terriko

This is crossposted from Curiousity.ca, my personal maker blog. If you want to link to this post, please use the original link since the formatting there is usually better.

It’s March! Traditionally, February is the month where I used to feel the worst when I lived in Canada, likely because it’s when you’re sick of winter and the dark, but honestly it didn’t seem so bad this year, possibly because I wasn’t in winter in December so I haven’t really gotten sick of it. It’s amusing that the number of people with masks on the bus seems to go up when it gets cold — a nice n95 really keeps the face warm, I guess. Even I keep mine on on the walk from the bus stop some days just for the warmth!

A very fluffy (Eastern) Blue Jay with a peanut as large as his brain stuffed in his mouth. He’s sitting on a wooden railing overlooking my snowy backyard. He was actually even more fluffy a moment before I took the photo. The weird pattern is from the screen door on my patio.

Possibly I’m not sick of it because of the sheer relief of being here and not there, though. As exhausting as it is to live in a house where you can’t find anything because it’s “in a box” and hasn’t yet been unearthed or it’s been broken by the movers’s terrible packing, it’s hard not to watch people’s driver’s licenses get yoinked overnight in Kansas and think “I’m so glad I got out before they yoinked my work permit like that.” One of my new co-workers was aghast that I’d abandon a green card, but I’d definitely reached the point where no amount of getting paid more was worth the risks of being declared illegal at any moment. And then I wasn’t even getting paid more. Though I *did* just get my promised partial annual bonus from the old job so that was nice.

New job is working out, even if it doesn’t pay as well. I like my new co-workers and we have interesting discussions about technology and security. I’m less excited about the constant AI push in corporate land (it feels every single Microsoft product is yelling at me all the time), but I only have to use the parts that have a clear benefit to my work flow, so that’s something. I’m spending a lot of time on the bus to commute and although I miss having more time with my kid at home, I do like having dedicated time where I don’t get interrupted. I’ve been enjoying podcasts, audiobooks, mentally writing stories and just having time to think about whatever. I’m not thrilled to have been hired as hybrid and told I’ll be going back to work 5 days a week in the fall (I definitely wouldn’t have applied for this job if it had been listed as 100% in office) but I’m trying to wait and see how it works out in practice.

Three sticker sheets featuring corgis & food, bunnies in teapots, and dogs. Four fountain pen inks and pens (described in post) and a roll of green washi tape and a small blue tooth stamp.

This month’s palette was pretty much built around matching those cute corgi stamp stickers.

Stickers

Corgi food stamp stickers – bought in Japantown San Jose but I don’t know the artist/company.

Tea Time Bunnies – ByMossyPine

Tiny Dogs – I think these were from Mind Wave.

Pens & Ink palette

Pelikan Pura <B> – Endless Alchemy Golden Sunburst. I mostly bought this ink as a fidget because of the lovely bottle which is designed to be swirled, but I decided to see how I like it in a pen too.

TWSBI Eco <1.1 stub> – Diamine Apple Glory. I bought this ink specifically for this pen!

Pilot Metropolitan <CM> – Ikebana Cowslip. Accidentally got some green ink on the nib while wiping it off after filling, so this may not be the right colour in my notebook. Oh well!

Pilot E95S <M> – Diamine Marie Rose. From the latest inkvent.

Quick check in on creative goals

2026 Goals List

Creative space: My office is set up enough to be usable for work and for writing, haven’t quite figured out the desk situation enough work on painting yet. There are still a lot of boxes but I’ve switched most of them to be clear ones so I can at least find things, and I suspect there’s at least a couple of boxes missing still. I’ve got an initial stationary shelf started (see photo below) but I’m thinking I’ll use drawers for most of my inks and samples and I haven’t decided where in the shelf those should go.

A black, square shelf with a number of small binders (of stickers), a big pencil sharpenter with googly eyes, a bottle of shimmering orange ink, and more notebooks and inks.

Crafting for the climate: Finished a scarf for my kid and a sweater for me. Still working on a very complicated scarf for my husband, but it’s definitely not getting finished before it warms up this year!

Fluffy scarf made out of grey-brown fun fur yarn. A open front sweater laid on the hardwood floor so you can see the back cable. It is made in a gradient of yarns that go from bright pink at the shoulders to deeper purple at the bottom.

Painting with fountain pen ink: not set up for this yet but I did get some more watercolour painting books from the library so I’ve got some exercises to do once I figure out where the heck my watercolour paper got packed (or give up and buy more; I’ll use it eventually.)

Writing: wrote a bunch of fanfic for a valentines event and I’m really happy with how things turned out. Got a few things in progress and with all the ao3 downtime the past couple of days I fit some extra writing time in.