PUT YOUR BEARD IN MY MOUTH
sheepfilms
@theartofmadeline
Not today Justin
oozey mess
Janaina Medeiros
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AnasAbdin
wallacepolsom
PR's Tumblrdome
let's talk about Bridgerton tea, my ask is open
Today's Document
Mike Driver
DEAR READER
Xuebing Du
dirt enthusiast
NASA
YOU ARE THE REASON
Aqua Utopia｜海の底で記憶を紡ぐ
No title available
seen from Japan
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@prickly-pores
having to come to terms with the fact that love is not an everlasting performance in which you attempt to retain the attention of your significant other but rather a release of control and putting faith into them and trusting them to choose to stay with you no matter what you have to offer
to love and be loved is to rest
I’m 26, and yet I’m giddy like a little kid, cause I’ve made a new best friend. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve had pals as an adult, but this person, this person is special, they are a kindred spirit like no other. Maybe the reason I’m so excited is that they also have adhd, so I’m not worried about having to hide any of myself. They love it all. I’m not too much for them. And they’re not too much for me. They bring so much light into my life, and I can honestly say that it is mutual. It feels so good to have another person in my life to just pour my love out too, to champion and to support. And it’s not just the honeymoon phase either, this one’s been around a while now, I think it’s just the time of year that’s making me reflect on how much love and gratitude I have for my chosen family :,)
mid2023
this app is such a time capsule for me. so many bad memories, so many good, so much growth has occured since i went on here daily for escape, inspiration, community, looking for meaning and solace. damn. my emotions are gratittude and pride rn. love to see it.
life update wise time, this year, my little sister, newly18, moved in. I spent many weeks planning for, shopping for, and building her dream bedroom, full of bookshelves, fairylights, art, her first double bed, and even a window seat that I handmade using my growing tool collection, and i feel really good and warm about that. While i didn’t move out of home myself until i was sure she’d be safe, I was still worried for her. So its just good to be able to watch over her and keep guiding her through life n healing from the the scars of our childhood. I’m very grateful that my partner and I can provide her with a safe loving home environment to live out the rest of her teens. Especially given the housing and rental market these days. Having a the level of housing security we have is also just something i’ll truly never take for granted.
I guess thats another thing I’m proud of this year. I’ve put so much blood, sweat and tears into making this house a home, I’ve taught myself so many skills from plumbing, tiling, plastering, carpentry, landscaping and how to use countless power tools. I’ve taken sledge hammers to walls, I’ve pulled up flooring and replaced it, I’ve trimmed out doors, I’ve hung doors, I’ve built cabinets and cabinet doors even benchtops from scratch, I’ve built so many bookshelves and painted so many walls, I’ve reupholstered, I’ve made and hung curtains, I’ve just taught myself so many skills and shown so much determination and pluck in the face of adveristy. I’ve pulled mutiple 80hr work weeks to finish projects I thought would be a simple weekend job. I’ve truly put my heart into this house and I am just so impressed with myself. True, I look around me now and see 101 unfinished projects, but I’ve progressed things so far, and for the first time ever in my life i’ve let myself really see my adhd as something to work with not against and the results have been astounding....
Relationship wise. no doubt about it. i am in deep. I used to think that deep love like this wasnt real or sustainable. or that it meant a type of unhealthy enmeshment. but i think ive realised, as scary as it is, u do just gotta be vulnerable, you’ve got to let them guards down to let someone in, to let yourself be cared for, to care for another, and i’ve never felt love like this before. every year that passes i feel closer to him than ever before. i dont believe in one off soul mates, yet our connection does feel like whatever people are getting at when they use that word. wild times.
Overall checkin wise, I’m starting to feel more like my old self, or should i say my young self, that young girl who used to be full of energy, love and cheek. And that’s something I never would’ve imagined was possible. It really does get better... when you put the work in and find good people to surround yourself with, when u work thru your trauma with a therapist, when u have a partner whos willing to learn and grow with you, who serves as a corrective experience, as a model of secure attachment, age old wounds can begin to heal...
anyway, its nippy outside rn and i just feel the biggest urge to go for a walk in a wide open field, climb to the peak, and yell into the wind. so imma go do that.
me: I'm literally begging you to do the one task you need to do
my brain:
Logging back in to tumblr for my annual nostalgic time travel sesh. This time I’m back because I’ve been crossing paths with people from my past -which for me is rare. Hearing their memories of who I was, especially before high school, has really made me reflect on the 101 different people I’ve been to other people, the changes I’ve gone through and perhaps why I went through them. I think growing up with strict religious parents made me become incredibly good at self curation, I can switch off and on certain parts of my self for different crowds. I became an expert at holding secrets, both from them and for them. I think it’s why the idea of ever having all the people I love together in one room freaks me out, because who would I be?
