I had a thought as I was putting away some items I bought at Ulta today (CereVe body lotion, some zit patches, and a Clinique blush) and the thought was: “This country is going to hell in a handbasket, and some people are arsed over a few lines on their forehead?” I REALLY need to stop following the “beauty” subreddit. Turns out a lot of people are arsed over a few lines in their forehead, and they pay many monies every few months to Botox the shit out of them.

But not over here, nope, I’m “rawdogging” my face through life, with maybe just a teensy bit of filter along the way. Personally, I’m perfectly content to be 45. Picture Bo in Ab Fab: “And when will you be 50, dear?”

My family and my current BFF Rachel’s family all went to Everett Pride this year. We gorged ourselves on free stickers and little kids toys and rainbow sunglasses and dorked out to local drag queens and music. Yeah!

Mumsie and I went downtown to the NO KINGS protest too. I’m so proud of her! She reminded me that it wasn’t her first protest. “I think I protested Reagan,” she mused. Thank God I got one parent to see the light.

In other news, your friend (that’s me, BTW) has published four children’s books! I am hard at work on number five. The writing goes swiftly but the illustrations do take a while. And that’s perfectly OKAY–I want to produce good work! I was proud to sell four books at my art show at the Ballard P Patch last weekend. Four books and six original paintings–not too shabby! I love that show.

It’s currently August and I’m reviewing June pictures…but no worries. In June it was warm enough to go to our special camping spot, and it was glorious. Sure, the river was ICE COLD and the current was SUPER FAST but everything else was sweeeeet. I love camping so much! We went again two weeks ago, and hopefully we will be able to squeeze in one more camping trip before the summer comes to a close.

This hasn’t been the best summer for a variety of reasons–none of which happened in June though; June was a great month. I wish I could go back to June, and have a do-over. Can I?

Stay tuned for the next entry, where I will whine and complain about all the ways that July savaged me.

But first, look at this adorable art that I taught for my final art docent lesson! It’s so cute the way Goo’s teacher displayed it. It looks like a Pinterest picture. Like a real one, not AI (groan). Love you! Mean it!