This issue has lots of pictures, so your email client may not handle it well. You can also read it at the Substack website.
This is paywalled, so housekeeping first.
Housekeeping: comments are open for paid subscribers, as they are on most posts. Paid subscribers also get my creative writing posts, which in January will include a short story of the horror genre and a novel excerpt. Email hollymathnerd at gmail dot com if you can’t afford a paid subscription.
One Benefit of Careful Shopping
Being desperately poor, which I was for a long time, made me hyperaware of price cycles. I bought Christmas wrapping paper each year on January 3 or 4, knew exactly when Michael’s and other art supply stores put drawing supplies on sale, and otherwise stretched my meager dollars as far as humanly possible. One thing I learned is that if you want something unique or collectible, July and August are the months to shop. The closer we get to Christmas, the more prices go up.
So I give myself a careful budget in the summer and start my Christmas shopping in August. This year, my budget ended up being too large, because I got so many amazing foliage pictures during October. Foliage pictures are wonderful gifts for people who don’t live in New England. (In Mississippi and Alabama, where I mostly grew up, “autumn” is the four hours on the Monday before Thanksgiving when the colors change. If you’re very, very lucky, it stops raining for thirty minutes out of those four hours. My friends in the South absolutely adore these photos.)
This year, in a stroke of great financial luck, I got some really stunning foliage pictures during October, and Amazon had some good deals on frames. My Christmas budget thus had some extra room. I saved some of it, but I made myself buy one nice gift, just for me.
This wasn’t easy. Trusting that desperate poverty isn’t a few seconds from re-taking my life is a huge challenge. But I did it anyway, and I’m glad.
I bought myself a LEGO set that makes a vintage typewriter—one that has both keys and a carriage that move.
A PTSD Tool I Didn’t Expect
The gift I bought myself turned out to provide a helpful tool for PTSD progress, in a way I never could have predicted.
