Hangin' Out

 

Just a little hello from some of our Kiddos.

 

Life has been getting better around here and I'm finding more foods I can eat even though many more have been stricken from what my body finds acceptable. I actually got to eat cake on Easter (wheat/gluten/oil/baking soda free) and it was actually a bit fluffy. Way too super sweet for my preference but I'm also not used to eating refined sugar and it used 2/3 cup of maple syrup (yes, to me this is a refined sugar.) But I'm still shocked that I can have cake, hopefully be able to adapt it into muffins.

 

For now I'm physically doing better but much of that is because I've learned how to love within my energy limits. Last week I finally went shopping for the first time in a year. It was fun being out but by the time we were in the second store my energy and everything else was starting to degrade rather rapidly and even my mom couldn't ignore that my voice and speech patterns were drastically different than when we started out. I have had to severely scale my life back just to remain functional. My body has decided that a country pace of life is all I need. I cannot keep up with the rat race that is city life. So I'm getting things done but it is slow.

 

The hardest part to deal with is my short term memory and attention span feel like they have been replaced by a goldfish's brain. I love goldfish but they have NO attention span or memory. I literally forget things for weeks at a time if it isn't right in front of my face. Like remembering to schedule doctor appointments. Even if I set alarms and notifications for myself, I can get super distracted and mentally walk away and not have it pop back into my memory for another week. My long term memory however seems fully intact. It is so very confusing.

 

And because of what seems like a 3 second attention span, it has been months since I have been able to even count on what I can focus everyday. Every single morning I can never plan on what I'm going to do despite thinking about it as I go to bed every night. If I'm lucky I'll be able to work on something for 2-3 days but that is not common. This has made any DD projects much more difficult to complete. A month ago I started on 3 simple dresses for Raven's new MDD girl Poppy (Rena) and they are only mostly finished. It easily should have been a 1 day project even for all 3.

 

 

Lucas: "Why do I have to have a picture taken of this? it's just my homework."

Me: "Because Tama wanted you to show it to our friends on the forums."

 

 

(This was the reference pic) The drawing took me about 2 hours and was a personal challenge to see if my skills were as big as my mouth is. Meaning that I talk a lot about having art skills but rarely do any serious drawing. I do no think of my cartoons as serious drawings. I do them because they are easy, fast, and don't often require any effort for me to do. I don't do them because it's all I can do, more like I have never known what to do with my more serious pencil sketches like this. And exercises like this is precisely why Lucas is the moody art student. Students are not expected to be perfect but there is also no upper ability cap either, as well as the fact that they are often taught in a wide range of mediums. 39 years old and I'm still trying to figure out what my true strength is as an artist. Recently I have finally discovered that I like messing with the mediums and often the final image is not the goal, it is just the result of seeing how I can manipulate the mediums involved. The apple was drawn on 90 pound cold press watercolor paper (because I like the paper thickness and the rough texture), a basic mechanical pencil, and smudged with cheap cotton swabs.

 

 

Lucas: "This one isn't even hardly started."

Me: "Tama thought they might like to see it like this so when it is finished they can see how much you've done."

Lucas: "Fine."

 

I decided to challenge myself to do this artwork on the small canvases and have a piece for every letter in the alphabet. A was obviously apple, and this one is B (it is not a box and won't make sense until I'm done.) This one is so much harder than it even looks at this point because I had to ban myself from using a ruler or straight edge to block it out. If I didn't, my OCD would go into overdrive and it would turn into a drafting project, completely defeating the point of why I'm trying to do it. Feeling a bit frustrated that I was too tired to work on it yesterday and it looks like the same may happen again today. Just so tired that all I feel capable of doing is writing because it takes minimal physical movement but still keeps my mind really active.

 

Another reason for the DD sized artwork is I'm seriously and strangely intimidated by larger drawing spaces. even a piece of computer paper makes me feel like I'm drowning in empty space. I just get so lost and don't know what to do. I may do "large" canvases for Lucas when I work with chalk or oil crayons (these are not Crayola type but more like oil paint crayons) just because it's hard to get really small with such chunky tools. I also just ordered myself some student grade watercolor paints (again, not the Crayola kid grade/type but actual paste in tubes that has a higher pigment ratio) since it is something that has interested me for a very long time. I'll see how that goes. I desperately wish I could go back to college just to take art classes but I know I can't deal with the stress let alone even walk across the small campus. So I'm back to trying to find ways to teach myself.

 

 

Po: "We need to make sure to have a copy of Wind in the Willows. And Gulliver's travels. Oh! And a really nice collection of vintage botany books!"

