• mood: sore
• listening: "Oblivious" by Jessica Lea Mayfield

last week ended up being kind of a doozy. I woke up in the middle of the night to a terrible, familiar stabbing pain in my toes. I'll spare everyone on here the personal details, but anyone who's dealt with chronic ingrown toenails knows what a literal pain they are. anyway, now I'm on a course of antibiotics and have a referral to a podiatrist to maybe talk about surgery for this problem. my vehicle also has some problems with its feet, too; currently I'm waiting on The Country Baby Dad to fix the traction control on it so we don't slip around all over creation when we go to visit family for Thanksgiving.

but I really believe the Lord hears us in the most mysterious ways. last night, I was so discouraged that I thought about just staying in Delaware County for Thanksgiving, even though I haven't seen my best friend in two-and-a-half years and my grandmother in about three. but today, we received holiday bonuses from work, so that made a nice dent in my unexpected repair bill. my stepdad likes to tell me, "if you want to make God laugh, tell Him your plans", and my original plans for all the stuff I was gonna bring--gifts, hotdish, the peace of mind knowing I didn't leave the house a total mess--definitely needed modified in the face of my and my vehicle's injuries, but the show must go on.

The Country Brat and I are both making more of an effort now to decenter our smartphones. she saw one of her favorite YouTubers was stranded by their vehicle or locked into it or something to that effect, and the smartphone was implicated in some huge way; it made her really uncomfortable and she said she was going to reduce her usage of it only as a communication tool, a music player, and a web browser. we previously bought her a Switch, but she didn't have much interest in it. I myself haven't had a handheld console since I was a kid, but bought myself the Miyoo Mini Plus on a whim just to treat myself for the season. now we both have handhelds to bring with us back home for the holidays.

on that note, I'm ashamed to admit that I basically replaced my socials habit with a terrible Reddit habit. it's like I told my best friend today, I have a real problem with arguing with people on the Internet. I don't know why I'm like this. it's time I could spend updating this site--I really want a cuter, dark kawaii, less cybergoth-y layout to choose from--or finishing Enshittification and moving onto the several other unread books in my house (or buying Technofeudalism and reading that instead lmao), or just playing on my Miyoo because I genuinely think that, for the most part, playing games is more productive than arguing with strangers online at this point. like, discourse could be productive, it has the great potential to be productive, but it needs to occur within boundaries built upon mutual respect and a willingness to learn. in order for people to learn, we need to admit we don't know everything, and a lot of us simply are not willing to do that anymore. I do think socials have played a great part in that; if your algo just curates an echo chamber full of things you already like and agree with, your distress tolerance for disagreeable things is going to be lowered. I'm guilty of this, too.

one of the things I tried to do when I started back on the indie web was get on chat rooms for sites like xxafterlife and VampFreaks, but they're rarely occupied. Discord servers overwhelm and overstimulate me, and I just end up muting them because too much happens on them. I really, really, really would love to find a productive outlet to have conversations with people, though: to learn from them, and be learned from.

I also really want to get into canning this winter, and have that skill down before I start a garden in the spring. the one canner on YouTube I watch who clearly takes the most evidence-based approach to canning recommends only using recipes from Ball, the USDA, or other academic sources, not from families or individuals. this is super controversial, I can tell, because people might be offended that their family recipe passed down generations could be considered unsafe. (I definitely have received home-canned goods as a gift before, and not known what to do with them because I didn't necessarily trust the source.) maybe starting with some super simple recipes and going from there would be the move. my first and primary goal is to just create edible things that won't sicken my family, lol.

anyway, wish us luck going back home! we have to cross a bridge about a mile long, and I'm desperately afraid of crossing bridges, so... 🤞🏽