Shuttered Realities
A lot of my life I still can't really write about in public, and that's okay.
rasetsunyo reminded me of just writing about being grateful on a regular basis, and that reminded me of my original incarnation of this journal, which was just a daily writing of what happened, and trying to think it through and be grateful for the good things each day.
The interesting thing was realizing that back then, with just Archie and Veronica, and much much slower and much worse search engines, I'd never worried about people at work ever discovering what I'd written there or here, for that matter. My moment of online omg was when a distant cousin of myJohn's out in Darvel, East Ayrshire, Scotland, happened to Google for his hometown and found one of my Scotland journal entries from 1995. I remember being on a ferry with my laptop on that trip, it was a machine that ran on two 3.5 inch floppies. *laughs and laughs* And a man on that ferry asked me if I were either very rich or doing work on my trip, and I said neither. I just liked having it for my journal...
Anyway... I feel like I need to get back into the habit, as while I have plenty of things to concern me right now, there are plenty of things that I can take joy in doing and experiencing.
I had a wonderful walk in the sunshine today. The rollercoaster of a Colorado Spring has been in full effect with days in the 70's, 20's, and everything in between, all within the span of a week. I've been sick for nearly all of January and half of December, between two lung colds and a sinus infection. I'm still coughing deep lung coughs, but it was so nice to just be outside that I had to just do it.
I also got a shipment from Jet Pens for myself, including a new Zig refill for a brush pen, a fiber sign pen from Pilot (less than two dollars and WELL worth it), and a full blown Pilot brush pen that's got a huge handle ink reservoir that can be refilled pretty easily. The latter is amazing at only $8, and the brush itself doesn't split, flows well, and I can actually paint beautiful waterproof lines and characters with it.
I also managed to try some silk painting at the end of December, and I've actually bought the paints and silk to do more from the Dharma Trading company. This was just for fun and I think I got a good feel for how the paint actually flows and how it works, so I think that it's possible for some of us art ladies to just go to the studio and paint a banner with 36 inch wide silk. I'll probably have to use a couple of dowels at top and bottom to get it to fly straight, but it could be beautifully translucent the way this is.
I have plans. *laughs* And the scary part is that a number of people are falling into them.
I'm also going to finish the David novel, and I have a guy who just spoke up last Sunday in my head that it looks like I'm going to have to write. It's surprising me how vehement he is about me writing him the way I would. It's a good thing.
Good garden things are happening too. I've actually sold nearly all the honey the girls made, so I have plenty of money to get another colony when I'm ready for them!! So that's really good news, but with all the other things on my plate for just this coming year, I don't think I can get them in good conscience. I think that I was distracted by all the things happening at church, which is one of the reasons the girls died, so I'm going to wait a year until I really can devote the kind of time and care I did the first year I had them.
The garden itself was in need of a lot of work, and I finally got out on one of those 70 degree days and dug out all the old tomato plants, zucchini, and started digging out the carrots. I also planted garlic and spinach. The variety of spinach I plant seems to love being frozen when it happens so long as there's plenty of snow to melt for more water. Dad recommended that I do Swiss Chard next year, and I probably will. It likes the cold, too. But it's all cleared out now, and ready for spring, as is the huge rose bed that I manage. By March we'll have to think of pruning, fertilizing, and getting the weeds down.
Burpee was having a sale when I finally decided to buy seeds, so I already have my seeds for the coming season, and it's nice to be a little ahead of the game for once.
Two things I want to do for my health. 1) Go to sleep at a decent hour for at least three nights out of the week, I've been going to sleep far to late on a regular basis. 2) Lift twice a week and walk every day I don't lift, even if it's for only 2500 steps. I'll try and record those here so that I can keep track. *laughs* That'll help me do that.
