Little Human Rituals // Monthly Thread // MONTH UNKNOWN BC IM BAD AT TIME 10

Oh my gosh, its another month of shenanigans!

I have been having… a month. Half good, half bad, always a little chaotic! Let’s get into it <3

Oh my God guess what you'll never guess what happened at the park! Okay so oh my gosh, I went to the park and then there was just OH SOSOSO so many cars there and I was like oh no! Because I’m just awful being surrounded by people right but I know I wont get over that if I don’t push myself so I persisted anyway - AND SO GLAD I DID!

So, I go around the whole block and I run into a lady walking her dog and she points to my hair and she points to my dress and she says your hair matches and did a thumbs up and I was so happy about that and kept on, then later on we cross paths again when her dog stopped to smell the bush and I was going to say something about even dogs need to stop to smell the roses even if there aren't any yet but then she turned around and I guess she had heard like muffled something and she had explained that she couldn't hear and she started signing and GIRL, so I was so fucking excited!!

Because like years ago, SOSOSOSO fucking so many years ago, like before 2017 I had gotten it into my head that I wanted to learn ASL to communicate better with people that normally experience you know an isolated life experience because like there's been a lot of deaf kids that are raised by hearing adults that don't give a shit that their kid can't hear and they don't interact with them or learn sign language.

So I wanted to be able to learn sign language and so a long time ago I started studying by myself and then I had asked my husband to get on it and he wasn't really interested in learning sign language so then I asked my mom and so me and my mom would sit there and do like little ASL signs at each other which was so much fun and of course she died so I didn't get to practice that anymore and so then today this lady ends up being deaf and I got to say like I'm sorry I don't speak ASL IN ASL and she said she understood and did the sign for not understanding and signed it was okay!

I was like oh my God I'm understanding this with another person and so then I couldn't remember any of the ASL that I learned besides sorry and thank you.

OH I WAS FLOATING ON THE CLOUDS, and then I ended up seeing her before we left and she waved at me and I waved back and then I waited for her attention and the only thing I could think of was that I knew how to say you're beautiful so I told her she was beautiful she said oh my God you too and I said thank you and she said thank you and then she went to go see her friends!

Oh my God I'm so excited this was something that I have been working on and given up but it actually worked out and I was very excited cuz I had worked really hard to learn and study the different hand signals and it was really exciting that on the fly, in the open, on the ground, in the wild, I was actually able to like UNDERSTAND someone else’s completely different language and they could understand me in that language and it's not English spoken language! I don't know if you know how cool that is but that's so cool. I was so excited, I was on cloud nine! oh my God!

Oh yeah! And I was tryna chat more with folks in my neighborhood right? Well, we walked the dog and the lady that I had waved at a bunch when I was going on my solo walks but I felt bad bc my dog barked at her a couple times but today!

Today, she said my dog was cute! And like she wanted to talk a bit while we were passing and she said that she liked my hat and that she has her hat blow around in the wind but it's a beautiful day for a walk and oh my gods, you guys~! People are starting to talk to me even more, I'm so excited, I feel like I leveled up!

I'm doing something right so I was very excited and then I started sweating like crazy because I was like oh no you're going to fuck it up because I was starting to have audio processing issues which was really difficult and I wasn't sure if I was understanding correctly or not and I couldn't ask anybody right like you can't ask in the moment? and so I was very nervous but Jon said that it went very well from the outside so I was very excited!

I know I can have a distorted perception due to trauma and prior experiences in less than safe environments so getting outside analysis can be helpful. Eee!

And THEN! I complimented somebody on their hair today in Costco. I was like I like the way you did your hair and he blushed and stammered a bit and then thanked me and then I left.

Oh! It was a good time! I went in a skirt and I didn't feel embarrassed and I was more present and then less of a moody cranky mode than usual (I come from very moody stock lol, but I believe that comes from a negative view of life, which is in my theory, based off of lived experiences, and so I’ve made it a point to find explicitly light, no strings attached, positive experiences to help counter all the negative ones that shaped how I see the world as a scary place)

I was very excited and yeah so it's been a good day/week/month oh and I remembered to put on sunscreen cuz my chest was getting that heat rash texture and I don't like that so I put some sunscreen on today and it doesn't look like I'm any worse for wear for going out in the sun yet so I think that's working I'm so excited!

I did some art this month. Honestly, I did a lot of art but I gotta sit down and write out the audio bit to go along w/ the art making part but that seems to be something Im getting hung up on so I thought I’d at least show you a bit of the finished stuff <33 I still hope to explain what all the symbolism means but still! For now, please enjoy my doodles!

