Black is this years pink

“What I like to share about myself is my story, my art, and my creative process. I guess messing up doesn’t take away from that. It’s still something, it’s still a story. A bad story is still a story, and I think that’s beautiful. There’s no way to lose.”

– Alysa Liu

My day 28: I've been out most of the day. I'll check-in later on.

The tally
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Day 26: badly_knitted, carenejeans, china_shop, cornerofmadness, glinda, luzula, sanguinity, sylvanwitch, the_siobhan

Day 27: china_shop, cornerofmadness, glinda, sanguinity, shippen_stand, sylvanwitch

Please check in on the most recent post, and say what day(s) you’re checking in for. You can join in or take a break at any time; you’re always welcome back. And please let me know if I’ve missed you.

Previous poll review
In the Candles poll, 28.8% of respondents opted for some kind of citrus, and the same number went for cinnamon or other spice. Not counting "other" (25%), "sandlewood or leather or whatever" came next with 23.1%. Forty-four point two percent of respondents voted for "no candles". ( Reason for poll. )

In ticky-boxes, hugs won with 78.8%, "staying up too late and waking too early" came second with 55.8%, and a leopard wearing multi-coloured claw-polish came third with 46.2%. Thank you so much for your votes! ♥

Reading
DNF the paranormal romance (perky antique shop owner/Ghost of Christmas Past, very holiday, very cosy). Now I'm about five chapters into The Tainted Cup by Robert Jackson Bennett, read by Andrew Fallaize, though I'm getting through it quite slowly because other things are competing for my earphones.

Last night, Andrew and I listened to a bit more of Memory by Bujold, read by Grover Gardner. I have so little sympathy for Miles that I can't tell if I'm reading the narrative as intended.

Otherwise, DuChinese stories, where I'm transitioning to Intermediate level. New vocab is coming thick and fast, so I'm struggling a bit.

Watching
( Cut for length. )

Listening
I've been listening to a bunch of Lazy Chinese beginner episodes. I can follow some of them, and others just wash over me. (As with all language-learning ever, vocab is clearly going to be my downfall.)

Online life
I keep doing Writers' Hour because it makes me sit down at my keyboard. (I'm otherwise quite fidgety, and also in thrall to language-learning apps.) And hosting Write Every Day to make myself be present, talk to people (♥ ♥ ♥), and keep on top of my email inbox (...and maybe, you know, write?).

Writing/making things
( Little bit whiny. )

Life/health/mental state things
Still running to keep up. Thanks to UK daylight savings, Writers' Hour is now 10am my time, which means I get up and exercise beforehand (and the dishes don't get done in the mornings). I have physio on Thursday to hopefully sort out my ankles. Life is overall good; I'm just a bit tired.

House
On Sunday we moved my bed into the bigger, lighter bedroom and crammed my exercise machine and ebike into the smaller room where I had been sleeping. This completely befuddled the cat. I'm still figuring out where everything goes, but I think it's going to be good. Aside from anything else, it makes changing the sheets a hundred times easier, because my bed isn't crammed into a corner.

Last time I had this configuration, I switched back because of a noisy early-bird neighbour, but they don't seem to be around much atm (unless I've summoned them by moving into the room right by their garden). *fingers crossed, knocks on wood*

Language Learning
( Cut to spare you. )

Food
Cheese scones, which came out pretty good. Last night I made enchiladas. Sometime soon I need to make lemon honey (aka lemon curd), because these lemons won't last forever.

Goals
Move more things between bedrooms and install a hook for the curtain by the exercise machine. Keep up with the apps. Figure out a long-term language-learning plan that gives me a sense of progress and takes fewer hours, because I don't think what I'm doing is sustainable for much longer in the way/at the pace I'm doing it. :-)

Good things
Cdramas and Kdramas. Exercising first thing in the morning. An abundance of apps. My garden looks great (credit: Andrew for much hard work). A bigger, airier bedroom for the summer. Hosting WED, and poking at various stories. Chocolate. Audiobooks. Election season can't go on forever. Hot chocolate.

"When people ask me what I think is the single most important factor in an artist's sustained productivity, I know I'm supposed to say something like "solitude" or "an independent income", or "childcare". All of these things are good and many people have said so, but what I think is better and more important than any of these things is what I call "a believing mirror".

Put simply, a believing mirror is a friend to your creativity - someone who believes in you and your creativity. As artists we can constantly build what I call creative clusters - a Sacred Circle of believing mirrors to potentiate each other's growth, to mirror a "yes" to each other's creativity."

– Julia Cameron, The Artist's Way

My day 26: Most of a weekly update post, and a bunch of housework and Chinese study.

The tally
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Day 24: ashelterofpages, badly_knitted, china_shop, cornerofmadness, goddess47, sanguinity, sylvanwitch, the_siobhan, ysilme

Day 25: china_shop, glinda, sanguinity

Please check in on the most recent post, and say what day(s) you’re checking in for. You can join in or take a break at any time; you’re always welcome back. And please let me know if I’ve missed you.

“Convenience trains us to avoid friction [...] But friction is also where so much of life happens. Community is inefficient. Friendship is inefficient. Love is wildly inefficient. All the best parts of being human require us to spend time on one another with no guarantee of what we're going to get back. Art is also spectacularly inefficient, and thank goodness because efficiency isn't the point. Being alive is the point. Creating is the point.”

– Nakia, Creative Mornings talk (August 2026)

(All quotes courtesy of the Words of Wisdom from London Writers' Salon Writers' Hours.)

My day 25: Another post to my language-learning journal, and another alibi sentence. Also, an afternoon of manoeuvring furniture between bedrooms, swapping my exercise/storage room with my bedroom.

The tally
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Day 23: badly_knitted, carenejeans, china_shop, cornerofmadness, goddess47, sanguinity, sylvanwitch, the_siobhan, ysilme

Day 24: china_shop, cornerofmadness, goddess47, sanguinity, sylvanwitch, ysilme

Please check in on the most recent post, and say what day(s) you’re checking in for. You can join in or take a break at any time; you’re always welcome back. And please let me know if I’ve missed you.