I never claimed to be normal

Random neurodivergent expression

Boo. It’s me. 👻

My name is Cindy. I am 34 years old and neurodivergent. These blogs are just who I am and what I am feeling at the current time they are posted or random things I enjoy. Some deep, some not. If you read them I thank you for taking the time out of your life to listen. Some people don’t care enough to try to understand others, and it says something about you that you are trying.

recent posts

  • Starting off 2026 taking much needed rest and time to myself 💤

    December was a great month, but there was just so much going on that I rarely had time to myself. It was like one event and project after another, which was fun, but my autistic brain not having much of a break and not having my usual routine did cause some stress. I’ll be honest, when I was younger one major way I self regulated and dealt with stress was by eating a lot of food so it became a habit I still have to this day. Also, everyone seems to eat more around the holidays, and boy did I ever. So many sweets and delicious food everywhere. It was fun of course, but not so fun when I felt all of my clothes getting tighter and I start to get a santa claus belly.

    Weight is a complicated and sensitive thing for me and a lot of other people, and I don’t want to go too much into it but my core issue with weight gain is how it feels on my body. I am a person with sensory issues and I can feel even a minor shift, whether it’s weight gain or weight loss and both can cause discomfort in their own ways, but weight gain moreso as it carries an extra heavy feeling I don’t like. It’s not about anything superficial, it’s the uncomfortable heavy feeling I get in my body.

    So January is a month of resting, getting back to healthier eating and taking some time to myself. It’s a quieter month which I used to not like so much because of the contrast of how exciting December is, but now I think it’s really essential to have a quieter more relaxing month after all the excitement.

    This month will be full of slow mornings, relaxing art projects, chill gaming time, less socialization, journaling, therapy, meditation, pajama days, and just any other cozy activities. I wouldn’t have it any other way.

    I’ll leave this post with a cute relaxing lofi youtube channel I recently found, perfect to put on in the background to start off a cozy morning with a cup of coffee. ☕

  • Wrapping up this year with forgiveness and gratitude

    This year there were a mix of ups and downs, but for the most part, I will say it was one of my better years, especially in the later half.

    There were some things this year that were upsetting to me. Some people who revealed they did not have my best interests in mind who are no longer in my life. I spent some time questioning why they did what they did, or questioning honestly if I was in the wrong at any point where I may have caused them to treat me poorly. When I read that sentence back it sounds ridiculous. It’s a habit of self blame I have. I feel that if I put all the blame on me, I have control and can prevent mistreatment by acting a certain way. This is a thought process I’m working on getting rid of. Part of that is putting responsibility where it belongs – on the other person or people who mistreated me.

    This is my post to say that I forgive the people who treated me poorly this year. This isn’t to say it’s okay what they did, it’s to finally get the closure I deserve because it’s unrealistic to expect it from them. I’ve had people who mistreated me have guilt pop up and try to apologize months or years later, or “follow” me online and if any of them are reading this I want to say please do not let the guilt eat at you. I am living well now, and that is enough for me. I hope you can do the same.

    I also wanted to take the time to give gratitude to the people in my life who I met this year who have treated me well. It really means a lot to me to feel seen, heard, and respected for who I am. It also inspires me to be surrounded by kind, generous, and funny people. It makes me feel comfortable being who I am and I won’t ever take that for granted, especially coming from a history of people misunderstanding me often and not accepting me. There’s a chance these people are reading this too, and I wanted to just say thank you for everything.

    This year was transformative for me. I learned a lot about myself, what I will tolerate and what I won’t. I’ve gained more self esteem and feel like I got my creative drive back. If 2026 is half as transformative as this year I will be happy!

  • Holiday craft fair 🎄✨

    This weekend there were many local craft fairs and I was excited to participate in one of them for the first time. This past month I have been making a variety of things – stickers, ornaments, cards, things out of clay. I learned so much in the process!

