Rough Night Here

I have restless leg syndrome, which tends to act up when I’m overtired and trying to go to sleep. It’s normally not a big deal; I have various tricks that settle it down enough that I can get to sleep reasonably. Five minutes of strong massage, a hot bath — both of those usually work to soothe the nerves and quiet the sensation of little bugs crawling under my skin.

But for the last two weeks, it’s been worse, and I’m afraid I may need to go get some medicine for it, which is annoying, mostly because I already take four pills in the morning (anti-cancer-coming-back, replacement thyroid hormone, ADD med, Vitamin D), and I don’t want to add another one.

(I was listening to Science Friday’s podcast last night, and they talked about aging and the new science around rejuvenation, which mostly seems to be about teaching the cells things they’ve forgotten how to do — fascinating. Wouldn’t it be marvelous to be able to go in and get your clock rewound a few years, maybe have some of these diseases that show up with aging disappear again…?)

Also because my doctor recently left Loyola (alas!), and I have to find a new one. Which I need to do anyway, so really, I’m just kvetching here. But I had a lot of trouble falling asleep last night (and the dozen or so nights previous), so I’m on a wake up late schedule, which I do not love. I hate feeling like the morning is half-gone by the time I start work.

Add to all that, that I had a miserable dream last night. It was a long, relationship-y dream in which I was arguing with both Kevin and Jed, at great length, about whether we should be living together, spending more time together, etc. I told Kevin this morning that I felt like I’d spent the whole night arguing with him, and he hugged me and said it’s okay, we’re not arguing, and I said, no, I WAS arguing , just not actually with him… gah.

On waking, it is clear that my subconscious thinks I’m not spending enough time with either of them, and I agree. Kev is relatively easy to fix — we’ve both been working a lot this past week, prepping for start of semester, and haven’t seen each other much, but we can be a little more careful about taking time to watch TV and snuggle every day.

Jed is harder, but he is actually coming out here, FINALLY — he’s going to come and quarantine for two weeks first, but we’ll get to have him stay with us for the month of March, which will be lovely. Lovely is an inadequate word. I haven’t seen him in a year, and I miss him terribly. Stupid pandemic.

I had a 10 a.m. meeting, which I’ve pushed a week, and I’m finally getting to work now. The plan is to spend the day alternately dealing with stacks of e-mail and reading chapters of a Courtney Milan book. (I’m bribing myself to deal with the e-mail).

I’m super-tired, so am working in bed, so may not do much crafty today. But here are some pictures from yesterday — I wanted to try out some new molds, so I just put clear melt-and-pour glycerin soap in them. The artists making these molds do such gorgeous work!

I love the clear glowing look of the snowdrops, and I think I’m going to do those just like this for the spring Patreon treat boxes. The theme is unicorn spring garden — aren’t those perfect? I’m a little worried about them getting banged about in shipping, but I think if I cradle them in sufficient tissue paper and pack the box full, they should be fine. Everyone subscribing to Earth ($10 / month, quarterly delivery) will get one. (If you really love the snowdrops, I’ll note that the artist offers a set of three, so you could get a closed bud, a half-open bud, and a fully open flower. So well done!)

The next tier up (Sol System, $15 / month), I’ll also include a hellebore (the ruffled one at the bottom of the composite photo). I’m going to do a post about hellebores later today — I rather adore them. I kind of want to try painting them — I’ve never painted soap, but I gather it can be done, and real hellebores often have delicate veining and stippling. Well, we’ll see.

Then the Milky Way tier ($20 / month) will get a lilac-scented lilac soap (the tall one on the right — it’s a little hard to see the detail in this pic, but I think it’ll look lovely once I add purple). Lilacs always make me think of my college roommate Kirsten, who loved them to pieces, and would make us stop driving to smell from a big stand of them. Occasionally she would cajole whatever boy she was with to steal some for her, which I suppose I should disapprove of as a gardener myself, but she never took enough that they’d be missed, and they brought her such joy…

Finally, the big one is a peony — those bloom here at the end of spring, late May, so I think they count for a spring garden; I’ll put those in the final tier (Interstellar, $30 / month). My sister Mirna and Kavi are both very fond of peonies. I’ll have to ask Kavi what color I should make these, though it’ll likely be some shade of pink.

Stephanie Bailey and I talked about maybe next year (2022), offering a 12-month garden subscription box — every month themed around a different flower. Amaryllis in January, snowdrops in February, hellebores in March, etc. Bath items + tasty treats? We’ll see!

Okay, I feel better. Thinking about crafting and flowers generally does help. Link to Patreon in comments — we’ll have a cool announcement about a new Patreon tier later today too, so stay tuned. (It’ll be digital rewards only, $3 / month. More soon.)

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