(no subject)
Feb. 15th, 2026 06:22 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
greenstormOur cold snap is forecast, the coldest yet of the winter. It should happen Wednesday-ish, in a couple days. We've had a lot of warm, which is unusual, and a lot of up and down, which is much more usual. I still have snow, or at least an ice crust over a bit of snow in some areas and a solid two-foot-high platform of compacted snow in others, so I suspect my plants will be fine. In town there's not a lot of snow left, so the snap may be harder on things even though it's more like a zone 4b/5 type snap rather than our proper -40 forecast.
Though goodness knows the forecasts have been very off all winter, so we shall see. Either way I get my shot on Wednesday so I need to remember to plug in the truck. A dead battery will not improve that day.
I've been wading through disability paperwork and taxes. I think I've correctly hit one deadline, though it's a bit ambiguous. Now I'm working on the next, which is mid-March. The paperwork is going to eat my next doctor's appointment or two; I need to remember 1) to make more appointments if they have them (our town lost some doctors so they're booking pretty far out) and 2) to make a note to make an extra two doctor's appointments at this time every year, since it seems like this will be a yearly requirement.
I saw some stats on how many doctors' hours are used on filling out disability forms and have forgotten them. Good thing we don't have a shortage of doctors or anything. I'd hate to have a real issue like having the doctor read and summarize the last years' worth of treatments on a form when the treatment documents are gonna be sent in anyhow to the same person, who can then compare the medical docs, the doctor's description of them, and my description of them to try and find discrepancies... I'd hate to have that displaced by something like my sinus infection or someone's kid's asthma. Not that we test for asthma here, the waits are too long; if an inhaler helps it's assumed and that's where it ends.
Ok.
So you can see why I've been splitting wood and doing pottery. All the above, both doing this paperwork and feeling bitter about it, use up energy. Splitting wood and doing pottery use up energy too but they help my mind quiet down now that I'm out of books I can easily read for free. Between the stormclouds of whatever is going on with my hormonal experiments and the paperwork which reminds me that my support is entirely unsecure, it's not a good time. I've been triaging and doing this extra stuff, but my baseline is sliding back some. I'm weaker. I shake and fall unexpectedly occasionally. Bladder control is reducing again. To the best of my understanding this can be permanent, so I should stop, but.
Gotta live somehow, right?
Anyhow, I made two teapots thinking of my aunt. Teapots are complex, there are 2-3 pieces thrown on the wheel to assemble, one part pulled, lots of careful angling and cutting. I made these in dundee clay, which is horrific to work with. It took all my concentration and let me go inside the process. It's a break, a space without noise.
(I'd like to make a tree menorah but I don't yet have the skill)
I put green body stain in a bucket of white reclaim and marbled some of it into M370 and made a couple test mugs. I have very little idea how much body stain I was supposed to use so I need to fire these before going further.
I started making seed jars, thrown as one piece closed forms. These are exacting, and require precision and thought. Everything needs to fit, and it's harder to fix things afterwards.
Then today, after the seed jars from the last week, I went into the studio in town. I'm making an effort to be there on Sundays because then other people come and it can be social, and it's probably best if I exchange human voices with someone who isn't my doctor or disability police. No one else came and I marbled some tucker's red, coffee, and M370 together and made some craggy sliced bowls -- 7 of them -- and two cups, one of which is the slurpee-cup-sized cup I started all of this out with in the beginning, when I wanted to gain the skill to make something that big.
I have the skill now, though I never made a handleless cup for this purpose since I got distracted and didn't come back to it.
Making something without any shape requirements except "kinda cup-like" with no pieces that need to fit together was so straightforward and comfortable. I think the bowls will be pretty, too.
It's just not advisable for me to keep doing this until the other stuff is done. If my baseline slips too far I won't be able to do it at all, and then I'll still feel bad but without the option to overstep. And I need to rest up for spring. I need to start my tomatoes soon and that decision matrix is pretty demanding.
Spring is coming, though. It was glimmering light before 7 this morning. It'll be nice to go lie down on the ground next to a dog eventually.
I'm stealing the keyboard from my laptop for this. Again I shouldn't; it takes several days to accumulate about an hour's charge, and it doesn't run off the cord at all, so I should save it for disability and medical paperwork only. But here we are: rebellion by making pottery and writing. Story of my life.
I got home from the pottery studio and couldn't get warm or stop shaking. It's better now but I'd better go to bed for real - I do consider a difference between lying in bed in daytime and lying in bed for sleep, though I couldn't explain it.
