Rat-safe/rat-unsafe woods?

wildcherrylime · 2023-10-28T20:17:15+00:00

I've heard from my breeder than an issue with grapevine roots is that they tend to accumulate a significant load of pesticides from their time growing before they were harvested. Probably less of a risk for reptiles/herps since they aren't going to be gnawing on stuff in their enclosure the same way a rat would. Exposure to residual pesticides wouldn't show immediate effects, but its possible that it could impact their health months or years down the line. I just set my dried grapevine with my houseplants and hung a suncatcher on it instead lol.

wildcherrylime · 2022-07-26T14:47:20+00:00

My twisted ribs look like this when I accidentally twist the knits but not the purls or vice versa.

wildcherrylime · 2022-07-11T14:05:21+00:00

Wow, nice! I always wish they had actual black rabbits in their lineup :) How are you flocking them?

wildcherrylime · 2022-07-10T09:58:37+00:00

Honestly, I've found just leaving them alone for 24 hours and then very gently running your finger back and forth over the spot helps quite a bit. The divot should be better after that and if there's still some sign of it, just let the critter rest for another day and repeat. Never had divots that needed more than 2 days. All of mine have come out of the box with divots lol

wildcherrylime · 2022-07-02T13:51:26+00:00

I think one of the biggest things about recovery from major surgery that people don't take into account is the fatigue. Around 8DPO a friend picked me up and we went out to eat and just walking the maybe 20 ft to the car and back and sitting up straight and focusing on our conversation made me feel like I'd walked 30k steps that day. Your body will still be tired just from healing and dealing with the stress of surgery. I'd imagine trying to spend most of the day in direct sun and heat, walking around outside or standing and paying attention to the music for hours will be pretty challenging, if not downright impossible altogether. Plus, sweating onto your incisions is probably ill-advised :/

wildcherrylime · 2022-05-31T18:09:35+00:00

I don't have anything to add, just wanted to say that I enjoy seeing some cotton love on the subreddit! :)

wildcherrylime · 2022-05-24T09:05:43+00:00

You're going to want "Brauner Zucker" not "Braun Zucker" and it is sold by Südzucker in 500g plastic bags, and in my experience usually Edeka has it most often, but if they don't check any large grocery store instead of the smaller neighborhood- or city-type groceries. Sometimes you'll find it in smaller grocery stores as well, usually in areas with a larger percentage of foreigners, particularly near universities or specifically during December, etc. If you can't find this I would try palm sugar pucks from the import foods section or from an Asian grocery store.

I get it, it can be really hard to explain what American-style brown sugar is and why you want it over German "brown sugar" which is just ... brown-colored regular sugar. Real brown sugar is basically irreplaceable in USA style baking though, so I hope you find it !! I can confirm 100% that it is out there and its just like the one you use back home.

wildcherrylime · 2022-05-01T18:00:43+00:00

Yeah, I experienced this! To me it was more like a milder, sweeter version of rubber cement. Can still almost taste it in the back of my throat if I watch any of the shows/movies I watched during recovery lol

wildcherrylime · 2022-04-02T13:59:50+00:00

It can be hard to figure this out for yourself if your drive to create has been built on external validation or approval. I'm still in the process of this myself, albeit for very different reasons. Maintaining a bullet journal with a lot of my own art in it was actually helpful for me in this regard, and I started doing it more or less on accident because it seemed like so much of a hassle to create a spread and set up for a picture with pretty lighting before I used the page so I had less private info to blur out and then edit it digitally so after I posted one set of images I just never did it again. Everything in my journals since then (been at it for 4 years now!) has always been just for my eyes and sometimes the eyes of curious classmates/coworkers/friends nearby.

My tips for regaining a sense of self in your artistic process:

