Many moons ago I picked up a Pink Oyster mushroom farm. I broke it up and placed a few spoon fulls into a boiled jar of cedar shavings, and that looked to have grown decently. So I moved that into this 10 liter dollarstore container with a usb fan, and a ultra-sonic mister. One month, and one fruit fly infestation later, all I can say is that it was successful. But unfortunately I didn’t get anything useable out if it. I’d love to try again, but with a proper set up. Like, a tub with a lid that fits properly… and a raspberry pi to monitor and adjust absolutely everything.

Sometimes motels just aren’t enough.

I’ve been off Escitalopram for about a month now. … That’s a bit of a jump from the last update.

I was on Escitalopram for about a year. It’s been great. I’ve never felt so emotionally whole. Like I can actually feel enjoyment and act on it naturally, or I can be sad and know it’s going to blow over; often I even have the choice to put my emotional annoyances aside. Unlike before where everything I felt was filtered through some looming dread. When even if I was enjoying something, I couldn’t smile or get excited. I had to force myself to behave in a way to express the enjoyment, and that was always a losing battle; causing the joy to rescend quite quickly and every effort feeling worthless.

So why stop?

Every doctor I talked to treated escitalopram as a temporary treatment. “Six months on, then we’ll try to stop.” I had regular check ups, for the first 6 months or so, then whenever I needed a refill, and my dose was so low that no one was concerned about letting me continue, but I knew it needed to stop at some point. So now that my job’s wound down, I took a break.

So far so good.

I’m definitely experiencing some changes. I’ve been having some mood swings, mostly manic ones which might have something to do with the time of year, and even the occasional self destructive thought. which I’ve had a nice long break from. I can feel a sense of depression growing, but it’s still been an optional one, I can shake it off and enjoy my life as normal.

The biggest change is my sleep habbits. I had such long, consistent sleeps while on escitalopram. Now I’m up to midnight, then up at 5am fairly regulary. I don’t feel bad about it. I’ve got hobbies I’m excited to work on, and I’ve always been envious of people who could live like this. Poor night’s sleep used to destroy me. I might even had declared it a form of PSD. Not being able to get 8 hours could easily bring me to tears, and 9 - 11 hours was normal.

Right now I can feel tired without it effecting my emotions. But I don’t know how long that will last. Even my current level of enjoyment with hobbies and such, I can feel that dibilitating emotional restriction growing again. It makes me wonder what’s happening while I’m sleeping. I used to get the quantity with no lasting effects, now I seem to have built up resilience over the last year, but I can slowly feel it wearing away. Maybe this description of my symptons will lead to a more specific medication that I can take regularly. Or I’ll just take a break then restart escitalopram when I feel the need. Start over adjusting to seretonin with that initial 2 weeks of barely being able to keep my eyes open again. That’s where I’m at right now.

Got some fancey branding done up for giving away kombucha starters.

This is fun, but considering the effort, I didn’t really save that much money from just buying a “cheap” vertical garden on Amazon. Could of saved that energy to learn how to actually take care of plants. Oh, and next time I’d double the “Y” pipes rather than havind long spacers between them.

Big thank you to the young part timers at home depot who handsawed the column pipe for me. I totally thought you would have had power tools.