⛤ March Q&A (Patreon)

March has been a hell of a month. a death in the family involving a financial setback has only been followed by our elderly cat falling ill. as of late she's not eating, we can barely get her to nibble a little while hand feeding her small amounts of her favorite treats every hour or two. mirtazapine isn't working. her latest blood results show that she has end stage renal failure now and the vet recommended letting her go. we scheduled a euthanasia appointment for this afternoon so she can pass peacefully at home, where everything smells familiar and her people are with her. we're taking turns sleeping on the couch with her so she never has to be alone. we're taking shifts caring for her around the clock. I'm finding it hard to function and even harder to focus on anything besides granting her every wish. we'll be very relieved when she's finally free of the confines of a failing body. I'm just so very tired. what about you?

Drought has passed in CA, the lawn is dead 2+ years ago the weeds need to be mowed more often it seems and grow faster. Need to future proof that space. Other than that all is well. Probably😂 as someone else mentioned, there are plenty of drought tolerant alternatives to grass. unless you live in a HOA neighborhood (boooo!), you might want to look into various creeping shrubs, mosses and even bushes. wishing you plenty of rain to rejuvenate the ground!

I am doing pretty well, a bit tired/burned out but that will pass. A lot of things happening at once for me lol. same, brother. everything must pass eventually, even the things we aren't ready to let go. I know it can be a struggle to muster the energy to manage everything life demands of us. whatever you do, never stop taking care of yourself. you will need to be in the best shape possible to see things through.

My life is a constant struggle atm, most of all financially. My new job is a little easier and I hope to keep it for as long as possible but I still want to move out of the country. I feel like I only live for my job atm. same, brother. I hope an opportunity comes your way soon. it never hurts to be prepared for a sudden change in plans.

Do you ever feel more intuitive or I guess you could say psychic when you have had a few drinks or I guess the "right" amount of alcohol? Yes, although it's a delicate balance. I'm a lightweight so after "a few drinks" I'm gonna struggle to function much less do witch shit. but one or two cocktails do open you up to the spirit world and allow you to be attuned to the subtle energies your ego generally filters out. I find that with some spirits, it's easier to let myself be a vessel for whatever energies want to be expressed which is helpful for all kinds of energy work and healing. but this only works as long as I can retain my discernment. it's a matter of timing aswell. one minute I can do a powerful and life changing reading for someone and ten minutes later tarot calls me out for being too drunk. another topic I like a lot is magical cocktailing! there are so many kitchen witchery ingredients you can use to craft powerful potions to boost your intent. for a kickass cleansing and protection potion, take one to two shots of your favorite gin, one shot of full moon water, the juice of half of a lime, and fill up with tonic water. invoke the powers of juniper and lime to harness their cleansing and protective powers. if you know what other botanicals your gin is distilled from, you may consider those aswell. you can preserve moon water by mixing one part moon water to two parts vodka or gin or rum and it'll stay shelf stable that way. you can tip the scales more towards half and half but err on the side of at least 25% alcohol, as 20% is the minimum percentage needed to kill microbial life. hmu for more magical cocktail recipes.

Trudging right on along! It feels like things are looking up, or at least the troubled times are coming to an end. That’s just the feeling I get. Do you have a favorite pastry? Or maybe a Top 3 if it’s tough to choose? that might be the hardest question I've ever been asked! how is one to choose when there are so many delicious pastries to go around? something I always gravitate back to and have made stupid amounts of is chocolate chip brioche buns. soft, rich and perfectly chewy, notes of butter and vanilla and good milk chocolate chips - what's not to love? in the same vein, I have to mention a German pastry I used to love getting. quark balls are the German answer to donut holes. they are little yeasted fried balls made with an ingredient you can only get in Europe - quark. the addition of this high protein dairy product makes the donuts rich, moist, springy and soft with a refreshing acidity to break up the buttery, slightly sweet confection. perfectly balanced, as all things should be. and the third pastry I have to shout out may be surprising but it has a special place in my heart. a savory phyllo pastry from Turkey called borek. a layered phyllo dough akin to the one you see used in baklava is filled with either feta cheese or spinach or both and I enjoy every last variation of this amazing pastry. there are a lot of Turkish food restaurants where I'm from which is a culinary blessing upon the country in my opinion. the Turks really do know good food. doner kebab is probably one of the most popular fast food item where I'm from, but my heart belongs to borek.

