNING: BLOOD AND NEEDLES

If you are planning on getting blood work done for the first time, this post is my experience of first-time blood work. I tried not to make it super descriptive, but there are a couple places where I couldn’t avoid it completely.

I have listed some tips AT THE END for anyone who’s worried about getting blood work done. I separated it from the experience story for convenience

There are mentions of blood and light-headedness in the tips

Today I got some blood work done

I know right, super fun (sarcasm)

If you’d like to know why, it was to see if I have any medical conditions that would make me anxious rather than just anxiety itself

In preparation for the needle the nurse (I think she was a nurse) wrapped a band around my arm and sanitized the inside of my elbow. She told me to make a loose fist with my hand and felt around my elbow to find the vein

While she was taking the blood I kept my eyes closed because I didn’t want to see that, I was already pretty queasy

It was going pretty well, there were little sharp pains that kept coming and going so idk if she did multiple needles or something (she said that when it went in my vein it would pinch a little) or if it was just the same needle but I was doing pretty good, I didn’t feel super bad other than my anxiety about it

And then she told me to open my hand slowly (because I had to make a fist at first) and all of a sudden I started to feel really light headed. It took about 30 seconds I think to finish drawing the blood (from start to end), and by the end I felt sick

Apparently I looked really pale, and I felt super light-headed, so that’s plausible

The nurse asked if I wanted some juice (she was really nice) and I declined because I didn’t think I’d be able to drink it without feeling even more sick. I did sip some of my water though (it’s a good idea to bring some water)

The light-headedness got worse for about 60 seconds (I thought I was going to puke, but didn’t), and the nurse brought over a chair on wheels that wasn’t quite a wheelchair to bring me to another room (for an ECG I also needed) so that I wouldn’t faint or fall over from the light-headedness by moving around. I was still able to stand up and move around a bit by myself, but didn’t want to risk fainting. In the ECG room there was a thing to lay down on, like in a doctor’s office, and in about five seconds of lying on it I felt a lot better

Tips for blood work newbies!!

If you’re worried about getting light-headed or fainting, you can ask to lay down while the blood is being drawn (lying down helps a lot for light-headedness). Lots of people get light-headed from drawing blood so you don’t have to be too worried about that being a bad thing unless there is a medical condition or concern specific to you that may affect or be affected by that

Try to help yourself relax a bit while waiting for the doctor or nurse. The more anxious and tense you are, the worse the experience is going to be. For me, breathing deeply and stimming helped calm me down a bit

Bring water or juice (I brought water). Taking a sip or two of something might help if you get light-headed

The person taking the blood will tie a band around your arm (tightly but shouldn’t be painful, if it is ask them to adjust it) and feel the inside of your elbow for your vein BEFORE starting. Be prepared for that

They tape some cotton over the spot they drew blood from after the procedure is over. You can take it off after about half an hour

If you need to take a minute to recuperate from anxiety or light-headedness or something afterwards I’m pretty sure they’ll let you take a breather

That’s all! This is just my experience, so I can’t garuntee that it’ll be accurate to everyone. I just thought it might be helpful for someone else!

[sunderwight]

Bingqiu roleswap where disciple Shen Yuan knows he's gay, and figures out that he has a big huge crush on his handsome Shizun, but also concludes nearly at once that he's not going to be drawing Luo Binghe's eye any time soon. Firstly, Luo Binghe is notoriously straight. Secondly, even if he weren't, he wouldn't go for his scrawny untalented nerd of a disciple! Shen Yuan's not bad looking, not before or after transmigrating, but he's neither a beautiful nor a hot manly man, and he assumes if Luo Binghe were into dudes he'd be into the same kinds of twunks that Shen Yuan likes. Guys on his own level, etc etc.

Plus Luo Binghe hated the original disciple Shen, and only started to warm up to the transmigrated version after Shen Yuan got injured in front of him trying to stop the other disciples on the peak from killing a small animal. For some reason, Luo Binghe brought Shen Yuan medicine. He got even nicer after Shen Yuan distracted the skinner demon by trying to convince it to take his skin instead of Luo Binghe's, and then again when Shen Yuan successfully fought off a demon invader -- though initially when Luo Binghe volunteered him for that job, he thought it was an assassination attempt. His heart was in his throat when Luo Binghe nearly took a poisoned blow for him, but luckily he reacted more quickly and got hit by the thorns instead. His heavenly demon blood took care of the poison, and he managed to convince everyone that he narrowly avoided getting cut at all.

