8 February 2024

Today is the day, I finally will start recording my new podcast. Last night I got online with my brother to test out our equipment, he’s got something going on with his headphones that I’m sure we’ll sort out quickly. On the recorded side of things it sounds good, yesterday made me feel comfortable in what we’re about to do because I know I can talk forever about nothing and my brother can do the same. When we add the third partner in crime we’ll have a purpose to stay on track. Recording with my brother will be transformative, I shared a room with him for longer than probably anyone in my life and after we were done talking last night my brain began to wander on what that means. Almost 20 years have passed since I left for the Army, at that time I was regularly hanging out with my brother Alex, he’s going to use his name on the show anyway. I left home and left who I was at that time, he didn’t, even though so much time has passed the familiarity built by all the time we spent together is still there. He’s loyal and maybe knowing he would be there meant I didn’t put effort into maintaining things, maybe I can make right on that. That’s not to say I think I did anything wrong, I needed to grow up and my path took me around the world. What I wanted to accomplish is done, but those were childish dreams that had little detail, now I’m understanding a different meaning to being strong. Part of being strong is taking care of those around you or at least making sure they can stand on their own. I believe the bois have a lot of potential and together we will see new heights.

7 February 2024

The days are looking pretty repetitive right now, I’m getting into the nitty gritty of clean up and packing. Knowing that things are in a good place I’ve started exercising again, after taking time off I’ll have to take time to get back into the swing of things. More push ups, on the quest for 100 consecutive push ups, last week I started with 10. On Monday I was doing 20 consecutive push ups, that was my old average and I want my new average to be 35. My thinking is as simple as make number go up, if that happens great and if not then I still did more than zero. With my brain being so scattered, circling around numbers is a form of rest. My mind is also in a weird place with starting to record the new podcast tomorrow, it has it’s own check list to keep track of. There are topics that I want to talk about with the bois that I have to keep myself from exploring on my own, and I had made the decision to refer to my cohosts as the bois since it’s ambiguous and gender neutral. All is waiting for now, waiting and working, hurry up and wait of course is a favorite past time. These next couple weeks will probably feel like time slows down as my house gets stripped of all furniture and carpets, the walls have been bare. Walking around the property I get a funny feeling as it used to be mine, it still is in ownership but not in my spirit, I’ve got a new mess to deal with in another state. Someone else will call the work I’ve done theirs and might even dislike. I often think how all the trees I’ve planted could be cut down in an afternoon. They belong to the world now.

6 February 2024

Today is my real weekend, the baby is at daycare today, that’s my opportunity to get work done or rest. Everything is in a good place, so I’ll take some rest, there’s no telling how crazy life will get when the pace picks up again. A rule I like to follow is that if there is chance to take something, either work or rest, do it. Using rest for example, the baby may spike a fever and get sent home meaning if I don’t rest now I may not be able to in a couple hours. Accounting for the mentality that “all is flux”, planning has to have wiggle room. When I was first trying to get my life in order I made a schedule for my day, something like 8-8:15 is breakfast and 8:15-11 is work, the problem with such tight scheduling is it’s unrealistic. Having an extra glass of water could throw me off schedule. The other problem when I was making that schedule was in the beginning I didn’t know how long my routine actually takes, as I was making the routines for the first time I had to guess what I could do and how long it would take. Now I have experience that tells me to assume twice as much time as expected and I have half as much energy as I think. All that is said before entering a baby into the equation, with baby planning is more like hold on and focus on getting through the day. Loose plans can be made with the baby now that I know what I’m doing, but I know a lot of people never get themselves on a schedule before kids and never get their kids on a schedule. And everyone needs a bed time, when the clock strikes put the phone down, eyes closed and begin deep breathing. 

