hi

[Streetwise]

Hello and welcome! I also have a book out with my name on it and a sequel that I'm too depressed to work on. I cry a lot thinking about what I'm going to do with the rest of my life and feeling like I haven't done enough so far. My favorite joke to make myself seem happier about it is "I want to discover a new chemical element and make its symbol an E so I can finally spell my name using only element symbols".

what about einsteinium it used to be just the symbol E

 

[rubicks52]

what about einsteinium it used to be just the symbol E

Now it's Es though, so that doesn't work

 

[Streetwise]

Now it's Es though, so that doesn't work

if you designed it yourself you could make it whatever you want

 

[Bolletje]

Welcome! I’m Eve, I’m clinically depressed and I have therapy four days a week and take a merry cocktail of drugs to wrangle my symptoms into submission. I am currently in a stage of amused detached apathy, which I prefer over soul-crushing depression.
I grow vegetables and herbs from seeds, but I don’t have an outdoor space to put them, so I just give away the seedlings or let them die. Still, it keeps me occupied

 

[SusanLR]

Welcome!
Sounds like a lot of my interests here in this thread.
I love to garden. And I have frogs and insects for pets.
I can't have a cat or dog since I rent a couple of rooms in a house and the man who owns it
is allergic.
But, it is a big house and has an enclosed pool. That's where I keep my frogs and they live in
the potted plants I grow there. I grow mainly cacti and orchids.

I also have a superworm and darkling beetle farm in the wash room.
I keep a couple of beetles in a beta glass jar on the table where I eat and feed them lettuce and bread.
They like raw oats to nestle in.
I've got lizards in the pool area too and I want to get some of those giant praying mantis'
started in the menagerie!

I have depression too and feel so alone with no family now or anyone close.
All of these little things help.
The flower I grow outside is Butterfly milkweed and I raise Monarch butterflys.
From caterpillars to chrysalis to butterfly!
Enjoyed this thread.
This is Harold:

 

[Streetwise]

Now it's Es though, so that doesn't work

here are two i found

 

[Hareofhrair]

You're all so friendly and I can't tell you how happy that makes me! I was feeling really really bad when I googled this forum and I didn't expect such a warm welcome, or any reaction at all really. Thank you all for that. <3

@8398 Costumes and cosplay are an expensive hobby so I don't get to go as wild with it as I would like. Aside from things like my hoop skirt, crinolines, shift, and corsets, and a few nice coats and skirts, I really only have one nice dress. Plus one I made myself that is very ugly, lol. Buying the fabric was more expensive than just buying a finished gown! Recently I've been learning how to tailor clothing, and I'm trying to make historical style dresses by taking apart cheap modern dresses and remaking them. If the one I'm working on every turns out, I'll post a picture maybe.
I like your avatar too! Mine is just some cute mushrooms I saw in the park last fall. Mushrooms and moss are some of my favorite things. I like bugs a lot too, but I have to just admire them from a distance because I'm a coward lol. Beetles and mantises are especially beautiful, the colors and segments of their shells are fascinating.
If you have gnats in your plants, you might be over watering! I don't think the gnats do any harm on their own, but if it's moist enough for them it could also be moist enough for mold that can kill your plants. I got really paranoid about that with my lavender because I read so many warning about "damping off" killing seedlings.
I actually spent a chunk of today making self watering planters! Last week the lemon balm and catnip got their second set of leaves which meant it was time to move them out of the windowsill greenhouse into pots. Unfortunately, I ran out of pots, so two shrimpy seedlings were left homeless. I temporarily planted them in a container that was much too shallow while I figured out an alternative. And today I noticed a bunch of soda bottles in the recycling and I thought I could just cut the tops off of those and use them as planters, easy! Then I started thinking about self watering planter designs and realized it wouldn't be that hard to do, so I made four self watering planters today! One from a big 2L bottle, and three from smaller 20oz bottles. I put Old Spike in the 2L. He's tied with Big Bastard for being my largest right now and I figured he could use the extra room. Plus I'm planning to leave Spike to a friend when I move, so giving him an upgrade seemed like a good idea. I want to make one for Big Bastard too though, as soon as I can get another 2L bottle.
As for the shrimpy seedlings, they've now been dubbed The Mystery Twins, because I didn't label them when I put them in the temp container and I can't tell them apart. But they're already looking perkier in their new pots. Hopefully when they get bigger it'll be easier to tell what they are...

@rubicks52 Hi! Let me know the name of your book if you like! If it's fiction I probably want to read it! Mine is some kind of goofy urban fantasy, kind of Dresden Files plus Jessica Jones.

@GadAbout You're probably right about the pots. I didn't expect to end up with so many seedlings when I started, and proper pots are expensive... I figured most of them would die and I'd buy nice pots for the two or three that made it. But if I have success with these soda bottle self watering planters that may be a solution! Although I have additional concerns about putting lavender in a self watering pot since they're so particular about things being dry... We'll see how it affects the two I repotted today before I go crazy and repot everybody lol.
Torbies are so cute! but I always seem to end up with orange cats. It's fate probably. I found my Peach in a bush! It was a couple of days before halloween. I heard her crying and assumed it was a neighborhood cat. When she was still crying the next day I went and found her. Fairly certain her mom was a feral who got chased off by the dogs in the back yard. She was only about six weeks old at the most. This halloween she'll be three!

@Wolf Prince It's good advice, lol. Especially since my first one ended on a cliff hanger... this one will too come to think of it. I'm a monster. The third one ends happy i swear.