    Here are a few of the things from my display:

    The day was busy and I met so many nice people, and sold way more than I expected. Me and my friend were also raising money for our local therapeutic arts program in a different booth and sold a lot of things there as well made from local artists of all abilities.

    I am thankful for this experience. There was a lot of work put into it from many creative people who continue to inspire me. 🎅

  • Taste test tuesday – easy no bake holiday treats 🎄✨🍫

    I had been researching easy no bake holiday treats and came across this video by Mel Coop with some great (and adorable) ideas and had to try some out myself. These combine both chocolate and peanut butter which is one of my favorite combinations.

    I tried out the nutter butter reindeer and chocolate pretzel bark and here are my ratings of each one!

    Chocolate pretzel bark ★★★★★ 5/5 🥳✨

    This turned out great with a nice mix of sweet and salty. I modified it to add a lot more peanut butter and mixed it in with the chocolate. I probably added about a cup of peanut butter total. I also put a pinch of salt on top. This was extremely simple and fun to make and I think it turned out festive looking! I probably would switch out the pearl sprinkles for some other christmas themed sprinkles next time as they would fall off and were just a bit too crunchy for my taste. The mix of peanut butter with chocolate reminded me of eating a peanut butter cup. Very yummy!

    Nutter butter reindeer ★★★★★ 5/5 🥳✨

    These are so cute and silly looking but also so delicious! I don’t know why I never thought to dip nutter butters into chocolate but this was the day I discovered it was a brilliant idea. They take a little bit of patience and can get messy but the result is so worth it. I need to give the rest of them away before I eat them all..

    Making these cute and simple treats has been really fun, as well as giving them away and seeing people enjoy them. 🌟

  • Self care Sunday – practicing giving myself grace and rest

    Something that I have struggled with before is giving myself grace and treating myself with the same patience and understanding I give others. I think this is partially due to other people not giving me grace over the years. Even if I gave them patience and understanding and forgave them for mistakes, I didn’t seem to get treated with that same respect. Over time I placed unrealistic expectations on myself. I just thought there was something different about me and that I somehow didn’t deserve that same respect because I rarely got it. So I kept putting pressure on myself. Pressure to not make any mistakes. Pressure to not rest and take time for myself because to others that meant something negative like I wasn’t trying hard enough or I didn’t care enough. Guilt would accumulate if I tried to take too much time to myself.

    Eventually this pressure builds and builds and leads to extreme overwhelm and exhaustion. I have no choice but to rest during this time, because my body forces me to rest. Whether this overwhelm manifests as a physical illness or mental fatigue where I shut down and can’t communicate, or a mix of both, it’s very uncomfortable. Today, I am practicing rest. I’ve told myself this many times before lately but I wind up still doing more than I planned to. Right now I’m battling having many things I want to do in a short amount of time so I have a sense of urgency and wanting to cross things off a list and start to feel guilty if I don’t. But today the very long list can wait. I can still be productive, but at a slower pace, and that is okay. I need to do things just to help me relax and recharge. Here is my self care sunday recharge plan:

    -Listen to relaxing music
    -Meditate
    -Reduce overstimulating sounds
    -Keep lighting low
    -Make myself a cup of tea
    -Turn off phone notifications for at least a few hours
    -No checking e-mail
    -Do a relaxing activity off of the computer, like coloring
    -Journal how I have been feeling
    -Declutter an area of my apartment but spend no longer than 10 minutes doing so (clutter leads to more overwhelm for me)

    As I get older and learn more about my needs as a person with autism, I feel like these rest days are essential for me to feel more balanced. They are also productive in their own way, by practicing validating how I feel, and helping me to be able to do more in the future by not feeling so burned out.

  • Crafting mini Clay mushrooms!

    I am new to air dry clay so I thought I would start out with making something that looked a bit simple. I was happy to learn that clay mini mushrooms inspired by mario games were simple to mold. I think the most challenging part was being patient with the drying times.

