So here we are again.

Artsy business stuff up top, personal life stuff down below.

If I remember right, I had two goals for February: make a new website, and port the mailing list over somewhere else. Well I've mostly succeeded on the first, and I've kicked the can down the road on the second. So it goes.

I've been teaching myself HTML and coding myself up a new website. Someone responded to my last letter and recommended neocities, so that's the platform I've been using. It's great web hosting, and it's fully free-form site design, which was really intimidating at first but is now fantastic. At some point something clicked in my brain, and this went from "boring confusing code" to "a new artistic medium."

I'm sculpting. I'm crafting an experience. It's very fun and it's eating up all of my free time and I'm very glad for it.

I've made up a lot of cute little self portrait paintings for the website. Seriously, check it out? You can open the windows. They slide.

I've also started uploading some of my fiction writing on this page. I have a lot of thoughts about it, proud and self conscious and nervous and thrilled. It would make me happy if you read some. It would make me even happier if you shared your thoughts with me. It always makes my day when someone replies to these emails, and if you have questions or confusion about the setting then that gives me a lot of direction for my next little fic.

Neocities has a little bit of a social media element to it. You can follow sites and get notified when they update, and you can comment on peoples' sites through their page on neocities. My page is here, if you want to follow the site updates more closely. But my website itself doesn't have any social media elements to it, it's more like a blog or portfolio, and that feels really good to me. I'm sharing it, but it's not about the audience, it's about me and what I'm making and what I want to be doing.

That's been a big theme for me this month. I've been seeing a new therapist, and a big part of what we're doing is art therapy. Creative expression without an audience. Bleeding my feelings out onto the page. It's cathartic and fun and grounding, and it has me noticing things about myself that I hadn't known.

I won't be sharing those drawings any time soon. It would corrupt the process. But I'm enjoying it, and I'm enjoying the pieces I'm making, and I think some day they'd make a fascinating collection.

My other big goal was to finally close the Shopify page and port this newsletter over to another venue. I'm having second thoughts about that now. Weighing the pros and cons of leaving the possibility of sales open, of doing my own printing, of dealing with the hassles of business licenses and business taxes. It's a tangle. I'm enjoying my art more now. I miss being able to call myself a professional artist. That loss stings.

I have a ton of terrarium bell jars still, and after all the work I put into them it would be a shame for them to just collect dust in my garage. It would be a similar shame to give them as gifts, just for the sake of being rid of them. They should live with people who care.

The shop stays open for now. Maybe this month I'll be able to make a decision.

Though I expect this month to be quite busy, because I'm pretty sure that I've nailed down a new job. I don't want to give out too many details until it's set in stone, but references have been called and the hiring manager has said she wants to hire me, so even my worst anxiety is having trouble finding purchase on this one. I'm excited. I'm terrified. I'll be working in an office, leaving the mediocre retail spot I've been in for the last five years. I'll be working full time, for the first time (unless having two part time jobs counts, in which case it'll be a relief to be working only 40hr/week for once). I'll be able to wear cute clothes. I'll need a fresh wardrobe. I'll be able to sit during the day. The commute is much worse.

It's a jumble. It's a much needed change. I'm checking my email five times a day, waiting for the official offer.

I'm watching robins and bluejays out my window. I'm thinking about spring.

I hope this month is soft.