Blerrrrgggghhh. What a week it’s been! Or rather, hasn’t been, as I’ve done diddly and squat. Well, I suppose that’s not entirely true nor fair to myself; I’ve been resting and trying to recover from the cat bite injury I received a week ago (and the subsequent debilitating chronic illness flair that followed). I’m simultaneously mentally understimulated and in too much pain to do anything about it. Work?! Fuhgedaboutit! Oy.

Right now I’m thankful I did a lot of home tidying and had a big plant day when I did, or my messy, semi-neglected houseplants (and piles of laundry) would be guilt-tripping me for not minding them sooner. Looking at a well-tended indoor “garden” always makes me feel better in a “touch grass” way. As it is, I do lament that I didn’t bleach and dye my roots on schedule, and that I haven’t finished weaving that chainmaille project. But I had good and valid reasons for delaying both! It is Ren Faire season, so here’s hoping I can finish that piece of garb before anyone hands me a turkey leg. 🍗

📰 Newsletter-wise it’s time to start experimenting with format, timing and… monetization. Why does that feel like such a dirty thing? I know I want to be a resource for others (here and elsewhere), but to do that I too need to be adequately resourced, yaknow? Though I will say that honestly—Honestly!— your subscribing, reading, and replying is a lot of support in and of itself, so please do not ever feel pressured to do more if it doesn’t serve you.

We’re kicking things off with… ads. They’re easy to set up and, hopefully, they’re mostly unobtrusive (looking at you, giant MONEY in the header…). Rest assured I will research each entity before embedding any advertisements! I’m also not going to trick you into thinking something is a casual link or blurb from me and will endeavor to make it clear that such is an ad. If you click on an ad, I get a buck or two, but only if you click within the first 72 hours of sending (so specific!). For example, if you click on each of the ads in this edition (and don’t have trackers blocked… yes I see you…) before Wednesday, I would receive $2.50. Could be good!

I’m trying to figure out if I can offer a paid subscription option that removes ads but I think I need some more direct help from Beehiiv on that one. I’m also thinking about locking down the archives at the end of each month unless you’re a paid subscriber, or perhaps setting up a subscription to get early access to single-topic essays and photo galleries from my adventures (again, we are talking non-spicy here; you know how to access the spicy stuff). Truly, I don’t know, and I’m going to play around with options in the following weeks. Thoughts? Experience? Concerns? Lmk.

Anyway! Let’s get into it. I’m done with my antibiotics and I feel more functional, though I haven’t done much worth talking about this week…

☑️ Done and Done - X-rays on Sunday (they were normal). Monday had a great group coaching call with some new folks joining my biz cohort followed immediately by a vet appointment for Irma followed immediately by stumbling my way through meal prep for the week. Then it was nothing but naps, one really lovely Hot(!) bath with Epsom salts, and a few more naps.

❌ Didn’t do - Fortunately I was light on goals for last week, so I didn’t have any balls to drop haha woo.

📋 Coming up - I don’t know but I’m really hoping it includes aforementioned referral to a hand surgeon/specialist and maybe even appointment? A girl can dream. I’m going to check out an estate sale, hang out with a friend, get drinks with another friend. My work goals for the week are to simply get some posts up; anything beyond that will be a bonus.

I discovered Siegel from his appearance on the Reclaim + Advance podcast (“Reinventing Yourself” from July 23, 2024), and have been following his coaching work since. He hosts free group mindset talks almost every Wednesday, and while I haven’t worked with him directly or joined his coaching community, I like tuning in when I can. There’s always a gem or two (or five) in the mix, and tbh it’s nice to get this kind of frank vulnerability from a man. I’m going to drop a few more of the quotes I wrote down from this specific call from last week, but you can check out Craig Siegel’s website, Cultivate Lasting Symphony to sign up for texts and get notified of future community chats (fair warning: his sales team is very engaged when he runs promos; proceed with caution).

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Frustratingly, this injury has greatly impacted my spicy work, mainly on the production side of things. One of the things I keep wanting to do is a deep dive into reorganizing (and editing) my video files. As part of this, I just purchased a license key for the full version of BlackMagic’s DaVinci Resolve editing software; I’ve spent the last year+ learning the free version of the (incredibly robust!) program, but if I’m going to do a big push for video editing I wanted the full suite of features available to minimize the likelihood that I’d want to go back and reedit some things for a third or fourth time later on (I keep getting better at video editing; a blessing and a perfectionist curse.) Video editing requires a lot of mousing and I tend to keep a tight grip on the little guy, which doesn’t really fly right now. Maybe that’ll change, but I’m not going to recover if I push myself, so.

