Brio's "Gotcha" Day

Fourteen years ago today, we brought Brio home. Best dog I've ever had. I miss you, buddy.

Nate Hagens' Thought

Just watched a good talk by Nate Hagens about the future of energy. One thing he said really stood out to me: You don't have to know what you want to do for the rest of your life (i.e. fret about your purpose); you just need to take a step toward what feels right to you.

In other words, we don't have to see the whole path before setting out on the journey. We can live with uncertainty and act without knowing everything that's going to happen. Sometimes it takes a leap of faith, but sometimes it isn't a leap, it's just a waddle in the right direction.

When Life Seems Overwhelming...

 Sometimes things look complicated or scary 

until you see them from a different perspective, and then...

oops, nope, still big and scary.

The Great Purge, Kristen-style

My personal observation: When you're in your 20s to 40s, your aim is to accumulate stuff, and when you're in your 50s and older, your aim is to let go of stuff. I've been doing a bit of a purge, getting rid of furniture, clothes, books, and knicknacks. I've even gone through my cabinet of garden seeds and asked myself if I'm really going to plant 4-year-old garlic bulbils. Of course not! Out they go.

Part of the decluttering process has been going through my filing cabinet and thumb drives, cleaning up old manuscripts I've never done anything with. They've been weighing me down, always in the back of my mind like a neglected obligation. It feels like I just don't have the time or energy to take the usual approach with traditional publishers, and some of the stories are novella-length, not really book-length, so it's easiest just to put them out there through self-publishing (which, I'll fully confess, I've hitherto considered a bit like cheating).

But you know what? It's been very freeing. No stress, no deadlines, no sales mentality. Just rekindling the forgotten joy of writing. Polishing and editing and setting them loose into the wild. I think after so many years of dealing with the traditional publishing scene, books had become a product. I'd become a bit jaded and lost the pleasure of words. I'm recapturing that now, and it's been wonderful. Now it really is all about creativity, not commerce, and that makes all the difference.

And THAT, my dears, is what AI users don't understand.

Truth and Reconciliation

September 30 is Truth and Reconciliation Day in Canada. Some years I've attended a pow-wow or watched a documentary about it. This year, I attended a concert on Saturday where an Anishinaabe elder drummed and taught us a song, and I will be doing some reading about the subject to commemorate. Sept 30 is a poignant day for me anyway, because it's the anniversary of our adopted son's death. Always a day for introspection and reflection.

Vegetable Garden Harvest

As this year's garden harvest is still ongoing, I thought I'd share photos from a year or two ago. There's something joyful about going out in the back yard and gathering everything you need for lunch. Blanching and freezing bags of green beans. Dehydrating carrots into hard little nuggets that---impossibly---rehydrate into plump, perfect rounds. Shelling dry beans and gathering seeds for next year. Taking bags of cucumbers to the local food bank. Gathering bouquets of kale. Lining up jars of tomatoes that glow like jewels on the shelf.

Sometimes there are challenges, and even though I've been gardening for almost 40 years, not every harvest is plentiful. Sometimes rabbits get the zucchini and squirrels behead the kale. Sometimes earwigs find the cabbage and heat takes out the spinach. There are some years things just refuse to germinate or thrive. There was the infamous year the bought-in sheep manure contained weed seeds and I basically had to garden with a machete.

By the time September rolls around, I'm tired of salad and ready for hearty soups and stews. This year I've grown my own black lentils, and I'm looking forward to trying them out. They'll probably make about a tablespoon-worth of soup, but at least I'll know I can do it. The time to practise growing food is before the famine hits.

Busy Hands

One of the things that gives me joy is doing things with my hands. Crocheting, knitting, needlework, weaving, woodwork, gardening, painting, baking -- I'm not great at any of them, but they all give me immense satisfaction, even if the project itself doesn't turn out very well. For me, it's joy in the journey more than the final destination.

Also, it's impossible for me to sit still. I can't just sit and watch a movie without also crocheting or doing a puzzle. Which means if it's a K-drama and I have to watch the subtitles, my hands (more often than not) keep busy with things that don't require looking at, such as popcorn or cookies...and unfortunately, I watch a lot of foreign films!