So, the past couple days I caught the boredom bug. I’ll give you all a little context.

Right after my last post, I had a pretty serious surgery. I’m recovered now, although I am still having some complications with allergies to different things (gotta love being allergic to pretty much everything). I’m going to have to have another surgery (unrelated to this one) and maybe even another after that, I don’t know yet.

My health has started to take a pretty ugly turn and I’m facing some pretty serious issues, so if I’m not consistent with posting here and on the socials this is why. I’m trying to spend as much time as I can with my friends and my family in case the worst happens.

I have been fighting to get the doctors to listen to me and care enough to do the necessary tests to help me get better, but the healthcare system is pretty broken, so we’ll see what happens.

Anyway, there’s a bit of context as to what I’m going through. As for the boredom, I’m unable to work right now, or really do much cleaning since I’m down an arm and in serious pain. The hobbies that I have I’m able to do less and less of every day. I haven’t been able to write or crochet, but I’m still trying to find ways to keep myself occupied and stay in my creative headspace.

Nature is my safe haven, and being cooped up in an apartment all the time with nowhere to go gets pretty old, so yesterday I came up with an idea to connect me back to nature, be creative and fix my boredom bug.

The pictures at the top of this post are the project that I worked on yesterday. I have 5 lbs of Sculpy oven bake polymer clay that I bought for other projects and to mess around with if I decide I want to. I got that out and found my paints and headed into the trees around my apartment complex. I knew I wanted to make some bowls with leaves, because I wanted to be able to give them as gifts to my mom and my step-dad (they both have birthdays this month). And of course, I had to make one for myself as well.

Once I found some good leaves I rolled out the clay as thin as I thought necessary to be able to hold heavier objects without breaking (the one in the picture is mine and it’s about half the thickness of the other ones I created. I made it first and decided the most breakable one would be mine so the ones for gifts could be more functional). I decided I wanted to try something with my paints that I’ve never done before and created a kind of watercolor paint with them to get the finished look. I painted the outside and the edges with rose gold paint to finish and I am obsessed with how it turned out.

I’ve been in a pretty dark place for pretty much the entirety of 2025 thus far and I’m finding it difficult to keep my head up. I’ve been in poetry classes and that’s helping me find my way a little bit. I’ve written 40 poems (most of which weren’t even for my classes) and I’ve decided I’m going to share some of the ones that haven’t seen the light of day with you all. That way you can get a little taste of some writing from me since I’ve had to pause work on my book.

For the first one head on over to TikTok to hear me read the first one and talk a little about it. Then, be on the lookout on my other social platforms for more. I’m going to try and share some poetry across them all so that everyone can get a little taste.

I hope you all enjoy my poetry, and if you like my leaf bowls and want one (handcrafted by moi) to call your own, I’m going to try and figure out how to start selling some. You can always message me on my socials and ask about them and I will try my best to accommodate. They fit the aesthetic of the Autumn kingdom from Lunehame, so I might use them as merch for “Evander” who knows, you could be one of the first to grab one.

Stay weird Shayders!

-Rashell