how's your week going, Beehaw

Juniper helped dig up and split her very first plant, but very much enjoyed pulling them back out when we were potting up the cuttings.
We got accepted to both of the farmer's markets we applied to this year, which means I wont have to find homes here ror the thousand-plus plants I started in our house. And the weather and overnight lows are finally reaching a point where I can start hardening off and transitioning them outside.
Today we're out turning over the raised beds and surrounding mulch and soil to rebuild the beds, which I'll do every few years. The chickens are out appreciating the easy access to the bugs and double checking on my angles of repose

Currently walking part of the Camino Primitivo and alternating between "what kind of utter idiot does this to themselves" and "holy fsck is this great".
\ It's my third Camino and I know the drill by now, and still I manage to surprise myself. It also immensely helps me clear my head and leave everything else behind for a couple weeks, which is my main reason for doing it.
Still now I'm looking forward to arriving in Santiago, recovering there for a few days and then flying back home. I've started missing my family (including the dogs!) and friends.
\ This spring and summer look like they're going to be super lovely, and I can't wait to put the finishing touches on the garden, sit there with other people, share a drink and watch the doggies chase each other and try to dig holes where they think we don't see them.

I just moved into my first house. The president is using modern-day gestapo to disappear undesirables and political dissidents against supreme court orders. My career work has paid off and I have a nice new job and there are dogs in the office. The party I vote for now thinks it's a winning strategy to throw trans people under the bus. Probably thanks to social transition and HRT, I'm getting a grip on my social anxiety and expanding my friend group. I carry pepper spray when I'm alone now.
My life is coming together right as the world falls apart. I am filled all at once with indescribable hope and unfathomable dread. Hell of a thing to find your soul during an apocalypse.

I joined beehaw today. I’m testing the waters to see where I can share my drawings because the mainstream platforms I previously used have become null. The rapid changes in the online world have been overwhelming to deal with. I feel jarred from this game of hopscotch, trying to find a new place to exist. It’s been a stressful week. I’m trying to make an Easter card and some other drawings for a few people, but my mental health is not good at the moment. Might need to take a nap today. I just feel really depressed.
- welcome!! I'm recently trying to get more active again.
  I think it's okay to put down art for a minute and breathe. you got this.
- Welcome! We're glad to have you here!
- Welcome! And I hope you did take that nap. It sounds like it's been well-deserved. Always remember, the most important person in your life is you, so take good care of yourself. You're the only you there is.

Rough. Can't find any jobs in my town besides factories and trucking, so I guess I'm probably gonna go work in a factory.
Lymph nodes been swollen for three days and I can't get to a doctor for nine more days, so that's frustrating.
I feel lonely and detached all the time. I miss when my friends and I were close. I've tried meeting new people but it's not the same.
If I'm not too tired after work tomorrow I'm planning a solo trip, just for the evening. There's a park an hour away where I've heard you can see the stars, so maybe I'll hit the local shops and grab an ice cream or something and wait til sundown. Maybe that'll cheer me up.
- I know that this may sound trite, but it isn't and I mean it with the best intentions. This tough spot you are in right now is only temporary. It will soon pass. Hold your head high. You are not alone.
- I’ve tried meeting new people but it’s not the same.
  Give it time. New friends are made by spending time with strangers until they're not strangers anymore. If the new people are nice enough, and you get to hang out with them for a while, some of them will probably turn into friends. You're already on the right track by getting to know new people.
  
  Thanks. I'm just getting discouraged because conversations fizzle out eventually, or things go well at first but then they stop texting back. It takes so long to get to know people and it feels like it usually goes nowhere even when I think they're really cool.
- How’s the lymph-node feel? Sore, or no pain? I had lymphoma back in 2020, my lymph-nodes at the time weren’t sore (didn’t hurt at all, even when touching them) and were hard as rock due to the tumors. If yours are sore and not rock hard that may actually not be the worst thing, but you most definitely need to see that doctor in 9 days!
  
