Book Worm

Skating in at the end of the wire today. I’ve felt really tired today so I’ve spent most of the day watching this 24 hour livestream a guy did on twitch of him playing video games. I don’t know why resting makes me feel so bad. Probably because I still need to take care of myself when I rest and I treat it more like a free for all. Hopefully I’ll feel better tomorrow. The end of the month is quickly approaching, so that’s very exciting and after we close it will be a big relief. Then begins the process of moving, so crazy. Right now I’m probably in an anxious spot because I know there’s going to be a lot of work that needs to be done and I’m willing to do it, but I can’t get to work right now. That causes me to get into some sort of loop that tires me out and then I begin to worry that if I’m tired now, then I won’t be able to do the work in the future. That causes another spiral to think that my body is falling apart. Another thing I can’t understand is why I think my body is falling apart when I’m stronger than I’ve ever been in a lot of exercises. Maybe it’s because I’ll go a day without doing anything and that makes me think I can’t do anything. I don’t like thinking things will be better in the future because they’re good now. Life is amazing right now and I’m truly blessed for every minute I’m in control of. I want to read more, there’s a lot I want to learn. For most of my life I’m going to feel like I’m chasing a moving train and I need to catch up with my education.

Sat on me clue for key

This is the story of how one man became a king. He sought his own kingdom, one that refused boundaries drawn by other men. Everything created by man will turn to dust, but we’re all gifted with a spirit. This character we portray and don’t want to act in opposition to. What would happen if I acted out of character? Usually I feel bad and get a little sick in my stomach then tell myself why I thought it was a good decision in the past. I’ll learn from a decision like that to tell me about myself. That gut reaction is something that can’t be faked. That’s why I’m so confused about this gut feeling I have about protests. Everyone is so angry and I can’t figure out why, we live in one of the greatest times to ever be alive for any human. Well if you’re in America at least, but still a lot of the world is living with a “western” standard. The streets of Baghdad were no different than Philadelphia; and that’s not a compliment to Baghdad. Sorry I wanted to talk about the bare necessities people need are met, but I got to thinking about Baghdad. I only drove through there once even though we were about 15 miles South of the city. That experience feels like something out of Blade Runner. Somehow it felt like the sun was blotted out, large neon lights and every sense is pounding. Kids started throwing rocks at us, Spier would throw Jolly Ranchers as if they were rocks. I understand what it feels like to be in a tense situation, I also am willing to extend a peaceful hand knowing it may get hurt. Sometimes it does get hurt and I get a sick feeling from thinking about it, but I had french toast delivered to my house for breakfast today. No king ever had that.

Here’s the scoop on truth, it’s bull poop

I’ve got a lot to straightening out to do in my head today. I felt sad yesterday and now I have have information to sort, it’s as though I go through cycles too. Perhaps it would be nice to have a period because I can track monthly cycles. A guy doesn’t have something as obvious as blood, but I could still be going through hormonal shifts. I’ll start tracking the moon and save myself a lot of hassle. Basically the only real conclusion I’ve come to is that people need to ignore anything that would be classified as media. Well that’s not even true because here are the two sides I have, I don’t want to be exposed to media because it will make me believe something, or there is no escaping “media” so you should do what makes you happy. That’s right and I stand by it, people should do what makes them happy and I’ve always said ignorance is bliss. I could see how a person like me, when they’re senial, could take the saying “ignorance is bliss” and think they should perform a DIY lobotomy. 

I was going through a box of old stuff today. The stuff in question was my electronics/arduino phase and my sewing phase. It makes me feel like something is wrong with me that I want to know how to do everything. I think it relates to being paranoid, I won’t feel comfortable until I’ve got everything around me figured out. Seeing it is the first step to fixing it, at the same time I’m gonna buy a house and start building fences. A good fence brings a lot of comfort and just wait until I put in a gate at the far end of the driveway. Nobody is going to come within 300 meters of my house without me knowing, and I’ll have you know I’m a qualified expert with a carbine at 300 meters.

Goodnight Glinda

I buried a friend today, it was the spider in the picture above. I first encountered her in the garden building a web where the hummingbird feeder hangs. I decided to take some pictures like I have been doing for a lot of different bugs whenever I get a chance. One thing I remember about the photo shoot was her doing a little move of a single leg to where it looked like she was pointing. The picture I got of her pointing was too blurry unfortunately. She was a good spider and there may be many more like her on the way because her butt looked deflated, signalling to me that she laid eggs. I found her on the top portion of my hummingbird feeder next to a small fly, a last meal perhaps? I dug up a little dirt and moved the bodies with some sticks. It was a small ceremony, only birds and bees showed up, but the singing was lovely. 