5 February 2024

No matter how hard we try the weekend never lasts forever. Time off was good, I think I got some rest somewhere. Honestly, it’s hard to think, my brain is constantly running through lists of what needs to be done next. Everything that absolutely needed to get done has been done for a couple of weeks, now it’s about securing our possessions, minimizing mess, and maximizing appeal of the old house. When we leave in two weeks the hope is that we don’t have to come back to the old house again, we’ll play that by ear. Then I have to re-establish myself in a new location, I have to walk the parameter of the property with the dog regularly until he learns what the boundaries are. A friend once said, “you’re never done unpacking, you just stop” and it stuck with me. There is stuff that has never been unpacked in my current house and I’ve always said if I moved and moved again without unpacking something, it’s trash. This week will also mark the first recording I’ll be doing of my new podcast. My initial plan was to record with the guys for awhile without ever releasing anything, but I’m not going to do that because releasing an episode is a technology that also has to be learned. The process will be more like a soft opening soon and a grand opening towards the end of the year, we should have all our kinks out by then. I’ve put a lot on my plate and I feel good about it all, there are moments when I’m able to step back to look at everything and it feels intimidating. One step at a time, I don’t need to see everything at once, it’s information overload.

2 February 2024

The end of the week, house repairs are nearly finished, and we received the missing document to close on the new house. The current chapter of my life is coming to an end. Today there was warmth in the air, that air gives me strength and I’m going to need it. The new place will be more work, it never ends, but we reap what we sow. When a chapter on my life closes, I’m usually happy since the previous one has run it’s course, there isn’t as much room to grow here as I originally thought. My time here has taught me a lot, most importantly taught me how little I knew getting into this. My body has changed from working the land, same with the baby, I’m happy with who I’ve become. When we first moved out here a baby wasn’t even on the table, I was looking to answer the lock downs with open land. Once things got quiet, we needed a little chaos and here we are again. Awhile ago I stopped planning my life and started letting it happen. When I first thought up the idea I saw it as I was skydiving without a parachute, that I can either worry about everything or enjoy my time, the end is the same. Now my metaphor is more like I’m living out God’s plan, I don’t know what’s in store beyond “toil the soil”, but I’m taken care of.

1 February 2024

Today’s work is done, things went pretty smoothly. The one problem I’m kicking myself over happened while painting the ceiling spackle. Previously I had painted part of a ceiling with the wrong type of paint, I used primer and now have spackle paint. The miss matched paint meant I had to paint the whole ceiling, I was finished and noticed a spot that could use some more attention. As I rolled the spackle came with it, leaving a more noticeable problem. We’ll do something to fix the hole, what’s frustrating is that I didn’t have to do that last bit, if I had stopped when I said I was finished the problem would have been avoided. There are no free lunches, I’m thankful that so much went so well and if an ugly spot is the price I’ll survive. There are other spots I could nitpick, but I’m learning my lesson and stopping while ahead. What I learned through making art in the past, is the parts the creator focuses on will likely never be thought about by the audience. In the beginning, and I’ve seen others do this, I would show someone my work and they would politely compliment it. Then I was go down the list of what didn’t turn out the way I wanted it to. No one knows the ideal in my head or the process of making it, they only see the reality in front of them and judge on that. Being able to look as if seeing for the first time is a skill I’ve work on, it can only go so far since different people will have different interest. Sharing work with others is helpful because they provide alternative perspectives.

31 January 2024

The work yesterday went well, got some work done today and there’ll be more to do tomorrow. The house is looking good though, so I’m hopefully. I ordered some bees for the Spring, when it comes to buy nature like plants, animals, and insects they’re often pre-ordered and will ship in the Spring. Plants can also ship in the Fall though I don’t know about bees. The shipping dates as far as I know are to be during the milder climates, it’s part of living in the rhythm of nature. In the beginning of this adventure I remember getting frustrated that after I order something it isn’t immediately on its way, or if I waited too lone they simply wouldn’t be for sale until the next year. Now that I understand the way things work it can go with the flow, it helps give me time to rest in the off seasons. Not like I’m resting, but I am indoors for the most part. The lesson I’ve learned from mountain people in the Winter because they can’t go down into the valley where cities are is that they work on intricate goods that are light enough to carry down the mountain for selling in the Spring. I’m not at the point of making fine art again, still I’m staying busy inside. Inside also has a double meaning with me that I work on myself internal mental while during the Spring and Fall I’m being more physical refining my outside. Learning history can provide on multiple levels, individual, cultural, humanity, and there’s always more to find. When watching a movie we do the same thing, super heroes aren’t real yet we can see how their problems relate to our own. The people that lived a thousand years ago had just about all the same problems I do today.

