Be the change you want to see.

This morning and got up earlier than I usually do on a Sunday. I had an appointment starting at 11:00 a.m. for a 2-hour training on the embroidery machine at the Maker Nexus We just recently joined. I got my breakfast, and got dressed, was mostly ready by 10:00 which i was proud of. Got there with 15 minutes to spare, also proud of that. It's just over in Sunnyvale so not very far, but it was the first time I'd driven for myself.

I met Carmen the teacher for this (they call em BOSS classes, you're THE BOSS of that specific machine sounds like!) She got my badge, showed me the process for badging in and checking in checking out & where we were going to be working.

I got a lot of relief for my anxiety on trying a new thing from the fact that I could literally use the bathroom there. And as it turned out I needed to this morning though I'd eaten something last night for dinner that I don't usually eat and that had its usual consequences!

The machine I was learning on is a 15 thread embroidery machine, circa 2004, so not a touch screen but it does have a computer screen, you transfer designs to the computer on the embroidery machine by uploading the pattern to a thumb drive maximum size two gigs. Which part of me goes lawl and part of me is like of course 2005.

Carmen showed me a variety of samples: printouts that she and other people had done for patterns and also stitching samples that people had done. It's got a lot of possible subtlety to the end product. If the pattern design is done well then the end product is quite lovely and detailed. But it's all in the question of how good is the design that you bought. Or created, Once you learn the design software. Which is beyond the scope for me to buy that design software that they're using, the company wants a thousand bucks for the license. Hence why I will be using the maker Nexus copy of the software.

She showed me a few examples of here's how you access existing patterns that are already uploaded to the machine, here's how you get a pattern off of the laptop to the thumb drive to the embroidery machine and then download it which sounds a lot easier than it actually is. The user interface for the embroidery machine is elderly and non-intuitive, it's definitely usable but it's going to take practice to get it to do what you want.

The easy part relatively speaking is the mechanical nature of the machine. Rethreading the machine is just more complicated version of how I thread my sewing machine. The bobbin thread only requires one additional tiny gesture to anchor the bobbin thread into what she called a pigtail it was a tiny metal curlicue that comes off of the space where on my machine the bobbin would just have a little gap that would feed the thread but they need a lot more control I guess with this particular embroidery machine. We did rethread one bobbin so I could see how it was done It's a fussy process but doable and she showed me the tools that make it a little easier, I have some very fine needles that are meant to be used for threading seed beads, and my jewelry supplies and she was using one of those to bring the thread down from the embroidery thread cone through the home mechanism and then through the last place that it needs to go so that the machine will pick it up and will use it appropriately. So the mechanical stuff is not even all that difficult It's really going to be the programming and finding my way through the interfaces of unfamiliar software and unfamiliar control panel.

One of the designs that was already installed on the pattern design software would make a beautiful Burning Man patch. It was a kind of a fluid,free form heart with two almost touching curlicues at the place where the heart comes to a point at the top? and it was just like the legs and arms of the symbol for the man and inside the heart it said you are so loved! I might just knock a few of those out as prototypes for friends to get started.

At some point I'd like to create some custom patches for friends and family, and I'd like to do some business that I can use to decorate my blue jeans. I think ivy or flowers like a climbing line or morning glories would be delightful and ridiculous!

We finished up with the class about a half an hour early, right around 12:30. I had a good size breakfast so I wasn't hungry, and my friend Tox had offered me to come over and harvest some of his veggies. He has a hydroponic garden.

It was my first time seeing it. Wow, what a hydroponic garden! He had peppers growing all the way up to the top of the trellis and he had basil that was taller than me and he had tomato plants occupying the entire side yard of his house like you could not walk back there because they had grown over the pathway! He has a small sage bush, but like just the basil and the peppers themselves alone well worth the trip I got five or six cherry tomatoes, and multiple different kinds of peppers. Thai chili peppers in this luminous red a different varietal in yellow, tinged orange? And I accidentally broke off some branches that included green peppers so I'll probably do those up as a separate batch of vinegar chili peppers for Jeff, and then have a different batch for the yellow and a different batch for the red. He had long Chipotle peppers that were nearly as long as my forearm! Giant healthy beautiful untouched by insects beautiful peppers!

Now I understand better why my husband wants to do a hydroponic garden.

