daily thought log

5/9/2025 ; 5:15PM

hey all! been working on this site for the last couple days consistently. it's been fun just exploring other people's websites, finding inspiration for pages i can add to my own site. i've been frequenting the melonland forum and it's been really fun! i think as a society we've forgotten about forums and the kind of interaction they provide. not just 2 word sentences under a completely unrelated post. it's cool to browse through topics and find posts about similar ideas, have actual conversations.

i also discovered phoenix code! i can't believe i was just coding everything in neocities, saving and refreshing every 5 minutes to see if what i did looks right. this is so much better! much more organized, live preview on the side, being able to edit colors right in the code with a color picker! i don't know how i managed to code everything without this in the past. i also like that i can work on things in the background and not make them "live" until they're ready. not like with the neocities editor where everything is live the minute it's made, you know how it is. it's really motivated me to expand this site and make more pages and things too, because it's just more organized to see everything i'm working on.

besides that, life at home is the usual. the weather here has been so nice these last couple days! the sun is shining, the grass is turning green, plants are finally starting to pop up. the buds on our willow tree are finally starting to open. it's been in the 70s, and it's just been so nice to stand outside in the sun. looks like summer may be right around the corner.

this weekend i'm going to a plant event! they're going to have people selling all kinds of house plants, flowers, and other planty things. i think there's gonna be like food and raffles and stuff too? looks like it'll be a nice time!

but yeah, taking it day by day, page by page! i'm looking forward to see how this site evolves in the future and everything i learn.

5/1/2025 ; 3:59PM

i've been so busy with this site lately! i spent the whooooole day yesterday cleaning up and organizing the code on all my pages. since i used a template for this site, there were a bunch of comments on the css and html files that were just crowding it. i deleted a bunch and trimmed everything down, justified everything, and now it's all nice and neat! i wanted to do this now, since i have plans to make this website a lot bigger, and i didn't want to deal with it then. also it'll be a lot easier to make new pages when all the code and things are standardized. anyway, i'm excited to work on this site now that the code isn't so intimidating and messy anymore!

i've felt like crap these last couple days because i got my period, so i've just been MISERABLE. thankfully it should be over soon so i'll be feeling like myself soon enough.

unrelated, but i recently bought this fish fertilizer for my plants. i watered them with it this morning diluted in some water, and they've perked up! i'm excited to see how they grow now that they've got some food to slurp up. the previous owners of this house left us all their houseplants, including a giant monstera and a christmas cactus! you know what... maybe i'll make a page for all the houseplants and the garden and stuff... that will be fun! i did also want to make a section for pets which would include my fish and my isopods, so not sure which i should work on first!

just wanted to make a quick entry here, laters!

4/28/2025 ; 5:31PM

what an eventful weekend! we went to town on saturday for independent bookstore day, and i got so many books! very excited to start digging into these, because two of them are ones i've been wanting to read for awhile. it was fun, they had cookies, pizza, a taco truck was outside, the place was PACKED with people! we went to visit a newer bookstore that just opened maybe a week ago, and that one was cute too! nice selection of books, which is always welcome. since we don't have a barnes and noble here, any kind of bookstore is appreciated.

yesterday, we spent the whole day in the yard raking leaves, picking up garbage and broken glass, tidying the patio, and finally planting some things! i had bought an elderberry tree from the store awhile back, and was planning on planting it today, but when i unwrapped it from the packaging it was dead! i was so sad, because i was really excited about it, but i think i just waited too long... i'll have to hit up the store again and peruse the gardening section for new plants and things. i have an idea for a nice patch behind the house with some rasberries and blackberries, so i'll have to keep an eye out for that. last week i set up my seeds in those paper egg cartons, and i'm kind of disappointed because none have sprouted yet! i hope they pull through, because i planted so many and it would be a shame if nothing grew! they're in a south facing window, so there's plenty of sun, so i'm not sure what's wrong...

anyways, i planted some flowers yesterday, mostly gladiolus and lily bulbs around our shed and the front of the house. listen. gardening while high is probably the best way to garden. digging holes, finding so many earthworms and isopods and other little critters, it's like sensory heaven. it was great to see how nice and fertile the soil looks though! it was dark and rich, and every hole i dug up was like earthworm city! i did take some and move them over to our compost bucket, so hopefully they can get to work and start converting all our food scraps into usable dirt. i don't know if i mentioned this here already, but we discovered that hiding under all the snow in our yard was a raised bed. and it was FULL of strawberry plants! like, everywhere! so i'm SUPER excited to see what kind of harvest we get from that, and it's nice to see that things actually grow here!

