Image from Pixabay.

I can’t believe it’s Friday already! Where did the week go?! Answers to today’s questions The Friday Five @ Dreamwidth.

1. What’s your favorite candle scent?

Unscented. I don’t burn candles myself so I don’t have much experience with them, but my Mom likes to burn them during December and she likes unscented ones. Sometimes she burns scented ones she was gifted, and I think maybe vanilla or citrus were okay if I remember right (as long as the smell isn’t overpowering). But usually when I’m around she burns unscented ones because many artificial smells are too strong/smelly for me and she’s not a fan either.

2. Do you have an artistic or crafty hobby? What is it?

Yes! Many! I play around in Photoshop making fandom wallpapers but also digital papers and textures. I used to make icons too but haven’t made those in years now. I used to make WinAmp skins, and still make FocusWriter themes. I write fanfic and original fic, I do fluid art with acrylic paints (acrylic pouring) and alcohol inks. I paint with watercolors, both drawings I’ve done myself and color-ins I’ve printed from the internet. I also occasionally do some adult coloring book coloring. I make (simple) notebooks with Tomoe River paper for my fountain pen use, and also do some playing/painting/drawing with fountain pen inks on them. I still bake some, sometimes once a week other times once a month but it’s something I enjoy so I try to do it more often than less. I also keep a log of my illnesses’ symptoms to track them and that’s so boring to do, that I love to pretty every page of that diary with stickers, washi tape and doodles.

3. What’s one weird way you save money on food?

I guess: not eating. I have a lot of trouble with appetite, have been for a decade now… namely I don’t have an appetite, even when I feel hunger. I’m trying to be better about eating (eating regularly, having a proper meal instead of a cookies etc.) but yeah, when I’m even more exhausted than normally and that happens a lot, I tend to skip meals without really noticing it because I just never feel like eating. Everything tastes right, I just never have an appetite. And when I have a proper meal, I usually lose interest in it about halfway through and eating it feels like work. Apparently not having an appetite is a usual feature of Crohn’s Disease, judging from my peer’s experiences. I don’t know that it truly saves money though – the last 14 months I’ve been mainly buying ready-to-heat meals because I’m too exhausted to cook, or don’t feel like cooking. Candies and chocolate, and salty things like potato chips go down easier than proper food and they don’t feel like work because I love the taste, so between those ready meals and the sweets, I propably don’t actually save at all compared to the kind of foods I used to eat before I got sick. Back then I rarely bought ready meals and used to cook my own food. I used to do meal planning and prep for the week ahead, and I miss those times. Now I rarely have spoons enough to that, but when I do I LOVE it that I have something home cooked to eat for the entire week. Because home cooked food so so much better than store-bought ready meals.

4. Do you collect anything weird or unusual?

I’ve always been considered kind of weird since I was a kid just because I have always collected something, although thinking on it I’m not sure if it was actually because what I collected was considered a boy thing. As a kid, it was X-Men, Star Trek and John Carter comics. I also collected sticks and pebbles.

These days I collect fanfic, fountain pens and inks (I actively use them though), and I’m somewhat into paper – I have several notebooks I haven’t yet started using, and several of LotusBluBookArt’s drawing/writing journals that I haven’t started yet. I intend to use them all though! I’m just slow and it might take a decade or two. I also love pretty handmade art journals/books that are for watercoloring and/or mixed media (they’re expensive 50-300 euros or more), but I don’t really own any of those except for one or two thin ones that I’m already using. About a year ago I discevered (MU print-on) stickers and that and washi tape are something I easily could end up buying LOADS of unless I’m careful. I keep pen and stationery things purchases sensible and well within my budget, no matter how much I might want to buy ALL THE THINGS.

5. Do you fear the deep ocean, or does its unknown depths excite you?

I don’t fear the deep ocean itself but when I was a kid, whenever I swam in not!swimming pool and something (a weed under water where I couldn’t see it) would brush against me, I would freak out – as in, fly out of the water to the beach/pier freak out. I haven’t swam in an ocean since I became an adult and I’m 100% sure I would still freak out if a weed touched me under water where I can’t see it. I never thought it was anything other than a seaweed but for some reason it touching me freaks me out, and to tell you the truth, I’d propably freak out even if it was a weed brushing against me in a damn swimming pool. So that’s what I fear, but not the ocean itself. The unknown depths theoretically excite me, in books/movies etc., but in real life I’m not interested in exploring myself.