Happy Birthday Worms!!
Last year when I changed to a new location at work, I started keeping a calendar with my times in & out and little notes on how my day was going or what things I had planned. Looking over this time for last year, I noticed that I’ve been vermicomposting exactly one year now!! HAPPY BIRTHDAY WORMS!!
It’s been a learning experience. I lost a lot of worms to dehydration but after a reset up of the bin they’ve bounced wiggled back! I returned to the composting workshop that prompted me starting my worm bin and realized now that I had everything too wet. Reset up the bin again and keeping the draining valve open with a bucket underneath, everyone is on the move and heading to the 2nd bin I’ve added, where there’s food.
There’s even tiny baby worms!! I haven’t harvested any compost – I’m in no hurry. I love seeing the worms active and enjoying their habitat.
Worm Bin 2nd level
Worms really like paper bags – you can see some smaller babies on it!
Worm composting is easy, but it’s not low maintenance. They can get pretty picky about water conditions, they of course hate light and not really fond of heat.
I keep my bin in the dining room, against the wall next to a cabinet. Yes, it’s in my house but it’s rather inconspicuous.
I’ve had some trouble with fruit flies when I first set up but keeping the food ground up & mixing it into the soil has helped. No problems this year but it’s only just starting to warm up outside.
I’ve had no weird or funky smells from the bin. Lifting the lid, it’s a nice damp earthy smell. Honestly, it smells exactly like my late grandma’s cellar. It’s one of those ‘comfort smells’ for me. Some people feel homey when they smell vanilla cookies, or apple pie. For me it’s damp cellar.
Looking forward to many more years with my worm friends!
Lunchtime Art Break
I’m over the “bad drawing in my moleskine” hurdle. Think I prefer shape sketch over blind contour. Which means I need to work on blind contour….
On Again Off Again
I keep bouncing back & forth on this. I’m sure it’s because I’m a Gemini and can see both sides of things easily. Unfortunately, that gives the appearance of being wishy-washy but I’m working on coming up with a happy medium.
I’ve gone through periods where I deleted every where I’ve deleted exercise & diet tracking apps on my phone only to reinstall them a few months later.
I’m in the reinstall period.
I ordered a Fitbit Flex back in January and it finally arrived May 10th. I LOVE IT. But then that (along with gaining 15 lbs since November) made me think maybe I should keep track of what I eat…. again.
I hate tracking. I hate thinking of food in a ‘this is good, this is bad’ mentality. I know I need to make healthier choices but if I want a brownie, I don’t care why or what triggered it, I’m eating a damn brownie!! (OH and there ARE brownies in the oven right this very moment).
So I’m back on MyFitnessPal with a different user name. I’m honestly not looking at losing weight although I set my ‘goal’ of what I had weighed before I had my two sons. It’s still not my thinnest, but I think it was my fittest. I want to have energy to stay on top of the housework. I want to have energy to come home and paint for an hour or so, and not set mindlessly in front of the TV (or computer playing games). I think it will help my emotional health as well.
I have a lot in my head about diet culture, health at any size and the way media inundate us with what we SHOULD look like but I’m saving that for another time.
Facing Gremlins
I had originally intended on doing this topic on a podcast today, but when I came home from work I just really didn’t feel up to it. The topic is still on my mind though.
Driving to work, thinking about what I’m going to do creatively today, I thought of the spirituality group I’m in working with Hummingbird this month. I wanted to draw a page in my moleskine with a hummingbird, but couldn’t think of exactly how they look. I can pull a generalized image up in my mind which would be a start. Then the gremlin appeared:
If you can’t imagine the details of a hummingbird, how can you draw one?
I could look at pictures of them.
REAL artists don’t use pictures!
I’m pretty sure they do; reference pictures of various poses, hand positions, etc. Landscape at different times of the day for lighting references…
Even if they do, YOU’RE not an artist
So I’m facing this gremlin by giving myself the challenge to make 3-4 small sketches over the next week or so, using photos as references.
Slowing down
April is coming to a close and I’ve spent the last month working on slowing down my rushed attitude. It’s been interesting and while I still have some stressful times, they don’t get to me as easily.
One of the things I’m working on is speaking. I’m always the quiet one in a group. I’m the one who is often ‘spoken over’ when I do speak, and I’ll stop mid-sentence and go back to only listening. I hear a lot and easily pick up on emotions behind the words (it’s hard to be fake with me). But I don’t speak. I hate phones, much preferring emails & texts.
I’m working on answering the phone instead of letting it go to voicemail. I’m returning phone calls instead of sending email. It’s been a challenge. I noticed on a few phone calls yesterday, I would be speaking and the person on the other end interrupt. Instead of stopping, I continued speaking, often raising my voice a little more. Not to the point of yelling, but ‘talking over them’. Ugh. I hate that, but how else can a quiet person be heard? Do people really lack listening skills?
I’m also going to start a podcast tomorrow. Micro podcast really, inspired by Michael Nobbs. I’ve toyed around with times I would have some quiet alone time and figure I’ll take a few minutes in my car after work, shifting my mind from work (very left brain) to creative endeavors.
I’m not sure how the podcasting thing works. I’ve signed up with Audioboo but I couldn’t manage to get my WP blog to connect. However, Blogger connected easily so, if it goes as how I expect, the Audioboo podcast will automatically upload to my blog at http://gentlesoularts.blogspot.com/ Its a bit barren over there right now. Maybe my first One Thing will be to personalize that site a bit.
Tiring but fun weekend
It’s been a whirlwind weekend and while work will be busy too, I think it’ll be a bit slower paced than my weekend has been!
Saturday I met a friend I haven’t seen for a long time for tea & caught up with her. The Medieval Festival was in Norman this weekend and she mentioned going. We had planned going too but waited for the mail to see if my husband’s teaching check arrived. It did, so Austere April was put on a back burner. We really didn’t go overboard. We knew the vendors we wanted to hit (the same ones we do every year for root beer & Scottish baked goods). Walking around for a few hours irritated my foot but staying off it today seems to help and I hope I’ll be limp-free tomorrow.
I’m learning to be mindful of when I have a busy day, to take it easy the next. Today we’ve done some housework and laundry, but nothing is rushed. What doesn’t get done today, we’ll tackle little by little over the week. I’ll take it easy tomorrow at work & when I get home, dance on Tuesday and see how my ankle feels Wednesday.
I’ve also gotten back to my canvas today too. I’m working on a page to list my items for sale and will revisit my Etsy webpage and figure how it all works.