I heard the U.S. unemployment went up significantly again. That gave me the feeling that now is the time to buy some crypto. I almost bought recently, but my gut said no. I’ve been able to ride the wave of Bitcoin and Etherium before, so this is fair warning to anyone that might be reading this. A name that came into the ring when the crypto bubble burst was Ripple(XRP) and since they were still popping up and selling for so cheap, I could see them being a significant name in the future. Right now I’m being cautious and wanting to track these coins for a couple months, but I want to be prepared for a sudden drop because in conversation I said, “Are we in a depression yet?” That’s when it hit me that these things don’t happen suddenly. A sink hole doesn’t appear, it’s waiting for something to tip the balance. A single piece of straw doesn’t break the camels back.

Hello Yellow

In the video game series Final Fantasy there was a coloring system for magicians. White “mages” would do white magic, maybe a spell idea would be blizzard. They could also be priests and their type of magic would be especially effective against skeletons. You might be wondering about healing spells, well that would be exclusively for the red mage. Actually I think all magicians would get the base level of healing, but beyond that only the red mage could do serious healing. I like the visual of red mages and can see the connection between the red cross on a white background. After that was black magic and those were the heavy duty damage spells like lightning and fireball. There might even have been a green mage who focuses in nature based magic. That was a character in The Hobbit who would be a green mage. I like to think of colors telling a deeper story about what a person is capable of. I’m always wearing blue and it’s actually a thing I’ve fought against most of my life because my first thought is that I like blue because around the time of my childhood, blue means boy. I like to fight against that sort of cultural programing, so I say no I’ll wear this beautiful Yellow or the most fantastic dragon on my shirt to say this is me and not just, blue means boy. I keep going back to blue though, so blah. I really do like all colors though and I will say that I’m more so attracted to the colors red, white, and blue. Blue just happens to be the most popular color for products. I’d rather define myself as an American than as a boy. I think I do have a choice in being an American, but all of this is self exploration. Today I learned two things about myself, I’m an American and a boy. Really putting that college education to use.

So blah for slasa

We sold the car! Yesterday I got a new battery for the car and today we took it to some big box store and they bought it. We were offered more than we were expecting, so it was nice and easy. I’m extremely grateful for living a life that constantly makes me happy. The money for the car wasn’t even a big deal, but the relief of this big object is worth the world. All last Winter that car was a headache because the battery was dead and it was blocking the drive way. We were waiting until after Winter to sell it when the disaster happened, then we had to wait until stores reopened. There was also something I felt during the winter that made the car seem scarier. I was afraid to touch the car and I felt like I had the same problem with getting my wife’s oil changed recently. These machines aren’t as complicated as we’re told they are. I mean they’re extraordinary machines, but all that work is figured out long before it’s assembled. My end of ownership would only be assembling and disassembling the magnificently engineered pieces. I actually look forward to the next oil change because I will level up in cars. I leveled up in shaving today. Recently I started shaving with a straight razor and today was my fifth attempt with the new razor, but the first time I didn’t get any cuts. It’s all about self efficiency, figuring out how pieces work together and then I don’t need an expert. There are manuals and textbooks written on every subject. With Youtube and the internet, all knowledge is out there for the person willing to do the leg work. Reading my housebuilding book has reminded me of studying anatomy in college because I’m having to remember all these new terms.

Watching these birds on the sky, I can see why

Fuji apple

Today’s been going well, after I woke up and did my breakfast chores I fought the urge to get back in bed and instead started reading my house building book. I really enjoyed reading this morning, it did take a minute to get set up. I think I sat down and got comfy only to realize I forgot something three times. That’s what new habits are like though, I’ve got to work the kinks out and there were very few. I’m still reading about roofs, but there’s a concept that I didn’t know existed which is there’s an opening under the roof outside that connects to the inside of the house. The idea is for air flow, otherwise moisture would do more damage, but I never knew this part of the house existed. That’s probably what keeps me so enthralled with the process, that all my life I’ve been living in houses and there is so much I never noticed. I remember writing to myself before that I wanted to be a artist because it forced me to see more of the world, thus making my world bigger. I pray for safe travel, but my world is about to be limitless. I keep thinking about how I’m going to make the food forest. Obviously unwanted plants are going to sneak in, but my strategy is to lay down several sheets of plywood to kill off the grass and weeds underneath. After a little time in the darkness, I’ll remove the plywood in the center and replace it with cardboard. I’ll sprinkle a little mulch on the cardboard and then lay down any seeds I want. After that I’ll add a couple inches of mulch and I’ll have my first forest patch. Then of course I’ll got crazy planting more.