Shen Yuan's careful not to read anything into it when Luo Binghe finds out about his, erm, uncomfortable dormitory situation and moves him into the side room, or when he completely messes up trying to make dinner and Luo Binghe takes over cooking and bans him from the kitchen (he swears he's not actually that bad at cooking, he just never had to use a kitchen without a microwave or an electric hot plate before...)

After all, it's not like Luo Binghe is cooking for him, he's just making food he likes and letting Shen Yuan eat it too! Because he's nice! He's way nicer than the book gave him credit for being, see, clearly Shen Yuan was correct in signing up for his defense squad, "top ten worst villains of all time" his ass that poll was nonsense...

Unfortunately, though, the plot's still gotta plot. Shen Yuan is heartbroken when the Immortal Alliance Conference rolls around and his shizun stabs him and throws him down into the Endless Abyss. Heartbroken, but not surprised. After all, it was always going to go this way, wasn't it?

But at least, now that it's done, he has some agency in how he reacts to it. He's changed the story enough that he doesn't need to go get revenge. Maybe Luo Binghe's still the villain of his story, maybe that was inevitable, but some heroes let the villains get away. Don't they? It's all part of that noble, breaking the cycle of abuse type stuff. He can be that kind of hero. He can let it go. As long as he avoids Luo Binghe altogether, it should be fine, right? It's not like he's obligated to turn people into human sticks. He asked the system, he's definitely not!

Technically he's not even required to conquer the demon realms. He just has to get out of the Abyss and the be sufficiently cool and/or tragic. Conquest is just one means of doing that, and not even Shen Yuan's preferred, since he doesn't exactly want to rule over anybody. Going around the demon realms beating up some jackasses and rescuing some damsels in distress and becoming sworn brothers with Shang Qinghua, one of the current demon kings, is suitable. He definitely doesn't want to marry any of the damsels he encounters (thank fuck the system lets him off the hook for that!)

But eventually he has to go back to the human world. Not only is it mandated by the system, but he also misses living there. The demonic realms are in many ways better than expected, plus a lot of the monsters are really cool, but he misses the weather and plants and the people he's more accustomed to being around.

He misses Qing Jing Peak, if he's being honest with himself. Shizun's cooking and the bamboo forest and the crisp mountain breezes, the comforts of home.

Not that he can actually go back there in specific. Of course not. If he did that, Luo Binghe would try to kill him, or else the system would try and make him kill Luo Binghe. Bad ideas all around. No, he can't go back to Qing Jing Peak, but he can go find someplace nicer than the demon realms at least. He just has to keep a low profile, which shouldn't be hard since the original goods did that even while actively scheming to kill his former master!

Except.

Everywhere he goes, suddenly Luo Binghe is also there?!

Good thing Shen Yuan thought to take a page out of the book of Luo Binghe's actual love interest, Liu Mingyan, and start wearing a veil. He just didn't want any randos who might have seen him at the Immortal Alliance Conference or on any of the other missions his shizun sent him on to recognize him. But one minute he's investigating a strange case in Jinlan City, and the next the streets are full of Huan Hua cultivators (Shen Yuan has no intention of joining them, that's the path the original took to getting revenge! He doesn't want revenge!), and then Luo Binghe and Sect Leader MBJ and Peak Lord SHL show up, and SY is ducking down alleys and hiding behind columns, just trying to stay out of the way until the lockdown on Jinlan lifts and he can leave.

Except...

Luo Binghe really isn't acting like himself?

He looks like he hasn't been eating or sleeping well. There are dark circles around his eyes, and something almost melancholy in his countenance. And he's dressed entirely in white, none of the usual Qing Jing greens and blues anywhere to be seen. Of even greater concern, he's being reckless. Shen Yuan can't stop himself from rushing out when he sees his former shizun get infected by a sower demon.