while i was out there doing the yardwork, nic was keeping the dogs entertained. they love their new backyard! we don't have our fence yet, we're booked for early june hopefully, but we can play with them out there as long as they're supervised. honeybun does great with recall, she comes back as soon as i whistle for her. but mochi is a little more...curious i guess we can say. she just loves to wander off and get into mischief! she already introduced herself to both neighbor's dogs, thank goodness she didn't get eaten. she seems to forget she's fun sized and other dogs can eat her if they really wanted to. but they did good overall. they went on a big hike on saturday, and they got SOOOOO muddy. honeybun specifically, she just loves to run in muddy puddles and get all dirty! they both got a big bath when they got home.

it's been fun writing about things here! i forgot how it was when i first started working on this site, i would just work on it AAAALLLL day. but it's good to get back to this, i think a part of me missed it. granted it takes longer to do anything, and modern social media has kind of conditioned us to think everything we do online should be easy and already done for us. but it's fun to slowly chip away at things.

alrighty, i think i'm done for today! see ya!

4/25/2025 ; 5:17PM

ohhhhh, what a busy, busy month it's been! finishing unpacking, organizing the place, working, going back and forth between the house and the apartment finishing the last of the moving. coordinating with movers to take our unwanted furniture, going to the post office to pick up mail because we don't have a mailbox. woof!

thankfully, this week has been relatively normal. we're pretty much settled in to our new home and getting into the rhythm of a routine! this house is so quiet. like, "hear a pin drop" silent. the dogs aren't used to it, so they're a bit jumpy at every single noise they hear, but they'll get used to it. cooking in the kitchen is such an enjoyable experience! it's so big, i have so much counter space for things, and the previous owners left us a beautiful wood chopping block! i just feel so safe and secure here, like i can just exhale and get loose and chill out without any worry.

we went to the local little market store to check it out, and it has a surprising offering of food and basic groceries! we're roughly 50 minutes from town, so it's good to have a little store like this for things like eggs or milk when we're out. there are so many trails and parks nearby, we need to take some time to explore them all and find our go-tos. we're close to this really great diner that makes cinnamon rolls the size of your head, so that's great too!

this weekend we're going into town for the first farmer's market of the year! really excited to see what they're offering this year, as they're going to be showcasing the new vendors that will be participating. after that, there's an event at the local bookstore, because apparently saturday is independent bookstore day! they're gonna be having food, music, games, and hopefully i can pick up a book or 2 that i've been wanting to read.

speaking of books, i've been reading a lot more lately and it's lots of fun! we walked to the local library in town, and it's completely unmanned; you just walk in, write the book you're checking out on a clipboard, and you're done! 100% on the honor system, which is great. i checked out the book i'm currently reading, "an anthropologist on mars" and it's really interesting so far. basically, the author is also a neurologist and this book is 7 short stories about people with mental disorders and how they go about their lives. i'm on the first story, which is about a man who gets into a car accident and suddenly loses the ability to see - or even IMAGINE - color. he lives his life seeing in black and white. he's a painter and of course this is devastating! so it goes into the concept of color, light and how our eyes absorb and process color, the part of the brain that registers and attaches colors to feelings, all that. but it also describes this man and how he goes through not seeing color anymore. he KNOWS that a banana should be yellow, because he knows the WORD for the color is yellow. but he can't comprehend or even imagine what yellow IS. it's really interesting, and makes you think about how we experience color in the world, and how it's really just different wavelengths of light we assign names to. really looking forward to getting further in the book and seeing who we meet next.

i've been off social media for awhile, and it's been really great for my mental health and just general mood. i think i've mentioned this before here, but i completely dumb-ified my phone to only have the absolute basic apps. just phone, messages, authenticators for work and stuff, and internet browser. if i really need an app like for the store to order groceries, i'll install it, do what i need to do, and then uninstall. it's honestly so refreshing. i was so tired of going on instagram and scrolling, going into comment sections just to make myself angry. it was so pointless, what was i accomplishing with that at all? the news was making me anxious and panic every single day. not that the state of the world right now isn't concerning, but i'm not marinating in it 24/7. i'm so blessed to have never had tiktok, because i cannot imagine how miserable it is being on there.

