Helloooo everyone,

I’ve mentioned wanting to move (out of Florida) a couple of times on this blog.

I finally did and moved back to my former home state of Maine in early May, as my immediate family lives up north. 🌲

I’m grateful that I managed to move and wish everyone in the Florida subreddit (example thread) good wishes if they’re also seeking to leave the state. I lurked A LOT on that sub to commiserate with anonymous strangers who felt the same way that I did in my stuck-for-some-time situation.

Some of the things I disliked included:

• the weather
• the annual hurricane season (I thought I was going to die for 8 hours straight during Hurricane Ian)
• the politics
• the type of people Florida attracted post-COVID

It was causing me a huge amount of stress and negatively affecting my mental health and well-being. I understand why some people like FL, but it was finally time for me to accept that I didn’t fall into that category anymore.

^ A poetry reading of an eco-poem I wrote, inspired by my FL days

I had a bit of luck and good timing on my side with other things that gave me enough motivation this time around to do something about my situation, so I’ll forever be grateful for that.

A Few Maine Pictures

I missed Maine’s natural landscape a lot during my time in Florida.

I enjoyed the FL wildlife (I saw osprey, coyotes, wild boar, cows, swallow-tailed kites, and many others), but it was depressing to see the amount of land regularly cleared and destroyed for new homes in the SW FL zip code I lived in.

Traveling With a Cat

I was very nervous about traveling with my cat, Breadloaf. She’ll be 9 years old later this month.

I read several articles to prepare for traveling with a cat for the first time on a plane.

This video was super helpful also:

The items I bought for cat travel:

• Voyager step-in harness and leash
• Comfort Zone calming cat collar
• Pet carrier (I flew on Allegiant and this was airline compliant in terms of measurements)
• Pet ID tag in case she ran away

My cat yowled for about half an hour in the beginning at home when she was first placed into the carrier. It was miraculously smooth-sailing for most of the trip after that.

She tried to crawl under the x-ray baggage scanner during our security check. THANK GOODNESS I had the leash/harness at that point!

Environment and Your Happiness

I’m sharing this excerpt and link again in case anyone reading this is agonizing over whether they should move, if you’re not happy living in your current location.

The environment and mental health and intrinsically connected. The places where you spend a lot of time—home, work, school, and even socially—can have a significant impact on your mental well-being. In psychology, these are referred to as environmental factors of mental health and are the main focus of study for environmental psychologists.

Identifying the environmental factors that can affect you psychologically can shed light on whether the locations you frequent are contributing to or detracting from your mental wellness. It can also help you recognize if changes are needed to start feeling better mentally and emotionally.

– How Does Your Environment Affect Your Mental Health? (Very Well Mind)

Art Updates

I got the rest of my stuff from FL this past week.

I downsized quite a bit to make things easier, and I left behind my old Dell PC at a relative’s house (it had an ancient copy of Photoshop on it that I was using for occasional digital touchups on my sketches).

I haven’t figured out what my new digital art setup might look like, so I may focus on traditional art for the next few months until I’ve made up my mind on what devices/platforms to try out.

I may also shift the focus of this blog to sketching updates, since that’s been my focus for a lot of the year so far.

I finally upgraded Dragonsinn.net’s web hosting to a WordPress-supported plan, and the site turns 25 very soon, so I’ll try to work on the June Dragonsinn post for that in a bit.