Luckily, it's been some years since the last time they saw one another. Shen Yuan's gained a few inches in height, so he's almost at eye-level with his old master now, and though he's still more slender than bulky he's picked up some totally new styles from training the demon realms. He doesn't move the same way he used to. With that, plus the veil, it's enough for him to quickly swallow back his words as he grabs Luo Binghe and quickly administers a cure for the sower infection.

Well, he has one of course. He wouldn't need it himself, heavenly demon blood and all, but his time running around playing hero in the demon realms meant he rescued a lot of humans from such fates. Which is hard to do if you don't have a cure to their afflictions, but between him and Shang Qinghua, sourcing such things was almost easy.

Luo Binghe looks at him like he's just seen a ghost. The other Cang Qiong sect members are alarmed by SY suddenly accosting one of their own and of course find him suspicious, so he runs away right after, and then he has to lose Sha Hualing's pursuit in the city.

But what else could he do? He manages to evade the system's attempts to railroad him into meeting Gongyi Xiao, avoids the rest of the Cang Qiong crowd, and drops some of the cure through the current Qian Cao peak lord's window to get the incident sorted out. Then he flees and puts a good amount of distance between himself, Jinlan City, and every righteous sect he can think of.

The only problem is that after this point, Luo Binghe is everywhere.

Any time Shen Yuan stays in one place for longer than a few days, Qing Jing disciples start turning up. Any time he takes a job hunting some cool-sounding monster or pursuing some interesting tome of knowledge, the better to satisfy the system, it seems like Luo Binghe has selected and gone after the exact same target! Which is especially annoying because back when SY was a disciple, Luo Binghe was always assigning him to do this stuff. Since when does his chronic homebody master have an interesting in six-tailed scorpion lemurs or ancient spiritual kilns?

What's weirder, though, are the rumors.

It seems like any time SY stops at some well-populated place and asks for the latest gossip, he has to hear about how the Qing Jing peak lord lost his beloved disciple during the Immortal Alliance Conference, and mourned like a widow, and now wanders the earth in search of solace for his grief. Seeking something, possibly even the ghost of his dear disciple.

What nonsense! Luo Binghe threw SY into the Abyss himself. He had to do it, it was the plot! And also his obligation as a righteous cultivator, confronted with a "dangerous" half-demon. Does it sting? Yes it stings! That's why SY wouldn't just forget it! Despite logically knowing it's pointless, is there some part of him that wishes his master would have chosen differently? That thinks he should have known that no matter what kind of power Shen Yuan had, he would never use it to hurt people recklessly, or harm innocents, or especially not harm... well. It's pointless, his blood condemned him, and if there is some part of Luo Binghe which regrets what happened, it's doubtless just that he unwittingly harbored a monster for so long.

Which is fine and Shen Yuan would leave it at that, if the guy would just let him!

But no. Instead he has to deal with Luo Binghe turning up and asking him questions, trying to get him to talk (SY has no hope of disguising his voice, if he says anything he's not even sure it won't crack as he comes perilously close to tears instead, so he just stays silent), and then asking for his name, asking if he's mute, asking about his background, his sect, his kin. Is his a righteous cultivator? Where did he get that sword? (NOT Xin Mo, thanks, he used that thing once and then tossed it back into the Abyss before the portal finished closing behind him -- he knows a poisoned chalice when he sees one, although knowing the plot twist about that sword from the novel sure helped.) Where did he learn those forms? Is he... does he have a safe place to go home to? Someone to tend his injuries? Make sure he eats his meals?

SY, of course, stays silent. But it's difficult. Not only because Luo Binghe asks, but because he still looks... bad. Sunken, sorrowful, desperate almost. Shen Yuan can't figure out if he knows or not. Maybe he's unsure, maybe he's looking for SY to give him a sign, so that he can figure him out and then flip a switch and try to finish the job he started.

That can't happen. If they fight, SY will win, and he doesn't want to hurt Luo Binghe.

But even if Luo Binghe's not a heavenly demon, he is a highly accomplished cultivator, and it seems he's got his own breaking points to reach. Eventually he corners SY and gets a hand on his veil, and for a moment SY is sure he's going to rip it off, see his face, and confront him all "I knew it was you, you twisted evil demon, you won't escape justice a second time" and he feels a deep, icy terror close around his lungs--

Luo Binghe lets go of the veil before he can lift it.

