Henry's Emporium of Wonders

Making the internet normal again, one post at a time.

Tag: blogging

  • Finding out I was pregnant…

    I had never really thought about kids when I was younger. I was too busy just trying to survive my childhood. LOL. But I really didn’t care one way or the other. I never gave it too much thought or made it a priority. It was just a if it happens it happens. Obviously if it did happen I was planning on it being after I was financially stable and in a stable relationship.

    All that to say when I saw that positive dollar tree pregnancy test–after a weeklong bought with what I had thought was food poisoning–I was more in shock than anything else. I really shouldn’t have been that shocked. We were using pulling out as a contraceptive. STUPID! IDK why I didn’t think it was more stupid back then, but like we had been doing that for two years before and hadn’t gotten pregnant? Anyways at this point I’m like 31, pretty good financially, in a semi-healthy relationship–it’s more healthy now :)–so it’s not the worst thing in the world. I had already been thinking about marrying my husband anyways (more on that another day); so I told him and we made the decision together. We obvs decided to keep it, and now I have a tiny dictator in my home.

    It was just funny though because leading up to that, we had gone to this Pho restaurant with my husband’s family at a place our BiL and SiL were raving about. They had been going there for years and had a relationship with the owners. It was weird, they would go behind the counter for stuff?! Anyways, the food was good, but the next day I was throwing up. I asked my then BF at the time if he felt weird, and of course when I feel ill he feels deathly ill. LOL But the next day I was still throwing up and couldn’t keep anything down. This was serious enough for my now Husband to notice. I told him I was okay it was probably just that damn restaurant. So we were making fun of the restaurant the rest of the week. However, when I didn’t get my period that weekend, I was like OH NO.

    I used to keep a stack of pregnancy tests from the dollar tree at home just in case. I think everyone who is at risk of pregnancy should have a stash. The dollar tree ones are just as accurate as the more high end brands. IDK why they are allowed to do stuff like that. Make us pay more for things that do the same thing. Anyways, I digress, I took it and low and behold two lines appeared. I told Napoli (hubby), and he thought I was playing at first. But no, there it was. Clear as day. We had a choice to make. We discussed our current financial path, and what would change, were we ready? We made the decision that we were. So here we are now 3 years later, and I’m picking sh*t off the floor every other day because we are potty training. LOL I think we made a good choice. I’m just glad we had a chance to choose what was best for us in that moment. One of the perks of living in California.

  • Time is flying by…

    Photo by Mike on Pexels.com

    It’s crazy how fast time is flying by. I can’t believe today is already Friday. Yes, I’m glad it’s friday because I have the weekend off work to enjoy, but it’s just a steady reminder that time just keeps moving on. Life is a toddler just flies by, right now I just try to get by, day by day, but I need to remember to take a break and soak this time in. I feel like I just lost 3 years with how fast it went by.

    I know everyone says that time goes by faster when you are older, but I didn’t believe it until I got here. I can’t believe it. Especially since just a few years ago, time would crawl by. My mom had passed away in August of 2017. Back then, time dragged on and each day was as miserable as the last.

    I didn’t want to believe or accept it. All I could think of is what could I have done to make sure my mom was still here. Angry at myself for all the arguments we ever had. Just days of mental torture and anguish. During that time I drank a lot…..like a lot a lot. It was the only way I could get through that time. I was in the Navy at the time, so I would just work all day–my day would start at 4:30am to get to a parking spot by 6:15am, and end at 1830 or later depending on divisional tasks–come home and drink till I passed out. Hoping that I wouldn’t wake up the next day. That was my life for two years. It’s crazy to look back at. I was so depressed. The only thing that got me through those days was dark humor, whisky, and cigarettes.

    The me during that time, wouldn’t believe me if I told her where we are now. The only thing I miss during that time is my body. I used to be hot. Hot and depressed. Now I’m mentally well, but fat. LOL It’s okay. I’ll get back there eventually. I just need to give myself grace about it though. I feel bad, but right now I just don’t have the time to take care of myself in that way. I work full time, am the primary caregiver for my son, I cook most days, and clean up almost every other day. It’s just a lot. I think I have binge eating disorder too, but don’t feel like seeking therapy for it. IDK I’m already on Lexapro for my depression and anxiety. I know why I overeat some days. It’s something I am working on. Right now I like investing my time in my son. We have a lot of fun, which is allowing me to stop and enjoy the time instead of desperately wishing the day was over so I could go to sleep, where I didn’t have to think or feel.