i hate to sound like "old man yells at cloud", but i really think people need to get off the internet. like, permanently. i know it's ironic me saying this, while you on the other side is reading this ON THE INTERNET. but you know what i mean. get off of mass corporation social media websites. stop going on twitter to see posts about people you have never heard of doing shit that doesn't fucking matter. stop doomscrolling the news to make yourself miserable. stop watching videos of people doing stupid things on purpose just to make you mad. like, i just hate the state of the internet right now because everything is fucking garbage.

i do miss some things, like being able to post about things i find interesting throughout the day. posting pictures for other people to see. but the trade-off of mental sanity and peace is more than worth it. i still login to things like instagram and blue sky to post my artwork, but i just post and get the hell off of there before i get sucked in. it really is like an addiction. i never really wanted to call it that, because i didn't think i was "that bad", but i was just ignoring what was in front of me. yes, i was THAT BAD. bad enough that i was considering "is this a phone addiction?". yes, yes it was.

i'm reading again, writing in a planner, scrapbooking, crocheting, watching birds outside, playing games. there is so much outside of the internet that will fulfill you. you just need to dare to get off the internet and do what no one else will. i know that sounds dramatic as hell, but i seriously mean it. i was wasting so much time scrolling, accomplishing nothing, not absorbing anything, making myself feel miserable. you'd be surprised how much time you have once you Get Off That Damn Phone.

anyway, enough of that for now. life's good, and that's all i can hope for right now. stability, normalcy, peace, good food, clean clothes, and a comfy bed to sleep on. what more does a person need?

i meant to end this here, but i have another soapbox to stand on for a minute. the culture of consuption lately has been making me so sick. i hate that everything is a new product to buy, a new thing to get into. oh THIS is the newest trend of the season! the trend we came up with 3 days ago isn't "IN" anymore so just get rid of it! if you don't buy these 5 different things, what are you doing, living under a rock? buy THIS thing that this irrelevant person on tiktok is telling you to buy because they're getting paid to promote it! like PLEASE GOD I'M SO TIRED.

you don't need to own the newest things just because someone told you that you needed them. you don't need to buy new clothes every season and get rid of the shit you already own. i swear to god you don't need all of those useless fucking kitchen gadgets that some tiktoker is dropshipping from temu i promise. like, living in this house that's more than a century old, i've found such a new appreciation for things that just WORK. things that have been around for ages and are still kicking like the day they were made. if i wear the same 5 outfits every day, so what? i don't need 20 different cooking utensils made of cheap plastic when 3 tools made of wood or metal will do the same thing forever. i got rid of all my cheap pots and pans and just have 4 made of cast iron, and they are infinitely better and will probably outlive me. my wooden chopping block may need more work to maintain and keep in good condition, but at least i'm not fucking eating microplastics from a flimsy plastic one.

like... i don't know, this is just something i've become so much more aware of lately and it's made me realize how much useless crap we buy. and this culture of consumption has unfortunately moved into homes people buy. i've been getting recommended home inspection videos on youtube (yes when you become a homeowner you start to see normie shit like this on your recommended), and it's so scary. homes that cost a fortune, advertised as "luxury" and "state of the art" and they're built like the construction workers were drunk on the job. shit falling apart before the people even move in, broken counters and windows, faulty wiring, GAS LEAKS!!! and it's because they're built by these huge investment companies to be pumped out as quick as possible and sold as quickly as possible. once again, i'm so happy to be living in a house that was built in 1900 and is still standing like the day it was built. we have pictures of our house with a horse drawn carriage outside from 1920-something, we plan to get it framed and hang it up somewhere.

this house has so much history that we will maybe never know. these walls have seen so many people, families, memories, generations. it kind of makes me emotional, like this house is almost alive in a way. we've been calling the house "miss gingerbread" because it has gingerbread trim on all the fascia outside, and have been referring to her as a nice, little old lady. this house inside just FEELS like a home. it feels warm and inviting, and like you could stay in here forever. i remember when we were first starting to look at homes, we went to look at one. it was nice on the outside, the kitchen was nice, needed a little work but looked like a good house. but it just felt... like, off, kind of cold. we start going through the rooms, one of the rooms was obviously a child's room because it had some cartoon wallpaper i don't remember, and the door was covered in stickers. but, there was a huge dent in the door. like if someone had punched the door. we call that house "the house of broken dreams" because it looked like it had potential, but there was something darker behind that nice exterior. this house didn't give us that feeling at all. it only ever felt homey and friendly.

okay okay okay. this has gotten very long, but WHATEVER IT'S MY WEBSITE. anyway, here is a picture of some funny animals that live in my house. i'll make sure to write in here! bye!