Any advice for when you're depressed? sometimes I wish I had useful things to say. it's been a while since I've really struggled with depression but I'll try to channel the spirit of when I was stuck living under my mom's roof in a town that hated me in a country that had no opportunities for someone like me surrounded by people who bullied me, put me down and shamed me on the daily and accused me of making their lives difficult on purpose and parents who didn't have the capacity to see me as a person with needs and feelings and struggles. I see depression as a tell tale sign that your physical and psychological environment are killing you. depression is your brain's survival strategy to preserve and protect your soul in a world that is detrimental to your psyche. many of us are forced to live a life we do not want with little to no say in what happens to us. and I'm not talking about random misfortune that happens to all of us sometimes. I'm talking about the burdens placed upon us to be forced to uphold someone else's world, regardless of whether we approve of this world or not. as a child and adolescent, I hated nothing more than being forced to see the world through the eyes of my parents and being punished for living by my own ideals. I think when depression takes hold, it's important to ask yourself three questions: do I have purpose in life? do I have something to live for? do I have the freedom to pursue the things that are important to me? if the answers to all of these are no, it's time to seriously reevaluate your life. scrap everything and start over. as a minor, of course, I was dependent on the material things my parents provided, so my answers had to remain a strong no for many years. I had no purpose because I wasn't wanted. I had nothing to live for because I wasn't allowed to go out into the world and find out what I want out of life or create anything for myself. I didn't have the freedom to pursue what was important to me because everything that was important to me was trivialized, laughed at, put down and actively discouraged by my parents. by the time I reached adulthood I had given up on life and completely disconnected from my experience in every possible way I could while keeping my flesh vessel breathing. people around me didn't like that, of course, and the abuse only worsened the more time passed. I was an adult now and met with harsh judgement and severe disapproval for being unable to function in society. it wasn't until I was diagnosed with ADHD, depression and half of the alphabet's worth of capitalized mental conditions at 21 or 22 that I started getting help from outside sources. and it wasn't until my mother went back to Russia that I could finally start to heal from decades of narcissistic abuse. what I needed the most during the lowest points of my depression was alone time. alone time felt like peace on earth. no fighting, no tension, no demands, nobody hammering into me what a complete waste of life I am. for a while, literally all I needed was room to breathe and exist at my own pace. which, if you are familiar with depression, you will know is very slow. your body and brain will slow down to allow room for emotional processing. if you have to do things, do them as slowly as possible. make the goals as small as possible. you probably struggle to find the energy to perform basic tasks like shower and prepare food. if your intent is to shower, your first goal needs to be to sit up in bed. just sit, until sitting starts to become bearable. when you're ready to push yourself a little more, stand up and open a window. sit back down on the bed, with your feet on the ground this time if you can manage. sit and breathe the air until sitting and breathing becomes bearable. it's ok if it takes an hour just to get to the bathroom. when you're ready to push yourself more, walk to the bathroom. sit on the edge of the tub or the toilet until being in the bathroom becomes bearable. when you're ready, turn on the water. remember that at any point if it gets to be too much, you can always fall back on going back to bed. if getting in the shower is daunting, brush your teeth. any effort you make to take care of yourself is going to pay off exponentially in terms of your physical and mental wellbeing. brush your teeth. put on clean clothes. brush your hair. drink a glass of water. the smallest accomplishments will have the biggest impact on your day. if you don't have the strength to prepare a meal, it's ok to have meals in their component parts. an apple, a piece of cheese, a spoonful of peanut butter and a handful of crackers. boom, done. a piece of bread, a hard boiled egg and a cup of yogurt. whatever you can find in the fridge or cupboard that is consumable without having to be cooked is fair game. a raw carrot? a handful of nuts? a pickle? a can of fruit cocktail? (a slice of butter? I don't judge) any way you can get nutrition into your body is going to be worth its weight in gold. slowly you'll build up your energy levels to be able to accomplish more things. stretch, drink water, tidy up a single thing in your house, maybe one more if you're up to it. if you've managed these things and you want to push yourself more, walk to the mailbox. just take it very slow and be very forgiving with yourself. go back to bed if you need to. the next thing I recommend is to avoid isolating yourself for too long. even if it's just chatting with people online, do make an effort to initiate social interaction. text somebody. if you're having a good day, go to the convenience store and buy a gatorade or something. talking face to face to the clerk for 30 seconds is a great way to socialize when you're depressed because you know exactly what to expect, there's rarely any surprises you're not prepared for and it's low pressure to perform. you only need to know how to respond to "hi how are you?", "your total will be x" and "have a good day". the clerk literally does not care how you look, how you appear, how you feel or how long it's been since you left the house. they care that you pay for your things and get out. you don't have to justify your existence to the clerk. this dynamic, I feel, makes it a good practice for regaining and maintaining social functionality. because the longer you go without any social interaction, the greater the threshold becomes to initiate and build a social life again. any connection you can maintain to another person will be your olive branch out of depression. lastly, finding purpose and something to live for. unfortunately that is rarely something you go looking for, but something that happens to you and that you stumble into if you're lucky. for me, my pets have always been my anchor, giving me a reason to hold on and get out of bed. being responsible for something can be a powerful motivator. but your drive is unique to you and it's worth it going within to find it. prioritize emotional processing. depression stems from persistent and demotivating repression. use this time to learn about yourself, your situation and your emotions. reflect and write down your findings. this validates your experience and therefore defines it. becoming aware of your internal world will take the mental load off of your brain and give you valuable insights into what matters most. from there you can make changes accordingly. hope this helps.

I'm going to go enjoy the last few hours I have with my little angel baby. please keep us in your thoughts