A post from a few weeks back sharing my thoughts on the diligent girl/lazy girl trope in folk tales, and what meaning we might take from it. https://pnwmichelle.com/2025/01/15/diamonds-toads-and-rusty-nails/ #folktales #fairytales #caretasks #storytelling (preview image shows a wooden box with various bits of hardware, many of them rusty.)
Diamonds, Toads, and Rusty Nails: Folktales and the Diligent Girl

I’m sitting at my table sorting nails and screws. Some are rusty and some aren’t. The lot of them were piled in a dirty, broken wooden box in my garage, a dubious legacy from the previous owners of…

Sometimes I remove the paywall on substack posts to show what people can get if they sign up for a paid subscription. This is one of those posts. On Kind Accountability and consistency: https://open.substack.com/pub/selfcarebackpack/p/kind-accountability-and-consistency?r=4amvi&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web

#Accountability #SelfCare #CareTasks

Kind accountability and consistency

Kind accountability is a reframing exercise. It's similar to the way I use affirmations as future compliments: instead of framing an improvement or change you want to make as a 'I want to stop doing x', you frame it as 'I want to do y'. This works for multiple reasons, I think.

SelfCare Backpack

Big day #today, back at 'proper' work after sessions, #parenting & personal budget wrangling last week:

- started getting my head around the #wordpress theme for the big #website revamp, and got stuck into the last few fiddly manual tasks

- had a check-in with my producer; made progress with booking a venue for this month's shoot

- found out my session has been accepted for this year's #Eroticon, yay!

Then took kiddo to the park in the rain, did #CareTasks & #yoga... am now flat on my back!

I used to have a Robot Vacuum, and it was hands down the best thing I'd bought for this house. We have a good sized house with hard floors, and I'm persnickety AND like to be barefoot.

There are four people and two cats who live here.

Everyone assumes it's the cats that cause the floor grit. Turns out, after a week in quarantine, that it's actually way more likely to be Husbot's work boots dropping grit/sand/mud everywhere in the mornings!

#Home #CareTasks #Life #Cleaning

Our dishwasher is broken and won't be fixed until the weekend at the earliest, so Leo and I are on a mission to make washing up the funnest game ever.

Bobbin loves water play and they're super keen to scrub, but last time they washed up I needed to redo everything. We're having more success with an "I wash, you stack" routine. Yay, new stacking toys!

#parenting #housekeeping #CareTasks

Also, because it's really important.

If you can't cook today, heat up something frozen, or have a friend bring you a sandwich. You can get back to cooking tomorrow.

If you can't shower today, grab the baby wipes. Even if you're struggling, you can still feel clean.

You are not a failure, and people who are having a hard time deserve compassion. Good enough is perfect, and anything worth doing is worth doing half-assed. And care tasks are morally neutral.

#SelfCare #KCDavis #CareTasks