Challenge #1

Journaling Prompt: Light up your journal with activity this month. Talk about your goals for July or for the second half of 2025.
Creative Prompt: Shine a light on your own creativity. Create anything you want (an image, an icon, a story, a poem, or a craft) and share it with your community.

The first goal of July is learning more html to use on Dreamwidth!

...starting with this li'l collapsible, and continuing with bullet points. This is fun! Other goals for July include:

• Completing an online course for the CompTIA A+ exam that I don't intend to take yet but would like to learn the material for regardless


• Gifting someone IRL an herbal gift of some kind - don't care who or what, I'm just running out of space and need to make room!


• Giving my cat more attention, apparently, as he tries to sit on my arm while I type this. As if he doesn't get enough attention by screaming to be held all day long. I love this obnoxious little man <3


• Starting on the next section of my longfic! Bonus stretch goal is finishing that section, but that's a longshot, especially with everything else going on. My overarching goal is to finish the entire work before the end of the year.


• Not sitting and staring uselessly at my work computer when I have nothing to do and instead using that time for something actually productive even if it's not work (the hardest on this list, tbh)

I am tempted by the creative prompt too, but I think I'll let it lie for today. Inspiration may strike later in the month, and I'll plan to tackle it at that point.

I'm alive!! 

I didn't mean to completely fall off the face of the planet for the past couple weeks, but here we are. It's been busy.

The garden continues. We're starting to hit the longer dry spells that require me to keep things watered myself more often. The angelica in particular seems to struggle with this weather, but I'm hoping that a good bit of mulch and more frequent watering helps it pull through. About half of my elecampane is starting to put out stronger leaves and really get established, and I'm trying to figure out what the difference is for the ones that are doing better and the ones that are still just barely hanging on. They're all planted together, but it seems half of the section their in might get more sun? I'm not sure, but I'm very curious. 

The salad burnet and valerian and chard are all thriving as far as I can tell. The arnica is limping along, similar to the elecampane in that a couple of them seem to be doing pretty well, and the others are looking weaker. The raspberry bush is finally fruiting, but I haven't had a chance to harvest any yet. It's not in the most convenient location. 

There's enough feverfew this year that I harvested a couple of batches over the past couple weeks, so that's now dried and jarred up for later. I'm making a bunch of infused oils I'll blend together for a muscle ache salve later on, and I have enough dried calendula by now that I've started tincturing what I harvest instead, just to have it in a different form. I already started a calendula oil, so I'll have plenty of options to work with on that front.

I am once again running into the challenge of making lots of things because it's fun, but not having enough uses for everything I make. My cabinet is already full of jars of tincture I have yet to use, including a number of things I'm not even sure what one would use for. Cleavers are good for the lymphatic system I believe, and purslane is generally nutritious, but in what instances would someone use a tincture of them? Who's to say. I'm sure someday I will find the answer, but until then, those jars will probably just continue to take up space unless I come across someone who wants them for something. Oh well!