Crazily in a haze he stays in holiday in

Baby grapes

I’m getting better at predicting the future. The longer I live, the more accurate I think I’ll get. Granted that assumes I keep collecting knowledge like I have been, but I seem to spend more time learning than ever before. Having knowledge also allows for symbiosis with other ideas or building on the old to create new. There is no shortcut on the path of learning. An attitude I find in myself lately is when I’ll notice something feels difficult I’ll reassure myself that I’m not good at that thing because it’s new to me and that I’m going to have to learn what a good technique feels and looks like. Once I forgive myself for making mistakes, my brain switches into learning mode and I’m gifted with a special brain to where I can learn like Neo in the Matrix. The hard part is convincing people to let me start swinging a hammer. 

I can’t believe we’re just in waiting limbo for the house right now. Think about this concept, if I’m truly waiting for an inspector to get around to my house, that means that market can afford to hire more inspectors. I’d also like to add that the market is at historic lows, so what are the odds the inspectors have a backlog of houses to look at. I bet tomorrow we’ll hear from house people and the way they speak is like, “We need this thing right now, or your whole life will fall apart.” Well maybe that’s just me being dramatic, but it feels that way to me, so I think, “Why didn’t you contact me as soon as you found out?” I’ve been waiting on you. They’re treating life like a job, don’t work a job unless it fulfills you enough to live it. I wanna get stuff done, whatever that means, I’m ready.

Take back the fat stacks

The now gone cactus flower

This morning has been pretty good. I got all of my chores out of the way early. I mowed the lawn, walked the dog, and even emptied the fridge of all the expired food. Today I separated more cuttings from my fiddle leaf because I want it to be a long slender tree, so all the new branches that grow have got to go. My neighbor shouted over the fence for some help to straighten it up, so I pulled the fence straight and he screwed it into a board to keep it in place. Oh, while mowing the lawn there was a horrible tragedy. I use an electric mower as should most people because there’s a statistic that more oil is spilled every year by Americans trying to pour it into their lawn mowers than by all of the major oil companies. Anyway, the cord for the lawn mower bumped my cactus flower. I had the cactus in a sunny spot to get the flower to open up wide and then I could take a photo of it, but now it’s gone. I do have a photo of the flower, but it’s could have been way prettier. I did get a ton of good plant and bug photos today though. I’ve been collecting so many plant photos that yesterday I started up my instagram to unload them all. I don’t know if I’ll keep up with it after I’ve caught up, but I’m happy to put them out in the world. I was actually thinking lately that I should get those photos online somewhere because my phone has been getting really slow and if it dies I don’t want to lose any pictures. Like my cactus flower, all things are only bump away from falling off. That’s ok though, I think the photos are mostly saved online.

A shoe! Excuse me

A baby peach

A robin landed across the yard right now. I’m writing this from inside the green house. I suppose he’s found some food in a terra cotta water dish. Of course there isn’t food inside the water dish, there’s water and he’s taking a bath. Watching birds is beautiful, all nature in fact, probably even all everything. What makes something beautiful is taking the time to appreciate it. The days are going to feel longer, now that I’m trying to be better. I’ve been thinking lately how my wife and I are too hard on ourselves for always trying to be better. Don’t get me wrong, it’s great to be better and I want to be better in a lot of different ways, but when you reach a certain point you no longer have to be better. The have to makes too harsh of a master. On the other hand I often credit the have to as why I could succeed in the Army. I always ask, “Why?” and when the answer is, “Have to” then I have no other choice. I will do whatever is within my power to accomplish something if I have to do it. The struggle now is convincing myself I have to do these things. All my dreams have come true. I can make new ones, but they’re not the same as something that grew inside of me for decades. Plants are a lot of fun though, and some advice I’ve gotten recently was, “Have fun.” I’m going to have so much fun at the new place, that garage and workshop are so awesome I almost cursed. All the books I ordered are coming in and they’re giving me ideas for smaller projects that will teach me while being a lot of fun. Watch as this all unfolds, it’s gonna be massive.