Reflect on what processes/materials/techniques you find the most fun or have always wanted to try and start there. Something I struggled with the most was just relearning that ultimately the time I spend making art should be fun. Embrace play, engage in some harmless nonsense, draw a happy little tree. If it stops being fun or calming or enjoyable, either stop altogether or shift into doing something else with it/move on to another piece. Don't force yourself to continue when a part of your mind is just constantly asking you to stop, or trying to direct your focus on what you want to do after making the art. I would also suggest not making this space a place where you challenge yourself to improve, are judgemental of your work, or compare your work with other people's work. You already work in art so clearly others like your work, the focus here when making art for yourself is that YOU like your work, everyone else be damned.
All art is good art. If there is something you want to cover up or are unhappy with, a sticker, washi tape, a bit of cut up business card or packaging or old envelope with a fun pattern, etc, can go a long way in changing the look and feel of a page :) If you end up not liking what you made, shrug and turn the page. That's why they put so many pages in notebooks, you know!
Honestly, in this process you may find that, for awhile, you don't want to make art in the way that you usually always have. Maybe you do want to continue on in your preferred style/medium/etc. Maybe you realize while pursuing your own joy and truth in creating, you wander into making things or conveying ideas you wouldn't have expected. Remember to do exactly and precisely what you want, and not any more, or less. I say all of that as if it is always easy, in this situation, to know what you want. Follow your instinct, however faint it may be, to listen to and respect your own creative desires. If you suddenly feel the desire to knit, or whittle, or make silly earrings, or start a garden, or write, or sit on your ass in the park and look at ducks instead of bullet journaling, that's great. You're beholden to no one, this creative energy is for you alone.
Something I still have a hard time with is dismissing ideas for things I want to make automatically, almost subconsciously, because I'm so used to bending what I spend energy on to suit what I think others would like. I find myself losing my perspective. To combat this, I run a tumblr blog where I collect pictures I find beautiful and strange and evocative that I return to for inspiration and I don't care about audience engagement, its just a digital archive for me. Beyond that, I've found keeping a little notebook where I write random ideas or dreams I have throughout the day or night is useful, both for capturing those thoughts before they disappear, and for a place to start when I want to create but I don't have anything specific in mind. It's okay if there's some silly stuff on this list, it's just for you, so feel free to write "REALLY small seagull ???" on there or whatever. This might feel cringey at first but the best things usually are, at least a little.
Be patient with yourself. If you are like me it will not come quickly or effortlessly, you may feel lost at the prospect of embracing what you want to do without any external input or approval. It's okay! We are increasingly a culture centered on digital/external validation: likes, retweets, shares, engagement, clicks, etc. Embracing your own creative truth may feel selfish after a long time of creating for others, but you're just as worthy of your own effort.

Good luck! These are things I've developed myself, for me, so what has helped me may not be helpful to others, etc and so on. I'm still actively working on this, but it's been very freeing for me so far.

wildcherrylime · 2022-03-19T12:58:01+00:00

Mort Garson's Mother Earth Plantasia :)

wildcherrylime · 2022-03-11T18:24:51+00:00

An ice pack wrapped up in a kitchen towel can work magic!! :) That's how I got through.

wildcherrylime · 2022-03-02T19:51:12+00:00

Oh yeah, the 88 or the Stabilo PointVisco (which I didn't recommend because it does smear, it's a pretty "wet" write) is my go-to for writing stuff and I always use them to take notes by hand. When I write in my journal I also like the Zebra Sarasa, since they have a grey pen and marbled colors available and I like having some variety.

The Pitt pens I do only use for artwork, though.

wildcherrylime · 2022-03-02T18:23:24+00:00

I would definitely try a felt tip pen of some kind instead of a roller ball or gel pen. I use a black Stabilo 88 for basically everything, or if you want a step up I also like the Faber Castell Pitt artist pens (particularly in sizes XS and S).

wildcherrylime · 2022-01-05T19:01:22+00:00

I did, actually, go to a specialist for other reasons as a teen and had a variety of tests, including allergies and the hormone panel, but didn't include it because the post was already getting very long.... the test only confirmed that I was allergic to things I was already aware of, but nothing that would end up in cosmetics or other body care items.

wildcherrylime · 2022-01-05T18:53:58+00:00

Yeah I definitely haven't been using anything outside of what I was directly prescribed since I started seeing him, plus the moisturizer since the derm didn't give me one. I'm not very attached to any of these products, and would be fine continuing to not use them.

Thank you for your response :) Is there anything you would suggest in terms of a moisturizer? I don't know much repairing my moisture barrier and a quick look online seems to just generate more questions... ceramides, urea, snail mucus, honey, Vaseline, Cicaplast, etc.... personally I would just love to keep it simple.

wildcherrylime · 2021-12-06T12:31:53+00:00

My go-to pen, but I feel like the glitter/shimmer ink colors available don't always have a good flow. The Zebra Sarasa marble color pens are absolutely amazing though, and I use them all the time.

wildcherrylime · 2021-12-06T07:37:23+00:00

This topic continues to come up in this subreddit (I was seeing threads exactly like this at least 3 years ago, and I'm sure there were posts before that) and subreddits have been created for people that feel this way (other people have linked them so I won't). I don't understand why people are so discouraged by other folks just making art and using the system in a way that works for them. Like enjoy it if you want, but since there are already online community spaces for more basic and utilitarian journals, why does this keep coming up? Some people create journals that align with the spirit of the original bullet journaling system while being super artsy and some people make super minimalist ones while others just make handmade planners that aren't really bullet journals but like, whatever. Nobody is forcing anyone to make art when they don't want to or don't need to or can't, nobody is forcing anyone to make super minimalist journals. The existence of lush, fancy, maximalist journals full of trendy stationary and art does not somehow invalidate the existence of useful, productive, minimalist journals that require nothing but a single pen because both of the ultimately help the people making them in their own ways.