Hana: "Oh yes, I'll make sure to look for some of those. Don't you think you have ordered enough books yet?"

Po: "Enough books? That's silly. You can never have enough books. Just like tea. Have we ordered tea yet? I'd like some nice oriental teas. The boxes are so pretty. A really sweet German chamomile would be nice too."

Hana: "What is in this package?"

Po: "I'm not really sure but it will look nice in my kitchen. My best guess is that it's semolina flour."

Hana: "Oh dear... what if it is laundry soap?"

Po: "That would not make suitable pasta. We will have to open it and find out."

 

Po has been having Hana run all over Pinterest 'ordering' him supplies for his house. Realistically they are just miniature printables. And he wasn't joking about the books either. I asked him one day how many he needed and without flinching he said "At least a hundred. And not those shelf fillers but real, usable books." So the sepia toned pages are ones I made in Photoshop and was testing out how many 'panels' of pages would make into books with decently thick spines. The only one glued so far is open in Po's lap. I decided to use one as a sketchbook (the close up pics of the pages can be seen on my Instagram) and was just doing some quick drawings. I quickly found out the 0.7mm led I was using was WAY too fat for these size books. So I found a 0.2mm led mechanical pencil I'm looking forward to trying out. No worries about Hana though... she loves being on Pinterest.

 

 

Here's what the blank book looks like so far.

 

 

And whatever this is (the package Hana is holding.)

 

 

Bjørn: "This would be great for a personal hot spring! What would it take for you to fix the bottom? It looks like it might leak."

Poppy: "Or a sled in winter!"

Me: "What are you doing with Tama's new heart baking pan? And the bottom doesn't need to be fixed. It was designed to be removable..."

 

 

Hilda: "His name is Mr. P."

Rainie: *laughing really hard* "He's a peanut!"

Hilda: "Shelly P. to be precise."

Rainie: *still laughing* "But he's a PEANUT!"

Hilda: "..."

 

Hilda is Bjørn's older sister... and uses that big sister attitude with everyone. She refuses to wear her wings and he refuses to be without his, but despite that they certainly are siblings. Rainie is just being Rainie.

 

So this summarizes what I've been up to about the last 3 months. Normally I've been posting on Instagram almost everyday because it is less work/energy than posting here (much of it is just whatever I'm up to that day and not necessarily DD stuff) but more often than not it just makes me feel lonely. The likes are nice, sure, but no one talks. I miss the community side of the hobby but often feel stuck because I either don't have the energy or attention span to feel like I can participate. There is a photo story I've been thinking about doing with just some of the Kiddos chatting but I'm not sure if I'm even up to doing it. I get really self conscious that pretty much the backgrounds for my photos anymore are just blankets. If I had the energy to do more than that I certainly would.

 

In short what I'm really saying is I miss you guys.

 

~Sister Kyoya

I miss you too! It seems like a lot of the forum regulars I'm so used to having around all got hit with cases of Real Life in varying degrees of severity. You really shouldnt ever feel bad about not having the energy for stuff considering everything you're going through. But I do miss your photo stories. Since I'm used to seeing you around twitter/instagram I at first didnt realize you'd been gone so long...

And hey, thats still more productive than me, and I dont have any excuses other than working and being lazy.

I miss you too!...

 

...other than working and being lazy.

 

Amen to both. Although I do have meat children to add to that. But lazy does have some bearing on my lack of stories lately. After getting the boys to bed I just want to chill with the wife by laying on the bed or sitting in front of the computer watching anime. Basically being brain dead. we have other things we want or need to do but are worn out. Not nearly as much as you I'm sure, but still feel ya. Glad to hear you can eat a little more. Maybe cycle through foods, like eat some and then fast from that food item for a while and they won't affect you as much or any more. Kind of like vegetable gardening, you can't plant the same thing in the same spot every season.

I hate the modern interpretation of lazy. It is used in a way to imply that human beings are intended to work like clockwork machines. Needing to rest is not even remotely the same as being willfully lazy. Without rest bodies begin to break down in many ways. So don't be so hard on yourselves.

 

It makes me sad knowing how much we have been lied to and that our bodies need to be beaten into submission in various ways to sync up to the industrial machine that society has become. It truly isn't natural. It has only been just over 100 years ago that the industrial revolution happened and people began being seen as inferior to machines simply because the chunks of metal could earn more for whomever owned the company. It is simply more lucrative to wring people out and use them up only to discard them for a fresh replacement than to take care of a good employee. Along with that comes the conditioning that we are expected to run full-tilt everyday until we drop from exhaustion or simply drop dead.

