26 December 2021 Sunday

Hello. How are you doing as you visit me here? I hope you are well. I’m enjoying a room full of sunshine and some coffee. It’s really quiet this morning.

Yesterday my aunt and uncle came over about 10 am so they could leave their dog Smokey with Link. It was going to be a long day and they didn’t want him to be alone that long. Then I followed them over to my cousins and his wife’s for brunch. They have a real nice home! So welcoming! The food was wonderful as always and we got to have a nice visit. There was some snow coming down but it was too warm to stick which was good! I left a little while after we ate as they were going to see The Kingsmen. I was invited but didn’t want to go. So I went home and had a couple sweet dogs to keep me company! They really had to pee lol!

There are no plans for today. I am thinking about my aunt this morning. It’s looking like she’s going to have knee surgery on the 13th of next month. She’s nervous about it and so am I but it’s getting hard for her to be as active as she’s used to being. My aunt and many of the older people in my life, like my parents, have such youthful spirits! They want to go and do things but their bodies hold them back. There is always one body part or another that fails them. I wish getting older didn’t have to include sickness, pain and loss of body function!

“Twilight of my youth within me turning, flesh and bones around me burning. I long for limber days in the sun, but the calendar pages turn and those days are done. So hush little child buried deep…..I can still carry you….go back to sleep.”

I should get off of here and take Link for a walk while I have the motivation to do it. Get some direct sunshine! I hope this finds you well!

25 December 2021 In the Stillness

Hello. It’s 6:04 pm and Christmas 2021 is drawing to a close. As I sit here writing to you I am filled with gratitude…..and longing. I have been included and loved in to other peoples ideas of what the holidays should be but I find I still miss my little family. Will God ever let me have that again? Can God hear my true hearts desire?

Merry Dogmas from Link
Merry Dogmas from Smokey

New memories were made this year that I will cherish. On Christmas Eve my aunt and uncle came over with a lasagne meal and we went to a candlelight service here in town….it even snowed! In those little candles went lots of prayers! Then today was a wonderful brunch with my aunt, uncle, cousin and his wife. I was grateful to come home from brunch and there were two sweet little dogs to take a nap with.

“In the stillness of Christmas now past my heart lies in the snows of the last. “

24 December 2021 Sunshine !

So happy to see this glowing orb of warmth and light

Hello to you. How are you? We have sunshine this morning and I’m so grateful to see it! I’ve got coffee and my sweet boy beside me….load of laundry going. I will be honest it was hard getting up this morning. As I get older I’m starting to understand my parents better. They didn’t like to sit still too long. If you sit still too long it’s hard to get moving again! Stuff hurts!

It’s Christmas Eve and I am not sure how I feel about it. Everything feels so surreal. It’s really my second Christmas in Idaho! No matter how tight I have been holding on, time has been moving forward. There is no comfort for what I am feeling….only more time and distance from where all these wounds began. There are times I wish I could get on with life with less of the feelings but then I wouldn’t be me anymore! Ugh!!

It will be nice to have this evening with my Aunt and Uncle and go to a candle light service here in town. Then tomorrow we are having brunch at my cousins. I am blessed to have family!

I hope you are doing ok today wherever and however you are spending it. If your not ok I hope you have a support system to help you make it through!

I’m live on Twitch – Watch me at https://twitch.tv/jwygant

Good music: Check out Merry Jamzmas! | !spotify !youtube !bandcamp !twitter !merch https://www.twitch.tv/astravert

23 December 2021 Evening Skies

Evening skies

Hello friend. How has your day been? Have you been doing holiday stuff today or have you been out of it like me? Evening skies have settled in to put our neck of the woods to bed. I’m listening to violin music by Twitch streamer newbaroque. Nick plays music by request and is just a real sweetheart. His dog Taco is quite the little celebrity!

I wasn’t sure I was going to paint a shirt today but I did. I’m not sure if I should do more to it. Sometimes less is more when it comes to shirts. What do you think? The paint flow is a bit uneven on the circles but not much I can do about that.

Shirt # 4 today kind of played it safe and simple with this one. We will see how I feel about it in the morning!