Oh! Also, we went to the park and saw a big ole bird! It was as big as the geese! He was stalking about all slow, sloooowly moving past the ducks, the geese, just following the water’s edge! I got so many pictures bc I was afraid they were all gonna be blurry lol! Look how pointy his head is. The internet said it was a heron but Idk tbh, it just looks cool!

When I was younger, I stole my parents bird book and started identifying all the birds I could find outside. (Yes, this was before the internet, we had to find our own entertainment in the wild lol!) I wish I still had that book though, dang lol

Oh we made some BANGING FOOD, but silly me only snapped a photo, didn’t actually include what it WAS, but damn it looks good, I wish I would make it again but now Idk how bc THERES NO RECIPE JESSICA~! xD GAH!~

Oh! We did do a balsamic marinade on some cherry tomatoes, cucumbers and onions and GIRL IT WAS SO DANG GOOD, oh, it was gone so fast xD

Oh I did have some odd/embarrassing moments at the park though! I went in a flowy skirt and I guess cuz Im new to skirts, I don’t know everything and omg IT WAS A FKN WIMDY MFER OUTSIDE! MY SKIRT WANTED TO MEET HEAVEN AND LEFT!

I screamed and tried to hold it down at the park, but that skirt was way too flippy and light. I went to the car and tried to tape quarters to it, OMG IT MAKES IT MORE AIRBORNE?! So I tried taping two lipsticks, one in front and one in back to the bottom of my skirt, NOTHING WOULD KEEP THIS BISH DOWN YOU GUYS.

I had to go home, I was embarrassed, cuz oh god, what if someone saw something? So I went home, googled wtf I do, almost bought some weighted tablecloth clips xD But swapped skirts for heavier material and THIS TIME IT STAYED DOWN! >:3 SUCCESS!

I also finally got around to trying to plant again. The problem has often been, I can grow stuff in water but beyond that, Im hopeless lol. I killed the last batch when we moved in and I bought all the supplies but I tried again recently and Idk, theyve been stuck with their first nontrue set of leaves but grew so much root that its popping out the bottom of the container!

Idk why, so I tried removing them from the water dish and repotted half of them into something deeper and gonna compare the two to see who performs better to know what I should do next time lol. Its just kale, I didn’t think itd be complicated lol but here’s to hoping. THE ONE GOOD THING IS I AINT KILLED IT YET! So I got time to learn ^-^

Oh but the sky was GORGEOUS outside this month! Idk if you ever do it, but sometimes I try to find shapes or things inside clouds for fun and man, the clouds lately have had so many shapes and doodles inside them, on such a pretty blue canvas, ah it really makes you feel at peace to just watch the clouds go by and make stories out of them!

We even got to go to a park by the river and I edged out onto the little dock they have and got to say hi to a goose! His friends had already left but he was brave before toddling off into the waters soon after this pic lol

Oh and ofc Kupo loved the whole adventure. I’ve been working on helping him feel safe in various environments and taking him out to this park that day was like a monumental moment bc he is a barky boy, sometimes he just likes to hear the sound of his own barks, but today we went to the park and some kids had come to exercise and they were chaotic and running around nearby and at first he was upset but then quickly got into this position and just chilled.

I did learn that when he gets too stressed, a good way to help him calm down is to crush up a few treats and sprinkle them onto the grass and have him play the “find it!” game where he has to use his nose to find goodies. It distracts him from the rise of anxiety I think and then when he’s done, he’s forgotten what made him so upset but he acknowledges it before checking to make sure he really did get ALL the treats, lol. It works! I was delighted!

So delighted, we ended up stopping for a small icecream cone otw home and here’s Kupo getting a pup cup from the gluten free icecream shop!! (OMG THEY HAVE SO MANY GLUTEN FREE PLACES AROUND HERE!!!!!!!!!!!)

Also also! I ended up doing a piece for someone a while back and they released it recently! If you want to see an animated kitty sass you a bit, please enjoy Kid Wizard’s work here! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VLOOETGncBI

Okay, I think this is the gist of most of the month <3 Eee, I’ve felt like such a robot for most of my life, but now it feels like life is opening up into so much more. I’m having such a good time, so is Kupo I think! Just look at him! Ah, Im so happy, thanks for checking in, lovely.

I would love to know what you got up to this month~! Let me know in the comments. Ill see you next time! <3