I know I haven’t posted anything since January 20th, but it’s kind of hard to put a primal scream into words. We all know what’s going on so I won’t rant about it here. Instead, I will talk about what I’ve been doing to stay as balanced as possible.

One, I’m still writing. Seeing as it’s been so long since I started the book I’m going back and rereading what I have of Typhoon Warning so far in order to continue without screwing up continuity. And I may be editing a little along the way (don’t @ me, I need to do this). I also really, really need to get A Court of Green Clover finished so that I can release it on St. Patrick’s Day next month as planned.

Two, we bit the bullet and bought a Bambu Lab A1 Mini 3D printer for my office after Ramón showed me how I could print miniature furniture to stop me from tearing my hair out after the election. This little machine rules, people. It’s simple to set up and use, it’s remarkably quiet, and it’s fun. So far I’ve used it to print a toilet with a working lid and some tea canisters.

In fact the only problem is that the aftermarket .02mm nozzle we’d bought clogged (and I’m seeing some damage around the port). We’re getting a proper Bambu .02 nozzle sometime this month, as they were sold out when we bought the printer and we had to wait for them to restock. I’m holding off on printing any more miniatures until that arrives. Although the .04 nozzle is good enough where I may take a crack at designing some architectural elements for the dollhouse.

In the meantime I’ve been practicing with printing other stuff, like a filament spool and printing some super cute gaming boxes by FatesEnd at My Mini Factory. These are designed to look like intricately tooled little books, and the “pages” slide out from the top to reveal a storage tray for dice, miniatures, and cards.

The Lovecraftian Tome at left will be painted in brown and copper with a colorshift green Cthulhu, and the Artificer Tome at right will be a deep blue with gears and other decorations picked out in copper, silver, and brass. And yes, I know I can print them out in colored filament but engineering buff and white is what we had on hand so that’s what I printed them in. Ramón has already called dibs on the Lovecraftian, and he wants a custom insert so that he can use it to store his gaming minis. I’m not quite sure what I’ll keep in the Artificer but I’m definitely keeping something—jewelry odds and ends, possibly.

Three, the weather has finally improved to the point where I start working on the yard. The recent freeze claimed the lantana, boo, so I need to go out and trim that all back (it’s all well established enough that it’ll regrow). Once that’s done I have to trim back the zebra grass and cut down the poorly positioned crepe myrtles out front (whoever planted them right next to our front door so that the roots would grow under the slab, thanks a lot). I keep telling myself that sunshine and physical labor are good for me.