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I suck at setting Kismets so I'm just going to let A.I. do it for a while.

We returned from our final camping trip of the year last week. Now that we're home I've been in the studio working for the big holiday push. I'm determined to lasso my brain and do some serious work/play life balancing shit if you know what I mean. No more 12+ hour days, 7 days a week. I'm seeking 9 hours, with like, one half of a day off in a week. Really focusing on "me" time lol.

This is the time of year where I make the bulk of my sales, although the entire year so far has been nothing to sneeze at. My numbers are up and I'm forever grateful to the folks who make that happen. If I could snap my fingers to make these pieces come together that would be spiffy but alas, I must sit and do the work.

I enjoy it though, it's a way for my brain to have some sense of productivity, I get to work from home, and I can listen to audio books all day. This is truly for me what I have been working toward my whole life. It's tough as gator balls to make something like this happen so I'm glad to be working the long hours. I just don't have time to piss around with you distracting lovely people. Don't get me wrong, I'd love to, I sometimes have to fight my distracted brain to keep from coming back here and rating portfolios or going in the chat...

But for now, I'll probably be here in the time it takes the glue gun to heat up. I'll also be checking on the Halloween competition in the forum. I'm seeing some beautiful poetry already and I know, I KNOW that there are folks on here with impressive profile editing skills. I've already seen some Halloween themed profiles! No pressure, but we love to see it if you have it :)

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Vampirewitch39
01:46 Sep 25 2023

I also hope the contest goes well. :)

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I really do hope people create some cool Halloween themed profiles. If you do make one, send me a message so I can look and admire.

I should try editing again, I'm not very good at it, lol.

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Vampirewitch39
22:56 Sep 13 2023

Yes, you should

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We popped out to do some antique shopping at one of the local spots and we found some awesome stuff. First I found a 1904 Keystone "Winner" Stereoscope and I was pretty pumped about that since it was in great condition and marked down. My mother found some photo cards, at her mother's home, of Niagara Falls back when it would freeze and people would walk on the ice (yikes). She gave us the cards but there was no stereoscope to pass on, so I'm glad we found one to accompany them. They are SO cool to look at.

My husband found a cast iron boot scraper that was shaped like a Dachshund. Since we work in the garden, we often need to scrape our shoes before we go in so now that's another thing checked off the list.

And finally, when we were checking out, I glanced behind the owner and realized he had a whole display of URANIUM GLASSWARE. Oh well that set me off and then he and I were chatting about it. I asked for two wine glasses and he pulled them down and shined the black light to demonstrate that they are legitimate. YAY!!! I love things like that! So I got those, a belated anniversary gift lol.

I hope to some day create a custom cabinet that can light those up the way they should be.

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Nekirena
05:04 Sep 11 2023

Ohhhhh I love antique shopping!

Uranium glass is so fucking nifty! I had a foster mom who had an entire cupboard full of them. It was by far my favorite spot in the house. She had a mirror behind it (the cupboard had a glass front and a glass back) and the lighting in it would reflect the glass across the room from the mirror and it was just so freaking gorgeous at night.

Heh memory unlocked just now. 🖤

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Morrigon
20:02 Sep 11 2023

I definitely want to get some more statement pieces and do a cool display. The black light makes a lot of regular glassware look absolutely beautiful, like an aquarium almost!

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CuRsEdToDaRkNeSs
18:48 Sep 13 2023

I adore antiquing. I love finding unique jewelry pieces. It always makes me wonder about the life of the person who owned it prior. There is just something about antiques that can speak to the soul.

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Recently I realized that a person in my life struggles with self-talk that is incredibly negative. At first it was easy to miss because he spends his energy focused on other people's tendencies to be negative and frankly, he's not wrong. The negativity he sees in others is valid, and the other night he was feeling incredibly beaten down by seemingly harmless comments others were making while they were all participating in a competition.

Rather than dismiss it as harmless banter, I sat with him and just listened as he talked about how it made him feel. I noticed he would vacillate between claiming he doesn't care about doing well and also saying that he tries really hard to make his team happy and feel like they're doing well. This inner conflict seemed strong, a pulling in two opposite directions. One direction was "I don't care. It doesn't affect me." and the other was "I care deeply and want to make sure others have a good experience."

So I said to him, it's okay to care, it's normal to want to do well and have approval of others. Do away with beating yourself up about what matters to you.

As I listened to what he was saying I realized that he's afraid others don't want to participate in the competition because he's so good at it, plus it bothers him when people give him grief about his skill level and ignore the contributions that his team makes alongside him. With that realization, we talked about ways to rebuff the "banter" aimed his way and also shine light on his teammates to turn a negative situation into a positive one.

I loved having this conversation with him. He is a wonderful person who brings a lot of good and light to people's lives. The longer we talked the more I internally began to recall all the ways he's negative toward himself. If you compliment a piece of art he's been working on, he'll list all the ways he made a mistake or doesn't like how it turned out. If he cooks a meal, he'll preface it with all the flaws he feels are present. Negative, negative, negative.

This wonderful person is beating himself down on a constant basis and then he enters a competition where he doesn't get to participate in the fun because people get frustrated at how good he is. Now his heart must be confused, he can say without doubt that he's doing well at something and the reaction he gets for it is negative.

Do you see how negative self talk is corrosive and sets us up for failure? This wonderful person has no sense of sanctuary within himself. If someone says something negative to him, it's another drop in a bucket already filled to the brim. If someone tries to say something positive, he rejects it and focuses on the negative, like placing a lid over the bucket so nothing can be poured in.

I think we all can get stuck in cycles of negativity where we harvest it and stew in it from within and are far more sensitive to outside negativity because of it. I know this is a frequent cycle in my own mentality. Breaking away from negative self talk was a huge part of my growth in 2021 and onward and let me tell you, the negativity within me was downright hateful and I spread that to people around me. I was very quick to see the absolute worst in others and then became very paranoid that people were thinking the worst of me.

This beloved person and I are struggling with the same thing: What we see in others is actually what we embody within ourselves. We see their negativity, their drama, their meanness, and forget about our own and even how we treat or think of ourselves. We've both been called out for justifying our own toxicity by claiming it's merely in response to someone else's behavior, when we embody that same energy and are hyper focused on it because it's familiar.

I'm really grateful to know this person and to have the trust and privilege to talk about things as sensitive as this.

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Vampirewitch39
23:43 Sep 08 2023

You are a good woman, have I told you that lately?

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Morrigon
01:42 Sep 09 2023

Yeah, I'm pretty good with a shovel. ;)

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What someone rates our profile is not a reflection of who we are or our self worth. It may feel jarring to not receive approval, but what's interesting to us may be boring to someone else.

Remember, it does not define you, the effort you put in to something, or your value as a person. A rating is just another person's preference.

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MewTwo
04:16 Sep 08 2023

bullshit she rates me a 5 on every profile I make I don't even get a chance to finish the god dam profile she quickly whips her head around the corner to rate me a 5 every time and says in her last journal oh I claim to fix it and rata 10 later on

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LunaNova
04:16 Sep 08 2023

me too,

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MooniePie
04:19 Sep 08 2023

Soo... how about that trip though Canada, eh?

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Morrigon
04:19 Sep 08 2023

People are free to rate as they please. If you internalize it like this it becomes incredibly upsetting. Take deep breaths and let it go. You can't control what other people do but you can control your own behavior and your perspective. Don't give a rating on a website such influence over your headspace.

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