Second injection soon, and on the wait list to get the ovaries and tubes out. That should take me 9-12 months (?) on the wait list, so we can test the chemical menopause thoroughly and pop me off the list if it's going to go bad. Hopefully I'll be telling you all about the garden soon. How nice would it be to hear a list of the peppers I'm planting instead of this nonsense?
Though goodness knows the forecasts have been very off all winter, so we shall see. Either way I get my shot on Wednesday so I need to remember to plug in the truck. A dead battery will not improve that day.
I've been wading through disability paperwork and taxes. I think I've correctly hit one deadline, though it's a bit ambiguous. Now I'm working on the next, which is mid-March. The paperwork is going to eat my next doctor's appointment or two; I need to remember 1) to make more appointments if they have them (our town lost some doctors so they're booking pretty far out) and 2) to make a note to make an extra two doctor's appointments at this time every year, since it seems like this will be a yearly requirement.
I saw some stats on how many doctors' hours are used on filling out disability forms and have forgotten them. Good thing we don't have a shortage of doctors or anything. I'd hate to have a real issue like having the doctor read and summarize the last years' worth of treatments on a form when the treatment documents are gonna be sent in anyhow to the same person, who can then compare the medical docs, the doctor's description of them, and my description of them to try and find discrepancies... I'd hate to have that displaced by something like my sinus infection or someone's kid's asthma. Not that we test for asthma here, the waits are too long; if an inhaler helps it's assumed and that's where it ends.
Ok.
So you can see why I've been splitting wood and doing pottery. All the above, both doing this paperwork and feeling bitter about it, use up energy. Splitting wood and doing pottery use up energy too but they help my mind quiet down now that I'm out of books I can easily read for free. Between the stormclouds of whatever is going on with my hormonal experiments and the paperwork which reminds me that my support is entirely unsecure, it's not a good time. I've been triaging and doing this extra stuff, but my baseline is sliding back some. I'm weaker. I shake and fall unexpectedly occasionally. Bladder control is reducing again. To the best of my understanding this can be permanent, so I should stop, but.
Gotta live somehow, right?
Anyhow, I made two teapots thinking of my aunt. Teapots are complex, there are 2-3 pieces thrown on the wheel to assemble, one part pulled, lots of careful angling and cutting. I made these in dundee clay, which is horrific to work with. It took all my concentration and let me go inside the process. It's a break, a space without noise.
(I'd like to make a tree menorah but I don't yet have the skill)
I put green body stain in a bucket of white reclaim and marbled some of it into M370 and made a couple test mugs. I have very little idea how much body stain I was supposed to use so I need to fire these before going further.
I started making seed jars, thrown as one piece closed forms. These are exacting, and require precision and thought. Everything needs to fit, and it's harder to fix things afterwards.
Then today, after the seed jars from the last week, I went into the studio in town. I'm making an effort to be there on Sundays because then other people come and it can be social, and it's probably best if I exchange human voices with someone who isn't my doctor or disability police. No one else came and I marbled some tucker's red, coffee, and M370 together and made some craggy sliced bowls -- 7 of them -- and two cups, one of which is the slurpee-cup-sized cup I started all of this out with in the beginning, when I wanted to gain the skill to make something that big.
I have the skill now, though I never made a handleless cup for this purpose since I got distracted and didn't come back to it.
Making something without any shape requirements except "kinda cup-like" with no pieces that need to fit together was so straightforward and comfortable. I think the bowls will be pretty, too.
It's just not advisable for me to keep doing this until the other stuff is done. If my baseline slips too far I won't be able to do it at all, and then I'll still feel bad but without the option to overstep. And I need to rest up for spring. I need to start my tomatoes soon and that decision matrix is pretty demanding.
Spring is coming, though. It was glimmering light before 7 this morning. It'll be nice to go lie down on the ground next to a dog eventually.
I'm stealing the keyboard from my laptop for this. Again I shouldn't; it takes several days to accumulate about an hour's charge, and it doesn't run off the cord at all, so I should save it for disability and medical paperwork only. But here we are: rebellion by making pottery and writing. Story of my life.
I got home from the pottery studio and couldn't get warm or stop shaking. It's better now but I'd better go to bed for real - I do consider a difference between lying in bed in daytime and lying in bed for sleep, though I couldn't explain it.
Second injection soon, and on the wait list to get the ovaries and tubes out. That should take me 9-12 months (?) on the wait list, so we can test the chemical menopause thoroughly and pop me off the list if it's going to go bad. Hopefully I'll be telling you all about the garden soon. How nice would it be to hear a list of the peppers I'm planting instead of this nonsense?