But then something even worse happens. Because Shen Yuan's handsome, peerless, noble master breaks down. He falls to his knees, begging forgiveness, sobbing, clutching at his head like he's being driven to madness.

It all spills out of him, then. How he pushed his own dearest disciple into the Abyss, which obviously SY already knew, but also how he was apparently qi-deviating the whole time, and his senses could not differentiate between one kind of demonic "threat" and another. How he realized what he'd done only after he regained his senses hours later, and rushed back to the place where the tear to the Abyss had opened, but could not find a way in after the one he lost. How he had betrayed and thrown away the only person who cared about him, and couldn't even explain that he hadn't intended to. How he would accept anything, any punishment, hatred, penance, or revenge, if only he could see his disciple's face once more.

SY is stunned.

Apparently, Luo Binghe hadn't rejected him for his demon blood?

Not only that, but beforehand, he seemed to have valued Shen Yuan a lot more than Shen Yuan would have credited.

Is it a trick? Is he lying? SY would have guessed so, would have assumed that Luo Binghe's plan was to lull him into complacency only to turn on him once he finally had confirmation. But somehow, he just... doesn't think this is an insincere display. His old master is too cool for this stuff! He has too much dignity to just throw it away on a scheme! There are other ways to get what he wants.

Even if it is a lie, Shen Yuan is tired of running. He's the hero. He won't actually lose, and if it comes to it, it's still in his hands to decide if he wants to spare Luo Binghe or not (he does, of course he does, even if this whole spiel is an act). Plus he's got a backup plant body in one of Shang Qinghua's greenhouses if all goes to shit.

He takes the veil off himself.

Luo Binghe, teary-eyed, stares at him as if his face is the most beautiful he's ever seen.

Shen Yuan nearly puts the veil back on. His cheeks heat up. Dear Shizun, aren't you an immortal master? A noble peak lord? Isn't it your calling to vanquish demons? Get up off the dirty ground right this minute! Where did your dignity go? Shen Yuan did not spend all those nights doing the laundry to watch his teacher dirty his knees for no good reason!

There's a quaver in Luo Binghe's voice as he points out that Shen Yuan was terrible at doing laundry. Luo Binghe had to redo it the day after, all the time.

Shen Yuan chides at him that he should have made one of the other disciples do it then.

Luo Binghe just laughs, and stays on the ground, until finally Shen Yuan has to physically pull him up. Muttering about how he's being ridiculous, what's he crying for, why's he been moping so much, doesn't he know that handsome face should never look so bereft? Then he realizes what he's saying and shuts his mouth, but Luo Binghe just looks happy for the first time in years. Since the Abyss. How is it possible that SY, who actually had to slog through that awful place, can still smile more than Luo Binghe, who didn't?

They're standing so close. Holding on to one another. Almost as if... as if the scene's tone is... well...

Oh what the hell!

Shen Yuan closes the last little bit of distance between them, and kisses Luo Binghe.

[ex0toxin]

part timers

jsys week'24, day 1

[justfranzz]

Hero

[tj-crochets]

Another weird medical question for y'all! This one is benadryl (diphenhydramine) related. Well, these ones, plural A. Have you ever gotten so upset and/or emotional you spiked a fever? B. Have you ever taken benadryl for a fever, emotion-caused or not and C. Did the benadryl completely fix your fever? Before anyone points it out, yes I know none of that should I work that way. I did not take the benadryl for the fever, I took the benadryl for the oncoming allergic reaction that was starting, and then once it kicked in I no longer had a fever. I am aware all of that is weird, which is why I am asking these questions lol

[painsandconfusion]

LOVE you writing. your descriptions are always so visceral - how do you do that? do you have a slideshow tutorial? /hj

Buckle up because I take everything seriously and am procrastinating bar prep again. 

(tw for stabbing / blood / knife / gore because that's how I do)

Writing Vivid Descriptions 101

.

Let’s build up a description. We'll work on just one sentence and walk through what to pay attention to and how to make it come alive. Let’s start with something simple-

A stabbed B.