@Bolletje figuring out meds is a nightmare, right? At the beginning of the year they tried me on some antidepressants that made me feel worse than I have in years. I discovered a dumb medication thing last night actually. I have something specifically for anxiety attacks, and I almost never take it, because I'd somehow decided that 'anxiety attack' only applied to the times when I get scared and wound up about irrational fears. So unless I was jumping at shadows and needing to turn on every light in the house, it wasn't an anxiety attack. So, because I'm really bad at recognizing my own feelings, I wasn't identifying what were, in retrospect, really obviously anxiety attacks because I was crying and shutting down instead of freaking out and seeing ghosts. Last night it got bad enough that I took the anti anxiety meds just hoping they'd knock me out so I could get some sleep, and lo and behold I felt better. And then abruptly felt like a moron as I realized why I felt better. Now I just think it's kind of funny, and also I'm relieved that I can maybe circumvent that in the future. I've been having a lot of those kind of melt downs recently with the moving stress, so that's a big deal.

@SusanLR Harold is adorable!! It's amazing that you get to keep so many cool critters! I really know how you feel with not having any friends or family close... At least you have the opportunity to observe and be a part of so many little lives though! That's incredible. Being able to care for living things and having them depend on me is what gets me through the day sometimes.

 

[Wolfnox]

I LOVE the Dresden files. I actually patterened a story after it.

 

[rubicks52]

@Hareofhrair mine is YA fantasy, but I didn't publish under a pen name so I don't want to share it here. Good luck with your sequel!

 

[Hareofhrair]

@Wolf Prince It's a great series! I saw the syfy tv series first and then my dad turned me on to the books (I'm still sad the show invented his hockey stick magic staff. That's such a cool visual and I wish it was in the books too!). I haven't finished them yet. I think I was on Changes when a disaster caused me to lose most of my book collection, including Changes. I'll finish it eventually!
Regardless, one of my favorite parts of Dresden is just the world building. Butcher found a great way to keep things semi-open ended so that any kind of magic or creature is possible, while also building enough of a structure to make it feel believable. I really appreciate authors that keep room in their world building for more than one kind of magic, you know? Like, yes here are the standard European vampires drinking blood and being depressed, but there are also Chinese hopping vampires out there, and the Fillipino ones that are just flying heads, and probably Count Chocula if you look hard enough. That always feels more real to me than just one kind of folklore being the only right one.

@rubicks52 that's very valid, no worries. Good luck with yours too! Imo, YA is the most fun to write of any of the genres I've tried.

 

[Wolfnox]

I agree. As ive wrote i learned you need room to grow the world and story. On the one i spoke of. I plan to turn it into a serious. Still upset about missing Dresden on tv.

 

[8398]

@SusanLR

Thought I'd share the burrowing frog I have, in Arizona the couch's spadefoot tadpoles don't make it often in urban areas. Because of short lasting ponds. I don't live there anymore but every summer there is an opportunity to save some. This boy is a potato and a glutton. My sister calls him Marcus. Marcus might be a girl.
I happened to also raise superworms to beetles too! Kept them just like that. and interest in butterflies since little. We similar.

@Hareofhrair
I love seeing other's creations and art on here, I would be interested. I didn't know that about lavender, I would of probably kept it more damp than I will now. When they become seedlings. Secretly I have tons of springtails in a tub. It bred little flies that seem to only need moist soil. Occasionally had to open it and boom, flies enter my room. I think my solution is to restart the springtail bin somehow. The self watering planters sound nice, I should do some kind of upkeep with my plants today too. I'll see if there's a gardening thread on here today and ping you with what I got growing on.

 

[Aspychata]

i took too long figuring out what to name this. I have a habit of treating everything like a performance and that part of me was insisting an introduction should be cheerful and funny! But I’m in a really bad place right now, and being cheerful and funny is difficult. I don’t want to just list my hobbies and act like nothing is wrong, but i dont want to be a downer either. What’s the middle ground there? “Howdy yall! I grow lavender and i cry every day! I love embroidery and I feel like an unlovable monster!”

That was a performance too though. I sat here for a while figuring out how to work in the unlovable monster “joke.”

I’m 28. I’ll be 29 next month. Ive never lived anywhere longer than a year. I’ve been basically couch surfing for the last nine years. I’m not sure why. I don’t want to live like this and I keep trying to find somewhere to just stat, but it never works out. Something about me is just unbearable to live with.

I’m a writer, when my brain decides to let me work. I do mainly ghostwriting, lots of amazon ebook romances. But I have a book out with my name on it now, and a sequel if i can stop crying long enough to write the last few thousand words. When the depression isnt so bad, I can work incredibly fast. Which just makes me feel worse when I can’t. It’s so easy on the good days.

I’m tired. I just want to be someone other people want around.

I like that everything is a performance, and we are all just actors. Welcome to the online support group. This place has been warm and fuzzy like your favorite blanket, the one with cat stuff pn it, indescribable stuff. haha

 

[SusanLR]

@8398 Marcus is a little chubby!
They are from Arizona? So am I. But got transplanted when I was five.
I have a lot of pics of some of the things I garden. So if there is a section on that I would be
interested, too.

I know there is one on rocks and gemstones, because that is another of my special collections and interests.

@Hareofhrair I'm glad you have found a place here and some of us with so many like interests.

He ain't heavy, he's my brother...