 

So truly, please do not feel guilty for resting and needing to ignore the world in those times. We are expected to live a pace that does not even match the natural rhythms that humanity has gone by since whenever the first person took the first breath. All the time I just want to tell people to slow down and stop beating themselves up when I know that if it were as simple as that, no one would really choose to be overworked and stressed out. But the times that you have and need to take to rest and recoup, just let yourself. Bodies are a lot smarter than they are given credit for.

 

I think about that on a daily level, nearly every time I eat. My body knows there is something wrong with how food is being produced and processed and is reacting accordingly. I really don't want to get on my soapbox about how food isn't what we think it is anymore, but one does have to wonder why there is forever rising rates of wheat/gluten intolerance. I was shocked to find out that about 1978 (the year I was born) a new strain of wheat started being used widespread in the U.S. and looks very different than the 'wavy fields of grain' we were always brought up to believe. Marked intolerance to such a base food staple (that has sustained humanity for thousands of years at least) since then is shocking and remarkable itself. And yet the increase of health problems nationwide the further progress we make and technology advanced we become is just written off as something that just happens. As if it is just some magical side affect.

 

Time and time again my thoughts return to a very simple thing I learned one day about writing. In a medieval setting, how do you kill off a city or entire castle? Poison the well. You take something essential to life and screw with it. Science tells us that modern foods are safe, after being doused in pesticides that had once been engineered as chemical weapons. All the scrubbing in the world can't completely remove it. And getting cheap food safe acids from mold, then heavily chemically processed because it is cheap instead of extracting it from real food just seems so wrong. And I'm honestly worried to find out what chemicals (and their real sources) that are being added in processed oils to increase extraction yields. I've felt for years that I could be the 'canary in the coal mine' simply because my body is so highly sensitive. Sure I'm predestined to have some weird allergies, but from how my body reacts I really think something else is going on. I've always trusted my body to know what it's doing since it is really good at letting me know when something isn't right. I've learned and been forced to listen when I just tried to treat my body like society tells me I should.

 

So rest when you can because bodies generally know their own tolerance if we choose to pay attention. Trust me, you don't want to ignore it to the point where it leaves permanent damage. Having everything in your life come to a full-stop isn't fun.

 

I love you guys so much.

 

~Sister Kyoya

And I'm honestly worried to find out what chemicals (and their real sources) that are being added in processed oils to increase extraction yields.

 

I totally agree with everything you said, but I feel this one especially hard.

 

Recently I've found out that soybean oil can send me into anaphalaxsis(And sunflower and safflower seed oil don't agree with me either.) Which is a joy. The kicker? I'm not allergic to soy. Just the oil. And I can't pinpoint any other reason than it being from chemical additives used in the processing. Apparently the process for olive oil and canola oil are typically different, so those luckily don't give me trouble. Yet. *knocks on wood*

 

I really do commend you for rolling with the punches though, SK. I can only imagine how tough it is. I'm having a hard time with just this one major allergy because soybean oil is in so many things. But I think it's awesome you could have cake again! I hope muffins go well for you as well!

 

I also really dig your sketch of that apple. There's just something about it! I just really like the way fruits look in general if I'm being honest.

I'm really sorry to to hear about your soybean oil allergy. Same thing happened with me and baking soda. I'm still WTF?!? about that one and popped up out of nowhere. I have tried canola oil, extra virgin olive oil, coconut oil, expeller pressed sunflower oil, cocoa butter, even chocolate I can't eat because it has a proceed oil in it. Every single one of them makes me sick. And the two brands of tahini I can get my hands on have added salt which makes me sick because of the added commercially produced citric acid. If there is any form of added fat I know I can't eat it because not a single one have I found to be safe. I refuse to eat meat and I cannot tolerate dairy in the least. I can get a very little bit of coconut oil from processing and separating it from coconut milk from the whole mature nut, but it cannot be used in anything where it can't be masked by vanilla. Whatever they do to 'deodorize' it is yet another chemical process. And it takes a bout 3 hours to process, requiring tons of energy and strength I rarely have.

 

All my fats come from eggs (the only animal product I eat), sunflower or sesame seeds, avocados, and the random nut. But even nuts have been getting hit or miss recently. It didn't take me long to discover that the unsalted roasted peanuts were banned because I get the suspicion the roasting tables remain cross-contaminated with added oils from the other batches. So raw nuts were fine for a while. Almonds are really versatile and have a very rounded out flavor (compared to sunflower) when used in my no added fat, gluten free white sauce. But recently even the raw unblanched almonds have been bothering me. So I need to see if they are safe when blanched of if I cannot eat them at all due to some sort of cross-contamination of the equipment if they have been shelled. Nuts in the shells seem perfectly fine for me but are so hard to find. We couldn't even find any this last Christmas at the grocery store and that was an utter shock. We always had the mixed nuts in the shells in our stocking. We are currently trying to see if unshelled peanuts are fine (first test seemed fine) but they require one more step of roasting before they taste good. I always wondered why they were called peanuts. The raw ones actually taste mildly like fresh green pea pods (not normally a fan of those but I do eat them sometimes) but that is a shock when you are used to roasted peanuts. Roasting is not that big of a deal but I'm just worried about accidentally burning them (short attention span issues) after going to the effort of shelling them all by hand.

