Getting Real

Posted on: 2025.11.07 // Tagged: personal

"I think the struggle is finding the right balance of sharing one’s humanness, while not over-sanitizing to the point of sounding completely generic, or worse, written by AI."

I’ve carved out a very specific niche here on the indie web. The tagline for my site is: blog + crochet + pixel art. I think I’ve done well in building out the crochet and pixel art parts, but the blog part is somewhat lacking. For whatever reason, I have a hard time talking about myself in online spaces. When I made a to do list for this site, writing my About page was the lowest priority.

Honestly, I think that just boils down to a preference for a private life. My online self is genuine, of course, but it’s only one part of much more complex picture. While I think that’s how most people operate online, I think the struggle is finding the right balance of sharing one’s humanness, while not over-sanitizing to the point of sounding completely generic, or worse, written by AI.

To be honest, I’ve been avoiding the struggle entirely by talking about anything else BUT myself. So, I wanna change that.

My idea is to use lists as prompts for personal blog posts. Awhile ago, I listened to an NPR Life Kit episode about keeping a journal. (Here's the link if you want to listen to the episode or read the transcript.) One point that stuck with me was that journal entries could be short poems, accountings, or lists. And I love lists! Lists are fun. I mean, just look at the Garden section of this site. It’s mostly lists. My personal Notion journal? All lists. And with the right prompt, I think a list can reveal a lot about a person.

So in the interest of sharing a little more of who I am to you, dear visitor, here is a list:

Five Things I Can See Right Now:

1. A set of Lego succulents that I made from a kit. I’m not really a Lego person, but I bought the kit for a Lego-and-Sip event at my best friend’s house. That day, I learned about yacht rock.
2. A cardboard box and four paper bags of recyclables. These have been sitting by my front door for over a week. Maybe tomorrow they’ll reach the community recycling bin. Maybe.
3. My orange socks with racoons holding pink flowers. My wardrobe is 98% neutral colors, particularly black. But my sock drawer? All colors, cuteness, and whimsy.
4. A dozen mini LED candles. I got these for free since they were leftovers from someone’s wedding. As they say: one person’s wedding candles are another person’s Halloween decor.
5. A sticker collage next to the front door. I collected a lot of stickers over the years and got tired of seeing them sadly stacked in a desk drawer. So on a particularly ambitious day, my boyfriend and I went to a thrift store, bought an empty frame, and turned them into a collage. My next sticker project is to decoupage a chair.

Until next time!