Coping skills.

 I have bad anxiety issues. I'm on a laundry list of medications to help me with it. It's due to a laundry list of trauma. It really sucks. I do my best to cope with it. Recently, I recalled that doing embroidery helps my brain calm right the fuck down.

So, I worked on the Ukraine sampler (you'll see it down thread in the feed) to cope with my anxieties over the war in Europe. Raised during the Cold War by parents that insisted that bombs were going to drop any day now and that we were going to be forced to do inhumane things to survive was bullshit for so many reasons on so many levels. 

I'm still dealing with anxiety even with my medications. So I am working on this projects. I didn't like the suggested stitch sections for various bits so I changed them. 

The leaves are a detached chain stitch in the center with a straight stitch to either side to fill out the shape. The orange blossoms are detached chain stitch with a single straight stitch in the center. The centers of the orange blossoms are leviathan stitch. The pink blossoms are satin stitch (done as per project directions, but I'll rant about that in a second). Their centers are French knots. The stripes on the pink bird are badly done satin stitch, because I was distracted and not wearing my reading glasses to get a good look at the fabric. Everything else is straight stitch or running stitch.

The pink bird's tail on the left side is whipped straight stitch, they wanted me to use chain stitch for it but that would have looked sloppy. I used straight stitch for the beaks instead of chain stitch for the same reasons. The project came with a sewing needle, not an embroidery sharp that was the correct size. Thankfully, I have plenty of embroidery needles and some in the right size for this fabric. They wanted me to work everything with two strands of floss. I managed the outlining of the pink bird and the satin stitch for the pink flower petals and came away wanting to throw the thing across the room. So I switched to three strands and things are working up much easier. 

When I outline the lower bird with the blue floss, it'll have to be with two strands to make match the upper bird. But the details are going to be worked with three strands of floss. I refuse to do the tiny circles in satin stitch. It will probably be more leviathan stitch, rice stitch, or something else that fills the space but looks more interesting. This thing is supposed to be cut out and mounted on cardboard. They want me to tape it to the cardboard, which just doesn't make sense. 

It's clear this project was for someone with minimal stitching history. I'm going to hem the edges and sew the project to the board with long stitches connecting the sides together just as my Grandma K. taught me to do with my other embroidery projects. The trick will be finding a frame for it and figuring out what I'm going to work on next. It'll probably be hemming the Dune Fear Litany tapestry that I  made.

Wut r werds?

 It's be a hell of a while since I posted, it feels like forever. On my tiny side blog which I use to promote my religious writing blogs, I got a Russian troll to anonymously send me propaganda with the expectation I was going to post it because I am not a supporter of neo-Nazis. I apparently am going places if I am getting that kind of response to posts calling out neo-Nazis for attempting to use my morning little prayers that I post on there for their bullshit.

I have another embroidery project. This is from the Jaydan company and is simply called Birds. It's a printed fabric one. I had a counted cross stitch one but discovered that the chart they printed was off by ten stitches in random directions. I got so frustrated with it I threw the damn thing away.

This project has been annoying in its on special way. They sent me a sewing needle to do fine stitched embroidery instead of one of the smaller embroidery sharps that you're supposed to use. I did the pink sections with that until I got fed up (bird and flowers). At which point I put my shiny new sewing needle into my sewing needle case and found my smallest embroidery sharp needle. They wanted the flowers and the leaves to all be satin stitch. But with this weight fabric and the small size of it all, even with two threads it was a pain in the neck. I did the pink flowers in satin stitch, managing not to throw the project across the room in frustration because I was doing embroidery with a sewing needle.

After I switched needles I did the brown sections in running stitch. They wanted the solid portions of the branches and the left most part of the tail of the pink bird to be in chain stitch with two strands of floss. I said screw that, it was just going to look wrong. So running stitch for the branches and that part of the tail was whipped running stitch. The leaves have a single detached chain stitch in the center and then single stitches to either side of it to fill it in. This way, they actually look like leaves. The centers of the pink flowers were supposed to be satin stitch but I used French knots because it looks better. I know that I'll keep modifying this thing as I go along. I am filling it in by color instead of my usual start with a motif and move on.

I still want to make the "I Can't Adult" project, but I think I will be freehand-embroidering it because the chart was awful and nothing was lining up correctly. I'll probably put a different motif than the cross stitch roses on the four sides of the motto. I've been working on a lot of embroidery and sewing of late to cope with my sky high anxiety. I forgot to take one of my medications and just about had a panic attack later in the evening because I didn't have my medication in my system to keep me calm.

I'm really frustrated with this whole business of being on a cocktail of medications to keep me calm and help me sleep. It doesn't help that there's a whole heap of learned shame over this because I'm afraid that if 'people' find out that I'll be deemed a drug addict and lose my kids. It's all programming from when I was a kid. I'm trying to unravel it but it's really hard. 

Glory to Ukraine!

 The war in Ukraine broke out and I started to panic. I grabbed some embroidery materials and started stitching. I wish the war was done as fast as this sampler was. It's on 14 count Aida cloth. I have learned it doesn't lend itself well to long back-stitch with the same issues as satin stitch. That's why some of the lettering looks funky. The smudged area is where I tried to wash off some pencil marks. It's just wet. When it dried out, the smudge mostly went away.

The garden at the base of the image is hope. The light brown fence represents the troops who are defending their homes and their hopes. The dark brown field represents Ukraine's importance as an agricultural center/breadbasket for the region. The central figure is Ukraine. The sword represents their willingness to fight for their homeland. The flower represents their willingness for peace. The crown is their sovereignty. I tried to incorporate traditional Ukrainian elements into the sampler. My counted cross stitch skills are filled with fail.

