Pips had a great week. His catsitter spoiled him with lots of treats & pets as directed, and we spoiled him with lots of treats & pets when we got home from Dragon Con.

My week? Not as great. Not bad on a personal, immediate level, honestly, but I'm not gonna lie, I'm struggling against a stress high-tide of "what next with distant family?" question.

I don't put pressure on myself to accomplish things the week after a con, because I've learned it's counterproductive to fight the Inevitable Brain Crash. Usually, that's accompanied by low energy. But my body processes stress AS energy. So all week I was itching to do things without the mental capacity to plan things.

Hello, cleaning, shopping, weeding, & cooking.

The cleaning was a natural progression from the unpacking/tidying up I need to do to properly inhabit whatever living space I'm occupying during & after travel. Added a bunch of exra laundry, and scrubbed a couple of things until they were shiny. Highly therapeutic, polishing is.

Shopping for comfort foods makes sense because comfort, right? The fact that I do 90% of my impulse shopping in the produce aisle is neither here nor there. It still counted as impulse & comfort.

Yard-wise, I harvested out the pumpkins from their drought-shriveled vines (oops) weeded all the planting beds, and watered all the thirsty perennials. Results: 10 pumpkins, a bowlful of tomatoes, and a bucket of hot Italian peppers.

The weather cooperated with cool, dry days, and chill nights that all but begged for baking to be done. So...I stress-baked a bit on top of all the rest. There's nothing like feasting on homemade foods in a cozy clean homey space to make life feel just a little more anchored & settled. I even used tomatoes & peppers from the garden.

And tonight, here on the fringes of other drama, I opened up a story draft, settled right into writing, and it felt good.

---

postscript of pictures because why not?