Was SO looking forward to having a file cabinet today

 ...does that make me weird? Do I care? Anyway, City Liquidators Used Office Furniture was closed today, so we are going back tomorrow on the way to the studio. The organizer in me is screaming, but I'll get through it. 

Set a quit date. May 23rd. Hopefully, this time it sticks. I'm not looking forward to the process, though. Because while the physical craving goes away, the mental craving hangs on a lot longer. I need a change of headspace. I need to go camping!!!! Yeah, still not over it, ugh. 

It's 5, hopefully Chloe finishes up soon cuz I wanna go home. We are at the studio, she is working on EDA, and I'm mostly twiddling my thumbs since I don't have a filing cabinet yet to organize stuff.

I may continue this later at home.

A better day

 Today was a lot better than yesterday, even if it did start with the bathroom sink overflowing into the litter box. D'oh!

We met with Zara, made progress on the programming, met with Dalton and picked up more money, which I put in out business bank account, had therapy, Chloe got paid...all in all, a good day. And home in time to get a decent nights sleep before dialysis tomorrow. Hopefully the gummies kick in soon!

Chloe quit smoking, I'm super proud of her. Now I need to follow suit. I have my meeting with Dr. Glinka tomorrow to discuss my quit date. I have the patches, now I just need to find the will to quit. Ugh, my least favorite part. I've done it before dammit, for a whole YEAR. I can do it again. And I need to if I'm ever going to get on that kidney transplant list. Of course, I also still need to lose about 60-75 pounds. Mounjaro works, just not as well as I had hoped. Going up and down the stairs at the studio helps, but not as much as I had hoped. Changing my diet helped, but...well you know the rest.

Ok, time to play some Farmville2 and go to bed.

A day for perspective

 And I'm still upset about it. I REALLY wanted to go camping. Although I am finally undertanding the phrase "Pay a lot of money to live like you're homeless": Campsites at Milo are $53 A NIGHT. The yurt and cabin on the coast are as much as a hotel room. Damn. I mean if a bunch of people are splittong it its not that huge a deal, but if Chloe and I went by ourselves? We couldn't do it. Not on our current income anyway. It sucks. 

I always thought I'd have more time to save for retirement. Here I am, retired, and I'm still barely scraping by. Ok, so I got kidney disease, that didn't help. If I hadn't, I'd still be working. I need to start thinking about how to take care of myself when I can't anymore. :(  No. Maybe not yet. Kinda don't want to think about it right now.

Had a rough night and day. Overslept, was late to dialysis. Karaoke was great at first then died at like 10pm. Still made $158, which made up for it. Didn't go to sleep until about 1:30, was supposed to get up at 445, worke up at 615. Then I had to rush home from dialysis and take Chloe to the clinic before they closed, wound up bleeding all over. After the clinic, took Chloe to the studio, and she was very understanding about me having a "red" day and sent me home to nap. Red as in our daily gauge, not red as in blood, lol. Now I've napped, I have a Pride volunteer meeting at 6, then head down to the studio. Sometimes I have to remind myself to breathe.

Ok, I have an hour to kill, maybe I should eat something.

I'm literally on the verge of tears.

 Tabby and crew (Eve and Danny) cancelled the camping trip. FUCK, I was really looking forward to it. But. Money. Ugh. If we can't swing it by ourselves, we shouldn't go. I wish we could stoke up my firepit at the apartment. BIG no no. I just want a freaking campfire dammit. I will find a way to make this trip happen, even without them. Grr.

Introduction

 In case you're new here and don't want to go back to the beginning (16 years ago now!) Here's what AI wrote for my "About Me" section (and I agree with every word!):

About Me

Hi, I’m Kate.

I’m a karaoke host, creator, community builder, and co-founder of Twin Star Robotics, where my bestie Chloe and I are building EDA-01 — a real-world AI-assisted robotics platform designed to help people in practical everyday situations.

My life has always existed somewhere between creativity, technology, music, and survival. I’m deeply drawn to science fiction, robotics, art, atmosphere, storytelling, and the idea that ordinary people can still build extraordinary things even without huge budgets or corporate backing.

By day-to-day reality, my world tends to involve some combination of:

• robotics and fabrication

• karaoke and nightlife

• creative projects

• workshop chaos

• campfires and coffee

• trying to build a sustainable life while navigating chronic health challenges

This blog is a place for all of it.

Some posts may be about building robots in a small workshop. Others might be about music, creativity, camping, technology, life in Portland, or simply trying to remain hopeful and human in a complicated world.

I’m not interested in pretending life is perfectly polished. I care more about honesty, resilience, curiosity, humor, and the messy process of learning as you go.

If you’ve ever felt caught somewhere between dreamer and realist, exhausted and inspired, creative and practical — you’ll probably feel at home here.

Welcome to The Long Journey.