My feelings on all of this is the Russian army needs to get the fuck out of Ukraine, all of Ukraine, and go home to fix their own country. Vladimir Putin needs a kick in the teeth, literally. And I'm terrified that WW3 is going to break out. So I stabbed the shit out of some fabric to make something that showed my support for Ukraine and mentally was stabbing the dictator of Russia in the eye with each stitch.

Proof of Life.

So, here's a current pic of me just trying to get by. I am still depressed. My head still feels like there's a committee arguing in it, but they shut up when I tell them to. Or at least get quieter. 

I'm not doing well, to be honest. I try to sleep at night but I keep waking up around two to three times. When I do sleep completely through the night, I don't wake up rested. I stumble around as I get dressed and then make breakfast for the kids and I. I manage to stay awake long enough to see them get on the bus and then I pass out on the couch for an hour and a half.

After which, I stumble around making Beloved's lunch for work or just trying to figure out what the hell I'm supposed to be doing. I haven't been doing creative writing. All of my writing has been focused on therapeutic work. I've been having lots of memories from my youth coming up witnessing this war in Ukraine. My parents told us things like the Russians were going to enslave us and that we were going to have to fight off people like our neighbors to keep the farm safe. 

I had a nutball teacher when I had to repeat kindergarten (because the first time around, I didn't play with the other children and I talked back to the teacher when they said something that made no sense, I set an early precedent for myself) and she had us to nuclear raid drills. Her version of nuclear raid drills was to have the short students hide under their desks and the tall ones stand beside their desks. Theoretically, if the building collapsed, the taller students would ensure the survival of the shorter students by holding it up. This is exactly what this nutball teacher told me when I asked her why. I then got booted out of the classroom to sit in the hall for talking back when I asked why I had to stand when I was literally the shortest kid in the room. The more I learn, the more it becomes apparent that this particular teacher wasn't playing by the same rule book as the rest of the school.

It was special growing up during the Cold War. The windows of that bus were extra clean. I have been dealing with 10 different parts of myself. My therapy work has been focused on cross communication between them and my conscious mind. I've learned to recognize when I space out and wander that one of them is partially 'out' or completely. It's been hard because they don't generally trust me because they expect me to ignore them/abuse them/reject them. Basically, a repetition of the way I grew up. That sense of dread has ratcheted up higher with Russian bullshit happening.

I'm pretty sure that Vladimir Putin has lost his goddamn mind. That or he thinks that Covid has weakened the rest of the world enough that he can go and start steamrolling his way through places to get what he wants. I'm real worried about how his forces hold Chernobyl. I'm equally concerned about how they're fixing to get the other power plant, the one that's one of the largest functioning nuclear power facilities in Europe. I fear that he's going to turn them into dirty bombs before exiting. A way to start a nuclear war with out having to fire something at somebody.

As you can obviously tell, my train of thought is off the rails and my ability to focus is impaired. It's kept me from blogging and writing for the last month. It's kept me from doing my tarot reading thing. I am not doing great.

At a loss for words.

 This business in Ukraine (and I learned it isn't 'the Ukraine' but just 'Ukraine' because 'the Ukraine' was a Soviet propaganda movement to delegitimize the nation to a minor extent) is making me as nervous as a cat in a rocking-chair factory. I've been trying to focus on domestic things like cleaning up for spring and my daily routine. It's been difficult.

Now, I don't have any family in Ukraine, as far as I'm aware. The family members with all the genealogical records and I are not on speaking terms right now. Still, these people don't deserve what's happening to them. And the rest of the world is doing what little they can to oppose Russia's incursion with out setting off WWIII. I can't help it, though, I'm watching these people taking a heroic and defiant stand against the Russian army when they're clearly out gunned. It's gut wrenching.

It is terrifying the fact that we are a few footsteps away from an open conflict with Russia. I don't want a nuclear war to happen. I don't want this war in Ukraine to happen. I want Russia to close up shop and go home. The fact that they hold Chernobyl is disturbing. Especially with the reports that there's been an increase in radiation being emitted at that site. Who needs a bomb when you can just throw a nuclear powerplant (that is damaged) into chaos? It's a huge threat to eastern Europe and the various Baltic states between Europe and Russia.

I'll not be watching the State of the Union address tonight. My wrecked nerves can't handle it. I'll read about it in the news tomorrow. I'm suspicious about the Republicans and their holding the 'real' State of the Union meeting right now. Things in this country are a powder keg that no on wants to admit. They want to just sweep it under the rug and say that things are going back to normal.

Meanwhile, there's still a pandemic raging. Mask mandates are being discarded left and right for political reasons when wearing a goddamn mask is what keeps you from breathing in the exhalations of a carrier or someone who is sick with Covid. Our school district said that it is up to parents if their kids are going to keep wearing masks. Our family is going to do it because this thing, even in it's more 'mild' version could seriously fuck me up. We've got people around the world doing 'freedom convoys' and using big rigs to block traffic as part of their protest of mask and other covid safety protocols that have been instituted by various governments. These fucking morons are forgetting that we're losing over a thousand lives a day to Covid. They figure it's not happening to them or their immediate circle of associates/families/etc. so it can't be as bad as it sounds.

Donald fucking Trump is out there flapping his gums and encouraging these protests. He's also talking about how great/smart Putin is for invading Ukraine. In the process, he's been talking trash about the US. And his fan base doesn't even notice that. They're too star struck and brainwashed to believe that he's damn near the second coming of Christ rather than recognize that he's a charlatan and a general bastard. We've got people in the GOP talking along the same lines (who are members of the Trump cult). It's getting ugly.

And there isn't a damn thing I can do about any of it.