Today Marks The End Of Day 3 Of Whatever This Illness Is. Our Best Guess Is Still Some Sort Of Food Poisoning?

Today marks the end of day 3 of whatever this illness is. Our best guess is still some sort of food poisoning? Though there has been no exploding, north or south.

A different friend is going to stay here tomorrow so we can head to the ER.

I've taken two different kinds of pain meds (the last of previous health issues which warranted them) and neither have helped. One helped briefly (MAYBE an hour tops) then wore off. The second simply, never kicked in/helped at all.

The pain is slowly getting worse in waves, for me. Husband is rollercoasting between feeling like he is improving only for it to turn around and knock him on his ass again. My poor hubs.....still is working his shift again. Last night and now tonight. Idk how he can focus at all with this. Blessed with brains and endurance, he is.

Thankfully our boys are still unaffected. Which more solidifies that it was something we ate, not something we caught. Since in the last week we havent shared the same meals as our littles.

A tender moment was shared between our eldest and hubs, though. Hubs came upstairs to see the littles before they eventually go to bed. He laid on the couch, his head on our eldest's lap. Our LO patted dad's head with one hand and the other rubbed his back. To comfort him. Clearly seeing something has been off.

After a few minutes hubs sat up and gave a peck on his forehead. To which our LO replied gently "go to bed". Gods I wish I'd gotten that whole moment on camera. It was so sweet. Hubs retired to his den/office and my eldest is still sitting here beside me. Winding down with Little Bear.

Youngest just got put down for bed. Soon eldest will as well.

I'm still sitting here, silently writhing in pain awaiting the approaching bedtime. (When I groaned during a spike of pain earlier, eldest immediately tuned in, concerned, asking what was wrong. Such a sweet kid. Love him, love them, so much. 🥲😭💙)

So here's to hoping tomorrow is a better day.

🤞🏻⭐🤞🏻⭐🤞🏻⭐🤞🏻⭐🤞🏻⭐🤞🏻

Marcille relearning her native language takes a turn

After years of observing these caddisfly larvae, French naturalist and artist, Hubert Duprat, wondered if the caddis flies would use any materials to build their cocoon. He introduced flakes of gold, pearls and opals to the caddis flies and they did in fact use them for their cocoons. They use their own silk as the glue to hold their pupal constructions together.

I am utterly captivated by this video series that Taryn Delanie and friends have been making on TikTok

You never grow out of wanting to earn a sticker

When I was a TA for the freshman art class in senior year my students really adored me. It was so sweet. I’d had classes that were more ambivalent toward me but these guys were all about me.

I loved working with that teacher too. He was the kind of crunchy art nerd whose own kid didn’t know what candy was, who loved bird watching and wearing tweed. We’d chat while they worked and it was just a three hour pleasure rather than work.

When the class switched from charcoal to gouache a devil medium, the evilest watercolor, the students struggled. We’d have in class painting where they’d spend the whole time trying to mix one color instead of just accepting something as good enough and trying to practice other skills.

So one day I showed up to my shift and announced, “I have stickers. If you get color down for the whole composition, you get a sticker.”

They wanted. The stickers. So bad. Students who had agonized before about keeping lines neat and perfect plowed ahead. The first student to call me over I tsked at. “Putting grey on everything doesn’t count,” I chided, “I asked for colors on each object.”

The classroom worked in furious joy, young adults who had seen my bird and cactus stickers and gone feral. The teacher was flabbergasted. “Why do they want stickers? They could just buy stickers…”

I held up my water bottle and showed him a tiny 3D bubble sticker the program director had brought to my game teams space last week. “You never grow out of wanting to earn a sticker.”

By the end of class everyone had a sticker. There was more visible improvement in the work too, which surprised them since they’d been rushing. “Gouache looks terrible before it looks good. It’s okay to start messy and then refine.” The teacher had said the same thing but looking at their frantic sticker paintings they finally saw the truth of it.

I mean I put mine in a ziploc when I'm really concerned but tbh sometimes I'm picky about music/individual songs I want to vibe to or an audio book of something while I shower. (Once it's outside the curtain I simply cannot hear the words)

I even have a phone holder clipped to my shower bar to keep it secure. 🤷‍♀️

I do have depression though ngl

hold on hold on wait a minute