What you are in for: An extremely detailed record of today. The tense changes throughout depending on when I wrote something. Some details not included.

This Saturday Morning

Wake up, lay in bed and scroll Reddit/Bluesky until my 1-hour daily limit runs up.

Cat is annoyed.
Feed cat 5 minutes early.

I am taking a walk this morning. On my way out, I noticed the flowers next to my HOA-operated bushes. I think I planted these, but I don't know. Sometimes in the spring I buy seasonal seeds and see what happens. When I moved in, there were daffodils and I love to see them. One year I got some nice purple flowers. I should probably learn to tend the garden. For now, I love that whatever these are, they attract bumblebees, so I have bumblebees in front of my house all the time and that's cool.

Go to smoothie place for protein smoothie, white Gatorade, gluten free protein brownie (lemon white chip blondie). Drink some smoothie until the hunger pangs go away.

Opened my maps app to find a place to go. I didn't want to go to any of the fancy places, so I went to the one where I knew I'd get 5,000 steps and see pretty trees and get a view at the end of the trail before turning around. It's nice because it's mostly a straight line on the paved path to the view and back again. If you want, there are options to walk on gravel, dirt, or grass, making it flexible to your needs for the day.

When I got there, I ate a few bites of my lemon brownie and drank some Gatorade to juice up my bones, then took my walk.

I noticed:

When I come home, Zenny is awake and ready for attention. We cuddle or play, depending on what she wants to do.

Today, we played with the crazy straw sushi wand. This is a toy she's had for a long time, but when I got it initially she wasn't that into it. The center of balance is very weird for the kind of play she likes, and when we first met she wasn't confident to fully cat-out during play. Now I'm much better with a wand. Since I got her in Apr 2023, I've developed my wand muscles.

I thought I'd try it again because I can't find any of her other wands (is she hiding them??), and we've been using the same rainbow felt wand for weeks, thus making this an exciting new play experience with an old toy! (The rainbow wand somehow never disappears.) We did this for ~45 minutes, her on the platform and me flinging the sushis up for her to catch or not catch, kill or play with, as she excitedly flipped from side to side hanging her head over the side every chance she got.


Zenny vs wand and dramatic stock music

She gets too tired at some point and goes to take a nap. This is when I finish my breakfast and Gatorade and begin typing this while I catch up with the news from the week. Noon comes and goes, and Zenny is excited to wake up from her nap just long enough for lunch, and then to ignore me for a short nap while I wrote more of this.

Saturday Mornings

I try to type a little bit about my walk or my morning if I remember to. If I'm working on something else, I might use the time for that. Last weekend I used the time to begin some coding work on my new Halloween site and didn't do any writing at all.

Some Saturdays I get coffee instead of a smoothie, eat eggs with fruit, or get boring with plain oatmeal. My first priority waking up (outside of bathroom stuff and hygiene) is to get some protein. My meds need protein to break down into my body correctly and most effectively but it's also just what I need to give me the energy for a morning walk. I make sure I have a meal (or meal replacement) with protein and water or other flavored hydrating drink. I consider coffee a 'treat' because if I'm paying for coffee I'm probably getting something with a seasonal flavor. (I can make my own black coffee at home.)

Other times, I might go to a gluten-free dedicated cafe and take my pick of the menu, sitting down to a full breakfast before a walk later mid-morning. This is not a summer activity; in summer, I usually want to be home by 10am so the temperatures can creep up while I'm inside.

This Saturday Afternoon

Because all of my plans were canceled, I didn't have anything specific planned for today. I knocked something off my to do list (prepping stuff for one of my 101 goals in 1,001 days items) then Zenny and I did some brushy time. She loves brushy time until very suddenly she doesn't, and she runs off only to turn and give me an incredibly dramatic glare, like: how dare you brush me for one microsecond longer than I could stand it!

I pulled a small cat out of her because it has been two weeks since our last brushy time. Last week she did not want it at all. We spent more time playing to relieve the anger from my audacity, until she got tired and walked away to nap again.

It's after 2pm now and I'm getting hungry. I didn't even look in the fridge. I got a gift card for my birthday and ordered delivery: a burger bowl with beets and sweet potato shavings, and fries with siracha aioli sauce instead of ketchup. While I waited for my food to arrive, I browsed all of the horrors on each of my streaming services and added all 4.5-star rated movies to my watchlist.

This is one way I look for new movies. I don't even read the blurb. It's both served and failed me (it's not a foolproof method).

I chose The Girl Next Door (2007), which was very hard to watch, then wrote my review on Letterboxd. After the movie, I took a few deep breaths, stretched for 15 minutes, then refilled my water.

I didn't want that to be the theme of my day, so I purposefully picked another much lighter movie to follow it - An American Werewolf in London (1981). I loved the transformation scene and overall this was the perfect and satisfying follow up to something more disturbing.

While watching the movie, I tried my hand at werewolf doodles. I am not sure what werewolf doodles might be other than the full moon in the night sky and a werewolf, but I did my best. This werewolf does not want to wear pants and his name is Socks.

