It’s been such a dark and rainy day today, and it’s just been announced that the queen has died. I’m not a fan of the royal family at all, so good riddance. I find it odd how many people who will never and have never met a member of the royal family are just singing their praises today. It’s absolutely bizarre and a bit cringe.

Anyway, I spent the day streaming Cities: Skylines on Twitch. I’ve set up my PS4 camera so it’s pointed at Dolores and it’s been a lot of fun just having her on the stream with me while I build my city. Yesterday she wasn’t napping much in the armchair downstairs in the living room so I’m glad she made up for it today! Plus she got a good view of the bird feeder on the window when there were three birds in it.

Yesterday I finished off burning the first of the candles in the jesmonite pots and I gave the pot a wash to see if the container was stained. The heat from the flame lightened the inside of the pot and I noticed that there was some discoloration after washing with soap. The soot around the inside washed off relatively easily, but the pot definitely doesn’t look brand new after burning the candle inside of it. I went ahead and lit the next candle with a slightly smaller diameter wick and I’ve been enjoying that all day long. It’s burning a little bit slower, which is good, but at one point I did extinguish the flame and trim the wick because it was getting a little smokey/sooty and that seemed to help. The candle has been going since around eleven this morning and it’s not quite finished so I’m hoping to finish it tonight. From what I can see so far, it doesn’t seem like the flame has lightened the pot and there’s not quite as much soot around the inside. Fingers crossed it cleans up nicely!

After dinner tonight Alex and I spent some time carving the small mushroom tops and we managed to get through four of them before we were both tired of it. There’s only one more small mushroom that needs carving and then there are the two big ones (one of which needs a bit more foam before it can be carved) but at least we got a bunch of them ready to be shaved. Maybe we’ll shave them tomorrow if we’ve got time.

Anyway, that’s about it for today. See you tomorrow!