“Evening skies shades of pale pink purple and blue always make me think of you. There was a time when we stood together gazing at such a sight. I would always forget my camera and you would gently say to me, “It’s just for us.”

23 December 2021 Thursday

Hello to you. Thank you for visiting me here today. I’m really having trouble collecting my thoughts. This is like try number 5 at trying to write to you! How are you holding up with the holidays?

I’m writing to you from my little life raft I’m sharing with Link aka tiny couch. It’s gray and wet outside and I’m feeling it. When it’s like this I get a mild case of depression. I know it will pass. When I feel this way I just want to be nurtured and there is nobody here to do it! I really miss having a special somebody to do life with. Part of me resists the reality of having to share life with someone again. The complications of everything involved with sharing a life with someone. Everyone tells me that when I find him or he finds me everything will just work itself out. My drawing today is me imagining God manifesting a special someone for me.

There is a plan in the works – I just have to be patient

“I know your out there wandering around just about as lost as me….someday together we will be.”

Check out 23 December 2021 Gray Day chat https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1241648242

22 December 2021 Wednesday

Hello there friend. How are you? I’m sitting here in my new shirt I painted yesterday and have a cup of coffee……Link is beside me. I’m thinking about my mom. She told me in a text yesterday she has the flu! Hopefully not the serious kind! If you are a prayer warrior could you slip one in for Dianne?

Not sure what I will be doing today. Probably do another shirt. My friend said she would sell them for me in her online shop and I’m thinking about it. I want to keep practicing first – I want to make things I would like to wear. So far that is the case. Something I’ve learned is whenever I add money to my crafts things get weird. In my ideal world I would make a bunch of shirts and people would pick the one that spoke to them and I would just give it to them! I would probably go broke lol. I was like that when I made jewelry and crocheted stuff. There is something about seeing someone’s face light up when something is just for them – speaks to their soul. I would give someone the shirt off my back lol! What’s fun about hand painting s shirt is that each one is unique – one of a kind. Eventually I want to try unique designs and shapes. If that happens I will definitely need an outlet and selling them might be the way to go.

Right now I’m listening to a cool improv artist named Astravert. He’s on the front page of Twitch today. I’m so happy for him: Check out We back! Hump day Jamz | !spotify !youtube !bandcamp !twitter !merch https://www.twitch.tv/astravert. If you like dreamy guitar rifts and synthesizer you’ll love his stuff. His songs are all unique.

“Gray twists and swirls into light. The day says goodbye to the eternal night.”

21 December 2021 Evening and 2nd shirt

2nd shirt attempt

Hello. It’s evening again and I am feeling lonesome as usual. Figured I would visit with you for a bit. As you can see I did another shirt. I tried a different way of doing it and I think the best way is to draw out the whole design and just gradually paint it. My hands aren’t as steady as they used to be! There are a lot of lines! It’s good I’m using old shirts to start with.

Today I had a good visit with a dear friend I’ve had since I was stationed at what was Falcon AFB CO…..it’s now Shriever AFB. She was kind of feeling like I was. This holiday season has been hard as she lost her mom in October. What helps her is she has a 11 year old son and that has helped her holiday spirit. We both agree there is way too much emphasis on elevating the country’s GDP. It should be about food and family….God. I told her the only gifts I bought this year were bags of food at the grocery store for the local food bank. Talking to her really helped me today – seeing her bright smile and all her dogs helped my spirits.

21 December 2021 Feeling Like A Scrambled Egg

Hello….how are you? Hopefully this finds you doing well. I wish I could say everything is ok with me but I’m feeling a little scrambled eggs today. It will pass it always does.

Like my therapist and I talked about yesterday, I’m just not comfortable in my own skin. She shared with me about eneagrams, personality types and played this song for me: https://youth.be/-sO2UMoOaFQ – Sleeping At Last. It’s a song for type 1 personalities and if you cry while listening to it, chances are that’s your personality type. I cried. What came to me at first when I heard it is feeling like I wasn’t enough for my ex husband…..I miss him so much every day. What also came to me is I’m enough for God. With all my flaws and weaknesses….all the ways I have failed I know that no matter what God loves me. God has been there when I have been at my best….at my worst. What I told my therapist is I want God to have hands I can hold. A face I can touch. Arms to hold me. Sadly it just doesn’t work that way. The place I get to feel God is when we are close and my heart gets that glowing warmth. God is the very air we breathe….too big to be contained in a body!