Neat. Fun. We always like a good stabbing - but just saying it doesn’t do much. We need a visual here. So.

A stabbed B in the stomach, and they started to bleed.

 Nice! We have a location now, as well as some color. A little bit of motion in the ‘bleeding’ aspect since gravity is a thing. I’m gonna push that a little further now and follow that movement...

A stabbed B in the stomach, and they started to bleed through their shirt and down their jeans.

Better. It’s more dynamic now.

But do you know what I like? Personification. Whenever humanly possible, I like to let the indirect and direct objects in the sentence become subject nouns. So instead of ‘they started to bleed’ - let's let the blood be its own thing. Remove ‘B’ from the equation entirely in that part of the sentence.

A stabbed B in the stomach, and blood bled through their shirt and down their jeans. 

Better - more dynamic yet. But let’s clean that up a bit so it’s not redundant. 

While I’m at it - let’s also add a smidgen of texture by swapping out for some more evocative verbs, nouns, and adding a couple adjectives in that half of the sentence.

A stabbed B in the stomach, and thick, oily crimson seeped through their shirt, bleeding down their jeans.

That’s already worlds better. And I didn't really do anything except toss in a couple adjectives.

But you know how we made ‘blood’ the subject noun before? Make it ‘do’ the bleeding instead of B? What if we’re keeping the attention focused on the threat? Not A - right now, the more frightening thing is the knife.

And we haven’t even mentioned the knife yet.

So let’s toss that in as a noun and let it carry some of the weight of the action. Let’s see the knife doing things and making the blood come…

A’s knife stabbed B in the stomach, dragging thick, oily crimson seeping through their shirt and bleeding down their jeans.

Dear goodness, do you see how much better that is compared to the starting sentence? 

Lovely.

Something fun about adding dynamics and layers of personification and visuals is that the sentence length also adds to pacing. It’s much easier to process something as visceral as a stabbing as you should when the sentence is just three words long. So, drag it out. Get in all those gorey little details.

Let’s add a couple more of those details to the first part - we've been just working on the second half of the sentence, let's catch the first up to speed. 

I’m gonna do the same thing as above with the personification angle, but tone it down a little - just bringing attention to B’s flesh instead of treating them as a whole unit. The more specific the description, the easier it is for your reader to hone in on that one body part - and hopefully - convince them just a liiiiiiiittle bit that they’re feeling that pain, too.

A’s knife ripped slowly through the soft flesh of B’s abdomen, dragging thick, oily crimson seeping through their shirt and bleeding down their jeans.

Alright. At this point, we’re doing pretty darn good.

I’d call it quits here for most things.

But.

If you wanna take it a step further and scrub in a little dissociation, you can also hide the subject noun (the knife or A in this case) and focus entirely on what this feels like. 

The best way I’ve found to do this is to show involuntary movement, sounds, and slightly ‘wrong’ descriptions. Like the blood being warm and wet instead of red. Their body moving backwards without them meaning to. The sound catching in their throat and what that feels like.

All the while, let’s keep those prior lessons going. Personify the nouns that are affecting your character and keep up the description work.

Let’s try it.

A whimper choked to a stop in B’s throat as the soft flesh of their abdomen ripped slowly open, dragging a thick, oily crimson seeping through their shirt and warming down their jeans.

See how I just recycled most of those words? At this point, we’re no longer seeing something happen to B, we’re living it with them.

I like the ‘whimper’ bit because sounds can give so much input on what your oc’s state of mind is - especially involuntary sounds. But they can also give a ton of context in very little space, letting you focus less on dialogue and more on the visceral moments that are gonna get you those sweet, sweet physical reactions to the text.

So let’s make the sound that they were making into a dialogue summary instead. 

The babbling, stuttering pleas choked to a stop in B’s throat as the soft flesh of their abdomen ripped slowly open, dragging thick, oily crimson seeping through their shirt and warming down their jeans.

Okay very fun very fun but. Like. The knife is still in there right? So be sure to make your next sentence about how they can feel it inside them - how they clutch onto A’s wrist to try to keep it still even as their own trembling legs beg them to buckle and drop.