The annoyance is that I make decent money with custom orders and video releases, supplementing and sometimes even matching my monthly fansite revenue. I had been banking on pushing out more video work across both fansites and clip sites (and direct sales) in the coming months, as I worked through editing. It’s likely that a bit of basic organization work will uncover a few older, finished customs that are available for taking to market, so to speak. But again, that’ll have to wait until I’m more comfortable with mousing.

I’m also looking more seriously at getting a new iPad. I have an old iPad Mini someone gave me years ago, and it feels like every time I find a way to really use it, certain features/apps stop supporting that specific model. But! DaVinci Resolve works on the newer iPad models with M-series chips! As does my main photo editor, Adobe Lightroom. Adding an iPad into that workflow could do wonders for my productivity (and backlog), even moreso if holding a Pencil is reasonably comfortable. So, we’ll see. I’m keeping an eye out for a fair-priced refurbished model (any tips on where to find a legit one?), but if you have a spare gathering dust and you’d like to donate it to a good cause (me), hmu for my PO Box lol 😅

🗣️ Confessional - things I struggle with; maybe they sound familiar?

💁‍♀️ Hair Stuff - If you are a chronic illness baddie, or just a busy person in general, it’s likely you have a can of dry shampoo in your personal hygiene arsenal. Yes, Batiste is fine… it’s fine, but it’s not great. I recently finished off a can of DesignMe Quickie.me that I had really liked, but ended up replacing it with Divi dry shampoo spray because it was on sale. I’d recommend either (especially if they’re on sale) but I like the scent of the Divi spray a bit more. Though fooling the doctors into thinking you're able to perform routine personal hygiene tasks without assistance does have its downsides…

🎬 Movie #1 - As much as I enjoy poignant body horror as a genre, sitting down to finally watch The Substance (2024) while I was in and out of medical offices and worrying about infection was, perhaps, a poor choice. The scene with her knee would have had me squirming regardless. And as poignant as this horror was, I think once it moved past the allegories into embracing a bit of camp is really where it shined. Fun fact: σου/sou (pronounced much like “Sue”) means “you” in Greek. Intentional?? 👀 I look forward to rewatching again in 6-8 months to see if I feel differently without the personal medical drama.

🎬 Movie #2 - In an unexpectedly lovely juxtaposition to The Substance, I also watched Sweat (2020), about a fitness influencer navigating her parasocial relationship with her fans while trying to retain a positive exterior as her mental and emotional health suffers. As someone who has been chronically online for almost 30 years, Sylwia’s struggles echo much of my own reasoning in avoiding going full-on Influencer (and yet are still fully relatable); she’s the very definition of “you can’t pour from an empty cup”. Tbh I feel like I could write a whole essay on this film. If you watch on Mubi as I did, make sure to stick around for an enlightening interview with the director and lead.

👕 Support - Compression gear is my friend right now, and I do be wearing it. I’m not wearing the thumb-isolating brace I got in urgent care 100% of the time, mixing it up with fingerless compression gloves and nothing (when applying heat/cold packs). The compression gloves I have were a random (but useful!) parental gift BUT when it’s time to procure my own, I’ll absolutely be buying from BibiPins.com. I’m torn between the fingerless compression gloves or the full-fingered gloves with gripping action, probably the galaxy print but the bats are cute too??

Well! Things sure have felt a bit serious here lately. 😅 That’s life! And while I am frustrated by delays caused by injury and illness, life does continue. Some might say it uhhh finds a way. I try not to get bent out of shape about things I can’t control, and offer myself grace for those moments when I have to slow down or even fully stop. We often give great advice to others that we’re not willing to take ourselves, and I do try to take my own advice on things. Most things. Sometimes. 😉

If you have any mantras or life advice you try to carry with you, I’d love to hear it. Or if there’s something else on your mind, hit Reply and let’s talk about it; typing is a little easier for me as we close out the week and if not, there’s always voice-to-text. And if you don’t often take your own advice, then take some from me: you have permission to rest this week.

xox,

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