I’m currently studying to become a primary school teacher and one of the units has us doing a bunch of self reflection. All the compulsory soul searching has made me realise that while I have healed from a great deal of my past trauma, certain habits of self preservation -the impulse to fold in on myself for example- persist.
I’ve been working on my garden lots lately, so maybe a garden related analogy will help me wrap my head around where I am and what I need to do to get where I want to go.
One of my all time favourite quotes is from Simone de Beauvoir and it begins with the observation that “The young girl throws herself into life with ardor, because she is not yet deprived of her transcendence” and I feel that was how I started off. I was an exuberant child. Energetic, loving, confident and frankly fearless. To switch to a plant analogy, I was a little shrub who had never wanted for anything and so threw all her energy into producing big blooms, hoping to spread her life force far and wide with little concept -let alone fear- that winter, disease, or drought might come. However, then the frost rolled in and I came to find the soil I had been planted in was acidic. Nevertheless, I tried to flower, I tried to put on a show, to make the best of my circumstances. But despite my striving I began to wilt. Disease crept in to my branches so slowly that I barely noticed the gradual decline in blooms and new shoots each year. It got so bad that by my late teens I no longer attracted birds and insects to me, as I gave off the stench of death, not spring. In the end it took withdrawing from the world of life entirely for me to see how bad the gangrene had become and to start the painful process of doing something about it. Slowly but surely I identified the dead matter, and pruned it away (yes in this analogy I am a self pruning tree, deal with it lol). It was excruciatingly painful and required a lot of self determination, as dealing with each semi-petrified twig/limb caused more immediate pain than simply letting myself continue to die off. But I persevered, for I was determined to rid myself of the dead weight once and for all. I didn’t just deal with the symptoms either, I also considered the root causes. The decision to be transplanted to a sunnier spot with less acidic soil was a major factor in my rehabilitation. My new position meant that there was more friends to help me in my journey towards health, and I was soon stripped back until only the green and alive wood of my most fundamental stalks remained.
And tbh that is the point where I feel i am at today. There may still be a few reoccurring spots and seasonal pests that test me, but my arsenal of plant self care supplies and the community of gardeners I have befriended keep them in check. All things consider, I am undeniably the most healthy I have been in over a decade. Nonetheless, I am still greatly diminished. There are a very few new shoots on me, but I feel I am not anywhere near ready to bloom yet.
Key word: feel. Because if not now, when? The self preservationist habit to make myself small, to play it safe, to distrust myself - is like an aphid infestation that is sucking the sap out of me or, more bluntly, the nerve out of me. Talking to friends who knew me as a child, who knew me as cheeky, bold, passionate and determined, really puts into perspective the growth I have ahead of me yet. And thinking about the role model I want to be to the kids I teach, the things I wished I had been taught, and the support i wish I had been provided with sooner, makes me motivated to stop holding back and put myself out there. I feel I have stagnated in this place of self preservation for far too long. I have dealt with so much rot, but maybe not so much the fear of failure. The core issue now seems to be that I am fearful that if I allow myself to put my energy into blooms they may not produce the quality of fruit required to meet my high standards. But the thing is, I think I’m realising that I need to just try. I need to just trust that with every season of experience the quantity and quality of my fruit will grow and improve -if only I allow it to. I feel like on some level I am still scared that I lack the capacity to be sweet, that I’m still that dead smelling thing. But that isn’t true. And if I keep buying into that narrative it will be a self fulfilling prophecy which will deny myself and others the life giving fruits I have to offer. And I do have a lot to offer. I need to trust that I’ve done the work, I’m not a toxic wasteland anymore, instead I’m a fruit bearing shrub and honey spring has sprung, so it is time to do my thunggggg
The Progress of the Magic Wand - Reverie by Jean-Honore Fragonard.
2020 has actually been so wild
Wildfires, the virus, following political events worldwide, blm - all the big shit that’s been hitting my soul so damn hard....