You get the picture. Keep it rolling. Give nouns their own voices and actions. Let us feel the sensations. Let us see B's state of mind by the state of the world and their body.

Just build it up. 

Pay attention to sentence length. Depending on the cadence of your paragraph you’ll want longer and shorter sentences. Don’t get monotonous with it - read it aloud! See how it sounds. I’d probably chop this one in half at this point.

Something here isn’t quite working with my natural cadence, this sentence is getting to be a lot, and I really did like having the blood have its own voice, sooo……

The babbling, stuttering pleas choked to a stop in B’s throat as the soft flesh of their abdomen ripped slowly open. Thick, oily crimson dragged around the cool blade, soaking through their shirt and warming down their jeans.

There.

Much better. 

Much easier to digest and more dynamic as well.

I'd definitely add something like 'the world blurred around them' or 'the ground slipped sideways as they stumbled back, muscles trembling and convulsing around the cool blade' etc etc etc in the next sentence or two. Show how this description directly affects them.

I’ll stop there so I don't just end up writing a full scene, but really you can workshop this for…forever? Find what descriptions suit you, get a list of visceral adjectives and sensation-driven verbs, then use the shit out of them. I believe in you all. Have fun!

[luck-of-the-drawings]

when i was in highschool one o my biggest coping mechanisms was drawing all the kids i hated getting killed and eaten and killed. and well. time is a slowly ascending spiral. you will find patterns.(i work as a blackjack dealer. gamblers are FASCINATING

[lemongogo]

j need to get back into life drawing post haste

[dutybcrne]

HSR verse Kaeya ideas:

Path of Nihility, Element Ice

Fell in stride with that path due to his depression after his conflict with Diluc and belief his fate due to his family's ties to the Abyss Order may be to bring his new homeworld's doom ( in part because of his Father's final words to him ), maintained in growing to find amusement in the impossible and working towards it regardless of the fact

Has every intention to try and defy his so-called fate even still, even knowing all that effort may be for naught in the end. But at least he would like to say he tried

Tends to help people on a whim, without desiring credit for his actions or if it may help them in the long run

His abilities sap the vitality of his enemies, but consume his own when he uses his strongest ability

Due to his family's contract with the Abyss Order, his lifespan is longer than most humanoids, spanning centuries. Though not quite that of a Xianzhou native, like them, his people do still face a terrible curse to become monsters after a time, like many of the Abyss Order.

He is glad his loved ones will never live to see him succumb to it. One way or another.

Though he also secretly harbors the strongest desire to force the Abyss's immortality on them to ensure they can stay with him, and face the same fate. He has to wonder if the slumbering monster in him is to blame for that, or his own attachments

[scrimblyscrorblo]

Any tips for coloring traditionally? I have no clue what im doing

Valid, I don’t even feel like I know what I’m doing most of the time lol

- Usually I like to test the colours first, like a lil circles to see how they look together before. It’s typically best to start with your lighter colours , the darker ones will cover up mistakes and you can layer the shading

- Be loose with it, at first I was a real perfectionist about colouring w markers and it made me not want to do it. But once you kinda accept there’s going to be a mistake or two, you can kinda breeze through it a bit more, not to say don’t take your time tho - the colouring process is fun and tedious when it wants to be

- And don’t be afraid to use colour palettes from shows or characters you really like, already! That’s actually good to get a feel for how different colours work together and why.

Sorry these are so long TT

- The only other thing I might suggest is that when I sketch in pencil first I sometimes hatch over certain parts to get a feel for the values.

Like which parts are gonna be darker and lighter so it feels like colours of the same value aren’t going to blend in too much.

I hope these help this is mostly stuff I’ve learned watching professional artists’ process, usually Drawfee, highly recommend!

They do different Drawclasses for stuff like anatomy, colouring, perspective etc for free on their drawfee vods channel

And of course keep trying, the more times you try something the more it’s gonna get easier! Good luck!!

[calamarispiderart]

conflict resolution...?