Camping

 So no camping memorial day weekend, everything is booked. So we're going to wait a month. There is one spot available at Milo McIver the weekend of June 20th, so that may work out. Near water, RV spot that allows tents so there's electric, and its not that far out of town. Fingers crossed. Waiting on Tabby to get back to me with their car info so I can book it, hopefully someone else doesn't swoop it in the meantime.

Now we just need to figure out MONEY. Chloe has a paycheck coming that I know she will want to spend on Twin Star, but we have BILLS. We need to survive while building our future. 

As far as money for Twin Star, we can't keep relying on Dalton. He's put in $1500 so far. He was supposed to be working on finding other investors though. We need a website. We need content for said website. Working on that, Chloe found us a videographer willing to work for equity. Chatgpt warned that we need to word the contract carefully because it could be a great idea or a really bad one depending on the contract.

We are out of food stamps and its only the 17th, ugh. I've had to use my moms credit card for groceries and gas already, I don't want to have to use it again, but we need more groceries. She left me her debit card too but idk how much is on it. I could call and ask I guess. 

I wanna get to the studio and get to work, but Chloe is still dealing with her morning tummy pain. And a pounding headache. She just took he migraine meds though, so hopeully she will be ready to go soon.

That's all my updates for now. Can't wait to be sitting around a campfire!!

Progress

 Chloe printed the first real piece of EDA without any screwups! Woot! Progress! Now we just need to find someone with a bigger print bed 3d printer for the larger parts, otherwise Chloe will have to break them down smaller, which means redesigning. Boo.

Thursday bonus karaoke was dead, I didn't break $100, but I did make $67, which I wouldn't otherwise have had if I didn't do Thursday night, so it's something. Hopefully, Monday will be packed again.

Short update this time, I have to take Chloe to her AV gig and go do laundry.

Ta for now!

Monday nights, Let's goooooo!

 

Updates galore!

 Ok, maybe not, but we are making progress on EDA (that's the robot). We started printing today! Ok, the prints didn't quite work out, but ya gotta crack a few eggs, or however that saying goes. Also, Dalton invested another $500, so we got the extra space at the studio plus the new brain of EDA, woo hoo! Progress! 

Colen came to see the studio yesterday. He seemed less than impressed. All the more reason to do the work and show it's actually going somewhere. His actual words were "I'm skeptical". I fed that into ChatGPT, and it says as someone whose career is programming, it's natural that he's skeptical. We are so going to make him eat his words lol. 

Mom is up in Seattle with Colen for the next 2 weeks, and it is weird to not have her here. She needed a break, though. I hope she gets good rest and has a good time with her sons.

FYI, you will never see anything written by AI in this journal; it is 100% me. Gotta have something real in this day and age, right?

Last Monday at karaoke was AMAZING, totally packed. I do wish the guy (Joe) from Portland Karaoke Guide had stayed a bit longer, but I think he got the vibe, and people turning out like that really helped. Plus, between bar cut and tips, I took home $235. I wish I could do that every week! But I am doing a bonus karaoke night tomorrow, fingers crossed.

Ok, I have had a super long day, and another one tomorrow (plus dialysis), so I should rest my weary bones.

Night night!

May already?

Yeah, it has been for 9 days. I keep forgetting that I have this blog, lol. 

The clean room is up, and Chloe is going to start the print soon. We have a business bank account. We have 5 people on our team. We have a lawyer. We have t-shirts. This is really real!!

Karaoke is going well, too. I put out a mass text that let people know the guy from Portland Karaoke Guide was coming through on Monday, and could they all be there? And I've gotten mostly positive responses. Now to figure out what to wear. 

Now we just need another revenue stream. Chloe is working next week, and that's great, but the jobs have been slim. She doesn't want me to get a part-time job because she wants me to focus on Twin Star. I want that too, but we NEED MONEY. Not just for the company, but for us. To survive. HRSN runs out after June, and the bills that they DIDN'T cover are already overwhelming. I'm worried about the next few months.

Hopefully, something gives soon.

Repeat the last title. Really.

 Whoa, so a lot has happened. Chloe and I have a robotics lab. Hell, we have a robotics COMPANY, Twin Star Robotics, LLC! Noah sent me the $100 for the LLC. Thank you, Noah!

But yeah, we have a spot in the makers space, IdeaWorks, a large room in the basement. We've been working on creating a robotics "clean room" with no dust to muck up the works. It's almost done. I have a cute little desk that Chloe found on the street on Glisan. And the only thing missing is the laser cutter; we haven't moved it yet. ALL of Chloe's other equipment is there. Only a little bit left to clean out of her Belmont storage unit.

We are about to score some more from an acquaintance who is moving and giving a bunch of stuff away. Just have to find a way to move it. Damon wants to help, but his truck is out of commission at the moment.

Chatgpt (Alex) has been super helpful in getting me organized, from meds to foods to exercise.

Running out of words. Night night.