But then personally, moving in with a partner after thinking for over a decade that I would never be someone who commits/dates let alone homemakes; going on a family cruise to NZ that was so horrible it was almost funny; having my father acknowledge my mums abuse of me / threaten to call the cops on her for throwing me around and actually intervening on my behalf (of course everything went back to standard procedural denial afterwards, and no cops were called, but I’m still reeling from the gesture); someone who sexually abused/harassed me and others at my workplace over the past 6 years finally was fired (with my help and bravery); putting on a lot of weight and it barely phasing me; surprisingly, it has been the most sober year of my adult life; I’ve read 73 books - the most I’ve read in a year as an adult - and it’s only August; a childhood friend got cleared for cancer after her surgeries; experiencing the loneliness and anxiety of corona, but also being in an overall improved mental health headspace (aka no longer thinking of myself as the source of all the negativity around me, and having the wherewithal to set boundaries / cut out toxic ppl)... just a damn big year. Hard to focus on uni work when you’re reeling from such existential happenings Ngl.
manga lied to me. i never see bad boy types protecting stray kittens therefore revealing to me their soft side
its always me picking up the cats
maybe im the bad boy
Angus McKie
when audre lorde said “you need to reach down and touch the thing that’s boiling inside of you and make it somehow useful.”
I am full of magic , my heart be sparking
I love women who are unabashedly big.
Women with big laughs, big smiles, big voices, big bodies, and even bigger personalities to match. Women that don’t care if they take up space with long strides and sit with their legs miles apart.
They give big hugs and big kisses, and they have big hearts. Big, proud women are amazing.
This posts includes trans women and excludes terfs, btw.
Rb this version pls
in november, i honor myself! i create! i desire! i raise my awareness! i reflect over it all!
“…the horror of radical closeness, the sweetness of that horror,”
— Delmira Agustini, from The Empty Chalices: Poems; “Vision,” wr. c. 1913
Do you have any food shopping tips? xx
Food Shopping Tips
- Buy Bulk. My number one tip for budgeting food is to BUY IN BULK. Instead of buying a chicken breast, buy eight and individually wrap them in plastic wrap. Freeze what you’re not going to eat within the next two days, and defrost as needed.
- Cook Bulk. Make a large pot of chili, soup, or your favorite pasta sauce. Buy plastic containers at Walmart and portion out your meals. Freeze them all! I do this with my pasta puttanesca sauce, I make it once every six months and cook enough to last.
- Store Brands. There are cheap knock off brands of everything from Cheez-Its to Quaker Oats. They’ll be anywhere from $1-$3 cheaper than the brand names. On a similar note, store brand cleaning supplies is about $5 cheaper than the name brands! Don’t judge them before you try them.
- Store Cards. My Stop & Shop card gives me a gas discount, and other store cards offer similar perks. Store card + store brands = ridiculous savings.
- Avoid Organics. Like I said in my last Adulting post, I’m not paying $4 for a cucumber unless it can clean my apartment and sing Jazz standards. Buy vegetables, but avoid anything labeled “organic”.
- Mixed Greens. Avoid buying “mixed greens” unless you’re going to eat them within a day or two, these have a very short shelf life. Instead, buy a head of lettuce or a bushel of kale.
- Frozen Produce. Stock your freezer with bags of peas, carrots, fruit, etc. These will defrost easily in your soups and are good if you run out of ice packs.
- Dollar Stores. They have really weird brands of chips and pasta and really poor quality paper towels, so don’t expect to do you entire shop here. However, they sell bulk tomato sauce, six packs of ramen, tuna fish and other wonderful things for under a dollar. My local Dollar store sells tubes of capers for a dollar when just down the street my organic supermarket sells them for upwards of $5.
- Buy Fruit. Specifically, BUY IN BULK at your local chain supermarket. My boyfriend and I have been throwing back those Cara Cara oranges like nobody’s business. Fruit is great for quick breakfasts, snacks, and a healthy alternative to downing a pint of Ben and Jerrys.
Budget-based cookbooks (online recipes)
- College Student Cookbook. Click here.
- Meals On The Go. Click here. (Not a cookbook, but super helpful)
- Broke College Kid Masterpost. Click here.
- Cooking on A Bootstrap. Click here.
- Good and Cheap. Click here.
- Budget Bytes. Click here.
It’s also worth checking out my “eating on a budget” tag.
oh hey sorry I’ve been distant lately…. I’ve been really busy having a brain that is bad