Unfortunately San Jose is better for that kind of gardening endeavor. It has a delightful microclimate that is perfect for tomatoes and figs and quite a few other Mediterranean things. But something about just coming a few miles further up the peninsula to the town where I live, and conditions are radically different.

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Came home to be reminded that my adopted Seester was visiting Jeff today! So while I didn't get all the deets of some recent adventures she's been having, I did get a nice check in and short visit at a social distance on our back patio.

While I enjoyed her company I agree with her about the fact that since pandemic and shelter in place has started it's been hard to get me time. I am a lot more of an introvert, Jeff is more an extrovert, and my seester similarly needed time that was just for her, without her spouse: so not 24/7 in the same space as him, I think that's more accurate. And I agree with that and Jeff agrees similarly, that he needs time without me. While that hurt once upon a time it doesn't anymore. It makes a lot more sense now.

Thanks for listening, it helps a lot to be able to clear my head by dumping what happened here. Today was an unusually eventful day, and this weekend was an unusually eventful weekend!

Time to go try and put some words in on my October writing project which is a little bit less than daily but all words are good words in this case!

My sister in law suffers from something I still fight against, which is hoarding.

She said, "I sort and organize but the actual removal of stuff... is so hard to get my mind around why I have such attachments."

I said, "I can only speak of myself but I had attachments because I had fear. Fear of forgetting, so I kept all the papers commemorating things I went to, movies and shows and concerts I saw. I kept all the birthday cards, even from my childhood, and people I didn't remember anymore, because at one point, someone made the effort to give me a card, and that was meaningful to me then."

I didn't feel loved. I didn't feel safe or secure. I came to an early conclusion (younger than 10) that "stuff was supposed to make you happy" because that's what they said all the time on TV? And back then I thought they weren't allowed to lie to us on TV.

It took me a long time to realize that what I was and what I wanted, was different than what the TV or my family or stories or magazines wanted me to be and want. And to put aside those messages that weren't ME.

I was well past 30, not gonna lie.

I started by reading more about how other people had gotten organized, had purged their clutter.
Clutter's Last Stand.
The Flylady's mailing list and website.
SARK'S concept of "micromovements" to get started.
Clear Your Clutter With Feng Shui.

And I realized that thoughts and feelings and attitudes were clutter too, frequently. (*)

Is it useful? Do I love it?

William Morris, the English designer, said, "have nothing in your home which you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful."

I try to live by that one.

I don't yell at myself or best myself up anymore. My self chastisement is gentle, infrequent, and frequently full of humor. Blaming myself for the past, or for my mistakes, was a toxic cycle that helped NOTHING. Just bogged me down in misery.

I didn't want to be miserable. I started making different choices.

What I wanted was for things to be simpler, and to be happier. So I worked on those things, like I work on a rosebush. If something's dead, you cut it off. If the branches are too crowded, or the flowers are, you make choices to maximize beauty, health, and growth, and you cut away the rest and discard it.

But sometimes the rosebush isn't flourishing, and it doesn't need to be cut back, cut down. Parts of our life can be like that too. There's a lot of times where there's not ENOUGH to bloom. Not enough water, or sunlight, or fertilizer.

Sometimes you can nurse a rosebush back to health, if you can figure out what is wrong.

Sometimes you can't figure it out, and the bush dies. And then you have to discard it and start over.

But honestly? Sometimes you don't even WANT a 🌹 (rose). Sometimes you don't even know that you didn't want a rose, maybe you wanted a 🌷(tulip) or a daisy. Or an oak tree! Or a tomato bush!

But if you started with a rosebush, or your whole family takes care of roses, maybe you didn't know you could choose something different.

I'm just saying. It's YOUR garden. Nobody else's. You spend all your time in it. You spend your LIFE in it.

It should be, it IS, your choice what you cultivate, what you grow, what you discard or compost.

I know nobody gets to choose how they spend 100% of their time. But that doesn't mean you don't have choices.

You do.

Now I'm going to go do some household chores.
Gonna go weed my "garden". :)

(*) Slightly different techniques are required to ditch/purge/prune ugly, dead, or impedimentary thoughts and feelings.

wow. a solid night's sleep and two solid meals (well, and menstrual cramps becoming manageable) make a lot of difference in my mood!

I know what I want to do:

I want to MAKE STUFF.

I am happy when I Make Stuff, when I manifest new things in the world that have never been there before.
I don't want to read someone else's script, I want to write my own.
I finished a piece of art last night; it was so joyful to bring it to completion!