[curly-cottage-girl]

if exercise is supposed to help stress than why is my blood pressure still high!! I have fantastic cardio health now but my blood pressure is still in the high range. I cannot win

[lupismaris]

My parents cancelled the official family gathering and I put my foot down and said I wasn't coming over on Christmas unless my brother called me himself and asked me to (because I cannot stomach being in the same space as him and my father rn) and frankly I'm glad this is a bare minimum makeshift holiday sure It be nice to have decorations up but we need to clean and get rid of shit more than we need decorations and I need a fuckin break from ppl who make me want to commit acts of violence. Gonna spend the holiday break in the woods.

[tj-crochets]

I’ll share pictures tomorrow, but I’m done with the cat I was making! Now what should I make? (I still don’t have polls lol) - Winter Soldier Bear (for one of my auction winners) - a bug of some kind - pride bee (partially for an auction winner, partially as an example for the fundraiser raffle I’m doing right now)  - a small monster, chicken, or bunny (I want a replacement plushie to keep in my purse so I can give it to strangers) - another cat - that kitten pattern I talked about making - something else?

[muninnhuginn]

12, 22, 30!!! ❤️

Thanks for asking!

12. what’s some good advice you want to share?

Thought I'd go for something I've been trying to hold myself to personally here. I have no idea if this is particularly applicable to others to the same extent it is to me, but eh. Basically, it's incredibly easy sometimes to get fixated on your own mistakes, to try and mull over how you could have done things differently, to try and examine from all angles how it went wrong. The "what if"s essentially. And, don't get me wrong, you can often learn lessons from previous mistakes. And it can be healthy to vent or wallow occasionally. But oftentimes, it's just an excuse to wind yourself up further over what you could have done. To trip over yourself in guilt rather than looking at the present, which then just means you end up making the same mistakes -> why did I do that, I should know better -> rinse, repeat. So, if you're stuck on what-if scenarios and it's a case where you're not actually getting anything constructive out of it. (Namely, stuff like if you need to give an apology, if it's better to just leave it be, what you intend to do in a similar scenario if it arises, etc) If all it's achieving is making yourself feel worse? Stop. Just literally stop ruminating over it. And I know it's a lot easier to say that than *do* it, but the key thing is to catch yourself when you're doing the spiralling thing and just acknowledge that that's what's going on. Then try and move on. But at the same time, if you're not able to shut it off immediately, don't beat yourself up over it. Just recognising when you're in that zone is progress in of itself.

22. say 3 things about someone you love

This is more "loved" than "love" but I say it counts. So, my cat. - When it got cold in the winter and I was working from home, she would always come and sit on my lap and let me stroke her whilst I was doing stuff. Sometimes, she would get onto my lap by peeking up through the shelf intended for a printer and other times she would go straight over the desk. We had a system where when she wanted to leave, I'd spin the chair over to the bed and she'd walk from the desk over my lap to the bed to curl up and sleep. - One year, we got her a cat 'Christmas stocking'. It had a load of different things in it, but most importantly, it had these cat treats she really enjoyed. Unfortunately, we didn't realise she would be able to sus out what it was, so one day we got home and found the whole thing ripped open and scattered across the sides. After that, we made sure to hide any presents for her very carefully. - The only one of her toy type things we got her that she would actually use was the scratching post. If something had catnip in she'd get all big-eyed over it (which, no surprise, led to scratches), but anything else she'd just plain ignore. She was picky like that. I miss her.

30. what’s one thing that never fails to make you happy/happier?

I don't actually have any cheat code for this one. No guarantees so much as mitigations, but let's see. Hm. I think getting away from home for a bit is a big one. Just to change the environment up really (this applies doubly in autumn/winter when the weather and short days mean I spend most of my time inside). I'll often go find a nearby place that does hot chocolate and go sit there for a bit, listening to music if it's on in there or bringing my headphones along. If I've thought ahead I'll bring something to read as well. If the weather is nice there are some local areas to explore as well and some places that are fairly quiet. In the summer, you can head to the nearby graveyard and there's this abandoned chapel type building (unfortunately you can't get into it but you can go around it :<) and loads of crows and squirrels. I also as a general kinda happy thing rather than a cheering up kinda deal tend to like watching stuff with friends.

[loverofallthingssmart]

ohhh i can feel the entire summer catching up to me