30 January 2024

The baby is at daycare today, so I have a lot of work to do once I finish writing this. Mostly focused on finishing the kitchen renovation. Today is also trash day and I’ve got a nearly empty trash can, there’s plenty of junk in the garage then the long haul down the hill to the sidewalk. My life is still up in the air waiting for paperwork, during this time I’ve been doing a lot of thinking trying to figure out where the world is headed. I know there’s plenty of drama to worry about, but I consider that stuff entertainment if it’s watched through a screen. The real attributes of the world are the words people use, what they spend their money on, and what does leisure look like. The 3,000 year scale interests me more than election cycles. There was a popular video going around of the William Penn statue on top of Philadelphia’s city hall, people were amazed by the detail. I’ve been trying to think what is today’s equivalent to the statue, modern people don’t even believe in great art and it would be hard to get tax payers to finance something purely for aesthetics. The capitalist values capital, what is art worth? Nothing and at the same time is invaluable, that contradiction means 50% of human population is not interested. There are a number of art installations through out Chattanooga that are, I kid you not, metal girders stacked on each other. The girders aren’t arranged in any particular way, they look like piles of debris through out the city. Modern art that “breaks convention” won’t stand the test of time, no one knows what it is because the abstract can’t be named. 

29 January 2024

Over the weekend I learned two things, the baby’s sleep regression was aided by laying the baby down with a pacifier. I had been letting her craw because of the trap thinking she knows what’s best for her. The other thing I learned was that my life is a lie, there has been a whole off grid/prepper/self reliant movement building for like the last 20 years, that is really a remnant of the cold war. Humans struggle to comprehend that everything can end at any moment. The brain fixates on something, labels it the solution and a plan is drawn up to help. All that really does help, so I don’t dissuade people from it. I focusing more on the role of trees in my life. We are in a time of change, I think the role of preppers will hit it’s crescendo in five years with lasting effects for another five. Earth will move on, I’m trying to see where that will be. The Earth has been around long before humans and I’m beginning to suspect it might be here after us. For years I’ve said that solar panels don’t provide enough electricity to live off of, people will have to live without temperature control and refrigeration. 

26 January 2024

Our warm weather has returned and the pond is running full with all the extra water we’ve gotten. My babies went to the zoo this morning while I was able to get some more work done on the house. Yesterday we got a grout blade for an oscillating tool and today I was able to remove some tiles. Thankfully I found replacement tiles in the garage, but the previous owner did things so sill. Pretty much everything in the house is custom cut, meaning nothing is done in standard practices. When I harp on the necessity of rules, it extends to everything, the government had to force electronics makers to use the same system as a risk prevention. Who knows what sorts of jerry rigging people would set up with hundreds of different outlet shapes. The previous owner didn’t tile the floor completely, even though it would fit flush, instead they cut tiles to line up with cabinets that they built. I only had to remove the cut tiles and it will hopefully be easy to fill in the gap. This morning I also stained some wood, filled some holes, and replaced another light fixture. The old light fixture was missing one of the glass covers for the bulb and it’s cheaper to get a whole new fixture than to replace one piece of glass. Hopefully this marks the last electrical project I have to do, interestingly enough electrical work is what I’m most competent in, it’s just so happens to be one of the more scarier jobs. Electricity is a strange magical force, I’m research how to make electricity and I doubt most people understand it to the level of copper spools and magnets spinning, but even if the process is known, how do magnets work?