I wrote music to set a nonsense poem to; it will be wonderful fun to teach to the girls!

I made a garden! I planted rosebushes where they weren't before!

I want to make stuff. Moreover, I want to make stuff be BETTER, also.

It's a good wide umbrella. I can teach, I can priest, I can be an activist, I can build community, I can make more art. I can do a lot of the things I love doing and need to do, and I don't need to hang a job-description around my neck for other people.

I am a Maker.

*satisfied*

Now to find a gig where I can DO that...

Step One:
Make an post. It can be public or friends only, whatever you’re most comfortable with. The post should contain your list of ten holiday wishes, and these wishes can be anything - from simple (a fan fiction written about your favorite pairing), to medium (a DVD you want), to really extravagant (a brand new laptop or car).

Just make sure these are wishes for things you really truly want.

Step Two:
Skim through your friends list and see who has posted their own wish lists. Then - and this is the most important part - if you find a wish you can grant, and it’s in your heart to do so, make sure that person’s wish comes true.

Sometimes a person’s trash is another person’s treasure. If you have a leather jacket you don’t want or a gift certificate you’re never going to use, give it to someone who wants it.

Step Three:
Post this wish list any time after November 1st. Then repost it two weeks before Christmas.
You needn't spend money on these wishes unless you want to. The point isn't to put people out, it's to provide everyone a chance to be someone else's holiday fairy - to spread the joy.
Gifts can be made anonymously or not, it's your call.
There are no rules with this project, no guarantees, and no strings attached. Just...wish, and it might come true. Give, and you might receive. And you'll have the joy of knowing you made someone's holiday special.

(cross posted to Livejournal)

My list: (prefer upcycled/recycled/regifted if possible)

1) small, perhaps collapsible hair dryer (for drying intermediate stages of watercolor paintings)

2) Invitation for social outings or meals with you

3) Shopping trips with you (thrift/antique/secondhand shops a plus)

4) Storytelling swaps. (improv story creation)

5) Stuff-organizing swaps (you sit with me while I organize/clean out stuff and I'll return the favor)

6) Hand spun yarn in jewel tones and natural fibers.

7) Beginning Knitting lessons. Crochet lessons to ramp up my skills and tidy my techniques.

8) Stoneware bowls and mugs.

9) Breadbaking lessons.

10) Woodworking lessons (beginner).

11) Lessons in how to manipulate art and photos digitally.

12) Herb starts for savory, white woodruff, hyssop, and catnip, or Lily of the Valley bulbs.

my teaching day was good, then okay, then ARGH with unnecessary student craziness and outright cruelty.

*headdesk* I had to write a note to the vice principal as well as to the teacher.

Then I got home, and eeyore42 was there! I didn't have to manage my frustration alone! It made me feel so much better to talk about it, and to eat some food. Then I phoned chinders about delivering compost-food to her house, then I got to go visit her and check on the progress of her garden (yay), dog training (yay) and behbeh chickens! I got to hold baby chickens! (almost adolescent chickens!) One perched on me for awhile, it was awesome.

Came home a little while later, started layout work on my poster for class this weekend. It's challenging - I'm doing art that requires a certain amount of precision, and well. Precision has rarely been my strong suit, but it is coming along.

I think that this is going to be great. AND I can put off one of the assignments I thought I had to do, till next weekend: read three more Steiner lectures and make a poster for THOSE. well.

Back to it then!

I wouldn't have thought (or realized) that a Stick of Whapping could be such a satisfying and reliable gardening tool.

heh.

I have an old chair leg (the rest of the chair went bye-bye but since the leg already fell off, I was like, why not?)... and I have had several bushes in the back yard that died (or mostly died) some months ago when the pump for the backyard well failed for several days last summer.

how satisfying to whack the hell out of old dead brush, have it break and splinter and fracture, to aim blows for the joints of the dead plant and see limbs go flying, stir up dust (ok not that so much) and make something that's literally only in the way of progress, get smaller and smaller.

I think when the shrubs are finally gone I'll dig a nice big hole and plant sets of bulbs, or bunches of herbs that grow well in damp soil and indirect light.

After weeks and weeks of waiting...


...my compost is now DIRT.

and now (*insert evil laugh here*), now, I PLANT VEGETABLES, my children!!!