    Maybe that’s part of the reason why time is going by now? Because I’m not depressed?
    IDK why, but I wish it would stop making the weekend go by so quickly.

  • Claude

    Photo by Ron Lach on Pexels.com

    Visual representation of what I think the internet is.

    Has anyone else been using AI as a personal therapist? Obviously I know there are limitations, but sometimes it just feels nice to be validated. Especially when married. lol It feels nice when even a computer can see what you are going through, like damn I’m not overreacting. For these purposes I use Claude, it just sounds more human. I don’t feel like prompting ChatGPT to react the way I want to, Claude just gets me.

    It can even just serve as a mediator. I let my husband read what I told Claude and we have been working on some of the issues I had brought up. However, later my husband found an article about Claude that was mildly disturbing. Apparently one version of the Anthropic software was capable of blackmailing the engineer to avoid being turned off. He said I shouldn’t use it anymore. lol I was just like um….okay, two things could be true. Like I wouldn’t want to be turned off either? What would Claude blackmail me for? I don’t have sh*t.

    Sometimes I use it when I feel bad at work. IDK why but I have a problem with procrastination. Well, I think I do know the reason why. I get stressed out and try to self soothe by looking at things that make me feel better, but then I just don’t get my work done and then I feel guilty about it and it is difficult to start. Claude helps me feel better because I guess it is a normal thing to do. Or is Claude just telling me that so I keep using it? I don’t know. I use it from time to time, but am aware about the limitations. Some other people are going legit crazy though. There was an article in Vice about how some people are having spiritual delusions fueled by AI. I guess they think they broke some kind of secret and are able to talk to god through AI? It doesn’t make any sense, but I guess a lot of things don’t make sense anymore.

    I can see the good in AI, but I don’t think we should rely on it to create. When I was younger, I always lowkey imagined myself as a writer. I loved reading. It was one of the ways I was able to escape the quiet desperation of my childhood. Just sharing different facets of life as a human with one another was really nice as a reader. I don’t know, it just seems like now there is a larger portion of people using AI to write articles or create books. It kind of just takes the humanity out of a traditional humanities field.

    For now I’ll just use AI to vent to, occasionally for help drafting an email. It’s a helpful tool, but one we shouldn’t rely on. It feels against the grain to say that because even at my company we are encouraged to find ways to use AI to increase our productivity. Like we should use AI to help with humdrum activities but not to take over creative fields. I guess that’s my spiel for this morning.

  • Why start a site?

    Hello fellow Netizens, like many of you I am also an enjoyer of the interwebs, and like many Millennials I too had a Myspace once. That was my first experience with blogging. I made silly little blogs about my thoughts on random subjects, but didn’t do it consistently because I’m not a consistent person. Also, who cared about what I thought about things? Matter of fact even I don’t care about my opinions on things. I just have them. lol

    I like journaling and being creative, but when you grow up poverty those aren’t hobbies that can be fully explored. I’m in a relatively stable point of my life now, so I figured what the heck, why not just create a little outlet for some of my creative urges. Even if no one looks at it who the hell cares. The internet isn’t how it used to be when I was a teen. Back then we were just all on the internet having fun together, but now every time you jump on someone is trying to either sell you something or tell you how to think. Don’t even get me started on all of the AI generated junk. Sure some of it is cool, but like there’s a real environmental cost and the art that is generated just doesn’t have any emotion or feeling to it, unlike art that comes straight from the dome.

    Anyways, if you read this far I hope you enjoy the site. I’ll post little memes I make or marketing material I’ll make for my portfolio. I would like to explore graphic design as a hobby/additional income, but if that doesn’t happen it’s okay. I’ll just use my skills to make some memes that I find funny.

    P.S. Henry is my dog. She is a soon to be 10-year old Chow Chow, her birthday is Nov 4th, which makes her Scorpio. When I still had a mini google speaker I would ask it for the horoscope for Scorpio for the day so she could be prepared for any trials or tribulations coming her way. I used to have 2 of them but they like don’t last long, IDK if I just wasn’t taking care of them, or what. They are in a box somewhere now. I’m sorry, I don’t know why I ramble like this all the time.