    A photo of part of the process of making some of the 1 up mushrooms. All the parts didn’t stick well to the mushrooms after the clay dried, so I painted each part individually and attached with mod podge for some, then switched to e6000 for a better hold. I also originally prepped for the acrylic paint with mod podge until realizing it tended to peel more, so I switched to liquitex acrylic gesso. It was a learning experience!
    The finished result. While some have some minor flaws here and there, I am overall happy with how they turned out! I also decided to make some packaging for them too.
    I recently learned how to use the cricut, so I printed out this question block pattern as stickers and just stuck them on some yellow boxes. Pretty simple!
    I was really happy with how these turned out!

    While these did take a while to make, I am just really glad I was able to make them. Crafting things lately and learning how to use different tools to help has been really fun!

  • Music Monday – The impressive soundtrack of Pokemon Legends: ZA

    The latest Pokemon legends: ZA game has experienced a lot of backlash from fans for being unpolished and overpriced, but one thing I think most people can say that is positive about this game is the soundtrack. The soundtrack itself is very polished and high quality, which doesn’t seem to match up with the quality of the game sometimes.

    I actually did a little digging to figure out more about why some of these tracks are so great, and was surprised to learn that a fan was hired to compose some of these tracks! Carlos Eiene, also known by the name insaneintherainmusic on Youtube, has been posting impressive video game covers for years, focusing a lot on Jazz arrangements. I enjoy Jazz music a lot, so this music is right up my alley. Here are a few of the tracks that he did for the game:

    I really think it was such a great idea to hire a fan creator for a game soundtrack and hope more games will continue to do this in the future!

  • Pokopia extended trailer reaction!

    This morning the new Pokopia extended trailer came out and I had to make a video of my reaction/thoughts:

    I haven’t been this excited for a new Pokemon game in a while. I love cozy games like this to just chill out and relax and immerse myself in. I need it to be March already!

  • Music Monday – Highlight: Sunmi 🎧

    Lee Sun-mi, known mononymously as Sunmi, is a South Korean singer, dancer, songwriter and record producer. She debuted in 2007 as a member of popular South Korean girl group at the time called Wonder Girls. Sunmi had her debut as a soloist in 2013 and has released many chart topping singles.

    I personally have been following Sunmi’s music ever since her debut so it has been about 12 years now since I became her fan. I have really enjoyed watching her music evolve over time and her take more creative control over it. In her most recently released album, Heart Maid, she has had her hands in not only writing the lyrics but composing most of the songs on it, which I highly respect and admire.


    After listening to her most recent album I was very impressed and wanted to share a few of my favorites from it, all songs with different vibes showing her versatility:

    I wanted to end on one of my favorite performances of a few of her older tracks (her with the band and that sax player especially is soo good!) 🎷

    Sunmi has also talked about her struggles with mental health in interviews, something that is still very stigmatized in South Korea. Aside from her massive talent and creativity, her openness and honesty is just another thing that I respect about her and makes me proud to be a fan of her all of these years. 💖

  • Halloween 2025 🎃

    I have always loved Halloween. I’m the type of person to dress up for it even if I just stay home and have nowhere to go. This halloween I actually had a few places to go – a day party and a 5-6 hour live concert at night. For the day party I helped set up a halloween themed photo booth to take photos of people in their costumes. It was fun, and really everyone went all out to have this party come together and be festive. 🎃 👻 It was awesome to see and be a part of.

    Here are a few photos I took from the day party:

    And here is my costume. 🐈‍🔪 I decided to base it around the “what?” cat. Local artist & friend Lillian hand made the cat mask from paper clay. I think she did a great job with it!

    Something I realized before the concert, is that I’d definitely be vibin’ a lot when my favorite local band played, which could risk the cat mask falling off and getting damaged. So I had a slight change in outfit that was still keeping with the cat theme:

    The concert was great and full of energy. I am sober and may not have been able to let loose dancing like some people there who had a few drinks, but still was able to vibe, especially when Weird Year started playing 💃

    This Halloween, while there was a lot going on that got overstimulating at times since I’m used to staying home, was still definitely one of my favorites!