I’m trying to snap myself out of “this” and get on with my day. May be some shirt painting will help ?! I’m wearing the shirt I did last night – pretty happy with it.

As always thank you reader for going on this journey with me!

20 December 2021 Family Party

Hello to you in your where and when. How are you? I am waking up slowly! Had to blast some Heilung this morning! I’m so grateful for the speaker from my friend. It syncs up with my phone so I can pull up my You tube play list and hear my tunes!

Well yesterday was really nice. We had the family Christmas party over at my Aunt and Uncles house. There were about 20 of us!! It’s a family tradition to get together. My Uncle, who lives in California, catered the meats and some Mac-n-cheese. I got to taste the jalapeño jelly we made earlier in the year and boy does it taste good with cream cheese on ritz crackers! We had a new baby in the mix ! Baby Cove. She is my cousin Heidi’s granddaughter. Very good baby who didn’t seem to mind being passed around and loved on. There were a lot of pictures taken. It was nice to have lots of grandchildren and great grandchildren together. I left before the gift exchange….it was starting to get dark and I have to worry about turning into a pumpkin!

My Auntie and me. It’s been one year now since I moved to Idaho!

The plan for Christmas Eve is Aunt and Uncle are going to pick me up and we are going to church together. We have gone to church before but never on Christmas Eve. It’s a very symbolic thing for us to do as my Mom died on Christmas Eve back in 1968. Auntie and I have never gone to a holiday service together so it will be special! A celebration of life!

I’m still trying to figure out, after all these years, what the holidays mean to me. I don’t know where my place is if that makes sense. I had a little family and we were starting to establish our own traditions and now it’s just Link and I. He had to stay home yesterday because there were too many people. I have trouble with gifts – giving and receiving them. That’s why I have been buying the bags of food at the grocery store for the food bank. I’m surrounded again by people who like to do the gift bit and I don’t quite fit in. I get overwhelmed by “stuff.” Since I live in a tiny house, anything extra can seem like clutter and it drives me nuts! Hopefully over time my family will begin to understand me.

I’m live on Twitch – Watch me at https://twitch.tv/jwygant

19 December 2021 Exchanging Stories

Hello to you! It’s Sunday morning as I write to you. I had to kick myself out of bed! It’s gray and no sunshine!! Booo!! I’m looking forward to seeing family today – we’ll make our own sunshine!!

Last night I had a good session on Twitch. I met a young man from the Philippines who had a cold and just wanted to chat. He mentioned that the southern part of his country was being ravaged by a super typhoon called Rai: https://www.accuweather.com/en/hurricane/super-typhoon-rai-hits-philippines-like-a-freight-train/1061450/amp he is fortunate to be living in the north! We swapped spooky stories. His was of being in his parents room and seeing feet in his sisters room. He didn’t investigate whose feet they were until he went downstairs and his whole family was there! When he went back up they were gone! A little later another person came on who is working towards being a psych nurse and I shared a bit of my story with him. I’ve been in the mental health system since 1991 so a person like me has a lot of stories! It was fun talking to them,

Cube for the day

I decided to start a Discord channel after all. We will see how it goes. I’m not real savvy on how it works but giving it a try. A friend of mine asked me the other night what my goal with all this is and it’s pretty simple – to reach people who are going through stuff I’ve been through and help them not feel so alone in this world. There are 7.9 billion people on this planet and yet there are times it can feel like there is no one. Some of us slip through the cracks . I feel that way sometimes even though I have family and friends. Sometimes there are things you can’t talk about with just anyone. They don’t always understand. The other part of this journey I’m taking with Twitch is I love meeting new people and hearing their stories .

God has a plan in all that is happening in my life. I just have to keep taking the next steps!

I’m live on Twitch – Watch me at https://twitch.tv/jwygant

https://discord.gg/uG7wQJmx