3/31/2025 ; 2:18PM

we did it. it's finally done. we officially own a house!

the closing was today, we signed all the paperwork, and we got the keys! the previous owner even gave us the skeleton key for the original deadbolt on the door and it's AWESOME. yesterday we did the final walkthrough, and it's so beautiful. so much original woodwork, antiques, and the previous owner left us SO MUCH STUFF! lots of awesome, antique wooden furniture, artwork for the walls, even the bedframes and beds! we're honestly going to just give/throw away all of our current furniture, because the stuff they left us with is so amazing. i'm really really happy with how everything has been working out.

we don't officially move until sunday, but the house is already technically ours. i was gonna drive over there today to start cleaning and moving some smaller things over, but we had a HUGE snowstorm this weekend. my car is buried under like 2 feet of snow, the roads are so slushy and icey, and my poor little car will not be able to handle it. so, oh well...

i'm really excited about how this is going to impact our lives. we're going to have our own home. free to do whatever we want. no need to worry about neighbors stomping up the stairs, or going down 3 flights of stairs and walk across the parking lot to throw our garbage in the dumpster. no more having to tip toe around the apartment because we don't want to make noise. our dogs won't bark at all the random people parking outside. it's just gonna be a game changer.

i have big plans for our garden. i hope i can actually get all this stuff to grow, but i have high hopes! we're also going to get chickens, which is SUPER exciting. so yeah, lots of stuff in the works.

i've been really taking a break and stepping back from social media lately. i dumb-ified my phone and only have necessary apps on there, and i only allow myself to access youtube from the browser. i got an MP3 player and downloaded loads of music to finally get rid of spotify. i've been writing in a journal about my thoughts and reading. it feels really good, to not go online and see shit that either infuriates me or makes me panic about the state of the world. i try to still stay informed, but i think for my mental sanity i just need to stay off of it all. the internet just sucks right now, and anything i can do to enrich myself off of it is a plus. once we're settled and moved into the house, i'm gonna try and take up crocheting again. it's just the perfect mind-numbing activity to do with your hands, and actually get a physical item out of.

i think we've forgotten the importance of having physical items, and making those items with our hands. sculpting, making traditional art, gardening, crocheting, reading a physical book, playing a record or a CD. it's the ritual and process of these things that's really fulfilling.

anyway, i need to get back to packing, but just thought i would write on here real quick. bye bye!

3/8/2025 ; 3:58PM

oh boy. it really has been awhile... so i'm sorry about that LOL

last year ended up being... so much busier than i wanted it to be. but in the best way, if that makes sense. i've definitely neglected this site, not because i wanted to, but just because i've been so busy with other things. i'm trying to change that this year though. because the internet is going in a dark direction, and i want to be better than that.

currently writing this in a coffee shop/toy store that my partner and i like to visit, and it's nice in here. it's funny, because i've almost completely forgotten everything i learned about coding from when i was originally making this site. i'm slowly trying to re-learn everything, but fuck it's hard. i remember when i first made this site, i got it up and running in like a week! i don't know how i managed to do that, i was built different in 2023.

it's snowing really gently outside, and it's nice. we recently had a snowstorm, and there was snow up to my waist in the parking lot of our apartment complex. my car was stuck and i couldn't move it, so that sucks, but luckily nic's car is strong in this kind of weather. my poor little toaster car...

anyway, i'm gonna try and keep developing this site as much as i can. there may not be journal entries to log the changes, but there will definitely be little things changing here and there in the background. i'm considering even scrapping everything and starting over, but i've grown attached to this layout and all the little things i've added. i also know i'll regret scrapping everything if i do, so it'll stay like this for now.

i haven't said this anywhere else, but it feels appropriate to say it here. it's been in the works for the last couple months, but we finally got confirmation for everything this week... my partner and i bought a house! it's this wonderful victorian home, built in 1900, and it has sooooo much character. we move in a couple weeks, so that's been stressful, but i'm also excited at all the possibilities. i'm already planning our vegetable garden, the furniture, how we're gonna decorate. it's gonna be a lot of work, but it will pay off in the long run. we'll be so much more comfortable, the dogs will have a yard to run and play, i'll have gardening space, and LAUNDRY!!! i hate not having easy access to laundry, but now we'll have our very own washer and dryers! honestly, that's the part i'm looking forward too the most.

anyway, i think that's it for now! don't be surprised if things change mega style from this point forward. and i MEAN IT this time.