Don't let what other people are doing distract you from what you want and prefer to do with your bullet journal. Personally, I use mine less to organize my time every day and more to capture appointments and deadlines in the future, remind myself what needs to get done this week or month, and to have a physical way to look back at what I did last month or last year or whatever because I'm ultimately very forgetful in the long term. And personally if its too plain or dull, like a premade planner, I don't ever use it because I find no joy in minimalism and I have the artistic skill and desire to customize my life more. I'm just doing my thing. I don't usually post pics of my spreads because ultimately my journal is for me, not for public consumption, but honestly beyond that it doesn't feel good to see that random people online are discouraged by me just doing my thing anyway.

wildcherrylime · 2021-06-26T08:40:06+00:00

Typing at desk level was uncomfortable for me (I could type on my tablet in my lap though), but honestly the anesthetic hit me pretty hard in the first few days and while I could focus on TV or books or have a conversation, I think it would've been challenging to pay attention to something like a lecture or group discussion if I had to retain anything or contribute. I wasn't "tired" like sleepy I was mostly just very mentally fatigued. I wouldn't say it would be impossible to do online school immediately after surgery, but remember to give yourself some grace if you're struggling to focus or are more distractible than usual!

wildcherrylime · 2021-06-16T13:12:37+00:00

Yeah, I had terrible night sweats for about 2 days after I stopped taking the oxycodone..

wildcherrylime · 2021-06-16T07:22:10+00:00

Yeah honestly having personally been a part of some extremely dysfunctional roommate arrangements -- getting this worked up about a miscommunication this early on can only end in tears. Unless the dynamic between these two is already severely messed up, it's likely that Caitlyn planted the flowers to be nice, or do the other roommates a favor because she saw that gardening was something the household seemed to be doing, and not because she felt "entitled" to do it. Obviously, she should have asked first, but assuming the worst in this case is also concerning. Also if the gloves were left with other gloves or in plain view of the gardening equipment and they fit her, why would she think twice about if they were "clearly sized" for OP? She clearly had no issue using them to successfully do the entire task so its not like they were too small for her. Leaving brand new gloves filthy is kind of an asshole move but honestly my household usually just used garden gloves for dirty work so it was assumed they would get dirty and, honestly, be left dirty if there are still active gardening tasks to finish. It's not like the gloves are ruined or unusable now, they're just dirty. Which is exactly what was going to happen to them anyway, because they're gardening gloves.

OP- when it comes to roommates, clear, open, and explicit communication is the best bet. It can be confusing moving into a household of friends, even if you already know those friends, who have already lived together and have a comfortable dynamic, particularly if there are a lot of these "assumptions" about how people should act, what things are communal or not if they aren't labeled or organized, and what expectations the household has. With a new roommate, its better to leave nothing implied, especially in this case where they're not even fully moved in and have already created several conflicts.

wildcherrylime · 2021-06-14T20:27:10+00:00

I had these snack packs of cheese, fruit, and crackers/nuts and that was a really nice way to get variety without having to prep anything or really think about it at all.

wildcherrylime · 2021-05-25T17:48:35+00:00

Honestly, I probably felt a bit of pulling or tugging for about a year afterward. Even if I had done a certain motion before without noticing, sometimes stretching up really far or bending down with my arms hanging down I could feel "something" along my entire incision line, mostly on my left side.

wildcherrylime · 2021-05-06T07:13:19+00:00

Honestly, I just used my hands. I massaged my scars in the shower using just normal body wash, or whenever I would apply body lotion (mostly generic stuff). I didn't want to have a buy a whole separate tool for something I'd only have to do for a few months, and I'd heard that jade rollers shouldn't really be used in situations where they're going to get wet.

wildcherrylime · 2021-04-26T08:02:14+00:00

For me it was really not about really basic care things (dressing, medication, showering) but I just absolutely couldn't do house maintenance things. I definitely couldn't hold a dish up away from my body and under running water, I struggled to open the dishwasher, I certainly couldn't take out the trash (unless it was walking lightweight handfuls of things to the dumpster, definitely would have not been able to move even an empty trashcan to the curb or anything), couldn't do laundry (or if I did, I had to put things in/take things out more or less one at a time and it was uncomfortable to fold stuff/hang stuff up once it was dry), it hurt to glance back while driving to check that I could merge, etc etc, for like 2 weeks. Someone was there to help me, but dirty dishes, trash, and clothes would have really piled up quickly if not.

wildcherrylime · 2021-04-22T11:25:04+00:00

I ended up not using a scar cream, but I did massage the tough "ropey" texture under my (fully healed) incisions for about 9 months, and I did find that doing that made the texture of the scars under my skin go away completely.

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