The page was filled before the movie ended and Zenny was ready to sit on my lap by then too (she won't if I'm occupied, but looks at me anxiously with begging eyes until I move my stuff). I got up for a fresh jug of COLD water, then we cozied on the couch and spent our afternoon relaxing and cuddling to a less horrific horror movie.

Saturday Afternoons

If I have plans I do those, but most Saturday afternoons intentionally at home are when I spend time taking care of my home and cleaning. It's not unusual for me to spend Saturday evenings watching a movie or two, but I like to use the daylight to my advantage for spotting dust and particles and things that I can't see at night.

Though not always home care, it's usually a more active activity (physically or mentally) that occupies me which is part of what makes today so fun! I'm very outside of any normal routine when I have an unexpected or unplanned "day off." (It also contributed to Zenny's anger throughout the day, she hates being off routine.)

Last Saturday afternoon, after lunch break, I decided to continue my work coding my upcoming Halloween site, and knocked off a good 8 hours of work building the foundation of the theme and content. (Some of it is old stuff I've been keeping around for a site someday, but I have new ideas to add to that.)

This Saturday Evening

After the movie ended, we were too cozy and I didn't want to move. Instead I did a round in Monster Hunter Puzzles (played until I failed) and then listened to the rain until Zenny woke up and went to the floor, which is always her destination after my lap.

I got up to do the dishes and tidy up the kitchen, then fed Zenny her supper. Cleaned up the litter area, then at a loss for what to do next, I sat down for some deep breathing for a few minutes. I didn't want to pretend like I didn't watch a traumatic and triggering movie earlier today, so I gave myself a moment to release any tension in my body that had built up during the rest of the day (there was a lot). This is something I need to remember to do more often as a follow up when happenings make my body tense.

With nothing in mind to do next, I moved into horizontal mode and stayed still to rest my hands, body, and brain. I make sure every part of my body is comfortable and stretch my fingers, which usually curl by default. I had some motivation to read, but no motivation to figure out where I put my book (I still haven't unpacked since I got home from my travels Aug 22), so instead I let myself sink into thought and reflection and deep breathing until eventually I fell into a deep nap. It kept me until the alarm went off for Zenny's wet food dinner.

An evening nap comes with a choice. Am I going to wake myself back up and potentially stay up and active until past midnight? or am I going to stay sluggish so I can get to bed at a decent hour?

I wanted to do a few more things, though I didn't know what. I had an intense desire to not use any screens and engage in something with my hands. I didn't want to type or read or use my phone for communication. I got up and ate some apple slices, then hung some pumpkin heads on my wall behind the round purple sofa I use as my office chair. I can shift the pumpkin heads up and down and they will be in view behind my head on camera. (You can't see the other art on camera.)

I can't get to my other Halloween decor without doing some cleaning and organizing. I thought about sweeping the floors, changing my bedsheets, cleaning the bathroom... and instead remembered something I wanted to "make myself" when I saw it in the store. I knew it wouldn't be as good, but it also wouldn't be $30.

My box of Sculpey and modeling tools have been sitting on a bookshelf since the first season of Last of Us came out and I felt inspired to make a mushroom zombie child. (I don't even know where that is, and it's a total coincidence that I made another mushroom thing.)

Just before pulling a chunk off for a weird Halloween guy, I decided to make something else! A whim of an idea, to stick to summer and check something off my BINGO with whatever I was about to do. This can be my learning experience, then I can make my tiny eyeball mug later after I know how to do it right.

I have been collecting small items to put in a fairy garden in my house, once I find a suitable bucket for it and some cool rocks. I am not a gardener, but I have always wanted a little fairy garden! I made a frog sitting on top of a mushroom. It's quite thicc and I am not sure I did all the techniques right, but I took (from memory) everything I've learned about sculpting from the sped-up 30-second videos professional artists post on their social media and created this little friend.

I didn't clean my hands OR my surface before making this. That was my first lessons learned: Don't be lazy about that, it's worth it!

During this, I listened to Killing the Dream on repeat - through In Place, Apart (2005) and Fractures (2008) and back again. These albums take me back to 2017 in a weird way that I don't have the energy to describe, though the heartbreak-nostalgia is not painful anymore.

I baked them for 45 minutes, which I don't think was enough, but I did not want to stay up all night. Midnight approaches fast as I fill in the remaining account of my day and although I knew I'd be up later than usual, I still want to get in bed soon. Zenny is glaring at me for staying up past my bedtime.


Don't turn this up too much! Inconsistent volumes. Sorry, I don't know anything about sound editing yet.

Saturday Evenings

Unless I have plans outside of the house, Saturday evenings are usually dedicated activity nights. I have a plan on what I'm going to do: movie night, watch my shows, organize/declutter, dance party, make websites, write, and so on. I do this thing all night, until it's time for bed.

Nights like this which take me out of that routine are usually fueled by a more playful creative energy than I usually have. I love that I listened to what I truly wanted and tried my hand with the Sculpey!

In bed, I read for about an hour before switching off the light and falling asleep. Sometimes I do other stuff, but since leaving social media I generally don't use my phone in bed at night anymore.

frog friend

I'll post again when I finish and add paint!

Even if this comes out badly or I don't do it right, look at this. So worth it just for this face.