To unpathed waters, undreamed shores

Today was kind of stressful for a whole bunch of reasons. Plus, we had a ton of smoke blowing in from BC, so it was dark and smokey on top of that. Lovely. But! There are also lots of nice little things, so I'm going to concentrate on that instead.

✿ I found out that there is a lovely little walkway down by the Snye! Normally, I don't go to that area - when I was growing up, that part of the city was kind of sketchy. But it's really clean and nice now. Hopefully it won't be so smokey tomorrow; it would be so nice to go down there in the morning for a good, long walk.

✿ I asked directions from a stranger, and Did Not Die. (...I unfortunately didn't find the thing that I was looking for, either, but that's not the point.)

✿ To reward myself for Not Dying, I had cake. And it was delicious. Chocolate and raspberry with white chocolate shavings, mmm... It was quite a cake, though. I kind of wish I could have shared with someone (but only kind of). It was a lot of cake for one man to handle. (But I defeated it! So. ;V )

✿ Did a little bit of driving practice today! Result: I Did Not Die, I did not damage the vehicle, my mother did not have a heart attack, and I did not have to go out into the smokey air for a second time! Groceries were obtained! Practical left-turn practice happened! Driving during construction also happened! ... xD It was a short but fruitful session.

✿ There was a LGBT display at the library (yay!) and one of the books they had available was the manga My Brother's Husband by Gengoroh Tagame. Started reading it this afternoon; holy shit, is this manga ever adorable. And it isn't all that often that I get to read about a Canadian character in works by authors from outside Canada, so that is really nice. (Though I must admit that I find it funny that the first thing out of Mike's mouth is... profuse apologies. xD It makes sense with the situation but ffffff. Very Canadian.)

✿ It's always so nice to be able to watch artists streaming while they work. <3 Caught some of Elli's stream yesterday and today, and it's just very relaxing to watch. Plus, getting previews of what people are working on is always cool. I am SO happy to hear about the Tistow bookmark set (even though it will be a while before this comes out xD ) Prints are lovely, but kind of a pain because I have so little room in my living space. But bookmarks, now, THAT's something that I have room for, AND something I can use. Most excellent.

✿ I'm going to try a new brownie recipe tomorrow! This one, which is gluten-free and uses black beans in place of flour. I don't have GF requirements, but the idea of using beans as a flour replacement just seemed really interesting to me, so I'm looking forward to trying it. Plus, my pal Tesla recommended this one, soooo hopefully it'll turn out as nice for me as it did for her. Have any of you tried something similar?

So. Yes. Lots of nice little things. I feel pretty good. Have a nice weekend, everyone. <3