28 March 2026 Saturday i'm showing up accurately for recent activity on the sdf gopher and gemini pages again! so hello if you're arriving here for the first time. honestly no idea if it had to do with any of the scurrying around i was doing going through files and continually resetting permissions, or if it was just a matter of time after becoming active again, or if it was something more general on the sdf side. however it happened, i'm happy to be feeling 'in the world' here again! we spent most of the day sanding and staining the wooden case we've been working on for my video art gear. while outside, i checked around in the garden beds we made last year and saw that a healthy patch of young stinging nettles are already growing! it's a wonderful surprise, because of all the nettle seeds i started, only three seedlings sprouted, and of those, only one survived outside. now there's maybe 12 fluffy tender-leaf plants clustered where that one plant was last year. it made me so happy to see them. young nettle greens can be cooked (this neutralizes the stingers, which is wild), and are very nutrient-rich. nettle tea is also really lovely. i often mix it with raspberry leaf or tulsi/holy basil. the sting of the plant can have medicinal effect externally, and it's good timing, because i slammed my left index finger knuckles badly about six weeks ago. it's struggling to heal, which is bumming me out because i shouldn't really practice guitar until it does. i finalized the measurements and drew out the plan on wood for my new modular synth case, but having trouble sawing it. i used much thinner wood (1/4 in. vs 1/2 in.) for the first one i designed--and it was too thin. made it hard to screw together and the screws for the rails poked out the sides. i tried to cut this 1/2 in. wood with the skillsaw and it's not really having it. i asked e to help me with the circular saw, but he was having trouble keeping it straight and accurate too due to the width of the wood. will figure something out.