 

Extracting oil at home is far from easy or inexpensive. I have been trying to think for a long time of how to do it with a more neutral oil that I could use for frying sometimes (we only use about 1/2 tablespoon when we could) and peanuts or avocado seem to be the only realistic option. I'm still trying to figure out the best way to do the avocado since it seems to be the simplest, but still not sure if the yield would be worth the effort. Avocados taste like eggs or green shortening to me. And if I can properly roast peanuts I can overprocess them in our food processor to end up with a liquid peanut butter that might have the oil separate better over time. Problem is that I don't know how long it would take to separate. Then I get really frustrated that I don't have access to a centrifuge... I have done research into a hand crank oil expeller but after adding in the cost of black sunflower seeds (higher oil content than regular 'snacking' sunflower seeds) and the fuel it would be about $200. But there are two major problems for me: it requires strength/energy to use it, and smoke gives me migraines. It could be an awesome option except those two issues. I know Raven would be willing to help but I still fear that it would produce something I still couldn't have due to residue hiding on the equipment or simply from the fuel source and somehow the smoke contaminating the oil... When I can no longer have liquid smoke sauce (for some freaking unknown reason), it's a significant concern.

 

Honestly, playing around with non-gmo soybeans recently makes me even more alarmed at what they have to do to get a tablespoon of oil out of those things. A cut avocado can be wiped with a fingertip and it feels oily. Nuts can be smashed/pressed to extract the oil. But soybeans? there is not a whole heck of a lot of oil in those things. It seems minute at best. I have processed the dried soybeans in our food processor for flour and sure it clumps a little but even then it's not like it can be pressed out. It wasn't until I had to go to thoroughly whole foods to realize how much processing modern food is put through.

 

It hasn't been until the last few days that it finally sunk in at how strong I am. I just do what needs to be done, when I can. External strength does not reflect internal strength and vice versa. A couple hours after I made the initial post is when it really started to dawn on me. I don't want to hash it out again (you can look up the details in my Instagram posts) but in short I had to suddenly walk nearly 2 miles to get my AmiAmi package that the post office delivered to the wrong house. I live in the middle of the freaking city. That mail carrier should be fired. I was lucky that the person called my cell (it was listed on the package) so my $150 figure order didn't just up and evaporate in the mail. But Raven was at work and my mom was busy so I had no other option than to retrieve it myself. Someone on Instagram asked me why I didn't use Uber or Lyft (I think that's how it's spelled) and I had to say that it never crossed my mind. When you have left the house only nine times in a year, things like that don't readily come to mind. I don't even know how they work. I'm so used to either walking or taking the bus if mom is too busy to easily give me a ride. Thankfully I had google maps on my phone so I at least had a clue where I was going. 1/4 of the way through the trip I could pretend I was totally fine and was actually amazed at how much quicker I was able to move than 120 pounds ago (I've lost all that since joining the hobby.) Then the physical impact started setting in and I knew my body was getting overwhelmed. 3/4 of the way through my trip I was flat out terrified. I was getting white spots in my vision and my stability/motor controls were starting to misfire. When I stopped at a major street I was almost sure I'd just fall down face first into the cement. I almost didn't want to cross it in case I completely blacked out in the middle of the road, or if someone didn't see me (from not paying attention) I was utterly helpless to get my body to quickly stop or get out of the way. Fortunately none of it happened even though I was starting to really stumble around as the strength in my muscles was all evaporating at once. The next block has a short retaining wall that I could sit on to rest until I started to recover. The whole trip I was sending messages to Raven trying to keep him updated and pics of landmarks he would know. He thought I was doing it to merely keep him informed. Later I told him I did it because I was so utterly terrified that I'd pass out that it was the only way I could let him know where I might be. I got home without incident, but I knew it wasn't the end of it.

