Oh, sure, I'm supposed to think up titles for posts too?

Hello friends!

A quick update for paid members: I owe y'all one more video for June. This video has been recorded, as have both July videos, so they are all coming for sure. I'm running a little late because I am nearly at the end of the Una and Varrie book and my brain is actually working this week. My haywire midlife hormones give me a lot of days where I just can't write for love or money, but I can edit videos even when I feel brain dead. So if everything's working to get this book done, I'd better take it! Once this is done I will catch up on video editing, so there will be three July member videos.

Even though I know it seems like all I do here is kvetch about perimenopause these days, some things have actually improved over last year since I saw an understanding doctor. I recall that last summer I was having insomnia for the first time in my life, was dead tired every day, and truly struggling not to take naps on top of my long yet tortured sleep.

This year, the insomnia is gone and although I still have some of that afternoon slump, it’s way better than it was. Which means I am actually slowly but surely getting more on top of things. I got the notes and recordings done for nearly all my July videos already. This is the first time I’ve ever managed to be a month ahead. It feels amazing.

I’m also really trying to prioritize exercise, which is so hard when you’re tired or dealing with other physical or mental blahs, and especially hard in the summer, but…it REALLY REALLY helps if one can manage it.

If you’ve been following my Stardew Valley adventures, Sorla married Elliott. (“Wait, what??” snapped Dorr.) I’m already planning to do a goth farm with Una next time and set her up with Sebastian. I can’t wait to share the Una and Varrie book with you. It’s probably the coziest and most light-hearted of the Hidden Lands books so far, which is the mood I need right now, and it was so much fun making up gothic novels for Una and Varrie to talk about. I plan to release it at the beginning of September, so I have proper time to gather up reviewers, and just in time for fall vibes. Sure, a lot of it takes place in the summer, but as Varrie notes, “Una was an autumnal creature, that was certain, the type of cat who was happiest by the hearth and not in the baking sun.”

Una and I don’t have TOO much in common besides reading…but I, too, am certainly a hearth cat. So is Reinhart, who spends much of summer in the coolest room in the house, under Dade’s bed. But I don’t want life to pass me by too fast, so I’m hoping to wrap up this draft and enjoy a little lazy day reading this July.

More soon!

-Lidiya