  Oh shit, I hope you're doing okay these days!
  Mine are occasionally sore, but most of the time they're just tender to the touch. They are pretty hard, too 😬

I learned tonight that there's an unusual nodule at the top of my right lung, after feeling like I was pissing myself from the contrast CT. It's only 11x15mm, but best to catch these things early. I was having trouble breathing from stress, and after six hours it became a full-on panic attack, which I've only had once before, in 2009.
For those wondering, yes, I was a pack-a-day smoker from 1997 to ~2017 (a few bits back and forth ... you can't bring your own rig and juice into a detox). Because we're clearly mixing in PCP and no one will notice.
- How’re you feeling about it? We’re all rooting for ya, Powder!
  
  It varies by the hour. Sometimes, I have hope (I've signed up for my first DJ set a week from tomorrow at a regional burn); others, I see no future. It's been a rough few months.

really fatigued. I hate it, but there's really not too much I can do about the causes.
my partner offered to get me a Kobo Libra Color when it gets closer to my birthday. it's not this month or anything, but I'm genuinely excited. I have an old Kindle but frankly I don't like being tied to Amazon and would prefer to put my own books on the Kobo anyway. plus, the pop of colors, as small of a thing as it is, brings me joy. of course, everything I want to read are books a lot of people cringe at, but no one has to know!
I've almost finished writing letters to my friends, I just have one more left, and that one I get to deliver in person, so I don't have to send it through the mail. I'm going with the friend to a drag show brunch on easter, and it's my first thing like that, so I'm pretty excited for that too.
trying to find my escapes where I can, so I've been throwing myself into learning linux server stuff too as much as I can. I've started documenting stuff in a Forgejo repo so that my bad memory can't wreck things.
- The prospect of the kobo reader seems exciting! I just jailbroke a kindle scribe I got from unclaimed baggage for that reason - I didn't want to be tied specifically into the Amazon ecosystem and jailbreaking helps with that.
  What are you planning to use the Linux server for?
  Wishing the best.

Built some garden beds over the weekend at 0 cost by reusing old wood I had laying around using nothing but an electric chainsaw and an impact driver.
2 beds are something like 6' x 2' and the third is something like 10' long. I have no clue what the exact dimensions are since I just eyeballed everything.
Kinda debating whether to cut up some old cat litter bags we have to make a liner just to keep dirt from slipping out through gaps.
Also managed to go on the first good bike ride of the season over the weekend. Just under 30 miles.
- We'd love to see your project over in Nature & Gardening! I don't know what your litter bags are like but your local library is likely to have old issues of newspaper that would also do the trick with a few layers put down. Some of those bags can have plastics which will break down and get into the soil organisms that do all that nutrient cycling for your plants, and your food.
- Not sure if you have the budget, but landscape fabric is wonderful for separating raised beds from the surrounding environment.
  
  If you mean agricultural felt, carry on. Other than that, most woven landscape fabrics are plastics and will not only break down and get into the soil but also make removing plants which grow through it harder to manage or remove
  
  Landscape fabric would probably work, although I have the litter bags on hand already. The soil under the beds is pretty decent (used to be farm land) so letting stuff shoot roots down should be fine. I'm just trying to do just enough to keep soil from spilling out between boards when it rains.
  Also, turns out my city has a partnership with a place that sells compost from the yard waste the city collects so it isn't completely insane to fill the beds with compost. I'll probably do some more poking around to see if I can find anything else though.

I might have a job lined up for next school year. The principal at one of the schools where I interviewed emailed me to let me know he thinks I'd be an excellent fit for their school, but he's not allowed to offer jobs to anyone who doesn't currently work for the school district until May 9th. I got a really good feeling about this school from the principal and the teachers on the interview committee, and if someone in-district doesn't apply before the 9th, it looks like I'm in! But it sure is nerve wracking in the meantime.