 

For 3-4 weeks I have been taking care of myself well enough that the symptoms of my chronic illness had mostly disappeared. It didn't mean I was full of energy and able to function at an adult work level, but at least I wasn't incapacitated. Since returning home I have been starkly and painfully aware of what those symptoms are. Since Friday I've had times when I could pretend I was okay, despite feeling like a completely used punching bag. Exhaustion has been paramount, hurting when I haven't in weeks, massive headaches, ringing in my ears almost being deafening, and regularly too exhausted to lift my arms without a lot of pain. Personally this reconfirms to me at least my suspicions that my chronic illness is ME/CFS that is marked by the 'post-exertion malaise'. I was hoping nearly a week of rest would be enough to recover before my doctor's appointment, but it is starting to look like having that added on top that it could be another two and a half weeks before I am back at where I was before that stupid walk.

 

And with my illness getting worse (compared to two years ago) and the random foods my body allows me to still eat has taught me one thing: Just adapt and move on. I already feel terrible a lot of the time, so why spend any extra energy dwelling on the negative? And even though that whole walk still pisses me off when I think about it (because it feels like my body punishing me for wanting to do a normal activity) It is still something I can remind myself that I did, on my own, no matter how scary it was. And it is that aspect that made me start to value where my strength really is. I may not be able to go out and lift weights to achieve the toned body I wish I had, but I do have the internal fortitude to stay strong despite the adversity or the utter shit life throws at me. I have the strength to never give up.

 

Sometimes I may not be the quickest at picking myself back up, but I always do. I have heard so many stories of people with this illness simply give up, seeing suicide as the only option. I can totally understand why they do, but that isn't me. Inadvertently or not, having a former Marine for a father taught me that giving up isn't an option. Moreso I just don't think it is a part of my personality. My brother (who was in the navy for many years) complains about everything and I think it is just a waste. He never seems happy about anything. A lot of the times I have the right to really complain about a lot of things and make those around me equally miserable. But I really do try to keep that to a minimum.

 

I would so much rather fill my life with happy things and enjoyable things to do. Even if it isn't eating gooey pizza, gardening, going and buying too many socks from the dollar store, or eating oreos and crunchy cheetos. I can be happy to eat all the fruit I want and when that isn't enough of a sugary treat I can have sunflower seed flour, cinnamon and maple syrup and eat it like a little 2 tablespoon ball of cookie dough. I can sit down and eat a whole bag of frozen blueberries and not have to share. (Kid me would have been blown away at the extravagance of that one, even though we get them from the dollar store.) I can sit here and plan out miniature stages for my 11cm bunch with the intent to see if I can get some DD pics posted as 'Hana' works on them. Still not the DD stories I've been hoping to get to for years but it would give me something to share here again. Or I can just sit and completely veg on anime as long as I want to (normally when I can't physically do anything else) or just write, and write, and write on my stories while considering throwing the finished ones up on Amazon as cheap novels just so people can read them (despite me not writing cheap stories.) Probably a bit batty on that last one but expectations are lower for cheap novels and I won't have to go through much of the stress of a well-polished book. Because I don't write for the money. I'd be happy enough to earn enough to afford the laptop I need. Faulty thinking or not, I still have goals that matter to me. A reason to get up and still trying everyday, despite the pain, despite not being able to move, despite my memory getting so bad at times that I'm amazed I can even remember my own name. And those goals are what makes me happy even if I can't reach them as quickly as I used to.

 

Internally I crack up often thinking that my ever-positive mental outlook is so Rainie. "Yeah! I can eat ALL these berries!" "I can build this thing until the cows come home!" "I'm not stuck in bed! I'm In the perfect position to see the ENTIRE T.V. screen!" Or Hana: "Oh? I spent the whole day researching on Pinterest? It was a good day." And we subscribed to BroadwayHD and they have a TON of Shakespeare on there. Naiomi needs to bug me more so I can remember to watch it with her. My days are not filled with Can't. And that is so very Rainie. She may come up with some dumb nicknames for people but she is never intentionally mean to them. She also never says "Oops!" or "Sorry!" when she accidentally does something wrong. It is always "Yeah, sometimes that happens." (I have tried to get better over the years to admit when I'm in the wrong, so hopefully I'm a bit better than her in that respect.)

 

And thank you about the sketch. It makes me proud to see that me saying that I'm an artist has some grounding now instead of seeming like it might be a farce or a personal over-inflated ego as it pertains to my abilities. Because of the backlash of that walk I have not had the focus or motivation to work on the second sketch. My watercolor supplies arrived today (at the right address, HA! ) and all I could manage to do was open them and stare for a few minutes before putting them away. At least they are readily available when I feel like I can tackle something new.

 

And who wouldn't want to look at pics of fruit? It makes me hungry like someone else staring at a photo of a hamburger.

 

~Sister Kyoya