Finally, I've been doing a lot of interesting hats lately. Two double knitted hats and one Brain hat, which has been awfully boring knitting, but amazing results. *laughs* I'll try and get pictures eventually of them all.
rasetsunyo reminded me of just writing about being grateful on a regular basis, and that reminded me of my original incarnation of this journal, which was just a daily writing of what happened, and trying to think it through and be grateful for the good things each day.
The interesting thing was realizing that back then, with just Archie and Veronica, and much much slower and much worse search engines, I'd never worried about people at work ever discovering what I'd written there or here, for that matter. My moment of online omg was when a distant cousin of myJohn's out in Darvel, East Ayrshire, Scotland, happened to Google for his hometown and found one of my Scotland journal entries from 1995. I remember being on a ferry with my laptop on that trip, it was a machine that ran on two 3.5 inch floppies. *laughs and laughs* And a man on that ferry asked me if I were either very rich or doing work on my trip, and I said neither. I just liked having it for my journal...
Anyway... I feel like I need to get back into the habit, as while I have plenty of things to concern me right now, there are plenty of things that I can take joy in doing and experiencing.
I had a wonderful walk in the sunshine today. The rollercoaster of a Colorado Spring has been in full effect with days in the 70's, 20's, and everything in between, all within the span of a week. I've been sick for nearly all of January and half of December, between two lung colds and a sinus infection. I'm still coughing deep lung coughs, but it was so nice to just be outside that I had to just do it.
I also got a shipment from Jet Pens for myself, including a new Zig refill for a brush pen, a fiber sign pen from Pilot (less than two dollars and WELL worth it), and a full blown Pilot brush pen that's got a huge handle ink reservoir that can be refilled pretty easily. The latter is amazing at only $8, and the brush itself doesn't split, flows well, and I can actually paint beautiful waterproof lines and characters with it.
I also managed to try some silk painting at the end of December, and I've actually bought the paints and silk to do more from the Dharma Trading company. This was just for fun and I think I got a good feel for how the paint actually flows and how it works, so I think that it's possible for some of us art ladies to just go to the studio and paint a banner with 36 inch wide silk. I'll probably have to use a couple of dowels at top and bottom to get it to fly straight, but it could be beautifully translucent the way this is.
I have plans. *laughs* And the scary part is that a number of people are falling into them.
I'm also going to finish the David novel, and I have a guy who just spoke up last Sunday in my head that it looks like I'm going to have to write. It's surprising me how vehement he is about me writing him the way I would. It's a good thing.
Good garden things are happening too. I've actually sold nearly all the honey the girls made, so I have plenty of money to get another colony when I'm ready for them!! So that's really good news, but with all the other things on my plate for just this coming year, I don't think I can get them in good conscience. I think that I was distracted by all the things happening at church, which is one of the reasons the girls died, so I'm going to wait a year until I really can devote the kind of time and care I did the first year I had them.
The garden itself was in need of a lot of work, and I finally got out on one of those 70 degree days and dug out all the old tomato plants, zucchini, and started digging out the carrots. I also planted garlic and spinach. The variety of spinach I plant seems to love being frozen when it happens so long as there's plenty of snow to melt for more water. Dad recommended that I do Swiss Chard next year, and I probably will. It likes the cold, too. But it's all cleared out now, and ready for spring, as is the huge rose bed that I manage. By March we'll have to think of pruning, fertilizing, and getting the weeds down.
Burpee was having a sale when I finally decided to buy seeds, so I already have my seeds for the coming season, and it's nice to be a little ahead of the game for once.
Two things I want to do for my health. 1) Go to sleep at a decent hour for at least three nights out of the week, I've been going to sleep far to late on a regular basis. 2) Lift twice a week and walk every day I don't lift, even if it's for only 2500 steps. I'll try and record those here so that I can keep track. *laughs* That'll help me do that.
Finally, I've been doing a lot of interesting hats lately. Two double knitted hats and one Brain hat, which has been awfully boring knitting, but amazing results. *laughs* I'll try and get pictures eventually of them all.